Early the next morning, Adam woke with a start to a burst of static on TPRU-1’s radio. He was still sleep-addled and didn’t hear the message clearly, so he dragged himself off the cot and slumped by the desk. “This is Som – this is Tango-1,” he opened, correcting himself. “Transmit again please, over.” I wonder what Louis wants this time. While he waited, he glanced over to the cargo, wondering what he should rehydrate for that morning.
“This is Zulu-Alfa.” This was not Louis’s voice – for one, it was distinctly female; for another, distinctly Swiss. “Do you remember me? We trained together for this mission. I am Dr. Elena Weiss, one of the biologists on Zodiac-Altair. Some hours ago, Dr. Konstantinov had, erm, awakened me from cryostasis, for lack of better word, and assigned me to data analysis from the probe. Commander Darcy told me you fixed it and sent the data back to the ship; is that true? Over.”
Well, she sounds chipper. “Affirmative, Dr. Weiss,” he replied. “It wasn’t easy to locate it, and I had to get some help from the Indigenous to power it back on temporarily, but, well. . . it’s hard to argue with the results!” He chuckled. “I’ll need to perform additional repairs on it if we’re going to get more use out of it, plus Commander Darcy has ordered me to focus on translating the Indigenous language, to use it to negotiate a site for the colony. Over.”
“Yes, of course,” she responded. “However, from what I have overheard – ” Her voice cut off suddenly. Comms issues?
Then the commander’s voice replaced Elena’s. “This is Commander Darcy. So sorry to interrupt, Somerset, but I’m going to assign another mission to you. You retrieved the probe’s data, that much is good, but I want you to fix it up further. The probe’s mission was to identify Rhyslinger biochemistry, and while the data it has given us – given her – has proven useful, she says she needs a lot more to draw firm conclusions. That’s where you come in – you said the battery’s wires are frayed, correct? See if you can’t crimp them back together – you should be able to do that yourself on the ground. Once that’s done, help it out by bringing samples directly to the probe. Something tells me Weiss has a laundry list of things she’d like to see. Any questions about this? Over.”
Gee, more work for me, huh? Guess that’s what I get for being sent to the surface – hey! “Negative, Commander. I’ll grab a bite and suit up in a bit. Tango-1 out.” He set the mouthpiece down, stood up and properly stretched himself. It’s a brand new day, and already I have too much to do. Oh well, let’s get started.
He found another packet of goulash, and some cereal bars to go with them. He grabbed the hot hydration gun and started rehydrating the stew, then peeled open the cereal package and started eating. As he was chewing, he kept wondering how he could get the power supply back in working order. To fix a wire, he thought, I’d need some solder – and those are bolted on, if I remember correctly, so I’ll need bolts to get them back on as well. Let’s see if they ever packed those. . . .
A few minutes of searching later, he had everything he needed. Small pieces, though, he thought. I’ll have to be careful with my thick gloves. Getting back up, he walked to the window and slid the shutter open – there it was, RPMR-1, basically at his doorstep. And nearby, its battery, which Antir somehow transported to the landing site. He specifically forbade Antir from teleporting the probe, in case of any hardware faults it might cause, but either she didn’t understand him, or she did it anyway out of convenience. Then he noticed some tracks on the ground nearby, ones consistent with wagon wheels. Clever girl.
In any case, there they were, waiting for him when he came back to disembark the Strauss, and change out scrubbers – fourteen percent was not a good number to be at – and there they still were in the morning, still waiting for him for more proper repairs. They weren’t getting impatient, but Zodiac-Altair was – especially Elena, and Louis to some extent. With a sigh, he grabbed the tools and supplies he needed and was able to fit the lot inside the sterile locker with no issue. Just to be sure, he opened the toolbox before starting the protocol. Probably unnecessary, but better safe than sorry here on Rhysling.
He sat down at the galley again, and checked on the goulash. Still busy rehydrating, but very nearly done. He decided to return to the cereal bars for now, and watched the Rhyslinger sunrise while munching. No Indigenous joined him for a meal that morning – but he was used to it.
–··
Once Adam detached from the lander in the Strauss suit, he grabbed the tools and supplies from the sterile locker, stowing them inside his pouches, while he descended the lander. First things first: power. While he was grateful Antir powered the probe long enough to complete his first objective, he didn’t know how it worked, nor did he want to keep her trained on it. That would be slavery.
