Page 88 of Pets in Space 10

The Garradians, they seemed to do well in space now that they were back from what they called their long sleep. Apparently, they hadn’t defrosted a geologist yet because the sensor activating had caught them off guard.

“It’s probably a symptom of age,” one non-geologist told him. Miles noticed he avoided making eye contact with him.

“Or its power source is almost expended,” said another, equally evasive Garradian scientist.

Miles should probably have declined the honor of what could be the equivalent of changing a battery, but it was an alien planet full of unknown rocks. And it was probably safer than that time when he and some other geology students had rented a helicopter to fly over an erupting volcano.

And he hadn’t had to pay anything for this ride. They were paying him.

They didn’t have a lot of data, a fact that distressed the Garradians more than it did him. He just hated paperwork and dealing with it must have been at least as bad back whenever the sensor had been installed. And there was the language problem to factor in.

The Garradians managed communication on most things pretty well, considering how far apart their two cultures were, but the science stuff, the names? When two scientists of the same persuasion were together, they could mostly find their way to common ground.

But he’d had to spend the trip trying to find anything he recognized in the data provided without context or a counterpart. For an alien planet in another galaxy.

The only thing the Garradians seemed certain of was that the sensor going off was more than troubling. He’d deduced this because they’d repeated “troubling” multiple times. In fact, that was almost the last word they’d said to him just before he boarded his ride.

“It is troubling.”

He’d wanted to ask them if it was troubling, just to yank their chains, but a look from General Halliwell had stopped him.

Harold’s onboard AI had been able to help with some things.

The planet’s inhabitants called it Arroxan Prime.

It was a heavily volcanic planet with limited livable space.

The sensor had been located at the planet’s southern pole.

It was an ice pole, but with volcanos in close enough proximity to be a possible reason the sensor had triggered. Even though the pole and the volcano had been in close proximity for pretty much the whole time.

What didn’t he know?

Why they were so worried enough about seismic activity in a place without inhabitants that they placed a sensor — or multiple sensors — in that particular location? Was it actually a seismic sensor? But what else could it be?

That was a pretty big knowledge gap. He knew all about big gaps. Canyons, ravines, crevasses lurking under the ice waiting for an unwary geologist to fall into.

Their first task on arriving in orbit at Arroxan Prime had been to initiate scanning protocols to get updated information both on the sensor and the planet as a whole.

He rolled his eyes again as he considered this.

If the sensor could be accessed and rebooted without a landing, that was the preferred option.

If he was unable to adequately determine the problem, then his rules of engagement allowed for he and Harold to go dirt side as long as they didn’t make contact with the inhabitants.

Arroxan Prime’s population weren’t space capable.

First contact was tricky and he wasn’t qualified to do it.

Well, he couldn’t argue with that. He wasn’t that great at first contact with other Earthlings. So he was anxious to avoid any contact with the inhabitants, too. And he was pretty sure they didn’t want to talk to him. Being recruited to the Expedition had changed his perception of first contact.

Prior to that, his “contacts” with aliens was via movies, television, and books.

Fictional contact without risk. He knew it was ironic when he routinely went down mines and liked looking down the mouths of volcanos.

But no one had required him to make sense until he left Earth to join the expedition.

And honestly, since then, not much had made sense. Like lava, he just went with the flow.

And that had landed him here on Arroxan Prime with a robot for a sidekick. Now there was some irony.

What he thought he knew, after his study and the scanning, was that the sensor was deep underground. And that some kind of facility sat directly on top of it. And what he knew for sure was that he couldn’t reset it from space or figure out why it had triggered.

He was less sure of a few things, but he thought the geologist equivalent Garradians of the past had installed some kind of barrier down there and left sensors to monitor it. He hadn’t been able to figure out why.

That was odd, ranging to downright weird. The only reason to install a barrier was to keep things down, but the minerals deep down in most planets just found another way to the surface if that was where they wanted to go.

