Ark

by Stephen Baxter

  ′Finally,′ Holle said, ′I chose one shipborn, of the middle generations. Somebody who can empathise with what the youngsters are going to have to go through to adjust to life outside the ship, yet is old enough to offer perspective, some kind of guidance. Somebody who has some piloting training to back up Wilson. She has family bonds to one other on the shuttle crew, though not genetic. Maybe that will help stabilise things in the early days. And she′s somebody you respect, I know that.

  ′I′m sending Helen Gray.′

  Everybody turned to stare at Helen. For a long heartbeat she couldn′t understand what Holle had said, the implications.

  Then she hurled herself across the hull, looking for her children.

  96

  AUGUST 2081

  Helen and Jeb spent one last evening with the children, a normal routine at the end of a final day of chores and schooling. There was supper and clean-up, and a complicated zero-gravity basketball game for Mario with his father, and story-reading from his mother′s handheld for little Hundred.

  Helen suspected that seven-year-old Mario knew what was going to happen, but if he did he was being brave for the sake of his little brother. Even Hundred wasn′t quite himself that evening, but he played gamely, and gurgled when he was tickled as he was dressed for bed. Then they all piled into the parents′ big sleeping bag, suspended across the interior of their cabin where it hung on the fireman′s pole, and Jeb and Helen held the children until they slept.

  When they gently disentangled themselves, Mario stirred. He opened his big eyes and looked at his father, who was pulling on his T-shirt and shorts. He whispered, ′Am I in charge now, Dad?′

  ′You′re in charge, big guy.′

  Mario just smiled. ′I′ll look after Hundred.′

  Helen couldn′t bear any more. She pushed out of the cabin into the dim light of the hull′s night watch.

  Her mother was waiting outside. Grace looked gaunt, old. But she hugged her daughter. ′I′ll go climb in with them,′ she whispered. ′So there′ll be somebody there when they wake.′

  ′Thanks,′ Jeb said gruffly.

  ′It′s going to be strange for you, Mum,′ Helen said.

  Grace shrugged, ′I was a hostage. Then I was a princess. Then I was an eye-dee, a walker. Then I was a sailor. Then an astronaut, and a doctor. Now I′ll be a grandmother, full time. I′ll adapt.′ She released her daughter. ′We′ve said all there is to say. Go now, it′s time.′ She pulled herself inside the cabin.

  Helen wasn′t crying; she seemed to have done all the crying she was ever going to do in the month since Holle had announced the split of the crew. But she couldn′t speak at all. Passively, she let Jeb take her arm and guide her up through the silent hull.

  At the open hatch to shuttle B, the forty crew were being suited up. The older children, wide-eyed and subdued, helped sleepy youngsters into their suits. The lightweight pressure coveralls they were to wear during descent were just flimsy shells of polythene, enough to protect them if the cabin lost pressure. They had been stored in a locker for four decades, and, unusually aboard this battered old hulk, smelled new. They even had AxysCorp logos on their chests, cradled Earths. With spares there were plenty to go around, but they had been cut down to fit the smaller children, and turned into simple sacks to contain the very small ones. The shuttle launch had been timed for the night watch, when the children, drowsy with sleep, might be more easily handled. Perhaps they could be loaded aboard the shuttle and thrown down to the new world before they woke properly and realised they had lost their parents for ever.

  Helen, her mind blank, found her own suit, shook it out and pulled it on.

  Venus and Holle approached. Holle looked tremendously sad, Venus frankly envious.

  Holle said, ′Wilson′s already aboard, checking over the systems. I - here.′ She handed Helen a small stainless-steel sphere. It was a globe of Earth III, a product of the Ark′s machine shop. ′We did the same at Earth II, I don′t know if you remember that. We put them in the kids′ packs; something for them to find. I wanted to give you yours personally. ′ Impulsively she hugged Helen. ′I′m sorry I put you through this.′

  Helen shoved her away. ′You can never be sorry enough,′ she said fiercely.

  Holle just soaked this up, as she had soaked up all she had done for the sake of the crew, the mission, since the day she took over from Wilson. Maybe, in the end, that was Holle′s role, Helen thought, not leadership at all, just a receptacle for all the guilt at what had had to be done so the rest could survive. Nevertheless Helen felt a stab of renewed hatred.

