The crackle of the flames in the chill open air could’ve been taken from any ancient Earth firepit, but the light that eminent was subtly different in a way that made the mind stutter. Probably reflection from the discarded hull debris; this was metal that had never really been intended to be inside a planet’s atmosphere, let alone pull the same duty as a simple circle of stones.
The captain cleared her throat. “Well. I appreciate this is not an ideal situation, but I also must remind you all of just how much of our survival was down to our knowledge and boldness in the face of unknown dangers. Now is NOT the time for hesitation or dwelling on any hypothetical mistakes of the past. We are products of the most technologically advanced civilization to ever exist; we travel the space between the stars; we have made all the universe our home using nothing but the brains between our ears. And now that we’re all here, and safe, and warm, it’s time to use those brains to plan for the future.”
“We already turned on the rescue beacon before the ship broke up, didn’t we?” asked the staff doctor.
“I did,” said the systems engineer.
“Right. We did that.”
“Not the far future,” said the captain patiently and without condescension. “The NEAR future. Our ability to leave this planet is out of our hands; we’ve done all we can unless any of you believes yourselves capable of crafting an interstellar ship from shattered hull fragments-”
“In theory, in a few hundred years,” said the systems engineer. “In practice, no.”
“-and so we must move to consider our non–immediate but yet-imminent needs. For example, water. James?”
“I rigged up a dew collector,” said the staff doctor. “Based on the temperature differential and moisture content we’ve seen recently, it should get us something. And we can purify it with the sunlight and the basic filter I’ve got on hand. That’ll last us until we can find a river or something; shouldn’t be too hard with the coastal cliffs as a surveillance site.”
“Excellent,” said the captain. “And then the next point of interest: food. We’re on a terra-seeded but wild-grown world, and much of what we encounter will be familiar in origin but alien in expression, potentially in ways that might cause us harm. Anything we ingest should be strictly examined for possible side effects, and it is for this reason that I advocate we continue to exploit the local near-fish.”
“It tasted that good?” asked the systems engineer skeptically.
The captain plucked up a charred bone from their makeshift plate and jabbed with it for emphasis. “No! It was pretty awful, really, even for something without seasoning. But the basic chemical and physical makeup was almost entirely within hominid-orthodox limits. It’s as much a fish as something you’d pull out of a pond in Sol, if not moreso! It’s truly admirable in its adherence to the teleost bauplan, however many generations separated it from its source. I recommend we all consume it. I want to consume more of it. I will put the fish in my mouth and gnash my teeth and rend it and swallow it and it will become me and I will become it. I will stand on the sharp grey rocks and watch the bright bright sun ripple on the surface and I will dive and strike and grab and feast feast feast on the fine fresh fish flesh fiercely freely frantically furiously.”
The captain adjusted her shirt collar, sat down, and was immediately tackled and tied up by the chief scientist, the staff doctor, and the systems engineer.
“How long until this wears off?” asked the systems engineer as he wiped the scanty sweat from his brow.
“I am perfectly fine and wish for fish,” said the captain.
“Difficult to say,” hazarded the staff doctor. “Depends on if it’s a fast-acting parasite messing with the nervous system, toxin accumulation doing the same, or maybe some kind of total allergic reaction caused by incompatibility on the cellular level. With the supplies on hand, the best we can do is keep her comfortable and eat the trees.”
“The what now?” said the systems engineer.
“We would be better off if we had very very very large teeth like beavers or something that constantly sharpened themselves and never stopped growing,” pondered the staff doctor. “As it is we only have one set of adult teeth due to terrible mammalian dentary practices, and they’re very low quality. We’ll have to chop the trees into very small pieces to eat them or unhinge our jaws, which would be painful and unhealthy in the long term. Cooking them will help with that as long as we get them down to charcoal, but then there’s not much nutritional value left – although maybe we could use that to absorb any potential toxins from the fish or the tubers I tried eating earlier, which may be what was causing the captain to act irrationally. Yes, I think we’d better try that.”
“Try eating the trees?”
The staff doctor blinked. “What? Who’d want to do that?”
“You. Twenty seconds ago.”
“That would be odd. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“You just said to do that.”
“Are you sure you’re alright?” asked the staff doctor, and as his hand started drifting towards the remaining emergency rope the systems engineer jumped for it too. The scuffle that followed was inconclusive, but the staff doctor had done more work on the captain and so ran out of steam first and was subsequently hogtied with several granny knots and a lot of complaining.
“Okay,” breathed the systems engineer. “Alright. No fish. No tubers. What do you think?”
This was directed to the head scientist, who was staring into the flames with brow furrowed in gentle but fierce thought. At this prompt they looked up at them all – two bound, one standing and panting – and cleared their throat.
“Rocks,” said the head scientist.
“And?” asked the systems engineer.
The head scientist shook their head dismissively. “Rocks,” they explained. And then their eyes went back to the fire.
“Great,” said the systems engineer. “Just great.” He blew out a sigh. “So, as the only one who apparently hasn’t consumed any of the local flora or fauna and come down with whatever alien poisoning is messing with the rest of you, it’s up to me to be the sensible, rational, reasonable one around here – as usual. We’re going to be smart and practical and think this through. We’re going to find the other survivors and eat them. This is the best expenditure of our limited time and energy and resources, and will not go wrong.”
“Rocks,” said the head scientist.
“Right!” said the systems engineer, and then he passed out.
The head scientist went to sleep some six minutes later – still sitting bolt upright — and twenty minutes after that the fire died.
The air still shone and shimmied for quite a while longer, though. Some of the substances the ambient oxygen was peeling loose from the salvage-firepit’s metals were very lively indeed.