The Circle

by Harold R Watson

  We were then taken down to the planet surface and on to the High Ruler s palace located high in the clouds over the capitol city called Galaxy City.

  We had read in our studies that it was customary not to offer to shake hands while on Tore but instead for men to bow slightly lower than the High Ruler and for the women to curtsy when greeting them.

  We followed this tradition and were told that we as royalty are not to bow or curtsy but to be bowed and curtsied to by others.

  Then to our surprise, the High Ruler reached out his hand to shake ours. He then introduced us to his queen, a very lovely and charming lady.

  The queen said that they had a very special tour arranged for Doreen and Susan with the caretaker and his family of the unicorns.

  Once we were furnished with their itinerary, and after we gave our permission, the girls were taken to the caretaker s ranch by special shuttle. We would be joining them the following afternoon.

  A reception and feast had been prepared in our honor that we attended that evening after a day of luxury and pampering fit for royalty. After the feast, we were seated on large pillows circled around the floor where the evening s entertainment was scheduled. During the next two hours or so, all sorts of court jesters came and went.

  Then came the finality for the evening with dancing men and women taking the center area. The men were wearing clothing that catered to women that could be removed piece by piece as the dance progressed. The women wore vales which were thrown to the seated guests watching the show. The entertainment was okay I guess but we were glad when the show was over.

  Afterwards, we were led to our bedroom and we settled in for the night. We were allowed to sleep in and got up at eleven fixing coffee and getting cleaned up and dressed for the afternoon s trip to the country.

  Clean robes had been furnished for our use and by noon, we were ready when there came a knock on our door by one of the servants sent there to awaken us.

  When we answered the door, he said that since we were already dressed, that we could follow him downstairs to the breakfast room where we would be fed. Soon after we arrived at the breakfast, we were joined by the Queen.

  How was your night? Did you sleep well? she asked.

  Like two babies, Tess answered. I hope you slept well.

  Oh I always sleep well, the queen said. I hope you like the breakfast buffet we prepared, she continued.

  Everything s great, I remarked.

  Good, I m pleased. Take your time. I ll be back in a half hour or so and pick you up at your room. We can then leave for the country to join Doreen and Susan and see the unicorns, she advised.

  By the time we finished our meal and returned to our room to freshen up the Queen and the High Ruler were knocking on our door announcing that they were ready to go if we were.

  When we arrived at the unicorn ranch, we were met by the caretaker and his family and out two daughters. The caretaker had two sons about the same age as our daughters and by the time we arrived, they were getting along like they had known each other for a lifetime.

  We then walked down to a junction of three large meadows that had fences all around them. There must have been twenty or more white unicorns in one meadow, fifty or so black ones in another and as many brown ones in the third meadow.

  All unicorns are special creatures, the caretaker said. We love them all as if they were family.

  They sure are beautiful animals. I said.

  You daughters wanted to ride one of them but I told them that we would have to wait until you came to see if you would give your permission, he told us.

  Do they really fly? my wife asked.

  Well I ve never known one to fly unless it really likes its rider. It takes a long time to build such a relationship with a unicorn, he said.

  I don t want the girls to fall off, you know, from up in the sky if one started to fly, Tess said.

  You have nothing to worry about in that regard Missy, his wife said. The boys can saddle enough for all of us to take a little ride if you like, she went on.

  You only see unicorns on our planet, the High Ruler said. I ride them once or twice a week and they have never flown for me yet. In fact, I have only seen them fly for Mr. Darby their care taker here and his family, the High Ruler said.

  They will sometimes fly for us, the caretaker said. But only on rare occasions when they want to thank us for giving them a nice brushing or when we feed them their favorite meal of oats and barley and talk to them real nice, he confessed.

  S o that s your secret, the Queen said as she laughed.

  Shall we let the ranch hands saddle enough for all of us to ride? the High Ruler asked.

  Please, pretty please Mom, Susan pleaded.

  Well why not. This will most likely be our only chance to ride a real unicorn, Tess said.

  We waited while the ranch hands rounded up ten white unicorns and saddled them for us. We mounted them like one would mount a horse.

  They are almost like horses and you will ride them just like you would ride a horse, the caretaker told us.

  The white unicorns were very gentle. The caretaker told us that we were ridding down trails that were familiar to the animals as well as to him and his family. We had ridden for about an hour by the time we returned to the caretaker s home.

  Once we reached the gate to their meadow, the unicorns knew that they were due for a treat according to the caretaker. They were taken to the barn and given their favorite food. Apparently, this had become routine for them after they gave guests a ride.

