©1998 D. A. Houdek

No reproduction or distribution without consent of the author

4,556 words

"Terra Formation" is one of those stories based on an interesting notion that occured to me--what if you needed to terraform a planet fast, in a catastrophic way, much as Earth was changed in the past at the time of major extinctions, but by intent. By the way, the main character's name, "Jurnee Ha'Dastra," if pronounced with the H silent is "Journey to the Stars."

Terra Formation

by

D. A. Houdek

Jurnee Ha’Dastra danced down the dim corridor, leaping over sleeping bodies, dodging cups, bottles, and debris.  Wake up, wake up, she longed to shout, today is the day!  It’s Deceleration Day… and I’ll be at the helm.  Ship and sleepers ignored her silent enthusiasm, clinging yet to the night.  Jurnee whirled in the air as she bounded over a snoring man, one of Deceleration Eve’s revelers still recovering in the passageways.  Litter from the parties gave her ship an untidy look.  Just so everything was set for the turn-over, a little slackness on such an occasion wouldn’t matter.

Climbing a ladder – needing only her hands for ascent in the low gee – Jurnee reached the access corridor to Control.  Close to the axis of the tumbling ship, the gravity here was delightfully light.  Merrily, she punched in her ID, drumming her fingers on the scanner with open impatience while the pesky machine contemplated her DNA pattern.  Nothing if not thorough, MS DNAvigator eventually conceded she was herself and slid back the door to admit her. 

Control’s well-lit corridors acknowledged neither night nor day, those artificial circadian rhythms perpetuated by the ship’s cargo.  Don’t call them “cargo” she’d been told again and again.  “You were one once, too,” Mother reminded her.  It wasn’t kind of the crew to call the passengers “cargo," and certainly it irked her before she became crew.  Now she knew the term for what it was, a harmless separation between those of differing priorities.  The cargo had their own names for the crew, ones she wisely never shared with her new colleagues.  “Their purpose is themselves,” an aging helmsman told her once.  “But our purpose is them.  What are we without the passengers, the future colonists?”  Free, Jurnee thought, biting her lip to keep from saying it aloud.

Never mind that now, Jurnee redirected her thoughts to the day’s tasks and adventures.  Leaning into Comm she waved a hand at Marco. 

“Hi.”

He looked up from his screens.  “Soon, huh?” he said in an amazing simulation of cheerfulness, his creased face twisting into an unaccustomed smile.  As Jurnee continued striding past, Marco leaned out into the corridor calling after her, “And happy birthday.”

Jurnee grinned at him, waving her thanks as she masked astonishment.  In all the last five years that gruff old man had not said so many words to her.  Though she’d relentlessly badgered him with daily greetings and smiles, Marco rarely so much as grunted in return.  Jurnee supposed she could understand his reticence.  Marco was one of the Originals; she one of the younglings rising to replace them.  For twenty-five years he’d planted himself every day in that chair and unsuccessfully hunted all the bands of the EM spectrum for intelligible word from Home.  Home they still called it, all the Originals did. 

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        Not so with Jurnee.  This ship was her home, the stars it sailed her backyard.  She knew every micron of this ship, cherished its decks and corridors more than a lover’s caress, understood its intricacies better than those who long ago hewed it from an asteroid. 

The door to Command whispered aside and Jurnee paused, as she always did, to savor the sight before her.  Crystalline stars – one brighter than the rest – arched over her.  DopplerPro and StarVu 2 corrected for the tumble, and for the red-shift their .7c velocity caused.  To stand here was as near as a human could come to standing bare beneath the stars.  Or so she imagined.  Originals, both crew and cargo, claimed no screen could reproduce the majesty of standing on the face of a world with the heavens displayed all around them.

The thought put a sour damper on Jurnee’s excitement.  Never would she understand this fascination with planets.  After a quarter century on the ship surely even the ones most devoted to grubbing away their lives in planetary dirt could see this was a better life.  Once at a ship council she’d even argued that they should abandon their quest and set a new course.  Steer away from this dreary star.  Fly outward and onward.  Let’s see a nebula up close, or find out where stars are born.  Why ignore glories beyond imagining, she’d exclaimed, to hunt out balls of dirt?

