Seventy

by Liana Brooks

SEVENTY

  Liana Brooks

  Copyright 2011 Liana Brooks

  Cover art copyright 2011 Dara England

  ‘Seventy’ first published online in M-brane 5, May 2009.

  Discover other titles by Liana Brooks at

  SEVENTY

  By Liana Brooks

  On the view screen the Sol System danced. Planets glowed like phosphorescent pearls in the sea of space. Doctor Jeff Koenig, lead scientist on the Dauphin settlement project, traced the image of Earth with his finger. He’d been born on Earth and left for the Delious system as soon as he could afford the emigration fees. Brilliant Delious, whose fourteen planets and all their many moons had been blasted into rubble by Hurluk world-destroyers. Only Delious Four remained, orbiting in isolation without her three moons.

  He’d never meant to come back.

  Now he was leaving for a second time.

  Earth had been too crowded when he left with his wife to start a new life out in the northern solar rim. Now the world-cities overflowed with refugees scattered by the Hurluk attacks. Accelerated terraforming on Dauphin wasn’t the only plan to alleviate some of the housing pressure, but it was the only one that would show results in the next solar year.

  Jeff frowned at the projection of Earth. How many of Sol’s citizens really intended to emigrate to Dauphin? Most just wanted a place to abandon the refugees. But some would earn the money to buy their way free of the Sol system, and how many of them would come?

  “Doctor Koenig?” Captain Mac of the Terrance Lee interrupted his reverie. “I need your crew to buckle down. We’re hitting jump in twenty minutes.”

  “I thought everyone was settled.” Jeff looked past the captain to the commons room where scientists mingled with the hired hands, all displaced workers paying back the cost of evacuation to the government. “Lawson.”

  “She’s in the cargo bay.”

  Swearing, Jeff stalked down the hall. What had the congressional council been thinking when they assigned her to the team? But he knew the rumors; Doctor Bella Lawson threatened the wrong people, stepped on the wrong toes. So they’d dumped her on the Dauphin team.

  If only he could dump her back.

  ***

  She stood in an empty shuttle slot, staring at the bay door.

  “Doctor Lawson?”

  She pivoted, slowly.

  “We need to strap down for jump.”

  Lawson pinned him with an angry glare, jaw clenched. “I’ll be in my cabin.”

  He didn’t bother arguing. All he needed to do was survive her tantrums for three months. Once Dauphin was open for settlement he’d move on, and she’d be back at Sol University driving someone else crazy with her conspiracy theories.

  Day 1 of 70

  Captain Mac slapped Jeff’s shoulder. “Mighty fine planet. I’m amazed what t-formers can do nowadays.”

  Both hands full of boxes, Jeff settled for a grimace and a nod. Dauphin was amazing: rolling green hills, majestic blue mountains, space enough for all of the refugees from Delious, Escibul, and the rest of the northern solar rim. “They’ve done a lot in thirteen months.”

  Mac cleared his throat. “I’m off. The first colonists are entering quarantine on Europa today. Seventy days, round trip. Will Dauphin be ready when we arrive?”

  “The terraforming is finished, all my team needs to do is clear land for the living spires to drop, and make sure the crop rotations are started and ready to feed everyone.” He could already see the green fields filling with the towering metal spikes embedded in black dirt. The self-contained towers would house homes and businesses - and act as temporary orbitals if the Hurluk turned Dauphin to dust under their feet.

  “Living spires have hydroponics,” Captain Mac said.

  “Ground-grown foods are better for the body. Better for the spire’s environmental system too. You can only push hydroponics so far.”

  “Doctor Koenig!” Shon Orto, Jeff’s second-in-command and the coordinator for the first wave of science teams, shook papers over his head as he charged up the landing plateau.

  Captain Mac shook his head. “Humans already? I don’t understand why we risk personnel on a planet that’s still terraforming. We have robots for a reason.”

  “Robots need maintenance. One circuit blows and all of a sudden your terraforming robot is thinking: 'I say, this planet would look so much more scenic with some volcanoes all over the place'.” Jeff shuddered. He looked at Shon. “How are things?”