He knelt down in front of the probe and pulled out the connectors he had pocketed the day before. Still just as frayed as before, so reättaching the battery would take some extensive wiring work to make it happen. The wires attached to the battery itself had exactly the same break. It was bolted on before, too, so a complete repair of the probe could take a day or two of work – a day or two that he couldn’t exactly spare. And he doubted that Antir would be able to know how to help him fix it.
As he knelt there, deep in thought, he started becoming vaguely aware that he was being watched. Not by the probe – its cameras were still dead – but by someone fascinated, perhaps to a morbid degree, with this being from the stars. He checked his right, behind the probe – nothing. Then his left – and he saw a slight dark blur disappear into the shrubs. Against his better judgment, he got up to investigate.
The shrub was empty, and there weren’t any tracks that he could identify, nor to see where they went. He shrugged and returned to the lander – let’s get to work. But before he could focus on it again, he looked up and saw a familiar violet mare trot up to him, bags stalwart by her sides. Not taking ‘no’ for an answer, are you Antir? Her horn lit up anyway, anticipating work, almost instently. Adam gave it some thought – these are delicate parts. Maybe I can direct her? He motioned for her to approach, so she could get a better look. She took the lead, and trotted up to his side. This could work.
Let’s start with one wire. First, he took out a heat-shrink sleeve, one whose gauge just barely fit over a yellow wire – a live wire. Careful, don’t close the circuit. . . . Antir, watching him, seemed to get the idea, and took the sleeve from his grip, sliding it firmly on the wire for him. Then she plucked out two more sleeves and slipped them around the other two wires – a blue one, and one striped green-and-yellow. Taking initiative, I see. I guess you are up to the task.
He pulled out some solder and the yellow connector. Antir took the latter from his grip and hovered it over the green-and-yellow wire. Adam directed it back over the yellow live wire – besides helping him keep track of which wires were what, it also helped evaluate the Indigenous color categories. Do they not see yellow and green as separate categories? he pondered. A thought he shelved for the time being, as he started soldering the two wires back together.
The gloves were insulated, so even if he gripped the iron by the head, he could not get burned. But his hands were pretty shaky, and he could not do a neat job. Once again, Antir took the reins – she lit up her horn, brighter this time, and he watched as the solder started morphing until it neatly and thoroughly covered and connected the frayed ends. Better you than me. Adam then moved the sleeve over the solder, and hovered the iron over it. Antir watched as the sleeve started to shrink around the patch job, sealing it from the elements.
Once the unicorn got the idea, it seemed like second nature to her. All Adam had to do was pull out both the other connectors, match them with the wires, and hold up the soldering material for her. Whatever the light emitting from her horn was, it could apparently generate heat at will – which made soldering and shrinkwrapping the mends a cinch for her. Inside of a minute, the heavy work was completed. All he had to do was hook it back up to RPMR-1 – a task even he could manage.
For safety reasons, first Adam hooked up the ground wire – firmly socketing the yellow-and-green object into its proper place, then twisting it to lock it in place. He briefly considered planting that wire into the literal ground – I mean, it is the ground after all. But then he thought about the possibility of having to move it for the mission, and ultimately decided against it. Meanwhile, he hooked up the neutral wire – twisting the blue socket as well. Then he saw the yellow socket move on its own accord, as Antir’s telekinesis started copying his actions. Even though it was safe for him, he got his hands out of the way as she completed the circuit for him.
Then there were the bolts. He had a full set of spares, but he needed to extract the old ones first, as they had broken off inside the probe. Say, maybe you could do it? He tapped the broken-off end of one, and made a corkscrew motion, turning left while moving out. She effortlessly copied his motion, pulling out each broken bolt one by one. He undid the ones from the battery arm as well, using a socket wrench. As the last one fell to the ground, he held it up to the probe.
At first she held up the broken bolt pieces – but he snatched them from the violet aura and tossed them aside. I have no use for these anymore. Once she got the idea, her telekinetic grip held the battery, arm and all, firmly in place as he ratcheted each new bolt in in place. One by one, each one slowly went into the machine, but even as four, then five, were sunk in, her grip did not relent. Only when the eighth and final bolt was securely fastened did she finally release it.
Finally, we’re good to go. “Zulu-Alfa, this is Somerset,” he radioed. “Probe systems are coming back online. You should be seeing signals soon. Please check that everything is working correctly, over.”
“Well done, Somerset, and thank you!” Elena’s voice came in. “Probe systems are green throughout, not a thing out of place.”
Success! Thank you, Antir!
“That is including the cameras. Speaking of which, would you mind standing in front of one of them? Besides calibration, I’d like to get a view of the hero who fixed the apparatus. Look for a red stripe on the bottom of the lens, over.”
