Alpha Centauri: First Landing (T-Space: Alpha Centauri Book 1)

by Alastair Mayer

  “There go the explosives. I hope it worked.”

  As they watched the monitor, a wave raced across the water, again flowing up from downstream. Darwin keyed the microphone on the comms panel.

  “Sawyer, this is Chandra. How does it look?”

  There was no reply.

  “Sawyer, Finley, this is Chandra. Come in.”

  Still nothing.

  “What’s wrong, could they have been caught in the explosion?” Singh asked.

  Darwin looked worried, but shook his head. He keyed the mike again. “Chandra calling Sawyer or Finley. Answer me, dammit, what’s going on?”

  They all looked expectantly at the speaker. Darwin raised the microphone again, but before he could key it Sawyer’s voice came through.

  “Chandra this is Sawyer. Sorry about that, didn’t hear you the first time. Our ears are still ringing.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, that was just a bit louder than we expected. I should have pulled the boat further back. We had to do some fancy motoring too once the channel opened up, we got quite the current.”

  “So it worked?”

  “Like a charm. We cut a channel through the top of this dam nearly a meter deep, and the current is making it bigger even as we speak. We almost got sucked along it.”

  “So the water should start lowering?”

  “That may take a bit yet, I don’t think it’s going out as fast as the rain and river’s coming in, but it will slow down. That channel is eroding quickly, though, so the flow will increase. We should be good. And I think the rain is starting to let up.”

  “It’s still coming down as hard as ever here. Okay, if there’s nothing more you can do there, come on back. And thank you.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Sawyer turned the boat upriver and looked up at the sky as she motored back toward the ship. As they came around the corner where the narrow valley broadened out into the plain, she could just see the lights from the ship through the rain. Yes, it was definitely starting to let up. They would be getting a lot of water down from the hills for hours yet, and the blockage, even with the channel they’d blasted, meant that there would be a small lake in the lower end of the valley for a while, but it looked like the immediate danger was past. She looked over at Finley, sitting in the bottom of the boat with something of a dazed expression.

  “You okay?” she shouted over the rain.

  “My ears are still ringing.”

  “Yep, that was a loud one all right.”

  “Loudest thing I’ve ever heard. That stuff is scary. But you know what really gets me?”

  “What?”

  “I was just thinking about that first hole.” He held up his hand, his forefinger and thumb about two centimeters apart. “I came this close to kicking the damn drill tube to loosen it up before I remembered what was on the other end of it.”

  “Oh.” Sawyer winced at the thought. “That would have been bad.”

  “Yeah.” Finley shook his head, in disbelief or disgust at his own potentially-lethal stupidity. “By the way . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “You were wanting to survey that plateau to the north.”

  “Right, but we didn’t have enough seismic charges . . . oh, you’re not suggesting—”

  “Sure, why not? We have an almost unlimited LOX supply, and we can make charcoal.”

  Sawyer shook her head. It was a little crazy, but with suitable precautions it could work. “Okay. But let’s wait until it’s stopped raining.”

  As they motored the rest of the way back, the Chandra called again. “We’ve been watching the monitors. The water level has peaked and may even be starting to drop. Great work!”

  Chapter 26: The Return

  Campsite, south of Chandrasekhar

  The glow of morning sunlight on the tent was becoming too bright to ignore. Tyrell didn’t want to move. Ulrika lay beside him with her head on his shoulder, her arm across him. He opened his eyes, squinted at the glare, then kissed the top of Ulrika’s blonde head.

  “I was wondering when you’d wake up,” she said, still snuggled against him.

  “How long have you been awake?”

  “A little while now. I didn’t want to move. Last night was fun.”

  Tyrell grinned broadly at the memory. “That would be an understatement.” He gave her a gentle squeeze. “It was more than fun.”

  She turned her head up to look at him, then gave him a quick kiss. “It was. But unfortunately we can’t stay here all day, we have to get back.” She rolled away from him and sat up.

  “Slave driver,” Tyrell said, but with a smile.

  “Besides—” She was interrupted by the omni chirping. “—Centauri Station is about due to call in.”

  Tyrell sighed and thumbed his omni. “Tyrell here.”

  “Rise and shine, sleepy heads. We see your tent is still up. What’s your status?”

  “Almost ready to go.” That was an exaggeration, but Ulrika had already stowed her sleeping back and was pulling her clothes on. “How are the others, did everyone survive the storm?”

  “Krechet is still standing, you guys did a good job on securing that landing leg, and fortunately the hole was on the upwind side. The Chandrasekhar team got a bit wet, and the ship is still standing in a few centimeters of water, but it should be clear by the time you get back. The ship and crew are all fine.”

  “Glad to hear it. I guess we’re going to have a bit of a damp walk ahead of us.”

  “The weather’s fine, but yes, the ground and vegetation will still be wet. The wave action is dying down, you should be okay once you get to the beach.”

  “Sounds good, Centauri. We’ll talk to you next orbit.”

  “Roger that. Centauri out.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  By noon they had reached the river. The Heinlein had called it a “wide creek”, but it had swollen from the night’s rain and was definitely more of a river.

