© Catherine Sutherland 2001
The
wherry plunged into the atmosphere of the planet.
"Alright,"
Atherill said, "now ease her back out again."
Chira
concentrated hard on the controls, she pulled the nose up
watching her angle indicator to see that she would break
out of the atmosphere without causing undue stress to the
ship. She completed the maneuver skillfully.
"Very
good. Now slow your speed. Do you want to do it
again?"
"Yes
sir. Captain Atherill." Chira teased.
Atherill
blushed. He was by no means a Captain, he was far too
young to begin with. But he was experienced enough with
the wherries to be able to train people in their use. He
had hoped to become the Captain of one of the larger
vessels one day but had failed the exams to get into the
crew’s training school that Landar, Chira’s
father, had set up.
He
watched Chira now, working the wherry, and did not regret
his failure at the school.
"Slowly."
he warned as she approached entry angle.
Chira had
matured much in the four years since the first expedition
to Ther. She was more self-confident and independent.
Landar had encouraged her to become a pilot to help her
while away the weeks of spare time that she found she had
on her hands. It also made her more useful than the
average crew member and gave her a chance to get to know
and mix with more people.
Chira
guided the wherry in and leveled out when the wings took
air.
"Alright.
That was better." Atherill encouraged.
"We’ll hold this pattern for ten minutes."
"Holding
pattern set." Chira intoned.
"We’ll
go through the routine once more and then take it
in." Atherill added.
Chira
nodded. She was bored by the repetitiveness of the
training, and could not think of anything to say. She
stared out at the planet that she had been training over.
8X102 the Thermen had called it.
Her
father had been able to send out more ships since their
contact with Ther. But it simply meant that they had
finished exploring all the likely planets that the
‘Encyclopaedia Of The Known Universe’ could
suggest, far sooner than expected. Now, here they were,
orbiting above the last planet on the list, and this one
was probably already inhabited.
She had
wondered a lot about this place. The details reported
about it in the reference books from Ther, were unusual.
For some aspects; mineral wealth, atmospheric conditions,
gravity and the physical landscape, there were masses of
information, but it was strangely lacking in remarks
about other things, for instance there was little said
about the population.
The books
did say that they were humanoid, that they lived in
cities and that life outside the cities was difficult.
Yet there was no mention of their culture, no pictures of
what they looked like and no discussion of how they
spoke. There were vague accounts of conflict, the
difficulty of mining and of a forced withdrawal, and this
only if you read between the lines. Undoubtedly, the
Thermen had tried to destroy the population here.
Chira
checked the time. She still had a few minutes in this
pattern, she sent her mind out trying to find a trace of
life or at least a feeling of death.
She
caught something but it was very delicate, vague and
insubstantial. It could be mourning. So there are people
on the surface she concluded, survivors. I wonder how
that will affect my father’s exploration?
Atherill
moved next to her, Chira looked up and the threads of
contact slipped away.
"Time
to move out." Atherill instructed.
Chira
checked the clock, the last seconds were ticking off.
Automatically she resumed control of the craft and deftly
maneuvered out of the atmosphere.
"That
was excellent." Atherill enthused. "Want to do
a victory roll before you take her in?"
"Why
not?" Chira beamed and threw the wherry into a tight
spin. A ‘victory roll’ was not as much fun in
space as it was in atmosphere but, as a signal to those
watching, it still had meaning.
Exhilarated
Chira lined the wherry up to dock.
________________________
Landar
watched Chira’s wherry perform for a while, out of
one of the ports in the bay where the wherries docked.
Hirone-Lest stood beside him waiting quietly for Landar
to speak.
"We’ll
wait for Chira, then we’ll go." he said at
last.
"Are
you sure that you want to go down?" Hirone-Lest
replied. "We know so little about the place. There
are probably still people down there and we may have
trouble with them. If the hints from then Encyclopaedia
are anything to go on, they defeated the Thermen,
otherwise why the forced withdrawal? We know what a
formidable enemy the Thermen can be and yet these people
appear to have overcome them with their dying gasp."
"I’ve
thought about that myself." Landar agreed.
