"Is that relevant to protecting us from them or protecting them from Lei?"

He asks Hestlierre.

Obviously Siamek of all people knows that just because someone doesn't speak doesn't mean they're stupid. "What do you mean by 'people'?"

He explains about the poets. Who probably are people! They just got him thinking...

"Fascinating. That reminds me of an idea I've been thinking about:

There is a hierarchy of living things that contain living things, where I mean 'living thing' in a very simple sense: something makes more things like itself. In this sense, a person doesn't even count as living, unless pregnant. A family is a living thing, or a healthy and diverse population of a species, or a household in the Lei style combining families of multiple species. Or a town, if it contains people who know how to found a new town, or a country, similarly. Or the entire population of the aliens' home planet.

We could talk about a living thing like a town being healthy or unhealthy, depending on its durability and longevity and ability to reproduce. But it would be a mistake to think that health in this sense is the town's worth. We don't consider that the health of a person is the only thing that matters about them, and, similarly, there are many things that matter about a town, such as the Freedoms it ensures to its people.

But I found this to be an interesting idea when thinking about our jobs here. It would be nice to make friends with the aliens. It would be nice to use this opportunity to advance Freedom. But most important thing is that Ansaf as a whole does the planetary equivalent of making friends with the aliens as a whole. The alternative to that is war.

So are the poets people or animals or something stranger? In any case, they're parts of the alien whole. Figuring out how the aliens work is a wonderful question that will keep us busy for a long time, but our first job here is not blocked on the ultimate answer."

As the tube crests a gentle hill, the goatseer gazes out at the starlit ice, looking for canyons or debris or weird chunks of ice or unusually-normal chunks of ice...

So far, he has - twice - spotted a chunk of ice more normal than any seen previously.

He has no idea what the fuck went wrong. All he knows is that he came to with the cryosuspension fluid draining away, but the door to the pod stuck closed as the drop pod descended. Orange plasma. He happened to be able to see out the window, just because of where his pod was stored in the module. He saw bright, blasted desert rock, and then green, and then darkness, as the pod descended in a long arc. A particular mountain stuck out on the last of the way down, his addled mind sticking on that detail- Because it was towards the green. Between the crash site and the - oasis?

Green means water. Green means life.

He was stuck in the pod for over a day. He saw people moving around after the crash. Including that FUCKER, Ahmat Singh. 

"Whatever you're doing to corrupt my sister," he had said, "You will stop now. Forever."

And then, ignoring Miguel's protests and pleas, that he was just dating her, that he was treating her right, the fuckhead blocked his pod with several pieces of heavy debris and LEFT. When Miguel finally wrenched the pod door open what must have been hours later, the rest of the dropped colonist module was completely empty except for bodies and dropped EVA suits.

His radio wasn't working. None of the other suits' radios were working either. Singh was in Maintenance, right? He'd know how to do this, probably.

Ahmat Singh tried to MURDER him. Leaving him in the cold to die! He'd pay it back one day. He swears. But he has to survive for that.

His memories of the next while are ... Muddled. He stumbled out into the ice field. At some point he realized no help was coming, with almost nothing visible around him- But he remembered that mountain. There was light and green past it, out of the eternal night. He gathered up every battery and power cell in the life pod, his suit heater straining in the chilly air to prevent him from freezing to death. He built a sled out of... Something. A pod door and some electrical wiring, he thinks. He improvised warming layers by tearing apart more suits with a knife.

And then he walked.

And walked.

And walked.

And slept.

And walked.

And changed power cells, leaving the dead ones behind to reduce the weight.

And walked.

And walked...

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

At some point he started following a particular constellation, rather than heading straight for that mountain, only barely visible as a black outline against the starry tapestry.

He walked.

He walked.

He wondered if this was Hell. Wasn't one of Dante's layers a frozen wasteland?

He walked.

He slept.

Again. Again.

Damn Ahmat Singh.

Walk. Walk...

...

...

...There is a light down there. He's down to the last two power cells, even three cobbled together heavy outer layers unable to keep him warm forever. Melting the water rations and food rations on his door sled every day drained them more, too.

Is it a trick of the light? He can't tell anything about it. It's a faint, wavering glow, far off on the horizon. Far down this mountain and beyond.

He stands there for thirty seven minutes by the suit clock, brain fogging up as he tries to make sense of the wavering light. Did it move a little bit? He thinks it did?

...

...

...He sits on his door and starts flashing his helmet lights in sequence. Short short short. Long long long. Short short short. Repeat.

S.O.S.

There's an alien out there! It's saying something with blinking lights! Three short blinks, three long blinks, three short blinks...

