Session 9 (2 June 2023)

 Location: Dal Hallen class-A highport (Far Home 1428)

Date: 089-5600

Time: 1000

Travellers: Ada Windsor, Torka Jax, Jacobe Kyman, Griff Kodiak. Preferred weapons are, respectively, sarcasm, sabre, shotgun, and gauss rifle.

Securely berthed at the highport, the Dejah Thoris unloads its cargo and passengers. As you go through these routine procedures, you listen to local newscasts via the worldnet on this TL-10 planet. Everyone's talking about a simmering crisis of planetary proportions. It seems that volcanic and seismic activity has increased to an alarming degree, and scientists project that the worse is yet to come: massive eruptions and earthquakes that could devastate large swathes of the narrow temperate, or "twilight", zone of this tidally-locked world. The world government, plutocratic in nature, is reassuring citizens that its leading geologists have the situation well in hand: as has been done on several occasions over the past centuries, they will position nuclear explosives at key locations underground and, in detonating them, expect to ease the tectonic stresses along key fault lines. Griff, who knows a thing or two about explosives, reckons that this plan carries a lot of risk. Evidently, many citizens share that view: those who can afford it are temporarily relocating offworld, either to the great orbital city called Prime that serves as the capital of the Rimworld Federation, or to nearby systems. For the great majority of the planet's 61 million inhabitants, they can only wait and pray. The native Quemm, who comprise more than 95% of the population, are generally sanguine about the situation, but the ruling human minority are a bit more edgy.

This edginess is accentuated by political unrest. A local fringe group of the Church of the Purple Sun is organizing daily protests and rallies. (You see one in the main concourse of the highport.) Styling themselves the Children of Gurada, they object vociferously to any use of nuclear weapons: it is, for them, a religious prohibition. Thus far, the protests have been relatively peaceful, but as the schedule for detonating the devices draws near, the Children's rhetoric is getting more and more militant. Some may be willing to prevent the detonations by any means necessary.

It is against this backdrop of looming environmental cataclysm and social unease that you learn from Captain Jarumi of a potentially lucrative job. One of her social acquaintances (i.e., a member of the interstellar 1 percent) has contacted her about a task requiring speed and discretion. The contact is an executive of Exacorp, whose offices are located in a lower ring of the orbital city. You agree to check it out and set up a meeting. Jax finds a moment to contact his widowed mother, who lives planetside: she invites you all to dinner.

Aarushi Terzis meets you in her office on Prime.

First you go to see Terzis. She's a coolly efficient agent — polite but calculating — who represents someone very wealthy, very powerful, and very interested in collecting antiquities. As it happens, the planned nuclear explosions will almost certainly destroy one particular archaeological site in the planet's permanent day (hot) zone: Cha Qu (an Anglic rendering of a much longer Quemm word). According to Quemm mythology, the site was occupied by the Ancients, terrestrial bipeds who came to this world hundreds of thousands of years ago and enslaved the ancestors of today's Quemm. (Some Quemm even claim that the Ancestors were humans!) Other sites associated with the Ancestors are known to exist, and some have yielded exquisite artifacts, highly prized by collectors. Cha Qu itself has never been excavated, due to its location in the day zone where extreme environmental conditions make extended exploration impossible. Seventeen years ago, an archaeological survey visited Cha Qu, but all members died when their aircraft crashed shortly after departing the ruins. No records survived, either.

No one came back.

Terzis offers to pay you Cr50,000 per artifact retrieved from Cha Qu and to supply you with state-of-the-art hostile environment vacc suits, all the gear you need, and transportation to and from the site. The HEVs will ensure you three hours of protection — technically, they're rated for six but Terzis suggests you don't push it. Ambient electromagnetic radiation in the area means that your communicators likely won't work; it may also mess with some other electronics. An aircraft will deposit you near the site and return three hours later. Discretion is paramount: legally, archaeological sites are not to be accessed without the appropriate permits. "My client feels that, given the imminent destruction of Cha Qu, it is only proper that someone make the effort to preserve its treasures for posterity. Short-sighted laws should not stand in the way of intelligent conservation," explains Terzis.

The offer of a cool fifty large per object is too good to turn down. You agree to the job and promise to depart the next day, providing Terzis with a shopping list of gear. When she adds a warning about some of the local wildlife (dog-sized lobster-scorpions), you decide to make sure you're well armed, as well.

Then it's into a shuttle and down to the surface, where Jax is reunited with his mother. She's welcoming, hospitable, and delighted to meet her son's new friends. The home-cooked meal is wonderful. The evening concludes with snifters of brandy (provided by Momma Jax) and cigars (provided by Kodiak).

You hit the hay, wondering what the morrow will bring, and what news may reach you here from your recent shenanigans on Merant. 

Location: Dal Hallen (Far Home 1428)

Day: 089-5600

Time: 2230