The Final Sunset

by Trevor Herron

  “They have a very buccaneer attitude,” remarked Forsetti. “And I wonder if it is only them or all the races that occupy this corner of the universe. I’m sure that if we’d let them they would claim the whole of Solaria as payment. I can’t help it but they put me in mind of the brigands and robbers of the Caribbean during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.”

  “Too true. Withdraw all non-lethal ammunition from our militia and issue them with electron discharge and UV weapons. I’ll talk to them about setting up diplomatic ties at consular Level. That should establish our bona fides but then so should an instruction to stay clear of our territory by a margin of one million kilometres

  Forsetti I want monitors on both Phobos and Deimos, get the necessary permissions from the Martians. I don’t foresee any trouble from them, they’re also bound to be suspicious of this lot. Oh, make sure you keep the Martians, Titans and Uranians in the loop. We don’t need any aggro coming from those quarters.”

  ###

  The huge video screen was split quadraticaly. Mme Jeza, beautifully cruel or cruelly beautiful, both descriptions were apt, watched the activity on the screen with an intensity that missed nothing. She wore an erotic black gossamer gown that drifted and swirled like a weightless cob webs in the wind.

  Everything about the woman was evil enough to make her kin to the Devil. Her large, dark eyes were framed with delicately contoured black brows and long lashes darker than the shadows of hades. Her thick hair had highlights of deep blue. She was and evil incarnate and awesomely beautiful, she was Snow White’s step mother, she was Delilah and Jezebel all rolled into one.

  Only her eyes and teeth broke the total darkness of the woman and when either one of them showed white it was time to be afraid, very afraid. She controlled her rough crew with nothing but those eyes. She could pin a man to the floor with them. Under their influence the fiercest man felt his knees turn to jelly.

  Mme Jeza was a buccaneer; she killed she murdered she stole and encouraged her men to rape with violence and degradation. After all rape was just another weapon. Tell a man his wife or daughter were about to be raped in the most graphic manner and he came up with the ransom he had recently being protesting he did not to have.

  Some said her attitude to rape was what endeared her to her men. Others said it was because she drew the soul out of a man and although he looked alive he was in reality dead.

  Mme Jeza de Bell and her advisors were an incongruent bunch. Whoever she selected to crew her ship would never be men in the true sense of the word again. Once under Mme Jeza’s influence they became soul slaves devoid of a will of their own. By cruelty and by greed the units of their loyalty piled up.

  Mme Jeza de Belle was the conductor of a blasphemous orchestra, the co-ordinator of the instruments of pain, torture and death. She wanted control of this, so very advanced system.

  She did not know what their goal was but it was sheer genius in the way they planned, designed and built and like ants this solar system was continually on the go, continually working toward some mysterious end.

  ###

  “The lower part of this solarium has suffered a traumatic event in the fairly recent past. All evidence points to a solar happening. Radiant pockets are not unknown so why the frantic response to something that was not yet a threat? Unless they knew their sun is going nova…From the signs it was far too early to predict with certainty unless they had ways to predict future events we know nothing of.”

  “Yes Mme they’re giving themselves plenty of time if their sun is novaring. If you asked me I’d say it looks as if they want to make a clean sweep and remove their whole Solar System to a new position.”

  “Nonsense who ever heard of such a thing or even thought of it?”

  ‘“It’s not nonsense, the admiral is right,” The admiral gave a suitable smile, “That’s exactly it. Imagine the fun one could have watching the people burn in a supernova of worlds or atomise to less than vapour by allowing erroneous contact between world and world? We should start selling tickets now.”

  “Stop thinking only of pleasure, admiral; keep your mind on business. The question; is why would they take everyone with them?”

  “When your people are as advanced as these are; who do you leave behind? None if power is your ultimate aim,” The general said with no real conviction.

  Of course! That’s it! They’re right. Mme Jeza cried out in her mind. She was awestruck. Imagine a civilization that can do that? Or even conceive of doing that. I want the power behind that world. What they have will make me the most powerful being in the Five Constellations and beyond.

  ###

  “Ah but Mme we’re only focussing on how clever they are. Maybe we should start looking for their stupidity. To me the whole idea smacks of stupidity,” the general was not going to allow anyone to think there could be a people motivated by higher reasons than the bestial.

  The air commodore gave Mme Jeza a charming smile, “What you see there Mme might be our new home. Let’s assume they are fleeing a supernova, as I see it if we capture their worlds, even if we never develop their abilities we might have a thousand to three or four thousand years of luxury living.

  Long before that time is past we, the people here will be no more. Later generations can look after themselves I say So let us look after ourselves.”

  “We could get away with a great deal of spoils, including a fleet of fighting ships whose size and armament we can’t even comprehend yet. Enough to make us the most powerful force in the Five Constellations.

  In the meantime, forget these grandiose plans and concentrate on learning as much as we can about them all the time planning a lightning like struck when the time is right.”

