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Authors: Michael McCollum
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Steinmetz Chair for Exo-biology. She was also Dardan Pierce’s personal physician.
Pierce had broken the news of the alien light sail to her two weeks earlier. She had been doubly dumbfounded by the news. First, she had thought him incapable of keeping a secret of that magnitude for longer than thirty seconds. Secondly, she had been struck speechless when he offered her a berth on the ship that would go out to meet the aliens.
“Are you sure you want me, Dard?” she had asked after regaining use of her lower jaw muscles.
“Why not?”
“Shouldn’t there be some sort of selection process? There are other exobiologists who are far more renowned than I am.”
“They aren’t MDs. I’ve checked. Besides, you are filling two berths for the price of one. Efficiency in all things, I always say.”
“But damn it, you don’t hand your doctor the biggest scientific plumb in history without consulting someone. My God, they will hang you in effigy at the next meeting of the System Society for the Advancement of Science. You have to at least appear to play the game.”
“Look, Kit. I don’t know all of those other biologists, but I do know you. I do not care what Sadibayan thinks, or de Pasqual, or even the first minister. I want you.”
“But why, for heaven’s sake?”
“Because you won’t panic when you meet the aliens, no matter how slimy they may look. You will look at them with that same Olympian detachment you use with me every time you tell me I am too fat. This is the first opportunity human beings will have to make a good impression on another species. I know you will represent us well. What’s the matter, don’t you want to go?”
“Want to go? I will kill to go! I just don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“Look, if they want Starhopper , they have to let me fill a billet. The one I have chosen is the biologist slot. That’s you, unless you don’t want it.”
She’d shut up at that point lest he change his mind. She had spent the next two weeks in a daze, still unable to believe her good luck. Hell, after this expedition, she just might become the most famous exobiologist who ever lived.
Exo-biology had been a science in search of a subject for nearly three centuries. Generations of practitioners had written millions of scientific papers on what alien lifeforms ought to be like, all without having even a single non-terrestrial specimen to study. Yet, dangling from that blue-white light in the sky was a ship, and in that ship were living, breathing, thinking beings from another star. At the least, they would bring with them the Tau Cetian equivalent of body lice, intestinal bacteria, and perhaps even shipboard cockroaches. To Kit Claridge, that was a veritable alien ecology!
Finally, all of her patients had been referred to other doctors, her classes reassigned, and her administrative duties finished. She packed a single kit bag and caught the morning ferry to Phobos, arriving the day before they planned to bring the booster down to dismount the instrument package. She had spent much of her first day becoming acquainted with Garth Van Zandt and Tory Bronson.
She shaded her faceplate with a gloved hand as Phobos’ rotation brought the sun above the local horizon. The ground in front of her was unnaturally flat. It had been leveled off as a landing field next to the Phobos distillation facility. This was where small mountains of ice covered in reflective foil were landed after being towed into position by light sails. Once landed, they were carved up and carted off to the refinery. It was also from the landing field that tankers delivered their cargoes of slush hydrogen to the Earth Liners and other vessels in orbit about Mars.
Kit listened as the safety monitors reported the field clear of all personnel. When they finished, the general comm circuit resounded with the noise of a radio-borne siren. The clumps of vacsuited figures arrayed behind safety barriers suddenly ceased their
Pierce had broken the news of the alien light sail to her two weeks earlier. She had been doubly dumbfounded by the news. First, she had thought him incapable of keeping a secret of that magnitude for longer than thirty seconds. Secondly, she had been struck speechless when he offered her a berth on the ship that would go out to meet the aliens.
“Are you sure you want me, Dard?” she had asked after regaining use of her lower jaw muscles.
“Why not?”
“Shouldn’t there be some sort of selection process? There are other exobiologists who are far more renowned than I am.”
“They aren’t MDs. I’ve checked. Besides, you are filling two berths for the price of one. Efficiency in all things, I always say.”
“But damn it, you don’t hand your doctor the biggest scientific plumb in history without consulting someone. My God, they will hang you in effigy at the next meeting of the System Society for the Advancement of Science. You have to at least appear to play the game.”
“Look, Kit. I don’t know all of those other biologists, but I do know you. I do not care what Sadibayan thinks, or de Pasqual, or even the first minister. I want you.”
“But why, for heaven’s sake?”
“Because you won’t panic when you meet the aliens, no matter how slimy they may look. You will look at them with that same Olympian detachment you use with me every time you tell me I am too fat. This is the first opportunity human beings will have to make a good impression on another species. I know you will represent us well. What’s the matter, don’t you want to go?”
“Want to go? I will kill to go! I just don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“Look, if they want Starhopper , they have to let me fill a billet. The one I have chosen is the biologist slot. That’s you, unless you don’t want it.”
She’d shut up at that point lest he change his mind. She had spent the next two weeks in a daze, still unable to believe her good luck. Hell, after this expedition, she just might become the most famous exobiologist who ever lived.
Exo-biology had been a science in search of a subject for nearly three centuries. Generations of practitioners had written millions of scientific papers on what alien lifeforms ought to be like, all without having even a single non-terrestrial specimen to study. Yet, dangling from that blue-white light in the sky was a ship, and in that ship were living, breathing, thinking beings from another star. At the least, they would bring with them the Tau Cetian equivalent of body lice, intestinal bacteria, and perhaps even shipboard cockroaches. To Kit Claridge, that was a veritable alien ecology!
Finally, all of her patients had been referred to other doctors, her classes reassigned, and her administrative duties finished. She packed a single kit bag and caught the morning ferry to Phobos, arriving the day before they planned to bring the booster down to dismount the instrument package. She had spent much of her first day becoming acquainted with Garth Van Zandt and Tory Bronson.
She shaded her faceplate with a gloved hand as Phobos’ rotation brought the sun above the local horizon. The ground in front of her was unnaturally flat. It had been leveled off as a landing field next to the Phobos distillation facility. This was where small mountains of ice covered in reflective foil were landed after being towed into position by light sails. Once landed, they were carved up and carted off to the refinery. It was also from the landing field that tankers delivered their cargoes of slush hydrogen to the Earth Liners and other vessels in orbit about Mars.
Kit listened as the safety monitors reported the field clear of all personnel. When they finished, the general comm circuit resounded with the noise of a radio-borne siren. The clumps of vacsuited figures arrayed behind safety barriers suddenly ceased their
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