The waiter made a contented flourish with the serving tray, then moved off toward other business.

“So, we have obvious volcanism on display in this quadrant,” the man in the sensory was saying. “There are some other signs to that effect from the… let’s call it a wadi. That means we may just find either glass or some varieties of rock having vitreous qualities. Good and bad, depending on what sort of tools or materials suit our needs.”

The person swung back, gazing down into the wadi. It was a barren and vaguely sandy-hued kingdom.

“But most significant is the fact that, statistically speaking, we’re very slightly more likely to find natural thaumaturgic sources - or other features beneficial to making and deforming Hiek machines - in substrates that lean toward glass-heavy composition. At least with this facet’s other properties taken into account.”

The hand sticking out in the direction of the cracked valley abruptly caught fire, heat licking across its surface in waves as the minute particles and microscopic organisms and such on its surface were consumed. Fortunately, this illuminated the part of the ridge immediately in front of the speaker. Below his feet, a steep drop-off that had been granted the vagaries of shadow jumped into slightly greater contrast; a good sixteen or seventeen meter fall. One of the aaneds made a low apprehensive sound.

“Now,” the voice added, “we want to get down there fast, but not quite THAT fast. Let’s go the longer way around.”

To the tune of a few harsh cackles from the almost-reptilian patrons, the projection of the sensory clambered along the ridge a bit farther. After finding a couple of ragged-sided steps that dropped in more manageable quantities, the man began going over the imperatives of finding a place to stay the night, given the planet’s extremely long day-night cycle. He noted that the wildlife was both magically-talented and (in the case of the predators whose cousin he was wearing) highly aggressive. This lent importance to finding and taking a defensively strong nighttime refuge. He clambered down the desolate slope one hop at a time.

“Making straight for the little plateau over there probably wouldn’t be a good idea under other circumstances,” he expanded about ten minutes and a small time-skip later. “It’s not going to end well, though, if we claim some different spot and it just makes us better-visible and tastier game for the hungries of the wild. We need defenses. If you remember the… misadventures on facet Iar-Twenty-Eight-Al-Three-Thousand-Five-Hundred-Sixty-Two-Grus-Six-Thousand-Twenty-Seven-Iar-Twenty-Two-Hundred, you’ll probably recall how much a well constructed abbattis can help keep the bumpers-of-the-night from gnawing on you. Don’t have an awful lot of time to go all-out, though, sad to say, so no real abbattis for us.”

A rearward look up at the sun showed it very, very slowly going down. Not long, probably, before it submerged in earnest - the slope toward the valley was already turning dim as the burning ball dipped over its edge.

“So, since we’re already on the topic of the merit of ideas, we’re going to get a little creative. Humans, and you other tree-climbers out there: what’s going to happen now is what we call a ‘very bad idea.’ Too many other critters have decent tree-climbing ability for it to be safe unless it’s done the right way. But with a strong knife… well, we’ll see.”

A blade came fluttering up from the speaker’s belt region in a wide swooping arc without the aid of a hand or other obvious physical force, smacking into the meat of his palm. One of the viewers said something vaguely deprecatory under their breath, and the human customer snort-smiled into the remainder of his wine.

“Step one, we get up into the higher reaches of - let’s go with THAT tree. Assuming it’s a tree, of course. However, we’ll test that momentarily.”

On the plateau of interest, the knife’s tip directed the watcher toward a singular droopy titanic example of what looked to be local vegetative life. Its crooked limbs forked away toward every point of the compass at a consistent seventy five degree angle, so thick that it looked like a brush or comb or feather from a distance.

The knife dropped a little down the field of the speaker’s viewing frustum, and there was a small grunt. A rock gritted against the air in a lax hundred meter parabola down toward the tree. One of the aaneds opened her mouth, possibly to make a wager with her drinking partner, while another voiced a subaudible incredulous exclamation.

“Thock,” said the tree, as it received the present of a rock and didn’t care for it enough to hold onto the gift. One of the aaneds gave a whoop, another snorted and derisively announced that the sensory producer had obviously used a trajectory solution utility.

“Now,” announced the narrator, as the knife went down and the trek toward the tree resumed, “I’ll admit that I cheated a second ago with a scan, after letting off the stone. It’s either a tree or some variety of equally sessile life.”

Groans, and a smile from the human customer.

“Of course, you can’t just count on that in real life if you get stranded out here without a cerv-mesh. Doesn’t cover all our bases, either - could still have a potent chemical secretion covering its exterior, or it could be a very contrived glamor magic on the part of a very successful ambush predator, for example. Rock-throwing often flushes out such wildlife, but not always. That, sadly, is something we’re probably going to have to chance. In fact-”

The run-on of reasoning halted, as a cratered metallic sound came from the narrator’s left.

“Ah,” said the voice, with the sort of misleading outward calm that indicates a banked reserve of momentary terror just around the corner. “You see, THAT I didn’t pick up in a scan.”

A disbelieving laugh from several of the aaneds. Turning in the indicated direction ever so slightly, one didn’t have to work hard to pick out the crenellated shape of something armored and eight-limbed. It was probably at least twice the mass of the human who had received the full extent of its attention.

“Right, well,” peeked out between the laughter’s peaks and troughs, while a small slice of the tavern’s other clientele checked out the commotion’s source. “Time to go, very fast.”

The voyeuristic customer finished his wine, looked to ensure he’d gotten every drop, and ruffled his hair after leaving an exorbitant tip. He didn’t need to stick around and watch the end of the little media drama. He remembered the debacle, and how that stupid octoped had jumped him. It had all worked out in the end, though the way it had truncated his left leg could have ended nearly as badly as anything else he’d experienced on the journeys of his mixed-reception career.

That thought - as well as thinking about how badly agitating his condition might have become under the wrong stars - put a twist in his pleasantly bemused mood. As was long the case, his lowered morale put him on the path toward other easy drops in his morale, and his mind defensively swung toward the duty for which he’d volunteered.

The image of Gegaunli came into the forefront of his mental canvas. A snarl began to form.

But of course, we can’t blame the researchers. So blame the deity.

Oh, she really did own part of the fault in the emergency commandeering of her planet; suborning minds was a grave offense. And his upset at the enforcers of law wasn’t really fair - they were just the cogs doing that which part of the machine of the Jon’s Court demanded, on the behalf of other people from the Jon’s Court.

His mandible clenching with annoyance, the human customer picked himself up both mentally and physically, and quick-stepped for the exit.

“Thank you very much for your patronage, sir!” said the greeting-spirit at the entrance. “Have an excellent day!”

“You’re too kind,” said Eihks Richard, and - to his discredit - he managed to mean it with all his heart.

He stepped out of the pub, onto the sidewalk, moved toward the nearest of Rhaagm’s public transport facilities, and vanished into the city.