"It's the Vulcans all over again." Michelle Gibbons griped.

"I'm sorry?" Rudy asked. The samples of the long grass didn't look smug or stand-offish.

"We crossed 20 light years, and bio-chemically speaking we may as well have landed in San Diego." Michelle said.

"I could have told you that." Gradieaux said, "Our Expedition One did not carry eight years worth of emergency rations. I have been living off native vegetation and animals for the last eight years."

Jon Dou looked at him with a blank expression. "Fortunate for you that you didn't get sick and die."

"Oh, I got very ill, in the early going. Then I picked up the clue. I killed a hunting party of those 'orrible little monkey things and examined what they carried for food. That got me through." Gradieaux explained.

There was brief moment of silence.

"Fucking murderer." Rudy said. "Thank you."

"It was them or me, little man." Gradieaux said coldly. "Perhaps instead of all this, how do you say, political rightness? Correctness of the politics? Anyway without such weak little notions interfering we can proceed with the task of taking this planet as our own more directly."

Michelle, Jon Dou and Rudy looked at Gradieaux in stunned shock.

"DO NOT BE NAÏVE!!" Gradieaux raged. "All of human history has been a battle for survival and dominance. One race against another, one culture against another. You cannot argue with history! We are killers. Perhaps it is sad in an academic sense that the Monkeys out there in the trees have encountered an organism superior at killing, but nothing can change that now. The Humans have arrived and all else is doomed."

"Not this time." Rudy growled. "Not if I have anything to say about it."

"Nor I." Michelle said

"Time to leave old baggage behind," Jon Dou confirmed, "and that's you Jaques."

Gradieaux laughed harshly. "You go ahead and tell yourself that. Our grand children will be herding those creatures into camps, and their grandchildren will be studying their stuffed carcasses in a museum." He shrugged eloquently "It is merely human nature."

"Maybe you should go lie down." Jon Dou said. Her bedside manner was colored by anger.

Gradieaux grinned. "Obviously, my ordeal has taken a toll on my social skills." He went back into the aft of Expedition One.

"People, you may want to look at this." Martin Kerensky called over the intercom. "Starboard side, aft quarter."

The explorers went to the open hatch and peered out.

Long shapes were moving though the grass.

Gradieaux grunted. "Enh. Cow Snakes."

The Cow-Snakes were huge. A good deal more squat and fatter across than any terran snake, the Cow-Snakes were still almost waist high and several stories long. As they slowly slithered, they ripped up mouthfuls of the plains grasses and chewed it in a very cow-like manner.

Six of the creatures, plus a smaller one were approaching the landing site.

Michelle turned to Gradieaux. "Are they safe to approach?"

Gradieaux nodded. "If they are injured, they thrash about strongly. They are strong enough to crush you in an instant, but you must inflict great pain for them to be motivated to move so."

Michelle raced back inside to get her sampling kit. "I'm going to get samples!"

Kerensky, about 8 feet up on the gunnery blister looked unhappy. "Is this necessary?"

Vasquez appeared. She looked very comfortable with her gauss rifle in hand. "I have your back, Dr. Gibbons."

Hamilton got one of the gauss rifles from the rack. Checking it quickly he joined Vasquez.

She looked at him "You know how to use that thing, flyboy?"

Hamilton grinned wryly "I figure I can distract 'em until you kill 'em."

"Don't shoot the cow snakes, Apparently they thrash when injured." Michelle cautioned. Having all her equipment, she bombed out of Expedition One and down the stairs to the ground.

Hamilton took a position on the stairs about halfway down, so he had height, but was out of Vasquez' line of fire.

Vasquez took position on the top of the stairs where the outer hatch made a good observational platform.

The Native grass crinkled and brushed as Michelle walked through it. The sun seemed no different than back home, shining brightly and warming her skin. A breeze wafted across the plain cool and carrying interesting smells. Michelle suppressed an unprofessional urge to go "mmmmm." And run around.

She set out to walk the fifty or so yards to the approaching animals.

