Month: April 2021

C is for Cryptography

humanist55

 

For the sake of pairing some of these adjuncts to the novel alongside their respective chapters, I am taking liberties with the Alphabet for the next couple of days and so we come to C and not G…


My goal in the 2021 A2Z Challenge is to complete a novel I started a few years ago but which has languished for lack of love (writing!). Each Post, daily in April (Sundays excepted), will consist of some aspect of the novel plus a chapter from it. I hope that the Alphabetical items will give a bit of extra background, muse on the writing process, but most of all, help me develop certain ideas to improve the novel. Some 12 chapters are already written so I have a bit of a head start…
Please comment with any opinions good or bad – you have no idea how much I need feedback at this stage…

I once became fascinated by Cryptography – the use of a code or a cipher to disguise messages. The process consists of taking “plain text” message and encrypting it according to code. How that code works is known as the key. In the picture above, the key is to move all the lower alphabet to the right by four character and then read the plain text from the top alphabet and substitute the encrypted letter from the lower alphabet. Most codes involve some form of substitution but they have one big weakness – letter frequency! Some letters are more frequent than others in any given language and so by analysing the frequency of letters in an encrypted message, it is quite easy to figure out the plain text – especially with computers to do the counting. In the chapter below, we encounter The Beale Cipher – one which is almost impossible to crack because it depends for a key, on a piece of writing which is only known to the protagonists.

There is quite a bit of technical explanation in this chapter and my question to you, Dear Reader, is do you find this too much? Of course, it would help if you could tell me too, whether you are a nerdy type who would probably love this stuff or a creature of spiritual interests with no such interest!

Chapter 8
Endorsement 

Jack and Stig were on their way back to New Orleans. Everyone had been shaken by the arrival of the two strangers. The train wreck, traumatic as it was, or rather, the consequences of it, as neither Jack nor his mother had truly experienced it, had begun to recede. Now, like one of those nightmares where an implacable force pursues you relentlessly, there was present threat and danger. Stig had taken control sending Jack’s mother to a neighbour with young Douglas. Jack accompanied her on a path through the woods and they slipped into the back door without seeing anyone. The neighbour agreed to convey the baby and grandmother to another friend of hers after dark and for the sake of safety, agreed to ask for no explanations in the knowledge that eventually they would get the whole low-down from their dear friend and neighbour.

Jack returned to his mother’s house without incident and after setting a timer for lights and drawing the curtains, they were collected by Lars and departed carrying rifles and dressed as if for a hunting trip. This time the rifles were loaded unlike the bluff they had perpetrated earlier in the day. Stig was of the opinion it wouldn’t have mattered if the “visitors” had known the rifles weren’t loaded, they were simply unprepared for the presence of three large, armed men and had withdrawn to rethink their approach. Which was pretty much the same position as Jack and Stig found themselves in. Whilst Jack had been away, Stig had contacted his inside man in the Rangers and given the vehicle number plate which had turned out to be a hire car. The customer was registered to a false address and driving licence. This told Stig that whoever was behind the men, they had local help, although the level of crime was so low on Hawaii 2 that it was not difficult to set up such scams and organisations were not on the lookout for criminal activity either. Next Stig had organised a small protective force to camp out near the tree-house. They had decided not to alarm Chloe by telling her anything but to place some surveillance cameras on the paths approaching the house, monitored by the protective force who were ready to respond accordingly. If Jack had ever had any doubts as to the veracity of Stig’s explanation of his position in the scheme of things, they were gone now. Stig clearly had access to the highest levels of government including covert forces the existence of which would have surprised most citizens of the planet. Jack himself was beginning to be inured to surprises of all kinds from sudden fatherhood to hostile powers but he was glad that people like Stig were there to look out for the planet and right now, for him. Having apparently issued instructions to cover all bases, Stig lapsed into silence for a while and then turned to Jack.
“With all the ‘excitement’ I had quite forgotten something!”
“What’s that?”
“Well, I have the pendant with me and we have identified the folder which is almost certainly Anna’s research but it seems my talk to her had an impact on her because she has password protected it. If necessary, we could recreate the work from her search history which we copied but destroyed in the public record as I told you before. At this stage it doesn’t matter about the detail of the work itself especially as we can recreate it eventually which is why I hadn’t mentioned it to you yet. However, it occurs to me that it might contain clues as to who might be so anxious to get their hands on it or to destroy it, whichever it is…”
“But you don’t have the password – is that what you are saying?”
“You’re very quick Jack! Maybe you should consider Investigator amongst your future career directions!”
“I wouldn’t be thinking about any of this if it wasn’t for wanting to know what happened to Anna and if I had any choice, for that matter.”
“True enough, I am sure you would rather just be spending time with your son and thinking about new building projects but as you say, we have no choice. Let me tell you about this password. We think that it’s encrypted using a book or substitution cipher based on a unique text. If it was to be sent between two people and they both knew the exact piece of text to be used then they would be able to encode and decode at will.”
“As it happens, cryptography was one of Anna’s hobbies that I shared an interest in. As you know, I wasn’t so smitten with all the technical stuff but cryptography is like a brain training device and we used to set each other tests. The only thing that sometimes spoiled it was that once we started to crack the messages, which were usually love letters, the content wasn’t too hard to guess.”
“Fantastic Jack, we were really hoping you might be able to help suggest the unique text but it sounds like you might even be able to crack it altogether!”
Jack sat thinking for a few moments before replying.
“You know a while back, listening to you make all sorts of arrangements, I was convinced that you must be who you say you were but now it comes back to accessing the work again. To be honest I had forgotten that you still had the pendant and forgive me if I am being paranoid but I suddenly don’t feel very trusting again. If this is all about getting Anna’s work and you still need access to it…” Jack shrugged his shoulders as if trying to rid himself of something.
“I don’t blame you Jack, but I think I can introduce you to someone who can convince you of my bona fides.” Stig took his phone out and dialled a number. “Good Afternoon Sir. I need to brief you as to developments in that matter we were talking about.” Stig paused, listening. “There have indeed been developments plus I have someone here who needs to meet you.” Stig listened for a moment more and then replied, “Yes Sir, about two hours then.” Stig put the phone away and speaking to Lars said, “We will need to get changed on the way,” and turning to Jack, “after all we can’t go to see the President looking like country hicks now can we Jack!”
Jack discovered he was not as inured to surprises as he had thought. 

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

The President of Hawaii 2 was in theory, an elected role of largely symbolic significance but in practice, the same man had held the office for so long that it had almost acquired the nature of a benign hereditary position. In fact, for those bothered by such things, it might be remembered that previous Presidents had indeed come from the same family as President Robert Widness. However, the inhabitants of Hawaii 2 were not bothered – the President had no apparent political power, that resided with parliament where Members took election more by community rotation than from any great political ambition. The issues faced by the Parliament were simply an extension of those faced on a more local level, where the rotation through the administration was for most, an irksome reality that had to be faced from time to time. So, although the planetary Parliament was an elected body, it brought no great kudos and neither, as far as most people could see, did being President. The fact that Robert Widness was content to stay in the “job” indefinitely rather than moving through life’s varied opportunities with the freedom which most ordinary citizens enjoyed, was his lookout. He lived as modestly as the rest, did not seek to impose his will over that of Parliament and there was something reassuringly Patrician about his manner that most people secretly enjoyed. If any issues arose in regard to the Pan Human Federation or any of its member planets – you felt that President Robert Widness would have Hawaii 2’s back.

Jack was as familiar with the President’s appearance as any citizen of Hawaii 2 but meeting him in the flesh was still a matter of gravitas – the President was six foot four and solidly built, august grey locks that extended down into sideburns framing piercing blue eyes and a clean-shaven, square jaw. He also proffered a very firm handshake to Jack.

“First let me say how sorry I am for your loss, Mr Gulliver. May I call you Jack?”
“Yessir. Jack is fine!”
“Well Jack, your late wife was brought to my attention when she applied to go off on her trip. It put us in a dilemma. We knew if she didn’t go but settled down to have a family with your good self, then that might be the end of it, but it was clear from her application that Anna was very passionate about the possible beneficial outcome for Hawaii 2 that could spring from the work and we worried that she might pass the baton to somebody else who might spread the word further afield. We pulled the strings of the selection board and dispatched Mr Johannson here to have a word with Anna on her way to
Hawaii 1 as I believe he has told you. I can understand why you might be in something of a spin with everything that has happened to you but believe me you are in safe hands with Mr Johannson – Stig. You know it’s not that we don’t want to see the development of easier access to the planet but we want it to be on our terms, we want to be in control of the development and of the pace of change should it happen. I think we can all see the dangers inherent in the opposite situation now and the question is how to proceed. I come from a family long involved in politics but my background knowledge of Hawaii 2 is nothing compared to Stig’s which is why he is one of my most trusted advisers.”
“Well Sir, Mr President, then I guess that’s good enough for me! And I am sorry I doubted you Stig.”
“That’s okay Jack. I appreciate your caution and sadly it looks as though that is exactly what is required at the present time. Wherever and whoever this malignancy is coming from, for the sake of Hawaii 2 we have to root it out. You have lost so much already but can we ask for your support in trying to solve the mystery…”
“It’s not what I want but it feels like I have to do it, for Anna’s sake and for the sake of Douglas’ future, well and my own and Hawaii 2’s.”
“Well said Jack!” Said the President. “And thank you. So Stig how do we proceed now?”
                                                            ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ 

Half an hour later and Jack and Stig were seated in a conference room in Government House. They had been joined by two professors from the University of Hawaii 2, Walter from the Department of Mathematics with an interest in cryptography and Rex from the Department of Engineering who Jack knew to be one of Anna’s supervising colleagues.
“Okay Jack, this is what the password text is on the file. As you can see its very long so we think it might be doubling as a message or some kind of warning so we have been loath to try and open it with any attempts at decryption that we are not sure about. We don’t want it to self-destruct…”
Walter passed a piece of paper

 to Jack on which were written a string of numbers.

11126,968,628,68,9622,28114,24,821,15,16,39,17,23,2*14,28,48,24,16,1621,215,68,22,

A smile spread across Jack’s face. “This is easy!” He said. ”The three ones at the beginning are a private code to tell me which cipher she was using – its a Beale Cipher, its Homophonic and the text we always used is the United States Declaration of Independence as in the original Beale Cipher. The three ones are because it was the first piece of Cryptography Anna taught me. Tears welled up in Jack’s eyes and he bent over the text to hide his face from the assembled company. “I could probably decode this from memory but to be on the safe side we had better get a copy of the text – if that’s possible?”
Walter quickly accessed a computer and brought up the Declaration for Jack.
“Okay, so…” Jack started writing beneath the encrypted line. “First off, the commas always follow a number in double figures so when we space out the numbers accordingly, we get this.”


26 9 68 6 28 68,9 6 22 2 8 1 14 24 8 21 15 16 39 17 23 2* 14 28 48 24 16 1 6 21 2 15 68 22

“Each number represents the first letter of a word in the Declaration and we have to go all the way to the twenty-sixth word before we find a word beginning in ‘F’ whereas only as far as the ninth word for one beginning in ‘O’. We have all the way to word 68 for an ‘R’ so the first word of the plain text is ‘For’!” Jack beamed, caught up in this old, shared passion which his late wife had introduced him to.
“The next letter is followed by a full stop which means an abbreviation and as the letter decrypts as ‘T’ that makes it the word ‘the’.” Jack started counting off words on the Declaration and writing down letters in the plain text line. “Ah! Here is a homophone!” he exclaimed. “You see this next word is ‘protection’ which contains two letters ‘O’ and in the first occurrence Anna used the first word in the Declaration to begin with an ‘O’ but the second occurrence uses the second time it occurs in the Declaration so we have word 9 and word 14. This is what makes the Beale Cipher strong – the two different numbers for what is a common letter helps to disguise it when frequency analysis is applied. Okay let’s see, the next word is of, ‘O’ followed by a full stop and this time it has reverted to the first occurrence of the letter in the Declaration – word 9! So now we have ‘For the protection of…’”
Meanwhile, Walter had accessed the Declaration brought over a printed copy of that text on which he had numbered each word which he handed to Jack and with this it took him only another minute to decode the rest of the encrypted text.
“It reads’ For the protection of Hawaii 2. Open with care.’ – what does she mean by that?” said Jack.
Everyone looked thoughtful as they tried to digest the strongly worded message from Anna. Walter was first to speak. “Firstly, may I say that yours and Anna’s personal variant on the Beale Cipher is very effective, my only criticism from a Cryptographic viewpoint is that using the original text of the Declaration might make it possible to crack although it would have taken me a long time I confess! But there is still one problem before we can use the password – what do we do with the spaces between words – you can’t have spaces! What do you think Rex?”
“ Anna was famous or is it infamous for her lengthy passwords – I asked her about them once and she said she liked to use phrases – different for each circumstance but contextual so she could remember them easily and she told me she used underlined spaces between the words but Jack, I am sure you knew Anna best in this respect – what do you think?”
“You’re right Rex! Go with the underlined spaces.”
Nobody seemed eager to enter the decrypted password in case some unforeseen consequence might follow but eventually, Rex stepped forward and input the plain text and uttered a sigh of relief when a set of files appeared on the screen. Mostly they were pdf’s and opening them they proved to be prints of documents Anna had accessed on her last trip. One file had a very long name that began ‘For Jack’ followed by a string of gobbledygook. Rex tried to open it but it was password protected. “Looks like an encrypted password in the tile Jack.”
Jack moved closer to the screen and scrutinised the file name. “That’s odd!” he said. “It begins with 113. That means the Beale Cipher and Homophonic but although we had a second text alternative to the Declaration, we never had a number 3 text… I’ll have to think about this…”
“Presumably that is a personal message,” said Stig “we seem to have all the technical aspects of Anna’s work. Rex can you make an assessment of the work please and report back directly to me. Walter thank you for your assistance.”
“The pleasure was all mine Stig! Most interesting Jack, perhaps we could have a chat about cryptography sometime at your convenience – perhaps over a meal in the University?”
“Certainly Walter, once all this has settled down, though it was Anna who was the real code buff…”
“Thanks, Jack, I’ll be in touch then,” said Walter as he gathered his things and left the room.”
“So Stig can I have the pendant back now, perhaps with the Personal message put back onto it so I can puzzle over it?”
“Certainly Jack! Can you do that please Rex. But now we need to decide what to do next. We still have persons unknown running around for reasons we know not who or what! If you are amenable to staying with me on this, I can keep an eye out for you and use your help at the same time?”