  Venus came forward and fussed over the seals on Helen′s suit. ′Don′t forget, it will be damned cold down there. The next generation won′t notice, but you will. Wrap up before you crack that hatch′. She moved back, her eyes brimming. ′Christ, I′ll miss you. You were the best student I ever had. Pass your learning on to the kids. You′re not to slip back to the fucking Neolithic, after coming all this way.′

  ′I will. What about you, Venus? What′s next?′

  She glanced at Holle. ′Well, we have a plan, of sorts. As soon as we pick up the beacon that says you′re safely down, we′ll send messages back by microwave laser to Earth, Earth II. Then, in a hundred years or so, anybody who′s listening will get the good news.

  ′Then we have this plan to go exploring the system of this M-sun.′ She snapped her fingers, click, click. ′Little bitty warp jumps, from planet to planet. Zane would have loved working all that out. We′ll send you back the results, surface maps, internal structures, whatever we find out. Keep that radio receiver functioning. It will be a legacy for the next generation, when they′re ready to go exploring, yeah?′

  ′And then?′

  Venus spread her arms. ′Hell, the sky is ours. We′ll just explore some more. Maybe we′ll find Earth IV and Earth V and Earth VI. We′ll laser back, we′ll tell you what we find. Or maybe we′ll come back and beat the light and tell you ourselves. Go,′ she said, her voice suddenly gruff. ′Go now before they close the damn hatch and leave you behind.′

  Most of the kids were already aboard. Jeb glided through the hatch. There was no reason to stay. Helen swivelled in the air and dropped down herself, feet first. The pressure garment felt odd, too clean, and it rustled when she moved.

  Once inside the shuttle, she looked back. Holle′s face, full of remorse and suffering, was the last she saw of the Ark. Then Venus closed the hatch.

  97

  The layout of the little craft was simple. The cramped, tubular cabin was packed with rows of seats, improvised from Ark gear and jammed in among the original design′s twenty-five couches. Two seats sat proud of the rest, up in the nose before a rudimentary instrument console and scuffed panoramic windows. Wilson was already in the left-hand seat, running over systems checks, and Helen made her way to the right-hand seat. He handed her a Snoopy comms hat, and she pulled it on.

  The shuttle was an automated glider, essentially, with the characteristics of Earth III′s atmosphere and gravity profiles programmed into its onboard computer. It was smart enough to avoid such obvious obstacles as oceans and rock fields and snow banks, and indeed was capable of flying itself all the way down to the ground. But in the design offices back in vanished Denver it had been recognised that you′d likely need human control over the first unpowered landing on an entirely alien world. A few hundred metres up was the point where Wilson would come into his own; that was the reason this despised sixty-two-year-old was aboard the shuttle, while Helen′s own children were left back aboard the Ark. Helen was the nearest thing available to a co-pilot. But she had never even flown as a passenger in an atmosphere before, and she prayed the rudimentary skills she had picked up in her training, and from working with Wilson in HeadSpace sims in the last month, would not be called upon.

  As she buckled in she glanced back over her shoulder. The kids were packed in, their orange pressure garments bright. The few older kids, the fourteen-and fifteen-year-o
lds, were dotted around among the rest. The ten-year-olds looked scared, but the infants were mostly sleeping, in the shuttle′s warm humming atmosphere. Helen saw little Sapphire Murphy Baker, the youngest aboard at four years old, holding the hand of an eight-year-old. Jeb sat at the back, in theory watching over the kids and ready to intervene in case of any crisis. Seeing Helen looking, he waved. She tried to smile, but the desolation in his face was clear.

  This was how they were going to colonise a new world, with a pack of children and three adults, and a hold containing a nuclear generator and seed stock and tools and a couple of blow-up hab modules, and broken hearts.

  ′We must be insane,′ Helen murmured.

  ′Those who sent us from Earth were insane.′ Wilson glanced over at her. ′You ready?′

  ′As I′ll ever be.′

  He flipped a switch, a heavy manual toggle. ′Well, that′s it. I′ve initiated the automated programme. Now this baby will fly itself all the way down, all but. Here comes the first mission event. Three, two, one—′

  Latches rattled, and attitude thrusters banged around the shuttle′s exterior. Helen felt a pull in her stomach. Some of the sleeping children stirred and moaned.

