"Forward, Robert L - Rocheworld 02 - Return to Rocheworld - with Julie Forward Fuller 5.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Forward Robert L)
^I wonder if they'll ever come back ...^
*Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. But until they do ... LET'S GO SURFING!*
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*CHAPTER ONE -- REGROUPING*
"All the leaves are brown ... and the skies are gray..."
The song's minor harmonies echoed in roundelay through the glittering imp-phones that held down Cinnamon Byrd's long black braids even as she floated around the leviponics lab. Not that any brown leaves were ever allowed in the long rows of tomato plants that hung throughout the hydroponics "field", their bare roots wet with nutrient spray. Nels had often teasingly accused her of using Aleut magic to sense when the plants were not doing as well as they should, and nipping the problem, quite literally, in the bud. As Cinnamon passed through the tall rows of verdant growth, her long brown fingers lightly stroked the leaves. Almost absentmindedly, she adjusted the nutrient mixture, adding a touch of iron here, a bit more aeration there, fine tuning the artificial ecosystem. She had only called up the ancient song to compliment the unsettled atmosphere that prevailed on the hydroponics deck of the lightsail spacecraft, _Prometheus_.
The ascent stage of the lander rocket _Eagle_ had left the Roche lobe of the double-lobed planet Rocheworld, and was now heading back safely to _Prometheus_, but despite the dramatic escape of the landing party, Cinnamon could sense unhappiness in some of her friends. Her good friend on the landing party, Carmen Cortez, had not tried to contact her in days, apparently devoting all her time to either manning her twelve-hour shift at the _Eagle_'s communications center, or asleep in her tiny bunk on the crowded lander. Although Carmen was right in the middle of mankind's first encounter with intelligent aliens, she was taking little interest in the astounding discoveries those on the planet had made and she had showed no desire to talk over the remarkable events with her closest friend.
Closer to home, Nels Larson was also out of sorts. Cinnamon watched his disproportionate but oddly efficient form propel itself from one side of the hydroponics deck to the other as he collected various delicacies from the closely growing plants. Long association with the levibotanist let her see the hidden frustration that colored his movements. Cinnamon knew that her boss was furious that the explorers were not bringing back the tiny sample of alien body tissue that had been given to them by the large white alien. Katrina Kauffmann, the biochemist who was on the surface, had explained that the little white blob had acted more like a young individual than like a tissue sample. Fearful of damaging the new relationship with the aliens, she had returned the squealing blob to its progenitor. When the obliging aliens, or "flouwen" as the computer had named them, later showed the humans their true method of reproduction, Katrina's fears were proved groundless. Now, although Nels would not discuss it, Cinnamon knew he was trying to think of the best way to make sure that such mistakes would not be repeated. Cinnamon moved on to the corridor that contained the fish tanks, long tubes of flowing water containing trout and catfish of varying sizes. The largest trout would soon be ready to harvest and be the centerpiece of a few real-meat special dinners for a few lucky members of the crew.
Nels ignored Cinnamon's singing. He had long ago gotten used to her habit of dredging up obsolete songs to while the time away. Nels did not intend to let another chance to study the strange new alien life form slip by. True, the main reason that he had been included on the mission was to provide the crew with nutritious, appetizing food for their one way mission to the stars. But no one had really expected that they would discover intelligent life! Surely no one on board knew more about genetics and life on a microscopic level than he did. He intended to ask the commander, Major General "Jinjur" Jones, to allow him to go to the surface of Eau during their return visit to Rocheworld. Unfortunately, the stocky black woman was first and foremost a Marine, and Nels had felt from her the same contempt for deformity that so many of the very physically fit seemed to have. It was as if she thought that he could have developed proper legs if only he had shown more discipline. He knew that it would take some persuasion before Jinjur would allow her intellect to overpower her prejudice.
Nels left Cinnamon on the hydroponics deck and dove down the sailcraft's long central shaft toward the galley. To gain speed in the nearly free-fall environment, he used the handholds on the side of the shaft to pull himself along with his long, muscular arms. Broad shouldered and burly, Nels would have been a tall man, had his legs not ended as soon as they had begun. Just below his hips, Nels had small flipper-like feet with long, nailess toes. Constant exercise of the malformed digits made them strong, almost prehensile, and he was able to use them to carry the special delicacies he had just harvested. The heroes would be arriving soon and a party was in order.
