Analog SFF, March 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Stephen Baxter offers the latest of his popular “Tales of Old Earth,” and, on the “Science Behind the Story” section of our website (www.analogsf.com), a fascinating look at the background of this exceptionally exotic world. Jack McDevitt has an unusual collaboration with astrophysicist Michael Shara (whose name you may recognize from Scientific American or elsewhere), and we'll also have a highly diverse selection of stories by such writers as John G. Hemry, Richard A. Lovett, and Stephen L. Burns.

  Alexis Glynn Latner's fact article, “The Shape of Wings to Come,” springs from an unusual perspective: as a sailplane pilot herself, she's done a lot of thinking about the past, present, and future of gliders. Because of their deceptive simplicity, you may think of them as “low technology"; but if so, you'll probably be surprised at how much thought has gone into their design and construction, what they have already accomplished, and what they might achieve in the future—both on Earth and elsewhere.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Wildlife

  by Henry Melton

  Everything changes—including, necessarily, definitions.

  * * * *

  Greg Hammersmith frowned at the frozen image of a blue-winged teal tugging at the grass with its beak. The keystone is off. The deck-of-cards projector tracked his finger and corrected the frame.

  “Off.” The bird vanished, long enough for him to spray a fresh layer of canvas on the wall where the image had been. “Calibrate and burn. Ten percent impressionist. Two-inch frame, cinnamon.”

  After the projector did its thing, Greg picked the gadget up and stuffed it in his shirt pocket.

  That gives the room some life!

  But his smile faded. I've already used up one bottle of Canvas already.

  In his pocket was every picture he had taken in his thirty years as a nature photographer back on Earth. There were many good shots, one blank space on the wall, and a nagging need to fill it.

  One thing for sure, there would be no landscapes. Not with the scenery outside.

  Greg's one-man habitat was sitting two kilometers to the west of Byrgius Crater, site number three in his year-long photo shoot. It had taken eight years to get the funding and approval for his unique photo-essay on the lunar landscape. Twelve sites, one for each month, taking out time to relocate the habitat in the middle of each long lunar night.

  The perfectionist in him wished he could set up his cameras and have a complete synodic period of twenty-nine and a half days to get every possibility of light and shadow on the craters and rills he had chosen, but some trade-off had to be made to keep the International Photo-Artistry Guild happy and a one-year job with an even dozen sites was the limit of what they could fund. As it was, his first site, with no Earth in the sky, had been terminally boring once the Sun had set. At least on the earthward side, subtle changes in color reflected from the Earth's blue and white gave some variety to his shots.

  He looked the bird in the eye. Greg remembered that teal. The duck had waddled ashore looking for crumbs left over from the tourists, alert for a handout, but still wild enough to keep his distance.

  I miss wildlife. Luna is grand, but it's sterile.

  Eighty percent of his photo library was animal shots—his official biographer had coaxed that admission out of him. He had only gotten into photography to capture the critters.

  There are none here. He hadn't realized how much he missed animals until the tug relocated his habitat from Riccioli a couple of weeks ago, bringing fresh supplies, and two dozen fruit flies along with the produce.

  The infinitesimal insects died quickly, in spite of his precautions. In all his years, he hadn't really appreciated how short their lifespan was. Usually they reproduced so fast that they just appeared immortal.

  These had survived Lift-Luna's food sterilization somehow, but not totally undamaged. His close-up macro photos of his guests had shown evidence of deformed wings and if he had been an entomologist, probably other mutations. Fascinating photos—but they weren't the kind that would sell.

  * * * *

  Deedee dum, dedum. “Time for the photo of the day.”

  Greg nodded to the computer. “Okay. Give me a minute.” He brought up the album and scanned through the last twenty-four hours’ worth of images.

  At each new site it took a couple of days to get the cameras positioned. About half of those he did himself, trudging around the landscape in a vacuum suit, riding a golf cart. The others he put on tripods and sent them to position themselves. From then until the end of the month, he stayed indoors and rode herd on his remote eyes from the comfort of his desk.

  At this sun angle, only three of the cameras were producing anything approaching artistic landscapes. Gigapixel frames were captured from each of the cameras every ten seconds. Of course he saved it all for later re-evaluation, but for now he scanned the day's worth as a high-speed movie, looking for some transient reflection or coloration that would make for an interesting....

  “Ah, there it is.”

  He backed up the movie and located the best frame.

  Three peaks on the nearby ridge had roughly the same surface angle and the Sun outlined similar crests. “Three Kings” he typed in for the title. Cropping the image to center the peaks and tweaking the color balance for best effect, he let it sit on the side screen while he hunted for better candidates. After thirty minutes of searching and three other potential winners, “Three Kings” was still the best. So off to the L-4 relay station and then to Earth—in under ten seconds the day's tribute to IPAG was in place.

  Deedee dum, dedum. “Review the Brazilian shoot proposal.”

  He frowned at the images from his easternmost camera. “Reschedule,” he told the computer. It would nag him about it later.

  The next shoot in Antarctica was already contracted. Perhaps that had been a mistake—two barren environments back to back—but it was only for two months. Was the boat trip up to the headwaters of the Amazon an over-reaction?

