"Our fiction tends not to assume that. In reality we travel using magic so we can't easily send robots ahead of people. Once we establish ourselves on a planet though we tend to use automation to map the planet and that's also largely true of exploring other bodies in the same solar system."

He nods. "Stories about traveling worlds with magic have it a bit less - organized, generally?"

"That makes sense. At least in our fiction most magic isn't bestowed by the government, and well, part of the point of a lot of stories with magic is the power fantasy."

He laughs. "I guess so."

"I think we're going to have a brief meal, will you be waiting or should we meet you back at the community center?"

"Depends on if you anticipate needing me soon."

"I don't think so, we can find our way back to the community center on our own."

"Alright! I'll head back, then, and let people know you're settled in."

"Thank you." The team makes their way into the large tent one of them carries a box from one of the cars in with them. They don't emerge before he leaves.

"He seemed nice, actually all the people we've met so far seem nice."

"It's definitely a suggestive pattern, maybe they're just a more pro-social species or culture in general."

"All the biology books I saw weren't detailed enough to really draw firm conclusions, I think maybe some muscles are attached a little differently but even that was subtle enough that I almost missed it and it might just be a misprint or something. It's really weird," says their team doctor Wilfred Hanna.

"We do get around with magic, I guess it isn't as implausible as finding such a similar species out in space. Most of the animals we've seen on this and other planets are a lot more like Earth species than scientists would have predicted."

"That's true, maybe we should do more initial forays from orbit, we know that the teleportation magic filters for places with a similar atmospheric composition."

"We don't do that because we want to find worlds similar enough to build low-impact colonies on. Our industry isn't quite ready for large-scale space colonies yet."

"Let's ease off the policy discussion, things may or may not change now that we've met the Krisans. We really do need to have some food and I don't want to delay too long before we head back."

Courtney takes that as a cue to put down the rations box they're carrying and start passing out individual rations. Eating follows.

"Ria, can you launch a drone, it would be good to place where we are relative to the atlas if we can."

"Of course." Outside the tent a relatively large drone about 60 centimeters across detaches itself from one of the cars and starts zipping upwards. It goes about three kilometers straight up before coming back down. A minute later Ria looks up from her tablet. "It doesn't look like the computers can make a match, the atlas just wasn't detailed enough. We have a decent image of the general area though.

"Oh well."

After a little while longer they exit the tent again and drive back to the community center.

The representative from earlier is still there, though some of her retinue has shifted. There's rubber-neckers watching, though most people seem to be obeying a cordon. The truck driver from earlier has left.

"It's interesting how fast word has spread, it can't have been more than a couple hours." Sapphire comments to her team as they drive up.

The team gets out of the cars and make their way back inside.

The town does have foot traffic - most of them seem to be more idly curious and with nothing better to do, since a few are wandering off when they pull up. (And promptly wander back.)

They're not disturbed heading inside. Representative Tyuln turns when they enter, smiling. "Everything to your liking?" she asks.

"Definitely, if we needed too we could probably set up their long term, though that would also involve digging a well and a thermocouple."