Stark Industries, Monday

[endsthegame]

All right, the hooves had been manageable, but Ender couldn't say he was particularly sad they were gone.

He made it to Stark's relatively late for his standards for reasons that were no one's business, and set up his laptop. Jane had happily informed him yesterday that there was new Formic data coming in from the colony, but he hadn't been able to access much of it because of, well, his hooves.

So that's what he was doing now: pulling up schematics from the colony in the back room, studying the new data. It wasn't much, but for Ender, that was more than enough to spend a whole day on.

[[ open! ]]

Comments

[momslilassassin]

"Ho, kreetle," Ben said, grinning. "I have food that isn't hay, clover, or apples!"

[endsthegame]

"I appreciate it," Ender told him dryly.

[momslilassassin]

Ben leaned in to kiss him because he'd missed doing that this weekend. "Hi."

[endsthegame]

Ender smiled, then kissed him again. "Had a good day so far?"

[momslilassassin]

"Better now," Ben replied a little sappily. "You?"

[endsthegame]

"Busy day is more like it," Ender said, ruffling his hair. "We had some more Formic data coming in. It's not all that much."

Ben should know what level of preoccupation that implied.

[momslilassassin]

Ben smiled fondly. "In that case, eat now while I still have your attention."

[endsthegame]

"I can focus on lunch while you're here," Ender argued. "Don't worry about it."

He'd just have to put some effort into keeping his mind from wandering, that was all.

[momslilassassin]

Ben's lips quirked up again as he reached for a sandwich and sat down. "What have you learned so far?"

[endsthegame]

"The xenobiologist thinks the Formics might have done some minor genetic engineering," Ender said, reaching for a sandwich mostly so Ben wouldn't wind up harassing him about it. "Which makes sense, considering the extent to which they terraformed planets."

[momslilassassin]

Ben nodded thoughtfully. "Right," he said. "What did they modify themselves to do?"

[endsthegame]

"Not themselves, but the species they brought along," Ender said. "Most specifically, the plants - the orchard they found."

[momslilassassin]

Ben frowned. "Modified to produce more, then? Bug resistant?"

Beat.

"Not Formic bugs, I mean."

[endsthegame]

"They're still trying to figure that out, and so am I," Ender admitted. "They'll have to cross-reference the clearly altered parts with other local plants, as well as ones from Earth. These are just the initial discoveries."

[momslilassassin]

"That's still pretty astral," Ben decided, munching on his lunch. "I mean, they were obviously pretty sophisticated already with the terraforming an the space flight, but learning new stuff is always exciting."

[endsthegame]

"Very," Ender agreed.

There were few topics he'd sound this enthusiastic about. "I'm trying to help out by running a few comparison analyses here," he added.

[momslilassassin]

And Ben loved seeing the way Ender lit up when he was excited, so even if he hadn't found the Formics fascinating (which he did), he would have kept asking questions.

"Need any help?"

[endsthegame]

"I wouldn't mind a second pair of eyes," Ender said. "Especially since you've seen more alien foliage than me."

[momslilassassin]

"And most of it never tries to eat me," Ben added, grinning.

[endsthegame]

"Most being the operative word," Ender said, getting back up. "Come on," he added, nodding towards the back.

[momslilassassin]

Ben gathered up the lunch things, then followed behind.

[endsthegame]

If Ender noticed him gathering up lunch, he hadn't commented on it. Instead, he was busy booting up the holographic interface. "If you want, I can start forwarding you the updates," he said. "I'd have to confirm with the xenobiologist that it was okay, of course, but I can't see why not."

[momslilassassin]

"Sounds astral," Ben agreed, casually handing Ender his sandwich once his hands were free. "Do they know I have some experience in their field?"

[endsthegame]

Ender took the sandwich, but didn't really do anything with it. "No," he admitted. "You haven't come up so far - we just talk about the state of the colony and the state of the research."

[momslilassassin]

Ben didn't look surprised or hurt to hear that--he hadn't made his relationship with Ender explicit to any of the colonists either. "I'm not exactly trained with a degree or anything anyway," Ben hedged. "It's more practical experience than anything."