Z’s Reviews > Alien Clay > Status Update

so as to reassure the Commandant that yes, humans are still the apex

Arton, tipsy at this point, goes to help her but ends up basically saying that any creature on Kiln would be symbiotic as they’ve seen already, so the stomach is its own independent creature, if it had feet it would be the same, so anthropomorphism can be achieved but it would be a group effort not individual

Commandant requests the team for dinner to present their findings and he’s scientific enough to be curious and actually read all their reports but orthodox enough to think he knows what the answers are, confirmation bias basically

Dr. P gives a rough sketch of what she thinks Kiln creatures who built the structures look like and it’s a mockery of science taking alien features and pasting them on a humanoid body

Dr. P says ancient Kilnish used this highly efficient solar collector as power source that they’ve cut down in order to maintain contamination

But Arton makes a notes that decontaminating Excursion teams every 3 days and not each time is not keeping quarantine but limiting exposure, one guy didn’t survive the last gassing cuz it killed a foreign part that was so deep inside he was using it

In the lab, Arton is working on ID and tagging an alien piece and it seems they are all endlessly unique, one tech saying it’s almost like there are no species or recurring patterns, Dr. P insists there are

A new ruin is discovered, black rosettes are unique to the structure but not the surrounding forest, they track the sun;

He tells Clem who’s on the Labor team that their printer log is not monitored since everyone’s busy making sure to kiss ass or not let someone overthrow them, so he printed out three parts

Arton discusses w Clem (Kiev) and it’s refreshing for him to think again, about the cognitive dissonance between mandate and science, that humans want to be right and deserving of what they got so they find a philosophy that proves it, and this science adjusts as we learn more about the world but doctrine is resolute

Dr. Primatt pulls Arton from his boring data analysis to look at a slug-like alien

After dissection it makes that creepy wail the same one that answered the test subject

The Commandant sometimes sends out signals to see if Rasmussen answers, the first scientist to Kiln who would be over 100, the Dr explains the planet is in her and won’t let her die

Meets Dr. Primatt who asserts her authority quickly and shows him a fellow prisoner who was exposed to one of the alien life forms that couldn’t be decontaminated off him, so he’s tortured for science, the man sounds liquid and is asking where are you? Speak to me; an alien hooting somewhere replies

He thinks it’s human loneliness in an alien species

She explains a sample man stole bridged the gap between species

He even gets into a fist fight w a old friend Ilmnus and has to say it wasn’t him that turned him in

And to make matters worse he’s assigned Dig Support which is considered the cushiest job

Seasoned vet Kiev makes an example of him publicly to diffuse the tension after his special treatment, it’s a secret but they know each other from being in the same activist cell

MC meets Commandant Terolan the boss on Kiln, he tells MC there’s evidence of art, written language and solar power and wishes his comrade survived so he’d have two ecologists

Now that he’s publically met w the commandant you can imagine how he's viewed by the other prisoners w resentment, and many of them fight w anxious thoughts of who turned them in etc that the Mandate exploits