Arrival: Chapter 17

  After another blessedly uneventful descent, and a genuine re-entry this time, the simulants and their human crew made their way down to the colony site very much as they had the first time, and landed safely on the runway.  It was mid-afternoon by this point, and although there were a limited number of sunlight hours left, there was much to do before they could rest for the day.

  The four simulants casually made their way out through the door and onto the surface of the planet again.  The human crew followed, but much more slowly.  Each had a different response, and a different way of greeting the planet for the first time.  Some bounded out with great enthusiasm, whereas some others seemed quite reticent if not outright fearful to leave the claustrophobic safety of the shuttle.   There were after all, so many things they were being thrown into which they’d never known.  Things as basic as the wind, or a horizon, or a space without walls that seemed to keep going forever, these were entirely new experiences for them.

  None of them had ever experienced natural and solid gravity before.  As much as it was similar to their centrifugally generated artificial gravity on the ship, something nevertheless felt different about it to those who had up until today lived their entire lives in an artificial gravity environment.  It might have only been their imaginations, but there seemed to be something noticeably different about the real thing to someone who grew up in one form, and then much later ventured into the other.  

  Some of the human crew paused at the myriad of fresh scents in the wild air and took a deep breath, while others only timidly and tentatively sniffed at the foreign environment.  While some bounded out of the shuttle hatch with unbridled enthusiasm, others stopped at the portal to self-consciously reflect and appreciate the significance of the moment.  They seemed to be reflecting on the moment in the context of their lives, their community, and their species, before decidedly stepping out with a sense of import and purpose.

  Each initially went off in their own direction to explore different features of the new environment, and the simulants beamed like proud parents watching their children walk for the first time.  While there would all too soon be all too much to do, for now they left their crew to their own devices, and allowed them the freedom to explore the space and appreciate the moment in their own ways.  

  Some of the crew immediately made their way to the jungle wall to investigate the wild environment just a short walk away.  Some bent down to feel the solid runway surface beneath them, putting their hand flat on the ground to form a firm physical contact bond with the environment of their new home world.  Some just stood around slack jawed, completely dumbfounded by the significance of the moment and the vividness with which the new environment assaulted all of their senses.

  About a full ten minutes after the last human exited the shuttle door, Wiremu called all of them to attention.  “Okay people, listen up.  This is the second reconnaissance phase of the mission.  We sims were the primary phase and we cleared the planet for human arrival.  It’s now all of our jobs to as quickly as possible prep the site for mass landing.  We have a lot of work to do, and we’ve gotta get to it.  Biological and Environmental teams you’re with Sadhika and In-Su.   Everything you’re interested in is in that jungle there, so knock yourself out.  The animal corpse we found is back on the ship being studied in the bio-lab, but I’m sure there’s plenty else for you to find in the jungle for further study.  For now we’re going to avoid killing anything more sophisticated than an insect, but anything of any size which is already dead is fair game for recovery and study.   Physical and Engineering teams, you’re with me and Neil.  Each team take one of the weapons and figure out amongst yourselves who will carry it.”

  “And don’t get lost.” Neil added as an important afterthought.  “You’ve all spent your whole lives in a closed environment where it was a physical impossibility to get lost.  That is not the case here, remember that.  If you have your scrolls with you you shouldn’t run into trouble, but it’s still important to stick together and not wander off.   Hopefully I shouldn’t even have to tell you that.”

  Some smiled at what they thought was a joke while others nodded gravely at advice they were taking very seriously.  The group split into two as the Biological and Environmental teams followed Sadhika and In-Su towards the jungle.  As they were leaving Sadhika could be heard saying: “Samples people, samples!”

  The weather was cool but not uncomfortably so, especially with the general lack of wind.   There was an optimism in the air, and it almost seemed to be shared between the planet itself and its new inhabitants.

  Wiremu and Neil assembled the Physical and Engineering teams in front of them.  “We haven’t met most of you-” Wiremu’s eyes narrowed as he quickly scanned every face in the crowd.  “Correction, we haven’t met any of you.  So… hi everyone, my name’s Wiremu and this here is my friend Neil,” he said satirically as he put his arm around Neil. 