“Anything that helps to make sense of all this is fine by me and I feel safer with you than on my own out there…” Said Jack with a shrug of his shoulders and a look of relief.

“Fine!” Said Stig “Consider yourself recruited  – Special Deputy in the Rangers – well not officially maybe but…”

H is for Hawaii – Owhyhee

humanist55

 For the sake of pairing some of these adjuncts to the novel alongside their respective chapters, I am taking liberties with the Alphabet for the next couple of days and so we come to H and not G…

My goal in the 2021 A2Z Challenge is to complete a novel I started a few years ago but which has languished for lack of love (writing!). Each Post, daily in April (Sundays excepted), will consist of some aspect of the novel plus a chapter from it. I hope that the Alphabetical items will give a bit of extra background, muse on the writing process, but most of all, help me develop certain ideas to improve the novel. Some 12 chapters are already written so I have a bit of a head start…
Please comment with any opinions good or bad – you have no idea how much I need feedback at this stage…

.

In 1968, age 14, travelling back from Australia by ship (cheaper than flying for a family, in those days), we called into Wellington, New Zealand. I spent some pocket money on a book of Maori Hakas as well as the Pan book of Myths and Legends of the South Seas. One of the facts I gleaned and which has stayed with me ever since, is the story of the great Polynesian migration – eastwards out across the Pacific from the Far-East – hopping from island until, reaching the empty reaches of the eastern Pacific, the Polynesians turned south and westwards until they landed in New Zealand and became the Maori people. This is what it describes on the Frontispiece of “Train Wreck” and the reason why the planets settled by mankind following the destruction of old Earth, were called Hawaii 1 and later Hawaii 2.

Hawaii:- from the Polynesian word Owhyhee meaning homeland. As the Polynesian peoples spread out across the Pacific Ocean, each new island colonised was initially called Owhyhee, Once the numbers of settlers rose to a suitable capacity for the island, a new group would set out in search of the next Owhyhee.

In the following chapter, the “Doppelgänger” explains more of the history of Hawaii 2

 and the treat that now faces it – he also
recruits Jack to it’s defence

Chapter 7
Recruitment.

“I owe you an explanation Jack.”
“At least you need to tell me your real name because you’re obviously not Inspector James so who are you!”
“My name is Stig Johannson and I am a descendant of Captain Johannson of the first settler party of Hawaii 2!” Jack knew that those who could claim descent from the first settler party on Hawaii 2 had a certain cachet that went against the otherwise egalitarian nature of society although nobody objected nor did the claimants seek to gain from the fact – it was just a matter of pride. With Stig it was clearly the case, Jack could hear it in his voice.“I am surprised!” Said Jack. “I was sure you were an off-worlder, your lack of suntan, the questions you asked…”
“I had to act the part I am afraid and I am sorry to have deceived you, As for the sun-tan, well I do spend quite a bit of time off-world and when I am here, well, home is on the Jarrisburg Peninsula. I prefer the cool north to this tropical heat. Though having experienced your airy home I could be tempted…But now, we must be quick, I can’t keep the dentist at bay for long. I am in a way a kind of Inspector, or rather a special kind of observer. I certainly command the security access of an Inspector of Police both off-world and as a Captain of the Rangers here on Hawaii 2. But my access to the systems on and off-world are by the back door, so to speak. I have been able to follow all the investigation into the bomb on the train to the highest level and I am privy to the communications of Inspector James although he is quite unaware of it or me. He has been in quite a state since last week as you might imagine. When I need to have physical sight of something, I have my contacts within organisations. Your phone for example. I had to get a clone made of it and used my contact in the Rangers to do that. Other contacts off-world gave me information about our Inspector James that meant I had to act quickly to see you first which I will explain in a minute.”
“So you are a kind of policeman?”“Not exactly, Jack. I do sometimes get involved with police investigations, pulling a few strings, giving a few pointers but always behind the scenes. Safer to say I use the police rather than they use me. No. My role is as an observer who looks out for the interests of Hawaii 2 as a society. As you know we have little crime and little chance for criminals to come in from outside and I probably spend more time away, taking care of the latter aspect than I do here. With barely a police force we certainly barely merit an intelligence service – but such as we do, well, I am it!”
“I see.” said Jack “What exactly does ‘the interests of Hawaii 2 as a society” mean Mr Johannson?”
“Because Hawaii 2 is so isolated, it was decided by the Pan Human Federation to conduct an experiment here to see if certain utopian ideals could be achieved and sustained. Of course, half the trick with experiments involving humans is not to let them know they are being experimented on so nothing was said in advance but a lot of careful selection of settlers and equally careful social construction was done alongside the physical structuring of the settlement. My role is to keep an eye on that society and if necessary, to act to protect it. Though invisible to most, I do report to the highest authorities both here and off-world and the bomb on the train is the biggest threat I and the authorities have ever had to deal with. We really don’t know who is behind it and why – that much is absolutely true. I would like to explain more to you but not here – there is not enough time. Also, I believe you might be able to help. Would you consider taking a trip to your mother’s home for a few days? Your mother and Chloe could come too and we can get the chance to meet properly without detection…”
“I guess that would be possible. I know my mother needs to collect more things but she can’t bear to leave us alone yet. Yes, I am sure that would work. When?”
“As soon as possible! Don’t contact me, I will know when you get there and I will text you on the clone phone. I am glad you agreed Jack, this is more important than you can imagine!” With that Stig shook Jack’s hand and departed through the side door as quickly as he had come. 
Jack lay back, his head reeling from this unexpected turn of events – though in truth he had had no expectations, but within a few minutes, the dentist returned and after inspecting Jack’s mouth pronounced that the hospital had done a good job of looking after Jack’s teeth as well as the rest of him.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

A few days later, Jack sat with Douglas on his knee with his mother beside him silently watching as Stig swept his mother’s house for bugs. Jack had warned his mother about Stig’s visit once they were on their way, and although she expressed astonishment, she was prepared to wait and see what the explanation was, she trusted Jack’s judgement. Chloe had stayed behind to look after the tree-house and was taking the opportunity to invite some friends over for a few days. Jack had not told Chloe the real reason for the trip – he could see that she was glad to have a break from baby, hospitals, the funeral and living with in-laws even though she did not find most of these things onerous per se, it would be good to catch up with friends of her own age. Jack was certainly not going to burden her with mysterious goings-on. 
Stig was dressed like a country man, as Jack’s mother said later, he could easily have passed for one of her neighbours. He seemed to have the ability to blend in to wherever he was. It didn’t take long for Stig to complete the bug sweep. “To be honest I didn’t really expect them to be one step ahead of us” he said “and I certainly hoped not because we need time to talk candidly. In the event we do have any visitors, I am an old friend of the family come to pay my condolences, agreed?”Jack and his mother both nodded. “It’s okay for you both to speak now!” Stig beamed. “Let me start by introducing myself properly Mrs. Gulliver – Stig Johannson.” and he proffered his hand to Jack’s mother. “Jack good to see you again! You know my family have had some sort of “role” – call us guardians if you like, of the society of Hawaii 2 since the very start of the colony. Every child is taught how my ancestor, Captain Johannson, founded the settlement here without waiting for authorisation. He justified it on the grounds that without someone taking a chance, none of the data collected from space could be confirmed without the acid test of an actual landing. In fact, when the proposals for the settlement finally came through, he couldn’t have been more pleased. We don’t consciously think of ourselves as a ‘Utopian society’ here on Hawaii 2 but there was a plan to make it just that! The Federation wanted to see if it would be possible to have a self-sustaining society with no war and no growth beyond a certain size. Hawaii 2 was going to be effectively cut off and so with no Trans-Planet Corporations to mess things up it was the perfect opportunity for a social experiment. And by and large it has worked very well and been pretty easy to manage. My family have been privileged to be part of the oversight of Hawaii 2 behind the scenes and reported and been consulted by the government here, and by the Federation President and a few of his advisers on Hawaii 1. As I say, it has been a remarkably happy planet – until now… I am sure you can understand why I ask you to keep what I just told you between yourselves – as I said at our last meeting Jack, it is better not to be aware of being the subject of an experiment. I felt I had to tell you because of the dangerous situation you seem to be caught up in…”“You mean the bomb?” Asked Jack.“Exactly!”
“You said in New Orleans that I might be able to help with the investigation but once again, I can’t imagine how!”
“We’ll come to that all in good time Jack.” Stig smiled at Jack.
“What I don’t understand” said Jack’s mother “is how and why anyone would want to put a bomb on that train. I know it sounds pathetic, but nothing like that has ever happened here on Hawaii 2, it doesn’t make sense!”
“You’re right Mrs Gulliver, it doesn’t and because nothing like it has ever happened here that is why we are so concerned to get to the bottom of it. This will I am sure, be a painful suggestion, but there is a possibility it has something to do with Anna’s work.”
“Really? Anna? But that would mean…”
“Yes Jack, that someone wanted to kill her. When the initial investigation failed to turn up a computer, we thought maybe someone had stolen it and the explosion might have been to cover their tracks or even to allow them to go through your things. I don’t normally get hands on in investigations but this was a matter of such importance that I went to the university and talked casually to some of Anna’s colleagues. When one of them mentioned memory sticks, I had to act quickly. Inspector James had made his appointment to see you and to be frank, I didn’t want him getting his hands on it if indeed it was something you had found – because it had been looked for whilst you were both in a coma. It is only because it was disguised as a pendant that it was not discovered, as you know.”
“You don’t trust Inspector James?” asked Jack.
“I am not certain but let’s say that there are forces off-world who would love to see access to Hawaii 2 opened up in a commercially viable way and they have little chance to get their own hands on Anna’s work directly. A policeman sent to investigate has at least got opportunity and the fee on offer could certainly be construed as motive…”
“But surely he didn’t set the bomb?” said Jack.
“No! He didn’t arrive here till after the event. I’m not even sure that the bomb has anything to do with Anna at all but no other line of investigation has yielded anything at all.” Stig sighed.
“Why did you tell me her work had been classified? Inspector James said that most of what you told me about the investigation was true but that bit was not?”
“I was surprised that you did not grasp the importance of Anna’s work and I was trying to get you to take it more seriously. I thought it might make you a little more circumspect in your dealings with Inspector James.”
“What would be so terrible about Hawaii 2 getting better access to space and to the rest of the federation, anyway?”
Stig sat quietly thinking for a few moments before answering.
“How much did Anna tell you about her first research trip to Hawaii 1, Jack?”
It was Jack’s turn to think.
“Well she spent most of her time in the university studying the database. She talked about shops, a trip to New Niagara Falls, oh and about how stressed everybody seemed. She talked a lot about that!”
“Oh yes I remember that too!” Said Jack’s mother. “Wage slaves she called them. Working long hours but not enjoying their work. Obsessing about promotion to posts that they didn’t really want except for the increased salary. Surrounding themselves with status symbols and competing all the time!”
“Well put Mrs Gulliver!” Stig smiled at her. I have been many times to Hawaii 1 and I don’t think I could put it better. And then there are the other planets. Go to their capital cities and they look cultured enough but Arctane is only a few steps away from being a company planet – the Federation constantly fight to keep control in the hands of a legitimate government.”
“What does that mean? Asked Jack.
”Simply put, corruption!” replied Stig. The sense of common ownership that we take for granted here, the shared purposes – just look at the friends who came round to help you build your house – that would never happen on Arctane – everyone is too tired and too broke to spare the time. Not that they don’t earn well but they are persuaded to buy big vid screens and numb their brains in front of them when they finally get home from work. Everyone has a “healthy” level of debt that keeps them nose to the grindstone. If the Trans-Planet corporations gained access here of their own accord, they would rape this planet not just for its resources, but its society too. This is not a model they can work with and they would soon corrupt it!”
“I see what you mean… How come Anna didn’t see that I wonder.”
I haven’t had the chance to tell you yet but I was lucky enough to meet Anna – on her last trip in fact.”
“But how…I mean when?”
“Actually I was shadowing her – watching over her if you like. When she made the application to look into ram jets again, we were concerned both for the implications and for Anna herself whilst she might be the possessor of the information.”
“You keep saying ‘we’ but just who are ‘we’?” Said jack’s Mother.
“That would be the Council, we don’t have any more detailed name than that. We don’t officially exist, and if that makes us sound sinister, I can assure you we are not! It’s just that we didn’t want the people of Hawaii 2 to feel that they were being overseen in any way, either in the sense of government or as an object of study. When people are aware of being studied then they behave differently so we are merely discrete in our observations and in our extremely rare interventions. Even when we do intervene it is very slight, a word in an ear here, a suggestion there. The biggest protection for the planet’s social system has been its isolation, and unfortunately Anna’s work threatened that. Because this was a follow-up trip, we didn’t know if she had inadvertently let the cat out of the bag on her previous trip. We didn’t believe so because if the possibility of ram-jets and their commercial possibilities had made their way to the ears of interested parties, there was nothing to stop them applying to do research in the databases directly. Records are kept of all access to them and no records suggest that any such investigations have been made. Of course, that does not mean that covert investigations might not have happened – sadly, corruption in the form of bribes could possibly have been brought to bear, but no whispers of any kind have reached us as yet. We ourselves erased the records of Anna’s searches as soon as we could and I can tell, she was successful. We have secured the references she accessed but we assume she took a copy of all the work with her, that was the aim of her trip after all.”
“So when did you meet her?” Asked Jack.
“I approached her on the flight to Hawaii 1. It can be a dull journey with nothing to see so friendships can be struck up. Anna was a lovely young woman and having had the privilege of getting to know her a little, I feel greatly for your loss. She told me as much about you as she did herself so I already felt I knew you Jack, when I first saw you.” Stig paused for a moment to let everybody handle their grief privately. Then he continued. “Anna told me quite freely about her work, after all nobody had suggested she should not speak openly about it. She told me what she had previously found out and what she believed could be the implications for Hawaii 2. I became very grave and warned her that there could be unintended consequences and I spelt out what these could be. Anna was so shocked that she was tempted to give up the work but I told her she could hardly turn round and come back empty handed and that in any case, I was sure the authorities on Hawaii 2 would want to know the truth about the possibilities of ram-jets. I suggested she completed her mission but was just very circumspect about discussing it with anyone till she got home. I told her I was a kind of ambassador for Hawaii 2, that I would speak to the right people and that she would be contacted by the government once she returned from Hawaii 1. I didn’t see her again but I arranged to have operatives keep an eye on Anna, for her own safety and to make sure nobody else was taking undue interest in her. I had returned here before Anna however I did go out to the space lift and saw her greeted by you, Jack. I then sat in the front part of the train, luckily for me, I received nothing worse than a sprained wrist and a lot of bruises as a result of the explosion.”
“Okay,” said Jack thoughtfully, “so say that the bomb had something to do with Anna’s work, what was the point of it? Nobody knew we were going to go to the Buffet Car, and when we did, how did they know when to detonate it. If they were after the information then, as it happens, they could have destroyed it since it was round Anna’s neck. And as a way of getting to search her luggage it seems far too complicated not to mention dangerous for the thief too!”
“These are the things that I have been asking myself ever since the train wreck and I can see no more sense in it than you, Jack!”
“Why kill Anna at all?”
“Ah that would be money… Let’s say one of the Trans-Planet Corporations got wind of it, they wouldn’t want to have to share it with anyone else, not even Anna as its ‘re-discoverer’ and certainly they wouldn’t want it to be developed by any company on Hawaii 2. The ability to offer it to the planet from outside would give them huge leverage in negotiating trade treaties.”
“But wouldn’t it be obvious that they were implicated in the bomb once it came out that Anna was researching the same thing?” said Jack’s Mother.
“True Mrs Gulliver but hard to prove. The thing is, we think we had word of Anna’s work locked down pretty well both before she went and for the duration, plus we have heard no rumours about secret development work since, although that doesn’t necessarily mean anything… It could still turn out to be some random nut-case!”
“So where can the investigation go now and how can I be of any help?” said Jack.
“Okay Jack, so if Inspector James is compromised, and I’m not saying he is, then he believes you have given the memory stick to me but he doesn’t know for sure – you could have been lying. Now you are under no obligation to do what I am about to suggest but I can’t think of any other way to flush out the perpetrators of your wife’s murder.  If we let it be known that you still have the research, covertly, and we wait to see if anything crawls out of the woodwork. We would have you protected at all times – it goes without saying…”
“Of course I will!” said Jack immediately.
“Well you should think about it a little, Jack, it could still be dangerous despite our best efforts. Take a little time, won’t you?”
“Well I don’t know about you men but I am ready for lunch!” and Jack’s mother headed to the kitchen.
Later, as they drank coffee after a most excellent lunch from a woman clearly pleased to be back in her own kitchen, a silence settled over them as the earlier conversation returned to each of their thoughts. All except Douglas who having been the life and soul of the party during lunch had now fallen asleep in his high-chair.
The silence was broken by a Stig’s phone ringing, a quiet but insistent ringtone. “Yes Lars?” He listened briefly and then asked, “Are you expecting anyone to call?”
“No!” said Jack’s mother “We haven’t told anyone we are here. Why?”
“My brother has been keeping watch at the bottom of the road and a car has just turned up here with two men in it.” He spoke into the phone again. “Lars follow them up – don’t worry about being seen.”
“Have you got any hunting rifles here Mrs Gulliver?” Stig asked Jack’s mother.
“Yes! My late husband’s.” She was already on her way to fetch them.
Jack you watch from the window – make sure there are two men in the car.”
Jack’s mother returned with two rifles and handed them to Stig.
“A black car has just driven past slowly, two men in it and your brother is right behind them. He has stopped outside, they have gone on up the road.”
“It’s a dead end right?”
“Yes, there’s a clearing in the woods for logging lorries to turn round.”“Okay Jack, you and I will go out to my brother. Mrs Gulliver can you stay with Douglas please.” Stig handed Jack a rifle and went out the front door.Lars had climbed out of his pickup, a typical, battered, country car and was reaching out a rifle from a gun rack behind the back seat.“Stig! How in thunder are you?” Lars made a great show of bear hugging Stig in front of the car just as the black car came back down the track and seeing three men with rifles hesitated slightly and then accelerated past Lars’ pickup and disappeared down the road.“Still two on board.” said Lars.“Good!” Said Stig. “Jack, it looks like we don’t need to advertise the goods after all. Lars, will you make sure our visitors are well on their way, please. Let’s go inside Jack.”

