The Earthrise Trilogy

by Colin Owen

  "Beats me," she replied, "we'll ask Einstein when he wakes up."

  "Poor kid," Steve said, looking at Tris' rather slight form flopped in the chair. "He may be brilliant, but he's no football player!"

  ❧

  The following day, Roland was as good as his word and rolled out the new sub. Kay, Bill and Eric were there to help. Roly uncovered the craft and led Kay around to the side. He'd painted a name on it, it read, 'K-Sub.'

  "It's short for Kerasub," he said, "but I thought I should name it after you, hence the K. is that OK boss?"

  Kay smiled at him, "You're just a big softy Roly. Right," she continued a little more seriously, "who's going to take her for her first spin?" Eric pushed Bill forward, so Bill dragged Eric with him.

  "In that case," Kay said, "I want two volunteers, you and you, go test this thing."

  "Aye aye cap'n," Eric said, saluting.

  They both jumped in and closed the hatches. Once inside, they became more serious. "Check the seals Bill while I check the air systems."

  All seemed as it should be, so Eric took control and the craft lifted up off the ground half a meter. The controls were just the same as a normal Keracraft, with the exception that the height control had a negative setting too.

  "That's the clever bit," Eric said, "we can use magnetism to pull us down below the water's surface. That way, we don't need any ballast, neat huh?"

  Bill nodded, he was none to sure about going under water, but wasn't going to let Eric see it. "Lets hit the road," he said, and Eric drove off.

  The trip to the lake was somewhat uneventful. Inside the sub, it was totally silent as they slipped along, hovering over the ground. Visibility was good, Roland had used plenty of Bicrylic in the top section of the sub, so they could see all around them from the inside, but could not be seen from the outside. The lake came into view and Eric headed straight for it, in a matter of seconds they were moving over the water. Eric brought the sub to a stop and said, "Here we go, hold your nose." He let the height lever down slowly and the sub responded. They sank beneath the surface very smoothly and were soon moving forward again. Bill hit the lights and a wonderful new world opened up before them. The water was clear, so visibility was good, and the lights picked out various shades of green as they passed different plant species.

  "Sure is green down here!" Eric quipped, but he was right, green was the only colour in sight as far as they could see. The lake was not very deep at this point, so Eric headed for the centre. He pushed the joystick forward to see how fast they could go, and was surprised that the sub cut through the water very efficiently.

  "Remember this is a lake!" Bill reminded him, so Eric eased off the throttle, and the sub responded precisely to the controls.

  "It all seems to work very well Bill, have a look round for leaks will you."

  Bill obliged but found nothing. "The power's holding too," he said.

  The water deepened quite dramatically near the centre of the lake, so Eric descended. It became darker as he did so, but the lights were more than sufficient, and they could see quite some distance ahead. The depth gauge was reading 30 meters and Bill started to hear creaks. Eric thought he was imagining it but didn't push the sub any further. "This is probably enough for the first run," he said, and headed back up. They broke the surface and Eric yanked the height lever up. They shot up to 100 meters in a flash, he pushed the joystick forward and the sub took off like a rocket, they were back at base in no time at all.

  "How did it go boys?" Roland asked.

  "Great Roly, we got down to 30 meters and everything held together. Bill thought he heard some creaks, but I think that was his brain turning over."

  Roland chuckled. "I'll check out the Bicrylic just in case." He said.

  ❧

  Seth had given Danny a job to do and left him to it. It felt good to be trusted to work alone, and Danny was happy to be alone. He completed his task quickly and set off to ask for another. He found Seth in one of the vegetable fields scratching his head.

  "What's the problem?" Danny asked him, from behind, which made Seth jump.

  "Finished already?" he said, "Oh to be young again." Seth pointed to the crop.

  "What are the holes Seth?"

  "That's just it Dan, I don't know. I've not seen anything like it before."

  "Maybe slugs?" Danny said.

