Leon sat in his chair unrestrained. He had decided to do the planetary survey in the secondary observation room. As it was situated on the first spinning habitat ring, there was a semblance of gravity and he could move freely.
Samuel and Sabine still looked a bit under the weather but they were here and that's what was important. He himself was still feeling a bit off from their bad warp trip from earlier. Natalia had decided to go and join Myung in the hydroponics section, she was likely sitting in her yard meditating.
He smiled at the thought, the yard as it was nicknamed was a small patch of cultivated grass in the hydroponics ring that Joice, Myung and Natalia had cultivated to give people a place to relax. He loved the place as it was where he had finally admitted his feelings for Natalia.
Terry spoke up, breaking his line of thought, as she said "We are getting some tentative data on the planet with the ship's main scanners now. It is a tidally locked planet, no large oceans and a very stable orbit with a single large moon. The near side appears to be entirely a vast wind-blown desert and the far side a huge tundra. There is a small area in between where there are significant small liquid water lakes, but this water seems to flow through underground streams because I see no evidence of surface rivers." She finished her report with a click of her tongue and looked at him for comment.
Leon just said "That seems interesting. The satellite orbiter have any good shots of the ground yet?"
Terry shook her head and said "It's still calibrating its orbital path, but it has given us some pictures, they are just lower resolution." Terry poked at her console for a minute and soon Leon's computer beeped as it was sent a direct feed from the orbiter as well as a file of photographs.
Leon started looking through the data they had. At first he was a bit confused till he realized that the fuzziness he was seeing in the photos was some sort of heavy wind blown particulate matter. He looked again and saw low resolution shapes near to the ground. The ground looked to be sandy and dry, which made sense as he was looking at pictures of the dryer side of the planet. What immediately captured his attention however were the large seemingly rounded outcroppings that dotted the desert sands. The picture quality was fuzzy and somewhat indistinct, but he thought he could make out some sort of tendrils coming from their edges, blown about by the strong winds.
“What are these?” He asked, turning towards Sabine.
Sabine, who was currently scrutinizing the same fuzzy images that he was, looked up and over to him in surprise before seeming to hear his question. Looking back at the images she spoke “I'm not entirely sure. They could be some sort of native life form, but according to my scans, they are massive, the largest of them I can see is over two hundred meters in diameter.” she said with a bit of wonder.
“They can't possibly be some form of animal life, could they?” Taylor asked from the other side of the bridge.
Terry looked at the images briefly before she turned back to her work. With any luck, the visuals coming in should be cleaned up soon and they would be able to answer that question. Instead Leon shrugged and said “If it's alive, then it's an alien from an alien environment, evolved from totally different conditions. Who knows what kind of things could be thriving down on the surface.”
Taylor shuddered and said “Yeah, like the last one we visited.” He spoke in reference to the jungle world they had previously encountered that had been inhabited by titanic arthropods.
Leon shuddered a bit at the younger man's comment. He would certainly not want a repeat of that either. He shifted in his swivel chair, it was nice to have some semblance of gravity while doing this he admitted to himself.
Leon once more turned his eyes upon the readouts and imagery from the globe below. It was almost impossible for him to believe life could exist on such a world of extremes, but according to the data that Terry and Sabine had managed to gather so far it seemed that the planet was indeed inhabited. No signs of intelligent life had been detected, but one could never be sure.
Terry perked her head up and said “The orbiter is moving into optimal position now. We should be able to get clear images within about a meter of accuracy. Anything smaller than that will need a probe.” She finished with a dismissive gesture as she mentioned using another of their probes.
Leon winced slightly to himself at the mention of using one of the precious machines. They had a limited supply of them and they had already used more than he had wanted to at this point. But the planet was inhabited and possibly even livable. It was his sacred duty to science to investigate further, but he wouldn't jump in blindly. He would make sure they gathered as much data as they could without it in order to determine if it was really needed.
“We won't be sending down a probe unless absolutely necessary.” He said bluntly. Terry looked at him sharply before nodding in understanding.
Sabine spoke up “What? But the planet has life and liquid water. This could be potentially huge, imagine everything we could discover from the lakes alone?” She started before he cut her off with a wave.
“It's not that I don't think there are things we will miss. It's that I'm imagining that if we launch this probe here and now, that's one potentially incredible world we won't have one for in the future." Leon said in a voice that left no room for questioning.
Sabine remained silent on the matter at his tone, but he knew she was searching her mind internally for a solution to this seeming problem. He sighed slightly and turned back to his console. The various readouts and data points serving to occupy his otherwise overactive mind.
