Two hundred kilometers away the tug
fired its one big energy weapon as the
Lining’s
bubble formed. The Raven crews on the two combat ships saw a dead straight line
of light flash away into the interstellar depths as their energy blast streaked
through the space we’d occupied a fraction of a second before.
On the
Lining’s
flight deck, we stared at the blank screen until it filled
with numbers describing everything from bubble integrity to hull temperature.
It was enough to tell us we were superluminal and safe.
“Be ready to bubble when you see double!” I
said with a triumphant grin.
“I’ve heard it a hundred times,”
Marie said, “but that’s the first time I’ve ever seen it done!”
“Done by the best!” Jase yelled
with both fists in the air. “Yeah!”
“Did the
Heureux
make it?” Marie asked.
“I’m sure Ugo got her away,” I
said. He and I might not have been on the best of terms, but he was a first
class pilot. He’d be long gone before the Ravens got anywhere near the
Heureux
. “So, where’s Vargis headed?”
“He told me on Icetop he was
going to scan the Codex down to its component atoms. He didn’t just want what
was in it, he wanted its technology too.”
“That’s your clue?”
“He didn’t say he was taking it
back to the Core Systems or to Earth, or even copying the data on it. He was
very specific.”
“How does that help me find him?”
“Do you know how to scan a piece
of equipment like that, down to the atomic level?”
“Sure,” I said. “How?”
“You need a picometric scanner.
Do you know how many there are out here?”
“I’m guessing . . . six?”
“There’s only one and it belongs
to Biosphere Builders Incorporated. Heard of them?”
“Yeah, they genetically engineer
indestructible Earth organisms to take over entire planets.”
She nodded. “They have a research
facility on a candidate world sixty light years from here. We did a delivery there
once, when I was young.”
“It’s a long shot,” I said,
unconvinced.
“Do you know who owns BBI?” When
I shrugged, she said, “The Consortium.”
The Consortium was rumored to control
many companies. It didn’t mean it was true. Nevertheless, if she was right, it
narrowed the odds considerably. “And the name of this biosphere the Consortium
is building for all mankind?”
“Deadwood.”
Chapter Five
: Deadwood
Terraforming Candidate World
Riarnon System
Outer Cygnus Region
0.994 Earth Normal Gravity
1,029 light years from Sol
15,400 inhabitants
Deadwood was a mega-flora planet
that had suffered a cataclysmic mass extinction event four million years ago. A
planetoid had passed close by, gravitationally triggering seismic shifts in the
planet’s tectonic plates causing more than six hundred volcanic eruptions. Billions
of tons of dust and volcanic gas had spewed into the oxygen rich atmosphere, strangling
most photosynthetic dependant life forms. Only a handful of species sheltering
in caves and living off ecosystems built on fungal growth survived. The giant
flora that had dominated the planet for over half a billion years did not. Buried
under volcanic ash and starved of sunlight, the mega-trees died and slowly petrified.
Its continents were now covered by massive stone forests that formed a woven
monument to the great plants that had once ruled supreme and were no more. The
planetoid itself – known to the colonists as the Tree Killer – had fallen into
a stable orbit a third closer to the system’s star than Deadwood. Geological
analysis indicated the planetoid was not a native of that system, but a rogue
world that had drifted in from interstellar space before wreaking destruction
upon its hapless victim.
The catastrophe not only destroyed the planet’s
rich ecosystem, it deterred other interstellar civilizations from colonizing it
– an unusual outcome for a world that had been well suited to oxygen breathing
life forms. Over the next several million years the atmosphere cleared and the species
that had survived emerged from their subterranean sanctuaries to repopulate the
planet’s surface. When mankind reached Deadwood, it was still a ghost of its earlier
ecological diversity, although it retained the potential to become a rare jewel
– if Earth was prepared to provide the polish. Most important of all, prior
claims had long been abandoned.
According to the Tau Cetins,
there were over fifty million habitable planets in the galaxy, an
infinitesimally small number compared to the trillions of planets orbiting the
galaxy’s two hundred billion stars. Our problem was that most were off limits
because they were already inhabited by some form of intelligent life, or were
deemed close to spawning such life.
Deadwood was an exception.
