New Earth (6 page)

But one of the screens showed what the surveillance satellite was seeing: the darkness of the night side, broken by that single unblinking point of light.

Trish Wanamaker turned slightly in her console chair as they filed into the command center. “Starting a spectroscopic analysis of the light,” she said, over her shoulder.

“Good,” said Jordan, standing beside Hazzard, who was still
slouched nonchalantly in the command chair.

Brandon and Elyse stood close to each other; Meek remained by the hatch, a skinny scarecrow with narrowed, searching eyes. Thornberry was nowhere in sight.

“Here’s the spectrum,” Wanamaker said, tapping at the console’s touchscreen.

One of the smaller display screens on the console showed a graph with a sharply peaked curve rising steeply against
the grayish background.

“That can’t be right,” Hazzard muttered.

“Put it on your main screen,” Brandon told Wanamaker.

She whispered into her microphone, and the single, sharp-peaked curve appeared on the console’s central screen, like a steep mountain rising out of a jagged plain.

“That’s the spectrum of the light down on the nightside?” Elyse asked, her voice hushed, awed.

Wanamaker nodded
once.

“Jesus Christ,” Brandon said, also amazed. “It’s a laser beam!”

PREPARATION

“That’s a laser shining down there?” Jordan asked, unbelieving.

“A single wavelength,” Wanamaker said, sounding just as stunned as Jordan felt.

“Not a single wavelength,” Brandon corrected.

“A damned narrow set of wavelengths,” Wanamaker admitted. “But they’re bunched together. That’s the signature of a laser beam, nothing else.”

Jordan couldn’t take his eyes off the display
screen. The sharp peak twinkled, glittered against the background.

“Lasers occur in nature, don’t they?” he asked.

“In interstellar nebulae,” said Elyse. “Not in the middle of a forest.”

Hazzard said, “I remember seeing a paper about a natural laser in a planetary atmosphere.”

“Speculation,” Wanamaker said. “Never been proven. Or observed, for that matter.”

“It’s artificial,” Brandon said
tightly, no doubt in him. “Man-made.”

“Not
man-
made,” Meek corrected.

“Better get Thornberry back here,” said Jordan.

Once Thornberry entered the command center he gaped at the display and immediately started asking Wanamaker how much the minisat could tell them about the terrain in the vicinity of the light.

“The area’ll be in daylight in another six hours,” Wanamaker responded. “We’ll be
able to see it a lot better then.”

“I’m going to dinner,” Meek said. “I never got to finish my tea, you know. I’ll be back in two hours.”

Jordan watched him go, bemused slightly by Meek’s cool insistence on feeding. The rest of them stayed in the command center, swapping theories and speculations until the region where the laser was slid into the daylit side of the planet. Meek rejoined them,
but kept silently aloof from the guessing games.

The area turned out to be a high plateau, heavily wooded. None of the surveillance satellite’s sensors could make out a building or roads or any signs of civilization or even a rough camp.

“Nothing but that damned spot of light,” Brandon muttered.

Thornberry shook his head, scowling at the displays. “I’ve already set up a scouting team: a pair
of rovers that can get through wooded terrain. They’ll be ready to go in an hour or so.”

Jordan glanced at his wristwatch. “Wait. I suggest we have dinner and then retire for the night. We can continue this in the morning, when we’re fresh, and the area is in daylight.”

“Go to bed?” Brandon yelped. “How do you expect any of us to sleep with that going on?”

“It’s getting late,” Jordan said calmly.
“We’re all tired. I know I am. You make mistakes when you’re tired.”

“But—”

“That light will still be there in the morning.” Before Brandon or anyone else could object, Jordan added, “And even if it’s not, we know its exact location and we can investigate the area thoroughly.”

“I vote we stay at it and launch the rovers without delay,” Brandon said.

Jordan smiled at him. “I didn’t ask for
a vote, Bran. Get some dinner and then go to bed. We’ll all feel sharper, stronger, after a good night’s sleep.”

“We’ve been sleeping for eighty years,” Hazzard said mildly, an ironic curve to his lips.

“I’m tired,” Jordan said. “I assume the rest of you are, too.”

“Not me!” Brandon snapped.