Taylor nodded to Terry as she whispered something to him quietly before he stood and left the room. Leon frowned slightly at the small breach in decorum, but decided not to make a note of it. Taylor had been one of the worst affected by the earlier warp sickness that had affected most of the crew. While the source of the anomaly had yet to be determined, the only factor that seemed to link all the affected together was the consumption of peanut based food items. Why such a food item would serve to worsen the effects of something that already seemed to only affect the mind was beyond him. Perhaps peanuts acted as some sort of chemical trigger in humans that made their minds more susceptible to the horrors of warp translation. But the whole thing was so far beyond him that he put it out of his mind, he could spend a lifetime trying to untie that gordian knot without ever teasing the slightest hoop of information from it.
Terry looked at him and asked "Do you see the atmospheric readings Leon?"
He looked at the reading and located the section that was specific to the planetary atmospherics. "Yes I see them. What's wrong with them?"
She shook her head and said "Well, nothing really. But they are remarkable in what they entail. There seems to be a series of counter rotating super storms that sweep across the planet in opposite directions. The storms seem to be under the gravitational influence of the moon as there is a significant high pressure band that cycles the planet bringing cool wet air from the far side to the near side. These storms are full of some sort of organic material that I have been unable to pin down so far. Though I have discovered that the particles are very small, too small to be directly observed in fact. We would need to send a probe to get more accurate data." She finished warily as he grunted.
"For the last time. We aren't sending a probe unless it's absolutely necessary for the mission. We only have a limited amount of them, and when they are gone then they are gone. What about the SSV's? Couldn't we launch a mission to the surface, it looks close enough to earth norm to be safe at the equator." He asked quickly.
Sabine turned to look at him as Samuel piped up. "Not unless you think I can pilot the SSV through an outer band of fast-moving low-pressure air that surrounds the planet like a forcefield. It's being clocked at nearly six hundred kilometers per hour. That kind of turbulence would likely tear the shuttle apart as it descended at reentry speeds." The young pilot explained.
Leon looked up at the ceiling in exasperation before asking "And if the shuttle can't make it through, then what makes you think the probe would fare any better?"
Sabine answered a little too quickly, as if she had been anticipating his question. "Well, two major reasons actually, the first is that the probe is much much smaller and the second is that it's moving fast enough to punch through the turbulence layer without much difficulty. Because it does not contain any organics like the shuttle would, it is able to reach higher velocities and ultimately decelerate at a much higher rate of speed.” she said as if revealing the secrets of the universe to him. She was likely trying to make the probe seem like their one great hope for a scientific discovery of the planet's secrets.
Leon just shook his head in defeat and said “Alright, you have made your point. Joice, is there any justification for sending a probe down to the surface, you have the second deciding vote here after all.” he said to the blond-haired woman seated next to him.
Joice looked between him and Sabine for a minute as if searching for some sort of lifeline before resigning herself to her fate. She leaned her elbows on the table in front of her, and while resting her chin on her knuckles, made her decision. “I do believe there is an argument to be made for both sides of the issue. On one hand, the Probes are indeed one of our most valuable and limited resources. In that case they must be used as sparingly as possible, only spent when in great need or when the price seems like a fair match.” she said.
Sabine seemed to be taken aback by the woman's words, as was Leon. While he hadn't exactly expected her to side with him, he had been expecting her to at least make a cursory argument for Sabine’s view. Sabine looked about ready to protest when Joice simply shook her head and continued.
“That being said… There is a significant and potentially more compelling argument for the discoveries that could be made on a planet that has these certain parameters. Tidally locked but possessing an ecosystem of some sort, there is organic material and liquid water on the surface, what mysterious creatures and fantastic flora thrive below? A question that can seemingly only be answered with the expenditure of one of our precious probes.” Joice finished with a bit of a flourish, as if expecting some sort of applause. Instead there was simply silence as everyone on the bridge took in this new information, processing it slowly and methodically.
Leon nodded and said after a moment's hesitation “Well, not exactly what I was expecting to hear, but well spoken nevertheless. After taking all of the data into consideration… I guess there could be a wealth of scientific data recovered from the surface. But, I must add, we will only be staying in orbit for a week at the most. We have other places to explore and can't put all of our time into this one planet, no matter how interesting it is.” He said sternly. He would have liked to just move on altogether, but that would not have been fair to the others.
