Exodus (The Exodus Trilogy) (18 page)

There were four shuttles on board, and they were outfitted with chemical rockets, very similar to those that had been used for carrying people and materials
up into Earth orbit. The design was nothing groundbreaking; it was simple, sturdy, and built to last. The shuttles were capable of carrying thirty adults, including the pilots, and had an automatic glider system that adapted its flight to the characteristics of the atmosphere and gravity of Aurora, and by itself, it was capable of identifying—and avoiding— risky terrain, such as oceans, rocky areas, and mountains, taking them safely to ground. The automatic system ensured a safe landing and freed the shuttle pilot for other tasks, such as scouting for terrain that would be suitable for long-term habitability, which was a different challenge altogether. The pilot could take manual control at any given time, and she could also alter the designated landing spots the automatic system proposed. This was crucial on this first flight, as the spot they chose would likely be where they would set up their initial camp, which would soon grow into a colony. They didn’t have enough fuel to search all over the planet to find the perfect spot, so when they found something that looked good enough, for both landing and long-term habitability, that would be where they would land.

As
Tina buckled up, she glanced over at her copilot, Lieutenant Henry Carroll. She had chosen him personally, knowing that he was capable and steady, and quick to react in an emergency. He was also her friend. Now he was doing the final checks and everything looked fine. As the hatch was closed, he smiled at her and nodded affirmatively. They were ready. In a minute, the shuttle would be released from the Exodus, and the attitude thrusters would separate them from the mother ship. They silently counted down the seconds.

“
All right, folks. Hang on. Three, two, one.” There was a rattling sound, and a bang followed by another and another and another. That was the attitude thrusters, separating the shuttle from the mother ship. Tina felt a pull as the shuttle glided out, away from the Exodus and into its own orbit.

“
That’s it. We’re clear. Initiating auto pilot.” She toggled a switch and the attitude thrusters kept working to adjust the shuttle to its projected course.

The new world
came closer into view as the shuttle gained speed. They were flying over the night side of the planet now, and it was utterly black. So different from Earth, where the night would be lit up all over the planet. The marks of human civilization. Tina enjoyed the sensation, but kept a close watch on the displays. It was an old habit of hers, never trusting the automatic system completely.

There were six passengers, scientists all. They would assess the landing site, from potential for agriculture to meteorological conditions to running tests on the local vegetation, sampling the air, a
nd a whole set of other tasks. She didn’t know each of the scientists personally, but she trusted they were the best at what they did.

“
Okay, ready for retro burn. Three, two, one.” There was a kick in the back, and they were pressed into their couches. They could feel the shuttle changing directions. The retro system was designed to shed their velocity, in order to take it out of orbit and let it fall toward the atmosphere of Aurora. After more than a century, it still functioned, just as the technicians who’d inspected it said it would. The retro burn ended abruptly, and they were thrown forward into their straps.

“
All good, Major,” Henry said. They were no longer in orbit. Now the shuttle was falling toward the planet, small bursts from the attitude thrusters adjusting its alignment and course so that the nose pointed in the direction of descent. A few minutes later, the shuttle tipped up, so that it flew belly first, where the large heat shield would protect them when they entered the atmosphere.

Then they felt it. Gravity. They were entering the atmosphere. At the same time, they saw the first light of day, as dawn quickly
came closer. The view was suddenly obscured, as the colors of the burning plasma filled the air around the shuttle. Tina and Henry looked at each other, and Tina could see the concern on her copilot’s face. They both knew this was a critical phase. The shuttles were designed from years of experience with Earth’s atmospheric entry, but no one really knew how that would work here. In theory, it should be fine, with everything adjusted to the conditions of Aurora’s atmosphere, but you never knew. As the shuttle shook more violently, Tina felt sweat trickle down her back. There were no guarantees, no certainty, and this was something quite different from flying scramjets across North Africa.

Then, just like that
, the plasma dissipated to reveal blue sky with scattered clouds around them. Somewhere, while covered in the burning plasma, they had crossed the terminator into daytime. The shuttle shook a little as it adjusted to its new surroundings. They were flying. No longer falling, but actually flying. They were still high up, so the horizon still showed a curve, but they were able to see contours of the landscape beneath them. They were flying toward Verdi, where they assumed they would be able to find a spot where both landing requirements and possibility of long-term habitation would match. Things were moving very quickly now. They flew across a mountainous landscape that had to be somewhere in the western regions of Cerula. As their descent continued, they passed the coastline and beneath them were the vast expanses of ocean. Tina recognized the features from the map that Professor Lowell had shown them. It shouldn’t be long now.

