1

They were witnessing a rare phenomenon on A5, an erupting volcano. On Alpha 5, vulcanism seemed to be extremely uncommon. No incidence had previously been recorded anywhere on the planet during the time the Probe had been in the system. There were what appeared to be lava fields, but these were all extremely ancient and highly eroded.
Marta was watching the spectacular display on her ‘face. A huge cloud of gas and ash had risen up through the lower atmosphere until it met the tropopause, there it spread out, and was carried off by the jet stream. Her view of the cloud from the vantage point of Earthcomm downlink showed a huge plume, already more than a thousand kilometres long, trailing westward along the parallel…
The children were anxiously awaiting the return of Han and Sal’s inaugural flight across the Asimov range… As the first eyewitnesses to the eruption the boys had drawn straws for the honour of naming the volcano. Sal had lost and Han had named it Mount Su-ying after his new best friend…
Han’s excited reports on the vast volcanic cloud had been the last contact with the expedition before they flew out of range of the furthest ground station,
“Never mind…” murmured Marta to her friend. “…it was nearly Mount Priya…”
In truth, Marta was glad that the oldest girl was finally getting some recognition. Slowly, tentatively Su-ying was becoming more involved in the life of the settlement. She liked animals and was now helping Priya with the care of her captive specimens, as well as assisting Han with his duties. She clearly idolised the boy and was almost pathetically eager to please,
“I think we’ve got something…” said Rai, tersely.
They all heard it now, Han’s voice was clearly audible, cutting in and out, but clearly elated… Rai led the cheering, but Marta thought the relief overstated. Earthcomm downlink had tracked the flight all the way from space, and they would surely have known if something was wrong.
Marta felt she was no longer needed and left the room, the last sounds she heard were Priya and Su-ying conversing excitedly with their heroes…
She decided to look up Jorge, as it would be hours before the aircraft returned. He had not been present in the briefing room, which had become an improvised control centre, She found him in the Garden,
“I thought I’d find you here…” said Marta,
“…I can follow the progress of the Mission via my interface,” he said, by way of explanation, “…and the other data doesn’t mean that much to me…”
Jorge was referring to the visual data on the progress of the Mission…and of the eruption, which had so captivated the others,
“I left Priya and Su-ying talking to their men…the conquering heroes…”
“Marta Fernandes, I do believe you’re jealous…!”
“Not really…in fact, it’s a relief not to be the centre of attention for a change…”
“When will they get back…?”
“About an hour before Alph goes down, I think…”
“I suppose we’ll need to go out and welcome them…”
“Be rude not to…”
Alph was close to the horizon and casting long shadows by the time the aircraft appeared as a small dot in the Southern skies. The dot grew rapidly before resolving itself into the gleaming silver and white flying machine. Sal was now piloting it, and brought the ’craft down in a perfect, almost bravura landing. The children cheered as the props blew dust past them…
With her love for historical parallels, Marta couldn’t help but remember the old black and white footage of Charles Lindbergh stepping out of the Spirit of St Louis, stored in Mission AI’s files that she’d viewed on one dull afternoon… Now, they were entering their own age of exploration…
There were hugs and handshakes for the boys, who were led in triumph back to the common room where the nursemaids had laid on food,
“So, what was it like…?” everyone wanted to know…
The boys were sat ‘round the table ready to tell their tale,
“Well, we had to fly really high, much higher than usual to cross the mountains,” said Sal,
“Yes and you can’t believe how much you can see up there…” put in Han, determined not to be outdone, “We could see beyond the mountains to the South, and it appears to be just flat…as far as the horizon…”
“Yes, and looking the other way you can see the craters, more mountains…and in the far distance something very bright…” said Sal,
“I do believe you may be able to see the Polar Barrier from that altitude…” it was Nurse Gee, who’d briefly stopped by,
“And at that altitude it’s really quite hard to control the aircraft, the wind keeps on pushing you off course… And when we got to the volcano…to Mount Su-ying, as we need to start calling it…” said Han with a nod towards the girl who looked suitably pleased, “the winds got really fierce and we had to change course…”
