First Person (3 page)

Without
speaking to anyone, I quickly made off down the hill, back to the harbour,
making my way to the building where the cruise ship was berthed. The crowd was
breaking up, and a few cars started to move. It was difficult to progress at
first but I made it back to the gate and onto the quayside. I stumbled
alongside newly berthed vessels in the space I had previously parked the
launch. Finally, I made it to the far side of the harbour, deep into its
architecture, far from the road behind me, and found the building.

A
massive brick structure, it concealed anything kept inside. The quayside was
empty of people. I had to round a corner before finding a single wooden door. I
turned the handle and entered a stone clad corridor. Grey walls with a granite
feel to them were rippled with white streaks. They led in a straight line away
from the door. I don’t know what drove me, but I kept going, eventually turning
corners and going further in search of the Angel Rhithlun. The floor was made
of the same stone and light came from pale circles in the ceiling. I turned a
corner and found steps down. Following them led me to a dead end.

I
stood there at the blank grey wall. It was as if I looked at it long enough, it
would change to be a through way. A voice spoke, startling me. “This way
please, sir.”

I
turned around. It was Sue, the female crew member from the small boat. She had
changed into a fresh uniform of black skirt and white blouse with dark epaulets
on her shoulders. Her hair had been done and she was immaculately made up.
Smiling as if she had not been awake all night tending to a dying crewmate, she
was holding her right hand out. She meant me to follow her back the way I came.
I said to her, “Sue, it’s me. From the small boat earlier. Don’t you recognise
me?”

She
blinked once but maintained her smile. “Of course I do. We met today. This way
please, sir.”

I
took one last look at the blank wall before taking the few steps up to reach
her. Sue led me back through the single corridor I had followed. We made a few
turns. There had been no doors or alternative routes so I hadn’t memorised my
route in. However, I got the sense we were taking a different route from my
entry. Three steps upwards I had not seen before confirmed this. “Sue, where
are we going?”

Walking
primly beside me, she smiled warmly. Her eyes sparkled in conspiracy. “To the
ship, of course. Don’t you want to see her?”

I
stopped. Sue walked a few steps before doing the same. I said, “I’m not sure I
do.”

“Of
course you do. But it is your decision.” Her smile was meant to reassure me.
She waited for a few moments before pulling me towards her with a gesture.

I
took a long look behind me at the endless stone corridor. Considering I had
come so far, I decided to continue. After all, I had just been to the memorial
service for the Angel Rhithlun. Now I had to see her. I followed Sue. She took
me further along. We turned another corner and a short walk along the final
stretch astounded me where it led.

The
stone corridor opened onto a balcony of the same grey granite streaked with
white material. It was lined with a low hand rail of the same material. We were
in a massive covered dock, seemingly carved out of this stone. In the middle of
this dock was a middle-sized cruise ship. Black lettering on the side said:
Angel Rhithlun. This was it, the ship I had seen on the sea, and followed into
this harbour. I had seen it, from the wheel of a passenger launch, enter this
building. I had been to its memorial service but it was here all along, in this
building. The ship was sitting on a series of stone struts, chiselled to the
shape of its hull. All the water had been drained. Far below me, on the floor
of the dock, two men tended to a section of the hull,. Aware of Sue’s patience
beside me, I still wanted to see everything. Looking along the ship’s deck,
there were elderly passengers promenading, or sitting on deck chairs as if the
sun was out rather than obscured by a stone roof.

I
turned back to Sue. “What’s happening here?”

Her
face was relaxed, free of the smile. “These people have chosen. Time for you to
choose.”

With
that, she turned on her heel. I had to trot to keep up. “What do you mean by
that?”

We
arrived at a covered metal gangway, leading from the balcony to the ship. Sue
made her way quickly up the small incline without a pause. I followed, still
clutching my bag over my shoulder. On reaching the deck, a tall man in an
all-white navy type uniform smiled and held out his hand. “Good morning, sir.
Thank you for choosing Angel Rhithlun.”

I
took his hand and looked around. Everything seemed very normal. Sue stood next
to this man, smiling professionally at me. The man in the white uniform said to
me. “Can we take your bag, sir? Your cabin is ready.”

