Adrift Among The Stars — Part Four

A Taste of Salvation

The crippled starship slowly slipped down the gravity well toward the star and its inner planets. Ka’rail would have become bored during the two months had it not been for the Engineer. The ship’s Brain was not intended to control the ship using the sub-light engine; thus, the pilots were standing watch in the Control Room. The Engineer had been delegated the task of investigating the inner planets and Ka’rail had been assigned to assist. Each day they got closer and learned something new.

“So, what will happen to it now?” Og’cun asked of Dy’low. He had just told her the ice object, their fuel supply, had been jettisoned.

El’ban and Ka’rail were with the pair eating dinner. The crew and passengers had depleted the ship’s food supply and they were now consuming the supplies in the cargo hold. These were actually a delight as the cargo contained rare delicacies intended for the rich miners.

Dy’low answered, “Up till now, we’ve been on a trajectory straight into the star. Thus, the object will continue on that path and crash harmlessly into the star.”

“Why?”

“It’s the best way to get rid of it, and to ensure it will not become a navigation hazard in the future?”

“A hazard to who?” Og’cun asked.

Dy’low shrugged.

“So, we are going to skip the fourth planet?” El’ban asked.

Ka’rail answered; he had the new information even before the Captain reviewed it. “Yes, it is on the wrong side of the star for us to examine it in detail. What we know is that it’s small with a thin atmosphere. It’s arid with no surface water. We believe there are oceans of ice underground. Thus, it could be habitable, but the third planet appears to be ideal. It’s a bit larger than our home world with a stronger gravity field. The Engineer will begin adjusting our artificial gravity to match. By the time we get there, we’ll all be adjusted. Also, the atmosphere is denser than we are accustomed to with more oxygen. Thus, our ship-board air will be altered to match. There is water vapor in the air, but not as much as we expected.”

Dy’low interrupted, “Now, we’ll begin decelerating and tilting our orbital plane to intersect the third planet. It will take another six weeks.”

The Captain had said there was a two-year supply of food in the cargo hold. If the third planet did not already have edible lifeforms, Ka’rail wondered how long it would take them to cultivate their own.

Three weeks later, when the four friends once again gathered for dinner, Dy’low asked, “Ka’rail, I heard a rumor that there is some bad news about the third planet. Eh?”

Ka’rail considered if he should wait for the Captain to make an announcement, but he decided to answer. “Yes, it seems the planet is an ice ball. This explains the low water vapor content in the atmosphere. The Engineer is quite perplexed as the planet is the correct distance from the star for liquid water, but it’s all ice.”

El’ban asked, “Is there a reason for this?”

“None known. The Engineer postulates something drastic happened to the environment which caused the surface to cool. As more ice formed in the polar regions, this reflected more of the heat from the star and caused more cooling. The cycle continued until the surface was covered with ice. The Engineer says that this cannot be the planet’s natural state. Heat from the planet’s core will eventually warm it and liquid water will reappear. But, he has no idea how long this could take. Maybe a million years.”

“So,” Dy’low added, “we must expect to create our own habitat? Does this mean there is no life?”

“The large amount of oxygen in the atmosphere indicates there was substantial plant life in the past, but probably none now. No plant life means no animal life either.”

“What about uranium?” Dy’low asked.

Ka’rail shook his head. “Of course we’ll have to take rock samples to know for sure, but the star, and thus the planet, is more than four billion years old. Even if it contained uranium when it was formed, it would have all decayed away by now.”

“What does that mean?” Og’cun asked. “Why is there uranium in the Ta’rus nebula, but not here?”

Ka’rail said, “Uranium is only formed in the cores of giant stars when they die in supernova explosions. However, it’s radioactive and decays over time. Most of it will be gone a billion years after the supernova. This planet is nearly five billion years old, whereas the Ta’rus nebula was created by a supernova only a hundred-thousand years ago.”

Dy’low added, “When we speak of uranium, we are really only talking about the two-thirty-five isotope. When created, the uranium is in nearly equal parts two-thirty-eight and two-thirty-five isotopes. The two-thirty-eight isotope decays much more slowly, but it is of no use in our power generators.”

El’ban said, “You’re saying, when we move to the planet’s surface we’ll have no food and no power? How are we going to survive?”

Later that evening, after they had made love, El’ban lifted her slender body from the narrow bunk and began to dress.

“Why are you leaving so soon?” Ka’rail asked.

“I have something to tell you, and then you will need time to think about it.” Ka’rail sat up and El’ban leaned down to kiss him. And then, she said, “I’m pregnant.”

Shocked, Ka’rail drew in a breath. He thought he should say something like, Oh, that is so wonderful, darling. But, it wasn’t wonderful. He couldn’t think of anything to say.

