T-026 Trader

Threshold Institute · Case file T-026

Number

T-026 in the catalogue

Kind

Creature

Class

Class I: harmless while it is left alone

Found

Year 28, month 9, day 6

Where found

The ruins south of the copied camp beyond T-001; later in other ruins, and once at the Institute

Status

Contained

Now

At the lab and in the rift

Part

Part III: Going through (the places and creatures)

Containment procedures

None are needed while it is left alone. Teams may trade with the trader. They must log every trade, item by item, and must eat nothing it gives them and carry nothing it gives them into a cell block. No member of a team raises a weapon to it. A trader that follows a team back through T-001 is held in an open cell on the sealed level, its door unlocked, with a cloth and a crate, and is not to be studied by force.

Description

A calm figure, tall, thin and wrapped, its face never clearly seen in any report. It sits in the open with goods laid out before it on a cloth, speaks no language and attacks no one, and the other creatures beyond T-001 go round it. It trades: it takes what it is given with care and gives food, medicine, tools and lamps in return. Its goods turn bad. Its food spoils far sooner than any food should, its dressings rot in the pack, its tools and lamps fail within days. It is the only creature in this catalogue placed in Class I.

Discovery

The twelfth survey, under Lina Dahl, met it in the ruins south of the copied camp (T-025), sitting on a crate in the open. It did not run and did not come at them. When surveyor J. Rask raised his rifle, it waited. When he lowered it, it held up a tin. It was the Institute's first contact beyond T-001, and it was filed as such.

Addenda

Addendum T-026-1

trade log, Year 28, month 9, day 6. Kept by L. Dahl

Trade 1. Given: one box of rifle rounds. Received: one tin of food, one roll of dressing, one lamp.

Trade 2. Given: one canteen, full. Received: one bundle of dried meat. The trader drank nothing. It set the canteen beside it with care.

Trade 3. Given: one survey map, dated. Received: nothing. The trader looked at the map for some time and gave it back.

Day 7. The tin from trade 1 opened at the anchor: spoiled. The dried meat: spoiled. The dressing smells of rot.

Day 14. The lamp from trade 1 has stopped working. Its parts show wear we would expect after years.

Addendum T-026-2

note by T. Rehn on the file, Year 29, month 2

I kept one of its tins under watch on the sealed level, sealed, beside one of ours. Its decay was steady and far too fast, and it did not slow when the tin came back through T-001. I do not believe the trader rots its own goods. Its manner is too careful for that: it sets a canteen down as if it might break. I think its stock has passed near something on the way to it. I mean to find what.

Addendum T-026-3

incident log, Year 29, month 8, day 3

A trader followed the fifteenth survey's team from the ruins to the anchor and through T-001 when the anchor took them home. It came out in the containment chamber, sat down on the floor and laid out its cloth. The response team stood down on the order of the Director. It was led to an open cell, and it went. It has stayed there since, and trades with the staff who come to its door.

What followed

Rehn spent two and a half years looking for what spoiled the trader's goods (see T-030).

Previous fileT-025 The copied campPart III: Going through (the places and creatures) Next fileT-027 StatuePart III: Going through (the places and creatures)

In the file

• People: Tomas Rehn, Lina Dahl and J. Rask.
• Places: The containment chamber, The sealed level, The cells and The land beyond the rift.

In the game

The note you find in the game:

Year 28, month 9, day 6. Met by the twelfth survey under Lina Dahl in the ruins south of the copied camp, sitting on a crate in the open: a stooped figure in a long coat under a pack of goods. When the surveyor J. Rask raised his rifle it waited, and when he lowered it, it held up a tin. It was our first contact beyond T-001.

It carries guns, medicine and food, and will not say where it found them. It trades fairly, even generously, and harms no one. Struck, it flees; it will not deal again with whoever struck it.

What it gives does not last. Within a day or two the food rots, the guns seize and the rest falls to dust in the hand.

The cell was opened to trade with it, twice. Status: contained.

Today it is found at the lab and in the rift.

It goes down after losing 1200 ml of its 3800 ml of blood. How it hunts and where it turns up: see the zombies page.

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