ahem.
Let us test the waters.

And no, just wrote it so it can be better, well, hopefully so?
And don't you laugh.

==

.

It was time for action. The planet studying found them, to its satisfaction, developing nicely. The genes Royal wondered about were necessary to its communication, and all new arrivals would somehow, sooner or later, need them installed. It allowed Planet to communicate on a direct mode and also share the individual experience. Planet wasn’t benevolent, its viewpoint was more of the pragmatist, but it did have some redeeming qualities.

For one thing it had strict conservation laws, killing for food was natural, and when growing up for training too. But killing for the mere fun of it was frowned upon. If repeated Planet would try to correct the behavior, even go so far as interfering with the gene base. It had a very good, even if mostly behavioristic, knowledge of gene-interaction, mostly based upon its manipulations of a large representative of races. Some refused to stay corrected though, becoming something of a nuisance but in the end, it was all part of life. So far it had been quite impressed with its visitors, they seemed to be following much the same rules as Planet.

Then there were the suits. Planet had long ago stopped differing between organic versus non-organic life. In its experience both could be as unpredictable, and both could express admirable traits. Also it found non-organic materials easier to communicate with, less bothered by emotions. Although it still had a preference for carbon based life, as shown by its choice of wild life, it was very accepting. Planet had several species of life, some domesticated, other just manipulated, and a select few only cajoled into behaving. You could say that for Planet life was a hobby.

Jeff was sleeping.

He had the weirdest dream. He was walking down the street beside a man with his arm torn off, riding a skateboard. And only he seemed to react to it, none of the others he meet even giving it a glance? Now and then he found himself looking over the street, over the house roofs, to the mountains behind. He knew that one day he would have to go there, even though the time had not come yet. Then he found himself in a room, with the man on a bed bleeding profusely, him talking with something that looked like a man, but that he knew only presented him with an appearance. Hiding behind it was something else, terrifyingly potent. Like a blackness constantly crackling behind the skin of the face, eruptions of magma boiling inside invincible fissures, just waiting to crack open.

“No, I tried to stop him.”

Behind the communication Jeff dreamed there was something else. For the first time the Planet had established a direct connection to them, now fully occupied with enlarging it’s collection of memories. It had few problems with Janelle, finding her a treasure trove of information but with Jeff it met a stone wall. No matter that the genes were there, it still wasn’t allowed in? So, searching for a way in the end it found itself forced to negotiate. The baffling thing to it that the one it negotiated with wasn’t there, only Jeff?

When the morning came everything seemed much the same to Jeff, his dreams once more retreating into the shadows. But as he started to talk with Janelle there was something new. It was as if she wasn’t really there at times. She talked and laughed, being as normal as usual, then she would stop in the middle of a sentence. Almost like someone turning of a switch, to then start talking again, as if nothing had happened. He wasn’t the only one noticing it either. For the first time since they had landed Royal was worried.

“Jeff, something strange is going on.”

“Yes, I agree.”

“Janelle is acting strangely, I need to get her inside, but she refuses me.”

“Do you want me to talk to her?”

“Yes please.” That had to be a first, Royal asking nicely?

In the end Janelle yielded to their combined persuasion, getting into the suit, allowing herself to be examined by Royal. After doing some preliminary testing Royal still couldn’t find anything wrong with her. It wasn’t until later, as he compared her gene base to the one he had stored of her previously, that he noticed.”

“Something has activated those genes Jeff. They're becoming dominant. I better do an analyze on yours too, as soon as possible. In the meantime I think we’ll need to keep a closer eye on Janelle, I’m disturbed by the way she behaves.”

The succeeding weeks Jeff couldn’t help but noticing it too. She was fast turning into someone he didn’t recognize, outwardly much the same her lust for exploration seemed suddenly to have died? Now she seemed perfectly happy with being where she was, the silent mourning for her parents replaced with a need for, kids? Suddenly she was planning for a family, a real one? And her home seemed all forgotten. Anyway, they were both too young for settling down, at least he was. And then there was this sudden happiness, her smiling, even singing by herself. It was getting on his nerves, and a very different Janelle from the one he knew, it had started to scare him, badly.

As for Planet, it was starting to rethink its procedures, it had gone about as usual with Janelle, adapting her to her environment, but now? It started to suspect it had made a mistake in that. It seemed as the others had noticed the change, and to have them aware too early could bring havoc into its orderly planning. It already considered them inhabitants, at least Janelle, and had great hopes to breed a new and interesting strain of carbon based life from those two. Then there were those intriguing negotiations too.

But, no matter, it already had secondary plans set into progress.