“In either case, it blows up?” said MacAllister.

“Yes. But the explosion is much less violent.”

“I can see,” said Amy, “where that would make a difference.”

“Have no fear,” Eric said. “The sun’s in good shape.”

I don’t know how to record this. I watched that star erupt, watched it become the brightest thing in the sky. And all I could think of was the first time I saw it, nineteen years ago, with Jenny. And I would have liked to have been able to see the Earth again, to see Baltimore on that night, just off Eastern Avenue. To see Jenny again. Alive and well.

— Sunday, April 5

36 Ophiuchi is a multiple star system. It’s located slightly less than twenty light-years from Earth, in the constellation Ophiuchus, the Serpent Tamer. The system is composed of three stars, all orange-red dwarfs. Ophiuchi A and B orbit each other in a highly irregular pattern, approaching within a range of 7 AUs, retreating to 170 AUs. A complete orbit requires 574 years. Ophiuchi C orbits the inner pair at an average range of about 5000 AUs. It is a variable star.

— The Star Register

“This is what everybody comes to see,” said Valya, as they approached a blue-green world. It was orbiting Ophiuchi A at a distance of seventy-five million kilometers, placing it squarely in the biozone.

“Terranova,” said Amy. The new Earth.

It was the second world on which life had been found, the first whose living creatures had been visible to the naked eye. That was eighty-five years ago. It was an unlikely system in which to find a planet with a stable orbit, let alone a living world. But there it was.

In an odd bit of serendipity, Terranova numbered among its occupants the largest known land animal. That was the unhappily named groper, which maybe should not qualify because there was still an ongoing argument whether it was animal or plant or a hybrid. It spent most of its life squatting over nutrient sources. It fed on a variety of slugs, bugs, and grasses. And periodically, when it had exhausted the output in one location, it climbed onto about two hundred legs and rumbled elsewhere. It used photosynthesis as a secondary energy source. Seen in motion, the creature resembled nothing so much as a giant green slug.

Also growing on Terranova were the largest known trees, the titans.

“Can we go down and take a look?” asked Amy.

“If you want.” Valya glanced toward MacAllister and Eric to see if anyone wanted to join them. “It wouldn’t take long.”

“Be careful,” said MacAllister, who remembered his flight on the lander at Maleiva III.

“You don’t want to come, Mac?”

“Thanks. I’ll guard the fort.”

“How about you, Eric?”

Eric looked uncertain. “Okay,” he said, finally. “Yes. Sure. Why not?”

“Good.” Valya looked back at Amy. “You understand nobody leaves the lander.”

“No, no, that’s fine,” said Amy. There was, of course, no danger that Eric would want to get out and go for a stroll.

“Just as a precaution,” said MacAllister, “what do I do if something goes wrong?”

Valya looked amused. “What could go wrong?”

“You and the lander could get grabbed by a pterodactyl.”

That got a laugh from Amy. “Mac,” the girl said, “there aren’t any pterodactyls here. You’re always fooling around.”

Valya raised her voice a notch: “Bill.”

“Yes, Valya.”

“If you lose contact with me, you will take instruction from Mac.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She looked serenely at MacAllister. “Eric already functions as a backup, in case something were to happen to me. But since he’ll be with us in the lander, you’re in charge. It’s not likely there’ll be a problem. If there is, and for some reason we can’t get back to the ship, and can’t communicate with you, tell Bill to relay the situation to Mission Ops. They’ll send help.”

“Okay.”

“We’re at a substantial range, so it would take a few hours before you’d get an answer. But all you’d have to do is sit tight.”

“All right.” MacAllister didn’t like the idea of their going down, but he didn’t want to be a spoiler. Let the girl get a look at the walking slug, if that was what she wanted. She might not get another chance.

He accompanied them to the launch bay, which also doubled as a cargo hold. Valya broke out e-suits — electronic pressure suits — and gave them a quick course in their use. “We won’t be using them,” she said, “but we never go into hostile country without them. Just in case.”

“Air’s not breathable?” asked MacAllister.

“It has a bit too much methane,” she said. She opened the hatch and watched her charges climb in. “We’ll be back for dinner, Mac.”

THE SHIP SEEMED bigger with everyone gone. MacAllister tried reading, tried to sleep, tried doing some work. Valya had left the lander’s link active so he could listen to the conversation on the ground. Bill aimed the ship’s telescopes at the surface and picked up visuals, which he put on-screen. MacAllister saw continents and oceans and an enormous inland sea. Terranova had ice caps and mountain ranges and island groups. It was an odd experience, looking at a place so Earthlike, but with unfamiliar landmasses. With one exception: A continent sprawled across the equator did vaguely resemble Australia.

