THE SEVEN-FINGERED HAND

By Laura D. Todd

Part I: Blueworld

A strange new predator prowled the skies: a huge black disc that emitted a deafening roar. Clouds of insects rose with alarm as its shadow passed overhead.

Two Teeth cringed beneath a fern tree and squeaked for her mother. 

*Come, little one!* Mama spoke with a chirp and a grunt, and a wave of her stubby tail.   

The rumbling monster passed over as quickly as it had come. The echoes died away, leaving the marsh placid once more.

*Forget about it.* Old Gray, eldest of the kindred, twitched an eyelid buried in a maze of wrinkles. *It wasn’t hunting you. Things in the sky can’t hurt us.* And he went back to trolling the river with his big spoon-shaped mouth, scooping up succulent stems and vines.

 *Eldest is right.* Mama brushed the youngster with her snout. *Just pay attention to the things on the ground. Hungry monsters who would love a little hatchling like you for dinner. If you stray far, the prowling Gorgon will pick you off quicker than you’d crunch a dragonwing.*

*I saw Gorgon today.* Two Teeth’s older brother, Spoon Mouth, gave her a nudge.  *He has big saber teeth, way more than two. And he’s going to use them on you!*

Some of the older ones laughed at the hatchling’s squeak of terror.

***

“Spectacular planet, isn’t it.” Commander Jun Benn said. “What do you think Exobiologist Lann? Could there be life down here?”

 The explorers of the Pioneer Mission gathered around the ship’s viewscreens and gazed down at the planet they had named Blueworld.

“There has to be, with such a strong carbon signature.” The exobiologist looked from the cloud-swirled planet to her readout screen that listed the atmospheric concentrations of methane, oxygen and nitrogen. “But nothing more than bacteria, with a toxic atmosphere like that. Those green patches must be huge concentrations of microbial growth.”

“Ah yes,” Engineer Kyrix Donn gave her a playful nudge. “That’s what you like best...bacteria.”

They gazed at the landmass: its shallow seas, rugged mountain ranges, and brown plains bisected by the occasional river. “Not exactly the Serenity Reefs, is it,” said Donn.  

“Homesick for the Reefs, eh?” said Officer Drin. “Why did you ever come here?”

“For a challenge, of course. A chance to practice my skills. I can’t wait to get started.”

The ship took up a stationary orbit just to the southwest of the big landmass. They sent down a viewing module. And when the images poured in, Lann exclaimed in shock.

“By the Radiant! That’s no bacteria! This planet is teeming with visible life!”

Extreme close-ups of the landmass showed luxuriant growth: tall green stalks and fronds, leaves pointed and flat, stems branched and curling. Higher magnification revealed a stunning profusion of multicellular life: creatures crawled and slithered, hopped, swam through the brown liquid.

Science Officer Kynn, and many others, joined her in rapt astonishment. “By starfire, look at those things!”   

Tiny winged beings flew and sparkled... to be snapped up by things with many teeth. Herds of four-footed creatures gathered along the riverbanks, while others crawled or prowled among the leafy thickets.

“Any signs of intelligence?” The Commander moved in for a look. “Is there anything down there that can greet us, talk to us, or launch something at us?”

“No--just something that can fascinate us,” Lann said. And she didn’t leave her station for that entire shift.

Many worlds harbored microorganisms and molds. But she had never seen anything like this!

 “Wikix, are you ever going to get some rest?” Kyrix Donn asked her. “I’m going down for some klaff. Want to come with me?”

“Maybe later.” She barely looked up. She would not leave her work, not even for Donn, who had been signaling his interest in her since the start of the mission.

He brushed against her. “I wish I was as exciting to you as an alien life form,” he murmured.

“I’m sorry, Kyrix, I have to take advantage of this opportunity. This is my area of specialty—alien life and how it adapts to extreme conditions in the Universe.”

“Of course. We all have to do our jobs.”

“That’s right.” Exobiologist Lann hesitated, then spoke her thoughts. “It just seems like such a shame.”

“What does?”

“That they’re all going to be destroyed.”

***

 “The Transformation phase of our mission is about to begin,” Commander Jun Benn told the officers, technicians and equipment operators. “Our plan is to release the breathable gases that lie frozen beneath this planet’s liquid. We believe that we can trigger a cascade, so that within a few generations, this will become a livable world—a home for your descendants!”  

Lann spoke immediately. “Sir, what about the life forms? This is a unique ecosystem—something we’ve never seen before.”

“I agree. It should be studied.” said Science Officer Kynn. “How could our recon flybys miss this factor?”  

The Commander waved his Project Schedule. “We were looking for intelligence, high technology—something that might have been a threat. I imagine the Supreme Council did not feel it worth the added expense to do a detailed microscan....”

Engineer Donn cut him off. “Commander, Bolide One is ready for launch!”

The screen view zeroed in on a massive icy rock tumbling through space.

Donn keyed a sequence, while the crew gathered to watch. “Ready. Standby...ignition...launch!”

Numbers rolled down screens. Missiles flew across space and struck the huge object, nudging it into a tightly calculated trajectory. The giant rock shuddered into motion and began hurtling ever faster toward its target—the planet below!

***

Two Teeth shivered, dreaming of a great fire. She awoke to find that the reality was far worse. A huge, burning rock was falling out of the sky!

The small creatures chorused an alarm. Animals howled and shrieked and ran every which way in blind panic.

The fiery ball disappeared beyond the horizon. A second later came a tremendous blast that turned the world sideways. It ripped fern trees out by the roots and sent boulders flying. One of them barely missed Two Teeth and a shower of rocks and dirt engulfed her. She struggled out, to see that half of her kin lay broken beneath the debris. Behind them, the entire sky burned with white-hot fire.

Everything that lived, ran as they had never run before. Even the flesh eating Gorgon…yes, Two Teeth saw the silhouette of Gorgon fleeing up the hill, lit up by the glowing sky…his maw of razor teeth wide open in terror.

***

“Yes! It’s a direct hit!” Engineer Donn raised an appendage in triumph.

The planet shuddered. The glowing crater point spewed out a vast curtain of dust and debris. 

“Keep watching,” said Engineer Donn. “It’s only going to get better. I calculated the impact point, to create the most intense tectonic activity. Wait till you see!”

By the end of the shift Smoke and lava began to spurt up all along numerous fault lines.

Donn brought up a schematic. “See this huge magma chamber that our scanners picked up?” he turned to a crewmember. “Drin, you’re a gamer...care to lay odds on when it will blow?”