Jurnee blushed even at the memory.  She’d been young then.  Now she knew the real route to her goals was to make the ship hers, to be its master.  Then she could command it to sail wherever her dreams chose to take it.  Yes, indeed, as Captain she’d…

“Ha’Dastra,” the sharp voice snapped again.

“Sir!” she responded, automatically straightening and whirling.  “Yes, Captain.”

A hint of flame still showed in the woman’s silver hair.  Her stern demeanor remained one of harnessed fire.  Captain Leifsdätter harangued Jurnee mercilessly during the last five years.  Harsh as she’d been, Jurnee knew she also understood that people didn’t crave, struggle, and study for crew positions unless they shared the starfarer’s yearning for the great whatever that lay beyond.  If anyone understood such things, it was Captain Leifsdätter, Jurnee thought, remembering some of the tidbits she’d gleaned of Captain’s history, and the reasons she’d been given command of this first interstellar ship.

“Happy birthday, crewman Ha’Dastra,” Captain intoned.  The rest looked up from their positions, echoing the sentiments.  “Your birthday is always special to everyone on board, but today it’s as special – perhaps more so – than it was on Launch Day twenty-five years ago!”  It both embarrassed and gratified Jurnee that her birthday was part of the biggest ship’s holiday, a holiday bonding crew and colonists.  They could have decelerated at a somewhat lower gee than that calculated but they’d waited, wanting Deceleration Day to be the same day as Launch Day – also the day of birth of their first ship-born child; Jurnee Ha’Dastra.

Captain waved and two stewards rushed forward, a candle-lit cake carried between them.  Jurnee laughed with delight at the sight of it.  The chocolate-iced cake was in the shape of the ship, something Jurnee had never seen from the outside. 

“Blow out the candles and make a wish,” the Second told her.  “And make it a good wish.  You’re our lucky token you know.”

“I wish…” she began, sucking in a breath as she did.

“No, don’t tell,” several of the crew called at once.  Jurnee lost her lung full of air laughing and had to take another breath to aim at the candles. 

I shall wish, she thought, contemplating the bright flames, but not for what they wish.  Feeling a bit disloyal for her thoughts, Jurnee couldn’t suppress the desire that burned in her more fiercely than any other.  I hope we don’t find a suitable planet here, she aimed the wish at whatever gods of human imagination were in charge of birthday wish-fulfillment.  I wish us to sail on to the next world, and the next, never having to stop and stay, never grubbing out our lifetimes on the ground, never trapped beneath a smothering atmosphere…

“Blow out the candles already,” Second admonished with joking impatience.  “You’ll make us late for the day’s other big event.”

Jurnee exhaled with a whoosh, extinguishing all the candles on the ship-cake.  With its candles burned out, the image suddenly struck her as a sorrowful sight, devoid of the life that gave it light.  On odd sense of an omen – perhaps of a wish fulfilled, or denied – came over her. 

#

Jurnee trudged down the corridor toward Control.  A year of deceleration at 1+ gee dampened her interest in planets even more.  If they found one around this wretched star, and it turned out to be habitable, Jurnee prayed that it had a lower surface gravity. 

Marco only grunted in reply to her half-hearted greeting.  He didn’t bother to turn around but remained hunched over his equipment as it struggled to dredge a message from the background static.  Noise blared from his speakers, a deafening multi-phonic hiss upon which Marco concentrated with grim intensity. 

Hurrying as much as her aching feet allowed, Jurnee strode into Control.  The star, so close it overwhelmed all else, glared from the dome.  Glancing down, Jurnee focused on Control.  Positions she’d scarcely noticed before were now manned and the focus of much attention.  Ship handling – her department – was ignored unless one of the planet hunters needed the ship turned this way or that to enhance one of their endless, tedious readings. 

