WE PUT DOWN at the equator because it was the warmest latitude on the planet. Also the flattest.
“And the most boring,” Grady said, hunched over the viewport.
“And the safest,” I said, trying to peer over his shoulder.
“Well, it’s no place like home.”
“Not yet,” I said. “Give us time.”
There wasn't much of that going around, and we both knew it. “Look at that darker patch of ground over there. Do you remember if any of the scans showed iron ore deposits in this area?”
“There’s nothing here, Grady,” I said, relieved at the change of subject. “That’s why we landed here, nothing to trip over. Don’t worry, I’ll have the rover up and running in a week and you can prospect your little heart out. That ridge we scanned from our last orbit is less than fifty klicks away.”
He didn’t say anything, but then he didn’t have to. We came from the same place, a planet with too many people and not enough room, where children went hungry, and now some were starving because funds and materiel had been funnelled to this expedition. I thought of my nieces, Joanna and Annie, and my nephew, David. Odds were I’d never see them again, but if I did my job and didn’t screw up, I might help give them a future.
The space station, the habitats at L-4 and L-5, the colonies on the moon, they were self-supporting but their capacity was limited. We needed somewhere to go, a suburbial planet, a bedroom community for six billion. Joanna was eighteen, David ten, Annie two. This planet was theirs.
The plains stretched out in front of us, the far but finite horizon jarring sensibilites accustomed to an infinite ebony expanse. The dirt was blood red, the sky pastel pink. After twenty-five months in transit, sunshine diffused by an atmosphere hurt my eyes.
I felt a touch on my shoulder and turned to see Esme Lauter. I stepped aside. Esme crowded in next to Grady for his first, non-telescopic look at our brave new world, and began a soft chant in Quarto, the language of the Universal Church of Being. The UCB was the fastest growing organized religion back home; at last count there were more Universalists than Cathars. The Council, six of twenty-one senators UCB, made it virtually impossible to assemble a crew for our expedition without at least one pro-life, anti-capital punishment vegan on board.
I understood. In a place of no hope, where daily choices were made between who got to eat and who didn’t, a faith that preached the sanctity of all life was some solace. It gave a spiritual underpinning to the idea that everybody got to eat, although I never did understand the logic of a faith that forbade the eating of meat and allowed the eating of grains and vegetables. Life is life, isn’t it? Either it’s sacred or it isn’t. Esme tried to explain it to me once—“We don’t eat anything with eyes”—but I guess I’m just not the pious type.
I thought again of Joanna and David and Annie, not an ounce of spare flesh between them, as healthy as they were only because my brother-in-law was a commerical fisherman in Prince William Sound. They couldn’t count the fish he caught until he got back to the dock, and there was a lot of open space between the dock and the fishing grounds. Everyone in our family was a card-carrying omnivore.
Esme finished his chant, and explained that it was a prayer of thanksgiving offered up to the creator of all living things, sort of a verbal thank-you card to god for getting us safely to our destination. We murmured something appropriate, and he left.
· · ·
We weren’t on the ground more than two hours before Grady had us suiting up. It didn’t take us long to get used to gravity again, and Hiroshi and Roberto had the drills out and in place before sunset. There was ice, all right, thirty-two centimeters below the surface. For once, the gnomes at home had interpreted the probe data correctly. Lucky for us, since our water tanks were running on
“And the most boring,” Grady said, hunched over the viewport.
“And the safest,” I said, trying to peer over his shoulder.
“Well, it’s no place like home.”
“Not yet,” I said. “Give us time.”
There wasn't much of that going around, and we both knew it. “Look at that darker patch of ground over there. Do you remember if any of the scans showed iron ore deposits in this area?”
“There’s nothing here, Grady,” I said, relieved at the change of subject. “That’s why we landed here, nothing to trip over. Don’t worry, I’ll have the rover up and running in a week and you can prospect your little heart out. That ridge we scanned from our last orbit is less than fifty klicks away.”
He didn’t say anything, but then he didn’t have to. We came from the same place, a planet with too many people and not enough room, where children went hungry, and now some were starving because funds and materiel had been funnelled to this expedition. I thought of my nieces, Joanna and Annie, and my nephew, David. Odds were I’d never see them again, but if I did my job and didn’t screw up, I might help give them a future.
The space station, the habitats at L-4 and L-5, the colonies on the moon, they were self-supporting but their capacity was limited. We needed somewhere to go, a suburbial planet, a bedroom community for six billion. Joanna was eighteen, David ten, Annie two. This planet was theirs.
The plains stretched out in front of us, the far but finite horizon jarring sensibilites accustomed to an infinite ebony expanse. The dirt was blood red, the sky pastel pink. After twenty-five months in transit, sunshine diffused by an atmosphere hurt my eyes.
I felt a touch on my shoulder and turned to see Esme Lauter. I stepped aside. Esme crowded in next to Grady for his first, non-telescopic look at our brave new world, and began a soft chant in Quarto, the language of the Universal Church of Being. The UCB was the fastest growing organized religion back home; at last count there were more Universalists than Cathars. The Council, six of twenty-one senators UCB, made it virtually impossible to assemble a crew for our expedition without at least one pro-life, anti-capital punishment vegan on board.
I understood. In a place of no hope, where daily choices were made between who got to eat and who didn’t, a faith that preached the sanctity of all life was some solace. It gave a spiritual underpinning to the idea that everybody got to eat, although I never did understand the logic of a faith that forbade the eating of meat and allowed the eating of grains and vegetables. Life is life, isn’t it? Either it’s sacred or it isn’t. Esme tried to explain it to me once—“We don’t eat anything with eyes”—but I guess I’m just not the pious type.
I thought again of Joanna and David and Annie, not an ounce of spare flesh between them, as healthy as they were only because my brother-in-law was a commerical fisherman in Prince William Sound. They couldn’t count the fish he caught until he got back to the dock, and there was a lot of open space between the dock and the fishing grounds. Everyone in our family was a card-carrying omnivore.
Esme finished his chant, and explained that it was a prayer of thanksgiving offered up to the creator of all living things, sort of a verbal thank-you card to god for getting us safely to our destination. We murmured something appropriate, and he left.
· · ·
We weren’t on the ground more than two hours before Grady had us suiting up. It didn’t take us long to get used to gravity again, and Hiroshi and Roberto had the drills out and in place before sunset. There was ice, all right, thirty-two centimeters below the surface. For once, the gnomes at home had interpreted the probe data correctly. Lucky for us, since our water tanks were running on
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