The Blue People of Cloud Planet

QUEST OF THE DICEPTERONS

Volume 1:  

The Blue People of Cloud Planet

Brian Wolfenden

Copyright © Brian Wolfenden 2012

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,  by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

The moral right of Brian Wolfenden has been asserted.

The events and names in this story are entirely fictitious and bear no resemblance to persons either living or dead.

No part of this story may be reproduced or copied in any way and Copyright is owned by the Author....July 2009.

Dedication
:

To Seren and Aiva.

 I hope that in their lifetime they will learn of life at another star/planet.

Acknowledgements
:

Firstly I must thank my family for turning my ‘technical study’ into a readable story and in particular my wife, Christine, for patiently pouring over the text to achieve a semblance of English grammar.

Secondly I am deeply indebted to my reviewers, John Pikoulis, Jean Harvey, Debbie Todd and Suzanne Rees for their invaluable critiques. Nearly all their suggestions and amendments were used in the book.

Thirdly I would like to thank and acknowledge NASA and STScl for use of pictures from the Hubble website.

Finally my publisher, John Anthony, who made this e-book happen.

Our sun is one of over 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy and there are more than 100 billion galaxies in the universe which was formed about 4.5 billion years ago.

 Life on Earth has existed for many hundreds of millions of years and in our humanoid form, for only the last 10,000.

It is the author’s belief that considering the vastness of space and the sheer numbers of stars, it is highly probable we are not alone and that parallel or very different life forms have evolved elsewhere. Within our solar system they will certainly be far more primitive than us but as we move out to the stars the chances of life comparable or more advanced increase.

Our nearest star is Proximo Centuari about 5 light years away and at 8.3 light years distant is Lalande 21185 in the constellation Ursa Major. This latter star has two confirmed planets in orbit which are gas giants like Jupiter. It is only a matter of time before we find a star in the Milky Way with an earth size planet orbiting at a distance where heat, light, water and oxygen are optimal for life to evolve, possibly similar to our own.

 However, in other galaxies, where conditions could be very different from the Milky Way, who knows what kind of beings may have evolved and what level of intelligence they have achieved?

This story is about one fictitious star in our galaxy called Seren which is 10 light years from Earth. This star has an orbiting planetary system including an optimally positioned world called......

............ Cloud Planet ............

‘Let me introduce myself. My name is Zec and the incredible story I am about to unfold started well over 100 years before I was even conceived. I can assure you that I have meticulously examined Commander’s logs, collated transcripts, and studied video and audio recordings from several sources. I have used my extensive databases to cross reference and double check key happenings during the last two hundred years. These are structured carefully to produce an accurate picture of the events they portray. Further, I, and more importantly several members of my family were actually witnesses to some or all of the remarkable findings on Cloud Planet, 10 light years distant from Earth.

‘I am compiling this narrative in the year 2190 but my story spans over two centuries.’

Cloud Planet, Constellation of Vercingetorix – 2135

The vastness of space is not always deserted and, where there was a constellation of stars, the ‘sky’ was illuminated by dozens of heavenly bodies in relatively close proximity. One star in this group, Seren, had its own planetary system, with huge giants similar to Jupiter and planets with ring structures like Saturn. From a distance these were lit up by their star and produced a majestic sight, with night and day clearly delineated on their surface.

A spinning satellite hurtled towards Seren on a trajectory between the star and one of its massive gas planets. Although travelling at high speed, it experienced the gravitational forces of both bodies and their combined and opposing vectors caused a significant deceleration. Now the star and the enormous planet competed to capture the tiny object but their forces were very closely balanced and its speed decreased dramatically until, imperceptibly, the gas giant won the battle and the craft started a slow descent.

Then, on the horizon, a smaller planet of dazzling blue with white caps at the poles and an unusual ring of thick cloud around the equator also contributed its pull on the object and yet another tug of war occurred. However, the satellite was quickly gathered by the gravitational field of this planet and it started a very slow descent into the thin atmosphere, surviving the heating process surprisingly intact.

Still some distance from the surface and in complete darkness, the craft entered the deep cloud ring and a world of constant wind and rain, which did little to slow its downward momentum. Then it flew over the mountain tops and penetrated through layer after layer of thick, fleshy leaves and branches, quickly losing parts of its structure until only the body remained. This careered out of the dense forest and crashed to the ground in the centre of a peculiar crater.

The badly-deformed shell of the satellite gave one final lurch and settled. In its last gasp a small gold plaque detached itself and fell to the red surface, its pictorial side uppermost.

 ‘My research of the World Wide Web, as it was called in the 20
^th
and 21
^st
century, produced vast information on the Pioneer missions. In particular, the NASA website details numerous launches in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s but Pioneers’ 10 and 11 were of interest for two reasons. Firstly, both satellites were scheduled to leave our solar system after completing their primary objectives. Secondly, both spacecrafts had a gold plaque bolted to the main frame showing a picture of a man and woman and the relative position of our planet in the Milky Way galaxy.’

A short time later and equivalent to the period for this planet to rotate through one third of its equatorial circumference, the wreck was bathed in hot sunlight. Hundreds of pairs of piercing green and yellow eyes failed to take any notice of the twisted lump in their midst. Even more surprisingly, and for the next twenty revolutions of the planet, these beings with strangely-coloured eyes continued to ignore the intruder.

Meanwhile, their bizarre world cycled from intense sunshine to one of cold darkness. As the sun set, they disappeared underground only to rise again each day to the renewed warmth of their star.

These unusual forms changed in temperature and colour as they moved between regular-shaped pools of hot liquids. They drank, fed and cleared away fleshy leaves from the floor of their domain.

They mated.

Sadly, deaths outnumbered births.

These peculiar creatures utilised the largest leaves to wrap the cold life-less bodies which had not survived the hostile night. They were placed in an open drainage channel where the hot liquid shrank the fleshy covering. The mummified forms travelled down into a dark subterranean world where hungry predators eagerly awaited them.

Then, one Cloud Planet day later, amongst the hoard of unseeing green and yellow eyes, a pair of the most striking and brilliantly blue eyes swivelled to observe the weird mass at the centre of the structure. They blinked repeatedly as rays of golden sunshine reflected from the ground beside the strange object.