Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN






"Jesus, Bert, what the hell is going on up there? He’s blown them all to bits!"

"Get a hold of yourself, John," Bert Mackay barked, "I’ll be right there."

He folded up his phone and sprinted as fast as his fifty-eight year old body would take him. In less than a minute he slammed through the doors to Mission Control. The air was thick with urgent, helpless panic. Fifty different alarms filled the three-story cavern with flesh-chilling tones. People were hustling past him, pushing him out of the doorway, trapping him a surreal landscape amid shouts and commands. Finally, a hand grabbed his arm. John Carvin dragged him down the steps. He stopped in front of Gordon Ward’s console. Ward, the voice of Mission Control, looked at him over the top of his glasses and crinkled his brow.

"What the hell do you guys think you're doing now?" Ward said through clenched teeth. "First, you have them cut off our communications, now this!"

"This was never a part of the plan," Mackay defended himself. "And I had a sound military reason for going to radio silence. This my goddam mission, not yours."

"Funny how that works, I’m the puke who gets to take the blame when they don’t come home."

"What is it with you people? Is there any evidence of explosion? Any debris? Are you measuring any localized radiation? Have you even verified that your equipment is working?"

Ward looked away in disgust. "Now, your going to tell me it’s the equipment. For God’s sake, what do think we are? Buffoons? There’s nothing wrong with our equipment. We’ve had verification from three independent sources. The Patriot is missing! It is simply not there. So you can exclude that from your list of prepared explanations."

"Listen, you bastard," Mackay blurted out in an instant fit of rage. "I don’t have to take that shit from you..."

Carvin stepped in between them. "Settle down, the both of you. This kind of finger pointing will get us nowhere." He turned to a visilbly distraught Gordon Ward, who sat with his head in his hands. "Gordon, you told me that Ariane veered of course just moments before the Patriot disappeared."

"Yes, that’s right. We picked up something streaking toward their position just before they altered their course. NORAD has confirmed. And you think one has to do with the other? Some kind of attack?"

"Well, what the hell was it?" Mackay asked seemingly dumbfounded.

"That's funny, I was going to ask you the same thing... What ever it was it disappeared just like that..." Ward snapped his fingers. "Something is very wrong up there."

"How long has it been?" Mackay asked.

Ward looked at the giant clock. "Fourteen minutes, twenty-one seconds."

"Has anyone told the President?"

"No," Carvin said instantly.

"What is the protocol?"

"It's my job," Carvin said. "I'd like to have something to say... An answer."

"Well, President Reagan was told nine minutes after the Challenger exploded," Ward offered up for consideration. "But, then again a million people saw it on live television. But since the Columbia disintegrated on reentry everyone assumes the president will see it on TV the same time everyone else does."

"There’s a hundred million people following this thing," Mackay reminded them all. "They’re watching every move we make. I guarantee you word has already leaked out of this room despite all the security we have in place. This thing will spread like wild fire. I think the President should hear it from us first."

"She already has," offered a familiar voice from behind them. Mr. Brown walked down the steps and nodded briefly at Bert Mackay. "I told her."

"That’s just great," said Ward. "You didn’t give us much of a chance to get a handle on this thing, did 'ya fella?" He turned to John Carvin. "Who is this guy, anyway?"

"Gordon Ward," Carvin started, "this is Mr. Brown," he turned to Brown, "I’m sorry, I don’t know your first name..." Brown just shook his head. "Okay then... This is Mr. Brown, from the State Department..." Neither man extended a hand to the other. "He is assigned to Ambassador Rayhied. And, yes, before you ask, he does have clearance to be in here."

"All right then, Mr. Brown what did you tell her?" asked Mackay.

"I can’t discuss my conversations with the President. I can tell you what she wants though... She wants that young lady safely on the ground without so much as a hair out of place. That’s what she wants..." Brown then turned and walked away.

Ward, Carvin and Mackay were speechless, however, their thoughts were fully synchronized: "Just who the hell does that bastard think he is?"

Finally, Ward stood up and whistled. Little by little the din waned until only the alarm could be heard. "Somebody, shut that damn thing off!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. For thirty seconds all that could be heard was that ear stabbing alarm. He'd heard the very same alarm on that cold January day. He was there in 1986. Saw it happen. In his mind’s eye he watched the Challenger in those last fateful seconds before it blew itself to bits. All those feelings came rushing back to him. He could not let it happen again, not on his watch.

