Gilpin's Space by Reginald Bretnor

Author:Reginald Bretnor [Bretnor, Reginald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780441288373
Google: l4v1PAAACAAJ
Publisher: Ace Science Fiction Books
Published: 1986-05-14T23:00:00+00:00

We spent three days in orbit, recording everything, monitoring the electromagnetic spectrum to make absolutely sure that no advanced autochthons were beaming anything at all in our direction or at each other, monitoring for those fires and smokes which are the first signs of a polluting culture, watching for indications of lights at night and movement in the daytime. We saw four or five widely separated active volcanoes and a few scattered forest and prairie fires. And we made measurements.

Laure’s World was a little larger than Old Earth, with a diameter about three percent greater, but its gravity was just below Earth-normal. It had much less axial tilt, and a daily period of 2S.6 Earth hours. The proportion of land to ocean area was roughly the same as Earth’s.

At Geoff’s insistence, we were being very cautious, not that he did not believe Laure’s assurances—he did—but on general principles, which she herself agreed was wise.

We could see that it was summer in the northern hemisphere, winter in the southern. We could see storms stirring in the equatorial tropics, dark, angry clouds massing to sweep down on rain forests; and we discussed the question of where we were to make our first landing.

The general consensus was that we’d do best trying an island for a permanent base. “One like Great Britain, or perhaps Ireland,” suggested Jamie. “Chances are the fauna will be limited—I’m sure there will be beasties—and in a temperate climate, if it’s anything like Earth, the other biologicals won’t be as rambunctious as they might be in some continental jungle.” “How about a really nice island like Honshu?” put in Tammy. “With earthquakes and tsunamis?” Jamie retorted.

Bess pointed out that neither Ireland nor Hawaii had any snakes. “We certainly don’t want any serpents in our Eden,” she said. “Just Franz is bad enough.”

“I will ignore that,” Franz told her loftily. “This is a time for our best sober judgment. In principle, I agree about the island, especially if it’s a nice little one. However, may I point out that we started to talk, not about our eventual base but about a spot for our first landing? We really ought to get around to that. But while we’re on the island subject, have you noticed how a few of them, and not just in the tropics, have weird reefs—sometimes only one, then again an entire reef complex, like north of Australia? Quite a lot of them aren’t at all like reefs on Earth. They look geometrical—angles, and long straight stretches. Who ever heard of tetrahedral lagoons before?” “You mean Laure’s world got coral?” Malia laughed. “Hey, that’s good! Means maybe we got fish, all kinds. Maybe porpoises.”

“Maybe big sharks?” piped up VeeVee or the Gnat or both of them; and Anne quelled them with a glance.

“An island would be the best location for our base,” Geoff said, “especially if it’s relatively isolated. It’d limit our problems with assorted life forms, and we wouldn’t feel we were trying to swallow a whole world at a gulp.

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