Later...
Olimax is laying in his hammock, relaxed. Looking out past his stretched out legs, he sees a wall-sized display- a video replay of earlier events. The giant bat-like creature is on screen, paused mid-flight.
"Hello, Oli. Have a nice nap? Ada is in position, as requested," Dayus says, in his dutiful, curt manner; always ready to serve Olimax, helping to achieve peak performance, as safely as possible— as any sophisticated artificial intelligence assistant should.
"Right above that thing, right?" Olimax asks.
"Correct. Tracking it since it flew over us, it has since landed at the summit of the algae-covered mesa." Dayus replies.
"The same one near where I camped out for 3 days?"
"Yes. And it seems to be absorbing the static electricity from its vicinity. The other bats are back and have fallen back into their circadian— "
"Absorbing electricity?"
"Correct. Since we've been in orbit, we've been scanning electro and thermal reads, plus gravitational of course. All centered on the mesa."
"Strange electric bats, never seen anything like it. Looking forward to entering these into the logs back home.. if we ever get back— "
"we musn't lose hope, Oli."
"Right. Oh yeah, did you finish the scan on their guano?"
"Good timing as always, old friend. That's reaching 100% completion in a few seconds."
"A flashing green word, "MATCH", slowly blinks before Olimax's eyes. He quickly sits up so quickly in his hammock that he loses balance and nearly slips out.""
"Show me!" he exlaims, eager to see what the match result is all about.""
Amadeus explains, "Oh, I think you will be very pleased. This is exciting, indeed. We've detected trace amounts of a plant that closely classifies as rubiacea, extremely close match."
Olimax swings out of the hammock with the joy of a schoolyard child. He's standing and looking straight at the display of scientific results. "Dayus," he says, in a calm, confident tone, "I think we've found the mother lode, or at least its nearby. I knew we'd find something from that map fragment!"
"I share your jubilation, I do. But shouldn't we make sure you don't find yourself off grid for so long again, and with such a small amount of resources."
"We needed that close proximity scan, could only get there by foot, besides now look at this. That sample collected* is leading us right to the gold."
(See "scoop" on Page 5)
To be continued...