After a few minutes, they could see land in the distance.
The shoreline approached quickly, and once they lowered the landing gear, the shuttle started shaking again.

“
That’s it,” Henry said. Tina could see it now too; the grasslands were right in front of them. The landing site was an expanse of grasslands with a forest to the south, and a river running just north of it, while north of the grasslands there was a region of low mountains. The coast would be to the east of their landing site.

They were flying low now, just a hundred meters, eighty,
seventy …

“
This is it,” Tina said into the comms, so that everyone could hear. “We’re going in for landing.” She gently pushed at a handle, and the landing gear touched ground. Carefully she let the weight of the shuttle come down. The shuttle skipped a few times before finally settling down, speeding across the landscape. Then there was a loud bang as the chutes deployed. The shuttle slowed, and as it came to a halt, Tina realized she had been holding her breath, and she let it out. Henry had a wide grin on his face as he released his secondary handle, and looked at the readings on the displays. All good, it seemed. The shuttle would be operational again in just sixteen hours, the time it took to reload the batteries and refill the rockets, an automated process that converted atmospheric components into rocket fuel. Tina peeked out as she reported back into the comms.

“
Exodus, this is shuttle. We are safely down.”

Setting up camp was hard labor, and Thomas Dunn breathed heavi
ly under the weight of a crate filled with some kind of lab equipment. The first landing had been a success yesterday, and now they had the first results from the soil and air samples taken. They were told that they would be able to plant edible crops here from the seeds brought from Earth, as soon as they had the camp ready and everybody settled in. That would be even harder work, as most of it would have to be done before winter set in. The scientists had given them some idea of what Aurora winter would be like, and although it would be comparable to certain parts of Earth, it wouldn’t be comfortable. Thomas wasn’t sure how to interpret that, but one thing was for sure; you didn’t want to be caught out in the open on a cold winter night in these parts. But it was still late spring, and the air felt nice and warm against his exposed neck. He resisted the temptation to remove his facemask. He knew he would be able to breathe the air, and it would have felt so good, but the scientists had told them all to make sure they kept them on at all times until they had the air-tight shelters ready, so he did. He wasn’t much for respecting authorities, but this mandate he would stick with. Who knew what kind of bugs he would catch if he didn’t.

He caught a glimpse of the shrink, Taylor, and chuckled to himself, as the older man
was obviously having a harder time of it than he. Sweating hard, while carrying a piece of one of the containers that would be used as living quarters, Taylor had to stop to catch his breath every ten steps. They had been told the lower gravity would make them all feel super fit, at least initially, but at the moment, he didn’t think Taylor would agree. As Dunn carried a crate over to the biology team, who of course had to be at the other end of the campsite, he thought about the shrink. An interesting fellow actually; so careful with his words, Thomas thought. He didn’t know where the man stood, but obviously he wasn’t one of Havelar’s cronies; he would have known if he was in the inner circle, but of course that didn’t mean he was to be trusted. The plan had been designed so that no one knew who had been picked by the senator and his people, and who were thought of as loyal to the Andrews regime. Even so, Taylor didn’t seem to fit the bill in either direction. And considering it, perhaps he didn’t belong to either camp. Perhaps the psychologist would turn out to be something else entirely.

The
campsite was located in the far east of the continent they had named Verdi, on a large expanse of grasslands, not far from the coastline. Just to the north there was a wide river, and Thomas thought that once the immediate tasks on site were covered, they should try to see if Aurora had any fishing opportunities. From what he knew of fishing back on Earth, it looked promising. Of course, no one knew whether fish or anything that resembled fish even existed on Aurora, although the biologists believed the waters surely held some kind of life. But he would certainly go check it out as soon as possible.

N
orth of the river, there were mountains that would probably protect them somewhat from the northern winds the meteorologists had said they should expect come winter. The geologists suspected the area to be rich in minerals as well, and the sooner they could get started on mining their own resources the better. He could see the peaks from here, still covered in snow. He wondered whether they had glaciers or some kind of snow up there throughout summer too. The lower temperature and the altitude made it entirely possible, even though the highest couldn’t be more than around two thousand meters.

When Thomas looked to the south
, the only thing he could see was more grassland. But he knew that there were large forests in that direction, from what they had told him. The rough maps they all had on their tablets now showed the forests to be about a three or four-day walk away. To the west, there would be grasslands and sparse forest in between lakes and a few hills or mountains. It seemed the terrain varied more to the west, and beyond the first lakes no one really knew much of what to expect just yet.

