Dave Duncan - Wildcatter

Oh, balls! That was serious. He had been counting on 1.2 gees. He had worked for a year to add muscle and bone and succeeded so well that he had gone from middleweight to heavyweight, but on Cacafuego he was going to weigh almost 150 kilos, about twice what he had weighed back on Earth. How long could he function under those conditions?

“Why? I mean why didn’t the trans-Neptunian observatories figure that better?”

—The overall mass falls on their error bar, Prospector, but the planet’s density is anomalous, meaning a shorter radius, and therefore the surface gravity is higher. Inverse square law, Control added helpfully.

Seth called for animation, and was shown a few hours’ rotation: a slow twist, then flip back, slow twist, flip back. Clearly the ship was approaching more or less along the ecliptic plane, aimed for about halfway between the planet’s equator and the sunlit pole. Yes, there was ice at the equator. Some of that white might even be sea ice, which would make seasonal migration difficult for marine life.

“Latest estimate of the atmosphere?”

— Oxygen between sixteen and eighteen percent, balance nitrogen, neon, and water vapor. Sea level pressure estimated 1.7 atmospheres.

“Carbon dioxide?”

—Too small to measure at this range. Temperatures indicate it cannot be much higher than terrestrial, but there will be some, because there is chlorophyll.

His body could handle that air as long as he was allowed enough time to depressurize afterward. The oxygen content was lower than Earth standard, but that would actually be a blessing, because the partial pressure would be higher than terrestrial. If he had to, he could dispense with the EVA suit and just breathe through a filter mask to eliminate toxic dust and airborne biohazards.

Tiring of the endlessly repeated twist-flip, he called for a current view of the terminator at highest practical magnification. Like a view of the moon at the half, this gave him a sense of three dimensions, the mountains’ relief being exposed by their shadows. The topography was Earth-like, suggesting plate tectonics, and that boded well for mineral distribution, soil fertility, and the development of life.

“Anything else unusual?”

The disk became an irregular, grainy detail. There was a coast, and an obvious river, and…

—We caught this by chance with our high-magnification scanner, and have not yet established a paradigm for the unusual texture . On Earth it would satisfy our parameters for provisional identification as a city seen in low-angle lighting, but there is too much vegetation to be sure at this distance and in this context.

Seth slumped back on his chair. A city? He was hallucinating, surely.

The rules for first contact overrode everything else, although they had never been applied in practice. Prospecting must cease at once. There must be no communication of any kind, only immediate withdrawal, leaving a beacon where the natives could not detect it. Events must be reported to ISLA, which would compensate the expedition for any financial sacrifice incurred, with a bonus. Plus historical fame to match Columbus’s, of course.

“What color beacon for a sentient species?”

—Purple.

Made no sense! “And Galactic’s is…?”

—Yellow, Prospector, still yellow.

“Holograph dismissed. Down on the floor, monster!” Seth rose and headed for the galley to flip some pseudo-eggs. The cat ran hopefully before him. He must be patient. In a couple of days everything would be clear. It couldn’t be a city, just a trick rock formation. Evidence for intelligent aliens would certainly have sent the Galactic team high-tailing home to Earth with the news, but they would have posted purple, not yellow. He wasn’t going to mention the shadows to the others. Let them find out for themselves.

But all that oxygen and blue water? Damn the little green men! Cacafuego was just too hot to pass up. The odds were very high now that in just a few days, Prospector Seth and Astrobiologist Reese would climb into the shuttle and go downside to that strange sideways world.

After his usual solitary breakfast, he went back to the showers. He had just found his shaver when Jordan wandered in behind him, and for a moment their eyes met in the mirror. She had cleaned off the smudged makeup and brushed out the short golden hair, but she was topless. That was not unusual aboard Golden Hind and he was quite accustomed to seeing her naked in a cabin, a sight that never palled, but even semi-nudity seemed wrong under their present circumstances. She started at the sight of him and stepped quickly into a toilet cubicle. He went to the clothes bins, rummaged for top and shorts in her color, blue, and tossed them over the door to her. Then he went back to shaving.

When he was rich he would have his mess of a face tidied up. His nose had once been straight, his cheek had fallen in where he had lost four teeth to a lucky punch, and the too-recent scar on his forehead had come from a broken bottle. The wonder was not that he had only scored two out of four on the ship, but that such an ugly thug ever scored at all.

He had just reached the sandpaper on his chin when Jordan emerged, decently clad. No doubt she had started the change pills already, but no results would be showing yet. She was still a boyish woman with small breasts and narrow hips, but she excited him more than the voluptuous Maria ever did. He knew every pore in Jordan’s skin intimately, the pink nipples and aureoles, faint pubic hair almost invisible against her pale skin. He hated the thought of those breasts shrinking even more, the slightly enlarged herm clitoris swelling into a workable penis.

He turned to face her as she came closer. Not too close, though.

“I screwed up tonight,” she said.

Of course she had. The captain’s job was to inspire the crew, which Jordan did with good humor and fine people management skills. Unlike Reese or JC, they phrased every order as a request and never pulled rank on the lowly gofer. The whole crew liked them, but no one doubted that JC had chosen Jordan Spears because they avoided confrontation. Unfortunately a face-off was sometimes necessary, and tonight the herm had blinked.

“No, you didn’t,” he said.

“Yes, I did. I should not be changing over.”

He shrugged. “You made the right decision, love… ma’am, I mean. No one knows more about fighting than me, and you never go into a fight with a monkey on your back. If you feel happier tackling Old Ugly as male, then you are quite right to change over.”

“But it’s a retreat, and he’ll know it. Damn it, he can’t overrule me! He can’t even overrule you , if you have good cause to refuse to go downside. I can handle that big ape without having to grow a cock. It’s not fair to the others: you, Reese, Maria.”

“Is he sane?”

Sidetracked, Jordan stared at him for a moment. “Be more specific.”

“A trillionaire, sixty-two years old. What’s he doing out here in the Big Nothing? Escaping from too many ex-wives?”

“Looking for the Great One, the world-shaking triumph to crown his career.”

“And if he fails, he’s busted. Loses everything. I worry a little about that.” Was that true? Was JC sane?

“You could handle him if he turned violent,” she said. “You’re a fighter, an ex-bouncer. He’s big but he’s three times your age.”

“The first time we met you told me I was the best applicant and yet you’d been frightened he wouldn’t accept me. That why? You thought he would red-pencil me because I could take him down?”

Jordan shrugged and put on her professional calming smile. “JC’s not the type to go berserk, Seth. ISLA tests everyone for that.”