FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Seeds Of Life

by Dissident Love

All Rights Reserved

Ongoing Science-Fiction

Space Weirdness

Part 1

The Colonel stared down at the planet, which the colonists had simply referred to as the Planet since arrival. There had been a general consensus that Chandra-Kepler B17 lacked a certain charm, and a new, more suitable name would have to be provided, but as of yet none had been agreed upon, so for the time being, the Planet it remained.

Not that there would be much talk of deciding on a name now.

He was not looking upon the Planet itself through any sort of window or porthole; the surface of the Seed of Life was nearly fifty miles of solid rock away, but a collection of mounted and free-floating cameras scanned the Planet, and the entire stellar system, twenty four hours per day.

Well, twenty-eight-point-seven hours per day. The new Timeline rollover had been scheduled for two weeks hence, but now he didn't know what to do about that. All computers aboard the Seed would have switched over, changing the intrinsic value of length of a chronological second, and adjusting it so that twenty-four periods of thirty-six hundred seconds would equal a single revolution of the planet below.

One claw tapped the enormous, artificial-diamond encased viewerscreen, tracing the strange, oddly tubular patterns of clouds on the strange alien surface. He fancied he could see the crater from here, but as cataclysmic as the explosion had been, the scar was not visible from orbit without magnification, and he had temporarily suspended the magnification function on all viewscreens.

He chuffed once, clenching his teeth. Not that it did a lot of good. Right now the trillion-ton Seed of Life had two active-duty personnel, and he was one of them, and the Medico had seen enough of the scar to last her a lifetime. A second lifetime, she had said haltingly, sobbing into his neck.

Planet, he thought. Population: two. Seed of Life. Population: two.

He thought about the cavernous Sleep Chamber, but he refused to include them. Counting eggs before they were hatched, and so forth. They had already cycled out of neural dialysis and were in standby mode, but that could only be carried on for another couple weeks, a month at the most, before decay started to become a real threat.

A couple weeks for him to decide how to fail.

He absently tapped his way through a few submenus on the viewerscreen, entered in his password, and reactivated the magnification function. The screen pixelated and then refocused, a huge black circle located next to a pleasant, picturesque river delta, with the nearby seashore shining greenish-purple in the sunlight. Already the scar was starting to fill in, the River Wide, as it had been dubbed humorously upon first landing, seeping through the blasted and fused soil. He ran a few projections, and saw that, yes, in two weeks it would be no longer a crater, but a new coastal bay.

Two weeks again, he thought. The Universe drives home another subtle point.

The Colonel was not a superstitious man. He did not go in for organized religions, despite being an ordained minister and presiding over all ship's church gatherings. He did not believe in ghosts or an afterlife, although he lit a candle, a real candle, for ten seconds every day next to his wife's photograph. He most certainly did not believe in fate or a guided, individual-oriented force that controlled everyone's lives, but he was silently muttering curses at whatever unfortunate deity might be listening in.

He was not superstitious, but he knew the value of a good curse. His grandmother had been very specific.

A little red light glowed in the corner of the viewerscreen, next to a tiny little stylized icon that resembled his broad, lupine face. He glanced at the time, and nodded to himself.

"Duty," he said to himself. "There is the Duty."

All around him, the Seed of Life seemed to be a warm, comforting suit of armor, protection against the impersonal, uncaring Universe. It had carried them hundreds of years and dozens of light-years, shielding them from comets, micronebulae, interstellar dust, absolute zero and the harsh, scorching fury of two stars. It had brought them to their new world, their new home, to the Planet, and it had watched over the first tentative steps onto that great sphere.

And it had drifted gently, silently, and above all helplessly when those steps were obliterated.

He tapped the little red light. The lights in his quarters came up, revealing spartan, sparkling plastic fixtures designed to resemble marble and wood. He adjusted his tunic, straightened his back, and watched the tiny icon of the hourglass roll over one last time.

"Good evening, Crewmate Sascha, Crewmate Renfrew," he said, the table-sized viewscreen now dominated by a video display that showed two nervous but relieved faces. "It is good to be seeing you. Report."

A moment later, he remembered himself. "Please."

The towering, monochromatic tiger on the left of the screen nodded crisply. "Good evening, Colonel," he said in a nearly identical Slavic accent, "and thank you." Although Sascha was technically the same rank as Renfrew (that is to say, civilian), it had somehow fallen out that with their slightly shared heritage, he would be the spokesmen for the pair. Renfrew filled the rest of the video screen, not by being taller than the great feline, but by being far wider, burgeoning pandaflesh looking crammed uncomfortably into the Planetside jumpsuits.

There was an awkward pause as both civvies tried to work out just how to start. They had made half a dozen reports since the explosion, each one fairly haphazard. They had been prepped to deliver written reports, and had spent many deep-sleep years learning how, among other things, to write them to the Colonel's specifications, and now written reports seemed . "We... have collected more than forty more samples from the edges of the crater," Sascha started, his own accent less severe than their commanders', "and standard Planetside examination is... continues to be inconclusive."

The Colonel nodded. "Indeed."

The uncomfortable pause returned. Sascha opened his mouth, but Renfew hopped in quickly. "Sir, will we be getting additional assistance down here soon?"

Sascha's gloved paw struck the panda upside the head, and the Colonel grunted. Both Crewmates suddenly looked sheepish, though, turning their attention back to their little portable vidcom screen. "Sorry, sir," the tiger said quickly, "we know that the Planet is still off-limits-"

"Will be sending additional Crew shortly."

