Only Hitchcook stood on Cruz’s side.
“You must be suffering from some kind of post-space-trip madness,” Foreman said. “Akpobori, please give Hitchcook and Mr. Cruz a sedative.”
“You think I’m crazy?” Cruz hissed. He pulled out a semi automatic pistol. “Let me show you crazy. Hands up!”
“What are you doing, Mr. Cruz!” Rudolf shouted with hysteria.
“I said hands up!”
The six men raised their hands and Cruz pulled the trigger three times. Foreman, Alonso and Jacquet fell to the ground.
“Mr. Cruz,” Akpobori pleaded. “I’ve got a wife and little kids.”
“We can work this out, man,” Bolton said. “Please don’t kill us.”
“Please Mr. Cruz,” Rudolf begged. “Please spare our lives.”
“Shut up!” Cruz barked before he fired two quick shots that aurally blended into one. Rudolf and Bolton fell.
“I change my mind, Mr. Cruz,” Akpobori whined. “I’ll go along with your plan. I’ll do anything. Please don’t kill me. I promise I’ll help you carry out your plan.”
“Liar!” Cruz barked before he pulled the trigger. Akpobori tried to draw his gun but the bullet struck him before his hand dropped five inches.
“Let’s bury them, Hitchcook.”
Hitchcook remained motionless, his mouth agape with shock.
“Hitchcook!”
“Yes Mr. Cruz.”
“I said let’s bury them.”
Cruz trembled when he looked at the bloodied corpses. “Did you have to kill them?”
“Yes. If I let them live, they would steal a ship and return to Earth to warn the polluters. They would bring government people here and this planet would become free for all polluters.”
“Is it true what you said about me bringing a hundred and fifty of my loved ones here?”
“Yes, Hitchcook. In recognition of your great work, I grant you the privilege to save one hundred and fifty people of your choice. We must return to Earth and find people who believe in our cause. And you must design rocket engines that can operate on heavy hydrogen.”
“We discovered metal deposits here, Mr. Cruz. When we return, we must mine the minerals and use them to build ships from here.”
“That, Hitchcook, is a great idea. But when we mine we must minimize environmental degradation. Now let’s give these six gentlemen the distinction of being the first people to be buried on E Utopia. When we have imported enough oxygen, I’ll plant a tree on their grave. Their bodies will provide nutrients to the tree and contribute to the well-being of our environment.”
“What will you tell their families?”
“We’ll make up a story. They died in an accident, blah blah blah. I’ll give a fine speech about their dedication to duty before I give their families nice little compensation packages. They’ll be smiling all the way to the bank.”
*
The chiming of the doorbell brought Cruz’s mind from the past to the present. Cruz pressed a button on the head of the bed and the door opened.
A young ensign of Polynesian origin entered and saluted. “Mr. President, Rear Admiral Sopoaga ordered me to tell you that we’re fifteen Earth minutes away from the jump spot.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it, Mr. President.” The ensign saluted and marched out of the sleeping cell.
Cruz sprang from the bed and quickly groomed himself before he rushed to the ship’s bridge. Although he had experienced many space jumps, the phenomenon still fascinated him. He wanted to be at the bridge to see the skipper activating the jump drive.
Everyone in the main control section saluted and stood at attention when Cruz entered.
“At ease, officers,” Cruz said.
“Mr. President,” Sopoaga said, “I hope you had a nice nap.”
“I hardly slept, Sopoaga. I spent most of the time thinking.”
“Of course, Mr. President. Your job requires a lot of planning. We’re eleven minutes away from the jump spot. Let me talk to the other ships.”
“Do your job, rear admiral, don’t let me disturb you.”
Sopoaga switched the ship’s comm to inter-ship mode. “Rear Admiral Sopoaga to all captains. We’re ten minutes away from jump spot. Get ready for the jump.”
All captains acknowledged the rear admiral’s notification.
