Since Beta Ceti is so much brighter than the Sun, the planet we had been looking for, if it existed at all, had to be nearly six hundred million miles out, farther than Jupiter is from Sol.
We've found one, at five hundred and eighty million miles, which is close enough. Better yet, it is the smallest planet in a system that seems to run to outsizes; the one in the next track beyond is bigger than Jupiter.
I scheduled most of the routine skyside survey of Elysia, under Harry Gates' absentminded supervision. Harry is as eager as a fox terrier to finish his magnum opus before he has to knock off and take charge of the ground survey. He wants to transmit it back Earthside and preserve his name
in science's hall of fame—not that he puts it that way, for Harry isn't stuck up; nevertheless, he thinks he has worked out a cosmogony for solar systems which includes Bode's Law. He says that if he is right, any star in the main spectral sequence will have planets.
Maybe... I would not know. But I can't see what use a star is without planets and I don't believe all this complicated universe got here by accident. Planets are meant to be used.
Acting as Harry's Man Friday has not been difficult. All I had to do was to dig the records of the preliminary survey of Connie out of the microfilms and write up similar schedules for Elysia, modified to allow for our loss of personnel. Everybody was eager to help, because (so far as we know) we are the only ship to draw a lucky number twice and only one of four to hit even once. But we are down now, water-borne, and waiting for medicine to okay Elysia for ground survey; I'm not quite so rushed. I tried to get in touch with Vicky and just chat this evening. But it happens to be evening back home, too, and Vicky is out on a date and politely put me off.
Vicky grew up some when we peaked this last jump; she now takes notice of boys and does not have as much time for her ancient uncle. ("Is it George?") I asked when she wanted to know if my call was important.
"Well, if you must know, it is George/" she blurted out.
("Don't get excited, Freckle Face,") I answered. ("I just asked.")
"Well, I told you."
("Sure, sure. Have a good time, hon, and don't stay out too late.")
"You sound just like Daddy."
I suppose I did. The fact is I don't have much use for George, although I have never seen him, never will, and don't know much about him, except that Vicky says that be is "the tenth power" and "first with the worst" in spite of being "ruffily around the round" if I knew what she meant, but she would equalize that.
I didn't know what she meant, but I interpreted it to mean approval slightly qualified and that she expected him to be perfect, or "ricketty all through" when she got through making him over. I suspect him of being the kind of pimply-faced, ignorant young bore that I used to be myself and have always disliked—something about like Dusty Rhodes at the present without Dusty's amazing mind.
This sounds as if I were jealous of a boy I'll never see over a girl I have never seen, but that is ridiculous. My interest is fatherly, or big-brotherly, even though I am effectively no relation to her; i.e., my parents were two of her sixteen great-great-grandparents—a relationship so distant that most people aren't even aware of relatives of that remote degree.
Or maybe Van's wild theory has something to it and we are all getting to be cranky old men—just our bodies are staying young. But that is silly. Even though seventy-odd Greenwich years have passed, it has been less than four for me since we left Earth. My true time is hunger and sleep; I've slept about fourteen hundred times in the Elsie and eaten three meals and a snack or two for each sleep. That is four years, not seventy.
No, I'm just disappointed that on my first free evening in a couple of weeks I have nothing better to do than write in my diary. But, speaking of sleep, I had better get some; the first party will go ashore tomorrow, if medicine approves, and I will be busy. I won't be on it but there is plenty to do to get them off.
We are a sorry mess. I don't know what we can do now.
I had better begin at the beginning. Elysia checked out in all ways on preliminary survey—breathable atmosphere, climate within Earth limits and apparently less extreme; a water, oxygen and carbon dioxide life cycle; no unusual hazards. No signs of intelligent life, of course, or we would have skipped it. It is a watery world even more than Terra is, with over 90% oceans and there was talk of naming it "Aquaria" instead of Elysia, but somebody pointed out that there was no sense in picking a name which might make it unattractive to colonists when there seemed to be nearly as much usable land as Earth had.
So we cuddled up to an island as big as Madagascar—almost a continent for Elysia—with the idea that we could cover the whole island in the detailed survey and be able to report that a colony could settle there as fast as LRF could send a ship—we knew that Connie was already settled and we wanted to get this one settled and make it a clean sweep for the Elsie.
I gave Percy a pat and told him to size up the lay of the land and to let me know if he found any lady pigs. Uncle Lucas took the guard ashore and the science party followed the same day. It was clear that Elysia was going to be no more of a problem than Connie had been and almost as big a prize—except for the remote possibility of exotic infection we could not handle.
That was two weeks ago.
It started out routine as breakfast. Percy and the other experimental animals flourished on an Elysian diet; Van failed to catch anything worse than an itch and presently he was trying Elysian food himself—there were awkward looking four-winged birds which broiled nicely; Van said they reminded him of roast turkey with an overtone of cantaloupe. But Percy the Pig would not touch some fish that were caught and the rats that did eat them died, so sea food was put off until further investigation could be made. The fish did not look like ours; they were flat the wrong way, like a flounder, and they had tendrils something like a catfish which raveled on the ends instead of being spiny. Harry Gates was of the opinion that they were feeling organs and possibly manipulative as well.
The island had nothing like the big-mouthed carnivorous lizards that got Lefty Gomez. However, there was no telling what might be on other islands, since the land masses were so detached that totally different lines of evolution might have been followed in each island group. Our report was going to recommend that Devereaux Island be settled first, then investigate the others cautiously.
I was due to go ashore on third rotation, Unc having taken the first week, then a week of rest, and now would take shipside watch while T linked with him from ashore. But at the last minute I agreed to swap, as Anna was anxious to go.
I did not want to swap, but I had been running the department's watch list since Rupe's death and it would have been awkward to refuse. Gloria was going, too, since her husband was on that rotation, but Gloria did not count as her telepartner was on vacation back Earthside.
When they left, I was on top of the Elsie glumly watching them get into the boats. There was a "monkey island" deck temporarily rigged up there, outside the airlock; it was a good place to watch the boats being loaded at the cargo ports lower down. Engineering had completed inspection and overhaul and had about finished filling the boost-mass tanks; the Elsie was low in the water and the cargo ports were not more than ten feet above waterline. It made loading convenient; at the time we put the first party ashore the tanks were empty and the boats had to be lowered nearly a hundred feet and passengers had to go down rope ladders—not easy for people afraid of heights, as so many are. But it was a cinch that day.