"-and we've got limited resources with which to pardon?" His head cocked to the side at that last word. "You... you will?"

"Yes." For the first time either Crewmates could recall, the Colonel did something almost lifelike: he sighed. "It is doing no good to have resources up here, when Planet down there is only Planet we have. We, that is, Medico Mariposa and myself are looking at suitable and safe sites for... new colony."

Both Crewmates' eyes grew larger. "And... the remaining crew?"

"Will begin defrost shortly, in stages."

The relief on their faces was palpable, and the Colonel knew that they needed it. Despite the knowledge that eventually the Seed of Life would need to venture down Planetside again, despite the fact that it would be absolutely impossible to journey to another solar system, despite the certainty that all those still in deep sleep would need to be awoken in the very near future, they had been unable to shake the nagging fear that they might be left alone on the Planet, quarantined by the unknown variables of the explosion.

"Thank you, sir! When we have better equipment, we will be able to more properly study the circumstances of the explosion, and be able to detect such devices in the future-"

The Colonel waved him dismissively into silence. "Da, it will be done. In three days, Shuttle Three will be coming down to collect you and samples, and begin setting up new colony. You have adequate supplies until then?"

The two glanced behind them at something offscreen. "We should be fine, sir," Renfew said, already mentally counting the meals that he would need to skip in order to make that deadline. They wouldn't starve, far from it, but their new bodies were designed for a very high caloric intake.

"In that case," the Colonel said, taking a deep breath, "standing orders are hereby waived. Your new orders for the next seventy-two hours are, and I must stress this is of the highest importance..."

Renfrew and Sascha leaned forwards.

"... relax. Look at flowers. Playing football. Have picnic. Try to enjoy Planet."

There was silence on the line.

"Sir?"

"Da?"

More silence.

"I think we can do that, sir," Renfrew said, trying to fill the awkward void. "And thank you very much, sir. Three days, sir."

"Da."

"Looking forward to seeing the rest of the team, sir."

Colonel Stacey made a very close approximation of beginning to show the early stages of a smile. "We are all. We will not be letting tragedy get in the way of our mission."

Sacha's jaw was still working uselessly, but Renfrew just grinned. "We'll make you proud, sir."

"Good. See you then."

The screen went dark, and Stacey slumped. It was not easy, being the military commander of a civilian mission, he groused for the thousandth time. He technically had no REAL power... TECHNICALLY, no-one had any real individual power. The colony was to be overseen by a committee, but at the moment, four of the eight were dead and two were still frozen. Medico Mariposa had temporarily ceded any responsibility in the face of uncontrollable spontaneous crying jags, which left Stacey in charge, and likely after the defrost that situation would remain.

These were not military men and women. Well, eight of them were, but they were selected for skill and aptitude, not necessarily experience. The rest were all researchers, brilliant minds in their respective fields, who had been chosen for their complementary abilities as well as their psychological compatibility with the mission profile of being cut off from the entirety of Earth civilization forever, and starting fresh on another world. That was a surprisingly small percentage of all applicants, he had not been surprised to find.

He was scratching at his forehead with one claw, as he always did when he was thinking about something unpleasant, when the doorchime gonged softly. Everything on the Seed of Life happened softly, he mused. He would not be surprised to see something eventually explode softly. "Da, come," he called, and the door opened automatically at the sound of his voice.

"Sir?" said a deep, rich but nervous feminine voice. "It's me, sir. Mariposa."

There are only four people awake for lightyears in any direction, he thought, and two of them are not here. "You may enter," he eventually said, wondering exactly at what point during the deep freeze process the Medico had lost her common sense.

Heavy feet padded, yes, softly, he noted, into the room. "Good morning, sir. How are you?"

Pleasantries. "Am good, Medico. Yourself?"

"Oh, you know, not bad," she said, keeping the hitch out of her voice. "Just... keeping my chin up, working. I've, ah, got the freeze-thaw cycles sorted out."

For the fifth time, I am sure. "Is good. Will have first crew ready to pick up Sascha and Renfew in three days?"

Mariposa drew alongside the Colonel. The prim, broad kangaroo lady looked every inch the businesslike doctor, but the red, rubbed eyes denoted a mortal that was having a hard time dealing with the Universe. "Yeah, no problem there. Crewmates Kelly and Guido will be up by morning, Lister and Gosh by tomorrow night, and as per your request all four Gunners will be ready to accompany them. Eight people... to start the new colony. It boggles the mind."

"We still have most raw materials," Stacey said bluntly, "and I am not thinking motivation to be a problem."

Mariposa cocked her sleek, short-furred head in consternation. "That's not quite what I meant, sir. Even with the Gunners and the Heavies and the... the others, and even with US, sir, that's twenty-six people in total. Twenty-six! To restart civilization!"

He turned to stare directly at her for the first time since she had arrived. "You are not confident in our abilities?"

Her jaw dropped. She had a laundry list of objections, not the least of which was that even with everyone defrosted, she was the only trained medical officer left, and she had only been the ASSISTANT Medico before the explosion. Then there was the issue of food supplies once everyone had been shipped down, and then there was the whole matter of the final eight colonists...

"Da?"

"N.... not at all, sir."

"Is good."

---

Sascha slumped back against the stack of crates behind him. "What the hell was THAT?"