  Still, the only way to survive in this business was to think ahead, find out what people want, and be the first to give it to them.

  It would be nice to be in a jungle shoot again, with wildlife appearing around every bend of the river.

  But he could think about that later. Right now, there was a defect in camera 8 that he had to resolve.

  In the lower left of the frame, where the gray plains were just beginning to show shading as the Sun crept across their rising elevation, there was a thin black line, straight as an arrow, where there had been nothing more than the random texture of microcratering.

  Did I put it there? He had positioned the cameras during the lunar night, taking great care that none of the other cameras and none of his golf cart tracks would be visible from any of the sites. But taking precautions never stopped him from making blunders before. Camera 8 was due to supply some great sunset shots in another week, and if he had ruined the frame, then he would have to take action quickly.

  Or it could be a defect in the camera or the lens.

  He looked at the site map photo he had taken.

  “Camera 8, reposition yourself three meters to the south, facing the same direction.”

  A “Motion Jitter” warning appeared on the screen as the tripod took a few steps to the south. When it cleared, he captured the first frame. Visually it looked identical.

  “Match and overlay. Zoom to pixels.”

  The frames were nearly identical, except at the edges where the errors caused by the re-pointing were visible.

  So, it's not a camera defect. That line exists out there on the landscape.

  “Position back one day on camera 8, match and overlay.”

  The black line flickered on the screen.

  So I didn't miss it. It appeared sometime today.

  “Scan forward in time at 20x.” He would locate when it appeared. Maybe as it faded into view, he could see more irreg
ularities. Straight lines weren't unknown in nature, but true ones were rare. Catch a horizon or the trunk of a tall pine in the right light and nature will show all her wrinkles. Greg's career had been built on nature's wrinkles.

  He expected irregular dots to appear and then connect into a line. That's not what he got.

  “Stop! Back that up and replay it.”

  As the line grew longer leading from the edge of the frame, he felt his remaining hair stand on edge. He wasn't alone. Someone was out there.

  * * * *

  “This is Greg Hammersmith. Stop right where you are! You're messing up an important photo. Answer me.”

  Short-range radio was line-of-sight only—it had to be with no atmosphere—but the idiot was in the line of sight. That was the problem!

  With no answer, and with the line growing across the scene hour by hour, Greg kept looking over at the airlock.

  Camera 8's frame is ruined already. If I don't take action soon, he may take out camera 10 as well.

  * * * *

  He kept one eye on the map as he drove the golf cart across the rough landscape. The computer had sketched areas on the map that were hidden from all of the other cameras. It was zigzag at best, and seemed designed to cross the worst boulder fields in the area.

  Greg was grinning, or maybe just clenching his teeth. It was good to get out of the house, but his schedule was wrecked for days. He rehearsed his greeting.

  Do you have any idea what you've done? Taking nature photographs isn't anything like it was when I was young. Back then I'd think nothing of dropping an image into Photoshop and erasing an offending line, but photo ethics has changed. IPAG and all its brothers would blacklist anyone who faked any details in a nature photo. Even color balance has to be spelled out in detail.

  These lunar landscapes are unique. Day by day more footprints are scarring up the dust—footprints that never fade.

  Your tracks are destroying the only true record humanity will ever have of the primeval lunar landscape!

  Greg caught himself weaving back and forth across his “safe zone.” He grinned. Not likely I'll be able to sustain the righteous indignation while leaving my own tracks across the dust.

  It was true he had to stop his unwanted guest. It was also true he was looking forward to meeting anyone with warm breath and a pulse.

  The hunt was exciting too. It's like the time Lisa spotted the grizzly from Mt. Washburn, and we raced down the old dirt road to be in place when the bear crossed near the highway. He had gotten excellent photos of it by being in exactly the right place and the right time, but that was long before he had gone professional.

  There had been so many good hunts, living on the road, or living in the field—on assignment, or to complete a book. And after her death, as painful as it was to live alone, the hunt for a reportedly-extinct finch across five states had been the only thing that kept him going.

  Wildlife keeps me alive.

  Every fresh encounter was a thrill, every cautious approach a refresher in humility, and every crisp image a triumph. Eye to eye with a non-human intelligence put a face on the universe for him.

  Luna was a stretch. Yes, his “Canadian Rockies” had made his reputation, and his “Great Mountains of the World” book series gave him the freedom to travel anywhere. But for him, the centerpiece of the mountain pictures had been the cover of the Rockies book, a morning-light image with a bull elk atop a sheer cliff, surveying his world. The theme was repeated throughout the photos—great animals living in great surroundings. Often the animal was almost imperceptibly small, and only he or a perceptive critic could see it, but the stamp of life put soul in the scenery for him.

  But there was no life in these lands. It was a mistake for an artist to forget his own passions. Mastery of the craft can only take you so far.

  Greg shook off the feeling that he was stuck in a doomed, high profile project. He could master the lighting and capture the sterile splinters of these peaks, but without life, there was no soul.

  Deedee dum, dedum. The chime sounded in his helmet. “Approaching your destination.”

