"There is nothing here with intelligence," Ven agreed, gesturing at the specimens in front of us. "Although they're obviously related to our race, they're quite incapable of constructing those artifacts we saw on our way down."
"Or of building electone communications or even airboats," I added.
"I expect that there is only one way to get what we want—and that's to go looking for it," Ven said as she smoothed her antennae with a primary digit. "I also expect," she added acidly, "that there might have been other places from which it wouldn't be so hard to start looking. Or did you have to set us down in this isolated spot?"
I glared at her and she flushed a delicate lavender. "Do you think I landed here because I wanted to?" I asked with some bitterness, inflating my cheek pouches to better express my disgust. "There were less than two vards of useful fuel left on the reels when I cut the drives. There isn't enough to take us across this valley. We came close to not making planetfall here at all."
"Oh," Ven said in a small voice, vocalizing as she always does when she is embarrassed. Like most females, she finds it difficult to project normally when she is under emotional stress. Afraid or angry she can blow a hole in subspace; but embarrassed, her projections are so faint that I have to strain my antennae to receive them.
Her aura turned a shamefaced nacreous lavender. I couldn't stay angry with her. She was lovely, and I was proud to be her mate. The Eugenics Council had made an unusually good match when they brought us together. The months we had spent aboard ship on our sabbatical had produced no serious personality conflicts. We fitted well, and I was more happy than any Thalassan had a right to be.
"We shall have to try other measures," I said. "Although there aren't very many natives hereabouts, we had better start looking for them rather than wait for them to look for us." I felt disappointed. I was certain that we made enough disturbance coming down for them to be here in droves, which was why I had the robots camouflage the ship to look like the surrounding rocks. There could be such a thing as too much attention.
"They could have mistaken us for a meteor," Ven said.
"Probably," I agreed. "But it would have saved a great deal of trouble if one of them had come to us." I sighed. "Oh well."
I added, "it was only a hope, at best."