Ben C. Davis

The wingtip grazed the water's edge as it banked around the outcrop, a group of grazing long-necked creatures watching idly from on top. The ship leveled its huge chromium wings and settled parallel against the lake, its surface shimmering in the evening light from the planet's twin stars. The ships silent ion thrusters left a gentle mist of pearlescent vapor in its wake.

Alma was lost in a daydream. The tiny water droplets flashing in the her aft display reminded her of the crowds at the raceway on Plaaden - a sea of euphoric spectators, their cameras flashing, desperately trying to capture the colorful blur of hypersonic ships racing through the physically impossible bends of the course.

This new planet. This beautiful untouched haven. It had left her in an almost trance-like state of wonder since she arrived two days ago.

Her attention snapped back as she saw, coming through the mist, a flock of flying creatures gliding up alongside her. Perhaps a dozen of them. Their wings were narrow and long, sweeping back from their pointed heads, the beaks continuing the contours of their graceful bodies, giving the impression of a single unified form. From above, they had the shape of an elongated triangle, perfectly aerodynamic. They floated effortlessly in the ship's slipstream, with no hint of movement in their wings.

Alma pressed the flashing button on her central display that read "Catalogue Species", causing the ship to store the many millions of data points it had collected about the creatures in the few hundred milliseconds after its sensors had detected their presence. Alma was building a rather sizeable collection on this planet, which she still had yet to decide what to name.

In the Galactic Charter of Planetary Exploration, it's supposedly within the rights of the first known explorer of a previously undocumented planet to grant it its universally recognised name. Supposedly. In reality, rarely is a name given by an explorer the one that ends up in the galactic registry. That honor usually is given to some aristocrat or financier from the Capital, a favor in some exchange of loyalty to the Consul. But Alma still tried. Although her recent names were so ridiculous that even she wouldn't give them ascent to registry: Big Round Thing or NotWorthVisiting 5 (there was no 1 through 4). Instead they were called Regiir (after the prison magnate Aldr Regiir) and Zaenzen (after the daughter of some Lord of somewhere that Alma couldn't remember nor cared to remember).

But this planet was different. Alma wanted to name this one. More than that, she wanted to protect it. In the 20 or so years she'd been a Galactic Cartographer (she wasn't a fan of that particular job title but then she also wasn't annoyed at the adoration it seemed to give her at parties), this was unlike any other world she'd seen. It thrived. Truly thrived. Every sector of this planet was teeming with life. There seemed to be a harmony to life her that was missing from other worlds. A sense of balance. Nothing here seemed to be striving or desperate. The world seemed to provide its life with abundance, and life accepted it with grace. A reciprocity that was entirely absent in the rest of the galaxy. At least, this was how Alma saw it, and she was content to accept it as truth. It gave her a sense of peace she hadn't felt her entire life.

The flock slowly began to move away, their shapes silhouetted against the setting sun. Alma had spent enough days on this planet now that her sleep schedule had adjusted. She yawned and began searching for a good place to land.

Alma came to the end of the lake. At its edge lay a lush meadow, sweeping across an undulating land until it met the bottom of a vast mountain. Throughout the meadow there lay a scattering of boulders, all different sizes, but all the same shade of deep crimson. Alma saw one, equidistant from the mountain and the lake, with a long flat surface. Its surface seemed smooth, almost glass-like. In its reflection, Alma could see the wispy clouds that sat still in the deep magenta sky.

She circled the boulder. She reduced her speed, pulled back on the controls, and reoriented her aft thrusters to gently lower the ship to land.

Her ship was silent as it floated through the air and finally settled on the boulder. A luxury explorer built by Aeara Dynamics on Cicera, it was Alma's home. Even when she was back on the home planet, this ship was still her home. A gift to herself when she had finally left that job that was slowly killing her.

She checked the stability levels, then shut down the engines. Although the ship's ion drives were the quietest in existence, the silence was almost overwhelming when they stopped. Alma looked through the bow windows. She had landed facing due west, deliberately framing the mountain in her view, which now stood towering over her, rays from the setting sun beaming from its edges.

The ship's bridge sat at the apex of the ship's two decks.