Saulente Stopover
In reply to Linus Spruance (msg # 108):
The crew and passengers seem to appreciate Linus' efforts.
Although the expedition only had one dedicated astronomer/astrophysicist, Dr. Goezghae, all the other scientists also had skills to assist in this phase of the expedition. Thus the scientists were kept very busy.
Of the scientists, he saw the least of the female Vargr, Dr. Goezghae. She was the expedition's astrophysicist and astronomer. Until they located the mothership she would be very busy! Her specialty was astogeoloty, specifically asteroids, and was familiar with the construction of asteroid ships throughout the many thousands of years of history in Charted Space. Normally pleasant, she occasionally snapped at Linus but apologised, blaming overwork.
Dr. Heinrich Chandragora, a Solomani, was the next busiest. He was the expedition's technologist and expert in Sky Raider technology. Dr. Chandragora also had a grounding in gravitics and physics and aided Dr. Goezghae in using densitometer readings to detect the mammoth Sky Raider mothership's gravity signature. He was a well-established member of the Institute's faculty and a longtime associate of Lorrain. It was his work on Mirayn and using the data recovered from the Sky Raider craft on Qarant that led to most of the breakthroughs involving Sky Raider technology.
The expedition's anthropologist was Dr. Lurushar GIlenkaar. There was some allegation that he plagiarised some of the elder Dr. Messandi's work on the Sky Raiders. But those concerns were put aside due to need of his skills and experience, which are still the best in the Institute. His involvement was helping Dr. Mirost in develop a model for interpreting sensor data. He didn't have as much to do as the others but kept to his cabin.
Dr. Vledistart Mirost was a liguistic archaeologist. He mainly programmed the model for interpreting sensor data. The model was already complete before they left the Institute on Alzenei but needed adjustment and tweaking. As such he was quite busy.
The expedition member Linus interacted most with was Dr. Talia McKenzie, another Solomani. He knew her from their adventure together on Mirayn, and she was another old friend of Lorrain's.