Journey’s End

1 In the Dark of the night

The crawl from the sea, the lunge forward with the first breath of air, the burning rays of day, the healing power of the night, and the life-giving cover of the caves all floated out of the soprano’s voice in a haunting floating melody. It cascaded across a captivated audience half out of their seats and swaying with every word.

The words carried everyone through the path, the maze, and the pain of their history.

The giant meteor’s impact on the planet was echoed by the deep thundering drums and the deep voice of the bassoon. The cracking of the planet’s mantle and dramatic altering of the magnetic field were accented in piercing howls of pain.

A thunderous voice rose and went on to tell how nature ignored the formidable damage and miraculously created and expanded life in the incredibly deep water filled canyons that the impact had created. These deep canyons were made by the impact of the asteroid and the splitting of the planets mantle.

Most of the Home Orb’s water flowed into these canyons but much of the water was lost to space.

From the beginning the night and shadow became the nurturer and the Sun’s unfiltered rays the extinguisher of life. The ravaged atmosphere was too shallow and the distorted magnetic field too weak to shield the planet from the stream of sterilizing radiation flowing out from the Sun. Life evolved by embracing the night and by keeping to the depths of the radiation shielding canyons. Life slowly, in millions of years, achieved sentience and intelligence.

As far back as recorded history could be traced, the population celebrated their origin after each rotation around the Grand Orb. This was their celebration and all in attendance breathed the words, leaned slowly forward and then back in unison with the singer in the spotlight.

The singers shadowed eyes juxtaposed against the brightness of the light signified the battle between the Sun and the shadow in the depth of their canyons. This was the story of survival, the story of life and the story of death. This was an ancient story of love, of family and of hope.

All of them were proof of the fortitude and the passion for life their ancestors and they all embraced.

Nadia and her close friends were enjoying this celebration. This was a central part of this close-knit group’s annual outing. All had been classmates and friends at University of Ulm. They were now in a variety of professional and technical fields.

Nadia had followed her father into the field of Astronomy and was currently Second Chairman of Astronomy at Ulm University. She was the youngest to have achieved this position. She was never idle and was always seeking new discovery. She was at her telescope every moment of the night. She had inherited her father’s passion for the universe. She was as relentless and demanding as he and had the advantage of the work that had been achieved in both the analysis and the telescope equipment.

Her mind was struggling to stay in the moment. The troubling discovery events from the previous work cycle were tugging at her and she could not get fully into the flow of the early morning revelry. She was worried and really wanted to be back in her office so she could continue the analysis she had been through several times.

She followed the group as it left the theater thoroughly enjoying the morning. She knew the next part of their cycle celebration was their tram ride across to the other side of the canyon. On the far side they would go up the side of the canyon to the point that the shadow and Grand Orb met.

Then in a show of camaraderie and defiance they would put their hands together in the rising orb light. This was their show of victory against the burning radiation of the Grand Orb.

As Nadia extended her hand a shiver of despair ran up her back and caused the light down hairs on her skin to stand on end. There was a foreboding feeling in her mind. She could not let it go. The foreboding was overwhelming.

She was lost in thought about an unusual observation she had made during the previous night’s work cycle. She wondered about what she discovered at the outer region of Sun’s orbital system. Some immense force was causing a disruption in the trajectory of three asteroids. This force was beyond anything known to her or ever reported by the Astronomers at Ulm. It was hard for her to concentrate on the events of the morning and her friends.

She was with them physically, but her mind raced on ahead. She was already re-analyzing the data. There had to be a mistake. She would need to re-examine everything. She must have made a mistake.

“Hey, star gazer, are you still with us?” one of the group called to her as he held the door of the tram so she could get on board.

She knew that the party would go long into the day cycle. Later they would all wonder why they had stayed out for so long. For now, they were together and having fun. They only did this once a seasonal cycle and they intended to maximize their fun.

This rest cycle, Nadia excused herself early and went to get as much sleep as she could.

Nadia’s rest cycle had indeed been cut short by the partying. Early in the evening, a little on the exhausted side, Nadia left her apartment and took the elevator to the surface. The Grand Orb’s rays were making their final attempt at lighting the sky.

