She looked at her Number Four. “While I appreciate your diligence, Number Four, you would be well advised to ensure that your chain of command is informed of events of such importance in the future. Please send my executive officer and me a full report of steps taken to ensure the safety of the surface teams. Number One, please follow up with Number Four and review all provisions for isolation and decontamination. Once completed, arrange for an inspection of surface resources.”
There was a hesitation again before she heard a response. “Chief, there are two teams on the surface beside ourselves. One is the team working on the issue. They are working from a temporary shelter with Level Three decontamination facilities. We also have a construction team composed of personnel from Crew Engineering and a small group of pioneers with appropriate experience working on a permanent installation in the same location. Their shelter is also Level Three. The surface bio team is collecting local air samples and running lifeform simulations to assess biological similarities. They are working within Level Three isolation protocols and have supplies enough to stay on the surface for nine ten-days.”
Gods of Fortune, she thought to herself. The team was ahead of her five ways from First Day and they hadn’t bothered to “bother” her. Typical of research types- more interested in subject matter than lines of command. This time some anger crept into her voice.
“All the more reason to expedite the reports I have requested. I expect a full record of events, from the date of detection to the present, with staff analysis and incident accounts, two cycles from this moment. I am not happy that a team deployment was made without my knowledge.”
She paused. “Ask the team leader for an estimate of resource requirements as well. They’re probably enthusiastically struggling on by themselves without considering the magnitude, the urgency, or any of the requirements of the problem.”
She couldn’t see the faces of her team, but her entire staff appeared to be chastened by her words. “Yes, Chief. By your order.” Her exec’s words were echoed by her Number Four.
“Do we have a plan for reporting? Silly, of course we don’t. Coordinate with them on a schedule for transmission of analytics to us. Is there any information on the likelihood that permanent settlement will be possible?”
“The surface team is in the preliminary stages of evaluating the potentially dangerous biologicals. Their current assessment is that long-term habitation by our settlers will be possible. As I understand it, they expect to have a more definitive assessment in approximately ninety local days.”
Cute, she thought. And typical. They’ll finish just as their supplies run out. They hope.
“Make sure that the team leader knows that we expect a report plus analytics for a habitation assessment in the first report of the new schedule. I don’t want them breezing along with that done and just not bothering to tell anyone. Check on their supply status, too. It sounds as if they believe their estimates on requirements are flawless. Nothing ever is. And remind them that we expect regular updates on utilization and new requirements.”
The Chief suppressed a sigh. These things were her responsibility. Even the safety of the Ship was at stake. Commander might be the one who ruled up there, but that didn’t change the fact that any mistake she made could affect the Ship, its crew, and probably its passengers. She did her best to relax the stress she felt, but hers were heavy burdens. She knew that she had signed on for them when her ambition and desire to see the universe had led her to join the crew. The responsibility was hers, and she would deal with it.
But why couldn’t she have gotten a nice, old extinction event instead of the most recent one on record? Ten or twenty thousand Homeworld years back, perhaps, with a little more genetic distance from their own makeup. Someplace where opening a mask wouldn’t kill you. A place that no one except other planetary researchers and new residents would care about. A place where members of the new Community would be safe and happy.
She didn’t care about the notoriety that would be hers from this discovery. After all, it wasn’t as if she had planned it. There was potential for fame, but there was also risk.
She had to do better. Mistakes like this one could be deadly for her staff. That was not the kind of legacy she wanted to leave behind.
“Let’s continue on.” She stepped forward, starting down the broken highway. She stayed near the center of the road to the extent possible. There was rubble from broken buildings along both sides of the road, but the center of the road was reasonably clear.
It was like some of the rough terrain simulations so she took care to move slowly and carefully. It was a crooked path, with piles of rubble of varying sizes at the base of partially destroyed walls. Some of the buildings had been substantial multi-story structures and their destruction left sizable piles of rubble that nearly blocked the road.
Once it had been a broad, proud street in a proud city. Now it was just a crooked little walkway.
The Chief suddenly stopped her walk into the ruins. A short distance away from her on what appeared to be an old walkway, there were skeletons.
It was something of a shock to find unburied bones, but it was likely given that the extinction was both recent and violent. It was another unusual aspect of this planet. It was also something that was likely to occur everywhere here. The Chief was likely to see many more skeletons before her time on the planet was over.
It was rather ironic, she thought. Her archeologists and cultural analysts were almost certainly looking forward to digging through the dirt to find the bones and artifacts of the dead species. She wondered if there was already some disappointment that they would be able to simply bend down and pick them up.
