Axios didn’t waste any time. I went right back through the gateway and barely made it to my office before I got a meeting notification through my implant. A full meeting of the board had been called for mid-afternoon and I was politely requested to attend.

As the commander of an exploration mission, I was occasionally involved in these high-level decisions, but in general it’s not my place to deal with policy decisions. This was a bit of a different situation, though. I made sure that all the camera feed footage was making it back to our servers and spent a bit of time looking through the other data that we had gathered so far. It was good to see that, apart from the slip that Argus had initially made about the life detectors, we were pretty much doing it by the book.

At least, having a couple of hours until the meeting is scheduled to start will give me time to gather my thoughts and be ready with some positive suggestions, whatever might be decided. I was hopefully prepared for any of the possible decisions by the time I dashed down to the cafeteria and wolfed a sandwich.

I walked slowly down the corridor towards the main conference room and let myself in. It’s a large but comfortable space that can be configured for lectures, meetings and displays. Today it is clearly set up for a meeting, but there’s a huge display active on one wall.

It is replaying our footage of the little flier and a couple of others that have been spotted by the water at the location of the second lander. They are bigger, bulkier and have longer, narrower wings, something that fits an ecological niche a bit like a petrel or albatross. I can clearly see that they are more mammalian than bird-like, though, as they clearly have pointed muzzles and very sharp looking needle-like teeth.

The next scene is from what I presume is the third lander, a group of smaller herbivores in a more rocky and uneven terrain. They have long, slightly orange-red coloured fur that gives them a look a bit like a shaggy goat or sheep that’s been dipped in paint.

I know most of the people in the room, even if I don’t deal with many of them on a regular basis. I’ve spent enough time in periodical update conferences to get to know what most of them will be thinking right now. I mean, we had discussed the possibility of finding quite complex life – even the far-fetched idea of finding sentient life – but it was all just theoretical and speculative.

Jack, the director, is at the head of the table and as soon as he spots me near to the door motions for me to come over and take the seat on his immediate right. I wasn’t expecting to be at the top of the table, but I guess it does make some sense. At least it’s a small meeting. There don’t appear to be too many people that I don’t know.

The AI avatars are the last to arrive, as if they have a co-ordinated plan to appear at the same time for everybody. I’m used to seeing Axios in avatar form at other meetings, but I have to say, I’m very surprised when Nexi is among them. The third one, I don’t know at all and it appears that I’m the only person at the table who doesn’t.

<Peter, this is Romulus,> Nexi tells me softly by way of an introduction. <He’s here to represent Earth, as I am for Sevrin. The other colonies have delegated me in their stead.>

<I’m pleased to meet you, Peter. It has been a long time since I last met a member of the Quilliam family.>

“Of course. My Grandpa has spoken of you a couple of times.” He told me once of his apprehension at the meeting they all had when he pulled his gateway stunt as he liked to describe it. “No offence, Romulus, but you do seem to only turn out for the big ones!”

<I’m afraid so. This one does qualify though, don’t you think?”>

“Yes, I think it just might.”

Everybody seems to have taken their seats and Jack is obviously keen to get things started. “Okay, I think everyone knows one another now. Let’s start off with a quick summary of the mission status. Peter, where are we standing?”

“Good afternoon,” I begin. “Mona’s Isle made a clean orbital insertion around Verus about seventeen hours ago. Argus began the approved sensor sweeps and we initiated the dropping of four landers as quickly as possible.”

“Initial readings and mapping scans seem to confirm what we already knew from farther out. Conditions on the surface are very Earth-like and the atmosphere is breathable. I was on the ship this morning, as were most of the crew, to appraise the first live feeds from the landers on the surface.”

“As you can see from the recordings on the main screen,” I wave my hand to the wall to my left, but it’s clear that everybody has seen the clips; “we found complex, varied, homeothermic animal life was present across the surface.”

“I’ve ordered our normal scanning and data-gathering process to continue according to the pre-determined schedule while any decisions on the next steps are being made. No obviously dangerous species seem to have been noted yet, but we have to assume that there are large carnivores present if there are large herbivores.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s about where we stand. Axios, did I miss anything important?”

