Titan 5 - Over a Torrent Sea (5 page)

She laid a hand on his shoulder briefly. “Don’t worry. I promise to bring back plenty of holos.”

Most of the team was already present. Aili Lavena was running preflight checks, no doubt eager to get down to a new ocean. Melora Pazlar and Lieutenant Kekil, the Chelon biologist, were loading equipment and sample cases. That left only Ranul Keru, she thought—until she heard a familiar soft whirring sound and turned to see Ensign Torvig Bu-kar-nguv approaching. “Permission to join the away team, Captain?”

Vale did a double take, followed by Riker a second later. Both of them had long since grown accustomed to the appearance of the young Choblik: a meter-high mammalian with a cervine head, ostrichlike body, and long slender tail, but augmented with bionic implants. The surprise was that those implants had changed. The cowling that protected his skull and snout had been modified with a more streamlined prow, his deerlike ears swept back into recessed nooks. His robotic arms appeared to have been modified to fold up
flush against his ventral plate, which had been also been reshaped for streamlining and even given a slight keel. His foot-claws had been replaced with paddlefeet, and the extra handlike manipulator at the tip of his tail had been replaced with a structure like a Japanese fan. A dorsal fin rising from his spinal armor completed the ensemble.

Riker finally found his voice. “Ensign. I see you’ve…dressed for the occasion. How, uh, how long did this take? You really should’ve consulted me before making any major modifications…”

“Oh, it didn’t take long, sir. I was due for a regular swap-out soon anyway, and I figured I might as well…Hm. I suppose it would be literally true to say I decided to make myself useful.” The little engineer seemed pleased by his wordplay, but more in the way he took quiet pleasure in any new discovery than out of full-fledged humor.

“And…how hard would it be to change back afterward?”

“It wouldn’t pose any difficulty, sir. I have the necessary equipment in my quarters.” He tilted his head, his mechanical irises widening in realization. “I apologize for not making a formal request, sir. I just got so interested in the project…”

“Say no more, Ensign.” By now, everyone knew how Torvig was when he got intrigued by a new project. Although he wasn’t highly emotional by humanoid standards, he was a creature of pure impulse when it came to intellectual curiosity and experimentation.

The captain turned to Vale. “Christine? It’s your mission.”

“Well, Vig, um…I wouldn’t want all that work to
go to waste…but Droplet doesn’t seem like the kind of planet where we’d need an engineer along.”

“Oh, I’ve uploaded the xenobiology and planetary science databases into my memory buffer, Commander,” he said. Much of the Choblik’s intelligence was assisted by the bionic implants that some unknown benefactors had given them millennia in the past; without them, Torvig would be only a fairly bright woodland animal. He thus had the ability to upload new knowledge at will, though it took his organic brain some time and practice to process it. “Besides, the aquashuttle systems are largely untested, so it might be a good idea to have an engineer along. And I don’t take up much room, ma’am.”

Vale chuckled, conceding the point. “Okay, okay. If nothing else, you can keep us cool with your, umm, fan there.”

“Thank you, Commander. I
am
a fan of yours.”

“Oh, no,” Vale whispered to Riker as the Choblik clambered aboard the shuttle, stumbling a bit on his newly enlarged feet. “Now that he’s discovered puns, he’s going to be ‘experimenting’ with them for weeks and driving us all out of our minds.”

“Look on the bright side,” Riker replied. “Down there, he won’t take it badly if you tell him he’s all wet.”

DROPLET

T
he away team’s first destination was a small cluster of floating islands at a high southern latitude, comfortably removed from the equatorial storm belt. The winds on an ocean planet built up swells that never broke against land and thus could grow to mountainous size. There was wind at these latitudes, of course, the same steady, predictable circulation patterns that could be found planetwide. But sensors showed no major swells heading toward this grouping. Swells of such size could be fairly gentle and would pose no risk to the aquashuttle; but until the nature and behavior of the disklike islets were determined, it was better not to take chances.

Melora Pazlar gazed out the forward ports with fascination as Aili Lavena brought the aquashuttle down to a flight trajectory just a few kilometers above the waves. “Astonishing,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much water at one time.” Since the planet was so large, more than half
again the radius of a typical M-class world, the horizon was unusually distant, all but lost in atmospheric haze. It was easy to imagine the water stretching to infinity. It couldn’t have been more different from Gemworld, the artificial crystalline planet where her Elaysian species resided. But then, her world was different from any other world in the galaxy, so that wasn’t much of a standard of comparison.

