Iterations and other stories (collection)

Julie E. Czerneda is one of Canada’s newest, and best, SF novelists, but she has also worked for years in educational publishing. She commissioned me to write a biologically themed short story for an anthology that would be used to teach science through science fiction; the book, eventually entitled Packing Fraction, also contained stories by Julie, Charles Sheffield, Josepha Sherman, and Jan Stirling, plus poetry by my wife Carolyn Clink and illustrations by my friend Larry Stewart. Sudbury, Ontario, where this story is set, went on to feature prominently in my Neanderthal Parallax novels.

* * *

The roar of the helicopter blades pounded in Raji’s ears—he wished the university could afford a hoverjet. The land below was rugged Canadian shield. Pine trees grew where there was soil; lichen and moss covered the Precambrian rocks elsewhere. Raji wore a green parka, its hood down. He continued to scan the ground, and—

There! A path through the wilderness, six meters wide and perhaps half a kilometer long: trees knocked over, shield rocks scraped clean, and, at the end of it—

Incredible. Absolutely incredible.

A large dark-blue object, shaped like an arrowhead.

Raji pointed, and the pilot, Tina Chang, banked the copter to take it in the direction he was indicating. Raji thumbed the control for his microphone. “We’ve found it,” he said, shouting to be heard above the noise of the rotor. “And it’s no meteorite.” As the copter got closer, Raji could see that the front of the arrowhead was smashed in. He paused, unsure what to say next. Then: “I think we’re going to need the air ambulance from Sudbury.”

Raji Sahir was an astronomer with Laurentian University. He hadn’t personally seen the fireball that streaked across the Ontario sky last night, flanked by northern lights, but calls about it had flooded the university. He’d hoped to recover a meteorite intact; meteors were a particular interest of his, which is why he’d come to Sudbury from Vancouver twenty years ago, in 1999. Sudbury was situated on top of an ancient iron-nickel meteorite; the city’s economy had traditionally been based on mining this extraterrestrial metal.

The helicopter set down next to the dark-blue arrowhead. There could be no doubt: it was a spaceship, with its hull streamlined for reentry. On its port side were white markings that must have been lettering, but they were rendered in an alphabet of triangular characters unlike anything Raji had ever seen before.

Raji was cross-appointed to the biology department; he taught a class called “Life on Other Worlds,” which until this moment had been completely theoretical. He and Tina clambered out of the copter, and they moved over to the landing craft. Raji had a Geiger counter with him; he’d expected to use it on a meteorite, but he waved it over the ship’s hull as he walked around it. The clicks were infrequent; nothing more than normal background radiation.

When he got to the pointed bow of the lander, Raji gasped. The damage was even more severe than it looked from above. The ship’s nose was caved in and crumpled, and a large, jagged fissure was cut deep into the hull. If whatever lifeforms were inside didn’t already breathe Earthlike air, they were doubtless dead. And, of course, if the ship carried germs dangerous to life on Earth, well, they were already free and in the air, too. Raji found himself holding his breath, and—

“Professor!”

It was Tina’s voice. Raji hurried over to her. She was pointing at a rectangular indentation in the hull, set back about two centimeters. In its center was a circular handle.

A door.

“Should we go inside?” asked Tina.

Raji looked up at the sky. Still no sign of the air ambulance. He thought for a moment, then nodded: “First, though, please get the camcorder from the helicopter.”

The woman nodded, hustled off to the chopper, and returned a moment later. She turned on the camera, and Raji leaned in to examine the door’s handle. It was round, about twenty centimeters across. A raised bar with fluted edges crossed its equator. Raji thought perhaps the fluting was designed to allow fingers to grip it—but, if so, it had been built for a six-fingered hand.

He grasped the bar, and began to rotate it. After he’d turned it through 180 degrees, there was a sound like four gunshots. Raji’s heart jumped in his chest, but it must have been restraining bolts popping aside; the door panel—shorter and wider than a human door—was suddenly free, and falling forward toward Raji. Tina surged in to help Raji lift it aside and set it on the ground. The circular handle was likely an emergency way of opening the panel. Normally, it probably slid aside into the ship’s hull; Raji could see a gap on the right side of the opening that looked like it would have accommodated the door.