Alpha Centauri: Sawyer's World (T-Space: Alpha Centauri Book 2)

by Alastair Mayer

  “Very well then. You’re getting to quite like that stuff, aren’t you?”

  “It’s the only reason we’re not stranded on Kakuloa, after that landslide caused our landing area to flood. And you just sitting in orbit twiddling your thumbs.”

  “But we did warn you the storm was on the way. There wasn’t much else we could do.”

  “No worries, I know that.”

  They’d moved through the ship as they talked, collecting the gear they needed.

  “Okay. I’ll get Sawyer or Maclaren to help me tap off some LOX, you take the gear out to the site I’ve picked.” Finley gestured toward a clear area about seventy-five meters from the ship, away from any vegetation but some short stubby growth.

  “That’s a bit exposed, is it not?”

  “Are you shy?” Finley said, and grinned. “No, don’t worry, after the pit is dug we’ll put up a privacy screen.”

  “Oh, of course.”

  Twenty minutes later Finley leaned into the drill, digging out another borehole in the line he’d scratched for the latrine.

  They finished drilling out the blast holes and began placing the charges.

  “Okay, watch this stuff. After the LOX and charcoal are mixed it’s sensitive. Be gentle with it.”

  “Like a mother with a baby,” Dejois said. “Are you sure we’re not too close to the ship? I would hate for a rock to hit it, we may yet need it to get out of here.”

  Finley looked up, surprised. He looked down at the drill holes then back to the ship. Was it far enough? He shook his head. “We should be good, I doubt we’ll get debris more than a third of the way there. Halfway, tops.” At least, he hoped not. “What was that about needing it to get out of here? You don’t think they’d send another lander?”

  “The quickest way to retrieve us would be to load up the Heinlein with another propellant synthesis unit and send it back here, then land that and we refuel, non? If the Anderson is damaged that wouldn’t do us any good.”

  “That’s a good point. I was just assuming we were stuck until they sent another lander. Stupid of me.” He looked at how he’d laid out the charges. If the ones furthest from the ship detonated a few milliseconds before the nearer ones, then the later ones to blow would have solid rock on one side and fractured rock on the other, and the blast would tend to push the fractured rock away from the ship. But this charcoal and LOX explosive was improvised, not calibrated the way their seismic charges and detonators were.

  “Let’s change this around a little bit. We’ll just run the det-cord to the far side blast holes. The shock wave will detonate the nearside explosives.”

  “Are you certain of that?”

  Finley thought back to the emergency demolition they’d done to dig a trench in the landslide that had blocked the river valley downstream of the Chandra’s landing site. The rising water in the torrential rain had threatened to flood out the Chandra’s engines and clog the injectors with silt. They’d used a mix of seismic charges and charcoal there, but it had worked just fine, cutting a nice channel across the dam to let the water begin draining. But yes, they had relied on the shock waves from the seismic charges to detonate the charcoal.

  “Yes,” he said, “it’ll work. No problem.”

  They unreeled the detonator wires to a good safe distance—in fact back almost to the Anderson. Finley checked in with Sawyer.

  “Is everybody clear of the area?”

  “Yes, everyone’s accounted for, go for it.”

  Finley cupped his hands and yelled at the empty field. “Warning, blasting! Warning!” There was no response, nor had he expected any. This was just a standard precaution.

  He gripped the detonator and thumbed off the safety switch. “Fire in the hole! In three! Two! One!” Finley pressed the fire button. He felt the shock through the ground almost at the same time the plume of rock and dirt geysered into the air, and a split second later he heard the BANG! of the detonation, the successive detonations coming as one, too close together for the eye or ear to follow. He watched as the dust and rock soared up and then started to settle out, mostly away from the ship. Then his gaze caught one rock that had climbed almost straight up and was just reaching apogee, then began curving back in their direction. Oh, crap! Finley watched, horrified, as it turned lazily while plummeting toward them. It would fall short, good. The rock slammed into the ground forty meters from the ship and then bounced, leaping back up at about a forty-degree angle, still toward the ship. There wasn’t anything Finley or anyone else could do as they watched the boulder hit the ground and bounce again, like a slow-motion train wreck, heading toward the Anderson. Finally, after what seemed like hours, it stopped bouncing and rolled to a stop less than a meter from one of the landing pads. Finley exhaled a held breath. “And that,” he said, referring to the small boulder near the foot of the lander, “is what we geologists call an erratic.”

