TEACHER
as a more-or-less universal solvent, that’s right. And that’s why we call it the biosphere. Bios is Greek for life, and only in this sphere can life exist. Amy?
FIFTH STUDENT
But last year in Biology Miz Harkness said that a biosphere was all the air and water and ground on Earth, where plants and animals can live.
TEACHER Gruffly:
A word can have more than one meaning.
The FLY stops buzzing and JACQUE looks over at it. JACQUE has been trying to look inconspicuous, but it’s difficult because he’s the largest one in the room, and the vagaries of the alphabet have put him in the front row.
TEACHER
Jacque? Could I have your attention?
JACQUE
Yes, sir.
JACQUE has lived in America for eleven years and has no trace of a French accent. When he returns to Switzerland in nine months, with a slowly healing back, he will have lost forever the musical Lausanne accent that surrounded him as a child, and will speak his native tongue like an educated foreigner.
TEACHER
Bearing in mind what Mary and Mark just said, tell me: which would have the larger biosphere, our sun, or a hot blue star like Rigel?
JACQUE
Hesitates.
Our sun?
TEACHER
Absolutely not! The lesson last night used Rigel as an example. Didn’t you study it?
JACQUE
Uh. . . sir.. . we had a. . . voltage fluctuation last night and I couldn’t get the book to work.
TEACHER
Shakes his head.
I wish I had a dollar for every time…
Rhythmically slapping his palm with a ruler.
Your assignment for tonight, then, Jacque, will be to write a four-page paper about the biosphere. In it you will explain why one is more likely to find a hospitable planet going around a hot star than around a relatively cool one.
JACQUE
Yes, sir.
TEACHER
And you will read it for the class tomorrow. And answer questions.
The voltage fluctuation story is true. Even at this age, JACQUE knows more about physics and astronomy than the TEACHER does. William Gilbert’s M.A. was in Music Education. When he reads his paper tomorrow, JACQUE will point out that by the TEACHER’s definition, the Earth is not within the Sun’s biosphere [since if Earth were airless, the temperature on the surface could exceed the boiling point of water, as it does on the moon], and therefore cannot support life. He will also remark that the extent of Rigel’s biosphere is meaningless, since young blue stars don’t form planets. Thus he will make a powerful enemy, not for the first time or the last, and would be destined to flunk the course if the alley rendezvous were not to cut short his semester.
7 – CHAPTER TWO
“-eggshell.”
Like some improbable circus act, the Tamer team suddenly appeared less than a meter above the surface of Groombridge 1618’s second planet. They fell abruptly, and found that the planet did indeed have liquid water. More to the point, liquid mud.
“Jesus Christ!”
“Merdel” Jacque fell the farthest and so sank the deepest, up to his shoulders.
“Hold it,” Tania ordered. “Nobody move for a second. See whether we keep sinking, whether it’s like quicksand.”
“I don’t think it is,” Jacque said. “Think my feet are on solid ground.”
“Try to walk, then.”
“No problem.” Walking, Jacque made a gelatinous sucking sound, and the black mud swirled viscously behind him. “Uh, heading toward that bush. Or whatever it is.”
The planet, which they would simply call Groombridge, was within its star’s biosphere and obviously had a primitive form of plant life. Not green, though. Jacque was headed for an organism that did have a recognizable stalk and drooping fleshy plates that might be called leaves. But it was the color of a corpse.
Groombridge 1618 hung high in the sky, easily four times as big as the sun is from earth, but looking unwell. It was a dull orange color, mottled with black spots and etched with fine swirls of yellow faculae. Its brightness was tempered by the dense low fog, and one could look directly at it without squinting.
The pale yellow fog limited their visibility to some 70 meters; half again that far in the infrared. At the extreme limit they could barely make out what might have been the edge of a forest. Or at least a group of largish plants.