Ice Planet Page 18

  The view lifted slowly from the house to hover above the valley at an altitude of about five hundred meters, allowing them to see down the valley in both directions. The initial sensation that this valley was a special place was fully confirmed by that view. They started moving towards the rock wall at the end of the valley, and Geoffrey brought them down slowly so that they could pass through a tunnel bored through the rock. Cora and Savi noticed the pronounced strata in the exposed rocks near the tunnel entrance. As geologists, they knew how these strata had been laid down at the bottom of some forgotten sea, and then become exposed as the water in the sea had turned to ice over the land, so lowering the level of the sea, and contorted as the land was lifted by the enormous forces imposed on them by the collision of the tectonic plates. Savi thought, briefly, of how ludicrous it was that any thinking person who understood those processes could believe the ridiculous theory imposed by the religion. There was a sudden feeling of openness and freedom as they left the tunnel, and then Geoffrey speeded up as they swooped along the length of a chain of mountains towards the sea that they could glimpse in the distance. They arrived over a city clustered at the foot of a spectacular mountain, with a brilliantly white cloud draped over its flat top and a blue ocean to complement the scene.

  “This is Cape Town, the site of a very early settlement in this part of the continent, where a small colony was founded to grow food to provide to ships sailing around the toe of this continent to trade with countries to the east. This city was available for occupation some time ago when a group of people decided to leave their home country and settle elsewhere in freedom. A large proportion of the population of their home planet has now settled here, leaving the dictatorial government to struggle along at a bare survival level, while the people here have turned the city into a trading and entertainment hub for the universe. At any one time, you can find citizens of at least ten planets here, enjoying what the city has to offer. A similar situation exists in Durban, where the enterprising citizens of Ga-In have relocated. The difference is that they have concentrated on industrial activities.”

  “How is it that there is so much unused infrastructure here, Geoffrey?”

  “Earth was the home to over six billion people ten years ago, Grea. It had fairly advanced technology. An unfortunate concurrence of two serious events left all but a few hundred people dead, when a massive solar storm spewed a huge rain of charged particles in the direction of the Earth. The scientific community had predicted the outburst, and they arranged that a replacement nuclear reactor for the International Space Station be placed in orbit outside the magnetosphere, which would normally deflect the charged particles away from the Earth, so that they could use the radiation instrumentation on the reactor to measure the intensity and types of radiation. The instruments diagnosed the sudden burst of radiation as a reactor failure, and caused the reactor to jettison its entire load of nuclear fuel capsules into space. That was probably correct, but the capsules were planned to disintegrate in those conditions to prevent a dangerous load of radioactive material landing on the planet. Again a good precaution. However, the location, just above the magnetic field that protects the Earth from radiation, was disastrous. The finely dispersed ionizing material negated the magnetic protection at precisely the time it was needed most. The radiation storm poured down onto the defenseless Earth, killing any living being which was not protected, from bacteria to the largest animals. The few people, insects and animals that survived were all protected by metal covers. My family was in a train that was wrecked in a collision with another train inside a long tunnel constructed of steel and concrete when the signals failed. We were unconscious long enough for the radiation to have subsided by the time we got out. Jeff, whom you met on Enderen, was studying nuclear physics before the catastrophe, and he and Suzy, now his wife, survived and brought a number of other survivors together. He had submitted his theory on a branch of quantum physics to Johanna, the leader of a group of scientists operating a particle collider in another continent, and she had written back to him to confirm that the experiments they were conducting had proven his theory to be correct. That letter reached his home the day before the catastrophe. Jeff found the letter only a year after the catastrophe, and decided to complete his work on the dissertation that would have secured his doctorate, and then he and Suzy sailed across the ocean, a third of the way around the world, to deposit the complete dissertation at the office of the particle collider, in the hope that, if intelligent beings ever reached the Earth, that would be the place where they would look for information on the state of quantum physics on the planet. To their surprise, they found almost the entire team of scientists on the project still alive, and still working. Together, they returned to Jeff and Suzy’s base on a farm near Houston, and worked in earnest on putting together a working matter transporter. They had most of the skills they needed, as well as the theory in Jeff’s dissertation. Their work was detected by Jirgt and his team on Enderen, where they had developed the system and were looking for correspondents in a distant place to test the theories they were working on. The rest is history. We in Montagu made contact by radio with Jeff’s team, and were brought into the project before Jirgt made contact, acting as a distant post. I was present when Jirgt first made contact. That was probably one of the most momentous events of my life, apart from when I met Sorpe. Fortunately, our group had some of the skills that Jeff’s group lacked, including Karin, who is a magnetics scientist, and a number of nuclear engineers from a nuclear submarine that survived the catastrophe, because they were submerged for the duration of the event, about four days. Those nuclear technicians were also valuable when Jirgt’s father discovered that the particle accelerator was powered by a group of three nuclear power stations that had automatically shut down when the radiation struck. The accelerator had achieved a particle speed of just over 81% of the speed of light in the last run before the catastrophe caused the nuclear power to shut down. Jeff’s theory had shown that the power consumption of the accelerator would increase dramatically at 80% of the speed of light, and that was shown to be correct. When he heard of the need for nuclear power to take Derlet’s theory further, Jeff revisited his thesis, and deduced that there would be a power feedback from the Big Bang, the explosion that created the universe when the accelerator achieved a particle speed above 80% of the speed of light. They ran the accelerator again, and proved that Jeff’s theory was sound. Using that effect, we now supply free power by particle transport throughout the universe. The availability of that power made it possible to plant a ‘seed particle’ on the surface of a distant planet, and that was how we were able to make contact with Rendl, Sorpe’s home planet.”

