Silent Shapes of Mist and Stone Read online

Silent Shapes of Mist and Stone

  a novelette by

  Ander Nesser

  Text and Cover Art Copyright 2013 Ander Nesser

  All Rights Reserved

  Contents

  Scene 1: A Conical Plume

  Scene 2: Wind Lull

  Scene 3: Husks

  Scene 1: A Conical Plume

  A cylindrical ship spun above a white and gray world. Except for a narrow sheen along the hull, it was silhouetted black against the Milky Way.

  Inside the ship, Zoltan pushed himself from the narrow radial shaft into the dim, multicolored light of the command hub. His personal drone, dark red and saucer-shaped, floated above his head. The translucent brain-wave reader wrapped around the back half of his skull registered his command to the small drone. It began to record audio.

  "You called me?" Zoltan asked, though he could see no one among the various terminals. Then Professor Piroska Kovacs floated up from behind the control ring, her hair a writhing mass of red in the glowing computer read-outs. Her personal drone circled her head like a flying buttercup flower, staying out of reach of the swimming follicles.

  "Yes. Hurry over—the others will be here soon." Kovacs beckoned him to a side station. "Take a look at this," she said after he approached, indicating a terminal.

  "What?" There was nothing on the terminal screen but old probe telemetry. "I know the protocols. We don't need to go over them again," Zoltan said.

  "Fine. Just remember we need to focus on the local sweep. We'll have to initiate global sterilization later, but at just the right moment so they don't realize what's happening until it's too late."

  "I know. But we may meet resistance with the local sweep." His face was patterned blue from control lights, but the thick scar above his left eye remained white.

  "These data are classified. No one on this ship has any reason to think there's life on the planet below. It's possible they won't even detect it before we begin. Nothing will stand in the way of our mission. Trust me."

  Giann Contadino emerged from an axial shaft and frowned. "Am I late?" he asked. His drone, a cone of varied green metals, rotated slowly above his bald head.

  "No, come in," Kovacs said. "No one else is here yet but us. Zoltan and I were just chatting about research."

  "Alright. Then if you don't mind, I'd like to record a session for my documentary." He pointed to his drone.

  "I suppose. Though the shot might be interrupted by people entering the command center," Kovacs said.

  "That's fine, I'd like to see them in the background while I'm talking. I'll stand here, in front of the control ring, and you two can flank me." Contadino faced out from the controls and guided the drone with his electroencephalographic headband. A green circle began to glow on the drone, indicating that it was recording video.

  Contadino attempted to lengthen himself in the microgravity; he spoke in an affected narrator's voice. "Hello, I am Professor Giann Contadino of Central European University, and here on the bridge of the Global Unity spinship Red Wolf, after two hundred twenty years of hibernation, the crew is ready to begin the first leg of our mission. As the psycho-social anthropologist, it is my job to monitor crew and document their efforts. With me here is the mission leader, Professor Piroska Kovacs, and her graduate assistant, Zoltan Meszaros. Professor Kovacs, what can you tell me about our current status?" He turned to face her. A young Chinese man, Tao Zhe, floated out of another radial hatch and hung silently in the camera's background.

  "Well, we're about to witness an unusual celestial event, a kind of surprise we weren't expecting to see when we got here. As I'm sure everyone back home knows, this star system, and this planet in particular, was long ago flagged by Akran-class probes."

  "The microscopic robots launched years ago from space-based accelerators, at near light-speed." A middle-aged man and woman, Lajos Feher and Marika Molnar, emerged together and positioned themselves next to Tao.

  "Yes, those are the ones," Kovacs said in a lilting voice.

  "And some of them remain in this system, self-replicating. And they flagged this world for what?"

  "A marginally habitable world, a possible site for a future colony."

  Contadino nodded, blue eyes darting to the recording drone and back. "So, what is this event that we're about to witness?"

  "I think Professor Molnar can explain that best, once everyone is here," Kovacs said. Contadino spun slowly, looking expectantly at the various radial hatches. The last person to arrive was Gantulga, a young Mongolian with short hair and no personal drone. The seven of them now stood in a circle, lit from below by the red lights of a control ring.