Doppelgänger

humanist55

For the sake of pairing some of these adjuncts to the novel alongside their respective chapters, I am taking liberties with the Alphabet but we are back to D now…

My goal in the 2021 A2Z Challenge is to complete a novel I started a few years ago but which has languished for lack of love (writing!). Each Post, daily in April (Sundays excepted), will consist of some aspect of the novel plus a chapter from it. I hope that the Alphabetical items will give a bit of extra background, muse on the writing process, but most of all, help me develop certain ideas to improve the novel. Some 12 chapters are already written so I have a bit of a head start…


 Doppelgänger is a word that refers to a person who looks “the spit” (spitting image) of another – it’s from the German (they love portmanteau words) but literally means “Double Walker”!

In myths and legends, doppelgangers have been harbingers of doom or evil twins and more recently the meaning is more neutral – merely someone who resembles another. An article in BBC Future, explores research into the chances of finding your real-life Doppelgänger and, reassuringly “Even with 7.4 billion people on the planet, that’s only a one in 135 chance that there’s a single pair of doppelgangers.”

So strictly speaking – ( and Spoiler Alert) the person who appears in this next chapter is not so much a Doppelgänger by appearance, as by profession. Criticise if you will, but on this, I choose to exercise the godlike authority of the author – I like this chapter title!

Chapter 6
Doppelgänger

The real Inspector James looked decidedly put out and agitated. He was sat on the same chair as his namesake of the previous day, drinking a cup of tea which Jack’s mother had made for him. Douglas was off with Chloe.
“But why didn’t you ask to see some ID yesterday?” the Inspector said tetchily.
“It never occurred to me,” replied Jack. “The name was correct and I was expecting him – albeit the next day. Oh, and he looked like an off-worlder – more so than you in fact!”
“in what way?” The Inspector asked suspiciously.
“Well, he was pale, not sunburnt like everyone around here. Granted he could have come from nearer the poles but then there was the way he dressed, it was very plain, grey, non-descript. You seem to have acquired some of our local colourful clothes – you could blend in here!”
“Yes well, the weight restrictions on the space lift meant it was easier to buy new clothes here. They are not what I would normally choose.” The Inspector looked down at his flowery shirt styled according to research into the original Hawaii island on Earth and actually known as a Hawaiian shirt. He shrugged as if to disavow himself from his outfit. “As for the suntan, I have been here for seven months now!”
“There was something else about him though,” said Jack “he asked a lot of questions about life here on Hawaii 2 that a native would know the answer to, as if he had only been here a short while and was still discovering the place.”
“What sort of questions?”
“Well, he asked how Anna and I had afforded to build this house. He said on Hawaii 1 this would be a luxury hotel or house and only very rich people could afford it.”
“And what did you tell him?”
Jack repeated the explanation he had given to the other man the previous day.
“What else did the imposter ask you?
Jack went through the questions about the train, why he and Anna had gone to the Buffet Car and how they had ended up together in the toilet.
“The other inspector…”
“If that’s what he is, and it seems doubtful!” said Inspector James
“Well whoever he was, he seemed to know a lot about the investigation. I mean he spoke like he owned it – like he really wanted to solve it.”
“Why, what gave you that impression?”
“He told me straight away that it was a bomb and not a gas explosion.”
Inspector James frowned and tutted and said “Go on, what else?”
“He said that the President and the Rangers decided to put out the gas explosion story to ease public fear and to try to draw out a claim of responsibility He said that every legitimate user of Gentex had been contacted to audit the stocks but nothing has been found out of order.”
The Inspector thumped the arm of the chair and said “I can tell you, Mr Gulliver, that I, would never have revealed so much detail to a sus… a person of interest!”
“You were going to say suspect! Am I a suspect, Inspector James?”
“Well no, you’re not, not since you explained those last few details about why you and Anna were where you were. We had more or less ruled you out anyway.”
“That is exactly what he said yesterday!” Jack’s tone was slightly challenging for as much as he had felt at ease with the doppelganger, he did not like the real Inspector James’s manner.
“Yes, well he does seem to have a good knowledge of the investigation I grant you. We kept the whole bomb thing under wraps very carefully, but I suppose a ranger might’ve let something slip to a family member or worse still spoken directly to whoever this man is.”
“What about your staff?” said Jack, who did not like the Inspector casting aspersions on the Hawaii 2 Ranger service. They were the nearest thing that the planet had to a police force and since there was virtually no crime, the Rangers’ duties extended to many other areas such as highway administration, rescue and wilderness guiding. They were highly respected and one of the few jobs on Hawaii 2 where entrance was by competition and that was only to reduce the numbers of applicants to manageable numbers.
“I don’t have any staff.” Said Inspector James. “The cost of travel and the in tractable nature of the case meant that my partner went back to Hawaii 1 after six weeks. Talking of travel, your late wife was highly respected in her field, did she tell you how her research had gone, we couldn’t find any computer of hers on the train.”
“That is exactly what he said too.”
Jack noticed the inspector stiffen slightly. I told him she wouldn’t have taken one because of the weight on the space lift and that all her data was on a memory chip.”
“Okay, that makes sense, but we didn’t find one of them either.”
“You wouldn’t have it was disguised as a pendant and, oh, I just remembered, he took the pendant with him yesterday. He said he would return it to me today without any classified work left on it.”
“Well I think we both know that isn’t going to happen now.” The Inspector said bitterly. Jack thought of the personal things that might have been on Anna’s pendant and once again felt the difference between the two inspectors. Despite the fact that the first one appeared to be an imposter who had also stolen the pendant device, Jack still somehow preferred him than this man who showed very little sympatico for Jack and his loss.
“And what do you mean by classified work?”
“Well, he asked me if I knew that Anna’s work had been classified as secret. I hadn’t thought much about it I knew she felt it could change everything for Hawaii 2 but she hadn’t told me it was classified before she went.”
“Curious!” said the Inspector thoughtfully. “Everything else he told you is true as it happens, though it goes against all protocols of investigation to reveal so much, yet on this one thing, he lied to you! Very curious!”
“So have you got any idea who he might have been and why he impersonated you?”
“No I don’t! He might have been an off-worlder but he might not, he could be connected to the investigation but he could have just stolen the details in order to appear credible. As for motive, well he has your wife’s research! As if this case wasn’t baffling enough before – and now this!”
“So what are you going to do now Inspector James?”
“Well, first of all, I will send a sketch artist to see if you can come up with an image of the imposter and then we will search the databases for him. In the meantime, please let me know if you do hear from him but to be honest I expect he has long gone by now. Here is my number.”
Jack took the card “Okay I will do that, Inspector.”

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ 

The real Inspector James had wasted no time and the sketch artist arrived that afternoon – a likeable man whose passion for his calling whilst by no means untypical of Hawaii 2 was infectious.
“You might expect that there would be an app for doing this job or that it could be done remotely he expounded but studies have shown that it works best face to face, if you will excuse the pun! I myself have been doing this for twenty-five years and I never want to do anything else! Not that I often get called upon to do it in anger, so to speak – no crime or none that merits my skills. I am mainly a portrait artist. Shall we get started?”
The process took a good hour to complete for despite an initial reluctance to help identify the doppelgänger, lurking at the back of Jack’s mind, the portrait artist’s enthusiasm and dedication for what turned out to be a particularly tricky identification gradually won Jack over and in the end, he found himself wanting to succeed in dredging up details of the false Inspector James in order to please the artist. However, it was difficult Jack discovered because it was not just the man’s clothes that had been nondescript but his face too proved elusive. Jack could picture the expressions that had played across his features, sympathy, smiles, quizzicality, but to produce a static image of the face at rest – well it was as if a fog descended on his memory. There were no scars, no facial hair, not even distinctive wrinkles to remember – it was as if the man had a plastic face that returned to its factory condition in between expressions. Jack explained this to the artist who told him there were certain people who had the ability to express many looks and none and these were the hardest individuals for people to remember. He had only once come across such a person before and they had never been caught so he had not had the chance to evaluate his efforts with several witnesses to identify the man.
“Let’s hope this time might be different!” said Jack encouragingly. Eventually A sketch was produced with which Jack was as satisfied as he could be and it was immediately scanned and sent off to Rangers headquarters for comparison with the databases. The real Inspector James had accompanied the sketch artist so that he could get a first look at the image and had spent the hour looking around the tree-house with Jack’s permission. Having been all over the house, Inspector James asserted that he found it “Interesting!” but with such lack of conviction compared to the reactions of his doppelgänger, Jack felt he was merely being polite.

That evening when his mother Chloe and Douglas had all gone to bed, Jack was sitting in the living room mulling over the events of the last two days when his phone made a text delivery chime. He hadn’t felt the vibration, which he had set up for when he was doing some noisy building task, because Jack was essentially a social being and liked to react straight away to messages from friends and family, His late father had never been able to understand it, preferring to wait till he stopped for a cup of tea in order to catch up with his correspondence – but as Jack pointed out, the text might be from Anna in the first place telling him she had made them tea since she didn’t work to any set time table when it came to tea breaks. Another small shadow of pain crossed Jack’s face with this domestic memory as he reached into his pocket for the phone. When Jack clicked the screen on, there was no message waiting as indicated on the message icon and he was wondering if he had imagined it when the chime rang again but still with no vibration and once again, no notification appeared. Moreover, Jack realised, the sound was not coming from his phone at all but from the armchair opposite, the one where his visitors had sat. He went over to investigate and stuffing his hand down the side of the seat cushion soon found and retrieved a phone which proved to be the very same model as his. This was not surprising in itself – the range of phones models available on Hawaii 2 was not great. In the early days of the colony phones necessarily been imported and the emphasis has been on reliability and lightness because of the cost of importation. Now Hawaii 2 was a mature enough world to support its own manufacturing plants for such goods however the range of products was still small partly because the total market population was relatively small and there was no possibility of export but also because the culture of Hawaii 2 did not embrace wasteful fashions. The phones were made to last not to be updated every year or at least not the hardware, decorative cases, software and ring-tones, however, were seemingly endless in variety allowing the people of Hawaii 2 to express their individuality through customisation which they did with a passion. In any case, mobile phones had been around since the original Earth and in the centuries years since they had long ago evolved to the point where there was little new that could be invented. This did not stop the manufacturers on other home-worlds trying to repackage the phones as frequently as they could – conning the market with apparent novelty. No what surprised Jack was that the message notification chime was exactly the same as his own phone and frankly he could not believe that possible, as he and Anna had recorded the tone together using a particular spoon and a large glass bowl that rang beautifully when struck with the spoon. They made a single ring for his phone and a double-tap for hers so they could distinguish between the phones and the idea that anyone else could have that very ring tone on their phone seemed impossible to Jack. Yet when he flipped on the screen, there was the number two on the message icon! Returning to his seat Jack opened the messages the first one read:
“YOUR HOUSE IS ALMOST CERTAINLY BUGGED NOW PRETEND THIS IS YOUR PHONE AND DON’T SAY A WORD!”
The second message read: “I HAVE THE PENDANT READY TO RETURN AS PROMISED BUT AS YOU MIGHT IMAGINE THAT IS NOT SO SIMPLY DONE IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO MEET ME AND LET ME EXPLAIN MY ACTIONS THEN REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE WITH JUST A.FULL STOP ONLY”
It was obvious to Jack who the message was from and he realised that this phone must have been secreted by the doppelgänger yesterday in the knowledge that by now, Jack would have been interviewed by the real Inspector James. The idea that the house might be bugged was as shocking as the relief to be in contact with the man whom he instinctively liked and seemingly trusted, because with no hesitation, Jack replied to the message with a single full stop.
A few minutes later another chime rang out.
“LAST MESSAGE. DON’T REPLY. MAKE AN APPOINTMENT TO SEE YOUR DENTIST – BRING THE PHONE WITH YOU ON THE DAY, I WILL KNOW WHEN IT IS. THE PHONE HAS A SCRATCH ON THE SCREEN TO DISTINGUISH IT FROM YOUR OWN – DON’T USE IT EVEN THOUGH YOUR CONTACTS ARE IN IT AS YOUR FRIENDS WON’T RECOGNISE THE NUMBER. SEE YOU SOON JACK. DON’T TELL ANYONE ELSE”
Jack sat back stunned!

