Whatever importance we had all attached to this orbital insertion event, it really was just the beginning of our exploration. I think we all sensed that, for most of us, this is the point when we all have to start actually working on live data.

First, however, that data has to be gathered and this is going to take more than a few hours to complete, even in its most basic form. I’ve plenty to do in my office for the rest of the working day. We have literally had decades to prepare for this, but there are plenty of last-minute decisions to make and there will be many more as the data flows.

I might be the commander on the mission, but that doesn’t mean all that much in terms of the exploration division as a whole. There are currently eight other ships on similar routes to other destinations and enough staff to ensure that they all are on schedule and that planning for their eventual arrivals is progressing. If we progress as expected on Verus, my team and I are scheduled to work on the fifth upcoming arrival in about eighteen months from now. They are going to be coming thick and fast.

I certainly have enough to do that I can’t just sit and watch the data accumulate. My terminal is a continual barrage of messages, questions and decisions that must be made. Argus keeps me informed of orbital progress and Axios, our management AI is keen to keep me in the overall loop as best he can.

When I think about the decades that it took for mankind to gather data from orbit on Earth, it is remarkable just how much information we can assimilate and extrapolate with our modern sensor suites. Granted, the AIs do most of the initial heavy lifting for most scientific disciplines, mine included. I get a distillation of the data, not the whole thing.

With a wave of my hand, I bring up on screen the latest state of our mapping and survey efforts. The virtual globe is already more than 20% mapped as my day comes to an end. We are capturing visible-light imaging at 50cm resolution, Infra-red at 1m, radar altimetry at about 5m and scanning for surface, water and air temperatures. In addition, deep-penetration radar is working out ocean depths and the thicknesses of the ice caps. According to our simulations, we should have pretty good coverage of everything after about four days, but we should be able to get started on some basic analysis tomorrow morning.

I’m fairly content so far. Everybody is working well and progress is being made. The first of the lander probes has been dropped and Argus assures us that it is on target and working as expected. Some of this hardware couldn’t be brought through a gateway and has been strapped in place for half a century. This is one of the main reasons why Argus and I have decided to keep a couple of them in reserve. I have a bit of a fear that one or more of them might fail on the way down or after landing.

It’s Axios, not Argus, however, who tells me it is time to go home. <There’s no point in staying here all night watching a slowly changing screen,> he tells me as darkness falls outside my window. <Go home and leave the accumulation of data to the AIs.>

“It’s all a bit of an anti-climax, my friend,” I tell him. I’ve known him for almost five years and we have had to work very closely together over that time. He’s so laid back that you sometimes wonder how he manages to keep on top of the workload, but everything is, as you might expect from an AI, always on time and in order.

<Yeah, I understand, Peter. Give it a couple of days and I’m sure you will think differently about it. Once the landers give us an actual look at the surface, things will seem much more real.>

“I just feel that I’m spending all my time sitting around waiting for short bursts of excitement and activity. Honestly, I feel a bit like it’s all a fraud.”

<It’s not like the first moon landings, is it?> he asks after a moment. <500 years have compressed much into routine. We’d never keep a planetary audience interested in this fairly text-book approach to exploration. I wish we could. More engagement from the population could only be a positive thing.>

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not looking for life-threatening excitement. But, a little something out of the expected routine would be nice.”

<I feel like I should caution you to be careful what you wish for, Peter,> Axios suggests with a slight chuckle.

“Hmm. I may have just jinxed the whole mission. I’m going home before I completely fuck it up then.”

<I would too, if I could. Mary wants you to stop by her office before you go.>

“Thanks, Axios. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Did you want me for something, Mary,” I ask as I step into the doorway of her office just a few doors down the corridor from my own.

“Yes, Peter. Nothing to serious, just a quick preliminary observation about those equatorial thunderstorms.”

“Oh, are they going to cause us any problems?” I ask.

“Probably. They seem to be pretty constant and we will do well to keep at a sensible distance once we get on the ground. I’m seeing hundreds of strikes per hour and they seem to follow the day/night terminator right the way around over both land and sea.”

“Do we have an explanation?”

“Nothing more than the obvious fact that there’s more energy in the system than there would be here on Earth. Even here, we have places where there are storms practically every day. As a kid in Uganda, I’ve seen some pretty epic ones in my time.”

