Polanyi kept up a running commentary, explaining what they were seeing, filling in information from the other instruments aboard the probes. It all added up to a disappointing picture.
The planet was actually slightly smaller than Earth, but about the same density. Surface gravity was apparently one third higher than Earth’s.
Somebody said in the darkness, “1.3 g. That means a ninety-kilo man will feel like he’s carrying thirty extra kilos around with him all the time.”
“Like hauling an eight-year-old kid on your back.”
“It certainly will strain the heart,” Larry recognized the last voice as belonging to the chief meditech.
The air had slightly more oxygen in it than Earth normal, but also had dangerously high levels of nitric oxides and sulfur oxides.
“Volcanism,” Polanyi explained, pointing to a photo of the planet’s night side, where a series of brilliant red lights gleamed. “Active volcanoes… many of them. The infrared scans confirm it. The volcanoes are spewing out sulfur oxides and other harmful gases.”
Larry grimaced.
The vegetation was a yellowish green. Chlorophyll was there, identified by the spectral readings from the orbiting probes. But the plant life obviously wasn’t the same as Earth’s greenery.
“What about data from the surface lander?” someone asked.
“Yes, it is coming up next.”
The picture on the viewscreen suddenly changed to show a startling landscape. It was golden: yellowish plants everywhere, some of them thick and tall as trees, with ropy vines hanging from their arms. Yellowish sky, even the clouds had a golden tint to them.
“This photo was taken near local sunset,” Polanyi explained. “I believe that accounts for the peculiar color effect… some of it, at least.”
It was beautiful. Larry gazed at a golden world, with hills and clouds and soft beckoning grass of gold. Something deep inside him, something he had never dreamed was in him, was stirred by this vision. A world, a real world where you could walk out in the open air and look up into a sky that had sunrises and sunsets, climb hills and feel breezes and swim in rivers—
He shuddered suddenly. It was like self-hypnosis. This golden world was a trap. It was deadly. A man couldn’t last five minutes on it, not unless he wore as much protection as he needed to go outside the ship and into space.
The picture changed. Now they were looking off in a different direction. The yellow grass and trees sloped down into a gentle valley. In the distance there were rugged mountains of bare rock, their tops shrouded in clouds.
“There are at least two active volcanoes among those distant mountains,” Dr. Polanyi said. “The clouds themselves are mainly steam from the volcanoes.”
It still looked so beautiful.
The picture changed again. It showed the view from the opposite side of the lander. The hillside swept upward, still covered with golden grass and shrubs. Up near the top of the hill, silhouetted against the bright sky, were four dark shapes.
“They appear to be animals,” Polanyi’s voice said. “From their distance, we have judged their size to be roughly comparable with that of an Earthly sheep.”
It was hard to tell their shape. There seemed to be a head, the suggestion of rounded haunches. No tail was visible. You couldn’t tell how many legs, because their lower halves were hidden in deep grass.
The overhead lights suddenly went on, and the picture on the viewscreen faded.
“That’s everything we have so far,” Dr. Polanyi said.
Larry squinted against the sudden glare. And found himself frowning. Looking around, he realized that he had spent his life in a prison. A jail. A metal and plastic confinement, breathing the same recycled air over and over again, knowing every face, every compartment, every square millimeter of space. Out there was a world. A whole broad, beautiful golden world that no one had set foot on, waiting to be explored, to be lived on.
Waiting to kill us, he reminded himself.
They were all murmuring, muttering, a dozen different conversations buzzing at once.
Then Dan’s voice cut through it all. “So we have our first view of the promised land.”
Larry stepped toward him. “It doesn’t look very promising to me. A man can’t live there.”
“We can’t,” Dan shot back, “but our children could.”
“If you make them capable of breathing sulfur and strong as a man-and-a-third.”
“The geneticists can do whatever needs to be done.”
Larry was about to reply, but caught himself. Instead, he said, “This isn’t the place to debate such an important issue. I’d like to have a formal meeting of the Council tomorrow morning. We’ll have to decide if we want to make this planet our home, or look further.”
Dan said nothing. He merely watched Larry, with a quizzical little smile, playing on his lips.
It was late evening. The corridor lights were dimmed. Larry and Valery had eaten dinner in the Lorings’ quarters, with Val’s mother. Now, after a long walk around level one, they were approaching her quarters again, strolling along the empty corridor, hand in hand.
They came to an observation port and stopped. The port was an oblong of. thick plastiglass. A padded bench ran along the bulkhead alongside it. They sat and for a long, wordless while gazed out at the sky.
The stars were thick as dust. One yellow star stood out brighter than all the rest. Nearby it, almost lost in its glare, peeped a dimmer orange star.
“Tomorrow the Council meets to decide,” Larry said wearily.
“Do you think this is the end of the voyage?” Val asked.
He shook his head. “It can’t be. We can’t live on that planet… even though …”
“Even though?”
“It’s so beautiful!” he said. “I saw the pictures from the surface today. It’s so beautiful. If only we could survive there.”
She asked, “Can’t the geneticists…”
“Sure, they can alter the next generation of children so that they’ll be able to live on the planet. But—the kids would have to be brought up in a separate section of the ship. They’d have to be put under a higher gravity, different atmosphere. The parents would have to wear pressure suits just to visit their own children.”
“Ohhhh…”
“And what about the parents? Do you think people can stay aboard this ship, in this cocoon, this prison, and let their kids go down there to live? It won’t work; the planet’s beautiful, but too different from us. If we try to make it work, it’ll tear everybody apart.”
“Then we have to move on,” Val said.
“Right. But Dan won’t see it that way. He’ll put up a fight.”
“You’ll win.”
He looked at her. “Maybe. I wish I didn’t have to fight him.”
“He thinks the ship won’t be able to go much farther,” Valery said. “He’s afraid we’ll all get killed if we try to find another star, another planet.”
In the dim light, Larry could see that Val wasn’t looking at him, but gazing out at the stars. He reached for her chin and turned her face toward him.
“You’ve seen him several times since he got out of the infirmary, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
He let his hand drop away. “I don’t think I like that. In fact, I know I don’t.”
“Larry,” she said gently, “I’m a free human being. I can do what I want.”
“I know, but—well, I don’t want you to see him.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
He felt miserable, tangled up inside himself. “Of course I trust you, Val, but…”
“No buts, Larry. Either you trust me or you don’t.”
“I trust you.” Sullenly.
“Well you shouldn’t,” she snapped.