The Preacher's Daughter

"And do what? We had a continuous comm link with the station. It would have shown us all its cards, with us safely away in the CAT. No, its best chance to murder us was a sudden entry with us here."

Basel shuddered. "And if we had been working together in Level-B when it came, it might have succeeded." He paused. "Any progress in understanding its reproductive cycle? Is it asexual, or did the aliens send us a pregnant commando?"

Eliana paused for a long moment and shrugged in confusion. "It does make me wonder. What killed its children?"

"Oh, I think I have a good idea about that."

Eliana looked up startled. "Really?!"

"Yeah, the same thing that killed the parent. It was already dying when it got here. We just put it out of its misery... and ours..." Basel sighed for a moment and then said, "Cosmic rays."

"Ah, radiation poisoning. You think?"

"Yep. Sea level air pressure is just over 1 kg per square cm. What would be the equivalent height for the weight in water?"

"That's easy. At 1 gram per cc, you would need a thousand cc for 1 kg, a ten-meter column of water to give a pressure of 1 kg per square cm."

"Uh huh. And that's the kind of shield the Earth's atmosphere gives you against cosmic rays, the equivalent of a ten-meter thick shield of water. It's all electron-photon interaction. The cosmic rays don't see the nuclei much at all. Using a denser material with a higher ratio of useless neutrons is even worse, more dead weight."

Eliana laughed at the concept. "Surrounding a light-burner with a shell of water ten-meters thick?! Those engines are ultra-light! It could never escape the gravitational pull of an asteroid, let alone accelerate to the light regime!"

Basel nodded. "DNA is an aperiodic crystal, extremely low entropic, very vulnerable to cosmic ray damage. The creature was different, but still a chemical-based encoded life-form. A trivial amount of radiation killed it, just as it would kill us."

Eliana nodded. "And they thought they were going to a star 5 light-years distant, not 107. The trip was far longer than they expected. Basel, this news will change the world." She stared at him. "You're smiling?"

He was smiling. "You should be too. This will be our ticket to go to mars. We have hundreds of years before the aliens find us, probably thousands..."

"They may never find us."

"Perhaps. But we can't assume that."

"You think the aliens will try again, don't you?" Eliana shuddered. "I do too."

"It's time for our species to get back into space again. We're sitting ducks staying down here on the surface like this. I'm sure the world will recognize this."

Eliana slowly nodded her head. "Did you know the old lunar colonies were over 47% male? The colonists were almost exclusively monogamists."

"Yes, I do. The urge to explore! Forgive me if I sound like a gender bigot, but I think the desire runs stronger in guys. Women are more the nest-building type."

Eliana laughed. "You're probably right! Just wait and see what a beautiful nest I build for you on mars!" It was a sweet laugh, full of her goodness, and Basel was overjoyed to see her happy again. And then she sighed. "It's so tragic Basel. All my life, I was taught to love and respect the life around me, human and non-human. Here we have our first contact with another world, and the preparation for war seems inevitable."

Basel nodded. He stood up and walked around to hug her. Eliana got up too and they walked to watch one of their few remaining sunsets. Basel kissed and hugged her as the last rays departed. And an evening's peace formed over the land.