Endeavour: A Sleeping Gods Novel, page 6
‘One thousand meters altitude, descent twenty MPS, lateral fifty MPS,’ Karen began reading off her panel.
Tom was intently watching his heads-up display, ensuring no unexpected failures emerged, whilst Troy was calmly checking and rechecking the ground penetrating radar. They didn’t want any surprises that would cause problems for the landing gear that had automatically extended out.
‘Five hundred, ten MPS. Lateral ten MPS,’ Karen rattled off.
The cover of the abort button automatically popped off and Tom cracked his knuckles and looked at it. The flight computer could abort them under its own authority, but for a few scenarios Tom would have the final say. He was more than willing to press the button if his crew and himself were in jeopardy.
‘Ground radar looks clear,’ Troy said. ‘We’re looking good. Surface is showing as solid and firm.’
On the screen showing a feed from the downwards-facing camera they could see the large flat green plain rising up to them.
‘One hundred, ten, ten,’ Karen called, even her normally calm voice had a slight edge to it now.
The landing gear legs started to splay wide, ready to catch Intrepid if she started to tilt in any direction when it put down.
‘Contact light,’ Tom said. The delicate rod that had extended underneath them slowly crumbled as the large lander began to lower the final few meters.
‘Five, four, three, two, one.’
A loud thud reverberated around the cockpit and they were dashed back in their chairs. The occupants of the cockpit went silent, looking at each other as they sat awkwardly on their backs. The cockpit windows went dark as the canopy slowly settled over the windows. The silence was interrupted by a sharp bang as a rocket fired on the parafoil pack, dragging it up into the sky away from the lander. The cloudy blue sky was revealed as the ‘chute was pulled away.
‘Endeavour, Intrepid. We are down,’ Tom announced into the com.
CHAPTER 8: 2130 AD EDEN
The four of them quickly ran through their landing checklists, making sure everything was ship-shape. Once the lander had been secured, they began to reconfigure the cockpit to ground operations mode, turning the seats into position, moving around the consoles and making the area liveable whilst on the surface.
As they were clunking around, swapping the seats over, bobbing lightly in the two thirds gravity as they did, Troy began reading through the data from outside.
‘We’re getting a little more particulate matter in the air than expected, probably from a recent impact,’ he murmured. ‘Pretty much the same bio readings Delphi sent back, nothing truly unexpected though.’
Over the next few hours Troy and Dimitrov continued poring over the data. They’d come too far to leave anything to chance. As tempted as they were to just crack the hatch and go out wandering they weren’t going to bet their lives on it. Just yet anyway.
Tom looked out of the small porthole, the flat lands stretched for miles, looking like the Mongolian plains they had trained on. The dark green moss, that appeared to be the grass equivalent, was punctuated by the towering fern-like trees that bordered the plain.
The midday sun seemed a lot bigger in the sky compared to Sol. Even though the star itself was smaller, Eden was a lot closer to Tau Ceti than Earth was to the sun. To one side of it, Goliath, the fifth world was visible as a bright dot. Atlas hung hazily in the sky, appearing like it would fall and crush them all. Even the sky had a slightly different hue to it. A little more contrast to everything. It was similar to Earth at a glance, but on closer inspection it was just different enough for them to know that they were on a whole new world. Eden was a long way from home.
***
Tom stood by the airlock running though the lines in his head whilst Karen fussed around him. She was ensuring that the suit he was wearing was airtight and, what was apparently just as important, making sure he looked presentable for the cameras.
The suit wasn’t a full on space suit, just airtight and self-contained. It was far less bulky then most EVA suits and mostly precautionary. The air would be breathable, just the equivalent of being at high altitudes on Earth. No one seriously considered that they would catch any alien bugs or viruses. The leading theory was that anything on the alien world would be biologically incompatible with their bodies. Still, the crew wanted the sensors and old-fashioned lab rats to be the ones that bore the brunt of anything nasty. The main reason for the suits was that they wanted to ensure that the environment was as pristine as possible when taking their samples and not contaminated by themselves.
