Deathworlder species!
The air tasted different, away from the Observation Area. Here on the other side of the planet, there was almost no sign of human presence at all. Or, really, any sapient presence, either.
This part of the planet was mostly grassland, which surprised him. George had been under the impression that the planet had only recently gotten past the primordial soup level. “What happened?” he asked the tech.
“Bio-breach,” the tech replied. Her name was Rhonda, and her shrug was perfectly human. “Something dropped a bag of grass seed, it scattered in the wind, and here we are. You know how Terran life is.”
“Yeah. Insidious.” George looked around. “Still, a planet’s big place.”
Rhonda laughed. “Yeah, and terraforming’s a big operation. Whoever programmed the ‘bots gave ‘em a lot of leeway for getting the operation in on time. You know how it is: ‘On time, effective, cheap…”
“…‘Pick any two.’ Sure. So they cut corners?”
“From what I saw from the notes, they didn’t care about corners at all.”