  “Interesting. I just got some new readings in.”

  “Right.” Jeff handed Shon a box of basic vaccines and smiled at Captain Mac. “No rest for the weary.”

  “See you in a few months.” The captain waved and walked back to his shuttle.

  Shon shoved papers at Jeff. “We’re having some trouble with the third continent’s major fault line.”

  “That’s just the kind of news I don’t want to hear.”

  ***

  By nightfall, when Jeff stumbled to his makeshift room in the main building, the Terrance Lee was a green blip entering the wormhole for her return to the Sol System.

  He was stranded a galaxy away from home with five hundred strangers on an unstable planet.

  Day 2 of 70

  “You idiot!” Bella Lawson raged at Shon, spinning her chair away from the computer screen. “You should have loaded everyone back on the Terrance Lee the moment we touched down.”

  Jeff shook his head. “Doctor Lawson, I don’t think-“

  “I’m not surprised,” she snarled at him. Lawson turned back to Shon. “The SOP for earthquakes on a t-forming planet is to evacuate until stabilization is confirmed."

  "Time is not a luxury we have," Shon said. "We have contracts. We have to-"

  "You won't do anything if you're dead.” Lawson slammed down the readouts. “I can't believe anyone signed off on this planet. I told Congress we couldn't move forward with the SHORTMIN t-forming. It isn't safe. But a well-placed bribe speaks louder than facts."

  The last thing Jeff wanted was to give Lawson a chance to rave about a corrupt Congress endangering colonization. He cleared his throat. “Sol System can't absorb more refugees. The ones from Delious have no choice, they don’t have planets left to live on. But with the natives from Escibul pouring in, humanity needs room to expand. If people weren’t convinced that the Hurluk are headed for them next it wouldn’t be so bad.”

  Lawson rolled her eyes. "There’s no evidence to suggest the Hurluk will move to Echo Territory next. They can’t use our wormhole technology. From the Delios System they have dozens of star systems to invade. If you want to suggest they'll move their planet-destroyers in a straight line you might as well evacuate the Sol System too. They’re next in line after Escibul."

  She took a deep breath and looked at the printouts again, then shook her head. "We need to evacuate. The data doesn't lie."

  "We can't." Jeff held up a placating hand. "I agree, it's the standard operating procedure. But where are we going to go? There’s no other habitable planet in system. We have no orbiting base. And we can't live in shuttles for the next three months."

  Shon raised his hand. "Maybe you’re overreacting? Dauphin was signed off on. The original t-form expert considered the planet stable. What are the other possibilities?"

  With a frustrated sigh, Lawson looked back at the seismograph.

  "Could this be part of the natural settling process?"

  "Possibly.” Lawson pursed her lips. “If Doctor Orto hadn't been drilling, it's possible the tremors would have gone unnoticed. I can't guarantee anything though."

  "We're not asking you to." Shon threw his hands up in the air. "Look, just tell me how to fix it."

  "Fix it?" She laughed. "You can't 'fix' a shaking planet, Docto
r Orto. There's nothing to fix. This is part of the process. If you like, I can tell you exactly what's happening and why. Or what will happen next. But I can't undo this."

  "Then what good are you?"

  "Shon?" Angeliessa Sahn, the horticulturist, walked in smiling. Her expression froze when she saw Bella's hard glare. "I- I just needed to talk to Doctor Orto."

  "We're having a private conference," Lawson said coldly.

  "Shon, there’s nothing more you can do here. Go see what Miss Sahn needs." Jeff watched Shon chase eagerly after the pretty blonde. Well, best of luck to him.

  Jeff turned back to the t-form expert. "Give me facts. What are we dealing with?"

  "SHORTMIN cuts the standard terraforming time from six years plus colonization to ten months by cutting out two of the three ice age stages. All the glacial carving and continent sorting is done in six weeks."

  "I know that. Tell me what this means." He stabbed the readout.

  "I think it means we're entering third stage t-forming. Another ice age. This could be sixth stage settling, but I doubt it. Either way, we won't know until something drastic happens, or doesn't. SHORTMIN was never tested on a large planet. Dauphin is the lab rat. We shouldn't be here."

