The Blue People of Cloud Planet (18 page)

Into the Abyss

During the afternoon, the two astronauts packed their carry packs against a check list prepared by Zec-1. They put compressed food, water, medical supplies and plenty of chlorine filters in one pack. The other contained all their clothing for day use, and more critically for the long cold nights in the boat. Ten or more hours at near zero degrees was going to be a challenge for even warm blooded Earthlings!

‘We’d better change into our thermals when we’re underground, otherwise they’ll be soaking wet before we can get there.’ Olivia advised and Scott nodded.

Most important were the two hand held computers and the torches with plenty of spare batteries. Finally, from the arsenal on board ROL 1, two small gamma – ray guns which they hoped they would never have to use.

Having checked and double checked that they had every necessity they could reasonably carry, they sat in the command seats of ROL-1 with their packs on their laps, wondering when, or if, they would see the lander again.

‘Command, prepare to abandon ROL-1!’

And two left hands confirmed this frightening decision to embark on a journey into the unknown with this extraordinary inhabitant of Cloud Planet.

They followed the blue females and Seren down the screw lift where they immediately changed into their thermal clothing. They noticed that two of the blue forms had descended into the gloom and heard them knock out the wooden ‘bung’ of the lift pit. The huge wooden screw lift creaked as it started to descend and they watched the four blue females, now thoroughly wrapped; disappear into the chamber below the upper pools.

Olivia looked at the closing lift, shuddered and clutched Scott’s hand. They followed Seren and her four attendant females down the gloomy clay ramp towards the boat dock. As they got nearer, Scott could sense Olivia’s rising fear and apprehension.

They mounted the platform and saw that the black boat was half full of large leaves. Two blue females had already entered the boat and waited kneeling over the front. The others were already in the rear of the boat and had settled themselves into the leaves – this extra covering maximised thermal insulation for the long underground journey.

As Seren waited, the two astronauts walked towards the side of the boat. Olivia looked with trepidation at the black mouth of the tunnel and was suddenly paralysed with fear.

‘Scott, I can’t! I can’t!’ she cried, shrinking back and embarrassed at her demeanour.

He slung his pack down and put his arms around her.

‘I’ll hold on to you tightly all the way, Olivia, we have to go!’

But she was shaking uncontrollably and tried to break away,

‘No! No!, I can’t! You go; I’ll go back to the lander.’

‘Olivia, we have no option, we must go in the boat!’ He said firmly and then an unexpected thing happened. Seren walked towards Olivia and her eyes sparkled intensely. Now Olivia clutched her head and she saw,

>> its alright > this is how we always travel > be calm > be calm >>

Scott looked at Olivia,

‘Did she speak to you?’ and Olivia not only nodded but immediately calmed down. Obviously Seren’s telepathic message had reassured her and she surprisingly said,

‘I’m OK, come on, let’s do it.’

A relieved Scott put the packs in the boat, helped Olivia get in and they settled awkwardly onto the leaves. Then Seren stepped in and buried herself in the vegetation next to the two attendants at the rear. The two females at the front pushed down on the restraining block of wood and the boat scraped noisily out of the dock, picking up speed as it entered the black tunnel.

Scott could not believe it but Olivia was already asleep in his arms and he realised that there was more power and depth to Seren than her outward appearance would suggest.

Black, absolute blackness – so intense that Scott could not believe his eyes were actually open and he tried to force his lids further apart. The darkness of the tunnel seemed to press in on him and sleep would not come. Only the occasional scrape of the boat on the sides of the tunnel and gurgle of water gave a sense of awareness.

Olivia slept soundly and Scott glanced at his computer. The screen gave an eerie glow, breaking the blackness. They had travelled for about 2 hours and he saw there was a text message from Zec-1.

‘Tracking you OK, you are 10 kilometres out from dwelling at steady 5 kilometres per hour. Bad news – black mass above dwelling has split into two, one is stationary above the dwelling, and the other is directly above your position and travelling at the same speed as the boat. We are both cut off from LifeSeeker-1.’

Scott tried to make sense of the black menace above but could not. Finally he fell into a troubled sleep.

They had been travelling for about 5 hours when Olivia woke up and panicked! Her scream resonated in the black tunnel immediately awakening him. She thrashed around in the leaves but fortunately Scott had been holding onto her even in his sleep. The echo of the scream continued to reverberate back and forth in the darkness. He tightened his grip and buried her sobbing head in his chest whilst whispering comforting reassurances.

‘You’re fine, I’ve got you. Was it the nightmare again?’ Scott asked but Olivia could hardly reply.

