The E Utopia Project (28 page)

“Touché, Eawo,” Cruz said,
glad he had appointed Eawo as the head of the space force.

Eawo was an Ogoni from
Nigeria’s Niger Delta. Prior to his recruitment, he worked as an
Agricultural
Chemistry and Soil Science lecturer at the Niger
Delta University. Although Eawo had no previous military training, Cruz
appointed him commander of E Utopia’s space force because he was intelligent
and fiercely devoted to the cause. Eawo knew that if the E Utopian project succeeded,
it would save more than ten thousand of his tribesmen from the certain genocide
they faced from greedy oil companies and corrupt government officials. As a
senior officer of the space force, he was entitled to saving one hundred and
fifty Ogonis of his choice from the genocidal destruction of their homeland and
bring them to a pollution-free world they had never known all their lives.
There were more than a hundred of his tribesmen in the E Utopian pioneer force and
as junior officers, each one of them was entitled to saving a hundred people. The
E Utopia Project was his tribe’s only hope of freedom. He would do everything
in his power to make sure that the project succeeded.

“Eawo, the plants won’t take
much nitrogen from the atmosphere because the soil has good levels of
nitrates,” Hitchcook said, squinting, cursing himself for overlooking what the
Nigerian had pointed out. He hoped this would not make Cruz think Eawo was more
intelligent than him.

“The levels of nitrates seem
good because there are no plants and animals on the planet,” Eawo argued. “The
levels will plummet when plants and animals start assimilating the nitrates.”

Hitchcook felt like he had
been kicked in the balls. This Nigerian was too intelligent for his liking. “Of
course, you’re right, Eawo. We’ll bring more nitrogen and carbon dioxide as the
forests grow. When we finish Earth’s carbon dioxide we can get more carbon
dioxide from Venus. We can’t bring the carbon dioxide all at once because it
may cause acid rain.”

“That’s true, Secretary
Hitchcook,” Eawo said. “Acid rain will harm our new ecosystem.”

Hitchcook nodded. At least
the Nigerian wasn’t an arrogant son of a bitch.

“I’ll return to Earth the day
after tomorrow,” Cruz announced. “We shall start the program of evacuating the
chosen ones from Earth upon my arrival. We’ll also end the recruitment program.
We shall start with the evacuation of the chosen ones of high-ranking officials
and senior space force officers. I want you to give me your invitation videos
and lists of your chosen ones.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,”
Hitchcook said. “I can’t wait to see my family again.”

“I’ll need the invitation
videos and lists of chosen ones of all officers from the rank of commander
going upward.”

“We’ll send the word out, Mr.
President,” Eawo said. “It’s a long time since I saw my parents and my three
brothers. Thank you for fulfilling your promise, sir.”

“Admiral Geza,” Cruz said,
realizing the Siberian wasn’t going to say anything unless spoken to. “How is your
work?”

Geza was the most taciturn
men, Cruz knew. He only spoke when it was absolutely necessary. He came from Russia’s
Siberia and was a member of the Khanty tribe. His people had lived in the
Siberia for thousands of years, fishing, hunting and herding reindeer. Their
lives were shattered in the nineteen sixties when oil was discovered in their
homeland. The Soviet government immediately began drilling for oil. Towns
sprang up in the region and hordes of job seekers invaded the homeland of the
Khanty.

Fish constituted seventy
percent of the Khanty people’s diet. They suffered from food shortages when oil
pipelines began leaking into the Ob River, a river that they had relied on for
food for hundreds of years. Large tracts of reindeer pastures were destroyed by
fire and oil pollution. Oil exploration and the influx of workers from other
parts of Russia severely affected the hunting grounds that had sustained many
generations of the Khanty. The new population of workers hunted Siberian
animals for sport. Populations of animals like the sables, elks and bears,
which the Khanty relied on, dropped drastically. A people who had been
self-sufficient for hundreds of years suddenly became destitute.

