Nearly one-hundred years after the first Xran descent group landed on Earth, the time had come for the second of the eventual three remaining descents to begin. Initially all four of the moons and therefore the closely following descents were estimated to arrive on Earth in close order over a period of less than one year. All Xrans had been prepared for immediate departure. But what the scientists had not counted on was the fact that the first moon entering the Earth’s atmosphere was larger than the rest of the moons in Xra’s orbit. The result of the heaviest moon leaving Xra’s orbit for Earth shoved Xra into a slightly higher orbit. This in turn moved the expected remaining moon entries back some one-hundred years, although this was not discovered for many years. All that the remaining Xrans knew is that this delay had severely disrupted their lives. Many of the Xrans believed that the first descent group had died in the descent attempt and that the scientist had no idea what they were doing, or, worse yet, had lied. Many of the Xrans, now quite disillusioned, sought the comfort and spiritual protection of the Great Cavern. It was nearly five Xran generations before most Xrans were convinced of the truth of the science and that eventually all Xrans would be able to descend to Earth safely. But not all Xrans could be converted to those beliefs and chose to stay and pray within the Great Cavern. Since it would be approximately thirty generations before the next descent, a live-and-let-live philosophy between the cavern dwellers and the surface dwellers continued relatively peacefully. There was time.
It was now time for the second descent to follow the next of Xran’s moons into Earth’s atmosphere. The century-old delay had been fortunate for the second and later descents. There had been many improvements in the science and the operations of the descent vehicles, and, the social data generated by one hundred years of the humex experience on Earth jammed the computers of the next descent group. During the second descent one of the vehicles was sacrificed to keep the disintegrating moon from disintegrating too quickly. The brave action by that captain served to save the rest of the group – 200,000 deaths; 1,800,000 saved.
The second descent group landed on the opposite side of the Earth from Nexra with two oceans, one on either side of the group’s location separating it from the center of empire. Worse yet, the second group had landed at a desert site that was devoid of almost all life, bringing with it no chance for assimilation with a non-existent human population. And, to make matters more difficult the third descent group, against all odds, was slated to land very near the second group and of course would suffer the same lack of human population available for assimilation. Having discovered that the third descent group would be landing near the second, the third descent vehicle was over supplied with food and food sources to allow both of the groups to survive until the humex of Nexra could figure out a way to rescue them.
After it had become obvious that no humans or any other useful form of life was going to be present at the second descent site, the humex leadership council began to discuss a rescue plan, made doubly urgent because the third descent group would likely end up in the same area. That, combined with the potential loss of the human assimilation value of four-million Xrans, rendered the failure to rescue the second and third descent groups unacceptable. The humex employed the orbiters to continue refining maps of Earth, concentrating on the most likely rescue route.
Crossing one or the other of the Earth’s large oceans was, of course, the only choice. Some suggested developing a shipbuilding facility at the Grove, some 8,500 land miles away from Nexra; then sailing 12,000 miles directly across the Earth’s largest ocean. This solution seemed unworkable from the beginning. All the shipbuilding expertise resided at either Nexra or Prairie Outpost. It would no doubt be difficult to entice enough humex engineering talent back to the Grove, however compelling the reason. Had there been no other choice, a mass migration of maritime engineers and the army of necessary associates to achieve such a feat may have been possible. But another choice was available – sailing from the long narrow sea that was Nexra’s southern border. This route led directly to the smaller ocean, but would be a longer voyage. It, however, would be closer to land much more of the way than the alternative of sailing 12,000 miles over completely open water from the Grove. Construction of the ship-building port began.
No comments:
Post a Comment