Bernard's Dream: A Hayden's World Novel (Hayden's World Origins Book 8) by S.D. Falchetti

Author:S.D. Falchetti [Falchetti, S.D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-08-01T22:00:00+00:00

Promise’s planetary science lab is brimming with test equipment, quarantine areas, and screens. Isaac floats in front of the giant wall display of the astrographics section while Ava tends to the astrobiology module. On the astrographics display, six drones glide along flight paths to the handful of minor planets located between Ianthe and Neso. With thirty-one minor planets orbiting Luhman 16A alone, they prioritize Promise to visit Neso and Ianthe while using the ship’s drones to map the smaller worlds. Isaac’s display already has imaging strips from the nearest minor planets, the first a mosaic of colorful basins and craters, like Jupiter’s volcanic Io.

A few hours ago, the polar probe unfurled to deploy a small six-wheeled autonomous drone that has been tasting the snow and capturing sensor data for anything remotely interesting. On the other side of the planet, the hydroprobe touched down on the ocean bottom, opened its propulsion doors, and began mapping its environment. Its thermal cameras very quickly found the distant three hundred degree plumes of the hydrothermal vents and plotted a course.

“Find anything good?” Ava asks.

Isaac glances over. “16Ax has a silicate crust with active volcanos and sulfur dioxide ejecta. Unusual at this distance from the star. Too far for tidal forces to cause volcanic activity. How about you?”

“Just coming up on the first vent now.”

On the screen, the hydroprobe’s white floodlights trace a path leading up to turbulent water. As they pan up, billowing black plumes roil from rocky cones.

“Oh, yeah!” Ava says. “Black smokers. I knew it.”

Isaac pushes away from his screen and floats over beside her. “Iron sulfide. Three fifty Celsius. What’s that color…wait…go back…”

“Oh! Let me tell the probe.” Ava sends instructions to the ocean surface raft, which relays them via infrasonic pulses to the hydroprobe. After a few seconds, the camera view steers back, and the probe descends, investigating. Scalloped rocks are embedded in the vent’s rocky cone. A fine, red fuzz blankets the rocks. Ava gasps. “Are you seeing this, too?”

“Yeah. Let’s get closer!”

Ava doesn’t need to ask the probe. It’s already sending excited alerts to her and has gone into full forensic mode. The image zooms and magnifies the fuzz. Red filaments are tangled with some frayed ends undulating in the seawater. Milky-white disks pock the rock surface underneath the filaments. The water temperature here underneath the vent is over two hundred degrees Celsius, but the extreme pressure at this depth keeps it from boiling.

“Looks like a chemosynthetic mat,” Isaac says. “Extremophile. Like on Earth.”

“Yeah,” Ava says, her heart racing. “It’s alive.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.