Falcon’s Bane

Shuffling in his seat, he drew in a deep breath and then exhaled, his eyes focused on the view beyond the tiny, circular port. The surface, just meters below the vessel, was a barren, uniform mud-gray. As well as the strangest he had visited, this place struck him as the most hostile.

And yet, there was life here.

A few meters ahead, hot gases hissed from several thermal vents, each the locus of a small, living oasis that should have been impossible in this dark, cold, inhospitable place. Joe's companion smiled, clearly unaffected by their situation, and tapped on the port.

“Those vents are the sole reason anything can exist here,” she said. “There's no oxygen and no light, so bacteria use chemosynthesis to convert minerals and chemicals from the vents into energy. They form the base of the food chain for everything else here.”

Joe's pilot, a young woman named Taylor Fisk, guided the small craft unerringly as it glided over the alien landscape. He had met her only hours earlier but trusted her implicitly. Her every move instilled confidence in this uncommonly dangerous situation.

Beyond the port a tiny, pale creature slithered away, leaving a trail on the fine, silt-like surface. The first macro-life seen on this trip, it was only centimeters in length, its wing-like appendages rippling as it moved forward, reflecting the light like a glittering jewel. Joe watched through the glass, his eyes growing wider with every moment as he studied the strange, alien denizen.

“Brilliant,” he murmured, reaching across to grab the arm of his companion. “How can this exist here? The pressure outside is—it's unbelievable.”

For a moment a child-like grin surfaced on his face as he reveled in a magical moment of discovery akin to those of his childhood. His mind leaped back to when he first discovered new varieties of backyard butterflies and other insects in his childhood.

“Awesome, isn't it?” his companion asked. “Just like the thermal vents in the deep oceans on Earth.”

Beyond the port lay a place seen by few eyes. This journey was but a brief intrusion into an isolated region of the world where Joe had chosen to build his new life; a joyride granted to him by the scientists in charge of this expedition as a vote of thanks for his funding their research.

“Take a look at this monster,” Taylor said as a strange object appeared below. “It's the biggest living thing we've found here.”

Ahead, a broad mass of pinkish-gray jelly lay pooled in a hollow between the thermal vents.

“Spectacularly unspectacular,” Joe commented.

“Wait for it.”

As Taylor spoke, a mound rose in the center of the blob, extending until it formed a half-meter-wide sphere at the end of a short neck. The top of the globular portion darkened until the extrusion looked like a giant, alien eyeball. As the onlookers cruised overhead, the eye moved to follow their progress.

“You're kidding me?”

“We call it the bubble-eye. It doesn't have a scientific name yet. It's the most bizarre thing we've found on this planet.”

“That can’t be a real eye, can it?”

“We doubt it. There is no light here, so eyes would be unnecessary. We’ve only found one of these creatures so far, and we haven’t been able to examine it yet to find out what that protrusion actually does. Looks good for the tourists though.”

Joe pulled back, grinned and shook his head, then returned his attention to the port.

“Enough?” Taylor asked.

“Not by a long stretch,” Joe said, his eyes peering at the darkness beyond the pool of light. He remembered where he was and shivered again. “I wish I could stay all day watching this; but yes, we need to go back.”

Taylor's fingers danced over the controls. “It'll take an hour to get back to the ship, so strap in. Might get rocky on the way up.”

The tiny submersible surfaced just meters from the mothership. A figure in a jet pack appeared above and landed on the top of the hull, grabbed a hoist hook, snapped it in place and swept clear as Joe and his companion rose from the choppy waves to the deck.

The visit to the deepest part of this ocean was over.

A member of the ship’s crew rushed toward Joe as he climbed down from the hatch.

“Mister Falcon, Sir,” the young woman blurted. “A message came while you were down. Miss Io says she's received word from your brother, Leo. He's discovered something, and she's called a meeting at your house for this afternoon.”

Joe acknowledged her as he stripped off his thermal clothing.

“Thank you.”

“Captain Tyne says I can run you across in the sky car.” She snapped a salute, a broad smile on her face. “I'm powered up, and I can have you home in less than two hours.” Without waiting for a response, she turned and sprinted in the direction of the ship's landing platform.

The young woman was an impressive individual, Joe thought. She was typical of the talented, highly-skilled people on this research vessel. He respected them all unequivocally, as he did anyone who devoted their lives to furthering the knowledge of humankind.

Considerable research took place in multiple fields on this world, much of it funded either by him personally, or by the New Worlds Institute, the massive scientific and industrial mega-corporation founded by his son Jake several hundred years ago. What began as a limited undertaking on Earth and Mars now spread over six star systems and eight planets, and was the most significant power, scientifically, industrially and politically on all except Earth.

Joe never bothered to keep an eye on these scientists, trusting them to make the best use of the money he provided. He stretched his legs and shook out the cramps. Any extended period spent in the tiny submersible quickly became torture, and he felt as if he had been curled up in a crate for hours. It was close to the truth.

Beneath his insulated coveralls, he wore the thin, cotton shorts and shirt typical of attire on this pleasant world. Retrieving his sneakers, he strolled barefoot along the deck and climbed a companionway to the waiting sky car. The craft, used to transport supplies and personnel between the ship and its home port, hummed away like a giant cicada as it prepared for lift-off.