That seems like a poet sort of communication, but with light, and at a speed a goatseer can perceive... He doesn't comment.

The light in the distance blinks S.O.S. and then goes back to its continuous wavery glowing.

He thinks that's a good sign...?

Right. Yes! It means someone saw him. Surely rescue will be on the way, now. You're supposed to stay in place for rescuers. Which is good, because his legs don't seem to be working very well to stand back up right now.

He will wait, peering at the horizon, leaving his helmet lights on so they can see him and occasionally repeating the SOS. At this point the light won't make much difference compared to keeping him warm.

"Hi Audron! We found a live alien but it's sixty klicks away and we're worried it might not survive much longer. How is the turbine kite doing?"

"-Sun and stars! A live alien!"

He was hoping he was right! Also, the turbine kite is definitely not ready.

"It's only been four days. We have something and it will get off the ground. At least, it did in the wind tunnel. But... I wouldn't fly it in the drydark yet. The stability is really bad. Turns out that turbines are bulky and heavy and need to be in an awkward place so they can suck in and spit out air cleanly, and also kind of delicate, and that's with the brilliant folks from Kef helping make it smaller."

"Awww."

The backup plan is then for some catfolk to hike on foot -

- plus a boark to carry the alien if it's big

- plus Chime, obviously, so they don't fall down a hidden crevice

What if the alien is really big? The alien ship was really big.

We'll need to take a harpy barge, then. 

   Or be ready to build a shelter there for the alien.

        We might not be able to save it. We have to be ready for that, emotionally.

  So this harpy barge will be fighting the wind the whole way there? 

    We need a werewolf in case the barge breaks...

"Well hello there again, Audron! If you didn't worry about the sails, are the turbines suitable for pushing a normal barge against the wind? The wind where the expedition is now, on the top of the ice, isn't as strong as it was at the bottom; it's like the wind here."

"-Let me do some math. Come back in five? Hey Klauva, where did you put those windforce measurements?!"

He has an answer just a few minutes later: Yes, they can push a pretty big barge against the wind and then some. They've developed a kind of turbine that sits sideways. Put one of those on either side of the barge so it's balanced and you can have one of the catfolk lower the heat to turn, have a big flock lift it, and he thinks it could get up to thirty klicks an hour against the wind depending on the shape of the barge. Maybe add a wind rudder.

He has - turbine schematics he could send? Or they could make two turbines here and have them sent by gnomunk-equartier relay to be attached to a stone barge, or Klauva the werewolf is best at it so far and she could go by equartier and make them there- He'd kind of like to come too, as someone who has a feel for how things move against wind at speed, which is not how harpy ships usually work-

"You can go thirty klicks in one hour? I want to ride in that! And you only need two catfolk for that? Hm. Is the turbine made from stone, or stone with wires, or solid metal? If it's metal, do you know if Kef has the tools that Klauva would need? How long would it take to seal up for a gnomunk, or does it have a lot less fiddly stuff than the turbines in Kef?"

"Probably faster too! It's mostly stone. There are some metal parts... an all metal one would be better but stone is faster to experiment with. And it's not fiddly for a catfolk to use, we managed to make it so a lever controls the power!"

"I can attach it to things without tools," Probably Klauva says.

"Maybe fifteen minutes to package two for a gnomunk."

"I meant tools to make one, but if you can have two ready to go in fifteen minutes, great! It didn't even occur to me that attaching them might be a challenge, good thing it isn't! I will go prepare Argolake and check with Fuzzer!"

...

"Klauva, could another werewolf attach the turbines? Audron, we'll want you to come yourself, unless Klauva needs to come and we can't find a fourth set of equartiers."

"It's not hard. Just make sure these two lines are vertical with a blurb bob."

She indicates a small protruding piece with two recessed lines facing different directions.

Klauva pouts. She wants to see the alien! But she's professional.

"Tell me all about the alien later, okay Audron?"

"I definitely will. And don't worry, I'll make sure you get your fair share of credit!"

Where should the barge be assembled?

The head of the expedition already has a barge, but the tube on the ice isn't safe for equartiers. Moving it back to the top of the elevator would be an option.

The bottom of the mountain has stone to make a new stone barge, but no werewolves. It would take about the same duration - two hours - to bring werewolves from either Kef (by equartier) or the expedition (by barge). Obviously worse than using the existing stone barge.

Kef has werewolves and stone and some of the stone is already enervated, but at thirty klicks an hour, slower than an equartier, it would delay the rescue by about three hours. Plus a couple of hours to finish constructing the new barge. 

Seems clear, then. The rescue will launch from the edge of the ice.