Planets Falling by James G. Scotson Page B

process was like wringing out a sponge.  The planet wouldn't quite be Eden, but it would be close. For now, though, the planet was an embryo gently swaying in its womb.  Embryos were pretty unsightly, but the babies were awfully cute.
    "Well, whatever occurred is now over-for the moment," Gorian noted.  "This buys us some time to analyze the results and plan for additional recon.  I'm ready to cook up some toys for sampling on the surface."
    Gorian was awash in her element in the station, always happiest when surrounded by fabricated things.  Transmission wires, fiber optics, plastic, rare metal panels, quantum computers, the hum of an engine deep below-decks.  These were peaceful reminders of the capacity of intelligent design.  Design that she understood deeply and nearly completely.
    She loved wandering among the machinery, monitoring the energy budget of the station, and dreaming of ways to improve efficiency.  If there was one thing she really disliked about the Platform, it was some of her fellow crewmates- the ones that didn't seem vested in their job- especially that deplorable hack Verat Wilcoxin.  It was obvious that Verat considered her a challenge to be overcome.  After all, she was young, bright, athletic, and mildly attractive, in a willowy sort of way. Her adolescence was spent worrying about the length of her limbs relative to her body- arms and legs too long, gawky. Again, there was the latent engineer in her looking for the golden ratio. She was failing miserably as a physical specimen, and was certain this made her a pariah to her peers.
    It occurred to her years later that she was indeed desirable to many boys - but perhaps it was the comfort she found in inanimate things that made her inaccessible.  Too much time tinkering with computer algorithms and designing molecular clocks, not enough time talking and taking interest in social play.  Aloof Gorian.  But fairly happy.  Machines never disappointed you - they could always be improved.
    Perhaps the closest sentient to Gorian on station was her colleague, or perhaps friend, known by everyone as Iggy.  The origin of the moniker was long forgotten.  No one knew Iggy's real name, although rumor held that it was impossible to pronounce or comprehend for that matter.  The staff was even uncertain about what pronoun to use.  Iggy's species - nauron - was hermaphroditic, containing both sex organs.  So, to the crew, Iggy was sheit - a unique pronoun that Iggy did not seem to mind.  Iggy did not possess vocal cords and communicated via pseudotelepathy.  An implant in sheit's brain transmitted vocal signals via radiowave.  These were then translated into understandable English - most of the time. 
    A crackle on the communications speaker from Iggy, "Verat and Grey, are you certain that the anomalous patterns were geothermal in origin?"  Sheit was eating a bar of chocolate and staring at Verat with his or her large grey eyes.  Thick lids slowly closed and opened over two broad, glistening orbs.  "Could climate be interacting with biologics in some way?"  Sheit took another bite if chocolate, the bar snapping in his/her mouth.
    Grey shook his head.  "I don't think so Ig.  Storms are rare on Nine.  When storms do happen, they're localized and never generate much electrical buzz.  As you all know, Nine was selected because it's boring.  Lots of water in the air but not much thermal differences around the globe.  Nothing to make bad weather.  As for biological activity, there's been some evidence on other planets that pockets of growth of plants can begin to kick up storms.  But nothing is advanced enough on the surface yet.  We're still in the primary developmental stage - just a bunch of goo and simple vascular plants sorting themselves out on the surface."
    Verat sipped his tea, which was perking him up nicely.  "Thanks for the enlightened comments, Grey, my buddy.  So geothermal is what we're thinking. Of course, all of the