Primal Dawn

by Ryan Kirk

  He thought Neera was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. She was as tall as him, and her thin coverings didn't hide her muscular legs and arms. Her hair was the color of night, and her eyes were dark, reminding him of fresh and fertile soil the night after a summer rain. She was a hunter, just like him, and although many of the men wouldn’t admit it, she was one of their best. She and Tev had a friendly competition, many years old, to see who was better. Neither had definitively won yet.

  She had twisted her ankle on a hunt a week ago and had stayed home to rest from the last expedition. Tev knew it pained her to miss a hunt.

  Neera spoke. "There's quite a bit of an argument about you among the hunters. Some of them see you as a hero. Some see you as a fool."

  He glanced over at her. "What do you think?"

  She laughed. "Is there something that says you can be both?"

  Tev laughed with her. Of all the hunters in the clan, Neera was the one he was closest to. They understood each other in a way that seemed almost like destiny to Tev. Neera always cheered him up, reminding him that life was only as serious as you made it. He loved her, but the sentiment was not returned.

  "At the time, it made so much sense. I knew I could kill the boar on my own. I did it without risking anyone else's life. But now, I'm not so sure. It all turned out for the best, but I'm not sure it was the right decision."

  Neera was silent for a moment before she replied. “Why worry about it? What’s done is done, and you will continue to think about what is right. Next time, you will consider what you learned today and think more clearly.”

  Tev felt a weight lift off his shoulders. Neera was right.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “your problem is that you place others so far in front of yourself. I know that I, for one, would be greatly disappointed if you didn’t return. And I’m not alone.”

  Tev took her words to heart. He wasn’t sure what he should have done, but it was in the past.

  “Thank you.”

  Neera nodded, and together they watched the stars for a while.

  He stared at the night sky, his mind empty. But then he saw something he had never seen before. The stars all spun in one direction. It had always been so. But today there was a new one, brighter and larger than the rest, which traveled against the path of the stars. He pointed it out to Neera.

  “Have you ever seen anything like that?”

  Neera shook her head. Together they watched the rogue star as it spun against the rest of the night sky. A hint of fear tugged at Tev’s heart. Whatever it was, Tev didn’t think it was natural. It didn’t fit in with the order of everything.

  But he kept his thoughts to himself as they watched the star set against the wrong horizon.

  Kindra couldn't help herself. She saw the countdown timer running in the corner of her vision, and she knew that if she had any sense, she’d be joining Eleta in their bunks, which doubled as acceleration couches. Derreck wanted to give them as much time on the planet as possible, so they had burned hard after leaving the Destiny. They had slowed a bit to enter orbit, but after a few dozen quick orbits and their initial scans, it was time to slow to entry velocity.

  Derreck’s plan was unusual but efficient. On most missions they would spend more time in orbit gathering observations, but on this mission they had a survey probe in orbit doing much of the same work. Derreck judged it was more important for them to be on the surface for as long as possible. Working with Alston, they identified possible landing sites based on geologic stability. The info from the survey probe wasn’t very refined, but it was enough to determine a safe landing site.

  The burn to slow down for entry was often a rough one, but Derreck had warned them this particular burn would be even worse. They were still traveling through space far too fast to enter atmo. Not only that, but the Vigilance and all its crew would be fighting one-point-two G’s of planetary gravity in addition to the G’s from deceleration coming down. If she wasn’t ensconced in her acceleration couch when the deceleration started, Kindra would be a mess on the floor for the others to clean up.

  Despite this knowledge, she couldn’t help herself. The information coming in from the survey probe was beyond fascinating. If she didn't know better, she would've assumed that she was looking at scans of Earth before the Collapse. There was a limit to how much information the survey probe could gather from its orbit in space, but everything she had studied so far indicated that this planet had the most diverse life humans had ever encountered since they left their home.

  Scans revealed what appeared to be dozens of species of plants. There were grasslands, forests, mountains, and water. Kindra couldn’t even begin to calculate the odds of finding what she was looking at. It seemed far too perfect to be real. In all of her experience, she had never encountered anything like this.

  Life itself wasn't all that uncommon in the universe. Humans had visited dozens of planets that contained viral forms of life. The challenge, they had found, was finding life that had evolved past that. The conditions necessary to create viral life were easy to find, but to evolve into large multicellular organisms took an evolutionary leap that seemed nearly impossible.

  As Kindra understood the problem, the challenge was evolution’s balance sheet. Organisms needed to survive and reproduce, and the smaller you were, the easier it was to survive. Larger organisms needed to consume more energy to survive, reproduce and do everything needed to be alive. To grow in size, you needed to make the advantages worth the tremendous cost, and that was hard to find in the universe. Larger, multicellular life had only ever been found on two planets, and even then it qualified at best as fungi. What Kindra was seeing seemed impossible, and she couldn’t tear her eyes away.

  At one point she had been so much in doubt about her scans that she double-checked the records to ensure this wasn't a terraformed planet. Terraforming was a much more likely explanation, but there were no Fleet records of humans ever being in this part of space before. She was left with only one inescapable conclusion. They were about to explore a planet that had a high chance of supporting intelligent alien life.