Jurnee plopped down on the sofa by her station.  With a sleepy yawn and wave of her hand, the overnight helmsman acknowledged her relief.  After she’d gone, Jurnee signed on, asking for a quick rundown on the ship’s status.  The computer behaved with sullen annoyance when she did so, as though she was usurping its rightful role. 

Briefly clicking off her throat mic, she whispered, “Too bad, sister.  I’m flying this ship, not you.”  Not entirely true, she had to admit to herself, but she’d never cede dominance to a piece of software.  The cozy living room arrangement of Control indicated most clearly that the human role in ship handling was mostly that of observer, something Jurnee resented, performing as many manual operations as possible.  Jurnee suspected that the computer regarded the display screens as an indulgence to human voyeurism rather than a thing of real necessity. 

“Show me recent findings,” she ordered, turning the sub-vocalizing mic on again.  Information scrolled past, obediently pausing when her eye movement halted.  Umm…  The gravimetric guys seemed to be onto something.  Well, that was appropriate.  It had been their counterparts back on Earth that chose this star.  That it had planets they were certain, having determined the presence of gas giants orbiting it from wobbles in the star.  The question that couldn’t be answered until now was whether it also had smaller planets; planets with gravity, temperature, atmosphere, and water enough to make them possible homes for humans. 

So many variables.  Jurnee leaned back and contemplated them.  Even if they found a planet orbiting at the right distance, all the other factors made it profoundly unlikely they’d score a hit on their first try.  They’d have to go on to the next star.  Probabilities were on her side.

Captain strolled through Control, stopping at each station, asking questions, examining data.  Jurnee straightened.  Captain never slouched.  Look at her now, with a spring in her step that defied the uncomfortable gee force.  If she was to be Captain she’d have to learn to emulate Captain’s manner.  She’d have to be the one that everyone else aspired to be like.  And if that meant that she would have to sacrifice all for ship and crew, as Captain Leifsdätter had unflinching prepared to do on the mission that had earned her renown, well…  Jurnee suspended the thought.  Would she go back to being cargo if that was required of her?  Settle on a planet and never again sail the stars?  Give up her chance to be Captain of this ship?  With a rebellious inward scowl, Jurnee considered the galling possibility that she might not have what it took to some day be in command of this expedition.

“Crewman Ha’Dastra,” the firm, even voice came from behind her left shoulder.

She turned.  “Captain.”

Captain nodded toward Jurnee’s screens.  “Reviewing the planetary data, I see.”

“Yes, sir,” she answered and waited.

Captain seemed more interested in conversation than in business for she said, “Yes, it seems today may be another big day for us.”  She chuckled and Jurnee stared up in surprise.  She’d never heard Captain laugh before.  “It’s your birthday again.  Jurnee Ha’Dastra, you are, indeed, our lucky token.  Now I’m sure of it.  Something big is in store for this ship today.”

No sooner did she speak than the doors to Control slid aside again.  Captain’s face froze, the happy expression fading into its normally stern mask.  Gradually the chatter in Control ceased and all eyes turned toward the doorway.  Standing there, face set and gray, stood Marco.  In all the years she’d been with the crew, Jurnee had never seen Marco enter this room.  Now he stood, staring blankly at the star, holding a printout in his hand. 

Captain walked slowly up to him. 

“Marco?  What is it?”

He blinked, refocusing slowly on Captain’s face.  With a hand trembling, he held up the print.  “I’ve gotten a message from Earth,” he said, the crack in his voice leaving no doubt but that it was bad news. 

Jurnee and the other crew remained in suspense for several hours until Captain returned alone.  Calling them all together, she soberly stared at the star until they’d gathered around her. 

“I have news from Earth that affects us all, and affects our mission.”

A murmur rippled through the crew.  To Jurnee and most of the other younglings, Earth was nothing but a distant myth, not something that could actually touch them. 

Captain raised her hand for silence.  “It’s a series of messages, we’ve only received later ones.  Something happened on Earth.  We can’t determine what it was, whether a natural disaster, or war, or what.  Whatever the cause, a series of ships were forced to depart from Earth, starting out not more than a decade after us.  Like ours, they’re asteroid ships, but constructed in haste, and without full resources, they have the capacity to reach only one destination.”  She looked meaningfully at the star again.  “This one.”

