by Pam Uphoff
Xaero nodded, overlying the computer generated topo map with a color analysis of the vegetation. "Should be no problem landing either. Plenty of flat spots to choose from, with enough variations in vegetation that we can choose the spot with the shortest plants."
She added another overlay, this one with a plot of high reflectance areas that might indicate water. The white spots correlated nicely with the visible rivers and streams, and loosely with two types of vegetation colors.
The engine's background purr deepened into a roar, and Xaero brought up the pilot's schematic, showing their course, actual and projected. The Dzi entered the atmosphere slowly dropping in backwards with the main engines flaring, holding them up until their speed had dropped nearly to race cart values. Then in a stomach wrenching maneuver, Albe spun the ship and dropped her nose. Cutting the engines back to a whisper, they dropped toward the surface. She clutched her seat and gritted her teeth as she heard Albe and L'on laughing in delight. She was suddenly pressed into her seat, then weightless again.
"Don't overcompensate." L'on had gotten his laughing under control, and was trying rather obviously to be serious.
The vehicle swooped again, just like the paper darts Xaro had used to sail in the park. A new engine sound rumbled, the secondary engines that burned atmosphere mixed with fuel, she saw, glancing at her board.
She glanced out the window and stared, mesmerized. "Look out the windows! Isn't it beautiful!"
It was like standing on a very high mountain, looking over the plains, but these plains were mostly water, not flat, like a pond, but with long ripples.
She tore herself away long enough to check the exterior sensors. "According to your radio reflector, some of those 'ripples' are ten strides high."
"Coming up on land." L'on said.
Xaero looked through the window again, spotting the browns and greens. She switched her screen to show the forward vid as they crossed over, six hundred strides up.
"Look at the water hitting the land." Trev said, "Is it wind driven?"
Xaero kept switching from window to screen, then pulled herself together and brought her maps back up.
Albe maintained altitude without trouble, curving slightly to line them up for the low level pass. "She's handling very well, so we'll make a pass at fifty strides, then turn and land where you wish."
Xaero referenced between the radio altimeter and the vegetation, quickly identifying ten stride high plants, plants of all sizes growing in wet areas, and dry land plants of various characteristics. As they dropped and started their run, she quickly indicated dry areas with low vegetation on the strip.
"Large animals on the right!" L'on called out.
"Whoa, those guy's'd eat your pike, Xaero!" Trev yelled from his station, behind her on the other side. She hissed at the temptation, and didn't look.
A red star flashed onto the map, from Trebore, and she quickly picked several nearby flat dry areas. Another red star, more areas . . . a large red star.
"Gammas! I've got gammas!" Trebore yelped. "It's got to be incredibly close to the surface!"
Xaero marked a flat dry meadow two kstrides away, and a larger one nearly four kstrides beyond it.
She kept up marking the map until Albe cranked up the engines and lifted the Dzi to a higher altitude.
She pulled up the recordings of the ground pictures around Trebore's gamma radiation site and rechecked, marking three other possible landing sites.
One of them flashed, and L'on said, "Too rocky." The next, "rolls a bit." The closest, "a bit small", the fourth was nearly five kstrides away from the site, "This one's good, looks like sand and bedrock, with short vegetation. The last has short vegetation, but so thick I can't see the ground under it." The fourth one was quickly agreed on.
Xaero brought up larger scale maps. "Shouldn't be any problem getting to your gamma site, but it looks like the site itself is pretty heavily forested." She traced a path that curved up hill and around close to the site, crossing mostly short vegetation areas. "Depending on how nasty the short stuff is." She added. "I shouldn't expect only the tall trees to be carnivorous."
"Yeah, us little guys can be mean." Riu put in.
Xaero clutched the seat again as Albe turned the vehicle and they swooped back down again. As they dropped lower she could see details of the vegetation. The tall ones had large central trunks, like a vance, but with a mane of broad leaves at the top. She stared and tried to track a group of animals, large ones, bipedal with heavy tails and long necks that ran in fright from the Dzi. They were past so fast she couldn't see any more details. They were as low as the trees, sinking down, the forward landing engines on now, slowing them, the loud rumble was hopefully the landing wheels, not the bottom of the Dzi falling off. They hit with a thump and rushed forward at a frightening speed, slowed, stopped.
