Rescued From Paradise

by Robert L. Forward

  RESCUED FROM PARADISE

  (1995)**

  Robert L. Forward & Julie Forward Fuller

  Contents

  Prometheus

  Eden

  Loading

  Delivery

  Births

  Flouwen

  Jollys

  More Room

  Spawning

  Hearing

  Teachers

  Follow On

  Tools

  Dam

  Rescue

  Wave

  Tablet

  Demonfish

  Interpreters

  Lava

  Aloha

  Solarians

  Leaving

  About The Authors

  Acknowledgements

  Book Information

  PROMETHEUS

  GEORGE looked out one of the large view windows on the slowly rotating interstellar sailcraft. The strange worlds drifting by on the other side of the thick glass were illuminated with the deep red glow of Barnard—six lightyears distant from Earth.

  How much they knew—now—of the strange forms life took on those beautiful planets! On one planet, brilliantly colored, almost immortal blobs of intelligent living jelly surfed with joy in oceans of ammonia; on another lived acre-sized creatures—half plant and half animal—that carved majestic underground cities out of ice; on a third were amazing walking trees with freely-flying eyes that were now befriending the humans who had been marooned on their Edenlike tropical globe.

  With a sigh, he pushed away from the view window and floated over to the command console on the control deck of the lightsail starship Prometheus. The thought of his comrades stranded down on the planet below had reminded Colonel George Gudunov of his neglected duties. He placed the chordic keypad in his lap and stared at the blank screen. Since the accident had happened, all the responsibility, all the decisions, and—especially—all the reports, were left to him.

  He had always respected and even loved General Virginia Jones, but it was at times like these that George missed the stocky black Marine the most. While "Jinjur" had been in command here on Prometheus, these reports back to Earth had been her responsibility. She had been good at it, dictating to the computer all the relevant facts about their exploration trip in proper "official report" jargon.

  George, to his sorrow, had found that dictating always led to his getting lost on tangents. His reports became long rambling essays on the wonder and beauty of all that surrounded them. His joy in his life here on this exploration trip to the stars was not supposed to be included in the official reports, and yet the enthusiastic scientist in him could not keep his feelings from coming out. Only slow and painful typing, where every word had to be checked out a letter at a time, could force George to become more frugal with his delight. It wasn't that he felt any less strongly, only he begrudged the effort that was necessary. Consequently, each report meant hours spent in front of this damn blue screen ... when he would much rather be getting on with the discovering, the exploring, the joy, of living this fascinating life here among the stars.

  It was also at these times that he almost envied Jinjur. She might have had her space-wings clipped and be trapped on the surface of a planet, but it was an alien world, full of fascinating secrets that were waiting to be ferreted out ... with no reporting required afterward.

  George sighed and began typing ...

  The primary mission task at the present time is to get the necessary survival supplies to the ten members of the crew who crashlanded on the moon Zuni. The only vehicle suitable for landing supplies is a robotic amphibious exploration crawler, and only four crawlers and their aeroshells are left. Although the ship's computer James and its Christmas Bush motile could construct additional crawlers using the onboard mechanical fabrication facility, the facility does not have the capability to manufacture the large ceramic aeroshells needed for atmospheric reentry. Thus, in consultation by radio with Mission Commander General Jones, a decision has been made to use the four crawlers for supply drops at approximately six year intervals. After that period, additional landers hopefully will be available from the expected follow-on mission, due in approximately twenty-five years.

  Because of the long time between drops, it is essential that each of the crawlers carry as much payload as possible. The first amphibious exploration crawler has been stripped of all nonessential equipment, sensors, and shielding, and its hull reconfigured as a cargo hauler. The maximum payload it can now safely carry has been increased to fifty kilograms. A major portion of that payload will be vitamin pills. Although the current diet of native foods seems to be life-sustaining, we cannot take the chance that it is inadequate. In an attempt to lower their level of dependence on these imported vitamins, we are also shipping the seeds of those plants we have with us here on Prometheus. If the crew can grow these grains and vegetables, then further shipments of the vitamins supplied by those plants can be reduced, allowing for the import of equipment and tools to improve the lives and aid the research of the scientists on the surface.