Nels had cut ruthlessly into the tissue cultures "Chicken Little", "Ferdinand", and "Hamlet" that supplied the real-meat chicken, beef, and pork rations for the nineteen astronauts on _Prometheus_. He had also collected all the fruits and vegetables that were ripe enough to harvest. There were fresh strawberries, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, and mushroom buttons for crisp finger foods, and spinach and endive for salad. These delicacies would normally be used only to cut through the blandness of their standard algae-paste food diet. Although the fast-growing algae food was nutritionally adequate and consisted of many different varieties that were subtly flavored to mimic a variety of foods, the algae was the butt of many crude jokes among the crew. To a man, they looked forward to their infrequent allotment of "real" food.
Now, the rest of the crew that had stayed behind on _Prometheus_ had gone without these special treats for days so that there would be plenty for the welcome home party. Nels had even managed to procure some of Cinnamon's jealously guarded fish roe, so he could make a caviar appetizer. All this was in Nels's favor. He intended to have the General sated before he tackled her about his being assigned to the landing party for the return to Rocheworld.
Once in the galley, Nels prepared the feast. Nels got special joy in these last few moments of the foods' preparation. He had designed most of these foods, and in many cases had personally crafted their very DNA. He had watched as the cells first started to mature and multiply; coaxing their growth with the mediums that they craved. He had nourished them throughout their lives and now he had harvested and cooked them, seasoning them to perfection. He insisted on their having the proper presentation.
Nels talked to the ship's computer through his robotic imp, riding in its usual position on his left shoulder.
"James? Could you please send the Christmas Bush down to the galley to help prepare for the party? Have it bring the special set of party platters I have stored in the top deck."
Within a few minutes, the spiny, sparkling motile with its multicolored laser lights joined him in the galley. The complete bush-shaped robot had a six-armed main body, each of the six arms dividing again into six smaller arms, and so on, until the motile was surrounded with a final brush of tiny cilia. But since it was also the repair and maintenance motile for the entire ship, and the hands for James, the ship's computer, the Christmas Bush was rarely in its complete form. The robot structure was designed to separate into smaller parts that were miniatures of itself. Each of these smaller Christmas "branches" or "twigs" or "imps" or "mosquitoes" could act as separate motiles. The smallest ones could even fly by rapidly vibrating the tiny cilia at the ends of their limbs. These smaller motiles could do practically anything; such as monitoring the health of each crew member, repairing equipment, picking up microscopic bits of dust, weaving new clothing, taking dull scientific data, compounding medicines, brewing beer, and manufacturing semiconductor chips.
The flickers of colored light that illuminated the robot and gave it its name, were really lasers that let each segment communicate with the rest of the motile and with the ship's computer. It was, in fact, small subsets from the Christmas Bush that made up the multicolored twinkling imps that accompanied each of the crew members, who had the flexible imps form whatever shape they found most convenient.
Once in the galley, the Christmas Bush separated into dozens of small hands that began helping Nels prepare the meal for the party. They followed his lead as he arranged the food onto numerous plates and bowls in a myriad of shapes, colors and sizes. The computer understood that to Nels, this was more that just a meal ... this was art. Thin strips of beef were impaled on metal skewers and doused with soy sauce and spices to make teriyaki beef. Chicken chunks were breaded with algaebread crumbs and deep fried in permaoil into golden brown nuggets. Thin strips of ham were wrapped around ripe slices of melon.
Listening through his imp, Nels heard the exuberant greetings of the others as the small ascent module floated in between the shrouds of _Prometheus_ and docked at its airlock set in the ceiling of one of the corridors of his hydroponics deck. Jinjur's deep throaty voice was audible above the babble of the others as she greeted the leader of the away team.
"That's the last time I give you an airplane to play with, George!" she scolded playfully. "You're too hard on your toys!"
The sounds of revelry became louder and switched to reality as the entire crew poured down the shaft and into the lounge and dining area. Red, George, and Thomas were being carried through the lounge, their heads bumping against the low ceiling lightly in the fractional gravity. As Nels understood it, it had been the stunning red-head's fast thinking, and the superb flying ability of the handsome Jamaican that had saved the most senior member of the crew.