“Okay, I’ll bear it in mind when we decide where to set down. I know Argus isn’t putting any of the landers too close, so we should be good to go so far.”

“I agree. I just wanted you to be aware of my preliminary data. I’d suggest ten degrees north or south of the equator for preference.” Mary reaches out and closes her terminal down. “Axios ordered me home and told me you were next on his list.”

“Oh, you too? I lost track of the time, missed lunch and now I’m starving. Do you want to catch some food?”

“Thanks, but I promised Steve that I’d be home at a sensible time. I’m cutting it pretty close.”

“No problem. Get going and I’ll see you in the morning.”

We walk out of the building together, but Mary quickly wishes me a good evening and dashes off in the direction of her apartment. I don’t really feel like cooking, so I head in the direction of the shopping centre to contemplate a take-away.

The Florida evening is warm and humid. I walk slowly, savouring the slightly cooler evening air and the breeze gently blowing in from the Atlantic. Our campus occupies what was the extreme southern end of the Cape Canaveral launch complex, across the channel from Port Canaveral. I suppose that we are still in the space business and the location is eminently logical from that viewpoint.

Now, there are no launches. Everything is gateway transported into orbit, passing through one of the two main stations, either Archimedes or Euclid depending on the project. The Earth-side gateways to both stations are located here at the Cape, keeping that 500-year-old connection with space well and truly alive.

As I pass under the two huge umbrellas in front of the little Mexican kitchen at the edge of the square, I notice that Miguel is working the kitchen this evening. I swerve towards the counter and take a seat.

“Hola, Peter. You’ve been away?”

“Yes, Miguel. I went to visit my Granddad and Grandpa on Sevrin.”

“How are they both? We don’t hear so much about your Grandpa Aidan these days.”

“No, they are enjoying retirement, each in his own way. Grandpa insisted that we went surfing.”

“I never doubted. He’s a tough one.”

“I wanted to see them before the mission gets serious. I don’t know how long I might be occupied with landing.”

“It’s soon, then?”

“Yes, Miguel. We are in orbit now. It looks like a fine, green planet.” No words have passed between us, but Miguel has been preparing vegetables and cooking as we talk. I’m a creature of habit and he seems to know me only too well.

“Is this okay, my friend?” he asks as he wraps the burrito and places it on a plate in front of me. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Yes, thank you and yes please. If you have some orange juice?”

“One moment and I’ll squeeze some for you.”

When he returns to the counter a few moments later, the chilled glass is already misty with condensation from the humid air, but the juice has that perfect mix of sweetness and tartness that I love. The burrito is wonderful. The strips of protein are nicely spiced and the black beans are full of flavour. Miguel knows just how much spice I can manage and has made it perfectly.

Coming from Sevrin as a freshly recruited intern, this was the first place that I came to eat when I moved in. Miguel worked with his uncle then, but now he’s in charge. He introduced me to the Central American food that I now really enjoy. Once he found out who I was, he was one of the few people not intimidated by my family name.

I think we were talking about the fact that Grandpa taught me to surf when I was barely big enough to walk and, knowing my surname, he picked up when I called him Grandpa Aidan. In return, he told me tales of his paternal grandmother teaching him to cook as a small boy on the west coast of Mexico. He is also a surfer and we complained about the generally poor waves on this coast. There’s not enough of an onshore wind to get good waves here.

As I eat slowly and Miguel serves a few more customers, we talk about generalities and a little about the upcoming mission.

“Peter, will you be staying away for the mission, then?”

“No, I don’t think so. We’ll have the gateway open the whole time, but I won’t get much time to go off campus for a few weeks at least.”

“We may see you as often as usual then?”

“Probably. We’ll try and get ourselves synched to Verus time. The day is about an hour longer than on Earth and it will soon mess everything up! Expect me at odd times with odd requests.”

“All these strange worlds with different days and different skies. It is very complicated for a simple chef.”

“Don’t worry, my friend. It is complicated for a space explorer as well.” I tell him with a smile. My implant pays for my food as Miguel presents the code and I tell him that I’m heading for home to try and get a few hours of sleep.

“Good luck, Peter,” he tells me as I walk back towards my apartment.