Expendable - James Alan Gardner [21]
Chee thought for a moment. “Maybe one or two a year. And they’ve been doing this for at least forty years. They certainly couldn’t suppress hard evidence that long.”
“Which means that whatever the danger is on Melaquin, it hits the party too fast for anyone to collect hard evidence.”
“Do you have any ideas what it might be?” Chee asked.
Feeling like a cadet reciting a case study, I said, “On Canopus IV, there’s a plant that spreads its seeds by exploding violently. In the right season, the vibration from a single footstep is enough to set it off. Five parties were killed there before one team spread out and put a hundred meters between each party member. In that team, one Explorer was killed; the others reported back and Canopus IV was eventually tamed.”
“So you think we should spread out?”
Yarrun snorted a small laugh. “The planet Seraphar has a race of semi-sentient shapeshifters who would quietly stab Explorers in the back and take their place in the party. Spreading out just made it that much easier for the shapeshifters to do their work. Six parties were killed before one stumbled on the truth.”
“Every decision is a gamble,” I told the admiral. “In this case, however, we don’t need to tax our brains. So many teams have landed on Melaquin, they must have tried all the standard approaches by now. None of those worked, so we’re free to do whatever the hell we want.”
We spent several moments of silence, contemplating the wealth of freedom presented to us.
No-Comm
“Of course,” I said at last, “there’s a more pleasant alternative.”
“I’m eager to hear it,” Chee answered.
“According to my old instructor Phylar Tobit, teams exploring Melaquin don’t necessarily go Oh Shit; they just go no-comm. Suppose there’s something on the planet that interrupts communications—some kind of interference field.”
Yarrun looked thoughtful. “Didn’t Tobit suggest that parties can broadcast for a while before being cut off? If the planet has natural interference, it should kill communications right from the start.”
“Not necessarily,” I answered. “Suppose Melaquin has some kind of standing interference field; but when a ship drops its Sperm tail to land a party, the tail disrupts the field. The Explorers land, the tail is withdrawn…and for a few minutes the party has normal communications. Then the interference reestablishes itself and the party goes no-comm.”
“Wouldn’t there be some warning?” Chee asked. “Static or something, as the field closed back in.”
“If the field closes fast enough, it doesn’t matter,” Yarrun told him. “To pick up a party, the ship has to drop the Sperm tail in exactly the right spot; and the only way to do that is to lock onto the tracking signal put out by a communicator. The signal is a sort of hypermagnetic anchor that seizes the end of the Sperm and drags it to the party’s location. If the signal isn’t working, there’s no chance a ship could ever plant its tail stably on the surface.”
“So you think,” Chee said, “there’s some kind of field—”
“No, Admiral,” I interrupted, “I’m just saying it’s one possibility. There must be a dozen other ways to disrupt communications: a trace chemical in the atmosphere that corrodes D-thread circuits; bacteria that like to chew on transducer chips; semi-sentients with the equipment to jam transmissions; periodic bursts of positronic energy that are drawn to communicators like lightning rods…”
“You’re pulling my leg on that one, Ramos.”
“I hope so,” I told him drily.
“The point still stands,” Yarrun said. “I’d rather believe in a phenomenon that blanks communicators than one that kills whole parties in the blink of an eye.”
Silently, I agreed. I could live with the thought of machines breaking.
The Poles
“You know,” Chee said, “perhaps our future isn’t so bleak after all. We know the planet is Earthlike. The weather won’t be a problem if we pick our