The leader of a planetary exploration team has to deal with a specialist who’d rather lead the expedition, and knows better, at least, according to him. How do you deal with this kind of co-worker? Master class how-to, right here.
“I told you so,” Frof shouted at his research associate Andra. The purple membranes of his appendages pulsed out and in as his communication appendage turned black from the exertion.
He hated it when his plans were endangered by changes. It had taken them so long to get this project approved and financed. He had feared that something could go wrong with this location, but no one listened. And now, the success and reputation of the whole project was at risk.
The air in the enclosed mobile laboratory vibrated unpleasantly. It reeked of his angry emanations and, even worse, of those of his careless colleague.
The chemical composition of the air was correct for their breathing purposes, and the air pressure and temperature were acceptable, but his psychological working conditions were not. How was he supposed to do any decent research here when no one listened to him?
Andra looked away from her workstation and forced herself to relax so that she could ignore this temper tantrum. Gender Six individuals were known for their obnoxious behavior. Still, it was unnecessary of him to insist on sound communication when telepathy would have sufficed.
However, it was usually best to let Frof babble on and on, even out loud if he insisted. Sooner or later, he would stop, and she could get on with her work. She controlled her membranes stoically so that nothing pulsated and tried to give him the impression she was taking him seriously.
She looked out the window at the soothing, pinkish-orange, nitrogen-frosty surface. A few flakes of methane wafted down from delicate, white clouds through the thin air.
A paradise for patient creatures who preferred low temperatures. A perfect observation point for watching the evolution of life forms on the wanderers around this star. The view always made her happy, one advantage of her Gender Five nature. Even Frof couldn’t spoil this view for her.
“The exploratory, space-faring vehicle from this star’s infested planet will be within observation distance in a short time,” Frof continued. “It merely contains instruments and will fly by, but this is only the beginning. I told you our current location was too close to the star and therefore to the other planets and their inhabitants. Sooner or later, we would be discovered and our observations of life forms in this star system would be contaminated. The creatures that we need to evaluate in their native environment must not know that we are watching them. We should have chosen one of the rocky satellites farther away from the star and set up our observation base there.”
“All the other satellites have one major disadvantage,” Andra said. “At their aphelion, they are too far away from the star and its inner planets for us to do useful work. Besides, I like this place. The planet consists of an interesting consolidation of elements, and I think it’s pretty.”
She allowed herself one more wistful glance out the window.
Frof snorted. “You just like the temperatures,” he said. “Anything more than sixty measurement quantities above absolute zero and you start to swelter and complain. What do we do now that I have detected the upcoming invasion?”
Andra performed a few quiet respiration exercises and tried to calculate the most effective way to get Frof to shut up. There was always the keep-him-busy method, and so she tried that.
“Compute precisely how much time we have until this vehicle can detect our presence and/or electro-magnetic emissions,” Andra answered. “Then we can consider steps to make sure the vehicle doesn’t notice us.”
“Not so easy,” Frof complained. But he went to his workstation anyway.
Andra returned to her analysis of micro-life forms on satellites of planets that seemed promising, specifically those on the satellites of the largest planet of this star and on the ringed one.
The mini-creatures were all located in accumulations of hydrogen-oxygen compounds beneath the surfaces of the rocky-icy satellites. So far, they hadn’t made any noticeable evolutionary changes, but they were obviously a very sturdy stock and should be observed further.
You never knew which species would prevail and develop some kind of communicative intelligence. She herself had mistakenly thought the huge creatures on the one planet would be soon ready for communication with life forms from other worlds. One large piece of rock landing in the wrong place, though, and the magnificent creatures were gone.
However, the grubby little land creatures that grew their offspring in their own bodies made quite astounding progress soon thereafter. And now, they had even sent a space-faring vehicle to investigate the outer regions of their star’s influence, an action which would unfortunately interfere with her project.
These life forms were unpredictable, which made them a fascinating nuisance.
Soon, Frof came back. “It looks like we have one hundred standard units of time before the approaching vehicle can detect us. It also seems to be in a stand-by mode right now. However, I think we need to start hiding everything immediately.”
“Our installations are mobile,” Andra said. “All we have to do is decide which mountain to aim for, blast a hole large enough to drive into and then wait out the inconvenient visit. The space-faring vehicle will only collect data. This data will be interpreted according to what the life forms expect to see. They expect mountains, crevices, and perhaps frozen lakes. They won’t be looking for extraterrestrial life forms.”
“What if the life forms decide to come here themselves because the observations indicate anomalies that can’t be explained?” Frof asked.
Andra said, “I have been analyzing the data we have accumulated from this planet so far, and I don’t see any danger of the inhabitants visiting us in person any time soon.”
She tried to look patient, forcing her appendages to remain immobile, as she continued, “They have neither developed laser-powered ion thrusters nor space elevators to get them out of their gravity well, nor nuclear fusion rockets to generate thrust. They simply can’t get here fast enough for their short life expectancies.