‘Ready?’ Karen said when she was satisfied.
Tom gave a deep, calming sigh and nodded at her.
‘Big moment huh?’
‘Big moment,’ Karen smiled back.
Tom stepped into the airlock and it began to cycle through. He watched the readouts as the air purged and the decontamination process started. Anyone unprotected would be completely and comprehensively microwaved but Tom felt nothing at all in his protective suit.
He was nervous, he’d trained half his life for this and he was finally here. He just had the realisation that this would be watched by a hell of a lot of people in twelve years, when the telemetry finally got home. He always knew he would be making history during training, but now? The reality was dawning on him. He didn’t want to mess this up by falling down the ladder or something equally stupid like that.
The hatch finally opened and Tom moved out onto the small platform outside and looked again at the vista in front of him. With just the transparent plastic between his eyes and an alien world it suddenly felt very real. Above him was Atlas, imposing and hazy, like the moon on a cold winter morning it was clearly visible, only it was ten times the width of Earth’s small companion. He eased himself onto the ladder and slowly made his way down the side of Intrepid. The temptation to skip steps in the low gravity was nearly overwhelming but he was careful not to rush. Finally, he reached the last rung, and stood there for a moment. Right then, Tom thought, time to start earning my salary.
With a final step, he dropped down onto the thick mossy floor. It gave slightly under his weight and he saw that the landing struts had dug in deeply into the spongy surface before hitting bedrock.
Turning, he took a step away from the ladder, the normality of the action seeming strange. One small step it may have been, but it was the first step on another world. The radio chatter that had been rattling on in his ear receded as they gave him a clear channel to say his little speech.
Taking a deep breath he looked around, pausing, gathering himself.
‘We have come all this way, not for one nation, but for all nations. Not for one person, but all people. Today is the day that humanity has begun to spread across the stars. Today is the day that humanities destiny truly begins.’
Not as punchy as Armstrong, he thought, but it would do.
CHAPTER 9: 2130 AD EDEN
Over the next couple of days, Intrepid slowly unfolded itself, spreading out like a starfish. The storage bays pivoted down from the side of the lander as it changed from being a space craft to a place the four crew members would be calling home. Around the storage bays, habitat bubbles were inflated and lab units were brought online. The lander expanded into the nucleus of a base from which they would explore their little chunk of this world.
Whilst Tom and Troy were busy getting the home ready, Dimitrov rolled the bulky rover out of one of the storage bays. He bustled around what was his baby, making sure that it had survived the trip intact and was good to go.
Karen was already hard at work, hauling in samples and cataloguing everything she could get her hands on. In a few short hours she had already gained enough to keep the universities and research labs back home busy for years to come.
The pace of the work was relentless, but they had a lot to do, and not much time to do it in.
***
Tom squinted into the trap, his lips curling in distaste. Finally they had caught something in one of the traps, an ugly, muscular and hairless little rodent thing. He was not the greatest fan of animals, especially when it was a critter that looked like this one. He called over to Karen who was busying herself at one of the automated sampling robots they had deployed the previous day that had been left to wander around the area, taking specimens of plants.
Putting a couple of the sample tubes she was looking at into her backpack, she wandered over and knelt down next to him on the sponge-like surface.
‘Well, this thing isn’t going to win any beauty contests is it?’ She remarked as she tapped lightly on the transparent cover. The creature was clearly scared, bouncing around in the trap, seeking to find a way out. ‘Calm down, little guy. We’re not going to harm you.’
‘Looks like one of those skinny pig things that were all the rage a few years ago,’ Tom said, referring to the little rodents that had become the handbag pet of choice for all and sundry.
‘Yeah, if someone put one on a course of steroids,’ Karen muttered half to herself. ‘That muscle tone is fantastic, look at it, it’s like it has pistons working all over its body. Kind of cute though.’