  Because of the stranded party's decision to bear children despite being trapped in such primitive, although idyllic, surroundings, we have also included a selection of medical supplies including obstetrical forceps and child-sized medical instruments. Fortunately, the immune systems of the stranded party have been able to cope well with the native micro-organisms, which have evolved no methods to overcome the body's defenses, so no medicines except pain-killers are needed.

  Here George paused and looked around the twenty-meter-diameter circular control room that constituted the bottom deck of Prometheus. It was nearly empty. With only nine crew members left on board to operate the apartment-building-sized vehicle around the clock, three crew members were always asleep in their private apartments, and three were taking care of household or personal chores somewhere else, leaving only three to operate the ship and the science instruments.

  Captain Tony Roma was at the navigation console controlling the gigantic lightsail, three hundred kilometers across, which provided propulsion for Prometheus. Tony was discussing with the ship's semi-intelligent computer, James, the best way to configure the sail to handle the drop in light pressure when the sunlight emitted by the star Barnard was temporarily cut off during the upcoming eclipse. The conversation was nearly inaudible, since Tony's softest words were picked up by an extended "hand" of the tarantula-sized six-armed computer motile "imp" that stood on his shoulder, multicolored laser lights blinking brightly from the tips and joints of its multitude of "fingers". The fine metal fingers on another "hand" of the imp placed near Tony's ear vibrated into invisibility and from the vibrating tips emanated the voice persona of James as it conversed with Tony in the constrained and correct tones of a professional servant.

  Linda Regan was at the science console, her personal imp formed into a band over the top of her head. With its glittering laser lights, it looked like a multigemmed tiara. From the imp, one arm reached out to pick up her voice, one arm touched behind her ear to monitor her health, while two arms formed a set of stereo headphones over her ears. She muttered a command and a clanking sound came from the circular science instrument rack in the center of the control deck as a large telescope rose up out of its storage position and moved inward to look down through the two-meter-diameter science dome built into the floor of the deck.

  George, looking for any excuse to avoid having to write, pulled the sticky-nook patches on the seat of his uniform loose from the loop pile of his console chair. Propelled by a careful kick, he floated over to a position next to the telescope, where he could look out the science dome at the upcoming eclipse. Looming large and close below hi
m was the fingernail moon of Earthlike Zuni, home of the alien Jollys, and now, perforce, ten of his fellow crew members. Beyond Zuni was its primary, the gaseous giant Gargantua, four times more massive than Jupiter. Slowly setting behind the thinly illuminated limb of Gargantua was the dwarf star Barnard, shining with a color like a charcoal fire. Off to one side of Gargantua, George could see the three other large moons of Gargantua: Ganymedelike Zulu—the ice-covered-ocean home of the alien icerugs and coelasharks; Titanlike Zouave—a smog-covered iceball; and Marslike Zapotec—dry and dead. Beyond Zapotec was the infinity-symbol-shaped double-planet Rocheworld—home of the alien flouwen and the gummies. The two lobes of Rocheworld didn't quite touch, but they were so close to each other that they shared a common atmosphere, and each lobe was distorted by the other's gravity into a distinct egg shape.

  As George watched, Barnard set behind Gargantua, and with the glare gone, the stars came out. The black circle that was Gargantua took a twenty-degree chunk out of the sky, but George instantly recognized the constellation of Orion below it. The constellation was different when seen from Barnard, however; in addition to the three stars in Orion's belt as seen from Earth, there was now a fourth star, a yellow one at the right end. It was Sol, the home to which he would never return, six lightyears away in distance and an eternity away in time—for Prometheus was on a one-way exploration journey designed to last the entire lifetime of the crew.