It was sinking below the far horizon as she walked to the edge of the canyon to her favorite spot. Nadia made it a point to always walk to work in the evening shadows. The walk connected her with the surface of her orb and the view of the multitude of stars in the sky. She looked up at the stars and absorbed the black expanse of space. A cool evening breeze ruffled her hair and caressed her reddish down covered skin. The setting of the Sun was her favorite time of the waking cycle. For her it marked a beginning.

She had walked this path many times. She and her father were regular visitors. In the not-so-distant past, she had asked to be walked to school via the surface. Nadia adored her father and had listened, learned and she then followed his footsteps in her career as an astronomer. This evening, she knew she needed him more than ever. Her foreboding discovery of the black void weighed heavily on her. The void was unexplainable. It was a new phenomenon. There was no reference book to read to gain understanding. She felt that the very existence of her world could be at stake.

She would call for her father’s help but only if her work team verified her finding.

She stopped to watch as the observatory rose slowly up from below the surface. It reminded her of the mushrooms her mother was developing. One could watch this new species of mushrooms grow.

Given sufficient nutrients and light the mushroom would sprout and reach full size during one work cycle. The observatory was lowered during day light to protect the equipment and the people inside from the radiation streaming out from the Grand Orb. During the day cycle the entire structure was shielded underground.

The radiation shield for the observatory was a disk that was lowered into place and filled with water. It was at least twenty feet deep and was sufficient to shield the people who worked the day shift. The day shift was used for maintenance, repair, and clean-up.

Once the Grand Orb set the night cycle it was used to make celestial observations, to gather data and to do analysis. Night quickly followed the setting Grand Orb. The stars were now coming to their full brilliance. Nadia loved the sheer overwhelming number showing across the entire nightscape.

She continued her walk toward the observatory. She was almost always alone on this walk. She wished otherwise but no one had become so close to her to be asked to make the walk with her. Most personnel entered the observatory via the underground entrance elevators.

The observatory was part of the University of Ulm. Ulm was one of the largest and oldest communities on the planet. The city began at least two hundred feet underground and continued down for at least another ten thousand feet. The University was built as the top-most layer of the city. It lay in ten huge chambers with the observatory almost directly in the center.

The city of Ulm was a vertical community with the production and manufacturing done at the lower levels. Food processing facilities were carved into the mantel at the lowest levels of the canyon. Above them were the manufacturing facilities. Above the manufacturing facilities were the living quarters.

Finally, above the living quarters was Ulm University. The low-grade heat from lower levels was used to maintain a comfortable temperature in the living areas. This layout proved to be the most efficient use of energy and it optimized the management of utilities and waste.

Nadia marveled at the practical design that had been put in place by her ancestors and that had been continually improved as technology advanced.

Ulm was a closed environment. Everything was recycled and only periodically was water taken from the canyon seas. Fresh food was grown in the shadows of the canyon. Many of the required nutrients were mined from deep inside the mantle. The food crops were part of the recycling system. The digging for nutrients was part of the slowly expanding housing for the growing Ulm population.

Nadia embraced the design, construction, and maintenance of the Ulm system as a testament to the capabilities of their race.

The ancients originally used natural caves to shelter themselves from the radiation. Slowly they carved additional spaced into the stone itself. The ability to create their own shelter and escape from the deadly radiation gave the ancients the dominant position on the planet. Over the thousands of years, they continued the expansion of Ulm.

Eventually some hardy explorers climbed up out of the deep canyon of Ulm and searched for other habitable areas. This expansion across the mantel to discover other deep fracture canyons took several thousands of years. Slowly the daring and adventuresome followed and established the newer communities of New Ulm, Yalton, Ranter, Walen and Hueval.

Each new community was roughly one thousand years after the other. Over six thousand years the base of the population was established. Together these six deep canyons now supported one billion inhabitants. Ulm was the oldest and the largest with a population of three hundred million. The population level of each of the subsequent canyons was less and was based on their size and years of existence. All were at the limits of the population they could support. Ulm was by far the largest of all the canyons.

The six canyons were now connected by through the mantle tunnels. These were first cut through by shear will and muscle power. Over the many years as technology improved the tunnels continued to be expanded.

