“What’s the problem?” Ellie asked.
“It’s just taking a while,” Theo said.
“Is there a problem? There is. Isn’t there?”
There was silence, except for the keypad strokes that Theo kept repeating with precise frustration.
Tap, tap, tap, tap, enter.
Tap, tap, tap, tap, enter.
Again no signal was found.
Theo grimaced, ran his fingers through his closely shaven hair and tapped a series of four digit numbers once more.
Tap, tap, tap, tap, enter.
“What’s wrong?” Ravi asked.
“All protocols are offline,” Theo said.
Sam asked, “Then how do we get them online?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether it’s a hardware problem.”
“Or a software.”
“Or something else.”
“Oh, this is great,” wheezed Sam. His hands flapped in anger. “Just great. We get sent down here. We have no link to Odyssey. No link to the Ark. This is not good. Not good at all.”
“The engineers have been complaining about this atmosphere since we started orbit,” Ravi said.
“Yeah, it’s possible that’s interfering with the connection,” Ellie said.
“What about our satellite location? Tell me that works,” Sam said.
Theo scrolled through the console screen, trying different commands and protocols.
“Nothing works,” Theo said with a frustrated sigh.
“We are so screwed,” Sam said.
“We’re not screwed,” Theo said. “We’ve got to stay focused. Positive. Okay?”
“Sure. Things are just great. Never better,” Sam said with a frown. “Oh yeah, I’m loving life right now.”
“We just have to improvise,” Theo said.
“Yeah, that’s great if we were jazz musicians,” Sam said. “But we’re not. Man, I did not sign up for this kind of mission.”
“None of us signed up for this,” Theo said, “but that doesn’t change the fact that we’re down here. Now, we have to focus on what we can do and not on what’s gone wrong.”
“Right. I hear you as loud and clear as Leo Hull’s accordion,” Sam said. “But this still sucks big monkey chunks.”
“We’ll be fine as soon as we evaluate where we’ve landed,” Theo said.
Sam said. “How much water do we have?”
“The tank holds around 300 liters,” Theo said.
“How long will that last?” Sam asked.
“Depends,” Ellie answered.
“On what?”
“We’ll add a few days if we conserve and use the WRS properly,” Ellie said.
“How many days of water do we have?”
“Enough,” Ravi said.
“And you’re the expert? How many?”
“Ten days,” Theo said.
“What about food? What did they give us?”
“Food isn’t our big problem right now,” Theo said. “We know what our real mission is.”
“Find a host. Find a virus. Find some kind of cure,” Ravi said.
“And if we’re not near the Discovery Site then where the hell are we?”
There was no answer. They had no GPS down here and they were forced to wonder how far off they were from their planned landing site near the Discovery Site where the bones were discovered.
Theo had definitely guided the Escape Pod to a safe landing, but the group knew safety was possibly just a temporary condition. They were about to be the first human beings to explore this new world.
There were no guarantees of survival and no crystal ball that would predict the next event. All they had was a mathematical forecast model, which said—with this current growth rate and virulence they had about ten days before the infection overcame the organ system.
Of course the forecast model used the rabbit’s swift infection and rapid demise as a proxy, which left everyone truly wondering if men and rabbits are all that similar.
This quarantine, this separation, being in the Escape Pod, none of it was planned. It wasn’t some experiment. It was real life, dangerous, unwritten and they had not even said their true good-byes. It was all so happening so quickly. The greatest danger to humankind has always been the unknown and the Positives were face to face with it in spades: a new parasite, a new atmosphere, a new planet, a new illness, a new world full of old fears and an Escape Pod that was more claustrophobic than their previous home of Odyssey.
Inside the Escape Pod, Theo went to a thin storage cubicle near the computer console. He opened it. Inside the cubicle there was a silver container, a supply box full of two essential things for survival: a series of gray goggles, breathing masks and dozens of blue nutrient tablets. They were the size of aspirin.
Stacked inside the box there were a dozen gray goggles with lenses filtered with gray. The goggles were more than just protection from the dust. They offered a sophisticated calculation of distances. Looking through the goggles, something that was ten miles away appeared to be as close as a hundred yards.
“Goggles for everyone and a lot of blue tablets. Here,” Theo said as he handed a pair of goggles to the others.
The other interesting and prominent content of the supply closet was a long silver pole with a white flag attached to it. Theo offered it to Ellie with a smile.
“Ladies first,” Theo said.
The emblem resembled the Lone Star state flag. It was emblazoned in red, white and blue and a big Furman Corporation.
Theo kept handing out various supplies, namely six sets of goggles. Ravi put his over his eyes. They made him look a little like a human fly, all big and gray bulging eyes.
Theo went to the keypad by the white door that had locked them in the Escape Pod. The only response came when the air suctioned the door open, producing a doorway to the planet’s surface. It was not like Earth and definitely not like Odyssey or the Ark. That much was readily observable.
This new world was something like a desert, without the fine sand. The terrain was chunkier, soil of brown with light orange streaks, filled with solid pieces of dirt. The sun of this new planet provided a dull and hazy golden glow through silver and gray clouds.