A flash of memory raced through Jordan’s mind: six-year-old Brandon kicking and struggling as their
father carried him upstairs to bed, yowling that he wasn’t tired, that he didn’t want to go to bed, that he wasn’t the least bit sleepy—then falling asleep the instant his head hit the pillow.

“All of us,” Jordan said gently. “The planet will still be there when we wake up tomorrow morning.”

“You’re right,” said Thornberry. “By the time the rovers are ready to land down there, it’ll be dark
again. I’m not happy with the idea of landing me rovers in the dark, night-vision sensors or no.” He went to the hatch and stepped through.

“I’ve set the sensors on the minisat,” Wanamaker said, pushing her blocky body up from the console chair. “If anything changes the system will alert us.”

Hazzard shrugged. “Might’s well eat and then catch some zees. The ship can take care of itself without
us.”

Elyse glanced at Brandon, then wordlessly followed the others through the hatch. Brandon gave Jordan a resentful glare, then he too went to the hatch.

Jordan stood there alone in the control center for a few silent moments, listening to the electrical hum of the instruments, the hushed whisper of the air circulation fans, staring at the display screen that showed the laser’s sharp-peaked
spectrum.

It can’t be a laser, he said to himself. Even though he knew that it couldn’t be anything else.

*   *   *

Jordan’s quarters were identical to all the other living spaces aboard the ship: a fairly spacious compartment partitioned into a bedroom/lavatory and a sitting room that held a desk, a sofa, and two armchairs with an oval coffee table between them, and wall screens that were
glowing with a faint pearly luster. There was a minikitchen in one corner, stocked with a refrigerator, freezer, and microwave oven. The bachelor’s friend, Jordan thought as he eyed the microwave. Then he went past the shoulder-high partition, sat on the bed, and began pulling off his shoes.

The wall screens were blank, although they could be programmed to show anything from the art collection
of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence to the latest entertainment or game vids. Or any of the ship’s sensor displays, as well.

Jordan felt very tired. Strange for a man who’s only been awake for a few hours and done nothing more strenuous than lifting a salad fork. But emotional stress can be just as exhausting as physical, and he recognized the demands that his body was making. Or is it a form of
fear, he wondered, fear of the unknown. Fear of what we’re going to find down there.

Fear of what’s going on in your own body, a voice in his head reminded him. Fear that the virus lying dormant in your gut will wake up and begin to slowly, painfully kill you.

He pulled the bedcovers over him, expecting to stare wide-eyed into the darkness after all the excitement of the day. Instead he quickly
fell asleep. His last waking thought was that it couldn’t be a laser down there. It couldn’t be.

EXCURSION

Well before 7
A.M.,
with nothing more than a quick cup of coffee in him, Jordan strode from his quarters toward the command center. As he expected, Brandon was already there, standing behind Thornberry, who was seated at the same console as the evening before.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Brandon greeted.

“Good to see you at work so early,” Jordan replied. “Did you sleep well?”

“Hardly at all.”

Over his shoulder, Thornberry said, “I slept like a rock, I did. A trick I learned when I served with the disaster teams in Africa. Never stand when you can sit, never stay awake when you can sleep, and never pass a latrine without using it.”

Jordan laughed politely. Brandon made a face behind Thornberry’s back.

The command chair was empty; Hazzard had not risen yet, Jordan
surmised. Still, he stepped past the chair to stand beside his brother.

“I presume the light is still shining,” he said.

Brandon nodded tightly. “Bright and steady.”

“Are you ready to launch your rovers?” Jordan asked the roboticist.

Thornberry pointed to the center screen of his console and explained, “Got them loaded into a rocketplane and found a good landing spot for them, an open glade
less than five klicks from the spot where the light’s emanating from. Be ready to launch in half an hour, we will.”

“Good.”

Slowly the command center began to fill with people. Hazzard slid into the command chair. Elyse came in and stood silently beside Brandon. Meek and Wanamaker and all the others jammed into the compartment, buzzing with low, tense conversations.

We should have made this
area bigger, Jordan thought. Perhaps we can enlarge it. Then he told himself, No, that probably won’t be necessary. After all, we’re going to spend most of our time here down on the surface of the planet. At least, that’s what the mission plan calls for.

