Solbidyum Wars Saga 4: Too Late for Earth (17 page)

“Welcome back,” Kala said with a grin.  I noticed someone trying to separate both Jenira and Kala to get to the bed; then A’Lappe’s head squeezed through between them.  “Please ladies, allow me to examine him, if you don’t mind.”  Both Jenira and Kala stepped aside with looks of embarrassment on their faces.

“Now, Tibby, how many fingers am I holding up?”  A’Lappe asked.

“You’re going to have to lift your hand higher if you want me to answer that.”  I quipped, as A’Lappe was holding his hand at his side below the edge of the bed where I could not see it.

“Oh, yes,” he laughed.  “I guess it’s safe to assume you do not have x-ray vision.  There—now, how many fingers am I holding up?”

“Two,” I answered

“And now?”

“Three!”  I was noticing that my new eye was starting to see things more clearly and there was less brightness.

“Now, I want you to follow my finger using both your eyes,” he said as he began to move his finger around in front of my face.  Close your old eye and do it using just your new one.”

I did as he asked, but I noticed that the eye seemed to be tearing a lot from the brightness.

“It’s kind of bright,” I said, “and my eye is tearing a lot.”

“That’s perfectly ordinary and to be expected,” he responded.  “In a few hours both of those should be greatly reduced, and in a day or so everything should be normal.”

“So then everything went well?”

“Everything went flawlessly, no problems at all.”  I would recommend that you take it easy tonight and just rest.  Tomorrow you can resume your normal activities.”

“Thank you A’Lappe.”

“It was my pleasure, Tibby.  Just one thing, please don’t go repeating the stunt that lost you that eye in the first place.”

“You have my promise on that,” I answered.

I looked back at Kala and Jenira, and for the first time I realized that Jenira still was wearing the pattern about her eye that the natives on Alle Bamma had painted there.

“I see you are still wearing the paint on your face.”

Jenira signed quickly.  “No, this is a new one. I painted this one myself.  The old one washed off when I showered.”

“I see, how long are you going to wear this one?  Did Thumumba ask you to wear it?”  I asked, as the possibility suddenly occurred to me.

“I think I am always going to wear it,” she signed.  “Thumumba never said anything to me about it, but I like it. It makes me feel like his children are my family now, and I am one of them, just like you and Kalana.” She grinned.

I was beginning to realize just how important the feeling of family was to Jenira.  After the loss of her mother and father, her brother Tanden, and after that nearly losing me after my crash, she needed to have an extended family of size of which she could feel a part.  After A’Lappe and Jenira were gone, Kala turned to me with a grin on her face.  “I have a surprise for you.”

“Will I like it?”

“I think you will, but let’s see.”  She walked over to a wall console and activated some controls. When she did, the room filled with the wonderful sound of smooth jazz.  Not the jazz-like sounds heard in the Federation, but real smooth jazz of Earth origin.”

“But how?  Where did you get these?”  I stammered.

Kala’s grin got bigger.  “They were part of the broadcasts we picked up from Earth on the surveillance satellites.  Kerabac and A’Lappe have been stripping them out of the broadcasts and recording them.”

“Where the heck does A’Lappe get all the time to do all the things he does?”  I wondered aloud.

“I don’t think he sleeps, or if he does it’s very little.  His metabolism seems to be much different from ours.”

“Hmm, I wonder if he hibernates every so often.”  I pondered.

“You would have to ask him that question, I’m not going to try.”  Kala answered as she climbed in the bed next to me, snuggling up and laying her head on my chest.  “I’m glad to see you back to looking like your old self again, Tib.  Try and stay in one piece for a while.  Please.”

“Yes ma’am,” I responded, as a Johnny Mathis tune began to play. “I will try.”