  “‘Halfway, tops’ I think you said?” Dejois looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

  Finley looked out to where the dust was still settling out around the pit. “You saw it. It hit the ground no more than halfway from here to there. It took a bad bounce. I didn’t say anything about bounces.”

  Sawyer, who had been observing all this from nearby, said: “Finley, no more bad bounces, okay? Or I’ll bounce you.”

  “Uh, roger that,” Finley replied, chagrined. He turned back to Dejois. “Let’s go check out the pit. If we’re lucky most of the debris blew out of the hole and we just need to do a bit of cleanup.”

  It had. There was still loose rubble in the bottom of the trench they’d blasted, but a half-hour with a shovel cleaned most of that out. They used several of the larger boulders to build a low wall around the pit. To the west was a small stand of trees. They’d rig up a privacy screen on poles, and cut and trim some trunks or thick branches to serve as a seat. Excavating the trench had been the easy part, now came the hard work.

  Chapter 6: Farmsteading

  Anderson landing site

  “Good morning folks,” Sawyer said cheerily as she entered the area of the Anderson’s mid-deck that served as the common mess, meeting area, and, when the ship was in space, exercise room. The rest of the crew were eating breakfast. “I have a few task assignments I’d like to get started on today.”

  “Slave driver,” somebody muttered sotto voce, but it was said with humor. The team members were all go-getters. They would never have been selected for the mission if they weren’t, nor would they have volunteered for the landing here.

  “Hey, what’s the point of being queen if you can’t drive your slaves?” Sawyer looked over the faces, some of them studiously avoiding her gaze. “Oh, I’ve heard the ‘Queen Elizabeth’ cracks. I’m not offended, I heard that and much, much worse from George, and we still got along.”

  George Darwin, the mission’s lead exobiologist, had been with Sawyer on the third Mars mission, ten years ago now, before warp drive had been made practical. They’d had a romantic relationship that began in astronaut training. To say they ‘got along’ might be stretching it. Although it had never gotten physical, well, not in that sense, they’d had some pretty intense arguments. And for all that they drove each other crazy, there was still an attraction. Sawyer shook her head to clear that train of thought.

  “Anyway, I want to combine science mission tasks with things that will help us survive if this turns into a long term stay. We don’t know what’s happening on Earth or how soon a return mission might get under way, so we’d be stupid to do anything but plan for an indefinite stay.

  “First off, I want a team looking at developing areas we might want to cultivate. That will be mostly the biologists, but Tyrell and Finely, whichever of you has the better background in soil geochemistry, I’d like you to help. That’s not my field I’m afraid, I’m more of a planetologist.”
<
br />   Finley raised his hand. “That would be me, then, unless Fred has some background I don’t know about.”

  “Not me. Hard-rock mining geology was what I was interested in as an undergrad. It’s on you I’m afraid.”

  “Don’t worry, Fred,” Sawyer said, “I have something for you to do too.”

  Tyrell didn’t say anything, just crossed his arms, slouched back in his seat, and nodded.

  “Okay, so Finley, Singh, and Dejois. Do a broad sweep, might as well be looking for interesting specimens while you’re at it, but also keep a thought to farming. From the looks of the vegetation in the area, we shouldn’t have to worry about irrigation. So we want areas that can be cleared and tilled easily, preferably not too far from the ship.”

  “Cleared and tilled how, exactly? We didn’t bring farming tools.”

