Of a Note in a Cosmic Song; Part Three

by Nōnen Títi

  SJilai had twice the amount of hours in each of its days than Kun DJar did, so at the end of Aryan’s fourth day on the surface, the people on SJilai had counted two. It could have been worse, of course – it could have been that a Kun DJar day was six-eighths or something – but Aryan cursed Kalgar for telling him to accept the facts. Kalgar had easy talking; he was on the planet to stay. It was the pilots who had to make the change all the time. “Are we supposed to sleep once or twice a day on SJilai?”

  Nobody knew.

  A more pressing concern than the schedule was the potential damage one take-off could cause to the other landers. After Gabi and Sisi left, it took an hour for the dust in the crater to settle enough for people to return. Aryan contacted SJilai first to make sure they’d arrived okay and did another thorough check of the other lander the next morning. No damage was done, but they had to clear dust from the engines.

  Aryan returned to the prefab site and offered to help out for a while. Most people worked in teams of three, so Aryan joined two men who were trying to erect a panel together. Each was quite a bit younger than he was and the lightweight material was anything but lightweight down here, as was his body. Not willing to give them the satisfaction of the age-difference, Aryan tried extra hard, which resulted in him sweating and panting and having to stop for water more and more often. He’d have liked to give his face a quick splash, but using the water for anything but drinking was strictly forbidden.

  “Don’t overdo it; we’ve been here longer than you have,” Yako told him. He was the friendlier one of the two; the other one, Thalo, seemed more irritated with Aryan’s presence. “You hang around with Maike a lot?” he asked when they all stopped for a rest.

  Though melodious and warm, something in his intonation made Aryan cautious. “Yeah, what of it?”

  “Nothing, I just saw you on Habitat Three a lot. Isn’t she a bit young for you?”

  “Exactly what I’ve been telling her for the last sixteen years. I guess I must be a lucky old man,” Aryan answered.

  Yako grinned at Aryan from behind Thalo’s back.

  “You guys both lived on Habitat Three then?” Aryan asked. “So what do you think of this patch of dirt? Would you have come if you hadn’t been a user?”

  “Who knows? I have no regrets. Beats working in a stinking DJar factory anytime,” Yako answered.

  Thalo turned his back to them and returned to work. Yako quickly informed Aryan that Thalo had sworn to never forgive anybody for being forced to leave his comate and young son behind and it was better not to raise the issue.

  “Fair enough.”

  They returned to placing the panels that were to create rows of eight homes, each with two or three rooms. Yako had long hair, down to his back, which the wind kept throwing in his way.

  “Why don’t you tie that down?” Aryan asked.

  “Because that’s what everybody else does.”

  Aryan wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Everybody else also uses an excretorial when they need a piss. What do you use, your pants?”

  That was enough to send Thalo into a fit of laughter, which seemed to resolve his original antipathy toward Aryan. Yako laughed too.

  Though exhausted, Aryan returned to the lander with a feeling of satisfaction. He sat down on the steps for a while before going to sleep. Above him, Kun’s tiny natural satellite overtook its sibling on its run across the sky. A bit like a race, which the little one would win at least four times in every Kun DJar moon. Both were full at the moment, and the sister was as close to Kun DJar as she would ever get. The nights, apart from being short, would rarely be dark.

  The next morning Aryan returned to the settlement for a while, since the crater had to be clear for the arrival of the new lander, which Gabi would fly together with Ottag. He was greeted with the news of an accident: One of the men digging the well had fallen down and broken his neck.

  “Lucky for them he wasn’t a user or we’d be on strike right now,” Thalo said, glaring at Aryan.

  “So what happened?”

  He was told that the cable they had used to get down there had disintegrated where it rested against the soil; something similar had happened to one of the pulleys earlier. “It snapped like a little twig. There must be something in the ground that doesn’t agree with metal.” Aryan didn’t know the unlucky man.