  "Nope," Seth replied, "we don't have any bugs or insects here, only what we brought with us from earth, and everything was sterile." He started scratching his head again and mumbling, "Can't understand it." Together they walked around the rest of the field checking for 'holes'.

  "So far they seem to be in just one section of this field Dan, but I think I'll take a look at the others anyway."

  Danny went with him, he enjoyed Seth's company, and it was a good opportunity to talk. They didn't find anything else, and by the time they'd been around all the fields it was getting late. Danny took his leave of Seth and ran home. He reached the Eden settlement in five minutes and slowed to a trot for the last bit.

  "Hi Danny."

  "Hi dad."

  "Had a good day son?"

  "Sure have, I've started working on my own now, I think Seth, erm, Gareth trusts me. It was odd though, we found some holes in the crops in one of the fields. Gareth said he'd never seen anything like it before, a bit of a mystery."

  "Which field was that son?"

  "The one nearest the lake."

  ❧

  Everyone had been on tiptoe trying not to wake Tris, but the dogs had no such compunctions. Rufus, having been set free from his restraints, went bounding over to Tris and jumped up on his lap. Tris woke with a start.

  "Sorry about that," Clare said, "I guess he likes you!"

  "That's OK Mrs. Forester, I like him too."

  "Feeling better?"

  "Yes, thank you, the nap must have done me some good."

  "When you're up to it, Steve has something for you to look at in the cockpit."

  Tris got up out of the chair leaving it to Rufus, who settled down were it was warm. Lady, not to be out done, jumped up with him and made him move over for her.

  "That's the way girl," Clare said, smiling.

  Once in the cockpit, Steve showed Tris what he had discovered earlier. "Ah," Tris said, with a knowing smile, "I thought that might happen, it's the Trion wave subdividing; something to do with the speed of the ship I guess. Every time we increase Mak by one, the wave subdivides, so two become four, four become eight and so on. It means we can keep on accelerating indefinitely."

  Steve thought for a moment then said, "We should build an automatic shut off. Then we can accelerate to whatever speed we want and have the ship turn the engines off."

  "Easily done Steve, we can use the Mak announcements as a trigger, I'll get right on it."

  Tris set to work on the modification, which took him about an hour. Having finished, he and Steve sat down to try to figure out where they were. The navcom had been in control for most of the trip so they had some idea of how far they had come.

  "Doesn't look much does it Tris, but at sub light speeds it would've taken us years to get this far, and even at light speed it will take us years to get to the nearest star. You could say that space is a big place."

  "Perhaps we should speed up," Tris suggested, "there's not much point in staying at Mak 2 if it adds years to the trip."

  "I didn't intend to," Steve replied, "I just wanted to take small steps, call the girls in, we'll try out that new gizmo of yours."

  Tris called them and let them know what was happening. The dogs were clamped down as were the humans, and Steve set the control for Mak 10.

  "Set everyone?"

  The answers were affirmative.

  "Got hold of your stomach Tris?"

  Steve hit the button and the engines came to life. They were pinned back in their seats as the ship accelerated. The stars seemed to lurch forward and then stretch out much as before.

  "Mak 3." The accelerati
on curve grew steeper with each Mak call.

  "Mak 5." The stars became like prisms and some of the closer ones began to merge.

  "Mak 7." The pressure pushing them back into their seats eased.

  "Mak 10." The cut out fired and the engines were shut off. Stars were now visibly moving past them, quite an awesome sight. "Boy, this is some ship," Steve said, "who would have thought when it was built that one day it would be travelling at ten times the speed of light!"

  Again, as before, the speed gauge remained steady with the engines off. The Navcom showed that they had shortened their journey greatly, but they were still looking at a trip of years.

  "We'll leave it at Mak 10 for now and check the ship out, just in case. If all is well, we'll go for Mak 20 tomorrow."

  Tris nodded and left the cockpit to begin checking the ship. He met Hope in the cargo bay checking her mom's plants.