"Welcome to Big Blue." The captain unsnapped his restraints as he surveyed his instruments with satisfaction.
Xaero switched her screen to the bottom vids, studying the sparse vegetation of their rocky landing site. All green, some with broad leaves, some straight narrow leaves. The most common had complexly shaped large leaves, or perhaps it was rows of small leaves on each side of the arching branches. She eyed the way the ends of the arched branches curled under, as if holding something. They stirred, all in unison. Where they had been flatened by the not insignificant weight of the Dzi, they were broken and crushed, unlike the long narrow leaved plants that were already starting to straighten back up. Tough plants. She felt like they were still accelerating, pushed down onto the couch much harder that she should. Reaching out to change settings on her screen took noticeable effort to lift her hand and arm. Gravity. There'd be no getting away from it until they left for home.
She switched over to Riu's screen, showing the exterior environment. "Hot out there, isn't it?" she asked.
"It's going to be a bit sauna-like." Riu replied. "Although some of the heat is us."
"It's just past midday," Zila pointed out. "It'll be cooler earlier or later."
Nyx sighed. "Can't we just snatch a quick handful of that stuff to analyze?"
Riu tapped his screen, "Look at the volatiles coming off the plants we crushed. Interesting. Nothing poisonous," he hastened to add. "We'll need a small sample to check for DNA, and possible pathogens, as quickly as possible."
Xaero grinned. "The schedule does say I should go pick a bouquet for you." She looked over at L'on. "Rumor has it, you have a magnificent speech all ready to go. Shall I reach down from the airlock and leave the first step for one better prepared?"
Riu's station was adjacent to the small side airlock, and supplied with isolation boxes with airlock access. He fiddled with some controls. "All right, the first batch of lab animals is getting unfiltered air."
L'on nodded at Xaero, a grin creeping around the edges of his mouth. "Don't we all have speeches?"
Nyx sniffed. "No, some of us just want to get to work."
***
Getting the environmental suit and helmet on over the elasticized suit was harder than she'd expected, moving slowly and carefully in the heavy gravity. Depending on tests of the microbial life, they'd hopefully be able to dispense with them, but this first venture was full dress.
Sealed in the airlock, she first pumped out all the Mars air possible in a short period, then opened the valves to the outside. The warm thick air poured in and pressed on her like water in a hot spring. She triggered the outer door, stepping to the edge to drink in the sights. She could feel the wind that stirred the plants below her. She lowered herself to the deck carefully, laying with her head out of the airlock and watched the plants, as a gust of wind swept over them.
"I think most of the plant movement is caused by the wind. This thick air can push pretty hard," she told her waiting comrades. She pulled out her sampling pole and reached down to brush the vegetation. It showed no response to being moved other than to spring back. "Right then. Here is the first." She snapped a picture.
"Curler, small." The hook snared the base of the plant and pulled it from the crack in the rocky soil, trailing roots. "Most of a rather tangled looking root structure intact."
She pulled it in, and getting up carefully, examined it under the high resolution vid in the airlock. "There's no tactile response at all," she noted, uncurling one long frond before putting it into the first isolation box.
Back down on her stomach and hanging over the edge, she was reaching for one of the long narrow leafed plants when she spotted the 'insect'. She started snapping pictures of it as she carefully put the hook in its path, and when it obliged by crawling onto it, lifted it.
With the rest of the group babbling in her ear, she quickly transferred the bug to the next isolation box. She could see them all plastered to the glass walls watching it as she went back for more plants.
She found eighteen different species of plants, and nearly as many bugs, before reaching the limits of her and the pole's reach. She added soil samples, sand, and every pebble within reach.
Even as hot and humid as her suit had gotten, she was reluctant to close the outer airlock door. As she reluctantly reached for the controls, Trev's voice sounded loudly in her ears.
