The Blue People of Cloud Planet (45 page)

Five Years Later

Olivia was paddling in the cool shallows of the sea at the edge of the red beach. Although the water was cold, it was refreshing in the heat of the blazing midday sun. Everything was tranquil and the menacing cloud that once covered the coastline was gone. She had not seen Scott once since that final confrontation five years ago.

She bent down and scooped up a handful of black beads, which slithered and slipped through her fingers. Even after all this time there were still patches of black at the edge of the sea. How innocent they looked, she thought, but each was a masterpiece of advanced technological design and probably still capable of responding to signals if the host computer or whatever it was returned.

She could quite imagine someone thinking that these beads would make an attractive necklace and shuddered at the thought. It was unlikely to happen again on this planet!

Olivia was desperate to help the Blue People but determined to keep her distance from them. ROL-1 was her base with frequent visits to the orbiting space station for meetings with AJ and updates on her fellow astronauts work. In particular, Olivia avoided the post lunch rituals. Although she admired the Serenite males for their beauty and muscular stature, there was no way that she was going to be telepathically seduced!

As she let the black beads fall between her fingers into the sea, Olivia reflected on the last five years, how quickly they seemed to have passed.

By the end of the first year, there was no significant change in the birth to death rate and male to female ratio. However the use of the hot-water bottle had spread successfully over hundreds and hundreds of dwellings, mainly at or near the equator. Also dozens of large dwellings had had their sleeping chambers fully converted to the water-heated design and this idea was spreading successfully as the Serenites re-learned the skills of construction.

Alison and Steve had deforested one valley on both sides from the estuary to the red plain. This was a mammoth achievement which had resulted in a significant local thinning of the cloud. It had left the lower slopes exposed, showing the blackened stumps of the huge trees which were covered with the white ash from the burning leaves. At the estuary cloud had receded sufficiently up the river to reveal the six devastated dwellings. Damage above ground was extensive but the basic wall and triangular structures were still substantially in place and underground the sleeping chambers and water pits were still intact. Of course the pyramids had completely vanished and the canal feeding the dwellings was badly damaged. However these structures could be repaired and there was no shortage of the basic raw materials.

So Olivia had ferried thousands of clay bricks, replacement screw lift shafts and diamond crystals to the estuary. The plan for year two was to get one dwelling up and running. Then Olivia’s thoughts turned to Scott. It still hurt and she felt very bitter about the situation. She coped by throwing herself into the rebuilding programme.

After the first year, Scott and Seren had travelled about a quarter of the circumference of Cloud Planet and by then he had dozens of red triangles on his chest. All male infants, thought Olivia with disgust, and three already with Seren. Gestation time for the Serenites was about 40 of their planet days and young were born very small and immediately looked after by the blue females.

Although they had made several high-altitude passes over the strickened icecap where the alien force had hidden, radiation levels during that first year were still too high to allow a closer inspection using one of the landers. These surveys had shown the permanent crater at the centre and the vast patches of black at the edge of the icecap. They also showed that one cylinder, though considerably damaged, had stayed on the surface of the ice.

Towards the end of year two, radiation levels had fallen sufficiently to allow an expedition to the icecap and AJ accompanied Olivia in ROL-1 to carry out this venture. They were now 1 kilometre above the icecap and they approached the damaged cylinder. Zec-1 had applied sufficient force field to protect them from the radiation whilst maintaining more than enough power for low altitude manoeuvrability.

‘Phew! It’s not until you get up close that you realise just how big those things are!’ AJ pointed ahead where four or five jagged chunks towered above the icecap.

‘Those pieces must be, what, half a kilometre high, and look; the centre is filled with black. And see how the beads have spewed from the cracks onto the ice!’ Olivia added, ‘It looks like a huge black starfish.’

AJ commanded Zec-1 to descend to 600 metres above the centre of the decimated cylinder. The black mass was 200 metres below them and it had flowed out of the structure for hundreds of metres through each breach.

‘How many black beads could you get in one of these cylinders?’ Olivia queried.

‘Packed tightly, one could hold in excess of 5 billion beads but less if they are to be mobile in their own pressurised fluid. Furthermore, the outer shell of the cylinder is actually two thin shells made from an alloy of metals similar to titanium, vanadium and iridium. But with the radiation levels, I cannot be precise on the analysis. Apart from the double shell and the beads, I cannot detect any other internal structures. Additionally, each of the shells has regular-shaped large openings but there is no obvious way of closing them – my only interpretation is that the inner shell rotates within the outer to create and close access points. These ‘doors’ are regular hexagons about 100 metres across.’

‘That’s incredible! But how could you rotate the inner disc?’ AJ asked.

‘My only conclusion is that the pressurised black mass forces the inner cylinder around until two openings coincide, and then the mass jets out as we saw at the icecap when the discs rose from the ice.’ 