Lann pushed between the two males. “What about those creatures down there?” she demanded. “They can’t survive your ‘modifications’.”

Donn gave her a look of irritation. “That can’t be helped. What do you suggest—that we give up our Mission for the sake of a few algae, slimy hoppers and crawling beasts?”

Wikix Lann looked away. When he put it like that, there wasn’t much she could say. At least nothing that wouldn’t get her in trouble with the Compliance Officer! “We didn’t expect to find higher life. Now that we have—I think it’s unethical to destroy—“

“Unethical? You think those alien slime-crawlers are more important than our own kind? You think that we should fail in our duty to Homeworld?”

Lann could have recited the rest of the speech from memory. The future of our race depends on our Mission!  We’re running out of resources and room... If we don’t find potential new habitat… our descendants may face slow starvation!  

She noticed that many of the other techs and officers had fallen silent. Then she saw why. Compliance Officer Veen just happened to be standing nearby. As always, Veen stood blank and colorless, her features showing no expression whatever. Emotions interfered with Veen’s purpose: to probe the emotions of others, looking for noncompliance. 

“Come on, Wikix, face the facts,” said Donn. “This planet’s an evolutionary dead end anyway. What sort of higher development could be possible for creatures whose metabolism is based on oxygen? Oh, look--” he turned to his screen. “There it goes! It’s starting to blow!”

Just as the Engineer predicted: a fissure opened wide in the planet’s landmass, and an expanding network of cracks glowed livid orange against the blackness of planetary night. Bright lava oozed out of the cracks and spilled over the land, like blood from a massive wound.

For several shifts, they spent most of their time watching the planet’s transformation. By the end of three rotations, a vast fiery lake had spread fingers all over the northern landmass. A growing pall of dust and black smoke girded the stricken world.   

“Excellent,” said the Commander. “Engineer, when do you estimate outgassing will begin? We’re on a tight schedule.”

“Yes sir. We estimate that climate alteration should begin within half a star-orbit and proceed steadily. Temperatures should rise to about 16 measures before outgassing can begin. Don’t worry, Commander, all will go as planned.” Donn told his superior. “I’m good at what I do. Fine engineering is like a work of art.”

 “Excuse me, I don’t feel well,” Lann said, and fled the room. 

***

*Old Gray’s a liar.* Two Teeth coughed from the smoke and dust.

*What do you mean?*” Spoon Mouth touched his sister’s nose. “What’s Old Gray… got to do with anything?*

*He said nothing in the sky would hurt us. But ever since I was a hatchling, something in the sky has been trying to kill us!*

The forest had burned down to charred sticks. Smoke choked the sky and turned the sun blood-red. Two Teeth and her Kin staggered through a dim world where noon was no brighter than twilight. 

With no sun, it became bitterly cold. Ferns shriveled. Leaves and stems turned brown and there was nothing to eat but crumbling husks. 

*Two Teeth, try to keep up*. Mama turned to look at her offspring. The animals of the kindred dragged themselves along, so weak they could barely walk. *Gorgon may be stalking us!*

But sabertooth Gorgon could not terrorize the kin now. Two Teeth had seen his decaying skull, half buried in mud, grinning up at her.

She kept nosing  at the clusters of dead stems and leaves, hoping that there might be a green shoot underneath. There never was, but sometimes she found a few worms and beetles for her hungry belly. *Mama, where are we going? Will there be food?*

That day, Old Gray stumbled against a fern tree and collapsed. The hollow stem fell with a crackle. The others scrambled over the fallen vegetation, looking for a leaf…a frond. Instead, they found the rotted stem covered with doughy red fungus plates.

*Old Gray, Old Gray!* They crowded around the elder, trying to push him to his feet. *Tell us…are those good to eat?* For Old Gray knew every plant that grew in the valley.

But Old Gray could give no more wise counsel, for he was dead.

Two Teeth pushed past the others. *Looks good enough for me!* She tore off a bit of the fungus and choked it down her throat.  Soon all of them were scrambling and fighting each other for a morsel of the only food left in the world: food that lived on death.

***

Exobiologist Lann caught sight of the small four-footed creature by chance, as she studied the images sent back by one of the closeup imaging modules.

Transfixed, she watched the pathetic creature and its fellows struggle across the devastated planet. Certainly they were a sentient species, and fairly advanced. Older ones looked after young ones...they had family ties, a social structure. Way more evolved than the slime and biofilms that we expected.

An oxygen-based life form will be unable to extract energy from its atmosphere as we can, her professors had taught. It will not get enough nourishment to evolve beyond the single-celled stage. Furthermore, it will run a serious risk of spontaneous combustion.

Well, these aliens had made fools of her teachers, all right! Phrases came together in her mind, for she was a poet as well as a scientist. On impulse, she copied several images of the creatures to keep for inspiration.

Engineer Donn came in, and she quickly concealed the images in her suit pocket.

“Wikix? Are you still working? You need to relax more,” he said. “Come—we’re meeting in my quarters for a game of javv.”

“Sure. ‘Relax’,” she mimicked. Donn was always trying to get her to relax. What he really wanted was to get a little narll with her. Not that he was unattractive... but lately there was something about him that repelled her. Maybe it was that boyishly gleeful expression on his features, when he had sent the massive bolide crashing into Blueworld.

Several crew members had gathered at Donn’s quarters. They were passing around a vial of vlyzz and she inhaled deeply, letting the sharp vapors fill her spirules.

The gas took effect quickly. Suddenly clumsy, she dropped the game counters, and when she bent to retrieve them, her packet of images fell out of her pocket.

 Officer Drin bent to retrieve them. Each showed several moments in the life, and death, of one of the creatures below.  “Hmm.” He stared at the images. “You certainly are obsessed with these aliens,” he said.

 “It’s my job. I’m supposed to study alien life.”

 “So--what have you learned?”

The vial came around once more. Her second draught loosened her speech. “I’ve learned that we were wrong to destroy this world’s ecosystem,” she burst out.

 “Really,” said one of the dietary techs. “You think we should all go down there and start ingesting primitive organocarbons and breathing oxygen?”

“Maybe we should,” she said. “Perhaps it would be better for us to adapt ourselves—or use our resources to preserve our own world, rather than exploiting the whole universe.”

This provoked a flurry of protests. “Oh no! You’re going Conservo on us!”

“We need this world’s resources,” said Drin. “Homeworld can’t support our expanding population.”