  “Well, that’s not going to work,” Tyrell said as they reached the south bank. The river was close to twenty meters wide here, although aside from a low embankment, the surrounding area was flat enough that it might still be shallow.

  “You don’t want to try wading across?” Klaar said.

  Tyrell looked at her. Was she hiding a smile? “Are you kidding, after what you said about toothpick fish? Maybe if the water was clear.” Right now it was brown from silt after the storm.

  “I was. The look on your face was worth it.” She smiled.

  Tyrell smiled back, he couldn’t hold a grudge while looking at her face. “Fair enough. I guess we’ll just keep following downstream until we find a place to cross. Worst case is that’s the mouth of this stream, and it will shallow out at the beach.”

  He looked up and downstream as far as he could, but between the scattered trees and the banks, that wasn’t very far. On the other hand. . .. “The river meanders, that’s actually a good sign, it means it doesn’t get very deep and the current won’t be too bad.”

  “But doesn’t the Mississippi meander too? Isn’t it deep with a strong current?”

  “It’s not actually that deep. It is also very wide and drains a good fraction of the continent. Neither applies here.”

  “All right, then, downstream it is.”

  Five kilometers further, they came to a spot where the river did a tight turn. The inside of the curve was very shallow, even through the brown water they could see the far side shoaling gently. The near side, the outside of the turn, was flowing more swiftly and would be deeper. It had eroded a steep bank into the side of the hill they were standing on. That same erosion, perhaps couple with the storm, had toppled a tree almost all the way across the river, angled down from the top of the bank where its roots were still partly embedded in the ground.

  Tyrell and Klaar looked it over. It would be a bit of a clamber but it should hold them.

  “What do you think, Ulrika? Up for a bit of tree climbing?”
r />   She grabbed a wrist-thick root, gave a few tugs, then pulled herself up far enough to stand on another wide root. “Sure. What about you?”

  “Yep. Want me to go first?”

  “I’ll go. You hold the roots in case the tree starts to twist.”

  To Tyrell the tree looked solid enough that it wasn’t like to go anywhere soon, and if it was going to roll, it was heavy enough that he wasn’t sure what he could do about it. “Okay,” he said, and grabbed a root.

  Klaar scramble up to the trunk, started to crawl down it head first, then obviously though better of the idea and backed up to where she could turn around. “I may need you to spot where I put my feet,” she said, “but I don’t want to end up heads down at the end.”

  “Makes sense to me. Go ahead.”

  Tyrell watched as she backed down the rest of the tree, once or twice calling to suggest a better foothold, and she soon arrived in the uppermost—now lowermost—branches just short of the far bank.

  “How does it look?” Tyrell called.

  “Maybe ankle deep. I’ll check.” With that, before Tyrell had a chance to say anything else, she dropped into the river. It was indeed just ankle deep, and a few steps later she was standing on the far bank.

  “Your turn. How stable is the tree?”

  “It didn’t move a centimeter. On my way.”

  He reached up for a higher root, then pulled and stepped up onto another. He was reaching to pull himself up to the trunk when he felt, or thought he felt, a small lurch. Uh oh.

  “How am I looking?” he called down.

  “Did the tree just move or did I imagine it?” Klaar called back.

  “Must have been the wind,” Tyrell said, and kept climbing.

  “What wind?”

  Tyrell ignored the question and kept crawling, looking back and up at where the roots stuck out of the bank. Were those dirt clumps there before? He looked down. He was only a couple of meters above the water, what was the worst that could happen?

  The tree lurched again. I need to stop asking myself that question, Tyrell thought, sometimes the universe shows you. He quickened his scramble.

  “I did not imagine that, the tree did move,” Klaar called, a note of urgency in her voice. “There’s no way I can hold it from here. Please hurry. But carefully.”

  Roger that, Tyrell thought. He reached the middle branches when the tree lurched again. Okay, if it does fall, I do not want to be pinned under water by these branches. He started side stepping along a branch, away from the direction of slippage.

  That made the rest of the climb more difficult, the branches were thinner out away from the trunk. He had almost gone as far as he could when the tree lurched again, along with a resounding crack! as it broke free of the remaining roots.

  “Fred!”

  Tyrell jumped clear as the tree went down, landing with a splash in the river, going down to his hands and knees. He scrambled upright. The was just knee deep here, and he staggered to the bank. “I’m fine. But no more tree climbing or swimming for a while, all right?”

  Klaar grabbed him and put her arms around him, then backed off a bit and examined his face.

  “What?” he said.

  “Just checking,” she said, then kissed him. “Have you always been accident prone?”

  “I, what?”

  “Sorry, a joke.” She hugged him again then stepped back. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Never better.”

  “Oh, I doubt that. But we’re on the right side of the river now, we should keep going.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  They came across the arboreal cephalopods later that day. They were nearing the mouth of the river they’d been following, and it had widened further. On either side were trees with a spreading root system that extended down into the water from part way up the trunk, something like a banyan tree. The leaves rustled, in spite of the fact that their seemed to be no wind.

  “Stop,” Klaar said in a lowered voice, holding her arm out in front of Tyrell. “Look up there,” she pointed.

