Orussian Quarantine : Chapter 3/10

This post is the third of the ten chapters of the speculative fiction scifi story Orussian Quarantine. If you havn't read the first two chapters yet, they are available here.

Preparations

The atmospheric thinning statistics coming back from Maarsoly were much worse than the climate models had predicted. Orus-4 was dying much faster than expected. Orus-4, or Maarsoly as Orussians referred to it, was a small terra-formed planet where originally-Cirussian fauna had evolved into uniquely Maarsolian reptiles and mammals. The lakes of south Maarsoly had even become the habitat of an oddly exotic aquatic mammal that had recently been qualified as a high-potential pre-civ species.
The Maarsolian fauna, and especially this pre-civ species, needed to be preserved. Climate science was still in its infancy when Maarsoly was terra-formed. The planet turned out to be fundamentally too small to sustain a type B atmosphere. Generations of climate scientists had used every trick in the book to slow the thinning of the atmosphere, but now a critical threshold had been reached and thinning was accelerating. The planet was losing its atmosphere, there were no terra-plants close enough for a new type-B atmosphere injection, thus the only way to save most of the planet’s rich fauna would be bio-migration.
Uriëlla and Inoatar had forty standard days left until the climate engineer that was to be seconded to her station would arrive. Uriëlla had gathered the genetic material of the over three thousand species unique to her quadrant of the forest planet. The whole southeastern sub-tropic was to be turned into Maarsolian grasslands. Grasslands on Orus-3! And after the bio migration, those grassland would house mammals. Mammals! A welcome thought after fourteen standard years on the forest planet inhabited mostly by insects and slimy slugs.
A lot had happened since the Lilith incident. The guild’s master bioscientists had discovered the problem that had led to the Lilith uprising. There was a major and fundamental flaw in the RELI-gene that allowed slight non-fatal mutations to it to trigger a dynamic re-imprint from Orussians back to the original Maarsolian ant queen reverence. The Lilith workers had re-imprinted on their queen mother, and had at one point perceived all Orussians as posing a threat to their queen goddess. Scientists were working hard on a fix for the RELI-gene, but until one was found, ant-monkey queens were strictly prohibited. Each of the forty queens on Scayune had been ordered to be incinerated by the Interstellar Senate.
For Uriëlla this meant that she could welcome Inoatar back without any worries. Last spring Inoatar had run into one of the many signs she had left at each of the deep forest checkpoints. Consequently he had returned to the science station, where Uriëlla had welcomed him back. The preparations for the biomigration gave Inoatar a great opportunity to put his engineering skills to good use.
Incubation and Relocation Capsules (IRCs) were normally build on Cirus-prime, but Cirus was a good 6 standard light-years from Orus. This meant Cirussian capsules could not reach the planet in time. Uriëlla had to design and build IRCs from spare parts. Inoatar had picked up pretty quickly on Uriëlla's IRC design. The speed with which Inoatar was able to build new IRCs and his ability to come up with minor design modifications when he ran out of a specific part continuously amazed Uriëlla. A good thing too, as major climate engineering efforts were to start in 120 standard days, so time was short.
Raphaël’s accommodations were almost finished. Although the big problems Uriëlla had expected with respect to her use of the geno-virus were no longer to be feared, there were still critical issues when it came to how Raphaël might react. It was clear from Inoatar’s behavior that his RELI-gene was inactive. Raphaël might report this, but with all queens dead, it was very unlikely there would any significant consequences to either her or Inoatar. The real issue was that Uriëlla and Raphaël would need to work together for quite a long time. If Raphaël had issues with Inoatar’s existence, how could they work together effectively? There was so much work to do in so little time. A planet was dying, and without their intervention, many, many thousands of unique and valuable species. Uriëlla and Raphaël had to work as a team from day one. Inoatar was Uriëlla's true friend and was indispensable as an IRC builder in these times of crises. They would need to finish all the IRCs before Raphaël arrived. Inoatar had to once again disappear into the woods. It pained her, but once again there was too much at stake.

Continue to Chapter 4