“Anyway,” said another crewmember, “an intelligent species like ours isn’t meant to sit on our own little planet forever. It’s our nature to push outward, explore…” 

“And then to destroy.” Lann cut in. The inhalants were going straight to her brain, making her reckless. “Can’t an intelligent species ever change their nature? If our leaders had moved to control our population and resource consumption—” she broke off.

“Careful, Wikix.” Donn tried to pacify her with a gentle stroke. “Your job is  getting to you. Perhaps you and I should go--

“Leave me alone, Kyrix.” She brushed him away. “When I watched those creatures down there, struggling for life... I started wondering. What futures are we destroying? Who knows, maybe these lifeforms could have evolved intelligence. They’re obviously sentient creatures. Look at these images.” 

 “Could I see?” Science Officer Kynn reached for the packet and studied the images intently. “Hmm...amazing. I’m starting to see your point, Lann.” 

Donn made a disparaging hiss.  “What about your own race? Don’t they mean anything to you?” He glared at her, the tips of his sensules glowing a dangerous orange. Lann sensed that his anger wasn’t entirely about political differences. She had brushed him off, and now Kynn was ‘seeing her point’! “Don’t you remember what we learned in first-year astronomics? The orbit of Homeworld is becoming unstable. When our world goes into deep freeze and our air turns to ice, then where will you and your fine principles be?” 

“That won’t happen for millions of years, Engineer,” she returned, distancing herself from him by using his title.  “Meanwhile maybe our scientists could work on that problem—astroengineering, climate enhancement, or bio-modifications.  Can’t an intelligent species learn to adapt, instead of forcing the Universe to its will?  If we’re smart enough to transform another planet, why can’t we fix our own?”

Kynn twitched an appendage in warning. “Lann... be careful.” He gestured at the small communication port next to the door.

She understood. The Compliance Officer!

They said that Compliance Officer Veen could listen through the commports and monitor any conversation. Veen and her spies were always interested in knowing what crew members were saying. Was anyone questioning superiors, flouting authority, spreading disaffection?

Donn gathered up the javv counters. “Party’s over.”

***

Many orbits passed as the long-lived crewmembers of Pioneer monitored the changes in the target world. Clouds of gas and dust caused its temperature to swing wildly. First it became bitterly cold, and now the temperature was rising, pushing the sensors as high as readings would go!

Finally the moment came. All the crew watched as though over a mother birthing her young. “Look,” said Donn in awe. “The temperature has reached a tipping point. The gas deposits are ready to liquefy. Soon this pesthole of a world will become a golden paradise!”

The waters of the blue world began to roil. Bubbles rose up and burst, first a few, then a torrent. Visible streams of life-giving gas jetted out. At last the critical pressure was reached and the gas exploded out of the water. Tremendous waterspouts reached up to the sky. Methane! Sweet Methane of life!  Breathable, golden orange, sweet-smelling, clean air!

“Colleagues, you are witnessing the creation of a new world.” The Commander glowed with pride.

***

*Mama! Get up!* Two Teeth and her brother tried to push their mother to her feet. But Mama just lay sprawled out, her sides heaving.  

The darkness and cold had finally lifted. But what followed was worse. The sun had come back—but now its cruel rays were hot enough to broil a creature alive. It had baked the blue right out of the heavens. Now the sky festered with noxious yellow clouds and red streaks like raw wounds.

The kin had survived only because they could digest the bitter fungus growths that sprouted on the decaying vegetation. The fungus contained just enough nourishment and moisture to keep a hardy, thick-skinned animal clinging to life. But now even that could not save them, because who can breathe yellow air?

Mama began to cough. Red froth streamed from her nose and mouth. Two Teeth waited, feeling only numb resignation. When her mother lay still, she began to crawl away.  

*Wait,* Spoon Mouth squeaked out. *Where are you going?*

*Shelter. Those rocks....* Two Teeth fixed her eyes on a distant rock escarpment with a dark space beneath the outcrops.    

 *Wait for me.*  Spoon Mouth followed in his sister’s tracks. It was a rough journey. The scalding rains had stripped the soil down to bare rock, creating a maze of gullies and canyons. They dragged themselves over the tortured land, past skeletons that lay baking in the sun, while the searing heat beat at them like hammer blows and the yellow air scoured their lungs.  

The world itself had become more savage than any sabertooth monster. 

As they came close to their destination, they smelled the moisture and cool air coming from the crevasse. The promise of relief gave them frantic energy and they dug at the loose gravel until they could squeeze into the passage. Deep within, they found the treasure: rocks covered with a thin sweat of water.

Two Teeth pressed her tongue against the merciful coolness. Where water lingered, there might be algae and lichens to nibble.

*Let’s stay here forever.* Spoon Mouth curled up next to his sister. *Dig tunnels, find worms to eat. Stay till the world is like it used to be.*

*Like it used to be.* Two Teeth drifted off into the memories of pleasant sunshine and green leaves and kind, un-hurting blue sky.

***

“This Mission is a great success!” Commander Benn told the crew, waving his Project Schedule in jubilation. In the viewscreen behind him, the former Blueworld lay wreathed in a murky orange haze. Close-up views of its surface showed the landmass stripped down to bare rock, the waters covered with a thick black scum of dead sea creatures and vegetation. “In a few more orbits, we’ll be ready for the first landing party!”

Cheers broke out among the crew.

Wikix Lann turned quickly aside so that no one would see her expression.

In her sorrow, she retreated to her lab station and immersed herself in study of the microbial samples from Blueworld. How extraordinary, she marveled, that the planet’s symbiotic bacteria had created an atmosphere of toxic oxygen--and made it the basis of a wondrous multicellular ecosystem, as complex as that of Homeworld itself. And now this intricate system was being brought crashing down to ruin. Like a tower that collapses when its base is worn away, there might soon be a point of no return. Unless...  

Wikix Lann decided to try a dangerous experiment: dangerous to herself.

She set up culture vats with a fast-growth medium. Her cultures grew exponentially and she kept watch over them, barely pausing for sleep or food. After a few dozen rotations, she was ready to put her “experiment” aboard a probe module and send it down to the planet. A junior tech at the probe bay obeyed her orders without question and sent the module spinning away through the orange clouds, down to its destiny.

Over the next half-orbit she sent several more such probes down, calculating their locations for the widest spread over the planet’s oceans.

Eventually she received a message from Officer Kynn. Come to my station. Urgent Matter.

