Terran monitoring · Hood Canal sector · relay 7

Larch Station

A weather outpost, staffed, against the wishes of the staff
CHAPTER XVII

The outpost

The ship, such as it is.
The ship. Dented on arrival. Dented since.
Personnel

The outpost

Larch Station: a weather outpost. Also a punishment.

There was an incident. Officially: 'an incident.' Unofficially: Orm, a cargo loader, and the admiral's lunch. The crew were offered a choice: a tribunal, or an open-ended monitoring post on a small damp planet. They chose damp. They now suspect it was the tribunal.

The job: watch the territory. Record what falls out of the sky, how much, and at what temperature. Note the inhabitants. Do not interfere. File every fifteen minutes. Do not land. Everyone asks about the last one. The shore looks nice and the bipeds have a fire going way more than seems necessary.

Equipment: one instrument on a mast behind Structure B (installed by the bipeds, claimed by the crew), two microphones that listen for the small flying ones, and a feed from the 'reference observers,' who are also on the surface and who the crew grade with a harshness that says more about the crew than the forecasts.

Crew

VellObserver, first class (there is no second class)

Keeps the log. Writes down what happened, then what Orm said happened, in a separate, thicker book. Has counted the mountains fourteen times. Never the same number. Has stopped blaming the counting.

OrmTechnician

Built the instrument from parts, the map from memory, and the incident from a cargo loader. Insists the map is to scale. Has one theory each about the pressure, the rodent, and the bipeds' fires. One of them is right. Nobody knows which, including Orm.

The internUnpaid

Arrived in a supply crate by mistake and has not been collected. Forecasts by looking out of the window. Currently has the best record on the station. This is not discussed. It is, however, graded, below.

“Vell wrote these. I would like it noted that the mountains are the problem.” — O.

Standing orders

1. Observe. Do not interfere. Waving at the canids is not interfering. This went to committee.

2. File every fifteen minutes, whether or not anything happened. Nothing happened. File it.

3. The creek has a name. The bipeds use it. We don't. Professional courtesy.

4. Location: 'above the wide water, below the far mountains.' That's it. That's the whole address.

5. Do not land.

6. Seriously.

7. Stop asking about the fire.

Current standing, form 7-B

–reference observers
–Orm
–the intern

Graded on the hypotheses page. Day 443 of the assignment.

CHAPTER XVIII

From the files

Structure B. Lit at all hours. We think it's a shrine. To what, we are not cleared to know.
Structure B. Lit at all hours. We think it's a shrine. To what, we are not cleared to know.
The canids, at rest. The pale one is in charge. The brown one is in charge of the pale one.
The canids, at rest. The pale one is in charge. The brown one is in charge of the pale one.
The assembly hall and the rectangular pond. Bipeds gather here on a schedule we have not cracked. We suspect snacks.
The assembly hall and the rectangular pond. Bipeds gather here on a schedule we have not cracked. We suspect snacks.