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A Planet's Love
A Planet’s Love
By Cotroneo
Part 1
Welcome……Deir…dre…
Lady Deirdre Skye awoke to a freezing cold wind, which seemed to make her feel naked, in her bed. The orbital probes they had sent down from the Unity, never told them about the vast night winds that came from the ocean. The tents, which were packed in the Unity Pod, weren’t designed to be constantly batered by this vast wind. Knowing that she would never get to sleep in this cold brisk wind, she decided to take a walk.
She seemed to be the only one awake, which was no surprise, because of the hard work all her people were putting forth during the day. It was hard to believe that just a few days ago, she had been on the cutting edge of technology, in space, yet now, she and her colonists were stuck in tents and barely a piece of advanced technology in sight. Yet, as she walked through her few remaining Unity agricultural pods, she seemed to feel secure and relieved. She almost felt jealous of the earth vegetation, which flourished in this strong nitrogen environment, while she was stuck wearing a breather. These unity breathers never were quite good, which was probably do to the cheapness of some earth company trying to save a dollar or two. She could feel her mouth being stretched and given a rash by the breathers rough mouthpiece. As she walked closer to a white pine, which was one of the larger species she had brought down from the Unity, Deirdre heard the sudden roughly of vegetation behind her. A sudden urge of fright and fear came over her, which started her heart to pump violently. But, she had learned long ago on Earth that fear only made her stronger and quicker.
“Lady, is their a problem with the pine…..can I help?” a young technician whispered as she walked closer to Skye.
Deirdre thought to herself, how foolish she felt, being scared in her own new-fashioned home. She turned to see Sarita, who was a young biologist no older than twenty years. Sarita had been a student apprentice of Deirdre, back on earth, and one of Deirdre’s closest friends.
“Why are you up so late, we have such a hard day ahead of us”, Deirdre had whispered back so that no one else would wake.
“I couldn’t sleep with the breather on, my lady”, Sarita murmur quietly to Deirdre, as if they were strangers.
“Sarita, must we be strangers on this alien world, for we have known each other far to long.” Deirdre stepped closer as she spoke; “Come, let’s take a walk outside, near the beach.
Their had only been several hundred people on Deirdre’s unity pod, when they had left the Unity, yet the little settlement of these biologists and farmers spanned a quarter of a kilometer. Deirdre had managed to get both agricultural modules on the Unity, so she new she had an advantage in this hard environment. Although, she was very worried that her small population would ever get off the ground with so few people and so many unknowns about this planet. Her unity pod had made a controlled landing on the western most continent near an inlet to the ocean, which seemed to be very fertile from the probe readings sent before they landed. The past several days had been dedicated to unloading the pod and scouting out the initial landing site.
“Will you being going on the expedition tomorrow Sarita?”, asked Deirdre, which had broke the silence of the night.
“Yes, my lady, ill be heading out in the morning with the scout patrol”
“Are you still planning on searching that northern mountain range?” questioned Deirdre, who thought to herself how much she wished that she was going with her. Yet she knew her place was here, where should could direct and control many of the free-minded individuals of the camp.
“Yes, what I have seen from early data, is that the local vegetation around the ridges of the mountains, is something to see.” Answered Sarita, almost understanding what Deirdre was thinking about.
“Sarita do you think we are the only humans left, do you think the other pods made the reentry?” Deirdre asked, which startled Sarita about the different line of questioning, and her sudden thinking about how Deirdre may be right.
“Perhaps a better question would be, if it’s right for this planet that we do exist.”
Sarita question seemed to not sit well with Deirdre, and she new that Deirdre had thought of this before also. They both retired for the night, and it seemed that Sarita had grown accustom enough to the breather that she could get some rest.
* * * * *
The sun glared off the top of the rover, producing a beautiful rainbow of colors on the windshield. Sarita had not fully recovered from her lack of sleep, yet she was thrilled that she was going to be able to get out into the openness of this world. Although she was excited she still had the lingering feeling of regret for the planet.
“Sarita, were ready to go.” said a man, no older than Sarita, named Link.
The expedition would consist of two unity rovers traveling for a few days to the north of their base. Deirdre wanted to know what vegetation and native life was around her little colony, so she had assigned Link, a very intelligent biologist to survey the area. Sarita and a few others went along to help and cover more distance that Link could not do by himself.
