Authors: Karl Kofoed
Tags: #Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #Science Fiction, #space
Farthest Reef (21 page)
“I can hear him too,” Mary frowned. “But I meant from the dead one. From its guts, I guess.”
“And what do you make of it?” asked Ned. He looked around at Matt and Jeanne and the rest of the staff. The crowd had swelled to over a dozen people. “Anyone?”
Silence pervaded the room until one of the technicians raised a hand. Ned pointed his chin in the young man’s direction. “Uh … sir, I can’t answer that, but we have checked Mary Seventeen’s report of radio waves. There is indeed low level radio energy emanating from the debris of the creature.”
A meter or so inside the enclosure, barely visible amid the thick black fluff, were the remains of the click. Only its crumpled red and black wings lay there. Of the part that had been its presumed head and body, only a brittle shell remained, looking like crumpled paper. Inside and all around the corpse were lumps of yellow gelatinous foam. Alex noticed that the blanket-like wings had changed color. The crumpled black velvet wings were clouding over with gray spots, while the color of their red linings, actually a network of crimson and yellow veins, was fading.
Alex wondered what the bioteam would do about the corpse but chose not to ask. The incident had struck him hard. The moments before it happened played over and over in his mind. He remembered that the creature had seemed attracted to him and bumped the glass. “I wonder …” Alex was about to speak when Johnny Baltadonis arrived with Captain Wysor.
During the minute or so that it took everyone to greet each other, Alex whispered to Mary, “The critter moved toward me just before it happened. It hit the glass.”
“I was there, too,” Mary whispered back. “What of it?”
Alex bit his lip. “Do you think that I …?”
“… had anything to do with the click exploding?” Mary grinned. “I certainly doubt it. Aren’t you taking this guilt thing a bit far, Alex?”
Johnny walked over to them with his hand outstretched. “So this is all your fault, is it, Alex?” he said jokingly.
Alex stared at the Professor with his mouth open while Mary laughed out loud.
“What …?” said the Professor.
8
Professor Baltadonis, Ned Binder, and Captain Wysor returned with Alex and Mary to their quarters. A short time later Wysor’s wife, Abby, joined them. Before long Mary’s cat was padding deftly among the feet of a roomful of guests. It was as if an impromptu wake for the dead clicker man had convened at their house, though only Alex thought of it that way.
Johnny and the Captain were full of anecdotes about their isolation in the control room during the long trip to Lalande. His wife listened politely but spoke mainly to Mary of plans for a theater group she was forming. She asked Mary to play Titania in a production of “Midsummer’s Dream.” “That is,
if
we ever get to this place we’re going,” she said, looking at her husband and smiling. But Mary cordially declined.
“I’m not comfortable in front of an audience,” she said. “Besides, I can’t act.”
Alex gazed out the picture window at the curving landscape. “Excuse me, but didn’t we come here to discuss the click?”
Johnny nodded. “That we did, but it seems we were sidetracked. Is there something you wanted to say?”
Alex paused and thought. “I really don’t know what to say.”
Johnny smiled. “I think we all feel that way. Our best expert, Matt Howarth, thinks it was a natural occurrence. Perhaps they die that way.”
“We never saw any clicks explode in the reef,” Mary offered. Her comment seemed to end discussion of the click, and although Alex was burning to know what happened, he didn’t press the point.
“’e needs sleepies for tomorrow,” Captain Wysor’s wife said sweetly.
“I need the zees, too,” the Captain added, slapping Alex on the shoulder. “Soon we’re settin’ up shop on Bubba, right?”
“You mean we might actually get something to do?” said Alex sarcastically, glancing at Mary.
Johnny smiled. “As a matter of fact, you can bet on that.” He removed a data disk from a pocket and handed it to Alex. “Take a look at Bubba.”
Adjourning to the com room, the group gathered before the viewscreen as Alex loaded the disk. “You’re looking at telescopic studies of Lalande 21185b’s blue spot,” said the Professor, pointing excitedly at the center of the image. A deep purple patch of swirling cloud dominated the view. The color brightened as Johnny adjusted the monitor, compensating for the lack of light. “There you go,” he said, smiling at Alex.