  “And yet farming tools were perhaps one of humankind’s first inventions, after hunting tools. I think we’ll manage.” She turned to Maclaren. “Naomi, can you add that to the list of tools we might need, and figure out ways we might make them?”

  “At this rate, I’m going to need the fabbers to start building more fabbers,” Maclaren replied.

  “Can you do that?”

  “Hah. No, I’m afraid not. They’re not that clever, and I don’t have what I’d need to make all the control circuits and sensors. I might come up with a simple 3D-printer, if we scavenge microprocessors out of some of the other gear. Omniphones if nothing else, although those are too useful as they are.”

  “Ah well. I thought it sounded too good to be true. Do what you can, thanks.” Sawyer turned attention back to the rest of the party. Klaar was whispering something to Tyrell. “Doctor Klaar.”

  Klaar looked up sharply, blushing like a schoolgirl caught talking in class. “Yes?”

  “I would like you to survey the area and inventory the fauna. In particular, I’d like you to focus on four points. First, any potentially dangerous predators or annoying or venomous,” she paused, emphasizing the last word, “insects, snakes, and so on. You’re a zoologist, I’m sure you can do that carefully, but take someone along with you.

  “Second. Animals with a potential as food sources, either something small that could be trapped or even domesticated, or larger animals that might be worth hunting.

  “Third. On a related note, any small mammal-like creatures you can trap do determine if they are, in fact, mammals.

  “And finally, insects or animals that might be potential crop pests, depending on what Singh finds that we might cultivate.”

  “That last might be more Dejois’s field,” Klaar said.

  “Okay, feel free to consult with him. Maybe you can all explore the area together.”

  “Very well.”

  “Oh, one other thing, and this can wait until we get the boat deployed. I’d like you to help check the river for space piranha . . . Fred, something?” Tyrell had suddenly got an unusual expression on his face, part smirk, part wince.

  “Ah, no. Just thinking about a conversation back at a lake on Kakuloa.” At that, Klaar coughed as though choking back a giggle. Oh?

  “Okay. Tell me later if you think I need to know.”

  “Ah, roger that.” Fred said, and frowned at Klaar, but with a half-smile.

  “Okay, where we? Right, space piranha, or anything else in the way of dangerous marine life. Also, anything that might be good to eat, if there are fish. I’ll get the boat deployed, then be sure that you take me, or Singh, or Finley along if you want to go out in it. We all had more than enough boat handling experience on Kakuloa.”

  “You could say that, yes,” said Jennifer Singh. Most of it had been during a torrential rain while they tried to figure out why their landing area was flooding, and then fix the problem.

  “Indeed. Any questions on that, Ulrika?”

  “No, that should keep me busy. I had hoped to do that anyway.”

  “Great.” Sawyer checked the notes on her omni. “Okay, one last thing. Fred, you and I will get EP03”—their electric ultralight plane, like the two others they had abandoned on Kakuloa—“unstowed and assembled for flight. Also, pick out a spot for an airstrip. I can help you clear it if needed, and we’ll want a wind-sock.”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  “Okay folks, thank you. Let’s finish breakfast and get to work.”

  Chapter 7: Field Trip

  Anderson Base, a few days later

  “Fred, Peter, I’d like someone to do a general survey of the surrounding area out to fifty or a hundred kilometers.” Sawyer told the other two geologists in the team. “Can you take the electroplane out and do an aerial survey?”

  “Why not send one of the drones? They still work.” Finley said.

  “But I’d still need someone to pilot it, and it can’t land and do a ground survey if something looks interesting. I’d go, but I should stay with the camp. There’s geology I can do here too.”

  “So just a geological survey?” Tyrell asked. “What about the local flora and fauna? I could take Ulrika.”

