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  After several hopeful offers to relieve Lieutenant Finch, Ensign Sara Roe surrendered to seniority and settled herself into the sofa in front of the Rec-room’s repeater viewtank, with the other off-shifters. Now that everyone was fully awake, no one wanted to miss First Approach.

  “Whoops, there’s another rock, no, it’s too close-in, just a big moon really, almost lost it in the stellar disc…” Lieutenant Finch muttered, almost to herself. “Two smallish asteroid belts, one’s just a big arc…” Everyone watched the big display, as a new solar system built itself in the viewtank out of stray glimmers in the night outside.

  Twenty more minutes passed. Two more smallish iceworlds, far out and bizarrely orbiting one another; a few more asteroids; a small system of moons resolve around each gas giant.

  “In ten minutes the drone will pass over the star’s north pole, we’ll get a look at…wait one, what’s this?” Doris’s rising voice brought everyone’s attention to the auxiliary display as effectively as any alarm bell.

  “Oh, my!” she breathed, as a small blue-green spark swam into view, hidden until then by the sun. Kirrah felt her heart beating faster… from this far, life is almost always blue. Rapt, the crew watched the scan data for the new planet blossoming on various readouts: dayside temperature 291 Kelvins - moderate, life-friendly; diameter 13,500 km; spectral analysis… nitrogen, yes, oxygen 19 percent, water… water vapor, yes! Life! They had found a living world!

  “Ok, ladies and gentlemen, stay at your stations, the show isn’t over,” said Captain Leitch. “Let’s keep sharp, and let Eyes do her job.” Yeah, sure, thought Kirrah, we’ve just found a whole new planet, with who-knows-what on it, and coincidentally we’re all going to become rich from royalties, and we’re supposed to sit here and act professional? Yes, that’s exactly what we’re going to do, she reminded herself firmly, because that’s what we are. Another hour gathering data isn’t going to make this whole beautiful planet go away.

  “Now we’re getting readings on ship’s sensors,” Lieutenant Finch pointed out. “Looks like 7 percent above standard gravity, that moon the drone spotted has two little sisters, one quite close and one farther out… makes for an interesting night sky, I bet.”

  “Looks like our drone will pass the large moon pretty closely,” observed Ensign Roe over shipcom, still forward in CrewRec.

  “Yes,” agreed Lieutenant Finch, “Just by luck, we should get pretty good mineral readouts on the first pass.” The drone’s extra kick from the railgun had carried it almost 250,000 kilometers ahead of the Arvida-Yee, which would put it over the planet first, then over the largest moon about as the Survey ship passed high above the northern hemisphere of the planet.

  The next fifty minutes unscrolled like a travelogue. Details of solar luminance, spectra, sunspot activity competed with the spectacular views from the main scope as they passed through the heart of the system. Solar prominences flared majestic around the star; a wind of particles swept through the inner system causing aurorae at both poles of the nearer gas giant planet; asteroids danced their age-old dance; and ahead, growing larger and more distinct with every passing minute, shimmered the planet – their planet, as Kirrah now thought of it.

  “Hey, Cap, aren’t we going to get a closer look?” asked Lieutenant Foley. At this speed and heading, they would pass far above the planet and be back in deep space in a few more hours.

  “Hoping for some LGM’s to study?” jibed Jerry Sykes’ soft voice, also over the shipcom. “Another ‘lost colony’ to trade beads and write theses about?” Angela Foley’s love of exploration, and somewhat romantic interpretation of the presence of a half-dozen primitive but very human races discovered in this direction, occasionally led to good-natured kidding from some of the harder-edged crewmembers, whose duties were circumscribed by physics rather than anthropology.

  “All right, Angela. Any more Kruss in the system have had plenty of time to react to our engagement back there. Let’s take a look. But first, Guns, I want a mailtube released on deadman protocol, 200-hour delay, totally passive and ballistic, full sensor download. We can take chances, people, but not with what we’ve found. Report on launch. Helm, stand by, no action ‘til launch.”

  “Aye, Sir,” said Sammy Lee at the weapons board. “Setting it up… ballistic for 200 hours at 0.2c, that would put it out at… two hundred eighty-nine AU before activation.”