On the horizon, in a shallow valley that dipped into a low crater, there was nothing else, nothing man or alien made. No water. No water. No trees. No life of any kind. No welcoming committee. No little green men. No large blue aliens with tentacles. No rivers of blue or streams of gray and black. Just golden brown soil and hills and wind and dust swirling around them.
The Escape Pod door slammed shut.
For the first time, human feet stood on this golden brown soil. A few feet from where the Escape Pod landed, they gathered in a semi-circle.
“The goggles have two settings,” Ravi said as he adjusted a small knob on the side of his goggles.
“I know you little mutant,” Sam said.
“Standard and telescopic. Just think of them like binoculars. Only better. We’ll be able to see clearly for thirty-two times our vision,” Ravi added.
“Okay. Let’s make this quick. We have work to do,” Theo said.
“Yes sir,” Sam said.
Ellie threw the pole down into the ground. The Positives had officially claimed
“The Furman Corporation now claims this planet as its territory,” Ellie said. “This is one giant step for the Furman Corporation.”
“And one small step for the advancement of New World exploration!” Ravi yelled as he jumped up and down in the dusty soil.
CHAPTER 13
THE SKULLS
Near where the Escape Pod had landed, Ravi continued to jump up and down simply to see how far and how high he could jump.
Theo interrupted his brother’s low gravity romp.
“Hey! Stop! We have work to do!”
“But this is awesome!”
“I don’t care.”
“But gravity down here is sup
posed to be about 12% less than Earth. Let’s see!”
Ravi’s eyes, even through the goggle lenses, were alive with wonder and mystery. He walked out by Theo’s side, breathing heavily and then he took his first step onto the golden brown surface. It was his first time walking on any planetary surface. He thought about running free, which he would have done had a torrent of forceful and quick wallops of wind and dust not smacked him back three feet.
“I feel so light.”
Ravi jumped up and over his brother’s head by a foot.
“Awesome!”
“Stop that!”
“Why?”
“We have work to do.”
Ravi stopped jumping up and down for a moment. Dust swirled around them like a mini-dust devil cyclone.
Ravi already had his goggles on and he scanned the horizon resting his sight on the highest mountain peak. “The mountain is twenty-eight miles away. The Discovery Site is just at the base so it’ll take us just under two hours and we’ll be there,” Ravi said.
“Not exactly a bulls-eye landing,” Sam said.
Ellie held an atmospheric sensor.
“The big brains say we ca breathe this stuff without serious implications,” Ravi said.
“High levels of methane, but other than that it’s a fairly normal composition of breathable oxygen,” Ellie said.
“I’ll try the air first,” Theo said.
“You sure that’s smart?”
“Only one way to find out,” Theo said.
Theo took off his breathing mask and tested the air with several deep and true breaths, sucking in and out with all of his lung capacity.
“Well, I’m still breathing,” Theo said, “so I guess the probes evaluated the surface atmosphere correctly. Mostly oxygen with higher traces of ammonia and methane than Earth.”
“Not exactly a perfect atmosphere,” Ravi said.
“But not a sickening combination either,” Ellie added.
“It might kill a few extra brain cells,” Sam said, “but hey, who’s counting?”
Through their goggles they looked into the sky where there was a sharp red ball of heat and energy raying down upon this dry and dusty stretch of land, the sun of a new world. Seeing more than ten feet around them became a bigger challenge with each step. The constant wind increased in intensity and a swirl of dust and particles from the soil below their feet obscured clear visibility.
The planet’s soil was crunchy and dry and a small cloud of dust followed them. All stayed close together, as if staying as a group would protect them from the unknown of this planet. It was a dry new world of their dreams and nightmares, no limits, no guidebook, just vast, open wilderness and more mountain ridges. Most of the soil was gold, but off in the distance some of the rolling hills had an orange, brown and pink hue.
As they walked out on to the planet’s soil there was a howling wind and the temperature was warm and they found the force of the wind knocked them left and right and back half a step for every two steps they took forward. Their hands were outstretched like drunken sailors on shore leave reaching for a steady mast, some stable fixture that would steady the pull and turn of the elements.
They got to work detaching the landing parachutes and other assorted gear connected to the inflatable airbags. Golden dust swirled like rolling ocean waves, only the waves were made of sand and planetary debris. The airbags were like over-sized volleyballs that were attached to the curved, silver heat shields. They worked at unclipping, folding and rolling the airbags up for possible future use. They made sure the solar panels were undamaged and operational. The wind arms were positioned into the fierce wind and began spinning. Every extra ounce of energy this place offered was an ounce that would not have to be used from the reserve fuel tanks.
The classmates expected to see some change in color. Some green? Blue? White? Any color? Anything but the burnt brown and pale yellow of the planet’s dusty soil.
The red sun above them set steadily into the horizon. It was time to get the Escape Pod moving across the hills to the Discovery Site, where Theo and the Wet Willy probe had found the alien skeletal bones.
After getting the solar panels retracted into the optimal position, the group all returned to the Escape Pod. They were tired from the work but they still had miles to go before they could think about sleeping or eating.
