text: [Themes: sci-fi, science fiction, mystery]
  
  Rather than watch your technical expert tinker away--the small device seemingly overmatched by his powerful arms--you busy yourself by peering into the handful of smaller rooms to the side of the main work area. Something clatters in the corner of the rightmost room, where the door is ajar and you can just make out a stool in the shadow. The main light doesn't reach in there, and you see no easy way to activate the diode panel inside, so you reach for the handlight stowed in the pocket of your field jacket and point the beam into the darkness.
  
  Two eyes reflect the light beam back to you.
  
  "I found something," you say. Hun-Spruk turns to see what you see, and a small creature scurries deeper into the darkness. You both follow it with your handlights. For a moment you can see it clearly: about a meter tall, somewhat like a primate but with ears like an Earth rabbit, and long, thick fingers culminating in blade-like nails.
  
  "It's a passafan," she says. "Nocturnal creatures."
  
  "Dangerous?" you say.
  
  "Only if you're a plant root or a tuber," she says.
  
  In a flash the passafan is gone, running underneath a work desk in the corner and disappearing into a large hole in the wall. The opening is big enough that you could easily crawl inside, making you wonder what else might be hidden behind the wall. But do you really want to risk cornering a wild animal in its den, if that's what the hole leads to?
  
  > If you continue to search the research post, turn to page 110.
  Following the passafan isn't going to help you find Dr. Munro, so you return to the main room, where Dansmith remains focused on the data pad. The rest of you continue searching the bunker, including each of the side rooms. Two are small bunkrooms, another is a small closet with a chemical toilet.
  
  The most interesting room, though, is the underground garden. Because none of the vegetation on Folvan is edible for humans, it makes sense that the researchers would need to grow their own food, especially for a project of this duration. But nothing grows here now, and the place reeks; the UV diodes aren't functioning, and the passafans have apparently been using this space as a dumping ground. You quickly close the door.
  
  Otherwise, there seems to be little of value in this research post. Structurally, the place is in poor shape, with signs that portions of the ceiling are starting to collapse. There are plenty of ways the passafans can find their way inside.
  
  "Can I help you, Chief?" Lieutenant Hun-Spruk says.
  
  "Depends on how much you know about datapads, I guess," Dansmith says. "This thing looks like it was exposed to the elements, so I'm not sure how useful it's going to be."
  
  "Yes, but these memory nodes look salvageable," she says. "There's got to be a way we can extract the data they contain. Maybe we can try and interface them with the shuttle's computer."
  
  Dansmith shrugs. "The rest of you might as well make yourselves at home," he says. "We might be a few minutes." Then he and the lieutenant pick up the components for the datapad and head out to the shuttle, which is still parked just outside the research post.
  
  You are distinctly uncomfortable in this run-down setting, so you go to the top of the entrance steps to enjoy the fresh air. Starman Quabiss, your security specialist, is already there, sitting on the steps of the hatchway leading into the parked shuttlecraft. Tall and lean, with an oversized Adam's apple, he has his plasgun resting across his lap within easy reach of his left hand, as if he thought a threat was imminent.
  
  > Page 5
  The flat, featureless landscape spreads out in every direction, colorless in the dim light of the setting moon. "It reminds me of the Plains of Mooreham," Quabiss says.
  
  "The Plains of Mooreham?" you say. "Never heard of it."
  
  "It's a place on Ciriacus IV," the starman says. "My grandparents owned a grappatan ranch there. I used to visit on summers when I was real little."
  
  "Grappatans?" you say. "Never heard of them, either."
  
  "Most people haven't, I guess," Quabiss says, "although their meat is favored all over Ciriacus. People there prefer it to most Earth food."
  
  "Is that where you're from? Ciriacus IV?"
  
  "Me, no," he says. "My clan comes from the Oltio Hills on Atam."
  
  "Clan, huh?" you say. It's an odd choice of words to describe one's family.
  