                                                            ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ 

One week later Jack alighted from the overhead travelator system at a tower in New Orleans. The towers that had supported the irrigation system for the Garden of Eden Project had been re-purposed to form the transport infrastructure that linked the settlers in the forest with the capital. Once the burgeoning forest had performed it’s climate changing wonder and started to generate its own rainfall water supply, the water pipes were replaced with cables that carried lightweight cars in a one-way system. Jack ascended the tower on the nearest town bound track by means of a light-weight lift and on returning home would descend a tower on the outbound loop, one grid-line away on the system of recycled towers, Paths led from the tree-house to the respective towers. the lifts on the city towers were more substantial in respect of the much heavier usage they got as compared with the Towers in the forest which served at most two or three houses.
No sooner had Jack alighted than he received a text on the phone with the scratch on it. He kept both phones in the same pocket, they were slim enough not to notice a difference but he had to pull one out and then the other a minute or two later so as not to look suspicious having picked the wrong phone to begin with.
“JUST GO INTO THE DENTIST’S SURGERY AND I WILL SEE YOU THERE”
So Jack made his way to his dentist, waited to be called in and took his place in the chair but before he had got any further than small talk, condolences on the part of the dentist and an explanation of how he felt he needed a check-up after six months in a coma, the dentist’s assistant popped in from reception and called the dentist out to deal with some problem.
Moments later a side door opened and in came the doppelgänger.

If you have enjoyed the book so far – please leave a comment, good or bad
feedback is so valuable at this stage…

G is for Gravity Well and Greening the desert

humanist55

 

Apologies to any Early Birds yesterday, I posted Chapter 3 again but spotted the error later in the day…

For the sake of pairing some of these adjuncts to the novel alongside their respective chapters, I am taking liberties with the Alphabet for the next couple of days and so we come to G and not E…

My goal in the 2021 A2Z Challenge is to complete a novel I started a few years ago but which has languished for lack of love (writing!). Each Post, daily in April (Sundays excepted), will consist of some aspect of the novel plus a chapter from it. I hope that the Alphabetical items will give a bit of extra background, muse on the writing process, but most of all, help me develop certain ideas to improve the novel. Some 12 chapters are already written so I have a bit of a head start…


I looked up the origin of the word “Well” when paired with the word “Gravity” and found no better explanation than the idea that wells are holes that things can fall into. There is a demonstration of the idea of the Gravity Well here. In “Train Wreck” – there is considerable reference to why gravity wells make space travel very awkward and likely to remain so unless somebody handily invents an “anti-gravity” engine…

On Hawaii 2, the problem of getting into space without using rockets or jet plane mother ships to carry small capsules aloft, is solved by building a space lift or as Americans call it – a space elevator. The book will come to describe the workings of a space lift eventually since it plays a pivotal role in the final act – suffice to say at this point, that here on earth, the materials necessary to build a space lift, do not yet exist but a competition exists to encourage their development. Development that is much more feasible than that of an anti-gravity engine…

P.S. the Space Lift was first posited as long ago as 1895 – boy did those Victorians have imagination!

One thing which is mentioned in today’s chapter, is some major environmental modification that was done in the early years of the settlement of Hawaii 2 and just today, I came across an article describing just such a project to “green” the Sinai Desert right here on Earth – what are the chances! Well the only question it raised for me (my having written this bit some time ago) was why there was desert on Hawaii 2 without the destructive input of man. Because in the Sinai and the Sahara, we know that they were once green and it is possible, if not probable, that the activities of man (to wit – cutting down trees), either caused or exacerbated the climate change leading to desertification. I will not go into what is covered in the article but suffice to say that it is very exciting and hopeful for not only the Sinai desert, but it seems, for the climate and weather of a much wider region if the scheme can be implemented and it suceeds!

The Loess plateau, in China, in 2007,
The Loess plateau, in China, in 2007, left, and transformed into green valleys and 
productive farmland in 2019. Composite: Rex/Shutterstock/Xinhua/Ala


The following chapter deepens the mystery of the train wreck and also tells us more about life on Hawaii 2. Please comment with any opinions good or bad – you have no idea how much I value feedback at this stage…

Chapter 5
Investigations

The investigator was conspicuous by the plainness of his outfit. He wore a grey, casual suit with a crew cut T-shirt beneath which was in such contrast to the exuberant fashions typical on Hawaii 2 for virtually everyone outside of specific work-wear, that it alone marked the man as almost certainly an off-worlder. Furthermore, he was pale of complexion and while he could have been from the far north or south of the Continent he was certainly not from the capital or anywhere near it’s latitude, and yet was clearly an urban creature.

“Thank you for seeing me Mr Gulliver and I am very sorry for your loss, although I understand you are to be congratulated on becoming a father!”
“Thank you, Mr…?”
“Inspector James, External Affairs for Hawaii 1.!
Jack responded curtly but within the bounds of politeness.
“What can I do for you Inspector James.  Actually, I wasn’t expecting you till tomorrow.”
“Yes indeed, that was the original plan, but I hope this is not inconvenient to you?”

“It might as well be now as tomorrow.” said Jack. Come in and sit down but we will have to keep our voices down as my son is asleep just there.” Jack indicated the cot where Douglas had just gone to sleep.

“I am sure it must be very painful to contemplate the events of seven months ago, although for you, it can only seem like what – five weeks, for you.”
“From when I regained consciousness you mean.”
“Indeed Mr Gulliver it must have not just a terrible shock but well, a whole series of shocks!”
Despite his reluctance to poke around in his feelings of loss, which were allowing him a little more space each day, for, if not exactly happiness, then at least some degree of calmness, Jack started to warm to the inspector his appearance was softly open and his demeanour evidenced by the tone of his questions, seemed genuinely sympathetic
“You’re right, a series of shocks.”
“I don’t want to stir up memories more than I have to, but we are really stuck over the bomb on the train, I mean as to who might have planted it and why.”
“A bomb!” exclaimed Jack “But I thought it was a gas explosion in the kitchen of the Buffet Car!” Jack lent back in his armchair, his hands and arms rigid and outstretched gripping the armrests until his knuckles were white.

Despite the softness of his approach the investigator was shrewdly appraising Jack’s reactions. It was a subject of much debate amongst his colleagues as to whether it was possible to judge reliably, whether a person was lying or not. The investigator believed that it was not. He did believe however, that many unconscious elements of body language did not lie and he had deliberately dropped this bombshell on Jack to see how he would react. He was able to observe Jack freely as in his rigid pose he was looking straight ahead but gazing internally rather than at the view beyond the window where is unfocused eyes appeared to be looking. The investigator judged that this was a complete surprise to Jack which confirmed what his background research had indicated – there was no motive or means for Jack to have been the bomber. Quite the opposite in fact. Going to the space lift to meet his lovely young wife after a separation of some months, their whole lives in front of them – very long odds! Besides it was more or less a miracle that the two of them had survived at all let alone in a coma, so close to the blast had they been that if one of them were the bomber, it would have been a suicide mission and would a suicide bomber not have self-detonated a bomb to be sure of instant, painless oblivion? No, he had early in the investigation ruled out Jack and Anna as suspects as well as dismissing as unlikely, the possibility of suicide bombers, although it was possible the bomber might still have been on the train. There was nobody in the Buffet Car since it had closed except for Jack and Anna who were in the toilet. This was a tricky case in no mistake – a bombing with no apparent motive and responsibility for which had not been claimed by any organisation or individual, nevertheless if one could eliminate any possibilities then it brought one closer to the truth or, as they might be forced to accept in the end, the probability of some other solution. As the investigator reached this point in his thoughts for what seemed like the umpteenth time in the last seven months Jack turned to him and asked

“Why did the newscasts say it was a gas explosion if it was a bomb and how do youknow it was?”

“Two good questions Mr Gulliver. I’ll answer the second one first as it’s easy. Forensics! A gas explosion would have been a slower explosion a rolling wave with a different pattern of destruction and burning not to mention different chemical residues. The residues are consistent with the Gelnex, a common enough explosive in mining, quarrying and civil engineering projects – but also simple enough to make from innocuous, easy to obtain ingredients, so it could have been a terrorist home-made device or could have been stolen from a legitimate user such as a quarry. Forensics are good but in this case not good enough to tell the difference between home-made and manufactured so we have had to resort to old-fashioned legwork. The thing is, no thefts of Gelnex have been reported anywhere on Hawaii 2 and the Rangers have gone over the inventory of every registered user with a fine-tooth comb. Nada! Actually, it very nearly could have been a gas explosion as the bomb was planted right next to the gas bottle If that had gone up I’m afraid that you and your son over there,” he gestured at Douglas asleep in his cot, “would certainly not be here today. Luckily those gas bottles are very tough, and it blew away from the bomb but didn’t rupture.”

As always with technical explanations. Jack glazed over slightly and in any case he was more interested in the human aspects of the story.

“So why did the newscasts get it wrong then?”
“Because that’s what we told them,” said Inspector James quietly. ”Firstly, when the preliminary investigation by the Rangers here on Hawaii 2 gave no clues as to why or who, and as no person or group had claimed responsibility, your President and the Rangers decided to call for external help – that’s me – and to put out the gas explosion story partly to alleviate public fears but also in the hope that by putting out a falsehood, it might tip the perpetrators into claiming responsibility after all.”
“But if someone set a bomb, then it was presumably for a purpose, like – like blackmail or extortion or to make a political point. Why wouldn’t they announce it?” send Jack who it appeared, was becoming gripped by the whole mystery. Not surprisingly, thought the investigator – who wouldn’t want to know how and why you lost your wife and six months out of your life!
“That is the million credit question Mr Gulliver.”
“Jack! Call me Jack!”
“Okay Jack. You’re right, you would imagine that if the motive was political, religious or ideological, that the terrorists would have claimed responsibility. In fact, in the very few instances of terrorism on the homeworlds, typically more than one group claim to have done it. Like your late wife, I also study the Earth Data Matrix for the information on my own field and it is very rare for a group to commit an act of terrorism and then chicken out or decide that for some reason they won’t take the credit for the act. By the time they commit the act they have too much invested in the whole plan including the follow-up.”
“Okay so it’s not terrorists – what about criminals?”
“Well Jack we still can’t completely rule out terrorism but we are looking at other lines of enquiry more strongly. Now if someone wanted to blackmail the rail company to extort money from them then this would have been pretty effective, a ‘Look what we can do!’ statement. We have thoroughly questioned the rail company and in fact they not only deny being approached with any demands, but they are in dire straits with regards to insurance. The insurance company will not pay out on a terrorist incident although strangely an act of God, whatever that might be and which this definitely is not, would qualify. We had to let them know on the promise of keeping it secret, that it was a bomb but unless a blackmailer comes forward which again, they will cover well – they, let’s just say they prefer the idea of a terrorist as it let’s them off the hook.” The investigator paused for a moment as if gathering his thoughts.
“Jack the reason I am telling you all of this, especially the truth about the bomb, it’s because we are desperately hoping you might be able to help us move this investigation along.”
“Me, Inspector – how can I help you?”
“Well firstly, we were hoping there might be some details you remember from before the explosion.”
“I’m sorry but I don’t remember much at all.”
“Why did you go to the Buffet Car Jack?”
“Well Anna was thirsty so although I said we would soon be arriving back at Grand Central she wanted a bottle of water, and we were only in the next but one carriage so we went to try, but when we got there, there was nobody behind the counter. I would have climbed over to get a bottle for her but then Anna said to wait till we arrived.”
“I see, and you didn’t see anyone in or leaving the Buffet Car?
Jack thought hard.
“Actually someone did leave as we went in. In fact, I think it might have been the attendant because I remember he had a white jacket like a chef.”
“Well that ties in with what another passenger said. He asked the attendant how long it would be till Grand Central. Unfortunately, as he was still walking towards the rear of the train when the explosion happened he was among the dead. We don’t know why he left his post. So then what happened, how did you end up in the toilet together?”
Jack blushed slightly.
“Okay, so after we found the buffet car closed Anna suddenly said she needed the toilet – it was only two or three steps away and I pushed in behind her and slapped the door lock. She was cross and asked why I haven’t waited outside?”
“Lucky for both of you that you didn’t!”
“It doesn’t feel lucky when she died anyway.” Jack suddenly collapsed inwards under a wave of remorse.
“Well they say that your body was between Anna and the blast and although she hit her head badly you cushioned her body from the explosion and probably saved the life of your son.”
“Yes, they did tell me that in the hospital.”
“So why did you go in with Anna if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Oh it was silliness really. We had just been apart for three months and I didn’t want to be apart even for a moment and besides I wanted to kiss her – and not the way you can do in front of a carriage full of people. I knew she didn’t mind having a pee in front of me but she then said she felt sick and that is something she didn’t like doing in front of me or anyone else, so I turned to go out again and that’s the last thing I remember!”
“Thank you Jack, that has cleared up a few blanks in my timeline of what happened on the train.”
The investigator sat quietly for a few minutes looking out at the view from the treehouse. Eventually he said “You know one hears a lot of imaginings on the other home-worlds about life on Hawaii 2 – mostly wrong! Like the idea that nobody has to work, so people imagine you all sit around doing nothing. That’s because they do have to work otherwise they don’t get paid, no pay – no food or rent or heating. They dream of retirement or winning the lottery so they won’t have to work anymore. It’s only when you come here that you see the truth, which is actually so much better than those fantasies. In fact, my first impression was of even greater industriousness – people working longer hours than the standard week because they enjoy their work so much and if someone finds they don’t enjoy the path they have chosen, then nobody criticizes them for wanting to change jobs. Nobody considers the training and work time wasted – the chances are that when the person enters a new occupation, they will bring transferable skills even new insights that they might not have had if they hadn’t worked in the other job first. Sorry – you know all of that anyway, but you may not realise what it’s like elsewhere. On Hawaii 1 you get your college course paid for upfront, but you have to pay it back when you are working and woe betide you if you don’t enjoy the job that it leads to, because you won’t be given a second chance with a different course. They know that people will take years to pay back one set of fees let alone two.”
“That sounds terrible!” said Jack.
“It’s not just the work choice or all the extra productivity because you enjoy your work that’s let you build such a beautiful world. Take the treehouse that you’ve built – the only thing remotely like this on Hawaii 1 are luxury hotels where the very rich can go for holidays and even fewer homes for the super-rich. How do you finance something like this anyway, at your age? If it’s not too nosey, I am curious as to how things work here.”

