Rikki wondered just how one phrased the question. So, Li, are you setting up the six of us as an aristocracy? How about yourself as the queen?
Even the questions were too weird, too…freaking medieval, to take seriously.
She gestured at the spinning globe and its all-but-featureless expanses. “I’ll be interested in what else you learn about our new home.”
Looking hurt, Antonio banished philosophy from his displays.
Not smooth, Rikki chided herself. She had not meant to offend. “Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”
She undogged the hatches and started aft, her appetite gone, keen to lose herself in the mindless slinging about of crates.
Parenting and mentoring: they would all have those responsibilities, of course. But anything more? Conditioning the children for deference? Fostering ancestor worship? That was beyond crazy.
Nonetheless, as Rikki clambered down the central-shaft ladder, planets one through six sounded better and better to her.
21
After much shuffling of cargo and many EVAs, they had assembled what, in theory, was a functioning short-range shuttle. So far it had passed all diagnostics. Its deuterium tank had been filled from Endeavour’s depleted reserves and its reaction-mass tank with melt-water from an ice body intercepted on approach to this new planetary system. For more than a day the shuttle had maintained a shirtsleeves environment. Still, the limit to Carlos’s faith in the spacecraft-from-a-kit was removing his pressure-suit helmet.
While keeping that helmet within arm’s length.
The narrow cockpit permitted only two crew. Carlos occupied the back seat, his legs spread wide and his knees wedged.
Out the canopy the vista was humbling. A short docking tunnel removed: the scorched and pitted exterior of Endeavour, the toll of the light-years all too evident. Beyond that abused hull hung the world they meant to settle. Scattered seas, clouds, and snow fields interrupted his view of its bleak surface. A colossal mountain range, ridge after ridge after ridge, revealed the slow-motion collision of two tectonic plates.
From the cockpit’s forward seat, Blake asked, “How are you holding up?”
“Fine. Just taking in the scenery,” Carlos said. The truth was, he had yet to regain his customary vigor. Merely assisting with checkout—toggling switches, tapping in short commands, and reading out displays—had exhausted him. In free fall, no less.
“Station-keeping maneuver coming up,” Marvin advised by radio.
“You still secured?” Blake asked.
“Uh-huh.” Not that, shoehorned in as Carlos was, a seat harness added much.
“All right, Marvin,” Blake radioed. “Do what you must.”
For a few seconds Carlos felt pressure against his back and a hint of weight, and then zero gee returned. He said, “It’s quite the view, don’t you think?”
“No argument here, though I’m more interested in how things look on the surface. When you’re ready, we’ll move on to sensor diagnostics. Passive instruments first.”
As boring as checkout was, the work needed doing. “Starting with infrared. IR sensors: self-test passes. Temperature readout across the surface looks plausible.” And freaking cold. “Moving on to visual.” Sweeping the shuttle’s modest telescope along the mountains, he homed in on a gray blur. “Directional controls are fine. The focus could be better.”
“Try it with the adaptive optics.”
“Adaptive optics: self-test pass.” The image sharpened; the blur resolved into a roiling ash plume. Carlos said, “That did the trick.”
They exercised the shuttle’s short-and long-range radars, confirming distances against Endeavour’s measurements. The very precise laser altimeter—wasn’t. Reading records aloud from the runtime log, Carlos began wheezing.
“Let’s take five,” Blake said.
“Thanks.”
Within two minutes the fidgeting began. Carlos ignored the pop-popping noises and the finger-tapping. He could use the full five.
“So, you and Li,” Blake said.
“Me and Li,” Carlos agreed.
“You two seem to be getting along.”
Having something she wants may have something to do with that, Carlos thought.
“So I wondered…,” Blake went on.
“What?”
“Is Li lobbying you, too, for specific planet and moon names?”
“Some,” Carlos admitted. Nonstop. But she hadn’t yet made his endorsement worthwhile.
“Do you find some of her ideas are, well, a touch reactionary?”
“As if I know who any of those dead Earthworms are.”
Except Carlos did understand the question. Let Li be a social engineer. Let her instill respect for authority and deference to elders.
Half of the submissive young colonists would be women.
“Still,” Blake said, “don’t you find Li is rather…impassioned…about this?”
Let’s hope so. “What’s in a name?” Carlos laughed. “That planet out there can be Gertrude, for all I care.” Or even Li, if she’s passionate enough.
“You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours?”
“Something like that.”
In the canopy, Blake’s reflection disapproved.
Blake said, “Back to work. Let’s finish checking out the sensors, and then move on to backup power distribution.”
“Fine by me,” Carlos said.
Because the sooner the shuttle scouted out candidate landing sites, the closer he was to those thousands of cooperative young women.
*
It’s time, Li thought.
She was the last one to float into the cargo hold. Smiling, making eye contact with everyone, she allowed her gaze to linger on Blake and her smile to broaden. On cue, Blake smiled back. Reflexes, if you understood them, were useful tools.
Rikki flinched.
So did Carlos. Then he motioned Li over to a spot beside him.
Dana shoved off a bulkhead to drift toward the forward end of the hold, grabbed a handhold, and turned to face Li and the others. “If you haven’t already guessed, I called this get-together to confirm our readiness for a scouting mission. Blake, how’s the shuttle?”
“All set to fly,” Blake said.
“And make a landing?” Dana followed up.
“That, too,” Blake said. “And even return to orbit.”
“I’ve picked out candidate landing sites,” Antonio said.
“I’ll play devil’s advocate,” Dana said. “What will we encounter down there? Marvin, give us a rundown.”
“Full detail or a qualitative overview, Captain?”
“Just the highlights, please,” Dana said.
“It will be cold,” the AI summarized, “not far above freezing even at the equator. The air is thin and dry but breathable near sea level. Be wary of exertion, both because of the low partial pressure of oxygen and the near-toxic level of carbon dioxide. The ozone layer, although thin, will block most of the UV. The magnetic field seems sufficient to keep out cosmic rays. The sunlight
