Raster reached for another pencil. She couldn't recall where she had put the other but knew that it would be discovered eventually. She took her knife from its pocket. At least she had gotten into the habit of putting that in the same place each time. Although that had its negatives as well, she thought about the rust that she had to scrub off from the laundry incident as she started shaving off the end of the pencil to expose the graphite underneath.
When it was sharp enough for her liking, she went to put it behind her ear where it knocked the one that was back there already off. She watched it drop onto the branch she stood on, bounce twice and then fall to the branches below. At least she had found where she put it.
She wiped the graphite marks from the blade on her sleeve and shifted it back into it's pocket in her shirt. She reached up and grabbed the pencil again and went back to the notations she was making on the pad in her lap. Watching the various animals that thrived at different elevations along the trunk of the main trees of Noble was her current research project. And it had gotten extremely dull.
At first the repetition was fine, she was learning so much about the temperature variations among different trees and different elevations and quickly made the hypothesis that the temperature mattered more than the elevation or even the vegetation for specific species. She excitedly went about proving that. As she neared what she felt like was enough data, however, she had fallen more and more into getting her data and then just doodling the little animals.
Right now, doodling the elongated squirrel type creature that had adapted to Noble's lower gravity, she realized how bored she was.
Then the squirrels scrambled, frightened by something. She dropped the pad back to her lap and looked around her, unsure what had caused the squirrels to run away. An arrow came in from her left and lodged into the main trunk about 10 feet from her. It was followed by another and then a third before a young, tall and very handsome man grabbed the lip of the branch she was on and pulled himself up, breathing heavily.
He looked behind him and smiled. When he turned around, he noticed Raster for the first time and a look of confusion showered his face.
Raster was shocked and embarrassed. She reached up to her hair and pulled it back, trying to get it into some form of shape that would look presentable. Knowing that she would not be able to manage that, she gave up and just smiled. Her mother had told her several times that a young woman could improve her looks 10 times just by smiling.
The young man looked her over, crouching a little to hide from, apparently, the arrows that were being shot at him. He smiled back at her. "You a scientist?" She nodded, maybe a little too quickly. "You're awful cute to be a scientist." He said this as he looked back over his shoulder. She blushed uncontrollably at the unexpected compliment.
"Hey, you think you could spare some of that rope?" he pointed to the coil that she had beside her. Everyone in Noble always had spare rope. She reached over and handed it to him, still smiling and watched as he tied it to a branch above him and let it drop to a branch below. He had fully caught his breath now. Smiling back at her, he asked if she could help him out. "Tell those guys I went that way, k?"
She nodded and smiled. He jumped up, grabbing the branch above him and scurried away, quickly getting out of her sight.
She breathed heavily. He was CUTE, she thought to herself.
It wasn't too long, just a few short seconds before two of the Serenity cluster guards pulled themselves up to the branch alongside her. They didn't seem out of breath, just lost. When they looked at her it was obvious that they were wondering which way he had gone. One of them had seen the rope dangling from the branch above and decided that he had gone down.
She cleared her throat to get their attention and shook her head.
Pointing to the branch above. He was cute, sure, but he had scared the squirrels.
