The Marketplace. Different peoples had different names for it – to the Genii it was Cynosure – but that was what they all boiled down to. It was simple, direct, and descriptive, as that was what the world primarily was. It was a hub, where the traders and merchants of dozens of worlds met to do business and where the occasional traveler passed though on the way to somewhere else. As is usually the case with such crossroads, a sprawling settlement had sprung up, carved out of the jungle-woodland to service the visitors' needs – be it for a bed, a meal, a drink, or company. There were even a few small warehouses for rent.
With all that on offer, most visitors didn't stray beyond the settlement's unofficial borders, where the cleared area ended and the heavy forest began. Few other than inquisitive peoples like the Genii – or, as they were known here, the Tyrians – bothered to go venturing out to see what was there. But Genii inquisitiveness walked hand in hand with their acquisitiveness, so they knew a bit about this verdant world.
There'd been a civilization there once, one advanced enough to build large complexes of cleverly-fitted stone, and with leisure enough to adorn them with elaborate and intricate carvings. But whoever they'd been they were long gone now, their legacy just ruins being inexorably consumed by the tentacle-like roots of the Ilang trees.
Had Ladon been of a more philosophical bent, or lived in a place and time where such tragedies weren't an everyday occurrence, he might have mourned the loss of all that that unknown people were and might have become. But he was a human in the Pegasus Galaxy, where genocide was part of life, and wistful regret a useless frivolity. So, when he walked into the central plaza of the old ruin, he saw only broken stone.
Having spent practically his entire life underground in either the main bunker or the cavern complex that served as his lab, the Chief Scientist of the Genii always felt vaguely naked outdoors. Even with the massive trees towering on all sides and extending their branches overhead, he had the sensation of being exposed. The armed soldiers bracketing him ahead and behind helped, but he still didn't like it.
Normally he didn't go off-world much, items deemed of interest were brought to him for analysis instead, but this was a special case. Something on this world was interfering with radio transmissions, and he was here to find out what it was.
Him and a couple of muscleheads. Ladon sighed inwardly. He wished Dahlia were here, but she was hard at work on the atomics, and he didn't want to distract her. The other scientists he could have brought along were either helping her or had projects of their own. He could have ordered them off them and with him, but outlander technology was his specialty, and it seemed like a straightforward enough exploration.
At least it did until from off in the distance came the faint but unmistakable predatory keening of Darts.