From the Darkness by Thomas Gilmor

[Reviews - 0]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer

- Text Size +

From the Darkness
A Short Story in the Earth 2 Universe
By Thomas Gilmor

Chapter 1
Day 368

The sun was bright as it reflected off the sand with enormous intensity. The temperature, already a stifling 40oC, was still climbing and the maximum would not be reached for another two hours. The past two weeks were by far the hottest ever encountered on G889. But for one small boy his heart was cold and his world black as night. Not even the glaring sun pierced his world. Lost in thought he wasn't paying attention when Danziger called for the routing six hour break to rest in the shade and charge up the batteries for the long night trip.

It had been three months since his mother fell ill and was put into cold sleep. He missed her terribly and he had fallen into a deep depression. He also felt guilty. His mother had sacrificed everything to bring him to this planet in hope of a cure. And now it appeared that she had also sacrificed herself. Yale had discussed with Julia about using drugs to let him overcome his pain but the doctor had resisted and argued that he just needed to grieve. Morgan, of course, pointed out that Devon was not dead and the boy should just grow up. However, to a child that had depended on his mother his entire life, to him she was gone.

The members of Eden Project began setting up tents to provide some shade through there wasn't much here in the middle of the desert. Morgan was complaining about the heat and how thirsty he was. Morgan Martin had changed in the past few months, however it was only noticed recently. After the incident with Devon, he had not agreed that Danziger should be leading the group. Morgan thought that with his expertise, being a government agent, he was better suited for the job as leader. However, he was outvoted -unanimously. He'd been quite upset that not even his wife of two years (plus 22 in cold sleep) had supported him. Slowly though Morgan was coming to see the group's point (which was still a bit of a novelty for him.) He had managed to cause more trouble for the group than any other member, well...except for the "Julia working for the Council" fiasco. The "old" Morgan had never bothered to think in terms of the "good of others", now this planet was even changing *him*. He knew he could no longer just act for himself. Since the number of members in Eden Project had dwindled by three so far, now more than ever the group had to function as just that, a group. Their very survival depended on it.

The adult members of Eden Project met in the large tent while the kids had already been bedded down for some much needed rest. Danziger and Baines were in the process of unfolding a large map while decided on their next course of action.

"OK, if we keep up this pace for the next week we should be clearing the desert and entering a grassland zone. From there it is only another 3500 km to New Pacifica. Another half year to go," Danziger stated tiredly.

"What about the vehicles? They've been through a lot of wear and tear. I don't belittle your maintenance skills but come on, there is only so much they can take and only so much you can do," Morgan demanded, walking in late after setting up his own tent.

"I've got them this far. They'll hold," John muttered disapprovingly. Morgan, although less selfish, still had a long way to go on his scepticism.

"Has there been any Terrain activity Alonzo?" asked Julia.

"No, this region has been extremely quite. I haven't had a dream in over a month. Perhaps there are no Terrains here or they stay away from this part of the planet. Why?" Alonzo replied.

Julia sighed, "I'm concerned about Uly. It's three months now and I am definitely reading lowered Serotonin levels in his hypothalamus but his connection to the Terrains makes his 'depression' different than any other I've encountered. I was wondering if the Terrains are involved with it somehow."

"I doubt it. I would have heard from them by now."

"Well maybe we should keep him busier; help stop the self dwelling, the doubting and the insecurity. He should pull out of it... with time," Bess offered with genuine concern.

"He'll pull through. He's a tough kid," Danziger stated. "Now let's get some rest while the vehicles charge up."

And with that they all slowly dispersed to their respected areas, to wait out the heat.

They were on the road again by 18:00 hours, the temperature had settled at a more comfortable level and as it continued to hold relatively steady into the wee hours of the morning the group could tell they were starting to move out of the desert zone. In previous weeks, the temperature had dropped to below freezing at night while soaring during the day. It made for quite a challenge to travelling. Too hot in the day for the travel and too cold at night for the vehicles to function efficiently. The joy of journeying through a desert. At least after all this time, the group had become more adaptable to rapid temperature changes, unlike the uniform temperatures they were accustomed to on the stations.

Alonzo and Morgan were on the back of the Transrover looking at the stars. Both moons were below the horizon for a brief time. To kill the boredom, they had designed a star chart with the help of Yale. They had finished the actual plotting of all the stars just four days before. They tried giving names to the new constellations, but neither of the men were too imaginative and they left that up to the kids. Besides, as Alonzo pointed out, they all had names from Earth, they just didn't look the same here on G889. True had come up with some unique names and she had tried getting Uly to help out. On the good days (or nights) he would, but mostly he would just sit and stare off in the depths of space.

On this night, Morgan wore a puzzled look on his face as he turned to question Alonzo. "Check the chart, Declination 20 degrees, Right Ascension 2 hours, 22 minutes, 1 second, 55 arc seconds."

Alonzo looked up the coordinates on the map. There wasn't anything plotted there. The nearest star was almost a degree to the north which he told Morgan.

"Then take a look at this!" Morgan pointed emphatically. "There's a new star!"

Alonzo looked through the binoculars that were handed to him, "I see it, okay I'll add it."

As Alonzo turned to add it to the chart, Morgan got more excited, "No you don't understand. I charted that region before and there weren't any stars there!"

Alonzo gave Morgan the look he was famous for. "It isn't a new star Morgan, you either missed it or it's a cephiod."

"What's a cephoid?" Morgan asked while squinting through the binoculars.

