I just got back from Penticton, where my partner and I attended the Wine Country Writers’ Festival. That was the event that sponsored the writing contest I came second in, so we took Friday off work and drove to get the prize. Of course, they would have mailed everything if I could have sat still and waited, but where’s the fun in that? Our motel was a flea bag operation, but we didn’t spend much time there. We just checked our stuff in then took off to the fancy hotel where the conference was, in our rented Cadillac SUV, no less, so we looked like snobby assholes to anyone who didn’t know us – which was everyone. They announced my second place story and called me up to receive a certificate and a book with my story in it. I have photographic proof that I got up on stage and smiled without having an anxiety emergency! I’m such a wienie sometimes, really. The room was filled with writers, most of whom have had something published and/or have won prizes that put mine to shame, so I was humbled that I was congratulated several times by some impressive people. The man who judged the fiction was Garry Litke. He won the Surrey Writers’ Festival competition last year, and is a published author and former mayor of Penticton. He gave me a great complement when he told me my story reminded him of Robert Heinlein. So here is my stretched out version of Lieber’s Report. If you read the short one, this one follows the same trajectory, it just elaborates on a lot of details I couldn’t include in a 250 word flash fiction story.
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Lieber’s Report
Inside the dark, silent Exoplanet Explorer the lights flickered slowly to life, and the cryogenic systems began to raise Captain Lieber’s metabolic functions. Soon his resting place of heavy saline began to cool, and his stiff limbs creaked to motion.
The intensifying light burned his eyes as he rolled out of the suspended animation chamber and clumsily toweled off the excess saline. He squinted around the cabin as the mental fog started to clear. He pulled on his underwear and suit for the first time in 17 years and stretched his tingling legs.
The retro rockets were firing and the ship was breaking hard, falling into a geosynchronous orbit above his destination, the planet Wolf 1061b. Little was known about it besides its size and the fact its relative proximity to its star made it a potentially inhabitable refuge for mankind. Soon Lieber would determine just how hospitable it was.
Lieber drank some water and turned on his monitor. The Exoplanet Explorer was one of six ships sent to nearby planets outside Earth’s solar system with the intent of trying to find humanity a home to make a new start. A start that would be engineered, calculated not to destroy the host planet with petty wars and greedy overharvesting of resources.
Lieber found five reports on his computer, all the other explorations were complete.
He trembled with excitement as he opened the first one. Proxima Centauri b: barren, void of atmosphere, uninhabitable. There was much more, but the point was made. Then, Proxima Centauri c: heavy acidic atmosphere, oppressive gravity, uninhabitable. Next was Barnard’s Star b: incomplete report, mentioned potentially aggressive civilisation then ended abruptly. Lieber swallowed hard and took a quick break to pace around the small work station to calm down. That mission was captained by Williams, his training partner back in Florida. There was clearly no way to return from these missions, but shuddered to imagine what poor Williams’ last moments were like.
Ok, there were two more chances for the missions to have had success. Ross 128 b: thin atmosphere not suitable for humans, highly acidic oceans with no apparent life. So it was down to Luyten b: another barren planet, crisscrossed with what seemed to be roads and large structures in ruins, but the verdict was still uninhabitable. Lieber had prayed that this wouldn’t be how it ended. He hoped beyond hope that ships full of migrant people would be settling the nearest planets by now, not waiting for his report to either save or doom the human race.
He peered through the portal at the ever-nearing surface of Wolf 1061b. It was a planet that rotated in synch with its star, keeping one face baking in the sun, and the other side frozen in the eternal darkness. Between the hemispheres was a strip hundreds of miles wide that would be somewhere between the extremes and potentially life sustaining. Either way, the whole mission was implemented quickly and on a small budget, with no plan for a return trip. Lieber was looking at the place he had come to die.
Lieber could see he had a few hours before the ship was in place. He ate some packaged bread and protein paste that was imitating peanut butter with little success. He went over his equipment and made sure everything was powering up and in the landing pod. He stashed a few groceries behind his seat, then a few more. He re-read some of the reports in greater detail, avoiding the Williams mission. And he waited, in time that went both too fast and too slow.
He closed his eyes and relaxed. Short daydreams came that marched by without his interference. They took him to his boyhood home in Manitoba, the merciless winter wind driving the snow across the stubble in the fields as he watched from his bedroom window. He thought of those gentle June evenings after dinner, sitting on the porch with time standing still. He thought of the way Mary would innocently stand in front of the sun and the light would outline her body through her thin summer dress. And all those years studying, plying his engineering skills, the years that went by too fast. They weren’t fond times necessarily, but the fruit of them was here before him, in the service of his species.
The mission status on his monitor let him know the stationary orbit had been achieved. There was no reason to rush, but there certainly was no point in waiting in the main capsule either. Outside was a beautiful greenish yellow world of rocky hills casting long shadows over high mesas and valleys. The wide valleys were dotted with what appeared to be small lakes, glittering in the low sun, even at this distance. The infrared thermometer read 26 Celsius below him and gradually 25 as he pointed it to his right, further from the star. This would be a permanent summer afternoon where he was from.
