Wolf 1061 shining on the landscape of New Haven. (image from imgur.com)
CHAPTER 16 – EXPLORING A NEW HOME
09:46 (Universal Time)
Thursday, October 14, 2320
Surface of Wolf 1061ca (a.k.a. New Haven)
First moon of Wolf 1061c (a.k.a. New Shouria)
Wolf 1061 System, 13.8 light years from Earth
Tina, carrying little Misha in a special backpack, stopped walking for a moment to watch as the KOSTROMA, having come down at the vertical through the atmosphere of the moon and having stopped in a hover above a large and deep depression in the landscape of Wolf 1061ca, a.k.a. ‘New Haven’, started pouring down the twelve million tons of water it had picked up on Wolf 1061d, the ice giant found beyond the orbit of Wolf 1061c, now officially known as ‘New Shouria’. That water, originally frozen, was now being poured after being filtered and heated to a temperature of fifteen degrees Celsius inside the giant water carrying pods hooked to the flanks of the cargo ship. This was the seventh such water delivery trip by the KOSTROMA, using the nearly infinite resources in water offered by the third planet of the system to help make water more abundant on the moon. Using the services of Martians experts in terramorphing and following the recommendations of their preliminary study on her new home world, Tina was resolved to improve further what was already a more than fair world to live on. One of those recommendations had been to bring more water to the moon which, while not a truly arid body, was a bit on the dry side. That dryness mostly came from the bit thin atmosphere, which had a surface pressure of 810 millibars, or 0.81 times the sea level pressure on Earth. Adding more water to the moon’s surface would also have the benefit of stimulating the growth of the local flora, which was already quite abundant and diverse, something that would in turn augment the amount of oxygen generated via photosynthesis by the local plants. That would eventually help raise the proportion of oxygen in the atmosphere, now standing at nineteen percent, to levels closer to the Earth’s 21 percent. However, both the lower pressure and lower oxygen content of the atmosphere of her new world didn’t really bother Tina as she trekked across its surface, the lower gravity of 0.78 G helping to compensate those factors by making her efforts less tiring on her body. As for the surface temperature on this morning, it stood at a comfortable 21 degrees Celsius, with a fair wind blowing at the time being.
Turning her head around, Tina smiled to Michel, who was leading her around the landscape and was carrying a backpack full of supplies and equipment.
‘’So, what do you think of our new home world?’’
‘’I like it a lot up to now, Tina. It reminds me a lot of the climate around the Mediterranean: hot, a bit dry but still nice. While the air is a bit thin, the lower gravity helps compensate for that. My only worry is about how Earth plants and trees could adapt to this world. I know that we could always build giant greenhouses for Earth trees if need be, but to be able to grow such trees, especially fruit trees, in the open would help tremendously our moon in terms of habitability and commercial viability. You did put a number of specialist teams at work to study that aspect, but it will take weeks to start getting their preliminary reports.’’
‘’I know, but I don’t want to rush through this exploration and study phase. Besides, it will be at least a month before the first modular structures I ordered on Earth will be ready for delivery and positioning. I do agree with you that to be able to plant Earth trees in the open air here would be fantastic and would simplify a lot our efforts to valorize our moon: Humanity can always use more food production, as long as it is done in an ecological way. Hopefully, the new lakes and rivers which the KOSTROMA is creating with water from the third planet will be able to receive and sustain fish populations and their marine food chain, but our biologists, like our agronomists, still have a lot of work to do to make sure that we could successfully inseminate the local lakes and streams with marine life. We still know so little about this world.’’
‘’Yeah, that includes the local animal life, like that little critter over there.’’
Tina snapped her head in the direction pointed at by Michel, in time to see some kind of small four-legged rodent run away through the surrounding bushes and plants.
‘’You know, Michel, from what we have seen ourselves to date and from what the teams of prospectors, agronomists and biologists I hired to survey this moon said, most of the local fauna is of rather diminutive size. No big herbivores, no large predators and only small birds and insects. This moon is totally unlike the fauna found next door, on New Shouria.’’
‘’Hey, different conditions, different life forms!’’ replied Michel while shrugging. ‘’Our moon is much drier than New Shouria and has a markedly thinner atmosphere. Also, having a lower gravity would tend to favor small creatures, while the thinner air would make life difficult for large flying creatures.’’
‘’You’re right, my dear!’’ Conceded Tina, who then resumed walking with Michel.