She walked toward the remains to get a closer look. She focused on a skeleton. Opening a channel to her personal assistant, she queried Cause of death?
Her vision telescoped toward the nearest skeleton and remained on magnification for an instant. Her vision returned to normal and the answer to her question came back. Primarily blast overpressure. The bones are charred somewhat, indicating damage from the heat of the blast or from the following firestorm. Most probably a postmortem firestorm that incinerated all “soft” materials in the body. The distance from the detonation as well as obstacles to the energy wave were such that the destruction of bodies in this area was incomplete. Condition appears consistent with the state of surrounding structures.
Any idea why these creatures were outside during an attack?
Concerning nuclear warfare, there is a theory that virtually all of the attack would be by some form of long-range missile. The thought among military analysts is that the speed of a missile attack would be such that governments would not have the time to actually distribute a warning of any substance. Thus civilians would be going about their business, unaware of the situation.
It is also possible that governments choose not to create panic in what is essentially a hopeless situation.
Another theory suggests that nuclear wars typically come about by accident, each side believing the other would not make such an attack. Then an error in judgment causes the aggressor to make a surprise move, making it difficult for the defender to warn its civilian population. Of course, defense forces are a priority for warning in case of attack and resources are focused on those alerts, rather than on civilians who have no role in defense of the state. If any alert is possible, the warning goes to the military first. Warning that would help civilians is therefore unlikely.
Thank you.
It was hard not to treat the extra voice in her head as something other than another individual, even though that individual and a considerable quantity of her data resources resided on a chip in the back of the Chief’s skull. The chip had been in her head since young adulthood but she still wasn’t really used to it. The older crew members had lived with their assistants for decades. She was not even over her first decade with an internal assistant. Somehow the courtesy afforded another person always seemed appropriate when
she “conversed” with her assistant.
The Chief moved back to the center of the road and continued toward the city center, all the while trying to keep an eye out for obstacles. It would be easy to trip over something as her attention was pulled toward the remains on the walkways on both sides of the road.
She continued down the highway a bit further. Her team followed her, but she could feel the change in their emotions. They had seen the remains too. No one was happy walking through this cluttered graveyard.
There was an odd cluster of what appeared to be skeletal remains ahead of her, again on the walkway. The Chief stepped toward the edge of the road once more, being careful to avoid the litter of stone, glass, and metal on the ground. She used her visual magnification to get a better look. Approaching remains in this condition was not pleasant, and the ground was hazardous.
Her chest tightened as she realized that there was a mixture of large and small bones on the ground. There were two small skulls and one large mixed into the remains. Probably a family group of some sort, including children.
She turned away quickly. She had never considered herself the maternal sort; children had never been a part of her life plan. The scene tore at her, nonetheless. It was a painful reminder that in all the casualty estimates she would see in the reports, little ones who never had a chance to grow up would be in those numbers. The future of the species, wiped out in minutes.
It also reminded her that in this situation there would be realistic casualty estimates based on relatively reliable data. Not like the huge round numbers that other teams on other planets had guessed at.
She wondered for a moment how detailed casualty estimates were likely to be. This too was likely to be new ground for her teams. With ancient extinctions, estimates had huge uncertainty bands, with little in the way of breakdowns. Her military expert would be digging hard into the history of their own People to find any information at all on methodology. There hadn’t been a major conflict on Homeworld for centuries. While minor conflicts occurred on some of the pioneer planets, they were so minor as to be really unsuited to the job.
It would be a challenge, but here it was quite likely that the estimates would be far better than guesswork.
“I’ve seen enough of this. I want to see the river before we go back to the lander.”
Quickly she turned away from the scene. She clicked through the city data available to her in her local database, placing her team on the map of the city. The river ran to the right of their original path down the highway, a combination of what was probably its course when the city had lived and a surrounding swamp that was likely a consequence of the city’s death. There was a good chance that the city had been built on drained swampland and was now returning to its original condition. She turned again and started her walk down the highway, trying not to be disturbed by the remains.
Another major road crossed the one she was on. She walked quickly to that one, ignoring the remains along the highway, and turned in the direction of the river.
To no one in particular, she asked, “How is the water quality in the river and surrounding shallows?”
Her Number Five answered. “The water flowing down the main channel is estimated to be relatively uncontaminated. The shallows, however, are in rather bad shape. There are high concentrations of polluting elements in and around the shallows, leaching out of the ruins.”
“The extinction event was relatively recent. The cause was nuclear conflict. Any risk from residual radiation?”