  “My point exactly. One part of our reasoning has being worrying me.”

  “What part of our reasoning is that general? The air commodore recognized the general wanted to climb aboard his wagon.

  “The part about not comprehending the size of their fleet,” the brakes were applied to rampant reveries.

  After a long silence, “What guarantees do we have that these people know what they’re doing? If we wait and see whether they succeed in their endeavour or not we could come out of this with nothing at all or we could get atomised along with them If they fail,” the marshal took on a pious look.

  “You are the staff officers; put your heads together and come up with a workable plan or you can all go for a swim in space.” Her tone beggared description but not fear.

  They all pictured a field of winter grass with flecks of frost and felt the icy breath that blew over them. The message was clear – do as Mme Jeza said or die as Mme Jeza decrees.

  ###

  “All senior scientists, technologists, engineers and chemists to the Parisian planning room.” Nearly 4000 of the best brains on Mars, Earth, Titan and Uranus gathered in the Great Hall. The Governor opened the proceedings.

  “This meeting is probably the most important ever held in our Solar System. I have to admit that I am overwhelmed by emotion….” Was the consensus of the academics and engineers filing into the great hall.

  It was not the first overall Condition and Progress report the various disciplines had delivered but it was the most important. For the first time there really would be some forward momentum they could report on. There was an atmosphere of excitement in the air.

  Meteorologists. “The sun maintains its ability to function because of a relatively simple process of atoms crashing into each other and causing a protonic adhesive changing hydrogen to helium but when this occurs huge amounts of energy are consumed. In the process a compacted force field surrounds the sun. We have created our own little suns in the laboratories; whatsmore we have found that by introducing a variable magnet to the core of our little suns we can vary the light and heat intensity put out by that sun…”

  “Does that mean we should s
tay where we are?”

  “Not at all but it does mean that we can adjust the strength of our sun and control our seasons, our rainfall and our Polar caps when we commence our odyssey.”

  A question was asked from the floor, “How do we insert our magnets into the core of the sun without them melting and running off?”

  “Not easily but it can be done. We, first of all calculate the exact, or rather the absolute centre of the sun and the absolute centre of our magnet and we insert the magnet so that both centres align perfectly. Voila our magnet is in position and ready to act as our personal dimmer.”

  “What kind of magnet will you be using?”

  “An ordinary ferrous magnet should do. But for added security we will use alnico magnets”

  “Surely it will degrade long before it’s in position?”

  “Well it will be wrapped in a neodymium iron boron envelope which will offer the strongest magnetic field and doped with an alloy of aluminium nickel and cobalt magnets of this nature have a high remanence and temperature stability.

  “Even with an alnico magnet surely the ceramic will melt or bio degrade before its even in place?”

  “That is the reason for the additives doped into the core.”

  “One last question; if the magnet is situated in the centre of the sun then how can we adjust magnetic flux? It too will be affected by the zero factor?”

  “Not really absolute centre is only a point no larger than a pin prick and the whole magnetic block will be no larger than a child’s toy block held in position by mechanical forces while the block itself will be encapsulated in its own magnetic fields’ forming a cage-like enclosure around the block. Magnetic flux can still be vectorially and lineally adjusted by tuning a barium molecule’s, distance from the centre. No matter how minute that adjustment is the light and heat density of the sun will respond in the same way that a lamp does for a dimmer.

  One difficulty though is that we will need large reserves of boron and that is not easily come by.”

  The meteorologists received a loud, boisterous standing ovation.

  Astronomers/Physicists. “In order for us to remove selected celestial bodies from the system without causing a massive and catastrophic shift along the line of action of a working force. To do this we have to perpetrate a huge confidence trick on nature. We also know that in order to maintain equilibrium the sum of forces acting on a body must add up to zero.

  Alter a force by as little as 0.5 kilo newtons on its point of application or shift the line of action by as little as one billionth of a second and we no longer have zero as a sum of all the forces. Something will start moving in a way we don’t want it to.

  Our research led us to the Lewis Octet, the periodic table particularly concerned with atoms that have or should have eight valence electrons in orbit. We started by collecting space dust and by referencing the Lewis Octet we fire bursts of electron emissions through the dust cloud and altered their protonic/electronic compositions to cause the dust to coalesce as gas. That allows us to grow and shrink new gas planets which can be manoeuvred into positions so that we maintain a constant map of forces and all bodies in accordance to their constant patterns of action.”

  “But surely a gas planet is ethereal and has no solid substance for forces to act on?”

  “Yes and no. Take our own gas giants forces act physically on them, or our whole system would disappear into space.”

  “How do we ensure that this does not happen to us?”

  “The meteorologists stole our thunder…” a ripple of laughter ran through the crowd at her unsolicited pun,

  “We use the worst kept secret in the universe.”

  “And what is that, if I may be so bold as to enquire?”

