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know, Doctor…” began Thompson, considered, and then deliberately let himself be interrupted by Diana.
    “We can name it
anything?
” she asked.
    “Just about,” Thompson responded, then, reflecting on the little trap that she had set for him, looked at me and added, “Uh oh.”
    “So, we could name the planet ‘Larry’ if we wanted?” Diana asked.
    “As far as I am aware, there are no other planets named Larry,” Thompson replied, willing to play along.
    Although Diana, with all good intention, had hoped to elicit a positive reaction from Melhaus, there was none forthcoming. He had deliberately parked himself in one corner of the room looking down at a screen full of Greek, Roman, and other far more inscrutable symbols that few people in the world would recognize, let alone decipher. This was
his
language, and he was fluent in it.
    “Anybody have a better name?” Diana said. She was a little put-off by Melhaus’s behavior, but apparently didn’t want to say anything that would dampen our spirits.
    “Can I make a suggestion?” volunteered Kelly, throwing a glance my way. “Kyle is creative with words. I’m positive he can come up with something.”
    “I like the idea,” responded Thompson. “Kyle?”
    “Sure. But I’ll need to give it careful consideration. Don’t want to rush into naming an entire planet, you understand. The biggest thing I ever put a name on was a compilation of short stories.”
    “And how did that turn out?” asked Thompson.
    “Nobody reads anymore. Apparently even short stories are too long.”
    Thompson let the opening pass. He’d find a more opportune time to explore my questionable career moves. There was work at hand, and plenty of it, and he was responsible for giving us direction.
    “Listen up,” he said. “Use the next few hours to decipher those sensor readings most pertinent to getting our butts safely on the planet. We’ll meet again at 1200 hours for a working lunch. The plan is to set down on P5 tomorrow, early morning. And I do mean early. I’ll need from you, Paul, with as much accuracy as possible, a projection of weather at the potential landing sites. I’ll provide you the locations once I finish preliminary mapping. Diana, I appreciate that your real work begins on the surface. Concentrate on reviewing the biochemical data we’re accumulating on the atmosphere. I’d prefer not to have any nasty surprises. The first expedition confirmed the air is breathable, but that was winter. Larry, listen up. You and I need to make a final ready check on
Ixodes
. Kyle, you’ll assist Paul; Kelly, you assist Diana.”
    Ixodes
, it should be mentioned, was the name Diana gave to the squat, ovoid-shaped submersible probe that clung like a tick to the ventral side of
Desio
. For the last three months the probe had been out of sight, but not out of mind, having been repeatedly inspected and upgraded via a host of remote communication links. Engineered to operate at maximum submerged depth of ten thousand meters, tomorrow it would be detached and sent plunging into the planet’s ocean. Once underwater it would immediately commence gathering and transmitting data on ocean currents, temperature, and chemistry. The sub’s engineering team boasted that if any life-form inhabited that first ten thousand meters (a
huge
technical and scientific compromise there, since the ocean approached an incredible twenty thousand meters in many locations) then that life-form would assuredly be detected. If the organism were small enough, it would be sucked into a collection chamber and eventually brought to the surface for later analysis.
    From the very beginning, mission planners had made the convenient and all too expedient assumption that the organism would be oblivious to being forcibly captured and removed from its natural environment. Oblivious or not, it would almost certainly expire in the process.
    When 1200 came around, the crew assembled in the mission room. I sensed that