James Scotson - Planets Falling

Grey pushed the communications button and linked to Verat’s quarters.

“Verat, wake, the hell, up,” he huffed.

A few seconds passed and Grey repeated his call, rolling his eyes. Finally the screen flickered and a bedraggled head appeared in shimmering, holographic technicolor. Stubble, eye goop, and creases on a cheek. Verat’s appearance was dismal. He spit out something, mouthwash? whisky? in a wash basin to the left of the screen. “Wha? Grey is that you? Did you see that 7C is malfunctioning? I meant to warn you about that, but HM had to wrassle up some additional satellites probes. I could’ve waited around. But I needed shut eye.”

“No, you dip. 7C is working fine. Thanks for leaving this to me. You have been doing this to me since we were kids. Always dropping the serious stuff in my lap. Forget it. No point in going off on you. Won’t make a difference.” Grey slumped back in his chair. “What do you think it is this time?”

“I think we got some campers cooking marshmallows on the surface. And probably making drugs. This is a job for Fromer and his people. I am going back to sleep. I feel like I’ve been dragged through the recycler and spit back out onto a deck.”

“Not this time for God’s sake. If you’d wean yourself off that strong tea, you’d not have this problem. Get down here. Several sectors of the frigging northern hemisphere are blinking on and off. Unless someone has invaded the surface and the subsurface, this has got to be geothermal, not some smugglers or pirates crawling around.”

“Blah. I’ll be up in a few minutes. Be a dear and put on some tea for me — the strong stuff.” The image blinked out as Verat began scratching his nose.

Grey closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and walked over to the observatory’s kitchen to boil some water. Tea in its endless flavors, colors, strengths, and aromas was Verat’s greatest weakness. His habit of always wandering with a warm cup had worn off on most of the crew. An entire deck was devoted to growing different strains cultivated from the leaves of plants from a dozen planets. Verat was reknowned for his ability to grow, harvest, dry and mix hundreds of different tea blends. Each was very unique and typically very potent. Some were great for staying alert, others were calming, and a few would render the drinker helplessly trippy for many hours. Grey knew that the best way to garner Verat’s support was to make sure he had a bracing cup in his hand.

“What we have here is a genuine event,” Gorian Mestrian exclaimed as she planted her feet on the table, her fuzzy wool socks in plain view.

Footwear was pretty much optional on the station. Given the lack of an outside to track indoors, most of the staff lumbered around without shoes or with feet adorned by slippers. In fact, dress code was pretty lax. It wasn’t unusual to spend the day in a pair of flannel pajamas and a lab coat. The only time attire was important was when the staff scientists and technicians were mucking about on an experimental deck or near the reactors.

Cross contamination would be a cause for instant dismissal. Whole experiments could be ruined. Worse, because the reactors worked on a combination of nuclear and biochemical reactions, a stray strain of microbial life could jeopardize the Platform’s very existence by plunging the power station into the engineering version of a very bad cold or more omniously, an incurable cancer.

“Ok folks. Pay attention. Here’s what we have to date,” Grey announced, pointing at the image forming holographically at the center of the table. “About 20 hours ago, three probes around experimental planet C9 began transmitting some really funky patterns. We may have had more time to gather information, but Verat here decided to clock out.” He glared at the dark, slouching figure in the corner. “Ten hours ago, the patterns stopped and all has been quiet.”

Verat interrupted, crinkling his nose. “Gorian, when was the last time you changed your socks?”

Gorian put her feet down with a frown. “My feet smell rosy. You might consider your own hygiene, my friend. You reek of some kind of weed mixed with liquor. What’s in that cup of yours? It looks like peat and smells awful.”

“Want some?” Verat growled. “May bring you down back to us commoners.”

Grey dropped his head. “Verat and Gorian, chrissakes, we need to take these results seriously. None of the simulations remotely predicted geothermal feedback.” He glanced up at the suspended holographic sphere hovering above the table. The image was cloaked in dense, tan and white clouds. Grey could not help thinking about the caramels he hoarded as a kid. Buttery goodness in a planet.

As the faux planet spun lazily in front of the primary investigators of the C9 project, the clouds parted and amber tendrils of light appeared in little flashes scattered across the northern hemisphere of the globe. If he squinted, Grey would have bet a week’s pay that he saw the surface peeking out at him, green and slick.

But that was impossible. Planet C9 or Nine as most of the principles called it was a typical cloud planet — atmosphere dominated by swirls of water vapor, humidity so great that a few moments on the rocky surface without an away suit would be akin to walking into a very oppressive sauna, with no escape.

Not that the time spent sweating would be lethal. The air was now breathable after nearly four decades of pre-conditioning by the machinations of several of the principles’ family members. Their intent was to make the planet habitable for sentients, allowing them to live in peace, grow families, and build a history there.

Within a century — give or take a decade or two — their goals would be achieved. By then, much of the water suspended in the atmosphere would be captured in plants and animals or condensed in lakes and streams. The terraforming process was like wringing out a sponge. The planet wouldn’t quite be Eden, but it would be close. For now, though, the planet was an embryo gently swaying in its womb. Embryos were pretty unsightly, but the babies were awfully cute.

“Well, whatever occurred is now over-for the moment,” Gorian noted. “This buys us some time to analyze the results and plan for additional recon. I’m ready to cook up some toys for sampling on the surface.”

Gorian was awash in her element in the station, always happiest when surrounded by fabricated things. Transmission wires, fiber optics, plastic, rare metal panels, quantum computers, the hum of an engine deep below-decks. These were peaceful reminders of the capacity of intelligent design. Design that she understood deeply and nearly completely.

She loved wandering among the machinery, monitoring the energy budget of the station, and dreaming of ways to improve efficiency. If there was one thing she really disliked about the Platform, it was some of her fellow crewmates — the ones that didn’t seem vested in their job — especially that deplorable hack Verat Wilcoxin. It was obvious that Verat considered her a challenge to be overcome. After all, she was young, bright, athletic, and mildly attractive, in a willowy sort of way. Her adolescence was spent worrying about the length of her limbs relative to her body — arms and legs too long, gawky. Again, there was the latent engineer in her looking for the golden ratio. She was failing miserably as a physical specimen, and was certain this made her a pariah to her peers.

It occurred to her years later that she was indeed desirable to many boys — but perhaps it was the comfort she found in inanimate things that made her inaccessible. Too much time tinkering with computer algorithms and designing molecular clocks, not enough time talking and taking interest in social play. Aloof Gorian. But fairly happy. Machines never disappointed you — they could always be improved.