He
held out his hand but I kept a grip of my bag. I can’t say I felt uneasy. If I
felt anything, it was of preference for staying, rather than leaving. The man
in the white uniform seemed a bit troubled by my lack of engagement with him.
He looked to Sue. With her hands held at her back she smiled reassurance at her
officer. He said to me, “It won’t be long, sir. Would you like to see?”

For
some reason I nodded. He gestured me to follow him to the far side of the deck.
He greeted passengers as he went. An older couple with tall colourful drinks
waved at him and he gave a mock-salute back. At the open-air deck, the man in
the white uniform pointed to the bottom of the dry dock. “Look there,” he said.
“It’s just about to start.”

My
eyes followed his lead. Inside the building, this ship sat on stone struts,
dry-docked. The two men I had seen tending the hull disappeared through a
doorway. In the far corner at the base of the dock, a yellow light began to
flash and an alarm sounded. Water swept in, filling the space, ready to float
the medium-sized cruise ship, the Angel Rhithlun.

I
’m inside a
long tunnel of
trees which, after a long summer, are now dried out in cold air. Leaves are all
around me, falling from the branches of tall trees, covering the trunks and
roots of this forest path, coating the ground beneath me. Swirling around me it
gives a giddy feeling of vertigo as the world turns upside down. This burrow is
filled with light, diffused by the spiralling leaves and at either end is
darkness where daylight should shine in. I can smell warmed turnip and candle
wax; familiar from hollowed-out turnip lanterns I made as a boy. 

A
chill shudders through me and pulls my head back. I close my eyes. Like the
leaves themselves, I’m drifting through the air, falling endlessly. It’s
impossible to tell which way is up. When I think I will land softly on the
ground, everything rolls over. I have to twist in mid-air as the tunnel of
trees spins and I fall all over again. It’s elegant, almost, the way I never
hit the bottom. Endlessly living in this moment is where I want to be. I
swallow and my throat is dry, thankfully dry. My hands are open and leaves
flutter through my fingers. And I fall and fall and fall.

Chimes
woke me. I had a good sleep but I lay there for a few moments more between
clammy sheets to think of falling leaves and dry cold air. Reminder chimes told
me I had to move. I pulled the sheets back and got up for my morning shower.
There was no shortage of water, of course, and I took my time. As usual, I
planned to skimp on breakfast time for this indulgence. Drying in the air, I
tidied my pod so that it would be ship-shape for my return after the shift. I
had kept the shower room door closed while I showered and the air-con had done
a pretty good job of keeping the room cool and dry.

I
stripped the bed and dumped the sheets in the chute before retrieving a fresh
coverall and socks. It was easy to take for granted how everything was cleaned
every day; so unlike home. I didn’t bother getting fresh sheets. I would do
that later. Dressed, I slipped into rubber shoes and padded down to breakfast.
Off-world news muttered from the TV screens in the dining room while I came to
with yoghurt and coffee. Cynthia, as ever, tried to talk to me, but I just
smiled at her stories of outrage and disappointment as if she was trying to be
funny. It took the heat out of it.

She
touched me on the arm as we parted. “Good luck today,” she said. Her hand was
warm and dry on my exposed skin. “Make it work so we can all go home.” She
locked eyes on me and I knew she meant it, like she was insisting and not
asking. I was suddenly fully alert.

Suited
up in the Raincoat, I moved towards the airlock along with Iris and George.
They were dressed the same as me, in a dark waterproof one-piece which we had
stepped into, minus the rubber shoes but still wearing our coveralls. The
Raincoat, as it was called, was moulded into a pair of boots and the whole
thing was sealed with a cone of clear laminate placed over our heads to protect
us from the deluge. It would keep us dry at least.

“Comm
check,” I said, looking at Iris. “You receiving?”

“Roger,
Team Leader,” said Iris, blinking in approximation of a bow. Dark eyes
fluttered back at me.

Our
comms were voice activated and simple Bluetooth into our in-ear ‘phones. In
between us speaking they emitted a low-level frequency to cancel out the rain.
Teeming rain on a laminated helmet is pretty loud and the headphones did a lot
to help. George gave me a silent thumbs up to let me know he had heard us both
talk. I looked at him and cocked my head slightly. “Lemme hear you, George.”

