Marooned on Eden

by Robert L. Forward

  MAROONED ON EDEN

  Robert L. Forward

  and

  Martha Dodson Forward

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1993 by Robert L. Forward & Martha Dodson Forward

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, N.Y. 10471

  ISBN: 0-671-72180-1

  Cover art by David Mattingly

  First printing, August 1993

  Distributed by

  SIMON & SCHUSTER

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, N.Y. 10020

  Typeset by Windhaven Press, Auburn, N.H.

  Printed in the United States of America

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The authors wish to thank the following people, who helped us in several technical areas: Julie Fuller, Seichi Kiyohara, and Gordon T. Baker, M.D.

  The "Christmas Bush" motile was jointly conceived by Hans P. Moravec and Robert L. Forward, and drawn by Jef Poskanzer using a CAD system.

  All final art was expertly prepared by the great gang of graphic artists at Multi-Graphics in Marina Del Rey, California.

  I was feeling most upset. Intruders were disturbing my people's territory—and one of my eyes was late . . .

  The mid-day darkness was fast approaching. All my eyes, but one, were back in their nests tucked underneath my fronds, feeding me the views they had gathered. I retired into my mind to revise my worldview. The new views coming from my eyes now contained images of strange four-limbed creatures. Somehow, the creatures managed to balance on just two limbs and didn't fall down!

  My attention was next drawn to a circle of stones that surrounded the yellow horror of a fire that was blazing away in the center. These strangers must be intelligent indeed to be able to control fire!

  One of the strangers was holding a stick over the fire. Impaled on that stick were a few chunks of something. The creature pulled one of the chunks off the stick and raised it to its naked mouth. I moved my view closer. Then, with revulsion and horror, I recognized the triple-jointed structure of meat and bone, and the few still-unplucked blue-green pinfeathers on the skin . . .

  The creature was eating one of my eyes!

  Other Books in This Series

  Rocheworld

  Return to Rocheworld

  (with Julie Forward Fuller)

  SAILING

  Solitary and silent, the huge starship Prometheus sailed through space, propelled by the sunlight reflected from its large circular lightsail of thin silvery metal film. The 300 kilometer diameter lightsail maintained its flat circular shape by a ponderous rotation of the structure about its central axis, like a slowly cartwheeling tinfoil moon passing across the backdrop of a gigantic empty stage. Below the lightsail hung a metallic cylinder, a space habitat, somewhat the worse for the wear it had experienced over the almost half century that had passed since it had left the Solar System. In the weak light of the small red dwarf star Barnard, six light-years distant from Earth, the ship's metal exterior shone a dim, pale red.

  Mechanically and efficiently, the optical telescopes, infrared imagers, particle detectors, electromagnetic receivers, neutrino counters, gravity sensors, data analyzers, information recorders, and interstellar communicators under the supervision of the powerful central computer of Prometheus performed their myriad and continuing tasks of observation, analysis, and reporting of the physical aspects and the behavior of the various bodies in the Barnard planetary system.

  In close orbit around Barnard circled the gas giant planet Gargantua—four times bigger than Jupiter—with its retinue of nine moons—four large planetoids and five small rocks. Between the circular orbit of Gargantua and Barnard whirled the strange double-planet Rocheworld in its own highly elliptical orbit around Barnard. Rocheworld's orbital period was exactly one-third that of Gargantua's orbital period, so it passed close to Gargantua once every third orbit.

  All the moons and planets of the Barnard system had been surveyed from space during the first three years after the arrival of Prometheus at the Barnard system, and two of the bodies had been explored by landing parties. Rocheworld was one of the bodies that was visited, not once, but twice. Two different alien lifeforms were found there. One, the "gummies", lived in the highlands of Roche, the name given to one lobe of the double planet, and the other, the "flouwen", lived in the oceans of the other lobe, Eau. The third exploration landing had been on Zulu, the innermost large moon of Gargantua, whose ice-covered ocean contained hot-water geysers around which lived colonies of intelligent "icerugs."

  Now, Prometheus approached the next landing target, the Gargantuan moon Zuni, which orbited between the water-covered moon Zulu and the smog-covered moon Zouave. A little larger than the Earth's moon, with a surface gravity of only 28% that of Earth, Zuni should have been barren and cold, or at least should have had a hostile environment like Rocheworld or the other moons of Gargantua. Instead, it looked like a miniature Earth, a South Pacific version, with verdant volcanic island chains stretched out over a planetwide blue ocean dotted with white rainclouds. Part of the reason Zuni had been chosen as the target for the last of the four planetary exploration landers that Prometheus carried, was to find out why this small moon was so Earth-like.