“What’s it like over the Asimov range?” asked Rai,
“Pretty bleak for the most part” said Sal, “…all the peaks have snow on them, and we could see what looked like glaciers moving down into the valleys…it looks pretty much impassable to me…’though after about an hour we did see an area off to the west that looked more habitable…”
“Yes, our surveys from space indicate there’s a sort of plateau over there, still pretty high, but probably only about two and half thousand metres at most,” put in Han, “it was pretty hard to tell because a lot of it is obscured by the ash cloud at the moment, but it looked reddish, so there’s probably pseudo-plant life in evidence.”
Marta thought that Rai and Jorja showed a particular interest at this point,
“It took us about two hours to get across the range,” continued Han, “much longer than we’d estimated, but the headwinds were really fierce and we kept on having to correct our course…”
“Yes, and it was a relief when we could start to lose altitude as we came out over the equatorial plain…!” said Sal,
“Did you manage to get a good look at the plain…?” asked Marta,
“Yes, we dropped down to about three hundred metres, and the detail’s pretty good…we’ve uploaded the footage taken by the aircraft’s cameras so you can all have a look… It’s quite similar to the terrain around here, although the groves of pods don’t seem to be quite so numerous…and there’s more of that mauve ground-hugging stuff, like we found in Carl Sagan…or at least that’s what it looked like….”
“Did you see any crusties…?”
“Surprisingly no…!” said Sal, “but that doesn’t mean they’re not there…!”
“One thing we did see,” put in Han, “was a lot more open water…! We were only able to overfly one of the lakes, but it was pretty extensive…and there were a couple more on the horizon… Something that might interest you, Priya…”
He paused,
“It was hard to be sure, but there seemed to be some kind of disturbances on the surface of the water…it might have been the wind, but it could also have been something quite large…living in the lake…!”
Marta’s ears pricked up at this. So far, their study of the one stretch of open water they could reach from the Dome by rova had shown only very primitive worm-like organisms that seemed to subsist on the Alphane equivalent of algae.
The discussion continued, but to her mind they were now going over old ground…the boys hadn’t been given permission to land, and detailed analysis of the sensor data had yet to begin…
Marta and Jorge said their goodbyes at that point,
“How do you think Rai’s coping?” he asked as they made their way back towards their bunks,
“I don’t know…” said Marta, “I still don’t think he’s quite right…he seems almost manic to me…” she looked serious,
“I did try to ask him about the babies…” she couldn’t quite bring herself to say ‘our children’,
“…you know, about naming them as the Nurses want us to do…! And he just gave me this look…I know he’s generally hostile towards me, anyway, but there seemed to be real hatred in his eyes… He didn’t say anything…he just pushed past me and ran off! Later on, Jorja had a real go at me in the common room, saying I should leave Rai alone, and that I don’t know what he’s going through, but it’s none of my business anyway…”
“Yes, I heard about that…Priya said she was almost hysterical…”
The issue of the newborns hung over Dome society. Nurse Gee had apologised to Marta (and presumably to Rai, as well) for the way the affair had been handled, but significantly, not for the fact that the children had been conceived. After a period of days, Marta finally gave in to Jorge’s urgings and they went to see the new children.
The newborns were identical twin girls, and in the cold light of day, Marta could see the resemblance,
“Would you like to hold one of them…?” asked the Nurse on duty,
“OK…” said the girl with more confidence than she felt,
“You have to support the head…” said the nursemaid as she passed the small bundle over to the girl. As soon as she picked up the infant, her heart melted, as Jorge had known it would,
“She’s beautiful…”
“You can feed her if you like…” said the nursemaid, handing her a bottle…
They spent a delightful half hour taking turns to hold and feed the children, before the babies began to get tired and fractious and the nursemaid put them back in their incubators.
On the way back, Marta had said to Jorge,
“If he would only just pick them up and hold them like we did, then he wouldn’t feel that way…”
But Rai steadfastly refused to visit the babies…and acted as if they didn’t exist…

