Contamination Event (Short Story #1) Read online

and shook his head at the stained, mottled underside of the scout. “Those beds of fungus are corrosive. They do quite a job on these things.”

  I helped him test circuitry and replace a few filaments, mostly by handing him tools or pulling back bundles of wire so he could reach behind.

  Esther finished programming the 3D printer and joined us. “Has Hornet reported signs of volcanic activity?” she asked. Hornet was the argonauts' pet name for the mother ship orbiting far above us.

  “So far so good.”

  As far as we could tell, Zarmina was not affected by plate tectonics, but we were still concerned about earthquakes and tidal waves. They often accompanied volcanic eruptions.

  And Zarmina was volcanically active. Several peaks rose above the ocean surface here and there across the globe, but most of the volcanos were buried far below in the swirling depths. The wide, crumbling calderas had been imaged from space.

  The planet's atmosphere was eighty-five percent nitrogen, eleven percent carbon dioxide, and two percent hydrogen sulfide. All of these gasses were colorless, as was the water vapor forming the clouds high above. What exactly gave them their light, yellow hue was still a mystery.

  Over time, the carbon dioxide should have dissolved in the ocean, where it would have been deposited as layers of limestone on the seabed, until there was none left.

  Unless, of course, something was replenishing it.

  Two underground eruptions had been observed before we landed. A link had been suggested between them and an uptick in solar activity.

  The red dwarf HO-Librae was a highly variable star, prone to sudden, angry flares and covered in starspots like measles. It was one of the characteristics of red dwarves that made them so inhospitable. The temper tantrums of a comfortable G-class star like Sol were dangerous enough to the planets in its proximity. But HO-Librae was a full-fledged berserker, and Zarmina had a feeble magnetic field. It could hardly offer sufficient protection.

  Hornet had warned us yesterday that solar output was increasing. Naturally, we were concerned.

  “I wish I could go down in one of the subs and get a closer look,” Esther said wistfully and cast a meaningful glance in my direction.

  Sergei started and nearly bumped his head. “You mean of an eruption?” He glanced first at her and then at me. “Don't you get any funny ideas,” he told us and turned back to the scout. “We've already been over this. There are life forms in that ocean. Big ones.”

  Esther made a face at his back, but I could tell she wasn't angry. We both knew Sergei was right.

  Eventually, there came a sucking sound from the inner door as the vacuum seal was broken. In stepped Dalia, naked and dry, clutching her equipment in a bundle.

  Argonauts live together in close quarters. We can't be ashamed of nakedness or the sounds we make on the toilet. But it is true that sexuality can be a problem on long missions such as ours, especially when we are cooped up together for so long. An argonaut must be focused on his work, even when he is resting. The idle pleasures of life – from long, hot showers to a pleasant frolic in the sack – are as foreign on alien planets as fresh, unrecycled air.

  To help us in this regard, our food was supplemented with hormone suppressants. Fortunately, the effect was temporary.

  “Let me get dressed and then I'll tell you all about it!” Dalia breathed as she lumbered towards the ladder leading to our quarters above. Her steps were slow and awkward as if she were moving through water. Deprived of her gravpads, her muscles were struggling in Zarmina's natural gravity, a field twice as strong as Earth's.

  Soon, she was sitting with the rest of us, dressed in a simple white tunic and ensconced in gravpads.

  “I've confirmed it!” she announced and smiled. “Not that we should be surprised.”

  “Confirmed what?” Sergei wanted to know.

  But Dalia pressed on excitedly. “We already knew there is a large amount of potassium cyanide dissolved in all that sea water. Now I've found significant amounts of sodium cyanide in the sedentary rock comprising these islands. In fact, those reed-like structures that periodically shoot up through the fungal fields and then decay just as quickly – I theorize they carry up much needed sodium cyanide to the top of the heap.”

  It was amazing news. “So,” I said, “it looks like another entirely new biochemistry, eh?”

  “It's the fifth planet humanity has found life on. So far, no two are the same.”

  Sergei scowled as he tried to follow the conversation. That's when I remembered, he hadn't been there this morning when we conducted Dalia's mission preview. He was off on his own mission, checking up on the cybers outside.

