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One thing I liked about spending time with Ratthi is that he didn’t ever take himself too seriously. He was pretty good about being serious when the situation called for it, but he was so laid-back in general that I actually found it calming to be around him. Mostly. When he wasn’t trying to get himself killed. And sometimes even then, which put him parsecs ahead of most other humans.
See, I categorized every PresAux survey team member on a scale of “begrudgingly tolerate” to “actively enjoy the company of,” and Ratthi sat solidly toward the good end of that spectrum. (Most of them did. Those who were closer to the other end know who they were, Gurathin.)
But when they weren’t all working together on a survey or pre-survey or post-survey stuff, they were all really hard to pin down for socializing (read as: watching media together). Especially Ratthi, who was not only an in-demand exobiologist but also a lecturer at FirstLanding University when he wasn’t on surveys.
Between his work with PresAux and FLU, and my work with ART and PSUMNT, there was almost negative time to visit, and I wasn’t expecting him to use all of his free time to hang out with me even when he was available. But then we stumbled upon A Somewhat Okay Idea that meant we could maybe spend a bit more time together.
It started with a joke.
He’d said, “You know, even though the planet’s pretty safe, I have had an incident or two while camping...”
And I’d said, “What, like, security incidents?”
And he’d replied, “By some definitions of the word, maybe?”
So I’d sent him my rate sheet and followed up with a text signifier for “joke.”
But then he’d said, “Oh, this is really reasonable actually. Can I book you for a weekend trip next month? Will you still be around or will you be out-of-system again?”
I would, in fact, still be around. I said, “For real?”
And he said, “Yeah, sure, why not?”
So I said, “Yeah, I’ll be around.”
Then we went to Pin-Lee, who tried not to laugh as she wrote up a contract (and mostly succeeded at not-laughing, except that I saw her grinning at us as we left her office and shaking her head fondly). And then it was official.
I said afterward, “I feel kind of weird that you’re paying me to hang out with you.”
He laughed. “Pin-Lee said the same to me in the feed. It’s not like I need the currency though, and I know you hate planets, so I’m glad you agreed!”
“I don’t hate it as much as I let people think,” I said. Then I added, “Don’t tell anyone.”
He mimed sealing his mouth shut and gave me a thumbs-up, and then we went our separate ways because he still had work to do and I had a new season of Drama Sun Islands to catch up on.
A month later, I was on the planet, following Ratthi through the wilderness and keeping a sharp eye out for danger of any sort. We were also equal parts talking and hiking in silence, which was kind of nice—I didn’t mind talking, but Ratthi didn’t mind the silence when I needed it. All in all, a good experience.
Until the slugs happened.
We’d found a good spot, set up our tents, and looked at stars until Ratthi called it a night and went to bed. I climbed inside my own tent because there are crawling things that come out after dark, and I wasn’t particularly keen on having those anywhere near me, then watched media and listened to the gentle sound of Ratthi snoring and the nighttime sounds that picked up whenever he stopped. The creaking of the trees in the wind was a little nerve-racking, and the occasional plop! of things falling onto the ground and our tents kept making my threat assessment spike a bit before settling down, but all in all, it was an okay night.
The sun rose and, shortly after, I heard Ratthi going about his getting-ready-for-the-day activities. He unzipped his tent, which was across from the campsite from mine due to terrain variance/where the flat spots were, and said, “Um.” A moment later he added, “SecUnit?”
I unzipped my tent too and poked my head out, figuring maybe he’d forgotten to bring some essential item into his tent with him or something. But, no.
I immediately spotted the cause of the “um.”
The ground was moving. And slimy.
Threat assessment didn’t know what to do with it, but Ratthi apparently did—he was fumbling for his lucky interface and already taking image captures.
“Dr. Zeq’s gonna be so jealous,” he said gleefully. Then he looked at me, and must have caught the very subtle expression of disgust/confusion my face had settled into, because he said, “She’s a malacologist.”
That word was not in my language database.
He added helpfully, “She studies mollusks.”
My drones and I looked at the blanket of... mollusks? covering the ground. Why would anyone want to be close to these things, let alone study them? They were gross. And writhing. I hate when things writhe. And, worst of all, they were absolutely everywhere—including, to my dismay, all over our tents. Is that what the plopping noise I heard last night was? Mollusks? Falling all over the ground? Gross.
“Are they dangerous?”
“These? I don’t think so. I see these little guys pretty much every time I go out for a walk in the woods. We call them ranger slugs, but I never knew why! I guess this explains it.”
This did not explain it. I said, “You ‘don’t think so,’ but you’re not sure? That they’re not dangerous?”
“Well, I mean. They’re edible, so I doubt it.”
Oh. Ew. I know humans will eat a lot of weird stuff, but this was—ew. I’d never been so glad not to have a stomach or digestive system.
