Blue Planet Rising (Pebbles in the Sky Book 2)

by Jeffery Bagley

  “Estefan doesn’t want you to plant coca, you stupid peasant. We’ll give you seeds to plant once you re-clear your fields,” the henchman growled.

  “What does he want me to grow then? How can I survive?” Diego asked.

  “He wants you to grow pretty flowers,” the man said.

  “Flowers, how can we live growing flowers?” Diego cried.

  “These are a special flower. They are called Poppies. They can be harvested in only a few months and a special drug can be extracted from them. It’s called Heroin. Let Estefan know when you are ready to plant and he will send someone to show you how to plant and care for the flowers.”

  “Where do these flowers come from? How do I know they’ll grow here?” begged Diego.

  “They used to grow in a place called Afghanistan,” the man sneered. That land is so cold now, nothing grows there. Call us when you’re ready to plant!” The man signaled to his men and they climbed into the old pre-encounter SUV and drove away.

  Diego watched them go and then called for Antonia to come untie him.

  Chapter 54

  August 19th, 2047

  Houston, Texas

  Peter stood with General Ellis and the engineers as they waited to watch the test. There were also several theoretical physicists present whose role was that of devil’s advocates. The NASA engineers had built a mockup of the gravity plates that were used in the Barbakath spaceship. They had taken the translated specifications that Odysseus had provided and built two plates that measured four meters by four meters each. The two plates were horizontal to each other and separated by light scaffolding. Power cables and sensors were attached to the ends of each plate with loops of loose cable coiled up beside the plates.

  The physicists were here because they insisted that the things could not work. They insisted that it was impossible to “reflect gravity”. It was also impossible to artificially produce it by an object with negligible mass. They refused to believe, even when confronted by the working application of the alien ship. Even after they had seen the applicable theory and the explanation that Odysseus had provided, they refused to accept that it could work. “It was impossible,” they said. Gravitons, a type of theoretical particle, could not be produced by a generator. They wouldn’t believe unless they could see it with their own eyes.

  A man in a white jumpsuit walked over and climbed into the space between the two plates. The lead engineer came over to Peter and informed the group they were ready to proceed. Peter nodded and told him to begin. The engineer went back over to a makeshift control panel and gave directions to his assistants. A switch was thrown and power was applied to the plates. In the first test, the bottom plate was to be made reflective to gravity, thereby canceling out the Earth’s gravity. Power was applied and there was a hum from the power transformer. At first nothing happened, and then the man in the white jumpsuit floated up and hung in the space between the two plates. He tried to show off and do a flip and accidently bounced his head off the top plate earning a spate of laughter from the engineers.

  The engineers at the control panel were in a heated discussion. Power was increased to the plates and nothing changed. The lead Engineer and an assistant went over to the scaffolding and each got a side of the twin plate assembly and lifted it into the air with no difficulty. The man between the plates was still floating.

  “The weight of the cables is not in the field effect. So, their weight is holding the assembly down. The entire assembly is actually slightly buoyant. The field effect drops off dramatically at about three meters. So, if not for the weight of the cables, this whole assembly would be floating about ten feet off the ground,” the lead engineer explained.

  “Apply attractive power to the top plate,” the engineer called out.

  Suddenly, the man in the jumpsuit fell upward and landed on the top plate. He stood upside down in reference to the assembled watchers and did jumping jacks on the top plate while the two men held the bottom plate off the ground with one hand each. The two physicists were in a heated argument with each other. Peter and Admiral Ellis stood there watching in wonder. There were two technicians running around taking videos of the experiment at different angles.

  Finally, Admiral Ellis spoke. “Do you realize what this means to the future of spaceflight? This technology means that we no longer have to have rotating habitats for the crew on long duration missions. The new space station won’t need to be spun for centrifugal gravity. My God, the applications are endless.”

  Peter nodded in agreement, as he watched the technician in the white jump suit demonstrating to the video recorders that he was standing upside down. “The applications extend way beyond spaceflight, Admiral. Think of all the other possibilities. There can be hospital beds for burn victims where the patient floats above the bed. No pressure points to cause pain or ulcers. We can have cars that float above the ground with no rolling resistance. Our planes will no longer need huge wings for lift. This one technology that Odysseus has shared with us will change our everyday lives. Power consumption is a bit of an issue, but as soon as the engineers figure out how that capacitive battery system works that the Barbakath used, we can even solve that issue.”

  “I’ve directed that work on the new low orbit station and all space craft be put on hold until we can finish evaluating the new technologies. If we can duplicate the fusion power plant technology and these gravity plates, we’re going to have to totally re-think the way we design and build our space ships and stations,” Admiral Ellis stated.

  “The big question is how are we going to release this to the general public?” asked Peter. Since this technology was not discovered by a private company, or by humans for that matter, how do we proceed? Hell, there’re probably a thousand uses for the antigravity plate technology alone if you could miniaturize it enough. You could make grocery carts that had no weight even when loaded with groceries.”

  “That’s way beyond my scope,” laughed the Admiral. “I’m just concerned with applications that can be put to immediate use in space.”

