[h1]The Secret Service[/h1]
[h2]Medical[/h2]

Tsimatsu sat erect on a stiff bed in the corner of the room. Most of his clothes had been taken in exchange for a smock that he wore nervously. Over the passed hour or two the ship's doctor had taken skin and blood samples from him. Hesitantly he had complied to each request by the doctor to scrap away a little bit of a rash or his healthy skin, and again when the needles had come out. He had known needles before, he had a regimen of drugs taken intravenously while in service to help regulate himself; as did most of the crew. He didn't think it was time for him to take his medication again yet, but he felt a little sick in the pit of his stomach when he looked over and saw the doctor drawing a vial full of his blood from his arm.

When it was all said and done, he had a band aid across his arm and he watched from his corner as the doctor leaned over a computer as it analyzed and decoded the samples. Tsimatsu had never seen a woman before in his life, and he watched her when she was turned away with a deep bewildered curiosity, much like a child seeing some new and interesting animal for the first time in their life. She was tall and slender, not much unlike some of his brothers he knew from home. He white gown flowed down to her ankles where the snug tightness of her socks smoothed out and toned her already delicate ankles, in compliment to a pair of red and white sneakers.

Her neck likewise was likewise as long as her legs seemed and her amber-brown hair was pulled tight against the back of her head in a long pony tail that dangled between her shoulder blades as she leaned gazing into the terminal screen reading the data that came in, she bit her crimson-red lips between straight pearly teeth as she deciphered the raw data coming through.

What made him the most curious though were her breasts. He had seen other women on the ship for sure, but since coming aboard he had tried to keep to himself and never had a chance given to study then strange new life aboard, or really given himself that chance. As such his sighting of the stray clothed tit was fleeting at best and he never gave it much thought without much preliminary observation.

The doctor's breasts were in some ways large. Or at the least they protruded through the blouse she wore and created a defined impression on her silhouette. Tsimatsu had no reference point as to say whether they were small or large. But their existence made him wonder how much they might interfere with day-to-day business. He figured they might get in the way. Or how much did they weigh? Did she feel strain with them hanging from her chest like they did? He wondered if there was somewhere else they could be, and found himself wondering if she had a penis.

He brushed these thoughts aside when she leaned back and turned to him.

“Well Mr. T, I don't know what to say.” she started in a heavy brogue looking again to the screen at her side, “There's more information in here than I thought there would be, and somehow I'm getting more than I thought I would.”

“What do you mean?” Tsimatsu asked.

“Well clearly you're human, or close enough.” the doctor continued, “At least your basic physiology confirms as much. Some of your underlying genetic code too, but as I can tell it's pretty well buried. There's information in here I didn't expect to see, I don't know what to see. Best I can do is to me it looks as if your genetic information is like a computer with continually overwritten data, nothing really deleted so much as overridden with updates and patches. I can't say it's messy, but neither can I say it's clean.”

Tsimatsu thought about this for a second and scratched at his head. He shrugged, what did he have to say?

“I was really hoping for something quick and easy. Isolate the genetic triggers for allergies and to what you're allergic to so I can issue some medicine to help you deal with it or entirely sedate your immune system to it. But I don't know which way is up or down.”

“So, it'll take some time?”

“Damn right it will.” she said with a resigned sigh, “Can I interest you in some coffee or something? I can't say it won't kill you; but at this point we're all taking chances. We're both going to be here for a while.”

Tsimatsu gave it a moment of thought, then shook his head, “No, I'll be fine.”

The doctor nodded firmly and went back to the data at hand. “Wouldn't you have liked to go down to the planet though?” Tsimatsu asked after a moment's studying silence. When he had first arrived with Abe the medical bay was fairly busy. But soon after most of it melted away, presumably to check out the planet they were orbiting around.

“Don't like beaches.” she said, “Last time I got chewed up by some alien sand lice. Locked myself away in quarantine for a month until I was sure I wasn't sick with anything.”

“How long are your moths?”

She turned to look at him, a look of disbelief furrowing her expression. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I hear people say, 'hour', 'day' and 'week' and I understand what these are, but their lengths seem inconsistent with what I know. How long are they?”

The doctor nodded, “Earth times.” she said, “We're very probably well out of relativity with Earth, the entire Fairer organization is probably completely out of sync with each other. But we use them to keep some sort of regularity among ourselves. But I don't know how to explain it to an alien, it's just something that you're supposed to figure out I guess.”

Tsimatsu didn't like the answer, it answered nothing to him. But he figured that for all intents and purposes he wasn't going to get anywhere else with the problem so he set it aside.

“Shit, I can tell you all about the favored time-signatures of 19th century French composers, and early 20th century. But I can't tell you anything about how time itself works.” she laughed, looking over at him with a wide glowing smile.

“Oh, that's nice...” he said, voice trailing.

“You want to hear?” she asked. Tsimatsu shrugged, and she began her lecture.

