Novum System — Survey Vessel Hermes ***
Dr. Alonso Quentin watched the young archaeologist press his forehead against the viewport like a child at a candy shop window. Desmond Chen's fingers drummed against the glass, breath fogging it in quick bursts, and the planet below painted his reflection in hues of brown and green and shifting cloud-white.
"Look at those impact craters!" Desmond said to Sara beside him. "The dispersion pattern suggests multiple bombardment waves. The paper I could write on this..." He trailed off, already somewhere in his own head, probably outlining an abstract.
Sara drew a sharp breath beside Desmond, her hand finding his arm. "Des..." Her voice held the same awe he did. They hadn't even landed yet, but already the sight of it stole her words.
"I know, I know. But this is it, Sara. This is what we trained for. Real xenoarchaeology, not catalog work back on Earth." Desmond gestured expansively at the scarred planet below. "Whatever civilization lived down there, we're going to be the ones who bring their story back to light."
Quentin allowed himself a small smile. He'd seen that same fervor in dozens of young researchers over the years—most of them burned it out within their first season in the field. Desmond had lasted longer than most, his wonder tempered by a sharp analytical mind. Still, wonder and competence weren't the same as wisdom, and wisdom only came from the kind of losses the galaxy was happy to inflict on the unprepared.
A beautiful planet, nearly twice the size of Axis, and water covered over seventy percent of it. The remaining landmasses displayed a myriad of colors, mostly brown, but with pockets of green dotted throughout, and swirling white and silver clouds blanketed everything.
Quentin had explored dozens of planets in his career, enough to know that beauty was often camouflage. The prettiest worlds harbored the worst surprises. But even he couldn't deny the pull of this one. Novum sat well outside travelled space. No governmental registry listed it, which had shielded it from human intervention. It had supported life for at least several million years by the computer's estimation—a planet untainted by the corrupting hand of humanity.
The sun, from all readings, wouldn't support life. It didn't have the magical numbers that computers looked for when searching habitable planets. But the atmosphere of this planet, due to an abstract chemical composition, protected the surface better than most other planets.
Oxygen levels would be low, but Quentin had already taken that into account. He'd also made mention that they might not find much life down there beyond modest plants and bacteria. That had disappointed Desmond, though the boy kept his frustration professional. Even so, modest life was still life, and life meant answers.
The shuttle's console chirped—a weather alert. Quentin checked the display: massive dust storms forming in the southern hemisphere, the kind that could ground expeditions for weeks. According to the meteorological models, they had maybe twelve days before the storm front reached the northern continent. Twelve days to complete a survey that should have taken months.
Across the shuttle, Desmond pulled a worn notebook from his pocket—dog-eared and stim-stained from years of field work. He began sketching the cloud patterns, adding notes about atmospheric density. The northern continent showed vast stretches of brown—desert, perhaps, or tundra. But there, along what might be coastlines, ribbons of green emerged. Vegetation. Real, living vegetation that had evolved completely independently of Earth, of Axis, of every world humans had touched.
Quentin's mind ran through the implications with practiced ease. Independent biochemistry. Independent evolutionary pressures. Independent solutions to the problems of photosynthesis and reproduction. Would it use chlorophyll, or something else entirely? Would its DNA be structured the same way? Would it even have DNA?
"Doctor." Desmond kept his voice low so Elena wouldn't overhear. "The spectral data from the green zones. Those absorption signatures don't match anything in our database."
Quentin removed his glasses and crossed to the console. He studied the readout for a long moment, his brow creasing. The absorption bands from those green patches didn't match chlorophyll—not quite. The peaks were shifted, offset by several nanometers into wavelengths he'd never seen in botanical surveys. Whatever pigment drove photosynthesis down there, it wasn't the same molecule that colored every garden and forest in human space. And the biomass readings were far denser than his "modest plants and bacteria" estimate had suggested. Whole swaths of the coastline registered as thick, layered canopy—complex structure, not simple ground cover.
"Novel pigmentation," he said. "Possibly a xanthophyll analogue, or something with no terrestrial equivalent at all." He tapped the biomass figures. "And these density readings—this isn't lichen clinging to rocks. There's vertical structure down there. Canopy layers."
