Pathfinder (Pathfinder 1)

“Yes,” said Ram. “I don’t actually believe planets have intentions.”

“We know that it’s impossible for humans to discuss evolution without using such language. The tendency to interpret results as intentions is built into the DNA that allows you to process causality on a level superior to that of any other animal.”

“But not superior to yours?” asked Ram.

“We do not process causality per se,” said the expendable. “We process regular time-linear associations of events and regard them as probabilities.”

Ram looked over the suggested landing sites and chose one, then selected another six sites to visit for the initial sampling. Expendables from all the other ships gathered, so that Ram made the twentieth member of the landing party. He was the least efficient, the least capable, the least accurate of the group—but that would have been the case even if the others had all been human scientists.

In this expedition, Ram’s only real value arose from his inexperience, ignorance, and naivete. He would not immediately categorize whatever he saw, tempted to create a taxonomy based on a deep knowledge of the taxonomy of Earth. He would not immediately make assumptions about the geological history of Garden, based on a deep knowledge of the geology of Earth.

As much as was possible, Ram would walk through Garden with fresh eyes, as the first sentient being to set foot on the planet.

He piloted the lander with ease—air was air, weather was weather, and the automatic systems compensated for any atmospheric differences between Garden and Earth. Landing was smooth and relatively nondestructive.

He had no profound sentence to utter as he stepped from the lander, the first and last human who would visit this alien world in its native state. He wore a breathing apparatus and an airtight suit, for there must be no risk of a parasite taking hold in Ram’s body, but the suit was light and the headgear mostly transparent, so Ram was not particularly aware of the separation between himself and the life around him. He felt the springiness of the prairie grass. He smelled nothing and the breeze on his face was generated by the breather, but he could hear the buzz and whirr of insects, the rustling of the grass in the light wind. He could see the ripples of the grass, the shadows of the few trees, the distant mountains.

He wished he knew more about Earth—his upbringing, education, and training had not had, as a goal, the experience of as much of Earth’s habitats as possible. So he did not know if he should be astonished at the vast number of hopping insects that bounded up continuously from the tallish grass, or the reptiles of various sizes that shot straight up, spread their limbs to create parachutes out of the skin between, and then used tongue, jaws, or talons to snatch the hopping or hovering insects out of the air.

The expendables confirmed that the green of the grasses and leaves tended to vary in frequencies from the dominant shades of Earth plant life. But Ram also noticed that the grasses were grasses, the tree-leaves looked like leaves on Earth. The function determines the form, he thought. Perhaps Earth life will not make this world so very different from what it created on its own.

A single flying insect landed on the face of his suit. Another. Another. And then in a moment he could not see at all, except for tiny flecks of light making their way through momentary gaps between the insects that completely coated his suit. He could feel the weight of them, there were so many.

He held very still.

If these were bloodsucking parasites—and why else would they have evolved this swarming behavior?—there might well be enough of them to drain his body of blood. The local animals must have developed defenses against these swarms, but he had none. The fact that they probably couldn’t digest his blood into a usable form would not put back the blood they had taken.

Ram could see that trying to coexist with these insects, at least, might have posed a problem for the colonists. They could spend ten thousand years struggling to live with these swarms, or they could eradicate them—along with everything else—and get a fresh start.

No doubt many native insects would survive the extinction event. But probably not these parasites, since their hosts would be gone.

Would any of the hoppers—predator or prey—survive?

He walked through the grasses, found a stream, and looked down into it at the silver and grey finny fish and eels that thrived there. He walked as far as a nearby isolated tree and rested his hand on the bark. I touched you, he said silently. I brushed this leaf with my hand.

Meanwhile, the expendables gathered animal and plant life according to the instructions they had given each other—samples for analysis, not preservation, not on this trip. They had containers for them, and Ram wandered until they had filled as much space as they thought this grassland deserved on a first trip.

They visited rainforest, desert, tundra, high mountains, seashore. They followed the direction of Garden’s rotation so it was always daylight wherever they stopped. By the time Ram was exhausted and needed to sleep, the expendables announced that they had all the samples they needed to conduct their initial analysis.

“So we’re done?” asked Ram.

“Yes.”

“I have to sleep before I can safely pilot the craft,” he said.

“We don’t actually need you to pilot anything,” said the expendables. “Go ahead and sleep, so you’ll be awake and rested by the time we arrive back on the ship.”

“Will I visit the surface again, while it’s still Garden?”

“It will be Garden every time you visit,” said the expendable, “but if you mean ‘Will I visit the surface again while it’s native life forms are in place and undisturbed,’ the answer is no. But we have recorded all your words and actions today, and you are free to write or record any observations you might wish prior to entering stasis. We will also report to you the results of our initial analysis, in case there are grounds for revision of our plans.”

Ram yawned.

“It’s a beautiful place,” he said. “Strange in some ways, but neither more nor less beautiful than Earth. Our goal is for humanity to have a second place to live without artificial support, to make our extinction less likely. To accomplish that, we have to achieve the extinction of a biota whose only crime was to have failed to develop rapidly enough to achieve sentient life before we arrived.”

“Which is exactly what a sufficiently superior life form might someday do with Earth,” said the expendable, “justifying

the expansion of the human race to enough other worlds that extinction in one place will not be utter extinction for all time. Wherever life can exist, it already does. We will never find a habitable planet that is not inhabited. But if it’s any consolation to you, in this sentimental, melancholy mood of yours, it’s worth remembering that all life is constantly displacing other life. All new species displace species that could not compete with them. We do nothing to the life forms of this world that they would not have done, eventually, to each other.”