Thankfully the alarm died an instant death, but the memory of it echoed relentlessly inside his head. "That’s a little better --- " he said with a forced grin. "Ladies and gentleman... I just got word from the President. She wants us to know that she has the utmost confidence in us and is counting on us to bring them home safely. Well, I did not intend to do otherwise. By God, I’ve never lost one yet, and I’m sure as hell not gonna lose one today! Let’s find them, and find them now. There are going to need each and every one of us to get them home. Concentrate people... Now get to work!" He turned to Carvin and whispered: "If that wasn’t the biggest crock of shit I've ever uttered..."

For the next thirty-five minutes the tension in The Mission Control Center was as thick as the Texas humidity outside. Gordon Ward was drained. His head was down on the console, his glasses discarded, his lucky tie lying crumpled on the floor. Carvin and Mackay talked quietly among themselves respecting Wards need for total concentration. It had been forty-nine minutes, and as expected the press was pounding at the door demanding answers. Ward lifted his head and without a word stood up and walked toward the pressroom. There was no bounce in his step, only a sense of duty propelling him into the snake pit. Just as it seemed that all hope was lost, he reached for the door handle when someone shouted: "I’ve got her!"

Everyone turned toward the large screen and saw the shuttle reappear exactly where it had been just before it vanished. Ward raced back to his console and cranked open all communication channels. "Patriot, this Mission Control, do you read me? Mission Control hailing USAF Patriot, please respond, over."

"Good God, I hope they’re all right." John Carvin said breathlessly.

***


Mcdonnel braced for impact. Seconds ticked by. Nothing happened. He peered through squinted eyes. There were only old familiar stars for as far as the eye could see. "What the hell?" He gasped.

By now Julia had lowered her arms from in front of her face and was looking out the window as well. They looked at each other slackjawed and speechless. Finally, she sighed and said: "Tell me you saw that too..."

"Jeez, Julia, what the hell was it? It was the biggest goddam thing I’ve ever seen." He looked down at the radar screen and immediately his instincts kicked in. "I don’t see a thing on radar... Nothing on infrared… Whatever it was it can’t be that far... What time is it?"

"Nineteen hundred forty-five," Julia replied.

"That’s what I’ve got too..." He stopped suddenly. "Christ! Jank!" He opened the intercom channel and screamed into the microphone. "Jank! Are you there!"

"What is wrong with you?" Jank complained.

"Something happened..." Mcdonnel started. "I... We..." He hesitated when he realized how ridiculous he was going to sound. "Did you notice anything back there?"

"No!" Jank bellowed. "What in the hell are you talking about?"

"Hold on... I’ll get back to you." He cut the channel and turned to Julia. "He didn’t see a thing.

I’m going to sound crazy if I tell him what I just saw."

"I saw it too!" she cried.

"I know you did, he’ll want proof... The cameras! Yes, we’ve got twelve cameras on this thing." He quickly reset the twelve recordings and displayed them two at a time on a split screen. There was nothing on any of them. They were completely blank. "This can’t be... What's going on?" He checked the system logs, empty. He checked the communication log, the archived recordings between the shuttle and Mission Control, everything was blank. "Everything is gone! I don’t believe this..."

Julia’s eyes lit up. "My laptop!" She yanked it from its docking station and flipped open the screen. The computer was off. "That’s odd... This thing is never supposed to be off it's on a UPS." She hit the power switch and the screen quickly displayed the familiar message: non system disk or disk error. Please insert a system disk and press any key...

"Try it again," Mcdonnel urged. She did, repeatedly. "Where’s your backup unit?" He rattled. She pulled it from the twin docking station and flipped up the screen. It was also dead. "It’s been wiped out too! I can't believe this! This can't be happening. What am I supposed to tell Major Jank?"

"I don’t know, but I know what I saw."

The comm panel lit up. "Jank wants to talk to me..." He punched the button. "Yes, Major."

"It’s gone, Travis," Jank cried. "It’s fucking gone. What the hell is going on?"

Mcdonnel jerked his head up toward the cargo bay camera only to see that it was true, the straps lay slack on the floor. "Oh my God... I don’t know how to tell you this... But, I think we’ve just been visited."

"What kind of crap is that?" Jank barked.

"Julia and I saw something... It was a ship. An immense spaceship. We thought it was going to hit us. But it just disappeared, just like that."

"It’s true," Julia said hoping to emphasize the validity of the claim, "every word of it."

"You’re telling me space aliens came and took that thing out of the cargo bay right under my nose?" Jank quipped, his words dripping with sarcasm.