  "Yes, one of the Alpinites," he says. "The original colonists on Atam divided into four groups and called themselves 'clans.' The Alpinites settled in the Otio Hills, where there was lots of game and fertile soil."
  
  "You seem to know a lot about your family history, Quabiss."
  
  "Yes, Lieutenant," he says. "We can trace our line all the way back to the founding settlers of Atam. The village hall back home even has the original cryo tube on display that carried my ancestor, Lucas Kwapicz, on the voyage from Old Earth. And about a dozen of the smaller capsules that carried the embryos of other family members who were incubated once they reached Atam."
  
  "Let me guess," you say. "They still bear the logo of the old corporation that owned your colony ship."
  
  "MacDougal-Hasoko, yes," Quabiss says, excited to find someone interested in hearing these stories.
  
  "That's cool," you say. Until this mission, you have never worked with him before, but you recognize a bit of yourself in this young starman: less than a year out of Naval Occupational Training and on his first major assignment; the descendant of people pushed off of Old Earth almost a millennium ago for various political, economic, and environmental reasons; with a stronger tie to the stars than to a distant blue world that is only vaguely remembered in stories and in re-spelled family surnames.
  
  > Page 89
  You are about to ask more about the Alpinite Clan of Atam when you hear Dansmith speaking excitedly behind you.
  
  "Pardon me while I go see how the chief is doing," you tell Quabiss. Inside the shuttle, you see that the chief and the lieutenant are attaching the memory node pack to the shuttle's data port, with the pilot, Hinju, observing quietly and with much interest.
  
  "Would you look at that," Dansmith says. "They're almost syncing up."
  
  "It looks like a holojournal," Hun-Spruk says. "But the most recent entry is three years old."
  
  Just then the shuttle's holo-emitter projects an image of a man who can't be more than thirty-five years old, despite a mop of unusually white hair. He wears a wrinkled, checked shirt and bastor-flax jeans, the kind popular on the steppes of Kaitoo; the knees are dirty, as if the recording was made immediately after some kind of physical labor. The hologram stands unnaturally still.
  
  "I know who that is," Hun-Spruk says. "It's Aro Tligman. He is Dr. Munro's primary research assistant."
  
  "Why does someone so young have hair that white?" Hinju asks.
  
  "He had Huttle's Syndrome as a child," Hun-Spruk says. The pilot mouths the word "Ohh" in response, but then says no more.
  
  "Well let's see what the young, white-haired xenoanthropologist has to say," Dansmith says. With a twitchy motion, the computer-generated image begins to move.
  
  "...and Sel-Sel-Selrahc warned us ag-ag-against it, but we made an adjustment with the Anywhere Device up on Mou-ou-ou-ount Kas--" And then the hologram cuts out.
  
  "That's it?" you say.
  
  "I think that's all we're going to get here," Dansmith says. "But I've got tools back on the Orion that can help me coax the rest of the log entry out of that corroded old memory node."
  
  > Page 50
  "OK," Starman Quabiss says from the shuttle's entrance. "Who is Selrahc, and what is an Anywhere Device? Those weren't mentioned in the mission briefing."
  
  "The young starman speaks wisely," Dansmith says, switching off the holo-emitters and unplugging the memory node pack.
  
  You look to Lieutenant Hun-Spruk, your team's expert on all things Folvan. But the lieutenant seems just as confused as you are. "This is the first I've heard of these two names," she says.
  
  "So let me make sure I'm getting this straight," you say. "She never once mentioned a Selrahc or an Anywhere Device in any of her reports?"
  
  "Not once," Hun-Spruk says.
  
  Dansmith sighs. "To be honest, Dr. Tligman might have been jabbering about some childhood story. We just don't know."
  
  "So if we want to know everything contained on these memory nodes, we need to take them back to the Orion?" you say.
  
  "That's what I recommend," Dansmith says.
  
  "I'm not convinced we've seen everything here," Hun-Spruk says. "Until we can determine when Dr. Munro abandoned this post and why, our work here is unfinished."
  
  "She's got a point," Dansmith says. "I can save these nodes for later."
  