  "All right, I guess that's my cue," Molnar said. "We're having this little party to watch an impact event in real time. Observe the object that looks like an Idaho potato." They turned away from each other now, looking out and up at the curving screens that surrounded them. Their attention was drawn to a particular view which displayed the broad arc of a cloudy globe below, dense starfield above. Over the limn of the planet dawned an irregularly shaped object, glinting in sunlight. But another smaller, more angular rock swiftly spun around the potato. Zoltan Meszaros pushed his data goggles up into his buzzed hair, carefully avoiding his EEG headband. Tao Zhe also removed his goggles. "This is the planet's only moon, obviously a captured asteroid, and captured recently."

  "How do you know?" Tao asked.

  "The planet experiences a high gravitational tide from its sun—at least relatively high compared to Earth. Such strong tidal forces knock down a planet's moons, over geologic time," Molnar said. "And you'll notice the asteroid has a smaller companion asteroid. It's about to hit the big one. The big asteroid’s mass is lumpy and unevenly distributed, so the varied gravitational pull destabilizes its companion's orbit and causes it to crash."

  "So, when we make planetfall, the moon won't fall on our heads, will it?" Tao asked.

  "No, no, that's not for hundreds of years."

  "We're really fortunate we just happen to arrive in-system during this event. It's a very unlikely and lucky alignment," Piroska Kovacs said.

  "Wouldn't you also say that our ability to directly observe this event is also helped by the probe's initial survey of the system, two centuries before our arrival?" Contadino asked.

  "Yes, I think that's a very relevant point," Kovacs said. "If we had to wait to survey every planet after we arrived in-system, we might not have noticed this little show until it was too late."

  "The asteroid will impact the moon in six minutes," Zoltan announced. Millions of microscopic objects condensed together and flew into their field of view from the left, pulsing, flowing, and glinting like a school of fish, or a living metallic mist. They spread out infundibuliformly, open toward the moon.

  Molnar glanced at her section of the control ring. "The five clouds of Akran probes are in position," she reported. "They're feeding us telemetry."

  "I can see that, thank you," Kovacs said. For the next five minutes, they watched the various views on the screens, each of which displayed a small rock speeding round a porous asteroid.

  "One minute," someone announced. A minute later, the rock hit the moon in a conical plume of brown dirt. The cone slowly morphed into a loop of dust curving down antispinward. After they had been watching in silence for a few minutes, Piroska Kovacs turned to the group and cleared her throat.

  "Let that be our introduction to the Wolf 562 system," she announced. "I know not all of you are from Budapest University. I want to say again that the University thanks you for joining us. Not just the University and the Global Unity Aut
hority, but all of humanity thanks you. Though it has been two generations since we followed the Akran and ventured out into our local neighborhood, we are still pioneers. Our actions here will be recorded in the history books. Let's keep that in mind when we make planetfall.

  "Since the planet below is in a one-to-one tidal lock with its sun, the winds between the day and night side are constant. The night side is completely caked in ice. However, we have identified a relatively low-pressure calm spot on the day side, along the terminator where the temperatures are most agreeable. There is very little land area on the day side, so we have to wait about four hours until the calm zone makes landfall. We can take a skiff in at that time. And if the zone disintegrates in the meantime, we'll find another one. The skiffs can handle extremely high wind velocities, but if we were to land in such a situation, it would make our EVA work on the ground almost impossible. Any questions?"

  "Once we land, how much time will we have?" Gantulga asked.

  "Less than twelve hours. If you're still on EVA when the winds pick up again, I guarantee you'll be blown out to sea."

  "The Cormorant-class skiff can hold only six people. Who gets to go?" Molnar asked.

  "We'll take turns. Everyone will get a chance, eventually. The first ones to go down will be me, Meszaros, Gantulga, Tao, Feher, and Contadino."

  "Um, what happens if the calm spot collapses while we're on the ground?" Tao asked.

  "Red Wolf computers and Marika will be monitoring the weather carefully the whole time. If it starts going bad sooner than expected, we should have enough time to evacuate. Honestly, I'm worried more about other things that might be unexpected."