Mary’s cat rubbed against Johnny’s ankle, surprising him. “Now we’re seeing through … cat’s eyes. Right, kitty?” he said, reaching down to stroke the cat. Inky deftly moved away before Johnny’s hand reached him, forcing an embarrassed chuckle from the Professor. “I guess not,” he muttered.
Alex stared at the dark swirling oval on the scene. “What do you think?”
“So far so good. The imaging boys have been studying these pictures and, well, they’re smiling about the data.”
“Then they think there’s a reef there?” asked Mary.
“Don’t pass out the cigars yet, Mary,” said Captain Wysor as he and his wife waved goodbye.
Alex saluted the Captain and his wife. After a few more cordialities they left by way of the tunnel cabs.
“So that’s why you’re all smiles, then, Johnny,” said Alex, turning his attention back to the Professor.
Johnny smiled. “We’ve already set
Goddard’s
insertion sequence. Bubba’s a few days away.”
Alex looked at Mary, seated on the sofa. “So we’ll be in free fall just about the time they fill the lake? Hardly seems fair to poor Mary. She’s itching to swim in Lake Geneva.”
The thought stopped Johnny cold. He blinked at Mary, who returned his gaze with an amused smile. “That’s right,” she said.
“Okay.” Johnny grinned. “Oh, well … there’ll be plenty of time for that. We want Stubbs at the helm. The orbit has to be secure. Radiation zones, X factors, a hundred other things need to be studied before we fuel up your ship. It may turn out that there’s nothing there. The good news, however, is that we don’t have to dive into Bubba to find out. The radar will tell us.”
“What does that translate to in days?” asked Alex.
“Weeks probably before a dive. A week before the lake is filled,” said Johnny, looking back at Mary. He studied her for a moment and smiled. “You can get out that bathing suit after all, Mary.”
“Bubba is much colder than Jupiter, isn’t it?” Alex had to touch Johnny’s arm to get his attention.
“It’s two times farther from the red dwarf than Earth is from the sun,” answered the Professor. “In short … yes, it’s damned cold.”
Mary was gazing at the purple spot rotating slowly on the view screen. “That means that a reef is a … a big maybe, doesn’t it?” she said. “Even doubtful?”
Johnny nodded. “That was the conclusion of the Extrasolar Mission committee. But they had a prejudice.”
“A prejudice?”
“The notion that the heat that drives the reef comes from the sun, in this case a cold red dwarf. But the heat that drives Jupiter’s spot is from planetary condensation, heat percolating from inside the planet. As long as the spot is there, we have proof of that kind of heat exchange.”
“But at what temperatures?” said Alex. “Jupiter’s reef was warm and wet fifty kilometers below the cloud tops.”
Johnny straightened and smiled politely. “Oh,” he said. “You’re wondering how deep we’ll have to go?”
“You must have done the math by now, Johnny,” Mary said. “We wouldn’t be here, otherwise.”
“True,” admitted Johnny. “But it’s still guesswork.”
Alex looked out the window at the trees. The great cylinder’s light had taken on a late afternoon hue. Even the birds seemed to be sensing that the day was about to close. He looked back at Johnny, whose eyes were also on the panorama outside. “So, how deep will we be diving?” asked Alex. “Care to venture a guess?”
“Maybe a hundred kilometers. Maybe less. We’ll know soon enough.”
“What if there’s nothing down there?” asked Alex.
“Then we look at Lalande 21185 C.”
Chapter 10
1
By the time the
Goddard
reached Bubba, the day and night cycle of the cylinder had its intended effect on the colonists. Activities had normalized to the point where people spoke of business hours and weekends. What was more strange, perhaps, was the question of time. It was the only question that brought strong and even passionate opinions from every quarter.
Goddard
had a clock, of course. It had been guiding the navigational computers and every other time sensitive device aboard. So there shouldn’t have been a problem when Stubbs, speaking from a hospital recovery room, suggested a Colony Clock be erected on the site of the first great meeting on Geneva peninsula. Neither the clock’s design nor its placement in the park were at issue. The problem was the time itself. People wanted to be sure what time it was. And they wanted it to be Solar time.