"Look to the left, at the edge of those tall trees."
They were huge. Some stood on four legs, others balanced on their two hind legs, with their smaller forelegs dangling. They had absurdly long necks, very flexible, with a bulky head on the end. The standing animals were stooped forward, bodies balanced by their long heavy tails. "Whoa, giant hunchbacked lizards," Aura whispered over the comm. "Give that one on the left a cane and he'd be the spitting image of my Great Grandfather." The lizards shifted, both individually and as a whole. Apparently they decided they didn't like the looks of the Dzi, and faded back into the trees. Xaero could hear splashing as they retreated.
"They look just Martian enough to be really ugly." Trev's voice murmured in her ear.
"I want one." Nyx said.
"Do you think you could track them?" Aura sounded eager.
"If you want a sample that big, you're going to have to wait." Xaero told them, as she finally closed the hatch, sealed it and started the pumps. The pressure drop was a relief.
As she reached for the decontamination controls, she stopped, captured the bug crawling up the wall and added it to Riu's collection. After being thoroughly chlorinated then steam cleaned, she peeled out of the exterior suit and stepped back into the crew cabin.
"Sand that suit is miserable!" she could feel the grin on her face as Trev restrained himself to a touch on the muzzle. Not that he could do much of anything else in these elastic torture suits. She ran a hand up and down his back as she tried to peer between bodies at the isolation boxes.
"The insects all have six legs." Zila said from somewhere in the pack. "And four usable wings, which is how that last one got into the airlock."
"The plants have DNA," Nyx muttered. "Can I check an insect?"
"Yeah, here's one that got squished against a plant when Xaero grabbed it." Riu replied. "I've checked out the body organs. Very strange, no lungs."
Captain L'on, who was fairly bouncing even in this gravity, frowned at her in mock severity. "Our first murder. Fortunately for you there's no sign of intelligence to be found."
Xaero winced. "It wasn't wearing clothes or packing a really small plasma blaster? From what I've read, and I'm sure you have as well, we're pretty sure that intelligence requires a considerable amount of brain tissue."
"Yes. We'll have to study those giant hunchies closely before we do anything . . . invasive." Riu said. "Even the medium sized animals, really, just to be sure. This insect had only a very rudimentary nervous system, no possibility of intelligence there."
Xaero stepped back to her station, and switched her vid to the isolation chambers with the cheepers and pikes. The domesticated cheepers were larger than the wild variety, and the domesticated pikes much smaller than their wild relatives. Both appeared to be happy breathing a mixture of outside air. The pressure was still at Mars standards in most of the chambers, but in one the cheepers were breathing outside air without even filtering. Xaero frowned at the readouts, and checked again. "There's more CO2 than we'd expected."
"Yes." Riu answered, "The cheepers aren't having any trouble breathing, although as you can see, they're very active."
"Oxygen euphoria?" she asked.
"Possibly. Can you run an absorption check?"
"Sure." The exposure chambers were on the cargo compartment side of the airlock. Xaero slipped in between the wall and a mining machine spot welded to the floor, two walls and the overhead. There was just enough room to get her hand into the glove box, grab an indignant cheeper and push the light instrument up against a fold of skin.
Zila giggled at the readings, "Oh, yes, that's a happy cheeper. Do we need to dial it down a bit?"
Xaero hesitated. "No, let's see if it stabilizes."
She released the cheeper and wiggled back out to her workstation.
The experts back home had worked out all sorts of theoretical ways to categorize Big Blue's life forms. She brought up those schemes, and then pondered the plants she brought in.
