Come For A Swim And Good Things Will Happen

(Short Story - SF)

• Author: Ricky Wilhelmson
  
  
  
  

“Do you really know what you are doing?” Pil asked.

“I have done this before, trust me.”

“Right … I am not critical or anything, it’s just that engineering told me …”

“There. Done!” said Wal, touched the sensor blisters surface and the metallic iris closed, sealing off the pod. This was the same pod Wal would launch in, toward the surface of the bright blue planet beneath them.

There was still time for the goodbyes to the ships’ authorities, the hierarchy of officers and support staff. He could handle those. But he dreaded to confront his mother’s hidden accusations, even when they were just photons resurrected from info-storage. A non-interactive message, holo-recorded on Sigma Four nearly thirty hibernation cycles ago and stored in ship memory. Images, sounds and scents. Mother had never understood how someone could volunteer for a one-way mission to an unfriendly and remote planetary biosphere. And she never would. But ironically, by staying in the home system and accepting the fate of humans there, she and all the rest of the extended family had done exactly that.

“I just had to do a little manual adjustment to the inertial modulation system” , Wal said.

“Manual adjustments?” asked Pil, crouching beside him where she had a better view of the pod’s interior.

“You wouldn’t think that it’s possible, right?” replied Wal. “It’s not really something you learn from training instructors. And Ship won’t tell you either.”

Wal touched the sensor blister again and the iris vibrated twice to confirm that the seal was now active and could not be opened by anyone but him.

“But after you have been through two or three training launches and start complaining to the engineers about the pod’s chaotic behavior in the transition phase, they will start to have mercy with you and tell you how it’s done. Maybe.”

Pil’s eyes widened.

“They don’t tell anybody though. They have to like you. If they don’t, you’ll never know and you will puke your guts out. Every. Single. Time. Happens to everyone if the inertial modulation is left to its default settings.”

Wal smiled at Pil and stood up.

“But thanks to me, now you will keep your lunch inside, whenever the time comes for you.”

Pil nodded and stood up too. She would be next to go down to the surface. After Wal. To be more precise, 120 solar cycles after Wal, which she and the majority of the ships inhabitants would spend in hibernation again. The ship itself would be circling peacefully in a stable orbit around the planet’s leading Lagrange point. Only the AI and a small group of hybrids would be awake to watch after the hibernating majority.

But by that time Wal would be no more. The first multi-person crews that had been sent down more than 2500 solar cycles ago had not left much behind for subsequent robotic search-and-rescue probes to retrieve.

“Come on, I’ll get you and me a coffee”, Wal said.

He put his arm on Pil’s shoulder and gently pushed her in the direction of the communal eating space.

“Sometimes I wish we wouldn’t have to have to do this, that it wouldn’t be so … so harsh”, Pil said.

Wal shrugged.

“It is what it is. Someone I once knew used to say that a lot. If we want to advance, there have to be some sacrifices.”

Pil nodded again.

“Yes, but still”, she continued. “We have more than 31,000 solar cycles of documented human history on Sigma Four. We have created machines that are as smart as we are and we have managed to extend our lifespan through symbiotic relationships with other species from the home world, sometimes with more than one at the same time, and yet, we cannot figure out what is going on down there, on the surface and in the ocean of this random planet? Sometimes it doesn’t feel real. Do we know anything at all?”

They walked down a corridor that was straight but curved slightly upward. It was so wide that a group of three mono-hybrids walking side-by-side passed Pil and Wal without having to deviate from their perfectly parallel paths. The hybrids moved in perfect synchronicity like marching soldiers and made no attempt to greet the humans, even though Wal and Pil were well known to the entire ship. To Wal, the hybrids always seemed distracted and focused at the same time. This became most evident when he had to actually communicate with one directly and it looked back at him with its many additional eyes. But hybrids only really noticed humans well through touch and sound. As a child, Wal had learned that this was a side effect of their hypersensitivity to light. It did not make them blind. It made them ignore visual impressions most of the time, made them prefer dark environments and paradoxically, they were very bad at recognizing humans by sight alone.