"I can’t explain it. I only know what I saw. What we saw."

"The Air Force isn’t interested in your fantasies, Mcdonnel. I want to know where the hell that goddam thing went! Now do something or I’ll come in there and do it myself."

"And what would you have me do? The thing evades radar and infrared and everything goddam thing else. It’s is gone. I can’t find it"

"That’s great, Travis - just great. They’re going to have your ass for this one. I don’t know how you did it, but I intend to find out. I want you to roll back the recordings, display them back here..."

"I can’t," Mcdonnel said flatly. He didn’t like what was happening here. Jank was building a case against him. With the recordings and the logs missing it was looking suspiciously more and more like an act of sabotage. He recognized the practiced art of the blame game when he saw it. Jank had been briefed on how to properly shape the outcome of the mission in case of failure. For all he knew the recordings and logs could have been destroyed by internal forces, a computer virus or a pre-written script perhaps. Only one thing was perfectly clear; Captain Travis Mcdonnel was the predestined fall guy. His only hope of exoneration was the young lady sitting next to him. The one thing the conspirators couldn't have counted on was the President insisting on sending Julia Rayhied along. Discrediting her was going to take more than a rigged up military inquiry; she was a star, a personality with an adoring public. Her word was as good as gold. Julia Rayhied was there with him, she saw it too, and she would tell the truth. It was her job.

"What do you mean, you can’t?"

"They’re gone, wiped out, destroyed..."

"What are you talking about?" Jank demanded impatiently.

"I’m only going to tell you this one more time, something happened here, whomever or whatever took that thing from the cargo bay also wiped out our entire database. Even Julia’s laptops have had the drives wiped clean. I know it sounds crazy, but I have no other explanation."

"I have a few," Jank said under his breath.

"Listen, Jank, I’m not afraid of you. Tell them anything you like, or maybe they’ve already told you, but I have a witness who saw what I saw and she has one thing on her side that you’ll never have."

"And what would that be?"

"The ability to tell the truth."

"We’ll see about that... Open up communications I think it’s time we spoke to Mission Control about this."

"As you wish..."

Mcdonnel reached his arm over Julia’s head and with a flick of a switch powered up the communications array. His senses were instantly deluged with frantic voices and flashing lights. "This is Mission Control, calling USAF Patriot, do you copy?" "Please respond" "Patriot, this is Mission Control can you read me?"

He smiled at Julia as he swung the microphone down to his lips. "This is Patriot, Houston, we are reading you loud and clear..." They were treated to chorus of loud cheers.

"Is everyone all right up there?" Ward asked timidly.

"Yes, everyone is well, over."

"Can you tell us what happened?"

"I’m not sure, myself," Mcdonnel offered. He was not ready to tell the folks on the ground what he really believed. He did not have the full support of his crew yet and that would cause complications he would rather not face. "What did you guys see down there? Over."

"Well... Nothing. You disappeared from the radar for almost fifty minutes."

"What?" Mcdonnel and Jank said simultaneously.

"What time is it?" Mcdonnel asked.

"Twenty-one oh one," Gordon Ward said matter of factly.

"That’s impossible!" Mcdonnel declared. He stared at the master clock, which read 20:12.

Somehow the clocks had dropped the time-sync beacon. According to Mission Control they had just lost forty-nine minutes of their lives. But, they were never gone. All he could remember was that huge craft bearing down on them and the overwhelming feeling of imminent doom. Could they have been somehow frozen in time? Did the aliens put them to sleep while they took the object from the cargo bay and purged the orbiter’s memory banks? It sounded crazy before it even reached his lips.

"Is everything all right, Captain Mcdonnel?" asked Gordon Ward.

"Something is not adding up, Houston, our clocks put the time at 20:12. We’re off by..."

"Forty-nine minutes..." Ward interrupted. "We are looking into the time-sync problem right now. I must tell you we were all pretty scared down here. The President will be mighty glad to hear ‘ya all are all right up there. Did you see anything? Anything at all?" For the longest time there was silence. "Captain?"

"Could you give me a minute... Mcdonnel out."

Mcdonnel lowered his head. Julia reached over and stroked his hair. She knew what he was feeling; she understood the position he was in. She saw what he saw. She knew what he believed, and for lack of a better explanation she believed it too. Would Major Jank believe it? Would anyone else believe it? Could they stand up and shout it for the entire world to hear without one shred of evidence.

