Звезда Пандоры

With the exit positioned five hundred kilometers above the ground, the clouds below seemed a lot brighter. The small squadron of low-orbit satellites shot off the launch rail, curving down to an even lower altitude and spreading out to form a chain around the planet’s equator. Images from their high-res cameras appeared on the screens, revealing a wealth of details. Stones a mere five centimeters across were visible amid the carpet of vermilion grass-equivalent. Squirrellike rodents, with gray scales rather than fur, bounded about, scuttling into burrows and swimming along streams. All the small independent trees had peculiar zigzag branches.

“Confirming low-orbit satellite fleet in position,” sensors reported. “We have full coverage.”

“Coming up to dawn on the landing site,” planetary science said.

“Withdraw sensor arms,” Oscar said. “Chamber Management, establish a force field across the gateway. Astrogration, reposition the exit one kilometer above designated contact site, horizontal axis.”

The wormhole blinked, and they were looking down on a gently crumpled landscape of thin burgundy grass and twisted carmine bushes. A low dawn light was casting long gloomy shadows across the ground. Pools of dense mist clung to hollows and depressions with oily tenacity.

“Chamber Management, equalize pressure. Sensors, deploy the atmospheric probe and exposure samples.”

The force field reconfigured itself to allow the sampler arm through. It didn’t find any immediately lethal particles missed by the scans from orbit.

Oscar waited the designated hour for the exposure and micro-analysis processes to run. “Xenobiology?” he asked eventually.

“Some spores—probably plant life. Small bacterial count in the water vapor. Nothing abnormal, and no adverse reactions to our sample materials.”

“Thank you.” It would take months of laboratory testing to discover if any of the microbial life was dangerous to humans. Until they were given the all-clear, the forward crews would all be in suits anyway. It was the other biological reactions that worried Oscar. A century ago CST had opened a wormhole to a planet where the local fungus ate polymers. Quite how that evolved was still a puzzle for the xenobiologists. Now a whole spectrum of materials was exposed to the planet first. “Astrogration, please take us down to the surface.”

The exit began to move, drifting downward with the same sedate lack of urgency as a hot air balloon. Oscar could even guess the point that astrogration had chosen for contact. A flat patch of ground clear of any trees, with a stream three hundred meters away. Ground search radar confirmed the area was solid. At a hundred meters up, the oval exit began to rotate around its long axis, tilting to the vertical. A light blue sky slid into view, with wispy clouds high above the horizon, glowing pink in the rising sunlight. Astrogration halted the descent when the bottom rim was a couple of centimeters above the fluffy leaves of the cochineal-tinted grass-equivalent.

Oscar let out a breath as he watched the landscape for any sign of movement. If there were any Silfen on this world, now was the moment they appeared. Stupid lanky humanoids ambling up to the opening and waving gamely at all the ground crew behind their consoles. “Welcome,” they sang in their own language. “Welcome to a new world.” He’d seen it once himself, twelve years ago when he was chamber management station head on Augusta. There had been so much amusement in their smooth voices, laughter for the serious humans and their clunky machinery. He’d wanted to pick up a rock and throw it at the smug mystics.

But this time the chilly red and blue terrain could have been a painting it was so still. There were no Silfen here.

He wasn’t the only one waiting, anticipating. A number of sighs were released around the control center.

Oscar went around the loop again, confirming every station was stable. “Forward crew, initiate contact,” he said.

The floor of the confinement chamber rose up into a ramp. Airlock two irised open. McClain Gilbert and the four members of his first contact team were standing just inside. They wore their magenta insulation suits, a close-fitting onepiece with a flexible hood that clung to the skull; a broad transparent visor dominated the front. The backpack was slim, containing a lightweight air recycling unit and the superconductor batteries for the force field armor they wore unseen underneath the fabric. It was a precaution against any newfound native animal that was hostile enough to try to find out what the invaders tasted like.

Cameras mounted on the sides of their hoods relayed images to the big screens above the windows. A quick check showed Oscar that several hundred million people were accessing this moment through the unisphere. They would be exploration addicts, the stay-at-homes who couldn’t get enough of alien worlds and the expanding human frontier.