  “Hi, Wiremu and Neil.” The crowd said in unison, which almost made Wiremu and Neil fall down laughing together.

  Composing himself, Wiremu continued: “Okay, you can each introduce yourself to us personally when it’s appropriate, but in the meantime… you’ve all seen the topography and satellite images of the area.  A few kilometers in that direction,” he pointed, “is the area we’ve had the paving drone working overnight and this morning.  That’s where we’re going to put the town.  Here in this area adjacent to the landing strip,” he pointed, “is where we’re going to bring down the industry drones.  So, Physical team you’ll be staying here with Neil to bring down and set up the industry drones, and Engineering team you’re coming for a walk with me.”  All of the human crew had long ago memorized the full mission plan and none were hearing any of this for the first time, but as far as Wiremu was concerned, him issuing the commands himself was as much a part of the mission as anything else was.

  The two teams diverged, and Wiremu led the Engineering team down the paved three meter wide road towards the new town site which the paving drone had made on its way there the first time, and upon which it had returned to the landing strip earlier today.  Neil and his Physical team, after arriving at the area to be cleared for their industrial zone adjacent to the airstrip, called up to the ship and summoned down the first of the dozen or so industry drones that were to be set up there, although very few were as of yet necessary during this still early phase of the landed mission.  Industry was after all an oftly lofty goal when one’s immediate concern was survivability itself.  

  The paving drone was waiting for them, and with a thought Neil switched it to forestry mode and set it to work.  When it launched, the machine was about four meters tall and one and a half meters wide, but now that if was fully deployed and at work, it was five meters long and a little over three meters tall.  In paving mode, the machine used all of the material it cleared to produce a hard surface for the shuttle to land on, but in this different forestry mode, it ate a five meter strip out of the jungle as it worked in a grid, and left behind it piles of lumber and scrap on a soft ground which could later be used by the colonists for a variety of purposes.  Later on the machine could be programmed to log more judiciously and only target specifically appropriate trees, but at the moment it was in clearing mode and was taking down everything in its way as it slowly but methodically cleared the entire multi kilometer area. 

  While that device created space for other industrial drones to be brought down, Neil ordered one of the industrial atmospheric separators down.  This one instead of landing in the industrial clearing, was instead brought down beside the FDM at the end of the runway.  The reason for this was simple.  In addition to producing tremendous amounts of drinking water per day, it was also capable of creating the liquid oxygen and hydrogen fuel which the shuttle used.  

  Using this drone to fuel the shuttle, trips could be taken between orbit and the surface much more frequently.  This drone itself didn’t unfurl; instead out of the same meter and a half by four meter shell, four large bags inflated out of the core, two of which filled with water, and one each of liquid hydrogen and oxygen.  Autonomous drills extended out at four equidistant points on its core, and dug into the earth with enough strength to prevent it from ever falling over even when two large bags on one side were full and the other two on the other side were fully depleted.

  After Neil was satisfied with the separator drone being properly set up and functioning, the next task was to get the lumber which the forestry drone was creating over to where Wiremu was setting up the new town.  He ordered down the next drone to land on the boundary between the landing strip and the industrial area, and its rocket halo soft landed it exactly where he’d indicated.  Once safely on solid ground, the lander’s outer shell unfurled from the top out, creating a wide basket.  In the now exposed core of the large basket lay a large deflated gas bag which slowly but immediately began filling with hydrogen gas supplied by a small atmospheric separator which was incorporated into the drone.  Powerful fan units were embedded in the sides of the basket and would swing out to propel the airship once it was fully inflated and airborne, which would only take a few hours.  Once fully operational, it would serve as an incredibly valuable airship for ferrying both cargo and people around between the different areas of the colony.

   

  “Alright Aset, send down Hector One please, grid position one.”

  “Incoming.” Aset’s face on Wiremu’s wrist scroll acknowledged.  The wrist scroll was the smallest roll up screen available, and one wore a wrist band with a slot one of the posts slid into, and with the scroll fully deployed the wristband could hold it firm at whatever desired angle it was physically moved to.  Every member of the descent crew was sporting the same wrist band with an attached scroll which one hardly noticed when they were retracted.