At his lab station, she found him hunched over his datapad, surrounded by notes and a rack of sample vials. “I’ve been taking readings and I’ve found that the oxygen levels keep coming back up. It’s because of these oxygen-producing bacteria here...” He picked up a vial filled with greenish fluid.

“Ah.” Wikix tried to keep her color neutral.

But Kynn glanced at  her with sudden suspicion. “You knew about this, didn’t you?” He spoke softly, in case the room was monitored. “And you didn’t say a word.”  

Wikix didn’t answer. She wondered if her “experiments” had made the difference, or if it would have happened anyway.

“Let’s just say I wanted to see what would happen. A scientific experiment, Kynn. You know... Blueworld could teach us a lesson about our own situation. The philosophy of our mission is wrong. Organisms can benefit more from cooperation and coexistence than conquest--”

“Forget philosophy! Lann, if we don’t correct this situation, we could lose our jobs—we could be accused of deliberate sabotage!”

“Not if we don’t report it to anyone--.” 

“Flaming shards! You’ve lost your mind.” But by his colors, she could see his hesitation.

“Maybe so. I’ve watched the murder of a planet. How can I live with that?”

At that moment, Engineer Donn burst in without warning. “Wikix? Where have you been?”

He saw the two of them looking intensely at each other and his sensules turned an angry purple. His glance fell on Officer Kynn’s screen, which displayed the heading Oxygen-Producing Bacteria.

“Oh. I see how it is,” he finally said. “You and Kynn. You’ve been narlling with him. Haven’t you? But you don’t have time for me.” He turned away, and she heard him muttering something that sounded like “you’ll be sorry.”

***

Back at her quarters, Lann wrote a last entry in her journal. She managed to hide her poetry and scientific notes, just barely in time. “Officer Wikix Lann! Open up!”

She showed no surprise as she opened for the Security Team.

“Lann, You are under investigation. We have authorization to search your quarters and detain you.”

She spent the next rotation in a detention cell. Soon after, they marched her to the High Command Office. There sat Commander Jun Benn behind a huge metallic desk cube.

In front of the desk stood the unhappy-looking Science Officer Kynn, flanked by two more security guards.

Compliance Officer Veen sat next to the Commander. Engineer Donn stood behind her, mimicking her colors and posture as if he and Veen had become very good friends.

 The Commander began without preliminaries.

 “Officers Lann and Kynn! Officer Donn has alerted me to your treasonous activities. Tell us the details of your crimes and don’t leave out a word. Non-cooperation will only result in forcible interrogation.”

Lann knew that. There was no use in lying. They would get the truth out of her with drugs anyway.

“Sir, Kynn is innocent. I alone am guilty of sabotaging our mission. I have been placing large containers of concentrated oxygen bacteria aboard probes, and releasing them into Blueworld’s oceans—“

“By Radiant’s Doom!” Commander Benn’s sensules turned the most interesting purplish black color she had ever seen. “Shards rip your guts! You filthy, traitorous--” For a moment, she thought he was about to physically attack her. His two security guards actually had to hold onto his appendages to calm him.

“Don’t worry, Sir,” Kyrix Donn said, “We can reverse the effect. Maybe launch a few more asteroids--“

“I’m ruined! We’ll all be demoted...”

The Commander took several moments to get control of himself. “Wikix Lann, you are sentenced to death by ejection. Security detail--take the traitor away!”

With no further delay, the guards clamped restraints on her appendages. They marched her up the hall toward the airlock, while the others followed behind. It was all happening so fast, she barely had time to be afraid.

As the inner lock began to open, Donn faced her. “Well, Wikix, I guess you’ll finally get what you want. You’ll be the first to get close to your precious Blueworld. Your remains will circle around it for eternity.”

The guards shoved her into the airlock and the door slammed and the air began to whoosh out. Despite her rationality a childhood prayer leaked out. Radiant Creator of all life be my companion...

And let my experiment work!

Maybe her actions had make a difference, maybe not. Whatever happened, she had done what was right. In a few seconds her body would explode into vacuum. Perhaps some of its particles would enter Blueworld’s atmosphere and eventually filter down to the planet, to mix with the remains of its fabulous, doomed creatures.

It would be a fitting funeral.

***

As a reward for his loyalty, Kyrix Donn was given the honor of the First Landing.

“Hail to the Supreme Leader!” cried the engineer, as he planted a booted foot on the rocks of the new world. He still had to wear protective covering: the atmosphere had not yet reached livability. But it would! “I hereby lay claim to this planet for our descendants in the name of the Council of Homeworld.”  

 And so, while imagers captured the moment, the landing party dug a trench and raised up the Septagon: a tall plaque made of shining, impervious septite that mirrored the sun. Its surface displayed the symbol of the Council: a raised appendage with all seven digits reaching out to grasp a field of stars.

Part II: Aurora

“This is where it all happened,” said the Park Guide.  He pointed to a dark layer of rocks that bisected the red cliffs of the Southwestern desert.

“Romantic place,” said Michelle. She rested her head on Steve’s shoulder and his arm went around her waist. They stood behind a throng of tourists: earnest seniors, couples with cameras and children, and a class of 10^th graders.

“I’d rather see a dinosaur dig,” Steve had said.

Steve Shuster had met his fiancee Michelle last year in geology class. His major was paleontology and his lifelong dream was to find a dinosaur fossil. Michelle, an anthropology major, was more interested in ancient ruins. And both of them were avid outdoors enthusiasts on their summer vacation, looking for new places to camp and climb.

On impulse they had stopped at Permian Park, a unique outcrop of 250 million year old strata that had been discovered a few years ago, exposed by the big earthquakes. It was one of those natural areas full of informative plaques and numbered trails.

“This is the Permo-triassic boundary,” said the guide, pointing at a stratum of dark rock that formed a horizontal band across the surrounding cliff faces. “At the end of the Permian period, a catastrophe almost wiped out life on Earth. They call it the Great Dying.  Ninety to 95 percent of all species went extinct. Why? It’s one of the greatest mysteries of science.”

“Why is the layer so dark?” asked an elderly woman. “It looks like the chocolate filling between two layers of cake.”

The guide smiled. “Why is it dark? Because it’s unconsumed organic matter. There was nothing to oxidize it, nothing alive to break it down.” The guide led the throng over to a tall plaque. “Now here’s an illustration of some of the animals that lived before the extinction.”

“Awesome,” one of the high school students said.

“Not as cool as dinosaurs,” said another, less impressed.

