Early on in her mercenary career, Junebug had learned that it didn’t pay to ask exactly what was in any given dish if you planned on eating it. The table before them was heaped with dishes which ranged from the appealing to the disgusting. Not willing to offend their hosts new found attitude she picked from a few of the less objectionable looking dishes, trying to prioritize protein where she could find it. There were a variety of local beverages ranging from what smelled like rancid and fermented fruit juice to a pale purplish wine. Sipping experimentally at the wine she found it to be more potent than it looked, not unlike some palm wine she had tried in the past.

The table itself was of a polished wood with an almost firey opalesence which was at odds to its crude manufacture. It was lower to the ground than would have been normal in the societies she was used to dealing with but piles of furs were bought for them to longue upon. Sayeeda tried not to think of fleas on her bare skin but there was no reason to imagine that such insects even existed here. Several other natives, all men and all senior looking joined them, their expressions ranging from awestruck to wary.

“How is it that you come to speak… the Language of the Stars?” Junebug asked the scared shaman as she crunched something that might have been a candied insect between her teeth and chewed stoically. As she spoke a gorgeous young woman, naked save for what looked to be carved bone wristcuffs and a grass skirt that could scarcely be considered to preserve her modesty, approached the shaman from behind and draped an odd leather coat over his shoulders. The thing was stained with dyes and piece of vine in a pattern that was oddly reminiscent of military insignia over his shoulders and set what looked to be a human femur, carved into the shape of a wrench on the table before him. Insight blazed for a moment as she realised that these people must be the descendant of a lost colony ship and that the regalia of rank must have derived from that time. Perhaps this man's distant ancestor had been the ship's engineer.

“The Starmen elevated my grandfather's grandfather to the heavens,” the barbaric looking man responded.

“They taught him the secret language before they returned him to us,” the shaman said proudly. It had been passed down through the generations then, as a ritual language like Anglias. Junebug nodded her understanding.

The table stood on the lower step of one of the ziggurats which overlooked the village. As they watched villagers began to assemble on the weed choked stones below. They seemed universally young and healthy and their faces showed a mix of anticipation and fear. Beyond the assembled youths infront of a line of grass huts the older men were gathered, most of them were armed with clubs and spears tipped with bone and sharpened rock.

At some signal Sayeeda could not detect the crowd of youth began to sing an odd keening song. It wasnt exactly unpleasant to the ear but it had the glassy quality of something repeated over and over like a religous mantra. 

“Highlander six to Highlander,” Junebug sub vocalized, her throat moving without producing audible sound. There was a momentary hiss of empty carrier wave as her mastoid implant informed her that there was no connection established. Doubtless the hills and valleys here about were enough to block her connection, via a fairly low powered transmitter, back to Lonney.

“Junebug.. Uh that is Captain?” Sayeeda started slightly in surprise but fortunately attention was universally on the singing youths. She cast side eyes at Taya, whos voice had just come across her radio band. The girl still looked nervous and was fidgeting slightly. 

“How are you on the net?” she asked silently realising it was a foolish question the moment it came out of her mouth. Taya answered it anyway.

“I have a dental implant that includes radio function Captain,” she replied. The girl was also subvocalizing, which was smart.

“Can it raise the ship?” Junebug asked hopefully, glancing across at Neil. The pilot might not have an implanted radio himself but he could detect the subtle shift in her body language.

“No..uh negative, Its too far without a retransmitter,” Taya replied running her hands over the shimmering table top between unenthusiastic bites of some sort of venison like meat. For a moment Junebug cursed herself for not putting the jeep up on the ridge where its communication gear could act as a relay, but that would hardly be the first thing she would chose to fix if she were given a rewind button for the universe.

“Should we be doing anything, I mean I’m not used to…”

“Negative, sit tight and wait for…” before Sayeeda could subvocalize the word developments, the Shaman stood up and made a chopping motion with the bone wrench. The singing stopped abruptly and for the moment their was the silence of the night, filled with chirping insects and the occasional calling bird. Raising up his hands the Shaman began to speak. The words tumbled past too quickly for Sayeeda to follow with her limited command of the man's tongue, though she caught the words, climb or ascend and chosen. Even unable to follow it was clear it was an oration of some kind, though for what Sayeeda could not imagine. After a few minutes of speech the shaman made a rolling motion with his tool and the young men and women began to file past in slow procession, each one pausing in front of the table to show off his or her physique. 

“How many you elevate blessed ones?” the Shaman asked intently, his eyes on Niel.

[@POOHEAD189]