The Seasoning

by Dennis Ingram

Someone clapped and then a wave of applause followed from the rest of them.

  “Thank God!” one woman said. “Thank the Lord, we’re saved!” She clasped the hand of the man sitting next to her.

  “Is there a planet here for us, Mr. Harper”? another man asked. He was tough looking, with short-cropped dark hair. A scar ran from his right ear almost to the corner of his mouth.

  “Yes, Tobias,” Edward replied. “We’re orbiting the fifth planet of this solar system, one the natives call Serendipity.” His mouth quirked in a smile. “It’s a good world – large oceans, but still plenty of land, and gravity eighty percent of Earth’s.”

  “Is there life there? Can we breathe the air?” someone else asked.

  Edward reached out to grasp the frame supporting the stasis generator to halt his slow drift. Behind him, Carla continued to retrieve and stow their bags.

  “There’s life, but only the plants and animals the colonists brought from Earth. They are terraforming the planet, but we can’t breathe the air yet. We can go out with only breathing masks, though – we don’t need spacesuits.”

  “Is it warm?”

  Edward nodded. “Yes, it’s warm. And there’s no snow on Serendipity.”

  Silence fell as the passengers digested his words. “So,” someone asked. “When do we leave?”

  “Soon,” Edward promised. “We need to revive the others first. We’ll be on our way within the hour.”

  Edward’s intent had been for him and Carla to strap into Lander One, release the stasis fields in the other landers and initiate the departure sequence. But he was surprised to find he enjoyed delivering good news and answering his colonists’ questions so much that he visited each capsule to repeat the process.

  Edward had become accustomed to being surrounded by subordinates who did his bidding without question. He rarely experienced genuine human interaction with these people – he issued commands and received reports.

  Carla provided his sole point of social contact outside of business commitments. His devotion to his cause had robbed him of opportunities for meaningful relationships with the opposite sex. He didn’t realize how far from normal his relationship with Carla had become.

  In the few minutes he’d spent in Lander One, he’d rediscovered a hint of the pleasure of human companionship.

  It didn’t seem like Carla was sharing his enjoyment. “How much longer will this take, Edward?”

  He gripped a handhold in the compartment that connected the five landers and turned to look at her, eyes wide. “Does it matter?”

  Carla hesitated a moment, while she chose her words. She smiled. “Of course not. I was only thinking of the colonists on the ground. I’m sure they would have expected us to depart by now.”

  Edward narrowed his eyes. “No doubt they can wait another hour.”

  “Of course they can. But keep in mind our people will have … biological needs that will require attention soon.”

  Edward nodded. “Noted.” He turned toward Lander Four.

  A cooling breeze from the great ocean to the east ruffled David’s hair as he regarded the plain below their vantage point. He saw an expanse of streaky gray and brown – weathered clay and gravel, here and there a fresh scar of rusty soil visible where they’d leveled the ground.

  He felt a tug on his sleeve and smiled down at a little face, brown eyes serious.

  “Daddy, when are they coming?”

  This was a great adventure for his youngest daughter, Emma, but the attention span of a little girl not yet four didn’t stretch to two hours.

  David squatted so his face was at her level. “Soon, sweet pea. It’s taken them longer to wake everyone than they thought.”

  “Have they been sleeping?”

  “Yes. They’ve been asleep for forty whole years.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Earth is far away, and they needed to sleep while they came here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because then they didn’t grow old or need to eat any food.”

  “Don’t people eat when they are asleep?”

  “No, not this kind of sleep.”

  “Oh.” Emma looked at him, brown eyes full of innocence. “I’m hungry.”

  David looked up at Grace, one eyebrow arched a little.

  Grace smiled back. “Just as well I expected this. I think it’s time for a snack, don’t you?”

  “Snack! Yes, snack!” Emma said, raising her arms to Grace.

  Grace picked her up and turned toward the shuttle awaiting them, its front hatch open and stairs extended. She looked back over her shoulder at David.

  “Come on, I brought a snack for you too.”

  David grinned. He had much in common with his youngest daughter today. He was impatient for their visitors to arrive, and hungry too.

  Unlike the original mission, which had relied on the skills of its captain to pilot a shuttle to the first landing, the Inspiration’s landers needed no human help. After Edward initiated the launch sequence, the entire flight would happen without further input from him or anyone else.

  Edward and Carla strapped into their seats in Lander One, their luggage stowed away. Unlike the other landers, Edward’s had a small control console to hand, and a microphone to connect him with the others.

  “Attention, all passengers,” he said. “We are about to descend to the surface of Serendipity, a journey that will take us about an hour and a half. You will continue to be in zero-g for the first hour, although there’ll be maneuvering to align your lander into the correct approach path. Then you’ll feel deceleration as we enter the atmosphere, and again as the lander slows for touchdown. The rocket boosters will be noisy, especially when landing. Please don’t worry about this, it’s normal and will only last for a few moments.”

  No one was asking questions anymore – the passengers knew this was it, the final step of a dangerous journey. They had no memory of the transit from star to star, but they sure as hell expected what promised to be a white-knuckle ride.