"But, perhaps there was something in the planet
itself that beat them. We’ve seen the analysis of
the soil that the probes have done. There is no way that
the soil we’ve found could support the kind of
growth the Encyclopaedia boasted. I figure that most of
the farming was done within the cities, therefore when
the Thermen destroyed the cities they also wiped out
their own food supply."
"In
that case what good will we do landing there?"
Hirone-Lest asked at last. "We came here hoping to
find people who might have knowledge of other planets, if
there are none or few left, what help are they likely to
be? After all, they are probably too technically
primitive to have any useful interplanetary knowledge.
You’ve seen the satellites that are orbiting with
us, they’re Therman ‘prospectors’, it
suggests to me that the people of 8X102 don’t have
that kind of equipment of their own. If any of them
remain, they’ll be little more than savages."
Landar
was silent for a moment and looked uncomfortable.
"If
there is no-one on the planet." he began. "Then
we could consider it as a place for ourselves to live. It
has an oxygen atmosphere, acceptable gravity and no
abnormal radiation. But if there are still people alive
they may need help, and anyway you shouldn’t write
off what localised knowledge they might have that could
help us."
"So!
You’d think of living here." Hirone-Lest
concluded. "That’s a desperate measure
isn’t it, and what about the passengers, how do you
think they’ll feel about possible contact with
aliens?"
"I
wouldn’t consider it unless the place is
empty." Landar promised. "I didn’t even
want to come here unless we absolutely had to, that is
why it’s the last on our list of planets. However,
since we do want to check the population we’ll have
to land near where we suspect the last remaining city is.
The survey scan shows it clearly." He paused.
"Is the wherry I asked for ready?"
Hirone-Lest
walked over to a communications monitor and checked with
one of the engineering officers. "It’s fuelled
up and ready." he confirmed.
"And
the back-up crew?"
"Ramin
is on board and Atherill could stand in for Chira, if she
didn’t prove ready." Hirone-Lest finished.
"Here
she comes." Landar added.
Chira
brought her wherry smoothly to the docking port. She
followed, exactly, all the correct safety procedures and
then opened the nose port. She and Atherill emerged from
the wherry laughing and breathless. She quietened when
she saw her father signal that they should come over.
Chira
looked at Landar and saw, as she did at times, the toll
that four years of fruitless searching had taken on him.
She had seen Landar grow into an older, wearier man as
one by one they had found each of the planets on their
lists unsuitable for life. And with each successive
failure Landar had blamed himself. He should, perhaps,
have known that the Thermen would have occupied all the
habitable planets, yet he had no option but to try.
They had
avoided planets they knew to be colonised by Thermen,
after all they were still enemies. Some of the other
planets they had seen might have been acceptable with
minor changes, except that on these, the Thermen had
built their unstable power stations. Inevitably these
planets were in various stages of ruin. It had made Chira
angry to see other worlds treated with the same arrogant
disregard as their home.
"Good
flight?" asked Landar as they got nearer.
"Oh
yes." she replied. "Did you see any of
it?"
"Yes."
said Landar. "I was watching through the port."
he turned to Atherill, "How do you think she’s
coming along?"
Landar
glanced at Chira, she looked suitably puzzled.
"All
that’s left is a planet landing and some solo hours
and Chira could have her licence." Atherill
admitted.
"You’ve
made up your mind." Chira interpreted.
"You’re going to go down to the planet."
"Yes."
said Landar. "Now. And I want you to co-pilot.
Atherill you must come too. The wherry is ready."
"What
about my research duties?" Chira asked.
"I’ve
excused you from them for today." Landar replied.
"There wasn’t much remote research left to do
anyway. We need to see things for ourselves now."
In the
pilot’s seat Landar watched Chira quickly fastening
herself in beside him. He wanted Chira along because of
her sensitivity, it gave him someone to double check
with, and he knew that she was better attuned to
perceiving emotions than he was. She would know if anyone
still remained. Otherwise only a small crew was to go
down to the planet with them.
The
flight checks finished; Landar let Chira pilot the wherry
away from the Thaden, and left her to concentrate on the
task of flying. Behind Chira stood Atherill, exuding
confidence, but watching with care over her shoulder to
see that she made no mistakes.
Once they
were safely away from the Thaden, Chira turned around to
Atherill.
"How
did I do?" she asked.
"Very
well." Atherill replied proudly. "Now
don’t relax, there’s still the atmosphere entry
to come yet."