"What are you going to tell them, Mcdonnel?" Jank said from his self-imposed prison cell in the airlock. He knew damn well that Mcdonnel had nothing to do with the alien object’s disappearing act. He even knew that the captain’s theory of little green men taking it from the cargo bay was not out of the realm of possibilities. After touching it, seeing its incredible physical properties, he was still awestruck by its simple beauty. There was little doubt that the beings that built such a thing could have easily snatched it away from him in a blink of an eye. He just couldn’t let on that he believed what the good captain believed. It would be the end of his career as well.

"Nothing," the captain said through clenched teeth. "We’ve seen nothing. Especially in the last forty-nine minutes."

***
For two solid hours Captain Mcdonnel tried to explain how the database entries had been erased. It was painful to listen to. Telling the truth was out of the question now. Jank offered little help and Julia could only repeat everything the captain said.

Their orders were simple. They were to hold their position until the next anticipated event. Houston was convinced they were very close, apparently so were the Europeans. The ESA had maneuvered the Ariane module to within a mile of the Patriot. There they would wait out the six and a half-hours together.

Julia pulled herself through the galley into the sleeping quarters. She was tired and confused. So much had happened. Her head hurt just trying to make sense of it all. She strapped herself in and curled up into a ball. She was startled by something poking her in the side. Curious, she unzipped the breast pocket of her jumpsuit and pulled from it a beautiful little metallic bag of some sort.

"What’s this?" she said to herself. The bag was paper-thin and highly reflective, inside it was a computer disk. "Where did this come from?" The disk was unremarkable and bore no label. The bag itself fascinated her. It reminded her of the little object she had gotten from Jerry Baines. She unstrapped herself and floated to her locker where she rifled through her things until she felt the familiar shape of the object in her hand. Comparing the two she was convinced they were made of the same material. Suddenly she felt a rush. Shoving the disk back in her pocket she swiftly pulled herself hand over hand through the hatch and into the cockpit. Without a word to the captain she pulled the laptop from it’s docking station and started back for the hatch.

"I thought that thing was toast?" Mcdonnel mumbled.

"Yeah, I think it is, but I want to mess around with it a little," she explained, "see what I can do with it, if anything." He went back to his system check list, dismissing her without out another word.

When she was back in her cot and strapped in she promptly placed the mystery disk in the floppy drive and turned on the computer. What she saw intrigued her as much as it baffled her. The laptop that had been dead for all intents and purposes was back to life with an extraordinary operating system she had never seen before. On the screen seemed to be a letter. It was addressed to her. She read on...

Dear Julia,
My name is Sollalia. I wish to extend to you my warmest greetings. This letter comes to you from a place you’ve never heard of. A place far away, farther than the naked eye can see. It is my sincere hope that someday you will be able to visit me here, and that I can come and visit you. Since that is impossible right now, for reasons that you’ll soon understand, I’d like to tell you a little story...

There once was a young man who had the duty of a surveying star systems. He was charged with mapping and adding new star systems to the Star Catalog. On one of these missions something extraordinary happened to him. Historic really. Please, let me explain...

As she read the computer scrolled along, as if it knew which word her eyes were trained on. At first she thought it must be some kind of joke. Did the same people who were setting up the captain plant it on her? As she continued to read, furiously rubbing the shiny metallic bag between her fingers, she knew it could not be a fake. All the answers were here. Everything she ever wondered about was finally explained. How foolish everyone had been all these years. When she reached the end she was crying. They were neither tears of joy nor tears of sorrow, just tears.

"Why do you cry?" offered a voice from the computer. "Have I made you sad?"

She froze. The laptop hung suspended like a disembodied head looking her right in the eye.

"Who are you?" she said suspiciously. "How did you know I was crying?"

"I am Sollalia, the one who wrote you the letter. Have I caused you distress? It was not my intent at all. Will you accept my apology?"

"How can you be talking to me?"

"This is a very special disk you have here, the only one in the galaxy like it," the computer explained. The voice sounded familiar to her. "It contains the essence of me. The sum of all my memories and experiences are collected on this disk. Ask me anything... I would feel privileged to answer your questions, Julia Rayhied."

"You can see me, am I right?" she asked pensively. "I mean - you knew I was crying..."

"Yes, and you’re more lovely than I’d imagined... "

"Can I see you?" On the screen appeared an image of a man that took her breath away. It was the jungle man! Her heart began to ache; feelings she had never dealt with came rushing to the surface. "It’s you!" she cried. "It’s impossible..."

"What’s the matter, Julia?" Soll asked. "I am repulsive to you..." The image disappeared from the screen.