When man — or humanoids — went head-to-head with Mother Nature? They usually lost when Mom brought all the things.

On the other hand, whatever they’d done appeared to have lasted for Miles’ plus or minus a millennia. So, it was a good effort.

And hopefully all he’d need to do was to change a battery. Harold also had a program update if the equipment they’d left there was still functional. That seemed like the longest of the long shots. But he had to like their optimism.

Even if it was his geological butt on the line.

Their scans had shown no life signs in or around the facility. Looking around? This wasn’t a surprise. And it was good since this was not a first contact mission. Just in case he’d missed the memo the first fifteen times.

And even though it wasn’t a first contact mission, they’d loaded both his suit systems and Harold’s memory banks with everything that was known about Arroxan Prime and its inhabitants, including any language variations that may have occurred since they were last there.

There weren’t as many of those as he’d have expected for a whole world, but their flyover and scan had confirmed the fact that most of the planet was uninhabitable.

Harold had used some of the scanning time to update the databases with what could be retrieved from Arroxan Prime’s communications.

They didn’t seem to have any satellites.

Not a surprise since they weren’t space capable, yet somehow he was still surprised.

They did have airborne type transportation systems, more even than Earth.

So they clearly had the capability to be space capable.

But when he saw how often the planet experienced seismic events, it did kind of make sense. Putting fuel in a rocket ship on an unstable surface might not be the best idea.

When he’d asked why it felt like they didn’t want first contact but had still given him all the information he’d need if he did, someone called Doc had told him to expect the unexpected.

“I’m a geologist,” he’d told her. “We never expect the expected.”

He remembered her grin sent a chill down his back. That was one scary lady.

He supposed it was a lucky break that the source of the signal came from this unpromising and remote location. He tried not to remind himself that luck could go both ways.

He might have wished his ride didn’t have to pop off to pick up some botanists or something from a Mars-like planet on the other side of the system. It would have been nice to know it was orbiting overhead and ready for a quick pick up if something went wrong.

His ride had been equipped with a lot of high-end, Garradian equipment, so the scans they’d done prior to this drop had provided him with a butt load of data, but he’d still been left without the kind of conclusive data that could only be secured by coming down and taking a look.

He liked to look, even knowing that most of what he’d like to see was inaccessible to his eyes.

He did have a built-in Lydar along with some other stuff in his suit systems that he hoped would help him collect the necessary data.

And he had his rock pick. He might have smuggled that on board.

The Garradians didn’t seem to like pointy-ended hammers. Weird.

Being able to use his rock pick to collect some new rocks was definitely the upside of the mission.

He looked around. The cold? He didn’t like that as much.

At least the Garradian gear was top notch and pretty cool to wear. The only actual chill was from being almost alone on the alien planet with a robot called Harold. Who named a robot Harold? he’d asked.

It had chosen the name itself, he’d been told. So, Harold it was.

They’d pitched the idea of Harold by using Miles’ love of sci-fi stuff against him.

“You’ll be like Luke,” they said.

They hadn’t completely misled him. He had a ray gun instead of a light saber and a 3CPO-like robot that called itself Harold. So far Harold hadn’t tried to give him protocol lessons. That was a positive.

He might have objected to the prissy robot, but they had given him a weapons load out, too.

They couldn’t send him down here without some way to defend himself, presumably from an ice flow because he was under no circumstances to make contact with anyone.

The “don’t shoot anyone” didn’t have to be said out loud, because that came under the heading of first contact, too.

If there were some kind of ice creature living here? It hadn’t shown up on their scans. So, it was probably fine.

“Let’s get going,” he said. At least they didn’t have to walk the rest of the way, thanks to the small land runner. That was pretty Star Wars cool, too.

Harold slid into the driving side. Miles didn’t object. He’d never driven a runner on an icy surface, and it would be embarrassing to screw up in front of a robot. And he liked to look around, which was something one shouldn’t do while driving.