Target by Marcus Hammerschmitt - First Chapter and Outline
What is this?
Essentially, this is an offer. In the year 1998, my science fiction novel "Target" got published by Suhrkamp of Frankfurt. British author Christopher Priest proposed to make "Target" knowledgeable to English speaking readers by compiling an outline and translating the first chapters. He helped me doing it. These are the outcomes. If you see a chance for "Target" to be published in any English speaking country, feel free to contact me. The material below is copyrigthed to me. Thank you.
Outline
Target is just this: a ball of dust and dirt, convenient for target practice in mankind's prolonged war with the T'sai. There is nobody going to win anytime soon, because the T'sai may be smarter, but there is obviously fewer of them. The odd thing about Target is its forest, a green mountain, maybe of volcanic origin, the size of Spain and Portugal combined, if anybody can recall what that means. There's even a central crater to this, miles deep, and nobody has gone there yet to see what's at its bottom. The galactical sector's government, mostly controlled by the military, owes some ecologically minded people in high places a favor for keeping quiet about older sins, and the greens can attract enough politial clout to outfit a research mission to Target and its forest before it happens to be incinerated in another round of target practice. There has been an automated mission earlier on, yet the results were inconclusive, even pathetic: the robotic probes got lost as soon as they entered the crater, and data report was dim indeed. The five piece human mission might be only a figleaf for the military's real intention of terminating this forest business altogether, and this is not the only reason it is doomed from the very outset. The mixture of the people involved proves to be toxic from the commander down, and there's nothing to be done for people who rather die than call for help anyway. The endeavour's sole survivor, a multipurpose robotic device with a human soul grafted upon, has maybe twenty years left til its radiothermal generators run out, provided it stays put where it is: on the topmost layer of the forest's foliage, close to the crater, probing the sky for rescue now and then. Maybe death comes earlier, when the guys in charge back home decide to have the forest burned finally. In the meantime it's quite inclined to tell us what went wrong, and who and what the T'sai and he forest really are.
First Chapter: Arrival
Lieutenant Ngyen Thong Vo showed his contempt for what was going on, reclining in his seat nonchalantly. He folded his hands behind his head, like an office worker waiting for his lunch hour. By contrast, his adjutant was all action. If anything went wrong during the drop phase he would be the one to take the heat. The crew would have loved to match Vo's easy attitude, yet their lives depended on their actions. Vo would only watch them go down in flames, standing before a large screen on the bridge. Atmodives had gone awry because of trajectory errors in the past. There were plenty of precedents.
"We kick Synalpheus into orbit at 1700 ship time and get her stabilized," the adjutant reported. "At 1715 the satellites go out, weather forecast and so on; then we board the diver and prepare for launch."
"Hmm," Lieutenant Vo said with a grunt.
"Computer on. The diver is in standby, checking the instruments. Engines on. We go around Target full circle once again, check the weather, compute our window for atmoentry, and go."
"Oh yeah," Vo said, and waved them on lazily with one hand. His other didn't move from behind his head. I was lying flat across the table and recording everything. Vo's attitude amazed me. There were rumours going around that he was about to become commander of the Synalpheus. He must have felt sure of this promotion, because otherwise he wouldn't have behaved in such a relaxed way in front of my cameras. It occurred to me that the only funny thing about our disaster might be that it would destroy Vo's career.
George, the adjutant, tried to maintain his composure. He droned on with the mission plan as calmly as possible.
"We dive," he said. "We carry out routine scientific tests: solar wind, intensity of radiation, composition of gases, and so on. Approaching the forest we take photographs. Internal briefing. Then a report on our status to Synalpheus."
"Directly to me," said Vo, stifling a yawn.
"Yes, directly to you, Lieutenant Vo," George said with controlled anger. "We then dive into the forest's crater and reach its floor. Start of EVA. Start of Target II."
George stood up and I stopped recording. Everybody climbed to their feet. George and the crew already wanted to leave, when Vo suddenly said, as sharp as a drill instructor, "Just a moment!"
He laid his right hand across the left side of his chest and started to sing the anthem. I began recording again, this time surreptitiously so that he wouldn't see the status lights on the casing. Whenever an officer sings the anthem, joining in is mandatory. So two further hands were now put across two other chests (the women, as was customary, held their arms straight beside their bodies) and the anthem was solemnly sung. Tanja and Sabrina sang with dignity, yet completely out of tune. George was still angry while Benjamin kept as low a profile as ever.
When the caterwauling had ended, the lieutenant yelled, "Thank you, comrades!", and the crew yelled back: "Comrade, thank you!", in the same tone of voice. This salute is compulsory after the singing of the anthem.
During the endless sunsets on Target, which crawl across my infrared sensors, I often watch these recordings. If I could laugh, I could laugh about this.