The site itself stretched over an area of more than two square kilometers. They would have several housing areas, where all living quarters would have at least one air
-tight room, and there would be communal air-filtering facilities that would provide these rooms with clean filtered air. In the southern end of the site would be a runway for the shuttles that would remain valuable means of transportation, both around the area, as well as to and from the Exodus, which would remain in orbit, to serve as a communications / weather / scientific satellite. From time to time, someone might need to get up there for maintenance or some scientific work that couldn’t be conducted on the ground, and the Exodus had great equipment for astronomy, which would be used for getting to know the planetary neighborhood.

Getting the fusion reactors
that would provide electricity for the colonists up and running was one of the highest priorities. At the moment, the first one was actually being assembled, just north of the site, close to where the greenhouses would be situated. South of the reactors there would be a large administrative building and a hospital. The hospital would be the only building, at least for the time being, that would be completely air tight, with filtered air in the entire building. And of course, the labs of the scientists would be clustered together, somewhat resembling a university campus. That was where Thomas was standing right now, in the western part of the site, too far from the shuttle field, he thought. After unloading the crate, he walked over to the nearest person for a quick breather.

“
So, how’s it going over here? You found anything interesting yet?” he said as he leaned against a stack of crates still unopened. A girl, or rather a woman, probably somewhere around thirty, eyed him sideways. She seemed to have something else on her mind, but as she was the only one there, it was obvious the question had been directed at her. She didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds, and Thomas noticed that she had beautiful eyes, and the rest didn’t look too bad either, with close-cropped black hair and Latino features. Judging from her hair—or lack thereof, she must have been one of the last ones to wake up, he thought. Of course, the facemask hid most of her face.

“
Well, that’s not really my area of expertise, but … I’m working on agriculture, and that seems promising … Ah, there seems to be a bit of wildlife here actually. The first thing they found was some kind of insect, well, several kinds actually, that live right here on the ground. Kind of similar to beetles, just really small, so I guess most people haven’t noticed them yet. And then there are the mosquitoes and bees, or whatever we decide to call them. There seem to be a lot of them further inland. There is actually a team of four biologists exploring the area just west of here as we speak.” He reached out a hand toward her.

“
I’m Thomas. Dunn. Administration.” She took his hand, and shook it lightly.

“
Maria Solis,” she said. Solis. That would make her Ramon’s daughter, Thomas thought. Ramon Solis was one of the head figures of the Consortium, but even so, he didn’t seem close to Havelar. Deeply Consortium entwined of course, but a different person altogether.

“
So, any other life forms around?” he continued. “Any proper aliens?” he winked at her, and he could see her smile under the mask.

“
You know, Mr. Dunn … we are the aliens here.” Hmm, he thought. She’s teasing.

“
Come on now, you know what I mean,” Thomas pushed on, half joking.

“
All right then. Well, to answer your question, no. Not intelligent life, or at least not as we believe intelligent life would behave. We did find several tracks of some kind of large species right next to the shuttle field, and there have been infrared sightings of living things both to the north and south. From the size of mice to horses. But no sightings yet though. And there are large CO2 emissions from the plains out west that cannot be anything other than living beings. But it’s early still. Most of us came today. We haven’t even got all the equipment down from the Exodus yet. I guess there will be new findings every day, as we explore the area more.” He nodded, and decided he would talk some more with her later. He took out his mittens; it was chilly, even this time of year, so he put them on.

“
Well, I’ll get back to my crates now. Got a lot of stuff to move before we’re done for the day. See you later.” Then he turned away, and walked toward the shuttle field.

Walking back, he thought of the secret containers
still secured to the Exodus. He had placed trackers on all of them, and knew they hadn’t been moved yet. Whatever they contained, he would make sure that when the time came, he would be ready to go out on a little field trip of his own. The containers were too large to be placed in the shuttles, so they had to be moved from the Exodus to Aurora in some other fashion. Perhaps they were able to land by themselves? Anyway, if they held weapons, as he suspected, getting a hold of them could prove the difference between tyranny and freedom, and even though he doubted that he could secure them all, somehow he would make damn sure that Havelar didn’t get all of them. Maybe he could even steal one or more away. That would take accomplices of course, and he still didn’t know whom to trust. It would be a gamble, whatever he did, but he suspected the time for caution would come to an end, sooner or later. But not today. Thomas Dunn would be patient.