Alex shook his head in disbelief when Tony Sciarra told him that one camp felt that the ship’s computer should be the standard, while another camp was busy devising novel strategies to determine “actual” time. “We’re about to explore an alien planet and they’re worried what time it is?” He laughed. “They won’t put that in the history books, I’ll bet.”
Mary joined Alex and Tony at the window with two geebrews. “It’s all in the log, probably in red letters, Alex,” she said. “And considering how much people like to gloat about other people’s foibles, I think that’s exactly what’ll be put in the history books.”
Tony gave a polite nod as he accepted the brew from Mary. She stepped past him and touched the center strip of the window. It opened instantly, letting the warm breeze flood into the room. The air smelled fresh and clean. Mary leaned out of the window to get a better view of the lake. “It’s filling! I can see the foam at the end of the lake,” she shouted happily, bouncing on her tiptoes.
Like everyone else, Mary was wearing the colonial coveralls, but they did little to hide her curves at that moment. Finding Mary’s rear suddenly in action next to his hand, Tony took a step backward to get out of the way. “We can go down and watch,” he said happily.
Alex looked at Tony’s embarrassed expression and laughed. “Good idea.”
2
As they were leaving the house a courier arrived. He handed each of them a package and sped off down the lane on his minimalist scooter, trailing a flimsily built cart overloaded with packages. “Mail service. That’s new,” said Alex.
“Bracelets!” said Mary. “Little black bracelets.” Her voice trailed off in disappointment.
“No mystery, Mary,” said Tony as he slipped the black band over his wrist. “Locators. Baltadonis said we were all getting them when we got to Bubba.”
“Are they necessary?” asked Alex, looking at his suspiciously.
“Better if you wear them,” said Tony. “It’s not just a locator. It’s an extension of the ship’s computer. It’s a big place, guys. You’ll need them.”
“Oh, of course,” said Mary, snapping the locator onto her wrist. She continued her brisk walk toward the lake, pausing to discard the wrapper in a trash receptacle. Alex and Tony did the same and followed after her, examining their own locators.
The water hadn’t reached the beach when the three of them got there, but they could hear it well enough. It was coming from slats at the far end of the peninsula’s superstructure, gushing down the lakebed in torrents that leapt forward in overlapping waves. The sound of it echoed throughout the cylinder, growing exponentially as the seconds passed until it became a roar. The three of them watched, frozen in fascination, as the water passed the rounded end of the peninsula. It came from two sides and merged into a great dome of surging water that hit the shore in a great wave, splashing a group of onlookers gathered there.
“Oooops,” said Mary.
The water surged back, joined by more water flowing down from the other end of the lake, and rose again into a great dome that hung motionless for a moment, then flattened. Alex could feel a breeze as the first waves came crashing into the artificial sand. Farther out from the shore, he could see the reason large rocks had been piled there. They were soon to become islands where bathers could loll and swim. Foam canoes were already being assembled at selected places along the shore. The breeze grew stronger.
When the first wave hit the shore Mary began to run down onto the beach, but Alex grabbed her arm. “Let the lake settle for a bit, my love.”
A moment later a swell of water rose up as if from nowhere, inundating the beach, the grass, and finally the three of them. Mary’s shrieks mixed with the roar of the water as the three of them were swept far up on the lawn. The water drew back as quickly as it came. Tony and Alex grasped a bush and reached out to catch Mary’s hand. She found his first, and he pulled her to him and held on tight as the water receded.
“The water’s … salty,” coughed Mary, spitting violently. “Yuk! I thought it was supposed to be like a
pool
!” Her white hair was plastered to her face and her sodden coveralls leaked water into her boots. “Jeeps,” she said. “That wasn’t fun at all.” She sloshed toward their house.
“Salty it is,” said Alex, wiping his face with his sleeve. He got up carefully and lent a hand to Tony, who’d gotten entangled in the bush. “Are you okay?”