About two hours later, the small family arrived at the temporary field camp of one of the twelve surface survey and exploration mixed teams she had hired to evaluate the conditions, fauna and flora of her moon. As with every commercial ship, Tina had kept only a limited-sized crew in comparison to the size of her ship, following that way the age-old commercial shipping rule of keeping the fixed costs, including crew-related expenses, low in order to maximize profits. Even then, most other cargo ship captains found the accommodations, facilities and salaries devoted to her crew well above the norms. Because of the limited size of her ship’s crew, the pool of scientists residing aboard the KOSTROMA was quite small and was wholly insufficient to conduct by itself a detailed planet surface survey program. Tina had thus recently hired from all around the Solar System mixed teams of specialists in geology, hydrography, mining prospection, agronomy, biology and land resources management to supplement her own ship’s scientists, the latter ones staying on the KOSTROMA to collect, collate and analyze the data and observations made by the surface teams. The team field camp she entered with Michel and Misha was small but well equipped, with two large modular shelters, one for living accommodations and the other for workshops and laboratories, plus a garage for anti-gravity scooters. In the center of the camp, the team had established an open air campfire built of a ring of rocks picked up from the surrounding fields, then had laid a number of tables, chairs and beach umbrellas around that campfire. When Michel and Tina arrived at the central campfire, they found six of the team members sitting or chatting around, with a pot of boiling water suspended over the fire. The team members smiled and waved on seeing the small family.
‘’Hi, Captain!’’ shouted Jack Harris, a mining prospector from Alaska. ‘’Quite a nice day, isn’t it? Why don’t you join us for lunch? We have a bunch of field rations warming up in boiling water.’’
‘’We will accept the invitation with pleasure. What do you have on the menu?’’
‘’Nothing but the best, Captain, like all the equipment and supplies you provided to our team. You are nothing like a few skimpy past employers I worked for in the past. We have a choice of Beef Bourguignon, Chicken a la King, Sweet and Sour Pork with Fried Rice and Salmon with Hollandaise Sauce.’’
‘’A rich and judicious menu indeed!’’ replied Michel while grinning. ‘’I will have a bag of Sweet and Sour Pork with Fried Rice.’’
‘’Make it a bag of Salmon with Hollandaise Sauce for me.’’ added Tina. ‘’As for my little Misha, I brought his own rations with me.’’
The team members smiled, with the two women of the group swooning at the sight of the toddler boy as Tina put down her special backpack.
‘’Oooh, he is so cute! How old is he?’’
‘’He is now one year old and is a bundle of energy. He is still not very fast on his feet but he sure moves a lot around, so we will have to make sure that he doesn’t approach too much your campfire.’’
‘’I can keep an eye on him while you eat, Captain.’’ Offered one of the two women, making Tina grin.
‘’Thank you, miss. What is your name again? I hired so many extra personnel in the last two weeks that I am having a hard time remembering all your names.’’
‘’That is most understandable, Captain. My name is Sarah Behrman and I am an hydrography specialist from Haifa, in Israel. I have to say that the capacity of your mighty KOSTROMA to pick up and deliver millions of tons of water across space is most impressive. It won’t take long before that imported water will make the region around this new artificial lake and river turn green.’’
‘’That is the goal I have in mind, Miss Behrman. I intend to distribute a total of six such artificial lakes around this moon, then will start planting fruit trees around those newly irrigated regions. Have your team found yet any factor or reason that would prevent Earth trees from growing here?’’
‘’None yet, Captain!’’ answered a graying, thin man. ‘’I am Joshua Matabele and I am the agronomist of this team. To date, I haven’t found in the soils any microbes, toxins or parasites that could cause trees and plants imported from Earth to wither and die. The soil composition is very similar to the kinds of soils found around the coasts of the Mediterranean and the only subterranean life we found are local variants of Earth worms. The only thing you will have to check and worry about is how cross-pollination will be done. You may have to import a few bees or small birds to insure that.’’
‘’Well, then you can put that in your survey report, along with your recommendations on how to take care of that problem, Mister Matabele.’’
‘’I certainly will do that, Captain.’’
Sarah Behrman then spoke again, this time a bit hesitantly.
‘’Captain, I suppose that you intend to eventually move settlers to this moon, in order to build a new Human colony here. How do you intend to select those future settlers?’’
Guessing where she was going with her question, Tina gently smiled to Sarah.
