The human, expending almost the last of their energy, gets the cave set up so they, and their Havenworlder crew, manages to have at least basic food/water/shelter until help arrives, then collapses. Now it is up to the Havenworlders to keep their friend alive, for they have a massive and dangerous concussion, with only the most basic of basic equipment left. Until help shows. -- Anon Guest
Companion Xuan dug his claws into the soft fabric of Human Nol's work pants. A minor injury, to be sure, but Human Nol needed the irritation. Ze was under close watch, considering what had happened.
It wasn't the crash that put their human out of commission. It was a hard fruiting body thrown by one of the planet's primate-equivalents. Just when they had finished setting up the most basic of base camps.
They had to keep Nol awake for two hours, keeping hir under close monitoring for the process. The Improvised cold pack had done its work, and there were merely fifteen minutes left in the wakefulness window.
Meanwhile, several scientists were assembling the very necessary medbay using what Nol called the eye-key-ah method. One reading the instructions, one unriddling the diagrams, and at least one misplacing the essential tools and tiny fiddly bits essential to the finished product.
"Not long now. We can let you sleep for two hours," soothed Xuan. "At least until the medbay is functional enough to treat you properly."
In the neighbouring area, something went jingling across the floor and Aborealist Dwi let loose a loud curse.
"Guessin' it's not going well. Too bad the mish'n engineer has a conc'ssion, huh?"
A sense of humour was a good sign. "That is terrible, I agree. We have to do the Q and A again. Verifyable information."
"Powers. I feel like a perp in one 'a those ole copaganda shows."
"Place of birth?"
"Th' left luggage office of Pantoraf'l Station."
A little bit too true. Nol had a lengthy story about that one, involving a customs officer a little too enthusiastic about following the rules and a very understandably angry birthing parent. Now was not the time for the longer story.
Xuan said, "The name of the ship that brought us here?"
"Arkansas Wanderer."
"Excellent. You're doing very well. Okay..." Something that would warrant an emotional response. "Least favourite camp habit so far?"
"You guys are always preening your feath'rs upwind of the ionic insect def'nses. All those bits 'f shed fluff setting off th' syst'm and drainin' the batteries. My dears. We have cubicles f'r that."
On level. Good. Xuan's little timer went ping! "Good news. You can sleep in that very chair, though I will be monitoring your life signs during that period." He hopped off of Nol's legs and took up a perch nearby. "I'm sure we'll have the minimum viable medbay working very soon."
Judging by Dwi's swearing, that statement was vastly optimistic.
[Photo by Robina Weermeijer on Unsplash]
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