Unbounded

Chapter Four: Glow Canyon

Mission Time: +260.99 Earth-years

Tai glanced towards the barely audible sound of the sliding door. Ryder's figure was dark against the white habitat ring corridor. He stepped into the steel blues of the medical bay, and the overheads brightened above, following him as he walked towards Tai.

"Hello Doctor," Ryder said.

"Mr. Kask. How are you feeling?"

"Well."

"Good. You know the drill." Tai gestured to the scanning instrument. Ryder stepped onto the circular dais, and a set of encompassing rings descended from their receptacle in the ceiling. Once deployed, they moved slightly, adjusting their positions along Ryder's body and independently rotating their perpendicular axes at unpredictable intervals. On a console, Tai monitored the live data streaming from the scanner.

"Do you really believe everything you said in the staff meeting at the end of the last mission segment?" Tai asked idly.

"Yes."

"Hm. I have to say, that view is a little too cynical for me."

"That's your personal feeling. It doesn't affect its truth value."

"I think you may have been mostly right, but so am I. Our views are not totally exclusive."

"How so?" Ryder asked.

"Well, big expeditions might be begun or financed by profit-seeking or status-seeking motives, but many people associated with the endeavors are also motived by the pursuit of pure knowledge."

"Because that knowledge might yield practical benefits."

"Yes, but also because knowledge is desirable for its own sake. But I suppose that's a value judgment." Tai tapped the console. "Perfectly healthy." The rings slid back to their recess.

"And I notice people tend to get more excited about certain subject areas of knowledge than others," Ryder said as he stepped off the dais. "Life, especially. It's just an extraordinary case of complex chemistry, yet everyone treats it with a kind of mystical reverence."

"I would say it's self-evidently true that life is complex chemistry, but as such, it is the most complex phenomenon in the known Cosmos. There are more detailed, sophisticated definitions: but each is unsatisfactory in its own way; life is a little difficult to define because, until Cold Trove, we had a sample size of only one. It's hard to draw general conclusions from just one occurrence of a phenomenon. I think that's a big reason why scientists are so eager to find more instances."

"Unfortunately for me, I'm not a scientist. Maybe that's why I think differently."

"I sense sarcasm."

"Because it seems like most of the crew feel it pitiful to be a non-scientist. I see how they look at me. No matter what I do to deserve respect, I'll never earn it in their eyes."

"I don't think that's true. Maybe a couple people have been rude, but don't over-generalize. And don't worry so much what the others think--just do your job the best you can."

Ryder nodded. "Thanks. Well, see you later." Tai smiled and nodded. Ryder went to the main corridor and made the long stroll to Command Sector.

The sector was dim except for the glow of the consoles and Mbali's projected display. Ryder stayed near the door.

"You confirmed our space-time position?" Mbali asked.

"Yes," Anaru answered. "We're in a stellar orbit 1.156 light-minutes from Gliese 682. And we're in a four hundred kilometer orbit above a 0.463-mass planet."