---

2

Not much happened in the next two weeks. Marta worked on her climate change hypothesis, and visited the newborns. Jorge refined his calculations. The children performed their Mission tasks and gradually went out together on their solo flights.
Next up, Priya took Su-Ying on only her second flight. In deference to her trepidation, this was a fairly short trip that stayed well north of the barrier range, but they were given permission to land within the colossal amphitheatre that was Carl Sagan major, where they were able to collect more specimens of the small arthropods.
Following this expedition, it was Rai and Jorja’s turn, and they would fly across the Asimov barrier range once more, and had been given permission to land on the equatorial plain.
Marta had been with Priya, making final preparations for their next attempt to communicate with a pseudo-crustacean experimental subject,
“…we’re all wanted in the briefing room…” it was Sal,
“What’s up, love…?”
“I’ve no idea…I was just told to get you…!”
Everyone was present when they got there, including Six Gee and several junior nursemaids…
Nurse Gee looked grim,
“…I’m afraid I have worrying news…we have lost contact with Rai and Jorja…!”
“I don’t understand,” said Jorge, “surely we always lose contact when we fly across the barrier…”
“I see I’m not making myself completely clear…! At just after 12.00 hours their aircraft deviated from the agreed flight-path… Just after they had flown out of the range of the last ground station, we attempted to radio them, but they did not respond…! Shortly after this they flew into the volcanic plume and have remained within it…”
Nurse Gee surveyed the room,
“So, as you can see, we have no idea what has happened, or precisely where Rai and Jorja are, as we cannot track them while they are within the plume…! And we are very concerned…!”
At first, everyone was completely stunned by this news, then everyone wanted to speak at once,
“What the chod can have happened…?” said Priya,
“Maybe, they put the craft on auto-pilot and it malfunctioned…”
“That doesn’t sound good…”
Marta kept silent, as she kept thinking about the interest both of them had shown in the plateau identified by Han,
Sal was being logical,
“Well, we know their general heading, as they have remained within the plume created by the eruption…”
“And…” put in Han, “…we know that they can’t fly for long on that heading…”
“Why so…?” asked Jorge
“Well…if they stay within the plume then the solar panels won’t function properly…that means relying on battery power, and that’ll become depleted…”
Marta cut across the chatter,
“I think I know where they’ve gone!”
“You seem to be implying, my dear, that they have gone off-course intentionally…” said Nurse Gee sardonically.
Marta suddenly felt total exasperation,
“Is it only me that pays any attention around here…? Both Rai and Jorja were really, really upset about the new children…! If you remember Gee, Rai was about to assault you, except that Han and Sal got in the way, and Jorja been in bits since… Hasn’t it occurred to you that they might be running away…”
There was a very long pause, which proved conclusively to the girl that Mission AI had anticipated no such thing… Eventually, the nursemaid responded,
“Do you have any evidence to back up your theory?”
“No…!” she said with a sigh, “but I do remember the interest both of them showed when Han started talking about the plateau, and I bet that’s where they’ve gone…!”
“I think we should check the stores manifests…” said Sal suddenly,
‘Good thinking, Sal’ said Marta to herself,
“…because if they did plan this, they’ll need supplies…a tent…rations…tools…a weapon…” he concluded…
Nurse Gee became silent for a minute or so, and then she spoke once more,
“We have checked and found that precisely those items are unaccounted for…”
“So, what do we do now…?” said Jorge…

