It’s always at the cusp of the hill that her legs hurt the most but the drive to see the top is the strongest, so, despite the hardness in her thighs and calves, she forces herself to take the next few steps to the zenith. Her suit ruffles as she places both hands on the top of her helmet, taking in lungfuls of recycled air. But it is not the throbbing in her limbs or the burning in her chest that holds her attention, but the view that sweeps out below her.
The twin stars, locked in a gravitational ballet, are just rising above the orange horizon, where a nobbly line of mesas ring the distant deserts. Below her, the grasslands pulse with the breeze; their golden heads united in a shimmering, metallic sea. Deep, narrow streams form uneven rings across the plains, cutting through the grasses in a pattern that reminds her of sunlight on sand through shallow waters. She does not yet understand how or why these peculiar waterways have formed, but she intends to find out. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow. Although she is sorely tempted by the forested caves that the streams run into, at the edges of the grasslands. Dense jungles of fungi sprout here, their odd, uneven bodies incalculable in their variety. Their bioluminescence lights up the cave walls like a static aurora. Perhaps answers to the origin of the streams lie there, at their end?
One such mystery on a planet full of them. But she has time yet, no sense to go rushing into things. So she plops herself on the nearest rock and rummages in her pack. First, a flask of coffee that locks to her helmet, allowing her to drink without removing it. Second, a book, which requires no special apparatus to be read (except her glasses). It’s Robinson Crusoe, which is appropriate, given that she’s several hundred lightyears from the nearest person. She’s read it before, finding the contrast between her and Crusoe intriguing. While he is lost and alone, she finds herself fulfilled and utterly at home.
Paddy Dobson
24th September 2020