Tony stared back at the lake as Alex helped him up. “Do you think they meant that to happen?” he said, flicking a gob of grass and mud off his glasses.
Alex began to laugh. “Oh, I’m sure that was on the books to the letter. ‘Filling the lake, part four: Release a tidal wave that it drowns the citizens.’ ”
Tony grinned. “That was a pressure wave, Alex, not a tidal wave. It’s important to know the difference while traveling in other star systems.”
A general apology was made to all the victims of the near catastrophe, so called because no one was killed or hospitalized. The official explanation of the accident was that the flood doors had released too much water at once. But the true story was related later by Johnny, who visited Alex and Mary in their com room. Standing next to their picture window surveying the scene outside, Johnny shook his head. “You two have all the fun, don’t you?”
“It’s a gift,” said Mary, entering the room in a bathrobe.
Alex was seated on the sofa, also wearing a robe. He had tuned the wall monitor to see what was going on with the Bubba survey. In hues of blue, clouds and streamers were moving slowly past
Goddard’s
telescopic eye. Alex held up his arm. “These locators you gave us, Professor,” he said. “Are they waterproof?”
“Yes,” said Johnny. “Sealed in polycer. They run on your bio-electric fields.”
Alex went to the food panel for some coffee. “So what happened with the lake?”
Johnny smiled. “The official story is too much water, too soon. Which is basically true.”
“But …?” said Alex, eyeing the Professor.
“Well, the peninsula was added to the lake at the last minute. They wanted a meeting place that would have appeal. But they just plain needed more room. It seemed a logical choice to put it there, but unfortunately the work was completed too late to test the hydrodynamics of the shore line.”
“Seems to me we’ve had our test,” said Alex, grinning.
Johnny nodded. “That’s the trouble with last minute changes.”
“This whole operation has been last minute.” Alex rose to his feet. ”Why were you all in such a damned hurry? It couldn’t have been the war on Earth … or the funding. You’re fully equipped. Had been for a while.”
“The mission was going to be canceled, Alex,” defended Johnny.” Or at least delayed indefinitely.”
“Why?”
Johnny sighed as he gazed out the window at the soaked landscape. “Earthcorp had second thoughts about Lalande. They concluded it was too cold for life.”
“Well, Alex and I were wondering the same thing,” said Mary. “Why choose Lalande when you could have chosen a normal … warmer star? There are plenty out there.”
“Lalande is an old system, Mary. And it’s only eight and a half light years from the Solar system. Epsilon Eridani was Earthcorp’s choice.”
“Okay. What’s wrong with that? Why not go for Eridani?” Alex asked, walking to the window.
“True. Eridani is warmer. It may even have a liquid moon. But it’s ten and a half light years from our sun. Lalande offers two relatively close gas giants for the price of one.”
“But they’re all cold and frozen,” said Mary.
“You should know better,” said Johnny, waving a finger at Mary.
“Johnny’s right,” said Alex. “That blue spot means condensation is still going on down there. And it’s been going on a long time. This is an old planet. Something
could
get started down there … something like our reef … only much older.”
Johnny smiled and nodded. “Exactly. Cold is a relative thing. Personally, I think it’s warm as toast down under those clouds. So does Stubbs. And, by the way, it was Stubbs who made the decision, not me. But I agree with him wholeheartedly.”
Mary shook her head. “I still think a sun more like ours would be a better choice. If it turns out to have a life zone with a watery moon … That means colonies. Who knows?”
Alex shrugged. “Mary has a point.”
“Stubbs and I have nearly been at blows over this,” admitted Johnny with a shrug of his shoulders. “I see merit to both arguments.”
“Well, now that we’re in the Lalande system, it really doesn’t matter, does it?” said Alex.
“That’s right,” said the Professor. “Now may I have a coffee?”
The afternoon light was taking on a pinkish hue. They all ordered light dinners from the food panel, and while they ate, little further was said about the mission. Outside, mechanical sweepers and a team of gardeners laid down new sod where it had been washed away. Rain sprinklers, mounted on slender green poles that reached high above the trees, were left running to leach the salt from the soil. The three of them watched the work progress as the cylinder gradually darkened to night.
