Xenobiologist

Dr. Mitch studied the alien plant. It had grown larger than expected, given the planet's gravity, 1.2 times that of Earth's. He poked one of the large pink pods coming out of it. It must have been a fruit, similar to an apple, but it was nearly twice as big as a watermelon. It was also bright pink. He debated cutting into the plant and taking a few pods home to his lab, but his pack was already filled with several other strange looking fruits. Each one of these fruits were multicoloured; the fruits colours were purple, white, black, yellow, and a few different varieties of green. He couldn't even zip the pack all the way up.

"Ugh, I will get you tomorrow then." He said as he stood up, wondering what it tasted like. He saw one of the local xenomals, the name his mission gave to alien animals, eating the fruit. The xenomal was one of the ones that looked like a cross between a antelope and a snake. It had the horns and legs of the mammel, but Dr. Mitch and his coworkers guessed that it was a cold blooded creature, due to slow it was during the colder days. It also had the scaly skin and eyes of a snake. However, his team had not had the opportunity to capture and disect one of them. The xenomal had grabbed the pink fruit with its large neck and pulled it off. It then used its hooves to crack open the outer layer and then licked up the inner flesh of the fruit. However, it bolted away when Dr. Mitch had gotten out of his hiding spot.

Dr. Mitch had one last look at the fruit plant with its large pink watermelon like pods, and then he started back for the lab. The hour long walk back was a bit uneventful, he saw a few more of the snake/antelope things, Snakelopes? But, he did not get to see the whole flock of nearly 50 beasts that he and Dr. Adam saw a few days ago in the same area. Dr. Adam insisted on calling it a flock despite it looking more like a herd. There was not a single feather amoung them. Adam was the xenobiologist focused on animals, while Dr. Mitch was focused on the plants, so Mitch went along with it. Dr. Mitch snapped a few pictures of the xenomals, but they were not high quality.

He got back to the lab, located at the bottom of a mountain surrounded by alien plants with a sealable capsule in the mountain. The capsule was there in case of a disasterlike an earthquake or volcanic eruption. So far they had not needed to use it. Mitch climbed over some the wooden barricades they had put up, so protect the local wildlife from the highly electric fence that surround the lab. He reached the electric fence's door and keyed in. The door opened and he walked in, looking around to see anyone. Nobody, he must have been the first that got back from the daily expedition. He went into one of the lab buildings and took off his suit, which included a helmet even though the planet's air was breathable. He set his pack on the table and started sorting the fruit. It was only then that he noticed the sweet smell coming off of them. It made his mouth water, and remainded him of sweet strawberries.

Without thinking, he picked up the yellow fruit and took a bite.