"So much for modest plants," Desmond said, and Quentin caught the edge of vindication in his voice.
"So much for assumptions made from insufficient data." Quentin's eyes were bright behind the fatigue. "Which is precisely why we don't land until we understand what we're dealing with."
"Look at that," Desmond breathed, pointing at a particularly large green area on the equatorial belt. "That could be a forest. An entire biome we've never seen before."
Quentin glanced up from his book, following Desmond's gaze. "It could be. Or it could be algae blooms in shallow seas. Or crystalline formations reflecting light at certain wavelengths. The scanners aren't precise enough yet to tell the difference."
"But it could be a forest," Desmond pressed. Quentin recognized the move—a technique he'd taught the boy himself. Ruling out possibilities before gathering data was lazy science.
"It could," Quentin agreed. He set his book aside. "And if it is, we'll document every species we can find. We'll catalog their genetic structures, map their ecosystems, understand how they've adapted to this world." He paused. "But we won't touch them. Won't alter them. Won't risk contaminating them with our presence beyond what's absolutely necessary."
Desmond nodded. He understood the principle. Humanity had learned the hard way—multiple times—what happened when they treated new worlds as resources to exploit rather than treasures to preserve. The Decree of Levetus existed for good reasons, even if those reasons chafed against every instinct to explore and discover.
"Do you think there's anything intelligent down there?" Desmond asked. "Not necessarily sentient, but... advanced? Something that builds, creates, thinks?"
Quentin considered this. "The computer hasn't detected any radio signals, no electromagnetic emissions consistent with technology. But that doesn't mean no. It just means nothing we'd recognize as civilization from orbit."
The planet turned beneath them, revealing the terminator line—the boundary between day and night. On the dark side, faint lights scattered across the landmasses. Quentin leaned forward, caught himself, then settled back. Probably artifacts from the viewport's reflective coating.
Probably.
"Imagine," Desmond said, "being the first humans to set foot down there. To breathe air that's never been filtered through industrial scrubbers. To see landscapes that no human eye has ever witnessed."
"Imagine," Quentin countered, "bringing an infectious agent that wipes out every living thing on that planet. Or carrying back a microorganism that our immune systems can't handle. Or disrupting a fragile ecosystem with our presence and watching it collapse." He tapped his book. "Every great discovery carries the weight of responsibility. The question isn't just 'What can we learn?' It's 'What might we destroy in the learning?'"
Desmond held his gaze. The caution was warranted, and Quentin could see the boy understood it.
"That's exactly why we're the right team for this," Desmond said. "Because we ask that question before we step off the ship."
Quentin studied him for a moment, then nodded. The boy had promise. Whether promise was enough for what waited below, only the planet would decide.
"Gods, when will we land?" Elena asked, faint annoyance evident in her voice. Quentin glanced toward the front of the ship where the young woman lounged, one leg tossed casually over the armrest of her chair, staring at the ceiling.
"Not for a few more hours, at least," he replied, smiling at her with a mouthful of perfect white teeth set against his deeply tanned face. "You can nap if you like. We'll have much to do when we finally touch down."
"This is so boring," Elena said. Desmond's jaw tightened at the dismissal, but the boy kept his composure. Elena had arrived two months ago with a recommendation letter and a confidence that hadn't yet been tested by the field.
"Boring but necessary," Quentin said. He was a tall man with gaunt features and a shaved head. Some people said he had the appearance of a skeleton, but he'd stopped caring about that decades ago. "The computer needs to catalog what it can from the atmosphere and on the surface before we land, to determine if anything poses a danger."
"The atmosphere is safe, yes?"
"Mostly," Quentin conceded. "A bit more oxygen and it would be perfect."
"And we have tanks of oxygen for that very reason. We should land."
"We have tanks to handle the oxygen, they won't handle biological problems."
"We have strains of more than a thousand separate microbial strains to create any antibiotic we might treat, as well as every anti-viral medication known in the galaxy. We also have enough medical equipment to stock a few hundred hospitals."