Over the next few weeks' things on the
NEW ORLEANS
were both relaxed and routine as we headed toward Earth.  Kala and I spent time in our secret garden aboard the ship; we also exercised and worked out in the gym and enjoyed the music and company of the crew in the entertainment lounge.  While much of the entertainment centered on music and dancing, Padaran had added a new comic element using his uncanny and comedic vocal impressions of various members of the crew and Federation, including his uncle, Admiral Regeny.  The audience seemed to be most amused with his impressions of conversations between A’Lappe and the Admiral, and impressions of Commodore Stonbersa giving commands on the bridge.  He also did a rather amazing impression of Cantolla flirting with an imaginary crew member that had the audience in tears, and the usually cool and in control Cantolla blushing.  Fortunately, everyone took it all in good spirits.  I was not immune from his skits either, and I learned a great deal about myself and how others saw me from his act.  I began to realize that my crew felt that I was too concerned about making mistakes, and they expected me to appear surer and less in doubt about the actions I took.  They were willing to follow my lead and decisions in events but didn’t like me having misgivings about them afterwards.  I made a mental note to try not to display regrets or misgivings about my decisions and actions in the future.  I may not be able to prevent feeling the way I did about events, but I could control my actions and behavior about them.

Kala and I were swimming in one of the pools a few days later when I heard my com link beeping.  I swam to the side of the pool, hopped out and picked up my wrist com from the lounge chair.  “Tibby here,” I stated.

“Tibby, this is Stonbersa, we are getting images on our long-range sensors of Earth and other planets in your solar system.  We are still about 4 and a half days from Earth, but I thought you would want to know.”

“Thanks for the info; I’m on the way to the bridge to see for myself.”  I turned to Kala, “You want to come see this?”

“Definitely Tib, I wouldn’t miss seeing your home world for the first time.”

Even though we were still a long way outside the solar system of Earth, the long-range sensors could show some detail.  At first I found it impossible to believe what I was seeing on the screen was Earth, but the presence of the Moon circling it revealed that it was indeed the Earth that I was looking at.  Gone was the blue marble with swirling white cotton-like clouds; what replaced them were dark-gray seas and dull gray land masses with volcanic fires and dark black smoky clouds that swirled in dense patterns around the planet.  The vivid blues and greens which once covered the planet were nowhere to be seen.  I found myself gasping and choking as I tried to speak.  Kala reached out and took hold of my arm to support me as my knees began to buckle.  “Tibby, are you alright?”

“It… it can’t be…,” I stammered, “are there any signs of life?  Any radio signals or any transmissions from the planet?”

“We’re not picking up anything,” Verona answered from the communication console.

“Is this the greatest magnification?”  I asked.

“We can zoom in a bit tighter,” Kerabac answered from the Captain’s chair, as he spoke, the image increased in size until it filled nearly half the screen.  Dark orange spots could be seen on the dark side of the planet, and I could only assume that they were volcanic in origin.  The scene was surreal; so far I had not been able to identify any part of the planet.

“Keep searching for any signs of life, any at all.  Someone must have survived, even if only a handful.”  I sobbed.

“Tibby, we’ll keep looking, but I must tell you it is extremely unlikely any life could have survived the impact your planet has taken.  I have seen sights like this on other worlds, and I’ve never seen a world this bad off where life forms above microbial levels survived.”

“We need to check it out anyway, you never know, someone may have survived.”  I said.  I was not about to give up hope, no matter how bad things looked.

The next day as we drew closer to Earth things looked worse.  I saw no blue seas, no green areas indicating grassland or forests.  Only dark gray patches and black and gray smoky clouds punctuated by fiery plumes of lava that fell back to Earth, creating long streams.  It was obvious the asteroid impact have fractured the planet’s surface thousands of places.  At one place there appeared to be a huge ring of volcanoes thousands of miles in diameter, and from what we could recognize from peering through the clouds using our sensors, surrounded a new sea.  “That must be the impact area,” Kerabac stated.  I could see the western most edge of the ring appeared to be pushed up, creating a huge mountain ridge on the southwestern edge of the crater.  “I wonder what continent it hit?”  I muttered.  Nothing I could see looked remotely like anyplace I remembered on Earth.