“You’re welcome Inspector James, I’m glad you like it. Well as you probably know we each get paid a basic stipend whether we work or not. Once Anna and I started living together there were some economies of scale and we were able to save a little. Then friends would come and do a bit of work and the “professional” help we needed was minimal, and in any case, you don’t pay for their labour because they to get their stipend too which goes up with age and skill levels. We get grants for the materials – everybody has to live somewhere after all and they are age-related – you can’t get enough to build a palace when you’re only 20 years old but you go on getting increasing grants so we, I mean I, will be able to add more to the house over time if I need to.”
“And you don’t have to pay those grants back at all?”
“No and we don’t even pay it back through taxation, we get paid what we need and we work as hard as we like!”
“What if there is a job nobody wants to do say cleaning up the sewers?”

“That doesn’t seem to happen very often, I suppose people know those jobs have to be done and someone just seems to come forward. Sometimes there is a shortage of a particular skill in one area and a surfeit in another so people are made aware on bulletin boards and somebody decides to move and fill the gap. It all seems to work out.”
“Fascinating!” said the investigator. “You know there is just one aspect of the train wreck that I still need to ask you about. How much do you know about your wife’s research?”
“Anna’s research! What could that possibly have to do with the bomb?”
Jack had been lulled by the conversation about life on Hawaii 2, into thinking that the investigator had finished his questioning, but this idea shocked him like a bucket of cold water. The investigator noted how raw Jack’s reaction was and proceeded carefully.
“I am not saying it has any connection to the bomb, it’s just that we are seven months on and none of the avenues of investigation I have told you about have yielded anything. We are no closer to understanding the who orthe why of it and believe me – we have been thorough. This is an atrocity that would have been serious on any of the home-worlds but here on Hawaii 2, especially once one has been here and experienced the life, well it’s even more unexpected and incomprehensible and that’s why we can leave no stone unturned in the investigation. Your wife’s research may not have anything to do with the event, but we have to ask I’m afraid, and I am deeply sorry to trouble you so with it, Jack!”
Jack who had tensed up again, relaxed slightly and thought about what the Inspector had said. Eventually he replied.”
“I knew she was very excited about the idea of ramjets – you’ve heard of them?”
“I have read her application for the research grant to travel to Hawaii 1. Did you know that’s her work had been classified as secret?”
“Secret!” Jack parroted, shaking his head in bemusement. “Secret from whom?”
“Secret from everyone, even you, but I’m guessing she must have told you something about it even if she didn’t mention it had been classified.”
“No, no, not at all! I do know she was excited by it and that she thought it could change everything for Hawaii 2”
“She told you that, but she didn’t say that you should not mention it to anyone else?”
“No she didn’t and, well, yes, she did tell me how it could change things, but I didn’t think much about, it, I had a lot of things on my mind. I wanted to finish the house completely whilst she was away so that we could start a family and she wouldn’t ever go away again for so long. Then too I was thinking about what work I might want to do when the house was finished. You can get a house ninety-eight percent finished in a year but that last two percent can take you years to get done – I am quite a perfectionist I find, and Anna being away was a good chance to get everything completed. You know how it is, you can leave your tools out overnight if a job is not finished and please yourself what hours you keep!”
“I am afraid I am not much of a DIY person Jack and I am very impressed that you have achieved this incredible house as your first major project – I wouldn’t know where to begin!”
“Thank you Inspector, I did find I had an aptitude for the work and the design aspects and it was the direction I was thinking of taking when Anna got back and we start a family. Now I am responsible for Douglas, I don’t know what is going to happen…”
“You have not had much time to come to terms with things, but whilst I am no builder, I do have a family. The children are nearly grown up now but I can tell you that these early months are ones that men often miss out on especially on the other home worlds where the demands of work are more rigid you have had a terrible loss but at least Douglas has his father to look after him and you will treasure this time I promise you,”
Tears were running down Jack’s face and he said nothing for a bit before apologizing as a host and taking himself off to the kitchen area around the other side of the great tree trunk that was central to the living area to make tea for himself and his guest. His mother and Anna’s Sister Chloe were keeping out of the way whilst the investigator talked to Jack although keeping an ear out in case Douglas awoke and they needed to relieve Jack of dealing with his son. When Jack returned with the tea and a plate of small cakes that his mother had made, he found the investigator standing at the bounding balcony wall looking out into the canopy and down to the forest floor. He thanked Jack for the proffered mug of tea but made no move to return to his seat and the two of them stood looking out in silence for a few minutes. It was the investigator who spoke first.
“You know I still can’t shake the feeling that I am dealing with a rich man – the owner of a luxury house instead of a young man who didn’t attend much college and built his own home with grants and help from friends!” he said shaking his head in gentle disbelief.
“Rich and poor don’t mean much here on Hawaii 2 – at least in money terms. I suppose in terms of experiences friendship and opportunity then we are all rich here.” Jack said thoughtfully and when you lose someone like Anna you realise just how rich you were.” His voice had choked up a little but he held back the tears this time.
The investigator returned to his chair and Jack followed offering him one of the little cakes which he sampled and pronounced delicious before returning to the investigation.
“So you were very busy whilst Anna was away?”
“Yes I was. I didn’t go out much except to do some shopping and Anna had stocked up the cupboards before she went. I can cook for myself but I hate shopping!”
“So you didn’t talk to anyone about the work Anna was researching?”
“No I didn’t share her enthusiasm for the history of technology and neither did any of our friends – they are more into the Arts.”
“Maybe that’s why she didn’t mention that’s it was classified or tell you not to discuss it with anyone.”
“I guess you’re right, I mean if she had said that I might have taken it more seriously. I heard her say it could change everything, but I didn’t think that much about it, I suppose I was waiting to hear more about it when she got back, after all the was no guarantee she would find any more details about it at all.”
“That’s true. So did she say anything to you when you were on the train?”
“She said she had a lot to tell me but she wanted to wait till we got home. I assumed that was about the work at the time and that didn’t interest me much. I wanted to get her home for other reasons!” Jack blushed again although this older man was somebody who made it easy to talk to about even the most intimate aspects of life.
“Since I woke up again I thought it was probably the pregnancy she was talking about and when I remember those last minutes I imagined that was why she was feeling sick and I haven’t even thought of her work until now, I suppose we will never know now whether she succeeded.
“Well. there was no sign of a computer amongst other belongings on the train. Could someone have taken it when you went to the buffet car?”
“Oh no she didn’t take a computer with her it would have been far too much weight for her allowance on the space lift.”
“Of course silly of me but then what about her work, how did she carry it with her?”
“Oh, she had a memory chip. I bought it especially for her it was concealed in a pendant. Anna hated carrying a computer around, even here. So when she went to the university, I bought the pendant and she brought her work home on that.”
“Really Jack, and have you got the pendant?”
“Well yes, although I very nearly left it around her neck when we buried her last week. I took it off her at the last minute because I thought there might be some pictures of her on Hawaii 1 and although I couldn’t face looking for them at the time, I thought I might get round to it eventually. Besides although she was touched by my gift as a way of saving carrying her computer around and it was perfect for the trip into space, it wasn’t her favourite pendant, so we swapped it for the one she liked best,”
The investigator could see that emotion was clearly threatening to overwhelm Jack again but he himself was struggling to suppress his excitement at the news of the pendant. Eventually he asked, “Could I see the pendant please?”
“Of course!” Jack said, “I will go and fetch it.” It only took a minute or two for Jack to go up to his bedroom and retrieve the pendant, but by the time he returned Douglas was waking up and handing the disguised memory chip to the investigator, Jack went to pick Douglas up before he entered full crying mode. Thus distracted, he barely registered the investigator’s remarks.
“Do you mind if I take this away to be analysed Jack, I will return it to you tomorrow, albeit with any classified material removed.”
Douglas had had an unusually long sleep whilst his father and the investigator had talked, and he was now both hungry and the wearer of a soiled nappy. In short, he was not a happy baby and he let Jack know in time-honoured fashion at the top of his powerful lungs. Jack’s mother appeared and relieved Jack of Douglas but in the confusion, the investigator made excuses and left without ever getting an affirmative answer to his last question of permission and Jack did not really register the fact till the next day.

 ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

 “My name is Inspector James you must be Jack! Thank you for seeing me,” Said the man at the entrance the next morning.

“What!” Said Jack. “You can’t be! Inspector James was here yesterday! Show me that ID!” Jack gestured at the photo ID card hanging from a ribbon around the visitor’s neck. He proffered it to Jack who compared the picture to the stranger and looked at the computer complex security holograms on the card.
“I think there’s been some sort of mistake…” Jack said.

Roll of the Dice – Challenge 4 Fulfilled

humanist55

 

True to my Dice Roll Challenge – here are four blogs from A2Z that I haven’t visited before.

First up, near the top of the Master List – Wolf of Wordswith a piece of Fan Fiction – The Doctor in the Sky – Doctor Who Story. I grew up with Doctor Who and followed every iteration of the Doctor and am certainly a fan of our current, first female Doctor. The author Wolf of Words gives nothing away about him/herself so we don’t know anything about their background only the writing and that the blogger is quite prolific. They certainly capture the flavour of the time travelling hero. As series, Doctor Who has many writers so who knows – Wolf of Words – maybe one day…

 

Short and Sweet – Less Beaten Paths of America – each day pictures of signs eg “Entering Boring”! Make sure you click to read more because there are many signs each day – this guy has been on a mission!!!

 

Hennie’s Budgies  – does what it says on the tin – truly! Everything you wanted to know about Budgies but never dared to ask…

I am always attracted to the category Personal (journal, diary, musings) but not always charmed by what I find – not so here at Blog, Blah blah https://doodlingwords.blogspot.com/. Poems, prose, images – see if it’s to your taste…

F is for Fiction (Science amongst others)

humanist55

 For the sake of pairing some of these adjuncts to the novel alongside their respective chapters, I am taking liberties with the Alphabet for the next couple of days and so we come to F and not D…


My goal in the 2021 A2Z Challenge is to complete a novel I started a few years ago but which has languished for lack of love (writing!). Each Post, daily in April (Sundays excepted), will consist of some aspect of the novel plus a chapter from it. I hope that the Alphabetical items will give a bit of extra background, muse on the writing process, but most of all, help me develop certain ideas to improve the novel. Some 12 chapters are already written so I have a bit of a head start…
Please comment with any opinions good or bad – you have no idea how much I need feedback at this stage…

I have no time for people who say that they don’t read fiction – a slight sneer implicit in their assertion, as if they regard fiction as pointless and only non-fiction as worthwhile because it is true – factual. Such a limited understanding get’s my goat. The philosophy of Science as posited by Karl Popper tells us that there is no such thing as truth, absolute and unassailable for there is always the possibility that in some place in the universe, that “truth” will not hold and the best we can hope for, is to eliminate what is untrue and thus move towards the truth – whilst never actually arriving…

Fiction makes no such claim to truth and it’s raison d’etre is entirely other. Human beings are arguably defined by their story-telling – even if it is a by-product of our big brains – an unintended consequence of other evolved characteristics – if you can remember experiences and describe them to others – who is to say that what you say is true and not a complete fiction…

Science Fiction, or Speculative Fiction, is given licence to spin fantasies that are literally out of this world and they are, in consequence, allowed to be longer than other novels to allow for all the descriptions of new worlds. An ordinary novel (and of course there can be exceptions) is usually expected to be around 90,000 words whilst a science fiction novel may be allowed 120,000 or even more.

But the real reason why fiction, of any kind, is important, is that it takes us to new places and especially – it takes us inside another person’s head and shows us the world through their eyes, gives us a hint as to what it might be like to experience the world as that person. That said, the experience is filtered, mediated, shaped by the author of the fiction and who is to say that a man can or cannot imagine what it is like to be a woman or vice versa, what it’s like to have mental health issues, be rich or poor, what the other side of the world is like let alone what other worlds might be like.

So we embark on reading fiction trusting ourselves to our author/guide not to play tricks on us (unless they be enjoyable ones), to be coherent, to entertain us and most of all, to make us want to carry on to the end in order to find out what happens…

No time for fiction – merde!

Today’s chapter deals with a man continuing to deal with his world having changed utterly as well as telling us more about Hawaii 2 and Jack and Anna’s home there. What do you think, is it plausible? Please comment whether on this chapter or the whole story so far…

PinkStock Photos, D. Sharon Pruitt, CC BY 2.0   

<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Chapter 4
New Directions.

