GENELLAN: PLANETFALL(73)
Reentry to Genellan was nominal. Their module settled onto the station platform, and turbulent deceleration was replaced by the planet's comfortably low gravity. Lander systems whined down; pressurization systems surged and pulsed, causing Dowornobb's sinus passages to flutter. A loud thunk signaled the attachment of the umbilical tower, and soon the warmth of the station's environment flowed into the passenger spaces. Dowornobb luxuriated in the satisfying lungfuls of full-pressure air. A crewman signaled to debark.
As the team crawled down a telescoping access trunk, Dowornobb gawked through a window. Immense distances! Uncomfortable distances! His eyes struggled to focus on faraway images. The air was so clear. The fables were true. Dowornobb felt as if he had magnifying lens over his eyes. He could see forever. "The air is invisible!" he said to no one in particular.
"Because there is almost no air there," Et Avian said.
The newcomers clung to the ports, staring at the magnificent landscape. The colors were starkly defined: a vivid cobalt sky spotted with luminescent clouds. Verdant grasses swept to ivory-tipped mountains on one side and to the scintillating oceans on the other. Translucent domes arched over their heads, refracting the solar radiance and generating prism images that shifted slowly with the sun, and more rapidly with the position of the viewer.
"Oh, it is so very, very beautiful!" Mistress Kateos gushed. The female immediately realized her error and dropped her head in abject subservience. Everyone stared. There was no excuse for such gross behavior. Mirrtis turned pale and coughed. Even Dowornobb was appalled. H'Aare, standing next to the hapless linguist, crawled quickly away.
"We will have time for sight-seeing later. Let us move on," Et Avian ordered. Luckily, the soldiers were already down the ramp and had not heard the outburst. The noblekone went to the female, picked up one of her bags, and headed down the ramp. Dowornobb watched the unexpected act of forgiveness and impulsively went over and picked up her other bag. He smiled sympathetically at the cowering female and walked off, pretentiously still on his hinds, just as the noblekone had done; adding the extra burden of Mistress Kateos's bag to his own luggage required the full use of his arms, and it was more convenient to remain erect. It felt natural in the light gravity. Dowornobb self-consciously looked backward and noticed the others had fallen back on habit, crawling down the ramp on all fours, their bags carried over their backs or suspended from hooks and pouches at their midsections.
* * *
"Solar flares," insisted the managing director of Goldmine. "Solar flares blinded our network during the period. A tenuous object was reported, but we attributed it to solar flares."
Dowornobb looked at Et Avian and received a look in return communicating the noblekone' s opinion of the managing director: a total incompetent.
"Let us move forward," Et Avian continued. "Do you have any data that suggests a landing or an impact with the ground?"
"Or," Dowornobb interrupted, "can you provide orbital parameters?" He turned to Et Avian. "I can do a simulation and run a distribution pattern of most probable impact areas. The orbit would also define areas the aliens would have viewed as likely landing sites." Et Avian cast him a quick glance, at once a reprimand and a thoughtful stare.
"Aliens?" the director asked. "Are you saying aliens landed on Genellan?"
"Of course not!" the noblekone replied. "Scientist Dowornobb uses his own vocabulary. The object of our search is a suspected probe launched by southern mineral poachers. We have been tasked to determine the nature of that probe. Scientist Dowornobb's selection of words runs to the dramatic. Ha-ha-ha."
The director laughed politely. Dowornobb attempted to appear contrite, which he was. He had forgotten the noblekone's instructions. Dowornobb looked around the room, and his eyes were caught by Mistress Kateos. She stared audaciously at him, and he returned the stare, unable to help himself. She slowly averted her eyes, but she had looked into his soul.
* * *
The orbital simulation took only a week. A tremendous swathe of debris had been deposited across the lake-pocked terrain of western Corlia. Dowornobb ran the results to Et Avian, who was impatient for action. Summer had only one full month remaining. The weather would quickly become unpredictable after that time, except in one dimension: it would get cruelly colder.
Et Avian received permission for a suborbital launch to Ocean Station, the science facility on Corlia. He transmitted search coordinates and ordered fuel-staging to commence immediately.
The science station was located on the delta of a major river that met the northern shore of a fertile and nearly landlocked equatorial sea—the most temperate area on the planet. On rare occasions in the summer courageous kones even dared to touch bare toes to the frigid ocean waters.