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— Plash Mount
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To say NASA was stunned would be an understatement. After Kate radioed in their lengthy report, it took an agonizing two-and-a-half hours for them to respond, longer than any of the crew expected.
"They must have fainted," Greta suggested.
"Yeah, or they're trying to figure out how to steal the glory from us 'girls,'" Jorja said, getting a dark look from the captain.
"Message coming in!" Ally intoned. Everyone's head swiveled around to the screen.
"Onscreen," Kate ordered.
John Philips appeared, with James Hunter standing right behind him.
"Congratulations, crew of theLetanya!" Phillips said. "We received your message, plus some of the supporting documents, and I can tell you, we are absolutely blown away by the discovery. I'm sure you—" Hunter thrust his face into the camera, elbowing Phillips aside.
Typical, thought Kate.
"Ladies, I'm sure you can appreciate the magnitude of your discovery," he said. "The news is just now beginning to break here, and it's getting a tremendous response. CNN is devoting the rest of the afternoon to the Letanya, and what the findings might mean for us."
"The most shocking aspect of this discovery, as I'm sure you've contemplated, is how such similar beings developed more than two million light years apart. We've already decided to send our next ship, the Sovereign, to the Denoba system to further the exploration."
Kate recalled that the U.S.S. Sovereign, still under construction, had been scheduled to explore the Milky Way. To make such a sudden switch showed how important their discoveries were to NASA.
"Naturally, we're giving you permission to head down to the planet surface for a closer study of the creatures, provided, of course, that you don't make contact with them. I'm sure you're well aware of the Prime Directive."
Kate didn't need to be reminded. And she doubted he would've said the same thing to an all-male crew, but maybe she was just being sensitive.
"The decision to go below is yours, Capt. Dyson, we don't want you to risk your overall mission. But I can assure you, the people of Earth are going crazy over this news and want more details. If you can collect some better photographs, plus some plant species that would be a tremendous boon toour knowledge of Devon planet and people."
"Please keep in close contact for the next few days. Even little scraps of information will be anxiously awaited here." Hunter looked to his left.
"OK, I'm going to return you to Phillips, who has some mission parameters to discuss."
Hunter vanished from the screen and Kate found herself breathing a little sigh of relief. The welcomed face of the mission controller appeared, looking unruffled at being pushed aside.
"Letanya, I'm back," Phillips said, deadpan.
The crew chuckled. "Now, regulations require that I go over this checklist, although I know you are all well-trained in planet landings."
That was partially true—the crew had landed dozens of times in simulators, but only three times on Earth, after being launched from an orbiting shuttle. It's one thing to land on your home planet, but quite another to land in a possibly inhospitable, unknown world. The risks were considerable.
The Letanya was equipped with two identical"shuttle pods," each approximately twenty feet in length, with a pair of stubby wings extending out from the undercarriage. Each can hold three crewmen, sitting one behind the other. Because of the way they appear, the pods are nicknamed "bobsleds" by the crew. With the big engine at the rear, they actually look a lot more like rocket cars of the late 20th century.
Phillips outlined what problems the pilot—Greta, in this case—might encounter due to the high winds recorded at around twenty thousand feet. The stubby wings aren't enough to provide the stability necessary at lower altitudes, so Greta would pull a lever to deploy wing extensions that would give them a longer glide. Thrusters help control speed of descent and direction.
It was important not to fire the main engine once the craft enters the atmosphere, as there's limited fuel. Burn too much on the way down and you'll never reach the spaceship again.
Greta, Kate observed, was following Phillips directions carefully, her face glowing with the knowledge that she would soon be landing on the surface of a brave new world. Kate wondered if she was already imagining her ticker-tape parade.
The transmission ended and everyone just sat for a few minutes, taking it all in. Kate could see similar expressions on the faces of Beth and Jorja, who would make up the other away team members.
Kate felt it was time to sober them up."I still haven't decided if a surface mission is a good idea," she said. Heads snapped around.
"Here are my concerns."
She ticked them off her fingers. "One, we can learn a lot from continued observation from orbit. It may be far more valuable to return safely to Earth with all our data intact than to risk everything on a limited venture to the planet. Two, we're out here two millionlight years away, completely on our own. If something goes wrong, no one can come to our aid. We don't know what to expect on the surface in the way of plants, animals or even microbes. We could bring something aboard that may be harmful. Three, we run a real risk of accidentally coming into contact with the natives. That could cause ripple effects in their development we have no way of anticipating. It also could introduce diseases that could devastate them—or us."
The eyes of the crew were wide. They knew every word the captain said was true. But would she really overrule them and make them go home without a surface exploration?
"But we've come so far—" Greta began. Kate held up a hand.
"I know, I know. I'm fully aware of what Houston said and how history will judge us. If we returned to Earth without exploring, we'll be seen as timid women who were afraid to take risks. But if something goes wrong, we'll be seen as impulsive women who took unnecessary chances. Either way,we're screwed."
