Luo felt that it had been a very, very long time since she had been this happy, or this relaxed.
She had taken a long vacation—the first she had had in nearly a century. Although she had temporarily put aside her research projects, she had also set down the troublesome management work, the mountain of problems piling up along the commercial routes, the difficult clients, and the nerves that were always wound tight.
In a daze, she felt as though she had gotten far away from those "boundary relics" and forbidden knowledge that could take lives on a whim. It was almost as if she had never come into contact with them at all. She felt as if she had returned to her school days, when she had guarded a dilapidated observatory on the remote, desolate planet where she grew up and watched the stars. She still remembered how a scholar from Terra had passed through and given her a seed collected from the highlands of Mela-IX. She had planted it in the empty lot beside the observatory. When the season of drifting clouds arrived, the alien flowers would bloom brilliantly, radiating a star-like glow at night...
Mushrooms were so delicious, and the grilled fish was delicious too.
There really were some strange and wonderful things in this strange valley.
She had made a new friend, a human—everyone here called her "Big Golden Hair," an affectionate nickname. Big Golden Hair had taught her how to catch fish in the river, find the kind of mushrooms in the forest that let you see little people, and sneak into a giant snake's nest to steal fruit. They had also gathered branches to build a fire and cooked food in the most primitive way...
There was no advanced nutritional management system, nor were