“Launch in thirty seconds,” Thornberry announced.

The digital clock in the corner of his console counted down: twenty seconds, ten, five …

“Launch,” said Thornberry.

Jordan felt the ship shudder slightly. Launching the minisat had been no big deal, he realized, but launching a rocketplane bearing two sizable rover vehicles makes a noticeable jolt.

Thornberry turned in his console chair. “They’re away. It’ll take nearly an hour for them to enter the atmosphere.” Then he smiled and added, “I’m going to grab some breakfast while I’ve
got the chance.”

Jordan and most of the others headed for the wardroom. Brandon, Elyse, and Hazzard remained in the command center.

“Call me if anything … happens,” Jordan said to his brother. He realized he was going to say,
if anything goes wrong
. He had caught himself just in time.

In the wardroom, while Jordan and Thornberry both took merely juice and coffee, Trish Wanamaker loaded her
breakfast tray with muffins, reconstituted eggs, faux bacon, juice, and hot tea.

Harmon Meek was already sitting at one of the oblong tables, his breakfast of cereal, toast, and tea neatly arrayed before him. Jordan led Wanamaker and Thornberry to the same table. Once they were all seated, Jordan marveled at how Trish could stow away so much food so quickly. Her chubby little hands were moving
like a concert pianist’s.

“What d’you think that light might be?” Thornberry asked, between sips of juice.

“Laser,” said Trish, despite her mouth being stuffed with food.

Shaking his head, Thornberry argued, “How could a laser be there? There’s nobody down there, no signs of any people—”

“No signs we recognize as human,” said Meek, with a slightly superior air. “But then whoever put that laser
down there wouldn’t be human, would he? Or it, I mean.”

“But there’s no sign of
anything
artificial,” Thornberry insisted. “Nothing down there but trees and rocks.”

“No sign that we can detect,” Meek countered. “That’s why we’re sending your rovers down there, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Thornberry admitted grudgingly. “Right.”

“Somebody’s down there,” Meek said firmly. “That laser didn’t get there
by itself.”

Trish looked up from her half-demolished breakfast and asked, “But who could it be? I mean, who put that laser down there in the middle of the forest? And why?”

Jordan murmured, “Sherlock Holmes.”

“Sherlock Holmes?”

“I believe it was Holmes who said that it was useless to speculate in the absence of facts.”

“Hah,” said Meek. “Excellent point. We’re just wasting our time until
the rovers start to transmit some useful information to us.”

“Which they should be doing in another hour or so,” Thornberry said, with a glance at his wristwatch. “The rocketplane ought to be hitting the atmosphere in a couple of minutes.” He pushed his chair back and got to his feet.

Jordan rose, too. Trish kept gobbling her breakfast and Meek pointed to the wall screen. “You’ll pipe the imagery
here, won’t you?”

“Of course,” Jordan said. Then he and Thornberry headed for the command center.

Brandon and Elyse were still standing close enough to touch, Jordan saw. Is there a romance going on? he wondered. Brandon’s always been a fast worker, but even for him this would be something of a record. Then he recalled, Of course, they knew each other all through the training period and embarkation,
before we went into cryosleep.

Hazzard had put the imagery from Thornberry’s console onto the command center’s main screen, but all it showed was hash.

“Blackout,” Hazzard said. “Atmospheric entry plasma sheath blocks transmissions.” Then he added, “Temporarily.”

The screen suddenly cleared and Jordan saw a world of jagged peaks and thickly leafed trees scudding past as the rocketplane skimmed
above a heavily forested chain of mountains. Thornberry hurried to his console chair, then turned back with an almost apologetic expression on his fleshy face.

“Entry and landing’s automated,” he said.

From his command chair, Hazzard said, “I’ve set up the override program. If we need to, I can fly the bird.”

Thornberry nodded.

“It’ll be fine,” Jordan assured him.

Still, they were all tense
as they watched the ground rushing up toward the camera. The rocketplane’s speed slowed noticeably, but still there was nothing to see but an endless forest stretching to the horizon in every direction.

“The sky is blue,” Elyse said, in a half whisper.

“Those trees are damned tall,” said Brandon.

“Final retroburn,” muttered Thornberry. The rocketplane seemed to hover in midair momentarily.