It was an hour later and the lurid pink sun was just reaching the horizon of the Spring Flower Mountains in the distance.  Julia had

gone to bathe off the Terrian blood that had spattered onto her only surgical overalls and the others had gone to cook some

food for an early evening meal. Alonzo was filling in for Zero on perimeter patrol and Bess and Morgan had decided to

try their hand finding Terrian craters, the ones left behind when any of them earth walked. 

Cameron, Yale, Baines, Magus and Walman were keeping up  steady vigilance on the sleeper ship from a safe distance.

::Whatever that means considering that dirt underfoot  equals being in reach of Terrians' grasp.::  John thought.

Then a hail got his attention from the details of minding the camp.

##There's still no sign of the two intruders trying to leave the ship.## reported Baines to Danziger.

"Thanks. I'll be right out."  he transmitted back from his place sitting by Devon's bed in the med tent.  

He thought she was still asleep but then her eyes opened. 

Adair took in a deep breath and then smiled sleepily. "I know what you're thinking." she said to John.  "I felt the same way in those shoes."

He had grace enough to look embarrassed. "Have I been that bad as the group leader? I can tell you that I haven't been very popular lately." he grinned.

"No leader is." she said, taking his hand in gratitude. "There's always someone who bucks the authority."

John chuckled. "You mean, like I did when you were in charge?"

Devon inclined her head. "I found your particular brand of acid feedback as a valuable assessment tool." she admitted.

"Oh, really?" said Danziger, amused, squeezing her hand back in simple human contact as he watched tears of stress that Devon didn't know was there roll down her face.

"Sure." she said, coughing away some cryo-phlegm.  "The more you complained, the more I knew my top decision was the right one to make." she shared, laughing.

"So am I right on the big one?" he asked, letting go of her hand so he could pour her another doctor prescribed cup of fruit tea. "I was wondering when you'd find out."

Devon met his eyes evenly as the fresh air coming in from the sunny, open tent flap buoyed her. "I did the math. I did the supplies' calculations. I even consider what we could build vehicle wise using parts scavenged from the ship." she said thoughtfully. "But you've been right all along. Even if we were to somehow miraculously have a rover for every person in Eden Project, so no one would have to walk anymore, we'd need to cover 300 clicks a day, every day, to arrive at New Pacific in time to meet the Syndrome families. And even best case scenario, on perfectly flat terrain, I figure we'd be there only two days before their ships land."

John fired a mock there you go finger gun at her with some relief. "And here I was, afraid you'd be mad at me for bucking the flow. But, yeah. There's no time left for us to get there to prepare and build a settlement for them. Not without killing ourselves first."

Devon took a sip from the drink he offered her, savoring its steam. "Was I so blind that I couldn't see how dangerous what I was pushing on everybody really was?"

John immediately shook his head. "We all wanted first contact. Ah, scratch that. I mean with our own kind." he said pointedly. "We're lost, Devon." he shrugged. "Maybe not on the compass but certainly as a coordinated advance relief effort. Since we crashed, it's always been a matter of survival first."

"That's what doomed Earth." Devon frowned.

"It's in our genes. It's instinct." Danziger said.

Adair scoffed, causing the monitors analyzing her vital signs to bleep in warning. "We're more intelligent than just pure knee jerk, mindless behavior, aren't we?"

John smiled and leaned into her to plant a friend's kiss on top of her nose. "Yep. Because we folk, most unfavored by G889, are all asking that very same question." he said sagely as he rose back onto his feet. 

Devon finally relaxed a bit, giving into her fatigue as she stroked the sleeve of still sleeping Uly, stretched out beside her. Her unconscious tears began to flow faster as hope returned as she acknowledged a new mental surrender of her leadership to match the physical one.

Danziger shouldered his Mag-pro. "I'll keep everybody safe. Don't worry on that front. No way am I going to give up the ghost to the Great Big Ball Of Mud."

Devon laughed and wiped the moisture from her nose that seemed to surprise her. 

Danziger ached to give her some emotional privacy. "I'd ....better go see to the current unknown two threatening camp." and he began backing subconsciously away. Then he remembered. "Oh, here, take this spare radio. It's an old fashioned analog. No way can Eve tap into that ancient of a thing. You can listen in to what we're doing, point for point."

"Thanks." Devon whispered, taking it numbly. "Good luck."

Danziger nodded at her and left the med tent behind to meet up with the rest of camp.