  Today, he joined Yako and Thalo with constructing what would be the social building at the central circle of the town. Two panels had to be joined side by side before securing them at right angles to the next pair on each wall. The wind made it hard to keep the oversized panels upright. The three men who’d been struggling with this job before they arrived were all still very young. One of them, Leyon, was a skinny, pale boy about Ottag’s age, who seemed to get more pleasure out of the fight with the wind than getting the job done. At one point, when holding the panel on one side, he suddenly let go, causing it to land on top of Thalo, who’d been trying to secure the middle part. Aryan and Yako had to push with all their might to get the man out from under it. Having a sore head didn’t help Thalo’s temper; he cursed and kicked it so hard he caused a dent in the panel. “How did they think we’d turn these bits of plastic into solid homes?”

  “We will. It’s the only thing we have,” Yako told him.

  Aryan helped reset the panel and held it tight until the rest was assembled, then rubbed his arms. “I haven’t used these muscles properly for a long time.”

  “Yes, this planet sure makes your body pay,” Thalo agreed.

  “As much as Maike’s belt?” Leyon asked.

  Had they just carried on talking, Aryan might have not even noticed, but all eyes turned to him in the hush that followed the words. He didn’t ask, since it was clear this was not to be made his business.

  Then it started raining. It poured so much water that the soil turned to mud and became too slippery to walk on. The men started moving to the outer edges of the town where the ready shelters were, their coats pulled over their heads. Aryan’s was still in the lander.

  “You can share mine,” Leyon said.

  It did little good against the torrent of huge, heavy drops, but Aryan accepted the offer anyway. “So what about Maike’s belt?” he asked.

  “Just a Habitat Three expression. If you want details you have to ask Thalo.”

  “I guess the two of you don’t get on?”

  “I’d get on with him fine if he were dead.”

  What had been normal rain turned into what at first seemed giant water drops, until they touched the ground and wriggled into the mud. For a few fractions, Aryan just stared at them. When he concluded they must be alive, the coat above his head was already gone and these things were in his hair.

  “In here,” Leyon shouted.

  Aryan felt the moving critters everywhere. Aware only of the noise of his heart pounding in his ear, he rubbed his hair as hard as he could to make them fall out and shook his clothes, but he kept feeling them.

  “There’s nothing there; they’re gone,” Leyon said.

  Aryan wasn’t quite sure how he’d ended up inside the shelter. He still itched all over. Nothing fell out of his hair, but he kept wiping – wiping away the water that poured from his forehead: sweat, not rain.

  “They’re gone,” Leyon repeated.

  With his heartbeat slowing, Aryan started to understand the words. He inspected his hair again and then took off his shirt to make sure. It was clean. “What was it?”

  Leyon shrugged. “Animals falling out of the sky. I thought it was kind of cool.”

  Aryan put his shirt back on. “One word of this to anyone and I’ll tell Thalo you dropped the panel on his head on purpose.”

  “Hey, I don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”

  When the ‘rain’ stopped completely, Aryan returned to the crater to greet the two newly-arrived pilots. At nightfall they went to sleep fast, but Aryan did not. His wet clothing didn’t want to dry and he shivered all night. Three ti
mes he had to leave the little kabin, which he hated. Though not quite dark, the thought of invisible Kun DJar critters wasn’t his idea of a comfortable privy.

  Two days later he finally flew his own lander back to paradise. Petar reported no problems, and Aryan made sure to commend him on running the pilot bay. On Maike’s request he had Roilan talk to her directly, as did Frantag to Kalgar. Like Petar, Frantag wasn’t too keen on the idea of having to go down himself, but Frantag would go last.

  Petar’s first flight with Sisi the next SJilai day followed four hours of ‘fun’ trying to get the cattle into the lander and strapped down. Aryan wished them good luck getting the beasts out again, never mind that they’d have to be herded up that narrow crater trail. He didn’t envy the farmers.

  The next kor brought more problems: Both kabins showed some damage on returning. The number six’s fuel tank valves were unhinged and it was taken out of order. The other had heat shield abrasions.

