The E Utopia Project (20 page)

“Doctor Cummings, we need to
worry about providing the people of the world with good air to breathe and
water to drink. We can’t afford to waste money on such a speculative operation.
We have to provide the poor inhabitants of the world’s hottest regions with
condensers and air conditioners. And we have to build more oxygenation plants
worldwide.”

“I understand where you’re
coming from, Mr. Cruz, but I think that we must set up a space force. We can
even begin by launching surveillance satellites in orbit.”

“Why not use the satellites
that are already orbiting the Earth?”

“Mr. Cruz, the companies and space
agencies that own these satellites are hiding something.”

“You know I’m committed to
saving our environment. When I saw your press conference, I discussed your theory
and allegations with my colleagues in the International Green Movement. All of
them don’t believe that space agencies and companies owned by people who live
here on Earth will unanimously agree to cover up for some aliens who are
destroying the Earth. That, Doctor Cummings, will be tantamount to committing
suicide.”

“Mr. Cruz, I know what I saw.
What would be my motive for falsely accusing these space agencies and companies?”

“What would be NASA and ESA’s
motive for doing what you’re accusing them of?”

“I can’t explain that but a
space force will. Maybe the extraterrestrial beings have the power to control
people’s minds and they could be controlling the minds of the people running
the space agencies and satellite imagery companies. Maybe the extraterrestrial
beings have hacked into the systems of the space agencies and imagery
companies.”

“I know that theories are
full of maybes but I find your maybes hard to take. I’ll discuss this with the International
Green Movement’s scientists and experts. I will get back to you when I hear
what they think.”

“Thank you for your time, Mr.
Cruz.”

* * *

Sopoaga blanched when his
fleet entered the Earth’s atmosphere. The Earth’s powers might not have yet
created a space force, but they could strike Sopoaga’s ships with air-to-air missiles,
satellite-launched space-to-air missiles or ground-to-air missiles. This was
the largest and most visible fleet he had ever taken into the Earth’s
atmosphere. Sopoaga’s fear was also compounded by the fact that today they were
using a new milking point. This time they entered the atmosphere above the South
Atlantic Ocean on a location roughly equidistant from the Paraguayan coast and
the Namibian Coast. This location was a safe distance away from the Falkland
Islands where the British installed a strong air defense system and a 3-D radar
system to guard against possible Argentine attack. If the Earth’s powers hadn’t
yet found out about the milking operation as the admiralty claimed, why did
they order him to change the milking point?

The fleet split into two squadrons.
Sopoaga conducted the first squadron and Captain First Grade Hyvönen conducted the
second squadron. The squadrons flew in circles of three-kilometer radius in the
Earth’s atmosphere.

It took thirty-four minutes
for all the ships to fill their tanks with oxygen. Sopoaga sighed with relief
when Harvesting Fleet 4 left the Earth’s atmosphere without incident. He was on
course to complete his first mission with such a big fleet.

Chapter Seven

The United Nations General
Assembly Hall was packed. All one hundred and ninety-three heads of the member
states of the United Nations were present together with their foreign ministers
and environment ministers. Sara felt her knees wobbling as she faced the men
and women who ruled the world. They were all looking at her, waiting to hear
what she had to say. The whole world was watching her live on TV. She knew that
everyone was curious after seeing the press conference that she held in the
Russian embassy. The UN Secretary-General had been the first to speak. Now it
was her turn to deliver a keynote address before the world leaders came to the
podium in order of the names of their countries.

She opened her mouth and
moved her lips but no word came out of her. She looked at the papers in front
of her and cleared her throat. “Heads of States and Governments, Secretary-General
of the United Nations, Mr. Nimol Moeuk, honorable ministers, Director-General
of the Food and Agriculture Organization, Mr. Mario Dos Santos, Excellencies,
ladies and gentlemen, it is an honor for me to be in front of you today here in
the General Assembly on this very important summit.

“I thank all the governments
of the world and their leaders for their efforts in fighting El Monstruo. You
built and you are continuing to build many sand reduction plants and many ultraviolet
laser plants throughout the world. I want to thank all the people of the world
for their efforts in fighting El Monstruo.
You have
reduced carbon
emissions; you have discarded your diesel and petrol cars in favor of electric
cars. I say to you all, thank you. Thank you for what you are doing to save not
only the environment but also ourselves.

“But all our efforts as
mankind have failed to yield the desired results. Oxygen levels continue to
fall albeit at a slower pace than before. We need a new approach. We need to
open a new front in this war against El Monstruo.
Am I saying that we
should stop what we are doing? No.We must continue to extract oxygen from sand.
We have all assumed that the root of this problem lies here on Earth but now is
the time to also look outside the planet for answers.