  “Here we go,” Edward announced without further ado, pushing the button to start the landing program. A sharp clang reverberated through the hull, followed by many more. “Don’t be concerned,” Edward said. “It’s just the cargo bay covers being jettisoned.”

  Explosive bolts fired to remove the twenty large sections of the shroud that protected the landers from open space. They drifted away from the ship, turning in slow motion as they went, destined to plunge into Serendipity’s atmosphere and become man-made meteorites.

  Ten minutes ticked by as they waited for the cargo bay covers to move away. Edward assured them everything was going according to plan. Right on schedule, they heard the clunk of the lander’s docking clamps letting go. The blood rushed to their heads as the lander accelerated backward away from the ship. Once separated to a safe distance it oriented itself heat shield-first and executed a short burn to push it behind the gigantic starship and drop its orbit.

  Edward watched as the flight computer lined them up into their entry window, firing the thrusters twice more in short bursts to perfect their alignment. He looked at Carla, who didn’t seem in the least concerned. “Ready?” he asked, a smile threatening to break through his usual serious expression.

  “Of course,” Carla replied. “How much longer?”

  Edward checked his display. “Another twenty-seven minutes to the main entry burn. That’ll take just under three minutes, then we’ll be entering the atmosphere.”

  “And the others?”

  “Lander Two is separating now. The rest will follow at fifteen-minute intervals.”

  “They’re coming!”

  Kurt’s eyes were shining. He’d taken control of the computer uplink to the Inspiration they’d established only yesterday. After his success at communicating with the Hope and announcing the news of the Inspiration’s arrival, no one could challenge his right to do it.

  “How long?” came a chorus of voices.

  “They’ll
be here in less than an hour.”

  “An hour?” Emma’s face fell. To a three-year-old, that seemed just short of forever.

  David ruffled her hair. “Don’t worry, sweet pea, that’ll come soon enough.” He exchanged a glance with Grace and John. They were all hoping this final hour didn’t bring the end of their colony as they knew it.

  Grace turned to look at the children. “Does everyone know what to do?”

  “Yes, Mom,” came the reply from Joyce. “After we watch the landings we all go back to Haven and get ready to welcome everyone. You’ve told us this a thousand times already.”

  Grace smiled. “Good. Then what?”

  “Make lunch, check the tents, line up to say hello. We know.”

  Grace shot a glance at David, and he grinned as he caught her meaning. Their teenagers might be innocents by the standards of their own youth, but they still thought their parents were past it, like every teenager ever.

  Lander One coasted toward its entry window, its inhabitants silent, waiting. Someone coughed, the small sound like an unexpected knock at the door. Seconds stretched into minutes as they waited. When the engines kicked in everyone gripped their armrests as if their life depended on it. They needn’t have – the de-orbit burn was gentle. It took just under three minutes with the thrusters at only a quarter power, so they didn’t even feel heavier than normal. Then they fell toward a planet that would be just as unforgiving as Earth if their thrusters failed to fire again before they hit the ground.

  Nothing changed at first, then they felt hints of gravity’s return. Several people experimented with raising their arms and watching them drift back to their armrests. Soon, though, the thickening atmosphere started to bite, and the g-forces increased until they weighed several times their normal weight, bringing an end to the experimenting.

  The attitude adjustment thrusters hissed periodically to rotate the lander one way or another to keep its trajectory on course. The whisper of air rushing past outside became a rising crescendo of sound. Their spacecraft started to vibrate and jump as the air buffeted them, and now they had a reason to hold on tight.

  The Havenites stood outside the shuttle, breathing masks on and looking to the west. Josh called out, “There! Over there!” A bright flash lit the sky where he pointed.

  “There’s the test burn,” John said. Their own landers had operated the same way. The thrusters lit up five kilometers above the ground, just to make sure they would. Then they would throttle back to steer the spacecraft to a precise landing, firing up again just before touchdown to break its fall.

  He exchanged a glance with Heidi, his fellow engineer. He could see she was also thinking of the time when one of their landers hadn’t survived the test burn and switched to an emergency landing on parachutes. That had been their fusion reactor, and it had been a nervous time for their fledgling colony. Without the reactor, they would have been struggling to survive, and building a large habitat such as Haven would have been next to impossible.

  The lander was close now, still dropping like a stone, although they could see the thruster exhaust licking the base of the lander like dragon’s breath. An echoing roar grew louder with each passing second. The lander fell toward the exact center of the plain, triangulating on the transponders standing guard at each corner of the landing field.

  A hundred meters above the ground, the fire of the thrusters burned so bright it hurt to look. Dust and dirt flew like a tornado had arrived on the scene, veiling the lander in a storm of its own making. They saw the glow from the thrusters descending through the cloud, then it winked out just as the lander kissed the ground. The sound of the final burn reached them, and Emma squealed and covered her ears against the man-made thunder.

  Their visitors had arrived.

  Kurt’s mouth had dropped open at the moment of the test burn and he didn’t think to close it until after the landing was over. “That’s the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen,” he said. No one argued.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  David contacted Edward in Lander One soon after they touched down. Between them they agreed to wait for the other landers before unloading them in the order they arrived. This would allow plenty of time for cooling down after the fires of their landing.