George
swallowed. “Hearing you five by five.”

I
nodded at him and we got our gear together. Iris gave me a sly smile through
heavy eyelids. She picked up her case and handed me mine. George punched the
airlock door button and out we went to the Buggy with the door closing behind
us. Up at the window, I saw the tech guy in his hard hat and coverall watch us
leave. Iris drove. The Buggy was electric powered and had room for four and our
gear. Under its canopy, it looked like a wide golf kart with an exaggerated
suspension system.

We
left the group of interconnected modules we called the dome, driving along a
cleared track. Balloon tyres on the vehicle rolled over the mud. Already the
jungle was beginning to encroach onto the swampy road. And the rain came down
as always. Nothing can compare to the rain here and nothing can prepare you for
it either. I’m a meteorologist by training, and had prepped and delivered the
crew briefing on the journey out, but nothing got me ready for how much and how
relentless it was.

This
planet, then as now, has one massive continent in an otherwise watery world.
There are other small outcrops of islands, but they’re just rocks. At over
twelve million square kilometres, it stretches from close to the equator to
near the arctic zone. Vast storms hammer the planet but because an ancient
asteroid impact carved out a massive bowl in the ground, this jungle was
shielded from the worst of the wind. However, the terrain made masses of rain.
A ten thousand kilometres high mountain range to the west acts like a massive
barrier to typhoons, while the ranges in the other directions lift up clouds to
deposit millions of litres of rainfall. Why this tropical bowl didn’t just fill
up with water was being investigated by geologists in the south.

“Wake
up, George,” I said and tapped him on the knee. He stirred and smiled and
stretched as he got out from where he was sitting. I could never sleep in this
downpour.

Iris
had turned the buggy around to face the dome again but we were at the end of
the track. I had to steel myself before getting out from under the canopy. I
felt the ’phones kick in my ear as I stepped into the rain. By the end of the
day, I knew each drop would be like a hammer on the Raincoat. The headphones
cancelled the worst of the noise but we still felt it under the suit.

I
took a deep breath and could smell the decay of rotting plant mulch. These
weren’t spacesuits we were wearing; the air was safe to breathe. Iris handed me
my case again and I pulled the strap over my shoulder and we hiked up the hill.
Thankfully, some durathene steps had been put in at this point because water
just poured down that hill making any cleared path swim in water.

Our
final destination was a small dome, a single habitation unit set up for our
experiments. George got us inside the airlock. White brightness made me wince in
contrast to the dull greenness under the jungle canopy. We took turns standing
under the dryer before stepping out of our Raincoats and into rubber soled
shoes. I was grateful to get the headphones out my ears and hear properly. They
told us the noise-cancellation didn’t damage our ears, but how could it not? We
opened the cases in the airlock and took out our tablet computers and brought
them with us into the dome. We didn’t speak at all.

With
routine efficiency we docked our tablets and set up. I had brought my coffee
flask, George brought some food, and Iris only ever brought fruit. It would be
a long shift and I needed the caffeine. I punched up the main screen and logged
into the orbiting platform server. Far above us, our colleagues in the dryness of
space were readying themselves for today’s experiment.

I
leaned over towards my tablet. “Platform One, this is Dome Two. Do you copy?”

There
was a pause, a time delay, then the slightly muffled transmission back. “Copy
Dome Two. This is Platform One. We are at altitude and go for launch.”

“Copy
Platform One.” I looked over at Iris and George. They sat poised over their
tablets and each gave me quick indication they were ready. “Dome Two is go for
launch.”

“Stand
by Dome Two.”

We
waited. Iris relaxed her shoulders and let her head fall back and her mouth
open. “I hate this bit. Launch already.”

George
chuckled and I couldn’t help but smile. We went through this exact routine
every day.

The
tablet speaker crackled. “Dome Two. This is Platform One. Launching in three,
two, one, mark.”

“Let’s
do this,” said George baring his teeth. I poured a coffee.