A gradual
change took place as they drifted silently into the
atmosphere. Slowly the black drained out of the sky and
the stars disappeared. Darkly at first, and then fading
to an even blue, the colour of the atmosphere came up.
The ground could not be seen for a layer of cloud that
seemed solid, but became a vapour as they plunged in.
Though she had trained for this moment many times on a
simulator, the reality of her first low-level flight was
far more turbulent and breathtaking.
They
broke through the cloud layer, and she gasped, it was so
strange. She had expected that, because it had a blue sky
like Ther, conditions would be the same as they were
there, but it was more like Yiron Sek. Something in the
clouds reminded her of the orange sky of her home, and
just like it, there were vast barren areas, and harsh
jagged mountains leaping suddenly from the plains. Here
and there knotty clumps, which could have been
vegetation, stuck out, but it was impossible to discern
details at that height.
For a
while they flew level, looking for the warm patch on
their scanners which had suggested habitation. Then
Landar cut the engines in with a roar, to keep them from
losing altitude.
Chira,
guessing why her father had let her come along, allowed
her mind to wander again as she had during her training.
She found the threads which she had merely touched before
were now strong, enwrapping bonds and that the feelings
she had been unable to define were infinite loss,
emptiness, void and longing. Her excitement was not
utterly gone, but this feeling was stronger, and a tear
trickled down her cheek. She wiped the tear away and let
go of the sensation. Her anticipation returned, but it
was tempered by the knowledge of that pain.
The crew
had crowded up to the front of the wherry.
"Look."
said Ramin pointing forward.
Chira
could already see what he was pointing at and the others
of the crew pressed up behind him. What had, at first,
appeared to be one of the extraordinary clumps of
vegetation took on quite a different shape as they
approached. It was larger and taller than the vegetation,
and whilst the rest of the plain was covered in a grass
coloured growth, all around this object the ground was
bare. They swung wide so it would pass to their left, and
being still high up, they got a good overview of the
shape of it.
"It’s
a flower." said Chira in awe.
"It
can’t be." puzzled Landar, "It’s too
big, why the centre of it must be six kriks across, and
then there are those..." he paused,
"...petals."
They
circled for a while.
"It
looks like a flower." Chira added doubtfully.
What they
saw did look like a flower, its centre was like the eye
of a bloom, the stamen and pistil seemed to be there, and
even something that looked like blobs of pollen. But the
most striking similarity were the petal-like protrusions
arrayed around the eye. Even as they circled in closer it
still retained the semblance of a flower.
"Well,"
said Landar finally, "flower or not this is the area
that showed up on infra-red. I don’t like it, but
we’ll take a closer look."
"You
don’t suppose," asked Ramin, "that they
lived on that, do you?"
"I
don’t know." Landar replied. "All the
information I could get said nothing about anything like
this."
Landar
had begun to doubt his decision to come to the surface,
Hirone-Lest’s words of warning were having their
effect. Perhaps it was not wise to come here. Why did the
Thermen leave once they were rid of the
‘nuisance’, native population? Was it really
because of the food supply? He had known the Thermen
bring food in from great distances if the profits were
worth it, and from what he knew of this planet it was
rich in extremely pure minerals. A prize hard for anyone
to pass up.
There was
something in their description that made Landar sure that
the Thermen were leaving out vital details. Hirone-Lest
was right; it was strange that there was no mention of
the aftermath of the conflict or what form it had taken.
It was nothing for the Thermen to do something hideous to
a population and then record it.
Slowly
they flew past the strange object again, heading towards
the place where Landar was sure he had seen a runway or a
road. As they made their way around in a lazy arc they
dropped lower, and were stunned to see that what had at
first appeared to be the male and female parts of the
flower were actually weird towers with oddly scattered
windows in them. The enormous petals lost their even
texture and began to resemble meadows and farmland. It
was starting to look like a habitation.
They were
amazed by what they saw. Strange interlocking buttresses
laced their way over everything. The ‘pollen’
they had seen turned out to be gigantic, green globes
filled with plant growth of some sort. It was hard for
them to take in everything before they dropped down below
the level of the petals. Ahead was the open area Landar
had spotted before, now obvious as a gently ramped
roadway heading up to the base of the habitation.
