Rafe had never been particularly interested in terraforming processes; he’d always been grateful that someone else had turned hundreds—thousands?—of unsuitable planets into places humans could breathe the air, drink the water, and subsist on the local vegetation and animal life. He’d assumed it was all done by humans—who else would shape planets for human convenience?—but now, faced with the time scales, he wondered. How long had humans been off their original planet? He didn’t know. He’d never cared.
Yet wherever humans had gone in space, they’d found both unsuitable worlds and worlds already stocked with plants and animals from their ancestral home. That now struck him as very, very unlikely. Even more unlikely that someone had done it for later generations without ever coming back to interact with them. The humans he knew weren’t like that. Altruism on that scale was out of character.
Had something happened to them? Or—a cold draft seemed to flow down his back—were they not altruistic at all and coming back at some point to demand payment for the largesse they’d created? Had anyone ever considered that?
He put that thought aside—nothing he could do about it now. The files the captain had left him had things of more immediate interest.
Slotter Key’s current population was just over one billion humans, scattered in a belt of temperate-to-tropical climate around the planet’s equator. Five or six major cities; Port Major was the planetary capital. A dozen or so regions—mostly clusters of islands close together—sent representatives to the planetary Parliament. Remaining continents smaller than those on Nexus, all inhabited but for Miksland, labeled in the atlas as “Terraforming Failure.” What did that even mean? Toxic?
The captain appeared again, pointed to the screen he was looking at. “That’s the closest land to where the shuttle was reported down. Worthless, just rock and ice. Some kind of field that blocks communication. Luckily we don’t need it, so nobody bothers with it. Structural terraforming now would likely cause a catastrophe.”
“Why would anyone destroy a continent anyway?” Rafe asked. “The atlas says—”
“I have no idea,” the captain said, sitting down across the aisle. “All I know is we have more islands and smaller continents than most other planets. Some say it’s good for climate; others that it’s good for biodiversity.” She shrugged. “I’d rather be in space.”
“How far back was it terraformed?” Rafe asked. “Is this atlas accurate?”
“I don’t know that, either. Our real history goes back only five hundred forty-three years; that’s when the first colony ship arrived. We Vattas came later. I guess it looked pretty much then as it does now, except for what we’ve built on it.”
“It’s odd we have no clue who did it, even though these files claim someone understands what was done,” Rafe said. “Nexus has more history than Slotter Key—our schoolbooks say it’s been settled well over a thousand standards. Bigger population, too. Four continents all bigger than what you’ve got.” He looked again. “This Miksland’s likely to be cold even in summer, isn’t it? And what season is it now?”
“Spring where Vatta headquarters is, Port Major. In Miksland it’s winter already and going to get worse. That’s why no one thinks Ky could still be alive. Part of that ocean freezes in winter; a survival raft won’t stand that.”
Rafe repressed a shiver. Here in FTL space, he could not pick up any ansible signal. All he could do was hope that Ky was still alive. He had given up on that hope before, and she had lived. He would hope.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When the second party arrived four days later, Ky had opened the second hut, and Betange had located another two caches of nonperishable food. Each hut had a storage closet holding sealed bundles of bedding, toilet supplies, and cleaning supplies. No one had yet found any controls for the water supply. Ky had designated a site well away from the buildings for a latrine, though the frozen ground meant it had to be built up with stones and snow. Buckets served for indoor use, as they had in the rafts. They still had to gather clean snow and ice for water, melting it on the kitchen stoves.
The arriving party had stuffed contrived packs out of the storage pockets from one of the rafts, so they had ration packs and water sacks; they’d even dragged one life raft partway and then weighted it down with rocks to be fetched later. “I thought you’d want the materials and supplies,” Marek said. “Even though we couldn’t manage to bring it all.”
“Yes, indeed,” Ky said.
“And I took down the canopies on the other raft and weighted it down, too, so if we have the time and energy, we can retrieve them. We’re not going to use them come summer, are we?”
“No,” Ky said. “We can’t steer them and none of us have enough knowledge of the currents and weather patterns to be sure of hitting inhabited land. If there was a forest up here, we could build something with a bit of keel and a rudder, but there’s nothing big enough.”
“I didn’t know it had any vegetation. And animals—we saw these four-legged things, bigger than cows—”
“So did we. If we can figure out a way to kill them—”
He gave her an odd look. “You have a firearm, don’t you?” When she didn’t answer at once—how had he known that when others didn’t?—he went on. “I mean—I assumed an officer of your rank—and you wouldn’t have left it on the shuttle.”
“Yes,” Ky said. “I have a pistol, but the ammunition I have is safe for shipboard and station use, not ideal for hunting an animal that size.”
“I could try; I’m a pretty good shot—”
“Master Sergeant, with the sabotage, we have to consider that I may need a firearm for something other than those animals. We may have unfriendly visitors, not rescuers.”
“Oh. I see.”
“Right. So high on my list—though behind shelter, food, water, and clothes—is defense. We haven’t explored everything here yet. This is clearly a military installation shut up for the season—or longer. The doors opened to Spaceforce ID cards and a code number from the Rector of Defense’s office.”
“What? Cosper didn’t tell us that.”
“I’m telling you and my aide. Not everyone. We still may have a traitor among us. The others think I just guessed or had another source, perhaps from the Academy. If a high government code opens these locks, then Spaceforce is involved in all this—the shuttle, the life raft supplies, and this place. We don’t know why, we don’t know who, but we’re going to find out.”
He nodded. “How much food do we have? Enough for the winter?”
“No. That’s why we need to hunt. I’m hoping we find something smaller and easier to catch than those whatever-they-are, because I suspect as soon as we kill one of them, the others will vanish and not be seen again.”
“Fuel?”
“Another problem. We’ve been running the generator nonstop to get both huts above freezing and melt snow for water, but it’ll run through the fuel we found—the barrels in the generator hut—in another ten days. I’m hoping there’s more underground, or another generator down there—something. If we cut the generator time, it’ll give us more days, but I doubt it’ll be enough. Melting the snow and ice is our only water source right now.”
“But you still think we have a chance?”