 “No, these aren’t dinosaurs,” the patient guide said. “Dinosaurs wouldn’t be around for another 100 million years. These are the Synapsids, the mammal-like reptiles. They laid eggs, but may have been warm-blooded and had fur. They’re ancestral to the mammalian line, the line that led to us... the few that survived, that is. Here are the two-teethed cynodonts, and the sabertooth predator Gorgonopsis. They lived along river banks, where giant horsetails and fern forests grew. Now on this next illustration, above the boundary: there’s almost nothing. Earth had become a vast desert of bare rock.  One single species of reptile survived; it made up 95 percent of all higher animals. Even insects took a hit. There’s nothing but a few primitive mollusks and worms, and fungus. Lots of fungus spores. Fungus grows on dead things.”

A student raised a hand. “What caused the disaster?  Was it a comet? Like with the dinosaurs? ”

“Possibly. We don’t know for sure. But we do know that there was extensive volcanism. Enough to cover the whole planet in lava, ten feet deep.”

“Way cool.” The school kids’ eyes made circles of astonishment.

“No...way hot.” The guide grinned briefly and went on. “The eruptions spewed out billions of tons of toxic smoke and ash. It caused tremendous global warming, and sulfuric acid rain—which probably destroyed most plant life. Then we had the runaway greenhouse effect, which may have melted the huge frozen methane reserves under the sea. The methane would react with the oxygen, creating carbon dioxide. Oxygen levels may have dropped to almost nothing. Animals just choked to death.”

“Gosh.” Michelle moved closer to Steve. “Makes nuclear war look like a walk in the park.”

After the tour, the couple wandered off. “Let’s hike awhile,” Michelle suggested. “See if there’s any good climbing.”

“Or dinosaurs.” Steve couldn’t let go of his dream.

They strolled beyond the park boundaries and walked along a ridge above the canyon. All around them, the desolate red cliffs lay baking in the heat.

“Gosh, that extinction story is creepy,” he said, as their feet crunched on the stones. “It’s so quiet and lifeless here, I could almost imagine that it happened yesterday.”

A breeze sent up a swirl of sand and Michelle jumped. “Wouldn’t it be weird if those extinct creatures were...you know, if their spirits were still around.”

They climbed up a steep slope, over boulders and slippery shale. Suddenly Michelle lost her footing. The ground gave way beneath her and she went tumbling down the steep rock face.

“Omigod! Michelle!” Steve scrambled down after her.

“I’m fine,” she called back. “I just bumped my ass on something.”

“I’m coming!” He slid down and landed beside her amid a shower of loose scree. She sat against an outcrop, with a shower of fallen rocks around her. “You okay? ”

“Look at this, Steve. I hit my backside on it. Looks like the corner of something.”   

They probed the object with their bare hands, and then Steve took out his camp hatchet to chip away at the rock surrounding it. “Maybe this is it! A dinosaur!”

“Oh, you and your dino’s. Wait...it’s coming loose,” Michelle said. “Doesn’t feel like bone. More like metal. What the--?”

“Buried treasure? A gold miner’s grave?”

 “Look,” Michelle said, ‘this is that same dark layer we saw back at that Park. The Permian layer?”

“Damn. You’re right.” Steve said. The object did seem to be embedded in the Permo-Triassic boundary layer. Yet the surrounding stone came away easily. “Does that mean this thing is 250 million years old?”

 When they had uncovered much of the object , the couple scraped the surface clean and gazed at what they had found. “What the hell?”

It seemed to be an obelisk, several feet in length. Steve gave it a tap with his penknife and it rang delicately as though it were made of a very light metal.

“Look.” Michelle chipped sediment off the object’s surface. Underneath, it had weathered quite a bit, but not as much as it should have: it still retained some of its original brightness.

“It’s definitely artificial.” Steve said. “Will you look at that!” Emblazoned on the surface of the object was a most unusual image.

Michelle’s fingers traced the pattern “Is it a tree trunk? With odd-looking branches?”  

 Steve squinted at it. “Looks more like a hand. Only there’s too many fingers. What the hell…it has seven fingers,” Steve murmured. “Someone planted this here. Hell of a joke.”

“I’m not laughing.” Michelle hugged herself as though gripped with a sudden chill. “I’m getting the weirdest vibes from that thing.”

They took about 100 digital pictures of the object, returned to the park and notified the authorities. Then they made a phone call to the Earth Science Department of Midland University.

“This is going to create quite a stir,” Michelle said. “Maybe it’s... you know. The Big One!”

That night they camped near a streambed. They lay in their tent, cuddled up, but their thoughts returned to the mysterious find.

“Steve? What the hell was that thing?”

“I dunno, but it sure didn’t make sense. No human could have put it there.”

“Well, then what are the other possibilities?” She lay back and stared at the tent’s domed roof. “Was there a race with advanced technology back in Permian times? Or was it put there by visitors from...somewhere else?”  

Steve rested his head on her shoulder and listened to the crickets sing. So peaceful-sounding, and yet as he thought of the object he began to feel uneasy. The thing was lighter than aluminum, yet durable enough to last several geologic ages. And there it sat, right in the middle of the death strata. Steve wasn’t superstitious, but when he had touched the thing, he had gotten the creepiest feeling--like when you enter a house where someone was murdered, and touch something that a killer might have used.

“If there was an intelligent race of reptiles living back then, advanced enough to build things like that,” he said, “they’d have left plenty of other traces. So let’s assume Earth was visited by aliens, from...way out there somewhere in the galaxy. The question is...what did they want?”

“Maybe they came to help,” said Michelle. “It was the Great Dying—the Permian Extinction. They saw that Earth life was in danger.”

“Oh. A cosmic Ark, you mean. A rescue mission.” Steve ran through a mental library of all the science fiction movies he had ever seen. “Or maybe…” a darker thought occurred to him. “Michelle, what if it was Aliens that caused the Great Dying?”   

“That’s bullshit. Nobody can kill a planet.”

“Don’t be too sure. Planets can be altered radically. We have people who talk about terraforming Mars. Let’s be crazy and say that back in the Permian era, some alien super-race came to Earth and tried to terraform… or let’s call it xenoform…this planet for their own use?”

 An owl hooted in the wilderness, far away. “Stop. You’re creeping me out.” Michelle put her arms around his waist and hugged him close. “Okay. If that’s what happened, then how did Earth survive? Did the aliens pack up and go home? If so, why?”

“Who knows? Why does any big project not get finished? Budget constraints, change of regime at home...”

“Oh, you’re nuts. Come on, honey, I’m cold. Give me a hug.”

