Author: Jeremy Nathan Marks

The wind was wet.

It blew down from unseen heights and spread a damp veil across the plain. The soil, not accustomed to dampness, clotted. The surge in moisture caused large, segmented creatures with prolific legs to fall from the trees and lie twitching in the dirt. The trees, stunted, spiny, and bearing small waxy leaves, drooped in the wind. Their leaves yellowed, their arms darkened with rot, and their thorns fell to the ground. The trees seemed to melt.

For a week, the wind blew damp. The longer it blew, the more unstable the soil became. After a few days, it began to collapse and swallow the trees and lifeless creatures. By the end of the blowing week, no sign of the trees or creatures remained.

An Advance Team, looking down from orbit, congratulated themselves: their experiment was an unprecedented success. Now they could report back to their employer that the surface of Planet ΠΑ was barren. Extractive exercises would be permitted. The extraction protocol would be satisfied.

For the first time, an Advance Team had obliterated the life of a planet and left no evidence. In the past, fire was the weapon of choice. It scorched surfaces with inflammables and burned soil down to substrates. Then development would commence but somehow there was always a trace of the past for someone to discover. Often, there was an inspector or even a miner who felt aghast at their discovery and was compelled to report it. The company received a hefty fine and in some cases a demerit in its credit rating. Fire was not a foolproof plan for kickstarting development.

But this Advance Team tried water, and it worked. H₂O was a stroke of genius. They joked that it was a Gandhian weapon, a nonviolent but fatal technique delivered by a surprising source. Water made a thousand flowers bloom. A ship stocked with extensive water tanks was a ship bringing life to the galaxy. Planet ΠΑ required water; it deserved it. Who would gainsay that?

The Advance Team laughed at their audacity, toasted their success, and anticipated healthy bonuses which might allow them to retire from the field. They would be promoted to office jobs. Or they would become consultants, peddling their expert knowledge. They were smart people, businesspeople. They called themselves monetary engineers. Space was the most hostile frontier in existence, a place of pluck. And pluck is what they had proved to have.

While they celebrated, the surface of ΠΑ continued to clot. When a dry wind returned, it gathered no dust. The absence of granules led to scouring breezes that cleared the atmosphere. The clotted soil hardened and was burnished by the wind. The process happened remarkably quickly. When the sky turned pellucid, ΠΑ ceased to be a dull and cloudy detergent color. Now it shone across the distances like a pearl. Observers young and old discovered ΠΑ, and some of those discoverers were enterprising.

On the third day of their bacchanalia, the Advance Team received a call that boomed over their intercoms.

‘Did you deploy a flag?’ a steely voice asked.

There was a pause.

‘I assume from your silence you did not.’

‘No, sir.’

‘You will descend to the surface immediately and deploy a flag.’

‘Sir? We are not equipped-‘

The intercom cut out.

For several minutes, the team sat around looking confused. Confused and inebriated. No one could form a complete thought. Their orbital presence was known only to their employer. They had not brought a flag. They did not possess a working landing craft. The craft they did possess lacked enough fuel to land on ΠΑ and return to orbit. No preparations had been made for any landing on ΠΑ. Moreover, claims were an office matter. They involved filing papers with special seals and codes and clearances.

‘One of us will die.’

‘Who’s going to die? None of you gets to make that decision.’

‘You don’t get to make that decision.’

‘None of us will make that decision!’

One member of the Advance Team went to a view finder and studied the surface of ΠΑ. She began to curse softly to herself. A colleague heard her and came over to look at what she saw. When he saw it he, too, began cursing. For several minutes, each team member took turns. They shook their heads. They gaped at their work.

‘Well, we just won’t do it.’

‘Of course we will. If we don’t, we have no port to dock in.’

‘A burn notice?’

‘A burn notice. Yes.’

The group was silent a moment.

‘How ironic,’ one of the team members said, removing a lighter from his pocket.

Several other team members gasped and someone lunged for the small device. The man held it back, high above his head. He stood up.

‘This would end our troubles.’

‘Why do you have that on you?!’

The man smiled. ‘I don’t know. I stowed it in my things. These few days, all I’ve really wanted is to set my drink on fire. Is that so odd? How better to celebrate a great success than lighting your drink on fire?’

‘Thank God you didn’t!’ One of the women said.

‘Thank God I didn’t. . .’ the man smirked. ‘We’ve just enjoyed the greatest achievement of our lives. Think of the discovery we’ve made. The money we’ve saved. The frontiers we’ve opened. We’re legendary. And yet . . .’ The man studied the lighter for a moment. ‘And yet, I can’t light my own drink on fire. We’re given a burn notice, and I can’t use my own lighter. We squirt a planet with water and I can’t even smoke a cigarette.’