blueteamnovel Book 2: Chapter 49: Arrival
Book 2: Chapter 49: Arrival
Book 2: Chapter 49: Arrival
Mulder
March 2195
Poseidon (Eta Cassiopeiae)
“Poseidon. Good name.” Marcus shook his head in mock amazement, then took a sip of his coke. “I’ve had a look at your summary and notes. Pretty cool. I really want to see a kraken.”
I smiled in response. “You won’t be disappointed. I promise. Anyway, right now, you’re...”
“I’m just settling into a polar orbit. Monty is about a week away, and should be down to VR tau by now. I’ll ping him.”
Marcus settled more comfortably into his seat and sipped thoughtfully on his straw. For some reason, Marcus had never taken to coffee. He preferred his virtual caffeine in carbonated form. Well, whatever.
At that moment, Monty popped in and materialized another chair for himself. He accepted a coffee from Jeeves and looked around.
My VR wasn’t particularly inspired, as such things go. I’d never felt the need to come up with something new and imaginative. I had a variation on Bob-1’s library, but with high windows for more sunlight, and more casual furniture.
“So, anyway, things grow big in the water, in direct proportion to the available space. A global ocean, eight hundred kilometers deep, makes for some very large nasties.”
Monty looked concerned. “They couldn’t take down a mat, could they?”
“Oh, hell no. Nothing’s that big. But on this planet, a day at the beach is likely to be fatal even if you don’t get wet. The kraken in particular has tentacles, and one of its feeding strategies is to grab animals off the edges of mats.”
“Right.” Monty nodded. “Well, the mats are a short-term solution, anyway. The colonists will be building floating cities for the long term. We’ll just need tough enough perimeter defenses to keep them out.”
“So,” I looked at him, changing the subject. “When are you going to decant the colonists?”
“I’m waking the Setup Management team right now. Couple of hours, they’ll be ready to start.” Unlike the land-based colonies in other systems, the teams here would be working from the colony transport—Monty—for a considerable time, and the civilian population likely wouldn’t start to emerge for a good six months. Future shipments would have it a little easier.
We had a number of variations on floating city plans on file. Free-floating cities had been a bit of a thing for a while in the twenty-second century. Of course, they had access to land-based support, and they didn’t have to deal with predators up to a hundred meters long, with tentacles.
In response, Marcus popped up a schematic view of the island. “Here’s the problem. The Kraken are able to wriggle a tentacle through the mat and grab inland prey. Native life has figured out how to tread lightly, but humans have two left feet, so to speak.”
“Plus,” I added, “all the equipment makes a racket.”
Monty rubbed his forehead, looking disgusted. “Um. Any ideas? Serious ones, I mean.”
“Actually, yes.” Marcus nodded. “I can adapt some library plans to construct an electrified net that discharges on contact. A million volts or so should provide some negative reinforcement.”
“Or a watery grave. Either is good.” I nodded. Nice.
Marcus grinned at me. “Now the bad news. To build the net, and to build the equipment necessary to deploy it, will add six months to our schedule. Draper will take that about as well as Butterworth would.”
“Moo,” I replied.
“Yeah, like that.”
Monty groaned. “I’m not thrilled either. It means I’m stuck here for another six months.”
“Suck it up. You’re immortal.”
“Bite me.”
We all grinned at each other. The routine exchange of insults felt sort of reassuring.
“Well,” Marcus finally said. “Guess we’d better go break the news.”
“What do you mean, ‘we’, Kemo Sabe?”
Marcus laughed and popped out.