Lifepod

Neil woke up with sticky hands and a headache. He focused his eyes enough to see the dried blood on his fingers and feel more of it clotted in his hair. The room was nearly upside-down. Metal, with flashing lights that made his skull throb.

The lifepod!

He cursed, sat up, and blacked out for a moment. He was on the ceiling of a lifepod from the Titan, and it was bobbing on the waves of an alien sea.

He'd been briefed on emergency procedures, but had assumed that his role in an emergency would be to stay out of the way. There wasn't much middle ground in space between problems the bridge crew could handle, and those that'd kill everyone. As a junior life support tech on a thousand-man ship he'd never expected to survive a disaster and end up... wherever this was.

Dimly, he recalled his few years of training. He muttered, "What's the first thing that could kill me?"

He poked at his head and winced, but there was no bright new blood on his fingers. All his limbs were where they ought to be, though he'd been in his pajamas when the alarm sounded and they were a singed, torn mess now. Neil climbed up to one knee and managed to focus his eyes on the lifepod's computer screen. It said, upside-down:

"Hull Integrity: OK. Life Support: Caution. Production Facility: Caution. Communications: 1 Signal."

Contact! Neil lunged toward the screen to poke the comms button, though it was hardly top priority. Then his heart sank. The lifepod had a signal only from the Titan's emergency beacon, pumping out a mindless distress call. No word from any other survivors. He swore and smacked the wall with his palm. Good riddance to the captain who'd done this to everyone, but damn, nearly a thousand people! Maybe including him, if he couldn't get rescued.

As his head slowly cleared, Neil checked the various padded containers on every surface of the pod. There was all kinds of basic survival gear, like a water purifier and flares, but he was apparently floating on water. And who knew what the local biology would do to human flesh?

He shook his head. What about life support? He checked the computer. No urgent problems stood out, and the air outside was breathable, but the pod's batteries were limited, the external solar panel was ruined, and he couldn't do much with the pod unless he kept it charged. There wasn't even usable food after a minor chemical spill in one of the compartments. What about the "production facility"? It'd been described to him as a nearly full-featured (if small) version of the massive omni-printers Titan had been carrying for the colony he thought he'd be starting. He trembled as he looked through the available blueprints to see how screwed he was, then whistled. He could build everything from a solar panel to a city if he had the right materials and enough time. Trouble was, there was no raw material on hand but a few brick-sized ingots of plastic and titanium and some vials of rarer elements.

As for his surroundings, Neil was able to pull up a feed from the one camera still working on the pod's hull. Nothing but upside-down ocean. He unlatched the floor hatch (which was on top) and peeked out. The air was warm and humid, rich in oxygen. Some kind of alien bird flew by. He'd probably have said it was "majestic" and "stirring" if he weren't battered and scared and dressed in ragged pajamas.

Well, then. If he was going to survive, he needed to go swimming. He ducked back into the pod and found that, for some reason, the basic supplies included a towel.

He climbed down the pod's external ladder and eased himself into the sea. It didn't dissolve his skin, so that was a good start. Through blurry vision he looked around underwater. He'd come down in a shallow area, maybe ten meters deep. The seabed here was sand and something like coral. He looked around suspiciously for anything shark-like. The few fish around here looked pretty harmless judging from their parrot-like beaks and lack of immediate interest in him, but he'd still need to be careful. So, where to begin? He looked up at the processing chute that was built into the pod's exterior, for him to more-or-less shovel stuff into. Time for some samples.

He used a tiny pick and spade to scoop up some sand and break off a chunk of coral, then fed those into the hopper. He grabbed a stalk of purple-ish seaweed after poking it a few times to make sure it didn't do anything horrible. Then he climbed back into the pod to dry off and see what he'd won.

Silicon in the sand, it said. Obviously. He'd found carbon, nitrogen, the usual. Machines whirred to life around him to process the stuff, and gauges for various materials filled up to a whopping .1%. Encouraged now, Neil flipped through the available blueprints again and saw that a basic solar panel would be within his reach, if he kept foraging.

That kept him busy for an hour. He swam all around the lifepod to scout for resources and shovel them in. After getting enough silicon and other stuff that he was nearly ready to push a button and start construction, he got out the capsized pod's coil of rope and used it to try righting the thing. He tied the rope to the highest point of the hatch, then leaned backward and let his weight slowly flip the whole thing over with a smack against the sea. Progress! He went back inside and felt confident enough to start the machinery burning through its batteries.

