Planet Luntanu, 1400 Hours Local Time:
Kit stopped for a fourth time that hour, excused himself, carefully set down his equipment, stepped to one side, bent over and vomited into the nearest bushes.
Giles looked away, but Eydiir approached. "I told you to stop eating the native insects."
From his hunched over position, the Qarari raised his head to answer weakly, "I- I have, Friend Eydiir- I promise-"
"And yet, I do not believe you." Eydiir knelt down beside him, running her tricorder first over his head, and then over his vomit. She reached down and moved her fingers through it. "As I suspected: this is too fresh to be from earlier consumption."
"That is... incredibly disgusting," Giles declared, wiping sweat off his brow with his sleeve. "How can you do that?"
"I would be useless as a medic if I allowed a disdain for the natural waste products that all living things produce to affect my work," Eydiir replied absently, reading from her tricorder. "The insects contain a virus which is causing extreme gastronomic reactions in Kitirik; possibly it is a symbiotic relationship which has evolved between virus and insect, as a mutual defence against being consumed by predators."
Giles set down the specimen case he was carrying, but kept his phaser in his other hand. "Virus? Is it serious? What about the rest of us?"
The Capellan fished through her medikit, withdrawing a hypospray and some vials. "The effects are only profound if the insects are eaten." She pressed the hypospray against Kit's neck. "There: an antiviral agent, along with some terakine for the stomach cramps. Drink plenty of water, Kit, and please try to refrain from eating more insects."
Kit kept his head in the bushes and moaned pitifully, but nodded.
Eydiir packed her medikit and stood up. "There is a Rigellian on Beta Squad, and a Terrellian on Gamma Squad; they are unlikely to snack on the local insects, but their biochemistries may react in a similar extreme fashion as Kit has even if they are stung. I will transmit my findings to the other Squads."
Finally Kit rose again, looking a little jaundiced but otherwise better than before. "Thank you, Respected Medic. I am ready to continue with our work."
Eydiir frowned at him, but then nodded and looked at Giles. "Assist Kit while I make my report."
Giles nodded, too hot and weak to point out to the woman that he was supposed to be in charge of this half of the team, and followed Kit deeper into the interior of the temple, or whatever the building had once been, switching on the torch application on his phaser to light the way.
The temple had lost its battle with the jungle; the immense black stones, piled in seemingly haphazard fashion but obviously showing signs of artificial adjustment and cosmetic alterations, were almost completely papered in layers of dirt, moss, vines and dark creeping things that moved if one looked at them for long. And the sectioned stone floors were covered in various forms of animal faeces, some more fresh than others. It was at least cooler in here.
And scarier. Giles recalled childhood horror stories, of ancient tombs on distant worlds that contained voracious monsters and death-worshipping cults and spirits who threatened those unlucky souls who venture into their territory. "Do your people believe in ghosts, Kit?"
Kit was a step ahead, holding out his science tricorder. "Our Behest, the directives which our Gods gave us, tell us that the spirits of our ancestors live around us, requiring us to conform to expected ideals, or they will suffer. As a member of the Seeker male gender, however, dedicated to the pursuit of reason and knowledge, I will remain open-minded. And you, Friend Giles? Do you believe in ghosts?"
He wiped more sweat from his eyes as he looked up at shadows that seemed to be moving along the tops of the walls. "I... I, uh..."
There was a horrible screeching noise that echoed along the corridor, and Giles yelled back, raised his phaser and fired. A bright blue beam struck the upper wall, making sparks blossom and sending a torso-sized chunk of the temple wall down. Kit had turned, wrapping an arm around Giles' waist as he pulled the other boy away from any more falling debris. The shrieks returned and seemed to multiply, as more things dropped from the ceiling... and began scrambling past the two cadets as they raced out into the jungle.
Giles aimed his phaser at them, but only to illuminate them. They were dog-sized primates with black fur and elongated limbs and a tail and flat faces, and they bounded away, around the legs of Eydiir as she caught up with the other two cadets. "What happened?" Then she saw the chunk of temple rock on the floor, the burning foliage clinging to the walls, and the phaser in Giles' hand. "You fool! You damaged the native structure!" She took the phaser from his weak grasp and attached it to her belt. "Why was it not on a stun setting, as per procedure? What if you had struck an Away Team member?"
He didn't answer, and the realisation struck him like a blow to the gut. She was right; he thought he had it on a stun setting, but must have absently raised it while they were exploring in the darkness, and he let his imagination run away with him. He could have hurt someone, or worse.
He had trouble catching his breath, and he felt dizzy. Before he realised it, he was teetering.
But Eydiir caught him, the Capellan easily holding him up.