“My speech today is going to
have a lot of
maybes.
Maybe the thing that is getting oxygen from the
atmosphere is not on the bottom of the oceans. Maybe it Is up there in the
skies. Maybe something is coming to this planet from outside to take our oxygen.
Maybe we are not alone in the Universe. Your Excellences, ladies and gentlemen,
I suggest that we as a planet should form a space force to protect our planet from
possible infiltration by extraterrestrial beings. Maybe some aerobic alien
beings used up oxygen on their home planet and are now stealing our oxygen. I
know that many people might scoff at my theory about aliens but I would rather
be proven wrong and become the laughing stock of the world than be proven right
when it’s too late.

“All countries in the world
have some form of radar system and air defense system to protect themselves
from possible aerial invasion but as a planet we don’t have a defense system to
protect us from possible invasion or infiltration. We have invested hundreds of
billions of dollars in ordnance and surveillance systems to defend ourselves
from fellow earthlings but we haven’t spared a dollar in setting up a system to
defend ourselves against extraterrestrial invasion. I say let us build a united
Earth space force. Let us build fighter spaceships now under the auspices of
the United Nations. Later when we have more resources, we can build orbital
military bases. I know that our countries are cash-strapped because of El
Monstruo but I strongly believe that we should spare some money for a space
defense system. We can start by sending surveillance satellites into space to
orbit the Earth and watch out for intruders. The surveillance telescopes that we
have right now are trained on the Earth. We want new surveillance satellites
trained outside the Earth to watch for intruders. I sincerely hope that I am
wrong, but we cannot afford to take chances. We cannot neglect the slight
possibility that I could be right.

“High temperatures have
killed many poor people in the world’s hot regions and as the Secretary-General
said, it’s the duty of all of us to help those who can’t afford to buy air
conditioners. In the past most of the world’s refugees came from conflict
areas. If the situation remains like this, the high temperatures will result in
a huge flow of refugees from very hot regions to cooler areas. In this regard,
I urge all governments and peoples across the globe to accept environmental
refugees.  At this juncture, we cannot afford to be xenophobic or racist. We
need to fight El Monstruo as a united planet. Together we have a better chance
of survival as mankind.”

A red warning light flashed
on the podium to notify her that her allotted time was over. She had been allotted
five minutes, a minute more than the allotment for the heads of states and heads
of governments.

“Your excellences, please
consider my proposal. I thank you all.”

The polite applause that
followed her speech was a far cry from the thunderous applause she received in
her previous UN speeches. It was obvious that the majority of the delegates did
not take her proposal seriously. Agent Kane led her back to her seat in front
of Wong, Nzue and two of Kane’s colleagues. George had failed to get
accreditation because he wasn’t a member of a national security or law
enforcement agency.

Praying that her proposal
would be accepted by at least one superpower with the capacity to create a
space force, Sara listened to the speeches of the world leaders. Most of the
leaders deviated from their prepared speeches to respond to her theory and
proposal.

The first head of state to
speak was the Afghan president. He spoke of the efforts that his government had
done to set up sand reduction plants and UVL plants, before he digressed from
his prepared speech to comment on Sara’s proposal. He said that no one had ever
seen aliens and it would be unwise for the world to waste money and resources
building a space force to fight imaginary foes.

When he finished his speech, he
received the loudest applause ever received by an Afghan head of state at a
United Nations summit.

Sara knew that the Afghan
head of state was being applauded for his opposition to her proposal. She prayed
that the applause was coming from heads of developing countries without the
wealth and the technology to build a space force. She knew that if her proposal
got the support of the members of the Security Council, a United Nations space
force would be created even if the majority of UN member states were against it.

The
President
of the Republic of Albania
was next and
he also voiced his opposition to the idea of building a space force. The
President of the United Nations General Assembly, who was chairing the summit,
called for a break when the President of Cameroon finished his speech.

Out of the thirty heads of
states who had taken to the podium not even one had voiced support for Sara’s
proposal. Twenty-four said they opposed the proposal and six had stuck to their
prepared speeches without any mention of Sara’s proposal.

Of all the heads of states
and governments who spoke during the two-day summit, only the President of
Mozambique supported Sara’s proposal. Mozambique couldn’t even afford to build
a navy to protect its own territorial waters. For years the country had failed
to stop foreign ships from illegally fishing in its territorial waters and there
was no way the Southern African country could contribute to the building of the
space force that Sara envisioned. No one with the means to build a space force took
her seriously. She had to find a way to prove her theory.

She was on her own.

* * *

Although Sam Cruz had
travelled to space many times, he felt excited whenever he was about to depart
for space. He was almost as excited as some of the passengers who were taking
their first trip into space. Cruz and twelve people were aboard one of his Ultravoyager
orbiters.