  “All these technologies that Odysseus has given us are marvelous,” said Peter. “Anti-gravity, fusion power, the DNA regeneration tanks, computer designs, and everything else that he has shared. The one thing that really scares me is the technology for creating artificial intelligences like Odysseus. I have seen too many old vid flicks of computer intelligences going crazy and killing humans off. I wonder what would happen if Odysseus got mad at us. The expedition crew believes there is some sort of hard wired code in his programming that prevents any such action. However, if he can re-program our own computers that are protected with the best encryption we can come up with, what prevents him from re-programing his own instructions?”

  “I guess we’ll have to learn the hard way,” admitted the Admiral. “I’m sure that the people who invented gunpowder had a few mishaps and lost some fingers in the process.”

  “I just hope it’s not more than just a few fingers we lose with all this technology that’s been dumped on us,” Peter said. “I guess time will tell.”

  Chapter 55

  October 11th, 2047

  Elpis

  The entire expedition crew stood watching. After a long discussion they had decided that Brianna was going to be the surrogate mother for the baby Barbakath when it came out of the regeneration tank. Odysseus had explained that the baby would need to “imprint” with its surrogate within the first two hours after its “birth”. Odysseus had moved his robotic extension over to the tank and was getting ready to remove the infant Barbakath from the tank. Brianna was waiting with a pile of towels to rub it down when Odysseus handed it to her.

  The Barbakath were not mammals. Curiously, there had been no mammal like creatures on the Barbakath home planet of Horast. Beatrice had concocted a puree of finely ground vegetables from their own green house as a substitute for the regurgitated plant life that a Barbakath Sabba would normally feed the little one until it started eating on its own. The i
mmature Barbakath would have to be fed this pureed mixture until it was about two to three weeks old.

  Odysseus lowered the robots three fingered hands into the tank and removed the small creature floating there and placed it in Brianna’s waiting arms. Beatrice stood next to Brianna watching closely to ensure that the baby Barbakath was breathing with no difficulty. Brianna laid the weakly kicking Barbakath on her lap and started rubbing it vigorously with a towel. It struggled in her arms and took a breath, and then another. The Barbakath Sabba did not have a true placenta that was attached to its body to provide nourishment to the embryo before it was born. Instead, there was what looked like a web of tiny filaments that spread through the fluid in its gestational organ that provided oxygen and nutrients and absorbed the metabolic waste of the embryo. Those membranes were wiped and licked off the infants skin after it was delivered.

  As usual, David’s camera skills were being put to use as he recorded the whole event. When the infant was dried off and breathing well on its own, Brianna picked it up and rushed it outside into the sunshine. There was a patch of transplanted grass growing beside one of the greenhouses and she laid the infant on the bare ground. The others stood back about ten meters from Brianna and the baby. Odysseus had explained that on Horast, a Sabba would be led by the Ranor to deliver her offspring in a secure “birthing” garden. The Sabba would stay there with a Ranor close by until the infants were imprinted with her as a their mother. Immediately after delivery, the hormonal changes that would change the Sabba to a Ranor would also start to take place.

  Brianna sat down and waited. Jason ran up and gave her the squeeze bottle of formula they had made. The infant struggled, and wiggled on the ground. Finally, it got its four knees under it and stayed upright. It looked around in the bright sun blinking its eyes. Brianna reached over and brushed some dirt off its blunt snout. The infant let out a snort and a whine and then struggled to stand. After several attempts it managed to get up on all four feet. It stood there wobbling, and Brianna started talking in a low voice to it. It looked at her and took an awkward step toward her, then another. As it reached her it held up its shaky and weak looking arms. Brianna held the squeeze bottle against its snout and squirted some of the pureed plant formula into its mouth. The infant wrapped its hands around the bottle and held on to it while Brianna squeezed. When the bottle was empty, the baby Barbakath leaned up against Brianna while she stroked its neck and ears. It grunted and closed its eyes in contentment.

  Brianna looked up at the rest of the group watching her and there were tears in her eyes. “If I didn’t know better, it’s imprinted. What do you think Odysseus?”

  “The juvenile Barbakath is exhibiting signs of imprintation. Recommendations are to let it rest for two to three hours and feed it again. It should then be strong enough to walk. Once imprinted, a juvenile will follow the Sabba anywhere until it is about…six human months old. It will then start becoming more independent and can then be placed in an adolescent…Krathca, or herd, until maturity,” Odysseus advised over her PA.

  “Odysseus, we do not have a “Krathca,” as you call it,” Beatrice said.

  “Improvisation will be required at this time,” Odysseus stated. “I request that I be able to start the regeneration process for the next five Barbakath.”

  Kristy shook her head. “Odysseus, no. Our green houses and gardens are barely supplying enough food for us right now. If you start adding five more mouths to feed every six months, we won’t be able to keep up.”

  “My primary directive is to initiate regeneration of a self-sustaining population of the creators. In return for surrogate assistance, I was to exchange technology with the surrogating race. I have provided all the technologies that you have requested. You must then surrogate as agreed upon in exchange,” Odysseus stated.

