The surface, however, was green. “It’s a living world,” she continued, and that news alone sent my pulse up a few beats. We were angling in from the outer planetary system, so we had a good look at the nightside of Echo II. It was unbroken by light anywhere, except occasional flickers that probably represented electrical storms or fires.
Alex sighed. “Not going to be anything here,” he said.
Well, what had we expected? If we’d actually seen something, seen lights come on somewhere, maybe even seen a ship draw alongside and ask who we were, I’d have fallen out of my chair. In thousands of years, and tens of thousands of flights, it’s never happened.
Well, once.
So you don’t expect it. Still, there was the tablet.
Then Belle surprised us. “There’s an artificial satellite. I’ll have a picture for you in a minute.”
“Yes!” I said.
Alex raised a cautionary hand. “Don’t get too excited.”
“Why not?”
“It was probably left by us. Maybe a long time ago, maybe by World’s End. It could be a promo gimmick.”
“I think that’s stretching things, Alex.”
“Just don’t get your hopes up.”
A picture of the object appeared on the auxiliary screen: It was a rectangular case supporting an array of antennas. There was also a scope. The AI placed the satellite alongside an image of the Belle-Marie so we could judge comparative size. It was almost as big as we were.
“Belle,” I said, “put us on an intercept course.”
We needed a couple of hours to turn around and, eventually, to move alongside the object. It was dark gray, inert, and the scope had taken a hit from something.
“It’s in an irregular orbit,” said Belle.
I rotated the image at Alex’s request, spun it around its axis, turned it over until he saw what he wanted. “There,” he said. Two lines of characters were emblazoned on the case.
“Don’t recognize them,” said Belle. “They aren’t in the standard directory.”
And they bore no resemblance to the ones on the tablet.
“Belle,” Alex said, “you say the orbit’s irregular. How irregular?”
“Not an excessive amount. Apogee is one point four perigee.”
Alex looked at me. “Translate, please?”
“At its farthest point,” I said, “the satellite is almost one and a half times as far from the central body as at its closest approach.”
“If the trend continues unabated,” said Belle, “it will eventually begin dipping into the atmosphere. That will, of course, be the end of it.”
“When would that be likely to happen?”
“I would estimate about another hundred years.”
“Can we make an age determination based on that?”
“Negative, Alex. We simply do not have enough information.” We turned it some more. Magnified everything. “You can, however,” said Belle, “do an analysis.”
“How?”
“It’s actually quite straightforward. But you’ll have to bring a piece of it inside.”
I went out and cut a slice from the leading edge. I also removed part of the scope and brought both pieces back in. Belle examined them and, after a few minutes, announced her conclusion: “The satellite has been in orbit approximately four thousand years.”
“How can you tell?” Alex asked.
“If you look closely, you will note the pitting in the metal. It’s caused by micrometeoroids. Also, the burnishing along the forward edge is instructive. Very fine particles collide with it over the centuries, and this wear is the result. We also have a telescope lens. If you look at it under sufficient magnification, you will observe a slight hazing.”
“And that happens because—?”
“Accumulated radiation damage from the sun. I don’t have a clear analysis of the background radiation here, or the dust density, but it’s not difficult to provide a reasonable estimate.”
“Thanks, Belle.”
“You’re welcome, Alex. I’m sorry it’s not the result you would have preferred.”
We saw nothing artificial on the ground. But Belle reported large animals.
“Can you show them to us?” asked Alex. He couldn’t hide his disappointment that Echo II wasn’t a world full of cities. Or, at least, a place with some research facilities.
Something.
Belle put a catlike creature on-screen. It was gray, with long fangs, almost a saber-tooth. The thing was virtually invisible against the trees and shrubbery through which it moved. And she showed us a bird that seemed so fat it could not possibly have gotten airborne. But it soared through the sky like an eagle.
And a lizard with a long, muscular, serpentine neck. We couldn’t be sure how big it was, but it measured pretty well against the tree trunks.
There was also something that looked like nothing more than a cluster of weeds. But Belle asked us to watch for a moment. “Let me do a replay. This happened minutes ago.” A four-legged creature that might have been a vulpine of some sort wandered by, and a tentacle whipped out of the weeds and made a grab. More tentacles appeared, and, within seconds, the vulpine was hopelessly ensnared, and the animal was dragged into the tangle. The struggle went on for about a minute, devolving finally into a series of lurches. Then it stopped, and we saw movement that suggested the weed cluster had begun feeding.
Echo II was covered with towering mountain chains, broad rivers, vast plains, and jungles. A blizzard was dumping snow in the south polar region. No cities were visible, no highways, no bridges, no artificial structures of any kind.
Nothing.
“Can you see anything at all?” Alex asked Belle. “Tools? Shelters? Outhouses?”
“Negative. There does not appear to be anything like that here.”
“You’re sure?”
“Well, I haven’t looked at every square meter, Alex. But I will let you know immediately if I see anything of an artificial nature.”
I remember thinking how it would feel to go back empty-handed. How frustrating it would be after all the commotion about the tablet. And Rachel’s death would remain meaningless.
Alex developed a theory that maybe Tuttle was behind everything. That he’d designed the tablet himself, had arranged to get one made, and used it in an effort to get back at those who had derided him all those years, who’d tried to persuade him to do something “constructive” with his life. That somehow he’d fooled Rachel, had persuaded her he’d found something. Then, when she’d learned the truth, she was humiliated, had never forgiven him, and had tried to hide the story. That, ultimately, it was Tuttle who’d been responsible for her suicide.
“But the pieces don’t really fit,” he said. “I guess I’m just trying to get her off my conscience.”
The weed cluster wasn’t the only vegetation that was dangerous. We watched something that looked like a cactus jump on and devour a small animal that made the mistake of coming down from a tree. After that, there was a bush that grabbed a deerlike creature, ripped it apart, and was still enjoying the meal when we passed out of range.
There was a second terrestrial in the system that we wanted to check, but Alex refused to be hurried. “Let’s make sure there’s really nothing here before we leave.”