Alpha Centauri: The Return (T-Space Alpha Centauri Book 3)

by Alastair Mayer

  “Thank you,” Drake said. He reached over to an intercom panel just inside the airlock door and thumbed a button. “All right, people, listen up. Finish post-landing ops, and then shore-leave in rotation. For now, please stay close to the Endeavour. It seems the Anderson crew has been, ah, busy and there are a few little ones who might be frightened by strangers. Doctor McFadyen, please join me now to go up and visit with the rest of the Anderson crew. Vukovich, after systems are secured, you are welcome to come up and join us. Drake out.”

  He looked over at Sawyer. “Does that work for you?”

  She nodded. “That’s fine. So Vukovich is back too? Anyone else from the old crew?” She wondered if he had come.

  Drake guessed her meaning. “George stayed behind. Grainger finally gets his chance as the lead exobiologist.”

  Her disappointment must have shown on her face, although she should have known better than to expect him. She turned and headed back down the stairs.

  “It was complicated,” Drake said, following behind her. “I think as much as anything else he was terrified of the thought of landing here and finding you hadn’t made it. To tell you the truth, so was I.”

  They reached at the bottom of the stairs and waited for the medic to join them.

  Sawyer smiled. “I’m tougher than that. Oh, they tried—” she raised her crutch “—but with the help of Tyrell here and the others, I pulled through.”

  “She saved my son’s life, is what she did,” said Tyrell.

  Drake looked at him, something at a loss for words. “Your son? Well, congratulations. And it doesn’t surprise me at all that if Sawyer could have, she would. I look forward to hearing the story, when you’re both up to telling it.”

  “Not much to it,” Sawyer said. “Herd of girannos stampeded the camp, I got the boy under shelter before they knocked the house down on me.”

  “Girannos?” Drake asked.

  “Picture long-necked rhinos, but three times the size of elephants,” said Tyrell. “And she’s downplaying it.”

  “Yes, she usually does.”

  The doctor reached the bottom of the steps. “All set?” Drake asked.

  She waved her medical bag. “Yep.”

  “Somebody sick?” Sawyer asked.

  “I hope not,” the doctor said, “but you’ve been away from civilization, well, Earth civilization, for four years. No slight on Doctor Krysansky's abilities, but we want to make sure you’re all healthy.”

  Sawyer didn’t see any harm in it. Krysansky gave them all regular checkups, including the children. But the crew from Earth had had no way of knowing that until they got here.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  Camp Anderson, aboard the Endeavour

  Doctor McFadyen had returned to the Endeavour to run tests on the samples she’d taken. She had found the Anderson crew and their children to be remarkably healthy, considering the four years they’d been on the planet. Most of that time, they had eaten food synthesized by the Anderson's high-tech processors from the local vegetation, or, more recently, the native meats, fruits, and vegetables themselves. There were a few minor off-normal blood chemistry results, but nothing that showed a consistent pattern, nor anything dangerously out of range. Except for what seemed to be, in the adults, hormone levels that suggested higher than normal fertility. That no doubt explained the surprising number of children. Even if their contraceptive implants had worn off, it seemed that the nursing mothers had become pregnant again surprisingly soon.

  “We’ll want a biochemical team to look for something that’s either mimicking or stimulating fertility hormones. Doctor Klaar tells me that she first got pregnant before her and Tyrell’s contraceptives should have worn off, and before they were on a regular diet made from local sources. I don’t know, maybe it’s something in the air.”

  “The Anderson team suspected that, but they didn’t find anything.”

  “Perhaps their instruments weren’t sensitive enough. Or maybe it was something cumulative, building up in their systems. It will take more investigation. But pregnancy aside, it doesn’t seem to have been anything harmful. It will be interesting to see if it also causes early onset of puberty.”

  “I’m not sure ‘interesting’ is the word I’d have used, Doctor.”

  “We’ll monitor the kids carefully, of course. It’s a treatable condition if it reaches that level. But Skrellan and the other bio-pharmaceutical companies are going to love this.”

  “Oh? There’s plenty to keep them busy on Kakuloa.”

  “If they can isolate whatever it is, they’ve got a fertility drug. Big demand for that sort of thing, some places. Might replace various artificial methods.”

  “There is that,” Drake said. “Just out of curiosity, and not that any of this crew really needed it, but any chance it’s also an aphrodisiac?”

  McFadyen laughed. “I wouldn’t rule it out, but I doubt it. Keep in mind the crew hasn’t had a whole lot of things to entertain them after dark. They’ve been conserving their batteries, and the video library is on the ship. They’ve got their omnis, of course, but as I said, batteries.”

  Drake nodded. “Of course. Blackouts, the cause of mini baby booms since the invention of television.” Drake brought the conversation back to the original point of the discussion. “So, everyone gets a clean bill of health?”

  “Yes, aside from Sawyer’s leg, of course. That will have to be broken and reset so it can mend properly, if she ever wants to walk without a crutch. That’s a pretty routine procedure in any Earth-side hospital. A few of the others have some evidence of previous trauma. Scars and the like, including some minor healed bone cracks. They’ve had something of a rough go of it. But nothing serious, and the kids are all fine. Krysansky did a great job, especially considering the circumstances. Poul Tyrell may be getting a little nearsighted. If he doesn’t grow out of it, it’s easily taken care of.”