He asked Bill for close-ups and saw something that looked like a water spider charging across the ocean surface. Watched a pair of jaws seize one of its hind legs and drag it under. Saw hordes of animals that looked big, although he couldn’t be sure. And long-necked creatures with wings that did in fact resemble pterodactyls. He wondered what he’d say to Hiram Taylor if his daughter got snatched by something, and he went home alone. That would be an ugly scene.

A lot of the animals had armor. A few predators were up on their hind feet. He watched a plant — at least it looked like a plant — seize a four-legged creature that might have been a zebra with a long snout.

While MacAllister was admiring his good sense in staying behind, the lander settled onto a beach. There were huge shells in the surf, and a lot of birds.

“Valya,” said Amy, “could we get out and look? Just for a minute? I’ll be careful.”

The beach was rimmed by hills and wetland. MacAllister wanted to tell her no, stay where you are, you shouldn’t even be on the ground.

Something that was almost a blur swept across the sand, angling toward them and then away. It was a blue-green streak, moving so quickly he couldn’t even tell whether it was airborne.

“No,” said Valya. “Stay put.”

He asked Bill if he could replay the sequence and freeze the image. Bill complied. The thing looked like a giant eight-legged mantis. Big jaws. Sharp mandibles. Scary eyes.

He opened a channel to the lander. “Valya,” he told her, “be careful. You’ve got monsters in the neighborhood.”

“I know, Mac,” she said. “I saw it.”

Yeah, he thought. Great place for a stroll.

THEY WERE BACK three hours later, flushed and excited.

“I’d have loved to be there when they found this place,” said Eric. “They went through almost a hundred worlds that were in biozones before they found Genesis.” Genesis, of course, was the breakthrough world, the place where life had finally been found. It had been strictly unicellular, but nevertheless there it was. Those who’d been arguing that life on Earth was unique, that it took a combination of exceedingly unlikely conditions to get it started, or even a divine decree, had begun to look prescient. Then a sample of water from Alpha Cephei III, quickly named Genesis, had revealed cellular life. “You know,” he said, “they were getting ready to shut the program down then, too. People said it cost too much. And what was the point?”

“It’s still a fair question,” said MacAllister.

Valya interceded to head off a debate. Amy told MacAllister she liked him, and she hoped he wouldn’t take offense, but this was a good example why they should have an amendment barring old people from becoming president. “Not that you’re old,” she added, embarrassed by the slip.

MacAllister began to realize that, of his three fellow passengers, Amy might be the most formidable. She was a believer, and she wasn’t going to be swayed by economic arguments. In the end, of course, it was all a matter of what you cared about.

That evening, Valya took them into a higher orbit and released the monitor. “Moonriders have been seen close to Terranova,” she said. “We’ll see whether they show up again.”

MacAllister watched the black box drift away. “We still don’t really know how life got started, do we?”

“I think they have a pretty good idea,” she said. “But I don’t believe anybody can prove anything yet. There’s a world out in Majoris somewhere, a proto-Earth, that they’re studying. They think they’ve got the beginning of the chemical process. But who knows?”

Eric asked Bill to put the titan trees on the display. “Biggest living things in existence,” he said.

“Known so far,” added Amy.

So the biggest land animal and the biggest tree were both located on the same world. “Anybody know why?” asked MacAllister.

Nobody did. Even Bill didn’t know whether there was a theory to account for it.

Amy was staring at the titans. Bill superimposed a sequoia. It was about half as tall. “You know what I don’t understand,” she said. “What’s the point of being a tree? I mean, root system and chlorophyll and all the rest of it, what’s the point of being alive if you’re a tree?”

Mouths of babes, thought MacAllister. “What’s next?” he asked.

“Origins,” said Valya.

STATE OF THE PLANET DIGEST (April 2235)

CONTENTS

Effort to Regenerate Polar Bears Under Way

3

Price of Drinking Water Spikes

7

NAU Has Lost 150,000 Sq Miles to Flooding

11

Changing Rain Patterns: Mosquitoes Are Doing Fine

14

Health Problems Rise with Temperature

19

Dry Wood: New Proposals to Head Off Forest Fires

25

Baseball Moving North: Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg Get Teams from South

28

Climatic Instability Confuses Migration Patterns

31

Still No Snow in Moscow: Seventh Straight Year

35

EVANGELICALS PREPARE FOR “HELLFIRE” TRIAL

Derby Police Chief Warns Demonstrators to Stay Away