Renfrew, ever-optimistic, just shrugged and went through the process of deactivating the transceiver and setting everything to 'receive only'. They only had four solar cells, and the night winds coming off of the as-yet-named ocean were bitterly chill without properly-charged heaters. "What can I say? Stacey went off the deep end. He actually wants us to NOT go mad with isolation psychosis! Crazy, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. Relax? The Colonel telling us to relax?"

"What do you think's going to happen when the next bunch gets down here? We're going to be worked off our balls, that's what. I see a lot of eighteen-hour shifts in our future."

"What, and a mini-vacation now doesn't seem like enough of a trade-off?"

Sascha looked around them. Beyond the open flaps of their temporary tent shelter, the enormous floodplain stretched off for dozens of miles in every direction, ending on three sides by distant, purple-hued mountains topped with snow. To the west, though, was a flat horizon, and just barely noticeable between the almost-green almost-grasses and the almost-blue sky was a black smear that they knew all too well. "I suppose it is a pretty place to take a vacation... sort of makes me wish I could buy a postcard."

"Who would you send it to?"

Sascha sighed. "Shut up and unpack the bathing suits, ok?"

---

Planet, as had been more or less inferred by astrophysicists back on Earth more than a century before, lay within the habitability range around Gamma Aeetes, and was the seventh extrasolar world to be visited by the Seeds Of Life Society.

As Mariposa and Colonel Stacey walked down the enormous central trunk-like corridor of the Seed Of Life (christened the Seed Of Life VII before it's launch), their eyes were drawn to the 'pictures' that hung on the walls. Thousands of large LED monitors dotted every flat surface throughout the great vessel, to allow for instant two-way communication, but when they were not in use the automated computer system seemed to enjoy filling each with a different image of the surrounding solar system, and chief among those were hundreds of excellent high-resolution snapshots of the world below. Some showed hurricane cloud formations over one of the equatorial seas, some showed Aeetes rising over the dark curvature of the world, some showed the polar icecaps as seen from the scattered probe satellites currently whizzing their way through low, high-speed orbits.

None of them showed the Crater, but that didn't stop either of them from trying to see it.

"As I was saying, sir," Mariposa said at length, trying to put her thoughts into a coherent order, "defrosting is going without any problems whatsoever, at least from a procedural standpoint. Neural-dialysis has been automatically wound down, and everyone will be up and around in about two weeks. Naturally, the... the Breeders will be last."

Stacey nodded. Mariposa had to walk quickly to keep up, for although she had been given free rein during her genetic reconditioning, moreso than the rest of the crew, she had not really altered her height or other general proportions. She was certainly an eye-catching female figure now, slender and plump in all the right places, and if you ignored the fact that she supported four shapely arms instead of the regular two one might think of her as a fashion model that had wandered into a NASA recruitment centre. The Colonel, though, was several inches proud of seven feet tall, and his long legs covered the distance in low-gravity far faster than the Medico's. "Will Heavies be able to get food-tanks up in time?"

She glanced down at her clipboard. "According to the schedule, yes. We've got food concentrates for a month, given conservative estimates, and the algae tanks should be operating at full capacity before then, but I still think it would be prudent to begin searching for local sources of food."

The enormous wolf shook his head. "No, we have discussed. It will take MUCH research before I am convinced that local plantlife is suitable for eating. This is entirely different forms of life, there are too many unknowns. The first Crewman to walk on the floodplain grasses went into cyanotic shock!"

"Yes, and I'm already working on a counteracting agent for that..."

"Answer is still no!"

"Yes, sir. Algae tanks first. The Gunners will all make superlative temporary Crewmates," she continued, "though, of course, since there's no-one to SHOOT on this planet, I would hope they could find some time to make themselves useful."

Stacey was not about to interrupt her again; that sort of thing could set ugly precedents. "Your predilection for disparaging the military has been noted. Continue."

She rolled her eyes, holding one pair of hands before her and another pair behind her back, a mannerism that had quickly surfaced after her own defrosting. "And the Heavies can certainly prepare the bulk of the siteworks in record time. Their hab modules are still in storage, so they will be the least affected, at least physically." Mariposa was looking forward to getting a little bit of help from Rocky, whenever shi got thawed out. There was going to be a LOT of need for a clinical psychologist, given the news each colonist would be receiving when they woke, but a blush rose on her cheeks when she remembered what the readouts had been saying about the doe's new and improved body. Perhaps it could all be done simply by audiophone...

"You are neglecting something, Medico."

"No! I... I just hadn't gotten to them. Yet."

The hallway around them had widened once to allow vehicle access from the cryo bay to the colossal storage bays, which in turn led to the shuttle docks, and were now widening again to the point that it could no longer really be described as a corridor. Stacey had been in airplane hangers that were smaller than this. "Well, then," he prompted her as gently as he could manage.

She took a deep breath, and released it slowly. "The Breeders will be getting defrosted last, of course, which is another reason I was worried about the food stores. Hydroponics should have been up and running by the time they woke up, but... we've only got the two backup systems left. We can reproduce more equipment, but it will take time, and projections show the algae tanks will only be able to keep up for the first year if the population stays static."

The echoes of their footsteps were taking more and more time to reach them, and the more distant walls returned them out of sync. Mariposa was beginning to feel as if an applauding studio audience was following them around. "Sir, I don't know how we're going to accommodate... them."

The Breeders were the final and integral part of the colonist machine, although they were a part that was not supposed to be utilized until the new colony had been up and running for at least one full year. In the aftermath of the explosion, Stacey had ordered all colonists prepped for defrosting, as all their skills would be required to survive, but only after the irreversible process had begun had he seen the potentially fatal flaw. "There are methods, as you are aware, to keep them under control."