He wrapped his arms around her, but he was too preoccupied to even respond to her closeness “But here’s what scares me, Michelle...what if they decide to come back for another try?”

She remained silent for too long. “Come on. That was 250 million years ago.”

“So? Maybe it takes that long to return to their home planet and come back with another starship. Maybe they’re an immortal race.”

“Oh, Steve, you’re really scaring me.” She pressed tighter against him and put her head on his shoulder. “I’m going to have nightmares.”

***

The next day they met several of the university’s top researchers and led them to the discovery. Several grad students came along with digging tools to free the object from its rock bed.

“Of course it’s a hoax,” Professor Davidson insisted. “You don’t actually believe that thing is 250 million years old?”

Steve tried to hide his disappointment. “Isn’t there some way of dating this? Uranium isotopes, or something?”

“Nonsense.” Davidson kicked at the thing. “It was planted by those New Age folks. You know what they’ll say—‘it’s a sign of alien visitation!’”

“Let’s have it taken to one of the labs,” Prof. Kincaid decided. And the object was moved, wrapped, loaded onto a truck. “As soon as we get results, we’ll let you know.”

“I think he’s lying,” Michelle said when the University delegation had left. “Did you see how scared they looked?”

Steve felt a chill go all through him. “Ah, they’re just afraid to stick their necks out. Afraid it’ll ruin their reputations.”

“It’s more than that. I think it’s for real!”

***

When they finished their vacation and got back to school, the object seemed to have vanished. And their inquiries only resulted in frustration.

“It’s being analyzed. Results aren’t back yet.”

“We sent it to a lab in Kansas.”

“The mass spectrometer is down right now.”

“We’re consulting with experts from Russia.”

“This sucks!” Steve slammed the phone down. “Those assholes want to claim the credit. If I make a fuss, Davidson might fail me and I won’t graduate. Shit!”

However, rumors of the find had slipped out to a few of the tabloids. Pictures of the artifact appeared next to headlines saying Have We Been Visited?

A writer from Alien Encounter Magazine offered Steve a lot of money for his exclusive photos and an interview.

“I guess we’re gonna be just like those wackos,” he told Michelle with regret. “Those nutcases who see alien spaceships every day and cry conspiracy and coverup when no one believes them.”

Michelle grimaced. “Still--maybe you’d better do that interview, wacko. We’ll be needing the money. I’m pregnant.”

***

They named their son Samuel, but he called himself Sky. And he had no interest in dinosaurs at all.  

It was space he loved. He spent his childhood collecting spaceship models and fighting space battles with his friend Kevin. When humans landed on Mars and Europa, the boys were glued to the TV day and night.

When he was ten, scientists discovered a planetary system orbiting the star Beta-Avis III. This system included a few battered rockballs and a massive gas giant, orbited by several moons large enough to be called planets in their own right. Planet Earth went wild with excitement. Could any of these worlds harbor life, perhaps even intelligence? Visionaries talked about humanity coming of age, entering the galactic community of wise beings.

During this heady time of space fever, someone at Alien Encounters Magazine remembered Steve and showed up at the door. “Is it true you found evidence of alien visitation? We know there was a coverup. Do you have the Alien Icon?” 

“Get lost,” Sky’s dad said. “Or I’ll call the police.”

But it was too late: Sky had heard them. “What did he mean... the Alien Icon?” 

“Nothing. He was a kook, that’s all. Don’t you have homework to do?”  

Sky began to notice his parents’ peculiar behavior. They alone did not share in the rest of the world’s excitement about the new planets. They glanced at the sky with fear and turned off the news every time the subject of space travel came up.

When he turned twelve, he blew out his birthday candles and confronted them.  “Mom, Dad--here’s my birthday wish: I want to know about the Aliens!”

“What aliens? There are no aliens!” Mother put her hands over her ears. “Oh, what the hell--I guess you’re old enough to know. We found this weird thing in the desert one day....”   

They ended up telling him everything about the mysterious object that they had found in the Permo-Triassic rock layer, marker of the Great Dying.

“We never got an answer from the experts. The artifact vanished. We were afraid to even talk about it, for fear of being called wacko’s.” Mother said, breaking down in tears. “So I guess we never will know. What does the image mean? Who put it there? What was their purpose? Are they watching us now? Will they come back?”

Seeing his mother cry had a deep effect on the boy. “Mom, I’m going to be an astronaut when I grow up. If there are Aliens, I promise I’ll find them!”

“No you won’t,” Mother said, grabbing his arm. “You’re staying right here where it’s safe.”  

No I’m not. From that day, Sky resolved: he was going into space!

If there were aliens out there, he would find them. If not, he would find new planets, new wonders and discoveries. The romance of Space had conquered his soul.

Over his parents’ objections he went to aeronautics school and graduated at the top of his class. He and his friend Kevin both made it into the space program and participated in several missions to Mars and Jupiter. When he was 28, engineers developed the first hyperdrive capable of star travel. At last it was time for the big step: a manned mission to the nearby star system, Beta-Avis III.

***

Earth, and then Earth’s sun, receded in the viewscreens to a tiny point of light and vanished altogether.

Unlike his juvenile fantasies, life in deep space was mostly routine.  There was daily equipment maintenance, drills, exercise and instrument check... surveys of asteroids and space objects. Sky, nominally in charge of this expedition, handled navigation duties and the daily report back to his superiors. That left plenty of time to look out at the vast, dark, infinite void... and think.

He brooded over his last visit with Mom, as she lay dying of cancer. “Sky... it’s up to you. Maybe you’ll find out the truth at last. About....Them.” Mom had reached into her bag and handed him a folded paper. “Take this with you. In case you ever see something else like it...out there.”

He carried it with him all the time, as she must have done. Now he unfolded the tattered paper and stared at the image. A hand with seven fingers. What could it mean? Mom and Dad wouldn’t have been taken in by a hoax...would they? But if it wasn’t a hoax...then how could something like this artifact have showed up in Earth’s fossil record? Like a stamp of ownership, like the American flag on the moon.

If there was a race of star-traveling alien conquerors out there…a race that had staked a claim on Earth...there’d be no resisting them. Would there?

He scowled at the dark Universe, a velvet void scattered with bright dots and glowing clouds of gas and dust. The vast emptiness, with no familiar planets or Sun nearby, began to overwhelm him. Was it his imagination or was one of those bright dots coming closer? His boyhood video games always featured space ships with big lasers that could blast the aliens apart. NASA had not supplied this ship with any weapons. 

