Chapter 2: Part 1. The Explorers
They call it the Million Year Rain. It is the clearest example of how the Zjheek implement their plans: they plan for eternity.
To the Zjheek, eternity is not a long time, as one of their most esteemed philosophers, Arkmontic Adamant Halting, says, “Eternity is right here and now. It does not have anything to do with time. Eternity is the part that cuts out time. It’s an experience of the moment. If you do not get it now, you will never feel eternity.”
When the Zjheek decide upon something it is literally for now and forever.
Which is why, when the Exploration Group enters System 7992, surveys it, and finds a planet orbiting slowly around its primary within the zone which allows liquid water to exist, they are very excited.
“The planet is arid,” says astro-biologist, Tattooed Windpipe. She pulls her feathers back from her face, where they fell while peering into her long-range telescope, and refastens the agate clip she uses to hold them. Wiping her upper hands on the front of her tunic to clean off the oil from her feathers, she bobs to the mission leader, Taupe Colouration and waits for his nod of approval to continue.
“I see,” he responds. Taupe is, in relative terms, the least well-versed of his crew in the art of exploration. His skill-set is a mix of astrogation, fixing things that break, and telling crew members what to do without really understanding what it actually is. He is the perfect mission commander. With a nod, he continues, “What is your estimation of the planet’s value?”
“It is everything. We can build from scratch and make the planet as close to perfect for colonisation as possible,” Tattooed Windpipe says in a rush, her words tumbling like an avalanche.
“And how would we do that?” Taupe asks, looking around the assembled experts from all the physical sciences.
“It has a slightly shorter orbital period than Prime,” Bluefin Scratch, the mission’s astrophysicist says, “but not by as much as to make it unliveable, and neither is its rotational period. Days and nights will be shorter, as will the planet’s years, but we can adapt to that quite easily.”
“What about the surface temperature?” Taupe says to Tattooed.
“It’s high, but if we implement a full alignment protocol, it will fall naturally within a few million orbits, perhaps less,” Tattooed insists. She is feeling quite confident this is the one, the first planet found to be habitable in all their long history of space exploration.
“If you’re correct, and I have no reason to doubt what you say, then this is a jewel,” Taupe is already imagining the plaudits he will receive if he brings such news home. “What do you need to make this happen?”
“Mass accelerators,” Tattoed says, her excitement welling up. “Lots of big accelerators out in the ice field near the interstellar pathways. The first step must be to make that rock wet. After that, the process is fairly straightforward: enrich the soil with nutrients and micro-organisms, introduce or develop plants to build a sustainable ecosystem, then add animal life. After which, we can build houses and send a load of colonists in to ruin it all.”
“Well hopefully not. The ruination bit, I mean,” says Taupe. He settles back in his couch and thinks for a moment. Decisions of this kind make him uncomfortable. Besides they do not have the resources to complete the operation, although they can set things in motion. Best to chase it back home and wait for someone who pecked higher branches to decide.
“This is what we will do,” he says. “Prepare a message scout drone and send it back through the interstellar pathways to Prime. Let them decide on the next course of action.”
There is a groan from the crew. This is so Taupe, thinks Tattooed.
“What I want you to do is assemble a full series of reports on every aspect of the planet by the end of this light cycle. Oh, and Tattooed…”
“Yes?”
“Make sure there is no life down there. I don’t want to find we’ve gone to all this trouble only to find the planet is contaminated,” with that, he pulls down his astrogation visor, closes his eyes, and sleeps.
“I’m going to have to send a probe to the planet,” Tattooed says to no-one in particular. Everyone else is scurrying back to their workstations to prepare fang-proof reports, so she wanders back to the drone launch tubes and prepares her survey probe. It would take a third of her allotted time for it to get to and from the planet, with another third gathering data, which was not nearly enough to do a comprehensive survey. And she will have to rush her report, which she realises will comprise mostly of “No evidence of” platitudes. Oh well, she thinks, and launches the probe, which falls into spiralling orbit to the inner system, bound for a small, brown undistinguished planet, which has the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time.
Heading back to her workstation to watch the probe’s progress, she imagines the process of crashing ice-balls into the planet. It would take hundreds of thousands of orbits to complete the process, then it would rain for a million of the planet’s years. She offers a small prayer to the god of rain, “Good wet, never forget, when days are dry, the Zjheek will die.
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