“I know,” Lavena replied. “It’s gorgeous! I’m going for a swim first thing once we land.”

“Hold on there,” Commander Vale said. “Before you do that, I’d like to get a little sense of what the ocean’s like. With the interference, we should double-check our scans of its chemistry, make sure there’s nothing toxic. And there’s no telling what kind of sea monsters might be lurking down there.”

Pazlar threw her an amused look. “Do you suppose that’s what these islands are? Some kind of giant turtles or something?”

Torvig turned to Kekil. “Relatives of yours, perhaps?” The pale green Rigellian Chelon, so called because of his people’s somewhat turtlelike appearance, simply ignored him.

Soon, the cluster of islets was in naked-eye range. The sight left no doubt that they were floating atop the water, rising and falling with its slow swells. The larger clusters flexed and warped somewhat as they rode atop the changing surface, but their saucerlike components remained connected. They were a pale yellowish white around the edges, with darker soil and assorted vegetation covering them farther “inland.” The larger clusters had the most abundant vegetation.

“Set us down by the nearest single islet,” Vale ordered. “Let’s not complicate the variables.”

“By it, ma’am?” Lavena asked. “Not on it?”

“Just to be on the safe side. We’re not sure how buoyant those things are.”

“Aye, Commander,” Lavena said, looking happy to touch down in her native element.

Pazlar, aware of the Selkie pilot’s skill, was expecting a smooth landing. But the
Gillespie
hit Droplet’s surface with a bit of a jolt, rocking her in her seat. “A little overeager there, Ensign?” she asked.

“What? Oh, no, ma’am. I just eased back the inertial dampers a bit. We’re diving into a new ocean—it seemed right to feel the splash.”

“Just take us in to the nearest lone islet,” Vale ordered.

When the shuttle bumped against a solid surface, Lavena programmed it to keep station with the islet and popped the hatch. Vale led the way out of the shuttle, with Pazlar following. The air was warm and almost stiflingly humid, a shock after the controlled environment of the ship and shuttle; but there was a steady cooling breeze blowing from the west, carrying the fresh, wet tang of ocean air along with other exotic scents.

They waded across a few meters of shallow water—also unexpectedly warm—before climbing out onto the gently rising shoreline. Pazlar sized up the weight she felt, or what fraction of it was filtered through her antigrav suit’s field. She knew it was a few percent below standard, but she couldn’t feel the difference.

Once Torvig had clambered onto the shore, he jumped up and down a couple of times. “Well, it isn’t rocking,”
he said with his usual straight face. “Commander Keru, maybe you should try it,” he said, looking up at his burly Trill friend, who outmassed him by about three to one.

Keru just rolled his eyes and bent down to examine the waterline. “No obvious edge. Looks like it extends several meters under the water before dropping off.”

“It looks like an island,” Vale observed. “Soil, plants, some treelike things…and I think I can hear insects, or something like them.”

A fuller survey of the islet revealed nothing particularly striking living here beyond what her eyes and ears had revealed. There was no sign of avian life, though
Titan
’s optical sensors had sighted flying creatures in Droplet’s skies. Though it seemed reasonably habitable, the islet was simply too small to support much of an ecosystem. Some of the larger clusters visible in the distance bore thicker vegetation, however, and Pazlar thought she could see birds or the local equivalent flying around their treetops.

Meanwhile, Kekil knelt and ran his tricorder over the soil, taking a handful and kneading it with his broad, webbed fingers. “Very rich. It’s mostly organic decay products; minimal silicate content, as you’d expect.”

“Ah,” Keru said. “A connoisseur.”

Everyone (save the solemn Kekil) seemed to be in a playful mood today. Perhaps it was just the enthusiasm at setting foot on an intriguing new planet, particularly a tropical paradise like this. Droplet’s star was of only moderate brightness and more distant than was typical for an M-class world, but that only served to soften the light, letting Pazlar gaze out at the sun reflections dancing on the waves without being blinded by glare, as she had been look
ing out across San Francisco Bay in her Academy days. If anything, it made the warm, sunny scene even more inviting. But the oxygen content of the air, she reminded herself, was a little high; she was feeling a bit lightheaded from it. Something to watch out for. Fortunately, the high water vapor content of the air discouraged breathing it too deeply; Vale had tried a moment before, and was now coughing from the aspirated moisture.