The collapse of the Soviet
Union brought even more misery for the Khanty. The
petroleum
industry was opened to private players and Russian-
and foreign-owned oil companies flocked to the Siberia.

Geza’s father was a fisherman
and hunter who stuck to his traditional ways despite the change that oil
production had brought to Siberia. He continued to fish even when the Ob River
was declared to have fifteen times more petroleum hydrocarbons than was considered
safe. He was diagnosed with liver cancer when he was only forty-eight years
old. He died a year later. Geza blamed the oil companies for his father’s death.

His mother always encouraged
him to go to school and become someone. “Being someone,” according to Geza’s
mother, was getting a good job and living in a city. She did menial jobs in the
nearby city of Surgut to raise money for his school fees. When an opportunity
came for him to join the Russian Air Force, she begged him to enlist. He joined
the Air Force and trained as a pilot. He flew many sorties during Russia’s
Syria aerial campaign in support of President Bashar Assad.

To his mother’s dismay, Geza
chose to stay in his homeland when he was on leave. He felt a strong attachment
to his people. He joined the newly formed Khanty movement called Spasensie
Yugra, which promoted Khanty culture and campaigned against the environmental
degradation of the Khanty homeland. He began to campaign vigorously against the
oil companies that spilled oil into the Ob river and polluted his homeland with
impunity. His superiors in the Air Force thought Geza’s anti-pollution campaign
was politically-motivated. They ordered him to stop the campaign but he didn’t
listen, leading to his court-martialing and arrest. He was discharged from the
military upon his release from prison.

Geza returned to Siberia
breathing fire, and his vociferous campaign reached Cruz’s ears. Cruz invited
Geza and two of his friends to the headquarters of the IGM. Geza readily agreed
to join the E Utopia pioneers. The Khanty people were doomed. Now there were
less than three thousand Khanty speaking people left in the world. If the
attack on their homeland continued, the Khanty tribe would become extinct. Geza
had recruited dozens of his tribesmen into the E Utopia project. The Khanty E
Utopians were the tribe’s only hope of surviving in a pollution-free world like
their ancestors did before oil companies came to their homeland.

“Work is fine, Mr. President,”
Geza replied.

“Admiral Geza, you’re the
only one in our space force who has ever fired a missile in real combat. What
do you think of our missile program?”

“Our missile program is good,
Mr. President,” Geza said slowly. Although he could now speak English fluently,
he still chose his words carefully. “We’ve a good team of scientists and
technicians here and they have done well.”

“Are you satisfied with the
precision of our ballistic missiles?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“What about our missile defense
system?”

“It’s good, Mr. President,
but there’s still room for improvement.”

“Okay, admiral. I will see
that for myself. Tomorrow I want you to carry out some war games and show me
the effectiveness of the missile system.”

“Yes, sir,” Geza and Eawo said
in unison.

“Did Shipgen finish making
the passenger ships that we shall use to transport the chosen ones from E
Utopia?”

“Yes,” Hitchcook replied.
“They made twenty-five Transgalactics and they are making the last five.”

“Good. On the Earth side, we
made forty-one Ultravoyagers for the transportation of the chosen ones from
Earth to Eureka Station.”

“It appears the logistics for
the evacuation are in order,” Hitchcook remarked.

Cruz rose from his chair and
switched his watch to E Utopian time. Each E Utopian day was equal to twenty-one
Earth hours and thirteen minutes and twenty-nine seconds. The E Utopian
pioneers had divided their day into twenty-four E Utopian hours. Each E Utopian
hour was roughly equal to fifty-four Earth minutes. “Can you take me on a tour
of our biomes and the missile system?”

“I thought you might want to
rest before you take the tour,” Hitchcook said.

“No, Secretary Hitchcook, I
want to inspect the biomes and the new missile system.”

The three men followed Cruz
out of the office. They got into a motorcade of battery-powered vehicles and
drove along a gravel road. At twenty-one kilometers, this was the longest road
on the planet. They passed through a large tract of land filled with greenhouses
which were the planet’s only food source.