Inevitably the subject of the mission returned. “Thinking about what you said, I see your point,” Mary said. “But what if both planets are dead worlds?” The view of Bubba had changed on the viewscreen several times during the course of the evening as the
Goddard’s
scientists continued their studies of the planet.
“Dead worlds?” The Professor thought for a moment, sipping a geebrew. “They may all be dead worlds, whatever destination we choose.” Johnny sat down at the com and swiveled the chair to face Alex and Mary. “The most important aspect of this mission is to see if we can get to a star and back. Lalande is the best choice for a maiden flight because it’s the closest planet that fits our objectives. Other flights will go to other stars. Eventually they’ll explore all the nearby extrasolar planets. For a shakedown cruise, I think Lalande was a good choice. And the cold factor makes it all the more interesting.”
“Interesting is right,” said Alex, looking at Mary who rolled her eyes and nodded in agreement.
Johnny raised his cup. “I salute two undampened spirits.”
Alex raised his brew, as well. “Here’s to one less clicker man.”
“So sure it’s dead?” asked Johnny.
“Things that explode usually are,” mused Alex.
Outside, the light reddened to a sunset glow that reflected off the lake. “I beg to differ,” said the Professor. “Plants are my specialty and I know of several varieties that self destruct to propagate.”
Mary looked at Johnny. “Could that have been what I heard?”
Johnny nodded. “Perhaps.”
Alex went to the food panel and ordered another brew. A message light came on above his finger, indicating that his nightly ration of geebrew had been exceeded, but it was delivered anyway. Alex bowed to the panel gratefully. “I’ll try to do better next time, ma’am,” he said sarcastically.
Johnny noticed Alex staring at the blinking red message. “Ration message? Not to worry. It’s our computer’s conscience talking. But we’ll all have to comply pretty soon if the rationing system is going to work.”
Mary looked at Johnny. “The radio static coming from the clicker man stuff. Are you saying that was his seed I heard.”
“Matt thinks so. After you reported it, Mary, they began monitoring the radio static. At first the fluff seemed to be drying it up. Now there are little cigar shaped clumps of fluff all over the floor of the cell.”
“How many?” asked Alex.
“Hard to count. A couple dozen, maybe.”
“Dozens?” Alex smiled and looked at the window in wonder. “Amazing.” His eye caught a light moving behind the trees, an ultralight aircraft, lit from the street lights from below and from the faint red glow of the great lights above. Two forward lights aboard the craft swept the ground. He had the impression it was observing the walkways near the buildings. The window was open but all he heard was the sound of the large transparent wings cutting through the air. “Night flying?” said Alex.
“Shouldn’t surprise a moon surfer like you, Alex,” said Johnny, looking out the window. “The place is perfect for ultralight aircraft. Earth air pressure … well, almost. Martian gravity below and weightlessness the higher you go.”
“Where do they land?” He could see the aircraft lights in the distance. He moved closer to the window and saw that there were at least seven of them flying very high, some only a few meters from the central column. He watched one as it turned and dove, then leveled out a hundred meters above Geneva Island where it disappeared from view. “The peninsula?”
“There’s a hangar directly under the administration building.” Johnny looked up as another aircraft buzzed overhead. “The ones flying low are security patrols on a practice run.”
Alex frowned. “Ready for everything, eh? What type of criminal are you trolling for out there?”
“We’re a long way from home,” said Johnny. “You never know what people will do.” He regarded Alex with a bemused expression.
Alex found Johnny’s gaze uncomfortable. The Professor was the first scientist Alex had told about his discovery of Jupiter’s reef. He had been in on it from the beginning. Then a terraformer on Mars longing for adventure, he had coveted Alex’s discovery and made an unsuccessful attempt to take credit for it. Still, because of his relationship with Stubbs, he had become a liaison and a partner in the exploration of the reef. In the end Johnny had gotten his adventure and enough credit for his part in exploring the reef to satisfy anyone. With an estranged wife and a daughter on Mars, Professor Baltadonis was happy enough to take the position of Chief Botanist and Assistant Administrative Director of the mission.