“There’s nothing normal about this.” Dr Wetherall grunted, watching Thebes’ video feed from underneath the lake. “Some of the fauna here is definitely outsize, but why?” Dr Ngata mused, watching the same footage. “It could be a combination of factors - perhaps an arms race at the top of the food chain? Or a big surplus of energy being used up, maybe? All just guesswork at the moment.”

Dr Wetherall nodded sagely before jumping back in. “Biology aside, I’m afraid we’re ill-equipped to analyse the ‘intelligence’ of that worm or any of the other creatures just now. All our artificial intelligence experts are stuck in the real world. I’m just a Systems tech who didn’t have the killer instinct to become a Terraformer or the connections to make it as a Builder.” Dr Ngata put an arm around his colleague. “He’s too modest! You also make a great cup of camomile tea, don’t you?” Dr Wetherall chuckled wearily, patting Dr Ngata on the back. “If you’ll stop dropping tissue samples in them, yes!”

595 kept quiet, but she could feel some type of external intelligence right at that second. It presented as more of a feeling than any discernible readout. Some icy presence cupping her face with their hands and staring into her eyes. [i]Hungry? Yes...[/i] She looked around at the other members of the team; none of them appeared to have noticed. The icy hand turned her head back so it faced forward. [i]Why do i see you, alone?[/i] 595 deactivated her implants and squeezed her eyes tightly shut for a couple of seconds. When she opened them again, the presence was gone.

“Speaking of which...perhaps we should work on the language divergence problem some more while we walk. What do you say? Could help us bring in more help when we set up camp.” Dr Wetherall asked Nirann, pulling up the latest workings on his suit’s wrist interface.