Jack and Douglas were back home together with Jack’s mother and a sister of Anna’s. It had been a painful return for Jack with all the reminders of his life with Anna and in particular, the return he had been anticipating following her trip to Hawaii 1. His mother had been staying at the house whilst Jack was in hospital as her own home was halfway across the continent in the cooler north and she had long ago taken down the more poignant reminders like the “Welcome Home” banner Jack had hung across the living room.
Jack and Anna had spent much of the first two years of married life building their home as many chose to do on Hawaii 2 and had built for a future in which they anticipated raising a family so there were several spare bedrooms as well as the little nursery space just off the main bedroom.
In a parallel to Earth there were coasts that were home to vast numbers of seabirds who fed on fish that boomed in the mineral rich currants that flowed up from the polar regions. The guano from these birds was mined early on in the colony’s development as it had been on Earth and used as a fertilizer, Brought in through the port of New Orleans it was combined with water from the mighty river to “green” the desert along the northern fringes of the New Sahara with forest species from native rainforest.
This project which had begun in the early years of the economy settlement had begun with a higher gantry of sprinklers to water the nascent forest but as time went on the forest began to change the very climate of the planet and rain was generated throughout the latitude and water abstraction from the great river reduced. Now the process of forest spreading into the New Sahara fringes was proceeding of its own accord.
Where Hawaii 2 differed significantly from Earth was that all the continental land mass was one in one piece bar a scattering of islands where volcanic mounts reached up through the vastness of the deep ocean that covered forty-five percent of the planet. Earth’s ancient Gondwanaland had been similar but this piece of data was one that had been lost to mankind, or at least, if it still existed in the fragmented data rescues from the dying Earth, it had not yet been found again. The mighty river which drained more than half the area of the Continent was not named the Mississippi after the river on which the original New Orleans was located but rather the Euphrates whose status as the possible location of the mythical Garden of Eden was a story that hadsurvived in multiple locations within the data matrix. This was because of the myth being the first story in the Bible the major document of one of the Earth’s great trees of religion the Judeo/ Christian/ Islamic tree and these religions had been carried out to the home worlds where they had evolved only slightly over the thousand years that man had been making his home among the stars.
So it was fitting that the rainforest project that surrounded New Orleans and had been so successful as a venture in climate change should be entitled the Garden of Eden. Interspersed with blocks of forest were plantations growing a mixture of tropical fruits both native to Hawaii 2 and from Earth but also crops such as rubber and palm oil which were used in various manufacturing processes. Many plastics on the home-world were made from renewable, carbon-neutral crops rather than the fossil fuels of Earth’s murky past that had led to The Destruction. It was not that fossil fuels did not exist on Hawaii 2 but their use was much more circumspect given the lesson of history and the new technologies that had been developed to avoid the use of hydro-carbons. If the original intent in colonising Hawaii 2 had been as a social experiment, it had turned out to be as much a model exercise in environmental practice too, geo-forming the world to reclaim the desert, making sure that the imported plants fit well defined niches and did not become weeds – genetically engineering them if necessary, to make sure they did not flourish like weeds. There were no high functioning sentient beings to take into account and most of the plants and animals were analogous to Earth species and their eco-systems, so it was decided that any amount of change to the planet was permissible as long as the choices made were sustainable…
By the time Jack and Anna built the tree-house, some 80 clicks from New Orleans, the trees were some 80 years old and it was amongst the buttress roots of the tree that supported the house that Anna’s body was laid to rest. She and Jack had talked about this idea for their final resting places but with the blindness of youth never imagining that the occasion might come so soon for either of them. Everybody on Hawaii 2 was buried in the soil except for members of a few religious sects who adhered to the ritual of cremation, or those who donated their bodies for Medical Research. The idea of nature recycling the mortal remains was mostly accepted as the best way and in Anna and Jack’s case, the idea that they would literally be incorporated into the fabric of the tree that they hoped the Descendants would continue to live in lent a special poignancy to the idea of supporting your family. If only it hadn’t come so soon thought Jack as they ascended to the house again following the burial ceremony. The house was thronged with friends and relations for the day, though most of them left before nightfall there being limited accommodation for such numbers nevertheless the coming together of so many people to offer their support and their memories of Anna was enormously sustaining for Jack, In particular he found that he was connected more strongly again to his life with Anna and before that even, a life from which he had felt curiously detached by the hiatus of his six month absence from the world lost in a coma. Being more connected to his memories of Anna allowed him to integrate young Douglas into the shared plans he and Anna had made. He had done more work on the house partly because he was physically more able but also because it interested him more than it did Anna whilst she was desirous to return to her studies of the history of technology. Towards the end of the house construction when it was mostly a snagging work, Anna had done just that and rapidly won the award of the research trip back to Hawaii 1 to search for data on the RAM jets that she believed she could make so much difference to Hawaii 2. The plan was that she would try and wrap up this research in the one trip and that on her return, house complete, she and Jack would start a family. Some of that Jack reflected ruefully, had come to pass and some most definitely had not. Another part of the plan had been that he would look for a job once Anna was pregnant, although there was no compulsion to work at all on Hawaii 2, everybody got given an allowance sufficient to keep body and soul together – most people did work, except for brief periods between jobs or when they were young and uncertain which direction to take. Jack had really enjoyed building the house and had been starting to think of a career in construction, engineering, or design, however, his science and maths skills probably precluded the last two and he would have ended up in construction. Now he had to think about Douglas. He couldn’t count on his mother or Anna’s sister continuing to live with him or offer the level of support that they had been whilst his strength was mending although neither of them had hinted at any time limits to their help. For a few weeks then, things drifted on as a routine evolved around Douglas and Jack, the two women sensitively deferring to the needs of father and son bonding as much as possible, nevertheless, they were as doting as any female relatives could be to both males and were clearly in no hurry to leave. And so it might have gone on indefinitely, or so it felt to Jack if it had not been for the visit one day, of an investigator.
Like many cities and features on the planet such as New London or the New Sahara, the capital of Hawaii 2, New Orleans celebrated the name of a city on Earth except that in the case of New Orleans, the “new” had been part of the original’s epithet. Picked because like Earth’s New Orleans, the city was built near the Delta of a mighty river and so like its namesake, the capital was an ideal staging post between ocean and river traffic. Without jet engines it was not only passenger planes but air freight that was not possible or at least jet powered, high speed freight. There was a redevelopment of airships which could carry freight wherever there were no navigable rivers that could be used as freight ways, but both airship and barge transport were slow and the settlers of Hawaii 2 adjusted their expectations accordingly. Many felt that the slower pace of transport had a beneficial effect on life generally and that other Home Worlds were frenetic by comparison and the people correspondingly stressed.
The house that Jack had built was in fact a tree-house, built around the still spreading trunk of one of the first trees to be planted in the Garden of Eden. The main living areas were on one contiguous level just below the point at which the branches forked away from the trunk and headed up into the canopy. The bedrooms above were built separately on different branches, but their floors extended and overlapped giving complete cover to the main floor below. An intricate system of gutters carried water into cisterns which the regular daily rains kept more than sufficiently topped up to supply the household’s needs. The climate was sufficiently equatorial to give a constancy of temperature further cushioned against extremes by the enveloping forest canopy so that only rolling screens were necessary to close the gap between ceiling and half-height walls around the edges of each platform. The judicious removal of a couple of branches not only allowed direct sunlight in early and late on in the day but opened some views out over the forest, the supporting tree being located on slightly higher ground within the forest. Most of the rain-forest ecology had been introduced into the newly formed forest, fortunately there were no dangerous predators and, in any case, the house was protected by motion-activated ultra-sonic animal repellents that kept those monkey-like creature that might become a nuisance from getting too close. The sounds of wildlife surrounded the house and gave it a truly enchanting atmosphere.

E is for Eden and the Euphrates

humanist55

 

For the sake of pairing some of these adjuncts to the novel alongside their respective chapters, I am taking liberties with the Alphabet for the next couple of days and so we come to E and not C…

My goal in the 2021 A2Z Challenge is to complete a novel I started a few years ago but which has languished for lack of love (writing!). Each Post, daily in April (Sundays excepted), will consist of some aspect of the novel plus a chapter from it. I hope that the Alphabetical items will give a bit of extra background, muse on the writing process, but most of all, help me develop certain ideas to improve the novel. Some 12 chapters are already written so I have a bit of a head start…
Please comment with any opinions good or bad – you have no idea how much I need feedback at this stage…

 

We learn in Chapter 4 of “Train Wreck”, that the capital of Hawaii 2 is called New Orleans because of its location on the delta of a great river but that “The mighty river which drained more than half the area of the continent was not named the Mississippi after the river on which the original New Orleans was located but rather the Euphrates whose status as the possible location of the mythical Garden of Eden was a story that had survived”.

Arguably, Hawaii 2, might well rather have been named Eden instead – but more of that in a later post – Hawaii 2 it was and it is only in naming its great river Euphrates, that tribute is paid to the Eden story. Naturally, one book that did survive the journey to the stars – in the last days of old Earth – was the Bible, as did the sacred works of all the great religions, even if they were carried forth by individuals, as digital editions, as we saw in the previous post.

To understand why Hawaii 2 might have been considered a veritable Garden of Eden, before and most certainly after the climate-altering activities of the settlers (changes for the best) – we may consider this quote from the seventeenth century poet, Andrew Marvel, from his poem, appropriately called “The Garden”.

“What wond’rous life in this I lead!

Ripe apples drop about my head;

The luscious clusters of the vine

Upon my mouth do crush their wine;

The nectarine and curious peach

Into my hands themselves do reach;

Stumbling on melons as I pass,

Ensnar’d with flow’rs, I fall on grass.”

For this is almost the nature of the planet blessed with a perfect climate for agriculture, fertilised with a planetwide, gentle fertilising rain of volcanic dust – the early settlers could hardly believe their luck. Not only that, but no apex predators that would seriously threaten them and no highly sentient rivals either. Just as in the first transition of humans from hunter-gatherer to agriculturalist and pastoralist, in the original, postulated Garden of Eden, thought to have been between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in ancient Mesopotamia, the blessing of abundance liberated mankind to develop more culture and art and  assured surpluses.

There is a theory, to which I heartily subscribe, that the Garden of Eden story, is an ancient race memory of that transition. Not that hunter-gatherer society and life was lacking in culture, art and pleasant times of surplus and not that agricultural life was all plain sailing – and of course, the flaws, were all the women’s fault! It’s easy to see how, whilst the men went off hunting for a few days, came back, cock-of-the-roost and feasted, and lay about for a few days before swanning off with their mates for another hunt – the women, left babysitting and child-minding, had to go off into the bush and gather food for all they were worth, both to feed themselves, and garnish the next feast.

What this lifestyle did give the women, was the time to develop a profound understanding of the workings of plants and natural phenomena like weather and seasons. When did it click that instead of searching an area for the edible grains, it was possible to keep the seeds and plant them in one place and produce a crop. Just one snag… Other creatures could take advantage of this unnatural abundance and so it was necessary to guard the putative crop. So now, instead of the life of Reilly, hunting with your besties, man was forced to “work by the sweat of his brow” – ploughing, planting, guarding, weeding and de-pesting before finally harvesting. A similar story can be told about animal husbandry. Some, might not have found this a good trade and they might have accused the women of “eating from the Tree of Knowledge” and characterized this as a sin against God’s word…

Still, by and large, farming caught on, though a terrible rash of grumblers than farmers it’s hard to find, women kept quiet about their part in the innovation and eventually, after some thousands of years of stability under agriculture, the Urban revolution followed as night follows day. The development of human activity seems to have been long plateaux of stability followed by brief revolutions that change the face of human existence and the mystery, in hindsight, is what took them so long.

What does seem to be the case is that, with the benefit of hindsight for the terrible demise of Earth, and with the carefully balanced introduction of Earth species both of plants and their concomitant pollinators, plus the judicious use of native plants and fruits, and the very careful planning of settlements and transport links, a veritable Garden of Eden was established with remarkable ease and the promise of great stability.

Of course, that is – if nobody upsets the apple cart…

The previous chapter laid out the premise of what is unique about Hawaii 2 and why it is so suitable for a Utopian experiment. Throughout the novel there is a mixture of technical stuff, history and in the last chapter, even a bit of sex thrown in – by no means gratuitously I hasten to add. The next chapter is purely  the human story – so my question to you, Dear Reader, is this – does it work? Is there a balance between exposition and conversation – human narrative and science fiction? Please comment…

Chapter 3
Loss and Gain.

The nurses and Doctor made themselves scarce as quickly as they could leaving Jack alone with his mother and the baby who with no further ado, she tucked into the crook of Jack’s arm. The baby lay calmly and looked up at him whilst he, feeling anything but calm inside was mesmerized by its gaze. Eventually, he looked up at his mother and asked “Where’s Anna? I don’t understand!”
His mother sat down on the edge of the bed.
“You have been in hospital in a coma for a long time, six months in fact! What’s the last thing you remember?”
Jack thought for a moment. “I was on the train. I went to meet Anna at the space lift. Where is she mum? How can this be my baby – Anna wasn’t pregnant!”
Jack’s agitation conveys itself to the baby even though his body has scarcely moved so weak was it after 6 months of immobility. His mother gently removes the baby and soothes it – the necessary pause while she does this soothes her son also.
“Anna must have got pregnant just before she left for her trip. She hadn’t told you?”
“No, though she said she had something special to tell me but she wanted to wait till we got home. She did look a bit different come to think of it.”
“Jack I have some bad news.” She paused to let it sink in. “There was an explosion on the train. You and Anna were nearest to the seat of it and were lucky to survive. You were both in the toilet and it’s what saved you. They brought you both here and mended all the bones and gashes but you both remained in a coma. They found out Anna was pregnant and that the baby was okay, growing in fact and they put you in a room together. I, your brothers and sister, Anna’s family and friends of the two of you came to talk to both of you, play music and hold your hands hoping you would wake up. The doctors are so good these days with physical things but when it comes to the brain sometimes you just have to wait – old school.”
She stood with the baby leaning into her shoulder, twisting from side to side and rubbing its back gently – willing it to sleep.
“The doctor’s hoped that when the baby was full-term that Anna might wake up going into labour but allowing a few days before she left Hawaii once she reached nine months and nothing happened, they had to perform a C-section Jack I am so sorry – but she never recovered after the operation it was as if the body had kept the baby alive and growing but once it was born she had nothing left.”
Jack had realised what was coming before she said it but the shock of hearing the words brought a strangled cry from him and then tears coursed down his face. His mother laid the baby down in a cot at the other side of Jack’s bed and then sat on his bed and gathered him into her arms.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

It was a few days later when the doctors having made their rounds and, declaring themselves “very happy” with Jack’s progress, Jack and his mother sat talking. The last few days had been busy with nurses fussing and feeding him and eventually freeing him of catheters drips and monitors.
“You know Mum I know it sounds funny, but if it had been a girl, I think I would have felt quite differently. It would have been as if I lost Anna but got a part of her back – a new little Anna. But being a boy, it feels like we have both lost everything – a wife and a mother.”
“But you do have each other don’t you.”
“Yes Mum, it feels like we’re in it together.”
“You are going to be a wonderful dad, Jack. Anna would have been so proud of you!” She saw the tears well up and could have bitten off her tongue! Oh! I’m sorry love, I didn’t mean to …!
“It’s alright Mum I know you didn’t…
They sat in silence for a minute.
“You know Jack, there is one very important task that can’t wait any longer! The baby needs a name – we can’t go on calling it “It” now can we?”
Jack was silent for a moment and reaching for his mother’s hand he said
“Would you mind if we called him after Anna’s Dad Douglas? I always liked the name, but I want her family to feel they have a real stake in his life – you know what I mean…”
“I think that’s a lovely idea Jack and of course I don’t mind. Maybe you could call him Jack for a middle name for you and for your father.”
“Of course Mum! That’s a brilliant idea and it sounds well -Douglas Jack Gulliver!”
“Well that’s sorted then! No-one wanted to name the baby, Douglas that is, until you woke up, so the poor little chat has been nameless for 3 weeks!”
“Good job I woke up then, eh?” Jack managed a smile.
“I always knew you would dear, I was certain of it!”
Jack looked down at young Douglas who was sleeping contentedly in his arms blissfully unaware of his new status as a named citizen of Hawaii 2.
“Okay Douglas, it’s you and me against the world kid!”

