“What’s it made of?” Dylan asked. “It looks like a lump of coal.”
Dr. Skye trained her spectrograph toward the moon, studying the readings with growing excitement. “No, not coal. Life. Plant life adapted to absorb most of the star’s energy and so abundant that it carpets the land. A third of the surface is water. We can see large lakes and broad rivers from here. Those are the magenta bands. I’d wager there are plentiful smaller waterways, too.”
“Sydney, let’s look at the terrain in near-infrared. We’re more likely to see reflected light in that wavelength, which would reveal more structure,” Chad said.
“I see you read my book,” Dr. Skye said with a wry smile. She added the infrared feed to the telescope’s display. “Would you be so kind as to reshape space to give us a better look?” she asked.
“My pleasure,” Chad said. The picture resolved to a black-and-white image resembling the Amazon rain forest, with tree-like plants far taller and the overgrowth denser than anything on Earth.”
“That forest is huge,” Ji-min said.
“It’s the lower gravity,” Dr. Skye said. “I’d estimate seventy percent of Earth’s. Things can grow taller.”
“The cherry trees are blossoming back home this time of year. They’re so beautiful, nothing like this.” Chad thought a moment. “You know, there’s no need for our Terran-evolved biology to limit us.” He waved his fingers and flicked his wrist. The monochrome forest became a Technicolor wonderland, dominated by pastel greens and vibrant pinks. “A little computer wizardry to shift everything into the spectrum our eyes can process.”
Ji-min drifted to the holographic display and touched it. “It’s beautiful,” she said. She panned the view around the planet, zooming out to orient herself then back in to admire a diverse range of biomes.
The view wandered past worn, overgrown mountains that towered above the surrounding land. A lazy river flowed between the peaks, pooling in a sizable lake on a plateau a thousand meters above a lush valley. At a sheer cliff at the edge of the plateau, Sara spotted something. “Wait,” she said. “Back to the left, please.”
Ji-min complied.
“What’s that?” Sara asked.
In the center of the cliff face, perhaps eight hundred meters up, a sapphire light flickered.
“That’s rather bright for a natural occurrence,” Dr. Skye said. “What could cause it? A volcanic process?”
“A blue volcano?” Ji-min asked.
“It’s not actually blue,” Chad said. “It’s color corrected. I shifted near infrared up but also modified ultraviolet down into our visible spectrum. We’re seeing pulses of UV light.” He fiddled with a signal processing algorithm. “Hello!”
“What?” Ji-min asked.
“It’s not a volcano, or anything natural. It’s digital.”
“Digital?” Dylan asked. “As in ones and zeroes?”
“In this case,” Chad said, “it’s hexadecimal, not binary. Base sixteen. There are sixteen distinct UV frequencies pulsing at a one-millisecond interval. It’s unmistakably technology.”
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Dylan asked. “Can we take the Mars Lander?”
“It would be tricky to land anywhere close to the light source,” Musa said. “The jungle’s far too thick.”
Sara touched two fingers to her lips, considering the options. “We’re taking the Quadriga down. This is worth the risk.”
#
The Quadriga descended through a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere, occasionally cutting through scattered clouds. Unaccustomed gravity pressed the crew into the seven bridge chairs. The air was as thin as at the peaks of the Andes but held a higher proportion of oxygen. As they approached the towering hills and the mysterious sapphire light, vibrant life came into view, a sight more akin to a coral reef than a terrestrial mountain.
Leathery, diamond-shaped creatures five meters long patrolled the cliffs, lifted by gentle drafts. Leisurely flaps of their fin-like wings carried them on their search for rotund fruits dangling from thick vines. When they plucked their food, the vines fought back, slapping at the intruder with animal-like speed yet the cliff rays, as Dr. Skye named them, were too agile to be caught. They fell gracefully away, out of range of the angry flailing, then resumed their course with gentle beats of their wings.
Another species, resembling a dragonfly with five emerald, beachball-sized body segments held aloft on gossamer wings, swarmed over the tree canopies in the valley below. They darted in and out of the leaves, black to the human eye but blue-green thanks to color correction. Every few minutes, something unseen in the jungle yanked one from the sky.