She stopped and drank in the outdoors and then carefully made herself calm inside. Michelle's experience suggested that animals tended to pick up moods, and extreme emotions provoked extreme responses.

Michelle approached the lead cow-snake, slowly, thinking friendly thoughts

The Cow-Snake stopped moving forward.

Michelle stopped and looked the creature over. The resemblance to a Terran snake was superficial. This one's head was a whole different shape.

The cow-snake gathered itself and then lifted its forward end. Michelle could hear very solid clicks and drum like thumps from it's back as it did so. Michelle marveled. It seem to be able to voluntarily lock some vertebrae into a rigid configuration.

The cow-snakes head was about as big as hers. It hovered in the air about eight feet up. Then it leaned gently forward to Michelle. Face to face, it peered through brown, soft, curious and stupid looking eyes at Michelle.

Michelle peered back.

The cow-snake sniffed through very snakey looking nostrils. It slowly edged closer and sniffed more thoroughly. Almost touching Michelle it snuffled.

Michelle sniffed back. It smelled like dirt, and something else. Not unpleasant, but different. Michelle was mainly sniffing to give the cow-snake acknowledgement. "We're sniffing each other. We're getting to know each other."

The cow-snake slow reared back to its height. It made a noise. A deep, repeating blatting noise.

"Sounds like air-brakes on an old truck." Hamilton said over his rifle, which was aimed at the snake.

"Or a Deuce and a Half down shifting." Vasquez said over hers.

Michelle watched and could almost see the realization crawl across the cow-snake's brain.

"You're not food….
You're not a predator……
Not my problem."

The cow-snake settled back towards the ground with audible popping and crackling as it rearranged its spine. Avoiding Michelle by the minimum necessary clearance, it continued towards Expedition One.

Michelle reached out and touched the skin of the passing animal. It felt like warm, living linoleum. A shiver ran down the length of the snake.

Michelle fished equipment out of her gear. A small glass bottle, and metal scrapper. Michelle scrapped the side of the cow-snake for a skin sample. Another shiver was all the awareness the snake showed of the procedure.

Michelle approached each member of the herd. Apparently having seen the whole exchange with the leader, the other adult cow-snakes thoroughly ignored Michelle. She was able to touch them, take samples and move around them at will as they slithered at the rate of a slow walk.

The smaller one reacted differently. It raised itself to approximately 6 feet in height and peered at Michelle with the same sort of dim curiosity shown by the herd leader.

Michelle stopped to let the younger cow-snake take its sniff. It did so sniffing Michelle curiously.

Then the younger cow-snake put it's nose on Michelle and pushed.

Taken by surprise, Michelle staggered back a couple of steps and sat down.

Hamilton, Vasquez and Kerenski all places fingers on triggers and prepared to let fly.

Michelle stood back up slowly. The younger cow-snake was reared up, simply watching, with its head tilted to the side.

When Michelle was standing again the cow-snake slowly extended its nose towards her again. Michelle set her self and pushed back.

The cow-snake easily pushed her down again.

As Michelle got up the young snake-cow raised to seven feet and made a large noise. What came out was a sort of a falsetto hoot. "ORK!" the cow-snake said.

As Michelle got up again she understood. "It's playing." She said, grinning.

The young cow-snake peered at her with joy lumbering through its dim, slow brain. "erk." It said. It nosed towards her again. Michelle stepped aside this time. The cow-snake swept sideways with its head.

The cow snake swept Michelle several feet to the side and with a flick of it's head launched her through the air. Michelle flew a good distance and hit the ground rolling. Michelle grunted as she struck the ground painfully.

Once again fingers brushed triggers, prepared to fire.

Michelle struggled to her feet. "I'm okay. I'm okay." She said. That throw would leave bruises.

"ORK!" the young cow-snake hooted again.

"You play too rough." Michelle said.

The cow-snake started to rearrange itself to approach its new toy again

"No, I don't think so." Michelle started walking back towards Expedition one.

"Erk?" the young cow-snake, said.

"No more for today." Michelle walked a touch faster towards the ship.

With great, heaving sigh the young snake cow accepted the fact that play time was over, and settled back into the important business of eating grass.

