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Secret instructions!
Locked away in my tablet’s memory till we landed. And that was any moment now.
Beside me Janeka stirred in her cryogenic sleep and moved out of my arms to the edge of the sleeping pod. She appeared to be breathing normally but I didn’t like to wake her fully, as it can be dangerous to heart and lungs after a long journey.
Mission captain is always the first to be woken once the space vehicle starts to orbit its destination. So I lay quiet, musing over our assignment.
In my position I invariably held restricted information about every trip, but this was the first time PlanetEx Inc had concealed data from me. Still, I’d always found my employers honest and I agreed to go ahead.
I briefed my seven fellow astronauts the same day. They didn’t need to be told it’s a long way to the Crab nebula.
Harald said, ‘So it’s a visit to the Cancri55 system, Lars?’ He sets our co-ordinates and his knowledge of the Universe is, well, universal.
I nodded and he continued, ‘A pretty nondescript star. Five planets, none habitable.’
‘But one planet has a rocky moon, Artio. Named after the Celtic bear goddess. And Artio has an earthlike atmosphere.’
‘Liquid water?’ Janeka asked. She’s our senior biologist, always eager to discover new life forms and figure out their evolutionary pathways.
‘So its spectrum indicates. And an equitable climate. Wind systems mild.’
‘Sounds like heaven. Why hasn’t the Cancri55 system been visited before, Lars?’ one of the crew asked me.
‘Too small. Too far.’
‘We’re lucky to be allocated a pristine planet,’ another said. ‘I was getting bored with the standard trips.’
Janeka browsed over the available information. ‘Plant-like organisms mainly in the red section of the light spectrum. They’re providing the oxygen that we can use. No reference to animal forms. So no intelligent life.’
‘How so?’
‘Evolution follows certain standard paths. Plants don’t need to move to collect energy for growth and reproduction. They just gather energy from their star. That’s neat, but otherwise they’re dumb. Animals can’t make their own energy, so they must travel to find their prey. To avoid damage they evolve warning systems – sense cells, nerves, brains. And a well-developed brain equals intelligence.’
‘So no worries about alien monsters?’
‘No, guys,’ Janeka giggled. ‘Not a T Rex in sight.’ She’s got an attractive burbling laugh. Good sense of humour, a necessary quality for all planetary explorers.
I was pleased to be paired with her. Our personnel manager at PlanetEx Inc arranges those details, and though I’m expedition captain, I don’t get my choice of partner any more than the other three men and four women in the team. We leave that to Mission Control and our manager does a good job. Has to. Incompatible partners can ruin a mission.
So we set off. Our frozen sleep lasted the whole journey.
As Janeka woke fully, so did the rest of the team. Stretching and yawning, we joshed one another as we took turns to perform the prescribed post-sleep work out in our restricted spacecraft. Then everyone crowded the small windows for their first glimpse of Artio.
All planets with life are beautiful and Artio was no exception. Vegetation of all shapes and sizes in every direction. Leaf like structures held up by branches to the brassy light of their sun. Every shade of red from lavender and violet through ruby, blood red and scarlet to apricot and copper. And in the glow from Cancri55 every leaf was tinged with gold.
As we landed the plants squished and deliquesced against our ship’s sides.
‘Twenty miles out,’ Harald called.
‘No prob,’ I replied. But I was wrong.
I checked out that secret information. I was stunned.
‘There has been an earlier expedition.’
Consternation. Questions. When? How many crew? What happened?
‘The turn of last Earth Century. Eight of them.’ I paused, saddened by their lonely deaths on an alien planet. ‘Sent back glowing reports. Eminently suitable for human colonisation. Atmosphere earth-like. Free of animal viruses. Plantlife nutritious. Then nothing. Complete silence. They didn’t even take off.’
‘So PlanetEx Inc deleted it from their public description of Artio,’ Harald said angrily.
Everyone protested. They were furious with me as well as the organisation.
I held up my hand. ‘I agree with you. I trusted them because I’ve always found them reliable. I’ll make the strongest representation to management when we return. But rebellion isn’t the answer. That’s wrecked many an expedition and quite possibly this earlier mission. It’s not going to wreck ours. The fact is – we’re here. So let’s get on with it.’
I continued checking the report. ‘You’re wrong about the lack of animals, Janeka. Bears. Woolly bears. Not hostile. A very smurry picture.’
She examined it with exasperation. ‘No scale. It’s useless as ID. Could be any size. I can’t make out legs or wings or even a head.’
The crew taunted her. ‘No T Rex, you said?’