Instead they communicated by touch and ultrasonic chirps. A human body transitioning to mono-hybrid form with the help of arthropod symbiotes underwent drastic changes, including psychological ones. The transformation success rate was high, but it wasn’t perfect. Mono-hybrids who survived their first year were said to be stable and lived for nearly six-hundred solar cycles afterwards. The ones who did not, ended up switching between voluntary hibernation and AI supervised virtual environments until there was nothing left of their minds and the medical AI had to declare them dead. Of course any human could just live out the full length of his or her natural lifespan, roughly 120 cycles. But going the mono- or multi-hybrid way seemed attractive to many. Until the little blue planet with its biosphere had been discovered.

Wal looked up the time, then said to Pil:

“Hey, coffee is still an option, but I just remembered I was asked to give a short talk to the people in the induction class. You want to join me? We can just grab coffee and go there. At least that way I won’t be late to share my accumulated wisdom with the new candidates. You might have to do it too, at one point.”

Pil grinned. “Sure” she said.

When both settled into free seats in the front row of the small auditorium, coffee cups in hand, the lecturer, a human, nodded in their direction and remarked:

“I see we have been joined by Senior Explorer Wal and also by Adept Pil, if I am not mistaken. We will have the honor of hearing from Wal shortly. He has volunteered to do the next atmospheric dive down to the surface and he kindly agreed to give us some insights on how he prepares for his mission.”

Wal gave the lecturer a thumbs up, to indicate that he appreciated the introduction.

“But before we come to that, let us continue with the summary of mission history that I started already. As I said earlier, you will go into much more detail on each mission over the next two solar cycles, before the ship hibernates again.”

Pil turned around and looked at the class of nearly twenty individuals sitting behind them, all human, all in the first quarter of their expected lifespan. All curious and eager to learn. She remembered her own time sitting in inductions like this one, hearing the details about missions to the surface of “Blue”. Somehow she envied them. But she was also happy to have the bulk of the learning behind her. Almost like Wal who could concentrate on mission preparation.

“So, where was I?” continued the lecturer and looked at the ceiling.

Three seconds passed and a voice in the audience replied: “You talked about the first four missions and how we came to make the time between them longer and longer.”

“Ahh, yes. Of course. Thank you. Exactly. The first four missions.”

The lecturer looked intensely at the audience, then turned away and started to walk in a little circle while he spoke.

“So we have already heard that the first three missions were all team missions and they were all launched one solar cycle apart. One to the center of the largest continental mass of Blue, one to a coastal region and the third to a shallow oceanic region. Officially none of these missions were failures. In practice, only one explorer from the second mission managed to return to ship. We owe it to her report that the mission concept was finally revised after mission three. Drastically revised. The name of that person was …”

“Miz”, said a voice in the audience, the lecturer nodded and everyone turned very quiet, as if to honor the live of Miz and the others who had not returned form the surface of Blue.

“Between mission three and mission four we then introduced a waiting period of 100 solar cycles. This was the first real ship-wide hibernation after our arrival from Sigma Four. It was then also decided to only do individual mission deployments to Blue.”

Some people in the audience nodded.

“And also to make them all no-return missions. Mission four was the first single person, no-return mission, undertaken by …”

“Kil”, the audience replied nearly in unison.

“That’s right. Can anyone remind me why? Why is an individual no-return mission better suited for what we are trying to achieve?”

“The overall risk is smaller?” someone said.

“Yes, that’s correct. But what does that actually mean?” the lecturer asked.

Another hand went up.

“Yes, there, in the back.”

“Well, at that time it was still not known what exactly happened to humans who went down and got exposed to the surface. We were just finding out that whatever protective measures were taken, eventually, exposure would happen. Either the habitats became porous or samples brought in from the outside spread uncontrollably in them. Because our science could not control this, it was thought best to fully expose missions right at the start. And because the effects were still not fully known and contamination not well understood, the mission size was reduced to one individual only.”

