Anna communicated with Pathfinder and, together with Mary and Chan, who were now both enhanced again, our flight path was organised.
Anna lifted off, vertically, and swung the Rimor through ninety degrees to dock with the tank. We didn’t see any more of the animals after the engines fired, and docking went smoothly, leaving us a wait of twelve minutes before the launch window opened.
I must admit that I was not unhappy to leave Bella but could imagine the excitement of setting up a colony here. I was worried that the animals we’d killed might have been intelligent, but we’d had no alternative. As we climbed through the atmosphere, I cast my mind back to a film I’d seen as a kid – Avatar – the creatures living on that world didn’t have any fires, electric light or other technology in their lives but were truly intelligent. Did intelligent creatures need to use technology? If we were to return to Bella with an eye on providing a new world for enhanced humankind, we must be sure not to behave in the abhorrent manner of colonisation on Earth in previous centuries, which had been shockingly portrayed as an analogy in that movie. How we had dealt with the Chinese, Indians, people of the Far East, native Australians, Africans and, worst of all, native South and North Americans, was despicable. Somehow, our unenhanced species had allowed itself to exploit and enslave people perceived to be less sophisticated. It must never be allowed to happen again and I intended to make that point at the first opportunity on TV and radio when I got back to Earth.
Bella was a chance to do it properly – if intelligent creatures were found, we must enshrine in our moral contract, the fact that it is their planet. Help them, yes, support them, yes, but rob them, subjugate them, and try to convert them to our failed religions – never! Such arrogant behaviour must remain in unenhanced humankind’s past.
Anna cast off the external tank as it neared empty. She had planned a trajectory for it which would see it land in one of the seas. The Rimor continued to accelerate and was still some way from orbit. Bella’s mass was close to the limit for this landing and launching system. As we approached Pathfinder, I heard the computer say, ‘Fuel ten per cent, Anna,’ telling us how close we were to failing to reach orbit. Of course, if we had failed, Pathfinder could have dropped twenty or thirty miles to rendezvous with us, so it wasn’t critical, but it was a factor which would need to be considered if there were to be future visits.
Once we were in the same orbit, we watched Chan emerge from the Pathfinder airlock and she sprayed our exterior with disinfectant – a newly prepared solution which was capable of remaining liquid in a vacuum long enough to ensure the ship was thoroughly cleaned.
After docking, we sprayed ourselves again before entering the docking tunnel and facing more disinfection procedures before emerging into Pathfinder. I wished we had something like the transporter bio-filters used in Star Trek. Such a great idea, but beyond our technology at present.
While we ate, we had the computer project much of our video footage and discussed the strange animals we’d encountered.
‘Did you catch any of the spidery-scorpion things?’ asked Mary.
‘No,’ said Bill. ‘I made several attempts but they were too fast for the butterfly net and avoided all the traps I laid around the bio station. Not a single one entered any of the traps, although they did circle and investigate the outside of them.’
‘We didn’t know what they were eating, so had nothing to bait them with,’ Stroya added.
‘Frankly, a specialised expedition is required,’ I said. ‘Did you get any better idea of the planet’s landmasses?’
‘Yes,’ said Chan, retrieving a globe from one of the storage lockers. ‘We’ve a good idea of the continents obtained through breaks in the cloud. Water’s blue, land is green and any areas which remain doubtful are misted. I suppose we’ve seen over sixty per cent. Two of the continents are vast and might even be joined together.’ She pointed at a misted area between two landmasses which straddled the equator. ‘The alignment of some of the land areas suggests Bella has plate tectonics too.’
‘I’m sure that will all be helpful,’ I said.
‘Give us another week and I’m sure we’ll be able to complete the bulk of it,’ said Chan.
‘No. I’d like to get to Herade and get the main mission started,’ I said. ‘Let’s be ready to spold after the sleep period.’
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
My ent and I had spent some time in deep conversation about the radiation problem we’d encountered at the gas giant of 91 Aquarii.
I prepared a thirty-centimetre metal sample tube and put two duplicates of my ent inside it. I opened the first door to the fusion reactor and, using duct tape, stored the flask against the wall.
This section of the ship was a second radiation barrier if anything untoward should occur with the reactor. It had been considered completely unnecessary by the boffins back on Earth, but NASA had insisted on its inclusion in the design as a fail-safe. It provided the perfect location to store spare entities which would hibernate until needed or we returned home.
Now, if there were a second radiation accident, even if all of our entities were killed, we would still have a back-up. I had been seriously worried that, unenhanced, we might never have been able to carry out the maths quickly enough to escape the moon which was shielding us from 91 Aquarii’s gas giant. It was only the titanium plate in my head which had protected my entity from suffering the same fate as the others.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Strapped into our couches, we were approaching the end of the short spolding countdown.
All of a sudden, space was green and I was testing my drinking straw as we suffered the horrible stasis – the only drawback to our amazing ability to fold space.
As Pathfinder juddered to a halt, we all breathed a sigh of relief as Herade appeared below us. Its blue and charcoal surface was hardly as beautiful as Bella, but Stroya was thrilled to see it.
‘Back safely,’ she said.
‘Chan, check the beacons on the two Rimors we left in orbit around Keradrol plus the Heradian ship,’ said Anna. ‘We need to know we are where we think we are.’
‘Check Bella and Earth in the spolding drive. Make sure they’re achievable, Chan,’ I said.
‘This is Stroya calling Arctur. Come in, please.’ She repeated the transmission twice before it was answered by the team who had been left in the communication section of the outpost on the frozen world.
The beacons registered properly from orbit at Keradrol so we knew we were in the right part of the entiroverse.
‘Get ready to start the xardrol project,’ I said and everyone busied themselves preparing the optimal orbit to drop the xardrol probes.
‘Xardrol bombing orbit achieved. Dropping one every ten minutes beginning ten minutes from my mark,’ said Anna.
A few minutes later she said, ‘Ready… mark!’ and we began the countdown.
Each probe was stored on the outside of the forward end of Pathfinder, just behind the bridge section.
‘Fire one,’ said Anna.
Stroya hit the drop button on her console and we all watched as the first of the probes left the ship, moved parallel to us then fired its retro engines. The probe rapidly disappeared from view into Herade’s atmosphere.
The heat shield protected it as it fell through the upper layers, shedding its speed of almost eighteen thousand miles per hour. Once into the lower atmosphere, chutes were deployed and it gently swung itself down to the ground. At ten metres, the chute was cast adrift, and the probe hit the ground and split apart. Millions of airborne, dandelion-like xardrol seeds were then cast into the surrounding area.
After a single orbit, all eight had been deployed and reported back that they had opened. The operation to destroy the simeral weed on Herade had begun.
‘Well done, all. Set course to Arctur, Anna,’ I said.