It doesn't take long for Dirt to vanish into the forest, off to gather the clan leaders. I walk up to one of the trees, resting my head against the cool white bark of its trunk. Even though I've only been gone a day, I already miss the soothing atmosphere of their shadowed depths, the comforting embrace of a leafy canopy overhead.

Naturally, the peaceful moment is almost immediately ruined.

"Chief," Huckens says fearfully, "why do the trees remind me of skeletons?"

"They possess a certain boney quality, lad, that they do," Chief Engineer MacWillie agrees quietly, hand still pressed to her side.

I spin around to face them.

"They're just trees! Haven't you ever seen trees before?"

"I've seen a number of trees on a number of worlds, Sky whatever you are, but I've never seen a tree like what you're calling one."

"Chief, the bottoms of the leaves look like blood!"

"It's a tree, Huckens!" I snap irritably. "Healthy trees always have bright red leaves underneath. That's how you know they're healthy."

Overhead, the leafy canopy rustles, as if agreeing with me.

"Sky," Chief Engineer MacWillie coughs, a short bark of sound that leaves her doubled over and grimacing in pain, "do you mind if the lad and I have a look at your 'trees' while we wait?"

"Of course you can look at them. They're trees. There's nothing special about them. Just don't cut them down."

Chief Engineer MacWIllie slowly straightens into a half crouch.

"Understood. Lad, hand me the multi-dimensional spectrographic analyzer."

Huckens digs into the bag attached to his belt and pulls out a twisted contraption covered in small rods and circular dishes. I try not to gawk at the fact that it's twice the size of the bag.

Non-causal storage space. Same as what we just acquired. Told you it was useful.