“Thank you”, said the lecturer and went on.

“So why do it? Why continue if things are so unpredictable? Why not stop? Why take the risk?”

He paused and looked at his listeners again, but saw no hand go up and heard no reply.

“No one? Really? … why are you here people?”

After some silence a voice said:

“I suppose it has to do with the messenger that contacted us.”

“Ah, the Messenger. Go on”, said the lecturer.

“ … who contacted us back on Sigma Four, the home world. Before our ship was built. Before we came here, to Blue.”

“Thank you, again. Yes. Because of the Messenger. Who came to our home on Sigma Four and told us about this planet, Blue. And that we should have a look at it. And I hope that I don’t have to tell you when that happened, right?”

“27,034 solar cycles ago” was the reply that came from every mouth in the audience, even from Wal and Pil.

“That is exactly right. I can see that you have all memorized the subject of the Messenger Arrival course very well. Now, I also have to tell you that in my class, while important, memorizing and reproducing facts like this won’t help you much. My class is about thinking, trying things, making mistakes and learning from them. But I am digressing. Learning about Messenger arrival on Sigma Four is of course important, because it is an essential part of our motivation to come here in the first place and why we continue to look at Blue the way we do. But the messenger hasn’t told us much really. Aside from pointing out the location of Blue, there was little else that people at the time could work with. And not much has changed since then. But as we look closer and closer into what is happening on Blue and what its biosphere does to us, the human species, we see ever more reason to be here and take the risk.”

“So I am coming back to my question. Why do it? Why take the risk? Why continue to send human explorers like Wal, Pil and maybe in the future, you, down to the surface to study Blue?”

Wal did not turn to look at the audience behind him, but he could feel the looks of everybody focusing on him and Pil. He felt the back of his neck tickle.

In that moment the ship alarm sounded twice and everyone was immediately on alert. But the signal did not repeat and there was no voice notification from the ship’s AI either. This meant that only staff with special functions should ready themselves to receive further instructions through personal comm channels.

The lecturer put a finger to his right ear, bent his head forward concentrating on an empty spot on the floor before him. He held the position for half a minute and the audience, including Wal and Pil, did not dare to make a sound until he looked up again.

“Ship is notifying us that we just captured the end-of-mission buoy for mission number 23. Its library is still being decoded and cleaned but we should have a summary available soon.”

Upon hearing this the audience cheered, hands clapped.

The lecturer now spoke to an invisible counterpart, in a voice so low that only Wal and Pil, sitting in the first row could hear what he said.

“… this a good idea to show the footage to the new candidates already? Are we sure that this will be the right kind of motivation for them?”

He paused and listened.

“I see. Okay, then, let me know when it’s ready. I’ll continue with the class meanwhile.”

And in a louder voice, now addressing the entire audience.

“So a stream from the buoy, which I am being told is both visual and acoustic, but only 2D and not holo, should be ready in a couple of minutes. I think it would be a good idea to now give the floor to our esteemed senior explorer Wal, who is scheduled to go on mission number 24 in exactly”, he paused, “in almost exactly 15 standard hours from now. Wal, the floor is yours!”

Applause accompanied Wal while he took up the speakers position and the lecturer sat down.

Wal, not a man of many words spoke for less than ten minutes, then handed back to the lecturer, who immediately switched on the projection system.

