Vestige
Chapter 7

…Times…

“…One week until the Ship reaches planet cMaj…One week until the Ship reaches planet cMaj…One week until the Ship reaches planet cMaj!”

In deep ancient times, in a religion that was called Christianity, the temples called churches would ring large bells that were atop those temples to call for worship service, or to keep track of time. In a similar religion that was not quite as old, Islam, that faith’s temples had men call out—in towering structures, just like the bells for Christians, when it was time for its adherents to pray…in a strange twist of human fate, eons later, humans, now, had gotten a calling high above, but from a synthetic voice over the spinning, cylindrical colony! Readying the people for their upcoming destiny with a world they knew nothing about…except that it was much bigger than their home-planet and its atmosphere was a bit heavier than what evolution had rigged their lungs to breathe in!

The booming voice, alternating between female and male, was part of the Ship’s actuation and was emitted via strategically placed speakers throughout the whole Ship, not just in the O’Neillian sector. Even out in the countryside of the spinning colony, where there were farms with limited animal species and undulating hills and pastures, the Ship’s multitude of media-kiosks were tucked away in trees, rocks, and other natural locales.

The announcements were always in threes, and always during the quarter-mornings. Of course, given that the Ship was a high-tech marvel, the announcements weren’t necessary, given all the communication technologies the Ship and its citizenry had. The idea came from the media division within the nodule-government, utilizing history and psychology—A shared destination should have shared messaging, was how Psychologist-Dambudzo put it…

With one week until ETA was reached at cMaj, the swirling-atmosphere-orange planet had already been the biggest and the brightest astronomical body in the Colony’s sky—that is to say, images beamed that were acres-sized projections that were an echo of the ancient concept of windows; rectangular and depicting whatever local-space setting the generational-ship was traversing at that time. cMaj’s three moons were a treat for the colonists to see by themselves—for one of the moons, alone, was a world of natural resources that the Colony would be able to utilize somehow—to say nothing of the planet itself!

This was a Time of jubilation for the Colonists, despite many citizens still suffering from the acclimation adjustments within the Colony. For mere days ago the nodule-government had imparted to them the troubling discovery of how the Ship was running low on its antediluvian fuel of nuclear! And now, an entire world—plus its satellites!—was just within grasp of the Society!

But that period of jubilation was still tempered by the, also, recently discovered monument by Maintenance Technician Tyra Housenn and translated by her portable and the Ship’s actuator…that, according to the sacred shrine Tech-Housenn and the nodules shared with the rest of the Ship, the Colony was the vestige of homo sapiens from a planet called Earth. And to the best of the nodules’ understanding, there were no other generational-ships or colonies besides them!

Just as Poul Ean, one of the science-nodule members, stated a year ago during that fateful meeting upon the nodules’ first time learning of the Ship’s nuclear fuel crisis, the Ship’s governing body had to draft a scouting mission to cMaj and its three moons. It was not enough to only take computerated information. The mission, staffed by the nodule-governing humans from the various scientific disciplines and their supporting crew, would have to physically go to the planet and see if it could even remotely support all or most of the Ship’s population of two-and-a-half million citizens! Most likely, the mission would have to split up between cMaj and the three lunar bodies…

The scouting mission was assembled by the end of that last week upon the Ship’s arrival of the cMaj’s system!

While the planet-ship’s populace—most of it, anyway—had thrown festivals and official commemorations in each township within the spinning sector of the Colony, the nodule-government had been working on getting the nodule-scouts ready for launch to the cMaj system. Heading the entire mission was Astrophysicist Cairo an Preun. He, did, in fact, split up the scouting mission so that he would take a slightly bigger team, given cMaj was, obviously, an immense body. The three other, smaller teams would be headed by other astro-scientists of the nodules.

Included in an Preun’s crew was Main Tech Tyra Housenn. She was chosen by the nodes, themselves, to work on Astrophysicist-an Preun’s team! Tyra had done well in the past year investigating the enclosed chamber of the Ship—especially replaceing that ancient warning signal about the nuclear fuel levels, and then with discovering the Ship’s ancestral monument that told the history of Mother Earth’s demise, the young technician was duly awarded for her work.