Target I had revealed the following:
The newly discovered planet (Terra class, 1.1 G, no natural human predators) was a ball of dirt. There was only one continent (called "Hope" by some joker from the Target I crew), enormously large, covering almost half of the planet's surface, the rest was water ("Sea"). They called "steppe" what they found on Hope, and this "steppe" consisted of a mixture of grass and lichen ("weed"), which the fearless early colonists put in their saucepans. Hope and Sea sported only the poorest fauna conceivable, hardly anything was larger than a few millimetres. Biologists who concerned themselves with Target were met with the full contempt of their field, therefore nobody did. The dirt on which the weed grew was homogeneous down to unfathomed layers of the planet's crust, which was explained by the fact that it could only be shuffled to and fro from one place to another by the extremely vigorous typhoons and monsoons gathering strength above Hope and Sea. Where weed was rare, enormous canyons cut through the land. The mightiest river on Hope ("It") was 200 kilometres wide at the delta, but only after a decent typhoon. All of this wasn't too exciting and the questions why Hope hadn't gone the way of Gondwanaland long since, and why there was so remarkably little life on Target (if there was life at all) died down soon after discovery. There were never enough people on Target to grind down Hope and Sea to "Hoop" and "Si" in some kind of local dialect. The brave colonists who had dared Target were picked up after they had failed and most of them recovered quickly on Phereen, the sector syndicate's therapy planet.
Even so, there were two important things about Target.
Because of the ongoing wars with the T'sai, the sector's fleet needed just such a ball of dirt as Target for testing their planetary weapon systems. Soon, the sector's largest military brothel sprang into existence in high orbit around Target. They called it "paradise". Even when settlers were still trying to settle on Target, one quarter of Hope's surface was regularly scorched with the latest hardware weaponry planned for deployment against the T'sai, yet the native weed proved resistant against pulsed lasers, gases and microwaves. The fake villages and towns which were flattened by the Levellers' exercises disturbed nobody: they had been built to be burned. The weather satellites computed an increase of likely typhoon activity at a mere 3% due to atmospheric warfare, but so long as the colonists were present on the planet they were given advance warnings and when they were gone nobody cared anymore anyway. The military were relieved when Paris/Target disappeared, because it meant they could resume nuclear testing on the planet's surface. Above-ground nuclear tests were banned under ancient treaties with the neighbouring sector, but there were small skirmishes with the neighbouring sector about disputed border systems too, and the neighbour's angry notes about nuking Target were ignored as soon as they came in. Target was the testing ground of the sector's fleet, and it remained so. Target's an ideal shooting range for the never-ending war with the T'sai, whose elegantly silverish "tin openers" still turn black when materializing over a city, reducing it to flakes of ashes. The T'sai are human too, descendants of people who fled with stolen ships to the galaxy's outskirts several hundred years ago. I didn't know that when we came here. The sector's fleet protects the syndicate's interests. The syndicate exploits resources for fission and fusion in raw quantities, sectorwide. Some of this is used to turn a small part of Target into ashes once in a while. Closed fuel cycle, so to speak. The neighbour's Target is called A 5, where nobody apart the animal welfare people gives a shit about half-intelligent, viviparous molluscs. And don't they use caution on Target? Because of the second thing of importance on the whole planet? Oh yes, they do. The forest isn't being grilled, bombed, polluted, burned. The forest is ERA ecologically restricted area. Due to this and to Lieutenant Vo's error I will lie here undisturbed till I die.
The forest: an area as large as the Iberian Peninsula on Earth, so densely forested that Target I didn't dare enter, a whole giant mountain of a forest climbing to a summit with a height of 5000 metres, a jungle the size of a small subcontinent. Its border with the weed-carrying plains was as sharply defined as if cut with a knife. The forest, the jungle, the forested mountain sports a central crater so deep that its base is at sea level. Shortly prior to Target I, the first scientific expedition concerned with Target, robotic probes had explored the crater (the forest itself being virtually unnavigable). Those which returned safely had recorded strangely smooth crater walls, a crater bottom completely in the dark, the shadows infested by unknown and evasive life forms. Deep sea without water. When Target I returned with this sobering report, claiming there was nothing of scientific interest to Target besides the forest phenomenon, the military irritably said:
"Why do we keep being told about this forest?"
The ecologically concerned members of the syndicate's council said: "Yes, we'd like to know more about this forest. Let's make an ERA out of it."
The military gritted their collective teeth and plotted to "unintentionally" X-ray the forest out of existence as soon as possible. The ecos didn't let that happen, but reached an arrangement by which Target could be used as the sector's training ground, as long as the forest wasn't jeopardized. Then there was a lull in hostilities with the T'sai. The ecos pressed on to collect their fees with the military. Target II was dreamed up.
Our task was to explore the forest.