A visual and audio stream appeared. It showed Ser, the explorer of mission 23. She had recorded the stream more than 100 solar cycles ago and the buoy had just delivered it back to the ship. It was a brief but moving message which showed Ser standing outside her habitat on the surface of Blue. The place that would be her last home, laboratory and office all at the same time. The hab was located on a pristine shore of white sand which sloped into clear green water filled with coral structures. Ser was emotional, said that the pod landing had gone well, that the hab had positioned and erected itself correctly and that she was looking forward to her research and that this was the best possible way for any curious and dedicated human to spend their last cycles. She said that she had set the launch date for the buoy to exactly 115 cycles after her arrival on planet. If no damage occurred, it would then transport an archive of all her lab and personal protocols through the blue planet’s thick, electrically isolating atmosphere back to Ship. The buoy would also contain all the biological and non-biological samples she had stored in it and any other information it monitored, including he habitats’ surroundings and local weather patterns. After her death, the buoy would continue to monitor and then trigger the autolaunch procedure as programmed. Ser did her best to wipe away her tears before she finished recording the stream. Anyone in the audience could see that it wouldn’t be easy for her to be fully isolated and completely without communication with the ship or anyone else for the rest of her days. But she had volunteered, as had all explorers before her.

When the stream went dark there was a long applause from the audience and everyone stood up. Some whistled and clapped their hands. The lecturer said final words and released everyone to their other duties, then shook Wal’s hand and wished him all the best for his mission. Pil thought that she had spotted a tear in the lecturers eye too.

When Pil and Wal had left the auditorium and stood beside its entrance, observing how the young, serious looking faces of the candidates emerged, Pil asked Wal:

“When will they get to see the really relevant recordings?”

Wal shrugged. “I don’t know. Has it changed? How was it with you? My batch got introduced to the real thing quite quickly. I think it was even during the first training cycle.”

“Same with my batch” replied Pil. ”I guess it is a good idea to do it early on, because of all the people that will quit and free up training resources. We had many who changed to ship-keeping, cryo-hib-engineering, sim-admin and AI-service. And two that immediately applied for admission to the mono-hybrid procedure, even though they were just in their twenties.”

“Not that many quit in my class”, said Wal.

“Two thirds in total quit in mine! Only six of us were left. After training ended, four joined the adept explorer pool.” said Pil.

“Since you mention the explorer pools”, said Wal, “when Ship announced the buoy in the auditorium, I also got a notification, for senior explorer pool members only.”

“Mmh”, said Pil.

“It called us to a briefing, right now. Did not say why, but it’s not that difficult to guess.”

“Seniors only then”, said Pil and the corners of her mouth went down.

“I am pretty sure they won’t mind if you tag along. You are on the shortlist anyway”, Wal blinked, “and I don’t want to sit in this briefing with just my highly esteemed and revered colleague, senior explorer Zek, annoying the hell out of me because he has not made it onto the shortlist for the next mission, but you have and you are not even a senior yet.”

“Then this is an opportunity I won’t miss!” said Pil with enthusiasm and both strode along through the wide and empty corridors which led to the briefing room.

The room was designed to host up to a dozen humans and hybrids and when Wal and Pil entered, a darkness in stark contrast to the bright corridor made them both pause to adjust their eyes. They took two adjacent places, facing the spherical holo-projection field in the center of the room and as far away as possible from explorer Zek, who was already here. He nodded to greet them, but the unusual company sitting next to him did not. Two hybrids, one mono, one multi, the latter one in an outfit that identified him or her as a member of the cryo-hibernation committee. The body that decided when and for how long the entire ship would go into its next cryo-hibernation phase.

The room was dark and silent. When Wal was about to start smalltalk with Pil to kill time, the holo field flickered to life and an abstract pattern of pastel shades coalesced into a representation of the blue planet rotating around its axis. An androgynous human voice, augmented by ultrasonic chirps for the hybrids, spoke.

“Greetings, senior explorers Wal and Zek, cryo-committee member Ber, aide Fil and adept explorer Pil.”

“I am representing Ship through standard instantiation and the purpose of this briefing is to inform you of the latest developments concerning the mission number 23 buoy and its contents.”

The voice paused.

“… and what this means for the future of our mission.”

The silence in the room was now absolute.