With puerile excitement, Cruz listened to the generic voice shouting the jump countdown. The ship entered into hyperspace when the generic voice finished the countdown.
“We’ve jumped, Mr. President,” Sopoaga said when they emerged from hyperspace. “We’re now heading for Base.”
Chapter Eight
Sara stared at the satellite image on the screen. She knew there was something wrong with a lone cloud mass located above the South Atlantic Ocean roughly equidistant from South America’s East Coast and Africa’s West Coast. She looked at the cloud mass for more close to seven minutes, trying to figure out what was wrong with it.
She punched the air when the eureka moment finally came. “I got it!” She had seen a cloud mass with the same shape and size in this location two days ago. What are the chances that a cloud is replaced by a cloud of the same shape on the same spot? She printed a screengrab of the cloud mass and put it in a drawer.
The cloud mass suddenly disappeared. One instant, it was there and the next it was gone. It didn’t break or disappear slowly as clouds normally do; it simply vanished, as if it had been deleted. She came to one conclusion. Someone had pasted the cloud mass to hide something.
But why would they paste clouds over an area with no clouds? she wondered. Why would they make such an amateurish attempt to hide whatever they wanted to hide? Pasting clouds was surely the dumbest thing to do. If they really wanted to hide something, they would simply have pasted a cloudless picture previously cropped from the same place. Why risk pasting clouds? This didn’t make sense. Perhaps someone inside wants to expose the game.
She knew a suspicious cloud would come again in the same area in the near future. Maybe they would paste different clouds next time but she had no doubt that they would paste another cloud mass over roughly the same location.
She continued looking at real-time images of oceans for the rest of the day. She was about to go home when she noted another suspicious cloud mass, this time over the Indian Ocean. The cloud was a hundred or so kilometers from the area over which the two space agencies and six satellite imagery companies pasted a video clip to conceal real-time images. The cloud mass had a different shape from the one that had been over the South Atlantic Ocean. She took out the printout of the screengrab and compared the two clouds. Bingo! Whoever had been given the job of pasting these clouds was incompetent. It was actually the same cloud that had been rotated. She printed a screengrab of the cloud and switched to the European Space Agency. She wasn’t surprised to see clouds pasted on the same spot. All six privately owned satellite imagery companies had pasted clouds on the same spot.
She had to convince the government to send the Navy or the Air Force to investigate. The only person who could put her case through to the President of the United States was Zachary Jeffery, the Deputy Administrator of USEPA.
She quickly took out his phone and dialed his number. He answered on the first ring.
“Hi Zack.”
“How are you doing, Sara?” Zachary’s voice rasped from the phone.
“I’m fine.”
“I’m sorry your critics are making fun of you. I read several articles in which commentators poked fun at you. They’ve a right to disagree with your theory but they’ve got no right to insult you.”
“Don’t worry about me, Zack. I’ve grown a thick skin.”
“Do you still have bodyguards?”
“Yes.”
“It gives me peace of mind to know that you’re safe.”
“Zack, I hate being shadowed by bodyguards. I can’t believe politicians put so much effort campaigning for positions that r
equire them to live with bodyguards.”
“I know how you feel, Sara, but you need those bodyguards.”
“I know. Can I see you tomorrow, in your office, Zack? I want to show you something that might increase my need for bodyguards.”
“Is something wrong, Sara? Are you in danger?”
“You told me to contact you if I found evidence to support my theory. I think I’ve found the evidence.”
“What did you find?”
“I can’t discuss this over the phone. I’ll come to your office tomorrow.”
“Okay. At what time can I expect you in my office?”
“First thing in the morning.”
“See you tomorrow.”
“Till tomorrow, Zack.”
* * *
“Harvesting Fleet 4 is seeking permission to land at Base.”
“Permission granted, sir,” said a female voice with a West African accent.
“Please notify Base commander that I have the President aboard my ship.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the traffic controller.
