Unbound Brothers

by Rob Rowntree

  Rubbing at his tear-stained cheeks, Alan experienced immense relief; it consumed and washed away a cloying tiredness. The last few weeks, though hard, slowly consigned themselves to memory as a new realisation dawned. Inevitable really: no one on board would resist the call of this little world.

  Haqiqa fired her main engines, slowing their approach. Achieving orbit lay a day or so away and from this distance, finer details such as river deltas, topographic profiles and cultivation, if any, remained elusive. A spectrographic analysis of the atmosphere had presented all the encouragement they’d needed, methane, carbon dioxide, oxygen... Alan felt sure that their true destination lay below. It felt right.

  Alan allowed his gaze to wander to the Jovian the Titan-sized world orbited. Two thirds the size of Jupiter, its red and ochre banding straddled a full quarter of the view. From the surface of the moon it must dominate the sky. That and the gas-giant’s rings; one hung close by, a smoky tenuous haze arching through the heavens. Perhaps the natives told folk tales about it, sung about it.

  Alan already had some preliminary data: a gas-torus - temperature maintained proximity to the Jovian and hugging the outer edge of the star system’s goldilocks zone and an odd gravitational twist that sustained its integrity. Hypothesis indicated that a hidden moon spewed elements into its orbital wake. He asked Haqiqa to investigate the phenomena and he expected the results shortly. The science wouldn’t steal away from the magic, but enhance and refine, clarify.

  Luckily, they’d approached the Jovian obliquely from below and Haqiqa’s instruments had quickly located the moon-size-world. Its eccentric orbit helped.

  From behind, Alan heard someone enter the lounge. Without turning he said, “It’s something to behold. Every time I come upon a new world, especially one like this, I kind of hold my breath, waiting, wondering expectantly about what may be down there. Kind of childish, I guess.”

  Stowe moved up beside him and began to unfold her easel. “No, not childish, a little wistful perhaps. It is beautiful. I never thought so many colours hid out here. Perhaps that’s a misconception a lot of planet dwellers have; monochromatic space vistas and cold perspectives.” She bent, then stood holding a bunch of pastel crayons, “Here, hold these while I get a pad, I want to get some rough impressions before I paint.”

  Alan marvelled at her ability to focus; most travellers to new earth-like worlds become mesmerised by the sight. Of course, in the last few weeks Stowe frequently demonstrated her aptitude for concentration and, although possibly influenced by a strong desire to abandon the investigation of the objects, she had remained logical and vocal in her defence of Alan’s mutiny.

  There’d been threats and cajoling, out-right hostility and a period of verbal isolation that only served to anger Alan further. Avram Stowe, however, saw through it all.

  “The world looks tiny from here. You sure you’ll manage to do it justice?”

  “Alan, for a picture like this I’ll be sketching many images; some detailed and fiddly, others more emotive, rough and edgy.” Pausing, she looked at him. “You’ve never been to art school have you? It’s a little like decorating - preparation means everything. Also, I like to let the images wander around my mind until a concept seats itself. This is a peach of a shot, I’ll make sure it’s good, you see if I don’t.”

  “I bet you will at that. Listen; do you want me to fix you a drink before you start? Coffee or something?”

  Smiling she said, “Sure, that sounds nice.”

  From the bar area Alan said, “Should I return the ship to Conway? Now that we’re here, I can’t see any reason to keep control. He’ll want to go down and look around. Who wouldn’t?”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea? It’s noble and the gesture would alleviate certain problems. But have you considered this? If Conway gets the ship back what’s to stop him from doing what you did? What’s to stop him from locking you out?”

  “A good point.” Picking up the coffees, Alan moved to join Stowe near the window. “Conway’s a slippery bastard so I guess you’re right. Hell, it’s not like he doesn’t have access to the majority of the ship’s functions, and restricting his ability to manoeuvre the vessel seems prudent. My options remained limited. Conway would put us all in jeopardy for a quick profit.”

