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The Suspended Fourth [Story 2 in The Orchard Universe] [MultiFormat]
eBook by Paul Levinson
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$0.79 |
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$0.67 |
eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: In the same universe as "The Orchard": What if birds were carefully bred on a planet to warn its inhabitants of mortal dangers? What if the breeders were no longer there? Jack Swirl, a settler on a new world in space, investigates when his wife is struck down by a lightning bolt, and he believes he heard a certain birdsong right before....
eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Analog, 2000
Fictionwise Release Date: April 2002
34 Reader Ratings:
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [34 KB]
, ePub (EPUB) [38 KB]
, Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [20 KB]
, Portable Document Format (PDF) [87 KB]
, Palm Doc (PDB) [21 KB]
, Microsoft Reader (LIT) [69 KB]
, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [91 KB]
, hiebook (KML) [84 KB]
, Sony Reader (LRF) [55 KB]
, iSilo (PDB) [18 KB]
, Mobipocket (PRC) [23 KB]
, Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [51 KB]
, OEBFF Format (IMP) [34 KB]
Words: 6343
Reading time: 18-25 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
 
The second planet around the G5 star in the Peacock was near Earth in more ways than one. Only 19 light years from Sol, it was little more than 2 months away by the faster-than-light star drives of the mid-22nd century. Its climate was a tad cooler than raw Earth's, but it sloshed with frothy seas and an atmosphere breathable by humans. It sported half a dozen land masses of varying size, all tied together in a biosphere comprised of everything from viruses to mammals that looked like viverrines, from insects that glided like butterflies to hot-blooded, feathered creatures that flew like birds. Lots more of those, especially, than on Earth. But not so much as a primate, let alone anything with human-like intelligence.
This was a planet, then, like Earth in many ways--but not like Earth in at least one way, the way that had become an obsession to the human species as it combed the stars for someone to talk to, someone other than humans...
* * * *
Twice the science teams had come, holding back the tourists and the settlers, pleading with governments and corporations back home to stay away a little longer, lest they trample some delicate intelligence hiding in the woods or seas--or destroy some fragile technology, a clue or a sign, that an intelligence might have managed to leave behind. But the science teams found nothing. Not in their extensive DNA sampling and genome mapping of organisms, not in their sifting and staring at the stuff of this planet until even the scanning equipment was bleary-eyed.
Nothing except a lot of fine feathers, a lot of fine birds who chirped in captivating triads, major and minor, and the occasional suspended fourth...
* * * *
The first settlement group arrived an Earth-year later.
"I love it," Yevgenia Prima said to her husband, Jack Swirl, as they took in the lush green foliage that worked its way down to the sea, at what would be the edge of their property. "It looks just like California, no?"
Jack smiled, put his arm around her. "More like Cape Cod than California," he said. "You've got California on the brain because of all that Mamas and Papas music you've been listening to."
"This place seems to like that music," Yevgenia replied. "I heard something that sounded just like it in the trees, only yesterday--"
She was cut off in mid-sentence by a bolt of lightning that made Jack cry out in shock, and killed her on the spot.
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