  ′We cut away from the Ark. That′s it, we′re flying solo. Better get used to that acceleration, we′ll be facing a lot of that this morning.′

  ′Solo now and for the rest of our lives … wow.′ She felt a slight dizziness, her inner ears telling her they were spinning on their long axis.

  ′That′s the inspection spin. Just giving Halivah a chance to check that the heat shield tiles haven′t fallen off in the last forty years.′

  Venus Jenning′s voice crackled from a speaker. ′Shuttle B, Halivah. Looking good for descent, Wilson.′

  ′Copy that. Thank you, Venus.′

  The spinning stopped. Helen looked out of the window. They were somewhere over the night side of the planet. They were flying backwards, with their heads to the stars and the new world unfolding beneath them, utterly black save for a purple flaring of storms and a sullen red glow that looked like a huge volcano caldera. The idea was that they would enter the atmosphere over the night hemisphere, and their entry trajectory would bring them swooping around the world′s curve to land on the side of permanent day.

  Wilson glanced over his shoulder. ′Everybody OK? Next it′s the retro fire. It will feel like a kick in the back. Nothing to worry about. Three, two, one—′

  The cabin was filled with noise, a guttural crackling roar like an immense fire. It was indeed a kick in the back, Helen felt it in her lower spine and neck and legs as she was pressed into the padded couch, and the shuttle seemed to swivel until it was as if it was standing on its tail, and she lying on her back. The retro system was a rocket pack bolted to the rear end of the shuttle, designed to shed the velocity that kept the ship in orbit alongside the Ark, and let it fall into the air of Earth III. Now, after lying dormant for forty years, it had fired up for its one and only burn.

  Wilson called, ′Three, two, one—′

  The retro died as sharply as it had opened up, and Helen was thrown forward. More of the children were awake now; with the rocket′s roar gone she could hear them crying in the sudden silence.

  Another clatter, and a snap as if something had slapped against the hull. Wilson called, ′Retro pack jettisoned. One of the straps caught us. Checking the burn. I got nine zeroes on three axes, perfect.′ He was grinning, Helen saw, enjoying the ride for its own sake. ′We′re no longer in orbit, baby, we are committed to Earth III.′

  The shuttle was now unpowered save for small attitude rockets, and these fired in bursts, a series of pops and bangs. The shuttle swivelled around a vertical axis until it had its nose pointed in the direction of its descent. As it swept through this manoeuvre Helen glimpsed the Ark, just briefly, a battered pock-marked hull with the lashed-together warp assembly attached to its nose. It looked all but worn out. She twisted her neck to follow it as it crossed her window, but it was soon gone, swept out of sight by the shuttle′s rotation.

  Now the shuttle tipped up so it was flying in belly first. Its design was based on the old NASA space shuttle; the fat heat shield on its belly would hit the atmosphere first.

  ′Enjoy the zero G,′ Wilson murmured. ′Not much of that left now.′

  ′Or the stars,′ Helen said. ′Astronomy will be tough down there.′

  ′We′ll find a way … Bingo.′ A new panel lit up on the console before him, bright red, labelled ′0.05 G′. ′Here comes the deceleration. Damn, we′re high up compared to an Earth entry. This air is thick.′

  She felt the first tugging of deceleration in her gut, a kind of shuddering as the first wisps of atmosphere grabbed at the hull, and then a more steady drag that pulled her down into her seat. There was a faint glow beyond the window now, like the first flickering of Halivah′s arc lamps in the ship′s morning. It was the air of Earth III, the first direct human contact with the planet, air blasted to plasma, its very atoms smashed apart by their passage. The glow quickly built up into a kind of tunnel of colours, lavenders, blue-greens, violet, rising up above the shuttle. Sparks flew up around the ship, burning, flickering as they died.

