Dark Secret (2016)

by Edward M. Lerner

  “Fair enough,” Dana said. “I’m game.”

  “Think about this,” Li said. “We need to be serious. For the sake of the children and their heritage. Blake? You understand, I’m sure.”

  Rikki’s eyes smoldered.

  “I’m with Li,” Carlos said.

  At least his hormones were.

  Dana said, “Four out of six, or captain’s prerogative: take your pick. We’ll go with Rikki’s suggestion. And Li, we’re following your lead by choosing names before the landing.”

  Li bowed her head in defeat—exultant inside. After this finely crafted debacle, none would think of her as subtle.

  May they never learn the error of their ways.

  Soon enough, on a dozen folded sheets of paper, two sets of six numbers waited to be drawn from opaque bags. One set related to the planets, the other to the crew.

  If luck came to Li’s aid, she might even get to name the world below. That would be a pleasant bonus. But no. In the lottery for planets she drew four, one of the gas giants.

  In the second round, Li did get the consolation prize of naming “her” world first. She picked Hobbes, just in case Carlos had drawn the second planet. He had, alas, only drawn the innermost planet, the Mars-like world. Glancing to Li for approval, or maybe to claim a favor, he declared his world Confucius.

  Antonio, going next, had drawn three: the biggest, nearest, gas giant. He dubbed it Ayn Rand. He didn’t meet Li’s gaze. If his selection weren’t defiant, he wouldn’t have anyway.

  For the outermost world, when her turn came, Dana chose Kierkegaard. An interesting choice: a philosopher who had not made it onto Li’s recommended reading list. Existentialism. Christian ethics. Blah, blah, blah. Better, though, than the biblical nonsense to which Li had expected Dana might turn—not that Li would deny that the old myths resonated with people. Quite the opposite, in fact. She admired the old stories’ cultural tenacity, just not anyone gulled by them.

  Rikki, dithering still when her turn came, settled on Newton for planet five.

  But it was Blake who had won the sweepstakes: the privilege of naming humanity’s new home. When at last the moment came to exercise his right, he didn’t, as he had intimated, opt to call the planet Home.

  The world they would settle would be known, forever after, as Dark.

  22

  “Ready back there?” Blake asked. On his cockpit instruments everything showed green. “This will be fun.”

  “Ready,” Rikki called from behind him. She sounded dubious about the fun.

  He toggled on the radio. “Endeavour, this is the shuttle Discovery. We’re go for launch.”

  “Safe journey, Discovery,” Dana radioed back. “Keep in touch.”

  “Will do,” he said.

  With mountains and valleys, lakes and rivers and seas, icecaps and glaciers and boundless plains, Dark beckoned. Here and there, a whorl of cloud obscured his view. The planet was in all-but-full phase, and even the slender visible rim of night side glimmered in double moonlight.

  “Releasing docking clamps,” Blake announced. “Engaging thrusters.”

  With puffs of compressed nitrogen, he edged the dart-like shuttle away from the much larger ovoid that was Endeavour. “I’m off to deploy our cargo,” he reported.

  Endeavour could have delivered the weather microsats as easily as the shuttle, but he wanted to get a feel for his controls before attempting entry and landing.

  He had his doubts this exercise would buy them more than flight practice. None of these satellites would stay parked. Not with three close-in natural moons to perturb their orbits. Not with the innermost moon dipping daily below the altitude of synchronous orbits.

  Five or six microsats, even drifting, might keep the entire planet under observation and maintain a line-of-sight comm ring. They had three.

  Synchronous orbits? Above Dark, the notion was ludicrous. Out of necessity, they would learn to live with sporadic downlinks when one of their few satellites happened to wander overhead.

  The scarcity of on-orbit sensors was emblematic of everything they lacked. Automated landers. Robotic swarms to make the initial explorations. Construction equipment. A real med lab. Months of food in reserve. Portable reactors and enough deuterium to—

  Stop it, Blake ordered himself. You’re alive. It’s time to earn your place among the lucky few.

  “Copy that,” Dana said. “When you’re done with your deliveries, how about you find us a nice homestead.”

