As mission flight commander, Zack knew that space travel was always risky, and that every mission he flew might be his last, but he never expected this. Now, he and his crew were five light years from home, with no real chance of getting back any time soon.
The plan should have been simple. With much fanfare, the obligatory press conference, and handshakes with government dignitaries, Zack and his 25-member crew had blasted off from the launch pad about 10 years ago. After making sure that the autopilot was working well, the crew retired to their stasis cells, and slept for most of the trip. Two weeks ago, the ship's computers revived them, and Zack's navigation crew eased the craft down into a wooded area of the planet.
The scientists back home said the planet was the perfect choice for exploration. A yellow sun, lots of water (too much, thought Zack), and most importantly, weak radio waves had been detected coming from the planet. Signs of life. This mission was their first real chance to make contact with a sentient alien life form.
The atmosphere was a mix of toxic gasses, so life support systems were still needed, but there was certainly something out there.
Zack looked through the rain, and thought about the sun back home. On this remote rock, he hadn't seen the sun since they landed. The crew knew it was out there, because there was an obvious difference between day and night, but the thick clouds and heavy rain never let up. Rain at night. Rain in the day. This was part of their problem.
The bigger problem was that the planet's atmosphere was just too thick. How did those cretins back at Mission Control get it so wrong? The ship was designed to collect solar radiation for its return trip while the crew was out exploring. But for the last two weeks, Zack's engineers had been unable to find a way to get the solar panels to collect enough energy to brew a drink, much less lift the ship back into space. This morning, Zack's chief engineer, Yosef, came to him with the bad news.
They'd have to abandon the crew.
The only way the ship was getting back home was to get as much weight off of the ship as they could, and to collect what little solar energy there was while the planet traveled a third of the way around the sun.
''Good thing we arrived this time of year,'' Yosef told him. ''We're in the sunny season.'' Otherwise, it'd be nearly a full year before the ship would've been able to generate enough power to leave.
In Zack's afternoon's meeting with the crew, they had devised a plan: Ditch all three shuttles, all 18 escape pods, and all gear that wasn't absolutely critical, and Zack could pilot the ship back home to get help -- help that wouldn't arrive for at least another 20 years. Meanwhile, the remaining crew would learn everything they could about the planet and its inhabitants. To help in first contact situations, the excess gear could be used as gifts to trade.
The crew would be OK. Even though the atmosphere was toxic, the shuttles were designed to convert the water vapor and the toxic carbon dioxide in the planet's atmosphere into the methane the crew needed. Each shuttle contained five escape pods that also were able to convert air. Unfortunately, the shuttles' and pods' life support and propulsion systems depended on the same (pretty much non-existent) solar energy that the ship did, and weren't able to store as much, so self-propulsion was out of the question.
It was Brian (the xenolinguist) and Julia (the computer technician) who came up with the idea. Julia had hacked into the planet's communication network, and Brian discovered that a few of the sentient life forms on the planet would frequently visit remote locations -- even if they only had a set of coordinates -- and would pick up objects and take them somewhere else. The life forms called it "Geocaching," and although it was a slow means of propulsion, it wasn't as if they had anywhere else to be. If they could trick the life forms into treating their shuttles and pods as geocaches, they would be able to explore the planet.
Zack gave the OK. Julia posted the coordinates to the Geocaching node, and, with Brian's help, wrote the following instructions:
This is a large cache located in undeveloped Wards Lake park, which contains three ready-to-hide normal sized caches. Each normal-sized cache contains three to six ready-to-hide micro caches.
Please take a normal or micro cache from the large cache, and plant it somewhere else, at least a few miles from here. The further away from the large cache, the better. When you hide it, post it as a new cache to Geocaching.com, and include the word 'Centauri' in the title. Leave instructions for the finder of your normal-sized cache to take, hide, and post one of the micro caches.
Reports from security at the nearby shopping center indicate that cars parked in the back will be towed. Security also reports that the park is likely to be unsafe after dark. They recommend parking at the end of Pine Street, which is the official entrance to the park. Other Geocachers have had trouble this way, though. You may find it safest to park in the front of the shopping center, then walk through to the back.
There are other items in the large cache. For those, take an item, leave an item. Enjoy the hunt.
Your fellow earthling, Brian.
Hopefully, the planet's life forms would think that the message was posted by one of their own. Zack leaned back and waited. Would this rain ever let up?