  “Good. One other question, and I don’t need an answer right now. Would you be willing to stay on for a while?”

  “What? Why?”

  “I have a hunch that not everyone will want to leave. We’re not quite equipped to take everyone at once anyway, we weren’t expecting the children. It would only be for a few weeks. That was the plan. Retrieve the Anderson crew and return them to Earth while the Victoria and Vostok check out Kakuloa. We’ll either be back here before they’re done, or I’ll arrange for them to come back here to pick up stragglers.

  “As I said, I don’t need an answer right now.”

  “Okay. I’ll consider it. The place seems pleasant enough, although it’s no Tahiti.”

  Drake laughed at that. “Good, or I might have everyone wanting to stay. But thank you. And you can go ahead and let the locals know they’re fine. Especially Krysansky and Sawyer, they’ll want to know.”

  “Very good.”

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  “Drake, how do you and your crew feel about a home-cooked meal?” Sawyer asked him, later that afternoon.

  “We’ve been eating ship rations for over a week. Not bad, but I’m sure some of them would welcome a change. Why?”

  “We have a roast beast, and fresh vegetables. We’d like to invite you all for dinner. It will give us all a chance to catch up, and the kids a chance to acclimate to strangers.”

  “Then I’m looking forward to it. I’m not sure how many of the crew will be interested in eating food that doesn’t come in a package or from a culture vat, but I’ll put it to them.”

  Sawyer remembered Simms’s reaction, back on the Heinlein, to the idea of eating native animals. Apparently, survival training was no longer part of the service curriculum. That would have to change. “If anyone is squeamish, or just cautious, they can bring food from your ship. We won’t be offended.”

  “All right. I’ll have to have someone stay with the ship. Standard
protocol. But I can rotate them. Uh, will there be alcohol?”

  “Ha. Maclaren did build a still for fermented fruit juice, but I’m not sure I’d call the result drinkable,” Sawyer said. “All I can say is that it won’t kill you instantly. No beer or wine, we don’t have suitable grains yet, or anything like grapes. The fermented juice isn’t particularly drinkable either until it’s distilled.”

  “That’s fine. I’d just as soon not have that temptation around. Of course, that would be against regulations too, so if a bottle of something found its way into my kit, I have no idea how that happened.”

  “Oh?”

  “I was hoping there’d be something to celebrate.”

  “Good man.”

  Chapter 32: Reunion Dinner

  Camp Anderson

  The dinner party was a hit, if crowded. They’d dragged an extra table and chairs from the Finleys’ cabin to the central square near the fire pit, and everything was very informal.

  The bottle that had mysteriously found its way into Drake’s personal gear was champagne, with just enough to go around for everyone to toast the success of the “Anderson Colonization Effort” as one wag had put it, the reunion of old friends, the health of everyone, the marriages, and the births of the children. Drake dug into the roast beast with gusto. “Interesting taste,” he said, “almost like bear.”

  “You’ve eaten bear?” young Poul Tyrell asked, eyes wide.

  “Not like your Teddy,” Drake said to him, smiling, before turning to the others. “It was a long time ago, in Alaska. But it had a texture something like pork, but a deeper red, and a flavor something like venison, as I recall. This reminds me of it. What is it?”

  “Something we call a Tyrell’s uglibeast. We thought it might be distantly related to wild boar, not bear.”

  One of his crew, Stanley, who had been eating the vegetables but eying the meat as though worried it might suddenly spring to life and attack, ventured to try it. “I’ll, uh, I’ll try a small bit.” He held out his plate for Maclaren to serve him.

  “So,” continued Drake. “I’m curious. Have you tried your, what did you call them, giraffe-rhinos?”

  “Girannos. And no. You haven’t seen them yet or you wouldn’t have asked. The thing you do with girannos is stay out of their way.” Sawyer said, then patted her left leg. “Or try to.”

  “Ah,” said Drake, somewhat embarrassed.

  “But I have a question for you,” she continued.

  “Yes?”

  “The ship. That’s a totally different configuration from the Heinlein or Anderson. What I saw of the interior was laid out strangely too. I mean, it was obviously space rated, with handrails and loop-tape everywhere, but it looked like you expected to spend most of the time on the ground. What gives?”

  Drake looked over at Vukovich. “Why don’t you tell them.”

  “Okay.” Vukovich looked at Sawyer, then around at the other Anderson team members, lastly at Maclaren, the Anderson’s engineer, who leaned forward in her seat eagerly. “Uh, we have artificial gravity now,” he said.

  The conversation around the table went suddenly quiet.

  Vukovich looked around, as if unsure of what he’d just done.

  “Did you just say, ‘artificial gravity’?” Maclaren, asked.

  “Uh, yes.”

  “How, when?”

  “It’s a side effect of the warp drive, if you tweak it right.”

  “Oh. So not gravity control, or anti-gravity. That’s why you still landed on jets, or whatever it was.”

  “That’s right. We may have that someday, but I think it’s a long way off. The scientists are saying ‘within twenty years’, but you know what that means.”

