THEY ALL LOOK STARK AND ALIEN AT FIRST. But this one was something peculiar, no denying. Almost it had an aura of strangeness. If he hadn't been so desperately short of oxygen he might have kept searching….. For a moment he had forgotten the Cantons.
Again he studied the star system readout on the ship's console, switched to the more detailed graphic of Centaurus III, Newman's Planet. Touching the fingerboard, he summoned all the relevant data his computer possessed. The cursor darted back and forth across the screen.
Centaurus III
diameter: 16,000 kil
gravity: .6 relative
Earth
atmos density: .4 relative Earth
CO2 72.1
O2 19.4
N 5.2
CH4 3.0
Trace .3
temp:
120 to 35F tropic
100 to 20F sub tropic
70 to -15F up mid latitude
30 to -90F polar sub pol
wind: 5 to 220 kph
humid: .15 to .02 relative
Earth
flora: positive
fauna: probable
He read the last line over, took a deep breath. There were some fears one never fully overcame.
Not that Fear stood large in his mind—-seventy Earth years were enough to teach him how meaningless that word was in the end. Fear of death was not only something he had never known, but something he had never understood in others. His Cherokee blood, perhaps. He did not dread it. Now, more and more he almost welcomed death, so long as it was honorable and not cheap.
But this was pointless. He had to decide on an entry and find a place to land, and hope his breathing mask could make something of the strange planet's 'air'. Then take on as much oxygen as possible. Then. What?
GO BACK AND FIGHT THEM AGAIN. He was tired.
Simin crawled out from the heart of the stone, upwards through the long carven tunnel. Coming to a meeting of ways met a brother, touched antennae lightly—-vibrations in the sky - yes brother I will come. Followed twice left and right outward toward the canyon. The way grew wider, more brothers, out into the serrated caves opening far above the valley, came to the broad ledge. As one the heads of twenty mai rose to watch the yellow flame descending. Touch—-as before—-moved to look out from the rim of the ledge, front legs suspended in the air. The shell was landing in a wide plain among the hills beyond the valley, at the foot of the Mountains of Teeth.
Joining.