‘You think that’s cute?’ Tom said, giving Karen a strange look.
‘What was the trap baited with again?’ she asked.
Tom motioned with his hands as he scrolled through his heads up display.
‘Plant sample twenty two B’
‘Awww, are you hungry little guy?’ Karen cooed. ‘Tom, I think there’s some twenty two B in one of the sample bins. Be a darling and go get some.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Tom said as he stood up. The plain they were on was not quite as featureless as it first appeared from the sky. Little plants were growing on the mossy surface and small nervous animals were scampering around. The wildlife was finally returning to the area after the unfamiliar lander had scared them off as it descended.
He walked over to the bins, found the right one and grabbed a handful of the leafy plant that was inside. He brought it over to Karen who as gently as possible, so as to not agitate the scared creature more than it already was, placed some in the drawer on the side of the trap and slid it in. The hairless little rodent carried on banging around inside the trap before eventually calming down. Tentatively it moved over to the food, gave it a little sniff before settling down on its hind legs and started to stuff its face with the plants.
‘Oh that is one cute little tyke,’ Karen said. ‘Can we keep it, oh please can we?’
‘Oh I suppose so, but you have to make sure it’s fed and cleaned. And don’t cry when we put it in one of the freezers for the journey home.’
Karen began gesturing, manipulating her interface and making notes.
‘Good. I’ll tag this as the first live sample. You want to name it? After all you’re the one who found it.’
‘I think that I’ll leave that honour to you, if it was left to me I’d be calling it an uglius maximus or something,’ Tom said.
‘And that eloquence is why you were chosen to be the first person on this world.’
Tom winked at her through his clear facemask. He stood up from the springy mossy surface just as Troy’s voice came over the com.
‘Guys. Odyssey is ready for final separation.’
‘Roger that, we’re coming back in now. Karen, let’s get your new pet bagged and tagged and get inside.’
Making sure the little rodent had enough food, she picked up the trap by the handle on the top and they both set off for the entrance to the little base.
***
Like everything in the base, the small control centre the four crew members were huddled in was tight and claustrophobic. They had a direct link up to Endeavour herself. If something led to the crew up there being incapacitated they could even take limited control of the starship. Right now though, they were merely listening in.
Ash’s controlled, slightly-sing song voice came over the com as they listened to the exchange between her and Endeavour. The petite, professional Indian woman who was commanding Odyssey down had two hats on this mission, one as commander of the second expedition and the other as a secondary systems expert to Harry.
She confidently provided a commentary as Odyssey plunged into the atmosphere, the burps and static as the lander hit the atmosphere beginning to drown out many of her words.
Re-entry, or in this case entry, had long been considered, along with take-off, one of the riskiest parts of space travel. This was especially so on an uninhabited world without the support of Earth’s infrastructure. The feed from the observation satellites showed Odyssey to be streaking through the atmosphere like a meteor burning up. The trail of fire flickered and pulsed before disappearing out of view.
After a few more minutes Ash’s confident voice came over the com.
‘Parasail deployed,’ far clearer now that they had cleared the upper atmosphere. ‘We are looking good, status readings all nominal.’
Ash continued with a steady stream of chatter as they got closer and closer to their landing site, before finally. ‘Contact light, Odyssey is down.’
The crew of the Intrepid gave a collective sigh of relief.
‘That was worse than going through it ourselves,’ Troy said.
‘Tell me about it,’ Tom waited until Ash announced they were all secure before he keyed the com. ‘Ash, great work. Welcome to Eden.’
‘Thank you, Intrepid. Good to be down here with you at last.’
The population on Eden had just doubled.
CHAPTER 10: 2130 AD EDEN
‘How’s she looking, big man?’ Tom clapped Dimitrov on the back as he stood admiring his toy.