  Alan wondered, and not for the first time, whether taking control of the vessel had been the right course of action. Perhaps discussion would have worked? A more open debate. Ultimately though, he knew that would never have succeeded. Conway, Woodland and Gibson expressed no doubt as to their feelings on the matter and reason proves a weak tool in the face of outright stubbornness.

  He was disturbed from his musings by Stowe’s gentle touch; she appeared concerned and for a moment Alan allowed his emotions some free reign. Women’s intuition? empathy? Alan fell into her warmth as she embraced him and allowed the first feelings of comfort he’d felt in a while to ease into his troubled mind. Their lips met, caressed. Maybe things will work out after all.

  ***

  From his data-well Alan nudged Haqiqa into a tight polar orbit. Satisfied that the AI could take things from there, he unbuckled his harness. He stood and clambered onto the walkway, wincing at a sore spot on his hip. Too long in the chair old buddy, way too long.

  He took a deep breath. It would be the first full crew meeting in three weeks. He felt tired, deflated after the journey here. A small part of him wanted nothing to do with planet fall, or any preparations that went with it. He would see what Conway and Woodland planned and possibly let them go with it, within certain guidelines, of course.

  To his surprise, upon entering the meeting room he found everyone in loud, excited conversation. People appeared energised.

  Reaching his seat, he saw Conway bearing towards him.

  “Alan, I haven’t forgiven you. So for the foreseeable future and in an attempt to make the rest of our stay here more palatable, I will ignore your slight faux-pas.”

  “That’s mighty generous of you, Conway,” Alan managed a tight smirk.

  “There’s no need for forced politeness, Mr Abrams. I will have my retribution, mark my words.”

  “Do you know, I think you actually mean that?” Alan sat, hoping Conway and the others would follow suit.

  Moments later the hubbub subsided and Conway rose to address them all. Alan couldn’t help but notice that Woodland’s attention remained firmly in his direction. Perhaps Woodland waited to see how Alan would react to Conway’s proposed investigation of the small world below.

  Conway cleared his throat: “In an effort to satisfy some disquiet regarding safety procedures and any misgivings centred on my own motivations for this voyage, I have tried to put together a by-the-numbers survey.

  “Yes, and before you ask, I will accept some culpability for previous errors, which does not however, mean that in retrospect I would have done anything differently. To undo, or dare I say rearrange my plan, might undermine everything I hold dear.”

  People shuffled uneasily in their seats, Stowe stared at the conference table surface and Gibson slowly turned a deep shade of red. Alan wondered if Gibson’s allegiance to Conway had faltered. Perhaps more than a professional relationship had existed between Gibson and Shepperd.

  Conway began to pace around the table. “We will deploy several hundred free flight drones to capture and relay information regarding everything from climate and atmospheric constitution to what the locals eat and crap into. We will initiate sample returned missions, and when satisfied that we have got most everything we’ll deploy several recon bugs into the heart of any community that we come across—”

  Woodland leaned forward, “Recon bugs? What pattern are you using for dispersal?”

  “It’s one I’ve improvised. You’ve seen similar before. Little ex-military eavesdropping microphones and imagers sprinkled across any potential targets. If we are lucky we’ll get a good sampling of language and several high-resolution movies of the locals. Hopefully we’ll get a handle
on their language and that in turn will help us avoid any misunderstandings if we decide to make contact.”

  Alan raised his hand. “How do you expect to translate what by definition is an alien language with probably no correlation to any known tongue of earth? We don’t have any language expertise.”

  “You’re absolutely right to mention that. Many years ago I came across a very promising undergraduate studying language construction and design. His work exemplified how little we knew about language. I invested heavily and he moved on to become one of the world’s foremost experts in the study of language and environment. He, ladies and gentlemen, wrote an extensive interpretation program for Haqiqa’s AI. That and a little help from us—” Conway managed a grin, “and some luck, might take us a long way.”

  Conway paused to glance across the expectant faces, “Any thoughts so far, Woodland, Abrams, Pickering?”

