bakerstreet

And what is your heart's desire?

[ooc: info in journal, open to all, previous/assumed CR very welcome, pick any prompt or combine!]

i. The stars have changed. All wrong.
ii. They're all smiles and laser guns.
iii. Uncharted planet, familiar spacesuit, dessicated skeleton.
iv. Time traveler turned tide of war.
v. You'll never know that I lied.
vi. We created that myth. It grew.

Two sentence horror; one sentence short.

[Or hit me with a prompt, I'm easy.]

I think you can imply plenty of horror in just a single sentence. It's all in the delivery, really. For example -- "Dear God, what is that thing?"

[Paul looks at Loki curiously. Horrors are something he knows about. Arguably, he is one himself in a fledgling stage.]

I’ll admit there are things I’ve wanted to ask but didn’t want to disturb you or the children. But I don’t scare easily.

But here’s something I’m willing to discuss. I told you about the great worms, right? Shai-Hulud?

a. And things, as things do, changed.
b. I happen to believe in rehabilitation.
c. You still look like a movie.
d. He's the only family I have.

[Skeletons scare Paul less than their implications - namely, that he and Ari aren’t the first human visitors here and that something nasty had happened to the first landing party. He chokes back bile and examines the skeleton. If it decayed in its spacesuit, it’s been here for a while.]

What killed them? Hard to tell with a skeleton, but the body doesn’t look like an animal attack.

[He cautiously approaches. A skeleton can’t hurt him, and he wants to solve the mystery. If something killed this person it could threaten them, so he wants to do some forensics. He faces Ari with a preliminary report.]

No symbols. Spacesuit’s a recognizable make, but the person was unaffiliated as far as I can tell. Maybe they ate the wrong plants or died of exposure. I’d need a closer look at the bones.

Well, in what we can loosely call the oral tradition, you can imply plenty of horror without words at all. A good scream is sufficient. With the written word, a bit more effort must be put forth to get the inflection across to one's audience.

You can ask, but not around the children. But I was really looking more for spooky campfire tales.

You mentioned them, yes, but not in much detail. Do tell?

Fair enough.

Sometimes, we'd have to read aloud from the textbooks in school? And it was bad enough listening to the other kids drone their way through history and social studies, but it would drive me bonkers when they were reading literature. Like -- what is this bullshit delivery? This is a good story, you just suck at telling it.

But hey, maybe the writers sucked at getting their point across.

Spooky campfire tales are more comfortable, anyway.

Well…the largest known sandworms can reach a quarter of a mile long, but there are rumors of ones even bigger than that. Larger than the largest Terran whales. You wouldn’t think something that big could surprise people.

That would be a mistake.

I'm not sure schoolchildren being forced to read aloud is the best test of a writer's mettle. That said, it is grating, particularly when they're not even paying enough attention to pick up on the jokes. Shakespeare in particular is full of earthy, low-brow humor that teenagers really ought to enjoy, on a metatextual level if nothing else.

...a quarter of a mile... [He's trying to picture that, and it's impressive.]

How fast do they move?

Again, faster than you’d think. I haven’t personally timed one, mostly because I was running for my life.

But they’re ridden where I come from, so they’re fast enough for that. And I’ll no doubt find out soon.

It might not be the best test, but it's what I've experienced. And the first thing I thought of, on the subject of "oral tradition".

[Jacinda grins, because there's still a part of zir that is a thirteen-year-old boy at heart.] Well, second thing. Though that might be a bit low-brow itself.

[[Completely off topic, but "I haven't personally timed one" gave the mun a mental image of Paul taking the time to pull out a stopwatch while running for his life. I can't stop giggling and I'm sorry.]]

Would certainly hope so, yeah. If you didn't, then what'd be the point? Money, I guess. Beats the hell outta me — I wouldn't wanna do it.

[Ari's beginning to regret her enthusiasm for the shuttle list. A planet with a questionable atmosphere, which meant suiting up, and that's never comfortable. A bleak, blasted landscape. And now this. She's grateful to Paul for stepping forward, examining the body. Oh, Ari could have done it if she had to, but it was far better that the strength of her stomach wasn't put to the test.]

That's an older style of suit. They've been here a while. It could also have been a pathogen, if they had a hole in the suit or a problem with the filters.

[All they had were unanswered questions. Either of Paul's hypotheses could be correct, too.] It's also possible that it was an unregistered ship that came out here, and that this person was deliberately abandoned. I don't think this planet would have been survivable for long. [Ari frowns. That sort of thing used to be far more common, in the days before the Tradelines, but could this unfortunate spacer have been here for decades? Longer? Not pre-Breakaway, she thought, they were probably too far out.]

Check your suit over first, and then you can take a closer look. Or I can. [Ari didn't relish the possibility, but the captain's philosophy was never to expect something of other people that you wouldn't do yourself, and she did try to live up to it.]

[Paul is suddenly grateful for the more modern style of suit. Their suits are protected against any pathogens that might still be in or around the body - and certain pathogens can survive for decades, if not hundreds of years. Whatever killed this unlucky spacer could certainly have killed them, too. He checks his suit for tears and gives Ari a thumbs-up before examining the corpse more closely.]

Pathogens are possible. See, there’s a tear in the suit, though anything could have caused that. Snagging on something, organic or not, though probably an accident. I’d imagine a predator attack would have done more damage. But just because the atmosphere here isn’t ideal for humans doesn’t mean there aren’t life forms here.

[He shows Ari a tear in the side of the suit. A clue, but whether it’s connected to what killed the person isn’t clear. It’s a harsh but necessary reminder not to take safety for granted, especially on uncharted planets. There’s no identifying symbols, backing up Ari’s theory that this spacer was unregistered and possibly a marooning victim.]