She pressed a finger to his lips. “Don’t say anything. I know this has blindsided you. There is nothing you need to say right now. Several of the girls are pregnant, but the others don’t know who the father is. However, I know. Fearing some sort of strife among the men, the Captain has asked us to remain quiet about it.” She smirked. “Of course, it’s not a secret which can be kept for long.” She stood and stretched. Ka’rail noticed her tummy was still flat. How long would it stay that way? “And, the Captain asked me to say that I don’t know who the father is, like the others. But, I thought you should know the truth. I’ve not been with any other man, so I know the baby is yours.”

She stood by the door, her finger poised over the control panel. “Look, I know you have, uh, experienced several other women. I don’t resent it. There are so many women and so few men, it has to happen and it will happen again. But, you are the only one I’ve been with.” She tapped the panel and the door opened. “We’ll talk about it later, my love.”

Before he could formulate a response, she left. Adding to his distress, she had used the L-word. She had said she loved him — well, it was clear that was what she meant. Never before had they used the L-word to describe their relationship. He wasn’t entirely sure what love was.

Ka’rail could not sleep that night. He had not thought a pregnancy was possible. She had never implied pregnancy was a concern, and he had assumed she used a control implant. Perhaps it had been a requirement of her marriage contract — the mail-order brides had to be fertile. Perhaps the miners wanted children as quickly as possible.

He had never imagined himself with children. But, a baby was here now and he would have to deal with it. He would have to protect his child. This thought gave him a new reason to survive.

Pending fatherhood cast a new light on their situation. It was clear; there would never be any rescue. He had not been distressed; space travel was dangerous business and he’d always expected to die in space. But, this small band of humanity was destined to establish a colony. Previously, he had simply been going through the motions with no vested interest in what was to come. Work and sex had been all there was to life. But, now he saw a purpose. The purpose of life was to survive and procreate. He was now procreating; thus, he must now survive. If there truly was no other purpose to life, they should have simply remained with the ice object and crashed into the star. At the speed they were traveling, it would have all ended in an instant.

Ka’rail couldn’t consider failure anymore. He had never considered what it meant to be in love, but he supposed this was it.

When his alarm alerted him to the start of the next day, he stumbled to the engineering section. He was tired, his brain was in turmoil, and he hoped to have a meaningless day. However, he found his coworkers knotted around a display panel.

“What’s happening?” Ka’rail asked of no one specifically.

“We’re getting closer,” Bo’kat said. He was a fellow Watcher who had been assigned to the examination of the third planet.

“So?”

“Look,” Bo’kat pointed to the display, “there is an additional satellite orbiting the planet.”

Ka’rail didn’t see why this was so noteworthy. Most planets had more than one moon. This planet had a large moon, larger than would be expected for an inner planet. The Engineer had speculated there had originally been two smaller planets which had collided several billion years earlier. Nonetheless, additional moons were to be expected.

Ka’rail looked closer at the information displayed. The new moon was very small, and it was almost pure metal — aluminum.

“It’s artificial,” Bo’kat elaborated.

“Man-made?” Ka’rail exclaimed. “This planet is inhabited by intelligent beings?” He was suddenly excited by the prospect they would have help surviving on the planet. This wasn’t an outlandish possibility. There were three known human colonies and perhaps a dozen others postulated. Ka’rail’s home world had been populated by a colony not altogether dissimilar from the starship with its stranded crew and passengers. However, his world, and the other two known inhabited worlds, had been intentionally colonized. The early days had been difficult, and the records detailing the reason and their origin had been lost. A few hundred years earlier, they had visited the two other known colonies. There had been hopes the uranium from the Ta’rus nebula could be sold. But, the other colonies already had uranium and they had nothing of sufficient value to justify the cost of interstellar transport. No one had been to these worlds since. Nonetheless, it was possibility this planet had been another human colony. While no truly alien intelligent life had been found, this was also a reasonable expectation.

The Engineer leaned into the conversation. “This artificial satellite is very old. One would expect the people who put it here intended for it to have some function, but it doesn’t appear to do anything. I suspect it is too old, and it is now inoperable. Thus, there were intelligent beings living here in the past, but no more.”

Bo’kat added, “The Captain decided to wait until we’re were closer, and then dispatch the shuttle to retrieve the satellite. He expects it will reveal a great deal about the beings who once lived on the planet.” Bo’kat drew Ka’rail’s attention to another display. “There’s something else, but the Captain doesn’t want to reveal this to the passengers just yet.”

THE END of Part Four

Part Five, The End of Choices

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Copyright ©2023 by S. M. Revolinski All Rights Reserved

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