  Woodland said, “Sounds like you’ve given this some thought, but I’d like to go over the proposed dispersal of the drones and the recon bugs. We need good data return, so we must correctly maximise the deployment. A second pair of eyes never hurts.”

  Alan added, “He’s right and while we are at it, I wouldn’t mind checking over your ideas for sample returns.”

  Conway smiled, “Yes, yes, fine. As long as we are all working from the same page?” It’s a beautiful little world and looking down upon it, I find it hard to believe that Maslov’s terrible demise took place down there. Something I think we’ll have to bear in mind should we decide to make a manned landing.

  “On a slightly more optimistic note, Gibson informs me he may have communications up and running in a few more days. If that’s correct, and I have every hope that it will, we shall issue a distress call immediately. The stranded will become, potentially rescued. Hopefully that will raise our morale somewhat.”

  A chorus of ‘well done’, and ‘that’s great news’ danced around the table. While everyone felt obliged to congratulate Gibson, Alan happened to glance at Pickering who appeared agitated. Alan saw him exchange an odd questioning look with Conway. Puzzling.

  As the voices died down Conway said, “Alan if you’d like to stay behind I would very much appreciate your input into my landing scenario preparation notes; as our only Mud-skimmer, and an experienced one at that, I believe twenty five planet-falls all told, I guess it gives you the right to contribute.”

  A condescending, knowing grin hung on Conway’s face. What was Conway up to?

  Surely he didn’t want an argument in front of the others. “Those landings did equip me with some experience,” he said, “that’s true. But no two trips are ever the same; you never know how things are going to turn out. I will be happy to contribute anything I can.”

  Conway said, “Right then. We all have our assignments, let’s get to them. Twenty four hours from now, we commence our mapping of this little world.”

  Chairs scraped and people filed out. Brushing past Alan, Kiki gave him a nervous smile. Did she want some kind of confirmation that he still remained her friend? Did she perhaps wonder whether or not he’d spoken to Conway regarding her admission of sabotage? What choice had he? But, Conway had known all along and in some way that removed any feeling of guilt Alan harboured. He’d talk to Kiki later.

  Once the conference room cleared, Conway poured a couple of glasses of water and brought them over. “Alan.”

  “Conway.”

  “Well now, we have ourselves a little stale-mate don’t we? You and me, half controllers of a ship. Partners—”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Alan, it’s okay. I respect a man who takes charge. A man that sees what needs doing and acts. It shows fortitude and intent, ambition.”

  “You think I acted out of some sort of ambition? Conway, you really don’t know me. Frankly I find your remark patronising. You cannot use your motivations to pigeon-hole me.”

  Conway sipped his water. “Alan, none of that really matters. The fact that we’ve got differences is meaningless in the long term and possibly a good thing in the short. It’s forced me to look at new strategies. Perhaps profit guided my decisions back there at the objects. Ultimately though, profit can arise from the information alone and I can always return. There’ll be new opportunities.”

  Conway’s eyes sparkled a little and Alan said, “Look, I quite agree that profit is something we should be looking for and it will surprise you to discover that I favour investigation of those objects as much as the next man. But, we are ill-equipped—” Conway moved to interrupt, “No hear me out, Conway. We are ill-equipped to carry out investigations of the objects safely. So I say we come back when we can, with a ship full of scientific instruments, experts and tools and do it right. There’s time.

  “Right now, what we do have is equipment for a planetary survey and landing. We can at least do that.”

  A smile played across Conway’s face. “You see, you and I are not too dissimilar, we both seek answers where we find questions.” Conway looked at Alan’s glass. “Do you fancy something stronger?”

  Alan felt manipulated, but wanting to avoid an argument: “Sure, why not. Scotch on the rocks.”

  Conway moved from the table to the drinks locker. Pouring the drinks he asked, “Do you really think there’s any chance of finding a clue to the Peterson’s fate down there? Maslov seemed vague at best regarding its disposition.”