“How far away are we from the Discovery Site?” Ellie asked.
“Far enough that we all should buckle in,” Theo said. “Without the satellite in action we’re going to have to rely on landmarks, topography and our distance calculators.”
Ravi pulled up a topographical map of the region on the computer screen.
They left for the Discovery Site and traveled out of their landing spot up to a clearing up hill. The sun’s light consumed their view with pink and gold rays mixed with gray and golden brown dust.
There were satellite maps of only about half of GidX7. The other half was hidden from view by the seasonal sandstorms.
On soil, the Pod was something of a slow traction vehicle that inched forward at a steady though deliberate fourteen miles an hour. The silver and white octagon with retractable wheels moved on the soil like a tank in war. The rhythms of this journey were steady and slow.
Inside the Pod, the group had a viewing window and they watched the slow march toward the Discovery Site. The terrain had three features.
First, there were gentle, rolling hills of fine golden sand. Second, there were jagged pale yellow limestone rocks and lastly, there was the great mountain peak in the distance. Still, there was no life, no green, no tree, no water to be found.
They moved at a rate of fifteen miles per hour and arrived with dusk falling upon the place where the bones had been found. It was the Discovery Site.
At such a slow speed the wind forced the Pod left and right with relative ease and Theo kept control, fighting the force of the wind. The Pod, in Theo’s hands now, felt like a ship cast carelessly against the rock and surf. After manually avoiding some large, unforeseen gray boulders, the Pod and the infected explorers arrived near the base of the highest mountain peak in this region. It slowed to a stop.
Below their position, there was a valley of volcanic craters. Some were in the shape of half moons, while others were just small oval pockmarks. There were at least twenty of these craters. Most of the craters were the length of at least two football fields placed back to back.
From space they had made this stretch of land look like a burnt layer of pizza cheese, all ripples and deformities. But from this level, the area looked like an ocean of sandy waves.
“One of these is our Discovery Site,” Theo said.
“It’s odd. We’re calling it a Discovery Site, but actually it is more like an archaeological dig site, unless …” Ravi bit his lip, “…unless archaeology is the study of ancient things. Dead things. Right?”
“Stop trying to spook yourself,” Theo said.
“It is a plausible option that our metaphorical Adam and Eve are still alive,” Ravi said.
“Who are you calling that?” Sam asked.
“The bones you and Wet Willy found,” Ravi said, “I call them Adam and Eve. Because isn’t that what they are for this planet? They’re the first life we’ve found. Even if they’re dead.”
“I’m not a biblical scholar but this doesn’t look a thing like the Garden of Eden,” Ellie said.
“To me,” Ravi began to say, “it actually kind of looks like Acadia, Maine, that stretch of Earth land in the state of Maine along the rocky coast. It is desolate, jagged, beautiful with hints of pink in the gray.”
“How would you know?” Sam asked.
“Because Sam the man, I’ve studied the Earth since I could breathe,” Ravi added.
“Oh great,” Sam sighed, “the little mutant is an unbelievable genius! We have to get him on Intergalactic Jeopardy! Can someone get us off this suck-hole of a planet and back to the Ark where the little mutant can phone in his answers?”
“We’re going to have to travel on foot to find it,” Theo said, “so lets gear up.”
“Why not take the Pod into the craters?”
“Because we’ve already found five bones in this area and I don’t want to roll a 3 ton Escape Pod over them,” Theo said.
“Oh, right. Good point,” Sam said.
Theo went to the door and punched in the digit code and then hit the star button in the bottom right of the keypad. A suction of air released and the door opened slowly just a crack. He pushed the door further aside.
They went outside and left the relative comfort and safety of the Pod. There was no sign of the drone probe’s tracks and digging. Wind had long since blown over the area, providing a clean golden brown slate. They explored the dips and rises in the land around the Discovery Site.
“Don’t go off on your own,” Theo said with eyes trained on his brother. “Stay close to me.”
“I’m not a bloody child, you know,” Ravi said.
“I know. But we should all stay close together. At least for now.”
“I’m not afraid, you know. Preparation is the opposite of fear,” Ravi said.
“I know. I listen to Dad’s lectures, too.”
“Good. Then let’s be ready for the unexpected.”
“I think we’ve found our bone-yard,” Ravi said.
It was safe for him to make that assessment for the group since there were two huge skeletal remains about a quarter of a mile into the crater. Even from afar and looking through the telescopic goggles, the bones looked like huge skulls of a sort.
The entire group began to run and hop and soar into the air in large leaps and bounds toward the resting place for their new skeletal discovery.
When they reached the two humungous skulls, Sam had his camera out and he was ready to take some photos.
“Mutant, stand to the right of the big one,” Sam requested. “I need some perspective on their size and it’s always good to have something very small in the picture. Stand right next to them. Okay?”
“I am not small.”
“You are the smallest.”
Reluctantly, Ravi hopped on over to the two large skulls and stood next to them.
The skulls were nearly the same size, though one was slightly larger.
Odyssey Rising Page 8