“There is a small risk from low concentrations of fission byproducts. Not deadly in the short run, but long-term exposure is not advised. Settlement in or downstream from these ruins will be prohibited. That is, at least until significant capability for reclamation is available. Certainly our ship’s settlers will not live here. Cumulative exposure to the concentrations of radioactive and heavy metals will be hazardous for quite some time.”
“I see. Has the area around the city been flagged for rehabilitation?”
“Yes, Chief. There are locations upstream along the river where water is safe and habitation will be permitted. The river is a major water source for the entire region so it would make sense to rehabilitate the local area to facilitate downstream habitation and navigation. That assumes, of course, that there are no other life-threatening hazards that would make an attempt at a permanent settlement inadvisable.”
Like airborne biologicals that dissolve your brain or eat your guts. She refrained from vocalizing her thought.
She walked down the gentle slope of the road toward the river. The far bank of the river was visible, but the near side could not be seen until she was further down the slope. Then she came to a spot where the slope became quite a bit steeper. From there she could see broken buildings and what might have been boat slips along what had probably been the original bank of the river, standing in a broad pond of water that stretched from the bottom of the steep slope across to the far bank.
The Chief stared for long moments at the ruins along the river. The main channel of the river looked perfectly natural, flowing toward the river delta. Along both banks, however, were the remnants of buildings flooded with standing water. The only buildings on the far side of the river that were visible stood in water about half way up entryways. Below her, where the slope became gentle again at the near bank, ruins stood in what looked like a thin film of water. The water might be the depth of their footgear, but further back there was water that again was about halfway up the entryways at the bottom floors of the buildings. Green flora clung to some of the buildings and spread out into deeper water. There were a few avians in the sky, but not many.
Turning abruptly, the Chief walked back through her team, back up the hill to the main road. She checked her map again to locate the center of the blast that destroyed the city. The map showed a broad circle with a red dot at the center, indicating the best estimate center projected from the shape of the blasted ruins. There was only one detonation site.
A blinking green dot on the map indicated her location. It was clear that the distance to the edge of the crater could be walked, but at best they would have to return to the lander in near darkness. With all the rubble in the streets it would be hazardous to walk them at night. There might also be predators in the area, although so far they had seen almost nothing in the way of wildlife in the city. They were armed, of course, but it was best not to take chances.
“Our pilot indicated that the distance to the crater is too far to walk and return to the lander before darkness. We will use the hopper to get to the edge of the crater.”
The Chief turned back toward their transport and began the walk back. The hopper was sitting in front of the nose of the lander, waiting for their return.
The vehicle rode on a cushion of air, usually only a short distance from the ground. It was called a hopper, however, because the air blast could be substantially increased to ride over rough surfaces and “hop” over obstacles. It was ideally suited for rough terrain, as long as the area was wide enough for the hopper to pass. The machine was capable of holding as many as six passengers in an enclosed cabin, on three benches seating two persons each. The design made it a bit easier to maneuver through narrow spaces.
Her team took places in the seating. The Chief sat in the front seat next to her second in command, who would guide the machine. While most of the trip could be made in automated mode, the ruins were obviously tricky to navigate; perhaps too tricky for the vehicle’s limited intelligence. Her exec might have a bit of work to do.
After some discussion and consultation with high-magnification maps from the Ship it was decided that their best route to the crater was the broad highway that they had walked in on. While there were nearby streets leading into the center of the city, the highway seemed to be the closest and the least obstructed way to the crater.
The trip was long, and Number One was a careful “driver”. He had set the speed to give the hopper time to maneuver around
significant obstacles. The maps had given the right impression, though. While there was rubble along the edges of the highway through the ruins, the center of the road was cluttered only by small debris and was wide enough to allow passage of their vehicle.
The height of the ruins along their journey kept the team in shadows for much of the trip. As they neared the edge of the blast crater the ruins appeared to be lower and there was more light from the afternoon sun. As they approached the crater, the ruins became smaller, lower, more expansive, and more like mere piles of wreckage. It appeared that the city center was fairly close to the center of the detonation, and the building foundations that could still be seen were quite large.
Finally even the highway was strewn with rock and twisted metal, and there was no shade from the remnants of structures. The area ahead was a massive field of rubble that stretched almost as far as the eye could see. The ride in the hopper had gotten bumpy, so the Chief’s executive officer increased the thrust of air beneath the vehicle. The ride smoothed out as the hopper rode over larger obstacles, but the price for that was slower progress toward the crater.
Once they neared the center of the blast area the Chief ordered a stop. The team left the hopper and began the short walk to the edge of the crater. She spoke briefly to her team. “Take care as you walk and be alert for concentrations of radiation in the rubble. We’ll work around any hazards if at all possible.”
Lightship Page 4