27-43

t o x i c i t y (Noun.)

the quality of being very harmful or unpleasant

Elain strapped the boxes on top with careful precision. Any supplies taken were still a necessity. To be honest, the only reason she was bringing two boxes full of supplies was just in case the neighboring site was very low on necessities. Two boxes in case their need for necessities was too great and they demanded more than they could give. While Elain was not the youngest to land her feet on Meia, she and Milo were the latest in coming down. They had the most supplies and, if someone were missing anything, it was their job as moral individuals to provide.

Site 27-43, unlike other sites, was a marsh in which they needed to test the toxicity levels before morally placing researchers in the heart of it. Their site was large too, so there is no telling the toxicity of it all. One day may step foot into a bog far too heavy for their lungs to take in. Now that the biologist thought about it, she didn't know what was worse. Suffocation or starvation. Hopefully, neither of them would ever find out.

Milo didn't come around to help when she was moving things, she hadn't asked him to move from his spot for a long while. An hour or two into his brooding, she finally asked him to collect what he wanted to take with in a tote that was slightly larger than the one she was taking with. He complied without any complaints. Perhaps this was better for him? Something to take his mind off what had happened in the early morning hours. He needed to continue moving.

Elain on the other hand was disturbingly content while she finished working on her things. The shock of it all must have gotten to her and now she was in a state of calmness. It didn't feel right. This incident should weigh her down still, like it was doing with her assistant. Instead, she was only left with small guilt for not being able to mourn emotionally. It felt inhuman to act like this. But there was no time to dwell on any of that as it seems Brotte had come back from his trip home.

The giant alien stood beside where Selcouth sat guard. He seemed to be inspecting their transportation with a look of distaste. Couldn't particularly blame him there, she didn't quite like the look of the vehicle either.

The machine was cut into three separate segments. We were told it was better for mobilization and for the process of turning. "With the fluid motion of a snake," one of the information guides said. The tires were more a series of treads, to scale the landscape with more efficiency, and the front segment and half of the middle segment were covered with a dome rather than the hard steel-like material of the rest of the truck. Not a speck of dirt on it and not a single scratch. They’ll see how well it’ll be able to take site 27-43’s landscape.

“Hello, Brotte,” she greeted with a neutral smile. “Been back at the nest, have you?”

He huffed her way, then moved to inspect the vehicle from a closer position. His lips, though it wasn’t too noticeable, showed a slight downward drift. He was not happy about something, that was obvious. “Siht si tahw?” Her head tilted to the side in confusion, but he didn’t seem to want an actual answer from her. A rhetorical question, she supposed. “El’on, erehwemos gniog uoy era?”

With this new question, he turned to her and lowered so they were at eye level. She nearly startled at his quick movement. Though she did manage to stay put in front of the nine-foot creature, even tilting her chin up. He seemed to be annoyed at whatever he was assuming of them. “It’s a truck,” the biologist offered the name up, even though that was not what he seemed to care much about.

“Rof truck siht si tahw?” He grumbled, pronouncing ‘truck’ with two o’s rather than with the uck sound that it was meant to be.Though he tried pronouncing it nonetheless, which was good enough for Elain. It did take her a little bit, but she did know what the word tahw meant in his language. It was similar to trying to understand something, so whenever he used that word along with one she or Milo taught him, she took it as his people’s word for what.

“It helps us move over land faster.” Then her head cocked to the other side in rather a thoughtful expression this time. Would it be too heavy to go over the cavern systems his people created? How much did this thing weigh again? They would need to avoid anything that resembled an entrance to these rabbit holes. She decided to elaborate, even though it didn’t matter too much, “We’re going to a separate site tomorrow.” The biologist pointed in the direction where the mushroom forest was beginning to thin out. Hopefully that would get the concept across that they were heading out. Of course, they would return here. Well, Elain would. Whether Milo wanted to come back or not was up to him.

He maneuvered his head to look above her and back to where she was pointing, then refocused on her with a wider frown. “Dnatsrednu ton od i.” Ton was another word of his that she began to understand, because of how frequently he used it. Ton was similar to the English word not.

Instead of responding to words, she shrugged her shoulders in her inability to understand his language. You’d think that there would be translators as a development within the society. No. People were far more desperate to get off the dying celestial body. Understandable, but Elain was a little cranky about how things were currently moving along.

The large humanoid huffed and stood to his full height. His head turned down to Selcouth and spoke to her tamed beast in more words she was unable to translate. The six-legged creature let out a rattling noise that seemed to travel along his spine from his boney head down to the tip of his tail. It kind of reminded her of a mix between a dog raising its hackles and a snake rattling its tail. Either way, it wasn’t a friendly noise.

“Be careful there, Brotte,” she mused before getting back to work.

The biologist decided on visiting the site she already tried to ship Milo off to. She had said that she wanted to learn more about the site and, since she would be going there for other reasons, it would be the perfect opportunity. She was just about to climb into the vehicle when something heavy landed on top of the segment she was halfway inside. Brotte leapt forward and pulled her protectively into his wide chest, leaping back to where Selcouth stood with a loud growl at the uninvited visitor. It took the biologist a second to squirm in his hold enough to see whatever probably dented her vehicle’s roof.

There again was the female of Brotte’s species. Elain barely recognized her, as it had been a while since the female had visited. She was far more of a loose cannon than Brotte, the biologist had realized, so she was on the happier side from him pulling her under his protective wing. At least she knew he wasn’t going to let the female attack her in any way. Even when the female humanoid dropped to the muddy floor, Brotte didn’t loosen his tight grip.

“Em ecudortni uoy t’nod yhw? Neila elttil citehtap eht htiw niaga era uoy ereh. Brotte Shios.” She basically hissed her words, inspecting the human transportation with a subtle unimpressed expression. Why did this female have the seemingly same nature as ‘mean, popular’ girls from old movies and television shows? Just the way this humanoid held herself made it seem like she was a step above the biologist, which was surely true within her society. There was no question about it.

Brotte squatted down enough that, just in case, he could escape at will. Elain didn’t understand this change in pace, finding it odd that the larger male was acting so defensively. “El’on si eman reh,” such a deadpan expression, his frown now lessened completely. It was like he was trying to keep a neutral face to keep her from expecting anything out of the ordinary. When he looked down at Elain, he gestured to her and introduced her to the female, “Skadj.”

That was a name that was going to be hard to say in her natural tongue, but she’ll give it a go when the female wasn’t giving the biologist such a hard glare. Hopefully Brotte would let her down some time so she would be able to finish up her work in a timely manner.