Nels was glad he had managed to prefect the banana flavored algae. Fried in small sliced-size patties along with some of the fresh trout from Cinnamon's tanks, he had managed a platter filled with spicy West Indian flavored delicacies as a special treat for Thomas. Most of the herbs that he used were fresh from their beds on the hydroponics deck. Although James could synthesize the chemicals for any spice, Nels had stockpiled supplies of such spices such as pepper, nutmeg, and cloves for such special occasions when Nels wanted to give the astronauts the true tastes of Earth. The varied crew on _Prometheus_ had such eclectic tastes that alongside the sandwiches made of dark pumpernickel-flavored algaebread spread with liverwurst made from the tissue culture Pat LaBelle, was bratwurst made from the tissue culture Hamlet, curried lamb from Lambchop, and catfish with hush puppies made from cornmeal-flavored algaeflour. Nels had a bumper crop of string beans, and he had the sense to add nothing to the freshly steamed vegetable but a little algaebutter. The thin finger-long haricots verts were a perfect fingerfood.
One thing that Nels had to let James synthesize was the wine and other beverages. Still the computer managed to plan ahead and there were dozens of squeeze bulbs in evidence filled with red wine and white, champagne, various beers, soft drinks, and mixers, and even quality gin, bourbon, scotch, and brandy. One of the parting gifts to the astronauts from a grateful Earth had been the sharing with James of the last truly secret recipe of the twenty-first century, so that the crew could enjoy the true flavor of Coca-Cola on their long journey to the stars. Richard Redwing was hardly ever seen without a squeeze bulb of the bubbling beverage. Nels considered the brown liquid an assault on the palate, but he had to admit that coffee cool enough to be sipped from a floating ball of liquid in zero gee was too cold to be satisfying.
As the party started, Nels was swept up in their gleeful enjoyment of the delicacies. While he relished their praise, and their obvious enjoyment of his carefully crafted meal, it always amazed him how weeks, even months of work, could vanish so speedily down a human throat. Arielle Trudeau, the pilot who had been a beauty queen in Quebec before the secession of Quebec from Canada and the absorption of the rest of Canada into the Greater United States of America, always managed to eat huge amounts without letting it affect her figure or her appetite. Although she had a front tooth knocked out during the crash that had damaged the _Dragonfly_'s engines, a subsection of Arielle's imp now acted as a brace to hold her healing tooth in place. The brace-imp glittered from between her lips as she opened her mouth to eat a mushroom skewered on a toothpick imp and dipped in a warm pseudocream sauce spiced with dill and thyme. Arielle sucked the imp toothpick clean and then let the tiny robot fly its way back to the kitchen, where it washed itself off under hot water, and then attached itself to a larger branch that was preparing the next platters of food. Before she had even swallowed the mushroom, she was already reaching for the pastel balls of melon that Nels had scooped from the honeydew and cantaloupe.
Carmen had been a last minute addition to the crew; a curvaceous seorita. At first she was the most fun-loving, and free-loving girl on the ship. The youngest women on board, she was the sort of wide-eyed ingenue that made one consider her an innocent, even while she was showing off the kinkiest moves in her varied sexual repertoire. Pretty and vivacious, all the men had vied for her attention. They needn't have competed; she readily acquiesced to each one of their attempts at seduction. Even as the crew slowly succumbed to the sexually and intellectually debilitating affects of the drug No-Die in order to slow their aging for their forty year journey to the stars, Carmen had done her best to keep the hormone levels hopping. But it was as the crew first started coming off No-Die, and their intelligence and interests caught back up to their ages, that Nels first noticed a change in the tiny woman.
Carmen had begun to eat. She ate anything and everything. Fast friends with Cinnamon, samples of Nels' experiments were always available to her. Carmen soon looked like a tennis ball with dark curls and flashing eyes. Her admirers vanished along with her figure, and soon her good humor vanished as well. Nels could sympathize with her. He knew only too well how it felt to know that your appearance repulsed people. To have traded on your beauty and then loose it must be equally hard.
