by Ginger Booth
Tarana shook her head, but her face remained impassive. “Did no one distinguish herself in the crisis?”
“Pedo called my chief engineer for help,” Sass supplied. “That saved their lives. But when I found him he was no longer coping. Did he have a lover down here?”
Tarana appeared to consider this question puzzling. “No idea.” Denali weren’t big on committed relationships.
“He lost it when a woman in his tent died. Distraught. We sedated him. ”
“No Pedo,” Zan concluded.
“No,” Tarana concurred. “Captain, if the hunters don’t select their own spokesman by end of day, please notify me of your preference. We’ll see if they accept it.” She gazed dryly at a point which might be Zan on her screen. “Perhaps Captain Zan could consult.”
This was not at all how Sass expected this conversation to go. “Tarana, I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Twelve thousand, four hundred and thirty-six,” the Selectman replied, from memory. She and her co-Selectmen were crammed into the ship’s office with Clay. “That’s how many founders died establishing Denali Prime as our first colony. Thirty percent. Denali’s original expedition was larger than Mahina’s, forty thousand.”
“We wondered that last night,” Sass allowed.
“And what have we learned?” Tarana squared her shoulders and sat tall, her fingers steepled. Benek and Sofi resolutely followed her lead. Aurora not so much. “The goal of ‘failing fast’ is to learn, and iterate. Do we proceed with this colony site? Or reconsider? The problem here is, ‘it has trees.’ But the whole planet is forested.”
“The terrestrial biomes,” Sofi quibbled. “We also have ocean, glacier, river, and lake.”
Teke quirked a lip. “Or a mountain above the tree line. Plus a narrow band of tundra at the base of the glaciers.”
Sofi beamed appreciation.
Tarana squelched them. “We’re here for the forests. The planet is named for them.”
“Lake is interesting,” Cope murmured. He frowned. “Why didn’t you build on lakes, on Denali?”
“Vicious fish,” Teke supplied.
“And insects! And flyers,” his fellow academic Sofi added. “Everything congregates at a lake.”
“Ah.” Obvious. Cope and Sass traded a smile of should’ve-seen-that-coming.
Clay surprised them by speaking up. “Some of the earliest settlements in Europe built on lakes. Similar biome, with forests, mountains, glaciers. The lake provided fresh water, food, and a natural barrier against animals and rival humans. Trees are nearby.”
“The view would be spectacular,” Sass encouraged. “Open sight-lines. If we’re building on platforms anyway, floating platforms make sense.”
Tarana frowned. “What happens when a person in a p-suit falls into the lake?”
“Should float,” Cope predicted. “Because of the air supply in the suit. I could test that.” He made a note of it.
“In fact,” Sass mused, “something like a wet-suit might work better in this environment.” Clay nodded emphatically. “We could add floats to the design.”
Tarana and Cope both made notes of that one. “My people can work on that here, Mr. Copeland. They need something to do. And you will not be with us much longer, correct?”
“Correct.” Ben emphatically spoke for his husband. “We are supposed to land colonists and leave in four days.”
“That time window is tight,” Sass noted. “And we don’t know that this is our best colony spot yet. We have an entire planet. Perhaps the equator would be wiser.”
Tarana lay down her comm tab thoughtfully. “Better to stick with the known, I think. We have so little known yet. Conscience check?”
“Agreed,” Benek said promptly.
Sofi considered longer. “The lake is nearby. That option is tempting. I think we should explore it while we have Captain Collier’s ship available. But scouting available resources is critical. And developing skills in our own people. With only four days remaining, I’m tempted to ask Thrive to focus on that, instead of establishing a colony. That’s our job.”
Ben pounced. “Am I permitted to speak at this point?” Tarana waved a go-ahead. “The goal from the Spaceways perspective is to establish a safe landing zone. A place to disembark your people and materiel. Until Thrive has accomplished that, I won’t risk landing Merchant and Hopeful.
