Chapter 2
A New World and a New Life
The first thing to strike me was the sun; it was more orange than ours. The reason for this was that this star was an orange dwarf, whereas Earth’s sun is of course a yellow dwarf. Alkarr looked so beautiful in its warm glow. On Earth due to the atmosphere our sun can appear pale red at dawn and sunset. As the sun rises it soon becomes yellow then yellow white, when on Alkarr the sun is a ruby red during dawn and sunset and as it slowly rises its appearance changes to pale red through orange until at midday when it has reached a pale orange yellow colour. Alkarr, only slightly larger than Earth, also has a moon; however, this is much larger than ours. Unlike Earth’s moon, it does have a thin atmosphere mostly of carbon dioxide but also small amounts of nitrogen, argon and oxygen, total atmosphere pressure over two hundred millibars. The poles also have small ice caps. I was told it sometimes snows and rains there, plus they are continually terraforming it, hoping to get the pressure up another hundred millibars within ten years.
I could see large domes on the moon, as no heavy industry is now permitted on Alkarr itself, all are now situated on its moon. As for Alkarr, it is an agricultural world, it produces much more food than it needs so has a good export commodity. There are a number of large land masses and many islands surrounded by oceans. The planet has a tilt of fifteen degrees so seasons do not change as much as on Earth. The planet does like ours have a magnetic field, but as the sun is cooler. Alkarr orbits a lot nearer to its sun than Earth does to ours, and because of this it looks larger in the sky. Alkarr is in the centre of the so-called goldilocks zone; its year being 246 days and its day is only twenty minutes longer than ours.
As we began to slow down the anti-gravity pods had been spun up to compensate for the gravity. We entered Alkarr’s atmosphere and we were soon low enough that I could make out field after field of various crops as far as the eye could see. The main crop of the Alkarrens is rice, which accounts for fifty percent of its exports. Soon I could see many buildings and residences. Alenna pointed at an area which had a number of cargo ships on the ground; this was where we were heading, and soon we were hovering over an empty landing zone. Minty was pointing out of a side window; she had spotted the other two ships belonging to their family. As we hovered, the landing gear struts could be heard and slowly we descended until we felt a slight jolt as we touched down.
By this time Elma had already contacted Helena that she had something of uppermost importance to tell her and as the cargo hold doors were opened she was just arriving. She spotted me almost straight away and was gob-smacked, but before Helena could say anything else, Elma said that I was the important reason and she needed to discuss the matter with her right away. She took Helena straight to the galley along with the girls’ mothers while the rest of us had to wait for the ministry of agriculture to arrive to collect the sunflower seeds. I wondered what they were to be used for. In fact, it turned out they hoped to grow them for an Alliance member known as the Flitten who were seed eaters, descended from birds. They walk upright and do not fly as the wings have evolved rudimentary arms and hands with two fingers plus a thumb. They have a flat face of an owl-like appearance but with the beak of a parrot. They stand about four to five foot high and are covered in feathers. Alkarr hoped to grow these seeds as a kind of snack for them, similar to a packet of peanuts to us. They already grow and export boker nuts to them, which grow on bushes and look a little like walnuts but with soft shells.
The mothers did not spend too long meeting and soon appeared. Alenna was spoken to by the prime wife of her mother’s house before leaving with her and her mother; Minty and Jenna had to stay with me. About an hour went past and the ministry had just turned up and collected the sunflower seeds. Just after they had departed we spotted Alenna with her mother returning. Alenna was sporting the head bangle of a prime wife; she looked so proud. Minty and Jenna were then handed theirs and they quickly put them on; the three just stood there enjoying the moment. Alenna then informed me that the House of Albion had been registered along with the marriage. Albion is an ancient name for the islands of Great Britain. I did give Britannia a consideration but thought it more of Roman Britain and Britannia was also a woman. We now had to go to see all the other members of her family as they had not been informed of the girls’ marriage, they were only just told to gather in the main recreation hall. It’s tradition that a girl who is just married is given the privilege of telling her family members and this was to be no exception.
All the mothers from our cargo ship went in with the younger daughters. Alenna then went in. Jenna, Minty and I just waited outside the door. All the family now seated were looking at Alenna as she stood in front of them. Her older sisters began to tease her; one sniggering said, “Oh look, Alenna’s a prime wife,” another telling her, ‘‘Take off that head bangle as you had no right to be wearing it and had no hope of ever being a prime wife.’’ She just stared at them with an authoritative glance. She summoned us in and then her sisters could see Minty and Jenna with their head bangles walk in with a man between them. Her sisters went silent apart from one who murmured, “No it can’t be true.” You could have heard a pin drop. Alenna continued and introduced me as her husband to all her other mothers and her father. Turning to her sisters she then warned all her older spinster sisters not to make any attempts to shame her, which was to warn them not to attempt to get me alone with them. Very often other sisters would try to become an extra wife without the permission of the prime wife, a shameful act, but it would also be a shameful act not to accept them if they did. By saying it, she could punish them by not letting them have access to me and giving them dirty jobs to do along with other things they would not like to perform. In the long run this would also be a shameful act so chaperoning me is always the top priority. On top of this it has upset the daughters’ hierarchy in the family, now Alenna has jumped above all her older sisters including the married ones who live with other houses as none of these are a prime or even a deputy wife. Alenna had now become first daughter, Minty and Jenna being just below her.
