The Ghosts of Eden

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Session 31

The crew black out. When they come round they discover they are travelling back to the ship and are aware that they have new abilities.

Considerable discussion then follows about their next step. All are in favour of scouting out Beta Virginis, the question is whether they will get in trouble for departing from the itinery. They then consider whether they are "in trouble any way."

Getting to Beta Virginis would mean going either through Asterion, or through Kafer space, or through Trixie. Since the crew are almost certainly wanted in Asterion for the jump collision and Kafer space is a war zone the only option appears to go by Trixie, Trilon HQ. They all agree that they wish to conceal the fact that they have acquired psychic powers and the fact they were lead to the Ancient because they were trying to dig up the dirt on Komiko's past.

The crew decide to tell Trilon that they heard rumours of the watcher and that following those rumours led them to an Ancient artifact (of which they have footage). Since no actual "talking" took place none of the recordings indicate that any conversation took place.

The crew spend the flight practising their new psychic powers. Robert tries talking to Clarence and looking through Clarence's senses. Clarence has infra-red sensing but Robert concludes it will need practice to process it.

Andi and Miho practice passing messages on objects. They discover that the more durable the object the easier and better the message takes.

Andi and Miho try to Aura Read Komiko's room and conclude that she never shagged Antonio. But beyond noting that she cried herself to sleep on occasion they don't pick much else up.

Andi plays with her computer based psionic powers and tries and fails to find anything of Komiko's. Andi has a look in Robert's computer and discovers he has kept a ceramic bug.

Miho experiments with her Energy and Field sensing skills.

They jump to Marazion and orbit round Snow Hope, an Ice Age planet with a narrow temperate zone. It has large mining and tourist industries. The tourist industry is based around ice age exploration and the hunting of drift grabbers. There are six species of drift grabbers which look like turtles with big jaws. They have superb thermal insulation which allows them to sit in snow drifts in a kind of torpor. If anyone treads on the drift they grab it. The bigger they are the better their thermal insulation hides them. The tourist board won't let anyone onto the ice unless they are armed with suitable machine guns. There are six colonies on the planet.

The Yeti live here and the crew considers trying to contact one. They were only recently recognised as sentient. They were always known to be tool-using but they have only recently been observed making them. The Yeti are ground sloths. They have a triple limb girdle, as all life forms on Snow Hope. They are rather unpleasant with big males that beat up smaller males and females. Robert wants a genetic sample which he gets without difficulty. Eventually he discovers they have not been upgraded. Latest studies suggest the Yeti have a lot of potential and are more intelligent than chimpanzees. There is one apocryphal story of a Yeti shooting a hunter with his own gun. There are research establishments. Trilon have a research base which is how Robert gets to see genetic records.

The ship finally reaches Trixie where the crew are debriefed without encountering too many awkward questions and then inducted into training for security jobs. Andi and Miho recall they wanted to access records at Trixie in order to discover both the criteria involved in their initial recruitment (and who decided those criteria) and to learn why Trilon relocated to Trixie.

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