Section 31_ Rogue - Andy Mangels [6]
At Roget’s command, the triple-layered duranium hangar doors opened, accentuating the faint blue glow of the shuttlebay’s atmospheric forcefield. The shuttle rose on its antigravs, moved gently forward, and accelerated into the frigid vastness of space.
The perpetually sunward side of Chiaros IV suddenly loomed above the Archimedes, presenting a dazzling vista of ochers and browns. Gray, vaguely menacing clouds surged over the equatorial mountain ranges. High above the terminator separating eternal night from unending day, Zweller could see the glint of sunlight on metal-Chiaros IV’s off-planet communications relay, tethered to the planet’s narrow habitable zone by a network of impossibly slender-looking cables. Zweller noticed that the portion of the tether that plunged into the roiling atmosphere was surrounded by transitory flashes of light.
Lightning? he wondered, then looked more closely. No, it’s thruster fire. If the Chiarosans didn’t compensate somehow for the motions of their turbulent atmosphere, that orbital tether wouldn’t last ten minutes.
Zweller took in this vista-the untamable planet as well as the tenacious efforts of the Chiarosans to subdue it-with unfeigned delight.
“Hail the Chiarosans, Mr. Zweller,” Roget said, interrupting his reverie. Zweller complied, immediately all business once again. His hail was answered by a voice as deep as a canyon, which cleared the shuttlecraft to begin its descent into the churning atmosphere. The computer received the landing coordinates and projected a neat, elliptical course onto the central navigational display.
“A pity we can’t just beam straight down to the capital,” Roget said as the Slayton receded into the distance.
Andreas Hearn, the Slayton’s chief engineer, spoke up from directly behind Zweller. “Between the radiation output of the Chiarosan sun, the planet’s intense magnetosphere, and the clash of hot and cold air masses down there, we can’t even get a subspace signal down to the surfaceleast not without the orbital tether relay. I wouldn’t recommend trying to transport anyone directly through all that atmospheric hash.”
“Oh, enough technical talk,” said Gomp, the Tellarite chief medical officer, who was seated in the cabin’s aftmost section. “I want to know what these people are really like. The only things I’ve seen so far are their official reports to the Federation. Medically speaking, all I can really say about them is that they’re supposed to be triple-jointed and faster than Regulan eel-birds.”
“Then I wouldn’t recommend challenging them on the hoverball court,” Hearn said with a chuckle.
The Archimedes entered the upper atmosphere. On the cockpit viewer, Zweller watched as an aurora reached across the planet’s south pole with multicolored, phosphorescent fingers. Lightning split the clouds in the higher latitudes. Atmospheric friction increased, and an ionized plasma envelope began forming around the shuttle’s hull.
“Gomp makes a good point,” said xenoanthropologist Liz Kurlan, as though this didn’t happen very often. “All we know about these people so far is what they want us to know.”
“So we’ll start filling in those gaps in our knowledge today,” Roget said with a good-natured shrug. “That’s why we’re all here, isn’t it?”
Sitting in silence, he moved his fingers with deliberate precision over the controls. Then the shuttle hastened its descent toward the rapidly approaching terminator, the demarcation line between the planet’s endless frigid night and its ever-agitated, superheated sunward side.
On the Slayton’s bridge, Blaylock heard an uncharacteristic urgency enter Glebuk’s voice. “Captain! The anomaly has reappeared!”
The bridge crew suddenly began moving in double-time. Blaylock was on her feet in an instant. “Location!”
“Scanning,” Glebuk said.
Ensign Burdick, the young man at the forward science