Page 18 of Alien on the Moon

And even without even taking into account the HR nightmare of the crown prince’s sister-in-law dating a coworker, their job was to prevent mass starvation. Would they become too distracted by each other to actually solve the crisis?

Rylan shifted, lazily opening his eyes to study her face. “Good morning.”

All the blood rushed to her cheeks. “‘Morning.”

Stretching luxuriously, he pressed a kiss to her lips and got to his feet. “So, should we get breakfast before processing the soil samples?”

“Together?” she squeaked, cursing herself for how high her voice rose in pitch. This was new territory for her. Usually, she would sleep with a guy, and they would go their separate ways in the morning.

And she liked it that way. Being around people was exhausting most of the time, and the Thyrals could be especially frustrating. Because she was the prince’s sister-in-law, they were always cordial, but she could tell they thought she was just some yokel from a backwoods planet who had no idea what she was talking about. Rylan was one of the few people who she thought could never be exhausting to be around.

He paused, his pants hiked halfway up his thighs. “If you want,” he said carefully, as though he was defusing a bomb. “We don’t have to—”

She cut him off. “I do.” Laughing, she sat up. “I really do. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”

The muscles around his shoulders visibly relaxed as he flashed her a relieved smile and pulled his pants the rest of the way up. “Understood. I know I’m not someone befitting of your rank, so if you—”

She blinked. “What?”

“You’re the prince’s sister-in-law. You may not be noble Thryal blood, but you are one of them. I’m a commoner, though, which means I am beneath you.” He looked confused as he explained, as though he was answering a question that should have been self-evidential.

Elena got to her feet and took his hand. “Rylan, you’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. If anything, I thought you’d be embarrassed to be seen with a weak and lowly human.”

“So, neither one of us is embarrassed by the other,” he said, handing her the bra they’d discarded during their night of passion. “I’m glad we cleared that up.”

Breakfast was far less awkward than she feared. Several of the other scientists gave them knowing looks, but out of respect for them, or more likely, for the prince, they didn’t say anything.

After eating, she began running the samples, searching for any microbes that may be responsible for depleting the soil and cross-referencing them with the diseases that the Thryal staple crop, bral, was susceptible to.

After a few minutes, the results came back. No microbes were causing a blight in the soil. In fact, there were barely any microbes at all.

A hunch was beginning to form in her mind. The soil had all the correct nutrients, but with the low variety of organic matter, she had a sneaking suspicion that the problem may lie in the overspecialization of the terraformed land. After all, where were the insects and other animals? There was no real food chain.

When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone, it may have seemed counterintuitive at first, but all species from the lichens and willows to the beavers and even their primary food source, elk, benefited.

Terraforming may be starting from scratch on a new planet, but the plants themselves didn’t know that. Like fruit trees on Earth that still produce massive seeds for long-extinct megafauna, the bral was failing to thrive because they expected a different environment.

“Do we have any samples of soil from Thryal up here?” she asked one of the experts in soil enrichment, Kyn.

She blinked. “Why would you need that?”

“I want to get a baseline for what makes bral thrive on Thryal along with whatever plants or animals are important for its survival.” She gestured to some of the research on her computer. “Getting a bigger picture of the environment might be the key to figuring this out.”

“I’ll send it to you,” Kyn said and disappeared to another part of the lab.

While she waited, Elena began looking at other terraforming projects. Most of them were outright failures, and those that weren’t were too expensive to be maintained enough to be useful. The costs outweighed the benefits.

When she received the soil analysis, all her theories were confirmed.

“What are you looking at?” Rylan asked.

Elena jumped. She had been so focused on her theory that she hadn’t heard him approach. “I’ve just been thinking. Maybe we’re approaching terraforming the wrong way.”

“How so?” He pulled up a chair to sit beside her.

She gestured to the open tabs on her computer, all pertaining to the environment and the need to balance various elements in the ecosystem. “Everything is so specialized and laser-focused on this one specific crop. Remember how I mentioned those Milpas yesterday?”

“Yeah, you wanted to look into polyculture practices as a solution.” He furrowed his brows. “But I don’t see why that means we’re terraforming the wrong way.”

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