Unheard in the noise of the crew’s reaction came Jurnee’s whispered, “Oh, no.”

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            Waiting for the shocked speculations to die down, Captain continued.  “You understand what this means for us.  This message came to us at the speed of light.  It’s already several years old.  The first of this string of ships will be arriving here within the next fifteen to twenty years.  Several million of our brethren will be on those ships… on a one way trip, hoping and praying that we have found a world they could live on.”

“But, Captain,” the youngest of the planet hunters – one who, like Jurnee, had never even seen a planet – protested, “We’re supposed to send the information back and head on to the next target.  What if we don’t find a suitable planet?”

Captain’s glacial eyes gleamed and Jurnee saw in her the unswerving fervor of mankind, from the deck of a wooden ship to the helm of an interstellar craft, to find the perfect shore.  “Failing that,” Captain said, “to make one.”

“We’re not equipped for any real terraforming projects,” an Original inserted.  “We don’t have the resources.”

Over the thudding in her head, Jurnee barely heard Captain’s answer.

“The situation has changed,” Captain said coldly.  “Those at Home couldn’t wait the years our message from here would take.  They’re coming, a formation of ships a light year long, and –  whatever the cost, we have to have a place for them when they arrive.”

#

Jurnee floated down the corridor, propelling herself with an occasional push against a bulkhead or doorway.  Gracefully, she swam through a knot of teenagers doing freefall acrobatics at a junction.  Laughing with them, she felt both the joyous freedom of zero gee as well as the concealed pride at being one who reveled in freefall rather than remaining curled up in a wretched ball.

One kick of her heel took her up the ladder.  Flying past Comm she called her usual greeting to Marco who grunted in return.  Odd one, he was, she thought as she often had before.  Marco neither hated nor loved freefall.  As nearly as possible he ignored it, always walking rather than flying.  He sat in his chair in Comm as he always had, strapped firmly in place.

The door of Command slid aside.  Jurnee dove through, putting an upward sweep in her movement to carry her up into the viewing dome.  Swimming hard against air she managed to stop herself in the center.  Against a star-speckled infinity hung their planet.  So rich and alive did it seem Jurnee reached to touch it.  Perhaps planets had something to be said for themselves after all – as long as one didn’t have to live on them.

“Crewman Ha’Dastra,” Captain’s stern voice rang out like the voice of God into the heavens in which Jurnee floated. 

“Yes, sir,” Jurnee quickly responded, contorting herself to face down toward the Captain.  She swam down beside Captain until she could grasp a chair back and pull herself into an upright position, her feet barely touching the floor.  “Sorry, sir,” she added.

“You know I forbade free floating in Command,” Captain grated.

Jurnee looked down and blushed.  Pulling out her sticky slippers she sat down on air to put them on.  Then she pushed her feet against the floor, feeling the carpet cling to her feet.  “Yes, sir,” she repeated, blushed again and added, “It’s just that, well, I wanted to do a bit of celebrating.”

Captain wrinkled her forehead further than normal.  “Celebrating?  Oh!  Yes, of course.  We’ve been so busy that time has flown by.  It’s your birthday again, isn’t it?”

Jurnee nodded. 

“We’re hearing the final recommendations and reports on the planet today.”  Captain mused, “I wonder if the department heads planned the final report for this date?  Probably not, they’re too focused on their special areas.”  She looked at Jurnee, “I’ve asked the senior ship handlers to sit in on the briefing.  I’d like you to join us too.”

Startled, Jurnee looked into Captain’s face.  Ship handlers had virtually no involvement in the planetary survey.  She’d only heard fragments of the reports, little more than the glowingly positive tidbits released to the cargo.  “I’d be pleased to, Captain,” she said.  “Thank you.”

“And I think we’ll need you to be our lucky token again.”  Captain glanced up at the radiant blue planet.  “Yes, I think we may need it.”