  “Sergei!” I howled and tried not to laugh. “You look like Esther's announced fried liver and onions for dinner tonight! Lighten up!”

  Dalia quickly explained that life here on Zarmina depended partly on cyanide. “Of course, to us cyanide is a deadly poison. It's impossible to say how it could be used biologically.”

  “Obviously, it has a place in a very complex biochemistry,” I said. “Not just simple fungal colonies.”

  Dalia cocked her head. “How do you mean?”

  “Those life forms we detected in the ocean! Some of them are five meters in length.”

  Dalia shrugged. “You can't infer complexity from size, Jonathan. Remember those air cells they found on Proxima Centauri-II?”

  I did. Another large, rocky planet with a dense, moist atmosphere. The temperature was too warm for liquid water. The entire troposphere – from equator to pole – was swarming with large, bubble-like creatures that floated along with the currents. Some of them were larger than a person, but in the end they were just single-celled organisms.

  Fortunately, dinner that evening was not liver and onions.

  Esther served us pumpkin soup with heavy cream, a bean and vegetable stew seasoned with pepper and turmeric, and various cheeses with dried bread. For desert there was a mixture of yogurt, nuts, and honey. Afterwards, tea and coffee.

  That evening, it was Dalia's turn to lead the conversation. For some reason, she wanted to talk about education. I was bored as soon as she announced it.

  Tomorrow was my turn. I had already settled on a topic. We'd talk about lassoing asteroids!

  “I think humanity educates its children well enough,” Sergei was saying. He looked around the table. “We all turned out just fine.”

  Dalia nodded and hastily swallowed a mouthful of stew. “All the local regions on Earth adhere to the same principles,” she said. “Once a child turn three, she is expected to begin her general education. She joins a group of no more than five girls and boys, all more or less united in ability and temperament. Every day, six days a week during the morning hours, they meet at a tutor's home. They learn reading and writing in several languages, the arts, later mathematics and the sciences.”

  “Well,” Esther interjected, “it's not the same everywhere. In Egypt, we start our schooling at four years old. And we have several different tutors. One might be specialized in the arts, another in mathematics.”

  “Of course, there are local differences,” Dalia hastily agreed. “But the principles are the same. At sixteen students may choose to apply to any number of academies and technical schools for advanced learning. Or not pursue their education any further.” She shrugged, but it was clear in her body language that she couldn't understand why anyone would do that.

  “I've heard that before the Troubles schooling was restricted by age,” Sergei said.

  “That's ridiculous,” I scoffed. “What does age have to do with learning?”

  “That's what I heard. School was only available until a certain age. And the children were herded into large groups. Thirty, forty. Two hundred even. They attended formal institutions not from sixteen onwards but even as small children.”

  “It's true,” Dalia confirmed. “And they taught them subjective material, like history and religion.”

  “And all those other harmful habits they pr
acticed back then,” I said, waving a fork over my plate for emphasis. “Politics. Business.”

  Esther smiled gently. “Well, it was before the Troubles.”

  “I've done quite a bit of research on this subject lately,” Dalia admitted. “That's why I brought it up. I'm curious what you think. Did you know that back then schooling had purposes other than simple education? Schools – that's what they called them – were supposed to produce citizens.”

  “You mean, as in countries?”

  Dalia nodded. “Children were trained to feel that they belonged to a group defined by this arbitrary geographical unit. Remember that before the Troubles societies were divided into the small, privileged elite and everyone else. Education – and chiefly topics like history and religion – was used as a tool to shore up this elite's position.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “By pitting one group against the others, of course!”

  Sergei pushed his plate away and sank back in his chair. “The concept of the nation-state always struck me as primitive and tribal. And yet –” he paused as if unsure he should finish his sentence.

  “Now, now,” Dalia pressed him. “There are no ridiculous ideas among argonauts. Out with it!”

  Sergei pursed his lips. “Well, it's just that one benefit of a system such as theirs is that students were taught discipline and conformity. Subjective information isn't like learning to calculate orbital trajectories or how to synthesize organic compounds. To succeed, you have to learn to spit out