Contamination
by Jay Werkheiser
Illustrated by Vincent Di Fate
Ari allowed his skimmer to brush the outer edge of Nouvelle Terre’s atmos-phere. He tried to imagine air jostling the light nanofiber support frame, whistling through the skimmer’s magsails. Excitement pulsed through his veins at the thought of being so close to the blue and white surface, perhaps closer than any human had ever dared. Nothing but his skinsuit and a few hundred kilometers of atmosphere separated him from the living, breathing landscape below. He spread his arms and legs, trying to feel the minuscule tug of atmospheric drag.
Is that what wind feels like?
His faceplate HUD showed a ripple in the magsail’s yaw loop. The threat of a coil collapse brought his mind back into focus, and he hiked up the field strength to gain some altitude. He savored every precious minute the skimmer took to climb away from the atmosphere. Nouvelle Terre’s secondary sun climbed over the horizon, visible only because the primary sun hadn’t yet risen. He scanned the starry sky, taking advantage of the view before primary sunrise darkened his faceplate. Earth’s distant sun was almost directly overhead, a pinpoint at the tail of a zig-zag of stars. The drive flare that cut across the constellation chilled his good mood. After a generation of silence, what could the Earth people possibly want?
Bah. Figuring that out was the job of bureaucrats. Ari preferred jockeying around with a skimmer, launching and retrieving microprobes, and taking time to enjoy the freedom of flight. Before long, the Gardien rose above the limb of the planet. He’d be home within a half hour, pining for his next chance to fly free.
“That you, Ari?” If his solitude had to be interrupted by a human voice, he could do worse than Maura’s.
“Who else would it be?”
He knew damn well who she was afraid it might be. He tilted his head upward toward the spear of light that dominated the sky. A new ship from Earth arriving unannounced after all these years was reason enough to be on edge.
“I’ll have your approach vector in a moment.” Maura’s image in his faceplate wore the drive flare like a burning gash on her forehead. “Your drop was perfect. The microprobe will skim the atmosphere deep enough to pick up some dust samples, but high enough to avoid surface contamination. With any luck, some of those dust grains will carry living spores.”
“We wouldn’t need luck if they’d let us dive lower. Damn Earthborn are too cautious.”
“You managed to get a pretty deep dive on that last orbit.” She pursed her lips in mock disapproval. “You’re going to catch hell for your little maneuver.”
“What? I was just dropping low for a peri-gee kick.”
Her laugh was pure music. “Good luck getting the director to buy that one. She’s in a foul mood.”
He snorted, momentarily fogging his faceplate. “She doesn’t need my help. Dear old Mom takes foul to a new level, even for an Earth-born.”
“Don’t be cruel. They earned the right to be grumpy.”
“Maybe they’d be more caring if they hadn’t cranked us out of their wombs like an assembly line.”
“Have some respect. You don’t know how long they’ll be around.”
“We’ll be restocking our supply of Earthborn soon, from the looks of it.” He gestured toward the light as he spoke, even though his helmet’s cam couldn’t show it. “It warms my heart to know that even the Secretary-General has no idea why Earth sent a second ship after all these years.”
She huffed. “You have no respect for authority, Ari.”
“It’s all part of my charm.” He flashed a grin that he hoped was rakish before realizing that it was wasted out here where she couldn’t see it.
A partly suppressed smile bloomed on her face. “What would be charming is treating me to one of those new beefmeat burgers imported from the moon base. I hear they taste just like natural meat back on Earth.”
“And who would know? The Earthborn are so old even their taste buds are dying.”
Her head shook back and forth in his faceplate. “You shouldn’t be talking like that on an open channel.”
“All right, I’ll be good.” He grinned. “Now are you going to give me an approach vector or am I going to do another orbit?”
“Uh… hold on a sec. Ari? I have the director on the line.”
“What? Did she hear—”
“Shhh. I’m getting instructions now.”
“She probably just wants to bust my ass about dropping too deep into the atmosphere. Heaven forbid we risk contaminating their precious pristine planet with my ashes.”
“Okay, she’s sending a new orbit for you.”
“What the hell? She wants me to take another lap? Is something wrong with the microprobe?”
“No, the probe’s fine. I don’t like this, Ari. She wants me to sign off. She’s taking over—”
Maura’s image dissolved into the black of the sky. He turned his focus back to the Gardien, wondering what was going on there. The bright point of light, now high above the horizon line, offered no answers. After an endless pause, the incoming message indicator lit.
The director’s gaunt face floated before him. She looked desiccated, like a corpse left outside to vacuum-dry. A specter from a distant world, Ari thought. This new world is ours to explore, not theirs. Explore, but never touch.
Her sunken eyes pinned Ari in place. “Skimmer pilot, report your status.” The voice was scratchy and hoarse, weary from two hundred years of life, yet still it carried the aura of authority.
He eyeballed the dropdown at the top left of his faceplate and brought up the system check display. The bioscrubbers were pumping out oxygen faster than he could breathe it; the oh-two tanks were full. The magsail loops were well below the critical temperature where they would stop superconducting. “Nominal, ma’am.” After a moment’s pause he added, “Except the radio. I lost contact with shipboard control.” But that’s not a malfunction.
“I know.” She nodded slowly, carefully, as though afraid her neck might snap. “For security, I will be your only contact with the Gardien during this mission.”
That put a lump in his throat. “And what mission is that?”
She gazed at him, unmoving, for a long moment. “A small vessel has entered orbit of the planet.”
“Not one of ours, I assume.” He glanced once again at the enigmatic flare from Earth. “They’re pretty far out and still under heavy deceleration. I’d have expected them to wait until they made orbit.”
“Clearly Earth’s propulsion technology has improved since we left.”
“So the Earth people put a, what, probe or something into orbit? What am I going to be able to do about it?”
“A shuttle. For now, just observe. You’re the only manned asset I have on orbit at the moment.”
Asset? That’s all I am to her? Before he could say anything, his HUD indicator signaled an incoming data packet. New orbital parameters. He eyeballed the dropdown at the top left of his faceplate and brought up a visual overlay. The orbit was eccentric, with a perigee lower than he had ever gone. His heart skipped at the thought. Permission to skim the upper atmosphere? Hell, yeah!
Excitement bubbling in his veins, he hardly noticed when the director disconnected. The forbidden dream—to touch a living world—was about to come one step closer. But to touch was to contaminate, he knew, to introduce his alien proteins and nucleic acids into an ecosystem that might not be able to handle them. We’d never know what was native and what was from Earth. We’d lose irreplaceable data. All true, but so damned frustrating.