A diversity of other creatures flew through the valley or moved along the upper jungle canopy.
Dr. Skye took in the view, her mouth agape. “I could spend a lifetime right here in this valley,” she said. “Would you look at that? It’s a thriving ecosystem.” She panned the view. “Amazing. Thrilling.”
“What say we focus on why we’re here?” Dylan asked. “I’ll admit this world is beautiful, but we’ve got our own planet to save.”
“I know we do.” Dr. Skye followed a long-tailed snake-like creature with small yet powerful wings as it hunted along the treetops.
“Sydney, I promise,” Dylan said. “Once we’ve completed our mission, I’ll make sure you have your chance to study all this.” With a thought command, he pivoted his chair to Chad. “Can you maneuver us to the light?”
“No problem.” Chad’s gaze was fixed on the pulsing sapphire beacon.
The Quadriga pulled within a stone’s throw of the sheer, plant-covered cliff face. “It’s coming from a narrow cave,” Chad said.
“How narrow would you say it is?” Dylan asked.
“A meter tall and a little wider.”
“Let’s print up something that can slip in and explore,” Dylan said. “A fist-sized quadcopter perhaps?”
Dr. Skye nodded. “That should do well unless there are strong air drafts or flooded sections.”
Musa used the 3D printer to create a drone, like the one they used on Everdusk but smaller.
Chad moved the Quadriga next to the cave and extruded an airlock from the skin, much the way he created the habitat on Everdusk.
Musa moved the new drone into the structure and bombarded the craft with x-rays to destroy any trace of Terran DNA before opening the outer hatch. The drone struggled in the tenuous atmosphere but lifted off. “That’s on me. I should have made the rotor blades larger.”
“Will it work?” Dylan asked.
“I think so.” Musa sent it down the dark, narrow hole. The drone’s lights came on, flooding the space with white light. The cave grew larger, almost tall enough to stand in, as it flew deeper. It also narrowed. Five meters from the cliff surface, it was a tall crack, too thin for a human to traverse. A few meters further and the drone would scrape the walls. The craft’s UV sensor showed a brilliant, energetic light source from a fissure that descended deep into the hillside, hundreds of meters below.
“Uh, guys?” Ji-min said. “What’s that?” She pointed at a white, gauzy substance coating the Quadriga’s forward dome. Another frail sheet floated from the cliff above, layering on a sticky coat.
“It looks like the local flora took a liking to us,” Dr. Skye said. “Let’s ease out.”
Chad willed the Quadriga away from the cliff. It didn’t budge. “That’s strong stuff,” he said. He visualized the ship forcefully breaking away, and it complied. The webbing was connected to tough, deep-rooted plants, in the way a hand is to an arm. The motion ripped the plants out from the mountain, destabilizing it, creating a landslide that dropped tons of rock and debris into the valley below. Hundred-meter vines dangled from the Quadriga, throwing it off balance. “Shit,” Chad said. He imagined the ship level and again it complied. He thought about the outer skin becoming a gooey liquid and it did. The huge sheets of web found no more purchase and rolled off, sending the plants falling into the jungle.
/> “Holy hell,” Dylan said. “We just buried our best chance of finding help.”
#
A cacophony arose from the treetops as granite blocks smashed into the jungle. Dust from the rock slide flew on a gentle breeze, a cloud of grit choking the tranquil landscape.
“Well, that didn’t go well,” Dylan said.
“You think?” Sara asked. “Can we dig it out?”
Chad pushed his zero-g-weakened frame out of the command chair and lumbered to the forward dome. “I’m not a geologist, but I was fascinated by geology one summer in college.”
“Which pretty much is the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree for you,” Sara said.
Chad flashed straight teeth. “Pretty much.” He studied the cliff side. “The mountain looks like a loose pile of boulders. It’s not formed by plate tectonics. If it were, it would be a solid piece of rock and wouldn’t have collapsed like that. It’s almost as if gargantuan fingers pinched a clump of house-sized rocks and stacked them.”