It was a long haul from Earth and
it needed a lot of work, but given a few centuries of planetary engineering and
a name change, it might just become mankind’s second home. Human Civilization
consisted of hundreds of colonies on marginally habitable worlds and thousands
of artificial habitats in economically useful locations, but there was no truly
perfect Earth-like world. We were, after all, picking from the scraps left by a
great many other civilizations over the last billion years.
Commissioned by the Earth
Council, Biosphere Builders Incorporated had set up one of the most
sophisticated terraforming assessment programs in mankind’s history. Now they
were determined to transform the once destroyed planet into a garden world and
make the greatest profit ever recorded. They’d determined we had the technology
and were now developing the planetary engineering plan that Earth would pay
for. The one problem they faced was the tiny community of survivalists who’d
beaten BBI to the planet by less than a century. They’d set up a back-to-nature
home called Refuge among the petrified mega-trees and were now engaged in armed
insurrection to keep the planet builders away.
Knowing BBI had spared no expense
on their assessment facility, we unbubbled over the opposite side of the planet
from their base. With our active sensors off and our transponder disabled, we
were relatively stealthy, provided we flew on minimum power to keep our neutrino
emissions low.
“I can hear two communications
and one navigation satellite,” Jase said as he listened with passive sensors
only. “There’s nothing actively scanning us.”
A three dimensional image of the
planet rotated slowly on our wrap around screen. It wasn’t a real time optical
feed, but a projection based on our relative aspect to the planet. It showed
the BBI complex on the far side, located within a soft blue hemisphere that
defined its tracking envelope, a vast volume covering a tenth of the planet’s airspace
out to geosynchronous orbit. If we stayed where we were, eventually the base
would pick us up as the planet’s rotation brought it over the horizon towards
us.
Other than the main BBI facility,
there were dozens of automated science stations scattered around the planet,
but no sign of any independent settlements. It was as if the survivalists no
longer existed.
“There’s nothing down there,”
Jase said.
“Maybe they up and left?” I suggested.
“They’d never do that,” Marie
said emphatically from her couch behind us. “Refuge is on the coast of the
northern continent.”
“So where’s the beacon?” I asked.
The
Lining
should have been picking up Refuge’s locator beacon and
automatically placing it on the planet’s image. Those beacons were fully
autonomous and built to withstand any natural disaster so ships could always
locate settlements from orbit, no matter what disaster might strike them.
“They don’t use locator beacons
and they have no approach control,” Marie said.
“So how are we supposed to find
them?” I asked as I started the
Lining
gliding towards the atmosphere.
“You’re not,” she said. “They
don’t like visitors.”
I double checked our astrographics
catalogue, the data base of human habitation meticulously maintained by Earth
Navy. Surprisingly, there was no indication that the survivalist settlement had
ever existed.
“If they’ve been here for ninety
years,” I said, “how come there’s no record of them?”
“Their reference must have been
deleted!” Marie said.
“Now who do you suppose could
have done that?” I said bitterly, knowing only a substantial bribe could have
wiped out all record of an entire colony.
The astrographics catalogue was
automatically and constantly updated at every spaceport, with the latest
changes carried by every ship and prioritized by entry date. It was an organic
system that ensured all ships always had the most current information, although
it normally took several years for an Earth sourced change to reach every ship
and settlement in Mapped Space. Nevertheless, a deletion update could cause all
record of a remote colony to eventually vanish, so no one would ever know it had
ever existed, let alone that its inhabitants had a prior claim.
“All it takes is one corrupt
officer in the right place to change the catalogue,” Marie said, “and BBI would
have this world all to themselves.”
It seemed whenever I got near the
Consortium, I smelled rats. It wasn’t an odor I appreciated. “No wonder the
survivalists shoot strangers on sight!”
“Let’s hope they don’t shoot us!”
Jase said.
“They may not trust us,” Marie
said, “but they hate BBI.”
“Think you can find them?” I
asked as we nosed into the upper atmosphere.
“I remember a big harbor, like an
inland sea,” Marie said thoughtfully. “Cliffs on one side, a long peninsula on
the other, and lots of giant stone trees.”
“Stone trees? That narrows it
down to eighty percent of the planet’s land surface!” I zoomed Deadwood’s image
towards the small northern continent. On the southern coast was a curved
expanse of water, trapped between a rocky peninsula and the mainland. “What do
you think?”
“That’s it!” Marie said.