Landar
handed the controls over to Chira again. She swung the
wherry into a tight descending turn, and lined her
approach up to the broad surface to land. Below, a few
grazing animals looked up startled, and ran away.
Suddenly Landar pulled up, jerking the controls out of
Chira’s grasp. She was completely thrown off balance
by the act.
"What
are you doing?" she shouted as she recovered.
"I’ve
changed my mind." he replied. "We’re not
going to land here."
"You
could have given me some warning." Chira snapped.
She was raging inside, he should never have done that to
her or any co-pilot it was extremely dangerous.
"It
was an instantaneous decision, I didn’t have time to
warn you." he said still keeping control of the
wherry.
"I
don’t believe it!" Chira cried.
"We’ll
get up to a suitable altitude," Landar said through
gritted teeth, "put the ship on auto-pilot and then
you and I will have a word." he threatened.
"Good."
Chira agreed vehemently.
They took
the wherry well above the ‘city’ and Landar set
its flight pattern to circle over the formation.
"Atherill,"
Landar signaled, "you take over, Ramin can co-pilot,
while Chira and I have a chat. It’s on auto so just
keep an eye on it."
Atherill
nodded, shot a worried glance a Chira and cautiously took
his place along with Ramin.
Landar
grabbed Chira’s arm and dragged her to the back of
the wherry as if she were some delinquent child. There
they carried on a whispered but angry conversation.
"What
were you playing at?" Landar asked. "You must
have felt the presence there?"
"Yes."
Chira said. "I felt it while we were still in orbit
but you still came down here then. What’s
changed?"
"I
didn’t feel it." Landar replied. "But
that’s not the point anyway, they or it, didn’t
want us to land. I felt that, didn’t you?"
"No."
Chira punctuated.
"Well
feel it now." Landar instructed.
Chira
closed her eyes and sent her mind out.
"What
are you getting?" he asked, when she had been silent
for a few minutes.
"There’s
only one... or two at most." She opened her eyes.
Landar
agreed and Chira went on. "There’s two sorts of
feelings anyway. One is..." she stared momentarily
out of the window, "it’s a sort of confidence,
a fatalistic confidence, like the resolve to fight to the
death, and not care."
"See!"
Landar cried triumphantly.
"I
said there were two sorts of feelings." Chira
returned. "The other is eagerness." she said
concentrating. "And curiosity tempered with
pain." she released herself from the tendrils of
thought.
"I
don’t trust it." Landar answered. "Besides
there would surely be violence if we landed, they would
see us as Thermen. We’ve come here peacefully, but
in shear self defence we might destroy the last
inhabitants of this place. I will not be responsible for
that. We should leave them in peace."
Inside
herself Chira disagreed violently, but Landar was
commander of the mission, and she knew she had to obey.
"Alright."
she said in the end. "We’ll do it your
way." Her anger at Landar suddenly drained away as
the defiant thought occurred to her of returning to the
planet alone. The thought shocked her, but she could not
help entertaining it, even as she resumed her position in
the co-pilot’s seat and they headed out into orbit.
________________________
From the
tower ‘He’ watched their craft circling and
circling until it pulled away out of His sight. It made
Him sad to see them go. He did not know who or what they
were, only that they were not His own people. He did not
think that they were the others either, the enemy, though
He was not completely sure.
He could
not help being interested in them. He had felt a mind
reaching out to His and it was somehow different. There
had been minds that He had affected, that He had touched
but never one that had reached out to him before. The
enemy and even His own people had never had the capacity
to do this.
Well, He
thought, they were gone and he did not know if they would
return. He half hoped they would, but they had not even
landed. Perhaps His silence had put them off. He
regretted it now, after all they were people and they
might have children and they might eventually have
brought their children down. Children meant hope to him,
the chance of a future. He reached out in desperation and
tried gently to contact the mind he had felt. It might
not be too late. Perhaps the mind had sensed His anger at
the death of His people and had thought it anger at them.
Well He was angry and willing to fight to the
death; perhaps it was better that they had gone.
He went
on in this way tormenting Himself and comforting Himself
by degrees, and finally as the slow day passed, He
decided that if they returned He would welcome them.
After all He reasoned, if they killed him it would be
better than the long years He stood to face alone.
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