“What could do that?” Dr. Skye asked. “Besides gargantuan fingers. I’m sure we can rule out that cause.”
“My guess is, gravitational tidal forces from the gas giant we’re orbiting caused the formation.”
“Tidal forces could do that?”
“Not from the current orbit, no. But the moon may have had a closer encounter with the Roche limit in its distant past.”
“Say what now?” Dylan asked.
“That’s where the moon’s gravity counter-balances the planet’s gravity. Anything loose on the surface would fall toward the planet.”
“Oh right,” Dylan said. “It’s what causes planetary rings.”
“Yep,” Chad said. “The mountain’s bound to be unstable. Any significant excavation risks further collapse.”
“So how do we get in?” Sara asked.
Dr. Skye straightened. “We get out there and explore.”
“We can’t do that,” Sara said. “That would risk bio-contamination. Let’s create more drones.”
“Sydney’s right,” Chad said. “We don't know what environment we’ll come across. It would be near impossible to design an autonomous drone for such a complex mission, and we can’t communicate with a drone that’s exploring inside a mountain. We’d have to set up a complex relay network, and that would take time. We can use the space suits. They’re rugged and unlikely to break so long as we’re careful. It’ll be difficult to get all the DNA off the outside. There will be a risk to the indigenous biosphere, but I think we can minimize the danger. It’s worth chancing it, given what’s at stake.”
“Agreed,” Dylan said.
Sara scrutinized Chad. Is the danger to the natives really minimal, or is he just in a rush to secure that technology? “All right, let’s do it.”
“Great. Let’s get started,” Chad said.
“Sorry to disappoint you.” Sara rested a hand on Chad’s shoulder. “But if something goes wrong, well, you’re the only one who can reliably control the ship.”
Chad’s eyes burned intensely.
What’s he feeling? Frustration? Anger? “Are you OK?” Sara asked him.
His mien relaxed. “What? No, I’m fine.”
Sara turned away from Chad. “Dr. Skye’s on the away team for obvious reasons. Ji-min, too, in case we come across anything intelligent. And, well, I’m in charge so I’m going. The rest of you-”
“I’m coming, too,” Dylan said.
“Excuse me?”
“None of you have military experience. There’s a whole ecosystem out there. Chances are, something will try to figure out how edible you are.” He strode to a locker and withdrew an assault rifle. “Are any of you qualified to use this?”
Sara shook her head and sighed. “All right. You made your point. Let’s gear up for jungle and cave exploration. Bring climbing gear, lights, plenty of batteries. Everyone wears a sidearm. Even if Dylan’s our muscle on this mission, we can all point and shoot at something attacking us.”
“We’re here to study, not hunt,” Dr. Skye said.
“We’re here to save Earth and not get eaten,” Dylan said.
She lowered her eyes. “Sorry. That’s the conservationist in me. I guess it’s an instinctive reaction to people bringing weapons into the jungle.”
“Understood, Doctor. Chad, can you find other caves?” Dylan asked.
“I hit the mountain with radar and found too many caves,” he said. “It’s like a block of Swiss cheese. I’m downloading a surface map to your helmet heads-up-display. You’ll have to explore the old-fashioned way and check if any of them lead anywhere.”
“All right. See if you can find a clearing to set us down,” Dylan said. His eyes scanned the thick vegetation. “Or a spot you can push the Quadriga through. Get your gear together, hydrate, and have a meal. We’ll head out in thirty minutes.” Quietly, he said to Musa, “Come with me for a moment, would you?”
The two left the bridge and traveled the round, organic corridors to Dylan’s quarters.
“Musa,” Dylan said, “I don’t trust the look in Chad’s eye. He’s a super-freak for technology. Maybe he’s just pissed that someone else will get first shot at something new. I need you to watch his behavior and report back to me.”
“You got it,” Musa said.
“And I know you’ve been trying,” Dylan said, “but I need you to figure out how to fly the damn ship. If he stops taking orders from me, there’s not a thing I can do about it.”