---

They’d found the perfect hiding place, a small hidden canyon about fifteen hundred metres above sea level… They’d set up the tent and collected enough of the mauve pseudo-plants to cover and hopefully disguise the aircraft. But, even at this altitude it was cold…! Dead plant material made a smoky fire, which threw out little heat…the ash cloud which had disguised their escape also hid the sun, and rained a fine grey powder on everything…and the air had an acrid smell which caught in the back of his throat…
“Yo tru oh te…?”
Jorja was asking him if he’d been able to find fresh water. She looked dirty, cold and thoroughly miserable,
“Do klik, fem! Pas battar…!”
Rai indicated the two jerry cans he’d brought back from the rocks near the end of the canyon where he’d found a small pool, fed by water dripping from the rocks…
The decision to speak only Grok had been mutual, and unspoken…another aspect of their rebellion…
They’d only just made it…after hours flying around trying to find somewhere that looked safe to land, and with the power dangerously low, they’d finally come across the valley… The floor of the canyon had only just been wide enough to put the ‘craft down in…and Rai didn’t think there was enough juice to take off again… Still, once the cloud cleared maybe they could fly again, or at least use the juice to power some of their technology….. How long did eruptions last…? Rai had no idea…
They sat together in front of the tent to eat rations that Jorja had heated…it was already getting dark and the temperature was dropping…they huddled together for warmth…
The briefing room had become a sort of emergency command centre. Now that they had accepted the likelihood that Rai and Jorja had indeed absconded, the Nurses, led by Six Gee had swung decisively into action and were coordinating the search and rescue efforts. Using the insights provided by Marta, Sal and Han, a search area had been identified. This area followed, and was bounded on either side by the volcanic plume. Its furthest extent was the maximum distance it was calculated the aircraft could have flown. Its nearest extent was the beginning of the plateau. The other possibility, that they’d come down in the mountain range was not being considered, as everyone knew that their chances of survival in this scenario were slim…and that rescue would be almost impossible…
As the most experienced aeronauts, Sal and Han were to fly the first search Mission in the remaining aircraft. It had been decided to take a drone, partially disassembled, in the cargo space. Once over the mountains the boys would fly to the nearest point on the plain to the plateau, land and re-assemble the tiny ‘plane. Then both aircraft would then start the search. Marta thought that this smacked of desperation, as the drone’s limited range on battery power meant it could only search those parts of the plateau not shrouded by the ash cloud, but she kept these thoughts to herself…
Once Han and Sal had gone, most of the children returned to their tasks leaving the Nurses to monitor progress,
“How can they be so stupid…?” was Priya’s response as they left the briefing room. Marta knew she and Jorja were close, but concern for Sal’s safety was almost as prominent in her mind. Marta also felt sorry for Raj who had bonded so strongly with Rai and Jorja, and now looked utterly lost…
*******
Rai and Jorja were exploring their domain… The previous night had been a low point as the cold had made sleep impossible. But their spirits had lifted with daybreak, and they were trying to make the best of it… The atmosphere seemed a bit fresher, they were coughing less, and they were hoping this meant the eruption was finally over and the skies would start to clear…
“Me dek pods…!” He was pointing over to the far side of the canyon, at its widest point. Jorja could see the familiar purple glint of the pseudo-plants, these were the first examples of the bigger tree-like organisms that they’d found,
“Ke jun?” she asked,
“Hem klik…”
Jorja was glad of any conversation by this point, for Rai had become increasingly withdrawn as the day wore on…
Five hundred metres took nearly half an hour, so difficult was the terrain. Rai wasn’t talking, so Jorja was left alone with her thoughts…
Both of them had been shocked and outraged when the Nurses had revealed the existence of the new children, but the roots of Rai’s current disaffection went back further than that… Ever since six had become nine, Rai had felt that his position had been undermined, Marta now had an ally in Jorge, and together they made formidable team… And Sal and Priya had resumed their former intimacy with Marta, while Han was completely pre-occupied with Su-Ying. Rai had told Jorja that he now felt outnumbered, and since then he had become increasingly morose…
But it was the revelation of the newborns that had completely destabilised their world… Jorja couldn’t bring herself to think of them as babies… they were things, demons sent to plague her…! She knew she loved Rai, loved him despite his faults…his moods… And the thought that he could share something as intimate as parenthood, with Marta of all people, was just too much to bear…! So, when he’d come up with the idea of leaving the Dome for good, she jumped at it…
They had now reached the pods…the grove was small, tiny by the standards of plains, and looked slightly sickly…! She wasn’t sure why the boy was so interested in the pseudo-plants, and Rai wasn’t telling…! He had taken a small axe from his pack and he swung it at the nearest pod. The axe bit deeply into the pseudo-plant’s ‘trunk’, nothing happened at first, so he swung again… This time something started bubbling from the cut, a milky viscous fluid that started dripping down the purple stem… Rai cupped his hands underneath, straightened and drank what he had collected… He turned and offered some to Jorja,
“Chai!” he prompted…
Jorja drank the sticky fluid from his hands, it had a cool and satisfying taste, almost like warm peppermint,
“Coo…?”
“Ya, moy coo…!”