  “Helm standing by,” said Lieutenant Roehl. God, how paranoid is the Captain, anyway? …oh yeah, just as paranoid as he should be. I forget sometimes, he carries the whole caravan. Another minute passed.

  Thunk-clunk. “Mailtube away!” sang Sammy.

  “Ok, Helm, let’s see what we’ve got. Activate Tubedrive, bring us in to a planetary diameter over the north pole, a nice round orbit, and we’ll make a few maps.”

  “Aye, Cap, lighting drive!” Kirrah was sure the big smile on her face would show in her voice, which was becoming, she realized, part of the permanent record which future colonists would no doubt place in their central library.

  “Eyes, what’s the preliminary mineral survey on that large moon?”

  “Ummm, pending, Cap,” said Lieutenant Finch from her position at the main sensor board. “The drone is just passing it now, I’ll have data for you as soon as we unTube over …the planet.” That little verbal hesitation, thought Kirrah – we, well, actually Captain Leitch, but we, this crew, gets to name this entire planet! She reactivated the Tubedrive for the first time in hours, swung the small ship into proper alignment, engaged drive, and they plunged back into the warm dark of Tubespace for the count of four heartbeats. Then, like a bubble popping, the Siderial universe burst back onto their sensors.

  “On target, orbit achieved in one, Cap!”

  “Damn, we’re good!” said Captain Leitch, smiling at her, and drinking in the crew’s sheer joy at being alive.

  What a glorious sight! The planet lay beneath them, filling a quarter of their sky. Hard white snow and ice reflected sunlight in sparkles from a smallish polar cap, surrounded by broad deep-blue oceans. Small islands and a sharp peninsula decorated the visible hemisphere, and a narrow continent snaked southward around the dayside limb. A white gash through the dark blue-green landmass suggested snowy mountain ranges… also on two of the islands, snowcaps; probably glaciers. And lakes! They had freshwater lakes!

  At least two were visible from here, and far to the south, near the equator, the continent widened. Anti-spinward, west of the mountains, the land color changed to a lighter, yellower green, and across the mountains, a dull red-brown desert. White fluffy clouds spread across the western ocean; to the east, a huge circular cloudmass crossed the line of sunset; hurricanes, even! Tears stung her eyes; Kirrah had not noticed how she missed the sight of her own homeworld, so much like this from space. After surveying so many lifeless rocks, how beautiful it was to see life again. Doris must be in sensor-heaven, thought Kirrah, as she put her board on standby and glanced across at her shipmate…

  Who was staring in wide-eyed horror at her Sensor board, her hand already descending, for the second time that day, on the General Quarters alarm. Stunned, Kirrah’s fingers brought her own board hot by sheer spinal reflex, as the GQ alarm blatted across every other conversation.

  Lieutenant Finch stammered “S-sir! The drone! It’s gone!”

  “Guns! Launch all ready Spit-5’s! Medium spread! Now!” snapped the Captain. “Helm! Take us up-Tube! Stat!” Reacting as much to the urgency in Captain Leitch’s voice as any understanding of what was happening, Lieutenant Roehl and Master Chief Lee fed commands to their boards. As the Tubedrive generator spooled up, a thuk-clang-clang-clang-clang reverberation announced the launch of four of their diminishing supply of missiles - at what, Kirrah couldn’t guess… the missiles could be recovered later, she knew. Her finger stabbed for the Drive Activate key…

  - The proximity alarm pinged wildly…

  - Doris reached for the Query key on her board…

  - Sammy Lee
touched the keys to reload the ready-tubes with more missiles from the bow magazine…

  - Captain William Leitch’s eyes turned to the main display, where a red line sprouted suddenly, impossibly close to the green cursor marking the Arvida-Yee’s position…

  - In the CrewRec, Lieutenant Angela Foley and Lieutenant Commander Howell Docking reached at the same moment for the screen controls, to magnify the view of their beautiful new hablet…

  Fierce blue and white light flashed briefly, like multiple flashbulbs going off behind her, and something whacked Kirrah across the back, at the same instant a dragon drew in a deep breath to roar… the planet, she could see the planet, right where her board was, how could that be… it was spinning away, no, she was spinning away… pieces of ship were spinning away… sound was gone, her ears hurt abominably. Another flash… the light was spinning… disappearing in a shrinking circle like the bright mouth of a tunnel as she plunged backward into its dark interior… Her last thought, as anoxia sucked her consciousness away, was “This is so wrong! Death is supposed to be a tunnel of light! Ahh, Kirrah, a critic to the very end…”

  Silence.