  “Beachfront property,” he promised. “Discovery, out.”

  “Copy.”

  Blake flipped off the ship-to-ship radio. “Main drive in ten seconds.”

  “Okay,” Rikki said.

  No one had commented on his spontaneous christening of the shuttle.

  Carlos and Antonio were probably sick of picking names. Dana, traditionalist that she was, might even approve of Blake’s choice. Discovery had been among the ships bringing the original settlers to the Jamestown colony. Another Discovery had accompanied James Cook’s third expedition around the world. Robert Scott had taken yet a different Discovery to Antarctica.

  And Li? Blake supposed she was off licking her wounds after the name-the-worlds fiasco. Unless she had found a reason to like the name. When the Jamestown colonists sent their Discovery seeking a Northwest Passage, its crew mutinied. They abandoned the captain, Henry Hudson, in a small boat. He was never seen again.

  And Rikki? She was all but monosyllabic. She was mad about something, and he had no idea what.

  He asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “About what?”

  He guessed. “We’ll find a place for the colony. We will succeed.”

  “I know,” she said, but her voice was sad.

  “Your family would be proud.”

  “And yours,” she said.

  He found no more solace in the reassurance than she had.

  Discovery’s trajectory plunged them into darkness. As his eyes adapted, more and more stars appeared—except where the Coalsack took a huge chunk out of the sky.

  “Coming up on the drop point,” Rikki called.

  “Copy that.” He kept watch on his own displays. “On my mark, make the drop. Three, two, one, mark.”

  “First satellite dropped.” There was a pause. “Telemetry received. It’s online.”

  He went on the radio. “Endeavour, that’s one satellite on station.” While its onboard fuel lasts. “We’re on our way to the next drop point.”

  “We have it,” Dana said.

  On the way to the third deployment, Rikki said, “Li is beautiful, don’t you think?”

  That was one hell of a non sequitur.

  Yes wasn’t what Rikki wanted to hear. No was hardly credible. Ignoring the question wasn’t an option. Blake settled on, “Carlos certainly thinks so.”

  A sniff said he had taken too long to answer. So was Rikki’s funk about Li?

  After the third microsat was deployed, returned to the world’s day side, Blake called, “Endeavour, this is Discovery. We’re ready to go in.”

  “Copy that.” In a softer voice, Dana added, “Take care, Discovery.”

  “Always,” Blake said. “Discovery, out.”

  With a blast of their main drive he shed velocity. The shuttle trembled at the first wisps of atmosphere. He swung left, then right, getting a feel for the bite of the shuttle’s control surfaces. Lower and lower they plunged, and the tremor became a quiver became a bone-rattling shudder. The leading edge of their wings glowed a dull orange.

  Nothing about their descent was quite what he expected. The atmosphere was shallower than over any world where he had ever flown, because of Dark’s high gravity. The pressure varied more rapidly with altitude, for the same reason. His laser altimeter started talking nonsense again. His backup altimeter was useless, still calibrated for atmospheric pressure above Mars.

  He had radar and eyeballs. They would suffice.

  His controls kept refu
sing to act as his instincts expected: pressure-gradient differences again. He put the craft into a steeper dive, pulled out of it, banked left, then jinked back right. Tearing through experimental banks and turns, he began to get the feel of his craft and this world.

  “If you do a barrel roll,” Rikki said, “I’ll divorce you.”

  Blake had to laugh. This was fun. “No rolls,” he agreed.

  The world became flat. Plains as colorless as charcoal stretched in every direction. To the west he glimpsed a great crevasse. From the topo map compiled on orbit, that was a river canyon.

  The gravity wore at him, just sitting—and it was worse for Rikki.

  At about eight thousand meters, the shuttle broke through a thin, uniform layer of white. Ice crystals spattered off the canopy. Cirrostratus, he wanted to call the formation, too ignorant of weather processes to even guess if Dark and Earth would share cloud types. Maybe Antonio would know.

  They had slowed enough to be out of comm blackout. (Under Earth conditions, he reminded himself.) He gave radio a try. “Endeavour, this is Discovery. Do you read?”