“Check your belts, ladies and
gentlemen,” Captain Anderson, the orbiter’s skipper said. “Ultravoyager 03 will
be launching in half a minute.”

“Thirty... twenty-nine...
twenty-eighty...” a generic voice counted the seconds.

Most people who saw an Ultravoyager
for the first time thought the spacecraft was an airplane.  Their assumption was
not far from the truth. An Ultravoyager had two rocket engines and two jocket
engines. Jocket engines could function both as jet engines and as rocket
engines. During the first part of its ascent, an Ultravoyager used its jocket
engines in the rocket mode to thrust to high altitudes. Since jocket engines
used atmospheric oxygen during the initial ascent, they carried less oxygen,
which meant that they could carry more fuel than ordinary rocket engines of the
same size. In a jocket engine, the cone that normally contains fuel in a jet engine
was divided into two compartments, one for oxygen and one for fuel.

Ultravoyager 03 accelerated
on the runway and horizontally took off like an ordinary airplane. Sam Cruz
looked around the space orbiter at his fellow passengers. Only six of the
passenger seats were occupied. All the passengers were American.

Five of the passengers were
new recruits on their way to E Utopia for training. Cruz doubted whether these
latest recruits were as committed as the first people to enlist for the E
Utopia Project. The first E Utopia pioneers joined the project before El
Monstruo, when life on Earth was comfortable. Cruz wasn’t sure whether the
recruits who joined the project at the height of El Monstruo were doing so only
to escape the harsh conditions prevailing on Earth. He sat at the back, away
from the recruits’ starstruck eyes.

Ultravoyager 03 had a
three-member crew: a captain and two navigators who also doubled as engineers.

Most of E Utopia Project’s
new recruits came from outside America. Cruz and Sons used their Congolese and Bolivian
spaceports to transport most of the recruits because Bolivian and Congolese
visas were much easier to acquire than American visas. Like all First World
countries, the United States had tight immigration controls to stem the flow of
economic refugees, and Cruz knew that if he used his American spaceport to
transport foreigners, the authorities will smell a rat when the recruits failed
to return before the expiry of their visas. The other advantage of using the
Congolese and Bolivian spaceports was that the corporation was allowed to use
space shuttles with limited restrictions. The license that Cruz and Sons got
from the FAA limited the launching of spacecraft that jettisoned solid rocket
boosters or any other parts back to earth.

Those who saw the orbiter
slowly ascending into the sky thought it was an ordinary aircraft. When it had
picked enough speed, it slowly turned upright and in two minutes it was fully
upright. By now, the orbiter’s thrust to weight ratio was now five point one
six, which meant that it was now more than five times lighter than the thrust
of its jocket engines.

The girl sitting just in
front of Cruz vomited into a vomit bag. The sound of her vomiting was
contagious. Two other recruits also vomited.

“You will get used to it,” Commander
Pardew, the chief navigator said.

“I’ve flown many times but
I’m not that much comfortable in an orbiter,” said Lieutenant Commander Grump,
the orbiter’s assistant navigator.

When the orbiter reached an
altitude of nineteen thousand feet above sea level, the captain seamlessly switched
its jocket engines to rocket mode. A valve system shut outside air from the
combustion chamber and the mouth of the engine closed to give the jocket engine
a streamline shape. Oxygen from the oxygen tank replaced atmospheric oxygen in
the combustion chamber. At the same time, the captain switched on the orbiter’s
two rocket engines. Powered by four engines and faced with decreasing air
resistance the orbiter accelerated. The direction of the acceleration made breathing
more difficult for everyone aboard. They felt like they were breathing whilst
lying down with a weight on their chests.

Cruz began to feel weightless
and dizzy. He felt as if he was carrying a heavy object on his head. He had been
to his space station many times but he couldn’t get used to the discomfort he
felt during the final moments of the ascent.

“We’re in orbit and we are
heading to Eureka Station,” the captain announced, looking at his navigation
console. “It will take us less than six minutes to get to the station.”

The passengers were able to see
the Earth more clearly now that they were no longer travelling in a vertical
trajectory with respect to the Earth’s surface. The Earth looked so beautiful
that some of the recruits couldn’t help feeling homesick.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
Cruz said to the girl sitting nearest to him. “Greedy people and reckless
people are trying to destroy it, but don’t worry. We shall get rid of all of them.”

The girl nervously smiled at
him. Now she wasn’t so sure whether joining the E Utopia Project was a good
idea. Would the E Utopia pioneers save her family as they promised?

“Put on your space helmets,”
the captain said. “We will be ready to dock at the station in a few seconds.”