Starborne

There are, presumably, enough habitable but uninhabited worlds available within relatively easy reach to make such an intrusion not only morally undesirable but also u

The year-captain is suspicious, of course, of the encouraging data that Marcus and I

So, then: Is Earth, that green and pleasant world, the one-in-a-billion galactic fluke, and, if so, how come they have struck a second such fluke so easily? Or are there planets of this kind all over the place and it is the human race itself that is the improbable statistical anomaly? The year-captain has no idea. Perhaps there will be some answers later on, he thinks. But he is made definitely uneasy by the swiftness with which they have discovered this apparently habitable but evidently uninhabited world.

The action now shifts to Huw’s department. He is the chief explorer; he will mount and launch an unma

The Wotan carries three robot drones, and has the technological capacity to assemble others if anything happens to these. But constructing replacements for the original three would require a considerable redeployment of the ship’s resources of matériel and energy, and Huw understands very clearly that every effort must be made to bring each drone back successfully from a launching. He runs simulated landings nonstop for three days before he is ready to send one of the little robot vessels forth.

The outing, though, is carried off perfectly. The drone emerges smoothly from the belly of the starship and spirals downward to its target with absolute accuracy. Taking up an orbital position some 20,000 kilometers above the surface of Planet A, it carries out an extensive optical reco

After circling Planet A for one entire ship’s day — making several orbital adjustments during that time to ensure full visual coverage of the planet’s land surface — the drone enters landing mode and descends to the great rolling sava

For nine working days a team of seven expedition members, garbed head to toe in space gear as a cautionary measure, analyzes the drone’s haul in one of the sterile isolation rooms on the Wotan’s laboratory level. The year-captain, who has allocated the biological research to himself, finds bacteria in the soil samples, various kinds of protozoa in the water, and several heavily armored little ten-legged insectlike creatures in one of the drone’s collecting jars. He stares at these with awe and reverence: they are the first multicelled extraterrestrial beings ever discovered, though he suspects and hopes that they will not be the last.

Biological analysis reveals nothing obviously toxic in the soil samples or in the water. Analysis of the air samples indicates the strong likelihood that the atmosphere of Planet A will be accessible to lungs that have evolved in the air of Earth. The bacteria, when cultured in juxtaposition with microorganisms of terrestrial origin, engage in no interaction with them whatever, neither killing them nor being killed by them. This may or may not be a good sign — it remains to be seen whether the biochemistry of Planet A will be compatible with that of Earth, and the indifference of one set of bacteria to the other would raise the possibility that human settlers will be unable to digest and assimilate the foodstuffs that they find on this world.

Other little troublesome questions necessarily must go unanswered at this point. Are there airborne viruses somewhere down there, carrying fascinating new diseases? A few well-spaced scoops of atmospheric samples won’t necessarily reveal that. What about lethal amino acids in the meat of the Planet A equivalents of sheep and cattle, if there happen to be any such animals? Or murderous alkaloids in the local versions of apples and asparagus? The drone samples can’t tell them any of that. These are matters that can only be discovered the hard way, in the fullness of time, by direct experience.

Huw says, “All that’s left to do now is for us to send down a ma

The year-captain is aware of that already. Still, Huw’s words give him a good jab in the solar plexus. He hopes he has not allowed his pain to show. He has, by now, chosen the team that will descend to make the reco

“We only want volunteers for this mission, of course,” the year-captain says. “Huw, do I hear you volunteering to be the leader?”

Huw grins broadly. “You have persuaded me to do my duty, old brother.”

“I

I

“And finally,” the year-captain says — there is great suspense involved in this choice; everyone is wondering about it — “we want to know something about the plant and animal life down below. Its biochemistry, primarily. Whether we’re going to be able to make use of anything for food, or will have to set up alternative food-sources using genetic manipulation of the foodstock we’ve brought with us from Earth.” His glance comes to rest on Giova

The general reaction is one of surprise. Not that he would ask the biochemist Giova