Sabine stood up from her chair excitedly and hopped around a bit as she said “Oh thanks Leon, this is going to be incredible, just you wait. Me and Chad have been working on something I think you will love.” She added a bit mysteriously.
Terry smiled and said “I am excited as well. This is the first tidally locked planet we have encountered, and the fact that it has life makes it even more curious. I'm getting some more accurate pictures here, it will take some time to analyze them though.” She said a bit distractedly as she peered at her console.
Leon said “Okay, Sabine, you have the go for a launch, please be careful with it though.” She just nodded excitedly and typed away furiously into her console.
He pushed back from his chair and stood “Alright, I'm going to head out. Samuel, we are in a stable orbit correct?”
Samuel nodded saying “Yes. We should be good for the foreseeable future.” Leon gave him a quick nod before waving to Jodi and walking from the room.
He shook his head slightly as he thought over the situation, they didn't need to send the probe to the surface. But he couldn't say no when the entirety of the crew seemed to want the same thing. He sighed and walked down the curving hall, only time would tell.
***********
“So what am I looking at? Is that?” Leon asked Sabine as he leaned over her shoulder. It had been three days since they had arrived, in that time the orbiter had gathered a wealth of images and the probe had been launched. After a slightly tense landing it was finally deployed on the surface, the rover had been deployed to the surrounding area, along with Sabine and Chad’s newest project.
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Sabine smiled and glanced back at him and said “Yes, as you can see the range improvement alone was worth the cost, and it has a nearly infinite range as long as the ship or satellite are overhead to give it instructions.”
The console screen showed a slightly grainy airborne view of the planet's desert surface, several of the large domed structures in the middle distance. He marveled at the ingenuity of the ship's two engineers. Using nothing but spare parts and the fabricators they had made a fully functional autonomous drone that vastly expanded their observational range on the planet's surface. What would have taken the rover a whole week to traverse was covered in mere hours by the flying robot.
“This is fantastic, and how many of these did you say you and Chad made?” He asked her.
Sabine bobbed her head at the compliment as she answered “We made two prototypes, of which this is the second. Now that we know it works we can polish the design and fabricate at least six more. Possibly more if we find any precious metals in the next asteroids we capture.”
Leon nodded and looked at the screen as the drone flew closer to one of the massive structures. He had been surprised when both Myung and Joice had informed him that the desert side of the planet was inhabited by titanic mushrooms. At least they closely resembled mushrooms, if mushrooms were two hundred meters wide and nearly two hundred and fifty meters tall. Whatever supporting structure these gargantuan fungal growths used it was strong indeed.
These massive growths seemed to survive on a combination of photosynthesis and volcanic compounds that were released into the surrounding air by geothermal vents on the desert floor. The ground in the desert was hard, bare rock as the prevailing winds had long since swept away any dirt, yet still these vast towers stood. They seemed utterly immutable, as if they had existed forever and would continue to exist long into the future.
“So this stuff on the screen? It's what?” He asked her as the screen was once more obscured by a haze of particulate matter.
She looked at him and said “To the best of our knowledge it seems to be spores released by the large growths. They drift on the winds and seem to be the basis of the entire planet’s ecosystem.”
Leon looked at the screen once more, the view from the drone showing the trunks and vast multitude of smaller growths from the main spires releasing puffs and streams of what looked like mist into the air. If these spores were so easily carried on the winds then it could very well be the basic food source that any burgeoning ecosystem needed.
Joice, Aden and Myung were all in the secondary observation room as well, they seemed to be talking excitedly and Leon decided that he had better go and see what the fuss was about. “This truly is an incredible feat, I can see the drones being of great value to future missions. I’ll allocate you any resources we can spare to make more.” He told her. Sabine positively beamed at his comment, her smile full of life and excitement.
She hopped up and hugged him saying “Oh thank you Leon! I can't wait to tell Chad!” And with that she sat back at her console and started calling Chad over the ship's internal comms.
Shaking his head and giving a slight chuckle at her enthusiasm, he made his way over to Joice and the others. They had control of the rover and had been exploring the wetland area near the planet's equatorial band.
The first thing he noticed as he walked over was that there seemed to be some sort of large creatures on the rover’s screen, the second thing he noticed was that the creatures had strange almost polyp like growths extending from their shoulder areas.
Joice was talking “It seems to be yes, but the question that comes to mind is whether or not this is their only means of sustenance?”
Aden remained silent as Myung replied “They are slow moving and it would not be a stretch to assume they are also cold blooded. This would lower their total metabolism requirements and make it perfectly viable as a singular food source. In addition, look at their mouth parts, those seem uniquely suited to cleaning off their filters.”