‘’I intend to select mostly good, decent people who have been chased from their original lands, or are living in poverty, with no prospects for a better life, and that through no fault of their own. There are unfortunately plenty of such people on Earth: refugees from natural disasters, wars and ethnic, religious or political oppression. Most such people were farmers, manual workers, herders, fishermen and the like and could easily be employed in hydroponic gardens and farms here. I also intend to hire a core of technical and scientific specialists who will support those people, by taking care of the more technical aspects of life. I thus see this world becoming first a mostly agricultural and pastoral society, living in peace away from the conflicts, pollution and other problems seen on Earth.’’
‘’And…who will govern this world? You?’’
‘’At first, yes, via a chief administrator named and supervised by me. While the settlers here will be considered citizens of a private corporation, with me at the head of that corporation, the criminal and civil law codes of the Spacers League will be enforced here. So, while there won’t be such things as democratic elections at first, be assured that, on this world, the fundamental rights of all will be respected.’’
‘’Would it be too early to present my candidacy as a settler and citizen of New Haven, Captain?’’
‘’Miss Behrman, this is a perfect time to apply as a new citizen and I will be most happy to accept your application. Once back on the KOSTROMA, go visit the ship’s administrative center and state that, as of today, you became a citizen of New Haven. My staff will then provide you with the proper documentation and citizenship papers. As a hydrography expert, your knowledge will certainly be most useful to this colony for the decades to come.’’
‘’Thank you very much, Captain.’’ said Sarah, her voice choking a bit. ‘’In truth, life has been miserable for me for quite a few years in Israel, not because my professional competence was put in doubt, but rather because of ethnic and religious hostilities there.’’
‘’No need to elaborate here in public, Sarah: I understand very well what kind of problems you may have faced previously. Until we can install the first settlement facilities here, you will be assigned one of the apartments still available in the bow ring section of the KOSTROMA.’’
Tina then hugged Sarah, patting her back as well.
‘’After receiving this moon as a gift from the Koorivars, I promised to use it to help other people have a better life. You will be the first such person I will help, Sarah.’’
16:19 (Universal Time)
Rocky field, New Haven
‘’So, Bill, why did you want to join me here, in the middle of nowhere?’’
Bill Morrison, who had just stepped out of a shuttle that had landed in the semi-arid field, smiled to Tina in response.
‘’Because I wanted to meet you, Tina…in the middle of nowhere. I had to do some discreet field tests, with you watching them. Here is a perfect place for such tests.’’
‘’Testing what, Bill?’’ asked Tina, mystified.
‘’Testing the results of Project X-Ray and of Project Buckler.’’
That answer made Tina do a double take out of surprise.
‘’Already? I was expecting those projects to take much longer before they could produce something concrete. How did you manage to proceed so quickly?’’
‘’Easy: Spirit lent us a hand. I and Doctor Koomak simply had to give her a few key parameters to follow and she then used the copied Drazt files to create designs, designs which were used by her to build prototypes via our robotic manufacturing workshops. Since we also bypassed the typical mountain of paperwork and administrative maze of the Spacers League government, I can bet that we on the KOSTROMA are now well ahead of their specialists in the two domains concerned. We have now a total of four prototypes ready to be field tested…away from indiscrete eyes, so here I am with a small test team.’’
Looking at the rear access ramp of the shuttle, Tina saw that Morrison had been followed by Doctor Koomak, Ahmed Jibril, electronician Vincent Reed, Second Engineer Jim Lowel…and Eve Silisca, all carrying a variety of plastic cases and leather bags. Michel, who had approached behind Tina, shook hands with Morrison.
‘’Hi, Boss! You should come do some trekking on our new world: it is a truly nice place. I certainly wouldn’t mind retiring on it one day.’’
‘’It sure looks nice to me, Michel. How about you help me set up a few things over those rocks over there?’’
‘’With pleasure, Boss!’’
Watched by a curious Tina, who was still carrying little Misha on her back, Morrison and his group chose four large rocks with an average of two to four meters between them, then selected three rocks of different sizes, the smaller being the size of a grapefruit and the larger one needing the efforts of three men to put it on top of one of the four rocks. What looked like a sort of small steel cylinder with an hemispheric cap was put on top of the fourth rock. The men then moved back by about thirty meters and put down on the ground four small folding tripods in a line facing the four rocks. Small rocks and dirt were used to anchor the feet of the tripods on the ground, while Vincent Reed set up a fifth tripod near to the first one and attached a small camera to it before carefully pointing it at the first of the rock targets. Once all that was done, Jim Lowell took a small object out of his bag and showed it to Tina and Michel. It was quite small, fitting inside an opened hand, and looked a lot like a common water hose hand sprinkler, with a hand grip topped by a small, short tube set at right angle to the grip and with a trigger protected by a finger guard in front of the grip. Jim Lowell’s expression was a sober one as he presented the object to Tina.
