Contamination Event (Short Story #1)



  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  The Grey Life

  Ms. Wellington's Oak Tree

  The Politics of Consumption

  Bringing Down the House

  Gyges the Terrible

  THE BUNKER SERIES

  Thank You For Your Cooperation

  Your Call Is Important To Us

  Can I Be Of Some Assistance

  Today's Edition

  Contamination Event

  first in a series of

  science fiction shorts

  Adam Wasserman

  First Edition, April 2017

  Copyright 2017 by Adam Wasserman

  All rights reserved

  Cover photo is of Enceladus

  imaged by the Cassini spacecraft

  and is credited to NASA

  The universe is a hostile environment. Most of it is space – the space around planets, the space around stars, the space between galaxies. Then there are the vast, unthinkable voids through which the galaxies themselves are strung like ribbons. Despite the utter blackness and lack of air pressure, all this space is far from empty. It is permeated by loose atoms and ionized gas, dust and radiation. And it's all flowing. If you stare at it long enough, you'll find that nothing in the universe stays still.

  The sky is crowded with stars. Every cadet is astounded by the sheer number of them the first time he ventures from the cocoon of Earth's atmosphere. How strange to think that of all the worlds that surely orbit those countless pinpricks of light, only the Earth and its pitiful five hundred million square kilometers are safe enough to call home.

  The Institute for the Exploration of Deep Space has catalogued hundreds of brown dwarfs, carbon giants, and variable stars, all of them in the vicinity of Sol. Most of them have planets. But the fact is we have yet to find a single world other than Earth where human beings can survive unaided.

  The perfect mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, the correct air pressure, abundant water and balmy weather – none of it is replicated anywhere else.

  At prestigious universities such as Lagos Polytechnic and the Saskatchewan Institute of Technology highly regarded minds are quick to point out that humanity has only just begun its exploration of the cosmos. The professors will bleat like sheep penned up in their lecture halls when they tell you there simply aren't enough data points to draw such a hasty conclusion.

  But the dry, dusty professors don't venture out into space. We argonauts, we venture out into space.

  The argonauts are humanity's vanguard in its quest to conquer the galaxy. We are the first to set foot on alien worlds. Are they are appropriate for study, mining or permanent settlement? Our experiences and recommendations largely determine the answer.

  The dangers are many. Few of us make it back to Earth alive. It is a small concession that the dusty basins, deep ravines and towering mountains of these strange worlds bear our names. But that's not why we sign up.

  The rain pelted down on the surface of HO-Librae-IV. That's the official name and the one we use in our reports. But only the scientists use that designation. The rest of us call the planet Zarmina.

  Above us an unbroken, yellow sky. The oppressive cloud deck, dark and gloomy, stretched to every horizon, enveloping the planet. The feeble light of HO-Librae never touched the surface, but we knew it was daytime nonetheless.

  HO-Librae was always in the sky at two hundred sixteen degrees longitude, forty-one degrees south latitude. Zarmina was tidally locked to its star, which meant it always showed the same face in its orbit. Ordinarily, planets like this one would have a scorching dayside and a nightside so cold the entire atmosphere would lie in icy clumps, frozen out. But Zamina's planetary ocean was massive enough to efficiently distribute heat. Everywhere on the planet the temperature was in the neighborhood of sixty degrees centigrade.

  Sometimes, there was wind. It was slight – gusting no faster than a meter per second – but in the dense atmosphere the force was enough to push stones. Occasionally, one would bump into the exterior of the Biological Safety Zone, a sudden and throbbing bass punctuating the steady staccato of the raindrops.

  I had picked a rocky outcropping near the coast of a small island as the site for our base. That's all there was on Zarmina – little islands thrusting up from the depths of a deep planetary sea. Spread out irregularly across the globe, the largest was about the size of Puerto Rico.

  We could see the roiling ocean from the Biological Safety Zone. Tall, powerful waves rippled across its surface, driven by the deceptively slow winds. Even when it wasn't raining, the ocean was rough.