  Chapter 2: Interlude.

  “Do you wish to have love? If you wish to have love, then you must leave love.” - Mechtild of Magdeburg, 13th century AD mystic and nun; Germany, Terra

  Drifting up from just below the surface of consciousness, Kirrah became aware, dimly at first, as though approaching her sense of hearing from a distance, of the sound of voices. The same familiar inner voices that had inhabited her dreams and thoughts all her life, but now speaking as they wished, entirely free, apparently, of her conscious control:

  …and so, gentlemen of the Board, (said a male voice from somewhere… it’s hard to tell, when you don’t seem to have a body…) You can see that by her culpable inattention to duty, and inexcusably laggard performance of her Captain’s last command to Engage Drive, Lieutenant Kirrah Roehl is personally responsible for the loss of her ship with all hands.

  Audio, we’ve only got audio, where’s the damned video feed?

  So, what was it got them, then? (asked a different, more kindly voice, not unlike her Aunt Risa’s)

  …objection, immaterial! They’re all dead! Next witness! (Geez, that first voice was familiar too… and where was the damned video! Ahh, there we are…

  Pictures: slowmo, so painfully slow. The kinder voice again: Look, Kirrah, there’s the rip actually opening in the floor of the bridge, see: you really can see the planet between your knees. No, there’s no time to see the other crew, these memories are limited to where you happened to be looking at the time. But there, and there; see the bright red flecks in the air, just part of the general debris sucking out the massive rent in the hull; a stylus, spinning lazily end over end; pieces of cabling; dust, tsk tsk, who would have thought there was so much dust; a food wrapper someone lost a month ago; yes dear, that is someone’s hand and part of their forearm, not Doris’s, judging by its light color; another stylus; a whole intact First Aid kit (we won’t be needing that here, now will we?); a wristcomp, trailing something red and stringy; two empty caffi bulbs; unidentified bits of optronics, so bright and glittery; along with all the air, all the sweet, people-smelling, lunch-aroma-lingering, warm, homey air - look, you can see crystals forming already as it hits hard vacuum, so cold; and one last bit of flotsam cast into the unending dark, that’s you, my dear…

  Me? what?

  More? You want more? I suppose there’s no harm in that, we’ve got the time. It’s a joke, dear… a little humor. Ok, let's run the next memory, there’s about a second and a half missing, you did hit your head rather hard on the coaming as you went out. That’s all right, don’t feel badly… ahh, here we are…

  Pictures: slowmo again, and an intense itch on her forehead; blackness swimming out of a dark red haze, a blackness with stars in it… space: raw, naked space, 11,000 kilometers give or take, over the polar ice cap of her beautiful new planet... the feeling of tears with that thought, but no actual tears, nothing seems to be there, no body. Swinging slowly, left to right, the ship comes into view. Not the ship, surely, the ship was …smoother, yes, definitely smoother than that jumble of metal and, and …things. Oh God, and there’s the drive collar, what’s left of it, around the bow, and there’s the port gravitics array, where’s the starboard one… guhhh! There is no starboard side, just a massive rent, hullmetal peeled back like a food wrapper, you can see right into the Rec room, heeheehee the wreck room, the …Turn it off! Please TURN IT OFF! There are… things, floating in the ripped-open Rec room, things that brought me my last lunch, things that I played Chess with last offshift, that I…

  I know, dear, this is hard. Just a few seconds more…

  …objection! (that male voice again!) The Accused is the cause of all of this, for every single person on that ship! Let her watch it all!

  That is acceptable. Kirrah, dear, just a few seconds more, we must do this, please, I’ll be right beside you…

  Pictures: so slow, more like freezeframe, one terrible image after another: the slowly spreading debris field; then a sudden, impossibly intense flare of light, its source behind her; every bit of debris flaring a saturated, painfully brilliant solid white, razor-sharp against the utter blackness; a voice, faint and familiar, whispering in savage triumph: “Got the sonnofabitch!” …Sammy? Was that you?

