Ocean of Stars: Where the Sun Sails [1]

VII

Aspen moved up so that she was walking alongside Walter. After climbing a lightly vegetated slope, the expedition team found themselves pushing through a flat field of some kind of tall grass. Pale gold instead of green, the stalks swayed in perfect unison with the prevailing gentle breeze. Despite the increasingly uncomfortable ongoing silence she was glad that the grass, at least, did not make any noise.

Looking ahead, she saw that two of the lead security team had stopped. In complete violation of proper expedition procedure, Sergeant Lopé was crushing the top of one of the golden stalks between his fingers. Before she could object, he rubbed the residue between his palms, brought it close to his face, and blew part of it away. Picking up the loose chaff, the breeze carried it off toward the nearby mountains.

To Aspen's astonishment, Lopé then brought what remained in his palm up to his tongue, and tasted it. She held her breath, her hand drifting to her pack should she need to get something to make him vomit if the plant proved to be poisonous. Even Walter looked up from his multiunit and watched the sergeant closely.

Taking note of her anxious expression, Lopé smiled reassuringly and gestured at the field in which they stood.

"This is wheat," he said. "Plain, ordinary, bland, bread-making wheat. I'm from what they used to call Iowa. Believe me, I know wheat." He took a second taste, turned thoughtful. "This is old, a primitive variety, but definitely cultivated. Too much taste to be an accidental offshoot. Or wild."

"You're certain?" she asked him.

He flicked what remained off his fingertip. "I don't know much about parallel evolution, but I'd have to say that finding something here that tastes almost exactly like stuff I tasted as a boy would be one heck of a coincidence." He eyed the synthetic. "What do you think, Walter? What are the odds of finding terrestrial vegetation this far from Earth? Never mind cultivated, edible vegetation."

Walter's response was concise. "Highly unlikely."

The sergeant let out a derisive snort. "One hundred percent unlikely, I'd say."

"So," Daniels opined aloud, "assuming then that it didn't get here on its own... who planted it?"

No one had an answer. No one had so much as a suggestion. In the absence of either, the team continued on through the wheat field, heading up-slope for the dense tree line in the distance. All around them the sheaves shuddered in the breeze, indifferent to the presence of newcomers, unable to reveal the secrets of their improbable presence.

Daniels glanced around at the trees, the open space, and the lake where they landed. It seemed like the perfect place to build the log cabin Jacob dreamed of....

Oram came over to join her. Now that they had set down safely and without incident, the captain was feeling confident, even boisterous. The latter was unlike him, but with the exception of the storm in the upper atmosphere, everything they had encountered thus far had exceeded his expectations.

"What do you think, Daniels?" he asked. "Looks like a perfect landing site." Gesturing as they walked, he enthusiastically sited the new settlement. "Put the housing modules over there, civic modules across the way. Natural food source already in place—assuming Lopé's assessment is confirmed. Access to plenty of fresh water, too. No wells necessary."

"We don't know how deep the lake is," she mumbled. "Surface might be deceptive, volume might be small."

"Easy enough to take the necessary measurements." He shook his head, grinning and undeterred. "Act the pessimist if it suits you." He took a deep breath. "You could bottle this air and sell it back on Earth. Trees, stone for building, probably the usual rocky world assortment of useful minerals and metals." He tried to catch her eye. "And if this lake turns out to be shallow, there are dozens more. Just add water, and you've got an instant colony!"