The star Beta-Avis grew larger on their screens. The crew took readings and met for briefings. “What’s the matter, Sky?” His friend Kevin noticed his preoccupation. “You don’t seem very excited to be one of the first astronauts on an interstellar voyage.”

When confronted, Sky had no choice but to tell Dave, Kevin and Marisha about the alien invaders who might have been responsible for The Great Dying.

“Damn,” said Kevin. “Wish we had some firepower on this ship.” He had a smirk on his face like he wasn’t taking it seriously. “Maybe we’ll finally have that big space battle.”

“Quit being a jerk,” said Dave, the planetary expert.  “We’re here to explore a new solar system, not make war. Look at this gorgeous planet—I call her Big Mama.” Screen images showed a luminous gas giant surrounded by a flock of satellites. Dave zoomed in on one of the moons. “This world is nearly Earth size, and look at its lovely golden color. I’d like to name it Aurora. What do you folks think?”

They liked that. “It’s probably too cold for anything but lichens and bacteria,” Dave went on. “I’d say its temperature is in the range of -100 C. Still it gets a lot of tidal energy from Big Mama—enough to have internal heat and active geology and weather. It has a thick atmosphere too--nitrogen and methane and a whole soup of toxic chemicals. I believe these dark areas are oceans and rivers of liquid methane. It’s not exactly a fun vacation spot,” Dave went on, “but still...the bigshots back home, they’d love it if we found something out here to benefit humanity, or at least their pockets. Rare elements, trace minerals, titanium, the secret of immortality !”

“Wonder what those bigshots would do if we found the Aliens out there?” Kevin joked. “You know, lurking behind an asteroid, using a cloaking device?” 

“Shut up.” Sky glanced at Planet Aurora, and his imagination conjured up sinister interpretations for those swirls and dark spots. Vast alien cities. Massive waste dumps and weapons factories. Launching bases!

“If aliens came to Earth way back when,” Marissa said, “they’re probably a lot more advanced than us by now.”

“Sure they are,” said Sky, “because the bastards set back Earth’s evolution by 250 million years. Who knows, maybe we’d have been a match for them—a genuine star-race, instead of a bunch of barely-civilized apes.”

Dave stifled a laugh, spitting out a fragment of his ration bar. 

Sky’s hands formed into fists. “Well, apes or no apes, if those dirtbags tried to destroy the Earth, it’s about time we returned the favor!”

“Yeah! Let the battle begin!” Kevin’s fingers morphed into guns just like when he and Sky were kids. “Fshhhww! Shhwww! We’ll kick alien ass!” The image of space exploration as one big shoot-em-up persisted in the subconscious of every overgrown boy.

“Grow up, will you?” Marissa gave him a fond whack. “You guys are the most immature astronauts I’ve ever met.”

***

“Look, look,” a small daughter cried. “There she is—she’s so beautiful!” 

Curly Fronds and her Folk gazed upward and swayed with joy. The thick orange clouds had parted, revealing velvet-black heavens and the luminous face of the Radiant Mother. The big planet filled a quarter of the sky, and the oceans and ice cliffs reflected her beautiful colors: violet, crimson, indigo. The Folk of the Crystal Sea sang songs of praise, and reveled in the flow of her invigorating ions.   

“Ah...our Goddess is beautiful indeed,” said Striped Stalks. “But what is that small light?”

The Folk all stared at this new thing: a tiny light that moved across the face of the Goddess, emitting a piercing shriek. “By the Radiance, what is it?”

“I don’t know.” Curly Fronds swayed in the ocean waves, considering. A thought occurred to her. “Perhaps it is the Messenger.”

“Really? You think this could be the time?” Striped Stalks moved close, seeking reassurance.  “Elder, has anything like this ever come here before?”

Curly Fronds searched her memory. For the last 10,000 star revolutions life had been so peaceful here in the Valley of Crystal Breezes, that she could not recall ever feeling afraid. For generations nothing had happened except some folks uprooting themselves and leaving the home field, new ones rooting in… a few minor disputes over vent territories, a few male spores drifting by, and new youngsters budding off.

And there had been many great trading festivals with all the other Folk, where thoughts, mind, memories and Symbionts were combined and shared. But none of these others had ever seen this shining thing either.

The light grew brighter and the uneasy mood spread to the others. “I’m scared,” said Brown Strands. “What if it’s dangerous--a messenger of punishment?” She suddenly disappeared beneath the misty yellow ocean. Others followed her, and soon all the Folk had submerged themselves beneath the waves. They clustered around their Home Vent, which provided them with warmth and nourishment.

The young ones gathered around Curly Fronds, the oldest. “Don’t be afraid,” she told them, speaking with chemical pulses and vibrations of her tendrils. “Listen to the Wisdom.” For Curly Fronds knew all the verses—she was the one the others turned to for spiritual guidance. “In the beginning, we lived in Warm Paradise,” she recited. “Our ancestors committed Original Sin, and as a punishment, Cosmic Lord cursed the world to chaos and deepfreeze. But Radiant Mother took pity on us, and sent us a Messenger who gave us back our souls, and taught us to survive by the Way of Symbiosis. Blessed is Radiant Mother!”

 “Auntie? Who’s Cosmic Lord?” One of the young ones asked.

“And what’s Original Sin?”

“Nobody knows,” an older sister said. “Those are spiritual mysteries.”

“That’s right,” Striped Stalk put in, “when the time comes, all will be revealed.”

“And one day the Messenger will return,” Curly Fronds said. “The Messenger will come to redeem us with salvation and forgiveness. Blessed be She!”

The others echoed the benediction, but Rough Top swayed with impatience. “How does this bright light bring forgiveness? Will further purification be required?”

“I don’t know,” Curly Fronds said. “Perhaps I had better consult my Symbionts.”

It was the bacterial Symbionts that had enabled the Folk to survive, and evolve--they were the key to life itself in the World of Crystal Seas. They lived in everyone’s roots and fronds and stalks, converting the minerals the folk ingested into wholesome nutrients.

These small archaean creatures, being the oldest, were also the wisest: their chemical network of information could answer almost any question, adapt to any challenge. But few could communicate with them, for they spoke the language of molecular chains. Curly Fronds folded into Contemplation Posture and formed the question. Tiny sisters, do you know what the strange light is?

Slowly the replies formed, jumbled and cryptic like dream images.

It is nothing of this world...we cannot know until we taste it...maybe it came from a star place...we remember: eons ago, your cellular ancestors traveled the star void...the Universe is a circle that turns...do not fear. We will touch it...communicate, trade spiral chains and life strings. Adapt...grow...reach equilibrium.