  Aria had been listening, fascinated. Now she spoke.

  “That is what we have been trying to achieve. The particle probe that the ancients used to evaluate the planets for their ability to sustain the lives of the colonists was achieved by sending a particle through the dimensional universe so that they could have a known target to transport to and from! Our problem was that we did not have sufficient power to transmit a particle without an identified target. That is also why the original colonists could not transport back to the home planet, or make contact with the other colonies. They simply did not have enough power!”

  “That was a problem that eluded the best brains on two planets, Aria. It seems simple when you know what the answer is, but it’s far from simple before that, and even when you know what the solution is, you need a particle accelerator powered by three nuclear reactors to test your theory. I doubt that your planet was ever in a state to achieve that. Even Enderen, with centuries of quantum experience, was not able to do it.”

  “Thanks, Geoffrey. I was feeling somewhat foolish, but what you have said made it clear to me that much more than theory is necessary to achieve some goals.”

  “Let’s go on to Australia. That’s an island continent that we used to settle the entire population of a planet that was under threat of
disintegration by the plasma beam from a nearby Black Hole. We discovered the planet when they were desperately trying to perfect a communication method using matter transport. They knew that their planet would be destroyed when it came within the range of the beam, which was expected within months at most. We managed to evacuate the entire population within forty days, pulling the last two people out less than a second before a random wisp of the plasma beam destroyed all remaining life on the planet.” They could hear the smile in Geoffrey’s voice. “That was quite an exercise. We were transporting people and goods to anywhere on four planets where we could find a spare ten seconds on a transporter. It took another few weeks to get all the people to their ultimate home in Australia, but the result was that millions of citizens who accommodated the refugees made good friendships with those people, friendships that still endure today.” The visitors could sense the note of satisfaction as Geoffrey described the event. They could understand that!

  They flashed across the ocean in a few seconds, and hovered over a city.

  “This is Perth, one of the smaller cities. It is a center for the mining industry, with many nickel, iron, uranium and diamond mines, some offshore oil wells, as well as others. The area is also an important meat and grain producer, with exports throughout the universe.” They could see that Perth was a comfortably-settled small city, with expansive beaches and a river winding alongside it, enclosing the city between the two bodies of water. There were several sailing boats on the river, and many people on the golden beaches.

  They crossed the continent at high speed, but slowly enough to gain an impression of the vast size of the land, most of it covered by an endless desert with few houses. That changed when they reached two coastal cities on the south and east coasts, where the nature of the country changed substantially. Geoffrey terminated the tour of Australia over Sydney, a city with some very distinctive features and a clear attraction to the people who lived there. There were several yachts on the large bay, passing in front of the Opera House and under the stately arched bridge spanning the harbor.

  “There are other cities in Australia, but we’ve seen enough to gain an impression of the country and the way people live here. Although the entire continent was settled by refugees only a few years ago, they have been very successful, and it shows. We’ll move on to look briefly at other parts of Earth, and end up in the part of the European continent that enjoys cold winters and warm summers. I suspect that the weather pattern there will be to your liking.”

  They flashed over China and north India, slowing to look at the snowy Himalaya Mountains, and Russia, then moved into northern Europe. The came to a hover over southern Germany, stopping first over Munich.

  “This city, Munich, has a long history. At the time of the catastrophe, it was one of the leading cities in this continent. It is large enough to accommodate most of your people in comfortable surroundings, similar to those in Vidia. The manufacturing industries here were at the forefront of the world manufacturing, and the factories generally have equipment that would be the envy of most manufacturers on any planet. The climate here is not as cold as in the mountains, which are a short distance away. It is possible to see them on a fine day.” Geoffrey took them on a brief tour of the city and the suburbs, and then they zoomed on, slowing down as they approached a beautiful valley, surrounded by snow-capped mountains.