  The next three landers appeared like clockwork, one after the other at fifteen-minute intervals, each settling at a corner of the designated landing area. The children had never seen anything like it. Even the adults hadn’t seen landers arriving in sequence like this. The Hope’s landers had come one by one to the same landing spot, the previous lander having been well clear before the next one launched.

  The fifth lander did not arrive fifteen minutes after the fourth. Edward informed them Lander Five had departed the Inspiration too late to make the same entry corridor and had had to make another orbit.

  David decided to take the children back to Haven, so they’d be ready to collect passengers from Lander One as soon as Five touched down. But this generated such a chorus of protest he had to back down, and they compromised. After waiting for the last lander to arrive they’d go to Lander One, provided the children promised to sit on the floor at the back of the shuttle and behave.

  They embraced this new plan with enthusiasm, as it would deliver even more than they’d bargained for – they’d get to ride with the newcomers!

  The hour seemed to drag by, but at last they received word the fifth lander had completed entry and was on final approach.

  Sure enough, they spotted the flare of the test burn just a few minutes later, and the lander touched down with a roar of thrusters.

  The dust cloud kicked up by Lander Five drifted away to reveal five landers arranged like the spots on the side of a die, waiting to discharge their passengers.

  All eyes were trained on David. “Well, I guess we’d better greet our new friends,” he said.

  The kids cheered and set off at a run.

  “Wait!” David said, bringing them to a halt. “Remember – back of the shuttle and behave!”

  Cries of “Yes, David,” and “Yes, Dad,” blended into one as they resumed their race for the best positions.

  Cheers and applause broke out when Edward announced the colonists were coming to get them.

  “Everyone, please listen carefully,” he said. “After the shuttle lands we’ll disembark through the main hatch – the door folds down to make a ramp. Once we’re aboard the shuttle it will take us to the settlement of Haven. Remember, you can’t breathe the air here, so you must wear the breathing masks you’ll find underneath your seats. Put them on as we did in training and have the person next to you check. Does everyone understand?”

  They reached under their seats and jostled to fit their breathing masks.

  Edward turned to his control console and called the other landers. Each had a leader who would echo Edward’s instructions and make sure everyone was ready.

  “Your luggage is stored in the lockers on either side of the seats,” Edward continued. “Make sure you collect your case on your way out – you are responsible for getting it to Haven in one piece, and for its contents once we get there.”

  David set the shuttle down with a gentle bump ten meters away from Lander One. The Havenites donned their breather masks and formed up a rough half-circle around the lander’s hatch. It was a warm day, and with the heat still radiating from the lander, the adults regretted dressing in ship suits. A breeze bringing cool, moist air from the ocean to the east relieved the heat a little. It ruffled the stalks of the sparse grasses that somehow eked out an existence in the thin soil.

  “When are they coming out, Mommy?” Emma asked.

  Before Grace could reply, there was a dull clang from the lander and the hatch moved a little, allowing the pressure to equalize like the hiss of an angry snake. Emma squealed and clutched one of Grace’s legs.

  She smiled down at Emma. “Don’t worry, it’s just the door opening.”

  Emma didn’t seem convinced, peering around Grace�
��s leg to watch the proceedings.

  The hatch door moved with a whine of electric motors, hinging from the lower edge. They saw movement inside, a man waiting. He was tall, with dark hair. His mask was clear plastic like theirs, but instead of adhering to his skin it fastened with straps that went around his head. Rather than filter nodes, it had a hose leading to an air tank the size of a milk carton clipped to his belt. He raised a hand in greeting as the hatch thumped to the ground. The older children waved back. The younger ones clung to their parents, discovering for the first time in their short lives a reason to be shy.

  The man started down the ramp, stepping with care, perhaps because of the lighter gravity. A woman followed, slim and clad in a figure-hugging black ship suit and black leather boots. Her thin pale face contrasted with black hair pulled back into a ponytail.

  The man reached the end of the ramp and looked at the ground. He smiled. His boot crunched into the gravel, and he looked up again.

  David stepped forward, holding out his hand. “I’m David Miller. Welcome to Serendipity.”

  Carla watched as Edward had his historic moment, stepping onto the surface and greeting David. She stopped halfway down the ramp and observed the landscape and its sky of a different blue to Earth’s, but didn’t dwell on it. She focused on the eight colonists in their ship suits surrounded by their children. The adults looked presentable, but the children! They were dressed in shorts and T-shirts, and most of them didn’t even have shoes! Her lip curled before she remembered to keep up appearances and adopt her trademark sincere smile.

  She walked to the end of the ramp to join Edward, and he turned to introduce her. “This is my assistant, Carla Lewis,” he said, his voice muffled by the face mask. “Carla, this is –”

  “David Miller,” Carla finished for him. She pulled her face mask down for a moment to flash David a smile. She liked what she saw. David was tall with dark hair and piercing blue eyes. His face could be described as beautiful, and she found herself unable to tear her eyes away. The photos she’d seen didn’t do him justice.