The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell [97]
Startled by her own fretfulness, she looked around and saw it in the others as well, but then Marc said, "And this is the source of the radio transmissions." There was an exhalation and a murmur all around. Marc outlined an area near the coast. "This appears to be a city in a high valley ringed by several mountains. There is not the confluence of roads I expected, but these lines here may be canals leading from the two rivers you can see, here and here. This may be a port. I would guess that this semicircular area could be a good harbor."
There were other regions showing features that suggested cities elsewhere on the continent, but they’d come because of the music, so there was no serious discussion of landing near those. Despite this unanimity, an argument broke out over how close to the transmitter city they should approach initially.
Alan Pace was astonished that there was any question at all. He wanted to make contact with the city inhabitants immediately and directly. "With respect to Sandoz, the musical communication could be drawn on at the very beginning, just as we used music to make contact with the Guarnari in the eighteenth century. Also, there are the precedents of Xavier and Ricci, who determined to go as quickly as possible to the cities of Japan and China, and worked with the educated classes first."
"You don’t think we’d scare the lights out of ’em, just showin’ up in all our alien glory some afternoon?" D.W. asked Alan.
"We could tell them we’re from France," Emilio suggested thoughtfully. Even Alan cracked up.
"Maybe we won’t be all that big a surprise to them. Human beings have been speculating about alien species for hundreds of years," Jimmy Quinn said, ignoring Emilio but grinning. "With all the moons and suns, these folks have got to be interested in astronomy."
"Do you think so, Jim?" Anne asked, joining the discussion for the first time. "With three suns, very little of the planet is in darkness at any one time, or for very long. They might not pay any attention at all to the night sky."
"They’re aiming radio at the moons," Sofia and Jimmy said simultaneously. Everyone laughed, and Anne shrugged and nodded, admitting defeat.
"Anyway, it seems to me that we’d do best to go where the high tech is. I’m willing to bet that this here"—George pointed to a lake in the mountainous area near the city—"is a hydroelectric dam. See? This could be the spillway. If they can build stuff like this and figure out how to bounce radio off their moons, they’ve got to be at least as technologically advanced as nineteenth- or twentieth-century Earth. So they’re probably reasonably sophisticated. I say we go for it. Land in the center of town."
Marc was very much disturbed by this line of reasoning and appealed directly to D.W. "Father, it seems to me that we should learn something of the planet before we deal with the intelligent species, if for no other reason than to send basic ecological data back for the next party, in case something happens to us. We need to get our bearings first."
D.W. turned to Anne. "How long do you expect it to take us to get used to gravity again?"
"George says the planet is a little smaller than Earth, so we expect the gravity to be a little lighter than we were used to. That’s a plus. But we’ve all lost muscle mass and bone density, and our feet are too soft to walk very far. And frankly, everyone is strung out," she said. "Alan, I know you’re just dying to see the instruments and to sing with the Singers, but making contact is going to be very risky. Do you honestly feel you’re ready to cope with any kind of crisis at this point?"
Pace grimaced. "I suppose not."
"Me, neither," Anne said. "I should think we could take two to three weeks getting used to conditions on the surface, building up strength and readapting to sunlight."
"That would also give us time to study the flora and fauna at least in a limited region," Marc said. "And we could find out if we can eat or