  Where…

  Fading now, the images shrinking, no, her field of view shrinking, the damned black tunnel closing off her sight… wait one, that wasn’t a tunnel, that was, that was… that was her survival suit! The helmet closing automatically on decompression, polarized to blackness by the intense light… and something tickling under her right ear, just where the suit’s air feed was… waitaminit, something stinks here! I’m not dead!

  …well, now you’ve done it! How’s she ever going to learn from her mistakes, if she keeps surviving them?

  Chapter 3: Germination

  “The seed of God is in us. Now the seed of a pear tree grows into a pear tree. And a hazel seed grows into a hazel tree. A seed of God grows into God.” – Meister Eckhart, 13th century A.D. mystic and theologian; Germany, Terra

  Something stank - it smelled like Aunt Risa’s cookpot, the time a nine-year-old Kirrah accidentally left the burner on… no, worse than that. Someone was coughing, weakly. Someone’s head hurt, someone’s ears were ringing, buzzing. Someone’s eyes opened into utter blackness. Blind, Kirrah thought, thank God I’m blind, I won’t have to look at the pictures any more.

  …pictures, what pictures?

  Someone’s fingers found the switch for the suit’s shoulder lights, right where hours of practice had drilled them it would be. Now Cut That Out! It’s not ‘someone’, it’s me, I’m Lieutenant Kirrah Roehl, Regnum Draconis Survey Service, I’m alone and I’m in deep, deep trouble. The light revealed a rough, translucent gray surface about a meter above her head. She appeared to be lying on her back in a cloud.

  Not in a cloud. In the gel interior of a drop bubble. Her suit - (thank you Captain Leitch, you said we could thank you later for making us wear these suits all day, so – thank you.) Her suit had covered her, fed her air, detected the planet nearby. When she remained unconscious, its AI’s defaults must have kicked in, used its limited delta vee to slowly break orbit. Once her falling body was committed to the planet far below, the suit had spun its 1.5 liter reservoir of modified silicon-based goop into an aerogel bubble, a rigid sphere twenty-five meters across, as light, literally, as air. Impacting the upper atmosphere at a little under thirty-eight thousand kilometers per hour, the gel’s outer layers would have ablated and rapidly slowed her plunge, and the inner, softer gel would cushion its occupant against the deceleration. With its orbital speed shed, the bubble would descend like a bit of eiderdown. At this gravity, final contact with the surface would be at under ten kilometers per hour.

  Uuuh! The surface! Was she there yet? Was she even in the atmosphere? Had the suit missed the w
hole damned planet? Wait: look, oh clever graduate of SS Astronautics and Navigation 412, Professor Stanglee presiding; you are lying on your back. That would require a gravity field, yes?

  Slowly, Kirrah rolled on her side, then raised herself on one arm. Ow! Ok head, we’re very sorry, let’s try that again, slowly, and promise you won’t stab me with that incandescent spike again, Ok?

  The second time, she made it to a sitting position. A tug at her left shoulder reminded her of the sensor wire the suit had embedded into the gel, so it should be possible to… yes, there’s the readings on her wristcomp. Gravity, 1.071 Standard. Air… Shit! Air! Where are our priorities? Changing screens… yes, her air scrubber was working fine, another 28 hours at least, be still oh my heart. Now then, outside air… holding steady at 1225 millibars, so wherever we are, we’ve stopped descending, we’re on the ground. Or water. Or ice… Yes, well, moving right along… 19% oxygen, not too much CO2, humidity 70%, huh, these are the same numbers Doris had, um, before, uhhh, beforebeforebefore…

  Lieutenant Roehl! Front And Center! We Are Doing A Survival Checklist! If you would Kindly! Pay! Attention!

  Right, um…no detectable pathogens, no dangerous trace gases, fine, we can probably breathe this stuff. Now where in God’s Green Universe have we landed? Is the video feed working on this sensor? (Why was “video feed” such a, a familiar phrase?)

  No damned video. Ok, the vid pickup’s burned away, start digging. There’s not more than ten meters or so of gel between us and the big wide world. There’s a tube of solvent here somewhere, yes. Within ten minutes, Kirrah breached the gel wall at nearly its thinnest point, only three meters. Only three meters of insulating gel out of twelve, had remained to shield her unconscious body as the last, fierce heat of entry had torn at her drop bubble.