Resurgence

He stared at the new ship, fully formed and gleaming. He wanted to make sure it contained a few extra features. Apart from that, he would smile and lie low. There would be plenty of time for feuding after they left. And plenty of reason to expect that feuding would occur.

* * *

“Councilor Graves was quite specific. Call him if you wish, and confirm his intentions. But I know he said that until this ship touches down on Iceworld, I make the decisions.”

“And I know he never had anything like this in mind.” Ben Blesh was standing behind Hans, who sat at the ship’s controls.

Rebka did not look around. He could hear the anger in the other man’s voice. “Ben, I’m not sure that I understand your objection. We will still arrive at Iceworld in a few days. I’m simply trying to add to the store of information that we will have when we get there.”

“By a pointless diversion to examine a dead planet? I don’t see how that tells us a thing. If I’m wrong, explain to me what I’m missing.”

“I can’t guarantee that you are missing anything. All I know is that the world we are heading for sits smack in the middle of the life zone for a normal main sequence star with mass equal to the one at the center of this system. There’s no life on the surface of the planet at the moment, it’s far too cold. My question is, was life there once? Might there even have been intelligence, before the sun dimmed and every living being was condemned to freeze to death?”

The members of the survival team were emerging as distinct personalities. Lara Quistner might be good at her job, but she was certainly not a controlling type. She would go along with what her boss, and maybe anyone else, suggested. Ben Blesh was not only interested in being that boss, he made snap judgments and didn’t like anyone to disagree with him. Hans Rebka’s announcement that they would visit a different planet first, made when after a full day of powered flight Iceworld was clearly no closer, had provoked loud and instant disagreement from Blesh. Darya Lang had come down on Hans Rebka’s side. Her support was unexpected, but it was no more than reasonable—Hans’s actions had saved her skin often enough to earn her respect.

Behind Rebka, Ben Blesh said, “I’m not going to let this stand. I intend to find out what Julian Graves has to say. He’ll put an end to the nonsense.”

Hans, his attention on the planet growing in size on the display, was inclined to agree. Graves would put an end to it—when he erred, it was on the side of caution. Given any small chance that a visit to another planet would increase the odds of survival on Iceworld, the Ethical Council member would be all for it.

As for Ben Blesh, his disappearance to use the ship’s communications equipment at the very time when a new world was coming into view was, in Hans Rebka’s opinion, one more piece of evidence that he was dealing with a fool. What else could you call a man who was more interested in having his authority confirmed than in increasing his chances of living? And what did that say about the general selection of survival team members? It was a pity that Lara Quistner and the others could not have been dropped off on Teufel for a few weeks during training. One encounter with the Remouleur, Teufel’s terrible dawn wind, would be worth a year of lectures from their “famous"—according to Graves—trainer, Arabella Lund.

The time for philosophical speculations on the training of survival teams was past. Hans concentrated on the planet ahead. It was about fourteen thousand kilometers in diameter, which together with the readings of the mass detectors suggested a world possessing a metallic core beneath rocky outer layers. The substantial magnetic field confirmed that idea. Surface gravity was about fifteen percent more than standard, a bit high but well within the tolerable range. Surface temperature was another matter. There was an atmosphere, and it contained oxygen as well as nitrogen and argon. But the spectra revealed no hint of water vapor or carbon dioxide.

Detailed maps of what lay below that frigid atmosphere would have to wait until they were in a parking orbit. However, the high albedo response to a remote laser probe, together with glints of specular reflection, suggested extensive ice cover—perhaps over the whole planet. If that implied worldwide glaciation, high-resolution radar measurements would be needed to probe its depth and learn what land or former oceans lay beneath.