What Grows Between Worlds
by R. C. Capasso
part 1
The initial survey crew of the planet Loric knew that the site would be barren and lifeless. All the scans had indicated this, and they had trained repeatedly to emerge from their landing craft into the replicated light of an alien sun, a windless, almost featureless landscape. Just ancient mountains in the distance, sculpted by volcanic action that had ceased millennia before.
Yet, for all its accuracy, their training was inadequate. Each of the three-person team felt the strangeness of the Loric soil, the thinness of the atmosphere despite suits that assured their breathing. They experienced almost a sense of waiting, of expectation, that had no logical cause on a planet where no sentient life could meet them. The impression that they were moving into something, across something, as they carefully traversed the Plain of Lyra.
It has potential, thought the engineer Thorn, though she could not say what she anticipated.
Something is off rang through the mind of the second-in-command, Dolanger. Every few steps he checked his instruments; they read exactly as expected, but he did not believe them. He did not feel what the data said he should feel.
Captain Orrin stood still, drinking in the light that seemed to slip through the sheerest possible gauze. His body tingled, though nothing could touch him through his suit. He let the others edge cautiously around him. He remained, inviting it all in, until with movements almost graceful, almost light despite his armor-like dress, he strode past them, beyond them, tdo the limit they had set for the first exploration.
Behind him Dolanger spoke into the com, but Orrin didn’t care. He halted when his mind said to halt, and lifted up his gloved hands, as if to receive something. It’s beautiful, he thought. Euri would love this.
Always his wife remained behind on Earth while he fulfilled missions, yet always in his mind he brought her into his new worlds. She felt it also; they had a bond that connected them even across space. On this planet that bond felt stronger than in any other alien place he had visited. He saw the landscape through her eyes, those eyes that found beauty everywhere.
They gathered all the samples and collected all the readings as instructed. For six days, a team camped on the planet, communicating routinely with the main ship. Dolanger reluctantly moved back up to assume command on the larger vessel, urging the science officers to sift through every report for anomalies. He hated being on the bridge, when the planet waited below him in silence like a beast crouching under cover.
But Captain Orrin insisted on remaining at the landing site, or rather ranging around it, like someone who had found an island paradise. Both senior officers could not be down there, at risk. Other officers rotated to the surface, depending on their specialties.
Thorn kept moving beyond the planned tests, suggesting new scans, trying to find something that wasn’t there.
But eventually they could invent no further excuse to extend their stay. The scope of the mission was clearly defined, and the discipline of the Corps had shaped each of its members, so, although Thorn closed up her scanners with regret, and Orrin actually had to be brought on board by Dolanger in person, the small craft moved back up into its bay.
When the starship started off toward its next assignment, the senior officers would complete their reports and receive any interpretations of the findings, any further instructions. They might never see the planet Loric again; some other crew might do any needed follow-up.
Orrin and Thorn experienced feelings of disappointment, even loss, but they did not speak of them. Dolanger tried to insert a sense of caution, even apprehension into his reports, but he could not completely contradict the tone of the others; he had to think of his career. The officers who had rotated down and spent less time on the surface may have talked among themselves, but none of their opinions reached the upper command.
It was just fortunate that the planet really had nothing significant to offer, Dolanger told himself.
In the days spent traveling to their next assignment, Captain Orrin tried to understand his senior officers’ attitudes. He knew little about them, especially Dolanger, who made no effort to relax into a social relationship when off duty. The man had family, perhaps an older brother in an important position somewhere, but that was all he ever revealed.
Thorn had a partner, Lisa, who taught at a college and raised their two children. A boy and a girl, although Orrin could not have sworn to their names. Thorn mainly talked about their diet issues and, of course, their schooling.
Orrin wished he could express his delight in the planet Loric, but that might have led to talk about his wife Euri, and how he shared nearly every experience psychically with her. As captain, that would have been too great a revelation. His officers could be open with him, if they chose, but he shouldn’t do the same while maintaining the distance necessary for command. And, deep down, his bond with Euri was too profound to discuss with any outsider.
