They did not worry about that now.
This came as no surprise to Freya. The data from the monitoring stations were making it clear that Aurora’s atmosphere was breathable by humans, that indeed Aurora’s atmosphere was the most Earthlike aspect of their new home, and the main reason it scored so high in Earth analog rubrics. So as he joined all the scouting expeditions he could, Euan pushed harder and harder for official permission to take off his helmet. “It’s going to happen sooner or later,” he said. “Why not now? What’s keeping us from it? What are we afraid of?”
Of undetected toxins, of course. This was what he was told, and to Freya the caution was obvious and justified. Poisonous chemical combinations, unseen life-forms: the precautionary principle had to guide them. The Hvalsey council insisted on it, and also referred the question to the ship’s executive council, who said the same thing.
Euan and others of his opinion pointed out that their atmospheric and soil and rock studies had now gone right down to the nanometer level, and found nothing but the same volatiles they had detected from space, plus dust and fines as expected. The atmospheric gases were much like the air in the ship, except slightly less dense. Studies on the ground had confirmed the abiologic explanation for the oxygen in the atmosphere; they could even estimate its age, which was about 3.7 billion years. Tau Ceti, brighter then, had split Aurora’s hot ocean water into oxygen and hydrogen, and the hydrogen had escaped to space, leaving the oxygen behind. The chemical signatures of that action were unambiguous, a finding that had reassured the biology group that they did indeed have the place to themselves, as indicated by everything else they had seen.
Euan wanted to start that part of their new history, the first moment of going outdoors and breathing the open air. Freya said this to him during one of their conversations, and he replied, “Of course! I want to feel that big wind fill my lungs!”
The executive council continued to ignore the biology group and to refuse permission, to Euan or anyone else. Once the seal was broken between themselves and Aurora, there would be no going back. They needed to wait; to experiment on plants and animals first; to be patient; to be sure.
Freya wondered what Devi would have said about it, and asked Badim what he thought, but he only shook his head. “I’m not sure,” he said. “She was both cautious and bold. What she would say about this, I just don’t know.”
The executive council asked the security council to consider the matter and make a recommendation, and the security council asked Freya to join their meeting. Badim said the invitation was because of her friendship with Euan. The committee members were worried about him in particular.
The security council met to take up the question. Freya said to them, “I’ve been trying to imagine what Devi would have said about this, and I think she would have pointed out that the people on Aurora have had to take shelter in buildings they constructed by cutting stone. They’ve faced the stone with diamond sprays and aluminum, but there have been periods in the construction process when they’ve been exposed to cut stone. That isn’t exactly the same as going out into the open air, or jumping in the ocean, but it is exposure of a sort. So is going outside in suits and afterward going back inside still wearing the suits, and taking them off. What I mean to say is, inevitably they are already in contact with the planet. As soon as they landed, exposure was inevitable. And when they went out onto the surface in suits, even more so. They couldn’t stay inside a hermetically sealed chamber, they’re in contact with the place. And that’s good, right? That’s where we all hope to be. And nothing has happened to them, and they’ve been down there for over forty days. So keeping them confined indoors or in their suits is a conservatism that doesn’t conserve anything. It doesn’t acknowledge the reality of the situation. And it’s always better to acknowledge the reality of the situation. This is what Devi would have said, I think.”
Aram nodded at this; Song too nodded. If their system of governing had been a direct democracy, it was likely that the people on the surface would have been allowed to go out and open their suits and let the wind fill their lungs. But their government was made up of councils that for many years had often selected their own members, in effect. The ship’s computer was advisory only, and the ship tended to be conservative in matters of risk assessment and risk management, in ways everyone had seemed to want from it. So its programming seemed to indicate.
Now the security council again voted to keep the settlement closed off from the ambient environment, and those voting for this included even Aram and Song. The executive council did the same. But the time seemed near when that might change.
He laughed at this. Looking closely at the beach and the oncoming waves was one of the great pleasures of his shore walks, he told Freya in one of their private conversations, and he spent many an excursion walking up and down the strand to the south of the river mouth, often stopping to inspect certain sections from his knees, or even while lying down.
Most of his time out of the town was spent in gathering sand and loess to add to their soil-building greenhouses. He brought back samples he thought were promising, one backpack at a time. The farmers were pleased to have new soil matrices to extend some experiments. If they liked certain samples Euan brought in, he would drive out in a rover and dig up larger quantities. They were getting good results in certain fields, including some newly engineered plants that produced a harvest of edible seeds in the nine days of the daylit part of the daymonth. These fast plants would likely remain unusual, but could supplement crops grown in their greenhouses to a more normal rhythm. Between greenhouse and altered plants grown outdoors, it seemed as if they were going to be able to provide themselves with enough food, and this was exciting to them all, both settlers on Aurora and those in the ship still waiting to come down.
One day, 170.139, Euan went out with three friends, Nanao, Kher, and Clarisse. As always when people went out on hikes like this, many of those still up in the ship sat before their screens and watched what the walkers’ helmet cameras showed them.