  “Good to hear from you, Discovery,” Dana said. “Though to judge from the ionization trail behind you, someone enjoyed the ride too much.”

  “Negative,” Blake said. “Just the proper amount.”

  “No, Dana, you were right,” Rikki said.

  A blue-and-green dappled expanse was straight ahead of them. The inland sea was long and skinny, with a slight bend at its midsection. Except for the color it reminded Blake of a summer squash.

  But the sea was a lot bigger than a summer squash. If his mental arithmetic was correct, the sea covered an expanse bigger than Lake Superior. Two of the many bays that dimpled the seacoast had to be bigger than cities. Radar indicated depths to eighty meters. Most of the lake bottom failed to return an echo; the center must be far deeper.

  Blake said, “Endeavour, we have a beautiful afternoon. We’ll do a quick flyover, then set down at our first landing zone.”

  “Copy that,” Dana said.

  Exploring the area they crossed a great chasm. They soared along a mountain chain that must rival the Andes. Dark was…magnificent. Reveling in the stark beauty and the freedom of flight, swooping through the empty skies, time got away from him.

  By the time he circled back to the sea, the sun, about to set, almost kissed the waters. (“It’s Plato,” Li’s astral projection scolded.) The star, by whatever name, sent its rays almost parallel to the ground. The light cast the weathered, snow-capped mountains east of the waters into stark relief. Broken ground and boulder fields extended almost to the toffee-colored beach.

  “I have to set us down near the shore,” he said.

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Only for the morning. We’ll have a long walk to the caves.”

  She said, “A walk by sunlight, in fresh air. I’ll take it.”

  He brought them in low and slow, paralleling the coastline. As near to the cave mouth as he dared to land, he engaged drive deflectors and—gingerly, still getting the feel of this gravity—set down. The faint rattle of pebbles against the shuttle’s underbelly was his imagination, of course; the drive exhaust had fused sand and loose rocks into place.

  “Endeavour, he reported, “Discovery has landed.”

  “Copy that,” Dana said. “And it’s about time you finished joyriding.”

  “You’ll have your turn,” Blake said.

  “Yeah, yeah. Enjoy your evening. Endeavour, out.”

  “Discovery, out,” he responded.

  He read the ground temps with IR sensors. Still hot. He got out Mars-style breather masks and lobbed one over his shoulder to Rikki. He checked the IR sensors. He and Rikki admired the fiery sunset sparkling off the waters. He checked the IR sensors. They marveled as the apple-green sky faded to something closer to olive. He checked the IR sensors. He reached overhead with both arms, tap-tapping on the canopy till Rikki kicked the back of his seat. She checked the IR sensors.

  When, at last, sensors showed they could safely exit the shuttle, the wind had kicked up. The sun had half-vanished beneath the sea. Two moons hung overhead, and the waves lapped to within several meters of their landing skids.

  “Are you ready to make camp?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she said. “Ready, in any event, for an air mattress.”

  “Mask on?” he asked.

  “Mask on.”

  “Releasing the canopy,” he advised her, and then did. To the wailing of the wind, louder with each centimeter that the gap widened, the canopy receded into its stowage in the hull.

  Grit pelted him. The air was cold, and it refused to fill his lungs. He slipped on his breather mask, then gloves. He shouted over the wind, “Stay put.”

  He hung the boarding ladder outside, hooked over the rim of the cockpit. Leg muscles screaming, he stepped down the three rungs and onto the ground. Sand and salt spray stung any bit of exposed flesh.

  He slid the ladder aft, to Rikki’s end of the cockpit, leaving his hands on the rails. “Carefully, climb over the side. I’ll steady you.”

  Her boot slipped off the bottom rung, and they tumbled together to the ground.

  Blake was pissed at himself for not setting down earlier, when they had had better weather. He was pissed at Li for goading Rikki into volunteering, never mind that he’d intended all along to invite her. And, to be honest, he was pissed at Rikki herself. What the hell was her problem? Li? Why wouldn’t Rikki talk to him about it?

  Rikki unhooked the ladder and closed the canopy with its remote while he stewed.

  Unloading their gear from the shuttle’s cargo locker, he asked, “Are you ready for dinner and some sleep?”