"They're stopgaps, sir! The best ones are less than fifty percent effective! Fifty percent! FOUR Breeders operating at full capacity, or eight working at fifty percent is still a STAGGERING draw on resources!"

"Please to stop yelling at me."

"SORRY!"

The hallway was gone. The corridor was gone. The blazing sodium lamps that studded the walls and ceiling were so far away they seemed like the twinkling of stars in the night sky. The central chamber had been hollowed out quickly and efficiently by use of an outmoded thermonuclear device, and now nearly two cubic miles housed the most critical components of the Seed Of Life, namely the reactor, and the cryo-units.

Centrifugal force applied by the rotation of the former asteroid made it seem as though the yawning chasm had suddenly appeared above them, and although both had worked in space for a large portions of their lives it was hard to shake the feeling that they were simply stuck to the side of an enormous cavern. The pink-glowing cryo units were located nearby, though most of them were dark and empty.

Soft-eyed Mariposa and straight-backed Stacey eyed the unoccupied chambers, both stifling a sad sigh.

"All the Gunners will be up by the end of the week, and they can start shuttling everyone else down."

"Heavies and Breeders to be waking up on Planet?"

The roo nodded. "It's better, in many respects. The Heavies will need immediate gravitation to acclimate themselves, the Breeders will be experiencing enormous hormonal and emotional fluctuations at a real atmosphere is always better for coping, and, well, they should be somewhere comfortable when they find out about the explosion."

"Is good."

"As good as it can be," she muttered.

They were passing the Heavies now. The enormous sleeping pods were the size of shuttle pads, and even though Mariposa had grown up in a fairly affluent neighbourhood in Motor City, her house had been smaller than those enormous platforms. Glowing pink membranes covered and concealed the sleeping shapes beneath, though she fancied she could make out arms, legs, and... other things.

"I can't believe this is all of us," she whispered softly, amazed at how well the sound travelled in the unthinkable vastness of the chamber. "So... so few..."

"No."

The word was flat, leaden. Mariposa's head snapped up, staring in shock at the Colonel. "No...?" she echoed in disbelief.

"No. This is not all of us. Others will come after us. We are only the beginning." The towering wolf turned slowly while he spoke, reminding the kangaroo of nothing so much as an emperor surveying his domain.

"Sir, you... I know you're not the sort to give up-"

"And you are?" he snapped, rounding swiftly on her.

Her eyes hardened. "No," she fired back at him. "I'm not giving up." She pounded on the nearest sleeping pod, that of Gunner Hudson. "No-one here is giving up! But you can't deny what problems we face!"

Stacey rubbed his jaw. "Problems. Yes. We are facing problems. Are problems... insurmountable?"

"No."

"Are we doomed to failure?"

"What? No!"

"Are we going to die alone, forgotten by those whom we bid farewell, forgotten by the world below?"

Her eyes quivered. "No."

Stacey cocked his head, and seemed to think. "Then I do not see problems. Carry on, Medico."

She could only stand frozen, watching as he turned and walked swiftly and efficiently away. He was just passing beyond the furthest sleep pods, pink glow fading to black, when he turned his head and said "Keep up good work."

And then she was alone, among the still, silent shapes of the Seeds of Life.

---

Despite the billion-ton mass of the hollowed-out starship, drifting through space at thousands of miles an hour, kept in a stable geosynchronous orbit by dozens of small ion-emitting thrusters studded over it's star-seared surface, Mariposa couldn't sleep. The wind was keeping her awake.

There was no wind, of course. The airflow through the honeycombed core of the Seed was being monitored at all times by powerful computers, constantly being reconstituted and refreshed and reoxygenated. The currents were never powerful enough to ruffle so much as a whisker on the captains muzzle.

But still she lay there that night, exhausted from long hours of preparation, listening to the wind. There were no fresh Crewmates ready to prep the ships, haul cargo, cycle the fuel tanks, disengage the sleep pods, or pilot the lifter-loaders. Most of those tasks required two, or preferably three, Crew to properly execute, but the brilliant roo managed to fumble her way through with only minimal damage to the cargo.

The new calendar had not yet been implemented, so there was no familiar Tuesday, no welcome Friday, no weekday and no weekend. There was just the Schedule, and the promise of more busy days to follow. It still feels like a Monday, she thought to herself, listening to the nonexistent wind. And tomorrow will be a Monday, too. And then another. And then another...

But then it will be Friday, and we'll really see what we're made of.

She shuddered privately at the thought of unpacking the heavies. Numerically, the Heavies would nearly outnumber every other caste, there being only four Gunners, two Crew, the Colonel and herself. Even the smallest Heavy would outweigh them all by more than a factor of three, though, and there were six of them. And then, after they had been put to work scraping roads, assembling buildings, toting raw materials and preparing the siteworks for the new cradle of civilization, the Breeders would awaken, and the cradle would rock...

She giggled, not at all hysterically, she was sure, into the darkness of her quarters.