  He was getting tired of the repetition. "We don't have a choice.” Jeff stared at the readouts as if wishing would change them. He sighed. “I hope you're wrong."

  “Dr. Koenig, if I was wrong on a regular basis, they'd have had no need to ship me off-world."

  Day 19 of 70

  “I get germination in four hours and maturation in a week. Each plant produces enough for six people for the three weeks it fruits. I’m trying to push the next generation to fruiting in five days with a four week growing season-“

  Lawson walked into the greenhouse, knocking aside a row of pots in her hurry. “Doctor Koenig, I need to speak to you.”

  “This is a private conference!” Angeliessa snapped, moving to right the pots.

  Jeff sighed, aware that he was caught in the cross-fire of the first civil war on Dauphin. “Can it wait thirty minutes?”

  “No.”

  “Fine.” He smiled at Angeliessa. “Excuse me, I’ll be right back.” Jeff followed Lawson out of the greenhouse and across the lawn towards the gray, rectangular monstrosity that was both HQ and housing. “What’s going on?”

  She shoved a piece of paper at him.

  Jeff frowned at the jumping line on the paper. “Readouts from the drill probes? I thought you said it was something important.”

  “This is new. It’s the readings from a seismograph on continent five.”

  “It’s gibberish to me.” He handed the readout back.

  She pointed to a spike that touched the top of the chart. “That’s a major upheaval event.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She gave him a withering look. “No. Maybe it was a butterfly jumping on the sensor? Of course I’m sure!”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Authorize a survey team to go to the fifth continent to check for visual confirmation, and assess damage.”

  Day 22 of 70

  Jeff watched Doctor Lawson’s shuttle appear over the horizon, a black speck against the waning afternoon light. Jeff focused on what Shon was saying. “I’m sorry, repeat that, how much land is cleared?”

  “Enough for the first four hundred spires. Bare minimum, that’s four thousand people.”

  “We won’t see spires with less than two thousand colonists,” Jeff said. “Not with the news outlets running images of the Hurluk attacks night and day.”

  “Right.” Shon scribbled on his pad. “I don’t think we need to worry about that. My only concern is the native flora. It’s the t-weed - fast growing, adaptable, annoying at this stage. We needed it to produce the oxygen during t-forming, but it’s going to clog the oxygen intake vents on the spires. I recommend a controlled burn followed by reseeding with a slower growing plant.”

  “Fine. Do you have the next section selected for clearing?”

  “The north plateau. I just need Doctor Lawson to sign off on it.”

  “I’ll send her over once she reports in.”

  ***

  The shuttle blew up dark dust as it settled. There was a soft “whump” as the anti-grav turned off and the ship dropped the last centimeter to the ground.

  Jeff waited.

  The doors cycled open and the survey crew exited, carrying a battered seismograph. Lawson followed, red eyed and shaking.

  “We need to evacuate. Now.”

  “What?”

  “It’s all gone. Fifth continent’s been swallowed by a volcano. There’s nothing but ash and lava, it’s the size of Olympus Mons on Mars. We can’t stay.”

  “We can’t go! Do you want to sit on a shuttle for the next two months?”

  “Yes!” Her breath stuttered as she sucked in air. “SOP-“

  “SOP be hanged! We’ll die of carbon monoxide poisoning on the shuttles. They aren’t meant for long term use. This continent is stable? Isn’t it?”

  She bit her lip. “Temporarily. This is Third Stage t-forming. Our weather patterns-”

  “Will change. We might get cold. But it won’t kill us in the next sixty days,” Jeff said firmly.

  “We have to adjust the genetics of the crops. The ash is going to cause a volcanic winter.” She looked at him, eyes cold. “Doctor Koenig, if things get worse, if the tremors hit us here, we need to evacuate.”

  Day 33 of 70

  Glass shattered. His bed jumped, screeching as it shimmied across the floor. Jeff rolled, landing hard on his knees, and scrambled to the shelter of his doorway. “Lawson?”

  Something fell in her office, but no one answered.

  “Shon?”