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John made his way into the long reach of the mountains' shadow that had given them this campsite's usual early sunset. The spicy bite in the air was going away for the night, replaced by a sour one that the dying spring flowers were making. He whistled softly as he approached so that his sentries would not aim a weapon at him by mistake. Accidents could happen.  

Baines smiled, his teeth showing white in the Stunted Wood grove that edged the valley in which the sleeper ship lay. He wasted no time arranging his own entertainment. He tossed a pair of spotter glasses at Danziger without preamble. "Check out two o'clock. This is good." he dangled.

Danziger made a face and shifted the viewer's control to night vision to tune out the natural phosphorescence of the Morganite outcrops sticking up here and there in that direction.

He saw a movement, and noted a harmless Koba glider flying just above the red grassline. He startled when a feathery plant bearing an odd, prominent stalk suddenly shifted by itself to face the path of the retreating reptilian insect. A whole row of them did, spookily. He almost dropped the viewer.

Baines started laughing and picked up a rock. He threw it hard into the air over the field of the yellow plants and a ripple effect of turning stalks followed its trajectory perfectly. "Looks like the planet's growing a little paranoid these days. We call them eye ferns. They're beginning to crop up all over the place. They're especially thick right around the ship and get this, all of the eye stalks down there are facing it."

"Are they dangerous?" Danziger asked.

"Nope, they don't bite or spit. They just like to watch things." Magus reported. "They pop back into the ground when you try to grab or step on one. They also seem to... come back up later once the coast is clear again."

"How much you want to bet this is the Terrians' doing?" asked Baines.

"Terrian farmers seeding a crop that spies on other lifeforms? Knowing how this place likes to be symbiotic between all its native residents. No bet." John took a closer look at one of the embryo eye ferns poking slightly out of the ground at his feet carefully, without scaring it into a retreat reaction. "They smell like fresh water."

Cameron shrugged. "How else to lure your alien enemies into camera range? Give them the scent of something they can't live without."

The thought of the planet putting out bait was disconcerting, however benign the eye ferns were. "Creepy. Let's use them, too. Watch the plants instead of the woods for ZEDS or Terrians. These things might react long before we can see anything ourselves." John suggested.

A rustle of eye stalks made the group whirl about with weapons lifted.  It was the boy, Uly. He was wading through the eye ferns as he came. Instead of retreating, the plants seemed to caress his trousered legs and shoes as he passed. He was without his Terrian staff, seemingly obvious to the new plants growing in the grove.

"Hi. Didn't mean to scare you. Mom asked me to tag along and tell her what's going on myself." he said. "She said she you might forget to use your radios."

John cautiously picked him up and watched as the plants writhed in vain, trying to find the boy again. "Where's True?"

"Back at camp, cooking dinner with the Morgans. Hey, you know what? Julia found a new edible plant we can eat. They're boiling some now to clean it off."

John relaxed, just a little, as the smell of spring water grew stronger around them in response to the boy. "Oh, yeah? What do they look like?" he said, returning Uly's hug of greeting.

"They're these things." he said, reaching down to pick one of the eye ferns. The plant seemed to sacrifice itself willingly and it let its new roots rip from the ground. Uly began stuffing the plant into his mouth with a relish. "They taste like pickles. Julia says they're full of nutrients and vitamins and an.. uh... antibe... antibo.."

"Antibiotics." Danziger supplied, watching with fascination.

"Yeah! That's the word! They're medicine!" he said triumphantly.

"Terrian derived for sure." mumbled Magus. "It's like they love him."

"Want some?" the boy asked holding out his clump of eye fern salad.

"Uh, I think I'll pass." John told him honestly. "Takes me a while to try new recipes."

Uly nodded and moved over to sit on a fallen lavender moss covered log to eat the rest of his snack.

"Stay put." Danziger added.

"I will." the boy promised. "I've got everything I need right here." he said innocently. That comment disturbed John for the contentment in it on an obviously very alien world.

Danziger turned back to the others quickly . "I don't want to wait for full darkness. Despite our new friends' abilities. We've got to find out what's going on inside of that ship. Any word from Zero?"

"He's like a stuck record. Reporting the same information, over and over again." supplied Cameron. "Two bipeds.. and then he launches into their size and weight statistics and positional coordinates."

"Pretty useless for a multi million credit bot." Magus quipped.

"There's nothing like human eyes for spotting trouble." John agreed. "All right. Now how are we going to go about this? We'll need sleep badly before dawn comes again if we just sit on it like we've been doing. I want to keep the advantage of still sharp senses. Any ideas?"

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