Journal of Maria Santiago: Excerpt 5

My latest task has been to modify part of the ship to make Myjer comfortable.  With that in mind, Zephyr (through the captain, anyway) provided me with copious amounts of data on Myjer’s people’s habits and preferences and physiology.  I was able to recruit one of Susana’s scientists, a biologist, who has had little to do this voyage, other than go over our long-distance images of C-131’s history.

The first problem is that while on land Myjer’s people move in a manner similar to slugs (thus the moniker of ‘slugs’) their species is actually amphibious, with a preference for underwater habitat.  There, they move more like some manner of serpent, and the reason for their long body and skeletal system becomes clearer – the slug-like behavior, underwater, is used to cling on to rocks, or slide quietly around.

For this, I decided that I could partition off some of the unused living quarters, and then cut in doors from above to provide an underwater cave system which, from all reports, is the aliens’ natural habitat.

The second problem was a question of breathing and food.  The aliens do utilize oxygen, but require very high amounts of oxygen in their water, nearly to saturation.  This forced me to have an airlock system, as oxygen escaping from the water has a potential to reach dangerous levels for humans.  Food is even trickier, as they eat via filtration (in fact, Henrietta considers them to be closer to very mobile shellfish).  I am almost considering letting Myjer use his magic to prepare his food, as grinding up food and releasing it into the water seems like a messy enterprise.  They have switched to eating earth-stock plankton while on Telivoni, but earlier the humans fed them on a liquid diet.

The third problem is that, while above water, Myjer’s people prefer warm temperatures and high humidity, quite different than the cool temperatures and low humidity we keep here on the Astral Zephyr.  On the planet, this is not a problem, as thei ship chose to crashland near the equator, probably for this reason.  While I do not want our guest to dry out, I also worry about what the rest of the crew would think about maintaining tropical heat and humidity.  Further, the humidity would likely have a negative impact on both manufacturing and the science departments, not to mention our own engines (though we are in a fairly isolated part of the ship).  Additionally, it would probably require a whole new set of maintenance servitors picking up condensation and returning it to the air or into the plumbing system.

If Zephyr does want to make the ship comfortable for Myjer beyond his quarters, my current plan involves temperature and humidity containment thresholds all around all of Myjer’s areas, or, possibly, around all of the temperature/humidity sensitive areas in the ship.  If I do so, I might want to take the opportunity to prepare such thresholds in the event of other aliens with troublesome needs.