Cruz looked out of the viewport at Fuel Ball. Although the planet was a gas giant, it looked pretty solid from here.
The fleet docked and Sopoaga quickly led Cruz into the base where he was welcomed by Vice Admiral Frankson.
“Welcome to Base, Mr. President,” Frankson said with a salute.
“It’s good to see you, Frankson.”
Sopoaga and Frankson exchanged salutes and walked behind Cruz. The President inspected a hastily assembled guard of honor amid the blaring of the Green Hymn from the public address system. The guard of honor comprised men and women from Harvesting Fleet 1. Cruz enjoyed every second of the guard of honor. Now he had his own army, the Green Army, a disciplined army that was going to turn E Utopia and Earth into gardens of Eden.
After inspecting the guard of honor, he walked to his office, shadowed by Frankson, Sopoaga and five officers from Base Security. He put his hands on the security pad and the pad quickly scanned his DNA and fingerprints before it prompted the door to open. He entered the office for the first time in six months and sat behind his desk. Only Frankson and Sopoaga entered. The security officers remained outside.
“Sopoaga, you are dismissed,” Cruz said. “The Vice Admiral can debrief you later.”
Sopoaga saluted and left the office.
“Please sit down, Frankson.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“How is everything here?”
“Everything is running smoothly, Mr. President.”
“Keep up the good work, Frankson. We’re almost there. Soon, we will be evacuating your families from Earth.”
“When can that happen, Mr. President?”
“We’ll start the evacuations soon, Frankson. I’m going to E Utopia too see whether the planet is ready to take in the chosen ones. If it is ready, I’ll return to Earth and kick-start the evacuation of the chosen ones.”
“I heard we had a scare on Earth,” Frankson said, to keep the conversation going.
“The Director of GEMA caused a minor scare but it’s nothing to worry about. Only one member state of the United Nations bought her story and that member state isn’t in the Security Council.”
“How are the oxygen levels in Earth’s atmosphere?”
“They aren’t as low as we want them to be. The sand reduction plants are slowing us down a little.”
“What will we do if E Utopia gets fully oxygenated before Earth’s atmospheric levels fall to the desired level?”
“We have plan B, Frankson. If that happens, we’ll stop taking oxygen from Earth and take carbon dioxide instead.”
“How will that help, Mr. President?”
“Green plants need carbon dioxide to make food,” Cruz explained. “Without it, they will die and the people on Earth will starve.”
“But that will take more time than suffocation.”
“The people on Earth use breathing machines and we can’t suffocate them. Only two things can wipe them out; the rising temperatures caused by the thinning of the atmosphere and starvation caused by the death of crops. Milking carbon dioxide is a sure way of wiping out plants from Earth. It would prove to be much easier than milking oxygen. Now carbon dioxide makes about 0.056 percent of Earth’s atmosphere and their standalone UVL plants are breaking it down as we speak. If we design a good carbon-dioxide-harvesting system, it’ll take us a short time to wipe Earth’s carbon dioxide.”
“Won’t they start making carbon dioxide like they are making oxygen right now?”
“To make carbon dioxide, they will have to burn carbon, which will consume their remaining oxygen.”
“Plants need oxygen for respiration,” Frankson mused. “Why are they not suffocating?”
“El Monstruo has killed lots of plants and destroyed forests but that has more to do with lack of water than lack of oxygen,” Cruz explained. “The current levels of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere can sustain plant life. Plants are stationary and they generally require less oxygen than animals to burn carbohydrates. Besides, during the day, the cells in leaves and other green parts of the plant can burn carbohydrates in respiration using the oxygen they get from photosynthesis.”
“I see,” Frankson said, impressed by the President’s knowledge. He could envision the bright future that awaited E Utopia under the leadership of such a knowledgeable president.
“We shall win this war. Victory is ours, Frankson.”
Frankson nodded. He was a soldier and he knew a good strategy when he heard it. “Victory is ours, Mr. President.”