He was starved, though. He went back out to the water and wasted time trying to catch the local fish. The pod's computer said it could process pretty much anything organic into Nutrition Bricks (the actual recipe name), but warned that the seaweed was probably going to be less efficient than the animal life. Worse yet, it looked like he couldn't directly eat anything that grew here! Something about the protein being mirror-reversed and inedible. If he could just get a sample of the fish, he'd have a better idea of his cooking prospects and whether the protein thing applied to all local life.

With the computer mostly tied up in running the whirring, chugging omniprinter, he didn't have much to do. He swam a bit more and gathered more seaweed, careful not to denude the whole area. Who knew how long he'd be here?

He didn't want to think about that.

When the machine finally spat out a gleaming panel and wiring, perfect for hooking up to the pod, he set it aside -- still warm -- and immediately programmed up a Nutrition Brick. He needed to recharge, too!

The pod buzzed, and very slowly began extruding a brown block of "food". It might well be the main thing on the menu for the rest of his life. He ate it joylessly.

He brooded as he installed the solar panel. The sun was low in the sky already; he couldn't produce much more until tomorrow. He had nothing to do but sit on the hard floor and think about his fellow crewmen and the world they should have reached.

The computer roused him. "Biological adaptation analysis complete," it said. "Synthesize adaptation serum? (Estimated battery drain 2%.)"

He'd studied life support, not medicine. "Adaptation?" He pushed the wrong button and found he couldn't access the right documentation to get a good explanation without confirming or rejecting the offer. It looked like a small "purchase" from the resources he'd gathered, so he went ahead and confirmed.

In a few minutes a tray opened on one of the omniprinter's smaller ports, revealing a full syringe. Neil stared at it and brought up more info at last. The odd thing was that it read like the Titan's own government-backed documentation rather than the more practical tech manuals. "Your personalized Adaptation Serum is keyed both to your own stored genetic profile and to an analysis of local life. Before exposing yourself to native pathogens, let your sample retrieval team feed data into the patented ExonTech GeneForge to prepare you for your amazing feats of colonization."

Native pathogens. Neil looked at his bare hands and arms, wondering what horrible native lifeforms might already be taking him apart from the inside. There shouldn't be a lot of cross-compatibility, but who knew? The guys who built this pod knew what they were doing. He wiped a patch of skin clean and injected himself, wincing.

Almost immediately he got hungry again. He ordered another brick and scarfed it down, then flopped back onto the pod's bare floor. The waves sloshed under him and the world spun for a while.

#

When he could think straight again, it was because of something caught under him. He rolled over, groaning, and his tail banged into a cabinet. He did a double-take. He'd grown a fuzzy brown tail! He grabbed the thing and felt the touch, as though he were clutching part of his spine. His clothes had grown warmer, so he looked himself over again and yelped in surprise. His ruined clothing was gone, and instead, a fuzzy pelt covered his torso and was spreading out to his upper arms and thighs. It felt like he'd put on a partial wetsuit. He stood up, careful not to bang his head against the pod's ceiling. There was a little mirror in the supplies. It showed him his normal human face, but the fur -- cream-colored on his front, darker brown on the back -- was slowly prickling and creeping upward from his chest to approach his neck.

"Computer! What the hell!"

The screen said, "Unknown command. Elevated voice stress level detected. Would you like to engage the 'Wilson' Survivor Conversation System?"

Instead, Neil tapped buttons on the screen. The medical profile hadn't gotten any direct measurements from him since the data he provided while aboard Titan, yet the page had updated itself. It listed a new section called "Biomods" along with the basic stats on his height, weight and colors. "Disease Resistance Upgrade, Swimming Enhancement, Metabolic Chirality Adaptor" and other entries, none of which explained why he had fur! Or did it? He looked himself over with the little mirror again, watching as the fur spread slowly down his limbs and up to his chin. "I look like... an otter?"

In answer to his question, his face began to push forward into a muzzle, and he felt his teeth reshaping subtly in his longer jaws. His ears itched terribly as they migrated higher along his skull, over the course of a few minutes. He tapped the screen's buttons for more information and noticed that his fingers felt stretched out, gummy in between. His palms had become thicker and leathery, with webbing growing in between them. He opened and closed his hands repeatedly and watched the little claws forming from what had been his fingernails. It was crazy to give somebody a change like this as part of a survival system, but it made sense in a roundabout way. He had this high-tech lifepod, but just a little while ago he'd been scared that the batteries would run out and he'd be totally out of options. With this changing body, he should be better equipped to survive with or without tools. Which was good, because right now he was naked.