"Friend Giles-" Kit started, concerned.
"Do not worry," Eydiir assured him. "The idiot is just weak-" But then she stopped and examined him. "No. He's suffering from heat exhaustion. Stay and put out the rest of the fires, I will take him outside to cool down. Be careful."
Giles wasn't sure what was happening, only that Eydiir led him outside and sat him down on a knee-high stone block, before removing his boots and socks, and reaching for the fasteners on the back of his uniform. "What- What are you doing-"
"Be silent." Quickly but with only a little roughness, she slipped the top half of his uniform off, before raising him like a child to lower it down past his waist and legs, finally casting it aside and leaving him in sweat-soaked vest and shorts. He noted how, despite the valiant efforts of his uniform, an extended stay here was too much for the material.
Now she started to remove his underwear as well. "H-Hey, no-"
"I told you to be silent. Do so, or I'll tranquillise you."
He didn't have the strength to protest further, as she stripped him completely, checked his canteen, found it empty, and then handed him her own. "Drink your fill, but slowly."
He nodded weakly, but still protested, "It's your water-"
"I am Capellan. We are a desert people. Should it become necessary, however, I will kill you and subsist on your blood. In the meantime, a tri-ox compound will assist you."
Giles looked up, forgetting his embarrassment as he watched her open her medikit and withdraw a hypospray, loading it. "Better if you just gave me some cyalodin and finished me off." He wiped at his eyes. "I'm sorry-"
She pressed the hypospray against his thigh. "Save your self-pity. You are not at fault; I am. I should have noticed your debilitated state sooner. I failed in my duty to you."
He shook his head. "You were- were distracted about Kit, that's all, and about letting the other squads know about the danger from the insects. No one's perfect."
"You are an obvious example of that."
He looked up, certain he saw genuine amusement in the woman's eyes. He had an impression of late that she was warming up to him, at least as much as the stoic Capellan did with anyone besides Sasha. "Thank you for helping me."
"You are a member of our Squad. And... perhaps not as execrable as you once were."
He smiled; that was practically a gushing compliment from her. Which only made him feel worse as his memories inevitably brought him back to weeks before, when his aunt, Captain Lucille Arrington of the Impala, visited him, giving him a secret mission: to watch Captain Hrelle, reporting on any evidence or suspicion of wrongdoing by him. It wasn't something he wanted to do; his initial impression of the man, an impression forced upon him by his extended family, had been shaken following a private talk the Captain had with him. But Aunt Lucille's argument had been persuasive, to the point where he gave in and finally agreed.
There had been nothing for him to report about Captain Hrelle since then. But that didn't assuage his guilt that he was doing anything at all, and not telling anyone about it. He set down the canteen and reached for his shorts.
"Leave those," she told him.
"I'm not walking around here naked on front of both of you."
"Kitirik does not care. And I am a medical practitioner. I have seen many penises."
"Good to know." He rose, swaying slightly as he continued to dress. "I'm feeling better, really. That tri-ox shot helped."
"Friend Giles!" Kit's voice carried from within. "Friend Eydiir! Come look!"
They entered while Giles was still barefoot, finding Kitirik standing in a pile of dirt and smouldering foliage around his feet, and a delighted red flush in the loose folds of his throat. "Look, Friends! I was stripping the burning plants from the walls, and uncovered these!" He pointed his torch at the walls.
They looked. The surrounding stones had carvings: elaborate swirls and sigils and symbols, dug several centimetres into the rock, chipped and cracked in places, but more from age than from any damage Giles might have caused. They walked around slowly, taking it all in.
Giles grunted. "Good work, Kit. Hope you're recording all this."
"I will assist," Eydiir offered, handing him back his phaser. "Go back outside and keep guard. If those primates return... don't fire, just throw your phaser at them."
He chuckled. "No argument there."
"This is wonderful!" Kit exclaimed. "I hope the others are having as much fun as we are!"
*
Two kilometres away, on an uneven slope of ancient volcanic rock with pockmarks and bulges that looked like an enormous black sponge, Sasha, Neraxis and Jonas stood at the foot, staring up, breath held, watching, watching-
The rocks moved. Or rather, the newly-christened Shriekers perfectly camouflaged by the surrounding rock moved, triggering a wave of dizziness, as if the slope was undergoing a tremor.
The trio had been collecting Planetary Sciences data on the rocks and climate when they came upon the Shriekers, and Sasha had to suppress a wave of fear, as a childhood memory returned of her stepdad reading her an old story, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, with its flying monkeys attacking Dorothy and her friends. These creatures weren't winged, and were probably not under control by a magical golden cap either, but she'd rather not get involved with them.