  Once the unicorns ate and drank, they were returned to the meadow. It was nearly suppertime. The caretaker s family had prepared a cook out for us. They had steaks and all the fixings and a bar-b-cue grill where we could cook them. While we were eating on the patio talking and having a good time, Doreen suddenly yelled:

  Look, look over there. One of those unicorns is flying.

  Sure enough, one of the unicorns was flying and after a minute or so it came back down to the ground making a perfect four point landing. After it landed, a second one began to gallop and soon took off flapping it s wings and flying. It came down a little later. Each time a unicorn landed, another started to fly until ten in all had flown around the meadow putting on a show for us.

  That s their way of saying thanks for the good chow we gave them, the caretaker told us.

  We left that evening feeling much richer for our experience with the caretaker s family, the High Ruler and his Queen in an informal setting and most of all in riding the unicorns and in seeing the unicorns fly for us.

  By the time we were ready to leave Tore, we had become good friends with the High Ruler, with his Queen and with the caretaker and his family. We had even entertained them all aboard the mother ship on several occasions. We showed them out little ranch aboard the mother ship. It wasn t very big compared to theirs but it did have a couple hundred head of cattle, twenty-one horses, some pigs, and some sheep. We too had several caretakers who looked after the mini-ranch for us.

  A day before we were to leave, a large shipping crate was brought up to us from the surface. It was addressed to Doreen and Susan. It contained the two colts they had named, one male and one female. There was a message from the High Ruler which stating that he knew that if they took very good care of their colts and showed them love that the two colts could someday have enough offspring to develop into a have a whole herd of white unicorns by the time they returned to Earth. He said then two Toren planets could boast that they have unicorns, Tore and the Earth. We sent a hearty thank you message to the High Ruler and Doreen and Susan promised to raise the two unicorn colts with love and care.

  We then turned away from Tore as we left orbit and headed toward Ebony the next planet on our schedule. Our half circle grew again as we added another planet to our circle.

>   CHAPTER 13-EBONY’S HISTORY LESSON

  The time we spent on Tore had been rewarding. We decided not to wear robes however, and traded them in for our uniforms once we were away from Tore. We decided not to wear the label of High Rulers of Earth until we did in fact return to Earth again.

  We kept the proclamations in a safe place and we decided that they would remain in storage for the rest of our trip on the mother ship. We would continue to keep our military rank the same as it was before we reached Tore. Our crew and other passengers need not know of our newly proclaimed positions as rulers of Earth until we were ready to return to Earth.

  While in route from Tore to Ebony, we received an up date on the restoration efforts on Earth. The planet had now been pulled away from the sun and was in a deep freeze. It would remain in this state another year and then be returned to its original orbit.

  After it is returned to it’s original orbit, they expect it to take about three years before the ice melts enough to repair the ozone layer.

  Then it will take at least another five years after the ozone layer is reformed until there is enough vegetation growth to restore the oxygen supply around the planet to a livable level.

  The Toren restoration experts want it understood that they are using the same restoration techniques that have been used before to change cold planets into livable ones but that a much higher power created the laws of nature that cause these changes take place.

  They have been able to change several planets in the galaxy from Class I planets into Class M planets by the same means they are using on Earth now. A Class I planet is one where the surface is covered with ice and a Class M planet is one that will support live for mankind.

  Three years before we will be able to return to Earth, the Toren ships will release various animals both wild and domestic types they are gathering from various planets in the empire. We too will have many animals with us to release when we return to Earth. They will study oxygen breathing animals to be sure they can adapt before they agree the planet is safe enough to support humans.

  The means that it will still be fifteen years at least before we will be able to return to Earth and then only if all goes well. That means that I will be fifty-eight years old at least before I see Earth again.

  The damages to Earth from the holocaust put the final touch on what had begun hundreds of years or so earlier as the human race started polluting the planet s air, water, and land and by cutting down the rain forests.

  These attacks to the environment started the problems with the ozone layer that was so necessary to protect the planet from ultra-violet sun rays.

  There were many warning signs that were ignored. One was the global warming that was taking place near the end of the Twentieth Century. Another was the hole in the ozone layer that was growing larger. Of course all the air pollution, water pollution, and land pollution provided mankind with the most obvious signs that something was wrong. Some feeble efforts were made to change these trends but greed triumphed over reasoning.

  Add to that, the production of the nuclear bombs and their delivery systems and the nuts who used them and you had the final ingredients necessary for the disaster that destroyed almost all the humans, animals, and plant life on the planet Earth.

  Had not the Torens come to Earth, the planet would have no future because of the holocaust. We wouldn t be alive. It s our future we are talking about now. We aboard THE TOREN TWENTY have been given a second chance to establish rules to prevent the new restored Earth from facing the same type crisis again. If only, we could go back in time and prevent the destruction from happening, I thought as I completed reading the restoration crews report.