  The imp on George's shoulder noticed a rare tear of homesickness welling up in the corner of George's eye, and detached a subportion from itself that was identical in form, but thirty-six times smaller. George, used to the constant ministrations of the imp, didn't even notice as the miniature imp crawled across the side of this face to pick up the tear and carry it away to a ventilation duct, its hind "feet" whirring like miniature propellers as it flew through the air. With a sigh, George pushed himself back from the instrument rack, floated to his place at the command console, and picked up the chordic keyboard. He paused, fingers flexing, as he thought back over their journey.

  Prometheus had started out on its six-lightyear voyage to the stars with a crew of twenty—ten men and ten women—most in their late twenties and early thirties, although George, Jinjur, and a few others were older. It took forty years for the laser-pushed lightsail to reach Barnard, and once there, the crew had decades of exploration work to carry out. The mission would literally take a lifetime, so no provision had been made to bring them back. During the trip out, the crew took the life-extending drug No-Die, which cut their aging rate by a factor of four, so that they aged only ten years during the forty-year journey.

  During the long cruise phase, the mission had its first casualty. Nearly every member of the drugged crew came down with Hodgkin's Disease, an infectious form of cancer. The ship's doctor, William Wang, saved them with chemotherapy, but in order to properly care for the rest of the crew, Dr. Wang delayed his own treatment and died.

  George himself came close to death during their first adventure on the double-planet Rocheworld. Here they had met the brightly colored flouwen, multiton shapeless collections of cells who surfed in the oceans of Rocheworld. Three of the flouwen had budded off human-sized portions of themselves so they could join the human explorers. During the second exploration visit to Rocheworld, the two species had explored the dry lobe of Rocheworld together. There, they found the gummies, distant genetic relatives of the flouwen, shaped like three-meter-diameter starfish. The three flouwen buds had also gone into space with the humans. Together they landed on Zulu, the innermost moon of Gargantua. like Jupiter's moon Ganymede, Zulu was completely covered by an ocean capped with a thick layer of ice. Unlike Ganymede, however, Zulu had large hot-water geysers. Around those geysers there was life. On the surface lived the alien icerugs, with acre-sized bodies supporting a mobile and highly intelligent "node". Under the ocean the flouwen discovered the alien coelasharks, savage semi-intelligent fishlike animals.

  On their most recent trip, using the last of their four rocket landers, the ten humans and three flouwen buds had attempted a landing on Zuni, the Earthlike second moon of Gargantua. Like the South Pacific, Zuni was mostly ocean, dotted with thousands of verdant volcanic islands. A rocket engine exploded during the final phases of the landing and they crashed. All were able to escape, but the rocket lander and the exploration airplane that it carried sank to the bottom of a deep lagoon.

  Fortunately, the air on Zuni was breathable, the water drinkable, the native food edible, and the climate tropical. Both humans and flouwen soon found conditions quite pleasant. So much so, in fact, that the humans soon began to refer to their new home as "Eden". With no more landers available on Prometheus, however, they were stranded. Slowly the castaways adjusted to living in primitive conditions. Scientists all, these ten grounded astronauts turned their varied talents to understanding their new home.

  It was soon apparent that theirs was not the only intelligence on the plant-covered island. They discovered an alien lifeform that had a six-legged treelike body, six free-flying birdlike "eyes", and six free-roving rodent-like "hands". Nicknamed the Jolly Blue-Green Giants, the tribe of four-meter-tall mobile trees welcomed the humans, and the two species shared the island while the flouwen explored the seas.

  But, no matter how well life was suiting the stranded astronauts, George still didn't understand their decision to bear children. He guessed that it had probably started with Carmen Cortez. As a last-minute replacement for one of the original members of the crew, she had not undergone surgical sterilization as the rest of them had. The little señorita had long expressed her sadness at not being able to have children in the limited space of Prometheus. In George's mind, she had always been a bit of a problem ... first by her refusal to accept sterilization, and then that odd incident when John Kennedy's exploration suit failed while surveying Rocheworld with Carmen present.