Everything native to the planet would have Blue as a new first category. Then Plant, Animal, Fungi, Bacteria or Virus Kingdoms. For these plants, for now, Woody, Narrow, Leafy and Curled became tentative major divisions. Nyx was running the genetic studies of both plants and animals, Riu was studying the animals. Zila and Aura were making notes on the exterior appearances of both plants and animals, tying them to Nyx's and Riu's results and recording everything. She checked their classification scheme, and started them storing the data in a more organized fashion. The animals on hand were all in the same major division, she decided, defining it as six legs, wings, no lungs. Aura jumped in and labeled it Insixts. With a bit of a wince, Xaero hoped that would be the end of the puns. They had the vids at full magnification and were making detailed picture files of the taller growth. They'd also enlarged all the pictures of the Hunchies, so named, showing their four and two legged stance and bipedal run. She labeled the major division Blue Giant Lizards. The similar type of giant bipeds they'd recorded as they over flew them were variously named BGL Runners, Jumpers, Blockheads and Dwarves. While it was hard to judge from above, the Blockheads seemed to be quite different, the necks seemed shorter and the movement a bit different. She admired them for a moment, then sorted out her plant specimens, gave each an additional specific name, and started a detailed description.
The mining crew was concentrating on the soil and rock samples she'd brought in, as well as the atmosphere. And the weather. They all broke off to watch water falling from the sky in a torrential downburst, accompanied by wind gusts that rocked the ship. Albe and Jemi, who had been trying to sleep dragged out in alarm, but the ship seemed safe enough. The storm cleared and the brilliant, too large and too bright Sun glittered on water everywhere. But the ground was firm beneath them, and the water ran downhill or was absorbed.
The cheepers had to be put on restricted oxygen, but showed no signs of illness. The heavy gravity dragged at them, and after watching a spectacular sunset, half the crew gratefully rotated through a sleep cycle. The difference between the Martian time they'd left and the Blue time they'd arrived in had conspired to give them a very long day, and Xaero, at least, slept soundly.
Dawn on Blue came slowly with light refracting in the thick atmosphere to create a beautiful rose and pale yellow glow long before the Sun rose.
All the cheepers and pikes were still healthy, but the bacteria growing in the various culture dishes had quite happily infected the Martian cell cultures. Xaero wrinkled her muzzle, but accepted L'on's insistence on wearing the environmental suits. Which meant squeezing into the spine flattening elastic suits first. With a great deal of mutual assistance, the morning's away team got ready and the cargo section was sealed away from the crew cabin.
They held the ceremony as the Sun rose. Captain Saj
i L'on walked down the rear ramp and stepped out onto the surface.
Xaero breathed a sigh of relief as none of the plants showed any sign of wanting to eat him as his brief speech was recorded for posterity.
Several other speeches later, they were cutting the cart loose and moving it down the ramp.
Trev drove, with Trebore beside him. Xaero stood most of the way, eyes open for both plants and animals as well as their route to the Gamma site. Beri T'yedh and Arto L'drawn settled in back, but hung eagerly over the side as they rolled across the field toward the mountains. They both carried laser rifles, and she'd noticed Trev had an oversized pistol belted over his environmental suit. Trebore tested their wireless comm regularly. It worked better than they'd expected, not even requiring them to run up the balloon mounted antennae after they'd put a low hill between them and the Dzi.
Several time things scrambled out of their way, but no plants made any hostile moves. Xaero noted the spots where barely glimpsed animals rustled the plants, with future placement of live traps in mind. They stopped frequently, testing the responses of the larger vegetation as they encountered it. No response.
Xaero carefully stretched her legs. Even Beri's exercise regime hadn't quite prepared her for the constant strain of weighing two and a half times her usual weight, and she hadn't managed to catching anything she'd dropped, yet. "I think the soil is so rich, and the water so available the local plants had no need to evolve mechanisms to water and fertilize themselves," she decided, as the tall plants ignored everything she did to them.
They climbed, circling around through sparsely vegetated areas. The view was spectacular. Their vids were clicking constantly, as they dropped down and approached the heavily forested target. Trebore had stopped several times for soil and rock samples, and to take readings on his instruments.
"The gamma readings are climbing." He was failing to keep the excitement out of his voice. He directed Trev on a slow traverse and then some zigzagging before he was satisfied that he'd mapped the extent of the gamma source and located an area within that showed the highest readings.