“This is critical, Tarana. Please note that with her few people, and limited equipment off-ship, Captain Collier was able to avert disaster. She grabbed the hunters and the gear, and lifted off out of harm’s way, within a few hours. That is not possible after we disembark Hopeful, and unload all the food and advanced equipment from Merchant. Reloading becomes very time-consuming. You could lose most of your people and critical supplies. And I have a limited fuel budget. Each ship can only visit that gravity well once.”
Tarana nodded and raised a hand to halt the lecture. “We understand your constraints. And that is relevant to this discussion. Do you feel we should scout another location? Or with the four days remaining, make it work where they are? Including the lake. I imagine it’s fairly easy to relocate to the lake at this point.”
Ben sat back. “I defer to Captain Collier and President Copeland. I’m not there.”
“Mr. Copeland?” Tarana invited.
Cope hated being put on the spot like that. Sass murmured, “What experiments could we do today, Cope?”
Cope stabbed the table with an index finger. “I don’t know enough about how these trees behave. The high water table is a problem. And I think we’re below the lake here, right? Lower altitude?” Sass got busy looking it up. “I don’t know water too good. We don’t have much on Mahina. And my specialty is machinery, not buildings.”
Tarana consulted her personnel records. “I have a technician who maintained the foundations at Waterfalls, and another on the domes of Neptune. That’s it for water structure experience. I can make both of them available to you.”
Cope sighed. “Thank you.” He sounded more exasperated than grateful.
The offered consultants were technicians. Cope needed a civil engineer and architect, the planners not the doers, and he wouldn’t get them. His problem was all too familiar for the vestiges of civilization out here among the stars. Sure, humans had solved these problems before. But any small sample of people contained such a tiny subset of that expertise. Sure, their ansible allowed them to call the Aloha system for advice – with a fully characterized problem and data for a professional to chew on. But that appeal couldn’t succeed in four days either.
Sass touched his shoulder in reassurance. “Darren’s built power plants, Cope. Let him tackle the lake angle.”
Mahina power plants stored their energy in reservoirs, a simple low-loss battery. Energy in, lift water up. Energy out, drop water on turbine and funnel the generated power into the grid.
“Darren’s built a sawmill too,” Cope argued. “Either way. But we won’t have a base camp that meets Ben’s criteria in four days. Not happening.”
“Try,” Ben asserted.
Tarana gathered back the reins of control. “We go forward. In the current general area, lake and forest. A decision on which would be nice by tomorrow. Thank you all for your efforts. Adjourned.”
The faces from the Hopeful Sardine office blacked out, leaving only Ben on the screen before them.
Sass sat back a bit stunned. “Tarana thinks up to thirty percent casualties is par for the course?”
“A hundred percent,” Tikki offered from the doorway. “Fail fast and thorough.”
Ben shrugged. “But losses would be much higher after we land. This little misadventure after disembarkation would have cost us what, half the people? Two thirds of the equipment?”
“You made your point,” Cope growled at his husband.
“I wasn’t criticizing, Cope,” Ben returned sincerely. “Impressed as hell you didn’t lose all hands and the gear. You did well. But they won’t make it wit
hout skyship support. Sass?”
“No, not a snowball’s chance on Pono,” she agreed.
“I’m asking if you made a decision.”
Had she? She loved Sylvan. She longed to bring Clay down to see it, convinced he’d love it just as much. The challenge was beyond daunting, though. This isn’t enough. Forty thousand to colonize Denali, outfitted with the best North America could provide. That incredible talent pool. And three years en route to hone their plans. Compared to that, this expedition was rank amateur hour, funded by children’s trinkets from a shoebox under the bed. Yet Denali, like Mahina, only barely managed to succeed.
No, it never managed to succeed. Denali was failing right now. Mahina was the only world she’d seen yet that was finally, just barely, beginning to thrive. Granted its government remained a chaotic wasteland of incompetence. But that was viable so long as the citizens were healthy and constructively occupied. And especially now, with Mahina accepting immigrants from three other worlds, her adoptive world had finally turned the corner.
It took 120 years.
