Blue Planet Rising (Pebbles in the Sky Book 2)

by Jeffery Bagley

  Albert spoke up. “I would wager that it’s a variable of six.”

  Donald laughed. “Would you believe me if I said it was precisely six hundred volts direct current?”

  “That makes sense, they have six digits,” said Sarah.

  “Not really,” said David thoughtfully. “We have ten digits and we have systems with all sorts of different voltages. It really depends on the purpose and use of the system.”

  “Where’s Kristy?” asked the Master Chief.

  “She’s up at the communication station with Jason,” said David.

  “I want to get permission to connect that cable from the building to the alien crawler. If we could get power to it maybe we could open the door,” pondered the Master Chief.

  “Good idea,” agreed David.

  “Donald, you stay here and help them with moving the supplies. I’m going up to talk to Kristy about my idea with the alien excavator. You guys make sure you keep that metal box in the door way. We don’t know what will happen when it gets dark and the dome can no longer make electricity from the sunlight. The door may try and shut and we don’t want anyone trapped inside.” Master Chief went out and trudged up the hill. They were all getting re-adapted to gravity fairly quickly. So far, the lower oxygen concentration had only been a minor hindrance.

  Kristy and Jason were discussing a message they had just gotten from Earth when the Master Chief reached the top of the hill. He paused to get his breath while Kristy updated him.

  “They want us to go ahead and set up the green houses on the other side of the alien buildings. That’s to be our next priority. They don’t want us entering any of the other buildings until we get the greenhouses up and seeds planted. Food is our next priority now that we have shelter and a good source of water. Beatrice thinks that if we can rig up some of these old parachutes we can divert rainwater into empty containers and not have to haul it from the stream for irrigation.”

  Master Chief thought for a moment. “Since we can’t make a lot of extra rocket fuel at the moment, we could use a couple of the tanks off the supply ships and store the collected rain water in them. If we could rig up a stand about two meters off the ground for them, we can just gravity feed water to the green houses instead of hand carrying it. If that doesn’t work, we still have the pumps that we were going to use if we had to drill a well. We could put one on the tanks and get good water pressure if we needed to.”

  “Great idea Master Chief, see if you can rig a system up. We can still bore a well later if we need to, but Albert thinks the ground is still frozen below us about two feet in depth. We’ll have to do a test hole and see.”

  “I have two more things I want to discuss with you Kristy,” said the Master Chief.

  “What’s up, Master Chief?” asked Kristy.

  “Doctor Doucette and Brianna want to get a sample of the soil from that patch of plant life around the seed probe. You know, the one that David and Albert found near the first supply ship. Doctor Doucette wants to see what Earth bacteria are thriving in the native soil and what isn’t. That will speed up our soil preparation in the greenhouses. The second thing is an idea I have that I want to try. Those plugs on the side of the building are putting out six hundred volts of DC current. I want to run one of those cables from the building to the alien excavator and see if we can get the access hatch to open. Since the building door worked, it might also.”

  Kristy sat and thought for a moment. “Ok, you can try and run the power cable. For God’s sake, don’t go and get electrocuted though. Jason, I think Beatrice has a good idea about the soil samples. Why don’t you take the jeep, the small transport, and go out to the site and get some samples. Take someone with you. I don’t want anyone going out alone in case there’s an accident.”

  Jason nodded. “I wouldn’t have any idea what samples to collect. Either Beatrice or Brianna should probably go along. Beatrice is supervising the setup of the green houses and soil trays tomorrow, so why don’t I take Brianna?”

  Kristy gave him an suspicious look. “If you think you can keep your mind on what you’re doing and behave, that’ll be fine.”

  Jason grinned and winked at the Master Chief. “I’ll be a perfect gentleman, trust me.”

  Chapter 34

  May 2nd, 2047

  Elpis

  Jason helped the other men drag the large cable out of the building and they connected it to the alien excavator. They carefully plugged in the other end to the matching plug on the side of building A, as they were calling their new home. When the sun had gone down the previous night the lights had not gone out inside the dome. The plug had also remained energized at a constant six hundred volts. They had agreed that either the buildings had some way of storing the power they made during the day, probably in batteries, or that there was another power source of an unknown type available. They had found some boxes near the floor of the building where the dome wall went underground. They pried one open and found cables that apparently connected the solar cells on the building’s exterior to some type of electrical grid or storage device. There were cables that went up to the top of the dome, probably for lighting, as well as one that went to the exterior wall plug. The other one went into the ground and they suspected it was connected to the other buildings by an underground electrical grid.

  After the cable was connected, Master Chief ran around to the access door on the excavator and tried to operate it. Nothing happened when he turned the mechanism. Disappointed, he shrugged and said, “Maybe it needs to charge for a while.”

  “As long as that thing has been sitting there, I doubt the batteries or whatever they used would still work. It was frozen solid for thousands of years you know,” David said.

  “It was worth a try,” replied the Master Chief.

  Jason grabbed a backpack with some water bottles and rations. “Hey Brianna, you ready to go for a ride?”

