[h1]Aboard the Secret Service[/h1]

Abe leaned up against one of the computer terminals scattered throughout the ship, staring down at the live feed of data that was coming in on the planets as it was organized and compiled by the men in charge of preliminary atmospheric and surface scans of alien worlds. Atmospheric scans were typically the faster and after a short time a consistent profile of the planet's atmosphere and normal attitudes was sussed out. Over the continuing course of scanning they'd get enough data to know how the weather works, whether the world was prone to rainstorms or had a generally tame atmospheric temperament.

What took them longer were surface scans, mapping out the depths of oceans and bodies of water, ground-level conditions, geography and geology, and a rough idea on density. The last bit was tricky, but over several adventures through unexplored systems getting the option to gaze into the core of a planet through scanning over the mouth of a volcanic location in tandem with measuring out the diameter of the planet fed into rough equations that let them get a baseline of gravitational strength. The equation was further worked over by sussing out the gravitational field of the planet itself while orbiting it and measuring their distance of their orbit of the alien world and getting a rate of decay of the orbit, provided they can manage a consistent entry into the planet's proximity. Among other options, the last in their arsenal of methods is landing to drill a deep core or the planet's crust and examining the density of the soil and rock core when it comes out.

There was a frightening incident in such a case as that when the drilling rig broke early into a cave and collapsed an area the size of several city blocks. The planet as it turned out later was like a giant sponge, its significant size created more or less by large and ancient caves created by expanding vapors from old magma chambers that had pushed the rock, escaped, cooled and left large air pockets, and then filled over thousands of years with debris.

No one wanted that again, and if they were again in doubt of their safety landing they all agreed to strike the planet with some large chunk of metal to see what sort of crater it leaves.

So far they weren't having that misfortune again. Working their way from the outside of the system they had hop-scotched from moon to moon and planet. Many of the worlds weren't exactly conducive to a safe exploratory landing, or even to land to fuck around. They were either so frigidly cold and moist that anything they land would freeze and choke with ice. Or they were volcanic and hot and filled with toxic vaporous clouds of methane and sulfur-dioxide. Or they were great chunks of shifting ice, one of which had totally changed by the time one scan was done and they were well into a fourth before they realized they had scanned that planet; its surface had just changed dramatically.

To be fair, that one was close to an enormous blue gas giant.

As they had drawn closer towards the center of the system and its twin stars caught in a precise ballet the worlds became much more favorable. Both of the latest they checked in on were vaguely Earth-sized, one thirteen percent larger than (most of) the crew's ancestral home and the other near seventy-eight percent Earth's size. The larger had a denser atmosphere though, filled with sulfurous gasses and a windy desert surface, there was water; but much of it appeared to suffer the misfortune of being in the vicinity of geologically active sites and from Space even they could look down from cameras and see a great sea of rainbow colors framing a giant gaping black hole that poured hot steam.

The other was more amenable to visitation so far as the last scan finished. Any closer and they knew they'd be getting too close to the still distant twin-star system. The planet was mostly all water, but was strangely shallow. The surface an odd mixture of silicon and gypsum sands with some lime deposits scattered throughout. Nearly 99% of the planet was covered in water as shallow as ankle depth to what the scanning instruments reported to be maximum ocean depths of just over a mile. Recent volcanic activity was pushing up new black islands that turned the current-made ribbons of white-sandy whips of land that wrapped around the island into one long rosary of black beads. The poles were cold, without saying and were frozen over.

There was a polite chime from the terminal and a message was posted alongside the information, a sort of forum space for the crew. It was by one of the science members.

“I think we should visit. Break out the buggies.” it read. The name tag said it had been posted by Double-W.

Abraham thought about it and reached for the keyboard, posting his compliance with the suggestion, “Worth it, a tropical get away would be nice. Would be up for margaritas if everyone's game.”

He posted it and left it at that. It'd take an hour or more for the rest of the crew to notice and toss their weight in. As he put away the keyboard he turned and his heart skipped a beat when he saw the alien human -  Tsimatsu – was standing in the door watching him. He didn't think he showed any surprise outwardly, and a relative calm settled back over him.

“Good afternoon.” Abe greeted him. Really time was irrelevant, since it was all relative.

Tsimatsu didn't return the expression, Abe realized probably because he didn't know how to answer. Instead the Ziani gave him a quizzical expression before shaking himself loose. “I wanted to ask you a question.” he said. Abe noticed the sides of his face and neck was looking a little red.

“Shoot.” Abe invited. Another quizzical look from Ziani forced Abe to reiterate, “Go ahead, ask.”

“If I wanted, if it was needed, how would you guys go about contacting my home?” Tsimatsu asked.

Abe thought for a second, scratching the side of his head. “Generally, the Fairers haven't had to deal directly with any other parties, save for among ourselves. If any of us had any dealings, it's been on a ship-by-ship basis; so if you want to go home we'd have to be the ones to take you there.”

“Right...” Tsimatsu said, nervously.

“You think that'd be putting us in danger?”

“Truth be told it might be all of us.” Tsimatsu said, “But I don't know; likely. I'm just an engineer really. I mean: I can fight but I mostly did engineering work. But I'm still thought of as a soldier.”

Abe nodded, he understood. “So you're afraid they might treat you as a defector?”

Tsimatsu nodded, “It's likely.”

“So if you want to go home, you're wondering if we have intermediaries?”

Tsimatsu nodded again.

“Right.” Abe said, and he thought for a moment, “Well we do have one man that was sort of elected to the position. He used to deal directly with other larger groups on behalf of Fairer interests, namely setting boundaries to keep us and them apart. His name was Cardinal.”

“So you have a man?” Tsimatsu said with excitement, a rather dour demeanor soon changed to a sort of hesitatant excitement. It was amazingly quick, even per Abe's expectations; he recoiled out of surprise.

“Well yes, but there's a problem.” he told him, Tsimatsu's excitement quickly dampened, “He went missing.” Abe added.

There was a brief moment of tense silence between the two of them. “Some time ago I heard he was on the trail of something and planet hoping looking for it.” Abe explained, “We Fairers have a communications system that stretched pretty far, it's pretty well encrypted too but that's besides the point. The point being that for a while he had been posting regular updates and leaving us a bread trail and updating our community as a whole on his journey. Then all of a sudden: he stopped.”

“I see.” Tsimatsu dourly mumbled.

“So we can't really do anything if he's gone. I could probe around to see if we can locate an intermediary captain if you want...”

Abe trailed off as Tsimatsu interjected, “No, that will be fine.” his mood shifted suddenly to defeatism and he looked down at his bare feet, “I'll think about it.”

Abe conceded, and raised a new point, “You are aware you're breaking out in some kind of rash, right?” he asked with unbridled concern.

Tsimatsu fumbled, “I've- uh- been itching.”

“I'm going to have to exercise some authority here, we need to get you back to medical and you need to let them do a thorough once over. Let's go.” Abe's tone dropped considerably. Taking on for once an authoritative posture he lead the anxious Zaini out and towards medical.