Alenna went off to have a private meeting with Helena to discuss conditions we would have to abide by. The house of Motok was now the host of our house and we were subject to their rules while we lived with them. While she was having this meeting a number of her family wanted to know about me and my life on Earth. They understood a great deal about our planet as Earth was continually monitored covertly from orbit, especially through TV and the internet but as no human had ever left Earth, I was a curiosity to them. When Alenna reappeared following the meeting she said to her family we were going out now. Alenna then led us outside where she explained to us some of the rules. One was she could not take on any new wives without Helena’s permission but on a brighter side she had negotiated a good allowance for us subject to my continued participation in the work load. As I did not want any more wives that rule was good news to me.
Alenna and her sisters wanted to show me off, so the three girls started calling up all their local friends to meet with them at a local café. Alkarr was much like Earth in some respects; it had cafés, shops, concert halls and many open spaces such as parks, and what struck me most was that there was always someone singing or playing a musical instrument. They do love music and singing. They have a single TV channel but they do not make films or anything violent. Programmes are music or news, usually about a male birth to some house or other, plus educational programmes also feature prominently. Alenna wanted to be slightly late so that their friends would already be there. As we approached, some of the girls’ friends spotted us; they screamed with excitement, saying they were so happy for Alenna, Minty and Jenna. In fact, a couple pleaded with Alenna to consider taking them on as an extra wife, but Alenna politely declined and stated she could not take on any more wives for the foreseeable future.
We sat in the warm sun and listened to
some girls singing while we consumed some food and drink. I did find out that they did eat some meat, well an insect actually ‘yuck!’ you might think. They looked like giant grasshoppers or crickets and they are called hoopers due to the sound they made, though it was not that popular but a few ate them. They were served roasted, and guess what, they taste like chicken, don’t they always. The girls didn’t care for them and I wasn’t keen on eating any more after trying one. I would stick to eating fish.
Soon it was time for the girls to say goodbye to their friends. We dropped back in on the rest of the family as the girls wanted to see their birth mothers before we eventually returned to the cargo ship for the night. The girls spent a lot of time standing in front of the mirror admiring their head bangles that evening and I was sure they would have slept with them on if it was not uncomfortable to do so.
The next day we had to load a cargo of rice to transport, but First Alenna, Jenna and Minty had to take me shopping for some clothes. There were not many shops that had a men’s section and the ones that did had limited selection. The girls bought me two jumpsuits, and while I still had my other clothes, I now had enough for my daily use. I was also bought my own personal information device. I just needed to be shown how to operate it, which was not easy at first as the menus were in Alkarren. Yet, the more I learnt the language the easier it became.
On our return to the cargo ship we had to help load the containers of rice. On Earth you would probably use a fork lift truck, whereas the item we used was not dissimilar apart from the fact it did not have wheels as it hovered above the ground. It could go up to a height of many feet, especially useful for loading or unloading from a second floor or from the top of a pile. You operated it from within a three sided cage at one end by sitting on a seat and holding on to the control stick. It could be moved with such ease in any direction. However, it did take a few hours to load all those containers so I was glad when the cargo door was finally closed, and we could then have a well-deserved break. Soon it was time to depart; this trip would take about three days.
We sat in the same seats on the bridge as before. The pilot Elma started the second fusion reactor. The other one was always running providing power at all times for use within the ship. She then spun up the pods and we slowly lifted off and headed upwards. I could hear the landing struts being retracted. The ship then gradually accelerated, unlike Earth rockets or the old space shuttle that accelerated to get to space before the fuel ran out. These ships didn’t have that problem. In fact, they used very little energy to get into orbit, as once you cancel the effect of gravity it takes so very little energy to move even a ship of this size. We were not wasting time as there was to be another cargo run as soon as we returned. The navigator Elka—who was Jenna’s birth mother—plotted and entered our destination coordinates. The star drive was soon engaged and we were on our way. We were going to Relnor, where the inhabitants looked a little like teddy bears, but don’t let this fool you, as they could appear grumpy at times. They also hate going off world and prefer to have everything brought to them; in fact, it was almost impossible to get them to leave their solar system.
This was going to be the second new world I would have been to. Its atmosphere was a little thin, yet breathable. We did not require environmental pressure suits unlike some worlds I was to go to over time. These had some gases that you would not want to breathe; some would make you just cough a bit while others would be plain poisonous to breathe. Relnor was an industrial world; the Relnorians actually built the cargo ship we were on. This design was so well proven and reliable that it has been produced for over one hundred years. Star drives were only built by two races, and required a mineral to line the chamber which could withstand extremely high temperatures. This mineral was only found on three worlds; two within the Relnor solar system, and one within the Dregg system, although the Relnorians made the most reliable and best star drives. (Note Alkarrens only use these. The Dregg star drives have a reputation to let’s say to be unreliable and have been known on a number of occasions to blow up).