“I’ll have to make a more thorough analysis to be sure, of course,” Kekil added as he placed some of the soil in a sample container.

“Dig down some,” Vale ordered. “I want to know what the island’s made of. Torvig can help you. Meanwhile, I want to check out the flora and fauna.”

“I could check out the underside,” Lavena called hopefully from the shuttle door.

“Not yet, Aili. Run a scan first.” The Selkie sulked her way back inside. No doubt she was eager to get out of her hydration suit when there was a whole planetful of water to flow across her gill crests and keep her skin moist. Melora could sympathize; she wouldn’t mind getting out of her tight antigrav suit and letting the water buoy her up. She was slender, but her bones and muscles had low density, so she figured she could float all right in the moderately saline water at these latitudes—though perhaps not nearer the equator, where the constant rainfall diluted the upper ocean with fresh water. But of course Vale was right to exercise caution.

“Commanders?” Torvig called, not having to shout too loudly, for they couldn’t get more than eighty meters apart. “I think you’ll want to see this!”

Pazlar followed at her best pace as Vale jogged over to him and Kekil. At the bottom of the hole they had dug was a hard, light-colored material that appeared porous and slightly sparkly. “It looks almost like seashells,” Vale said.

“Not dissimilar,” Torvig said. “It’s largely keratin. However, there are silicate spicules interwoven inside, increasing its strength, analogously to fiberglass. And there’s a fair amount of calcium carbonate as well. Odd to find heavier elements in such concentration in the native life.”

Pazlar knelt and took a closer look, activating her own tricorder. Then she looked up at Vale and smiled. “It reminds me of a reef structure, like Terran coral or Pacifican
si’hali
.”

The human’s eyes widened beneath her fringe of midnight blue hair. “You think this whole islet was grown, like a coral atoll?”

“Exactly. Though I’m not quite certain why it’s light enough to float. It would have to be very porous.”

Vale pondered. “Let’s get back in the shuttle. I want to take a look underneath.”

“I could swim underneath,” Torvig said, sounding as eager as Lavena.

“You heard what I told Aili,” the exec replied. “For our first dive, I’d rather be inside a shielded duranium hull.”

They returned to the
Gillespie,
and Lavena wasted no time taking it down. The gentle curve of the islet’s surface continued for just a bit below the waterline, then suddenly increased. The sides ran roughly vertically for a few meters before curving inward to form a convex lower surface. The soil and surface plants, naturally, did not extend below the
waterline, so the bare surface of the islet was clear for them to see. But this surface had one significant difference from the one Torvig had excavated—for out of every one of the thousands of holes which riddled its surface extended a small set of tendrils.

“It’s alive,” Lavena breathed.

“Take us in closer,” Vale suggested in a similarly hushed tone.

As Lavena complied, the surface resolved itself into a large number of individual units, each one a few centimeters across—an attribute which had been blurred up above by erosion. There seemed to be one set of tendrils for each of the distinct cells of limestone.

“It’s a colony of polyps,” Kekil observed, sounding intrigued.

“Like a coral reef,” Vale said.

“Yes, although the individual polyps are larger here.”

“And reefs usually lead a more sedentary existence,” Pazlar remarked.

“It’s as busy as a reef, though,” Lavena observed. At this range, they could see numerous smaller life forms either attached to the underside of the floater or swimming among its tendrils. Stalks of seaweed resembling attenuated broccoli hung down for several meters. Between the widely-spaced stalks scuttled a number of small crustaceans not unlike yellowish, four-legged tarantulas, clinging to the underside and using elongated mouthparts to dig out organic debris in fissures between the polyp cells, interestingly leaving the actual polyps alone. Turning her eyes in another direction, she saw a more open patch along which crawled several six-pointed starfish with snaky
limbs and feathery tendrils. And swimming amid the broccoli seaweed were creatures that appeared very much like fish, although they bore clumps of small tentacles around their mouths and exhibited shifting color patterns on their smooth skins. She couldn’t tell whether they were vertebrates or invertebrates.