“I would imagine the sea levels have all been changed,” Kerabac continued.  “Depending on the amount of ice in the asteroid, and the amount of water displaced or dirt shoved up, it would change all the coastal features.”

I realized that Kerabac was right, and I began trying to figure out if I could recognize any high elevations’ areas and make some sense of them.  Places like most of south Texas and all of Louisiana would most likely be under water, along with Florida, most of Central America, and many other places, assuming that the asteroid hadn’t impacted directly on them.

“The planet seems to have a very pronounced wobble to it.”  Stonbersa said.

“Most likely the asteroid hit at an angle and it tipped the planet.  Kerabac added.

“Earth did have a slight wobble to it that was responsible for changes in the seasons even before this impact.”

“Well, this wobble is nearly 40 degrees, from what the readings are telling us.”

“Forty degrees?  As I recall, it was only a little over 20 degrees when I still lived here.”

“Forty point 21 degrees at the moment to be exact, with a day that is 20.5 hours long, and an orbit around the sun of 352 days.”  Kerabac said while still looking at the console readings.

“What?  It lost some days as well; it used to take 365 days for an orbit about the sun,” I muttered in anguish.  Kala squeezed my arm tightly.  “Tibby, I’m so sorry.”

“It must have been a tremendous impact to do so much damage,” Stonbersa said.

The next morning were still quite far out from Earth and approaching Saturn when suddenly Verona said.  “I seem to be picking up some sort of electronic emissions from the fourth planet in this solar system.  They are very weak but they seem to be of an intelligent origin.”

“Fourth planet?  That would be Mars.  When I lived on Earth there was talk of sending a team to Mars to try and establish a base there.  Is it possible they made it and someone is still there?  Verona, can you put the signal on speakers so I can hear it?”  Verona manipulated some controls on the console and suddenly from the speakers I heard, “Roger, base.  Heading back now.  We located some ice pockets beneath the dirt but quantity is still unknown.”  It was someone speaking English, but I was not able to determine the accent.

“Do you think it possible to set up a solar array that could melt that ice?” a second voice responded.  This one had a slight Russian accent.

“Negative, on the solar array, it’s down too deep in a crevice and in a place where it would be hard to bounce a light beam for any length of time.  I hate to destroy anyone’s hopes, but we’re not going to be able to melt this ice to help create an atmosphere here.  We could possibly cut up chunks and carry them back to melt and use the water to expand our greenhouse production.”

“Verona,” I said, “can you arrange for us to transmit back on that frequency?”

“Yes I think so,” she said.  Do you want me to open a line for you?”

“Yes, definitely... open a frequency now.”

Verona made some adjustments and then said, “The com link is established, go ahead sir.”

Suddenly, I realized I had no idea what I was going to say.  I sort of mumbled.  “Ahh … this is Tibby Renwalt, from Earth… Ahh, that is, I was from Earth.  Can you read me?”  There was a pause, and then the Russian accent said.  “Frank, is that you messing around?  If so it’s not funny.  No one from Earth survived except us, now quit horsing around.”

“No, no… I’m not Frank and I’m not horsing around; I’ve been living in… well, in another part of the galaxy for a number of years   It’s hard to explain.  Even so, I’m nearby, well, just passing Saturn now actually, but we will be to Mars in just a few hours.  How many of you are there on Mars?”

“Ok, I’ve had enough of this crap… who is this?  It's not funny.”  The voice came back.

“No, no… I’m serious.  Listen, I will be in orbit around Mars in about…” I looked at Kerabac, who had a confused look on his face.  Suddenly I realized I was speaking English, and while Kerabac knew some English I had taught him, he was not proficient at it.

“Kerabac, how long before we can get to Mars?”  I asked in Federation.

“Mars?”

“The fourth planet from the sun?”

“Oh…!” he turned and looked at the controls.  “In about 2 hours and 45 minutes, I would think.”