Salvation

When it reaches a star, it decelerates into orbit, delivering a portal link back to Earth’s solar system. That means you can start sending through entire preassembled asteroid industrial complexes straight away. Within a day you’re ready to start crunching minerals and begin manufacture. The pioneer crews build habitats that house the workforce, which builds the next generation of starships, which fly off to new stars. It’s almost an exponential process. And in their wake, the newly discovered exoplanets are ripe for terraforming.

Connexion Corp has been one of the major players when it comes to sending starships out from Earth, building and flying them for more than a hundred years. Every new Universal settled star system is another huge income source for the company. Beta Eridani is the farthest star humans have reached. Eighty-nine light-years from Earth.

One step.

I felt the slight drop in gravity as soon as I was through the portal. Not quite enough to mess with my balance, but I took the down ramp carefully just in case.

The dome was a smaller version of the egress chamber back on Earth, piled high with pods and equipment cases. A quarter of it was given over to life support equipment: big spherical tanks, air filters, pumps, ducts, quantum batteries, thermal exchanges; everything to keep humans alive in a hostile environment. If the main portal and the redundant emergency portals were closed for whatever reason, those chunks of machinery could sustain the base personnel for years if necessary.

Sandjay coupled to the base camp’s network and splashed local schematics across my tarsus lenses. Connexion Corp’s foothold on Nkya was laid out in a simple triangular array, with passageways leading out radially from the main dome to a trio of slightly smaller domes.

“Ordinarily, this would be full of geologists and exobiologists,” Geovanni said as he headed for one of the three big airlocks at the edge of the dome. “But right now we’re keeping base staff to an absolute minimum. We’ve taken local samples, but further field trips are on hold. The only people here today are engineering support and your security teams.”

He took us through the airlock, which was large enough to hold all of us and our trollez while it cycled. The passageway on the other side was a plain metal tube with light strips and cable conduits running overhead. Even with all the insulation layers built into base camp’s structures, the surface had a faint mist of condensation—proof of just how cold Nkya was.

The air in the garage dome held a throat-tickling sulfur tang. It was cool, too. But I didn’t pay that much attention; I was too busy staring at the waiting machine. The Trail Ranger occupied the floor like a possessive dragon come to cozy down in its lair. Like everybody in this day and age, I’m completely unfamiliar with ground vehicles. This brute was wildly impressive. It came in three sections. A cab and engineering section were at the front, with a smooth fluorescent-green egg-shaped body. Lights resembling insect eyes clustered around the blunt nose, just below a curving windscreen; smaller sensor wands protruded like thick black stubble hairs on the underside. The heat radiators were four slim mirror-silver strips running perpendicular down both sides, as if the designers had added missile fins just for the hell of it.

Behind the cab, linked by an articulated pressure coupling, were the two cylindrical passenger sections. They were made of the same smooth metalloceramic, with slit windows on both sides.

Each section rode on six fat tires, individually powered by an electric axle motor. The damn things were as high as I was, with tread patterns deep enough that I could put my hand in them.

Everybody was smiling in appreciation; even Alik managed to twitch his lips with interest. I joined them. I wanted to drive the beast; it was an impulse I guessed most of the team were experiencing. No such luck. Geovanni introduced us to Sutton Castro and Bee Jain, the Trail Ranger drivers.

The interior convinced me Yuri had ordered the Trail Ranger printed specifically for us. I don’t believe Connexion’s exoscience staff would generally be bused about a new planet in such comfort. The rear section contained sleeping pods with a locker for everyone’s trollez. Forward of those, I peeped into one of the four small washroom cubicles, finding a miracle of convertible units and compact storage cabinets to cater for every need from a toilet to a shower. There was also a tiny galley with packets of gourmet meals that a servez was still loading into the fridges.