"No. No, come back..." she pleaded. "You're not repulsive. It's just that I’ve seen you, or someone that looks like you, before."

"I can assure you we have never met. I have never been to Earth. However, I feel like I know you. I have seen you on your television program; you do a fine job. You are the talk of Orr."

"Go figure," she quipped. As if the fishbowl she was living in now wasn’t big enough.

"Forgive me if I seem a little overwhelmed, Sollalia. It’s just that I been through so much lately. Give me a chance to breathe a minute..."

Sollalia’s image looked around the room. She watched him closely, marveling at the notion that he could see everything around him. For a moment he appeared to be sniffing the air. "It seems a bit stuffy in here. The oxygen / nitrogen ratio is slightly off."

She looked him with wonder in her eyes. "You can smell the air?"

"Indeed, I can even make the adjustment... This device can interface with environmental controls and let me gain access to... There... You should notice a difference now."

"Hold on!" she scolded him. "I don’t think you should be doing that." He smiled playfully. She gave him the look.

"Would you like me to put it back?" he chuckled. She merely shook her head. "I will refrain from interfering with your ship," he promised.

She sighed. For the longest time she just stared at him. He was quite handsome. His face was smooth and his brown eyes were bright and engaging. He looked to be a man of forty years or so, but something told her he was much older than that. "I still can’t believe this," she mumbled. "What happened to us? Can you answer me that? Captain Mcdonnel and I saw a huge spaceship - I thought for sure that it was going to hit us, wipe us out. But then, it just disappeared. Now we find out we were missing for forty-nine minutes; time we cannot account for." On the screen appeared a spaceship exactly like the one she had seen. "That’s it, that’s the ship we saw!"

"I think I can explain," Soll replied. "Missing time? Sounds like whomever I employed to deliver this disk may have used a suspension field to disable your ship..."

"A suspension field?"

"A suspension field… How can I explain? Well, it is really a localized alternate universe if you will... Let me see… The best way for you to conceptualize it would be to use the anti-noise technology being developed on Earth as a crude example. Anti-noise works by reproducing a mirror image of the sound and directing it at the source. The result of one sound wave striking another at one hundred and eighty degrees out of phase is a complete cancellation of the noise. But the noise still exists, does it not? It did not go away, it simply can’t be heard. There is a point, the point at which the two sound waves actually coexist, that constitutes this sort of alternate universe I mentioned. Perhaps looking into a mirror would help... Again it's a crude example, but it might be more instructive." The screen suddenly became a bright, shiny mirror. "Look at your reflection... Your reflection is real, isn’t it? You can see it with your own eyes." She felt her head shaking all by itself. "Certainly you must agree it looks exactly like you. Only, it is really one hundred and eighty degrees out of phase from the "real" you. There is a point, if you will, somewhere between the mirror and your face where they both exist simultaneously. By suspending this point in space we can manipulate the universe that is out of phase with our own, thereby affecting change in the other. The drawback to erecting suspension fields is the tremendous energy required to create the mirrored universe. Therefore the fields must be small."

"How small?"

"A couple of hundred Earth miles, or so." Soll said casually as his image reappeared on the screen.

"Small! Oh my God," she gasped. "Your idea of small is rather strange, Sollalia."

"I guess your right. Our concept of the vastness of space is shaped by our reach. The Orrian Realm extends hundreds of light years in all directions, constituting hundreds of thousands of solar systems and millions of planets. We’ve conducted detailed surveys over ten thousand planets and have colonies on a hundred and fifty worlds. You understand when I imply that something is rather small it’s all relative."

"Oh, yes, of course. You’ll understand that everything about this is rather strange - it’s all relative."

Soll smiled. "I can only imagine. Now, maybe you can answer something for me," he said with a grin. "How did it come about that you are on this spaceship orbiting the Earth. I don’t recall you being an astronaut. I’ve tried accessing the ships logs but found none..."

"Well, who ever it was that put this disk in my pocket also deleted the Patriot’s entire database. All the logs, recordings, videos and my laptops were wiped clean. We are left with zero proof that any of this ever happened. As for me being here, well, lets just say I’m here to get someone’s popularity ratings out of the gutter."

"President Cole, she has used you, no?"

"I think so..." Her eyes grew bright. "Only she couldn’t have counted on you being here! This disk alone is all the proof I’ll need. They won’t be able to refute you..."

"I’m not sure that would be a good idea..."

"Why not?"