B is for Books – but not as we know them…

humanist55

 



My goal in the 2021 A2Z Challenge is to complete a novel I started a few years ago but which has languished for lack of love (writing!). Each Post, daily in April (Sundays excepted), will consist of some aspect of the novel plus a chapter from it. I hope that the Alphabetical items will give a bit of extra background, muse on the writing process, but most of all, help me develop certain ideas to improve the novel. Some 12 chapters are already written so I have a bit of a head start…
Please comment with any opinions good or bad – you have no idea how much I need feedback at this stage…

 

Today, let alone in the future I have imagined in “Train Wreck”, the world of books is being eroded by the electronic simulacrum – the digital book. For years, the demise of “real” books has been forecast but to paraphrase Mark Twain’s alleged remark on being told that a newspaper had published his obituary in error ““The reports of [book’s] death are greatly exaggerated.”

Why do those of us who read books – and it’s true that there are many who don’t – at all -why do we still sometimes prefer the ancient, analogue form to the digital?
Certainly, when researching in a non-fiction work, I prefer to build a mental map of a book – sometimes without even reading it cover to cover but instead, skimming across it’s surfaces and making mental crosses where the treasure is buried. It is uncanny how one can somehow go back and find those nuggets, sometimes even years later, without even marking the passage in the margins or turning down the page corners – both habits which I find sacrilegious to perpetrate even though I find a book annotated by another hand to be an object of fascination – a glimpse into someone else’s mind…

Kindle, the most successful iteration of the digital-book, has reproduced the marginal annotation though my reluctance to annotate has carried over to the digital book and when I research in the pure, book-form free word-scapes of the internet, I lift quotes out and assemble them in new documents for future contemplation.

For convenience, and because they are cheaper than “real” books, I do have a Kindle library on my smartphone, also, that I may never be caught without something to read (other than the ubiquitous internet). I don’t mind reading fiction in either analogue or digital form but when I do discover a book of true worth, I enjoy – almost fetishistically – having the real thing on my bookshelves and building collections of favourite authors.

So I am of that generation who are tweenies, caught somewhere between analogue and digital books – perhaps for my grandsons, it is a different balance.

In the universe of “Train Wreck”, the last days of Earth were hastened by the very exodus of mankind – the construction of great arks in space and the shuttling of cargo and humans to build and stock those arks for their journeys to the stars. The final push to mine, assemble, and grow the necessary materials and sadly, analogue books are finally, surplus to the constraints of lifting material out of Earth’s gravity well and they are finally left behind all but a few “treasures”. Even the digital world of the internet is reduced – bloated with nonsense, porn, cat videos, personal memorabilia of long-dead citizens – the task of extracting, condensing, and compressing the relevant data from the vast server farms where information was stored (at a huge and finally fatal cost to the environment) – often duplicated many times over, proved a difficult task. The new storage media proved, like CD’s had once done, not to be so durable and faithful in their ability to preserve data and so the researchers of Hawaii 1 found there were tantalising gaps in both the knowledge of old Earth and worse still, in the indexing, and so vast was that accumulated knowledge, that only patient research by human minds, could evaluate and restore order. Hence it is, that Anna, Jack’s wife and historian of technology, has to travel from their home on Hawaii 2, to Hawaii 1 to access the fragmented database in search of proof of her big idea…

Chapter 2
A Utopian Plan

SURVEY SHIP ANDROMEDA IN ORBIT,
 HAWAII 2, A.G.947

Captain Johannson never tired of the view. A veteran surveyor of new planets, none had ever been as beautiful as Hawaii 2. It reminded him of the pictures of old Earth before The Destruction – those first images from space , taken by the early astronauts with nothing better to do than take photographs whilst proving they could survive a few orbits in space. These pictures were so popular on Earth that they had survived in the data matrix in multiple instances. It was fair to say that they were probably the reason Captain Johannson had chosen to go into space himself, some fifty years ago. He had travelled the void through hyperspace jumps to new stars and their planets many times. Wherever Astronomers had identified a solar system that looked promising, there Captain Johannson would go and check it out. He had seen extraordinary sights, the variety of possible planets never ceased to amaze but as viable homes for mankind to colonise, well the margins of viability were narrow and planets that made the grade were few. In the nine hundred and forty seven years since the first colony was set up on Hawaii 1, only another four planets had been added to the Pan Human Federation. This one, provisionally named Hawaii 2 because of its extraordinary similarity to Earth, would be the jewel in the crown – if only they could solve the problem!

They could see amazing detail of the planet’s surface from space and with a multiplicity of sensors and filters could survey weather, geological strata, vegetation types and much more. But sooner or later you needed to get down there on the surface, to check out the wildlife, take physical samples, just breath the air! Of course, first you sent probes down – unmanned drone ships that would skim close to the surface filming and taking air samples before returning to the S.S. Andromeda. Except they mostly didn’t. Return that is. Mostly they flew through the tricky entry phase where the thinness of atmosphere caused such a build-up of speed one had to expend up a lot of rocket fuel slowing the craft up so that it wouldn’t burn up as the friction with the increasing atmosphere built up. Then, when the atmosphere was thick enough, the jet engines came into play and the probe could fly down, collect its samples and vids before flying up again to a height where the rockets could finally boost the craft back into orbit. The “problem” was that the jet engines were failing after random amounts of time and the probes, which were fortunately shaped to glide, after a fashion, ended up crash landing on Hawaii 2’s surface. Whilst some of the probes were intact enough to send back vids and other data, all of which was useful, the “problem” remained, inscrutable, until now. The latest probe had made it back although it had been touch and go and had immediately revealed the “problem”. The rear section of the jet engines was coated in volcanic glass to such an extent that the turbines that drove the compressors at the front of the engine had seized up and the engine stopped.

Once they knew what they were looking for, the Andromeda’s scientists were able to shine laser probes that could reflect off the very fine volcanic dust and map its distribution in Hawaii 2’s atmosphere. Most volcanoes threw out dust but it was usually heavy and fell to ground within a hundred miles of the source volcano and aircraft with jet engines would avoid flying near eruptions for obvious reasons. This particular dust, however, was so fine that it floated up into the atmosphere where it continued to circulate for long periods before eventually settling to the ground. Even then it could be whisked up from the extensive desert regions of Hawaii 2’s equatorial latitudes.

Captain Johannson had formulated a plan. Volunteers were being sought for a one-way ticket to the surface. The largest landing craft was being fitted with extra jet engines to be used should the originals give out and windows of opportunity when dust levels were slightly reduced were being studied. But the fact remained that this trip was only heading down. The crew would become Hawaii 2’s first settlers and volunteers were being assessed for psychological suitability apart from Captain Johannson that is. Always the surveyor and never the settler, Captain Johannson had decided he would like to settle down and nobody was going to rule him out on psychological grounds. S.S. Andromeda carried a selection of Earth plants plus some garnered from the five federation planets that had proved popular with human digestion and these were grown aboard the vessel in the hydroponics section. They would provide the agricultural start and everything else that might be useful was being catalogued and the logistics of getting it into the lander considered. All that they were waiting for was the window of opportunity – a relatively dust free day…

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT,
 PAN HUMAN FEDERATION,
 HAWAII 1, A.G.947

“But that’s crazy I can’t believe we can cross light years of space, find a perfect planet, nearer to earth conditions than any we have previously identified – a needle in a haystack and you are telling me that we cannot fully exploit it because of volcanic dust!
“Yes sir precisely!”
“But is there no other way of getting on and off world didn’t the first Earth missions into space use rockets?!
“You are right sir they did but they soon realised it was too costly and in a way a blind alley, the wrong way to have approached space in the first place – all due to a historic accident!”
“Explain!”
Behind the desk of his office on Hawaii 1, Federation President Rosario leant back, put his finger tips together and assumed an air of concentration, as if by listening closely he might spot a loophole in the facts of the unpalatable news he was being given. Chief of Staff for the Federation of Home Worlds, James Hewlett paced the room hands clasped behind his back and began.
“There had been a war – the so-called Second World War and as I am sure you know war, is a great accelerant for technology. Some would argue there has been less technological advancement in the last thousand years of mankind’s expansion across the stars because there has been no war. Once we discovered the key to interstellar travel, to hyperspace manipulation, the universe was our oyster. Especially as it turned out that there were no little green men out there to compete with – there were plenty of planets for everyone, a void waiting to be filled even if none of them was quite so perfectly Earth like as Hawaii 2.
But in that war many developments occurred, rocketry on one side and nuclear weaponry on the other and at the end of the war, one of the victorious allies took most of the rocket engineers and all of the rockets whilst the other took just the top man, the real brains of the program – Werner von Braun.”
“How do you know all this ancient history James?” asked the President with only the slightest hint of impatience.
“Well sir, there is an ancient saying and unfortunately, the originator of it is lost to us, that ‘those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them’. I make it my duty as Chief of Staff to arm myself with all the history lessons I can.”
If the President heard even the mildest rebuke in the statement he did not reveal it but nodded sagely and said with no apparent impatience this time “Continue!”
“Well Sir, the Russians, for it was they who took the staff and stock, soon fired off all the rockets and did all the experiments with them that they could but then had to start from scratch building a new production organisation with the staff they had co-opted and without the former leader. The Russians were in a phase of collectivism called Communism which proved not to be a very efficient form of government and were doubly hampered by a totalitarian dictatorship, so it was slow progress. They did however manage to catch up with their opposite numbers the Americans in developing nuclear weapons and they knew how to deliver them around the world by rocket. The Americans believed in free market forces, in Capitalism and indeed it proved a much more efficient means of developing the atomic weapons and with the real brains of rocketry von Braun on their side they soon caught up with the Russians in the production of rockets as the means to deliver nuclear bombs to the other side of the world. And so, the Russians and Americans faced each other off with huge arsenals of nuclear weapons capable of extinguishing all life on Earth the so-called Cold War,”
“But that’s mad!” exclaimed the President,
James did a quick double take of his boss to see whether he recognised what he had said and deciding probably not said with some animation
“Precisely Sir! You’ve hit the nail on the head M. A. D. Mutually Assured Destruction, It was the theory that they work to – nobody could initiate an attack without knowing that the other side could counter attack before being destroyed and the aggressors would be equally destroyed since there was no defence against the rockets once launched.”
“Ok – but what does this have to do with space flight?”
“Well Sir, as well as rockets, both sides developed jet engines aplenty following the war, first for the military and then for passenger airliners The Americans also invented a little rocket powered plane to be carried as high as possible by a jet-turbine powered, bomber before being released to fire it’s rocket engine and be taken to the edge of space. Imagine the thrill of that first pilot to see the sky turn black and the stars come out before plummeting back to Earth in a barely controlled fashion!”
James paused for a moment to long and the president spoke tetchily.
“Yes, yes, but what has that got to do with our problem?”
“Ah well I was coming to that…

 

