The Seed of Earth

He regretted the lack of a vision screen. It might have been inspiring to see Osiris growing steadily ahead as the Gegenschein landed. Much more inspiring than lying on your back in a badly ventilated compartment, Dawes thought, lying in the half-darkness. Somewhere ahead in the night was Osiris, Vega IX, four billion miles from the fourth brightest star in Earth's sky. Would Sol be visible in Osiris' night sky? Probably - as an insignificant white dot of negligible magnitude.

No one spoke as the Gegenschein plunged planetward.

Each man in the compartment was alone with his dreams and memories now. The minutes passed; at 1600 hours Captain McKenzie announced that the ship had entered Osiris' atmosphere at last. The actual landing was still three hours away, as the ship swung round the planet, coming closer and closer to the surface.

1900 hours. Within his cradle Mike Dawes struggled to keep his stomach under control. The last hour had been a bumpy, bouncing ride downward through thickening layers of atmosphere. Atmospheric eddies jounced the golden ship; a storm layer buffeted it. But the journey was ending. The Gegenschein hung low over Osiris' northern temperate continent, dropping, dropping...

Landing.

The impact shuddered through the ship. The Gegenschein wobbled only an instant before the landing-jacks took effect, digging into the ground.

Captain McKenzie said, 'We've landed right on the nose. Welcome to Osiris, ladies and gentlemen.'

We're here, Dawes thought.

He longed to burrow through the ship's wall and see the new planet. But an hour more passed before the colonists could leave the ship. First, the routine atmospheric tests ('as if they'll take us all back home if they discover that the air's pure helium,' Sid Nolan grumbled.)

Then, the cooling-off period of fifteen minutes while nozzles beneath the ship's belly sluiced decontaminating fluids onto the landing area to deal with the radiation products and chemical poisons of the rocket exhaust.

After that, the opening of the hatch, the lowering of the catwalk. No gantry lift waiting for them; descent from the ship would be by ladder only. Phil Haas and Mary Elliot were the first people out; after them came the others, filing in slow shuffle along the companion way until they reached the hatch.

Dawes was the twentieth to leave the ship. He stepped out onto the lip of the hatch.

Osiris lay before him. The ship had landed in a clearing at the shore of a glittering blue lake. Beyond the expanse of pinkish-red sand, the soil became more fertile; not far away loomed a dark, ominous-looking forest, and high beyond rose arching black cliffs.

Gray clouds lay heavily in the dark-blue sky like greasy puffs of wool. High overhead burned giant Vega, with its disc the apparent size of the sun of Earth, even at a distance of four billion miles. The air smelled subtly different - thin, with a salt tang to it that was nothing like the tang of the open ocean. And it was cold. The temperature was about fifty, but an icy wind came sleeting down out of the forest, cutting into him as he stood staring sixty feet above the ground.

He hadn't expected it to be this cold. For no specific reason he had anticipated tropic heat. But Osiris, at least this continent at this time of year, seemed bleak, inhospitable, uninviting.

'Come on, kid,' someone said behind him. 'Don't stand there all day. Get down the ladder.'

Dawes smiled apologetically. 'Sorry. Just taking it all in.'

'You've got plenty of time for that.'

Dawes reddened and scrambled hastily down the catwalk. The others were waiting below. The pinkish sand crunched underfoot. Feeling for the first time, Dawes thought with awe and wonder, the touch of a human foot.

Chill winds swept down on him as he stood huddling into himself for warmth, waiting for Haas to organize things, to take charge. As the colonists filed out of the ship, they wandered about aimlessly on the sand, moving without direction or purpose or words, all of them struggling to minimize the shock of concrete realization that they were alone on an alien planet, never to see Earth again.

At last all hundred had disembarked, as well as Captain McKenzie and his crew.

Haas had obtained a whistle from somewhere. He blew it now.

Attention! Attention, everybody!'

The wanderers returned to the group. Silence fell. The wind hooted through the distant forest.

Haas said, 'Captain McKenzie tells me that he intends to blast off for Earth as soon as possible. Our first job, then, is to unload the ship. We'll do it in bucket-brigade fashion. Noonan, pick a team of five men and go with Captain McKenzie: you'll be the ones to get the crates out of the ship. Sanderson, choose three and arrange yourselves near the ship to take the crates as they come out. We'll pass them along until they've been placed over there, at the end of the beach, beyond the five hundred yard safety zone the Gegenschein is going to need.' Haas paused. 'Matthews, take four colonists and go scouting around the area. Look around for any lurking wildlife, and yell if you see anything. The rest of you just stay in the area; no wandering off.'