  “Magnetism; we have all, at one time or another taken magnetic readings of the various planets and most of you would have remarked that the gas planets give off readings with a definition as good as the solid planets.”

  “Yes,” a lone voice called, “How does that happen?”

  “That is because a high permeability magnet has a high density flux and forces acting at any point on these lines of magnetic force find that it reacts much as a solid or semi-solid substance would. So we introduce an Alnico alloy to our basic ferrous magnet.”

  Another burst of sustained applause issued from the chambers.

  Technicians; “This gas ball will need to be cooled or the gas expansion will be similar to what happens to an over inflated balloon. At best, it can cause an unneeded imbalance and launch only one body into space but an event of that nature will have a chain reaction so I’ll not give any predictions in the event of a wrong choice being made.

  Our creation; we worked closely with the Astronomers in this case, would need to be cooled at the core which would have effect on the reluctance and permeability of the magnet through fluctuating values of flux and flux density. That meant that the core heat needs to be dampened before it gets established.

  Our researches have led us to Umbriel one of Jupiter’s many moons but this moon has one very important characteristic. It is made up of a light absorbing material hence the name, ‘The Dark Moon.’ Absorbing light prevents the passing of heat and since Umbrielite has such a low refractive value very little heat exchange takes place between it and the magnetic heart. Temperatures will be stabilized at source and every start up value in calories drawn from the Umbrielite does have a degenerative effect but it should last for sixty or seventy years before it has to be changed. Oh, by the way it will also be very useful to air condition the various components of our space ship Solaria.

  In addition, it can be rolled into a very fine film with practically no refractive value whatsoever. The advantage of this is that it greatly improves solar cell operation, empowers LED’s and boosts research via quantum logics by imitating a dark body and thus helps with absorbing and utilising a great deal of the sun’s energy…”

  A polite applause sounded but the technicians were used to that, being Humanoids for the most part.

  Scientists: “We have completed all the research required for this part of our rescue operation now we have to prepare for researching whatever we may find out there. A stock-take of ultra-proportions needs to be undertaken to ensure we will be able to maintain the living standard we have set and that we will need to maintain for a long time to come. We need to think in terms of criticality and make an educated estimations of the availability of materials, goods and commodities throughout the Five Constellations…”

  Trust the scientists to spoil the excitement of the moment by submitting such a mundane report.

  The military: “We must not fall into the belief that solving technical and physical problems here means that we have overcome the problems of a military nature out there, rather the more problems we solve the more desirable the things we have become to others. Even worse we must not fall into believing that there will be no confrontations out there.

  A rumble of dissent followed his claim. Consensually the gathered academics believed the army just muddied intellectual waters to justify their existence.

  “It is my heartfelt belief that we are going to meet people not even remotely like ourselves or with principles and ethics that come close to ours but with life values nowhere near ours. Honesty and ethics need not even mean the same to them as they mean to us.

  Their evolution could come from a totally different source to ours. What I am trying to say is that the only expectation we can have is to expect the unexpected. You never know when you may require the military.

  We do not need to rush to arms yet. Although we have already made contact with people we need to exercise circumspection with. No rush to total military readiness but certainly no time to procrastinate either.

  We have a good life in our Solar System but being constantly on the move means that sooner or later some of our critical resources w
ill run out. Heat sources from Earth’s centre are already showing stress but then it is up to the scientists to monitor that.

  We have a duty to remain vigilant so that we can maintain the good life we have developed for ourselves.”

  The military made the same application every time only presented in different guises. That Solaria had enemies was only too easy to accept; but it costs money to still a paranoid clamour and the people of technology were not going to forfeit money that could be directed to their projects. The Garinos dared Solarians to ignore them so they did.

  There was always little to applaud the military for. They neither manufactured nor bettered anything. At least they were appreciated by the few who counted. That might mean they were under-staffed and under supplied but they were there.

  The Governor. I thank all the people who have toiled so hard and so long to bring us to this point. We have the honour of bringing the ship to completion of the sectional manufacture and now commence final assemblage of all sections in preparation for launch in approximately twenty to thirty years’ time.

  The question I know most of you are asking is; can we start proto-tests and procedures with these Garinos people looking over our shoulders?”

  Hmmf! most of the scientists scorned the idea, “They no longer pretend to be a fun fair but sit just outside the range we gave them and I know they have us under observation” the Governor was saying.”

  So, what, most of the scientists were thinking as long as they stay out of range.

  “If they decide to interfere at a critical time the result could be catastrophic,” the Governor went on, “I will be paying the Garinos a visit and hope that we can reach an agreement that will stop them interfering. But I don’t hold out much hope.”

  “Come, come, sir,’ a few derisive catcalls from the most arrogant delegates, “Our technology is enough to scare the bravest of them off.”

  “I hope you are right. We have hardly left our own atmosphere than it looks as though we will be engaged in an interstellar war. A war where we will know nothing of our enemy. How big an army can he field? What ordinance does he have? And if attacked what would be our response time?”