SF Drabble #154 “70 Virginis”

“I don’t get it.” Orbital scans had found nothing. They had come down anyway, to find nothing themselves. “Two ships, thirty crew and fifteen hundred colonists each. Plus ten industrial synthesizers, two reactors, vehicles—”

“Yeah.”

“And, all the biosamples, the frozen embryos, soil cultures…”

There was nothing where their briefing materials said the colony should be: not even ruins. “Deploy search parties up and downriver, and I want both landers flying search patterns.”

“If we didn’t find anything with the ship’s telescopes, what makes you think—”

“Just do it.”

“Yes, sir.”

He kicked the dirt in frustration. “Three thousand colonists…”

No comments:

Post a Comment