Footprints

Our compound on the surface, in a section of tangled forest several hour’s walk from the Airship base, wasn’t much to look at. That was intentional. It was positioned well away form any of the paths we’d seen local hunters using and even further from the rough road the nearby farmers used to reach the village. We’d even positioned it so the prevailing winds would have the airships arriving and departing in some other direction, so as to keep our activities inconspicuous.

We’d actually considered using active camouflage on the exteriors of the small prefab buildings we were using as the base, but went for conventional, appropriate, camouflage markings on the outside. If we were discovered, in spite of our efforts, it would be much easier to explain painting a small cottage to blend in than to explain why it was, effectively, invisible.

It was unlikely, though, that anyone would be able to approach the three small prefabs without being seen well in advance. There was a ring of sensors surrounding our little enclave in a rough ring between one ant two kilometers in diameter. The sensor buttons would have been hard to spot even with our level of technology, let alone the level of tech we’d seen produced locally. It was still conceivable that someone could stumble onto one, but not before it had done its job and let us know our position was potentially in danger of being compromised.

Landing provided its own challenges. There were several boats in our mix, mostly general purpose, but a couple of specialized ones for specific research or logistics roles. The ones intended to land on Earth that Was were nearly all equipped with active camouflage integrated into their hulls. Under most circumstances, the only way someone would spot one would be by the indentations her landing struts left in the dirt. Or maybe by walking into it. But they weren’t silent, and no matter the hull it was almost impossible to mask a boat coming down from orbit.

There were powered approach vectors you could use, provided you had enough thrust, which we did, but they were neither practical or efficient. Which meant setting up your approach from orbit in such a way that no one on the ground could see the hinotama you left in your wake. Then there was staying out over water until you’d dropped subsonic, and making the final approach in such a way to minimize exposure to anyone who might be on your horizon.

I actually enjoyed that kind of approach.

We’d deployed several of these makeshift temporary compounds. The others were positioned near other interesting settlements, one in what had been Southeast Asia, another in central North America. This one though, had the airships.

Sabrina and Lieutenant Conner met me at the ramp, the lander’s hull still creaking and pinging with reentry heat. ‘Brina was almost bouncing with excitement but refrained from pouncing, probably because of the re-breather I was saddled with until after getting into the medical hut and being cleared for local atmo. I couldn’t taste Earth’s air yet, but I could feel the natural gravity and the soft loamy give in the soil beneath my feet. It was home. To the core of my being, I knew this was home.

“Welcome to Earth, Cap’n,” Conner said with a salute, ‘Brina adding “Bloody well about time too!” I could just laugh through the mask, returning Conner’s salute with an amused “Good to be here,finally” before following them into the building where Belize was waiting to give me a quick once over before clearing me for the outside.

I knew the safety procedures we were under here. We’d all had it drilled into our heads, repeatedly, until we could recite them in our sleep. Ultimately though, we had little to worry about beyond the standard decontamination process we had when visiting any of a number of worlds back in 34 Tauri. With everything we’d done before departure, we really were more likely to be infected by something that had evolved here than we were to infect them with something we’d brought with us on the Sled.

“Air’s thicker than you’d expect, Sea. About thirty five percent higher than what we’d considered standard. You’ll get used to it pretty fast,” Bel explained. I’d seen the data before from our surface probes, but this was my first experience with it. Also, as ‘Brina pointed out, the higher density atmo meant the airships got more lift. Could explain why they were using them instead of heavier than air craft.

“I can go play outside now, mom?” I asked with a laugh as Bel finished her exam. “Yeah. Just give yourself some time to get used to the air, OK?” I gave her the ‘yes, mom’ look and headed back outside without the re-breather.

I’d actually noticed the difference in density as soon as I’d stepped off the lander. It’d increased pressure accordingly, and I’d noticed the difference immediately. There were a few worlds back home that had atmo’s outside the normal range, both thicker and thinner, that could put a casual tourist on their arse until they got acclimated. What’d caused Earth’s atmo to thicken over the last 500 odd years? No idea. At least not yet. But it was just another riddle for us to solve.

In keeping with our minimal impact approach, we’d restricted all of our transport flights to the period running from two hours after sunset to an hour before sunrise local time. Which meant I’d arrived in the middle of the night. Which also meant there wouldn’t be much to see until morning, so ‘Brina and Conner just showed me around the core of our little home away from home.

Though night didn’t shut out the sounds or scents of Earth. I could smell the air now for the first time, and it was somehow both strange and comforting. Mostly strange. Five hundred years ago, Earth had been a heavily industrialized world. So industrialized, in fact, that they’d burned through most of their readily available resources and made the decision to Abandon Planet for other worlds. Spawning the Exodus, and centuries later, our return.

Earth didn’t really smell like an Industrial world. Or like an agricultural world either, for that matter. The smell of the forest was predominant. Green and organic. But there were hints of other things as well. The scent of the sea, coming from some miles to the North. A faint hint of Industry, but not one I could identify. Farmland, several miles to the East. Animal scents. Things I simply couldn’t identify. And then I realized why Earth smelled so different.

All of the worlds in the 34 Tauri system had been seeded from Earth. The seeding was, more or less, complete, depending on when in the Terraforming project any given world was done. But none of 34 Tauri’s worlds was an exact match to Earth. You could seed a world with everything from home, but you couldn’t really recreate 4 billion odd years of natural evolution. Even after five centuries the biospheres weren’t quite complete. They were all livable. But none of them were Earth. None of them had life that had evolved there and had so permeated the environment that the very rocks were part of a living biosphere.

A biosphere our ancestors had abandoned. A biosphere many thought dead.

I spent another hour outside savoring my first taste of Earth listening to the night sounds. I felt like a little girl again, spending my first night out “camping out” in the woods behind my family’s estate. Eventually though, I joined ‘Brina in the compact dorm building to get further briefing on what they’d learned so far.

There was a lot to go over still, but I needed to shift my personal schedule to local time. Which meant sleep now before a long tomorrow.