  "Are you OK?" She asked.

  "Sure, I don't know what happened before, but I'm fine now, and the last burst didn't affect me at all. Must have been the lack of sleep." He stood and watched her working for a moment. Maybe this was going to be a long trip, but it was worth it.

  ❧

  The following day, Eric and Bill took the sub out again. Roland had strengthened the top section with Kerasite braces just to be sure. He had also installed extra lights, so that they could see to the side and rear as well as the front. This time Bill drove, he was more cautious than Eric, but insisted on 'having a go.'

  Bill decided to circumnavigate the lake quite close the edge. Though cautious, he was nonetheless keen to explore, down below. The vegetation was unremarkable near the surface, but changed with depth. Gradually Bill headed for the dark centre of the lake, and being reassured by the extra bracing, he went deeper than Eric had gone the day before.

  "Well done Bill, you've made a good job of surveying the lake. I think we've seen just about everything."

  Eric spoke to soon. Just ahead of them they saw an opening.

  "Let's take a closer look," Eric suggested.

  Bill was a little uneasy about it, but went anyway.

  The opening was in a rock face near the centre of the lake. Bill brought the sub in front of it and stopped, shining the powerful lights into it. There seemed to be disturbed sediment in the cave beyond, so they couldn't see much.

  "What's that?" Bill called out.

  "I can't see anything," Eric answered, again speaking too soon.

  Something big shot out of the opening and bumped the sub as it went past.

  "Whoa...What was that?" Eric shouted.

  "Beats me," Bill said, turning the sub to pursue whatever it was. By the time he had turned the sub, the 'whatever it was' had gone.

  "It was fast," Eric said, a little breathlessly.

  "It was big too," Bill said. "I think we'd better report this to Kay. Bill took the sub up and out of the lake. They reached base in a few minutes.

  "Did it attack you?" Kay asked.

  "Hard to say Kay," Bill answered, "it may have just been scared by our lights, but it was big, and very fast."

  "Well, it seems that Eden is not the only place where life exists. I wonder where this creature came from, could it have been here all the time?"

  Heads were scratched, but no-one had the answers to these questions.

  "Thing is," Kay went on, "what do we do now, look for it, or leave it alone?"

  "I'd say leave it," Bill said.

  "It hasn't bothered us so far."

  "Perhaps you're right Bill, let's leave it for now and see what develops. We should warn folk not to go on the lake though, just in case."

  The following day at the farm, Seth and Danny went straight to the field where the holes were to see if they had spread. They had, and quite alarmingly. "This is the work of an animal," Seth said, "like a worm of some sort, I've seen these marks before." There were little trails on the leaves, and on the ground around the plants. "Definitely worms Dan, no doubt about it."

  "What can we do about it Seth?"

  "I'll put some chemicals down and see if that stops them. I've got some somewhere, haven't had to use them before, but it looks like those days are over."

  Seth and Danny set about the task and sprayed the crop.

  "Now all we can do is wait." Seth said, but he was not happy about it.

  The next day they went to see what had happened. Seth was dismayed to see hundreds of dead worms among the crops.

  "I hate doing this sort of thing Dan, but sometimes it's necessary."

  They began gathering up the dead worms when Seth stopped and called out, "Don't touch them, don't touch them."

  Danny dropped the one he had hold of and ran over to Seth to see what was up.

  "They're not worms Dan, they're snakes...See, they've got fangs. We'd better get some thick gloves before we pick them up, they may be poisonous."

  That's what they did, and several big bags were filled with the little creatures before the day was done.

  "We'd better report this to Kay, can you take care of that for me Dan?"

  "Yes, of course, Seth, I'll do it on my way home." He took a specimen with him to show to Kay.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter 6.

  Danny's Day

  Danny made a detour that evening on his way home to stop by Kay's house to explain.

  "That's terrible Danny, and you had several bags full of dead ones?"