  "This holojournal log is the only real clue we've found here, though," you say.
  
  "But didn't Commander Diston say he was only giving us one shot at the planet, because of the 2.3 Gs?" she continues. "If we return to the ship, we might not come back."
  
  > If you return to the Orion, turn to page 27.
  "There doesn't seem to be much to see in this research post," you say. "But I'm dying to see what's on this memory node pack."
  
  Chief Dansmith nods. "This place was pretty much cleaned out in terms of anything useful," he says. "But this one data processor was left behind, almost like someone wanted us to find it."
  
  Lieutenant Hun-Spruk shrugs, averting her eyes. She says nothing; clearly she disagrees with the idea of returning to the ship.
  
  "Starman Quabiss," you say. "Go find Dr. Wildon and let him know we're about to lift off."
  
  Hinju steps past you to the pilot's station and begins powering up the shuttle's systems. By the time Quabiss and Wildon step back inside, your pilot is ready to lift off. He flies low over the empty prairie before arcing upward and out of the atmosphere. The moment you escape Folvan's powerful gravity field you can feel the shuttle's gravplates taking over; the return to normal gravity, 0.95 G, is a welcome relief.
  
  The Orion is moving to intercept your shuttle. It fills the main viewport, giving you a sight you still haven't grown tired of seeing even after you first saw her four years ago: the spherical main hull reflecting the light of the Folvan sun; the eight hyperspace field generators circling the disc-shaped Hoshino Drive near the aft; the long engineering section that connects the drive to the sphere like a giant bundle of conduits; the red-and-white design scheme, common to all naval vessels in the Fifth Fleet; a total of 1200 meters in length and with a crew of five hundred.
  
  > Page 28
  The flight deck is suspended below the engineering section, at a right angle to the rest of the ship, and Hinju sets the shuttle down with grace. You never expected to be back on the Orion so soon. While it was very early in the morning local time down on the planet, it is mid-afternoon ship's time; the brightly lit flight deck, with its bustling activity as shuttle crews perform maintenance on their craft, is disconcerting. No one takes notice of your arrival.
  
  Hinju waits until you all exit the shuttle, giving each of you a friendly nod as you step down the hatchway. Then you see him heading off to mingle with a group of other pilots chatting idly over by a rack of FabBots.
  
  "My workshop is on Engineering Level 4C," Dansmith says, clutching the memory node pack and clearly eager to get to work.
  
  "If it's all the same to you," Dr. Wildon says, "I have work I should be getting done back in Med Bay. I still have to finish my report from the Brebba mission before Dr. Asmeld starts breathing down my neck. If we're heading back down to the planet, just let me know."
  
  "And Lieutenant Skaxa wanted me to report to her as soon as we returned," Starman Quabiss says.
  
  So just like that, your expeditionary team is reduced to three almost as soon as your boots made contact with the Orion's deck.
  
  > Page 29
  It is a long walk down the length of the ship's engineering section to Chief Dansmith's workshop, located two levels below the flight deck. It is a small space cluttered with components from countless devices in various states of dismantlement. There is a stool for the chief, but it otherwise does not appear to be a space where he has much company--rather, it is a private sanctuary where he tinkers on his projects with minimum disturbance.
  
  You and Lieutenant Hun-Spruk look around, then give each other a puzzled look. "How long do you think it will take you to extract the files contained on those nodes?" you ask.
  
  "Hard to say," Dansmith says. "Could be minutes, could be hours." He takes off his field duty jacket and drapes it over the back of the stool, revealing two powerful arms that are clearly well acquainted with manual work. Their strength complements the charismatic confidence of his personality.
  
  "Is there anything I can do to help?" Hun-Spruk asks.
  
  Dansmith thinks for a moment, and then says, "No, I think I got this. There is a team of technicians just down the corridor I can tap if need be. Why don't you two lieutenants go find yourselves some lunch? I'll call you when I'm ready to start playing back the holojournal logs."
  
