Clients never provided their lawyers enough time, and this was one of those times.
Joseph Stern walked as fast as Yoel Aronson, first mate on the Copernicus, not only because he could but because he had to. Aronson, who seldom saw cause for formalities, had come and fetched the lawyer himself.
There was only one problem. “I don’t see how I can brief her. I’ve had no time to prepare, and—” Joseph paused for both breath and emphasis “—you still haven’t told me what it’s about.”
“Try to be a little more excited, please,” Aronson said. “Here I take you from whatever it is you do that you always complain about, and I bring you genuine interstellar law and you get wrapped up in trivialities.”
“Like knowing the topic?” Joseph walked faster. He was older. Like Aronson, he’d made the journey on the Copernicus from Earth, but he was diligent about his rejuvenation appointments and looked to be in his thirties. He felt like he was in his thirties, and picked up the pace when they reached the starship’s interminable stairs, determined to make the first mate suffer, even if only a little. They were going from almost a full gee to about three-quarters, which Joseph found psychologically useful for maintaining the pace.
“I’m telling you the topic,” Aronson said. “It’s glorious. Some girl found a thing on Aitch.’”
“The planet?” Joseph asked. The Copernicus was supposed to be assessing Ross 248h for resources and colony sites. The planet was referred to by its unofficial nickname “Aitch,” and had yet to be dignified with a real name. “What is this ‘thing’?”
“It doesn’t look natural,” Aronson said. He easily matched the pace Joseph was setting. “We have all sorts of images. A clean shorn mountain top; scraggly structures around the edges; all an intrepid explorer could hope for barring aliens themselves. Her supervisors were ignoring the girl—because she’s young and was way too excited. Sometimes I think we shouldn’t get to live so long. We ossify. Present company excepted, of course,” he added breezily. They exited the stairs and headed down a new corridor.
“Of course,” Joseph said drily. “Go on.”
“We’re going to go look at it,” the first mate said.
Joseph skidded to a stop and Aronson overshot him before coming back around like a ship under sail. Or a water buffalo. Aronson braked, beaming.
Joseph hardly dared believe it. “We are? Me, too?” He’d brief the Captain on anything she wanted to hear. He and his wife had joined the visionary expedition to the star, Ross 248, not only because they wanted humanity to have a future home, but for the adventure of it. Now, he was about to go to a planet, a new planet, an alien world. True, it didn’t have any breathable air—just a little thin nitrogen atmosphere—but he would be one of the first people to set foot on it, feel the lesser gravity, see …what? An alien artifact? The blood rushed around in his head and it wasn’t the starship’s Coriolis effect.
The first mate had the grace to look chagrined. “I’m going. So is Alexa Prandus, the young woman who found the thing. I’m sorry, Joseph.” He tried one of his charming grins. “You know lawyers never get to go anywhere: you’re too valuable.”
Joseph snorted a laugh. “Not a one of you thinks that.” No, if lawyers were valuable, then the Patrol’s lawyers would have gotten it right about Eden. Eden was the world Joseph Stern truly longed to visit, and the one they should have been orbiting. The Copernicus had been slated to go there first until the Patrol pulled the plug on humans settling Eden. Now the Copernicus orbited Aitch’s moon, and, when not helping the Cerites construct their settlement, was tasked with assessing the cold, almost airless Aitch.
Ross 248e—now formally named Eden for its breathable air, its Earth-like atmosphere, and (Joseph figured) the poisoned apple of its amino acids—had been explored three years before the Copernicus arrived in the system. With the home system facing trouble, and for a mission of multiple starships sent to find new planets that could support Sol system’s inhabitants, it had failed mightily with Eden as far as Joseph Stern, Esq., was concerned.
Eden had life, but no intelligent life. The Patrol, which was semi-independent of the rest of the fleet although not entirely, had surveyed the planet, but its probes had found neither mud huts nor cave dwellings, much less technology or advanced artificial structures. The Admiral had authorized Patrol personnel to explore in person. Her people had breathed thin alien air, had lethal encounters with predators, and otherwise endured the stuff of adventure. To Joseph’s eye, however, where they had strayed into biblical territory was when they ate the fruit of the alien tree, the flesh of alien animals, and thus were cast out of the world. In short, what they ate made them sick. Joseph had taken to indulging his literary side and had been pleased he’d caught the parallels.
Investigations showed that Eden’s flora and fauna deployed amino acids not used by Earth life. Although the amino acids weren’t poisonous, human ribosomes would use them in a case of mistaken identity, and produce a protein that didn’t fold right, which meant a person’s cells couldn’t function properly. As a result, all the food-curious personnel had become suffused with lassitude and ennui, to malady levels, suffering for months on end after their gastronomical adventure.
Rather than treat her disobedient personnel as an object lesson to the others and order the rest to really, truly not eat the wildlife, Admiral Gordon had determined that Eden was not compatible with Earth life. She had believed she faced two choices: sterilize the place or relinquish any plans to treat it as a possible home for humans.
To read the rest, click here.
My short story, Somebody’s World–from which the excerpt above comes–was published this week in a science fiction anthology. The Ross 248 Project takes us on an interstellar journey to a red dwarf star system with plenty of almost-habitable planets and moons. The star system shows signs of alien visitors having been there in the distant past, and now it faces a new set of aliens: humans and their AI progeny. The editors gave each of us writers the timeline of major events and asked for a story that fit into the sequence.
Although the other stories deal with danger, death, solar flares, and rogue terraforming, my story tackles the thorny legal question of who owns an alien artifact and the world on which it sits.
Joseph Stern, Esq. has his own personal reasons–and we all know lawyers aren’t allowed personal reasons–for wanting to find the alien object abandoned. When the military Patrol wants to avoid the precedent he would set, he must tread carefully or he could lose humanity a world.
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