Damn, was it still that little? The Mahina Colony terraforming plan called for completion in 120 years. They were running behind – still no rain. Denali’s plan relied on generations of gene-crafting to adapt to the horrific heat. Their timeline was probably even longer. But life was what happened while you made other plans.
“I’ll stay,” Zan declared.
“I need more time,” Sass said desperately. “Ben, what is your real drop-deadline?”
He pursed his lips. “When I leave. And I will leave. With my husband.”
Cope winced. “But not our son.”
“I left for Denali at his age, Cope. And I came back as his father. As the man I chose to become. No regrets. That’s an argument you can’t win. But we have commitments to honor, and two kids at home.”
The woman I chose to become. Did she choose? Or did Belker code it into her AI directives? Doesn’t matter. It’s who I am. She couldn’t leave the Denali stranded here, whether they chose their poison or not.
“Give us two more weeks, Ben. Then I’ll stay, with Thrive.” She didn’t need to ask anyone’s permission. It was her ship, with Clay. Any crew who wanted could simply leave with Ben. Even Clay, if it came to that.
“Arbitrary,” Ben noted with disfavor. “Why two weeks, not one? Or four? Or three days?”
“Because I’m asking,” Sass replied. “I’m asking that twenty-one-year-old I took to Denali. A hopelessly ridiculously dangerous journey. Clay and I are uniquely suited to those, you know.”
Ben scowled, and appealed to his husband. “Cope?”
“Because she’s asking,” Cope replied.
Ben sighed loudly, and nodded slowly. “One extra week. Make it count. Acosta out.”
11
“Attention, this is the captain,” Sass announced ship-wide. Everyone had breakfasted now. She’d consulted with those in orbit, for all the guidance that added. She stood at the catwalk railing by the galley, above the hold and its share of huddled hunters.
“Today’s priorities are three-fold for our able-bodied hunters. We must bury your dead. The woods in the immediate area must be scouted. And we need a new Selectman. If you do not choose you own, Tarana asks that I recommend one. So please think on that while you work today. Those of you who are too injured to scout the woods will rest on board and care for each other. Kassidy will broadcast the funeral for all crew to attend, indoors and outdoors. So if you’re able-bodied, suit up. We’re about to land. Sass out.”
Her chief engineer Darren Markley was first to quibble. “Sass, we have a lot of tents and pressure suits to mend.”
“I agree. But chief, no one will sleep outside tonight. And we have enough pressure suits for everyone who’s ambulatory. Ben made clear he would scrutinize every request for an additional day with extreme prejudice. Today you and Cope get that sawmill going. If you can do that in a day.”
Darren inquired sourly, “Preferably on a foamcrete base so we can cart our sawmill somewhere else?”
Sass ignored the sarcasm. “Could you? That would be ideal, yes. And looking ahead, tomorrow we decide whether to build a floating city with your split logs. Or one on stilts here.”
“Yes, Cope mentioned,” the chief growled. “Did he also mention the honored human custom of cremation?”
“I asked Zan. Denali prefer to be eaten by wildlife, or planted for fertilizer. No body bags.”
“Charming. Chief out.”
Sass lingered a moment longer to make sure everyone was moving with intent. Her eye hesitated on Nico, being briefed by his dad. Impressed with his performance here, she decided he would lead the graves detail with their small back-hoe. She regretted the assignment. But death was part of life, and these would not be the last to die on Sylvan.
Nico could handle it.
She turned for the bridge to set her ship down and get the day’s labors underway.
Cope spun, then jumped back in horror as the power generator smashed to the ground. The hunters who’d been herding it down managed just barely to zero their gravity before they hit the charred dirt as well.
“Everyone! All stop!” he ordered. A clump of workers hung a quarter of the way down from the raised platform. “Water purifier team! Go up, not down.” He waited to make sure they could manage this. The other hunters obeyed, and stood or took a knee.
The graves detail was still in progress, by the far perimeter. But Nico didn’t need a dozen hands plus the backhoe. So Cope took his spare workforce to get the tools operational for the sawmill project while they waited for the ceremony. They needed power to charge the chainsaws, batteries dead from the cold of space. And since everything burned in this atmosphere, he didn’t want anyone sawing anything without water.