---

3

A mood of desperation, tinged with resignation, was setting in at the command centre. Sal and Han had spent the whole day searching with zero result…they were also exhausted,
“It’s useless” said Sal, so tired he could hardly speak, “We have to fly at altitude because visibility is so poor that if we don’t we risk flying into a mountain…and because we’re flying at altitude we can’t see anything…”
“Also only one of us can look at the same time, because the other one’s got to control the drone…and you can’t concentrate properly because you’re having to fly the ‘plane…”
“What are you looking for…?” asked Marta,
“Well, we’re looking for the ‘plane…because it should really stand out..! And we’re looking for smoke, because it must be cold down there, and they’ve got to have lit a fire…trouble is, I don’t think we could pick out smoke from the ash cloud anyway…not unless we were right on top it…” Sal gestured helplessly…
It occurred to Marta that if she were Rai and Jorja she would have camouflaged the aircraft anyway…so they were wasting their time looking for it, but she didn’t want to demoralise them any further, so she kept these thoughts to herself…
It was decided by the Nurses shortly after 21.00 that the four available pilots would fly in shifts from now on, the following day it would be Marta and Priya’s turn… Marta decided that she would have a word with Nurse Gee before they turned in…
The following day she met Priya prior to setting off,
“I spoke with Gee last night and made a few suggestions…” said Marta,
“Oh really, what did you say…?”
“Well, I managed to convince her that trying to control the drone as well as flying the aircraft was pointless and that it would be better if we both concentrated on searching from the ‘plane…”
“So does that mean we don’t bother with the drone…?”
“Well, no….! Gee thought about it and then said they should be able to upgrade the drone’s brain to run a simple search pattern and look for certain details in the landscape…and in any case, where the drone’s searching isn’t high priority anyway…!”
“Well, I suppose it’s one less thing to think about…” said the younger girl,
“I also think we should stop panicking…! Rai knows what he’s doing, and he’s had time to plan this… I think they’ll be able to survive…for a while! Which gives us time to find them…!”
Priya was silent as she absorbed this, but Marta hadn’t finished,
“Gee had some good news, she thinks the eruption is lessening, at least that’s what scans from space appear to indicate…and that’s all in our favour… The other thing we discussed was establishing a camp on the Equatorial Plain, so we don’t keep having to fly to and fro…. We haven’t worked out all the details, yet…but if we leave the drone out there, then there’s enough space for a person and a tent and some supplies to go in the cargo bay…”
Marta looked at Priya,
“It won’t be very comfortable…but Han’s volunteered to take the first trip and Sal will do the second…! It means Han has to stay there by himself…but we haven’t seen any crusties, and two trips and we can stay out there and concentrate on searching…”
“Won’t the aircraft be overloaded…?” Priya was starting to look worried,
“We’ll be a bit heavy because we’ll have to take supplies on both trips, as well as an extra person…but the drone weighs about the same as a boy, and Mission AI says it’s within the aircraft’s tolerances…!”
Marta was less confident than she sounded, but that was tomorrow’s problem,
‘Ironic…!’ she thought to herself, ‘that my first solo flight should be a rescue mission…!”