I silenced them. ‘Our proposed landing was close to theirs. Unfortunately we’ve overshot. Before searching for their ship we’ll do a brief recce. Protective suits, stun guns, the lot. Stay on the buggies. No risks to be taken whatsoever. Report back at ten minute intervals.’
Janeka volunteered. She was angered by the sneers and she smiled mockingly as she eased her long dark hair into her helmet. ‘Lighten up, guys. I’ve taken on far more dangerous missions than this.’
I designated Harald as companion.
‘I’ll be on constant alert for those bears,’ he said, checking his gun.
‘No probs,’ he and Janeka reported regularly from their assignment.
Then over the airwaves came a sudden scream from Janeka.
We froze with shock.
She followed it with a ripple of laughter. ‘I’ve found a bear.’
I commanded her to back off slowly.
‘Not to worry, Lars. They’re tiny.’ She was giggling too much for us to understand and we waited their safe return in anticipation.
Proudly she held out a sample bottle. ‘There you are, guys. A woolly bear caterpillar. Gives the planet its name. It looks just like those of the Isabella tiger moths you find on Earth.’
Everyone laughed as she tipped the brown furry object onto the bench. It lay still for a while and then began to squirm and wriggle, making little progress on the slippery surface.
‘Will it turn into a butterfly?’ we asked.
‘Doubt it.’ Janeka said. ‘Completely different evolutionary history from Earth.’ Then she frowned. ‘Now we’ve encountered one animal we know there’ll be other animal life here. And animals by their nature are predators. And there could be infections from animal viruses.’
‘The report said the planet’s free of those,’ I reminded her.
We all played with the little creature, pushing it this way and that until it stopped moving. It exuded green goo from one end. Then its brown hairs dropped off revealing a black body. This disintegrated and we were left with a pile of dark grey dust. We scooped it up and binned it.
‘No way is that bear lethal,’ we joked.
Our next task was to find the mother ship of the earlier expedition. I took Janeka and Harald with me in three buggies packed with dried rations. Those left had orders to make a proper survey of land and plants under the direction of the junior biologist. We were all on red alert for fierce or poisonous animals.
Twenty miles forcing through soft entangling vegetation, circling massive crimson trees, slowed by sodden patches of marsh and, rarely, travelling fast on hard open ground. Nowhere did we see any animal larger than our woolly bear.
It was a very quiet planet. Eerily silent except for the wind through the soft branches. No birdsong. How much homelier Artio would be when the first colonisers arrived with their singing birds.
We reached the correct site and searched the luxuriant undergrowth without success. Maybe, as sometimes happens, the recorders had given inaccurate co-ordinates. Maybe they had set off and then crashed.
While Janeka and Harald continued the search, I tried to contact our mother ship but no joy. What were they playing at?
Frustrated, I looked at the setting sun. The huge neighbour planet shone brightly with reflected light as we circled it on our small Artio moon. I decided on a meal first and afterwards back to the ship as soon as possible by the planet’s light.
Then Harald called us over.
He’d pushed back his visor and his face was whiter than the planet above us.
He held small yellowish nobbly chunks in his hand.
Decayed human bones. Foot and hand digits.
Janeka stared into the vegetation above us. ‘Look,’ she said, her voice lacking all trace of former cheerfulness. ‘More of them.’
Limb bones. A skull stuck in a crook of a branch, its upper teeth glowing red in the combined light of planet and setting sun.
As I said, ‘But why up there?’, Harald retched and grabbed the tree’s base with both arms. Without speaking he began to climb, passing the fork without a glance at the skull until he thrust his boots into a branch well over our heads. Slowly, methodically, he tore off his safe suit.
Underneath, his naked body had turned black. His skin began to flake from the muscles, showering us with powder. Then those muscles disintegrated.
And so he too became a dead skeleton and, released from their connective fibres, his smaller bones bounced through the leaves one by one until they reached the forest floor.
‘What is it?’ I whispered in terror.
Janeka clutched at her stomach as she leant weakly against the tree trunk. ‘The woolly bear,’ she muttered. ‘The virus report was wrong. I should have known.’
‘What? What?’ I asked, my voice feeble, the words indistinct as if my mouth was full of Harald’s dust.
Janeka swallowed several times. ‘Virus infected the furry bear. That’s why it died. Like on earth, where there’s a virus that compels its caterpillar host to climb the vegetation. Once there it disintegrates and rains down virus particles on the healthy caterpillars beneath.’
As I bent double with sickness, she murmured, ‘No escape.’ Her voice faded away completely as she scrambled up the tree, discarding her safe suit as she climbed.
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