The briefing took place in Control’s conference theatre.  Each department compulsively clustered together, so Jurnee ended up seated between two of her ship handling counterparts, both Originals in their seventies who – Jurnee privately thought – were far too inclined to let the computer do all their thinking for them. 

Captain opened the briefing then turned it over to the department heads.  One by one they came to the platform, discussing their findings while the information was shown behind them. 

The droning reports, Jurnee thought, suppressing a yawn, gave a new definition to the word tedium.  Why were these research types so fascinated with the sound of their own voices?  They spoke in torturously circuitous ways, addressing everything save the point.  Closing her eyes, Jurnee floated against the seat strap, listening with half her attention.  As she let the information sift itself in her brain a picture formed, one not even the individual departments had, so focused were they on their particular areas of specialty. 

The planet was useless.

The sum of it was, she sorted from the extraneous flotsam, the planet was too hot for human comfort, except at the poles which had no land.  The bulk of the land – except for a small rock atoll in the far north – was gathered around the equator.  Though they found no evidence of intelligent life, abundant lifeforms existed.  Far from being good news, the first two landing parties returned in tatters, losing over half their numbers despite being heavily armed.  Enormous carnivores attacked anything that moved.  No human weapons affected them.  Nothing short of a nuclear warhead down the throat might stop these creatures.  Worse news came from the plant life, which was extremely toxic, even to the slightest touch.

Never in the past year since receiving the distressing messages from Earth had their full impact reached Jurnee.  Dozens of ships, with millions of people on them, stretched in a refugee formation between here and Earth.  If the people in this room couldn’t find a way to make that planet habitable they’d all die, every one of them down to the tiniest ship-born baby.  They’d decelerate into this system hoping a harbor awaited them.  If not… well, the lucky ones might fall into the star and have it done quickly.  The others would die in space as their power and resources slowly failed. 

Suddenly the space she loved seemed cruel and cold to Jurnee. 

Jurnee opened her eyes, straightening.  She hunted out the Captain’s face in the crowd.  Never had the woman appeared more ancient, her face drained of color.  Something made her turn, meeting Jurnee’s eyes.  A curious sensation of bonding took place in Jurnee in that moment.  She felt the weight on Captain’s shoulders as vividly as though they were her own.  And in that moment she knew she’d do anything necessary to fulfill the obligations of this ship.

As the information continued to flow, something began to niggle at Jurnee’s mind, an idea she couldn’t quite grasp.

When the last monotone report concluded, an uneasy silence fell over the theatre.  Everyone stirred, turning toward the Captain.  For a long time she sat still, her head down.  Then, slowly, she stood.  The skritch-skritch of her zero gee slippers echoed absurdly loud.  Standing at the podium, she examined every face before her, pausing, it seemed to Jurnee, extra long on hers. 

Everyone leaned forward to better hear, so low was Captain’s voice.  “I trust you all understand the full magnitude of these reports,” Captain said.  The rustling and blank stares must have told her that they didn’t, for she took a deep breath and continued. 

“We’ve found a perfect Earth-like planet.  Unfortunately, we found it too early in its development.  While allowing for differences alien in nature, it’s much like our Earth during the Cretaceous period some sixty-five million years ago.”

Jurnee’s heart slammed her chest with a thud.  That was it.  That was the memory plaguing her.  Her eyes drifted upward.  Part of the theatre’s ceiling had been left bare, the hewed out asteroid that was the ship showing in the rough metal-rock surface.   Oh, God of all the stars… Jurnee knew what the Captain meant to do.

#

Jurnee drifted down the bare corridor, touching the walls gently with her fingers.  She loved this ship, couldn’t love it more if it was her own.  In a few minutes it would be her own, all hers for the rest of her life. Jurnee chuckled at the black irony.

The emptiness of the ship reached out to touch her. Hollowness replaced the life and vibrancy that used to echo through these corridors.  Pausing in this familiar passageway, she remembered all the times she’d come down it, toward Control.  Sometimes there’d been toddlers playing, or teens running races.  Sometimes an old couple of Originals walked slowly hand-in-hand as though they were out for a moonlit stroll back on Earth.  All that remained of mankind, as nearly as they could tell from the messages that reached them, had left their old home behind, coming here to seek a new one.  If they couldn’t find it, they’d create it.  All of mankind… save one soul.  Jurnee was the first ship-born.  This was her home, always had been, always would be. 