“You’re not going to eat them.” It wasn’t a question.
“No, no, of course not. But, uh...” He put his hands on his hips and looked around. There were mollusks—“slugs”—covering almost every inch of ground. “Hiking might be a little difficult today.”
Wow, Ratthi, you think? It might be difficult? You really think so?
I didn’t say any of that out loud because Ratthi is a terminal optimist and I didn’t want to bring him down or whatever, but seriously.
“A little,” I said flatly. “I don’t suppose you’re going to let me deal with them so we can get out of here, are you?”
His expression contorted into the realm of horrified, which I’d expected, so I sighed. At least the slugs, as slow-moving as they were, were still moving. I’d been tracking a few of them, and they were moving at around eighteen centimeters per minute. Our campsite wasn’t huge, but still—if we were going to wait for them to pass, that was a lot of minutes. Especially considering the abundance of slugs that were still outside of the campsite and heading toward it.
I envisioned having to scoop Ratthi up by the waist and climb into the trees to get us out of here. I didn’t really want to, since I’d probably also have to carry all our camping gear, but I could do it if I really had to.
Then he said, “I don’t have a very good satellite-feed connection out here. Do you? Can you amplify the signal?”
“What for, are you calling for rescue?”
“No, I had an idea for how we can get through, but I wanted to check with Dr. Zeq first to make sure it won’t harm the slugs.”
You know, I didn’t know if I could amplify the signal or not? But since I was built to be feed-capable myself, it was worth trying. I said as much, then directed him to attempt the connection while I did my thing. Which consisted of “touching the interface while he was using it and hoping my body was a good enough conductor to act as an antenna”. If this worked, I’d definitely be adding it to my list of useful things I didn’t know I could do.
“Hm... nothing yet, maybe we need to be higher? The rock around here has a lot of metal in it, which would probably interfere with the signal, right?”
Looks like we’d have to go up into the trees after all. Or, maybe I could go by myself without having to endanger Ratthi.
I said, “Give me Dr. Zeq’s feed address, I have an idea.”
I won’t bore you with the details (and even if you wouldn’t be bored by the details, I don’t want to bore me with the details), but Ratthi told me his plan, I got into the treetops, established the connection (with an urgent tag attached), spoke to a very surprised Dr. Zeq about Ratthi’s plan (while attempting to field questions about the slugs, which were apparently migrating?), and returned to solid ground with a go-ahead for said plan. It would still be slow going, but slow is better than not moving at all.
With a combination of Ratthi’s ability to decamp quickly and me leaping back and forth across the distance between our tents, we got everything packed up pretty fast. I tuned my energy weapons to their lowest setting, scraped some slugs aside to make a bare patch of ground to test the radiant heat levels, and pulled Ratthi in close. Using the heat from the weapons, we could make our way to the edge of the... herd? (note to self: look up what a group of mollusks is called) and continue on our hike once we were free of the migration.
It was probably mid-afternoon by the time we finally got out of there. Ratthi took off to handle whatever biological functions needed handling, and I looked for a place that wasn’t totally covered in slime to put down our stuff. Eventually I just cleared a spot with my energy weapons on their normal setting because Ratthi wasn’t there to tell me no.
We finally reached the summit of the small mountain we’d been hiking up, and Ratthi stood with his hands on his hips and a grin on his face. “Morning misadventures aside, I think this has been a pretty good day!”
I pulled out one of the little portable stools I’d stashed in my backpack and plonked myself down on it, my back against a tree. The sustained energy weapon discharge had taken a toll on my available power, and I really needed a recharge. “If you say so.”
“Come on, you can’t tell me you didn’t have at least a little bit of fun. I saw your face when the slugs started clearing a path for us.”
“I was just thinking about how nice it would be to get away from them.”
“Sure, but doesn’t the beautiful view here make it all worth it?”
I was already looking at it with my drones, but I opened one eye for show. “If you say so,” I repeated, quirking my eyebrow like the stoic gardener from Sanctuary Moon season 5 always did (I’d been practicing). “What would really make it worth it is if everyone finds out I rescued you from a bunch of harmless slugs.”
Ratthi laughed, bright and effervescent. “Okay, but you have to make it sound really perilous somehow. Like, ‘the slugs were closing in, and I knew I had to act before they enveloped him completely...’”
I snorted. “Yeah. I’ll get right on that.”
In the end, it was Ratthi who recounted the tale, but I enjoyed the way he told it. There was danger, there was intrigue, and best of all: there was a heroic SecUnit there to save the day. It had all the hallmarks of a perfect story, in my humble (and correct) opinion.
Even if it had been on a planet, I’d still enjoyed spending time with Ratthi, so the next time he asked to hire me for a camping trip, I immediately said yes. After all, someone had to protect him from the slugs, and that someone might as well be me.