Cleve backs up the rover and takes us down Beetle Ridge the way we drove up so that we don’t disturb the rest of Shu-Fen’s crew. She may have told them about us, but I rather doubt it, since she wants to keep her knowledge gathering on the down low. With the directions Shu-Fen has given us and the way the terrain was cleared for her crew, the dome is not nearly as far away as it was on our first day awake. But it’s still going to be late tonight before we could reach it, and we certainly can’t afford a hotel. So it’s one more night camping out in and around the rover for us.
Xenofungus is already regrowing in the drill tread tracks as we retrace them to the dome. As we get closer, we see some of the farm fields Shu-Fen spoke of. They’re adjacent to the dome, and these ones look like corn. In the dimming light, flying drones are finishing up their daily spraying before returning to their charging stations. We’re not close enough to the dome for wi-fi to be possible; Cor said that only stretches out thirty meters or so. I’m curious how these drones know what to do and where to go. Maybe they rely upon optical sensors—after all, that’s what humans use. Or maybe echolocation. Perhaps sound waves can get information farther on Chiron than electromagnetic ones can. Or maybe each drone just has some set pattern it flies, without any sort of guidance at all. In which case, good thing there are no large birds around!
Cleve knows far more about wilderness than Takuto or I do. He points out Earth trees and weeds as we drive by them. Farther from the dome than the corn fields, there are regimented forests, curated rather than natural. The landscape was burnt clear by fire and repopulated with monocultures of Earth plants. The oak, clover, and wineberries we saw up on Beetle Ridge have probably spread from here by natural processes like wind and carrier animals. But there isn’t the elaborate mix of ground cover, bushes, and upper canopy you’d find in forests on Earth. We pass a stand of pines that is old enough to have had some of its trees already cleared for use, with a new planting of seedlings around the old stumps. There’s evidence of fungicide being used to keep Chiron growth at bay around the trees, too.
Cleve parks the rover in an out of the way spot while we’re still in a wild enough area. It’s an excellent location, with a rise between us and the dome, and it’s only half a mile or so from the entrance we’ll go through tomorrow. There’s no farming in this area; it’s close enough to the coast that we’re among sandy dunes. The dome is north of us, but the ocean stretches out to the west, where the suns are setting. This is my favorite time of day on Chiron, when the landscape lights up and the rivers of xenofungus glow. And this is my first chance to see it across the water. As I expected, it’s beautiful. There is life out there, just under the surface, and patches of it glow—at least to my eyes.
The three of us share an evening meal together as the light fades. I admire the water, Cleve watches for trouble, and Takuto stares at the Progenitor data on his laptop. The semblance of peace and solitude is broken by the sound of a vehicle passing by on the other side of the hill, a repo squad truck. Maybe that’s Yushi coming back from investigating the network node.
“Good job, kid,” Cleve tells Takuto, pleased with how the teenager handled himself today.
“What? Oh… oh! Thank you, Mr. Cleve.” Takuto’s in a good mood and eager to keep going. “Now we’ve just got to get Arx, right? Are you sure we shouldn’t do a nighttime raid?”
“We are not going to do a nighttime raid,” I tell him. That’s not how you talk your way into places—that’s how you smash your way in.
“Okay, okay, I wasn’t sure,” Takuto says, swiftly backing down from the idea. But he continues hopefully, “We have a contact now, there at the place where they’re holding Arx. We’re going to get there. Soon. It’s going to be…” He drifts off, excited but also nervous.
“Better to do it during the day,” Cleve reiterates. “Not a nighttime raid.”
“Okay, okay,” Takuto acknowledges with a bashful head bob.
“If you need to something to focus on tonight, you could work on the virus for the Stepdaughters of Chiron,” I suggest. “We have to implant that tomorrow as well.”
“Yeah, that’s a good point.” Takuto resumes tapping away at his computer. He looks up one last time, darting a glance in the direction of the dome. “I bet there’s a nice communications terminal somewhere in the medical center,” he says.
“It would make sense,” I agree. He needs encouragement, but he also needs to be careful. We all will, tomorrow.
Fin