For what seemed ages in that blackness, Olivia shook until finally both of them fell into a fitful sleep.

They did not hear the scrape of the bottom of the boat as it entered the lower lock of the next dwelling – nor did they feel the deceleration and bump as it stopped in the utter darkness.

Later a shaft of light washed over the vessel, awakening Scott who felt disorientated until his cold shivering body brought him back to reality. The boat gently rocked as the very blue female attendants got out and assisted Seren to the side of the dock.

Scott roused Olivia and her eyes flickered open. She shook with fear until he reassured her that they had arrived. Then shuddering with cold they hefted their packs, climbed out of the boat and changed out of their thermals.

 Seren watched them dress with interest and her eyes sparkled,

>> how are you the same colour now as before we left >>

Scott couldn’t begin to even try to explain this. He noted that the boat dock was a mirror image of the one they had left the previous evening and then checked his computer. Zec-1 had left a message just before communications with the lander were lost that morning,

‘You arrived on time 10 hours after departure and the black mass tracked your position until moments before the dwelling lit up.’

They followed Seren and the cold, shuffling females towards the lift screw. As they approached, it was obvious that this dwelling was well populated, judging from the queue of waiting blue females.

The group parted as Seren, her attendants and the astronauts drew near, allowing them to preferentially ascend to the upper level.

A Puzzle Solved

Shivering with cold, Olivia and Scott stepped from the screw lift into the bright morning sunshine of the new dwelling. There were no complaints about the temperature and humidity as the hot and condensing liquid soaked their thin tunics and started to warm their bodies. They stepped into the first pool and gasped with the heat of the water – it was like a very hot bath – and they had to lower themselves slowly to adjust to the temperature. After a few minutes they climbed out and into the slightly cooler second pool, and they then repeated the process in the third pool. They were now thoroughly warmed up so they retrieved their packs, sat on the clay ledge, took a well needed quantity of their water and ate some dry processed food.

This dwelling was similar in size and design as the previous two, and housed a similar number of inhabitants as the very first, judging by the groups that had emerged. Olivia and Scott vacated their seats to allow the adult females plenty of space to provide nourishment for their community and it was interesting to see that Seren and her attendant females were again given preferential status in the seating area.

No blue males appeared but two lifeless leaf clad bodies were carried by a group of ‘older females’ and they solemnly watched as they were placed in the channel and floated away.

‘See!’ said Scott, ‘The leaf shrinks around the body when immersed in the hot water.’

The sun rose across the clouds, dragging the light sheath through the sky. As the temperature increased the astronauts used the large pool to cool down and they drank frequently from their limited water supply. There was no shade in the dwelling so they made regular trips underground to escape the burning sun. But it was cold down there, 5 degrees at best, although under the diamond lights there was a warmer shaft of light that was actually quite pleasant to stand beneath.

‘We are going to have to ration our water,’ Scott said as they perched on the floor by the lift screw where there was now some shade from the afternoon sun. ‘You can understand why these blue people are drinking all the time in this heat.’

‘If you think I’m taking milk from those cold blooded creatures, think again!’ Olivia said indignantly.

The afternoon wore on and the blue females entertained themselves in their usual fashion. Seren kept apart from these activities and was often seen with her head inclining one way and then the other – what was she saying and to whom?

There was one birth that day which brought elation to the community. The new born blue baby was held high in the arms of the mother as if she was showing it off. Almost simultaneously, all the blue females and Seren raised their arms aloft for a few seconds and the new born was then lowered to the mother’s mammary glands for its first feed.

Scott looked enquiringly at Seren and her eyes glowed intensely as she responded,

>> its a male > its a male >>

Olivia and Scott watched as the blue infant was wrapped in a leaf and taken to the upper pool area. The mother washed herself and joined one of the groups of adult females nearby. An ‘older’ female approached carrying a leaf containing red liquid and carefully painted a small red triangle just outside the black square on the mother’s breast next to a number of black triangles.

‘I’ve got it! Yes, the triangles around the squares, Olivia, don’t you see, they must represent childbirth! That’s it, red must be for a male and black, presumably, for female.’

Olivia looked around at the groups of blue females and saw lots of black triangles but only two blue females had one red one in the whole community of well over one hundred.

‘If that’s the case they don’t produce many male babies – no wonder we’ve seen so few men.’

A Surprising Dwelling

Meanwhile, 500 kilometres above, AJ and the remaining astronauts on board LifeSeeker-1 were gloomy and disconsolate. During the night they had tried all sorts of manoeuvres of the starship in an attempt to make contact with the lander and, more importantly, with Olivia and Scott. But each time, the two black masses quickly changed their positions so that communications were blocked. They had also been informed by Zec-C that the smaller black mass was travelling at 5 kilometres per hour – the same speed, they assumed, as Olivia and Scott.

