Read Online Return to Eden by Kaitlyn O'Connor - Free Book Online Page B

technology would be, but certainly worth recording.
Lifting his arm, he used the camera on his computer to collect some
images, frowning when he saw there wasn’t enough light to record as
clear images as he’d hoped. Still, he reminded himself, he thought
they’d be able to make out the regularity of the form and see that
it wasn’t a natural cavern but one that had been designed and
constructed.
    He still needed that damned satellite!
That was key to proving the species that inhabited this world was
technologically advanced. No one could dispute that they were
higher life-forms if he took something like that back!
    If he could get back.
    The onboard computer had indicated that
it was still capable of controlling the crash landing, though.
Hopefully, there wouldn’t be any damage that couldn’t be
repaired.
    He decided there wasn’t any point in
worrying about that, now, though. He needed to focus on collecting
whatever evidence still existed to prove his theories. Then, if he
had to, he thought he could hang on in these underground tunnels
until the colonists came—somehow.
    That could take years, though, and
didn’t bear thinking on. Even with the acceleration of the
evolutionary process, it still took time to complete the
cycle.
    He was sorry now that he hadn’t paid
closer attention to just how long that process took, but then again
it differed with each planet they terra-formed. Some, like this
world, were already habitable—just not particularly
comfortable.
    Of course, now he knew that the poor
air quality and excessive levels of methane, carbon dioxide and
carbon monoxide were due to the inhabitants’ poor husbandry of
their world. Or he suspected that was the cause. He didn’t know
that for a fact—there were natural explanations for the poisoning
of the world—but they’d nearly destroyed their own world in their
wastefulness before they’d wised up and cleaned up and developed
less wasteful and destructive ways of living. He thought it was a
good guess that Anya’s people had done much the same—used up
resources as if they were infinite.
    It hit him abruptly as he turned to
look at Anya again that he’d been so focused on his own concerns
that he hadn’t considered what the terra-forming meant to Anya and
her people.
    It was the nanites’ job to break
everything down to enrich the soil and air. He’d never considered
what they might do to anything manmade—or unnatural. He didn’t
think anyone else had either, but it seemed obvious that they were
going to erase any evidence of her people’s civilization long
before his own people arrived to colonize.
    That didn’t bode well for Anya’s
people. He didn’t know how he could’ve been so focused on
collecting evidence without actually considering the other side of
why it was important to gather it while it was still possible, but
he couldn’t deny that that had been the case.
    Not that there was anything he could do
about it that he could see—not for Anya and her people. If he
survived and managed to get proof back, it might help others on
other worlds, but Anya’s civilization would be gone and the biggest
majority of her people with it if any survived the terra-forming at
all.
    They’d never stopped the process that
he knew of. Could it even be done?

Chapter Five
    Anya was ready to drop by the time
Aidan stopped to rest. She’d muttered complaints for a while—for
all the good it did. She doubted he would’ve paid her any attention
if he’d been able to understand, but since he didn’t the
complaining served no purpose at all beyond relieving some of her
frustration.
    Like the cussing.
    She wasn’t prone to it. She rarely let
her frustrations get the better of her. Somehow ‘shoot’ and
‘dog-gone-it’ didn’t seem powerful enough to vent the sort of
emotions she’d been experiencing lately, though.
    She was still uncomfortable that she’d
used the ‘f’ word and he’d picked up on it—partly because she