Today, my friends, we humans are going to teach you basic camping. Don't worry, we've carefully chosen a place and time here on earth that is as close to havenworld as earth can get. And we have contingencies in case of a storm. We'll do everything we can to make it fun for everyone. -- Anon Guest
Earth has perfectly safe areas. Humans swear blind that there are wild places that are safe for more fragile species. Humans have a regrettable tendency to overestimate how safe their home planet is. The CRC insists that Havenworlders should not be on Earth without a livesuit unless they were Level Two or less[1].
This group of Level Two Havenworlders had volunteered to try the 'safe' area, which was remarkably pastoral and peaceful in a land that lacked large predators. Which only left concerns about the small ones. However, they were more afraid of Humans than most Havenworlders were.
It's always nice to know that the Apex Predators are guarding your back.
The Humans were enthusiastic about which Terran plants were safe to forage for which species, and why it was a bad idea to attempt ingesting any wild fungi[2]. Among the lessons were some fun activities that may never actually be used. What to build an SOS signal from and how big it should be. How to make a fire in several different ways. How to make an emergency shelter from local materials - including the lesson Don't Put the Fire Inside There Guys.
They toasted marshmallows and made Havenworlder Safe Smores over the flaming remnants of T'tika's object lesson about where campfires should go. The Humans singed a few sausages on sticks for themselves. They pointed out the constellations as they appeared and either told stories or informed about how they could be used for navigation.
Then they retreated to the much more reliable pop-up houses for stupid tall tales and something related to sleep.
And when they all got home, they could brag that they survived the wilderness of a Deathworld and had fun doing it.
[1] Havenworlds and Deathworlds have a similar numerical ranking system. The higher the number, the more "intense" the conditions are.
[2] "All fungi are edible, some fungi are edible more than once." -- Terry Pratchett [GNU]
[Photo by Leon Contreras on Unsplash]
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