“As senior explorers and high level cryo-committee members you are well aware of the core mandate we have been given by our home world Sigma Four. Namely, to assess and investigate if 473856-aleph-3-gamma, colloquially referred to as Blue, and more specifically its complex biosphere, can provide us with a solution to the problem our home world civilization has been suffering for the past 29,000 cycles at least. A problem which is becoming ever more evident and which I, for brevity, will characterize as loss of diversity through irreversibly declining genetic variability. In short, humans on home world have stopped adapting and evolving and will face extinction through the cumulative effects of genetic stagnation in an alarmingly close future.”

Wal thought he had heard a chirp coming from one of the hybrids, maybe Fil. The ship’s voice continued.

“You are all aware that the average lifespan of the unaltered human has reached its biological maximum. You also know that life extension by hybrid arthropod mono- or multi-symbiosis continues to be an option, but it does not contribute to human genetic variability and offspring diversity since all hybrids become sterile.”

A long salvo of ultrasound chirps emanated from the hybrid Fil and leaked into the audible range as he or she seemed to be shouting at superior Ber, who in turn gave no sign of registering any of it. Wal and Pil also did their best to ignore the outburst and Ship continued.

“Ever since our first three missions to the surface of Blue, all the following individual missions have focused on carefully documenting and analyzing the effects that exposure to the biosphere has on a human explorer. At the same time, the explorers themselves have studied the many species in the biosphere, to find out why these display such remarkably high rates of evolution.”

“Unfortunately, in all this time, it has eluded us completely why every species we have looked at manages to adapt and evolve at least ten-thousand times faster than any life we know from our home world Sigma Four or from any other habitable world we are aware of.”

“In our training classes we teach the explorer candidates the scientific methods they must use to identify and analyze the evolutionary rates of the lifeforms they find on Blue, in its oceans, its forests, its desert landmasses, its atmosphere.”

“But as senior staff, you know that the true reason for the no-return, single individual mission policy we have been following is different from what we teach candidates during induction. The reason is not that we need to protect the ship from getting contaminated. We have learned to manage that after the third mission. The reason is that exposing and observing the explorers themselves is, for us, for now, the most promising way to jumpstart human evolution again.”

The holo projection that had been showing the rotating planet now zoomed in to show an aerial view of an empty beach of white sand with clear green water. On a clearing not far inland sat a white, oval habitat structure, well known to all explorer candidates as the self-assembling habs they trained in and would live in. The ship’s voice went on.

“The buoy every explorer takes with them and which is used to store protocols and biosphere samples, also takes, if possible, daily samples of explorer skin tissue anytime the explorer authenticates for data and sample insertion. Induction training teaches our candidates that these samples are needed for medical monitoring, so illness can be detected early and treatment advice given. However, the main reason is to collect and store tissue samples from the explorer himself, so that when the buoy returns to ship, we can reconstruct how and how fast the explorer was being changed by the myriad of biotic interactions that happen to every living thing in the biosphere of Blue.”

Pil remembered when she and the rest of her class had first learned about this. How the microscopic organisms found everywhere on Blue - bacteria, fungi, unicellular algae, minute parasites and also viruses and other forces even less well understood - worked on changing a human explorer. Her first reaction had been revulsion, followed by outrage and then, much later, acceptance. Her classmates who never got to the acceptance stage had all quit the explorer program.

The holo in the center of the room now showed the buoy, a white cylindrical object, two meters high. It sat on the same clearing as the habitat but at some distance. The holo also showed a stylized human figure carrying a small container. The figure touched an opening on the side of the buoy cylinder and put the container into a compartment that opened on the opposite side.

In the briefing room, cryo-hib-commission senior Ber made an effort to speak in the audible range, which sounded like a metal spoon being dragged over a rough metal surface. Ship detected the puzzlement in Wals’ and Pils’ faces after not understanding what Ber had said and translated.