  “We still have plenty of landers. If the need comes we can transplant the fuel tanks from this one into the number six,” Feya said, but for now, it wasn’t worth the effort.

  When Aryan took the number eight down to the planet on the third day of the fifth moon of Kun DJar’s new calendar, with another four sets of colonists, things looked more hopeful: A lot of prefabs were now standing, and it was more like a real town. The grey prefab material made for a restful shade in the midst of the reds, pinks, and purples of Kun DJar. A bit of green would have been nice.

  The drinking water well was ready and supplying. Branag’s filtration system worked not only for that but for the collected ‘normal’ rainwater, which also had something living in it.

  “It’s life,” was the best Remag could tell them, since it wasn’t clear whether it was plant or animal, if those terms could be used at all. The only sure thing was that some of that life had to be producing oxygen.

  One form of life came out of the soil as the farmers dug up the fields to prepare them for the seedlings, though ‘field’ was pushing it a little. It was a patch of mud, which Wilam and his Menever farmers were turning over by hand on the north side of the settlement against the mountains, where it would be as sheltered as possible from the wind. The soil was nothing like DJar; Wilam explained they’d have to add almost all the nutrients, but the batis and zibots would produce those for free.

  “Not just them. Those excretorials that are being transported down will serve as collection vessels for the same purpose in each of the homes,” Wilam added. For that reason they would have to be emptied every day and could not be chemically disinfected.

  Not looking too shaken by their adventure in space, the animals were now testing the bulblike vegetation that seemed to be everywhere south of the settlement. If the cattle could graze on those, the colonists would be guaranteed milk and meat.

  Wilam expressed his concern for the crops. “I don’t worry about upsetting the existing ecology by introducing ours anymore,” he said.

  Aryan could see that much. The land was barren, windy, moist, and devoid of anything higher than a grown man’s legs, most of which were rocks. Never mind the green and yellow clouds that blocked Kun out almost completely. At first many people had worried that the atmosphere was poisoned with something like sulphur, but Kalim ensured them the air was perfectly safe to breathe.

  Though plenty of light, Kun did not produce much warmth. One clever person thought that if the fires outside wouldn’t burn he’d try one indoors, forgetting that prefabs were made of plastic and had no smoke-stack. The man not only nearly suffocated himself, but also left the shelter smelling like high hell.

  “Will this wind ever let up?” Aryan asked Maike, who now had her own shelter.

  “Never. I’ve been told it’s caused by the same thing that makes the days so short.”

  “I think I’ll live on SJilai then.”

  Maike’s flaming red hair clashed with the colours of the landscape something awful. “You’d prefer SJilai all on your own over a bit of wind and my company?” she teased, and assured him life would soon be more comfortable. For food they had brought along masses of fish-eggs and sperm in a liquid suspension to be fertilized in ponds dug for fish farming, much like they did on DJar. SJilai also carried bee larvae in a similar manner to supply honey. A special enclosure was being built to house not only the bees but a big scientific laboratory and a batch of DJar seedlings in a hydroponic light box; this would be a backup for the farmers. A third backup would remain on SJilai for now. “You see, they’ve thought of everything.”

  “Seeing the cost of all that, DJar must have been really keen to get rid of us,” Aryan answered, but her words made him more optimistic. Nevertheless, returning to SJilai was once again a relief.

  The flights became routine and the pilots less anxious. The lander with the damaged fuel tanks was found to be in good enough condition to be used for transplant once a fourth kabin started showing signs of distress. Aryan left it up to the technical crew. Five more flights would carry the remaining people down, after which SJilai would be left to a small team of monitors.

  The news from the surface was good; people were moving into their new homes and the first seedlings had been planted. The remaining two and a half gran of people on SJilai all helped pack up the supplies. The next lander would carry much of the scientific equipment, the two big generators, and the heliopanels to provide energy. The smaller supplies would be sent later. All non-vital systems on SJilai were shut down. It was a bit depressing.