“Sorry, I was just thinking”, exclaimed Sarita as she entered the unity rover, trying not to hit her head on the low ceiling.
“Were pressurized, you can take off your breather”, Link said, with a feeling of relief and freedom. It had been several days since Link or Sarita had taken off their breather, which could be easily seen by the face marks around their lips. Both chuckled at each other while Henry, the unity rover pilot, started his pre-check. It wasn’t every day that two biologists were strapped to a nuclear reactor, which was quite an exicement for both of them. It seemed that the United Nation’s unity council decided to put nuclear reactors on all their equipment because they were afraid they would not have any or enough fossil fuels on hand. It actually seems that they chose correctly for once. The fresh oxygen produced within the rover was a welcome change to the over used oxygen within their masks. Of course any scientist would say that there was no difference in the freshness of the oxygen. The breathers were designed to reuse the individual’s carbon dioxide and produce oxygen in its place.
The countryside was in full bloom, which looked magnificent with the sun shining down on it, while the reds and oranges seemed to glitter off into the sky. The vast diversity of the ecosystem was simple a biologists dream but an ecoligist nightmare. They had noticed quickly that if they wanted to survive, they would need to cut and strip some of the land of its vegetation. Perhaps Deirdre had another wish for this survey, maybe to find some land that was already cleared and no vegetation growing there. The first day of the landing, before any of the colonists had stepped on the planet, Deirdre had agreed with the rest of the crew, that they would live a society that learned to live and thrive with the environment. All colonists signed their own version of the Mayflower compact, as they exited the pod.
The vegetation was mostly made up of vines and tubules of all colors of the rainbow. Yet, their seemed to be a predominant red tubuler plant, which seemed to grow in vaster numbers than anything she seemed to locate. At certain times, they were unfortunately forced to ride over these vines due to the fact that there was no obvious way around these kilometer long patches. She also noticed that there was a vast difference in the amount of sentient animals on this planet compared to Earth. She could remember visiting the few remaining forests on Earth and seeing dozens of different animals crawling and feeding all over the forest bed, yet she hardly saw anything beside the casual frog-like creature.
“Deirdre would love this”, exclaimed Link over the loud noise of the rover’s engine in the back.
“Your right, she loves to get out in the open, away from human civilization”
Sarita had by now set up thermo-binoculars on her side of the cockpit, and was scanning the surrounding area for any small hint of animal life. To her surprise, the weird vegetation mentioned before was admitting an enormous amount of heat energy. It was almost futile to look for anything in thermo scan, because the whole surroundings were lighting up like a Christmas tree on the scanners. She would have to remember to include these strange findings in her personal report back to Deirdre. It was common that Sarita would write her own report to Deirdre, because Deirdre was always displeased about people who tried to hide there mistakes that made them look bad and put false information in its place. She relied on Sarita to tell her the truth.
“Were coming up on a massive amount of red foliage, it will take quite a while to pass through this stuff, and its getting late”
“I think we should call it a day, and start fresh in the morning. I think it would be nice to get out of this vehicle and get some specimens for research back home.” Responded Link to old Henry’s inquiry.
Henry Zorban had been a college professor at MIT, teaching engineering, before the unity council had asked him to lead the rover unit on pod 3. Deirdre was very lucky to have such an experienced pilot and navigator at these times when searching and surveying the new land was of the utmost importance. Yet, Henry never really fit in well with these “green fanatics” as he called, Deirdre and her pack of followers. Yet he had earned the communities respect and admiration through his hard work. To bad the colonists would always call him old, or grandpa, due to his back problems while doing work or driving.
* * * * *
“What do you think of my idea, Lady?”
“I’m sorry William, can you repeat that again, I was abit daydreaming” Deirdre had been taking stim pills all week, and it seemed to be wearing her down. She couldn’t seem to concentrate more than a few minutes at time.
“Deirdre, get some rest, we can talk about the building plans in the morning” replied William. Although they had just met during the last hours onboard the Unity, Kevin always was able to tell the slightest changes and alterations in someone’s mind and body.
“That is a good idea Kevin, and I’ll take it under consideration, but to get back to what we were talking about before. What materials will we be using for permanent infrastructure, and why the green tint?” Deirdre was glad that she had chose Kevin for the unity project back on earth, his engineering skills were so needed at this time. At only twenty-five, Kevin Sorbio had taken control of all her engineering and construction projects within the community and was proposing some interesting ideas.