  “Ready when you are,” she grinned. She had lathered her face up with sunscreen and was standing with a pack containing sample containers.

  They climbed into the jeep and Jason activated its fuel cell to provide power to its four electrical motors. “We should be back in about four to five hours,” Jason told Kristy, who had been watching the experiment with the alien excavator.

  “You guys be careful. Inform us when you get there and when you start back.” Kristy instructed them.

  Jason laughed. “You guys have those greenhouses up by the time we get back. “

  “Yea, you young people go off for a Sunday drive while us old people stay here and work,” grumbled Albert.

  “Who you calling old?” said Master Chief

  “Yea, who’s old?” asked Sarah. “You speak for yourself.”

  Jason waved and they drove off around the side of the hill that led back to the landing area.

  Kristy watched them go with concern. The relationship between Brianna and Jason had been cooled off by putting them on separate transfer ships on the way to Elpis. Since they had landed, everyone had been too busy to think about anything but the task at hand. Now, that they had shelter and the adrenaline of the arrival had worn off, the sparks between the two were starting to fly again. She wasn’t sure if she was concerned over what a romantic relationship would do to the dynamics of the group, or she was merely jealous. Since her divorce from Hank, she hadn’t had anything to do with another man unless it was on a strictly professional basis. Her first husband had died in an accident, and her second marriage to Hank Jenkins had been a disaster. She didn’t think she would ever get involved in that type of relationship again.

  …

  Jason drove along carefully at about fifteen to twenty kilometers an hour. The ground was covered with small rocks and occasional gullies that he had to skirt around. Their trip didn’t follow a very straight path although he pretty much tried to follow the tracks made by the transports earlier when they had been recovered and brought to the landing zone.

  They rode along in silence for about
ten minutes, and finally Jason spoke up. “Did you miss me on the trip out?”

  Kristy glanced at him and looked away quickly. “Why would I have missed you?” she said casually.

  “Because of my charming personality?” he asked.

  “You probably used that charming personality on the female crewmembers of the Honstein on the trip out,” she accused.

  “If you had seen the three females on that crew, you wouldn’t say that,” laughed Jason. “The only one that was decent looking was Kristy, and I think her blood is made of ice water.”

  “Jason, that’s a mean thing to say. Her first husband died in that horrible shuttle accident, and then she had a messy divorce. You can’t judge her feelings without considering that. Besides, she’s your commanding officer so, that would be fraternization.”

  “That’s why I have saved my charming personality for you, my favorite redhead.”

  “Your favorite redhead?” asked Brianna.

  “Hmmm, the last time I looked, you were the only redhead on the planet.” Jason laughed so hard at his own joke that he almost drove into a gully. As he turned the transport sharply to avoid the washout, he instinctively reached out and put his hand on Brianna’s leg to steady her.

  “Watch where you’re driving,” Brianna warned, “And where you’re putting your hands,” she said as she placed his hand back on the steering wheel.

  Jason consoled himself the rest of the way to the seed probe site with the thought that he was driving on a totally unexplored planet on a beautiful day with an equally un-explored and beautiful woman. He had no doubt in his mind that Brianna had never been with a man. For some reason, that thought made him even more attracted to her. They passed the supply ship that had carried the ground transports and kept going toward the swath of green that could be seen about a kilometer down the small valley. Jason stopped about fifty meters short of the patch of green.

  Brianna was excited as she got out. “My parent’s seeds worked. Look at this, it’s beautiful.”

  Jason agreed. Her parent’s modified seeds in the probe had definitely taken root in the barren soil. Their personal seed had also produced the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He stared at her figure as she stood and looked over the grass and plant life that had sprouted where the seed probe had dumped its precious cargo. Her short cropped red hair was blowing in the wind. Her captivating green eyes seemed to reflect the color of the new plant life in front of her. She looked back at him and blushed when she realized that he was watching her.

  “Get me the specimen containers from the back of the jeep,” she requested. Brianna bent down at the edge of the mixed grasses and plants that had sprouted. She watched his lean form walk to the back of the jeep and return with her bag of containers. The sight of him so close to her had her heart pumping so hard that she could hardly breathe. She took a small sterile cup and scooped up some soil from under the plants. She took two more samples and put them in the bag. Then she looked at Jason. “Help me dig up a couple of these different plants. I want to take them back and see if I can get them to grow back at the base camp.”

  He squatted down and helped her uproot the plants with a ball of soil under each. They placed them in some bigger containers she had brought. She reached up and brushed her hair away from her eyes and smudged her cheek and forehead with the moist dirt. Jason smiled and reached over to brush it off. Then, before either of them could think, he had her chin in his hand as he kissed her gently. She responded to his kiss with a deep kiss of her own.

  Brianna pulled away and started to stand. Jason pulled her back down and kissed her again. Before either of them realized what they were doing, their clothes were coming off and he was entering her. She gasped as she experienced a brief moment of discomfort, and then felt her passion starting to rise again. They made love passionately on the patch of green grass under the bluish and purple sky. Brianna shuddered in pleasure as Jason released inside of her. He lay spent on her for a moment and then kissed her again.