‘’This may look small and inoffensive, Tina, but it is in reality a lethal weapon. You are looking at a prototype of a conceal-carry disintegrator pistol. As you can see, it is extremely compact and quite thin, making it ideal to carry hidden under one’s clothes. Using the Drazt technical schematics and data, Spirit produced for us models of disintegrator weapons in conceal-carry pistol, heavy pistol and rifle sizes. We will first try this compact pistol against that grapefruit-sized rock over there.’’
‘’Can I hold it for a moment, Jim?’’
‘’Of course, Tina! Its energy cell is still out of its grip, so it is totally safe right now.’’
Taking the pistol offered by Lowell, Tina closed her right hand around its grip as Lowell described the weapon for her.
‘’The energy cell for it will add less than 200 grams to it, with a total working mass of 350 grams for the whole loaded pistol. It can be fired in short pulses of a hundredth of a second or in continuous mode. Its power can also be adjusted, to adapt it to the type and size of target you are aiming at. While not incorporated to this prototype, a standard pistol fingerprint recognition grip can be fitted, making the intended owner the only one able to use it. Our heavy pistol and rifle models can also receive such fingerprint recognition grips.’’
‘’Excellent! We certainly don’t want the wrong people to use such weapons. Can I see the heavy pistol and rifle models as well?’’
‘’No problem, Tina.’’ Said Lowell, who nodded his head at Ahmed Jibril. Tina handed over the compact pistol to Michel, letting him examine it as she got a beefier pistol from Jibril. That handgun proved to be both much larger and heavier than the compact model, weighing about 700 grams and being clearly designed to be carried in a belt holster. The heavy pistol was also equipped with a small day/night sight and a laser dot sight. Next, she took hold of the rifle model, a still fairly compact but highly intimidating weapon weighing about five kilos, with a large metallic tube some eighty centimeters in length and ten centimeters in diameter as its main part. It had a folding butt stock, two hand pistol grips and an assortment of sights attached to it. Seeing a sort of long steel tube of rectangular section fixed under the barrel of the rifle, Tina pointed it to Lowell.
‘’What is this thing, Jim? I can’t figure it out.’’
‘’That is something that Bill insisted on having included to our rifle. Let me handle it and I will show you.’’
Taking the rifle in his hands and pointing it in a safe direction, Lowell then pressed a recessed button at the top rear of the forward pistol grip. A forty centimeter-long serrated blade then popped out of the tube with a loud ‘click’. This time, it was Bill Morrison who spoke up.
‘’In case you run out of juice in a close fight, or need to intimidate someone, you can make this high-hardness steel alloy blade pop out. Its two edges are razor-sharp, while serrations running over half their length can be used to saw off softer materials, like aluminum sheeting or wood. You can also detach the blade entirely from the rifle by turning this knob here and end with an actual short sword in your hands. This may all sound anachronistic, but I was always a partisan of the ‘belt and suspenders principle’. For one thing, that blade could become your backup weapon in situations where you can’t fire your rifle without risking to hit innocent people, or are inside a very restricted area.’’
‘’I buy it, Bill! In fact, from the drooling he is doing now, I would say that my husband also likes this. Okay, let’s start the firing tests!’’
Taking the compact pistol, Jim Lowell then went to fix it to the tripod mount facing the smallest rock target, then carefully pointed it, also checking the alignment of the camera next to it. Inserting its energy cell in the grip of the pistol, he switched the weapon on and connected it to a long, thin command wire. Unrolling the wire as he went, he returned to the group, standing over twenty meters away, before connecting the end of the wire to a control box.
‘’Alright, Vincent, start filming! Firing short pulse in three, two, one, fire!’’
Tina, her eyes fixed on the grapefruit-sized rock used as a target, saw a needle-thin blue beam suddenly flash briefly across the air with a weak sizzling noise. The target rock, hit dead center, was temporarily hidden by a blue flash larger than itself. That flash however went on for only a fraction of a second. Exclamations went around the spectators of the test as the smoke from the hit was blown away by the wind.
‘’HOLY SHIT! THE WHOLE ROCK IS GONE!’’ shouted a shocked Vincent Reed. Tina herself was unable to speak at first, not having expected such power, by far.