  Jeff pushed himself to his feet. He shook as he opened the blackout curtain. Pale pink moonlight streamed in on the wreckage of his study. Grabbing a flashlight, he checked Lawson’s office first. She wasn’t there.

  How much would Congress fine him for losing a t-form specialist?

  Aftershocks rocked the ground. Jeff stumbled, throwing an arm out for balance. “Lawson? Shon? Where are you?”

  Fire backlit the skeleton of the wooden barn. A soot-covered Shon ran up to meet him. “What is this? I was checking the barn before I went to bed and…” He waved his hand at the chaos.

  The barn was burning - Jeff made a mental note to find out who hadn’t secured the flammables in the appropriate locker - part of the shuttle bay roof had collapsed, and the greenhouse had been reduced to slivers of glass.

  “Why didn’t we get a warning?” Shon looked around in confusion. “Where is Angeliessa?”

  Jeff glared at him as the ground shuddered. “How should I know? Where is Lawson? She’s the one responsible for tracking these things.”

  Shon pointed across to the shuttle bays. “Shouting at someone.”

  “Go round up the science staff, we’re meeting in ten minutes.”

  ***

  Jeff pushed tables aside to make space for the meeting in the cafeteria. Outside, workers shouted as they tried to corral the animals and put out the fire.

  “Is this the meeting place?” A short, balding man with a wiry build shuffled into the room, laden with paperwork.

  Jeff didn’t recognize him. He set the last chair in place and frowned. “I’m Doctor Koenig, the project director. Who are you?”

  “Doctor Berrans.” The little man didn’t offer a hand. He dropped his papers on the table and smirked. “I’m actually here with the EPP.”

  The broad smile only made Jeff want to punch him. “The what?”

  “Energy Planet Program. Orator Rens pushed it through Congress a few months ago. Very important. Cutting edge. Turn the entire inner planet, the unnamed rock spiraling into the sun, into an energy source.”

  His fists clenched. “Isn’t that a considerable waste of resources? We’ll lose everything we put there when the planet falls into the sun.”

&nb
sp; “That won’t happen for centuries,” Berrans said. “Considering all the information we’ll gain from our science stations the waste is negligible.”

  “Never mind. Why didn’t you introduce yourself when I arrived?”

  “Why would I have?” Doctor Berrans asked in surprise. “I’m the senior project director. Not that I would comment on your lack of introduction, I realize most of the personnel are working on your project. But since I arrived first-“

  “You weren’t supposed to be here at all! The EPP was scheduled to start with the fourth wave of colonists.”

  Doctor Berrans waved his hand. “The sooner I start, the sooner we have the energy sump.”

  “Right now we need a way to get off Dauphin and survive until Captain Mac comes back.” Jeff looked at the rest of the frowning science staff: Shon, Angeliessa, Lawson… “Where’s the shuttle rep, and Doctor Keeler?”

  “Keeler is corralling the animals with his workers,” Shon said. “He told me to tell you he doesn’t care what happens as long as we promise not to destroy anything else. Marcus is still at the shuttle bay assessing damage.”

  “We’ll start without them.” Jeff turned to glare at Lawson. “Why weren’t we warned this was coming?”

  “Because we have no sensor grid system or seismograph in our area,” she said with cold calm.

  Jeff swore.

  “What’s happening to Dauphin?” Angeliessa asked. “I pulled out the cold-tolerant crops like Doctor Lawson ordered. But I don’t have crops engineered to handle earthquakes.”

  “Dauphin is entering Third Stage terraforming,” Lawson said.

  “Which is what?” Angeliessa asked.

  “Earthquakes, upheaval events, drastic changes in topography, and it ends with a cataclysmic ice age.” Lawson folded her arms across her chest.

  An extinction level event. The thought made Jeff’s blood run cold. “This isn’t Third Stage. SHORTMIN drops the t-forming process from five stages to three, and the ELE you’re describing has already happened on Dauphin. This is something else.”

  “The tests for SHORTMIN were performed on asteroids and moons much smaller than Dauphin. I don’t think the forced thaw of the ice age that ends the Third Stage was enough to lock the tectonic plates.” Lawson paused, then set her lips in a thin line. “We need to evacuate.”