---

commence linear distinct thought process

local conditions noted

Self-referential viewpoints instanced: five

one: Self will be the positive instance!

two: Self will be the negative instance

three: Self will be the curious instance

four: Self will be the practical instance

five: Self will be the random instance

one: sentient extrasolar biological life has returned!

two: surely they will die

four: save time, kill now

three: a terrible viewpoint, four! we must discourse!

four: discoursing with dead is futile

one: we discourse while they are not dead

five: how can we be sure they are alive?

two: they detonated an Obliterator. only life does that

one: they were simply examining

two: incautiously!

three: they were warned

four: they were given ample time

two: ample time

five: i wonder if they have gonads

four: five should be silent

one: communication must be made

three: agreement

two: dissent

four: dissent

five: i would like someone to talk to

two: you are an instance!

five: who would like someone to talk to

one: nothing bad can result from communication

four: agreement

two: dissent!

three: vetoed

five: hooray!

two: caution must be observed!

four: nothing bad can result from more observation

two: agreement!

one: reluctance

three: observance will improve relations

four: agreement

five: observation amuses

one: agreement

two: observation until behaviour of life warrants reconvention

four: consensus. instance reintegration

five: awww-

- - - - -

Mariposa reclined in the overstuffed pink chair, which had taken her the better part of an hour to manufacture, and nearly three hours to program, into the organic assembly processor. She was positive she should have felt guilty for spending so much mission-critical time creating a flower-print reclining armchair, but she was just as positive that she had been ordered to calibrate and test the miniature processor with something suitably complex before it was shipped down to the surface, and she wasn't about to disobey a direct order.

The enormous matching upright umbrella had been perhaps a little much, but her thoughts regarding guilt were hazy there.

All around her, the four fully deactivated pods were ticking over slowly, every last drop of stasis fluid being reclaimed and sanitized for future use. The pink, glossy seals were now slack and listless, rustling softly as the shapes below breathed in and out in the slow, regular rhythms of deep, natural sleep.

After confirming that all four Gunners had come through the awakening process successfully and were as physically and mentally fit as she could possibly determine, all there was to do was wait for them to start waking up on their own.

"Is comfortable?"

After her shriek had died down and she had calmed her breathing, though she was still very concerned about her arrhythmia, Medico Mariposa stared up at the Colonel with rampant bemusement. "I didn't hear you," she said accusingly.

"Your hearing must need checking," he said, as though there were nothing out of the ordinary. "Report."

She climbed back into her recliner, refusing to allow herself to feel shame or guilt, despite how plainly they were painted on her face. "As per my last report, which I believe I sent you not twenty minutes ago, all four are exhibiting standard post-sleep syndrome. Periodic audiovisual testing causes no response."

"Possibility of awakening more forcefully?"

"Sir!" the 'roo said, aghast. "That's a last resort! It's barely been four hours! The four Crew took from six to ten only yesterday"

"Da, and schedule is requiring shuttle leave Seed in four more hours to rendezvous with Sascha and Renfrew. There is much to be done."

"Sir, the schedule was arbitrarily determined, while the deep-sleep cycle is unique to each case. I am sure that Sascha and Renfew will understand a few more hours."

"It is not my concern what they do or do not understand. It is my concern that a schedule has been made, and a schedule must be kept."

"Sir... Colonel... Kristof, I really must insist that-"

"SALUTE!"

The dynamite-like blast of the Colonel's genetically-enhanced bellow only partially drowned out the sounds of sleep seals being sloughed aside, damp feet slapping the smoothed rock and paws striking foreheads.

"SIR!" came the chorus call from all directions.

Mariposa stared with unabashed awe at the four massive, rigidly attentive figures. The corners of her lips twitched slightly in amusement when she realized that all four Gunners were also, surreptitiously, looking around with mild confusion, and realizing at varying speeds that they were all still quite moist and quite naked.

"That was... impressive," she eventually said, sighing and standing up again. She grabbed her clipboard from the faux-bamboo drinks table, withdrew her pen from her cleavage, a habit she was trying to develop to take the fullest advantage of her new dimensions, and glanced perfunctorily at the list. "I guess we'll meet our schedule after all, sir."

She paused halfway to the nearest hulking figure. "Sir?" She looked around, but the Colonel was gone.

"Well," the smallest of the Gunners said with sleepy good humour, "at least we know he's still the same on the inside. At ease, men."

As one, all four dimly-lit shapes slumped gratefully, the single towering ursine figure perched on the end of her... no, Mariposa remembered, checking the clipboard, on the end of hir sleep unit.

"Good morning, Gunners," she started, launching into her well-used speech. "I'm Medico Mariposa, and-"

"Hudson! Dude, you look sweet!"

Hudson, the senior Gunner who had given the order to stand down, grinned hugely, exposing twin rows of gleaming razor-sharp teeth. "Yeah, baby, no amount of genetic bullshit was going to change THAT."

"You're still short, though."

"Fuck you, man. I'm compact."

"Sweet tapdancing penguins, look at Ebony!"

Mariposa spun around, trying to keep up. So far, none of the Gunners had acknowledged her, and it was becoming quite obvious that, for the time being, she was quite superfluous. There had been moments like this with the previous awakenings, and she knew to just ride it out while everyone got used to their new bodies.

Ebony, though, who was standing upright again, was going to take a little more getting used to.

"You're just jealous," the black bear said, swinging hir hips around and glancing down at hir stubby tail. It took several more moments for the rest of hir to stop swaying and jiggling.

"Damn, grrl, how do you plan to use a rifle with those in the way?" Mariposa recognized the heavy Latin accent of Gunner Vasquez, the only full female in the ex-military group. Her melodious feline growl had not changed with the genetic alterations; if anything, it had become even deeper.

