Outland
Dennis E. Taylor
Outland
Copyright © 2015, 2019 Dennis E. Taylor
All rights reserved.
This edition published 2019
Cover design by Shane Rebenschied
ISBN: 978-1-68068-142-0
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
This book is published on behalf of the author by the Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency.
This book was initially an Audible Original production.
Performed by Ray Porter
Executive Producers: David Blum and Mike Charzuk
Editorial Producer: Steve Feldberg
Sound recording copyright 2019 by Audible Originals, LLC
Author Blog: http://www.dennisetaylor.org
Twitter: @Dennis_E_Taylor
Facebook: @DennisETaylor2
Instagram: dennis_e_taylor
I would like to dedicate this book to my wife, Blaihin, who understands me yet doesn’t run screaming from the room, and to my daughter, Tina, who completed our family.
Books by Dennis E. Taylor
Bobiverse:
We Are Legion (We Are Bob)
For We Are Many
All These Worlds
Outland
The Singularity Trap
“A Change of Plans” in Explorations: Colony anthology
Acknowledgments
This was my first novel. I’ve been reading science fiction since the age of ten, when I checked out a copy of The Lost Planet by Angus McVicar from the library. It hooked me on the genre immediately, and I’ve been reading very little else ever since.
I’ve always envied the likes of Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, and the other greats for their ability to make a story come alive. I have no idea why it took me this long to metaphorically put pen to paper and try it myself. If even a few people like my stories and come back for more, I’ll consider it a success.
I want to thank my wife, Blaihin, for alpha reading and for her constant encouragement, and for being the love of my life (she made me say that); the various beta readers who’ve made many suggestions for improvement; and the good folks at critiquecircle.com and scribophile.com for tons of advice, education, and suggestions. And I’d like to give a shout out to the gang at snowboardingforum.com just because.
Addendum: This is the second edition of Outland. I hope readers will find that the effort of re-editing was worthwhile.
CONTENTS
PART 1 – BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
PROLOGUE
1. THE MELT
2. A MEETING OF MINDS
3. IN THE NEWS
4. TIME OUT
5. PREPPING
6. FIRST RUN
7. INTERESTING TIMES
8. FIELD TRIP
9. THAT WAS NOT EXPECTED
10. EAU DE SO2
11. ADVENTURE UNDER GLASS
12. THE OTHER WAY
13. NIGHT MOVES
14. IN THE NEWS
15. CHECKING THE DATE
16. NEW RECRUIT
17. ENTER MONICA
18. TESTING THE WATERS
19. FIRST EXPEDITION
20. LOGISTICS FAIL
21. THEY ALSO SERVE
22. THE ROAD HOME
23. A SMOKING GUN
24. CASHING IN
25. SUSPICIONS RISE
26. SECOND EXPEDITION
27. ALL IN A DAY’S WORK
28. THE MORNING AFTER
29. BACK HOME
30. IN THE NEWS
31. A BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY
32. SURVEILLANCE
33. AT THE GUN RANGE
34. CASING THE JOINT
35. IN THE NEWS
36. THIRD EXPEDITION
37. THAT CAN’T BE RIGHT
38. IN THE NEWS
39. SOMETHING’S MISSING
40. FACE-OFF
41. REACTIONS
42. IT’S REALLY HAPPENED
PART 2 – WE’RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE
43. IN THE NEWS
44. RESCUE OPERATION
45. SETTING UP AND MOVING OUT
46. IN THE NEWS
47. GETTING UP IS NEVER EASY
48. CATTLE DRIVE
49. IN THE NEWS
50. SURVIVING OUTLAND
51. FIRST MEETINGS
52. IN THE NEWS
53. PLANNING COMMITTEE
54. IN THE NEWS
55. EXPLORATIONS
56. IN THE NEWS
57. NEWS FROM EARTHSIDE
58. SALVAGE OPERATIONS
59. HIGH COUNCIL
60. SUNNY DAYS
61. MEALTIME
62. PLAN OF ATTACK
63. SCAVENGING
64. WINGING IT
65. TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT
66. IN THE NEWS
67. FARMING LEGACY
68. ARCHIMEDES’ SCREW
69. IN THE NEWS
70. RECON
71. CLEANED OUT
72. THINGS KEEP PILING UP
73. DOING TIME
74. GOTCHA
75. CONTACT
76. INTERVIEWS
77. RETRIBUTION
78. IN THE NEWS
79. NEGOTIATIONS
80. TAKEOVER
81. CONTINGENCY PLANS
82. COUNTERPOINT
83. COUNTERSTRIKE
84. AFTERMATH
85. REDUX
86. PLANET FOUR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Part 1 – Be Careful What you Wish For
Prologue
June 5
Mike Nedmann leaned back in his chair and glared at his boss. “You want me to bury this.” It wasn’t phrased as a question.
Andrew Kensington sighed and looked down for a moment, visibly trying for calm. “C’mon, Mike, don’t get all dramatic. This isn’t a cover-up. I just want—”
“—me to downplay it. Yeah, I heard you. Fucksake, Andrew. Two weeks ago, Geyser Hill parboiled some tourists, and now another group’s been pan-fried on Firehole Lake Drive. How the shit do you downplay that kind of thing?”