  “This is one of my favorite parts of the world. This town is called Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Those mountains over there are the Alps. They are only about six million years old, which is why they are still so rugged and, as you can see, they are very spectacular. This village was a winter sports center, and it enjoys fine weather in the summer, although, because of the altitude, the summers tend to be very short. It enjoyed the reputation of having the finest weather in this part of the continent. The town might be sufficient for settlement of about fifteen thousand people. Further south, over the Alps is Italy, which used to manufacture many quality products. One of the cities there has been settled by a number of people from Kirona, a planet that suffered an onslaught of gigantic predators which mutated from much smaller animals over a period of a few hundred years, and they developed a psychic ability that enabled them to predict the presence of their human and humanoid prey. We have managed to contain that threat, and a team of scientists is presently studying the animals to discover how their psychic abilities operate. Interestingly, that planet is also home to an indigenous species of humanoids that have both an ability to experience the past, present and immediate future and to amend their actions in the recent past in such a way as to influence the future to their advantage. Those people, the bodas, are involved in a study of that ability under the leadership of Dr. Benia Rekomik, the head of the Department of Time Studies at the University of Setlen. In my view, working closely with Benia would be an honor for almost any scientist in the field of quantum physics. She developed the advancements in the field of particle transportation from a very low level to one of the most advanced in the universe almost singlehandedly within only about five years. She is highly respected by every member of the Council, most of whom are at a very advanced level in the field themselves. Several of the bodas are also undergoing advanced education in various disciplines. They have a very high intelligence coupled with an excellent ability to intuit a result in most types of problems and activities. They are extremely pleasant people.”

  They made a brief tour of the town, revealing a number of beautiful views, and then passed over the Alps towards Geneva, moving more slowly so that they could enjoy the views of the Alps to their left, the snow-covered peaks glistening starkly white in the bright sunshine. They slowed further as a lake became visible in the distance.

  “That is Lake Geneva. At the head of the lake lies the city of Geneva, the home of the particle accelerator that was so important to our work. The facility is staffed mainly by scientists and technicians who transport in on a daily basis, because they dislike the cooler conditions here. The winters can become very cold, when the air settling down from the mountains brings frigid air from the glaciers to pool over the lake, but the summers can be warm and pleasant. I like this city almost as much as I like Garmisch-Partenkirchen.” They could hear the smile in Geoffrey’s words. “Because its activities are centered almost entirely on the particle accelerator, there are numerous farms vacant in the area. This area could probably support several million people, and its climate and scenic splendor would make it popular with tourists. The wider area was known for many years for its very high-quality manufacture, particularly watches, time-keeping and measuring devices, and medical equipment, as well as pharmaceuticals. The country remained neutral in conflicts between the surrounding nations for many centuries, which resulted in the population enjoying a very high standard of living. One result of that was that the cost of labor at all levels was too high for the country to be competitive in most areas of manufacture.”

  They carried on over France, stopping briefly to look at picturesque towns and cities, and then moved on to Veremun.

  “This planet suffered very badly in a protracted war between the nations, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths on both sides. We managed to bring an end to the war, partly by returning many of the political prisoners of the aggressor country to their Parliament, where they faced down the dictator who had instigated the war. We subsequently found that he was insane, suffering from delusions and the conviction that he was right where everyone else was wrong, brought on by the injection of a particular drug by a tiny insect found on a sister planet and imported to this planet in spaceships. We have eradicated that threat, and quarantined the sister planet. However, this planet is under-populated, and would welcome new residents, as would almost every other planet. After the war, the new President, a quantum physicist, brought about reconciliation and unity by merging the countries into one, and then sub-dividing it into districts where every citizen can have a direct influence on the laws passed to govern the area. The President
is Uan, whom you met on Enderen. The experience of that system of government seems to demonstrate that it is one of the more efficient in giving expression to the wishes of the citizens.” Geoffrey paused to allow them to reflect on what he had told them. He knew how difficult it was to picture someone like Uan, a highly-civilized and polite man, as the leader of an entire planet. “The last place I would like to show you is Setlen, on Ga-In. Although the university there is the most advanced institute of higher learning in the universe and the city matches that quality, the planet itself ran down very badly under a religious dictatorship. We are working to rehabilitate the main city, but a large proportion of the thinking people have left the planet, most to live in Durban, which we spoke about earlier. Those people remaining have been very reluctant to break away from millennia of brainwashing by the religious leaders, and they would rather pray for help than do the work themselves. However, change is taking place, although very slowly. I would not recommend this planet as a place to live, except in Setlen, which is a city isolated in a beautiful valley.

  They arrived over Setlen, and they could all understand the tone in Geoffrey’s voice when he spoke of the city. It was small, and surrounded by orderly farmlands, clustered in a friendly way within a ring of tall mountains. It was clear that considerable thought and experience had gone into the planning and construction of the city. It seemed so well-settled, so right in its setting, that it seemed to have grown with the valley and the mountains that surrounded it. The university was a beautiful building, seeming to ooze education, and the students and faculty members walking around or talking earnestly seemed to be of an upper class of humanity.