They loaded the pod modules on board, and filled several spare air tanks. There'd be no opportunity to cycle air from this environment if things went wrong. For that reason, Carson, who was now thoroughly persuaded to play it safe, brought along enough for a month.
"Why so much?" asked Drafts.
"Shuttle might break down," Carson said. "We could get stuck there."
Hutch didn't like the shuttle. It was boxy, not very aerodynamic, not good for atmospheric flying. It would be a bumpy ride. And slow. And she was not entirely confident, despite what she had told Carson, of her ability to handle it. "I hate to tell you this," she said, "but this is a shoebox with wings. You'd be better off if you could get Angela to pilot the thing. She's used to it, and she's the best there is."
"It can't be that hard."
"You want to bet your life on it?"
Carson looked at her, and smiled his approval. "Thanks," he said.
He took Hutch with him to the bridge, where Angela was examining displays of the target area. "We'd like to have you fly the shuttle," he said without preliminary. "Hutch tells me it's likely to be difficult to handle, and she says you're pretty good."
Angela studied him for a long moment. "Is that what you want?" she asked Hutch. She wore a light brown ship's jacket, with Ashley's logo, a sail against a circle of stars, displayed prominently on the left breast.
"Yes. I think it would be a good idea."
"Then I'll do it." Hutch thought she looked as if she had something on her mind. "Of course the shuttle's cramped. And four people will crowd the ground station."
Janet leaned in. "I'm not all that excited about carving mountains. If you want, I'll help hold the fort here."
In the morning, the shuttle slipped its moorings, parted from the Ashley Tee, and began its descent. Angela had preset a glide path that allowed a methodical entry. They slipped easily into the upper air.
The delicate interaction between the shuttle's flux and local magnetic fields provided all the lift she needed. But as the air pressure rose, they began to bounce around. The wind thumped the panels and blew gobs of thick rain against the windows. Carson, tied into a temporary web in back, complained loudly.
"It's okay," said Angela. "With this kind of vehicle, you've always got a lot of headwind. Don't worry. It's pretty tough."
Mountain ranges and snow dunes and a coffee-colored sea rose to meet them. No human foot. Hutch thought. Ever.
An hour later, they approached the target area, coming in over a sludge-filled river. The landscape was mottled with snowdrifts and boulders and gullies. The light was a Halloween mixture from the red sun and the watery-brown ringed giant that floated on the horizon like a Chinese balloon. Gloomy, cold, and forbidding. Not a place to build a country estate.
Angela turned south. "Ten minutes," she said.
The plain smoothed out. The wind came up again, and the surface disappeared beneath blowing snow. The sky was red, not sunset red, but rather like the scorched appearance of clouds in the aftermath of a forest fire. The first plateaus appeared.
"They're down," said Drafts.
He'd been watching the pictures come in. Janet had shown some concern during the shuttle descent, and was visibly relieved that the mission was on the ground. "Looks like a rainstorm to the west," she said. Orange-gray clouds rode over a mustard-colored mist. "Maybe some of that two-hundred proof."
"Janet." Drafts swung to face her. "Tell me something?"
"Sure."
"What do you do with your spare time when you aren't chasing cosmic waves?"
A bank of displays on her right were dark. These were the long-range scanners, still looking for anything unusual in the system. The sun, the worlds and moons, comets and rocks and assorted debris had been blanked out. Anything else, anything else at all out of the ordinary, out to the edge of the system, would register.
Fool's errand. What else could you call it?
"I'm not sure anymore," she said. "I'm really not sure."
LOG
Ground team reports they have touched down. We have launched two comsats to ensure round-the-clock communication. We have also orbited a buoy to direct the ship from Nok when it arrives.
I will add that this is the most unusual mission in which I have participated. No one seems to know what we're looking for.
— T. F. Drafts NCA Ashley Tee May 14, 2203
28
LCO4418-I1D ("Delta"). Saturday, May 14; 1745 GMT
The ground blizzard hid the surface, burying everything except the taller mesas, which might have been a gray fleet moving across rust-colored seas. The four they had selected were on the westernmost border of the plain, where the ground began to turn mountainous.
Hutch thought that Carson was being influenced by the towers at the corners of the central square in the Oz-construct on Quraqua's moon. When she mentioned it to him, he seemed surprised, but then agreed that she was probably right. "I'd like to do the same thing here," he said. "Make a square by using squares. We're not quite able to do that, but we can get close."
The largest of the four plateaus merged its rear section with a mountain. This was the one which would present the most difficulty, and they therefore chose its summit as the site for their base. Angela had brought the shuttle down through a stiff wind, and laid it cautiously into the orange snow. Hutch was impressed.
This was a big plateau. They would have needed about ten hours to walk around its rim. Locked in the snow storm, they could not see its sizable dimensions, but they knew they had taken on an ambitious job.
"Let's sit tight for tonight," Carson said. "We'll set up in the morning."
Angela pointed toward a crimson smear in the east. "It is morning. But you're right: let's wait 'til the storm blows over. Then this whole project will look reasonable." She smiled drily.
Drafts put the technical manual down when Janet came up onto the bridge. "Anything happening?"
"It's quiet. I think they're all asleep."
"Do we have a reading on the weather?"
"It's bad. I think it's always bad. I'm not sure. My meteorology is weak."
The screens were active. They reflected power drain figures, short- and long-range scans, attitude, orbital configuration. Fuel levels. Life support on both the ship and the shuttle.
Janet was pleased with the way things had turned out. Drafts, despite his hostility to the project, was a congenial companion, armed with a droll sense of humor. The ship was comfortable, and life was easy up here. She couldn't see that the ground assignment was anything but cramped drudgery.
She was about to make some small talk, when he stiffened. Almost immediately, an alert beeped. "Long range," he said.
Two displays brightened. They presented optical and sensor views of a hazy object. Range at twelve A.U.s.
Drafts frowned. "Odd."
Projected diameter: 23,000 km.
"Irregular shape," said Janet.
"We seem to have an extra world." He called up survey records. "Not supposed to be there." He studied the sensor return. "We're not getting much penetration," he said. "It looks like a cloud. Hydrogen and dust. Trace iron, carbon, formaldehyde, and silicate particles."
"So it's a cloud." Janet didn't understand why he looked so puzzled.
"Angela would know more about this than I do, but I don't think clouds come this small. They tend to be a lot bigger."
"What's inside?" asked Janet.
"Don't know. We can't get into it."
He went to mag five and enhanced. It was still a blur.
Delta. Sunday, May 15; 1045 hours.
The winds quit as if a switch had been thrown. The top of the mesa became very still, and they looked out across a crumpled orange wasteland. Angela moved the shuttle out of the snow that had piled up around it, and they got out and began assembling their base.