I like my profile. It would be a shame if it was exchanged with a different one for the next mission. My outer hull is very tough. My radiothermal generators will keep me alive for another twenty years. I'll be able to hang out here for as long, in the endless sunsets of Target, playing chess with myself, watching my recordings, analyzing data, listening to music and so forth. If I had ended up on Hope, I could have traversed the whole continent from end to end, cutting through the ocean of weed covering it. Maybe I had even hit upon some Levellers. Maybe they had even rescued me and carried me home. Up here, my crawlers are useless. I made an honest try, to be sure. But in my second year up here I almost dropped over the edge when I mis-steered. I'm still trembling at the memory of it. I want to stay with Benjamin. Not only because I was taught too. I like Benjamin. A human being would need certain things to survive in a situation like mine, things like conversations, food, diversions, shelter, meaningful activities and all the rest. I always both envied and pitied people for all those needs. Apart from some intellectual stimuli now and then my only need is energy. When I have consumed my energy, I shall die. When somebody with expertise in ARUs picks me up, I will be born again. I believe in reincarnation. I have been reborn many times already. A mission to Coriolan even saw me as lieutenant commander. Seemingly, they weren't too pleased with my performance, they changed my profile and I never made it back to lieutenant commander later on. At least they transferred some of the Coriolan data into my current profile. They may have been of some use then. On Target, they weren't of much use though. In my current context no package of data is of much use, or every single of them is just as useful as the next, depending on the perspective. I always liked my profiles. Right now, according to my teachers' specs, I'm a stubborn collector of information, inclined to a little pedantry, a shot of artistic talent and faint tendencies to sociopathic group incompatibility.
For an ARU, I'm quite a humorous person. During the mission, George once said to me: "You're a real joker, now aren't you? Almost a comedian. Cut it out. I've had enough of your silly jokes."
He said so because I observed that the sting-rays were always converging on him, and when I suggested this was because of his smell. George was very vain. There was a woman present during our conversation, which is why my suggestion angered him. He seemingly had forgotten that I can smell too. I didn't even want to be funny at that moment. I simply presumed the sting-rays were reacting to pheromones.
The robot cameras blew out of Synalpheus's pressure locks, and I switched to their viewpoint. The misshapen bulk of the battle ship drew away beneath me, vaguely lit by the first robot camera's boosters, a brick silhouetted by the stars, turning and growing smaller. I switched to another unit, one which was directed towards a chalk crust shaped like cuttle-fish, a flat ellipsoid 20 by 60 metres in size, painted black and yellow at its belly, glowing at the edges, suspended from nothing: the atmodiver. Switch. Pressure lock wall. Switch. Heat shield. Switch. Synalpheus from above, a black rectangle, one half of it punched out of space, the other half out of an incomplete circle, milky-white, leaning into beige: Target. A spark of silver in the lower right corner of the frame: "Paradise", on a retrograde orbit. The atmosphere drawing closer. Crew members were strapped to their chairs already, everything harnessed, black helmets on, mute. George pulled his right hand from the steering glove and gave a thumbs up. Computer on. No flicker. I felt at ease in the wall's smooth depression reserved for me, connected to the data song of my spaceborne eyes, of Synalpheus, of the atmodiver, of myself. Pulse, blood pressure, respiration, oxygen in my comrades' biosystems: OK. Computer/atmodiver: OK. Connectivity/Synalpheus: OK. Autocheck: OK.
George said: "Synalpheus, here Target II is condition blue. Atmodiver ready. Launch in sixty seconds. What about the radio satellite?"
"Target II , countdown for launch is running. Subcritical error RS."
Tatjana, in the chair next to George's, turned her head. I heard her not only through my own ears but through George's too, yet strangely muted by his and her helmet. She said:
"Synalpheus, here Target II. What error is there with the RS?"
"Target II, launching in thirty seconds. Please acknowledge."
George said: "Positive. Launch in thirty seconds."
I filed a note about a subcritical breach of protocol. George shouldn't have confirmed the launch prior to the radio satellite's deployment. I reported it to the mother ship's computer. It told me to shut up. I dropped the subject.
Launch.
Target's gravitational pull wouldn't separate us fast enough from the Synalpheus, so the front boosters were fired to brake us out of the Synalpheus's orbit. According to protocol she'd circle Target in high orbit once more then make off to the next jump relay for Cardigan, the fleet's central harbour. Not of course without first having deployed the radio satellite, which should have happened prior to our launch anyway. The radio satellite was to transmit our traffic to the semaphore at the jump relay. Yet protocol failed on us concerning this precious piece of hardware in a relatively early stage. Either the satellite is reeling around Target right now as a heap of scrap (my twin in the stars), or it was never deployed. Considering the fact that Vo couldn't possibly see us as friends, because we were about to ruin his military zone by exploring the forest, the latter doesn't seem too unlikely. In this case I hope my note about the missing satellite at launch time has been found by some supervisor in Synalpheus's databank. Because this would earn Vo a seat at the steering wheel of a cleansing vehicle in the dirtiest quarters of New Rome on Cardigan, a long way from the bridge of the Synalpheus. If at all.
