Starborne

After circling Planet A for one entire ship’s day — making several orbital adjustments during that time to ensure full visual coverage of the planet’s land surface — the drone enters landing mode and descends to the great rolling savannah in the heart of the biggest and driest of Planet A’s four continental landmasses. There — guided by Huw, who is sitting at a set of proxy controls aboard the Wotan — it adapts itself to surface locomotion by extruding wheels and treads and sets out over a circular route with a radius of a hundred kilometers, gathering at Huw’s command atmospheric samples, soil, water, minerals, bits of vegetation, all manner of interesting odds and ends. Having accomplished this, it goes airborne again and moves on to the opposite hemisphere, where conditions are more or less the same though a trifle less barren, and takes a second set of samples. Then Huw, well satisfied with the robot drone’s accomplishments, keys in the command that summons it back to the Wotan.

For nine working days a team of seven expedition members, garbed head to toe in space gear as a cautionary measure, analyzes the drone’s haul in one of the sterile isolation rooms on the Wotan’s laboratory level. The year-captain, who has allocated the biological research to himself, finds bacteria in the soil samples, various kinds of protozoa in the water, and several heavily armored little ten-legged insectlike creatures in one of the drone’s collecting jars. He stares at these with awe and reverence: they are the first multicelled extraterrestrial beings ever discovered, though he suspects and hopes that they will not be the last.

Biological analysis reveals nothing obviously toxic in the soil samples or in the water. Analysis of the air samples indicates the strong likelihood that the atmosphere of Planet A will be accessible to lungs that have evolved in the air of Earth. The bacteria, when cultured in juxtaposition with microorganisms of terrestrial origin, engage in no interaction with them whatever, neither killing them nor being killed by them. This may or may not be a good sign — it remains to be seen whether the biochemistry of Planet A will be compatible with that of Earth, and the indifference of one set of bacteria to the other would raise the possibility that human settlers will be unable to digest and assimilate the foodstuffs that they find on this world.

Other little troublesome questions necessarily must go unanswered at this point. Are there airborne viruses somewhere down there, carrying fascinating new diseases? A few well-spaced scoops of atmospheric samples won’t necessarily reveal that. What about lethal amino acids in the meat of the Planet A equivalents of sheep and cattle, if there happen to be any such animals? Or murderous alkaloids in the local versions of apples and asparagus? The drone samples can’t tell them any of that. These are matters that can only be discovered the hard way, in the fullness of time, by direct experience.

Huw says, “All that’s left to do now is for us to send down a manned expedition, captain.”

The year-captain is aware of that already. Still, Huw’s words give him a good jab in the solar plexus. He hopes he has not allowed his pain to show. He has, by now, chosen the team that will descend to make the reconnaissance, and, of course, he is not a member of that team. And, Lofoten training or not, he will probably always continue to feel occasional moments of dark regret over the necessity of remaining behind.

“We only want volunteers for this mission, of course,” the year-captain says. “Huw, do I hear you volunteering to be the leader?”

Huw grins broadly. “You have persuaded me to do my duty, old brother.”

“Innelda?” says the year-captain. “What about you?”

Innelda, slim, imperious, almond-eyed, is taken no more unawares by the request than was Huw. Everybody on board has been trained to some degree in the techniques of analyzing alien landscapes — their lives ultimately may depend on the quickness with which they react to unfamiliar conditions — but Innelda’s knowledge in that area isn’t just part of her survival training, it is her scientific specialty.

“And finally,” the year-captain says — there is great suspense involved in this choice; everyone is wondering about it — “we want to know something about the plant and animal life down below. Its biochemistry, primarily. Whether we’re going to be able to make use of anything for food, or will have to set up alternative food-sources using genetic manipulation of the foodstock we’ve brought with us from Earth.” His glance comes to rest on Giovanna. “This falls into your domain, I would think,” he tells her.