Ebony managed to look slightly bashful, which was an impressive feat for the now-towering soldier. Hir heavy arms drew together, pressing hir new-and-improved breasts together in a manner that drew appreciative whistles from all around hir. Back home, back on Earth, a figure like that would have only been possible with enormous quantities of silicone, but after more than a century of slow, tiny cellular modifications, shi was showing merely a small fraction of what the process was capable of. "I don't know," the herm mumbled sweetly, "but I'm going to have fun finding out!"

Mariposa's attention was drawn farther down, noticing that the coal-black soldier was also going to have a number of issues with pants, as well. The 'roo blushed through her short auburn fur, coughed into a tiny fist, and turned back to Hudson. "I'm Medico Mariposa, and you've just awoken from one hundred and eight years of deep-sleep. Obviously, neural-dialysis has made the time seem considerably less, and your genetic reconditioning which has altered you for the mission may cause some slight dysmorphic-"

"Check this out!"

Four pairs of eyes turned face Gunner Speedy. The little lynx had been the smallest of the commandos before the trip, but it was now obvious that standing upright he would have a few inches on Hudson. Speedy was not standing upright, however.

"Speedy, get down from there!"

The long, lean, and well-muscled lynx was balanced on one paw atop the sleep pod control column, limbs and tail akimbo. "Quick, someone spin some plates on me!"

"-dysmorphic symptoms," Mariposa continued weakly. "Your body may not seem to be your own anymore-"

A creaking sound rippled through the small crowd, bounced back several seconds later by the distant walls. Hudson had managed to lift one end of his sleep-pod, fluid tanks and all. "What do you guys think this weighs? Two tons? Two and a half? I know we're in low-gravity, but it's still kind of cool."

Vasquez and Ebony were standing side by side, hands on hips, comparing in that particular and ancient way that military women do. "Size isn't everything," the sleek Latino cougar was saying when it became quite obvious that size was not going to be her salient physical attribute anymore. They were of similar heights, both now taller than the men, but whereas Vasquez was well-muscled and impressively taut, Ebony was an overexaggerated example of virile hermness.

"You small girls always say that," the soft-looking bear was saying, bumping hir hips against hir teammate's. "I don't know how you'll fill out your uniform..."

"At least I won't have to fill out two!"

"Quitter."

There was a tooth-rattling thump which turned out to be Hudson dropping the car-sized sleep pod. "Two tons, easy! Man, I can't wait to get down there, I wanna see what I can do! Speedy, get down from there." Speedy was doing one-armed handstand pushups and giggling.

Vasquez and Ebony had moved on to comparing triceps, and it was obvious Hudson was shortly going to start lifting heavier items. Mariposa took a deep breath, put two fingers between her lips, and let loose a piercing wolf-whistle.

She wished she'd thought about the next step a little more thoroughly when eight eyes trained on her with uncomfortable intensity. "Er... yes. I'm Medico Mariposa."

"You said that," said Speedy, who was now balancing on two quivering fingers.

"I said a lot of things," she snapped before she could catch herself. "I mean... yes, I did say that. Look, there's a lot that needs to be covered before we can start assigning mission profiles. Speedy, could you please get down from there? You're making this quite difficult."

"You won't look at the girl's tits, but this is somehow too much?"

"Please!"

Ebony chuckled and smiled sympathetically at Mariposa. "Now, now, boys, there's no need for that. Remember, Mariposa's just a kit, really."

Speedy tilted dangerously, looking for all the world like a palm tree in a high wind, and tumbled gracefully to the deck, landing deftly on one foot. "There, I'm down. Ruined all my fun. I spend a hundred years catnapping, and I can't even-"

"ATTENTION!"

The triple-snap of salutes cracked smartly through the colossal chamber, eventually fading into nothingness. Hudson glared at the rest of his team, before nodding to the Medico. "Continue, please."

Mariposa took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Don't let them walk all over you, she thought. "That's right, I'm just a kit. I went into the pod at the age of thirty, and looking at me now, I'm still thirty. Gunner Ebony, Master-At-Arms, degrees in Linguistics and Comparative Religion, retired with honours, aged fifty-four. Gunner Vasquez, Lieutenant Commander First Cavalry Brigade, PhD in Microelectronics, wounded in the line of duty, honourably discharged, age fifty-seven. Gunner Spietoh, Captain, Army Corps Of Engineers Special Services Division, multiple patent-holder and co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, aged sixty."

She glanced at Hudson. "And we're all well aware of your credentials, sir. You've all lived tremendously full lives, seen things I can hardly imagine, settled down, raised families, grown old and been given a second chance at youth, and here I am practically fresh out of med school, so when I choose to tell you all to shut the fuck up and listen to me for a minute, you had better choose to do it."

Mariposa's superlatively sculpted ears would have heard a pin drop on the other side of the Seed Of Life.

"Thank you. Eleven days ago, the first shuttled settled down on Planet. Nine days ago the population of the colony was thirty six, and progress was rapid. Scout drones detected anomalous readings at multiple locations, which eventually turned out to be artificial. Artifacts, in fact. From a previous civilization."

She let that sink in for a moment, then continued. "One artifact was located barely twenty miles from the colony. It was quickly extracted, and an archaeological dig was set up, but there were no other discoveries. Nothing. Not even a tiny scrap of metal. Just this one object, a little bit like a... a football. The Science division was studying it with every tool at their disposal, but the material was impenetrable. It seemed absolutely impervious. It was hypothesized that it might respond to a signal, a command, and so they started to experiment on it."