“Stop the car!” Cruz cried,
looking out through the window. “I said stop the car!”

The limousine stopped. Cruz
jumped out of the car and scooted in the direction where the motorcade had come
from. Everyone jumped out of the motorcade and ran after Cruz.

“What’s wrong, Mr.
President?” Hitchcook asked.

Cruz crouched and picked a
piece of cloth from the ground. “What the fuck is this? Who the fuck did this?”

“What, Mr. President?”

“This!” He showed Hitchcook
the piece of cloth. “Who the fuck dumped this?”

“I have no idea, Mr.
President.”

“This is needless pollution!”
Cruz roared. “When we say we want to create a world that we govern under strict
environmental law, we mean that we want to create a world without this kind of
thing.”

“When we finish oxygenating
our atmosphere, we can install as many cameras as we can to deter people from doing
this kind of thing, Mr. President,” Hitchcook suggested.

“You’re right, Hitchcook. We’ll
need as many surveillance cameras as we can install.” He walked back to the
limousine and everyone got into their cars.

They drove for nine
kilometers before they saw a lake.

Less than a kilometer away
from the shores of the lake, twenty-one huge transparent structures stood out like
monstrous beetles on the plain landscape. The biomes were much larger versions
of the biomes found on Earth in the United Kingdom’s Cornwall County. Like the
biomes in England, the E Utopian biomes consisted of pentagonal and hexagonal
plastic cells that were propped by steel frames. The biomes were simply large
greenhouses that housed indoor forests. However, unlike your ordinary
greenhouse, the biomes also contained animals.

The largest biome, which
covered an area of roughly sixteen square kilometers, simulated rainforest
environment and contained thousands of plant species, insects and animals that
originated from rain forests. The second largest biome simulated the
Mediterranean environment. The smallest biomes simulated desert environment and
polar ice and arctic tundra environments. There was also a large aquarium that
simulated sea water environment. Since most savanna plants and animals can
survive in both rain forest environment and desert environment, there was no
biome that simulated tropical savanna environment. Only a few thousand plant species
had been planted in the biomes. These plants were known food sources of the
insects and animals in the biomes. Tens of thousands of plants were stored as seeds.
Most of the plant species on E Utopia were stored in vitro by cryopreservation
and freeze-drying in the form of plant cells or zygotic embryos. The pioneers
planned to revive the plant cells and zygotic embryos when the conditions on
the planet were right for the growth of forests. To widen the gene pool, they
had also stored pollen grain by cryopreservation.

The motorcade stopped at the
entrance of the rainforest biome. All the scientists who worked in the biome
stood in a line, waiting to greet the President. Cruz shook their hands and
greeted them one by one. He took his time muttering pleasantries to the
fourteen scientists who ran the biome. He couldn’t wait to enter the biome but
he knew he had to make the scientists and all the E Utopia pioneers feel wanted
and respected in order to boost their morale.

When the niceties were over,
the chief scientist, Steve Clark, a thirty-two-year-old bearded New Yorker, led
Cruz into the biome’s airlock. Clark opened the inner hatch of the airlock when
everyone had entered the airlock.

The biome was a flurry of
activity. Monkeys jumped and did their acrobatics in trees and metal beams,
birds sang in the treetops, butterflies flew in the air and antelopes could be
seen grazing. For a moment, Cruz forgot that he was not on Earth. This was the
scene he wanted to see throughout E Utopia and throughout the Earth.

“Take me to the leopards,” he
ordered.

“Yes, Mr. President,” Clark
said.

They walked along a footpath
that dissected the biome, to the cage section which housed constrictors,
poisonous snakes, large predators and some large herbivores, which could not be
left to roam the biome for safety and ecological reasons. A squirrel crossed
the footpath ahead of them and a minute later, a large African bull frog
crossed the footpath a meter away. A harpy eagle made a swoop for the frog but
the sight of the group of people distracted him and made him miss. The frog
quickly sought cover under a bush.