I was reviewing some old records of colonization sales and saw an odd one. I mentioned it to my supervisor, and he told me much more than I expected.
“Oh, you’ve heard of Higgins World, not many have. My grandfather was on the expedition that found it. He told the story of its name after he retired. He was an exoplanetologist on a voyage with the famous First Contact Specialist, Freedonia Higgins. It’s a restricted world, but it is in a remote location as you know, but I seem to remember there is some mining in the asteroid belt of that star.”
His grandfather loved to tell the story. He said he was writing up his recommendation when Captain Higgins stopped by his cubical. She asked what he thought of EL435. He said that he had never in his career seen a mess like that planet. The scans from the circumnavigation of the planet showed a veil of debris at the Lagrange point. The exogeologist had decided that the debris was the remains of a collision of a couple large asteroids or small moons. The planet had one small moon that interfered to keep the debris from settling into rings like Terra’s Saturn. He told her that if it wasn’t for the debris field, EL435 would be an A1 colony planet.
She asked if he had seen the images from the deep scans. He told her it was a beauty. Lots of water and several well-developed land masses. She commented that she was impressed by the how the atmosphere sparkled in the light.
He said they had the usual team with a chronicler to archive what they were doing. They all knew the chronicler collected the fragile 20th century, paper humor books. He frequently entertained them by displaying the digitized pages and reading out loud. In one series, there was a young child called Sparkle Plenty. He decided she needed to be honored by this sparkling planet.
Captain Higgins was charmed by the pictures of the child but realized few people would ever understand such an obscure reference. The sparkle part described it well, so we kept that. We named it EL435 Sparkle.
Grampa told the captain he liked the name because it might attract some buyers, but he had to give it at least a B-2 or even a C-1 rating. The debris field meant no satellites. There were no signs of sapient life. The scans showed carbon-based life forms as well as landforms rich in minerals. It was geologically active with quite a few volcanoes. The several trips the ship made around the planet showed a large quantity of debris, but it was small. He said they just didn’t want to risk the landers, so they hadn’t done a surface search. It was not a good colony site for more than an agrarian or low-tech society.
The captain announced they would move on but said it was disappointing. Except for the debris field, it could be a clone of Terra and GC could have held an auction with a high beginning price. The discovery crews got a bonus from the sale of a planet.
The next oxygen-based planet, EL436, had sophisticated, sapient life. After making radio contact, Captain Higgins led the party on landing. The crowd cheered and she was engulfed in a gust of wind from the beings. She died almost instantly. GC determined later that this cloud of noxious gas was a way of greeting honored individuals in their society. The GC named that world Sulvere 436 and you can’t visit it without a full body suit and a visa.
GC decided to change the name of EL435 to Higgins World to honor Captain Higgins.
Should you want to read what happened later…
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