These tunnels had grown to the point where at present the tunnels themselves housed at least a million families. A high speed, through the mantle transit system now served to connect the six canyons.

Ulm enjoyed the luxury of a park of green grasses, bushes, and flowers. The park was a long and narrow ribbon bordering the farmlands. The farmland extended up to the radiation boarder high on the other side of the canyon.

The city of Ulm was built into the mantel on the side considered to be the radiation shade side.

The park was the only external extravagant feature Ulm displayed. The rest of the canyon was efficiently developed to provide the maximum farmland. Immense terraces rose up the sides of the canyon. The exterior space was critical to growing the plants to provide the substance for the entire population. Ulm was the major and most productive grower of food. Each of the other canyons produced food as well but their terraces were just being developed and they were slowly increasing capacity as they increased the radiation shielding of their canyons.

As Ulm grew in size, the excavation went deeper and deeper back into the mantle. The excavated material was used to build new and enhance the existing farming terraces. A large amount was taken up to the top of the canyon to increase the height of the radiation shielding wall. The fabricated wall shaded the canyon to the point the terraces climbed more than halfway up the opposite side.

The radiation shielding height was almost at the optimum. Much higher and not enough light would be available for the lower farmland. Plants needed the sunlight, but they could not withstand the radiation that came with it.

The other cities around the planet followed the example set by Ulm. The additional farmland allowed the population to achieve a new level of prosperity and comfort.

As far as Nadia knew, the Orbians were the only sentient beings in the solar system, and they were the only large land dwellers. What remained on land were a few protected creatures living out in the terrace walls.

There were also some protected water creatures still in existence. The precarious nature of their own existence overcame the guilt they felt for failing to save more of the other species. Not only had their ancestors overcome their crawl out from the sea but they had to overcome the deadly radiation streaming in to sterilize the planet.

The meager plant life at the very depths of the canyons in the cracked mantel barely served to sustain the race. The other species lost the competition early in the history of the Orb and became extinct long before the sentience of the population understood the situation.

Time was measured against a single cycle of their orbit around the Grand Orb. This was divided into fourteen equal periods. Each rotation of their orb was divided into twenty time periods.

The Grand Orb in the sky sent everyone inward and most to sleep. When it was dark, surface work took place. This was driven by the need to avoid the high radiation exposure.

Much of the success of their species was the evolution of the very fast radiation damage repair capability of their bodies. High radiation exposure was quickly overcome by hiding in the mantle and giving their body time to repair the damage. Even so they evolved to using the night to work and the day to sleep.

They were not creatures of the night for they used bright lights in the fields and throughout the canyon to facilitate the work.

It was the unfiltered radiation from the Grand Orb that every creature on the planet hid from.

The geological history of the planet was something all students learned in their early years. The gigantic comet or asteroid collision with the planet changed the rotation and the position of the interior metal core and greatly weakened the planets magnetic field.

The force of the impact cracked the mantle and created the deep crevasses now housing all life.

Whether it accelerated or devastated evolution was still heatedly debated by the scholars. Most thought it had accelerated evolution by eliminating all but a few creatures. The theory held these creatures were stressed in their need to survive. This stress accelerated the development of intelligence.

Nadia had no clue as to the rightness or correctness of any of the positions. She understood history and once having understood it, she looked to the future and how her race might sustain what was left.

Nadia’s parents both graduates from Ulm and were globally recognized for their advanced work. They always encouraged Nadia and her older brother Keren to go to Ulm University. Nadia’s choice of Astronomy was influenced by her close relationship with her father.

Her first walk with him along the top of the Canyon to look at the stars awakened one of her passions. Nadia had learned much from her father, but she was now recognized for her own talent. She graduated number one in her undergraduate class and went on to get her PhD. A position at the observatory followed. Nadia’s current project in the observatory was the study of asteroids and comets making their way across the vast space of the solar system.

Her second and inner passion was to sing! She had been singing all her life. She wrote her own lyrics. These were on a wide variety of topics, but one repeating theme was the reach for the stars. She was seldom without a song on her lips. Several of her songs were popular across the Orb. She still wrote and sang songs and her public eagerly bought and listened.