We fell towards Target. The blueish gleam of the front boosters illuminated the quartzite windows of the atmodiver's bridge. Bit by bit this blue gleam was replaced by another one. At the vessel's nose plasma fired up like burning magnesium as we plowed through the planet's thickening atmosphere. Our entry angle would have enabled us to circle Target more than once, bouncing across its atmosphere like a flat stone skidding over a pond, but George wanted to make good use of the clear weather over Hope and slowed us down the hard way. We were given a rough ride, which didn't affect us too much because of the cushioned seats and harnesses, but it was unnecessary. We were not in a hurry, not according to our flight plan. I filed a note about this. The diver's computer blacked out shortly during the hardest bump, but came on again almost immediately. (The crew didn't notice. The blackout missed the critical threshold of one microsecond.) My crewmates' visors were totally opaqued. Even I had to filter the image electronically due to the ferocious glare. Our speed dropped steeply. The glare faded away and everyone's visors returned to transparency. George gave me another thumbs-up. Then he opted for manual override. I had expected something like that. Before his career as a scientist, George had been a fighter pilot, he had flown bouncers over enemy colonies, people told wild stories about him. This was the official reason for his participation in Target II: he was an excellent aviator and a former soldier. He was the military's candidate in our party of five. So he opted for manual override, though Sabrina and Tatjana tried to protest. They only tried to, because the G-forces we had to stomach because of George's showing off had silenced them. George acted as if he was hunting for a T'sai patrol for his own private pleasure.
Excellent. I recorded everything.
George stabilized the diver. Everybody began to relax, other than Sabrina, whose pulse and blood pressure continued to soar. I attributed this to her excitement. Hope raced away beneath our black and yellow belly, the ochre ground mainly covered by blue-grey weed, a sight of unnerving austerity. After showing off George steered the diver like a family man. The bridge was quiet. I checked all systems: the heat shield was OK, computers were running normally, only the radio satellite hadn't contacted us yet. Just for fun I reached out to near space, hoping for a final goodbye from the Synalpheus, but she didn't answer.
Suddenly Sabrina blurted, shivering with fear and anger: "You're a real man, George."
George retorted instantaneously: "Poetic justice. Some don't even manage to be half a woman."
Every crew member was revealing stress signals, with pulse and blood pressure increasing in them all. I gathered the subtext of this exchange between George and Sabrina had had a sexual element. Sabrina's mouth distorted painfully as she tried to conceal her emotional hurt. For some unknown reason, Tatjana's levels were even higher. Benjamin was the most cool, as always, a man who habitually avoided confrontation. Nobody continued. The forest drew nearer, a blue-grey, motionless tsunami in its blue-grey ochre surroundings.
Apart from the off-putting colouring of the foliage, you could have taken the forest for normal, wilderness, the sort which must have been existed on Earth at one time and which springs up with such considerable ease, the right conditions provided, on any planet the syndicate colonizes. Earth is lifeless nowadays, but I've seen the footage. Forests all over the galaxy had their ancestors on earth, even when they have to be adapted one way or another. Forests are to be found even on my home planet, LEL. Strictly speaking, they might be better described as parks adjacent to industrial areas, because LEL consists mostly of factories. Anyway, the foliage of Target's forest could, with some imprecision, have been described as green, but nobody would have felt at ease with this choice of words. My human profile reported back to my system core: "This colour makes me sick." My lecherous cameras shot into the crater, filming anything they could find from this distance, which admittedly wasn't much. The wildest theory on the way the crater was formed speculates that the seeds of the forest were brought in by a meteorite, while a second one slammed into the planet later on, declaring to any space traveller: God wanted a forested mountain on Target with a crater in it. That's why it's there.
While we hovered over the crater, the diver's cameras searched for some initial evidence that might support or undermine such theories like this. There was none, though. Below us was a gigantic jungle, shimmering strangely in blue and grey with, at its dead centre, a cavity like a well, five kilometres deep. The sharpest resolution I could gain revealed movement between the leaves, silvery glittering sparks, moving in waves through the treetops. My human profile, full to the brim of earthly reminiscences, tried for "monkeys". I shied away from such instant conclusions. Later on I knew: while we hung there above the forest I'd gotten my first glimpse of sting-rays, or their precursors. After the rough ride over Hope and the little row over George's macho attitude, everybody had cheered up again. Sabrina was still sucking her lip, but there was an overall feeling of dubious excitement. We had arrived at Target. I noticed George didn't try and contact Vo at the Synalpheus, like he had been told to.
The ship descended at George's command.
© Marcus Hammerschmitt, 2000/2001
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