Lieber climbed into the landing pod and powered it up. The diagnostic checklist scrolled down the main screen when suddenly it encountered a problem. “Too much weight on board. Alarm level: medium.” He had squirreled nearly every crumb of food aboard, so the alarm was no surprise. “Tough shit, ship. I may get hungry down there.” He relented and tossed a few litres of water back onto the loading dock, but the alarm remained. Oh well, it probably wouldn’t matter.
He sealed the hatch and started the descent sequence. He was still hundreds of kilometres above the planet when the landing pod broke free, and the automated thrusters maneuvered the tiny pod to the correct angle for atmospheric entry. The velocity increased and the small space got hot and stuffy. All the insulation they could afford couldn’t fully keep the friction of the atmosphere from heating up the craft. For several minutes it became nearly unbearable, the tiny ship shook wildly as the temperature rose. The thrusters kicked in again and adjusted the angle and slowed the pod down enough to keep the heat constant. Then it began to cool slightly, and the pod offered Lieber control of the vehicle. He was now only 10,000 metres above the ground, and he looked for a smooth place to land. On the screen he watched for a clearing as he skimmed above a flat mesa, and finding none, he decided to try to land on whatever vegetation was there. He gradually floated down on some tall plant-like growths and found them yielding. He secured his breathing apparatus and opened the hatch. Outside was a gust of cool, refreshing atmosphere. There was a soft breeze blowing toward the star, and the plants were permanently bent, bowing to their god, Wolf 1061.
The mesa gave him a panoramic view for many kilometres in every direction. There was no sign of a civilization, no buildings, no clearings in the vast grasslands, no insects, no obvious animal life. His gas analyzer gave a reading of 19 per cent oxygen, with no known toxic elements. Cautiously he opened his mask and took a breath. It had a strange smell, acetylene almost, but he found the air sufficiently palatable. He turned off his suit’s oxygen and removed his helmet. Next he examined the plant life. It was what would pass for a stiff grass on Earth. It seemed to cover most of the area he could see, and it seemed to grow to about waist high as a maximum. He might experiment later to see if there was anything edible growing, but first he concentrated on the soil itself. He scraped together a small shovelful of coarse dirt and dumped it into the analyzer. It was moist and full of nutrients. Crops could thrive here.
He waded through the grass to the edge of the mesa. The nearest lake was only a kilometre or so away, and an examination of the water, or whatever liquid it was, was in order. He returned to the landing pod, had a quick snack and armed himself with a knife, just in case. He shut the hatch and was going to lock it with his fob, like he had parked his car at the mall, and the absurdity of it made him laugh out loud. “Better lock up! Looks like the rough part of town,” he said to no one in particular.
He tested the slope for loose rocks that may send him skidding down the embankment, but the ever present grass kept it stable. Part way down he turned to see if he was making a trail through the grass that he could follow back, and he could faintly make out his route. Either way, finding the pod would be easy on top of the hill. After an hour or so of scrambling he reached the shore of the small lake. It was definitely water, and very clear water at that. There didn’t seem to be any plant life in the pond, and he saw no sign of any aquatic creatures. He studied the gravelly shoreline for signs of animals that may come to drink, but there was no sign of any disturbance. He dipped a lidded beaker into the water, dropped in a green pill and shook the tube. He poured the water into an analyzer and waited for the readout. The test result was ideal, like everything else to this point. Ph of 7.0, no sign of waterborne bacteria, no coliforms. With great care and caution he took a small sip. It was tasteless and odourless, like distilled water. It hit him that he was likely the only one of the six explorers who got as far as performing all these tests.
Lieber made his way back toward the landing pod, following his trail of slightly bent grass. The uphill hike was grueling and hot, and he stopped to rest and drink some of his Earth water a few times. This planet was a blank canvas of possibilities, he thought. How rich in minerals it may or may not be he couldn’t easily assess, but humanity could at least be fed, hydrated and kept warm here, with nothing threatening showing up to this point. It was nearly time to send his report, but there was a nagging sadness he couldn’t quite identify. Was it the fact that this might be his final transmission home? That didn’t really capture the mood. He was fairly content on his own, so it wasn’t loneliness. If he was prone to loneliness they would have screened him out long before he left. Then, inexplicably, he burst into tears. He buried his face in his hands despite the fact the nearest person to be ashamed in front of was quadrillions of kilometres away.
Lieber opened his transmitter and began to compose his report. “Planet b, star Wolf 1061, Earth year 2039, the findings of Captain Lieber, Exoplanet Explorer 6. This planet is rocky and inhospitable. There is no growing medium for crops, no potable water and a hostile atmosphere. My meager supplies will be enough for me to survive a while, but there may be aggressive native life who will shorten the process for me. I am hunkering in my landing pod, awaiting the end. I wish you luck in your continued search for a refuge for our species, and I am sad I couldn’t be part of the solution. Please pass along my love to my wife Mary, and warm regards to the faculty at the University of Manitoba and any well-wishers.”
His hand shook as he hesitated a moment, then he pressed SEND.
Peace and relief swept over him. Planet Wolf 1061b would be far better off without us.
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So there it is. If you read the whole thing, thanks, but I’ll understand it if you didn’t.
Everyone was being nice to me, but they might have stepped on my foot if they saw the ostentatious Cadillac we arrived in. Saturday morning I went to a one hour workshop on writing a first draft. It was excellent, and I wish I had taken notes, but I went in unprepared with no pen or paper. At least I got to hear some good advice that I will try to remember when the time comes to write something longer.