  “We will Odysseus, but we have to be able to feed them. The native Horast tubers and vegetation is growing, but the plot we planted isn’t big enough to provide even one adult Barbakath with food at the moment. Beatrice suspects that it will take about a year for it to really become a self-sustaining food source,” Kristy explained.

  “Very well, regeneration of the next series of Barbakath will be postponed for one human year,” Odysseus agreed.

  “Thank you for understanding Odysseus. We want to bring back a breeding population of your creators also, but we must do it in a controlled manner so they do not starve or cause us to starve.

  …

  Later that evening, the entire expedition was sitting in the ‘A’ dome after eating their evening meal. The little Barbakath was curled up at Brianna’s feet with its arms wrapped over its head. It was already walking well enough to follow Brianna if she walked slowly. Although its arms were not yet strong enough to squeeze the feeding tube, it had quickly caught on to the idea. It would grasp Brianna’s hands firmly as she squeezed the pureed vegetables into its mouth.

  The humans had also dined well that evening. The green houses were a huge success and they had also harvested their first plots of corn and wheat. Sarah had managed to bake halfway decent bread with some of their limited supply of wheat flour. Using the Barbakath excavator, Master Chief had leveled a larger area. After clearing it of rocks, they now had a second crop of corn and wheat growing. This second crop would cover almost a half hectare of land for each crop.

  The crew had discovered that one of the native Horast tubers flourished in shallow water. Master Chief and David had used the alien excavator to dam up a small stream about a kilometer from the main site. Some of the tubers had been transplanted and were starting to spread around the banks of the pond. Their plan was to use Odysseus’s smaller regeneration tanks to produce some small herbivacious fish with DNA data transmitted from Earth. The fish would hopefully nibble on the tubers broad leaves for sustenance. If that worked, they then planned to produce some larger fish that would eat the minnows and that could then be eaten by humans in return. There was also some discussion that when the wild grass meadows that had been sown by seed probes got large enough, that a small herd of goats could be started to provide milk, cheese, and the occasional shish-kabob. Goat meat was presently the heated topic of discussion.

  “How can you even think of raising and cooking a goat?” exclaimed Beatrice. She reached down and rubbed Freddy’s head. They had decided to name the baby Barbakath after the deceased member of their crew. “What are you going to tell him when he’s grown and you’re roasting his cousin over a fire?”

  “I’ll ask him if he wants a piece,” said Master Chief.

  “They are herbivores Master Chief. They don’t eat meat,” Brianna said

  “But we’re omnivores,” Master Chief argued. “Humans evolved to eat what they can catch and grow.”

  The argument was rapidly casting the men who wanted meat, against the women who were feeling a little maternal with the baby Barbakath in the group now. The women were content on being vegans.

  “Enough of this!” ordered Kristy. “We are years away from worrying about eating meat again. We have more pressing concerns at the moment. Jason, have you and Donald finished your relabeling of the Barbakath space ship?”

  “We’ve been done with that for several weeks now,” said Donald.

  “We’ve been working with Odysseus and Amelia on some training simulators that Odysseus came up with. If Alpha Control gives us permission, we’ll try and start up the fusion power core next week. According to Amelia, all systems check out normally. We have replenished the ships hydrogen fuel supply from what we have produced with our hydrolysis units. We’re still working on filling its oxygen tanks, but with a little luck, we might have us a shuttle in a couple of weeks,” Jason told the group.

  Brianna leaned over and gave Jason a hug. “I hope it works. If it can get us back up into space when its time to leave without exposing the little ones to all those G-forces, that would be a dream come true,” sighed Brianna.

  “I’ve been worrying about that myself,” said Sarah. She was
leaning back in David’s arms. David smiled and rubbed his hands on her swelling belly.

  Kristy looked around the group and marveled at the changes in them since landing. While all of them had numerous specific duties and specialties, everyone always pitched in to help where needed. There were no slackers or non-contributory members. The psychologists back at NASA had done a pretty good job screening everyone it seemed. There were now three definite pairs among the group. Jason and Brianna had been married by VR from a New Gaian Elder on Earth. Brianna was due to deliver in February, followed shortly by Sarah. David and Sarah were a couple, but had declined on getting married. Donald had admitted that he was gay, and expressed no intimate interest in any of the expedition members. She suspected that Master Chief and Beatrice had snuck off and had a few trysts together, but nothing permanent was evident between them.

  She and Albert were slowly becoming more involved. Although she would never have admitted it, she had been deeply affected by the death of her first husband who she had loved dearly. With that haunting her, her marriage to Hank had been a disaster. She had needed time to heal, and she was slowly letting Albert into the safe zone of coldness that she had erected around herself for protection when she broke up with Hank.

  All in all, Kristy had to admit that so far the mission had been a resounding success. The technologies that had been obtained from Odysseus and then sent back to Earth had been worth the cost of the mission many times over. She could sleep well at night knowing that they had not let humanity down.

  Chapter 56

  October 16th, 2047

  Elpis