“Affirmative Weiss, but keep in mind that I’ve had help from the Indigenous. You’re going to get a look at one of them. Over.”
“All the more reason to get a photograph! Please do. Standing by.”
Alright, if that’s what you want. . . . Adam got up and stood in front of what she told him was the ‘front’ of the probe. Or at least the front of the camera. He tapped his thigh, then pointed at the ground – and Antir walked over to where he indicated, then sat down. Adam knelt down to her short height and put an arm around her shoulder “Go ahead,” he radioed, waving at the camera.
A tone was heard as the camera did its work.
·––·–
Elena was thankful the probes were designed to allow for remote control. She could conduct her studies from the safety – even, dare she say, luxury – of the orbiting Zodiac-Altair, where it was impossible for Rhyslinger biological forms to make contact with her. When she heard “Go ahead” from the ground, she manually took the photograph. The signal didn’t take too long to reach the probe, nor the data to make its way back here to Zodiac-Altair, where she could view it from a terminal in the bridge. “Röss?” Elena blurted out to herself. “Was isch das für en Säich?” Thankfully nobody heard that remark. This was one mystery she’d have to unravel by herself, without any help from anyone else aboard.
Even with the monitor’s scanlines distorting the image just so, Elena could make out a few details. Yes indeed, there were equine analogues on Rhysling, and they must be the sapient “Indigenous” Dr. Somerset was talking about. This one here had violet fur, with a mane of dark blue, which in turn had a magenta streak in the side. The tail matched the mane’s pattern. And right in the middle of its head, she could discern a horn of some sort. And then, of course, there was a white humanoid figure by its side – that was Dr. Somerset, no doubt, even waving at the camera.
For the time being though, she slotted the photograph away, and started drafting down notes. Well, more like a to-do list of things she would like samples of. There was life here, she had no reason to doubt it – but what she did doubt was of its nature. Its composition, its mutability, its diversity, and perhaps most of all, exactly how well or badly it could interact with Earthborne life, given the opportunity. (One Dr. Somerset had denied them thus far, for which she was thankful.)
Doubtlessly she would need to run physical experiments at some point, but she wanted to observe all she could without resorting to tampering. She looked over the data she was already presented with for the umpteenth time, but nothing new could be discerned from it. All she got were basic building blocks, which so far lined up with what she was already familiar with. But she wanted to know how the local carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and so forth connected with each other. Genes! Proteins! Cells! These things and more were her responsibility for the new colony.
Which is why that probe had to remain functioning as well as possible. She grabbed the radio. “Contacting Dr. Somerset, are you there? Over.”
He responded almost at once. “Affirmative, Weiss.”
“Is the probe located over vegetation?” she asked. “I would like to direct it to get a sample of that. Over.”
“Yeah, I would say so. Sample away, and call me back if you need anything else. Somerset out.” She surmised that Dr. Somerset was busy communicating with the Indigenous, or at least trying to. Heaven knows she had trouble communicating with the tour guide on her Amazon safari back when she was a young girl – even now, she still found it hard to believe German and Portuguese were anything alike!
Pushing those memories aside, she took control of the probe to grab a sample of. . . whatever vegetation was on the surface beneath the probe. The arm extended to the ground until pressure sensors told the probe that it had hit solid ground. It grabbed up a sample and brought it up to its internal laboratory. Local analysis would take a while, so she let it be. She pushed herself off the wall and clamored to the bridge’s exit.
The cafeteria in Zodiac’s Cancer module was empty – Commander Darcy and Dr. Konstantinov were obviously elsewhere. Still, she was grateful for the centrifugal gravity that Zodiac provided in this area. She wasn’t hungry, not at all – she just needed a quiet place to gather her thoughts. She would use her cryostasis capsule back in Taurus, but she found it rather unnerving being among what are technically dead colonists. Not to mention too loud for her to concentrate.
She looked out the window, and observed the endlessly-spinning view. Every so often, it would land on Rhysling again, and she wondered if she could see the place where Dr. Somerset was. She sighed – just what had she gotten herself into? Here was a new world, full of life that nobody could have imagined before. And yet, horses existed here? Never mind the fact that they were the dominant species. . . .
Perhaps panspermia did exist after all.
Planetside data analysis would continue for some time. She drifted herself back to the bridge every so often to check on progress, but each time nothing new would be coming up. At one point she ran into Commander Darcy. “Something the matter, Weiss?”
