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 Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 7:34 pm
Enhancing plants. Enhancing plants...that was all anyone ever seemed to want Juno to do. The plants could get along just fine without Juno, and he was entirely too sick of splicing genes. As one of the Earth’s most skilled geneticists, there was never anything he had to work at that he hadn’t wanted to work at. But here, everyone, even the most skilled of scientists, were put to work like laboratory technicians. Juno needed to leave And so he was sitting outside with a small, complicated piece of equipment, methodically slicing cross-sections out of the various native fauna and analyzing them, watching half-completed genome maps scroll down without really paying attention.
This was drudgery at its worst. Most of his equipment had been destroyed in the crash, and though his more sensitive instruments—stored away in maximum security like they were—had survived, they were useless without the basic ones.
He would have killed at this point for something more interesting to do. Most of the crew had been studiously avoiding him since well before the crash, and he had been forbidden from exploring much farther than the settlement for fear that aliens might encounter him first and base their opinion of humanity on him. And so he was stuck doing absolutely nothing, sitting complacently on a piece of twisted, smooth-melted metal from the ship and picking at moss.
An excellent life for a world-class geneticist.
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Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 8:44 pm
Ohgodohgodohgod.
It was not often that Laurence full-out sprinted. It wasn't that he couldn't. Laurence always thought that he was in pretty damned good shape, especially comparatively speaking, what with the younger members of the crew to show him up. It was more a matter of instinctive self-preservation. As a general rule, Laurence moved towards unfortunate things rather than running away from them, and if it was urgent enough that a sprint would be required, he'd rather slow down a fraction and arrive thirty seconds after the inevitable explosion. This was no exception. Still, there was a lengthening to his stride that spoke of a man moving with purpose towards something.
He actually went straight past Juno before recognizing what he was doing, slowing down, and then actually heading back to give him a slightly confused look, as if to ask what he was doing there. The actual question that came out, however, was, "Have you seen an alien around here?" Laurence paused, and then perhaps recognizing the idiocy of asking that question to a geneticist who spent most of his time playing around with alien plants, added, "Walking around, I mean?" He gestured to somewhere about shoulder-height. "Yea high or so, four feet, two, um, arms?" Saying 'tentacles' around Juno just seemed like inviting conversation paths he never, ever wanted to see the light of day.
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Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2009 9:50 pm
And someone was coming. That was nice. The speed of the stride indicated that someone was attempting to look extremely purposeful to avoid coming into contact with Juno. He appreciated their concern. It was nice to know everyone cared enough about you to know that they were supposed to avoid you at all costs. Besides, it made upsetting people so much easier. But then the runner…stopped and backpedaled, and then spoke and managed to elicit a nonthreatening response from the man.
“Alien?”
The speaker had Juno’s attention, even before he had bothered to identify him properly. Not that identification was that difficult. There were only a few men who willingly engaged Juno in conversation, and most of them tended to sound like they were about to cry. And this one sounded worried but not yet prepared to burst into tears. Probably the Captain.
Oh, captain, my captain…
“I have seen one or two, though mostly from a distance, and I think perhaps ‘tentacles’ is a better word than ‘arms’ in this case,” Juno answered, looking up at Laurence and twisting his mouth into a horrifying semblance of a friendly smile. “Though, Captain, I haven’t seen anything to suggest they are…malicious.” He stood at this point, maintaining the smile that would have won him awards in the ‘best portrayal of a completely unhinged villain and/or sexual predator’ category of any film festival.
“Unless you mean very recently or in person, in which case, I must regrettably say no. I have yet to encounter one, but I imagine it will be an…education when I do.” He gave a short nod and bared his teeth in what might have been called a grin in someone who wasn’t Juno.
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Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 10:26 pm
oh god why had he done that, now there was conversation
Granted, Dagon was the only convenient available person to answer his question. But "convenient" and "available" were relative terms. He could have gone somewhere else and asked someone there if they'd seen the alien intruder. Like... hmm, back to the ship. Yep, that smile was making back to the ship look like a progressively more appealing direction.
Laurence was not the intrepid captain for nothing, though, and stood his ground even in the face of terrifying facial expressions. There were worse things in the universe, after all. Like aliens with tentacles who were apparently attempting to touch his crew. The girl who'd brought the situation to his attention had only been lightly touched on the waist, thank goodness, but still. She had been quite upset.
"If you should see one, by no means attempt to engage them in conversation." This came out in his standard-giving-orders tone, that is to say, srs bsnss. Then, perhaps realizing Juno might misinterpret who was being protected from whom here, he added on a clarification. "They seem to be losing their initial caution... One actually accosted a crew member the other day." Accosted was a term that could be used in this scenario, right? There wasn't any apparent aggression, but...
"Just be careful, all right?"
Why was he concerned about Juno's safety, of all people? Oh, right. Because despite all the man's disturbing tendencies, he was still crew.
He would probably be the first of the crew to be thrown to the metaphorical wolves, should they be forced to resort to human sacrifice to appease some horrible alien god-king, but barring that, still crew.
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Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2009 11:57 am
They were making contact? And by contact, I mean contact? Really? That was enthralling. Juno's smile became slightly less dangerous as he realized that the aliens were attempting quite literally to reach out to the humans. But then Laurence gave a command that Juno did not approve of at all. His smile faltered briefly, but he gave a brief nod anyways.
"Of course, Captain. As you wish."
And his voice was silky, the sort that suggested cocktails, a sudden loss of awareness, and a morning-after filled with very confused memories and possibly stained bedsheets. "If they're accosting crew members, perhaps attempts ought to be made to communicate with them. If they're hostile, after all, we ought to know before something goes drastically wrong."
His interest in Laurence was purely out of a desire to make as many people as uncomfortable as possible, but all the same, the Captain did have a certain...something about him that made him simply delightful. Particularly when he was giving orders. "Of course I'll be careful," he purred. "I'm never not careful. I take the utmost care, particularly in the more....delicate of situations."
The aliens weren't the only beings touching people who didn't want to be touched. As he spoke, Juno reached out and ran a hand through Laurence's hair. It wasn't something he did in public all that often, but when it was just him and Laurence...oh, he would certainly invade personal space. Laurence was an attractive man, after all.
That, and he wore his discomfort so handsomely.
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Posted: Fri Jul 10, 2009 2:42 pm
Laurence did not like the subtle changes happening in Juno's expression as he... well, did his best to explain as little about the alien situation as possible, to be honest. Still, Juno was smart. Laurence was painfully aware of this. The man was probably reading between the lines like it was in size 20 bold print.
"If they were aggressively hostile, I suspect they would have moved before now to wipe us off the face of the planet." Strange to be sharing his thoughts so openly, but Laurence didn't believe in keeping information hidden without reason. Better to share than let Juno work it out for himself... They were cut off from the external sources of authority that had given the crew its initial hierarchy. Inertia had carried them thus far, but if Laurence was going to continue to give orders he damned well had better be ready to justify them. "As it stands, I suspect that either we have a technological advantage that intimidates them... or they have some other plan in mind."
He still didn't trust the intentions of the Malakim any more than he trusted Juno's intentions. That is to say, not at all. Yet it felt more and more like they were moving towards some kind of tipping point. Formal contact couldn't be more than a few weeks away, given the exponentially increasing rate at which sightings had been reported lately.
Laurence's brow furrowed, and then the furrows furrowed as Juno proceeded to caress his hair. "And you will remove your hand, Mr. Dagon, or you will be on plant-enhancing duty for the rest of eternity."
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