It seemed a simple enough task, to bring down a couple machines from the high platform.
He stepped to the shattered generator. He beckoned its unfortunate handlers to join him. “What happened?”
The eldest of them, Don, claimed his grav grappler just cut out. Cope reached a hand to claim it from him. But another, Stev, thought the cable failed. They’d been lowering the excruciatingly expensive machine on a standard harness and winch, with Don and Stev holding on the way down with the grav grapplers. The third of their team, Jek, lay on the platform above, the one who handled the winch.
“Jek, release the cable.” Cope turned his attention to Don’s grav grappler, testing its functionality. It lifted a large fragment of the broken machine fine, but then suddenly powered off. Cope got to hop backwards again, and yet a third time as the cable came whipsawing down from Jek. He sighed. “Jek? You need to say, ‘Look out below’ or something.”
“They saw it coming,” the hunter grumped.
“Yeah, and I was paying attention to something else. Safety measure. ‘Look out below.’ Not a lot to ask.” Cope let Don and Stev finish dressing down the careless Jek while he studied the cable. Both, he decided. The grav grappler failed, but the cables should have caught the generator. Except the cable was cut. Composed of three strands of steel wire, one was torn, the other two neatly sliced, a few meters up from the harness hook.
“How’d that happen? Does anyone know how this cable could have been cut?” No response. “On the water winch, um…”
“I’m Wara,” she reminded him.
“Wara, sorry, I’m bad with names. Check your cable. All of you, test your grav grapplers.” He took out a piece of tape and labeled the defective items. “I’m writing date, my name, and what happened. If your penmanship sucks,” several laughed, “get someone to help you. If you can’t figure out how to explain it small enough for a piece of tape, bring it to me or Darren or whoever. But when equipment fails, you label it. Understood?”
No one replied. Cope glowered at Don. “Understood,” the unfortunate hunter clarified.
He finished his notations. Then Wara reported back. “This cable is good.”
Odd failure mode. Co
pe got out a cutting tool and sliced his first cable just above the tear. “Don, Stev, go over the whole length of this. Look for other cuts.” He didn’t need to raise his voice. They were all on the same channel.
The captain hailed him. That was on a different channel. “Cope, something wrong out there?”
He explained the malfunction and the damage while his team verified the rest of the cable was sound.
“What could cause that?” Sass asked.
“Careless cut on another cable,” Cope replied. “Probably.” He wasn’t impressed, of course. But if someone placed one length of cable on top of another coil while he cut it, then very likely he’d damage the line below.
“Is that likely?”
“Why they call it an accident,” he suggested slowly. But a cut cable plus a malfunctioning grav generator seemed too much of a bad thing. Cope shrugged off the thought and sighed. “I need a crate out here big enough for the generator. Someone’s got to try and fix that.”
“That doesn’t sound likely either.”
“Nah, there’s a good shot. We’ll need to make new parts. But it’s crucial we don’t lose any of the originals.”
“I’ll be out soon.”
Cope switched back to his team channel and brought them up to speed. He didn’t want anyone traipsing this ground until every screw, spring, and button cover was policed off this ground. He let Don lead that effort, and was happily impressed. The guy told everyone to stake out two square meters and ensure each piece was picked up. The hunters still atop the platform he directed to hop down on the other side, then police the edges. All parts were accounted for by the time Sass bounded over with a crate. The cracks between its slats could let a small screw slip through. So he let Don brainstorm with the gang again.
The funeral was waiting on them by now, so after three minutes he held up a Saggy bubble kit as a hint. The Denali took it from there. They even marked the open-top crate ‘This Side Up’ and labeled its contents, noting the date and accident.
The engineer took another few minutes to lead a group discussion on what went wrong here and what they could do differently from now on. The answer he was looking for – test everything upon breaking it out of stores – came up as quickly as he could wish. They added the refinement that where possible, they would log who inspected it, on what date, and which packing container it came from. And before embarking on an unfamiliar job, they could get into a circle and brainstorm what could possibly go wrong.