“I’m not staying here any longer than necessary, Frankson,” Cruz said. “Get me and the five new recruits a lift to E Utopia.”
“Yes, sir.” Frankson looked at his computer. “Two tankers are ready to depart in about twenty-five Earth minutes. Let me raise them. I think we should reserve a spaceship for you in future, Mr. President, so that you won’t have to hitchhike in milkmaids and tankers.”
Cruz shook his head. “We can’t keep a ship permanently stationed here waiting for the day I pass by. That, Frankson, will be a waste of resources. We need all ships to transport oxygen from Earth.”
“We won’t reserve a tanker or a milkmaid, sir. We can reserve a passenger ship like a Transgalactic.”
“Still that would be a waste of resources, Frankson. We must guard against wasting resources because it leads to overexploitation of natural resources.”
“Yes, Mr. President, I get what you mean.”
Frankson raised the captains of the two tankers and ordered them to transport the President and the five recruits to E Utopia. When the time for the tankers to depart came, Frankson personally escorted Cruz to the dock and handed him over to the more senior of the two tanker captains, Captain Efemena Aruegodore, who was better known by his first name because his surname was a tongue twister. He hailed from the Urhobo tribe of Nigeria’s Niger Delta.
Captain Efemena saluted the President and the vice admiral. “I will be honored if you ride in my ship, Mr. President.”
Captain Efemena ushered Cruz and two of the new recruits into his ship and introduced him to the crew. The remaining three recruits went into the other tanker. Although tankers were a dozen times bigger than Oxygen Harvesters, they had smaller cabin space than the harvesters because they were designed to operate with a smaller crew.
Captain Efemena offered his sleeping cell to Cruz. He rarely used the sleeping cell because the journey from Base to E Utopia took just under an hour. To get to E Utopia, the tankers travelled in normal space for the first twenty-three minutes, and then in hyperspace for four minutes, before they returned to normal space, where a thirty-one minute lap took them to low E Utopia orbit.
* * *
“Right now what are you to me? Fiancé or bodyguard?”
George smiled. “Fiancé.”
“I like the fiancé part better,” Sara said, swaying her hips. “Come and undress me and do to me all those wick
ed things that fiancés do to their fiancées.”
George pulled her close and slowly undressed her. When she was nude, he kissed her, his hands moving all over her body. She closed her eyes, enjoying the soft touch of his hands. Making love was her only escape from her worries. She opened the zipper of his trousers and helped him undress.
“Tomorrow I’ll guard your body. Tonight, I’ll enter it.”
She giggled. “Permission granted.”
They made love for more than an hour before George fell asleep.
“Bodyguard my ass,” Sara said with a laugh when she heard his snores. “Now who is guarding who?”
She remained awake deep into the night, asking herself many questions. Who were these people with the power to control NASA, ESA and six companies that were owned by billionaires? Were the activities that they were trying to conceal happening in air or water? The two areas that the satellite imagery companies had blocked from view were in the ocean. Why wasn’t this happening on land?
“I get it,” she said to herself. The people whom the companies were protecting had chosen to do their nefarious activities in international airspace and international waters because they knew that nobody would pay attention to them. The areas over which they pasted images were of little interest to weathermen and defense forces of the countries of the world.
She fell asleep thinking about the people whom the space agencies and satellite imagery companies were covering up for.
“This is a goodbye kiss,” George told her in the morning after breakfast. “This is goodbye to the fiancé. I’m now the bodyguard.”
“I like the body penetrator more than the bodyguard,” she said seductively, adjusting his collar.
George smiled and put his hands on her hips. “The penetrator is a nocturnal animal. I can guarantee you that he will be back tonight.”
“I wish we could go out and have fun like we used to,” she mumbled.
“We can go out this evening, darling.”
She shook her head. “No. Not with a bunch of bodyguards following us. We’ll go out when all this is over.”
The E Utopia Project Page 20