“The strange dirt and water give off greenish tint when combined. These, I hope, will be our initial building blocks for the new buildings I'm proposing. Although, I'm not sure how well these strange materials will hold up versus this harsh wind, but I see no other choice. I only hope that Chiron dirt is similar to Earth dirt. I’ll assign a team to start work on a kiln, which we will need to mass-produce these bricks, if we can call them that. Until then, we will have to use mirrors or something useful, to induce heat while they harden.”
“Kevin, will the bricks require a lot of the dirt and water around us. Must we start ripping up this place within the first week. I would hate to see a strip mine next door to where I sleep. It would tear my heart out.”
It was very unlike Deirdre to talk about her feelings to others, except Sarita, but the stim pills had gotten to her, and she seemed a bit out of it.
“Deirdre, sometimes we must put aside our ideology if it means our survival…….boy, I can tell you need some sleep” , retorted Kevin.
Deirdre couldn’t stop thinking how we humans always give up our morals and ideas when it suits us. She retired to her own personal tent, they had set up for her, this morning.
Deirdre…We understand…..
* * * * *
Unity rovers were well stocked, and they were designed to survive long periods on their own. While Henry and Link set up camp, and to put some form of eatable food on the portable heater, Sarita decided to take a walk and collect some data. The sun had not fully receded, so she estimated that she still had a few good hours of visible searching.
“Is this world ready for us, rather are we ready for this planet. I wonder if we locust will be able to take control of this land without destroying it”, Sarita frequently would think to herself, and carry on conversation within her own mind.
“These vines seem to react to my presence, I wonder if the sentient life on this planet is in the plant form, rather than the animal form. It would be an interesting difference to study when I get back.
“Wow… it moved when I was about to step on it. I wonder how the plant has the motor reflexives to move in short bursts. I don’t even see any visible way of sensing me, or knowing that I’m here. It must be the sandwich in my backpack, I could always smell bad eggplant from a good distance too. Perhaps I was wrong, maybe we two species are closer related then I thought.
By Cotroneo
Part 1
Welcome……Deir…dre…
Lady Deirdre Skye awoke to a freezing cold wind, which seemed to make her feel naked, in her bed. The orbital probes they had sent down from the Unity, never told them about the vast night winds that came from the ocean. The tents, which were packed in the Unity Pod, weren’t designed to be constantly batered by this vast wind. Knowing that she would never get to sleep in this cold brisk wind, she decided to take a walk.
She seemed to be the only one awake, which was no surprise, because of the hard work all her people were putting forth during the day. It was hard to believe that just a few days ago, she had been on the cutting edge of technology, in space, yet now, she and her colonists were stuck in tents and barely a piece of advanced technology in sight. Yet, as she walked through her few remaining Unity agricultural pods, she seemed to feel secure and relieved. She almost felt jealous of the earth vegetation, which flourished in this strong nitrogen environment, while she was stuck wearing a breather. These unity breathers never were quite good, which was probably do to the cheapness of some earth company trying to save a dollar or two. She could feel her mouth being stretched and given a rash by the breathers rough mouthpiece. As she walked closer to a white pine, which was one of the larger species she had brought down from the Unity, Deirdre heard the sudden roughly of vegetation behind her. A sudden urge of fright and fear came over her, which started her heart to pump violently. But, she had learned long ago on Earth that fear only made her stronger and quicker.
“Lady, is their a problem with the pine…..can I help?” a young technician whispered as she walked closer to Skye.
Deirdre thought to herself, how foolish she felt, being scared in her own new-fashioned home. She turned to see Sarita, who was a young biologist no older than twenty years. Sarita had been a student apprentice of Deirdre, back on earth, and one of Deirdre’s closest friends.
“Why are you up so late, we have such a hard day ahead of us”, Deirdre had whispered back so that no one else would wake.
“I couldn’t sleep with the breather on, my lady”, Sarita murmur quietly to Deirdre, as if they were strangers.
“Sarita, must we be strangers on this alien world, for we have known each other far to long.” Deirdre stepped closer as she spoke; “Come, let’s take a walk outside, near the beach.