  The idea of lunch does sound good; down on the planet, all you had to snack on were NutriRations. On the other hand, returning to your quarters to relax sounds tempting, too.
  
  > If you head to the ship's mess hall for a late lunch, turn to page 30.
  "I'm heading to the mess hall," you say. "Does anybody want me to bring them back anything?"
  
  "A biento wrap with paxan fries would be good," Dansmith says.
  
  "I'll join you," Hun-Spruk says, and the two of you set off for the mess hall over on B Deck.
  
  Before this mission you had never worked with Ceta Hun-Spruk before, or for that matter interacted with her in any capacity. As you take a lift over into the sphere, you take the opportunity to ask about her background--because you get the strong sense that unless you ask direct questions, you'll never learn much about her.
  
  "My husband and I both graduated from the Jakarta Science Academy at the same time," she says.
  
  "So you're from Earth?" you say.
  
  "Oh no, we just studied there. Both Ammie and I are from Altair III. He's an astrophysicist on board the Southern Cross."
  
  "I take it you don't see each other very often?" you say.
  
  "In the flesh? I guess not," she says. "But whenever we can manage to coordinate our HoloComm time we get together that way. We tried to both get an assignment on the Cassiopeia last year, but that idea fell through."
  
  When you arrive at the ship's mess, the place is mostly empty since it is now well past lunchtime. A disinterested serviceman takes your order, his lack of emotion almost a disapprobation of your presence here at 1445 hours; you're probably interfering with what should be his down time. Nevertheless, you get him busy making Dansmith's biento wrap and paxan fries. After your recent chat with Sisny Quabiss down on the planet, you scan the menu for something with grappatan meat, but that Ciriacusian specialty hasn't made it to the Orion, apparently.
  
  Rather than eating in the mess hall, you and Hun-Spruk return to Chief Dansmith's workshop to bring him his food while it is still warm. However, when you arrive you are both surprised to see the chief has company: Captain Ynthramanni, First Officer Diston, and Commander Andrade, occupying chairs that someone has brought into the crowded space.
  
  All three seem very intent in Dansmith's work; Andrade gives you a big smile and a wink, as if to express her pride in how well you handled the mission. You're not sure why these three senior officers would be so interested in what might turn out to be someone's recipe for caspatan nut cookies, for all anybody knows.
  
  The chief starts to fill you in on his status as you give him his sandwich wrap. "It wasn't that hard to clean the corrosion off the memory nodes," he says. "All I really needed were the right tools. I have someone fabricating a new node pack for me so I can reassemble the unit, and then we'll see what our friend Aro Tligman has to say."
  
  A moment later a young technician enters the room and hands the freshly-printed component to the chief, who then inspects it closely before inserting the individual nodes into the empty slots.
  
  When all nine have been snapped in place, he taps one with his finger. "This one was apparently wiped blank," Dansmith says, "but the other eight are just fine."
  
  "Can we see the playback?" Captain Ynthrmanni says.
  
  "Let me just hook the node pack into the HoloComm, and we should be good to go," Dansmith says.
  
  > Page 31
  Every room aboard the Orion is equipped with a holographic emitter array, usually for the display of HoloComm transmissions. Dansmith takes the reassembled memory node pack and inserts it into a data port in the wall behind him. A moment later, a file navigation menu is projected at the end of the room. As it turns out, there are over a dozen holographic log entries contained on the memory nodes.
  
  "These all look like they are the personal entries of Aro Tligman," Hun-Spruk says.
  
  "Aro Tligman?" Captain Ynthramanni says. "Who's he?"
  
  "Tligman is one of Dr. Munro's research assistants," Hun-Spruk says.
  
  One of the files is highlighted, as if it were the one most recently viewed. "I'll bet this is the one we got a preview of down in the shuttle," you say, pointing to the menu item.
  
  "Let's play it," Dansmith says, and the menu is replaced with a three-dimensional image of Aro Tligman, the man in his mid-thirties with the white hair and wrinkled shirt. The metadata display to the side gives the date of the recording as anno caelestis 1565.5.5.076--over three years ago.
  