"And an overabundance of confidence," Desmond said, his voice low but his gaze steady on the viewport. Elena's eyes narrowed at his reflection in the glass.
"Yes and—" Elena stopped herself, turning to face him directly. He held her gaze, one eyebrow raised. "My point is that there is nothing down there we can't handle."
"Nothing we know of," Quentin responded.
"Exactly," Elena said.
"And that proves my point," Quentin said. Elena scrunched up her face.
"No, it proves my point," she argued.
"If we do not know what might be down there, and it is something we do not know of, then we don't know whether we can respond to it or not."
Elena spent a minute thinking this over, and then let out an exasperated sigh. "Your argument assumes its own conclusion. The statistical likelihood of finding something down there that we have never experienced before in the millions of planets that humans have inhabited is—"
"High enough to warrant caution," Quentin said. Elena eyed him for a long moment and then waved her hand in dismissal, lounging back into her chair.
"It's your ship."
"Yes," he agreed, taking a book off the seat next to him and flipping it open. He pulled a pair of reading glasses out of his pocket and put them on. "It is."
Quentin watched Desmond turn back to the viewport. They wouldn't close in on the surface until they were certain of two things. The first: they could land safely without damaging too much of the ecosystem. This was an exploratory mission, sanctioned only on the assumption that it could be performed with minimum invasion. Quentin lived by the creed "Do No Harm." And until he confirmed that landing their craft on the surface wouldn't upset the plants or animals of the planet, they would stay up here in orbit and let the computers perform their scans.
That was the first condition.
The second was that they would be able to leave.
"Did you find anything?" Desmond asked after Elena had fallen asleep. He kept his voice low.
Quentin glanced up from the computer terminal and met Desmond's eyes. He removed his glasses, then rubbed his tired eyes with the backs of his hands, yawning. Seven hours of scans so far, and patience had worn thin for all of them.
"The same anomaly," Quentin replied, dropping his glasses onto the counter and leaning back. "I can't make heads nor tails of it."
"And we can't land until we figure it out," Desmond said.
"And we won't know what it is until all of the results compile. And that's if they compile correctly at all. If this is something new. Something truly new that no one has ever encountered before, then, well, mayhap we won't be landing at all."
"Ah," Desmond said. He hesitated, then flipped his notebook to a blank page. "Unless..."
Quentin smiled, sliding the glasses back onto his nose and turning to the information once more. He quietly finished Desmond's thought. "Unless we're willing to get stuck down there."
Desmond hesitated again. "Would they really leave us?"
Quentin removed his glasses once more, resigned fully to the conversation. He wasn't angry—the question was practical, not panicked. "Just to clarify, they won't be leaving us. They will be leaving me," he said. "And yes, they will. I will tell them to."
"I couldn't imagine being stranded on an entire planet." Desmond's voice carried a note of genuine unease.
"I'm a rather old man. Being stranded on a planet or being eaten by carnivorous monsters wouldn't put too great a strain on the rest of our erstwhile galaxy."
Desmond didn't agree or disagree, and Quentin let the silence settle between them. Instead, the boy asked: "When did the decree go into effect?"
"Something of eight thousand years ago," Quentin replied. "Emperor Levetus. One of the first Holy Emperors. But not by any means one of the greats."
"He wrote the decree."
"By necessity, not foresight. By the time they began regulating planetary exploration, the damage had already accumulated."
"What damage?" Desmond asked. "The decree seems outdated with modern technology." He leaned forward, notebook open to a fresh page.
Quentin nodded. "It is quite outdated and draconian, but the alternative nearly killed half the population in starvation."
Desmond cocked his head to the side curiously. "What, how?"
Quentin leaned back, preparing to tell the story. Through the viewport, Novum continued its slow rotation, revealing new mysteries with each passing hour. He'd spent forty years chasing the unknown across the galaxy, and each time the thrill carried the same shadow—the knowledge that some discoveries demanded a price he hadn't yet imagined.
Somewhere beneath the fatigue and the anomalous readings and the old stories he was about to tell, a current of unease moved through him—the instinct of a man who had survived enough expeditions to know when the next one was about to go wrong.
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