“Representative Ber is asking why we are still teaching the Messenger Arrival classes everywhere? He is of the opinion that it would be time to abolish them. He says that the Messenger Arrival myth was a useful creation from home world hierarchs that motivated humans and especially the hybrids, who had much less to gain, for the grand and difficult task of building and crewing this ship, just for the exploration of Blue. Representative Ber believes the myth has served its purpose and should be retired. He thinks that people have the right to know that we discovered Blue by chance, with one of our standard, automated interstellar habitability assessment probes.”

Pil wanted to speak but the ship’s voice went on.

“Let me, as Ship instantiation say that this is not a matter to be discussed in this briefing. I am acknowledging Ber’s statement and will make sure it is relayed. Now, let us continue.”

“Because of the rare electromagnetic insulating properties of Blue’s atmosphere, instant communication with anyone on the surface of Blue is not possible. The buoys are therefore not only important for sample storage, but they are the only way substantial information exchange can happen between Ship and the planet’s surface.”

“What I have been showing you here in holo, as you certainly recognized, were scenes assembled from virtual models taken from candidate training material. I will now switch to holo captures taken by the buoys themselves. This first one comes from the buoy of mission number nine. It was located in a continental subtropical forest at the time of its mission.”

The holo field rearranged. It now showed the front face of a habitat. The closed entrance a dull, white rectangle, some ten meters away from the cylindrical buoy. Unidentifiable trash piled up next to the entrance, topped by food ration containers and discarded 3D prints full of mould. Small rodents entered and left the pile. One end of a path leading away from the entrance door continued into thick, green undergrowth. The other end led straight to the buoy. The path was littered with used and heavily stained coveralls, sample containers, used scalpels and syringes. A time projection in the holo field showed 5–213-4:07. The scene lay in complete darkness, made visible by holo augmentation only.

“This capture was taken five cycles and 213 days after mission nine’s arrival on Blue. At this point, mission explorer Tal had neither approached the buoy nor left the habitat for eight consecutive days.”

Scraping sounds could be heard coming from the hab’s door. Loud thuds followed. Cracks and bulges appeared on the door before it split open with a violent burst. A furry, brown quadruped creature with a long snout, half as high as the door itself, stumbled out. Its green reflective eyes with slanted pupils immediately focused on the buoy cylinder. The creature jumped into the air and landed directly in front of the buoy, where it first sniffed the surface and then started to slowly lick the small opening used for explorer authentication. The buoy reacted with a positive id by opening a sample compartment. Scared by the unexpected activity, the creature jumped backward and disappeared into the forest undergrowth, dragging the remnants of a torn coverall behind it, loosely fitted around its hind legs.

“Let me continue with mission seventeen and explorer Xer”, the ship’s voice said and the holo projection dissolved to reassemble into a different one. This one showed a habitat sitting at the center of a clearing in a northern boreal forest, the buoy, again, at some distance to it. The scene was illuminated by daylight and the time tag read 00-21-13:19.

“Only 21 days after explorer Xer’s arrival on planet, his buoy captured this sequence of holos, one per day over the next fifteen days, which we have summarized into a one-minute timelapse. Xer’s last physical contact with the buoy had been the day before.”

This summary was new, even to Wal and Pil.

The first moments of the holo showed nothing unusual. The habitat was intact and looked functional, explorer Xer was moving about inside, visible through one of the hab windows. The time tag then advanced to day 28 and everything looked the same, but no apparent movement registered from the inside. On day 30 the holo had still not changed and Wal asked himself what exactly it was that made the whole scene look so odd. On day 31 the reason became clear. The habs’ walls were bulging outward. The oval base structure made this difficult to see, but the deformation continued and by day 33 the hab looked like an inflated balloon about to take off. On day 34 the windows and the entry door gave in and a glistening, bright yellow, gel-like substance began to ooze out. On day 35 large yellow spherical outgrowths formed on the exterior of the entire habitat, then hardened and turned brown. On day 36 a single featureless yellow tendril, as thick as a human arm began to grow from the hab directly toward the buoy cylinder and reached it on day 37. The last day showed how the tendril grew into the opening for explorer authentication and managed to activate the sample hatch.