The ship we were on was around seventy feet wide by just over three hundred feet long and stood about five storeys high. It had two pulsed fusion reactors powering the ship, plus ten anti-gravity pods. The undercarriage had twelve struts for the ship to land on and these, along with the pads on the ends, were made from a substance called zillton, which has an extremely high tensile strength. It had to be as the ship weighed thousands of tonnes. The walls were about two feet thick and also protected from solar radiation. The water tanks made up a foot of the wall round the ship. The fusion reactors ran on hydrogen, which was split on board from water to separate high pressure tanks of hydrogen and oxygen, plus there is also a small nitrogen tank that was used as a buffer gas, a helium tank that stored the gas, the result from the fusion that is then used in the sub-light engines and the thrusters. Carbon dioxide was removed from the air by filters know as scrubbers. The cargo hold had three floors, two of which could be lowered or made higher, so if you had a very large item. The top two floors could be stored on top of each other against the ceiling of the hold. There was also a gantry at one end opposite the doors. The shuttle bay went across the ship and had its own external door. The living quarters were at the front of the ship just below the bridge and stretched to the shuttle bay bulk head.
Over the next few months I had become accepted by all those on board and my learning of Alkarren was progressing in leaps and bounds. Both Jenna and Minty were expecting but Alenna was not letting on whether she was; we would need a larger cabin soon. Alenna was considering when the right moment to ask would be, when a scary and frightening incident happened on a cargo run to Molk, which is a water world. There resides a small colony on this planet of around 3,000 inhabitants. It has a land mass only about the size of Australia. The settlers’ only occupation is fishing, and the seas are quite shallow but are teeming with fish. There is one fish in particular that was in great demand and due to the small quantity caught was quite valuable.
Now, we had to collect this cargo and transport it. All went well until we had just made orbit for our return trip; there had been a number of pirate incidents in the past and on this occasion we were their target. They seemed to come from nowhere and latched on to an outside hatch. These pirates were generally not vindictive or vicious if you let them take the cargo without a fight. Elma ordered us all to lock ourselves in our cabins; she was going to face them alone. I did not like this idea but you have to obey your captain.
First of all, the pirates went to the cargo hold to check what we had on board before making their way to the bridge. We heard them shouting as they passed our cabin, so we waited until after a short while when we heard them go back past on their way to the hatch. Then a sobbing Elma called up everyone and told us that they had left for now. We were all shaking as we left our cabin and started making our way to the bridge. On our arrival we could see Elma had a bleeding gum; she had tried to stop them and they had struck her. I thought she was brave but also very lucky that was all they did to her. She should not have challenged them.
All the mothers were gathered around Elka. She was holding two ends of a bunch of thin cables. The pirates had cut this bunch of wires in half. This loom was the connecting cables from the control console to the computer, and cutting these cables meant we were going nowhere. The pirates had left. Obviously they had called in a larger ship to remove the cargo, which meant it could be hours or days before it got back to us. All Elka had to do was re-join the cables, but as I observed her she was unable to match any of the wires up. I couldn’t understand why they had different shades of red tracers on the wires. However, it was then that I discovered another difference between Alkarrens and humans; those stunningly beautiful, blue eyes held a secret. They were colour blind to the colours red to orange. Their blue eyes had evolved to act as filters to cut down some of the red/orange glare from
their sun and in doing so had prevented them from making out the subtle differences in the reds.
I rushed back to our cabin with Alenna following close behind, asking, ‘‘What are you up to.’’
I replied, “I have an idea to try and save us.” Taking out my backpack from a locker I then started to rummage through it to locate my penknife and the sticky tape. We then made our way back to the bridge where all the mothers and children were now in tears. Elka was in real distress that she could not join the cables so I knelt down beside her and told her to move over while I took the two severed ends from her. I then proceeded to cut back the wires on each end, joining the appropriate wires by twisting them together and so they did not short against the adjacent wire, I then wrapped the sticky tape around the joint as a temporary insulator. The mothers were watching over me with anticipation and hope, and after almost an hour I had finished. I then proceeded with a double check that I had indeed connected all the correct wires together. Looking up at the mothers I declared, “It’s done, now please gets us out of here.” You’ve never seen anyone move so fast. Elma jumped into the pilot’s seat. At the same time Elka jumped into the navigator’s seat and quickly programmed the destination coordinates into the computer. No sooner had she finished, Elma engaged the star drive, and we were on our way. What a relief we were now safe out of harm’s reach of the pirates.
The pirates had known exactly how to cripple the ship having done the same thing in the past to other cargo ships. They knew that the Alkarrens were colour blind; however, what they had not known or accounted for was that there was a human on board, who was not colour blind. I did wonder what those pirates would have said finding us gone. I sniggered knowing we were way out of danger, but what was strange was the cables, why were they in various reds and no other colours. Well, it turned out the Relnorians who built the ship did not want the Alkarrens doing their own repairs so had made it as difficult as they possibly could do to try and prevent them. Now, I was the golden boy and they could not stop thanking me enough; some of the mothers even gave me a hug which in itself was very unusual. I said it’s what anyone would have done for their family; after all, they were my family.
Chronicles of Jake 1: My Return to Planet Earth Page 3