---

The sap from the pod seemed to be extraordinarily invigorating…it seemed to lift both of their moods, and Rai became chatty, almost garrulous. He told Jorja how he’d come across the sap during his experiments on pod grove root systems, the main purpose of the work had been to prove that the individual plants in a grove were linked…something he’d established conclusively… But he’d decided to do some further analysis of the sap itself…his preliminary results were that the sap wasn’t poisonous, and it seemed to have a chemistry not a million miles away from certain terrestrial foodstuffs… So he did the only thing he could think off, he tried eating (or rather drinking) it…! He’d been worried that the nursemaids would notice and stop him…but apparently they hadn’t noticed, which meant for one thing there were no ill effects… Just the opposite, it made him feel extraordinarily good…! Now, even the reconstituted rations heated on the smoky fire seemed tasty…and suddenly it didn’t feel cold…! After ‘dinner’, they had set their interfaces to the same ‘Bollywood’ show tunes and danced around the campfire…they’d then set old ration cartons on rocks, and in the last rays of the setting sun taken turns at taking pot shots at ‘Marta’, ‘Jorge’, and ‘Nars Gee’… After that they must have passed out…
Jorja remembered waking up hours later in the freezing darkness, and trying to rouse a strangely unresponsive Rai, crashed out beside her…the fire had gone out ages ago… Somehow she’d got them both into the tent, and into their sleeping bags before they’d frozen to death…
The following morning the boy had been more morose and uncommunicative than ever, and about two hours after daybreak he abruptly set off down the valley… Jorja thought she knew where he was going and decided to follow at a discreet distance…
As she surmised, he headed straight for the grove…
Some instinct of self preservation had caused her to pick up the rifle. She’d found it discarded by the ashes of the fire… She checked the chamber, still two shots in the magazine…
As she approached she noticed Rai was holding the axe,
“Namas, Rai! Ke zu…?”
“Me paa chai…!”
The girl could see that the wound made by the axe in bole of the pseudo-plant had healed over… Stealthily, she had started to work her way over to the grove, trying to put herself between Rai and the pod,
“Jo…?
“Me chaan mas chai…!”
Belatedly he seemed to realise what she was doing and moved forward menacingly, she raised the rifle,
“Eso sap, es na coo..! Es val…!”
“Yo don me mas…!”
“Na hom! Eso moy val…!”
“Don me…”
“Na…!”
“DON…!”
“It’s not good for you, Rai…it’s dangerous, we don’t know what’s in it…!”
Jorja went cold inside when she saw the fury in his eyes…she’d broken their unspoken agreement by using Standard…but it seemed to shake him out of his monomania… Suddenly the fight went out of him and he let the axe slip from his hands,
“Me kal…!” he mumbled before sitting down heavily and putting his face in his hands.
Cautiously, the girl lowered the rifle and found she could now breathe again,
‘That was too close…!”
She’d realised that something in the sap was affecting them almost as soon as she’d woken up…whatever it was it was clearly affecting Rai much more than her….
After a few minutes she laid the rifle down on the ground and went sat by him…
He looked thoroughly disconsolate,
“Hom! De jan…Ya?”
He allowed her to get him onto his feet. She then took his hand and led him back to their camp…

Out of deference to her greater experience, Marta had allowed Priya to fly the ‘plane on the first leg of the outward journey, but as they approached the Asimov Mountains the younger girl insisted she take over the controls,
“…best you get some practice in before we start the real work…”
Marta felt how sluggish the ’craft was as soon as she took over. They were now higher than she’d ever been…the barrier range was spread out beneath them…the peaks appeared jagged and unforgiving…the strength of the wind was frightening, and she was already struggling to keep the ’craft on course,
“You’ve got to relax…try not to fight the controls…!”
Marta willed herself to loosen up… It took an effort of will, but after about twenty minutes she suddenly got it, almost as if her brain had clicked over from one setting to another… She was now at one with the machine, she was now really flying…
She turned and grinned at her friend,
“Hey, this is fun…!”
They flew low over the plain, trying to find the spot that the boys had used for their base camp,
“There it is…!” said Priya suddenly pointing off to port. And Marta could now clearly see it, a large arrow marked out on the ground, presumably with rocks,
“Sal said we couldn’t miss it…!” said Priya excitedly,
‘Now for the tricky part!’ Marta told herself…
But despite her misgivings she managed to bring the ‘plane down to a reasonably smooth landing. After the noise of the flight the sudden silence was unnerving. They climbed gingerly out of the cockpit and looked warily around,
‘Hey, we’re only the third and fourth people to stand here…!’ she thought, trying to gee herself up…
But here wasn’t that special. In one direction the plain was absolutely flat as far as she could see, the monotony broken only by patches of the low ground-hugging pseudo-vegetation they’d first seen in Carl Sagan minor … In the far distance she thought she could see a flash of something bright,
‘Maybe one of Han’s lakes!’ she mused.
In the other direction the foothills that led to the plateau rose abruptly out of the plain about five kliks distant… Apart from the gentle sighing of the wind, it was utterly silent…but they could smell the familiar scent of cinnamon in the air… Alph was already approaching zenith, and the shadows cast by the patches of pseudo-vegetation were already beginning to shorten,
“We better get going, I guess….!” said Marta. Priya nodded, and they commenced the laborious task of unpacking and re-assembling the drone…
An hour later and the small aircraft had taken to the air and was now a small dot heading towards the hills,
“I’ll take the first stint…” said Priya…
With that they clambered into the cockpit and headed back up into the sky…

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Chapter 10. The age of Exploration >>