  Within the sheltering metal hull of the space habitat, the central computer and "brain" of Prometheus, James, absorbed the data that flowed in from all over the ship, while at the same time it effortlessly monitored the condition of its equipment, operated the versatile and sensitive motiles by which it essentially ran the ship; and, at least as important, cared for and served the nineteen human beings whose lives were confined within the hull. For, although James collected and correlated the data, the real analyses and discoveries were made by the humans, who studied the information their machines had gathered about these strange planetoids, and struggled to comprehend the meaning behind the complex gravitational, electromagnetic, mechanical, thermal, and chemical phenomena which shaped and activated them.

  The crew lived on the lower five of Prometheus' seven circular decks. The decks were connected by a central shaft four meters in diameter and sixty meters long, terminated at each end by a transparent dome which contained science scanning instruments. The shaft contained an elevator for moving massive equipment, and served as an access route between decks. In the nearly freefall environment of the lightsail propelled spacecraft, the humans drifted up and down the shaft like bubbles as they went about their routines.

  The top two decks of the seven decks were tucked up under the center of the lightsail. These were the domain of James's primary motile, the Christmas Bush. Those decks contained the "workwall," a twisted labyrinth of foot-wide corridors with walls that were solidly lined from floor to ceiling with banks of miniature machines, each backed up with triplicate spares in storage. The machines ranged from simple free-fall weighing devices, to fermenting tanks, to ultrasonic cleaners, to tunneling array microscopes, to cubic-meter-sized complete biochemical analytical and synthesis machines. Although all the instruments were controlled electronically by James using direct data links, it was the Christmas Bush motile or one of its subunits which inserted the samples to be analyzed and removed the products that had been synthesized.

  The Christmas Bush motile had a six-"armed" main body. Each arm hexfurcated into copies one-third the size of itself, and each copy repeated the hexfurcation until the final stage, which c
onsisted of millions of near-microscopic cilia. Each subsegment had a small amount of intelligence, but was mostly a motor and communication system. The segments communicated with each other and transmitted power down through the structure by means of light-emitting and light-collecting semiconductor diodes. Blue laser beams were used to monitor closely any human beings near the motile, while red and yellow beams were used to monitor the rest of the room. The green beams that were used to transmit power and information from one portion of the Christmas Bush to another gave the metallic surface of the multibranched structure a deep green internal glow. It was the multicolored red, yellow, and blue lasers that sparkled from the various branches of the greenly glowing structure that gave the motile the appearance of a small Christmas tree, and thus its name.

  James, the central computer in the spacecraft, was the "brains" and the primary controller of the motile, communicating with the various subportions of the Christmas Bush through color-coded laser beams. It took a great deal of computational power to operate the many limbs of the Christmas Bush, but built-in "reflexes" at the various levels of segmentation lessened the load on the central computer.

  The "hands" of the Christmas Bush had capabilities that far exceeded those of the human hand. The Christmas Bush could stick a "hand" inside a delicate piece of equipment, and using its lasers as a light source and its detectors as eyes, rearrange the parts inside for a near-instantaneous repair. The Christmas Bush also had the ability to detach portions of itself to make smaller motiles. These could walk up the walls and along the ceilings using their tiny cilia to hold onto microscopic cracks in the surface. The smaller twigs on the Christmas Bush were capable of very rapid motion. In free fall, these rapidly beating twigs allowed the motile to propel itself through the air. The speed of motion of the smaller cilia was rapid enough that the motiles could generate sound and thus talk directly with the humans. Each member of the crew had a small subtree or "imp" that stayed constantly with him or her. In addition to the imp's primary purpose of providing a continuous personal communication link between the crew member and James, it also acted as a health monitor and personal servant for the human.

  Between the two work decks above and the five living decks below was the storage area for the robotic explorers which were sent down to explore the planetoids ahead of the humans, and the four large planetary landers that carried down and returned the human exploration crews. Most of the original robotic explorers had been deployed during the initial survey phase of the mission, and continually transmitted back to Prometheus the information they were gathering about the two lobes of Rocheworld, the planet Gargantua, and Gargantua's nine moons. Orbiters, communicators, amphibious crawlers, aeroplanes, balloons, rollers, penetrators, and diggers had all been launched in the three years since the humans first arrived on their mission.

  And the mission continued, and would continue as long as these explorers, both human and robot, existed. Launched from Earth forty-five years previously, the crew of Prometheus intended to explore the star system Barnard exhaustively for the rest of their lives, faithfully transmitting all the information they gathered back to the planet they would never see again. During those forty-five years, the carefully-selected personnel had experienced most normal human emotions and difficulties, and some not so normal. The life-extending drug No-Die, administered by James to the crew over a span of forty years, made it possible for them to arrive at their destination while still relatively physically young, but at some costs.