“Even if they could travel faster,” Andra said. “Their fragile biology is not suited for serious space exploration. They don’t know how to regulate their cranial fluids, for example, and of course, their carbon-based cell membranes haven’t evolved any capability to withstand the normal vacuum conditions in this universe.”
Frof shook his analytic appendage impatiently. “You never know. These life forms have developed much faster than we expected.”
Andra sighed. “That is one of the things we are investigating here, how evolutionary development and longevity relate to environmental temperatures,” she said. “You and I live long enough at low temperatures so that we can watch stars come into being, proceed through their fusion cycles, and eventually explode. Because our species lived so long, we had time to develop attributes that let us survive in vacuum conditions. The poor short-lived creatures who need to be pampered by special environmental conditions never live long enough to learn much or evolve sensibly. They are interesting in their own way, but certainly no threat to our work.”
“But,” Frof interrupted her.
“No,” she said. “Please find a suitable mountain for us to hide our vehicles in when the time comes so that we remain invisible to anything the vehicle can scan us with.”
Frof stood on his motion appendages and waved his pulsating communication appendages. “No, that’s too risky,” he said. “It’s better to prevent the vehicle from making any observations. Either we fry its recording devices, or we crash an object into it. We can’t risk lower life forms discovering us.”
Andra could no longer control her anger. Her appendages turned bright red and pulsated. “Need I remind you,” she said. “That I am in charge of this project. It is advantageous to us for this vehicle to proceed and continue its explorations. This adds to our observations of the life forms that constructed and sent off this vehicle.”
Frof used his vision appendage to glare at her, but at least he finally went away.
The next temporal segments elapsed peacefully. Andra was able to discover fascinating new attributes of the microbes. Once these creatures figured out how to combine to create larger, sturdier organisms, there would be no stopping them.
Frof found a mountain for them to drive the vehicles into and where they could stay for the duration.
“Please keep me informed as to when the space vehicle will be here and when we should move into the mountain,” Andra said to Frof.
“I am tracking its progress by sufficiently small temporal segments,” Frof said, his emotion appendage throbbing yellow with insult. “Fortunately, it is still in a stand-by mode and of no threat to us.”
Several temporal segments later, Frof announced that it was time to move all their observation mobile units into the tunnels. The arrangements went well. There was enough room for the vehicles; the small nuclear reactors provided as much power as they needed. Communication among the vehicles worked perfectly.
Frof said he would navigate the last vehicle into the tunnel, and that Andra didn’t need to wait for him. Maybe it was his uncharacteristically polite and courteous behavior during the past few temporal segments that made her emotion appendages pulsate with pink suspicion. So, she remained at her workstation in the last vehicle, behind Frof’s line of vision.
Instead of driving the vehicle into the tunnel immediately, Frof was tapping away at his workstation with his writing appendages. Andra propelled herself over to Frof’s workstation. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’ve found a solution to our problem,” Frof said eagerly. “I sent a command to the space vehicle that returned it to the stand-by mode. I won’t let it start up again until it is far past our research area and can’t reveal anything about us. Once it is in the far-off cloud of rocks, it can communicate all it wants with its developers back on its planet. The life forms will just assume that some software glitch occurred.”
“Undo the command,” Andra said. “Now! You had no right to do this. I am in charge of the project, and I determined that we would merely hide from the space exploration vehicle, not obstruct its work in any fashion. We are here to observe and analyze the development of life forms in this star system.”
“I’m going to notify the research authorities back home,” Frof said, waving his pulsating emotion appendages. “They’ll stop you.”
“I’m betting they won’t,” Andra answered. “All projects are required to enforce non-interference in the life cycles and the activities of the creatures observed. What you have done is massive interference in the work of these creatures. I’m ordering you to undo what you have done.”
“Not until I talk to the authorities and explain that I am protecting our research,” Frof insisted.
“I won’t approve faster-than-light communication,” Andra said. “If you send off a faster-than-light message anyway, you will end up paying for it.”
“Decide whether you truly want to put your money where your sustenance appendage is.” Andra positioned her vision appendage and glared at him with throbbing bright red pulsations.
As she expected, Frof backed down. However, it took him longer than expected to undo the command to the approaching spacecraft. “For what length of their time measurement will the creatures think their exploration vehicle is incommunicado?” Andra asked.
“I got the command undone as of now,” Frof grumbled. “The creatures will think it was a software glitch that they managed to repair. It’s only fair to tell you that I will report my disapproval of your decision.”
“You do that,” Andra said. “Now let’s drive into the mountain before they detect us. Once they are far enough past us and can’t detect us any more, we will still be able to observe what they are doing. I suspect these creatures will be around long enough to encounter us as equals someday.”
END
Mary Jo Rabe writes science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, and crime stories. Ideas come from the expanding universe, rural eastern Iowa where she grew up, the Michigan State University campus, and the Black Forest area of Germany with its center in Freiburg. News about her published stories is at: https://maryjorabe.wordpress.com/
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