"Damn it!" Carus swore, dropping one of his tools in surprise as he felt something small skitter past him. Reach glanced over, shooting him an odd look. Rose had noticed too, but she had simple snickered to herself and quickly gone back to work. The colonists were surveying one of the Mireh fields- which to Reach and Rose was boring, dull and tedious work. Carus had claimed that it was important, and that the colony should be responsible with their environment and resources. He had insisted that they take samples of the dirt around the Mireh outpost, testing the land's fertility and viable for farming. So far, he hadn't been pleased with the results. "One of those *stupid* Huldah again." Carus snapped, picking the tool back up as he watched the small creature run across the field before disappearing into a hidey-hole in the ground. Rose shrugged. "There's quite a few of those around here." She seemed to think it over, "Actually, that does bring to mind- if we want to grow crops here we'll need to get rid of them. Or at least, cull their numbers some." ((This particular field didn't look to be in great shape. If Rose

remembered correctly, Quartz had accused a herd of animals travelling trough of eating all of the grass, and leaving the field muddy and trampled. That certainly looked to be the case, and Rose could still easily make out the shape of hoofprints in the mud. For the most part the traces had been washed away though, faded by rain and other critters passing by.)) Carus sighed, rolling his eyes. "For now, I'd appreciate it if they could just- stay away from me." Reach chuckled. "That's not really how that works." Carus glared at her. "I don't care whether it is or isn't- I'm trying to work here." Rose rolled her eyes. "Oh woe is you. I don't know why you're surprised that there's nature while you're researching nature, really." Carus didn't take kindly to that, but stayed quiet nonetheless. "Well, either way- I have to agree, if we want to start farming here we'll have to take care of the vermin first." Rose and Reach shot eachother a look. Clearly their more science-oriented friend here was not a fan of Huldah. "Well, hunting Huldah is really just- not worth the effort, all things considered. Not a lot of meat on

them, nor pelt." Carus shrugged her off quickly. "We'll set some traps, regardless." Reach frowned. "I mean, they multiply so fast, and this is an open field- it'll be hard to get rid of them." Carus didn't seem to listen, already rummaging trough one of the bags they had brought along and pulling out some traps. "We should set these out around the field- hopefully it'll at least scare them off." he claimed, passing both Reach an Rose a bag of the traps. Rose quickly noted that they were meant for indoor use- made of parts that would quickly rust when exposed to the elements. She doubted that Carus would be open to the criticism though. The belemoid himself had already walked off, occasionally readying one of the traps and dropping them into the field- not even bothering to check if it had landed right side up. For supposedly being a renowned scientist, he surely was not proving his intelligence. Rose shrugged at Reach. It didn't seem like Carus was going to change his mind about this. She supposed that eventually, he'd see the error of his ways. For now, though- she supposed that all she could really do was

follow orders. She was sure that the three would be back here later, though. All in all, Rose would be surprised if they managed to catch any of the huldah like this, and Carus was not known for giving up easily. It would be a painful chore to get the Huldah out of the area, but it would also be far easier than taking down a herd of Hojenst so at the end of the day Rose didn't mind all that much. If anything, it'd be funny to watch Reach and Carus stumble around, trying to grab the small swift critters.