Aden spoke up and asked “Yes, but what of the others? Maybe they are scavengers as well? We have yet to see any corpses or bones of any type.” Joice shook her head at that.
Leon watched as she pointed to the screen and he followed her finger as she motioned towards the creature's hide. “They have some sort of natural armouring, yes, but we have no idea if they have endoskeletons or not. For all we know they could be structurally held together by something we have no concept for that leaves no trace behind.”
Leon looked at the thing. The creature was large and gray, it looked similar to pictures he had seen as a child of extinct animals like a Rhinoceros or an Elephant. But instead of skin it seemed to be covered in large plate-like scales of some dark material. The polyp-like structures fanned open as he watched, waving in the strong winds and seemingly designed to catch the small ever-present particulate matter that floated through the air. Leon watched curiously, the conversation fading into the back of his mind as he observed the creature through the electronic eye of the rover on the planet’s surface far below. The large creature was almost cute in a way, its face flat and its eyes small, protected by some sort of fibrous growth. Its filters were spread wide, tiny particles of matter blown over their wide surfaces. The fans of the filters themselves were on the end of long tentacle-like arms that looked as though they could be folded back along the creature's bodies when not in use.
As the large creature slowly walked on its four pillar-like legs, the fans captured large quantities of the airborne particles, the spores as Sabine had called them. He watched in fascination as the creature closed one of its filters and moved it towards its face, and then he watched it feed. Its mouth looked to be a complex arrangement of plates and small finger-like tendrils that combed the filter of the captured debris while simultaneously depositing a thin layer of the beast's saliva, which seemed to aid in the capture of particles. He judged that the animal likely spent the majority of its waking hours grazing on the continuous stream of spores that were blown from the dry side of the planet.
“Wow, that's really quite something to see.” he said to no one in particular.
Aden looked over to the screen and watched as the creature polished off its other filter. “They don't seem to move in packs, lending some credence to the idea that they have no natural predators. And with the thick hide of theirs it makes sense why it would be hard to kill them.” The man postulated, mostly to himself it seemed.
Leon asked “Are these the only living things down there?”
Joice replied after a moment “No, we first did some reconnaissance on the colder areas and it seems as though there are several different sizes of these creatures. The largest of which are near the hotter zones.”
Myung spoke next and told him “We did find some much smaller and faster furred creatures near the tundra zone. They looked to feed in much the same manner, but they only had two long legs and moved in a similar fashion to a Kangaroo.” she said in reference to another Earthly animal.
Leon looked back from them to the screen once more and asked “Do you have any saved footage, that sounds interesting.”
Joice nodded and then said “Only aerial footage so far, but we have plans to move the rover in that direction starting tomorrow morning.” he nodded as she fiddled with the controls before the console switched to another series of images followed by a zoomed in looking video.
The footage was a bit fuzzy but he could make out a small swarm of the critters she had described. “How large are these creatures?” he asked her curiously.
Myung said “Well, as best we can figure they range in size from about one to one and a half meters in height. They seem to feed off the particulate matter as well, but they have more of a pack mentality leading me to personally believe that they may in fact hunt the larger organisms. This would also explain why we see such a lack of carcasses or remains.” she finished with a glance at Joice.
Aden made a noise that seemed to offer his agreement but Joice looked less convinced. “I just don't see it. We will need to do further study before we can make such a bold assumption.” she said with a small wave of her hands.
Leon smiled and said “Well, I'm just glad it wasn't a waste, there seems to be no shortage of mysteries to uncover. We have a few more days in the system so be quick though. We are going to be moving out at the end of the week.” He reminded them. This got a small collective groan from the scientists and he smirked a bit at their displeasure. He would have liked to give them all the time they wanted, but knowing them they could have happily studied the planet’s unique ecosystem for the next ten years and still been unsatisfied.
He said a quick farewell to them before walking back over to Sabine. She was now flying the drone over a series of large rock formations and he patted her chair to get her attention.
“Oh, hey, what's going on with the others?” she asked curiously.
He gave her a small shrug and said “Something about potentially carnivorous critters, they can't agree on what the little buggers eat.”
Sabine nodded a bit distractedly and said “Well, I hope they figure it out. Oh, and Chad had some ideas on how to make the drones even better.”
Leon nodded ‘Put those two in the same room on the same problem and they could work miracles.’ he thought to himself. Out loud he just said “I'll be sure to check up with him in a bit. I'm going to check with Samuel and make sure the ship is still in a stable orbit.” She said nothing, just continued piloting the drone through the vast alien sky.