  Three of the crew were now at their duty stations on the bottom control deck. In the limited space, they were crowded close to each other; nevertheless, through long habit, each spoke automatically only to his or her imp, which connected them directly to the central computer, which in turn connected them with all the rest of the ship, machine and human alike. For most of the crew, their imp rode on their shoulder, like a brightly sparkling six-legged tarantula, with one leg resting lightly on the neck of the person, its laser beams constantly monitoring pulse, blood pressure, and, using reflection laser spectroscopy through the thin skin, blood constituents. Sparkling with constantly moving flashes of blue, green, red, and yellow along its slender extending fibers, the shape and riding position of the benign imps sometimes reflected the individuality of the people they served. In the case of the expedition commander, Major General Virginia Jones, she had chosen to have her imp form itself in the shape of a bejeweled hair-comb, set firmly into her short crop of curly black hair just behind one ear. Here, the imp could not only carry on its health monitoring activities, but, when she was talking, act as a lightweight telephone operator's headset, one arm extended to pick up her every whisper, and another arm fanned out near her ear to verbalize James's response.

  "Caroline, double-check status of the amphibious crawler Bubble. It's floating in the middle of a small lagoon on an island at the Inner pole of Zuni. It's been instructed to dive and explore the bottom, but it's not doing it." The words were murmured so softly into the twinkling extension of the Christmas Bush waiting at her lips that she could barely hear them herself. But echoed back from James through her own imp into her ear, the command came clear and brisk. James routed the command to Caroline, who was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with the speaker.

  "Double-checking, Jinjur," Caroline Tanaka muttered in reply to the command coming into her ear through her imp. She deftly rearranged the incoming data display with a few quick finger stabs at the touchscreen. "Hmmm. Lack of actual depth record. Malfunction? David, malfunction of Bubble's depth recorder?"

  The inaudible question, properly switched by James to the imp standing on David Greystoke's shoulder, arrested David's attention from the screen he had been watching so intently. He switched his screen to the image on Caroline's screen and scowled.

  "Hmmm. All other functions of Bubble are operating normally. I'll have James send a self-check command to clarify the situation before it proceeds with the dive. Can't understand why that one unit should fail. Damn." Both Jinjur and Caroline heard the little growl of complaint through their imps—James did not edit any spoken words.

  As directed, the central computer sent its questioning impulses on their way, while the crew on duty continued with their analysis work. Soon, the voice of James, tinged with the built-in apologetic note it had been programmed to use when data seem inadequate, addressed them all.

  "Bubble apparently cannot reach the bottom of that particular body of water without threat of damage to itself. The reading from its sonar depth gauge is off its range."

  "The lagoon is not that big across," replied Jinjur. "How can it be that deep?"

  "Might be a drowned caldera," suggested Caroline. "Not surprising, since according to Richard and Sam, all the islands on Zuni are of volcanic origin."

  "David. Better have Bubble make a few traverses of the lagoon's surface while measuring the depth to the bottom, then run that data, including angle of bottom slope, etcetera, through James's geophysical mapping program to develop a seabottom map and a safe descent route before we send Bubble down to explore. Make a reminder note for—let's see, who's coming on science analysis duty next?—Carmen, I think, and George and Richard."

  The reminder note was made and stored. The shift period finally came to an end, and the three people pulled the backs and legs of their coveralls loose from the velcro attachment pads of their console seats, maneuvering carefully in the low gravity so as not to bump into each other between the close-ranked consoles.

  "Hey, David!"

  David looked over at Jinjur as she spoke directly to him without going through the imp-to-James-to-imp interface. "How's the sonovideo show coming?"

  David grinned, his elfin face lighting up under his thatch of reddish hair. "Slow but sure, Jinjur—can't hurry us geniuses! Got to go back to it right now . . ." He went quickly from the command room. Writing music for the sonovideo light and dance performances he created was a joy David couldn't, and wouldn't, share with anyone. They would just have to wait f
or the performance. He considered, dispassionately, how to costume his preferred dancer, the acrobatic Arielle Trudeau, for the "Dance of the Northern Lights" he was composing. The auroras he had witnessed on the icy planet of Zulu had left him tingling to set them to music, and the quickness, litheness, and fragility of Arielle's body could illustrate it to perfection; but the spare frame of the aerospace pilot preferred a snuggly bunny suit to any other form of clothing, even in the mild, carefully regulated atmosphere of the ship. Tendrils of ribbon-like fabric with the shimmering overtones of auroral emission colors would be appropriate, but Arielle quite possibly would object. As David made his way up the central shaft to the crew quarters above, he swiftly outlined the problem to James, then dismissed it from his own mind. He knew that James would use its Christmas Bush to manufacture something that would be perfectly satisfactory to both composer and performer.

  James noted David's requirement for a costume. Within the labyrinthine confines of the two upper decks, a Christmas Branch, a subset of the Christmas Bush, detached itself from the main motile and went silently to work, spinning gossamer strands from recycled threads of artificial fabric, and creating new colors by synthesizing the appropriate chemical dyes. Such a minor task was handled routinely and easily by James, using only a very small part of the giant computer's capabilities. At the same time, the health reports coming in from nineteen imps were analyzed and stored, maintaining a record of all the changes in the well-being of the human bodies James cared for.