  Tyrell looked. There was some kind of animal in the branches. Several animals, Tyrell realized as he looked around. Hairless and featherless, with wet skin, and differing colors, although mostly matching the surrounding foliage. Some kind of giant tree frog? Then he noticed the tentacles.

  “Wow. It looks something like a squid but it only has eight legs, call it an octosquid?” Tyrell said, also keeping his voice lowered.

  “That’s taken, a species of Mastigoteuthis,” Klaar said, grinning. “And technically they’re arms, not legs.”

  “Spoilsport. All right then, tree octopus.“

  “That also is taken, but by a mythical species. The Pacific Northwestern Tree Octopus, Octopus paxarbolis”

  “You’re joking!”

  “Shush! No, I am not, but the coiner of the name was. It was a hoax, about seventy years ago now, in the early days of the internet. That’s about all I remember.”

  Tyrell shook his head. Ulrika’s reservoir of zoological lore was amazing. “Fine. How about tree squid then?”

  “Sure, that works at least as a common name. On this planet they’re probably neither octopus nor squid, but a detailed examination might tell us which they’re closer to. I’m intrigued by the tree climbing.”

  “Looks like they’re eating some kind of berry.” There was a vine growing in and around the banyan branches, covered with clumps small pale berries. “I thought cephalopods were carnivorous?”

  “Indeed. But some carnivores eat other things. The berries may be high in protein, or sugars that ferment. We should take samples.”

  “Ferment?” Tyrell found the idea of drunken tree squids highly amusing. Not that these were acting particularly tipsy, although several were showing rippling color changes in their skin. “What’s with the colors?”

  “Possibly communication. The original adaptation was probably for camouflage, but some species on Earth appear to change colors as a way to ‘talk’, as it were. I wish we had time to study them further.”

  “Could they be intelligent?”

  “That depends what you mean. Some squids and octopi on Earth are highly intelligent, considering that they’re invertebrates. They’re good at puzzle solving, but probably not as smart as chimps or dolphins, let alone humans. But these, well, they’re alien. Who knows?”

  “Huh. I was just struck by a resemblance to H.G. Wells’s martians.”

  “I don’t think these tree squids are going to be building walking tripods with heat rays in the near future.”

  “No, of course not,” Tyrell brushed the thought aside. “We should get moving.”

  “Agreed, but first I’d like to get some pictures and video of these tree squids. Can I borrow your omni?” Since the hike was unexpected, she had left her camera and other gear behind just as Tyrell had his hammer.

  “Sure,” he said, and handed it to her. “Let’s also get you some samples of those squidberries.”

  For the second time that day, and to his chagrin, Tyrell found himself climbing a tree—keeping well clear of the squids—and wading in the stream.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  The beach, south of Chandrasekhar landing site.

  By mid-afternoon they had made it back to the beach and were following it north. The sea was still choppy but had calmed considerably since last night’s storm. The beach was easily fifty meters wide at this point, although littered with storm debris above the high tide line. Right now the tide was out. Tyrell heard a whine somewhere behind him, which he at first dismissed as a flying insect, but it grew louder. Klaar was already turning to see what it was when his omni chirped.

  “It’s a plane!” Klaar said.

  It was indeed. Tyrell thumbed his omni. “Is that you in the plane?”

  Dmitri Tsibliev’s voice came back “Da, it is. I see you. Can I give you lift somewhere?”

  The EP01, rigged with floats along side its main wheels, buzzed passed them and w
aggled its wings, then banked to come back around.

  “Dmitri! Happy to hear from you! Since you’re offering, sure.” Tyrell looked around at the beach. “Is there somewhere you can land?”

  “Water is a little rough, but beach is clear about a hundred meters ahead of you. See you there.” With that, the little plane banked again as Dmitri lined it up for his approach.

  They caught up with him a few minutes later. “So, how are we going to do this?” Tyrell asked. “You only have room for one passenger. Take Ulrika then come back for me.”

  “No!” she said. “You were the one injured, you should get checked out first.”

  “Please,” said Dmitri, waving his hands. “Is nyet problem. We have plans for this.”

  “What plans?” This was news to Tyrell.

  “We take out equipment to save weight. We reconfigure seats, one in front, two behind. It helps the balance.”

  Tyrell nodded, that was what had looked odd.

  “Besides, Ulrika here is slender, she cannot mass more than what, fifty, fifty-five kilos? And you are looking skinnier too, Doctor Tyrell. The hike was good for you.”

  “Well, if you’re sure.” Tyrell said. He’d be happy to get back.

  “Da, I am sure. Although you two will be a little crowded in back seat. Nice and cosy.”

  Tyrell and Klaar looked at each other. She smiled and lowered her gaze briefly.

  “We’ll be fine,” they both said at the same time.

  Dmitri raised an eyebrow. “So? Very good, let’s get going.”

  The takeoff roll was a bit longer than usual, but true to Tsibliev’s word, the flight back to the Chandrasekhar was nyet problem.

  Part IV: Departure

  Chapter 27: Leaving

  USS Heinlein, in orbit over Kakuloa

  Commodore Drake was conferenced in with captains Patel and Tsibliev, and his own second in command, Sawyer, on the planet’s surface.