‘And presumably, all were controlled from that mammoth mother-disc.’ Olivia said incredulously. ‘What on ‘Earth’ does that contain?!’

‘We’ll probably never know!’ AJ replied.

At the end of year two the death rate among the blue workers had definitely started to decrease. The short-term measures were obviously working so they were rolled out across the whole planet. Alison and Steve had deforested the adjacent valley but of greater significance was the rebuilding of one dwelling by the estuary of the first valley cleared. A very difficult task initially because blue workers and Serenites had to be ferried back and forth each day. They could only work for a couple of hours during the middle of the day when the weak sunlight gave some warmth to the ‘building site’. The breakthrough came when sufficient crystal lasers could be ignited to produce hot water for the upper pools and the underground heated chamber. Then the Serenites and blue workers could stay on site and work most of the day on the restoration project. Further blue workers could then be released to start replanting the lower slopes. There was no difficulty getting the seeds to grow in the ash-rich soil.

By now the cloud collar had noticeably retreated from the coastline and was thinning sufficiently at the edge of the plain for work to start on recovering the dwellings alongside the large lake at the top of the valley. Of course, these dwellings were only partially decommissioned when the Blue People fled to the tunnels under the red plain. They only required the replacement of the screw lift and diamond crystals in the double channels on top of the walls to get them functioning again.

As for Scott, now on the other side of Cloud Planet, well, apparently, there was no room left on his chest for more red triangles.

Years three and four resulted in dramatic changes for the fortunes of the Blue People. The death-rate among the blue workers had reduced dramatically and was nearly back to normal and the ratio of male to female births had increased significantly.

Deforestation was slow but Alison and Steve had completed the work on a further four valleys, making six in all, as they refined their techniques. The first two valleys were now completely free of cloud from the estuary to the lake at the start of the red plain. This enabled the Blue People to travel above ground in their boats on the rivers of these two estuaries for the first time since the devastating tsunamis had raced up the rivers.

But the cloud still clung to the upper slopes and across the red plain.

By the end of year four, Scott had circumnavigated Cloud Planet with Seren. They were accompanied by Zac, who was now nearly four and his first- born with Seren. Scott was now second in command to Hotenka and sat alongside him in the centre of the triangular plinth of the huge pyramid of the ‘capital city’.

Olivia continued to amble along the edge of the sea, but she was not alone.

Beautiful blond Serenities, male and female, wandered about the red beach, their young ones tended by the blue female workers. Not as many as she had seen in the holographic amphitheatre, Olivia mused, but moving in the right direction.

Then she turned and with pride looked up the estuary.

The six repaired dwellings stood splendidly by the side of the river, their light shafts shooting upwards into the cloudless blue sky. A pyramid stood in one of these with crystals glinting from the side walls. It had taken the whole of the last year to build this dwelling and its internal structures.

What an achievement!

What a landmark for the Blue People!

On both sides of the estuary were the familiar dark triangular plantations with black boats which moved back and forth across the river, paddled by the blue female workers. Olivia looked further up the valley. Cloud had retreated to the upper slopes of the mountains where its whiteness contrasted with the green of the valley. It was a beautiful sight.

‘We’ve almost got their paradise back,’ Olivia said aloud, and then the sobering thought occurred that this was only one of 2,000 damaged estuaries on Cloud Planet.

‘Hmmm, there’s a long way to go!’ And a group of blond Serenites nearby turned and smiled and she could feel their deep gratitude.

AJ has overseen the activities of the past 5 years and helped where possible. However, he spent most of his time aboard LifeSeeker-1 and had just received the fantastic news that all the astronauts aboard LifeSeeker-2 had woken safely from cryo–hibernation and that this starship was less than 1 year from arrival at Cloud Planet.

He sat alone in the command dome of his starship and stared out at the planet below. The change in the cloud collar was quite dramatic, particularly at the coast lines. You could actually see the red beaches, thought AJ, and all the way up several estuaries where Alison and Steve had completed their amazing feat of deforestation.

He was composing a text report to the commander of LifeSeeker-2, Brian Harrington, a close friend and respected colleague. He had been sending regular reports to the General at Mars Base in which he had expressed his anxieties concerning the incredible riches of Cloud Planet and the need to keep this information as confidential as possible. He kept his report to Brian fairly brief just outlining the main findings concerning Cloud Planet. He described the Blue People and how they were threatened with extinction at the hands of an advanced alien force from another galaxy.

‘That will certainly get his attention!’ AJ said as he hit the return key to send the message.

Martha and Pete had travelled through hundreds of dwellings over the last 5 years as they helped the Serenites build their heated underground chambers. Martha’s hot water bottle design was now in regular use across the whole planet and Pete had designed a thermal valve to maximise the flow of hot water into the chambers. Both had become fully integrated into Serenite life including their afternoon activities!

And as for Alison and Steve? Well, they kept themselves very much to themselves.