"You know as well as I do they’ll simply take it from you. It will never see the light of day. It is what they have done since 1947, why would they change now? Besides, the minute they try to examine the disk it will self-destruct, vanishing before their very eyes. This disk, this letter, indeed I, was meant for you, and only you. It’s important that you conceal this disk from all others." He didn’t have the heart to tell her the whole truth. If she put him on display for the entire world to see it would mean and end to his career. He would likely be banished from the garden, forced to live out his life on a desert planet far from his beloved jungle home. It was a risk he took when he sent it to her. He willingly put his fate in her hands and he trusted her unconditionally. "I’m sorry, Julia, if I can’t help you find what you’ve spent your life searching for. Forgive me for letting you down."

"No, you’re right," she replied helplessly, "everything they do is a lie."

She thought back to the day she first met the president. The set, the lights, the camera, it was all staged for a mind numbed populace, with no regard for the truth. It was all about getting on the six o’clock news. The meeting was merely fodder for the talking heads. She felt like a pawn that day but denied herself because she was dazzled by the spectacle of it all. Her face became sad and introspective. She said nothing for a while and Soll simply bowed and let her find her peace.

"Tell me about Orr," she finally said, "tell me everything."

Soll smiled broadly. "Ask me anything... anything at all."

"Okay... You told me Orrian civilization was well over thirty thousand years old. How did you do it? I mean how did you get this far without destroying yourselves or your planet? How did you ever overcome war and starvation and bigotry and all those traps that plague Earth to this day?"

"We didn’t," Soll said bluntly.

"I don’t understand..."

"We didn’t overcome those problems because we never faced them."

"You mean to tell me there’s never been a war on your planet?"

"That’s right. At least not war as you know it, and as unbelievable as it seems to you we have always lived in peace. In many ways the people of Earth are more savvy and sophisticated than we Orrians for having suffered and persevered through these brutal tribulations."

"Tribulations? You may choose to call it tribulations, but I'd call it hell!" For the first time she was angry with him. "How did you people just stand by and watch the slaughter, the barbarism of Hitler, Stalin and Mao and make no effort to stop it? It’s... It’s disgusting!"

"Perhaps there is no excuse for our lack of action. I apologize for my people here and now. But before you condemn all Orrians let me try to explain a few things... Remember when I said it’s all relative?" Julia nodded but confusion was written all over her face. "The environment that our civilization grew from was as different from Earth’s as night is to day. Let me try to illustrate my point… Back to the beginning…

"Earth’s very crust is floating on mighty plates that regularly rip themselves apart only to collide back into each other. The result is enormous mountains that give rise to fiery volcanoes that breathe poison into the air and spew molten rock over the land. That is only one piece of the puzzle. The influence of the moon on planet Earth cannot be minimized. The lopsided pull of Luna affects everything. Combine the moon’s massive gravitational effect and the twenty-three degree tilt of the planet on it’s axis and the result is dramatic seasonal weather changes that breed incredibly destructive storms - storms that can alter the face of the Earth in the blink of and eye. As the early humans left the forest for the first time they encountered these grand mountain ranges and great deserts that isolated them from each other. There were huge expanses of water and brutal weather that created natural barriers and presented an environment seemingly inhospitable to the success of human civilization. And yet, somehow, human society survived, even thrived despite all these natural obstacles. However, the daily struggle for food, shelter and safety was all consuming. The act of protecting one's assets from piracy created distrust and fear. Early humans turned to violence to protect what they had from the savage marauders. When enough clans joined forces in territorial disputes the first wars broke out. They fought for the limited resources the land provided. They learned that despite all its ugliness war worked. Sadly, starvation, slavery, bigotry and racism were used as weapons of as well. As the people transformed from wandering tribes into farmers and ranchers they learned that it was food that was the most powerful weapon of all. A well-fed army would defeat a hungry one every time. In order to feed an army large tracts of land were needed, therefore, more land, more wars. It was easy to incite an army when the enemy looked and lived differently. How simple it became to teach hate. War, with all its collateral damage, was now a way of life, ingrained into the being itself, the preferred method of settling differences. To the victors went the spoils, and to the losers there was only starvation or annihilation."

"Why are you telling me all of this? Is it supposed to make me feel better?"

"To demonstrate a contrast that will help you understand why we did what we did."

Julia frowned but was willing to listen, she trusted him, and she felt like she always had... "All right, I’m all ears..."