As the astronauts travelled through the next two dwellings, they discovered that they were of similar size and activity. They found the hot days bearable if they bathed frequently and spent reasonable amounts of time underground to cool off. However, the long, cold, black nights were a disturbing trial because Olivia freaked out each time just before entering the boat. It was the sight of the black mouth of the tunnel that brought back the nightmare memories of her childhood. As on the first occasion, Seren calmed Olivia who then slept soundly. Scott contacted Zec-1 in the lander and grew more and more concerned that the black menace was tracking them from dwelling to dwelling. He slept fitfully and held on tightly to Olivia.

At their third new dwelling, six blue males appeared. Scott noticed that, whilst they all had many black triangles around their squared off nipples, only one had a red triangle. Also this one had the largest group of females. He commented to Olivia that two of the females in this group had a red triangle as well.

‘If your male equals red theory is true, then this large group is optimised to produce males.’ Olivia volunteered. ‘If this is the case why hasn’t Seren got any triangles on her breasts? – you must have noticed as you’ve hardly taken your eyes off them!’

‘I don’t know,’ he replied, not quite sure how to take her comment. ‘Perhaps Seren is part of a higher species and therefore uses a different system.’ Scott hoped his rather analytical reply would diffuse Olivia’s pointed but very accurate remark.

Scott was concerned that Olivia was not drinking enough so he had stopped drinking their supply of water and relied solely on breast milk. This, he hoped, would conserve rations for Olivia, who steadfastly refused to feed in this manner. Neither would she drink their milk when he managed, clumsily, to express some into an empty water container - much to the amusement of Seren. Olivia could not countenance drinking anything that came from these reptiles’ bodies.

They changed their chlorine filters every day and Scott was comfortable that lifting their masks for short periods to eat or drink was not harmful. He was correct in this assumption but neither astronaut had considered the consequences of living fulltime in this unusual environment.

‘I realise, after the event, that I underestimated the harmful nature of the atmosphere on Cloud Planet. Normally a significant amount of time is spent each day in the pure air of the lander. But with the immobilisation of ROL-1 and the unknown threat from above, circumstances are changed drastically, necessitating their flight across the planet. Now high temperature and humidity combined with excessive chlorine levels caused the gas to be absorbed through the skin building up abnormal salt levels in the astronauts’ body. This does not affect Scott but has dire consequences for Olivia. Initially, I am unable to explain this as both have excellent health recorded in their dossiers.’

When they reached the fifth dwelling from the edge of the forest, they were half way on their journey towards the equator. They got out of the boat feeling cold and stiff and they then walked along the clay ramp following Seren and her attendants.

‘There’s something different about this dwelling. We have to walk further to the screw lift – I’m sure it’s bigger.’ Scott said.

When they came out into the glorious sunshine, they immediately noticed that he was right and it was about 150 metres across. The shimmering sheath of laser light looked enormous compared to those previously seen. Also the huge space to the left of the channel was filled with objects that astounded and puzzled the astronauts. They warmed and fed as quickly as possible and stood on the clay ramp leading to the top of the channel and stared.

 ‘I can well understand our astronauts’ puzzlement. The open area is bigger in size than where they had landed in previous dwellings and about 100 metres square. At ground level there are two parallel structures about 60 metres in length and 30 metres apart. Each consists of a raised clay channel about a metre in width and height. The walls of the channels are about one third of a metre thick and are open-ended.

Resting across each channel are 40 evenly-spaced shafts of wood, each about 3 metres long and about one tenth of a metre square. They are arranged perpendicular to the line of the channels. Each shaft passes through a block of clay which hangs downwards in the channel. Where the shaft comes out of the clay there is a wide black triangle.’

‘What on Earth are those for!’ cried Scott.

But Olivia’s eyes had been directed by the line of these objects, past the open space beyond them, to the centre of the dwelling wall directly in front of the arrays of black shafts.

‘What’s the dark structure in the wall? It must be 40 metres wide and over 2 metres high!’

But Scott had turned and was staring at three black constructions which rose from the floor of the dwelling up the front wall where they stood. They were 1 metre square in cross section, topped in red, and rose to three different heights.

‘And what are those?’ Scott thought as they walked down the ramp to the dwelling floor. Around them, the younger blue females cleared the ground of leaves, stalks and pods.

They arrived at the head of the right hand array of black shafts and Scott caught hold of the nearest one.

