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“ALL HANDS, THIS IS the captain speaking, we have just arrived in the Sirius system. All stations report please.”
Lena knew already. She leaned up on one elbow and raised a smile and a thumb to the captain. She smiled back. Then went straight to the side of Lyn Lee, the pilot, and Betty, flitting between them and the workstations they had set up on the bridge. Lyn’s was minimal as Arohirohi had provided her with extensive controls and a rather comfy-looking pilot’s chair. Lee reached over and hit a button on the console, and the whole wall in front of them disappeared. Everyone gasped. Behind them was the safety of bunks and coffee and deck, before them was the vastness of the void. Lena had spent all her time trying to suppress the creeping feeling that what they now saw in front of them was all that was real and the bunks and decks of Rowie’s were all an illusion to make them feel comfortable. They were less riding the back of a whale, more flying a magic carpet, where every current and buffet could be felt beneath their feet, and negotiating their ride was a balancing act of the highest order.
The view had been there for a minute and no one had spoken. Whether appreciating the majesty of space or frozen in terror, Lena couldn’t tell as they all had their backs to her. She sat up properly and removed the ‘crown’ she and Rowie had compromised on for ease of use, rather than snaking tubes in and out of Lena herself. She put her crown down on the flight couch, sat up and stretched. She knew where they were. Between her and the executive officers, they’d plotted a preferred course. The planet in the Sirius system they seemed to be heading to wasn’t on anyone’s star maps. It wasn’t all that big, for a planet, maybe the size of a small Mars, and it was in a ”Plutoid” orbit or so Betty called it. Between her and Lena, they’d done a beautiful simulation to present to the crew at a briefing. Rowie seemed very keen to tell Lena and the crew all about it. It had a massively long orbit of about five hundred years, which took it out into the darkness and back. The captain had been keen to know why the previous mission had landed on this unknown and unpromising planet. Betty had provided the animation for that too. When the original colony mission had arrived, the smaller planet they were headed for was a lot closer to the assumed destination of Sirius Four. Had they put down there in an emergency? Was there an extant hazard that they were traveling towards? Would being inside the skin of an alien space whale be enough to protect them from that? In a way, she understood what Fazar was worrying about. For that matter, where was Fazar? He was normally wherever any news was and surly though he may have been, he always responded to a request for his presence. To not do so would’ve been a dereliction of duty and that would never do.
Were other crew on the ship seeing the same as them? Had Rowie provided windows for everyone? That seemed likely, as no one had reported in yet. Lena imagined the ship like a huge doll’s house floating in orbit, each window with a tiny face peering out at their new destination.
“Report please,” prompted the captain.
As all the department heads started to chime in one by one, their position slowly resolved. They were now in orbit around wherever they were—Sirius Five? There had been no orbital burn. Not that Rowie burned anything. She had no engines and had not adjusted their course. She had rather, plonked them down exactly where they needed to be, with just enough momentum for a satisfactory orbit. Lyn Lee expressed her amazement when helm reported in. Betty added to her report saying that the planet didn’t seem to rotate, with one side facing the tiny white dwarf of Sirius B, she called it a Hot Eyeball, whatever that meant. The side they were currently looking at appeared to have been scorched by some past apocalypse. There was no sign of anything on the side they were seeing. It had a faint orange tinge to its surface and no sign of an atmosphere. Quite where a colony would be, would have been, was anyone’s guess. All the stations had reported in, even Fazar, talking about the time to launch the landing craft, when the captain said, “Anything to add, Lena? I feel our dream pilot might have some input.”
The ship chirped up in her mind: they were where they should be, this was where the signals hailed from. It was trickier to ascertain what kind of other readings there were. Signs of life? Rowie said they were on the wrong side of the planet to detect heat signatures. That would have to wait until they’d all got their bearings and the dark side came into view. Arohirohi had placed them perfectly in orbit and now she was waiting like a patient hound. Lena felt in her mind that for the first time in this most unusual of voyages, the ship now needed them. The humans were required to do what humans did best—explore.
