The fallen spaceship had ploughed a canyon into the crust of the planet. The inhabited command section had broken free and rested three kilometres away from the rest of the ship, which lay burning, bigger than a skyscraper, even half buried in the ground. Almost the entire crew had been aboard the bridge, where the shockfields had failed to activate. Captain Benning and the other deck officers had been killed. All except for one, that was.
Lt Kai Samson had not been at his station. The medical unit where he had been, along with every other area of the living quarters, had filled with crashfoam the second before impact. He had been suffering from yet another one of his migraines. This one had saved his life. It had also saved the life of the Venus Nova's medical officer, Dr Francesca Miller, who also happened to be his mother. As the foam dissolved and he found his mother alive, and uninjured apart from a broken radial bone, he had burst into tears.
Prof Alan Landau and Specialist Ray Tanner had also been in the living quarters, and survived with only minor injuries. They later found three of the ten engineers alive, although they had sustained multiple fractures and internal ruptures. Dr Miller, once her arm had been splinted by her son, set about saving them. Thanks to her ardent, one-handed efforts, and the surgical-drone she had programmed, the three injured men were placed inside auto-med cells that provided life support and trauma therapy. The four of them then set about detaching the habitat module to make a set of living quarters, which Prof Landau powered with an emergency cold-fusion generator. Robots cleaned up the bridge and froze the dead bodies. There was an informal ceremony but no funeral. Religion had largely gone out of fashion a century or so ago.
Looking at the wreck of the Venus Nova Kai could not quite believe they had walked away. It was only his second mission; he had qualified as an astronavigation officer, second class, only eighteen months previously. He guessed they had been hit with a meteor storm as they fluxed from metaspace, and had been caught in the planet's gravity well. Although agnostic, Kai thanked God for saving him and his mother. When he had been assigned to the same ship as his mother his flight school friends had taken the piss out of him relentlessly. He could see their point. An InterStel officer, but still a mummy's boy. This was not sheer coincidence of course; InterStel deliberately placed relatives together on long voyages for the harmonious effect on group psychology.
By some quirk of fate, the planet - it only had a number (UB487D) -- was an Earth type atmosphere, and was listed for possible terraforming, although it had not even been properly explored yet. The air was short on oxygen, but a respirator was all that was required. The planet orbited a binary yellow sun in a relatively close orbit, so it was exceedingly hot during the day, and freezing at night, but the extremes were well within tolerable limits, providing the habitat was functioning.
Prof Landau decided to pilot a functioning survival module to an automated navlink station on the edge of the system, from where they could send for help. It was a two-man craft and he insisted on taking Tanner with him. The journey would take one month. Lt Samson and Dr Miller watched the small ship rise on the haze of an AG field until it shrunk into a dot and disappeared into the orange sky. There would be a rescue, but they would have to wait. Someone should get to them with three months.
The two stranded space travellers set about improving their habitat and, to some extent, exploring their new world. The planet had been due for a survey with the inception of the system's navlink station, but with their crash they had got there first. Although qualified in astronavigation, Kai had also studied biology, and had only chosen astrophysics because it was the quickest way to get him into space. Taking one of the AG sleds he explored the desert-like world, collecting samples. There were lots of burrowing arthropods, moths and cactus-type plants. He was chuffed that one day his samples might be used by a real biosphere analysis team.
At the end of his fifth day, Kai thought he had seen a vaporous pink substance moving near to him. His instinct was that it was something living, but when he turned the scanners on it there was nothing there. It had vanished. Or perhaps he had just imagined it.
That night he had a vivid dream. Pink mist filled his cabin, swirling about him. It assumed weird forms with different faces. It spoke to him:
''We are curious about your species, intruder. You are crude carbon based organisms, but you also create high pattern electromagnetic energy inside your cranial processing organ. This we find interesting. We would like your permission to examine you. Do you consent?'
''Errr... I'm talking to some pink mist.''
''Yes, we hoped you'd get over that already. Do you consent?'
''What if I say no?''
''We will study you anyway. But the process will be more invasive. We are ethical, as you would say, and do not wish for our specimen to suffer.''
''Cool. That sounds all right with me then. I guess. Experiment away.''
''Thank you. We hoped you would see it that way. You will not remember this encounter when you awake as not to affect the results of the examination. You are an interesting species. We have absorbed the contents of your detachable silicon outgrowths. We find it particularly fascinating the way you continually destroy and procreate. Your behaviours are crude, yet complex. Your contradictory natures are of great interest to us.''
''Good. That's nice. I'm glad we're interesting. You promise not to do anything nasty?''
''We shall endeavour not to damage you. Only your inner nature interests us. Thank you and goodnight, Lt Kai Samson.''
#
The following day Lt Samson and Dr Miller set about launching the communications satellite. It was a heavy task that needed all the robots, as they also had to erect a reception dish, and lay power cables and Ethernet relays. Kai was waxing avidly about a new type of moth he had discovered. Francesca had just about had it with moths, and was concentrating on the job in hand. They had started early, but it was already hot.
As she struggled with a transceiver on a tripod, Dr Miller was leaning forwards and bending over. Kai suddenly caught a glimpse down his mother's open flight-suit. In a fleeting, unexpected moment, Kai was smitten by the sight of his mother's beautiful sweat-beaded neck and big breasts hanging pendulously in the constraints of her underwear. A hot tingle of excitement shot through the young navigator's cells. The next moment he felt guilty and knew he should look away. But he didn't. The view was just too good. He could see the lace of her bra and the wobble of those creamy white orbs.
Good lord, I used to feed from those things. They were the good old days, he thought.
She kept leaning forward, so he kept watching. It was a lovely place down there. The loveliest place on this planet, that was for sure.
''Hold that cable steady! Are you stupid?''
''Sorry Fran... Dr Miller.''