  "What things?" Gantulga said.

  "Nothing in particular. It's an alien world, and we only have preliminary survey telemetry. There are more unpredictable factors than we would like to admit."

  "I predict nothing but wind-swept rock," Feher said. "There are more promising planets in this system."

  "Promising for what?" Molnar asked.

  "Life," Feher responded.

  "So says the biologist. The universe may hold other forms of wonder, just so you know," Molnar said.

  "So says the geophysicist."

  "All right, children," Kovacs said. "Academic disciplines are not fencing teams. We're all on the side of science."

  "But that's why we need to prioritize, so that we can obtain the greatest benefit for science," Feher said.

  "Enough," Kovacs said. "We're not debating the target—that was decided when we left Earth. It would take months to reach the next planet in this system, and for that length of time I'd prefer to re-enter hibernation. We're here, we have Akran survey data, and we're going to explore. Begin your preparations and get some rack time."

  One by one, they departed the control ring and headed down the central shaft.

  Scene 2: Wind Lull

  Gantulga shifted his eyes around the cramped passenger cabin. The other five members of the landing party were all sitting opposite to him, buckled and stuffed into their crash couches.

  "You look like you've never been on a Cormorant-class skiff before," Contadino said.

  "Indeed, I have not," Gantulga said as he tightened a strap.

  Contadino nodded. "Your Standard Global is pretty good, but you're from UMAB, aren't you?"

  "Everyone in the Union of Mongolian Autonomous Banners can speak Standard Global Language. Can you speak Mongolian?"

  Contadino merely glared back at him.

  "Excuse me," Kovacs said, "but I would like to remind everyone that Budapest University is not a political entity. We form partnerships with both of the world's states."

  "If you consider UMAB a state, rather than a treasonous rebel group."

  "Professor Contadino, if you persist in making inflammatory remarks, I will have you removed from this mission. And since Officer Gantulga is Expedition Security, he'll be the one enforcing my orders," Kovacs said.

  Giann Contadino scoffed and turned to look toward the bow. An orange glow began to reflect off the dark gray metal of their narrow tube. Gantulga also craned his neck to try to see the external monitors in the cockpit, but could only make out instrument lights from a slanting upper bulkhead.

  The artificial pilot's voice spoke over the intercom: "We just passed through the tropopause. Touchdown in T-minus five minutes."

  The red burning of the atmosphere faded from the skiff's skin as blue thrusters braked. Like a wingless dragonfly, the vessel emerged from the final cloud deck and alighted upon dark, rocky ground. The landing struts whirred to make the interior gravitationally level. Wind quickly dissipated black smoke from burned rock.

  Kovacs was the first to get unstrapped. She opened the aft hatch, exiting the passenger cabin and entering the main lab. She waved a hand before a terminal, and it came alight, revealing readouts from the skiff sensors. She hooked her right index finger and rotated her hand back and forth, spreading various sensor outputs in a spherical pattern on the screen. Flattening her finger joints and flicking them once brought the atmospheric composition panel to the forefront. Feher came up behind her, breathing heavily with the effort under the stronger gravity.

  "What do we have?" he asked her.

  "A verification of the old Akran probe telemetry."

  "So we have to do EVAs with pressure suits."

  "Well, we could, but we don't have to. The pressure value is close to the borderline, but we could pressurize our bodies safely. We'd still need oxygen masks, of course."

  "It's a waste of time to sit in the airlock and wait for the pressurization when we could just put on the suits," Feher said. He roughly pushed back his gray, frizzy hair.

  "Not for me," Tao said. Everyone had entered the lab while they were talking. "You could argue that we don't need to go outside at all. Just have probes, like Akran, explore the land and feed data back to our cozy lab. But then why did we leave Earth at all when we have sophisticated fleets of probes? The reason we're here is to personally explore with our own senses as much as possible."

  "And here I thought we were trying to claim worlds before the Mongolians get them," Feher said.

  "UMAB doesn't claim territory," Gantulga said.

  "Right, you'll strip it of resources and leave," Contadino said.

  "Why do you say 'you'?" Gantulga asked. "I'm not a member of UMAB."