‘Phew! This is heavy...aah!’ Scott clutched his head and saw,

>> warning > warning > do not touch the shafts >>

He recognised the severity of the message and let go immediately. He turned and saw Seren staring at him,

>> be patient > later you will see and understand >>

The heat and humidity had now got to them and despite their intense curiosity they retired to the large pool to cool and watch the activities of over 200 blue people in this busy dwelling.

It was about an hour before noon when Seren caught their attention and pointed to the raised platform by the screw lift. Three ‘older’ blue females, each carrying two short black shafts, had approached the three vertical structures which Scott had noted earlier. The female at the shortest structure placed the shafts on the red top, raised them and struck it, each hand in turn.

A deep ‘boom’, ‘boom’ resonated in the air.

‘It’s a drum!’ Scott shouted, ‘It must be hollow inside, oh! And there’s a rectangular opening near the base.’

The booming continued and they watched, fascinated, as dozens of adult and younger blue females formed an orderly queue. They walked down the clay ramp to the top of the channel and then turned towards the two arrays of black shafts. Some of the youngsters carried large leaves which bulged as if they had something inside them.

As they entered between the shafts, they formed into three rows with the adults on either side of the youngsters. They all continued to walk forward until the leading adults stopped next to the shafts at the furthermost end of the rows. Each following adult then halted alongside their allotted shaft leaving the younger females to form a line between.

During this time the single drum beat continued.

‘There must be, let me check, yes, forty adults on each side and what? Sixty younger ones between, what have they got in those leaves?’ Olivia puzzled.

Suddenly Scott shouted and pointed. ‘That black shape in the wall is moving, it’s travelling down! – Oh my God! - it’s a huge door to the outside.’

They turned their heads as the louder beat of the second drummer combined with the first to make a deeper sound.

‘Look, it must be a signal,’ cried Olivia. The two groups of adults picked up their black shafts and tilted them slightly upward with the clay block facing down.

The noise of the drums vibrated off the walls. Now the astronauts could see the misty rain outside the dwelling through the gap above the partly-lowered door.

The third ‘drummer’ then joined in causing a cacophony of sound. At the same time, the two rows of adults started walking forward carrying their shafts followed by the youngsters.

Then the leading ten adult females from each row converged and formed a V-shape which pointed towards the huge gaping mouth in the wall. The next two groups of 10 formed an angle moving outwards whilst the young females formed V-shapes behind them.

They moved forward in perfect harmony to the beat of the drum as the next two groups started to close back on themselves. All the younger females then became enclosed as the final groups of adults formed a reverse V-shape.

‘My God!’ cried Scott, ‘They’ve formed a perfect octagon shape around the younger ones – it must be 30 metres wide.’

The huge black ‘door’ had now stopped flush with the ground giving an aperture 40 metres wide and over 2 metres high below the shimmering light sheath. The living group of blue people marched towards the opening.

At Seren’s beckoning, Olivia and Scott had come down to the floor level and rushed up behind the departing group. As the front of the V-shape passed into the shadow of the huge doorway, so the leading blue females turned their shafts so the clay blocks were pointing upwards and the strange triangular ends were touching. When they then moved outside the wall of the dwelling, the diamonds embedded in the clay block of their shafts were immediately ignited by the sun and lasers of light shot upwards. As they moved forwards, the V-shape front became a moving wall of light and subsequent crystals burst into life until the whole of the moving group became a sheath of light encircling all of the blue females.

Olivia and Scott moved to the edge of the door and stared out as the light procession slowly faded into the pouring rain and mist whilst the drums boomed their discordant beat.

‘No wonder she warned you about touching that black shaft!’ Olivia commented.

‘That’s amazing!’ Scott said looking out, ‘Zec-C said that small light shafts had been detected moving away from the bigger dwellings but what are they doing?’

Reading his thoughts, Seren opened her hand and her eyes sparkled,

>> they take these out > put them in the ground > then they bring back new leaves >>

In her hand was a small round pod, similar to the ones they had seen being gathered by the young females.

‘They must sow those seeds in the wet clay,’ said Olivia understanding, ‘so that’s what the youngsters were carrying in the leaves and presumably they harvest a crop of new leaves from mature plants – we’ve seen the Blue People farming.’

The incessant drumbeat continued for about an hour after which the moving light shaft reappeared out of the mist and entered the huge doorway. The process was then reversed and finally the black shafts with their diamonds facing downwards were lowered onto their original supports. The drumbeat dramatically ceased and the three rows of people relaxed and dispersed. The youngsters’ arms were full of deep green leaves which they divided between the fourth pool for cooking and the upper platform for distribution.