**********
Leon had spent the last two days helping around the ship, doing basic organizational and maintenance tasks as the more scientific ventures were a bit out of his skill zone. He was a leader, an organizer. He had a basic knowledge of many scientific concepts sure, but he had never really excelled in any one of them. He was back in the observation room though, Joice had messaged him and asked him to observe some new findings. He figured that it couldn't hurt to give them a check up as they would be moving out first thing in the morning tomorrow.
Time on the ship was almost meaningless as there was no day or night cycle, but the builders had known that and the ships lights were set to automatically dim during an artificial night cycle to help the crew keep a sense of time. In case of an emergency this could be disabled, but the added stability and sanity that it helped to foster was worth any minor inconveniences.
As he entered the slightly curved room his attention was focused on the small gathering of people that he saw converged around one of the larger monitors. As he approached he saw the same group from the day before along with A few others including Oliver and Natalia.
Natalia gave him a wide smile and motioned for him to stand by her which he gladly did, he opened his mouth to ask what was going on but she put a finger on his lips quieting him instantly and just pointed at the screen. The others seemed to be enraptured by something on the console and so he looked at the image that was being displayed.
It was a live feed from the rover it seemed, a bit of interference fuzzed the screen but the picture quality was good. It took him only a moment to realize what he was seeing. One of the furred arctic creatures sat on a nest of sticks and fur, it seemed to be intently watching its charges, large yellowish eggs. Several of them had hatched already and the small scurrying babies seemed to have an almost innate sense of how to survive, putting out their little feeder filters and catching tiny particles in them.
He smiled at the sight of the small fuzzy creatures, they were certainly cute.
“Oh? Subject 201 is hatching!” Joice exclaimed softly, causing Leon to turn his attention back to the remaining eggs.
One of the large yellow eggs rocked slightly as movement from within produced a tiny crack on its upper surface. This crack expanded slowly over the next few moments till a tiny piece was broken loose and a small spike poked through. The small spike was followed by a tiny wet snout that seemed to hesitantly sneeze before breathing air for the first time.
Aden nodded and said “An egg tooth, just like most Earthly hard-shelled animals. They must be discarded shortly after they emerge as none of the others seem to share the feature.”
Joice and Myung nodded and Leon found himself intrigued. It was true, none of the other small fluffballs seemed to share the strange protrusion that grew from the new hatchling’s head. He watched with the others as the small creature pushed its way out of the egg to fall upon the floor of the nest. It must have been somewhat cold still, even in the insulated nest, but not cold enough to impair the newborn. It didn't even shiver as it stood slowly on its two longer legs, its small eyes blinking open after a moment before it looked around, observing its surroundings.
“Where is the Rover getting this from?” Leon asked aloud as he watched the small creature start to groom itself, its tiny fingered hands combing its short grayish fur rhythmically.
Aden nodded at his question, seemingly enraptured by the scene, but Sabine gleaned at him and replied quietly “The rover is situated on a hilltop about two hundred meters away, that's why the video quality is a bit lower than normal.” Leon nodded, it made sense.
He seriously doubted the furred animals would have been so calm if they had been aware of the rovers' presence, then again who knew. From what he had gathered over the last two days, there was no evidence to support that any of the species on the entirety of the world that they had taken to calling Stormsire were carnivores at all.
Leon knew they would be heading out for the stars again soon, and as loath as he was to cut their scientific endeavors short, he knew they had a larger mission. He said nothing at the time though, content to spend some quality time with his crew and observing the miracles of the universe.
He put an arm around Natalia and she leaned into him before whispering “It's incredible isn't it?”
He nodded as he watched the small creature hop around a bit, its siblings already using their tiny filters to grab particulate matter from the slow moving air of the shallow cave. “It truly is. I wonder what else is waiting out there for us to discover.” he said.
He felt her nod in response and looked back to the console, the small microcosm of life in this strange world unfolding before his eyes.
This was what the purpose of life ultimately was in his eyes, not to do some great or grand thing, but simply to observe the wonders of the universe. They had the ability to change so much over time that it was hard to remember that one should stop and take the time to appreciate the beauty all around once in a while. He did so now, putting thoughts of tomorrow and its many problems from his mind. He was here, in this moment, Natalia at his side, and the mysteries of the Universe playing out before his eyes.
Leon took a deep breath in and committed the moment to memory, who knew when they would get the chance to just observe again.