Turning, he glanced up at the bridge. Captain Tyne stood on the outer wing and raised a hand in a casual salute. Joe waved in return, grateful to the team for allowing him to take a look at their activities. Few people ever saw the deepest regions of an ocean, especially an alien one, through real eyes.

* * *

As the sky car streaked toward the coast Joe peered through the bubble window, his mind far away. His new home, the most recently discovered by the wormhole program, was the jewel amongst the new, Earth-type worlds. The sixth planet to be colonized, it was the prize, the big payoff for the massive exploration effort instigated by the Institute. The search continued unabated, and more worlds would be found, but for now, Joe considered this one the cherry on the cake.

The new world was named Zealandia, after an ancient submerged continent of Earth. Joe did not dislike the name, but in his view, something more original might have been chosen, something that reflected the beauty of this world, and not Earth.

Scientists had determined the environment to be ninety-nine percent Terran. Closer to its sun Helios, a type-K orange star smaller than Sol, the planet orbited in two-hundred-and-eighty local days, each twenty-nine-point-seven standard hours. Smaller in size and mass than Earth, it had a lower gravity, somewhere between that of the mother world and Mars. Colonists from both planets adapted well here.

Zealandia was a water world, with almost three-quarters of its surface blanketed by vast, shallow seas. The single, long, thin continent ahead stretched almost from pole to pole. The remaining land comprised several mid-size masses, large islands at best, and myriad archipelagos scattered across the shallowest of the seas. Many were volcanic, arrayed along the edges of the most active crustal plates. Humanity’s new home was a young, active world—an exciting place.

The coastline drew closer, and the sky car's engines changed tone as it began to descend. Not far inland, along a deep, glacial valley that faced out to the ocean, a glimmer of reflected light marked its destination, the lake where Joe had built his home.

The actual town of Zealandia lay several kilometers closer, on the approaching coast. As yet the sole settlement on the planet, it was growing rapidly, with an increasing number of hopefuls arriving each week as new power supplies and utilities came online. The colony already resembled a small, regional city.

Minutes after crossing the coast, the sky car settled onto the pad below Joe's home. As it settled, he jumped out and stepped clear, the pilot waving farewell as she lifted the vehicle and turned toward home.

For a moment Joe stared across the water, taking in the natural beauty of the place.

So different from Mars.

The native life here differed from Earth's in many ways. The lower gravity favored gigantism in many of the native forms. DNA based, and similar on the micro level, the vegetation took on weird and beautiful shapes, with everything from dense, moss-like carpets blanketing the ground, to giant tree analogs with trunks so massive one could potentially build a home in them.

Four years had passed since Joe moved his base of operations from Mars and built a sprawling, spacious house on the shores of this deep, glacial lake. The Institute, for which he was the public face, discovered this fascinating new world and opened it up for occupation.

Perhaps a little annoyingly, the settlers here revered him. He was not sure he deserved the notoriety. Many fine scientists and others had contributed to the founding of this paradise.

The colony administration was an elected council not unlike the government on Mars, but so high was Joe's standing they sought his opinion often, and frequently deferred to his judgment or that of his partner Io, or brother Leo.

Without a doubt, the Falcon clan represented the most powerful body on the planet, but they never pushed the issue. Joe offered advice and support when asked but otherwise kept out of local politics. As the representative of the family business he loosely oversaw almost all research and development, of which there was considerable, but the locals called the shots with his blessing. He gratefully acknowledged he was little more than a figurehead.

The surrounding native forest crowded the shore before giving way to almost vertical walls where the ice had carved its way through the mountains in a long distant and colder time.

Only half a kilometer across at this point, the narrow neck of the hourglass lake joined two larger lobes. Joe crossed to the water's edge and watched as a dark head, about a meter across, raised itself above the surface. Round, rheumy eyes opened in the furry dome and contemplated him with obvious intelligence.

This local denizen lived in the larger freshwater lakes and grew as much as six or seven meters in length. The first time Joe saw one, it surfaced beside his small boat while he was fishing, and scared the daylights out of him. Now he knew they were harmless grazers with an intelligence level equivalent to a smart dog, and he had developed an admiration for the way they glided so effortlessly through the clear waters. Enormous in bulk, they never ventured on dry land.

Across the lake, house construction was underway. Someone was raising a new lodge on a rocky outcrop just above the waterline, a traditional log cabin style of a type once popular on Earth.

This house was being built exclusively from logs, so someone had funds to burn. The timber came from widespread sources so as not to decimate the forests, and their procurement was strictly controlled. Joe was yet to see his new neighbor, but he had followed the progress of the house with interest.

He closed his eyes and breathed in the perfume-tinted air. This was the third world he had called home. Born on Earth—at that time a beautiful place but also a seething caldron of overpopulation, overcrowding, pollution and petty conflict—he emigrated as a middle-aged man to Mars, a world of barren isolation and vast open deserts, but nonetheless a place of peace. Now he could enjoy the best of both, and deep within, he knew this world, Zealandia, was where his heart truly belonged.

With a loud sigh, he turned and ambled along the boardwalk toward the house. Io was waiting. It would be impolite to delay his partner's meeting while he took in the view he was still learning to appreciate.