  Instead, we have to pick up the pieces and move forward from here. The fortunate things we have learned on our journey to date should help us as we plan Earth s future.

  On Starsis, we learned about how government can establish guides to protect the environment and still enjoy the pursuits of happiness.

  On Erie, we learned how the snow people adapted to what I would call a hostile environment and made the best of it.

  On Japae, we learned how science works in harmony with nature to establish the highest technology in the empire.

  On Hilo, we learned how to relax, to have fun, and to be kind to each other. We learned the benefits of rest and recreation as an important part of our lives.

  On Tore, we learned enough about royalty to not want to emulate the High Rulers there by wearing robes and crowns and by living in great splendor while setting ourselves above everyone else. We thought that old cast system went out in the dark ages on Earth and we do not plan to return to it on Earth. I am sure we will learn many important things on Ebony, Taos, and Aquarius before returning to Starsis to live until our return Earth.

  We reached Ebony in about six months. It is fairly close to Tore in travel time in a relative sense. Ebony is a 100% native black people s planet.

  There is no race mixing allowed on Ebony similar to what we experienced on Japae. They claim that the black people on Earth are descendents from their planet.

  Contrary to what evolutionists taught on Earth, man did not evolve from lower forms of life on Earth, nor did the other races but from other planets, some now in the Toren Empire and some from the Atlantean Empire.

  At different times in the past, these other planets set up colonies on Earth. The colonies were established on different continents at different times. The Earth was visited on many occasions by earlier space travelers. The Toren Empire has evolved into a federation of ten Class M planets over a long period of time.

  There were wars between many of the Toren planets before they became wise enough to realize that they could do more as friends working together than as enemies fighting one another.

  The Earth, in their eyes, is a very backward planet that has evolved very slowly. It was an experimental planet for the two empires.

  In the beginning, the planets were acting alone when establishing colonies on Earth. It was hundreds of thousands of years later that they began to realize that not all the people on Earth originated from their particular planet.

  As the colonies grew, they began to move outward from their original areas. As their populations grew larger and larger, they began to infringe upon the territories that had been previously claimed.

  Over time some of them began to form alliances with one another to ward off common enemies. Earlier, they had fought each other for supremacy and learned the hard lesson that they were better of working together than fighting one another. Often however, as many different groups grew, fights turned into skirmishes, and skirmishes it battles, and battles into wars and so forth until eventually the warring factions destroyed the Earth.

  Ebony has studied the problems on Earth and vowed that they would remain homogenous rather than chance a similar fate. I m not sure if that was the same reasoning on Japae or not, but we respected their right to rule as they saw fit.

  On Earth, with it s many differen t races, creeds, customs and mores many never learned to get along with anyone who looked or thought differently than they did.

  What a shame so many never learned that all have the same God given rights to freedom, peace and the pursuit of happiness regardless of race, creed or national origin. Personally, I lived in a country on Earth were I took these rights for granted while so many never experienced such rights.

  Maybe if all of us who had these rights had worked harder to see that those without such rights were given them, the earth could have been saved.

  Ebony was run as a giant business venture and was run by boards of directors like one might expect to see in a large corporation.

  There were many such boards established starting with local boards, to regional boards, to district boards, to state boards, to national boards, to global boards.

  The duties and responsib
ilities of the various levels of boards were clearly spelled out and the power of the boards increased as they moved up the ladder from local to global.

  Each board had one Chairperson and eight members. The Chairperson would vote only when there was a tie among the board members. For example if there was a four to four tie, the Chairperson would cast the deciding vote.

  The board members would rotate the Chairperson every year so a different board member would be the Chairperson each year until all nine members served a term.

  Every three years, an election is held at each level to elect board members. A member can remain a board member indefinitely if he or she is re-elected.

  A board member on a lower level board can run for a higher-level board only after serving his or her three-year term on the board he or she was elected to.

  If a board member dies or otherwise cannot complete his or her full term, the next higher board may choose someone to fill the vacancy until the next election when that person must run for election like anyone else. Should a member of the highest board fail to complete his or her term, a special election must be called to replace that person.

  The layered system of government has worked well on Ebony for hundreds of years, we were told. Profits by the government are shared with the workers. All workers work for the government. There is no individual ownership on Ebony.

  All that aside, the people we met were very friendly and seemed to be very happy. They knew what was expected of them and when they were not working, they knew how to throw a party.

  The climate at the capitol city of Lim is tropical. I would liken this city to Havana, Cuba on Earth before the 1950s. There are many nightclubs with gambling casinos. There is an atmosphere around the city of money and lots of it.

  We warned our people to not get carried away on the crap tables. After several visits to Lim, I think that I know where Mardi Gras originated. It must have been on Ebony.