He spent a while patting at his ottery, whiskered muzzle and his little round ears, and looking the rest of himself over. A subtle fizzy sensation all through his body came and went, maybe the serum finishing its work. He leaned back against the lifepod wall, letting the rocking of the waves calm him. His tail felt cold against the metal.

Now that the pod was right-side-up again, he tried opening the floor hatch to go for a swim. He gingerly lowered himself into the water, feeling it ripple through his fur for the first time. He was floating in a strange way. He ran one webbed hand along the fur of his chest and felt it ripple, full of air and a little water that'd keep close to his skin and absorb his warmth. Built-in wetsuit!

Neil dived. It was easy to hold his breath long enough to explore the shallow seabed. Colorful things drifted past him and caught his attention. By instinct he darted toward them without properly kicking, yet he was moving really fast! He flipped around in a vertical loop and saw his long tail waggling. Here was a new way to swim. He darted after the fish again and saw them more clearly than before even though he was underwater. Just a little farther... Aha! He snagged one of the big-eyed critters in his webbed hands and held onto it while it thrashed. Victory! He swam back to the pod and whacked the fish hard enough to kill it, then sliced off a chunk of the flesh. He fed it into the machine.

"Processing," it said. Neil tapped one foot impatiently and whipped his tail back and forth. Finally it spat out an analysis showing that it was protein-rich and ought to be edible by anyone with a Metabolic Chirality Adaptor. The machine offered to process the fish into a Nutrition Brick.

Neil grinned, tapping buttons. "No, I want this one grilled." He fed the whole fish into the machine to be heated with minimal processing.

It was delicious. Tangy. A chunk of lightly roasted seaweed made a nice side dish.

#

Two weeks later, Neil poked the concrete he'd poured. His new base, a collection of metal cylinders, was on the seabed around eight meters down, to protect it against storms. He'd extended part of it upward until he could add a concrete bunker that broke the surface and was only partly covered. He had a patio! There were solar panels feeding energy to his base's batteries, and he still had the lifepod itself as an emergency backup.

The concrete patio had cured, hardening despite exposure to seawater. Neil grabbed the railing he'd built into it and climbed down a hatch and ladder, into his new home. This was a little world of metal and plastic that hummed with electricity and creaked faintly with the waves.

"Greetings, Neil," said the robotic voice of the base's computer. Neil had given in and activated the Wilson Survivor Conversation System so he'd have a fake personality to talk with and avoid going nuts. It said, "All systems are in good condition. How are you?"

"Hungry!" he said. He hadn't yet figured out how to build a full-body dryer, so he grabbed a fluffy towel and dried off his fur. It was another sunny day on the ocean planet. Down here inside the base he'd installed a big reinforced-glass window. Light streamed and rippled through it in fascinating patterns. His bed was a pile of cushions and blankets he'd manufactured, all synthetic fibers but reasonably comfortable. With his fur he didn't need much warmth inside his insulated house. A storage locker on the wall held some interesting shells and stones he'd collected. The desk had his handheld, waterproof computer and some paper notes.

"Will you be dining out today?" asked the base. For Neil that meant catching wild fish and eating them raw. He'd only done that once so far for the experience of being a natural otter. The omniprinter's analysis system had assured him it'd be reasonably safe but he'd decided that cooking was definitely an improvement. The thing was, Neil didn't want to be totally dependent on the computer and his other technology. He'd found a partial solution.

He said, "No, thanks. Going to the patio." Neil rummaged, pulled a couple of fish out of the fridge, and climbed back up to the sunlight. The tray of seaweed and wood-like plants he'd gathered had dried out at last. So, it was time for some low technology. He used an electric lighter to get the little pile of fuel blazing, then sat on his porch and grilled fish over the open fire.

"Hey, computer, how is the antenna synthesis going?" Neil was sitting on bare, warm concrete as he roasted his catch on an improvised skewer.

"Main antenna body design is complete. Currently known material sources will be adequate. However, signal booster requires elemental gold."

Gold! Where was he going to find a gold mine on this world? Well, he'd have to do more exploration. That was fine. He'd build the big antenna he had planned and use that to beam out a proper distress signal, so he could get rescued. He was in no hurry at this point. He'd already begun colonizing a planet, if not the one he'd intended to. He had a swimmer's body, an endless supply of tasty fish, and a whole world to wander through. At worst he'd go down in history as the first explorer of this place and send back tons of data about how to live here.

Neil stood up, stretching from head to tail, and looked out to the sunny sea. Maybe after the antenna, he'd start building a cool submarine. There was plenty to see out there!