This post was inspired by a writing prompt in the Worldbuilding Community - Worldbuilding Prompt #1013 - Silence.
Enjoy !
"So where are you from, Dr Teric ?"
Dr Karliv tried to make the question sound casual, but Teric could tell he was just trying to take his mind off the descent.
The shuttle creaked slightly and lurched a little as it was buffeted in their descent through the thickening atmosphere. It was a demilitarised Passault I, one of millions cascaded down for civilian use around the Empire as newer models came online for the Droptroops. The machine was ancient, and although well maintained it's age clearly showed. Mostly on the pale face of Dr Karliv, who was obviously terrified it might break up on the way down.
Teric grinned slightly. "I'm from Ogre. It's a gas-giant colony. We live in sealed habitats floating in the atmosphere. If floating is the word. The wind speed rarely drops below seven hundred miles an hour, and the air is a toxic soup that'll kill you with a single breath."
"This place we're dropping in on....", he checked his dataslate of Survey Division notes, "... Silvian III.... is a paradise by comparison. Gravity close to what we evolved in, air which is at least borderline breathable, and wind speeds so low you'd never get blown away. I can't wait to see it !"
His answer seemed to calm Dr Karliv a little. There were worse places Survey Division could have sent them. Ogre, for example.
An hour later, they were safely on the surface, the shuttle a little way off quietly cooling from the heat of re-entry.
The final descent had been vertical. One thing the notes had missed out was just how many trees there were. But what trees ! Thick wooden stems supporting weird globular structures enclosed by a clear membrane. The globes contained organs that did the job of leaves, processing the orange sunlight into energy to feed the plant, and radiating off cyan blue light as waste.
The ground was covered by dense but wispy fern-like plants. But the notes said that this was as far as life was known to have evolved here. There was no evidence of animal or even insect life.
Teric could see why, as in the distance one of the trees opened it's membrane briefly and puffed out a small cloud of light, feather-like seeds. Other nearby trees responded by puffing out clouds of smaller dart-shaped feathers that seemed to home in on the seeds. Insects couldn't get through the tough membranes, so hadn't evolved; instead the trees found a different way to create the next generation.
His instruments indicated that the atmosphere contained no toxins and enough oxygen to breathe, although little carbon dioxide. He was wearing nose filters. So Teric unfastened his helmet.
Karliv called over in surprise. "What are you doing ? Are you crazy !"
Smiling, Teric replied, "Not at all. Instruments show the air is safe to breathe. Call me weird, but I like to smell a planet. It tells me so much about a place. I was bought up in a noisy sealed plastic canister, where the only smells were oil and cabbage and sweaty humans. Sniffing nature gives me joy."
He pulled the helmet free and took a deep breath. The air was like perfume. All the different trees and plants must be emitting aromatic compounds, almost like pheromones.
Then it struck him. Complete silence. There was no sound on this world. All his life Teric had been used to the roar of Ogre's endless wind, the bleeping of system status monitors that said the hab was still sealed and safe, the breathy hum of air conditioning systems and life support machinery, and the ceaseless sound of human voices.
Here; the wind was almost non-existent. Feint sylphs of breeze couldn't rustle the leaves of trees that had none. There were no humans to chatter, or insects to buzz. With his helmet removed, even the quiet hiss of Teric's suit life-support had turned itself off.
Perhaps there might be noise when the rain fell onto the ferns, or very rarely when a tree came to the end of it's life and toppled slowly over. But this was a gentle world, and such things would be rare.
For today, there was total silence. It was beautiful.
I like it that I can recognise that this belongs in your universe.
Cool... though a little creepy. hehe
Cheers ! It's really nice to hear that my universe is coherent enough that you can spot posts set in it 😀
But creepy... oh dear, I'll have to try harder when it comes to writing things without a dark twist at the end 😆
To me... perhaps there is an element of suspense where I expect something to go wrong... as it often does in Sci-fi explorations.
I'm sure I can make it all go wrong.... there are a thousand ways to die horribly on a survey mission 😁
Exactly! I was waiting for that! The danger was not apparent, so it made it feel sinister!
lol, that'll teach me to write a post with a happy ending. Now I know; people want the explorers to die awful, grisly deaths 😆
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 well I DIDNT say that... but it is what I expected! Or at least that it was quiet... but they weren't alone...