  “They said that about fusion for the better part of a century,” Finley observed.

  “Right. Anyway, by tweaking the warp generators, they can create an artificial gravity field while in warp. Dr. Brenke discovered it. Pity about that.”

  “Pity? Brenke invented the warp drive, didn’t he? What do you mean pity?”

  “As much as any one person did, yes it was Brenke. He met with a rather unfortunate accident while testing his warp and gravity theories. It was while we were away, in fact.”

  At the table, several of the original team looked at each other. “I mean when the original expedition was away. Before the Heinlein got back, that is.”

  “So,” Sawyer said, “not meaning to be morbid, but what happened to Dr. Brenke?”

  “He, uh, encountered some problems with random and severe fluctuations of the artificial gravity on an early test flight. He died of his injuries.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry I asked.”

  “Yeah,” Drake said. “I heard the funeral was closed-casket.”

  Sawyer winced.

  “Fortunately,” Drake continued, “he left notes and software, and the prototype ship wasn’t damaged beyond a few dents to the interior. Greg here took over the project and perfected it.”

  Vukovich shook his head. “I didn’t do much. Brenke left good notes and a couple of good people like Bravard who had worked with him.”

  “He sells himself short,” Drake said. “But the point is, while we’re in warp we have ‘apparent gravity’, and it’s perpendicular to the direction of travel. We’re only in zero-gee when in orbit.”

  Sawyer shook her head. “Amazing. Okay, that’s worth it. I officially forgive you for not getting back here sooner.”

  “Believe me, I tried to get back sooner.”

  “He did,” Vukovich put in. “He made a pain in the ass of himself until they finally put him in charge of the shipbuilding project. I’ve never seen so much accomplished in such a short time. It was like a Manhattan Project.”

  “All right, Greg, don’t oversell it. And technically Admiral Howard was in charge, not me.”

  “He’s got stories, though. Ask him how he and Darwin got the project funded.”

  “What?” Sawyer looked at Drake. “George helped get if funded? How?”

  “All in good time,” he said, and turned to scowl at Vukovich. “Some of that isn’t supposed to be general knowledge.”

  “Sorry.”

  “But the short version, and you have Maclaren and Tyrell to thank, is that squidberries turn out to have interesting properties. One of the other two ships,” he pointed overhead, “the Victoria, is on its way to Kakuloa. In fact, they’re probably orbiting it by now. The pharmaceutical companies are eager, even anxious, for more samples.”

  “And they paid for the ships? Wow.”

  “They contributed. I’ll fill you in more tomorrow.”

  Sawyer said nothing for a moment, absorbing this. Another thought occurred to her.

  “When you left, you told me the Xīng Huā may not have really exploded. Any further news on that?”

  “You could say that. The Chinese never admitted to anything, but it turns out they had two warp ships depart about a week before we got back. Presumably they reverse-engineered the Xīng Huā’s warp modules. The ships went to Epsilon Eridani.”

  “And? What did they find?”

  “A terraformed world.”

  “No shit? I guess the Terraformers were busy. What’s it like, do you know?”

  “Apparently, very scary. The system is full of dust and asteroids, but we knew that. The terraformed planet is barely so. Smaller and drier than Earth, but bigger than a wet Mars. Cooler than Earth, like in an ice age, right down to something resembling wooly mammoths and dire wolves, or wolf-bears, from the reports. One of their crew was badly mauled—and the Chinese had firearms.”

  “Oh really? Interesting.” Not wanting to be misunderstood, she hastily added “About the weapons, I mean. That’s unfortunate about their crewman.”

  “Even more interesting, only one ship returned.”

  “So? We left ships he
re too. Look at us.”

  “Different situation. I’ll fill you in on that tomorrow too. But there’s a rumor that they were attacked.”

  “On the planet? Natives?”

  “No. In space. Although the rumor might be another cover up for something.”

  Sawyer flashed back to the brief encounter she’d had in the first few months after the Anderson landed here. Someone or something with advanced technology, but only seen for a moment and then never again. Although there were the mysterious dropouts on some of the surveillance cameras.

  “I have something to talk to you about tomorrow, too.”

  “Oh?” Drake paused, a look of concern clouding his face. “Tomorrow. So, nothing so urgent I need to be concerned for my ship.”

  “No. And nothing recent. Years ago.”

  “All right.” Drake glanced at his omni. “And speaking of tomorrow, I should be getting back. Our ship’s clock is a few hours out of sync with the time here.”

  “The twenty-six-hour day doesn’t help, I’m sure.”

  “That too. I’d forgotten. No wonder it didn’t get dark as early as I thought it should.” He rose to stand.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the Anderson Team, thank you for your hospitality. I hope to return the favor. Endeavour crew, second shift can remain for another two hours, or until you get kicked out. Captain Sawyer, feel free to kick them out. First shift, let’s head back to the Endeavour. It’s been a long day for everyone. Andersons, if any of you need anything, feel free to call me or the duty watch, any time. We’re here for you.

  “Thank you again, and good night.”

  As he turned to leave, two more Endeavour crewmembers rose to follow. Sawyer rose also.