"Now I’ll take you back to the dawn of Orrian civilization… Imagine a world where food is so plentiful that it is literally falling from the trees. Imagine if you will a climate where the weather is serene and predictable. Picture a massive land mass unbroken as it encircles the face of the planet around the equator. Imagine a planet with enough habitable land to support fifty, even a hundred billion people. The point is, Julia, there was nothing to fight over. The three things that humans on Earth covet, enough food, a warm home and personal safety, are so abundant and pure that fighting over them was literally inconceivable. Because the majority of humans on Orr originated within the same jungle environment the adaptations to the conditions resulted in a population that looks essentially the same. One race, no racism.

"Orr is the second planet from the sun, and is the only planet of the fifteen to contain liquid water. It is one-fifth larger than Earth and is spinning on an axis with only a nine-degree tilt. Our sun is larger, redder and a bit cooler than yours is. Our twin moons, Jarr and Dass, share an orbit and have the effect of nearly canceling each other out. The result is pacified oceans, barely perceptible seasonal changes and calm, predictable weather. Ideal for sentient, bipedal beings to grow and develop.

"Adaptation, so key to survival on Earth, plays out at the proverbial snails pace on Orr. An extinction of a species would be a global catastrophe, such a thing has never occurred in my lifetime. Living our lives beneath the canopy of the jungle, protected from the harmful rays of the sun, Orrians live long peaceful lives free from stress and anxiety. Each is free to pursue his or her own interests or not; one is free to be lazy as well..." He paused when he saw a question in her eyes. "Yes, Julia?"

"Long, peaceful lives?" She said with a lilt. "How long?"

"Some have lived as long as four hundred Earth years..." he watched her eyes light up. "But most live around three hundred years, or so."

"Three hundred years!" she gasped. "I can’t even imagine..." She stopped suddenly, a stray thought startled her. "Do you have a son? A little boy?"

"I do have a son, my only child, but he is no longer a boy. He is a fine young man of thirty four years."

"Then how old are you?" She asked bluntly.

"Why me, I’m just reaching my prime at seventy-nine."

Julia was speechless. The man she saw on that screen was anything but an eighty-year-old grandpa. His short black hair had not a touch of gray. His face was smooth and wrinkle free. To be forty and look so good was a blessing where she came from. This man was twice that age. "I had no idea," she finally uttered. "Do all Orrians your age look so good?"

Soll giggled softly. "Well, I suppose so, never gave it much thought, really. Age only matters to the youth. And that, I think, is good. It binds them to their own time."

"You said he was your only child," she pried on.

"Yes, his name is Dakkalia. He is a pilot for Galactic Mining and Mapping. A surveyor, actually. Like the man who discovered the Earth."

"Do you have a wife? A partner?"

"She died a long time ago, Dakkalia was just a small boy at the time. I have not joined with another since."

She noticed how soft his speech became when he talked about her. He must have loved her very much. She resisted asking anymore questions. One day, she promised herself, she would learn everything about the woman that lived so deep inside this man’s heart. "There’s something that doesn’t add up for me," she continued. "What about the population as it relates to the kind of life spans you’re talking about... How can the planet sustain all those people?"

"What do you mean?"

"If people are living so long wouldn’t the planet soon become overpopulated?"

Soll smiled, he liked the way she thought. "It would seem so, wouldn’t it? Once again all things are relative. At one time on Earth there was an advantage to having many children. Life was difficult and rather than looking at a child as another mouth to feed they saw each newborn as another set of hands to help. The fertility rates reflected that reality. In your own country as little as five generations ago people lived an agrarian lifestyle. Farm boys and girls made the farmer’s life bearable by taking over the chores as they matured and he aged. As the country became more urban the number of children born to each family decreased, as did fertility rates. It has little to do with the availability of food, as odd as it may seem. What I’m getting at here is that because day to day life on Orr lacks adversity there has never been a need for large families. Historically, conceiving a child was considered a blessed event, one not every couple experienced. In modern times methods have been developed to aid in conception much like your own crude fertility clinics. However, Orrians are very tradition bound, and the ancient method of conception is still preferred. There are certain aspects of life that are at the base level; high technology can be no substitute..." He stopped when she broke out laughing.

"You’re funny, Sollalia," she giggled. "Are all Orrians as funny as you?"

"Well... I don’t know. I guess I’ve never been accused of being funny before."

Julia sighed. Her face beamed. She felt at completely at ease with him. It was as if she’d known him all her life. "What a wonderful place Orr must be," she said to no one in particular. "What is your culture like? I mean... Well, it’s hard for me to image a world without bitterness, contention and hostility..."