  Her mind wandered back to Derreck’s comments at the briefing. If what he said was true, this planet wasn’t even the best candidate for life. If that was the case, she couldn't even imagine what the other planet must be like. It would have to be another Earth. Despite her rationality, she couldn’t shake the belief they were about to make discoveries that would change the course of human history.

  Kindra was just about to go to her bunk when one final image caught her eye. She had asked the computer to flash images from the probe in front of her face with a two-second delay, and she saw a structure that seemed too circular to be natural. She recalled the image and studied it carefully. The odds of it being natural were astronomical. She tried calling up data from the three-dimensional scanner. Fortunately, an initial pass had been made of the area. She overlaid the images and gasped at the result.

  In front of her, grainy and unrefined, was the unmistakable shape of a half-dome. She tried coming up with alternate explanations, but her mind would only see it as a habitation. She called to Derreck, busy piloting the dropship.

  His voice came to her ear, “What is it? You need to be bunked by now."

  Kindra shrugged off the comment. There were more important issues to discuss. “I think I found evidence of life."

  There was silence on the other end of the line. Kindra could almost see Derreck debating options in his head.

  “How sure are you?"

  Kindra scanned the image again. It seemed unnatural, but there was no way of being certain. They didn’t have the scan resolution yet for her to be sure, and there could be an alternate explanation, even if she couldn’t come up with one now. Years of space exploration had taught her never to assume. "I'm not."

  This time Derreck's voice came back much faster. "Okay, then we’re dropping. We’ll get the probe to scan more detailed images when we land and have communications
back."

  Kindra nodded. It was the smartest decision given what they knew.

  Derreck's voice's shook her out of her reverie. "And Kindra?"

  "Yes?"

  "Get to your bunk. The retros are firing in about thirty seconds, and I think you’ll want to be alive to see what’s down there.”

  Perhaps it was just Kindra’s imagination, but their entry into the atmosphere seemed endless. She had dropped onto over seventy different planets, but only this one had the chance of harboring intelligent life. The rational part of her mind understood she just wanted to get back to her data, but that didn’t stop every second pressed into her bunk from feeling like purgatory.

  Because Derreck had structured the mission around the chance that there might be intelligent life on the planet, Derreck and Alston had chosen a landing site on the night side of the planet. There was no hiding the flare of the dropship’s engines, but Derreck’s plan was to drop using as much glide as he could manage. The Vigilance flew well, but it was still large for flight. If all went according to plan, they would only fire the jets when they approached their landing zone. On the slight chance there was intelligent life down here, it increased their chances they wouldn’t be spotted. But there were far too many unknowns to be certain.

  From her perspective on the acceleration couch, Kindra felt Derreck follow his plan to perfection. She had made it to her bunk with only a few seconds to spare and had strapped herself in quickly. She finished just as they hit atmosphere, shaking the entire dropship as though it were a child’s plaything. No matter how many times she endured entry, Kindra was always surprised that the Vigilance didn’t tear apart from the forces.

  As the dropship rattled around her, Kindra was pressed into her bunk by over four G’s. The mattress, which Kindra set to very firm, molded itself to the pressures of entry, providing her body the support it needed to survive high gravities unharmed. Kindra had always wondered what sort of fluid dynamics were responsible for the qualities of her mattress, but ultimately, she didn’t care enough to investigate. All she knew was that she could withstand much higher gravities in her bunk than outside of it.

  The dropship came out of atmospheric entry without breaking apart, and Kindra could feel gravity loosening its crushing grip on her body as Derreck began their glide. She shuddered at the release, enjoying the sensation of freedom from forces that threatened to squash her like a bug. Kindra waited for the usual sound of the engines kicking in until she remembered that Derreck was planning on gliding to a low altitude before turning up the thrust.

  For the first time since they hit atmosphere, Kindra willed her neurodisplay into being. She never left it open during reentry. The doctors said the nanos which helped form the network for the system reacted poorly to anything over two gravities, so she always turned it off for the few minutes of reentry. Her first act was to call up the dropship’s flight system. She didn’t have any control over the system, but she could see most of the same information streams Derreck did.

  He was flying the Vigilance manually. She shook her head. In almost all circumstances, the dropship’s AI was more than sufficient, but Derreck never seemed to trust it the way others did. At least, that was his claim. Kindra suspected it was only part of the truth. The greater part was that Derreck liked being in control of his dropship, and he loved to fly. This, the flying of a dropship manually in an unfamiliar atmosphere at one-point-two gravities, was what he lived for. Kindra worried sometimes, but her trust of Derreck overrode any fears she might have.

  Kindra watched the numbers scroll down, their altitude dropping at an impressive rate. She frowned. She understood that in theory they were gliding, but she also knew they were in a dropship weighing more tons than she could easily count. Even with the wings generating lift, the dropship wouldn’t float in the air. As she watched the numbers spin down, she realized the pressure on her body was lessening as well. In fact, she was getting to the point where the straps to her bunk were starting to hold her down. They were becoming weightless.