As Michelle climbed back up the stairs to the main deck, Jon Dou was there. "Are you all right?"

"Just a little bruised up. They're really strong."

-*-

About half an hour later Michelle leaned back from her lab bench. "Wonderful. Great."

Jon Dou and Rudy looked at her.

"We could eat 'em. They might as well have evolved on Earth. DNA, and the bio-chemistry, enzymes, hormones, they're all right there." Michelle explained.

"You don't sound to happy about it." Rudy said.

Michelle shrugged. "It turns out that molecular Xeno-Biology is a load of crap. That Zoology and Physiology are the sciences of tomorrow. Years of study, down the drain."

Jon Dou said "I'm worried about the implications of this. This means that diseases and predators will work just well on us here as they do on the native life forms."

Michelle nodded.

Rudy looked out the window. "I'm pretty sure that those cow snakes aren't like anything on earth. And those people in the trees are different. There's a whole planet of new creatures to discover and catalog. It's not like you won't be busy."

Michelle grinned. "No, not at all."

Just then there was a large, rough sliding noise along the hull of the ship. Expedition One settled very slightly towards the starboard side.

Everyone ran to look. Out the windows, a large tummy with huge lateral scales could be seen.

"It's climbing on the ship!" Hamilton said.

-*-

The muffled rubbing booms were constant now.

The lead cow-snake was cheerfully wrapped across the starboard half of Expedition One and was aggressive rubbing on pieces with his nose.

"I think he's trying to shed his skin." Michelle noted.

Hamilton looked unhappy "We're already lost some RF antennas and I'm getting failure lights on the Starboard side landing gear. If he keeps this up. We'll be stranded."

Vasquez came back in the half occluded hatch. She had to squeeze by the side of the lead cow-snake. "I've been hitting it." She held up the butt of her Gauss gun to demonstrate. "It doesn't even seem to notice."

She went to the tool locker and pulled out a standard Digging pick. "I'll make it notice."

Gradieaux stood up. "You don't want to do that. If you stick that in it, it may think a raptor is attacking it. The defense of these beasts when attacked is to thrash and roll."

Hamilton paled. "That wouldn't be good for this thing's re-sale value."

Kerensky looked grim "Then that settles it."

Michelle looked very unhappy as she understood Martin's intention. "Do we have to?"

"Can you think of a way to discourage it in the next five minutes?"

The booming rubbing continued.

Michelle shook her head. "Not without maybe provoking that thrashing response."

"Are you sure it won't thrash when you shoot it?" Hamilton asked.

"No." Martin said. He climbed up the ladder to the flight deck.

Martin climbed back into the gunnery blister, and armed the weapons. Gauss guns, like the hand carried ones but much larger.

Martin moved the guns around, the electric servo motors whirring.

The cow-snake laboriously curved itself around to investigate the noise. When it saw the tips of the weapon barrels, the cow-snake looked intent. Here was a very definite protrusion to rub on!

As the cow snake approached guns Martin trained the gun on the cow-snake's eye. Glowing cross hairs on the canopy marked the spot.

Martin tapped the trigger.

The gun made a buzzing noise, and the lead cow-snake's head exploded into a horror show of blood, gore, broken bone chips and shredded tissue.

The gunnery blister was covered in a bloody mess. Expedition One settled back to level as what was left of the cow snake rolled and slid limply to the ground.

Down on the main deck, blood spattered the windows. The heavy thump of the dead animal hitting the ground announced its location.

Belatedly the other cow-snakes realized something was happening. They sniffed at their dead heard leader. Discovering after painful minutes that it was dead, the next cow-snake hooted a frightened, urgent hoot. The cow snakes turned and fled, at the speed of a quickly walking man away from the alien space craft. They hooted with fear and sadness as they fled.

Everyone sat through the slow motion retreat stoically, not saying a word.

"Oh, no." Gradieaux sneered at long last. "You are not killers at all."

"At least we shall have plenty of fresh meat until the Raptors appear this evening." He pointed out.

Vasquez looked thoughtful "Snake ain't bad."