<No, Peter, I don’t think so. I know you’ve been out of the loop working for a couple of hours, but apart from seeing several more species on the surface, the main situation is unchanged.>

“Well, thank you, Peter,” Jack resumes control with a nod in my direction. “We always knew this was a possibility, just a remote enough one that we don’t have much more than a vague contingency plan to deal with it.”

<As I see it,> Romulus begins, <we have three options. We can continue the mission; we can modify the mission in some as yet undecided way or we can complete the scans of Verus from orbit and select another mission target.>

<I’m not keen on the third option,> Nexi is quickly off the mark with their opinion. <It seems a bit defeatist and, frankly, not in keeping with the whole ethos of the exploration division. It was set up to explore new worlds.>

<For colonisation.> Romulus reminds her.

<Accepted,> Nexi agrees after a long pause.

“I take both points,” Jack adds. “But I do tend to agree with Nexi on this one. We may have been set up for furthering the colonisation programme, but there’s nothing in our charter that explicitly limits our mandate. Axios: if we decide to simply move on, how far away is the reserve target for the ship?”

<Not much further from Earth, but about thirty years or so in travel time. Also, now that Argus has used four landers, any exploration there will potentially be very limited.>

“That would seem like a lost opportunity. Almost as if we wasted this journey. There might be much to learn from Verus, even if we don’t colonize,” I add.

There is a general murmur of agreement from the other board members. Andrea, who I know is responsible for resource allocation and budgeting is quick to clarify. “It’s probably actually more cost effective to simply send another ship anyway. As I understand it, the reserve target is on the list for one of the next few launches.”

<That seems simple enough, then,> Romulus says. <Option three is off the table for now. In one form or another, we are probably landing.>

“So, the question is, what do we do when we land?” Jack asks.

<I think we have to consider the mission as changed,> Nexi suggests. <While we need to know what is down there, all previous assumptions are now worthless. We’ve seen complex life and we don’t know what level of evolutionary development any of that life has reached without a thorough investigation on the surface.>

“Are you suggesting we might find sentient life there?” Jack asks them.

<I’m merely pointing out the possibility. What if there are a stone-age or iron-age species on the planet. We probably can’t detect them from orbit.>

“Can we at least agree that this is now not likely to be the original colonisation appraisal?” I ask the table. “I feel that the mission has changed from that by default. I can’t see myself going down there and looking for a nice place to live.”

Once again there is a murmur of assent from the rest of the table. They have mostly been quiet, but I can tell they are following our progress keenly.

“Well, if that was the assumption, what would you need, Peter?” Andrea asks. “You don’t have the right team make-up for more detailed research, do you?”

“Off the top of my head, a couple of extra biologists and someone with an anthropology background, just in case. A linguistics expert might be worth including as well, if we’re going fully speculative!”

<I don’t have a problem with that. I mean, Earth doesn’t have a problem with that. We continue to explore Verus, but not with a view to colonisation. This becomes a purely research project.> Romulus seems to have settled on this simple premise that I think we can all get behind.

<The colonies agree,> Nexi adds after a momentary pause. <We draft in whatever extra staff we need and continue to explore the surface.>

“We can make that work,” Angela muses. “I can bulk up the science staffing pretty easily from other teams, but I’ll have to look elsewhere for an anthropologist and/or a linguist. It’ll take a couple of days. Linguists, in particular, are thin on the ground these days.”

“Okay, I think we have a broad consensus, then,” Jack now appears to be keen to bring our meeting to a close. “Peter, are you happy to continue with a modified mission plan?”

“Yes Jack. We need a few more days in orbit before we choose a landing site. That can always be extended and give us time to bulk the team up. There’s plenty for me to get my teeth into down there.”

“Excellent,” Jack says to the room as a whole. “A quick show of hands? All in favour of a modified mission profile to be decided?”

All the human hands are raised and both Nexi and Romulus flash their virtual selves to acknowledge acceptance. I don’t get a vote and neither does Axios.

“Thank you, everyone,” Jack adds as he stands. “Meeting is adjourned.”