  Wiremu started looking around to the horizon in several directions.  “What direction will it be coming from?” he asked.  He had expected to have been able to see it by now.

  “I’m sorry Wiremu,” Aset apologized, “we’ve had a failure… Hector One didn’t survive atmospheric entry… looks like it disintegrated over the horizon from you.”

  “Damn!!”   Wiremu exclaimed.  “Well, we expected a failure rate of eight percent… it is after all the real reason we doubled up on everything…  Oh well, if we only have one failure today I’m glad it’s a habitat module, we’ve got plenty of those…  Okay Aset, try the next launch tube, send down Hector Three please, same touchdown position.”

  The modules were stored in something like missile silos in one section of New Horizon’s large habitat ring.  They were arranged in a grid, with two stacked on top of each other on both the inner and outer surfaces of the habitat ring.  Every primary module was loaded into the front of the launcher, and was the first to come down.  To mitigate the possibility of a damaged launch tube causing a failure in two identical modules, backups were always stored behind a different primary module.   At Aset’s command, the second habitat launched from a fresh tube.

  “Incoming.”

   

  Wiremu and his crew on the ground first saw it when the parachutes deployed, which were much easier to see than the slender four meter by one meter and a half cylindrical lander.  Like the initial First Descent Module, this one’s parachutes pulled out of the halo from the top, which initially deployed its rockets some ways up in the sky, and became ever more forceful and aggressive as it neared the ground.  The lander retracted its parachutes and touched down softly on the ground before the rocket halo itself finally retracted back into the structure of the lander.

  “Hector Three safely down.”  As Wiremu walked towards it, he issued the initial start-up command by thought, which was relayed through his wrist scroll to the freshly landed device.  The outer shell broke apart into four rounded corner sections which extended out to form the corners of the expanding square area within, with thick synthetic material spanning between the corner sections.   The interior continued to inflate into an area of five square meters.  

  It was for all intents and purposes a less sophisticated variation of the First Descent Module.  It had less equipment built into it, and was instead maximized for internal living space.   They were quite simple in design, and the magic was again in the synthetic material with which it was constructed.  The structure was designed to be impenetrable to anything from the angriest bear and the most violent storms.  The material was incredibly robust, and at all four hard corners, small drilling rigs drilled down a full meter into the ground, anchoring the module in place.   Inflated within along with the overall structure were twelve prepared beds for the crew, and a modest interior climate control system which would keep them warm on cold nights and cool on hot days.

  Eventually, these more temporary structures would be replaced with more permanent ones built up layer by layer using industrial building scale three dimensional printers.  This phase was several weeks out at least though, since it required a complicated assembly of components brought down in six different landers.  It was currently a low priority though since if required these more temporary shelters could comfortably last and house the crew for many months, if not years.   

  Wiremu watched as the habitat module fully inflated and then anchored itself into the ground.  “Okay, good.   Send down Hector Four please.”

  “Incoming.”

   

  “So what do you make of it?” Sadhika asked Blair as they poked at another fresh half-eaten carcass of the tree cephalopods in the jungle.

  “Well, it’s an… octopus,” Blair observed.  “I mean sort of a, more of a… quatropus I guess,” she laughed.  I don’t see any indications of any vestigial limbs so I don’t think it had more to begin with and then later lost them at some point or anything.  Also, where octopuses tend to have big knobby heads, this one’s has a much lower profile… more of a bump you might say, but it still has a beak underneath the head in the centre of its limbs…  You say it was swinging?”

  “Oh yeah, hell of a sight too…” Sadhika reflected.  “Actually, here:” She pulled her wrist scroll out of its dock and with a few thought commands brought up the video Neil had taken during their encounter.   She showed it to the others on the fully unravelled scroll and they all watched as the animals moved through the trees over their heads.

  “That’s incredible…” Blair commented.  “It looks like a video I saw in the archives of monkeys moving en mass through the canopy of the Amazon rainforest.”

  Sadhika made a sound which she was disappointed to hear come out as a snicker.   “I actually saw the real thing…” she mused.  “I spent some time in Brazil…”  She waited for somebody to remind her that it wasn’t actually her who saw any such thing, but nobody did.  She wasn’t entirely sure what this meant, but it did please her.