  "I don't think this world is ideal for colonization, given the tidal lock and weather conditions," Kovacs said. "But it may be possible to establish some human presence here. We have a limited window to explore this area before the wind picks up again. Those of you who want to go out, go out now."

  "Wait a minute," Zoltan said. "The land may appear barren, but what about microbes? He could get infected by something and bring it back in here." Contadino was nodding.

  "Actually, that would be extremely unlikely—almost impossible," Tao said. "On Earth, organisms are able to infect each other because they evolved together and have similar genetic material."

  "Oh really? I thought you were just a former army medic," Contadino said.

  "And currently practicing medical doctor," Tao said.

  "Perhaps you'd like to hear from someone who has been a biologist for twenty years," Feher said. They looked at him. His gray frizz splayed in various directions. "Doctor Tao is actually correct. Infections on Earth occur because all life use similar proteins. I doubt an alien virus could infect our cells because our cellular machinery wouldn't be suitable for manufacturing new alien viruses. Likewise, when bacteria consume protein, the protein must somehow be useful for their own biology. I think the chances of another planet evolving almost the same biological chemistry as Earth is very unlikely."

  "But we don't know how likely or unlikely it is because we've never encountered alien life for statistical sampling," Contadino said.

  "True," Feher said. "But I
would be more worried about the possibility that local microbes, because of their foreign chemistry, could excrete toxins. Or compounds that Earth-based life would consider toxic, anyway. For example, on Earth we have botulism. That's why cooking your mushrooms doesn't help. Cooking kills the botulism-producing bacteria, but it doesn't destroy the toxin itself."

  "So should we let people on EVA without suits or not?" Kovacs asked.

  Feher shrugged. "It's definitely a risk, but a relatively minor one, probably."

  Kovacs looked back at Tao, who nodded. "All right," she said. "I'll allow it."

  "Then I'll do it," Tao said.

  "I volunteer as well," Gantulga said. "Security personnel should accompany EVAers, anyway." Kovacs nodded.

  "I want to go out, but I want to wear a suit," Zoltan said.

  "Okay, that's fine," Kovacs said. "Zoltan will go out first because Doctor Tao and Gantulga will need some time to pressurize. Zoltan, if you have an emergency and need to get back inside while these two are still pressurizing, you can use the secondary airlock."

  "I thought that was for aquatic and terrain probes," Zoltan said.

  "It would be a tight fit, but the airlock is rated for humans as well," Kovacs said.

  "Just a moment, we're getting slightly ahead of ourselves," Feher said. "Take a look at these readings." His hands danced before the terminal, and the readout sphere rotated, several icons breaking away and expanding. "There are low levels of oxygen and nitrogen in the atmosphere, which you wouldn't expect in a world of this age—twice as old as Earth by the way—unless there were ongoing biological processes. I think it's safe to say that these levels are indicative of a sparse microbial population."

  "Really?" Contadino said.

  "Really. Now, normally you would be able to capture quite a few bacteria from air samples. That's what I'd like to do now."

  "All right, get to it," Kovacs said. "Zoltan, I want you to hang back. We shouldn't have everyone out there at the same time. Doctor Tao and Gantulga—I'm going to hold off on letting you pressurize until Doctor Feher has cleared the environment of any obvious dangers." Tao frowned and Gantulga nodded in agreement.

  Twenty minutes later, Feher was suited and in the airlock. Kovacs radioed into his helmet. You know the sun is an M 2.5 V, and insolation will be thirty percent Earth-level. And it's cloudy."

  Feher turned to look at her through the airlock porthole. "Right." He gave her the thumbs up and switched on his helmet lamp. The interior of the airlock seemed to go from dark gray to light green as the lamp's arcing beam bounced off metal panels. The pressure gauge by the door glowed blue block letters in Standard Global: EQUALIZED. "I'm heading out." Feher slid open the exterior hatch. His head-lamp cast a wide, bluish-white beam onto rocky ground. He gingerly moved a boot down a short distance to smooth rock. After his feet were planted firmly on the ground, he turned back and waved to Kovacs's face through the porthole of the interior door.