#
Four astronauts, red-and-black shapes in form-fitting pressure suits, shuffled out of the Quadriga’s airlock. Their steps were tentative, each learning how to walk in seventy percent of Earth’s gravity while wrapped in fifty kilograms of stuffy, nylon-and-spandex life support. Their suits were designed to vent heat into space, not into the thick, humid, alien atmosphere they found themselves in. The team was sweating before taking their first step. The opening in the hull sealed behind them, the edges of the exit growing ever smaller until only the gray-gold hull remained. A jungle of tar-and charcoal-colored plants, dimly illuminated by an orange-red star, loomed over the group. They were two kilometers from the base of the UV-emitting mountain, the closest the ship could set down without flattening massive, spindly trees and bringing dozens of creatures down in the crash, creatures that might well be hostile. Or hungry.
Dylan activated the color correction algorithm, and the jungle blossomed into brilliant shades of yellow and green, with touches of orange, pink, and teal. Well, that’s a whole lot less depressing. “I’ll take point. Sydney on my right, Ji-min on my left. Sara, you have rear guard. Remember to pick up the back-facing camera feed. We don’t need something sneaking up on you.”
“Already on it,” Sara said.
“Chad, we’re good. Take the Quadriga up to synchronous orbit and keep an eye on us.”
“You got it, boss,” Chad said over coms. The ship receded into the clear, magenta sky.
“Keep close together,” Dylan said. In a few steps, they were in a jungle unlike anything on Earth. Thick, vine-like trunks wrapped around each other, reaching fifty meters skyward in vast arcs, where they met other trunks to form a network of massive arches holding aloft a sea of vegetation in all shapes and sizes. Within the canopy, animal life flourished. Armored spheres the size of basketballs swung about on eight arms, pausing to consume lavender fruits. Something resembling an upside-down hedgehog, with barbed spines pointed down and out, flitted about on giant, moth-like wings. A tongue as long as its body collected nourishment from flowers it passed. Some creatures defied casual classification as flora or fauna, such as vines that seemed attached to the massive trunks yet struck with the speed of a cobra when an unwitting creature strayed too close, catching its prey with vicious barbs.
“It will take a couple hours to reach the base of the mountain at this rate,” Sara said. “If the jungle doesn’t get thicker.”
After a few minutes, Dylan said, “You put a hex on us, Sara.” Thin-yet-
fibrous overgrowth blocked the way.
“I made a tactical assessment. A sound one, it turns out,” she said.
Dylan turned to face her and did his best to smile in the sweltering heat. “I’m kidding.” He pulled a half-meter blade from a strap on his thigh. “Good thing I came prepared.”
“I’ll bet you were an Eagle Scout,” Sara said.
“I’ll bet you already knew I was an Eagle Scout.” Dylan turned to face the tangled vegetation ahead and hacked at the vines. The blade, nanoengineered with a laminated diamondoid edge, sliced through with little effort.
“Who had more merit badges?” Sara asked. “You or Musa?”
“I try not to compare,” Dylan said. He swung the knife again, easily parting the way.
“Dang, Dylan,” Sara said. “That thing’s sharp as hell. Be careful not to puncture your suit. Or cut a limb off.”
“We Eagle Scouts learn knife safety,” he said.
Chad called from orbit. “There’s a creek to your right. It might be easier going.”
“Roger,” Chad said. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
After twenty meters of slashing, they came upon the creek. Dr. Skye grabbed a portable lab from her belt and dipped a probe into the water. “Thirty degrees Celsius. Almost pure water. Traces of most of the minerals you’d expect.”
“Thirty degrees? That’s cooler than this suit,” Ji-min said. “I’d love to dam it up and take a dip.”
“It’s teeming with microorganisms,” Dr. Skye said. “I’d hold off on that swim. But I think it’s safe enough to follow the water upstream.” She took another sample and examined it with the lab’s integrated microscope. “The structure of some of these creatures is remarkably similar to mites near Earth’s deep-sea geothermal vents.” She sat on a rock and continued her studies.
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