“These two mission summaries I have shown you,” the Ship said, “have been chosen for a specific reason. They are extreme cases but have one important thing in common. We are still not able to predict when transformation will occur, even with the daily tissue sampling. Five missions have ended with explorer death by natural causes without transformation, as far as we know, and the longest living explorer that did not transform at all passed after living and working in his planetary surface habitat for 19 solar cycles.”

“I see no reason to further go into the variety of lifeforms that explorers have transformed into. You know these from your senior training classes. What we know is that each life form is unique and although all show superficial similarities with existent native species of Blue, they are all genetically different form them and incorporate explorer DNA.”

“I have chosen to show you these two because, in both cases, the lifeforms tried to contact the buoy, after transformation had happened. This shows that, at least on a very basic level, some form of memory from their former selves was retained and maybe even, as we hope, some form of conscious intellect.”

Wal and Pil looked at each other.

“Let me now show you the third and last summary, for mission number 23, undertaken by explorer Ser, started 115 cycles ago, whose buoy we have just received.”

The holo field dissolved again and reassembled into the image of a hab sitting on what looked like a small island in tropical latitudes. Pil and Wal recognized the scene from the stream shown earlier at the auditorium, where explorer Ser had said she wanted to focus her research on corals, their reproductive cycles and how their sensitivity to ocean water temperature changes impacted them. Ser had also said she wanted to document the behavior of whales who periodically came to these waters to give birth in the safety of the many shallow lagunes.

In this holo, Ser could be seen leaving the habitat heading for the beach in her diving suit, carrying snorkel and flippers. The holo fast-forwarded and when Ser returned hours later the sun was already setting. Light was switched on inside the hab and minutes later she emerged in dry clothes and eating something. She sat in front of the hab entrance in the sand and watched the sun set, then went inside but left the hab door open. As the holo fast-forwarded again, twelve hours to the next morning, the light in the hab remained turned on and the door open. The holo time tag read 1-12-7:34 when a large body resembling a sea turtle climbed out of the habitat’s entrance, dragged itself to the beach and disappered in the gently lapping waves. The holo jumped forward five days in time. Nothing had changed around the habitat and Ser had not reappeared. The lights in the hab were still on. The same sea turtle arrived at the beach, climbed up the sandy slope toward the hab with great effort but then deviated to the buoy cylinder and rested at its base. The turtle gently tapped the buoy with its beak and propped itself up against it, apparently trying to get high enough to reach the explorer authentication opening. Unsuccessful and exhausted after the effort, it crawled back to sea. The next morning it was back at the buoy. It started using its front flippers to dig a hole in the sand, directly in front of the buoy, creating a little ramp of sand behind itself, which connected to the buoy. The turtle rested for an hour after finishing the dig, then slid up the little ramp, managed to reach the authentication opening with its right flipper where the tissue sample was taken and explorer authentication succeeded. The buoy’s sample hatch opened and the turtle took another, longer rest at the buoys base, then returned to the ocean. Three days passed without any significant activity around the buoy before the turtle reappeared on the beach. This time it did not ascend to the habitat or the buoy. Instead, it dug a large number of shallow holes into the wet sand, in an area the buoy could oversee. Again, it first rested before disappearing in the warm ocean waters. It never resurfaced until the buoy performed its programmed launch to rendezvous with Ship 114 solar cycles later.

The ship’s AI voice did not speak when the recorded holo scene finally dissolved and vanished, leaving the four individuals in the briefing room to their thoughts. But it did reactivate the holo field to show just the pattern of holes the sea turtle on the surface of Blue had dug into the wet sand on that day, 114 solar cycles ago. The holes formed letters that were easy to recognize. They read:

“CM FR A SWM ND GD THNGS WLL HPPN”