  George could only guess at the tensions that arose as those in this idyllic "Eden" not only found time on their hands but began to realize they would probably be spending the rest of their lives there ... without leaving descendants. There were six women and four men. The sterilizations had been carefully done so that they could be easily reversed, in case a crew member had to be taken off the mission at the last moment. It took some effort for the crew to devise a way to visit the still functioning computer-operated sick bay in the airplane sunk in the bottom of the lagoon, but they did, and now all six women were pregnant!

  That part was clear enough. When the idea was first broached to the airplane's computer, Josephine, that the sterilizations be reversed to allow them to have children, Josephine misunderstood. During the operations, Josephine had used its motile not only to reverse the women's tubal ligation, but had impregnated each one of them as well, with sperm left over from the sperm count checks made after the earlier vasectomy reversals on the men. The women, having expected to proceed slowly through courtship, commitment, perhaps marriage, and finally—after it had been determined safe to do so—procreation, found instead they had already been fertilized ... by computer!

  George shook his head and turned back to the report, listing the tools and devices those on the surface had requested in addition to the essential vitamin and mineral pills. All knew that space on the lander was at a premium and few personal items had been asked for. John Kennedy, trained as a nurse, was acting as doctor for the shipwrecked crew, and he desperately wanted a biochemical analyzer, but Caroline Tanaka was having difficulty designing one small enough. It would probably have to wait until next time they had contact, some six years in the future.

  George turned his head slightly toward the imp on his shoulder. "Caroline?" he called. Instantly, James switched his message through the intercom links to the imp sitting on Caroline's shoulder. She was up on the workbench deck at the top of the cylindrical stack of decks that made up Prometheus. "Any breakthrough on that analyzer?"

  "Sorry, George. What we need is a Star Trek tricorder, but the smallest version Ja
mes and I can manufacture is one the size of a briefcase, and it masses fifteen kilos—way too much. I know it's important that John know more about the vitamin content of the foods they are eating, but so far, I can't help him much."

  Caroline pushed her long dark hair away from her face and went back to the design. There had to be a way to reduce it! Driven by the desire to solve this nearly impossible engineering problem, her subconscious had come up with an idea during her sleep period, and she had risen early in order to try it out. She thought of the pictures of her stranded friends, passed up through the video link from the penetrator they had dropped near their camp. They all looked healthy and happy, but while the women looked round with pregnancy, the men looked too thin, their muscles strong but too clearly defined. What if there was something wrong with their diet and her analyzer could save them? If only she could make it small enough!

  EDEN

  "OUR HOUSE, is a very very very fine house ..."

  Cinnamon Byrd was sitting in the shade, close enough to the fire at Council Rock to keep an eye on it, but away from the heat. The warm smell of wood smoke mingled with the heavy scent of Eden's spicy ocean. But, after all these months on the planet, Cinnamon hardly noticed it. In her lap, what was left of it, was what looked like a large shallow basket. Her nimble brown fingers were weaving long strips of dried seaweed tightly around the stiff ribs. She shifted position as she inspected her work, tugging the soft folds of her sarong around her, but there was no way anyone as pregnant as she could be truly comfortable. She smiled as Arielle Trudeau swayed up the beach and sank down into the shade next to her, dropping her load of firewood.

  "Arielle," she scolded cheerfully, "I don't know how you do it! You are as far along as the rest of us and yet you manage to stay as graceful as ever!"

  "Dancers muscles," answered the Canadian beauty casually. "We gets lovely legs and ugly feet." With her back straight, she stretched her long legs out in front of her round belly in a pose Cinnamon hadn't been able to manage for months, and wiggled her long but admittedly knobby toes in the sun-warmed sand. "What you making?" she asked.