Laskar's Crystals

Over the years you had encountered many strange and unexplicable 'legends' but the one that had intrigued you the most had always been that of strange alien creatures being the first to colonise the Earth. You had come across variations of this 'theme' in such places as southern India, darkest Africa and deepest Peru and ... until now ... shrugged off each and every one of them with the same disregard. However things were about to change and your contempt for all things alien was about to be replaced by a sense of wonderment concerning the 'explorers' from the stars that had made journeys to the most primitive parts of this globe. Journeys that made your own trips of exploration seem nothing more than a stroll across your own home street.

They had arrived in fantastic machines, capable of speeds unknown to mankind, and guided by a technology that man was yet to hear of. They had brought little more than the barest necessities of life with them, adapting themselves to suit the conditions they found on Earth and relying on their own 'life-support' systems to allow their natural body functions to operate as near to 'normal' as possible. Such a system was responsible for keeping alive the alien creature that you were to encounter on your latest trek in the rain-forest of the central Amazon basin.

So you packed up your equipment and headed for the safety of your camp-site. Once there you settled down to write up the day's notes and to catalogue your various findings. The night was warm and muggy and your head felt heavy with approaching sleep when a gasp of breath caused you to arise from the small trestle table at which you were sat and to peer out of the small opening in the wall to your left. What you saw lying on the ground was something that was about to cause you to embark on your greatest adventure yet ......