A TREE HOUSE, GARDEN OF EDEN,
 HAWAII 2, SEPTEMBER, A.G.1243

“So the Americans and Russians prove they both could make rockets and bombs with very different systems of politics and production but now they could wave their big dicks around but not use them. I mean you know how much you boys like your phallic symbols.”
Anna smiled up at Jack whilst gesturing at his crotch with a fore-finger which she provocatively curled and uncurled. Jack put the two cups of tea down carefully on the bedside table before suddenly grabbing a pillow and swatting his wife of two years. She shrieked and rolled towards him wrapping her arms round his thighs and pulling him down onto the bed. An hour later after a thorough exploration of dick waving and more besides and lying side by side with fresh cups of tea she continued.
“So the Americans and the Russians fought a few proxy wars but in their frustration at not being able to use their big shiny weapons, they wanted a grander gesture and when the Russians became the first to put a man into space orbit then the Americans had to go one better and said they were going to send men to land on the moon!”
“Wow!” said Jack “Serious dick waving!” Grabbing Anna’s hand he wrapped it round his own member and demonstrated the said motion.
“Behave yourself Jack! You were the one who wanted to understand why it’s so important that I go away for three months and I am trying to explain! So down boy!” She gives a sharp squeeze and then lets go.
“Alright, alright! I will pay attention Teacher!”
“Okay, so because the Russians had used a rocket to send a man into space and because the payloads involved in getting a ship that could go to the moon and back were so huge, nobody thought of anything other than rockets as the way to go forward. The whole bomber/ rocket-ship idea was just forgotten about. After the moon landings the Americans did develop a shuttle landing craft that was reusable and could take cargo into space, however, it still needed a massive rocket to get it up into space even though it could fly or rather glide back down again.”
“How big were these phallic symbols then?”asked Jack
“Seriously massive – like sitting on a huge bomb twenty times the size of the payload and although the shuttles achieved a lot, eventually in cooperation with the Russians, after a couple of accidents, one on take-off and one on landing with loss of all lives, the shuttles were phased out.”
“So they stopped exploring space then?”
“No, there was an International Space Station by then and the Russians went on using their trusty rockets to maintain the program working with the Americans and other countries but then something new happened.”
“What was that?”
“Well, private industry got involved and worked on getting tourists into space in at least a sub Orbital flight. After all a generation had grown up with all the excitement of the first space flight, the moon landings and the images from the space station and rich people wanted to go there for themselves!”
“I bet they did! What’s not to want! I wish I could see Hawaii 2 from space as you will next week!” said Jack ruefully.
“Well maybe one day we can afford for you to at least go up the lift my love.”
“Yes but you are going to do that and more – again! It’s not fair!” Jack stuck his bottom lip out and pouted in such a parody of a two-year-old that Anna was reduced to helpless laughter.
“I know my darling but one day…” She squeezed his arm.
“Seriously love, I am so proud of you getting chosen to go back and do more research. I know one can do pretty much anything one wants here on Hawaii 2 but when it costs as much as this trip then you’ve got to be good to justify it and someone obviously thinks you have what it takes – apart from me that is!”
“Ahh thanks love!” She rolls over and kisses him before continuing.
“Anyway, the private companies went back to the piggy back idea, building jet powered mother-ships from really light materials and small spacecraft that could rocket up into space once the mother-ship reached its highest point and then like the shuttles they could glide down again.”
“But we can’t use a system like that on Hawaii 2 because of the dust, am I right?”
“Correctamundi! We’ll make a scientist of you yet or at least a science historian.
“Alright Anna, I may be a builder but that doesn’t mean I know nothing!” and he tickles her till she begs for mercy
“Ok, ok! You’re right it’s the dust and Hawaii 2 has a real problem with it.”
“But if Hawaii 2 is the most Earth like planet to be discovered then how come they didn’t have the problem, aren’t there volcanoes on Earth too?”
“There are and very occasionally they did produce the exact same dust that is a problem here on Hawaii 2 and occasionally they did have to ground their jet aircraft but it was never to the same extent as it is here. Hawaii 2 much more recently emerged from an ice age – only 4,000 years ago whereas on Earth, 11,500 years had elapsed by the time jet engines came along. So we have a lot more glaciers in close proximity to volcanoes and even then it has to be a particular type of volcano to produce the very particular fine dust which messes up jet engines. The volcano melts the ice above it and the water runs down hits the molten lava and boom! Very fine dust particles all over the atmosphere.”
“Ok Anna you’re starting to lose me on the technicalities love but the reason you’re going off to Hawaii 1 is because you think there may be a solution?”
“Yes! When I went there before I found a reference to something called a ramjet which doesn’t have moving parts so it might not be affected by the dust – it could change everything for Hawaii 2. I can’t believe that’s nobody else discovered it before me although the reference was truncated by the data degradation and I need to search for it again in other areas of the data.”
“Why can’t they copy all the data and send it to all the other home planets why do you have to go all the way there to research?”
Anna thought for a moment before answering.
“I don’t all together know. I can’t see why it isn’t technically possible – they don’t let us interrogate the original Matrix, it’s too fragile, so it’s already a copy we use. It is massive, I mean it’s all the data they could gather from Earth before the destruction. Maybe it’s a power thing – it gives Hawaii 1 a unique hold over everyone else controlling access to that knowledge.”
“I see, so I have to lose the love of my life for three months because she would rather study Ram Jets than be with me…!
“Well I could pay some close attention to your very own pocket rocket, Love of My Life – right now!” she twinkled.
Unbeknownst to the happy couple, a small part of the payload delivered by that rocket deep inside Anna’s body a short while later, actually reached it’s ultimate destination triggering a series of changes that would progress for the next nine months.

 

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT,
 PAN HUMAN FEDERATION,
 HAWAII 1, A.G.947

So Mr President the long and short of it is that without jet engines to-power mother-ships most of the way up to space we can land whatever we like on Hawaii 2 but it’s a one-way trip. Well not quite, we can build a space elevator but it’s capacity would be tiny, a real bottleneck. However it could be used to export high value, small volume goods such as gemstones, rare earth metals, etc and of course a small number of significant people.”
“But no mass exodus once the next planet is identified and prepared. Is that what you are saying?”
“Exactly Mr President, but that may offer us another possibility – a unique possibility!”
“What kind of possibility can a planet have with minimal trade prospects and no chance of becoming a stepping stone for the human race?”
“Well Mr President, you remember we talked about the different historical systems on Earth ranging from Democratic Capitalism at one end of the spectrum and Totalitarian Communism at the other?” President Rosario nodded, “Well the economics of those systems needed constant growth and/or War to provide consumption and stimulation of the economy and ultimately this is what lead to The Destruction and forced mankind to reach for the stars. Whilst all the Home Worlds pledge to maintain their environments in order not to repeat the mistakes of Earth it is a balancing act and any one of them could go out of balance and a few have come close to it. There may not be nation states any more but the trans-planet corporations compete for control of resources and conduct cyber attacks which resemble war only too closely. It is only the memory of The Destruction which allows governments to keep a lid on things and a thousand years on that fear becomes less potent despite being hard-wired into our education system. Hawaii 2 offers a chance for a unique experiment, one which economists have long pondered as a possibility.”
“Go on – though when I hear words like experiment and economist in the same sentence I immediately wonder how much it’s going to cost especially given that we are talking about a Planet with no trading possibilities!”
“Restricted trading possibilities but high-value possibilities…”
“Ok, so what are these economists proposing for Hawaii 2”
James Hewlett noticed the minute shift forward of President Rosario in his chair and he knew that the president’s interest was piqued.
“Alright so what if you could have a population stabilized at whatever level is needed to maintain itself where there was no war because everybody is provided for equally so no need to fight for resources. Modern technology to do almost all the grunt work. We could build a utopian society! High levels of education as well as leisure, freedom to choose whatever work you wanted to do or not work at all!”
“Well that sounds peachy but what would be the point of this experiment? I wouldn’t mind living there myself, but we are hardly in the business of setting up planetary holiday camps…”
“Make no mistake, Hawaii 2 would pay its way or rather, aside from the initial colonist transfer and mining infrastructure, it would have to be self-sustaining with those high value exports buying in whatever was still needed from the outside. The information from Captain Johannson’s landing party or settler group, I should say – confirm all the space side survey reports! No! The value of Hawaii 2 is that it is an almost closed system – we can keep the trans planet corporations out, so imagine how good it would be to know how to manage a Society without War and find a way to have an economy based on peace and stability rather than constant but unsustainable growth, Hawaii 2 could be just the laboratory in which to perform such an experiment!”
“Interesting!” Said President Rosario.


The proposed Virgin Galactic Spaceship and Mother-ship combo

A is for Arctane… 2021 A2Z Challenge

humanist55

 

My goal in the 2021 A2Z Challenge is to complete a novel I started a few years ago but which has languished for lack of love (writing!). Each Post, daily in April (Sundays excepted), will consist of some aspect of the novel plus a chapter from it. I hope that the Alphabetical items will give a bit of extra background, muse on the writing process, but most of all, help me develop certain ideas to improve the novel. Some 12 chapters are already written so I have a bit of a head start…
Please comment with any opinions good or bad – you have no idea how much I need feedback at this stage…

 


Arctane is one of three human home-worlds mentioned in Train Wreck besides Earth, the decimated world of origin of the human race. It is the least important in the novel since none of the characters go there and its not involved in the plot, however it is a good starting point for exploring the universe of the Pan-Human Federation as these four worlds are called.

I was amazed to learn that imagining alien worlds goes back a long way – Dante in his “Paradiso” (1320) imagines his narrator ascending through sphers of the Moon and planets to eventually join with Angels. Giordano Bruno was martyred in 1600 for describing multiple, inhabited worlds orbiting other suns in his “De l’infinito universo e mondi” (“Concerning the Infinite Universe and Worlds”, 1584) – fortunately it is not so dangerous to write Science or Speculative Fiction these days…

When I was boy, scientists were coy about stating that there must be other suns with other planets bearing life since we had not even seen evidence of a planet crossing the disk of its star or causing a wobble in the stars orbit. As of 2018, 3078 exoplanets have been detected using such methods in our galaxy alone, although only 53 are “optimistically described as having the potential for life. There are of course an incalculable number of other galaxies…

The problems with travelling to other stars to explore such planets, are distance, the means of covering the distance and getting in and out of the gravity wells at either end of a planet-to-planet journey.- Most science fiction books skip lightly over these massive problems by having had someone invent the requisite drives for both interstellar journeys and getting on and off planets. So the Speculations of Science Fiction, fall into three categories – they are either about what we will find should we ever get there; considerations of what it is to be human by imagining us against some alien backdrop; or lastly, they are just a good yarn, cowboys and Indians, detective story, thriller or pirates of the asteroid belt dressed up in a futuristic setting. The realities of how and when we might ever be able to achieve such voyages lie far in the future.

My novel “Train Wreck” is really the second type of science fiction – what it is to be human – framed as the third type – a detective mystery. There is a crime at the outset and by the end of the book, we will have found out the who and the why, but along the way, is an examination of a Utopia and how people might succeed in expressing or suppressing human nature in such a society…

Arctane is a “mere” mining planet where materials valuable enough to human activities and rare enough to merit transporting between the stars have been found. The rarity of suitably inhabitable planets is such that all the planets in the Pan Human Federation orbit different stars and so you can bet that whatever interstellar drive has conveniently been discovered, its pretty d**n quick and even then, it takes an appreciable length of time to make the journey. Of course, like the canal-boats of Earth’s nineteenth century (a period of Industrial Revolution), although slow, once a flow of boats is under way, regular deliveries arrive.

Arctane is the very opposite of a Utopia, it is practically a “Company planet” since everything that happens there is by and for “The Company” and Arctinians are, as mining folk throughout human history have been, a rough and ready lot with no time for the niceties of civilisation. I have perhaps included the existence of Arctane simply to offer a contrast to the paradise that is the Utopian experiment which is Hawaii 2 and a worse alternative to the main replacement, human home-world for Earth that is Hawaii 1. Those who volunteered to go to Arctane in search of fortune, were almost diametrically opposite to those who first volunteered but were then carefully picked, to inhabit the Utopian experiment of Hawaii 2.

If you want to explore some of the many worlds science fiction writers have imagined, Wikipediadoes not disappoint and for images of imagined worlds – including the one shown at the start of this post, click here.

 

And now for the Frontispiece, Prologue and Chapter 1 of Train Wreck…

Train Wreck.

Hawaii:- from the Polynesian word Owhyhee meaning homeland. As the Polynesian peoples spread out across the Pacific Ocean, each new island colonised was initially called Owhyhee, Once the numbers of settlers rose to a suitable capacity for the island, a new group would set out in search of the next Owhyhee.

Prologue

HAWAII 2, DECEMBER, ANNO GALACTICUS 1243

If the explosion that severed the Spacelift Express had happened any further from the capital then the fatalities, at least in that section of the train aft of the explosion, might have been total. A parched tongue extended from the vast wastes of the New Sahara Desert and pushed its way almost to the city. The tongue was lapped either side by two valleys verdant with man-made greening right up to their watersheds. This desert tongue was the scene of the atrocity and was within range of rescue vehicles, both land based and, as luck would have it, the weather permitted airborne rescue helicopters too.

 

The explosion, the result of a bomb, it was quickly but discretely established, occurred in the dining car, severing the carriage at that point as well as the maglev monorail on which the train ran. The carriages behind this point hit the break in the rail, jumped off its guiding influence and concertinaed – the train swinging alternatively left and right. The forward section of the train carried on a little further around the gentle curve of the track at this point for although the catastrophic break in the monorail had cut power to the maglev engines, the aerodynamic air intake that helped compress the air flow smoothly beneath the train when in motion, carried the sinking carriages just far enough to avoid being crushed from behind by the rear section. The sudden sinking of the carriages onto the monorail caused a sudden enough braking that some passengers, especially those on their feet sorting out their luggage ready for the imminent arrival at Grand Central were thrown to the floor in the front section. In the rear section of the train those standing formed the majority of the dead. Those still seated fared proportionally better in both sections but having said that, there were plenty of dead amongst the seated of the rear section too.

 

One young couple were particularly lucky as having been closest to the explosion yet partially protected by having both entered the toilet at one end of the dining car and just closed the door behind them when the explosion happened. They were thrown around badly and were both in an unconscious state which resolved, once all other possible care had been given to their battered bodies, into intractable comas in both their cases.

Fortunately… 

Chapter 1
Awakening.

HAWAII 2, MAY, A.G.1244

He could hear a baby.
He could hear a woman talking to the baby in the high-pitched voice that even men adopt instinctively when talking to babies, he remembered Anna telling him how that worked.
“Yes you are a beautiful boy, aren’t you!”
Gurgling from the baby.
“Just like your Dad there! The Sleeping Beauty! Who’s a beautiful boy? Coodgie, coodgie, coo!”
More gurgling followed by spluttering and a tiny sneeze.
“Bless you!” The woman’s voice. Wait! That was his mother’s voice! What was she doing here and where was here?
He tried to speak but there was something stuck in his throat but a rasping sound emerged followed by his Mother’s voice calling for a nurse and then suddenly there were lots of voices around him.

“BP please?”
“BP normal at one-two-five over eighty but pulse is up to ninety-eight.”
Okay let’s de-intubate please. Gently does it he’s had it in a long time!”
He feels like his throat is being ripped out. He liked it better when the baby was here and his mother.
“Murrghm!” He tries to sit up and call her but he feels as weak as a kitten and his throat is dry and sore.
Gently now! Lie back Jack and let me wet your lips.”
Something spongy is applied to his lips and a trickle of water slips into his mouth and down his throat, he nearly chokes. He tried to open his eyes realising that if he could hear then he should be able to see but something was stopping them opening. He tried to raise his hands to his eyes but they weighed too much and they seemed – encumbered. He panicked and started thrashing his arms and crying out for his mother and suddenly her voice was there again.
“It’s okay Jack, just relax a minute and the doctors will help you.  You’re in hospital but you are ok!”
Someone was holding his hand, holding it down but stroking his arm. It was his mother’s touch, the touch when he was in bed settling down after a story and slipping into sleep. He calmed down. Hands removed something from his face, undid tape from his eyelids. The doctor spoke again.
“Now Jack – try opening your eyes please.”
At first everything was blurry, heads bent over him in a semi darkened room then a blinding light from the doctors torch, first in one eye and then the other. Then there was more light as someone twisted the blinds open and the bright sunlight came flooding in and finally, there was his mother, tears of happiness running down her face as she bent forward to hug him as he lay there and he felt her tears run down his cheek. After a bit she stood up again and a nurse moved in to remove something from his arm the bed was tilted upwards bringing him to a near sitting position.
“There was a baby!” he said “Where’s the baby?”
His mother looked at the doctor who shrugged and nodded at the same time. His mother turned to him and with a pained look but in a bright voice, a too bright voice, said
“Jack you have a son! You are a father Jack!”