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didn t smell particularly bad.
Kind of smells like cinnamon, one of the techs commented. And several other
spices, too.
More like incense, said another. Several flavors mixed together. A little
sweet for me, but not really bad, I don t think. Beats rotten garbage,
anyway.
Frankincense, Cromwell muttered.
Sir?
The Three Kings, also known as the Three Maji or the Three Wise Men who
brought gifts to the baby
Jesus. You know that. The gifts were gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The first
is self-explanatory. The other two are exotic spices used in ancient times in
perfumes and incense. In those days they were all incredibly valuable. What
we re smelling here is close to frankincense. That worries me.
Sir?
I do not believe that the atmosphere of this world smells uniformly like
frankincense. So why does it smell of it just here, where we land?
They stood there for a few moments, saying nothing, although a couple of the
techs were checking samples.
Curious, Cromwell noted, not really talking to them.
Sir? one of the techs responded.
Listen. Just everyone stop what they re doing and listen.
There was the sound of wind blowing through the tops of trees, the sound of
small ripples from the lake hitting the shore, and the sound of a gurgling
brook coming from the lake and heading off towards the sea many kilometers
away, but not much else that they could hear, and one of the engineers said
so.
That s exactly the point, the security chief replied. There s no real
sounds at all. No birds, no insects, no animal sounds. Just wind and water.
Life sensors?
Nothing really, sir. Just plant matter. If the plants here cross pollinate,
they sure don t do it in the usual manner.
Microorganisms?
Those we got, the engineer responded. I d say there s enough new species
here to keep an exobiologist happy for three lifetimes just in this pond scum.
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Nothing extraordinary, though. They don t look like ones in our databases, but
why should they? They look like normal evolutionary variants. I expect we re
do going to find them everywhere, and everywhere a new set of species.
It was impossible at the moment to know if any were harmful to humans, but it
was not only unlikely
only a few dozen organisms had ever crossed the interstellar species
barriers it was also moot. They would have to face them or similar groupings
no matter where they settled. It wasn t like they had a wide range of choices.
Now, here s something interesting, one of the techs commented, examining a
fruit picked off a low tree. Very bananalike, would you say?
Everyone looked. Yes? So? It s a common form, another tech said
dismissively.
Yeah, well, it s not a bananalike fruit at all. In fact, the analysis here
says that the only thing it can possibly be is a real, live banana, ancient
Brazilian strain, no significant genetic differences nor abnormalities.
What! That s impossible! Cromwell roared. Are you certain?
Yes, sir. Just like those are common coconut palms imported and raised on
countless planets I d need to run the genetics to tell you which variety and
I ll bet most anything that those are mangoes, those are papayas, and so on.
She stopped and shook her head, looking incredibly puzzled. If we find a
grove with a bunch of apple trees off by themselves, I m out of there, she
added, muttering.
Cromwell was suspicious. If there are no noticeable insects here, how are
they pollinated? Who brought them? They seem to be growing wild, but there s
not a lot exotic here. They don t look like they aggressively displaced
anything.
Sir, there were large areas of the planet having no correlatable growths to
anything we know, the other tech noted. In fact, this region here showed to
be far smaller and more mixed from above, but it has definite boundaries. Kind
of like a self-maintaining greenhouse for somebody s exotic fruit and
vegetable collection.
Cromwell looked around suspiciously. I wouldn t be the least bit surprised,
considering the legends about this area. Who knows who or what is here, or has
been here before, or in fact was trapped just like we are? Keep at it, people.
I m going to take a look at that crashed lifeboat.
The lifeboat was about a kilometer or so from them, but fairly easy to locate
using the orbital positioning system relayed down to his suit. As he walked,
slowly, carefully, deliberately, but without any sense of real danger to
himself, he heard an odd sound. At first it seemed like the rustling of wind
in the higher trees, but there was no wind to speak of here and now, and the
more he listened the more it sounded close, on the ground, not up in the
forest heights.
It was kind of like, well, sand, or very smooth pebbles, rippling along on
glass. That was the best way he could think of it. It certainly didn t seem to
be closing on him, but it did appear to be following, perhaps watching. It was
possible that the local botanist was indeed in residence.
A true highly advanced alien intellect would in and of itself be something of
a breakthrough here. The few sentient creatures discovered in humanity s
expansion had been quite primitive, really.
This one, if it indeed was living and not some sort of computer on automatic,
would be something else entirely.
Something that could grab plant DNA and duplicate, raise, and vary it without
compromising it. That would be quite impressive.
The lifeboat sat inert on a meadow floor, looking a bit banged up but hardly
crashed. It was a fairly standard unit, which could hold as many as four
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