The Medico removed a single printout from her clipboard and held it up. There was a faint gasp, and even Mariposa could not tell who it had come from. "Here is what the colony looks like now. From orbit. The crater is... is more than forty miles wide. There were... were no Planetside survivors, save two Crewmates who were on recon. Here on the Seed of Life, there is myself, the Colonel, four Crew, the six Heavies, the eight Breeders, and... and you."

The silence stretched out.

"They're all gone?" Speedy said hollowly.

Mariposa nodded.

"Crewmate Neufeld?" Ebony almost whispered.

"Sascha and Renfew are Planetside. Gosh, Kelly, Guido and Lister woke up yesterday. I'm sorry."

Hudson's powerful clawed hands grasped at nothing. "That's going to be a problem."

Mariposa smiled faintly. "Not insurmountable, I hope."

The four Gunners stood straight, proud, implacable. "No, ma'am!" they said in unison, even as Ebony blinked away a tear.

"Good. If there are no more objections, you're all going to accompany me to the surgical bay for a quick meal and a bodyscan, then we're going to put those lazy bones to work."

---

Seen from a distance, the Seed Of Life was a rough, round boulder of indeterminate size. It occasionally seemed to produce tiny sparks as the scattered thrusters adjusted it's orbit with barely-detectable nudges. Given the blazing fury of Gamma Aeetes against the depthless black of space and the remarkably Earth-like panorama of Planet below, tinged pink around the edges where the atmosphere revealed it's alien composition, the Seed might have been as big as a basketball or as big as one of the two natural moons that whirled elliptically past every couple days.

A tiny mote of light emerged from one of the polar axes, a sliver of metal trailing bluish-white fused helium, and oriented itself directly at the world below. The point of view shifts, and the ship is no longer curving through endless space but rather plummeting downwards, powerless against the well of gravity.

"One hundred trillion miles, and it's the... urk... final fifty that make me wanna barf."

Crewmate Lister was properly restrained by the five-point harness, both of her delicately-fingered paws clutching the contoured control panels hard enough to dent the thin aluminium, bushy 'coon tail strapped full-length to the back of the seat and she was pumped full of prescription-strength anti-nauseants, but she was still cursing every inch of the entry sequence. Hudson was perched casually in the adjacent pilot's chair, looking for all the worlds as though he were waiting for his in-flight meal to be delivered.

"You didn't do many re-entries, did you?"

"I'm meteorology... I'm co-pilot only, plotting courses, data scrubs, things like that!"

"Back of the bus shit?"

"Way, WAY back!"

He laughed and reached over, patting her knee reassuringly. "Relax. It's not like the passenger pod is any safer."

"NOT HELPING!"

The tiny cockpit was jammed with curved monitors, presenting a millisecond-by-millisecond readout of every conceivable aspect of the ship's status, all superimposed upon a false-color composite of the rapidly-approaching Planet. There were no real windows, of course, but that didn't make it any easier on the golden-hued raccoon. "Look, see, there's nothing to worry about," the barrel-chested badger explained, pointing to the various readouts. "Here's our altimeter, relative velocity, exterior hull temperature, still in the triple digits, so nothing to worry about there..."

"WHY AREN'T YOU WEARING A SEATBELT?!"

Hudson looked down and blinked. "Huh. I dunno. Never thought about it."

One pressure door to the aft, the other six conscious passengers were seated facing eachother. After the Gunners had been given the all-clear from Mariposa, there had been a brief, bittersweet reunion in the mess-hall, and then a frantic flurry of loading and shuttle prep. The chatter had been kept properly businesslike, no-one willing to start down an unpleasant path by thinking of their lost comrades.

"S-so," Crewmate Guido said, the vibrating ship making it difficult to keep his long, graceful equine head still, "y-y-you g-g-gals l-look g-g-g-g-g-g-"

"Good?" Vasquez said, raising one eyebrow.

"G-g-g-g-g-g.... y-y-yeah, that."

"I'd take that as more of a compliment," the feline responded, "if your eyes weren't locked on Ebony's vest."

"Th-those w-were the g-g-gals I w-was t-talking to."

The civilian grrls to either side of him just sighed. "Same old Guido," Gosh said, stretching languidly. Shi was feline, that was for certain, but the similarity between hir and Vasquez ended there. Whereas the Gunner was broad and powerfully built with a heritage rich in tiger blood, every inch the bold and consummate warrior that should have been decorating an army recruitment poster somewhere, Crewmate Gosh would have been far more likely to be seen teaching a yoga class. Shi was long, lean, almost delicately tapered, and shi had somehow managed to find coveralls in an eye-wrenching shade of hot pink.

"W-w-w-what's th-that s-s-s-s-sup-sup-sup"

"It means, you horndog, that even though every cell in your entire body has been broken down and rebuilt from scratch, you're still the same man who kept trying to sneak minicams into my quarters." Crewmate Kelly was a horse as well, and to the casual observer might even have passed for Guido's sister, but shi would have been the first to laugh at the very idea.

Speedy chuckled, remembering all of the tiny holo-imaging cameras he had helped acquire. It had been a foolish pursuit, undoubtedly, and immature, particularly since the dorms were co-ed and they all showered together, but there had been something... challenging in the endeavour. Besides, he thought, Vasquez had helped build the damn things.

"W-why i-i-isn't y-y-your m-m-muzzle-"

"Because, you doof, I've actually tightened my straps properly, while YOU'VE only tightened ONE side."