"It's a star that varies in its brightness at a regular interval, usually anywhere between three and 100 days. Since we've been charting for the past sixty days, it must be very faint, otherwise we would've seen it before. It will disappear soon, but I'll add it to the chart anyway."

Morgan didn't say anything but once he was set in his thinking, he wouldn't change his mind. To him it was a new phenomenon, never seen before so he hunted down Yale the next day to double check what Alonzo said was true (or more importantly to prove that Alonzo was wrong).

"Cephoids are very numerous in other galaxies and they provided a means to early astronomers to help calculate the distance to different star systems. In the end, they helped to determining the size of the universe and ultimately the age of it. They vary in periods from three to 100 days, so the peak luminosity should occur about 50 days from now; if it is on the high end of the scale, " Yale informed Morgan.

"Can it be some new phenomenon?" asked Morgan.

"I doubt it. Man had been in space for the last two hundred years. Although we probably haven't seen everything, it is unlikely that this is some new phenomenon. It is most likely a cephoid," replied Yale.

"Can it be a new star?"

"Possibly."

"How can you tell?" Morgan eagerly blurted.

"I can check my star charts to see if I have any cephiods stored in my memory in that region of space; please wait....." Yale's eyes seemed to focus inwards as he analyzed his data base. "..I don't have any record of a star in that position, however I was only programmed with the major star groups, not all of them, so it could still be an unimportant cephiod.

"Is there any way we could tell if it is?" Morgan inquired.

"If the luminosity continues to increase then begins to decrease, it is a cephiod. If it remains about constant, then it could be a new star," Yale admitted.

Morgan thought to himself, "I just have to wait and make further observations."

The nights went by and the star which Morgan had called Morgan's Star continued to increase in luminosity each night. He realized that if he announced this to Alonzo he would be admitting he was wrong. Something Morgan didn't usually do. So he kept quiet.

Day 430

The group had passed out of the desert, through the grasslands and they were now travelling through a more temperate area filled with broad leafed trees. Some even reminded Bess of oak. However there were still patches of grassland here and there. Yale explained to the children during their lessons that the transition of biomes was the same that had existed back on Earth. That was, before the deforestation, the burning of tropical forests and grasslands for agriculture. Something that was doomed to fail as soon as the population expanded. The change in biomes allowed travelling during day light and sleep during the night. Back to normal. Or as normal as one could get on this planet.

Julia had created a new anti-depression drug and had started administering it to Uly. The drug had made a difference but Bess liked to take credit for his change and argued that really didn't need them. But no one argued that Uly was starting to get on with his life.

As night settled on the camp, Bess had fallen asleep but Morgan had found that sleep eluded him. Bored, he slipped out of his tent and looked up at the sky. The second moon was just going beneath the horizon, then all the stars came out. It had been some time since Morgan had checked on Morgan's star. He didn't see the point in it after he knew he was wrong. But he had nothing else to do so he decided to wait and check on his star until he got sleepy and he proceeded to dig out the binoculars and the star chart. Perched on a hill just out side of base camp, he scanned the sky for the star. The first time he looked for it, a giant cumulus cloud covered it but it was moving fast enough and there weren't many of them anyways so he soon got a good view of it. He was startled, he could not believe his eyes! He couldn't understand what he was seeing. The star had grown! Not in its size really, but its luminosity had jumped by a factor of four. A million things ran through his head, "It wasn't a cephiod but did stars keep getting brighter?" He wasn't an astronomer but he didn't think they did. "What was it?" Suddenly he jumped up and started running back to camp. He knew what it was, it was so easy! It was the colony ship! He ran into the camp yelling and getting everyone out of bed.

"What is it Morgan?" John growled roughly, clearly annoyed as he rubbed his eyes, "This better be important."

"It is!" exclaimed Morgan.

By this time everyone had gathered around him in the middle of all the tents. Morgan started babbling, "Remember when I started the star chart?" People nodded in recollection. "Well, I saw this star that hadn't been there before and I thought I discovered a new star. But after talking with Yale and Alonzo they told me it was just a cephiod. But the cephiod with the longest periods known are 100 days. That means that it gets brighter for fifty days then it fades away. Well it has been almost 70 days and the star has continued to get brighter! By a factor of 4!"

"So?" asked Baines, who was obviously annoyed that he was awakened by some stellar observation. His bed was far more appealing than astronomy.

"Don't you see? It's so obvious! It's the colony ship. It's moving toward us!" Morgan exclaimed.

This set off a fury of discussion, all at once and everyone had become extremely excited until Alonzo had interrupted: "it could be a nova or a super nova."

"Unlikely, given the fact that the star has increased its luminosity over such a long period of time," pointed out Yale.

"Wait a minute. The colony ship is not scheduled to arrive for another 300 days. Would it be visible now?" Danziger asked.

Yale pondered the question. "No.. it would not be visible for another 280 days, until it starts decelerating. The ship is far too small to be seen at this distance."

"Well then they're early!" Morgan said, getting quite frustrated.

"Not possible under the status they left the stations. There is no way that the colony ship could go any faster that they were scheduled to," Alonzo corrected.

"But we got here faster, and we left at the same time!" Morgan argued.

"That's because we were hauling such a smaller mass. We had less inertia. They don't have the energy to get to the same speed we did. It's physics. It just doesn't work!" exclaimed Alonzo.

"Then what is it?" inquired Bess.

Everyone looked around and there was silence. The eerie silence that no one wants to break. After a minute Morgan realized what he had actually discovered.

"Oh my God! Someone else is coming!"

You must login (register) to review.