“Nei – nothing, Commander.” She shook her head. “It’s just that the probe is taking quite a while to do its job.”
“Is it still broken, by any chance?”
“It should not be. Adam fixed it just now, I saw it. The battery has been reconnected, with help from. . . one of them.” She sighed. “So far, I know at least some of what elements they are composed of, but now I fear if its actions may have led to contamination.”
“Let’s hope it didn’t come to that.” He cleared his throat. “We don’t have any more probes to send – full system checks failed for the other two RPMR probes, or so Anton interpreted for me – especially for the systems responsible for soft landings, so they’d be nonfunctional anyhow. That one on the ground, RPMR-1, it’s all we’ve got. But I’ll tell you what, now that power has been restored, we can do a system check on it remotely from up here.”
“But let us get the data back first,” Elena suggested. “Or else the signal interference could erase something vital. I can wait.”
Commander Darcy said nothing, instead turning back to his own terminal. Elena did the same, to see how far along RPMR-1 was in its analysis – forty percent. Nothing she could do could speed things along.
“Bah!”
–···
After he had finished repairing the probe, Adam was stepping up to the suitport when Antir stopped him. From her bags, she produced some books. No, not just any books – Adam recognized their covers. These were all the same books he had studied in the library back on the first local day. And now, she was just. . . giving them to him. How generous!
There was one more book with her as well, one he hadn’t seen before. She flipped it open to a random page, which showed an equine figure’s musculature. Oh! This must be about their anatomy! I’m sure this’ll be handy, Adam thought. I could see the muscles in their tongue, lips, and throat, and Elena could benefit from some scans of the pages. Good thinking, Antir.
But then again. . . Antir had teleported herself up to the scaffolding, and was tapping the suitport, trying to get one of the books in. Thank you, but that’s not the right way. He climbed up the ladder, then opened the sterile locker, showing her what it was. He inserted the tools first, then the anatomy book that Antir gave him. After several attempts to cram all the other books inside as well, she gave up, and slipped the books back inside her bag, leaving it on the scaffolding by the locker. Hey, it’s the thought that counts.
He had only the anatomy book – which would be useful for two parties – and the children’s book – which had a glossary – but already the locker was nearing capacity. I hope those bags are waterproof – who knows how rainwater would affect them? He shut the locker and started it up.
My turn. He pressed himself against the suitport until the Strauss clicked in place, then hit the button. For the whicheverth time, the backpack started being sterilized. Adam wondered how often he could do this until something broke. He sighed – hopefully it won’t be too many more times, he prayed.
Even though two minutes once dragged on forever, this time it felt like a blink of his eyes when Adam was able to step out of the suit. Before he forgot, he quickly swapped out the scrubbers. They had about ninety-one percent capacity remaining, but he was just counting the days until he had another incident like the one in the library. Better safe than sorry, that’s my policy. Once that was done, he opened the locker and retrieved his items. These’ll be handy for sure. He set the tools back into the locker where he found them, hopefully for the last time, and set the anatomy book on the desk. He cracked his knuckles – I hope you’re ready for a wealth of knowledge, Dr. Weiss.
He sat down, flipped open the book, and located what looked like a table of contents. Once he was sure it was, he started looking more closely at it. Remember, all these page numbers are in senary, so don’t be surprised if they go into the three figures. Maybe four? He glanced at the bottom, but didn’t find any four-digit page numbers. So much for that. The pages were rather thick – thick enough for turning with something other than fingers. It works for them, it’ll definitely work for me. Now, which one’s for the mouth, hm?
For several minutes, he kept matching senary page numbers on the sheet and in the book, flipping to the resulting pages, but finding nothing. To avoid duplicating work, he started ripping strips of paper from a notebook, scrawling what he had found, and bookmarked the corresponding pages. Finally, finally, he found the section on the mouth. It was further subdivided into tongue and teeth, and the esophagus was elsewhere, but it was progress all the same. Before he read on, he had bookmarked the section.
And just in time, too – he heard someone knocking on the window. He turned around to look – the shutter was still open, and he could see Antir still standing outside, but looking panicked this time. Okay okay, I’ll get those books inside! Be patient!
But it seemed like books were the last thing on her mind – she held up a scroll to the window. He squinted at it – the writing on it was much the same as he found in the books, just a lot less neat and more. . . calligraphic? She frantically pointed at the suit. Guess I’ll have to step out after all. Good thing I changed the scrubber – God knows how long this’ll take. He swung himself up and planted his feet inside the boots. Surely it can’t be that bad. . . right?