Foster, Alan Dean Life Form(1)

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certain until it could be confirmed. First observations could be deceptive. He wondered
what the air would smell like.
There was a loud bang and the lander dropped sharply, its fall punctuated by a couple of
startled exclamations from those near Simna and some exceptional commentary on
Lastwell's part concerning the sexual habits of aeronautical engineers who never had to fly
the vehicles they designed. By now Noosa had joined Ramirez in looking decidedly queasy.
Simna's stomach jumped, and he ran through the personal mental exercises he'd designed
for himself. His insides stabilized along with the ship.
They were almost down. The surface was racing past too quickly to make out details
"Hang on!" Lastwell shouted. "This is it!"
Prentice tried to relax his fingers. Three years of preparation had gone into the Xican
expedition. Three years care-fully assembling material and crew. Then a month in orbit
and ten more in deepsleep. Four years leading to the moment of touchdown. It wasn't easy
to relax.
A different kind of jolt jarred the lander. Less slippery, more convincing. The great fist of
the planet's gravity reached up and took incontrovertible hold of the vessel. Sand and
gravel screamed beneath the nanocarbon landing skids as a towering rooster tail of fine
sand plumed behind the ship, darkening the midmorning sunshine. The rasping howl
penetrated the shielding and shook the passenger compartment.
Prentice kept his eyes closed. If anything went wrong, he would know it without having to
witness it. He smiled to himself. As long as he could hear Lastwell's steady stream of
invective he knew everything was all right.
Automatic stabilizers sensed variations in surface conditions and compensated
accordingly. The crew was shaken but not stirred as the huge craft slowed perceptibly. The
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steady roaring both from Lastwell and outside diminished proportionately. They
continued to slow.
And stopped.
Everyone was too relieved and exhausted to let out any whoops of triumph. Prentice
helped Ramirez and Lejardin out of their seats and with their antinausea shots. Not quite
as sick, Noosa vanished into the bowels of the lander to check on his precious equipment.
After a long, lingering glance out the port, Halstead followed in his wake.
While Stevens and Lastwell methodically checked on conditions both in and outside the
craft, Simna and the Car-navons unbuckled themselves and ambled over to the port to
peer outside. After several minutes Cedric Carnavon called back to Prentice.
"Come and have a look at this, Salvor." There was an edge to his usually even tone. "I think
we can now report with confidence that it was worth all the inconvenience."
As Lejardin tried to sit up, Prentice gently restrained her. "Relax. Nothing's going
anywhere."
"I'd like to look." She was gazing toward Simna and the Carnavons.
He smiled down at her. "The surface'll still be there when you're feeling better. Give your
stomach a rest."
"I don't want to be kind to my stomach. I want to look." But she remained where she was,
albeit reluctantly, as Prentice left her to join the others.
As soon as he reached the port he knew that the heretofore grand discoveries of lichen and
fungi on Tycho V and Burke had been instantly relegated to the realm of footnotes in the
young world of xenobiology. Lastwell and Stevens had brought the lander to a halt at the
very end of the finger of desert. The ship was surrounded on three sides not by algal
blooms or lichenous mats but by actual low scrub. Just beyond the scrub were trees, a
veritable forest. The trunks were gray rather than brown and their crowning verdure
unnaturally sallow, but they were incontrovertibly trees.
"Look at that, just look." Millie Carnavon's eyes were shining as she whispered. "I'll bet
some of the emergents are a hundred meters high."
"Easily," agreed Simna. "But see how they keep their distance from one another, and how
open the understory is."
"This is just one patch," her husband pointed out. "Further in it may get denser." Simna
nodded agreement.
"There's a lot of high grass or some kind of succulent fringing the sand," Millie noted. "The
forest's first line of defense against encroaching desert. O'Sandringham's not going to
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know what to sample first. / won't know what to do first." She was holding her hands
clasped together just beneath her chin, looking for all the world like a little girl surveying
the Christmas display at a large department store.
Prentice spotted a clump of large beige-hued spheres nestled within a pair of bushes. Seed
pods, or something else? He was desperate to go outside and get to work, but knew they
had to proceed with caution. He couldn't very well counsel restraint to the others if he
broke procedure himself. It wasn't easy. The lustrous-skinned pods beckoned to him.
"No flowers." There was disappointment in Simna's voice that had nothing to do with
science.
Millie Carnavon was more hopeful. "Perhaps deeper in the forest, out of the direct
sunlight. Or in another location."
Stevens turned from his position. "UV's pretty intense here. Ramirez, Lejardin, and Simna
might be okay, but everyone else is going to have to be sure to slap on some shield before
going outside or we're going to be dealing with severe burn cases before we even get set
up."
Carnavon's gaze hadn't shifted from the forest. "We all know our own skin," he murmured
softly. "God, I can't wait to get out there."
"We are blessed, my dear Challenger, beyond all scientists since the beginning of time,"
Simna murmured.
"What's that?" Millie Carnavon frowned uncertainly.
He smiled gently. "Favorite quote from a very old book. I'll run the sphere for you
sometime."
Her husband looked over at him. "Twenty-four hours here would guarantee a lifetime
stipend, a prestigious professorship, make a career. And we've got two years, should we
need it. Xenobiology's about to become a serious science, and we're going to define it."
"You're pretty sure of yourself," Stevens remarked. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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