In the end, they had to consider Loric in light of the needs of Earth and its settlements; unless it proved to be a resource, it was of no importance.
Earth had survived in part because of its programs of exploration and extraterrestrial settlement. But now some of the new plantings — no one used the word “colonies” — were struggling. Mineral resources from other worlds presented unexpected impurities. Crops that should have flourished almost seemed to resist new soil, new light. Terraforming was more complicated than even its critics had predicted. And they had not successfully managed all relations with indigenous species.
The uprising on Talus 4, one isolated incident, had been enough to justify all the apprehensions of Dolanger and those who shared his views.
In this context, even Orrin had to acknowledge that his sense of Loric’s beauty had no real place in his reports or even his conversations with the people under his command.
But he told Euri. Sitting with her back on Earth, in their garden, as the sky warmed to crimson from the setting sun, he searched for words to describe the secret joy he had felt standing on the sands of Loric. Imagining her there.
As always, she listened, sensing and supplying the meaning that he could only hint at. She held his hands, her eyes bright with the sun that seemed to gleam from within her, and rejoiced that he had found such a world. She said it was because he was open to beauty that it came to him. And he kissed her fingertips.
* * *
Seven months later, Captain Orrin had the thrill of guiding his landing craft to the surface of Loric again. He made a point of landing exactly where they had settled down in the first visit.
The scans had altered ever so slightly. No one was sure why.
There was a slight rise in ambient temperature, but only a fraction of a degree. Thorn measured an almost imperceptible increase in particulates in the atmosphere. Dolanger felt it was harder to pass through the air, as if it had grown thicker, and he sweated inside his suit.
Orrin moved toward a flash of light. On Earth, he would have said it was a firefly, but that was not possible. No life of any sort existed on Loric. Every measure confirmed this. He advanced.
A touch of color caught his eye in the crystalline sand. He had seen this in his childhood, on his family’s land. A ground cover that broke in through the grass, showing small blue flowers in the spring. Euri would know the name; she always knew the name of flowers. He scanned it; he could send the image, and she would tell him. His chest eased. It was just what he needed to find. She would be so pleased.
“The distant scans are showing different readings.” Thorn came up beside him. “On our last visit, you walked out to the edge of our study area. Now everything within the perimeter, in a circle around the space pod, seems to be giving us new data. But beyond the border, just out there where none of us walked, we’re getting the findings we initially collected.”
Orrin peered forward. Maybe things looked thinner, less vital beyond a certain point. But the luminosity around him made it hard to discern.
Thorn stared into the distance, as if the distinctions in atmosphere would be visible through the surrounding air, to her naked eye. “Should we advance outside the study zone? To confirm the readings?”
“I’ll go.”
“Captain, maybe I should.” Thorn studied him through the thick glass of her helmet.
“No, I’ll go.” He trod easily across the land he had visited before. He might have been returning to a familiar field, a space behind his house. Even through the bulky boots, his feet seemed to know the texture of the ground.
A faint sound tantalized him. It was almost a note, almost music, though it must have been the wind passing by an obstacle. The mountains were too distant. Did the contours of their ship, resting on a smooth plain, make a song with the planet? He smiled. Euri would say yes.
He walked exactly to the fringe of their explored space and stood. This was where he had stopped for so long, thinking of Euri, remembering everything about the planet so he could tell her when he got home.
And, yes, beyond that point, the atmosphere appeared thinner. He didn’t need his instruments to tell him that the beauty paled. He edged forward, eyes on the ground, then staring into the air, then off to the far horizon. One hand at his side, dutifully holding the scanner that took its findings, while he slowly pivoted, wondering.
During the planet’s deep, moonless night, the team sat together in the small landing vehicle. Everyone had poured over the new data, reviewing each other’s work. On the mother ship the science officers would be doing the same, ready to present conclusions or at least speculations and recommendations for the next day’s study.
“Is it possible the planet is interfering with our instruments?” Dolanger had eaten quickly, hungrily, and was now waiting for them to finish.
Copyright © 2026 by R. C. Capasso