Old Marco wasn’t in Comm when she went by.  He never did pay her much heed, probably didn’t even think to say good-bye to her.  Still, it would have been nice.

The door to Command slid aside and Jurnee looked up, as she always did, to see the wonders arching overhead.  A sapphire gem etched with white cloud frosting, the planet shone.  If she stared hard at the right place perhaps she could see some of the landers in orbit.  Only a small percentage of the crew and cargo fit in those, up out of harm’s way.  Yet they must be counted among the brave as well, for they huddled in the crowded ships not knowing if they’d ever have a place to land. 

Turning again to the planet, she tried to pick out the tiny island of rock where the rest of the ship’s company waited.  Fortified against the expected quakes, tsunami, and choking plumes of vaporized rock, they watched the sky for the streaking meteor that would signal the end of one world and – if all went well – the birth of a new one.  Hopefully, they too would survive to move to the other continents, to seed and reseed the world, to make it over in Earth’s image.  Jurnee smiled softly. 

“Crewman Ha’Dastra?”  The voice was low and pleasant this time, not that of superior but of equal.  Jurnee turned to face Captain Leifsdätter.

“I’m sorry it had to be this way,” Captain said.

Jurnee shook her head.  “My choice, and the necessary one.  We both know the others couldn’t handle the ship on manual.”

“That’s what I mean.  We tried, but the computer control…”

With a forced grin, Jurnee said lightly, “Resistance is futile.  MS Interstellar Explorer 1.1 knows what we want to do, and plunging the ship into the surface of a planet is something it just won’t permit.”

Captain chuckled.  It sounded strained to Jurnee.  “Yes, well… Maybe the other ships have an upgrade.”

“Oh, I hope not,” Jurnee said seriously.  “We don’t want them to crash.”  Her grin now was genuine.  The Captain matched it.

“I should stay with my ship,” Captain said, her eyes wandering across Control. 

“Your duty is to the crew and colonists, not to a chunk of rock,” Jurnee said.  “Besides, if you stay, I’ll mutiny.”  She softened the dread word with a smile that Captain returned.

“Well, then…” Captain said hollowly, but with a tone of finality.

“One moment,” a gruff voice came from the doorway.  Jurnee turned to see old Marco coming toward her.  Before she could say a word he caught her up in a bearhug of an embrace.  Tears sounded in his voice as he rasped in her ear, “Bless you, child.  You always were my favorite.”

Before Jurnee could react or say a word, he turned and fled out the door.  Staring after him, she whispered, “You too, old man.”

Straightening, she looked toward the Captain again.  “Sir, I relieve you.”

The older woman drew herself to attention, nodded, and asked, “Permission to leave the ship, Captain?”

“Granted,” Captain Jurnee Ha’Dastra said, turning quickly away toward the helm.  She heard the door swish behind her. 

Settling into the Captain’s seat, Jurnee tightened the lapbelt, then freed her feet from the sticky slippers.  Positioned at her side was the crudely constructed manual ship handling controls, run by a processor independent of the vast, and stubborn, ship computer. 

When the displays told her the last shuttle had left, Jurnee slowly studied Command, savoring the sight.  This was her ship now, hers and hers alone.  She could do with it as she pleased.  She could leave orbit and head to the next star, or the next, and no one could stop her. 

She could.

But she wouldn’t.  Glancing at the displays she lingered on the date.  As much as there’d been to do, as much as they’d hurried through the preparations, they’d granted her request, waiting a few extra weeks for this special date to arrive again. 

Activating the drive, Jurnee steered her ship toward the planet.  It was a grand day, as important to everyone as it was to her.  And maybe she would be their lucky token after all. 

“Happy Birthday, Captain,” Jurnee whispered to herself as the ship touched the atmosphere.

The End

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