  Derreck’s voice came in through her ear. “Sorry, all, but this is going to be a bit rough. Prepare for G’s again.”

  Kindra almost laughed. Derreck’s words were an apology, but his voice was anything but. He was having the time of his life up there. She would bet anything he and Kenan were up on the bridge hooting and hollering like cowboys from American Western films. She turned her neurodisplay off again, grateful she at least didn’t have to watch the numbers spinning downwards out of control anymore.

  Derreck’ voice in her ear was the only other warning she got. “Here it comes!” The excitement in his voice was that of a child unwrapping his first birthday gift.

  The rockets kicked in, a familiar and comforting roar. Kindra wasn’t sure she had ever felt them kick in with such strength before, but they’d never come in unpowered like this before either. She slammed back into her bunk, the mattress absorbing all the impact and rushing to support her body once again under powerful gravities. There wasn’t any way of being sure, but she was pretty confident they were pushing more G’s than they had on entry. Derreck might be having a little too much fun for her taste.

  Despite the excitement of their descent, their landing was as smooth as anything Kindra had ever experienced. She could criticize Derreck for what he had put them through, but there was no doubting his skill as a pilot. She could just barely tell when their movement stopped. The engines were shut off, and the roar in her ears was replaced by silence, the sound that indicated they were ready to start a new mission. It took all her self-control not to slap away the restraining straps before Derreck gave the word.

  “Everyone is free to move about. Status checks of your stations within five minutes.”

  He didn’t have to tell Kindra twice. Every minute strapped to her gravity couch was a minute she wasn’t staring at the information coming onto the screens. She pulled up the feed on her neurodisplay, but requested a more transparent version. The images were so interesting, she’d run into the walls of the dropship if she wasn’t careful.

  Kindra made it to her station and pulled up all the displays and information she could. She whistled to herself. There was no doubt they were someplace special. She’d been a lot of different places in her life, but this was something else. Derreck, Kenan, and Alston had selected a clearing in a forest. The amount of biodiversity within just a few steps of their dropship would be incredible. She took a brief minute just to immerse herself in the experience. She had been in forests before, but they had all been terraformed, and there was always something about them that just didn’t seem quite right. It was almost impossible to put a finger on, but the feeling was consistent and well-documented. Humans could tell what was real and what was created.

  Kindra shook her head and cleared her thoughts of romantic notions. They only had a few weeks here, and she was going to make the most of them. The scientist in her took over, and she began to run down her checklist. The first step was going to be to reserve time on the dropship’s sensors. They had an amazing collection of tools and scanners onboard, but they’d all be fighting for time. She requested a few hours from the dropship’s AI and quickly received notice she’d have access to sensors in six hours. It would seem like forever, but it would have to do. It would give her enough time to determine which tests she’d like to run.

  The dropship’s range was limited, but it would give her an in-depth analysis of the surrounding area. What they really needed was more information about the planet as a whole. She pulled up the scans from the survey probe and was frustrated by how much information was still lacking. Survey probes worked on the principle that time wasn’t an issue. They collected information in bits and pieces, using multiple scans to increase the resolution of the survey. But it was slow, and Kindra wasn’t feeling patient.

  Suddenly, an idea occurred to her. Kindra pulled up the specs of the probe on the computer to check her hunch. She was right. She called Derreck.

  Kindra wa
ited while her display told her he was online with Alston. As soon as he finished, his voice came into her ear.

  “What do you have for me?”

  “Biology is green across the board. I haven’t checked medical yet, but I’ll let you know when I do.”

  Derreck hesitated for a moment, and Kindra saw the lecture forming, but he didn’t even bother. He knew why she was distracted. “Just finish your checks as soon as you can.”

  He was about to sign off, but Kindra stopped him. “I’d like to reserve the S-band radar periodically on the survey probe.”

  Kindra could just about hear his frown. “To what end?”

  “I can use it to pull up high resolution scans of some areas in question. I’d like to get a detailed image of some of the locations that indicate civilization. It will speed up the process substantially.”

  Derreck thought for a moment. Kindra knew what he was thinking. The S-band radar was almost never pointed down towards the planet. It was the radar used to detect any object that was small, typically between one and ten centimeters. Almost every jumper, dropship, and probe was equipped with one. In space, even small objects moving at high enough velocities could cause serious damage. The survey probe used it to detect any incoming debris or object and adjust its flight path to avoid it. If the radar turned its resolution down towards the planet, they would temporarily be blind to any dangers.

  Kindra considered cajoling Derreck, but it would never work. He always made the best decision based on his own information.

  “Fine. There shouldn’t be any debris around the planet. Limit your scans to a few minutes each. We don’t need that resolution planet-wide, but pick out the locations you think best and give the computer the orders. I’ll ensure you have enough clearance.”

  Kindra contained her pleasure. “Thanks, Captain.”

  Derreck didn’t respond, just signing off and going to the next person who was trying to get his attention.