While there were data gathering
stations all over the planet, both on land and in the oceans, the number of
stations decreased markedly near the inland sea. Either BBI had voluntarily
chosen not to collect terraforming data near Refuge, or the survivalists had
decided for them. Using minimum power to remain stealthy, I let the planet’s
gravity pull us down, applying just enough kick from the thrusters to carry us to
fifteen degrees above the equator. While the
Lining
may have resembled a flying wing, she was incapable of
generating aerodynamic lift. She needed help from the thrusters just to glide
through the atmosphere with the grace of a falling rock.
Presently, the navigational image
of the planet was replaced by real time optics as we approached the sprawling
harbor. Ragged cliffs dominated the eastern shoreline while a low rock barrier
paralleled the coast some distance away to the west. At the extreme southern
end of the harbor, a narrow gap between the cliffs and the rocky peninsula provided
access to the open sea beyond. When we cruised over the entrance, a white cable
supported by bright orange floats became visible linking the opposing headlands.
“It’s a net!” Jase said surprised.
It sealed the harbor entrance,
turning the interior into a protected aquatic habitat. Further north, green
smears appeared beneath the surface. Jase zoomed the optics towards one of the
green patches, revealing a thick kelp bed where dark streamlined forms darted between
giant underwater plants.
“I thought this planet was dead,”
Jase said.
“Some life forms survived,” Marie
said, “but not those. They’re transplants from Earth.”
A family of sea otters broke the
surface, paying us scant attention as we passed overhead. I realized the net
across the harbor entrance wasn’t so much to protect the otters as to prevent
them from swimming away into an empty ocean where they’d starve to death.
We flew on over the harbor’s calm
waters, past several small work boats harvesting kelp and otters. Some were
fitted with masts and sails, others were oared. The crews stopped and watched
as we passed, but ominously, none waved a greeting.
“They don’t look happy to see
us,” I said.
We flew on towards a towering wall
of stone trees with gigantic interlocking branches broad enough to land on, yet
eerily absent of leaves. There was no soil exposed to direct sunlight, only a
rocky shoreline where thousands of otters lay sunning themselves. With the
petrified forest dominating the land, there was no sign of even subsistence agriculture,
although the soil that had once supported such monolithic flora must have been rich
and deep. Surprisingly, the dead forest was not the bleached white of death,
but a sea of reds, browns and yellows from the iron oxides and manganese that
had transformed wood to stone millions of years ago.
“Greenery, to starboard!” Marie declared,
pointing to the right of the view screen as if she was looking through a
window.
In a dead mineralized world, any
greenery was a sign of life, so I banked gently in the direction Marie had
indicated. Soon we were hovering above a thick cluster of branches wrapped in dark
green vines that stretched down into the shadows below. Carved stone houses nestled
among the greenery, most decorated with flower filled planter boxes. Drably
dressed people emerged from the houses, shielding their eyes from the glare of
our thrusters as we floated past the village. Beyond the houses, cows, sheep
and pigs were corralled in stone enclosures alongside shallow strip fields growing
crops on soil hauled up from the forest floor. A network of stairs had been carved
into the branches leading to other houses and tree-farms scattered far across
the forest canopy. South of the settlement, a small stone bridge led to an
immense branch whose upper curve had been leveled to form a landing area. Several
ancient aircraft were parked in front of a long stone building that, from the
air, appeared to be a maintenance facility.
I gave the village a wide berth,
ensuring it wasn’t struck by the down blast of our thrusters, then landed near
the antique aircraft. Armed men and women came running towards us from the
village, although none started shooting.
“Why do I get the feeling they
want to lynch us?” I said as I climbed out of my acceleration couch.
“Don’t worry, Sirius,” Marie said
comfortingly. “They won’t want to lynch you, until they get to know you.”
“Izin and I will cover you from
the cargo door,” Jase said. “If they make any hostile moves, we’ll blast them!”
“No shooting, no matter what
happens. This is their home. We’re the invaders.”
“But Skipper, suppose–”
“No buts! No guns!” I turned to Marie.
“I don’t suppose you know anyone who might help us?”
She shook her head. “No, but I
remember they’re kind of traditional. If we go down as a couple, that might
confuse them long enough to start talking.”
We’d spent the last few weeks
living as husband and wife on the flight here, although the survivalists wouldn’t
know that. We could just as easily have been BBI representatives come to tell
them they had twenty four hours to find another planet before we destroyed them
from orbit.