“This isn’t the first time either of these things has happened, Mike. Not even recently. The apocalypse isn’t imminent or anything. You know how the media likes to hype this kind of story. I’m just saying, don’t give them extra ammo.”
“Like pointing out that we’ve had more earthquake swarms in the last three months than we’ve had in years, or that the average and maximum magnitudes have been going up, or talking about the sharp rise in uplift—”
“—which are also nothing new.”
Now it was Mike’s turn to sigh. He gazed out the window to give himself a chance to get his anger under control. As usual, the seemingly endless forest of lodgepole pines was immediately calming. Andrew waited patiently, apparently content to let him set the pace.
Mike leaned forward and picked up the draft report that his boss had dropped on his desk. Red ink decorated the laser-printed sheets. He took a moment to be amused that they still walked paper reports around and added comments by hand in this day and age.
“Look, Andrew, all that is true, but these things have never happened all at the same time. And they have never all been increasing in intensity at the same time. Uplift could be this, hydrothermal explosions could be that, all very innocent and mundane. But when these things
start happening all at once, it’s coming from deeper down. And that’s never good news.”
“Lot of assumptions there, Mike.”
“We’re geologists. We’re paid to evaluate geological events and form conclusions. I’m not being unreasonable.”
“Your report isn’t reasonable. It’s alarmist. This isn’t really a debate, Mike. Tone it down.” Andrew waited a moment for more argument, then turned and walked away.
Mike picked up the report and scanned the red strikeouts and comments. Fine. He would remove opinions, extrapolations, and conclusions. But Andrew couldn’t order him to remove the data. And honestly, Andrew wouldn’t know incriminating data if it landed on his foot, wrapped around a brick. With a silent snarl, Mike pulled open his laptop.
1. The Melt
June 7
Erin Savard’s hand went to her mouth as she watched the news report. “TERROR AT YELLOWSTONE!” scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Gasps and excited comments from the other people in the cafeteria echoed her shock.
A woman stood in the middle of Fire Hill Road, looking wildly around. Seemingly making a decision, she tried to take a step, and her foot came out of its shoe. Her eyes grew wide and she paused, foot raised in the air and terror plain on her face. She looked back at her shoe, stuck in the asphalt, then turned to look off-camera.
The camera panned to the right to show a man reaching for her and urging her on. She took a step, pulling her other foot out of its shoe, and screamed as her bare flesh touched the road’s surface. Only her momentum saved her from a face-plant and potentially fatal burns. In three steps, she made it to the side of the road and collapsed, moaning, into the man’s arms.
The camera panned to show other victims, rocking in pain or being embraced by friends or family. Then the video pulled back, showing the news anchor with an expression of professional deep concern.
“Yikes!” Erin’s stomach did a flip-flop as she tried to imagine running on semi-molten asphalt. She turned to look at her two tablemates. “I think I’ll bring a couple pairs of good boots for the field trip.”
“What happened anyway?” Leslie asked.
“Underground lava flow,” Erin replied. “There are tons of lava tubes under Yellowstone. Once in a while, one gets a fresh flow of lava and it heats the ground. Or in this case, the road. And this one was hot enough to melt it quickly and without warning.”
“And this is normal?”
“Well, not normal like afternoon rush hour. But normal like tornadoes, yes.”
“And you’re still going?” Even with everyone seated, Leslie had to look up at her much taller friend, astonishment plain on her face. “Are you insane?”
“Of course I’m going!” Erin replied. “It’s a geology field trip, not a tourist outing. If I can’t handle risks, I might as well switch majors. And anyway, what’s the fun in just staring at cold lava?”
“Fun? My God, Erin. You’ve got some kind of death wish.”
Ayanda put down her soda and cocked her head in Leslie’s direction. “Lit majors. No sense of adventure.”
“Screw you, and screw that,” Leslie retorted. “Friday nights at the High Dive are adventure enough, please and thanks.”
“I hope she wasn’t burned too badly,” Erin said after a moment, tilting her head toward the TV. “That looked painful. Normal for Yellowstone doesn’t make it any less traumatic for people caught in it.”
Erin’s phone beeped. She looked at it and sighed. “And with that, lunch is over. I, purely by coincidence, have a geology lecture. Want to come, Leslie?”
Leslie rolled her eyes without comment and grabbed her book pile. With a casual wave, she headed off for her own class.
“She has a point, though,” Ayanda said as she and Erin made for the lecture hall. “I’ve been hearing all kinds of rumors. Over and above the news, I mean. Could it be getting perhaps a little dangerous for this trip?”
“We’ll probably find out today. But I hope it doesn’t get cancelled. If I wanted an office job, I’d take up programming, like Matt.”
They entered the lecture hall, making a beeline for their favorite seats. Dead center, third row up put them right at the instructor’s eye level, perfect for getting his attention for Q&A.