  Sawyer smiled at that. He and Ulrika had been close since their three-day overland trek on Kakuloa. “This is not an overnight trip, just a few hours out and back. You’d leave in the morning.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Besides,” Sawyer continued, “I want the biology team closer to the camp for now. If there’s anything like poison ivy or venomous snakes or nasty insects, I want to know about it. Likewise, if there plants we can use for structural material or feedstock for the food processors, and so on. If we have to hunt and gather, better to start closer to home first.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Of course, if you do see anything that looks useful in that regard, feel free to investigate, take samples or pictures. Just don’t endanger yourselves. I want both you and the plane back in one piece.”

  Tyrell scowled. Sawyer wondered if he’d take offense, although she hadn’t intended any. Back on Kakuloa he’d lost one of their planes to a bird strike, hence the overland trek. “Should I be offended by that?”

  “Come on, Fred, that’s not what I meant.” It hadn’t really been his fault, and she’d made a couple of mistakes of her own.

  His scowl relaxed and he smiled. “Okay, yeah. I’d prefer one piece too.”

  “Same here,” said Finley.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Klaar and Tyrell’s berth on the Anderson

  “I heard that you and Peter are going flying in the morning,” Ulrika Klaar said to Tyrell as they sat down to dinner.

  “That’s right. Sawyer wants us to do a broad sweep of the area to get a feel for the geology and keep an eye open for anything interesting or potentially useful. I tried to convince her that I should bring a biologist along instead of Finley,” he looked at Klaar and grinned, “but she wasn’t having it.”

  “And by biologist I’m sure you meant a botanist or ecologist like Jennifer or Roger.”

  Tyrell looked up sharply. “That’s not—” then he realized she was teasing him. “In fact, I specifically mentioned your name. You’re not afraid to go flying with me again, are you?” Two could play the teasing game.

  She pouted, then smiled. “There’s nobody I would rather go flying with. But Sawyer said we biologists have to continue our detailed survey of what’s around the landing area. It makes sense, animals and even plants are more likely to be a hazard than rocks here on flat ground . . . erratics aside.” She grinned at the last.

  “Hey, that was all Finley and Dejois, I had nothing to do with it,” Tyrell said in a mock hurt tone.

  “Did I say otherwise? Anyway, keep an eye out for interesting fauna, I do want to get away from camp at some point.”

  “Sure.”

  “Oh, and Fred?”

  “Yes?”

  “Keep away from large bird flo
cks.” She said it lightly, but Tyrell heard the underlying note of concern. It had been an encounter with a large flock that had led to their crash-landing, after repeated bird strikes had broken the propeller.

  “You’ve got that right.” But he remembered the outcome of that crash, aside from his concussion. The three-day hike back to the landing site and given them a chance to get to know each other, and that second night, sitting out the rainstorm in their survival tent . . . He smiled at the memory.

  “What are you smiling at?”

  “Just remembering a certain night in a tent. And don’t worry, I’m taking Finley. I have no desire to spend the night in a tent with him.”

  She laughed and threw a pillow at him. “I should hope not!”

  He grabbed up the pillow and brought it back to the bed. “Jealous?” He grinned.

  “Oh, I don’t think I have anything to worry about.” She smiled up at him, then reached for him and pulled him down onto the bed. “But let me give you a reminder.” She pulled him close and kissed him, and with her other hand, began unfastening his shirt.

  Chapter 8: Going Flying

  Next morning, the Anderson landing site

  “Okay Pete, are you ready to go?” Tyrell asked as Finley approached the plane where he’d been doing a final inspection.

  “Yep, I’ve got my gear, had my breakfast. You?”

  “I just checked out the survival kit, my pack is in the plane, everything looks good. Just let me finish undoing the tie-downs and we can get rolling.”

  “Roger that.” Finley stowed his own bag behind the seats and clipped it to a retaining ring. He gave the plane, a high-wing, open cockpit ultralight a once-over. The dark upper wing surfaces were a lightweight solar film which, while not up to fully powering the plane’s electric motor in flight, would reduce the drain on the battery and recharge it while they were parked.