‘’Uh, Bill, I think that we should try a second test firing of your compact pistol, this time aiming at the base rock which was supporting the target rock.’’
‘’I think that you are right, Tina. Damn, this weapon is terrifying! I am going forward to change the aim of the pistol and of the camera.’’
Two minutes later, they were ready to fire the compact pistol for a second time. This time, the hit created a melon-sized fuming hole on the face of the base rock. Koomak, who had approached with the rest of the group to examine the results from up close, shivered in horror.
‘’By the stars, I would have never believed that such destructive power could come from such a small thing if I was not looking at it now.’’
‘’And this is from our smallest prototype weapon.’’ Said somberly Tina. ‘’I am already afraid to see what our heavy pistol and our rifle will do. Alright, Jim: you can recuperate your compact model and fix in place your heavy pistol prototype. However, instead of aiming at the intended target rock, aim instead at the base rock supporting it. I somehow suspect that nothing of the second target rock would survive a test shot.’’
‘’Understood, Tina.’’
The heavy pistol test shot, with a blue beam the diameter of a pencil, vaporized a hole the size of a large storage chest in the target rock, demonstrating enough power to completely disintegrate a human adult body. As for the rifle model, its beam, cracking through the air with nearly the noise of a lightning bolt, vaporized completely a rock half the volume of an anti-gravity scooter. As the spectators contemplated in silence the smoking hole in the ground on which the huge rock had been, Tina spoke softly to Bill Morrison.
‘’I believe that Project X-Ray can be considered as wildly successful, Bill. Let’s now try your prototype for Project Buckler. We will first fire a standard pulse rifle at it, then will try your compact disintegrator on it.’’
‘’Got it, Tina.’’
Taking out of a case what looked like a standard protective helmet with a small box fixed to its front, Morrison went to place it on top of a rock and pushed a button on one side of the helmet, then aimed both the compact pistol and the camera at the helmet before returning to the group. Grabbing and aiming a pulse rifle at the helmet while Reed was filming the test, he fired one bullet. The projectile, made to penetrate at high velocity body armor plates, didn’t hit the helmet, bouncing instead in a shower of sparks against some invisible obstacle about one meter in front of the helmet. Morrison, like Tina and the others, stared for a moment at the intact helmet before switching to the control box of the compact pistol. The beam from the pistol, aimed at a point just higher than the helmet, sizzled past the helmet and hit the rock behind it, digging a fuming hole in it. Morrison looked at the others and spoke with dread in his voice.
‘’This is a small copy of a Drazt protective shield generator. I tested it while on the ship against a laser pointer and found out that laser beams can go through it. However, our pulse rifles cannot penetrate it, while Drazt disintegrator weapons can go through it without a hitch, which means that someone wearing such a shield generator would be invulnerable to our small arms, while able to fire away with a disintegrator weapon. You do realize what this means, guys?’’
‘’Yes!’’ said Michel after swallowing hard. ‘’If the Drazts came to the Solar System and attacked us now, they would quickly wipe out our soldiers on the battlefield and crush us in mere days.’’
Not having bargained for what they had just seen, the group quietly packed up their equipment to load it back into the waiting shuttle. However, Tina asked her group to wait a bit outside the shuttle, so that she could speak with them. Once assembled in a circle near the foot of the ramp, Tina looked glumly around at the others.
‘’People, we can’t ignore the conclusions made evident by the tests we just ran and we certainly can’t simply throw away these prototypes in horror just because they are so powerful. The sad facts are that the Drazts’ weapons and protective shield generators would assure them of a crushing and speedy victory over us if we ever meet them again and they decided to attack first. We won’t always have a chance to remotely hack their computers, which was probably the only reason why we were not destroyed in that encounter with the MURKAN. However terrifying those disintegrators are, I believe that we have no choice but to adopt them, if only to make sure that we will stand a chance in any possible fight with the Drazts. I also believe that the Drazt protective shield generator MUST be adopted by us, and this as quickly as possible. Bill, your prototype fit easily to the front of a standard helmet. Could it also be fitted to a body armor vest?’’
‘’I can’t see why not, Tina. In fact, it should be an easy job to do.’’
‘’Good! Jim, how fast could we produce more disintegrators and generators?’’
‘’Uh, it will depend on the numbers you will need but, since the design blueprints are already in Spirit’s computer files, which control the robotic machine tools in our