Discovery

They labelled my discovery "miraculous". I thought it was pretty mundane. Slablits visit new worlds all the time, but apparently not Earth. How was I to know?

My warning censors have been off-line for years, decades really. So I didn't read the giant "stay clear of this planet" warning before I landed to rejuvenate. My mistake.

Now they're all over me. What do you eat? Where do you come from? What do you want from us? Plus all of the paranoid guys with their primitive projectile devices. I've keep my cool, haven't zidled them, not once. It would be so easy. They don't even suspect I'm wired for security. Their technology couldn't scan a pile of dung let alone a Slablit wired for intercepts.

On the positive side, I'm enjoying the food. So many varieties, though they all taste tarnished to me -- they've polluted their ecosystem without restraint. On the negative side, they don't have any contraband worth smuggling. Most of their "sinful" (that's what they call their intoxicants) offerings don't affect me at all. What I would give for a slider of bruunks right now. On the hot side, easy on the motion variants.

For now, I'm refuelling with whatever soil I can scrounge until I can extract some isotopes dirty enough for the blast drivers. In the meantime, I've heard the dessert is worth a trip. Plenty of granulares and dry, dry, dry. My ship could use a good abrasive. Recycled moisture gets downright rank after a generation or two.

I can't wait to run my feelers through the layers of warmth, descaling whatever I can. My dribs are curling just thinking about it.