  Aryan spent most of his time in the pilot bay, where screens provided the best view of Kun DJar. Especially today, the contrast was great, with the rim of coloured bands that made up the atmosphere painted against the black of space. From the lander, in lower orbit, Ulli and Sisi confirmed it. “Beautiful day out there.”

  They were having one of their over-the-speaker conversations with Gabi and Petar, who were in the bay. The subject this time was the meteor that had made their landing-spot crater. “Isn’t it amazing that one little rock can make such a huge hole?” Ulli asked.

  Aryan sat beside Lisa and kept an eye on the timedisk. “One minute, people.”

  They finally went quiet at the countdown for the de-orbit burn. The lander, which was supposed to have movement away, seemed suspended for a moment. Aryan, as always, followed its progress on screen. “Ulli, what’s going on?”

  The response was a whole lot of interference. Then it started moving away, clearly visible. An instant later it turned into a fireball, the sparks scattering all around. Not a trace was left but the black of space and the planet’s curvature.

  “Oh Bue,” Lisa said.

  This was impossible. It wasn’t real. Aryan adjusted the screen controls and redirected the cameras toward the surface; somewhere inside the atmosphere the lander had to be.

  But it wasn’t.

  From the back of the room came sniffling. He turned to Petar, but it was Gabi. “Stop that. That won’t help.”

  She stopped.

  “What could have possibly happened?” Lisa asked.

  “How am I supposed to know?”

  “Which lander was it?” Petar asked.

  “All those people…” Gabi said.

  Aryan couldn’t think. The voices irritated him. All those people… Four sets had been on that lander, all eager to finally get down there. Who were they? What happened? The pilots had left this morning, like all previous times, excited for the day ahead. He’d need to get in touch with the planet. Contact the communication lander. Would anybody be there?

  It took more than an hour before he got a response. “We were just about to contact you. Wasn’t there supposed to be a lander down today?”

  “Who are you?” Aryan asked.

  It was Ottag.

  “Get me Kalgar.”

  It went silent. Two hours went by. Aryan started to wonder if Ottag had understood him before remembering it would take the boy that time to get to the settlement and back.

  �
�It was the number six, the one with the transplanted fuel tanks,” Petar said.

  “Do you mean the fuel tanks caused this?”

  “I don’t know. I just know it was that lander.”

  Four engineers had worked on that transplant. Had they overlooked something?

  Kalgar’s voice startled him. “What’s up, Aryan?”

  In a few words Aryan gave him the news.

  On the other end Kalgar was silent for what must have been a minute. “Get me a list of everyone on that lander,” he said then.

  “I’ll have to ask Frantag. Stay near the speaker. I’ll get back to you.”

  He ordered Gabi to call Frantag and Benjamar in, something he should have maybe done first but hadn’t thought about. Again, they waited.

  “Sit down,” Aryan told the two men as they came in one after the other. They did so without a word. “The lander that left nearly four hours ago has exploded with everyone on board.”

  Both men, like those before them, met the news with silence.

  “Kalgar wants a list of names.”

  Frantag sat nodding his head without stopping.

  “What happened?” Benjamar asked.

  “We don’t know yet.”

  The emptiness that had them all quiet didn’t go. Frantag got his list and talked to Kalgar, who by then had remembered having a copy.

  “Don’t speak to anyone yet. It’s better that we decide who to tell and when once we know who those people were,” Benjamar told Gabi and Petar, when Aryan insisted they go home as Lisa had.

  In the end, Aryan was left alone with his thoughts. Could this have been prevented? On DJar the occasional accident had happened. Just a year before SJilai, another kabin had exploded on Baktar Base without ever even getting off the ground.

  Birdwings and airfloats also had their share of accidents, and every time people went looking for someone to blame. Somebody had to pay for these things. Yet accidents were bound to happen with machines that size, especially carrying liquid fuel. They had all known the risks. It didn’t need to be anybody’s fault.