Scorched Earth, Alien Wonders

Wilder, Cassie and Sara soon left the lab to take up observation at the ditch. It could take hours or the rest of the day, to see water start seeping into the ditch floor, but without information being relayed back to the computer all they could do was sit, watch and wait.

My team and I surrounded Moore, who was sitting up, but still hadn’t said a word. I knew he was feeling guilty, because the whole “why not go smaller” idea was his in the first place. I was feeling guilty, too, because I practically dared Torie to take the risk.

Grief exhibits in different ways and Torie had been on countless missions with several of us over decades of time. His loss was immeasurable, both in terms of expertise, experience and in the bonds of friendship with a crusty, old geezer who would be profoundly missed.

“Look guys, we can’t give up hope yet,” I said, with as much optimism as I could will into my voice. “Remember what happened on Sartious Prime when Torie was in the form of an all-terrain craft that fell over a cliff and exploded? We thought the worst then, too.”

“Yeah, but there were enough pieces of him left that auto-repair took over and he was back to his old, cranky self within a day,” said Davis. “This time we don’t know where he is or what is left.”

I went over to Jones, who didn’t know Torie very well, but in a strange way, she was the last one who had contact with him.

“Are you okay?”

“I don’t know how to feel,” she replied. “I helped formulate the plan, and I was the last one to touch Torie indirectly through the fluorescent plate...”

Silence...

“Look...here’s what I think,” said Brown, wiping tears from her eyes, and taking a deep breath.

“Torie knew what he was getting into and it’s because of his willingness to take the risk that an entire planet may have a chance to be pulled off the cosmic-trash heap escalator.”

Brown had been pretty quiet, but her words made sense. She always seemed to know the right thing to say.

“I agree, Brown, because Torie told me earlier today that he was confident in his ability, but the ‘unknown’ was always a factor. It was like a prophecy.”

“Did any of you know that Torie had been married a long time ago, but his wife died, and he finally found new love again last year?”

Oh, crap, why did I ask that stupid question now?

Moore and Davis hung their heads...everyone else sat in morose silence. Unlike Brown, sensitive words and timing often eluded me. I had an emotional lump in my throat just thinking about the message I promised Torie I would deliver to his girlfriend.

But I had to get home first...

Suddenly, I doubled over with a searing pain in my stomach. I was in more physical agony than I had ever experienced in my life. Even Jones’ hand on the back of my head didn’t make me feel better.

“Captain, I have a theory about why you are getting sick,” said Brown. “There was a time in Earth’s history around 300 B.C., when animals and reptiles were noted fleeing from an ancient city in the days preceding a massive earthquake that flattened the town and killed most the people.”

Doc seemed to know where she was going with the conversation.

“It would make sense that you are developing a hyper-connection to the natural world, since your faulty program has magnified many of your other senses,” Doc explained. “This planet is decaying. Sand storms, and earthquakes will only get worse if things don’t stabilize soon.”

“Actually, there are a few alien civilizations I’ve heard of that have deeply physical and spiritual connections to the well-being of their home planets, too,” Jones affirmed the hypothesis.

And evidently, the hypothesis involved a dying-Earth that was determined to take me with it.

I’m the leader of this mission...I have got to get control of myself.

“Okay, I understand that my hypersensitivity is causing all the unusual things I’ve been feeling,” I said to my team as we stayed in the lab to brainstorm our next move.

“But, Doc...isn’t there something that can be done to correct this? You know... a pill I could take...a frontal lobotomy...or something?”

“Without the mini-binocs, I’m dead in the water for doing any kind of diagnoses, and the only pills we have are vitamin capsules in Torie’s case hidden in the bushes at the place we arrived.”

Doc’s statement brought home the reality of our situation. I said out loud what the others were probably thinking.

“Not only do we no longer have a safe way home, but we no longer have a way to communicate with Rosen.”

Not only did we lose our friend, and best tactical advantage on the mission, but we lost our only means of circumventing Qualdron to get a message directly to Empress Osette, which was my feeble plan to get us back home. But it was supposed to be after Torie successfully did the water retrieval job and returned to his collective.

Suddenly, we heard loud cheers coming from outside, and we knew something big must be happening at the ditch. We all ran out the door, and down to where Jones and the Wilders were sitting under an umbrella on one side, with the town-folk standing on the other side. Everyone was waving their hands in the air and cheering. When we got closer, we could see the reason.

It was an astonishing sight.

Muddy water was gushing from the lowered end of the ditch and spreading out in a big, steaming pool. The water wasn’t dribbling or oozing or trickling...it was bloody hell gushing!

What if the inside of the planet floods over the outside of the planet?

But just as I was on the verge of panic, and trying to remember if prairie dogs could swim, the water flow started to subside. By that time, we were standing next to the Wilders and they were absolutely beaming!

Tears of joy filled their eyes. All three of them...Steven, too. Still, when they looked at me, I could tell they knew the loss of Torie was a horrific sacrifice. Everyone stayed at the water’s edge for hours that evening watching steam magically rise from the warm water in subtle waves under a full moon.

Even the tired town-folk didn’t leave until late.

The real-life sight of this biodiversity-producing phenomenon was better than anything they could have seen in a make-believe movie at the Rabbit Hole. The gigantic ditch would be a forever-reminder of the small, but critical part they played in making the impossible...possible.

Cassie and Sara told us that water evaporation into the atmosphere was a good thing. They weren’t worried about the 50-foot canal and adjacent pool drying up, because it would be constantly replenished from below. I think the words Cassie used were “natural hot-springs oasis.” A short time later, I noticed Wilder had disappeared.

“He got a call from the settlement and had something important to do,” explained Cassie when I asked her about it. “But he’ll be back in the morning.”

I was feeling a weird kind of anticipation, but for once it wasn’t horrifying, nauseating or painful.