[h2]Unnamed alien planet[/h2]

The thrumming of engines cut the serene peace of the alien world, for the first time in over a million years something large was entering the planet's atmosphere, and it wasn't just one; it was many. On a world where once there was only the lapping of waves of sandy beaches without so much as a lowly crab to hear the rhythmic pulse of its cerulean waves massaging its pearl white beaches. But now something had come, interrupting the serene peace without having had so much the presence of mind to burn up in its atmosphere.

If the planet itself were alive it would probably be a small blessing that while this contamination came down towards it, the most it so far represented was a noise. The thrusters burned cleaned, and what pollutant was made would within short geologic time be cleaned by its algae without so much as giving it a cancer. It was only an irritable noise these alien ships brought down to it, a throbbing, thrumming hum.

When the landing craft finally did land, five in all, a still silence again returned to the watery world. Like a small flock of giant chrome birds they sat scattered along a wide-stretch of sandy beach peppered with black volcanic rock. Stretching and winding along into the horizon in opposing directions, the beach itself was two to three miles wide and from its center the sight of water was a hazy illusion. Scraggly patches of alien grass or shrub grew in the shifting dunes and weathered banks and soon when the wind moved the ground itself under them they would go traveling like tumbleweeds until they came to rest enough to reset their roots and grow; or maybe they'd be blown to sea where they'd be set adrift for centuries, growing in the deep cold and warm oceans and building large floating islands of vegetation as the grew and congealed together in some far distant future. For now; this was all over the distant horizon of the planet's own time. For now, it was only time for a disturbance.

The doors to one of the alien landing vehicles opened with a hiss of air and a man suited up in an environmental suit stepped out with a case in hand. Inside the case was a body of instruments which he began using on the local environment, probing it for potentially hazardous biological material, ground level atmospheric conditions. He waved strange instruments through the air, dragged them through the sand, and plunged them into the waters. He stuck them under every rock he could and hiked a long trail in the area he had been landed, humming along the way as he called back his readings to the ships that had delivered him. When he came across a rocky tide pool he looked inside, took measurements, and made a quick census on the life he saw there.

After a period of two and a half Earth hours he was pleased enough with himself and started back, giving the green light for the rest of the ships as he went about unstrapped the suit and taking off the helmet.

The cool breeze caressed his face, and he breathed deep the salty air. It was not unlike an untainted coastal air on Earth. And like the salty air there, was full of relief on its own merit. He was a mid-toned man, with a soft earthy complexion, dark eyes, and wavy black hair. As he approached the landing craft, their doors again opened and within moments the first of the intrepid visitors were out in the light of the alien binary suns.

The win dancing patrons of the system cast a strange light on the world. Looking up into the sky showed a distinguishable shape in the sun, not being one but two. There was a reddish-orange light cutting through the clear blue of the sky, and with it too a clean yellow light like that of the sun on Earth. Like many other alien worlds, this made this world here feel different, confirming its own alien nature.

The dark-skinned man approached the on-comers as they exited and rose a hand smiling. “How's the water?” one of them called out.

“Fine, so far as I can tell.” he respond with a small smile, placing his equipment down on the sand, albeit I detected a fair amount of algae life in the water, I don't advise swimming until we figure out what it is; if you all want that.”

One of the men shook his head, “I'm not looking forward to it, I just want to stretch my legs on actual terra ferma.”

It was an understandable want. Whether or not the gravity on the Secret Service was like that on Earth, and besides the well broken psychological attachment to the old home one thing remained the same: the need to walk across rock, sand, or soil; to hear leaves and sticks crack underfoot if at all possible. All from time-to-time.

There was a distant rumble and the men looked over at a distant landing craft, gently rolling out of is cargo bay came a motley collection of dune buggies. Their large over-inflated wheels set inside equally over-sized wheel wells propping up a skeletal frame. In the driver's seat a large toad-like creature with faded blue skin drove it out, large over-sized mitten hands with stubby round fingers clutched the spartan, naked wheel as he drove it out with as much trained expertise as any other driver. Long chains of tattoos printed onto his skin and woven lanyards of various wires and fabrics decorated his arms and muscular reptilian torso. He wore trousers fit for a giant as he drew his knees up high against his own shoulders, long arms reaching around to grab hold of the vehicles controls.

This was Grom.

One of the men standing with the lead man looked at the unloaded buggies, “I was thinking about it on the way down, but I think feeling some wind in my face would be fine too.”

“A lot of things would be fine.” chuckled one of the others, a red-haired woman.

Abe was one of the first out himself, and together with several others long heavy metal crates were carried out to a gently slopping crown not far from the landing site. With the patient foresight of a supervisor Abe went about finding and envisioning just what it was they were doing before anything could be laid out. It was before the first crate was lowered into the sand that he had his grand plans fully formed. Staying behind as the rest went back he set about this, throwing himself at the task.

Unlatching the first numbered crate he pulled out a shovel and some rubber mats. When the second load had arrived he had a helper who went along after Abe as he made the ground work to lay out the mats to set the temporary foundation. Soon as that was done, the next numbered crates were opened.

Inside were pre-fabricated, mock bamboo walls made of plastic but textured and colored like the real thing. It was for all intents and purposes the formation of a bar.