  Danny produced the specimen for her to see. The creature was tiny, about five centimetres long, but it already had perfectly formed fangs in its tiny mouth. Sam was called and came over to take a look.

  "It's not like any snake I've ever seen before, can I have this one to examine?"

  Danny said he could have as many as he liked and left them to it.

  "Interesting," Sam said, taking a closer look, "they don't usually develop fangs until much later, and these two little bumps just behind the head, most odd. I'm going to check on the computer to see if there are any records for these guys."

  He left the room and Kay just sat down pondering what this could mean. So far, Sam didn't know about the incident in the lake, she hadn't gotten around to telling him.

  Some time later, Sam reappeared and said, "Come and look at this love."

  She rose and followed him into the study.

  "I can't find any data that specifically matches our little friend here, but I did find this."

  He motioned her to come and see the computer screen. On it was displayed an old maritime drawing of a sea serpent.

  "What's the significance of this Sam?" She asked.

  "It's the wings, just behind the head."

  He pointed to the tiny new comer and specifically to the two tiny bumps behind the head.

  "There are no other snakes that have these, they are unique."

  Kay pondered even more, was it possible that they had a serpent in the lake? The earlier decision to leave the creature in the lake alone, had just been reversed.

  "Now we have to know." She said.

  "Have to know what?" Sam asked.

  Kay told him about the incident in the lake that afternoon.

  "There has to be a connection," Sam said, "perhaps the creature in the lake is the mother."

  "I hope not," Kay answered, "the one in the lake was big enough to bump the sub and move it sideways, and there are hundreds of these little ones."

  The next day, Kay called Eric and Bill together. "I'm sorry guys, but we need to know if the thing in the lake is the parent of these little snakes, you'll have to go down again and see if you can get a better look at whatever it is down there."

  Eric and Bill were none too happy with the idea of coming face to face with a big version of these snakes, but there was little choice, so they reluctantly agreed to go. Roland had heard the conversation and suggested they try to keep the 'thing' away from the Bicrylic sections of the sub which were the weakest.

  "We'll try Roly," Eric said, "but that thing was fast."
r />   They set off towards the lake with Eric at the controls; finding the opening was easy.

  "Listen Eric, lets keep the lights to a minimum and approach very slowly. If we just set her down on the bottom near the opening, we may catch it off guard and get a better look at it."

  Eric agreed, saying, "You're not just a pretty face are you!"

  He did as Bill had suggested, and approached the opening very slowly and with the lights off. The Kerasub made no discernible noise so they thought they were in with a good chance of sneaking up on the beastie. The sub came to rest on the lake floor, and the guys sat motionless waiting to see if 'Nessy' would show.

  Speaking in whispers Bill said, "Now we'll see how good the air filtration is."

  Eric just nodded without taking his eyes off the opening. It seemed like forever, but eventually Eric saw some movement.

  "There," he said, pointing.

  Bill looked and could clearly see light reflecting from two large eyes. Slowly, the creature emerged from the opening and looked around. At first they could only see the head, but as the animal cautiously moved further out, the wings came into view.

  "A snake with wings?" Eric whispered, very quietly.

  Bill just shrugged his shoulders.

  Slowly the creature moved towards the sub; Eric and Bill froze. The creature seemed to stop and sniff the vessel, but showed little interest in it and slid by. Bill watched intently as it did so and estimated its length to be three times that of the sub. When it was clear, Eric powered up the lights to see into the opening; for a split second, they saw another pair of eyes in there, then they were gone. Eric hit the height lever and the sub shot up rapidly. It took little time to return to base.

  Eric and Bill reported their findings to Kay back at base.

  "This is not good," she said, "there are a pair of them and they're breading."

  "And they're big!" Bill added, "About ten meters I'd say."

  "But why have we not seen the parents out of the water if the babies come out to feed?" Kay asked, puzzled.

  Roland volunteered an answer, "Perhaps they know they'd be spotted."