Their had only been several hundred people on Deirdre’s unity pod, when they had left the Unity, yet the little settlement of these biologists and farmers spanned a quarter of a kilometer. Deirdre had managed to get both agricultural modules on the Unity, so she new she had an advantage in this hard environment. Although, she was very worried that her small population would ever get off the ground with so few people and so many unknowns about this planet. Her unity pod had made a controlled landing on the western most continent near an inlet to the ocean, which seemed to be very fertile from the probe readings sent before they landed. The past several days had been dedicated to unloading the pod and scouting out the initial landing site.
“Will you being going on the expedition tomorrow Sarita?”, asked Deirdre, which had broke the silence of the night.
“Yes, my lady, ill be heading out in the morning with the scout patrol”
“Are you still planning on searching that northern mountain range?” questioned Deirdre, who thought to herself how much she wished that she was going with her. Yet she knew her place was here, where should could direct and control many of the free-minded individuals of the camp.
“Yes, what I have seen from early data, is that the local vegetation around the ridges of the mountains, is something to see.” Answered Sarita, almost understanding what Deirdre was thinking about.
“Sarita do you think we are the only humans left, do you think the other pods made the reentry?” Deirdre asked, which startled Sarita about the different line of questioning, and her sudden thinking about how Deirdre may be right.
“Perhaps a better question would be, if it’s right for this planet that we do exist.”
Sarita question seemed to not sit well with Deirdre, and she new that Deirdre had thought of this before also. They both retired for the night, and it seemed that Sarita had grown accustom enough to the breather that she could get some rest.
* * * * *
The sun glared off the top of the rover, producing a beautiful rainbow of colors on the windshield. Sarita had not fully recovered from her lack of sleep, yet she was thrilled that she was going to be able to get out into the openness of this world. Although she was excited she still had the lingering feeling of regret for the planet.
“Sarita, were ready to go.” said a man, no older than Sarita, named Link.
The expedition would consist of two unity rovers traveling for a few days to the north of their base. Deirdre wanted to know what vegetation and native life was around her little colony, so she had assigned Link, a very intelligent biologist to survey the area. Sarita and a few others went along to help and cover more distance that Link could not do by himself.
“Sorry, I was just thinking”, exclaimed Sarita as she entered the unity rover, trying not to hit her head on the low ceiling.
“Were pressurized, you can take off your breather”, Link said, with a feeling of relief and freedom. It had been several days since Link or Sarita had taken off their breather, which could be easily seen by the face marks around their lips. Both chuckled at each other while Henry, the unity rover pilot, started his pre-check. It wasn’t every day that two biologists were strapped to a nuclear reactor, which was quite an exicement for both of them. It seemed that the United Nation’s unity council decided to put nuclear reactors on all their equipment because they were afraid they would not have any or enough fossil fuels on hand. It actually seems that they chose correctly for once. The fresh oxygen produced within the rover was a welcome change to the over used oxygen within their masks. Of course any scientist would say that there was no difference in the freshness of the oxygen. The breathers were designed to reuse the individual’s carbon dioxide and produce oxygen in its place.
The countryside was in full bloom, which looked magnificent with the sun shining down on it, while the reds and oranges seemed to glitter off into the sky. The vast diversity of the ecosystem was simple a biologists dream but an ecoligist nightmare. They had noticed quickly that if they wanted to survive, they would need to cut and strip some of the land of its vegetation. Perhaps Deirdre had another wish for this survey, maybe to find some land that was already cleared and no vegetation growing there. The first day of the landing, before any of the colonists had stepped on the planet, Deirdre had agreed with the rest of the crew, that they would live a society that learned to live and thrive with the environment. All colonists signed their own version of the Mayflower compact, as they exited the pod.
The vegetation was mostly made up of vines and tubules of all colors of the rainbow. Yet, their seemed to be a predominant red tubuler plant, which seemed to grow in vaster numbers than anything she seemed to locate. At certain times, they were unfortunately forced to ride over these vines due to the fact that there was no obvious way around these kilometer long patches. She also noticed that there was a vast difference in the amount of sentient animals on this planet compared to Earth. She could remember visiting the few remaining forests on Earth and seeing dozens of different animals crawling and feeding all over the forest bed, yet she hardly saw anything beside the casual frog-like creature.