She listened to the fragments, contemplated their meaning, asked more questions. At last she began to guess the significance of the legends and spiritual mysteries. This is the time.

She resurfaced to see the orange fog once more covering the Goddess’s face. All she could do now was compose herself and pray. Radiant Mother, give us serenity and courage for what is to come.

While she prayed, the bright light came screaming down to touch the ground.   

***

Captain Skylar planted his booted foot on the frozen ground of Aurora. “This is a great day for the peoples of Earth,” he declaimed, while banners were deployed and cameras caught the great moment. “We shall go forward into the Future!”

Pompous landing speeches were a required part of being an astronaut. Every barren rock required some sort of commemoration.   

But Aurora was much more than a barren rock. The landscape had a familiar look, with mountains, shorelines, rivers. It could almost have been Earth...except for the toxic orange mist and the frigid temperature. Skylar, Dave, Marissa and Kevin couldn’t have survived here without their thick suits and breathing masks.    

“See anything interesting?” For they were searching for clues, anything that might indicate the presence of life. 

Sky looked back and forth from the canyons to the rock formations, trying to suppress the fear that clenched his gut. His mom’s last words kept repeating themselves in his head. Sky, it’s up to you. Maybe you’ll find out the truth at last. About.... Them.

This murky orange world was the spookiest place he’d ever seen.  Shapes seemed to move at the edge of his vision and he imagined “Them” hiding behind those boulders, or that ice formation there. Perhaps they had just been hibernating since their last invasion, and the landing of the humans would wake them up. An immortal, utterly ruthless race, maybe reptilian or insectoid, with seven limbs and an insatiable taste for Earthling flesh. They’d devour the explorers and then track their ship back to Earth and finish what they’d started...  

In spite of Sky’s fears, the exploration of Aurora went forward without incident. The explorers photographed every feature of the eerie landscape, then piloted a land rover across ammonia ice flows and cliffs. They came to a region of huge polygons, spires and pinnacles that resembled exotic ruins and cathedrals. But of course, these could only be giant icicles and splinters of rock heaved up by tectonic activity. A strong wind blew away the mist and the face of Big Mama shone above them. Her colors reflected off the rivers and ice cliffs.  “It’s so beautiful,” Marissa cried.

“I’m seeing some odd-looking structures in that river over there. They remind me of stromatolites,” Dave said.

“You mean those mounds of fossilized cyanobacteria in Australia, the ones that are a billion years old?” said Kevin.

“Yep, those are the ones.”

The explorers grinned at each other, excited to find evidence of life. “Fascinating,” said Marissa. “Should we try and talk to them?”    

Dave chuckled. “Not hardly—they’re just bacteria. Do you talk to the slime in your sink trap?” He went closer to get a look at the mounds. “Or maybe it’s some kind of weird vegetation.” 

“So, no aliens then,” Kevin said, smiling at Sky. “No bloodthirsty monsters who stalk the galaxy, destroying planets.”

“Nope.” Sky gave a shaky laugh. “Guess I can send a message back to Dad, and Mom’s spirit can finally rest in peace.”

They moved on, and he stopped in front of one ammonia-ice-covered pinnacle. If Sky didn’t know better, he’d say it resembled a miniature of the Washington Monument. Cracks and scars covered its surface. Amazing what time and chemistry could do. Eons of caustic winds had weathered this structure quite a bit, and so it was unlikely Sky, or anyone else, could have ever understood the inscription it bore—or even recognized the marks as writing.

Dedicated to Wikix Lann, saint and martyr of Blueworld,

whose spirit guided us during the Chaos Times.

In her writings, found by Disciple Kynn, she wrote:

Our ships went to rape and kill a world

 and our own souls died along with it.

They say it was what we had to do

because our Home would turn to deep ice.

Far better, I say, to go clean into the cold death!

Hear me, beloveds, if you wish to keep your souls

Renounce the engineering of destruction     

And learn the wisdom of adaptation

Renounce the greed of the predator

For the humility of deep cell-change    

Exchange the suicide of conquest

For the immortality of symbiosis.

 

A large image had been carved beneath the inscription. Sky might have actually recognized this image, but weathering had made it virtually invisible:  

A seven-fingered hand, its digits spread in welcome.                   

Sky stared at the structure uncomprehending, while a mournful wind sang through the ancient structures.

“That’s strange,” Marissa muttered, “how’d those stromatolite things get all the way over here? It’s like they’re following us,” she added with a nervous laugh.

“Maybe they float,” said Kevin. “I’d like to take some samples from them. Sky, could you hold the top of this one while I cut off a piece?” He readied a jar and blade.

Sky knelt by the riverbank and grasped the floating mound by its curling top-fronds. As soon as he touched the thing, intensely powerful sensations cascaded through him. Textures and colors undreamed of...teachings and discourses and braided songs in a language of pulses and flows...he had touched a wise being with vast knowledge. It extended a greeting, a choice, an invitation to share...

“No!” He drew back, shaking his hand as if it had been stung. “Careful, Kevin—it produces some kind of toxin.”

He felt weak all over. That thing had almost sucked him in! It excretes a seductive pheromone, he thought. Maybe that that’s how it attracts food! “Better not touch it—no telling what the poison will do to us. Come on,” he added, “we’d better get back. I think there’s a storm coming.”

There was no storm. He just had to get away! 

Sky felt pretty silly by the time they got back to the ship. What was wrong with me? Scared of movie monsters and now spooked by a vegetable! That thing must produce strong hallucinogens--better than magic mushrooms. Well, a mound of alien algae wasn’t going to get the best of him. He was Sky Shuster--interstellar explorer. There would be no more foolishness, he resolved. It was time to get down to business.

The First Interstellar Expedition crew made a thorough survey of Aurora. At the conclusion of their exploration, they broke open some gourmet meal packs and reviewed their data. Their research confirmed the fact that Aurora contained many valuable resources. Precious metals, rare elements, organic chemicals, high energy fuels.

It also had boundless vistas, and breathtaking scenery for the tourists.

Sky sent a message back to Earth.  “Aurora may be a toxic wasteland now,” he told his superiors at Mission Control, “but it has great terraforming and colonizing potential. I propose we smash a large asteroid into the place and get some global warming going. Then we seed it with oxygen-producing microorganisms, and one day Earthlings will move in. This planet is a gold mine—a prime piece of real estate!”

He raised his coffee mug in salute.