The rover was a large mobile home sized-habitat with a small lab and sleeping quarters. It was big enough for them to live, if not in comfort, then reasonably well for extended periods. There was no denying the beast was ugly though. It was tracked like a nuclear powered amphibious tank and able to cope, within reason, with just about any kind of terrain barring a mountain. It was also going to be their home for at least the next week.
‘She is good,’ he replied in his accentless voice. ‘Ready for our little trip down to the coast.’
Tom rubbed his hands together like someone about to tuck into a streak. The two men and Karen were as excited as school kids about the excursion down to the coast.
‘Excellent, hope you’ve packed the fishing lines and beers.’
‘I wish. I have got the lines, but we are all out of beer I am afraid,’ Dimitrov replied.
‘Can’t have everything I guess. Karen, you about ready to get going?’
‘Yes, stop your nagging,’ came her reply over the com and they could see her walking over from the habitat, backpack slung over her shoulder.
Tom and Dimitrov gave each other wry smiles.
‘Troy, you look after this place whilst we’re gone and we’ll see you in a week or so,’ Tom said as Karen reached the step of the lander.
‘Try not to have too much fun without me,’ Troy waved from the cockpit window, which had taken on the role of observation tower.
Tom waved back and climbed on board the bulky rover.
***
With a dull roar the rover came to life and began pushing forwards. The spongy moss beneath the tracks was compacted into a firmer surface as it crushed the plant life down. Pulling a tight circle, they began making their way to the east.
Tom was whistling Ride of the Valkyries, rather tunelessly to himself as he sat in the driver’s seat. He loved gadgets and gizmos and, short of Intrepid herself, the big lumbering rover was one of his main toys to play with. Sure, the monster technically fell under Dimitrov’s jurisdiction, but perks of command meant that he’d called driving duties for himself. Tom was having the time of his life.
The plain stretched for miles. As far as they could tell, much of the land surface of the moon world was covered by a moss-like plant. It was fast-growing and hardy, able to cope with the rapid changes in conditions that the regular impactor strikes caused. There was nothing truly unique about it though, it still worked the same way as Earth-based plants. The light from Tau Ceti was converted to chemical energy and allowed the same photosynthesis to occur. When they had first studied the moss, Karen had made it very clear that there was no way that it could be planted on Earth. It would grow, take over and obliterate the local biosphere.
‘Endeavour’s telling us the herd is still grazing, or doing whatever they’re doing about ten miles east of our position,’ Karen spoke out.
‘Okay dokey,’ Tom replied chirpily. Their first destination was to look at the huge beasts that were collected in one corner of the plain near a lake. The things were massive, but the rover had near military grade armour. Unless the creatures had antitank missiles they would have to work pretty hard to cause them any bother.
The cockpit was cramped, with a large bubble window at the front. Dimitrov had placed a small pair of furry dice hanging from the top of the cabin. Tom had put it down to his slightly bizarre Russian sense of humour, or taste, whichever it was. Karen, who sat in the passenger seat, had already managed to ‘lose’ them. He had decided he wasn’t going to get involved in that.
Coming up through the small hatch at the rear of the cockpit, Dimitrov noticed the absence of his dice and pursed his lips before handing over a sandwich and drink to Tom.
‘First you steal my rover, then my dice.’ Dimitrov grumbled. Karen quickly busied herself in her displays.
‘Ah don’t sweat it, I’m sure they’ll crop up somewhere, won’t they, Karen?’ Tom responded cheerily as he munched on his beef sandwich.
Dimitrov grunted as he sat down in his seat, jabbing the flat panel where his contacts had projected a display.
‘When I write my memoirs of our epic voyage of discovery, these crimes are not going to go unmentioned. I hope you appreciate that.’
‘Chill out, man,’ Tom drawled, putting on a voice like he’d been smoking too many illicit substances.
‘Please can someone give him some bad news,’ Karen said as she rolled her eyes. ‘I think I prefer him when he’s in a mood.’