  And if you get over your foul mood, and I over mine, maybe putting an air mattress to a more communal use?

  “Sounds like a plan,” Rikki said.

  But not his only plan. As they ate, the staked-and-inflated shelter shimmying in the wind, he mentally reviewed the next plan’s few, simple stages:

  —A leisurely morning stroll.

  —Reconnoitering and approval of the nearby caves.

  —Endeavour on the ground.

  —Some honest labor, specifics to be determined.

  And everyone lives happily ever after.

  *

  But as Rikki slept fitfully and Blake not at all, beneath the pitiless stare of an alien sky, the Coalsack—vast, inchoate, stygian—scoffed at the effrontery of mere human aspiration.

  DECISIONS

  (Landing Day, plus one)

  23

  “Avalanche!” Blake screamed.

  Or tried, anyway. Snow down his throat choked off the warning and set him to coughing.

  Rikki didn’t answer.

  “Rikki!” he managed to wheeze, scarcely audible above the roar of the onrushing snow. She had come to rest, bent double against one of the jumble of boulders he had just missed. Blood dribbled from a gash on her forehead. “Rikki! Avalanche! We have to move!”

  She didn’t stir as he struggled back to his feet. He shoved her, hard. Nothing.

  The roar of the avalanche was palpable. The churning mass racing at them looked perhaps a minute away.

  On skis—maybe—he could outrun the avalanche. Not on foot. Not carrying Rikki.

  Her breather mask, like his, had been knocked off. The mask dangled by its flimsy elastic strap around her neck. He slipped Rikki’s mask up over her mouth and nose. His chest heaving, he dragged her in among the clustered boulders and leaned her up against the tallest of the stones.

  Because he had to leave her! Abandon her! If the snow should bury them both—they both died.

  After the avalanche blasted through, he would be lucky to see the tops of the rocks. Would he recognize this spot? Rikki’s hiking pole was nowhere in sight; he started slipping off the wristband of his pole, to wedge it as a marker among the rocks.

  And paused. If the avalanche carried away the pole, he’d have nothing with which to
probe for her beneath the snow.

  (“We have maybe fifteen minutes to save an avalanche victim,” a ski instructor had once cautioned Blake and a half-dozen other beginners. Blake had been more attentive to the ski bunnies than to the lecture. “Do not lose your beacon. Even with a beacon, the odds of rescue are about fifty-fifty.”)

  Fifteen minutes. With an organized effort and a radio beacon to guide the rescuers.

  The wall of snow was no more than thirty seconds away.

  In anguish, Blake unclipped from their safety line. He began running/sliding/falling across the slippery slope. He couldn’t outrun an avalanche, but maybe he could get to the side of it. With each glance over his shoulder, the chaos drew nearer.

  The tide of snow crashed over the cluster of boulders. He tried to sear into his brain the configuration of the boulders.

  If the snow completely buried them, he’d never find Rikki.

  Seconds later, with an earsplitting growl, the edge of the snow torrent swept him off his feet. Downhill he went, tumbling like dice in a cup.

  Stones and clumps of ice pounded him. The snow ripped off his hat and gloves, breather mask and headset. The hiking pole vanished, its wrist strap snapped or torn from his arm.

  At least he couldn’t slam into a tree.

  Snow was everywhere: down his back, filling his boots, up his sleeves. His breather mask was gone, its thin elastic strap unequal to this abuse. Snow plugged his nostrils. Each breath began by spitting out snow, and ended with another mouthful.

  But the avalanche was petering out. He had stopped tumbling. Bobbing along on the surface, he dared to hope the worst was past.

  Until, being denser than loose snow, he began to sink.

  Lungs burning from exertion and the thin air, Blake started to swim. A knapsack strap had snapped, or in his flailing the strap had slipped off one arm. The bag, hanging like an anchor from one shoulder, dragged him into the snow. Shrugging off the remaining strap, still swimming hard, he managed to stay on top.

  He came to rest somewhat vertical, leaning forward, in snow up to his diaphragm. Already, he felt the snow settling and compacting around him like concrete. He could not move his legs, not so much as wiggle a foot.