Now, for some reason, Carmen was eating none of his wonderful banquet. It wasn't as if this was algae gruel; this was fresh fruit, crisp vegetables, and real meat! He made a mental note to tell John Kennedy about it. As their acting doctor, John would want to make sure that she wasn't coming down with something. Maybe that was what Carmen wanted anyway -- the handsome nurse took after his Presidential namesake in both appearance and temperament, and so made a habit of seducing all his patients. In fact, he made a habit of attempting to seduce any women that he was left alone with for two minutes. Even as Nels watched, John was doing his best to corner Cinnamon. Somehow, he had trapped her behind a floating ball of champagne and was trying to convince her to help him drink it before it drifted to the floor in the low acceleration. No ... there ... she managed to distract him and duck out of the room. Now, John had his arm around Katrina and was using her "welcome home" hug to cop a feel. Reiki LeRoux, the anthropologist whose mixed Japanese Cajun descent gave her what Nels considered the most interesting DNA of all those aboard, was enjoying a slice of Nels's famous home-made bread spread liberally with algaebutter and nothing else. The flour for the bread came from a special line of algae that Nels had developed, while the yeast was a strain that had been handed down to Nels from his mother. Nels also used his mother's recipe for making the bread. His mother's bread had been famous throughout all of Goddard Station and Nels was prepared to bet his bread was the best in the galaxy. Reiki nodded her head toward Nels in acknowledgment of his cooking. Reiki was too polite to embarrass him with open praise.
Nels decided that Cinnamon had the right idea and slipped off to the hydroponics deck. He hadn't had a chance to talk to Jinjur in the throng, but then, for the whole two hour feast he hadn't said a word to any one. Not that anybody, especially not Nels himself, had noticed.
Jinjur, too, had left the party early. She and George were sitting on the control deck planning the next phase of the mission.
"I know we only have three landers left, and more than three moons around Gargantua to study," said George. "But it's vitally important that we go back to Rocheworld." The oldest member of the crew and second in command, Colonel George Gudunov was respected for more than his grey hairs. He had a Ph.D. in Planetary Atmospheres and had written a number of science fiction stories and popular science articles. He had earned the admiration of everyone but the military. Back in 1998, while he was still a young captain in the Air Force, George suggested to his superiors that they test the Air Force Space Laser Forts Project in a non-threatening manner by using their powerful laser beams to push small lightsails carrying robotic interstellar probes. When a number of space laser forts suffered catastrophic failures under this two day test, George was commended by Congress for exposing the problem, but the military brass never forgave him. They retaliated by keeping him muzzled as a permanent fight instructor until, twenty-four years later, when positive reports came in from the fly-by probe sent to Barnard. Promoting him to colonel and sending him off to the stars was the military's final solution to his embarrassing presence, but George had proved his integral worth.
"Those aliens are so far ahead of us in mathematics that we need to set up permanent communication with them," George was insisting.
"But what good is pure mathematics?" said Jinjur.
"It is the key to physics and technology," said George. "At first glance, it would seem that advanced mathematics is just a barren exercise in pure logic and should have no relationship at all to the real world. In fact, our mathematicians go out of their way to design the logic of mathematics so that it isn't contaminated by any rules based on 'common sense.' But, for some reason, the behavior of the real world follows the logic of mathematics and no other logic. If we have a mathematical tool and can calculate something using it, we are pretty sure nature will behave the way the mathematics predicts. But we don't have enough of those mathematical tools, and we know it.
"Astronomers can't calculate the exact motions of two gravitating bodies except under special conditions. Aerodynamicists can't calculate the exact flow of air over anything except a few simple wing shapes. Weather forecasters can't predict more than a few days ahead. Atomic scientist can't exactly calculate anything more complicated than an hydrogen atom.
"The human race needs that math and the beauty about math is that unlike being given the secrets to advanced technology, being given advanced mathematics will not stifle the technological creativity of the human race, since _we_ will have to figure out how to apply the mathematics."
"OK," said Jinjur. "But how are we going to get the information out of them? This crew may be pretty smart, but none of us are theoretical mathematicians. We may be able to understand some of the simpler stuff, but after the second and third infinity I know that _I_ would be lost."