From
four-hundred kilometres up, Platform One dropped the package. As it hit the
atmosphere, we began to receive the data packets, both from the probe itself
and via Platform One. On the main screen a computerised image of the jungle
bowl appeared; transmission from the orbiter. Overlays of blue, green and white
showed the greatest concentrations of precipitation. I spoke into my tablet.
“Signal acquired, Platform One. We are green on all channels.”

“Roger,
Dome One. Mesosphere in three, two, one, mark.”

I
looked up at Iris. “Verified,” she said, meaning her data also showed the
package reaching that slice of this world’s atmosphere. “ELVES sighted.”

I
glanced at the screen but didn’t see any red-hued flashes of the kind of aurora
Iris had mentioned. ELVES: Emissions of light at very low frequency. I smile
all the same; glad she had seen something like that. I still haven’t. “You okay
George?” I asked him, thinking him quiet. I took another sip of my coffee which
was already cooling.

“Affirmative,”
said George. “Device arming.” He swept his screen and a small read-out tile
appeared on the main screen. It counted down to detonation.

“We
on target, Iris?” I asked.

“Roger,
Team Leader,” she replied. “Troposphere on target.”

“Platform
One, this is Dome Two. We are go for detonation.”

A
slight pause. “Roger, Dome Two. Standing by. All systems green.”

We
waited. I watched my team, quiet concentration on their young faces. Iris
glanced at me and smiled at her screen. George put a pencil across his lips and
nodded along to some tune in his head. We all knew what was at stake and what
the risks were. We had hauled ourselves out here to this slightly elevated
position, right under the detonation field. If the package failed to detonate,
it soon would when it hit us. That’s why the main hab-dome was so far away.

As
a boy back home, I would lie in the sand and watch the blue sky, imagining
clouds scudding overhead the way they did in books. Sitting in this dome was
experimental meteorology for sure but it didn’t beat real weather. I told
myself that when I was outdoors in my Raincoat. As such, I always tried to
imagine the device dropping through the sky. Watching the countdown I did my
job but still pictured lying on those dunes back home.

“Dome
Two, this is Platform One. Detonation, in three, two, one, mark.”

And
far above us, in the troposphere, where the clouds reached up to space, the
package detonated. Triggered by an electronic command the exothermic reaction
blew a bubble of heat out, evaporating the moisture and opening a window to the
blue sky. Clouds parted, burned away in the explosion. I’ve never seen it for
real, only the computer models but it must have been spectacular. For a
precious few moments, the rain stopped and hot sun poured onto the jungle. Blue
sky would be seen from the surface of this incredible planet for the first time
in the longest time. We must have been changing the evolutionary path of the
fauna in this circle, exposing a rainforest to sunshine, but that was for
Cynthia and her team. We were the primary mission: the weather.

I
remembered myself. “We getting all this?”

“Affirmative,”
said George. “Everything is five by five.”

“The
event is closing,” said Iris. “Data package is secure.”

“Well
done, both of you.” I poured myself another coffe and watched the main screen.
A round blank space was being filled in by blues and greens while far above us
the clouds closed in, shutting off the jungle once more from sunshine and blue
sky.

The
rest of the shift went okay. We had buggied about in the rain, picking up data
from the remote sensors unable to transmit to us because of line of sight
issues. Back at the hab dome, we had our evening meal in the canteen. I was
thirsty and took a long drink of water. When I do that, I think about our
families and friends, back home and far away from here. Rationing was hard for
them, as it had been for us, before we travelled to this planet.

“Perhaps
it will end soon,” said Iris. She poked a fork into her dinner and stirred it
around. She indicated my glass of water. “The rationing will end someday.”

“You
reading my mind?” I smiled. She smiled back.

George
shifted in his seat. “Do you think we’ll be successful, Professor?”

He
was being serious. I looked around the room as if for an answer. Cynthia’s crew
were at a round table at the far end of the room, beyond the serving counter.
They had one of the native plants in a little pot on the table between them.
Poking and discussing it, they were lost to everything else. The plant was
clearly dying though. No amount of watering indoors could ever keep it alive.
It looked like a sort of fern but its feathered leaves had turned brown.

“We
have to, George,” I told him. “We need to find a way to interrupt the climate
back home and set the weather on a new path. Either that or we just move here.”