"Now, just like you, I didn't come all this way to meekly go home without seeing what awaits us down below. But if we're going to do this, it's going to be done by the book. We're going to triple-check everything. We're going to abort if anything, and I mean anything, goes wrong. I'm not going to risk the crew or the humanoids or even the smallest life on the planet."
"We wouldn't want to either, captain," Greta said, grateful that Kate seemed to be leaning toward approving the landing.
"I want us to find the best spot for a landing," Kate continued.
"It must allow plenty of room for a soft landing. It should be well away from a village, but perhaps close enough to hike to in order to observe the residents. It needs to provide camouflage for the bobsled. If we can't find such a site, we don't go. Before we launch, I want a bio-probe sent down to the landing site to check for microbes, poisonous plants, vicious animals—you name it. If we find anything like that, we don't go."
Heads nodded. They were like children, trying to convince Mom to let them walk to a neighbor's house.We'll be good, we'll stay on the sidewalk, we won't talk to strangers!
Kate looked each of the three away team members in their eyes, telling them silently how important this is.
"OK. Let's get busy."
The next few hours were a blur of activity. Sites were explored, then rejected for one reason or another. Finally, the crew narrowed down the list to three possible landing sites. The captain went over each site carefully, looking for flaws, dangers.
"Site One is about 10 klicks from this village, on the other side of a forest,"
Greta was explaining, using the shorthand for kilometers. "We can put in at night, hide the ship, then hike over and set up a base camp near the edge of the woods."
Kate shook her head."They'll spot you coming in. When you fire your thrusters, you'll light up the sky."
"Maybe we could come in 'hot'," she said, then instantly regretted her words.
"That's the kind of thinking that will get this mission cancelled," Kate shot back. "You either land by the book or you don't land at all, got it?"
Greta nodded, chagrined.
"Here's another possibility that solves the problem of being seen as we land," Jorja put in, anxious to move on.
"Site Two," Greta picked up, pointing to the topography map, "is here, at the beginning of this mountain range. See, these two ridges rise out of the desert, then join to form a larger ridge. At the junction, the woods begin. We can fly in and land safely on the sand between the two ridges, then slid up to near the treeline. Using harnesses, we can drag the bobsled into the woods for cover."
Greta handed Kate a photo of the site."On the other side of this range, across this plain, is a small village. We figure we can climb the ridge here—it's not too high at this point—and set up base camp near the top. With long-range scanners and binoculars, we can observe the people without being spotted. The village would be about five kilometers away."
"What about the U.T.?" Kate asked.
The Universal Translator was a key part of this mission. The U.T., often pronounced "Ute," was a modification of the devices typically found on Earth that travelers use when visiting another country. About the size of a deck of playing cards, the device instantly translates speech into the desired language. Of course, all of Earth's languages have been studied and recorded. Dealing with a brand new language requires a considerable learning curve. The U.T. must be allowed to record at least an hour of continuous language in order to formulate a working translation. The away team would have to get close enough to place microphone-transmitters—a risky and dangerous business.
Greta knew that Kate wanted to hear how they'd solve this problem. "Jorja has manufactured some 'rocks' in which we can hide the mics," she said.
"Two of us will sneak up in the middle of the night and place them close enough to listen in. Then we can just sit back and record."
"Sounds risky. How can you avoid being spotted?"
"We've talked about that. There's a ravine here," Greta pointed to the photo,
"that will allow us to get pretty close. Then we'll come out here and place a rock near the western edge of the village, near this road."
"You'd be exposed for a hundred yards or more. That's too risky. You'll stand out like sore thumbs."
"Um, we have a solution for that as well, sir," Beth spoke up for the first time. "We'll simply disguise ourselves as natives, out collecting wood or something."
Kate's brow furrowed. "That means—" She couldn't finish.
"Yes, we'll have to be naked or dressed in animal skins. We'll have to make our bodies look, um, more native."
Kate laughed out loud at the image that created in her mind."You're going toadd hair?"
"Only enough to get by at night, from a distance," Greta added quickly. "A strip here, a patch there. We'll put them on just before we plant the rocks. We don't expect to be seen at all. This will just be an added precaution."
The captain nodded. They certainly had thought this out."OK, let's check out the third site."
That site was soon rejected for the same reasons as the first—it was too exposed.
Kate gave them approval to further explore Site Two.
A bioprobe was launched in the middle of the night. The bioprobes are much smaller than regular probes and thus are harder to spot. Just a few hundred meters up, a small chute deploys, allowing it to drift to the ground.
The probe was aimed well. It drifted across the sand and landed in a tree about a mile from where the away team hoped to drag their bobsled.
"Signal coming in," Greta called out.
She scanned the reports. "No poisonous plants, no microbes and no dangerous animals or insects in the immediate vicinity," she announced after several seconds.
"I'll continue to scan."
A sigh of relief went up from Beth and Jorja. Even the captain nodded."All right. I'll call it in. Looks like we have a 'go.'"