  “I don’t know. But it’s a place to start; at least it has the last known connection to the vessel. I think it’s worth a try and I also think we owe the Peterson’s crew a resolution.”

  “Alan, those sentiments ring true.” Handing a glass over Conway said, “Here’s to the Peterson’s crew.”

  They sipped their drinks and Alan wondered about Avram Stowe’s comments regarding the real object of Conway’s efforts, a possible cargo aboard the Peterson. Deciding for the moment not to pursue that notion, Alan said, “So, your investigation and landing plans.”

  “Yes quite, Alan.”

  Bringing up a virtual, Conway began to run through his detailed and over-cautious investigation strategies, landing protocols and energy saving trajectories, crafted with thorough and diligent detail; timing and crew rotations militarily precise. Alan saw a facetious edge to the plans, they were over produced, over stuffed with caution, (Conway - making fun of him?), but felt that they were safe, under the circumstances.

  After a couple of hours, Alan and Conway had thrashed out a few bugs in the plan and dropped a number of repetitive stages. “Conway, I will hand it to you, you sure know how to put a comprehensive programme together. I noticed a few textbook navy steps in there. Woodland?”

  “Yes, Mr Woodland did supply useful tips.” Conway stepped back and viewed Alan quizzically. “You say it as though his input might not be useful.”

  “No, not at all. The Solar Navy come highly trained, motivated. However, there’s a limit to the adaptability of their methods.”

  “How so?”

  “For many years the Solar Navy and Merchant Marine have held grudging respect for each other’s talents’. You see it in bars and clubs, crew from the respective services joshing and cajoling, fighting even, but always like cousins. They fight hard but fair. I recall that at many colleges’ competitions between the two branches for navigation, piloting and various safety demonstrations maintained friendly rivalries. You might expect an even spread on the results, after all, talent resides on both sides. But the Merchant Marine regularly whooped the navy’s arse. Now why, Conway?”

  “More talent on the Merchant Marine’s side?”

  “Nope. Just more common sense. You ask a navy crew to do something and it’s all by the numbers, barked orders; the crew need instruction. The Merchant Marine just gets to it, each member of the crew knowing and performing his task. You throw in the unexpected and the Navy boys wait for re-direction. The Merchant Marine adapts.”

  Realisation dawned on Conway’s face, “You expect we’ll need to adapt, that our plan lacks fl
exibility. That’s why you extend some of the time frames to allow for the unexpected.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. Woodland’s calls are good, but they lacked elasticity. I saw them a mile off. We’ll do all right Mr. Conway. You’ll see.”

  Conway grunted and went to get himself another drink, leaving Alan to wonder whether Conway really understood the dangers. Something always managed to bugger up planet falls, notoriously by something you’d forgotten or something overlooked. Usually something trivial.

  Chapter 14

  Weather and Watchers

  “Telemetry is good and here we go; four, three, two, one, communication blackout.”

  Alan un-linked from the ship’s com and checked that the feed to the virtuals in the observation-lounge were online before settling back in his data-well couch to watch the show. The drop down virtual he gazed into tried to portray a 3D image enhanced with Haqiqa’s AI morphing software. A fireball burst into life as the aero-braking shell containing hundreds of free-flight drones plummeted into the little world’s atmosphere. Shards of light flicked away like discarded matches.

  Below the small craft, the planet’s surface shone, sunlight reflecting off a diminutive ocean, the glow bright and strong; occasional clouds fled west to join a large weather system hugging the terminator.

  Light from the drone-shell illuminated nearby clouds, casting a burnished flickering orange show across their upper decks. Alan felt like they were violating a pristine world. The act of launching a mechanical device into this apparently unspoiled planet felt somehow abhorrent. Attempting to pinpoint why he should feel this way, he gave up, accepting the little world’s pristine appearance had triggered some primeval instinct.

  On screen, the craft wobbled and a large chunk of debris rolled away, the flaming mass shrivelling as it went.