  Zarmina was similar to Earth in more ways than the ocean and the weather. There was life here, too.

  The talking heads back at IFEDS just fall over themselves when we report back the presence of life somewhere. But we argonauts have learned through experience to temper our enthusiasm. Life in the universe is as hostile as the interplanetary medium. Perhaps more so. The interplanetary medium is the same wherever you go. Life, on the other hand, has a myriad of forms. Each one is strange, its behavior unpredictable. Past experience doesn't help.

  Personally, I love the landscapes. There's nothing like setting down on a new planet and getting a first look around. High-resolution photography from one thousand kilometers above the surface just doesn't compare. It can't capture the delicate shades of purple left behind by a setting supergiant, reflecting brilliantly in interlocking veins of mineral. The gossamer strands of some as-yet-uncategorized polymer dancing through the wispy fumes of a thin atmosphere, collecting into piles at your feet. The silence of an empty world dominated by angular silicate plains and ravaged by an unforgiving sun.

  The universe may be hostile, but it is also extraordinarily beautiful.

  Dalia Haggar was standing patiently in the sterilization chamber, waiting for the cycle to end. I could see her round, pudgy face through the tiny window in the inner door. Strands of short-cropped, brown hair were plastered to the sides of her head in the fine mist. In the outer lock next door, the clothing and equipment she had brought with her were receiving ultraviolet treatment.

  Dalia was the team's primary life sciences specialist with expertise in micro- and macrobiology. She had also received training as a pharmacologist and chemical engineer.

  Esther Sainclair – our nutritionist, dietician, and (in those dire moments of need) primary surgeon – was over by the 3D printer, preparing our midday meal. She constantly referred to an orderly line of vitamin and mineral charts, humming to herself contentedly as she checked off boxes.

  Esther rarely set foot outside the Biological Safety Zone. Her place was inside, monitoring the temperature and composition of the air, scanning for alien microbes, making sure we got enough rest. Esther took good care of us. But none of us took her motherly demeanor at face value. She was the quickest and deadliest shot in the team.

  Sergei Lebedev was our robotics expert and Level-III programmer. Wherever he went a swarm of small tools and circuit boards followed. Scattered about usually just beyond reach, they all had esoteric and very specific uses. There he was, crouched under his workbench, grumbling that he couldn't find his oscilloscope. One of the scouts was hoisted overhead in a cradle. It had taken a nasty fall earlier in the day and needed repairs.

  Sergei was also our pilot, which according to IFEDS's regulations made him our team leader.

  And myself? I, Jonathan Crozier, was the communications officer and navigator. Which meant I had to fill out a lot of paperwork and file everything with IFEDS. If I didn't, I got a lot of angry messages from our project leader back on Earth.

  The more enjoyable part of my responsibilities was poring over maps and collating the variou
s data brought in by the scouts. Sergei had the final say about the daily missions, but he usually followed my recommendations.

  Every argonaut underwent extensive training beyond his specialities. We were all proficient Level-I and -II programmers, for example. IFEDS regulations specifically stated that a crew must be able to operate without any one of its members. For example, I knew a thing or two about biochemistry, and Esther could fly us out of there if Sergei for some reason was unable.

  Beyond that, every argonaut was fully versed in how to set up, operate and maintain a Biological Safety Zone. A large, dome-like structure divided internally into habitation and work areas, it was a transferrable, mini Earth-environment. Able to withstand extreme temperatures and pressures, it was also a reliable barrier between terran and alien ecosystems.

  “Do you need a hand over there, Sergei?” I asked after a particularly foulmouthed outburst.

  “What?” he stammered and pulled his head out from under the workbench.

  I pointed at the scout. “Do you want help?”

  The edge drained out of his eyes. “Oh, help. Yes. Why in fact I do. Thank you.”

  I was glad he accepted. I was keen to hear the results of Dalia's latest tests on the fungal fields piled up on the rocks below. But the report would have to wait until the sterilization cycle completed.

  Sergei looked up