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Crystal Dreams, Iron Nightmares
- original story by Shannon M. Turner (c) 2010
The day was hot and oppressive. The sun beat down upon the small gathering of space-farers huddled under the dull metallic wing of their landing craft. They awaited news of the scouting party that had gone out on a short mission to bring back samples of the the local water in order to test it to see if it was drinkable. They had the ability to make their own water, but if they ever wanted to colonize this planet, they had better start with finding native sources of drinking water.
There was an undercurrent of fear in the conversations. The survey team had left over four hours ago and, by now, should have reached the river they had seen from orbit. The length of the trip wasn’t an issue, they had plenty of supplies with them for the small group of scientists (including one geologist, one botanist, one zoologist and one linguist more because she couldn’t stand to stay behind than out of any anticipated need for her specialty).
The radio which had been a buzzing with a quiet undercurrent of conversations and exclaimations about the native plants, animals and topology from the survey team as they walked had suddenly gone silent forty-five minutes ago. If the team was ok, they should never have been out of contact. The current concensus was that there was some kind of interferance, this was supported by the engineers who had noticed data holes from the probes they had sent from space earlier.
Finally, an indefinable white noise came over the radio which gradually settled into the cheerful and obviously care-free voices of the survey team. Those at the makeshift base breathed a sigh of relief. Soon one of the voices began to stand out, Jorgenson, the geologist seemed to be so excited he couldn’t put two sentences together without mixing his native Swedish and the universal Standard. The orbital survey had documented that the world had many areas of unique crystal formations but very few deposits of iron or other workable minerals. The words "crystals" and "energy-absorption" were tossed about, but in no relation that made sense. They would just have to wait and see what all the fuss was about when he got back and they could calm him down.
There was an undercurrent of fear in the conversations. The survey team had left over four hours ago and, by now, should have reached the river they had seen from orbit. The length of the trip wasn’t an issue, they had plenty of supplies with them for the small group of scientists (including one geologist, one botanist, one zoologist and one linguist more because she couldn’t stand to stay behind than out of any anticipated need for her specialty).
The radio which had been a buzzing with a quiet undercurrent of conversations and exclaimations about the native plants, animals and topology from the survey team as they walked had suddenly gone silent forty-five minutes ago. If the team was ok, they should never have been out of contact. The current concensus was that there was some kind of interferance, this was supported by the engineers who had noticed data holes from the probes they had sent from space earlier.
Finally, an indefinable white noise came over the radio which gradually settled into the cheerful and obviously care-free voices of the survey team. Those at the makeshift base breathed a sigh of relief. Soon one of the voices began to stand out, Jorgenson, the geologist seemed to be so excited he couldn’t put two sentences together without mixing his native Swedish and the universal Standard. The orbital survey had documented that the world had many areas of unique crystal formations but very few deposits of iron or other workable minerals. The words "crystals" and "energy-absorption" were tossed about, but in no relation that made sense. They would just have to wait and see what all the fuss was about when he got back and they could calm him down.