  The image of Tligman begins to move and speak. "We haven't even been here less than a year, and already we're closing out this post. There's no point in maintaining the fiction that we're xenoanthropoligists any more, at least not as far as the Folvans are concerned. We've been granted space in the village garden so we can grow our own food, since just about everything here is unfit for humans to eat.
  
  "Young Selrahc is somewhere around here loading up the last of the gear on a cart so we can haul it through the tunnel back to the village. We won't be able to bring everything, though, because the Folvan tunnel simply isn't big enough to accommodate all this furniture, and the Doctor wants us to learn Folvan customs anyway. And the last thing we need to do is notify the Astral Navy about our change of plans.
  
  "But there is a tremendous secret on this planet that we are now obligated to help protect. Ander should have known better, and Selrahc warned us against it, but we made an adjustment with the Anywhere Device up on Mount Kaspoot that we hoped would restore it to its original settings, and allow the Folvans to make contact with the Elders of Emar for the first time in ages.
  
  "Well, we were successful, but we also inadvertently managed to create a brief gravitational disruption that we fear will bring attention to this planet. The Navy might not notice it, but we know the Iib Ch'iib have been experimenting with this type of technology. Our biggest fear is that they will track the source of the momentary disruption to here--or worse, to the Elders of Emar.
  
  "We caused this trouble, now we need to help the Folvans protect against whatever threat may come. Skarahk is sending word throughout the Empire of the Thousand Lakes, and we expect to have a defense force in place soon."
  
  > Page 32
  Captain Ynthramanni has been watching the recording intently, but when the log ends his position remains unchanged: arms folded firmly together, mouth tightly closed in a concerned grimace, brows weighed down over his eyes, which still regard the space where the hologram of Aro Tligman recently stood.
  
  Commander Andrade, on the other hand, is more visibly disturbed by what you all just saw and heard. "This is no recovery mission," she says.
  
  "No, it isn't," Jonn Diston says, adjusting his red-and-gold uniform. "I don't know what this 'Anywhere Device' is, and I don't know how Dr. Munro was able to deceive us for so long, but it's clear she's gone rogue. We need to get her off this planet before she alters the course of its history any further."
  
  "What we need," Captain Ynthramanni says, "is more information."
  
  He stands up, followed by the two commanders a moment later. "You people did good work here," the captain says, looking at Dansmith, Hun-Spruk, and then you. "I'm going to see if I can corroborate Tligman's story. In the meantime I need the three of you to see what else of worth you can find on this device you brought back from the planet. Report back to me in the morning."
  
  And when the three senior officers exit the workroom, you congratulate your team members before you get to work reviewing the other holojournal logs.
  
  But the remaining logs are of no significance; they are recordings of private correspondence to friends and family, or earlier log entries when Dr. Munro's team were still earnestly engaged in xenoanthropological research. There are no further mentions of the so-called Anywhere Device, the Iib Ch'iib, Selrahc, the Elders of Emar, or any of the other strange and often unfamiliar things you heard in the first log--or rather the final log, as the most recent log entry was by far the most interesting.
  
  It is late in the evening by the time you are finished reviewing and summarizing all of the files. You schedule a meeting with the captain and the first officer for 0800 hours, and by the time you complete your report back in your quarters it is 0230.
  
  In the morning, you are joined by Chief Dansmith and Lieutenant Hun-Spruk as you ride the lift up to A Deck, where Captain Ynthramanni's office is located just behind the main bridge. You are all wearing your field duty uniforms again, convinced that you are about to be sent back down to the planet to continue your mission.
  
  But when you finally get to present your report, the captain informs you that Commander Diston has taken over the mission. "You people did excellent work," Ynthrmanni says. "I can't emphasize that enough. But based on the information you retrieved, it is clear the stakes are much, much higher than we first thought. Therefore I need an experienced tactical team down on the planet."
  
  And with that the three of you are dismissed back to your normal duties.