  ′Insulation blanket.′ Wilson had to shout; the shuttle was starting to shudder, the fittings rattling. ′Burning up and taking away our heat with it. It′s supposed to happen. I think.′ He grinned coldly. ′Pretty lights.′

  Helen didn′t try to reply. The glow outside built up further and the weight piled on her in jerks, in sudden loads, surely already exceeding a full Earth gravity. She could hear the children crying. It will get better, she told herself, it will be easier than this. But the weight would never lift off her shoulders, not ever again. She was committed to the descent, bound to the planet with no way to return, ever. She would never see the hull, never hold her children, maybe never even see the stars again. Her eyes blurred, the tears coming for the first time that morning. But still the weight built up, and the light outside intensified, the colours merging into a white sheet that filled the cabin with a brilliant silver-grey glow. The experience was utterly unreal. She could see nothing but that celestial glow, and had no sense of falling, nothing but this monstrous, shuddering weight.

  Wilson whooped. ′This is what I call flying! We must be lighting up this fucking planet like a comet.′

  Then, quite abruptly, it eased. The weight load on her shoulders, though still heavy, was steady now. The plasma glow faded, the last wisps of it dissipating like glowing smoke, to reveal a pale pink sky littered with brownish clouds.

  The clouds were above her, Helen realised.

  The shuttle shuddered. Wilson worked a joystick before him, experimentally. ′Aerosurfaces are biting. This thing actually flies. Jesus, I′m beginning to think we might live through this.′ He glanced at Helen. ′You understand we′re inside the atmosphere. We′re not falling, we′re gliding, flying. And that pull you feel isn′t deceleration—′

  ′Gravity.′

  He grinned. ′Authentic planetary gravity, pulling on your bones for the first time since you were in the womb.′

  It wasn′t as bad as the peak deceleration, but she was still so heavy she felt she could barely breathe.

  A speaker crackled. ′… Halivah. Shuttle B, Halivah. Can you hear me? Shuttle B, this is Halivah—′

  Wilson snapped a switch. ′We′re out of the plasma sheath. My God, Venus, what a ride!′

  ′We saw you. We still see you, in fact. I′ll let you fly your bird. Let us know when your skids are down on the ground. Halivah out.′

  ′Copy that. Let′s see what we got.′ Wilson pressed his joystick forward, and the shuttle′s nose dipped.

  The world tipped up, revealing itself to Helen for the first time. The land below was dark. They were still so high the horizon showed a curve. The sky was a deep, sombre shade of red, but it brightened as she looked ahead towards the horizon. And there she saw an arc of fire, a vast sun lifting above the curve of
the world, the M-sun that illuminated this super-Earth. Now, near the horizon, she saw a chain of mountains whose peaks caught the light, shining like a string of lanterns in the dark. She remembered what Venus had said, about the possibility of organisms like trees straining up out of the shadow of the twilight band to catch the fugitive light.

  The shuttle dipped sharply into the thickening air. This world′s dense, stormy atmosphere was turbulent.

  The events of the descent unfolded rapidly now. The world steadily flattened out to become a landscape. That sun hauled its bulk wearily above the horizon, huge and distorted into a flattened ellipse by some atmospheric effect. It was white, tinged faintly pink, scarcely red at all. The little ship crossed the mountains with their brightly lit summits, and they flew over the terminator, the unmoving boundary of night.

  As they fled over sunlit ground a panel on the console lit up with an animated map, based on observations from the orbiting Ark. Helen peered down. The ground was rocky, a continental shield, wrinkled with mountains and cracked by huge crevasses. Much of it was coated with old, dirty ice that gleamed pinkly in the sun′s low light. She had studied sims of Earth landscapes from the air, recordings made before the flood; this was something like flying low over the Canadian Shield. She made a mental note to report that impression back to Venus.

  ′Shit,′ Wilson said. He grabbed his controls, left hand for translational control and the right for attitude, and hauled, overriding the automated systems. The shuttle obediently banked right.

  Helen looked ahead. A vast volcano, almost like Olympus on Earth II but more compact and clearly active, sprawled ahead of them. She could see wisps of some dark gas escaping from the complicated multiple calderas at its summit.

  Wilson said, ′We don′t want to fly through a pillar of lumpy hot air, or into the volcano′s side, though I trust the shuttle not to do that.′

  The shuttle sped past the flank of the volcano. Looking down Helen saw patches of black, sheer darkness like blankets of plastic, clinging to old lava flows.