YOTUN HAD A rather modest government structure for it was a land of wilderness that needed little control. The population was tiny in a few well-fenced settlements. The occupants mainly administered to visitors, issuing hunting licences and ensuring disclaimers and waivers were duly registered. It was a simple way to make money and avoided the legal hassle when things went wrong, which in Yotun they often did.
The one government flitter, very much a patrol craft used to ferry remains of unfortunate hunting clients who failed the vigorous test of the land, the ability to survive overnight outside the settlements, would also on very rare occasions be used to investigate some unexpected phenomenon like a plague of ravenous squirrels, fairy sightings or a dirty great meteorite impact crater near the Drang Swamp where meteorite craters were quite unexpected.
'You down there, please remain where you are while we find a survivable place to land,' came an amplified voice from the skies above.
'Bloody regulators,' Keepert muttered again.
Helpfully Matchbie pointed to the crater centre, being an obvious spot as it was a flat and wide clearing. Admittedly bits of it still burned and there were clouds of purplish vapour floating about that might be poisonous, but it seemed a nice ready made landing site.
The flitter duly obliged and bounced down on heat-resistant tyres. They were teeth-resistant too of course.
The two men who got out and stood on the topmost step of a flexible gangway were dressed head to toe in silvery garments more associated with transcendental circus performers than regulators. One of them waved a fat, gleaming glove.
'That you Mattie Keepert? Why I thought you'd been eaten by ravenous squirrels years ago. Cancelled your licence myself. Stamped it beast food by way of conclusion.'
Still clutching the heavy rock, the veteran hunter staggered forward a bit.
'Well as you see young Roj Scratchin, I most particularly ain't beast food. Lost count of how many times them critters out there in the Drang Swamp tried to end my existence. Didn't you get my skin quotas last season?'
'Afraid not. Unless it was a small pile of squirrel tails someone found hanging from a tree one time during a patrol, that same patrol what searched for his Mightiness the Lord of Smackt who went missing. Never found the poor chap. Bit of a diplomatic incident with Mangoria to settle nonetheless.'
'The squirrels got him,' Keepert said, looking around. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he stood there. 'There's a trick to survival on the Lost Plateau,' he added in wheezing tones, 'and he didn't know it, being from that there grassland place out east. They breed them tough there, but Yotun, that's tougher.'
'I can see his bones,' Matchbie added helpfully from a distance.
With that, Keepert turned slowly to look at his companion, a young lad he had taken under his wing as well as making use of his uncancelled licence. The expression on his face was one of wonder. Then he pitched forward and died.
'Well,' Roj Scratchin said, taking a couple of careful steps down the gangway and signalling his partner to bring the equipment he knew they needed. 'It looks as if the old hunter finally met his match.'
'I can still see his bones,' Matchbie said, as if he thought they meant him.
'Seriously hot rock,' Scratchin's partner added, ambling forward in his silvery suit. 'Some meteor from a way out orbit. Must have passed through the radiation belts beyond Serenity dozens of times and picked up a dose of the lethal stuff if I'm not mistaken. Best you keep back lad. We'll give you a good rinsing later. Right now though,' and he pointed a device at the rock where it lay, having fallen from the old hunter's grasp when he collapsed. It immediately began screaming all sorts of warnings. 'Looks like we'd best secure that little thing there before it does any more mutational havoc.'
'What is it?' Matchbie said, his voice choking a little for he had grown fond of the cussing old man and his odd tales of ravenous squirrels on the rampage.
'A piece of the sky which shouldn't be here,' Scratchin said.
'No,' and the other peered a little more closely at it. 'Meteors don't usually have writing on 'em last I looked. Especially disclaimers.'
'Unless there's a factory of them, up there,' and Scratchin gazed up at the sky. From a distance some tentative howling had resumed for that great glowing moon was still up there beyond the teeth of the hungry.
'Tell me, lad,' the other said as he watched a wheeled machine trundle over to pick up the rock, 'did the thing say anything, you know, after it landed?'
'Well,' Matchbie said, 'I couldn't be completely sure, what with all the other sounds going on, roaring fires and popping rocks and the like. Embarrassing to admit, but it sounded like something to do with minty bits. If you did not try it, so the thing insisted, missing out would be like the end of the world. Seemed appropriate really, I mean with dirty great chunks of the sky falling down like that.'
'Frangea?' Roj Scratchin said and the other nodded.
'Possibly,' he admitted and just briefly he felt a primeval urge to howl at the moon himself.