“Have you called Matt about cancelling your Friday date yet? You promised you’d come to our next girls’ night out.”
“Aw, jeez, no. And I don’t want to end up texting him. Not after I lectured the poor guy about him changing plans by text. Oh, well. Consistency is for small minds, right?”
Ayanda opened her mouth to reply just as Professor Collins turned on his lapel microphone, resulting in an amplified pop. The background mutter of multiple conversations was replaced by the sounds of students straightening in their seats as everyone settled in for the lecture.
“I’m sure you’ve all seen the news by now,” the professor began. “A week ago, Geyser Hill opened a new fumarole right under a boardwalk and badly scalded some tourists. Yesterday, one of the local roads heated up while a tour group was walking around, and trapped some of them. As scary as these events may be, they are neither unusual nor remarkable. Every couple of years, magma flowing under Yellowstone will heat up a pond and kill all the fish, or melt a road, or create a temporary new geyser. But in the age of smartphones, we have multiple videos of such events to help fan the flames of media sensationalism. So let me start by answering the, uh, burning question,” he added, to groans from the audience. “No, we are not cancelling the Yellowstone field trip at this time. It was discussed, at length, and we decided to go ahead. The university reserves the right to change its collective mind at any point, of course. I will post updates on my blog and send out an email blast as well, if anything changes.”
The professor paused, inviting comments or questions. Hearing none, he continued: “All right then. Today, as promised, we will be talking about the Toba eruption of roughly seventy-five thousand years ago, the one that may have almost caused the human race to go extinct.”
He paused while a few latecomers got settled, and Erin whispered to her friend, “Bet we get some cancellations anyway. Wimps.”
Ayanda chuckled, and Erin took the opportunity to look around. Row after semicircular row of seats rose into the darkness from the stage where the professor stood, dwarfed by the projector screen behind him. The indefinable aroma of paper dust pervaded the hall—an aroma that Erin had always found homey and comforting.
Professor Collins used the remote to put a picture up on the screen. “This is an artist’s reconstruction of what the area might have looked like before the eruption of the Toba supervolcano.”
He turned to face the students. “When it erupted, Toba literally blew part of the mountain range into the air. The caldera it left behind contains a lake so big that you can’t see the ends of it when you’re in the middle. It’s about sixty miles along its long axis.”
A wave of the remote, and the image changed. “This is a picture of the Toba caldera today. Or what’s left of it.” The screen showed an idyllic aerial view of a large, calm blue lake with a large island within. Human development along the shore alternated with jungle and meadows. The professor worked the remote, and a sequence of pictures showed different views of the shoreline and surrounding hills.
He started to pace as he talked. “Krakatoa met a similar fate. Where before there was a large mountainous island, afterward there was nothing but a bay surrounded by some small atolls. But Krakatoa was a pipsqueak compared to Toba.” Several pictures were shown in succession, showing different before-and-after views.
A student uphill from Erin raised her hand. “So, Professor, how do you define a supervolcano versus a volcano?”
“It’s a matter of size, and it’s strictly arbitrary,” Professor Collins replied. “Any eruption that ejects more than two hundred and forty cubic miles of crud into the air is considered ‘super.’ And Toba sent up six hundred and seventy cubic miles, by most estimates. That more than quali
fies. Mount Saint Helens, by comparison, only managed less than one quarter of a cubic mile.”
He played with the remote for a few seconds, pulling up another image. “The damage to the planetary ecosystems from that much ash and dust in the atmosphere would have been devastating. It would have caused entire species to go extinct, and changed the climate for large parts of the planet. It may even have hastened an ice age in the longer term, although that’s controversial.
“There’s a theory becoming popular that climate changes due to the Toba eruption caused a genetic bottleneck in Homo sapiens that may have directly contributed to us becoming what we are.”
A student raised his hand. “Will this be on the test?”
“Everything will always be on the test, Ted. The point is to understand it so you don’t have to memorize it.”
Ted really needs to get a clue, Erin thought.
All too soon, the class was over. Professor Collins turned off the projector and said, “Remember, next lecture will be a planning and Q&A session for the field trip, assuming it’s still on. Make sure you have gone through your packets, and make sure that you have signed all the forms and handed them in. I don’t want to have to chase you through the halls and tackle you. It’s hard on the knees, and very undignified.”
The crowd responded with a susurrus of chuckles without slowing their collective bolt for the exits.
Erin and Matt stood outside the door to her dorm, trying to be quiet and stay out of the way. Conversations in the hall were less than ideal, with all the comings and goings, but she needed to make this quick. Not that Matt Siemens would need to be fended off—he was always a gentleman that way—but she was already late and didn’t need more temptation.
Erin took Matt’s hand to try to soften the blow. “I’m sorry, hon, but I did promise my friends. This might be the last time this semester we can all get together.”
Matt nodded, not showing anywhere near as much disappointment as she expected. Erin found herself double-checking her memory, momentarily uncertain if she was blowing off a nonexistent date. It was Friday, right? But he was nodding, and he wasn’t looking perplexed, so that couldn’t be it.
Outland (Revised Edition) Page 1