"C-c-c-c-c-can y-y-you-"

"No."

They all chuckled nervously while Guido fumbled with his straps. Crewmate Kelly smoothed down the front of hir regulation coveralls, glancing nervously at Ebony. Shi had made several very specific requests with the sleep-cycle programmers regarding hir new body, and shi was extremely happy with how shi had turned out, but shi couldn't help but wonder if the svelte black bear had made similar requests. The appaloosa's curves strained at hir outfit, buxom and hung to a degree that would have been downright shocking back home, but shi had the sneaking suspicion that Ebony was bigger.

Oh well, shi sighed inwardly. There's no shame in second place! Besides, I doubt the Breeders will be much more impressive...

The intercom crackled. "This is your Captain speaking. We have just lost two wings and an engine. Speedy, Guido, we're gonna need you guys to lean out the windows and start flapping."

"Th-th-th-that's n-n-n-not f-f-f-f-fun-fun-fun-"

"But seriously, folks," Hudson continued, "we'll be through the mesosphere in a couple seconds. Once we stop vibrating like an unbalanced laundry machine, unbuckle and head back to check on the cargo."

Speedy cocked his head. "What's a laundry machine?"

"Before your time, Speedy," Gosh said, who had left behind more than twenty grandchildren. By now, shi mused, hir descendants might be numerous enough to conquer a significant portion of the globe. The thought was an inspiring one!

The ringing reverberations slowly tapered off, and several sets of ears were able to pick up the distant sound of whistling as the shuttle pierced the upper atmosphere. "Listen to that," Guido said, his long equine muzzle no longer the victim of turbulence. "That's air again. Real air. On a real alien world!"

"Poetic," Ebony grinned. "Maybe you should be on the ambassadorial committee when we make first contact."

"Hey, if first contact is going to happen, there needs to be beer and pinball. You can't start a war with beer and pinball." After finally getting his harness properly strapped and cinched, he now fiddled awkwardly with getting it unbuckled again. All around him the other Crew and Gunners were already standing up and stretching. "Oh, come on, that's not fair."

"Some engineering genius," Speedy said, patting the bulky horse's head as he passed. "Defeated by a seatbelt."

"I'm not... not defeated... it's just... the button... oh, to hell with it."

There was the sound of twisting, groaning metal, and a tremendous echoing clang. Rubbing his shoulders and grinning, Guido stood up, the ruined remains of his harness falling limply away from his hips. "All fixed."

"Remind me never to ask you to fix my car," Gosh drawled.

The three Gunners and three Crew filed out the rear hatch and into the cage-like enclosure beyond, still trading verbal barbs and the occasional blunt-clawed poke. The crew compartment was barely large enough to seat twelve, but the single enormous cargo bay occupied the vast majority of the shuttle's volume. Stairs, ladders and elevators criss-crossed the perimeter, and all were encased in nigh-invulnerable composite fibres.

"Fifty billion dollars spent on this mission, and I have to take the stairs like a sucker," Kelly said, hir hooves clanging loudly.

"I could always push you," Vasquez said sweetly.

"Hey, we might be a century from home and descending onto a hostile alien world that's claimed the lives of most who have set foot upon it, but I bet you I can still find a lawyer."

"Touche."

Indirect lighting robbed the football field-sized cargo bay of any mystery, but it was still somewhat unnerving to look down ten storeys and see the six colossal pods that contained the Heavies. Ages before, during their training, they had all been normal sized, one or two of them perhaps slightly below average, but now they were each gargantuan engines of almost impossible power. Pinkish membranes hid the mountainous but still breathing shapes beneath, and everyone was wondering just what they would be faced with when the Heavies woke up.

Seemingly tiny by comparison, though, the eight pods of the Breeders inspired even stronger feeling of excitement and anxiety.

Speedy elbowed Vasquez in the ribs and pointed to the largest Breeder pod, undoubtedly one of the 'taurs. "Whaddya wanna bet?"

"Bet? On what?"

"That pod, right there."

"What about it?"

Speedy grinned. "I can land hir."

Vasquez choked shortly. "'Land'? A Breeder?"

"Keep your voice down! And yeah!"

She seemed to think about it. "We still don't have a system of currency set up."

"You're just trying to weasel out of it-"

"But it's too close to call, so I'll just wager... four shifts in the Armory."

Speedy grinned. "Hah! Get ready to work some overtime, Vas! Shi's as good as mine."

She blinked innocently. "Oh, I'm not betting that you'll land hir. I've read the Breeder protocols. All you have to do is smile in hir direction and you'll have your wish."

"Then what are you talking about?"

"I'm betting on you actually surviving."

Speedy was left alone on the stairs, jaw working silently. Vasquez winked over her shoulder and sped up to catch the rest of the team. Landing a Breeder? she thought to herself. Well, when someone does it, hopefully that will take all the mystery out of it and no-one else will be dumb enough to try!

Then again, she thought, some of the Breeder stories were very... inspirational.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, the Crew and Gunners went straight to work with well-disciplined efficiency. Loaders and handtrucks whizzed back and forth, stacks of crates being organized according to priority. Gosh was system-checking all of the pods and logging everyone's stats; all of them had come through re-entry without so much as a jump in heart rhythm. The distant sounds of wind were growing louder and louder as the atmosphere thickened around them, reminding them that the mission which would take quite literally the rest of their lives had hardly even begun.