But while in the cabin of the main scouting ship as it was making inroads into cMaj’s atmosphere, she was beginning to wonder if she had done a fatal mistake taking on the mission!

“…Stars, we’re not even going to see the terrain if we keep shaking like this,” Tech-Housenn said over the cerebral-comm as the utilitarian, rectangular scout ship was buffeted by severe turbulence!

“It’s just the local storm,” Mechanic-Charmain Sohill reassured over the cerebral-comm from his strap-seat. “We’re a population that’s not used to atmospheric turbulence…in the Cylinder, back on the Ship, it’s always a perfect day!”

“Huh!” She felt like she was going to vomit!

The scout ship continued its rattled descent for several more miles before it finally cleared the storm system and the crew was finally able to see the curving, expansive land of cMaj after Pilot-Lanay Thuall retracted the metallic glass-shield protectors.

Everyone in the ship were able to read the scout ship’s actuator telemetry on the planet via their respective cerebral-comms, which most had already known for a year, after the governing nodule’s meeting on the Ship’s fuel problem—dense atmosphere by human-standards; high-carbon dioxide levels; less moisture, and that was mainly due to the hotter temperatures on cMaj than, say, the humans’ Mother Earth. The only team members that had not known anything about cMaj until the Ship’s actuator had given a Ship-wide public notice were Pilot-Thuall and Mechanic-Sohill. For neither were node-members of the governing body.

“Fillip, see any signs of vegetation,” Astrophysicist an Preun asked the geologist.

Everyone else could see that, with their bare eyes, they could not see any greenery from such heights in their craft. But a geologist was able to distinguish subtle colorations on the terrain that arced the entire horizon before them!

Geologist-Natsome made a hesitant noise before responding. He was looking at the data from the ship’s projections and using his skilled eyes. “Don’t let these clouds fool you, everyone…lot’s of methane in them…there is some kind of vegetation, Cairo, but it’s probably pretty sparse! But I see some promise…” A shrug from the geologist.

The atmospherics were more in Chemist-Luciana Salomenes’ expertise area. “Indeed, that’s what I’m understanding from these measurements and just from first impressions, Cairo. All things taken into account, mission commander, we lucked out in replaceing a planet with this meager amount of ecology!”

“Actuator,” Astrophysicist-an Preun put to the scout ship’s system, “are these readings consistent with the whole planet, from what you’ve scanned so far?”

The scout ship flashed an iconographic animation that was seen in each of the scout member’s cerebral-comm; denoting it was the fourth scan it had taken of planet cMaj. “With the slightest of variation, but, correct, Astrophysicist-an Preun.”

The astro-scientist glanced about the cabin at the other scouting crew. “Looks like we’ll have to start civilization from scratch on this planet, everyone…bit disappointing, but it’s what we have!”

“I’m not complaining,” Maintenance Technician Housenn volunteered with perseverance; still remembering how close their colony came from being marooned in deep-space in twenty-years’ time had they not taken the opportunity to dock with cMaj!

“What’s next in protocols,” Chemist-Salomenes asked the scout-leader as she began doing some of her own computerized search on the planet from her seat’s console.

“Finding a good landing spot…deploy our synths—I’m thinking something like five hundred miles at a radius from the landing point for each one of them…” an Preun shrugged as he glanced about the spreading landscape before them in their descending ship. “We’ve got time, now…I’d say let the synthetics do their own scouting while we do ours and take it from there.”

Again, the mission-lead glanced at his team to gauge their opinion. Everyone else nodded and gestured in consent.

“Actuator,” an Preun addressed the ship’s system, “could you patch me to the other scout-parties?”

“Done,” was the simple response.

Seconds later, the voices of the three other scout-leads—each party for cMaj’s three moons, came through; affirming that they were connected. Astrophysicist-an Preun told them of his plan for scouting cMaj’s terrain and suggested that each of their, respective, teams should do the same format. For with the nodule-governance, it was not a hard and fast system, so an Preun really did more advising than he did supervising. Nevertheless, the three other scouting leads agreed to the astro-scientist’s approach and would contact him should the situation warrant it.