  She pushed up on his chest. “Your crushing me, you fool. Get up.”

  He withdrew from her and stood up. Reaching down he pulled her to her feet. He kissed her again and she brushed the dirt off her bare buttocks and put her trousers and boots back on. He had put his own pants back on and stepped over and took her in his arms..

  “Brianna, I want to tell you that…” Brianna put her hand over his mouth.

  “Don’t tell me anything right now. We need to start back. We forgot to call them when we got here and they’ll be worried. Tell them we have the samples and are on our way back.” She picked up the samples and the plants they had collected, and stowed them in the back of the jeep and took her seat.

  Jason called the base camp on his PA and told Sarah, who was on communications watch, that they were on the way back. They rode all the way back to the base camp holding hands. Just before they got back to the landing zone Jason stopped the transport and they kissed passionately again.

  “Jason, promise me that you’ll behave when we get back. It’ll cause problems if people know,” pleaded Brianna.

  “Yea, Kristy will have my neck in a noose if she found out,” Jason sighed.

  They separated and then drove the rest of the way back and parked beside the alien dome they were using as their new habitat. The rest of the crew was busy erecting the carbon fiber struts for the green houses. Brianna took her soil samples over to the corner of the dome where she and Beatrice had set up a microscope and a small lab area. The plants that they had placed in containers, she put outside the dome in the sun. Then they walked over to where the green houses were being erected.

  Jason went and told Kristy they were back. He picked up a stack of the frame rods and went to assist the other men doing the hard labor. Kristy eyed him suspiciously for a moment, then went back to work assembling the hydroponic trays. Brianna went over to assist Beatrice and Kristy.

  “The plants at the seed probe site are doing very well. I have some good soil samples and a few plants I brought back in containers. We might want to try and transplant some of them to help them spread in this area. It would help keep the mud, dust, and erosion down in the years to come if they propagate,” Brianna said.

  Kristy nodded her approval and went back to assembling the trays. Beatrice worked quietly for a while then bent over and whispered to Brianna when Kristy moved out of ear shot. “I think someone else has been propagating.”

  Brianna looked at Beatrice in alarm and blushed.

  “Shhh, your secret is safe with me. We need to talk later,” she said.

  The entire crew spent the rest of the day working on the green houses. They managed to get all the frames up and the coverings spread on them. They planned on putting in the soil trays and bringing in dirt the following day. That evening they sat around outside the small dome resting and tending to the blisters on their hands from all the manual labor. They had a community meal of rations and fresh water that Donald had gone and fetched from the stream in the next valley over. They were having a heated discussion about where they would build an “outhouse” that would be used to collect their waste so it could be used to fertilize the soil that would soon be placed in the greenhouses. It was going to be a nasty job that everyone would take turns doing.

  Master Chief got up during the meal and wandered off by himself. Everyone assumed he had gone to relieve himself. They looked up in surprise when they heard him yell and saw him waving from the top of the alien excavator. The transparent dome was standing open on the top of the machine. The rest of the landing party jumped up and ran over to the back of the excavator. Master Chief jumped down from some blocky steps that led up to the control area in the excavator. “I guess the batteries are still able to hold a charge,” he grinned.

  They crammed into the alien machine to look it over. There were several raised boxes that ran the length of the machine. The tops had some type of pliable but hard surface. The tops could be opened and inside the boxes were
an assortment of what could be nothing but hand tools. There was another box of heavy threaded bolts and hexagonal nuts. They found a wrench that fit the nuts. The wrench did not sit in a human hand very well and was obviously designed for the hand of a different species, but there was no doubt in anybody’s mind however that it was a wrench. They also found some electronic equipment in the lockers.

  The control area of the excavator had a short box in the center of it and had the same hard, but pliable surface that the benches in the back of the excavator had. There were two control levers in front of an instrument panel with various switches and a large hexagonal display. On either side of the bench were four large control pedals on the floor.

  “I understand the design,” said Frederick. “They had four legs.” He lay down over the bench and put his hands and feet on the pedals. “They straddled the benches or seats. Two legs on each side and rested their body on the bench. They used their feet to operate the pedals and their hands to use the levers and switches.”

  They all agreed that his assumption had to be right. Kristy took some images of the inside of the excavator and went up to send them and a message to Alpha Control. While the rest of the guys continued going through the tool boxes and examining the excavator, Beatrice pulled Brianna’s sleeve and motioned for her to follow her.

  “While the boys are playing with the tools, let’s go set up some slides from the soil samples you brought back.” They walked back over to the alien dome that was their home now and starting setting up some slides for examination under the microscope.

  Beatrice looked at Brianna closely and asked, “When was your last birth control shot?”

  Brianna didn’t look up. “I’ve never had one. It wasn’t…necessary at the time.”

  Beatrice shook her head. “You need to be very careful Brianna. Have you had a menstrual cycle since we landed?”