We can’t check for pathogens without the tools for that and further testing, and it might not be worth exposing ourselves for that. It’s also possible that exposure did this.

[Cause of death is hard to pin down without something obvious. They’d need to examine the body more closely to learn what happened, and while Paul can easily turn his observation skills to forensics and detective work it might not be worth the risk.] It doesn’t look like it was a sudden death. It wouldn’t be a surprise if this person was already injured.

[Ari checks over her own suit before moving closer and peering down at the body, her eyes drawn to the tear in the older-model spacesuit as Paul indicates it. She listens to his assessment. Most of it seems sensible, and entirely plausible, although there's still a degree of uncertainty.]

We could take him up to the ship, with warning, and let the doctor run those tests, but if we do that then the two of us end up in quarantine while it happens. Possibly the rest of the shuttle crew as well.

[The dead spacer could be a woman, Ari doesn't know, but she can't stand looking down at that skeleton and say it. The rest of the shuttle crew had headed out in different directions from the landing site, following their usual procedure. She frowns, and kneels down by the side of the body for a closer look.]

Injury and exposure are likely, you're right, and I don't think that there can be larger predators here. There doesn't seem to be the ecosystem to support them. If there were, then there would be more...disturbance. [The spacer's body had clearly lain there, completely undisturbed, for some time.]

Before we decide what to do, we should search the surrounding area. In case there are records, or remnants - some kind of clue about what happened here. [There was Tradeliner procedure when stranded - send up a beacon, make certain markings - and she knew she wouldn't find that. Some earlier equivalent, however, might be possible. The spacer might have left some possessions behind.]

Also...Paul, this was one of us. If we decide not to investigate further, then there should at least be a proper send-off.

[It’s hard to tell exactly what killed someone in a situation like this, even under the best circumstances, and this isn’t the best circumstances. It might be a good idea to take the person back to have a professional examine him or her safely, but it would also carry risks if there was a pathogen attached to the corpse. Quarantine would help mitigate those risks to the crew.]

If you think it would be worth the risk, I don’t disagree. If there’s something dangerous on this planet other spacers need to know about it. So what happened here doesn’t happen to anyone else if it can be prevented.

[Exposure can only be prevented so much, but Paul figures that precautions can still be taken. Anything from tripping on a rock or brushing against tough thorns could have caused what he’s increasingly sure might have been a lethal injury. Maybe sepsis got involved, or a serious break.]

If the spacer was injured badly enough, that could have trapped him or her here, so starvation and dehydration would take effect. I’ll leave the decision up to you, but there’s an argument on both sides. We should check the site, see if there’s a camp somewhere.

[Paul nods, stepping back from the body. They can’t do anything for the dead spacer, but he manages a salute anyway. It seems like the right thing to do, whatever happened here.]

Yes, you’re right. This is a person, and a fellow spacer. One of us. So what do you suggest? Cremation might be dangerous if there are pathogens, but a memorial should work. It’s too bad we don’t have a name tag or other identifier to tell us who they were.

"Where do you want to go?"

I'll put a note in the chart. The star chart, that is, so that any Tradeline ship following after us will have warning that something might be wrong here. They might still come, for the minerals that the scans picked up, but they'll know to be cautious.

[Ari considers the situation again. An injury might have killed the spacer, directly or through limiting mobility, as Paul suggested. It was also possible that the supplies had simply run out, and this world couldn't sustain human life. That was perhaps a worse thought. She didn't like to dwell on the possibilities, the likelihood of a lingering, slow death.

When Paul mentions cremation, Ari can't help a little disapproving click of her tongue, even though she's aware that he doesn't know any better. They've been fortunate; there have been no deaths on the Prosperity since his arrival. She corrects him, but gently.]

We send a fallen spacer out into the black. One last voyage.

[Yes, that would necessitate bringing the body back to the shuttle, and if they're going that far they might as well return to the Prosperity and ask the ship's doctor to conduct a proper investigation. Ari's aware of that, but she's still holding off on making a final decision, because there could be critical information that they have yet to discover.]

Let's search for any traces they left. Send up a flare signal if you find anything and I'm not nearby.

[Fair enough! The joke makes Loki sputter with laughter, anyway, because he too is an adolescent at heart.]

Touché. What's the best scary story you've read, then? Or heard.

That’s a good idea. It’s also a way of honoring this spacer’s memory, to try our best to make sure no one dies the same way they did. We’ll exchange notes with the rest of the team once we come back together - they could have found something, too.

[His own theory is grim - a severe injury followed by reduced movement, possible complications to the wound, and death caused by lack of resources. Water, food, shelter. It would not have been a quick death. Paul sympathizes even as Ari corrects him on the proper funerary rites in her universe.

Paul has almost stopped the small flushes of embarrassment on mistakes. After all, he tries to put a positive spin on them. It matters more that he learns from them. He can’t bring himself to brighten, though, not during a situation like this. There’s still investigation to do, but it seems like they have an idea of how to work with the body.]

I see. We’ll need to inform the ship that we’ll be bringing back a body if that’s the plan. I suppose we should brace ourselves for quarantine, though it’s for the best. My current thought is injury, though, not disease.

[A flare is secure in Paul’s supplies, ready for use in case he needs to signal for help or finds anything important.]

How about I check a little further in, while you check around the body? I’ll signal you if I find anything that could help us.

sws.

Nathaniel Demerest | Wishmaster | OTA

Ari Tayrey | original character (SF)

Loki / MCU / OTA

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Harvey Dent / DC

iii

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OOC

B.

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Claire Bennet || NBC's Heroes || OTA

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