James Scotson - Planets Falling

Grey whistled. “Seriously heavy. I’d heard rumors. But you pilots don’t talk much about what you do. ”

“I was pretty little when they identified me as a candidate. I came from a normal family. My dad was a teacher. My brothers never showed any qualities of piloting. I apparently was doing some pretty wild things at school, interfacing with the computers in strange ways, making electronics do things that even engineers couldn’t unravel. That’s when some representatives from the Collective took me to the Institute on mars for training. I did my first drop when I was fifteen. Haven’t seen my family in ten years, I’d guess. Time starts to lose its relevance when you can bend it.”

Melat considered her position. Piloting had its dangers, of course. Every once in while, a pilot would lose her way in the drop sequence. The most optimistic outcome would be a stranded vessel in space. More likely and more ominous would be disintegration. Particles, occasionally chunks, of the vessel and its cargo, or passengers, would be scattered across space and possibly time. Still, the other option, spending centuries trying to ferry between systems was not a viable alternative. But when traveling within small systems, most people chose to take the slower ion propulsion transports than put their fate into a glorified space magician to save a few day’s travel time.

Grey turned towards the door to head for the mess hall. “Want to join me for dinner Mel? I’m so hungry.”

“Nope. I’m going to get a shower and then check on Fromer. He has been particularly mopey lately.”

“Fromer. Now there’s one I have not been able to figure out.”

“How would you expect to understand a hybrid that is nearly six times your age? I mean he has seen so many things. Knows so much. And that body. Its like he is built for combat. That skin is so — so incredibly thick and tough. I could throw a blade at him and it would just bounce off. They sent him here for something. Just what that is, well, that’s just as mysterious as your spooky planet. Boo, Grey.”

“Are you kidding me? That glow bug must have pissed someone off in the hierarchy and they’re punishing him. Pretty obvious that this is a dead end for him.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Grey turned toward Melat and cocked his head. “What do you know?”

“Nothing. Just a hunch about him.”

“While we’re exchanging notes, maybe you can tell me what you are doing here on station. Piloting is a lucrative gig. And you are here cooling your jets while other pilots are dropping transports almost weekly for lots of pay. You haven’t piloted in over a month. I can’t imagine that the Families is paying you all that much.”

“That, Grey my boy, is none of your business. But let’s just say I will soon have my pick of assignments. Right now, I get to enjoy the company of all you talented people.”

Grey shrugged and walked toward a warm meal. “HM. Please notify the kitchen to prepare menu 5 for me. I am in the mood for red meat.”

“Very well, Dr. Commons. Enjoy your dinner.”

Melat turned and stared through one of the deck’s translucent wall panels into the big empty vat of space before her. She was thinking about home.

From the personal journal of Grey Commons:

Today’s my birthday. My mother and Uncle Fen sent me a transmission and some really good scotch from New Europa. I found myself missing dad today. When I was a kid, we’d spend each birthday camping in the mountains. He said they were similar to the Alps on old earth except without snow. I spent a lot of my childhood looking at maps of Europe on earth. I always imagined what it would be like to be able to ski down a slope there. In his honor, I spent most of the day in the deck with a habitat similar to that of home — lots of simulated rocks, cool air, and evergreens. It just made me feel sad. I drank quite a bit of that scotch.

No one else on station knows that this is the anniversary of my birth. That’s fine with me. I did have dinner with Gorian. It was tough to tear her away from Ig, but I managed it. She’s intriguing to me. Quiet, studious, but very nice. She is one of the few on Platform who does not grate on my nerves. And I have some strange obsession with her ears. They are so tiny and well formed. But I digress. We all need a break.

I received another transmission today — from the Institute. The board has reviewed our preliminary results and seems intrigued. Verat and I are going to video conference with them tomorrow via infraspace connection. We only sent them the raw preliminary results. We didn’t give them the high quality images where we all swear we’re seeing ghosts. We have to maintain some shred of dignity here, right? Of course, Verat’s not particularly intrigued by this. Or at least he is acting that way. I want to kick him out an airlock some days. I love him dearly and appreciate that he joined me out here. I’m the closest thing he has to real, caring family. However, his attempts to push me away are exhausting.

The most popular hypothesis around here about Nine was posited by Melat, of all people. We think that the vegetation on the planet has somehow evolved to use the planet’s geothermal energy to become a giant radio collector. If this is true, Nine must be in the direct path of the radio transmissions from some technologically developed planet. The signals could be thousands of years old for all we know. A wild thought. But the only way to really understand this is to visit Nine. Direct contact between terraformers and cooking planets is highly forbidden, except under very special circumstances. You don’t want to mess up the broth. In the 300 planets that are currently under some development for eventual colonization, not one has ever done anything remotely like this though. So this may be our opportunity to convince the council board that we need to make a visit.

The most ironic thing is that this is one of the planets my dad started. It is his project, his legacy to me and the galaxy. He worked on it with Uncle Fen over forty years ago when they had just left the Institute. Dad was considered one of the most brilliant terraformers of our time. They said he was the next Pinchot Ferris. When I was a child, I had no idea. He, mom, my uncle, and aunts all seemed normal. When my father was away, I assumed he was doing the same things other fathers were doing — attending boring meetings. I was very wrong.

I’ve spent most of my adulthood looking over dad’s schematics for the planet’s successional developmental stages. Just yesterday, I scrolled through them again. It’s nothing spectacular now. But in his and Fen’s time, this stuff was revolutionary. It was clear he had an intuitive feel for the basic steps needed to get cloud planets cooking. I also still am trying to decipher some of his notes. They were written in a cipher unfamiliar to me or anyone I have contacted. The coded notes are particularly prevalent in the sections on microbiological technology. There also are a couple of pages on the geology of Nine that are encrypted. Could it be possible that he anticipated these events? I wonder if the answer lies in decoding his messages.

Gorian was in mess eating breakfast — just a bowl of fruit and some milk. Both the berries and milk came in with the latest transport from New Earth and were very fresh. Verat shuffled in. “Morning Gorian. See any ghosts last night?”

“Funny you should say that. I thought I saw a ghost but it was just your nasty face during the evening shift.”

Verat smiled, shook his head, and poured a cup of coffee into a mug. “What I need is a long trip away from this place.” He coughed and rubbed his nose.