"What we should do is set up an interstellar laser communicator in the Hawaiian Islands on the Eau Lobe where their older thinkers stay," said George. "That way the long-lived flouwen could communicate their advanced mathematical knowledge directly back to Earth -- even long after you and I and the rest of the crew have fluttered out the last of our mayflylike lives."
"You're getting poetic, George," said Jinjur. "I never knew you had it in you."
George looked pensive for a long moment, eyes staring past her out the control room window. Finally he rose from his seat.
"I better go talk to Carmen and Shirley to see what we can put together that the flouwen can use. The laser should be in a well-sheltered place on land, with a reactor that will keep it going for a few decades until the follow-up expedition gets here. But the operating console will have to be underwater."
"Now just a minute there George," said Jinjur sternly. "Remember what they told you in officer's training? 'The program isn't finished until the documentation is done.' You just finished an important and exciting mission and there are a few billion people back on Earth who are waiting to here all about it. You've got a report to write!"
Back in the lab, Nels was working on an algae culture he had been trying to develop that would properly imitate a steak. He had perfected the tissue culture "Ferdinand" that produced slices of real veal, but it and the other tissue cultures grew slowly and the crew was allowed only one small real-meat ration a week. Nels had discovered that by adding the proper amounts of complex carbohydrates to the algae's growing medium, he could manage to duplicate the flavor of beef, but he had yet to manage the proper texture of steak. He could make a good pat from it, but it made a mushy hamburger. The work helped him relax from the noisy party. Cinnamon was singing as she worked around the lab, but Nels didn't pay her any attention. He hardly even heard her singing anymore.
"Rollin', rollin', rollin' ... keep those doggies rollin'..."
Cinnamon had grown up in the small Alaskan town of Chenik, living in a huge barn of a house that was the headquarters for both her father's medical practice and the local radio station. When radio went digital back in the 90's, Cinnamon's grandpa had picked up a California station's library and equipment for a song. He was forced to play only the recordings that had come out before the CD boom, but the people in the town were happy with the local station, despite the fact that the musical selections stayed the same and kept falling further and further behind the times. Everywhere Cinnamon had gone in Chenik, somewhere in earshot was a radio tuned to Gramp's station. Even as she slept, old forgotten songs were dancing in her ears. Now songs dredged up from her memories ran through her head ... and often out through her mouth.
The ship's computer, James, had learned to accommodate the quirk. Cinnamon only needed to sing the first few bars of a song and James would pipe the whole thing privately to her through her earphone-shaped imp. This would let her complete the song and go on to another so that she wouldn't get 'hooked' on a single phrase and keep repeating it until she, or some other crew member, went mad.
Cinnamon's mood had improved. Nels' feast proved to her that he wasn't too upset about not having had a chance to examine the flouwen sample, and better yet, she had seen him eyeing Carmen from across the room. It was Cinnamon's dearest wish that Nels and Carmen would get together ... although Carmen obstinately refused to cooperate. Carmen had fallen into the habit of making the most blatant sexual advances, yet instantly rejecting any man that attempted to respond to those advances. Cinnamon could almost see Nels cringe at Carmen's outrageous innuendos. Still, maybe what ever was bothering Carmen would keep her from throwing herself at Nels until he was ready to catch her. Cinnamon giggled at the image she'd conjured up ... good thing they were in near free fall!
Carmen, meanwhile, was back in her cabin. She was staring at the image on the screen across from her bed. It was a still from one of David Greystoke's sonovideos; an interpretive composite made from the video taken by the exploration crew during the flouwen reproductive act. It showed four flouwen with most of their bodies swirled together into a twisted spiral, like one of those huge lollipops that her uncle used to buy for her, even though she never liked them very much. The colors of the adult flouwen faded out towards the center, leaving a clear, jelly-like mass. In the very middle was a patch of bright blue; the color of the newly created being.
Carmen knew that the still frame was inaccurate. She had seen the original video dozens of times, and the new being did not develop color until the adults had separated from the colorless mass created by their mating. But she liked David's composition; not just for the color and symmetry, but more for what it represented. Life. New life from old. Reproduction. Something she'd never be able to accomplish. Burying her head in her pillow, Carmen cried.
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