"There are many aspects of Orrian life that are not unlike your own Earthly experience. We are, after all, human too. We are born, grow up, grow old and die just like you. One day a son or daughter may come along and you have the responsibility of raising them up to adulthood. Does any of this sound familiar?"

"Yes, of course, but you all get along, right?"

"Yes, I guess by Earthly standards we are gentle and compassionate, tolerant and peaceful. Our world is warm and lush. Our tables overflow with food and drink. We value every citizen. We honor the Creator in our quest to understand the universe. Yes, Julia, we do get along in our garden. Only one thing has ever divided the people of Orr...."

Julia hung on his every word. "What?" she asked impatiently. "What was it?"

"Earth."

"I guess that was a silly question."

"Not really," he said gently. "The discovery of Earth offered us a real conundrum. To discover our uniqueness in the universe was a lie and to find that our long lost galactic brothers and sisters were barbaric savages was quite a shock. There was no clear consensus on what to do. That is where the lines of division were drawn. From the very beginning there were those who recognized Earth as a threat. Others felt we had an obligation to assist the people of Earth, to set the primitives on a course to free themselves from the cycle of violence and war. We were equally fascinated and frightened. Everything about Earth was a paradox.

"We found it a remarkable planet, rich in life and beauty, rivaled by no other planet in the Catalog. Earth is an explorers dream. The rapid change and mass extinction’s are some of the most fascinating geologic studies in the known galaxy. The history of life on Earth has no parallel. And yet, the emergence of human beings on Earth coincides with our own. An interesting fact we have not yet reconciled." He simpered and raised his eyebrows. "How different we turned out. The very adversity that keeps your people from exploring the depths of human potential provides the very essence of your beauty and intrigue. Let me explain:
"Imagine if you will that everyone on Earth spoke the same language, ate the same foods, lived in the same environment and were all one race. Imagine Earth with one culture, one set of values, and one view of the world. How interesting would it be? Think about what "One World" really means. There is no inspiration in a singular society. We as a people reached out to the stars to fill in what was missing from our lives. It wasn’t until Deppopio found Earth that our restless souls found something that really reached into our hearts. And it made us fearful that we, a society far advanced from your own, could be so completely engaged by the popular cultures of these primitive human animals living there. How very fascinating it was. You are like a magnet. Forces we cannot explain draw us to you. Julia, it would be hard for me to describe what your music and art and sports have done for us. Me, personally, I am a baseball fan. I love it! It is such a simple sport and yet so subliminally intricate that I find myself matching wits with each of the managers in every game. More often than not I am proven wrong. Dakk, my son, loves to listen to rock music; he has even made himself a replica of an electric guitar. A Stratocaster, I believe he calls it. My friend and assistant, Livvevea, is a fan of your two dimensional movies. Intellectuals and scholars study your history and literature, geologists study your planet, and young people study your music and fashions. There is something for everybody."

Julia was silent as she listened to him. The truth sounded so right coming from him. For years she heard her father, and then Glenn Stratton, spout disgust at the "do gooders" in the bureaucracy pining for "One World". She could hear her father’s words as if he were standing there with them, "One government, one currency, one culture would mean the extinction of the human spirit," he would tell her. He was surrounded by it, trapped in the university culture that denounced freedom for individuality and personal property in favor of a collective communal existence. Her father had left India to come to the land of milk and honey only to find them pouring it all down the drain. The One Worlders distrusted the individual and believed in the wisdom of the state. It was only when everyone was exactly the same, suffering the same misery would the social elite's finally be happy.

She listened to Sollalia for hours, taking a guided tour of Orr and its incredible history, seeing the emerald planet through alien eyes. Incredibly, she suffered the overwhelming feeling of déjà vu. When he took her through the heart of Terrekka’s Jungle, as he called it, she had the distinct feeling she had walked there before. The strange "spindle" trees looked especially familiar to her. With each passing minute she felt the irrational desire to go to his magnificent world grow more intense. She wanted to be with him, the real him.

She carefully removed the disk from the computer and rummaged through her locker for her handbag. Taking the Swiss Army knife she always carried she carefully removed the stitches and slid the disk between the leather and the sewn on pocket. With the leather punch on the knife she replaced the stitches until only a careful inspection would reveal anything was out of place. As she pulled herself up to the cockpit she felt a sense of loneliness in the pit of her gut she hadn’t experienced since her parents funeral. Her heart ached inside her chest. For during those few hours with him she felt complete. Now when he was gone she realized how she had already grown attached to him and couldn’t wait to hear his voice again.