“Deirdre would love this”, exclaimed Link over the loud noise of the rover’s engine in the back.
“Your right, she loves to get out in the open, away from human civilization”
Sarita had by now set up thermo-binoculars on her side of the cockpit, and was scanning the surrounding area for any small hint of animal life. To her surprise, the weird vegetation mentioned before was admitting an enormous amount of heat energy. It was almost futile to look for anything in thermo scan, because the whole surroundings were lighting up like a Christmas tree on the scanners. She would have to remember to include these strange findings in her personal report back to Deirdre. It was common that Sarita would write her own report to Deirdre, because Deirdre was always displeased about people who tried to hide there mistakes that made them look bad and put false information in its place. She relied on Sarita to tell her the truth.
“Were coming up on a massive amount of red foliage, it will take quite a while to pass through this stuff, and its getting late”
“I think we should call it a day, and start fresh in the morning. I think it would be nice to get out of this vehicle and get some specimens for research back home.” Responded Link to old Henry’s inquiry.
Henry Zorban had been a college professor at MIT, teaching engineering, before the unity council had asked him to lead the rover unit on pod 3. Deirdre was very lucky to have such an experienced pilot and navigator at these times when searching and surveying the new land was of the utmost importance. Yet, Henry never really fit in well with these “green fanatics” as he called, Deirdre and her pack of followers. Yet he had earned the communities respect and admiration through his hard work. To bad the colonists would always call him old, or grandpa, due to his back problems while doing work or driving.
* * * * *
“What do you think of my idea, Lady?”
“I’m sorry William, can you repeat that again, I was abit daydreaming” Deirdre had been taking stim pills all week, and it seemed to be wearing her down. She couldn’t seem to concentrate more than a few minutes at time.
“Deirdre, get some rest, we can talk about the building plans in the morning” replied William. Although they had just met during the last hours onboard the Unity, Kevin always was able to tell the slightest changes and alterations in someone’s mind and body.
“That is a good idea Kevin, and I’ll take it under consideration, but to get back to what we were talking about before. What materials will we be using for permanent infrastructure, and why the green tint?” Deirdre was glad that she had chose Kevin for the unity project back on earth, his engineering skills were so needed at this time. At only twenty-five, Kevin Sorbio had taken control of all her engineering and construction projects within the community and was proposing some interesting ideas.
“The strange dirt and water give off greenish tint when combined. These, I hope, will be our initial building blocks for the new buildings I'm proposing. Although, I'm not sure how well these strange materials will hold up versus this harsh wind, but I see no other choice. I only hope that Chiron dirt is similar to Earth dirt. I’ll assign a team to start work on a kiln, which we will need to mass-produce these bricks, if we can call them that. Until then, we will have to use mirrors or something useful, to induce heat while they harden.”
“Kevin, will the bricks require a lot of the dirt and water around us. Must we start ripping up this place within the first week. I would hate to see a strip mine next door to where I sleep. It would tear my heart out.”
It was very unlike Deirdre to talk about her feelings to others, except Sarita, but the stim pills had gotten to her, and she seemed a bit out of it.
“Deirdre, sometimes we must put aside our ideology if it means our survival…….boy, I can tell you need some sleep” , retorted Kevin.
Deirdre couldn’t stop thinking how we humans always give up our morals and ideas when it suits us. She retired to her own personal tent, they had set up for her, this morning.
Deirdre…We understand…..
* * * * *
Unity rovers were well stocked, and they were designed to survive long periods on their own. While Henry and Link set up camp, and to put some form of eatable food on the portable heater, Sarita decided to take a walk and collect some data. The sun had not fully receded, so she estimated that she still had a few good hours of visible searching.
“Is this world ready for us, rather are we ready for this planet. I wonder if we locust will be able to take control of this land without destroying it”, Sarita frequently would think to herself, and carry on conversation within her own mind.
“These vines seem to react to my presence, I wonder if the sentient life on this planet is in the plant form, rather than the animal form. It would be an interesting difference to study when I get back.
“Wow… it moved when I was about to step on it. I wonder how the plant has the motor reflexives to move in short bursts. I don’t even see any visible way of sensing me, or knowing that I’m here. It must be the sandwich in my backpack, I could always smell bad eggplant from a good distance too. Perhaps I was wrong, maybe we two species are closer related then I thought.
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