  The cart crested the rise and there was the track. Camera in hand, he stopped and snapped several shots. It's not a wheeled vehicle.

  He stepped closer. There was a single continuous track in the lunar dust. It's not footsteps either.

  Greg had expected a man, in a vehicle, or possibly on foot. This was neither.

  The shutter click was inaudible and it bothered him. Even when cameras no longer had any moving parts that made noise, he always turned on the shutter sound. Without the feedback it threw him off.

  He zoomed in for a closer shot of the tread marks. Either a huge unicycle, or the grandfather of all pythons came through here. The ridges across the direction of the track looked familiar.

  Braced with the camera body against his helmet, he could hear the shutter faintly.

  And the memory clicked.

  Those are tripod tracks!

  * * * *

  Everyone called them tripods, although they came with five to eight legs depending on how much weight they had to carry. The mobile robots with long legs were perfect for the dusty lunar surface. They had no moving parts, at least in the old “gears and bearings” sense. Legs moved by electrostriction. Dust could cling, at least until the tripod reversed its static charge, but there were no hinges or grooves where grit could be trapped.

  Greg had used the robotic tripods on Earth several times, once he had the budget to afford them. On Luna, they were essential.

  He put the golf cart in high gear and went bouncing across the landscape following the long patterns in the dust.

  It can't be one of mine. All of my cameras are exactly where I left them.

  A flicker of motion in the distance made him put on the brakes. His zoom lens brought his quarry into focus.

  It was grayer than his tripods, shorter and wider. Instead of a camera, a fat instrument cluster rode on its “head.” The gadget was plowing away in that spinning-top gait the tripods used for easy terrain. The whole device spun around and around, laying the legs down in sequence, leaving a track like a giant snake.

  Greg snapped a long sequence. I'll have to use the golf cart. It's moving too fast for me to catch it on foot.

  As he drove over a rise, he scanned for escape routes a startled prey might take. If it ducks into that boulder field, it could lose me. He angled the cart towards the rocks. If it bolted, he wanted to force it towards open ground.

  The thumbwheel on the camera let him set the shutter speed higher. Shooting with one hand while driving demanded it.

  He came up even with the whirling tripod. It looks like a fat gray octopus. The device appeared to ignore him. It didn't bolt, but it didn't slow down either.

  A familiar company logo was painted on it's side, Mascon Mining.

  But up close, he could see that it was damaged. The stub of an antenna caught the Sun's reflection every rotation. There were other scrapes, but he couldn't see more while it was moving.

  Get ahead of it. He darted ahead a few meters and pulled the golf cart broadside across the tripod's path. His prey curved to one side. He edged the cart forward and blocked it again.

  The tripod dropped out of spin mode and began crab-walking to one side. Greg hopped out and stabbed at the halt button on the top.

  The tripod leveled itself and stood there, waiting.

  * * * *

  Deedee dum, dedum. “Incoming call from Orin Lewis.”

  Greg leaned back from his desk and smiled at his publisher. “Hello, Orin. How have you been doing?”

  There was the usual delay for the distance.

  “Greetings there, Greg. I just wanted to check in with you. Only a couple of days left before you leave Byrgius and I wanted to confirm your change of sites personally. We spent so much time choosing the original set, it surprised me to see you putting Tycho back on the list. You had been so adamant about staying far away from human settlement. Why t
he change?”

  Greg smiled. “You know how it is, Orin. Once you get in the field, all your carefully laid plans go out the window. I could tell something was wrong at Riccioli but here it came into focus. I'm here to shoot the Moon as it is, not to make some statement about human footprints.”

  Orin nodded as he listened, and then commented, “I could see that something had changed a week or so ago. I forget when, sometime after that ‘Three Kings’ shot, your stuff started getting more lively, more like your Canada work.”

  “Yes. I saw a piece of mining equipment, and I realized that life was coming to Luna, even if it is just men and men's surrogates for now. With life, the whole landscape came alive.”

  It had taken him hours to get the rogue tripod loaded onto the golf cart and packed back to his habitat. Repairing its antenna and visual sensors was a job beyond his technical capabilities, but he was a photographer—he knew his way around computers.

  Digging into its files he found that for over three years, the semi-autonomous device had struggled to follow its fallback programming: If out of contact, return to base.

  The problem had been that the rock fall that took out its radio also blinded it. With no radio or star fix to guide by, it had lapsed into a pattern of following the Sun, which it could sense from its charging cells. The prospector-robot slept at night and traveled by day, only able to detect obstacles in its path with a flea-power radar and its neutron-emission detector. Cut off from its original duties, it had gone wild—Lunar wildlife.

  Orin accepted Greg's vague explanation. “You're the artist. If the rest of your stuff is up to last week's standard, we should have a best seller when you get back.

  “Judith and I would like you to come out to the cabin with us, once you get out of low-g rehab. There's a great trout stream, just your style—I know you're a ‘catch-and-release’ kind of guy.”

  Greg grinned widely. Orin had a knack for knowing what he would do. “Catch and release” was just the kind of guy he was. When he had reactivated the old tripod, turning it loose to find its own way across the enormous lunar surface, it had been as natural as breathing.