Her singing provided her a lucrative income. Her work at the observatory provided her time to think of new lyrics.

Her passion for music made her more money than her passion for the stars.

Her two passions complemented each other. Nadia was one of the few to enjoy solitude as much as she enjoyed being with friends and family. The number and closeness of all the population was directly reflected in the culture of families living in the same unit all their lives. Seldom was anyone alone.

Unlike most of her friends Nadia lived alone. Her normal routine was to finish work, go to her apartment, listen to, or write music, do some exercise, read, and finally fall asleep. Every ten or twelve work cycles she would spend time with her family. This family time was precious to her, and she looked forward to it. The family would spend two or three work cycles together. It was Nadia’s family custom for each family member to take a turn planning some major family outing.

Nadia recalled a list of the most recent family events, a moonlight outing on the beach, a day light outing on the valley floor to wander through the green forest, a submarine excursion to the bottom of the sea, the tunnel train trips to the other canyons on the planet. There was a map on the family room wall of all the places and the things they had done together.

They even entered a family singing contest and placed third. It was at this event where she won an award for her single vocal and became an instant hit throughout the Orb. It was a standing joke she obtained her degree in astronomy because she thought it was the only way she was going to be with the stars instead she had become one!

Nadia brought herself out of her reverie and continued her walk to the observatory. As she waited for the elevator doors to open, she glanced once more to the stars. The polished metal of the elevator allowed her to study herself. She was tall and slender. She stood a good half a head above her father. Her large black pupils and yellow eyes were her mothers. Nadia claimed her sharp white teeth and smile were hers. She was a contrast to her brother who was a good head shorter.

He was broader, heavier, and stronger than she. He had almost grey eyes from her father’s family. He was more serious but still a lot of fun to be around. He had always been her “protector” though there was nothing to protect her from.

Nadia entered the observatory. Her team had the dome open and the telescope up and in position. They knew Nadia would not talk to them until she had gone through her ritual of viewing the asteroids.

She raised the viewing scope as she adjusted the controls to point at the location in the sky where she had last seen the largest asteroid. She looked into the eye piece. The act of looking was not a necessary step. The computer was capable of locating and verifying the location of the asteroid and displaying it on a large screen.

Nadia, however, always started and ended the day by personally locating and seeing the object. This was a quirk she had inadvertently adopted years ago from her father.

She had spent countless hours reviewing the trajectory analysis of the three objects she was following. They could not have changed course unless these three objects were powered, or unless something was attracting them. If the objects were powered there should be some sort of energy signature. There was no energy signature. Her check confirmed all three objects had changed course at roughly the same point and once again they were together on their new trajectory. What could have caused this change in direction? She had either found space travelers or there was some other unknown force causing these objects to change direction. During her previous work cycle, she had suspected a common flaw in the sensors or in the data she was using.

She had ended the previous work cycle in a confused state. She concluded that her data was corrupted.

The revelation as to the cause of the change in the course of the three asteroids came to her during the celebration with her friends. When she extended her hand into the Grand Orb, she knew she had discovered an unknown force. You could not see the sunlight strike your skin, but you could feel the heat. In the case of asteroids, she could not see the force, but you could see its effects. Something closed to the magnitude of the Grand Orb must be the cause!

She ended her visual observation and called her team together.

Each of her team members had gone to their analysis terminals in the observatory. Technology had changed the observatory to look more like a computer room than an observatory.

They gathered at the central meeting table.

“I have a serious assignment I want you to tackle as a team. Please plot the trajectory of the three asteroids I have been tracking. Verify the change of trajectory. Determine how they could change trajectory. Estimate the force required to make this trajectory change. This will be everyone’s work until you as a team report back.

Meetil, you are in charge of the team. Are there any questions? Nadia waited few moments then continued, “Ok, call me when you are through. It’s okay to work together. This is not a test.”

Nadia left her team as they discussed how to organize how to do the analysis she had requested. She was off to look out ahead of the asteroids in search of the source of the force attracting them. Her estimates of this force put it beyond anything she had ever been taught or studied. What she had calculated the evening before was impossible. It would rival the power of the Grand Orb!

Nadia thought of her father. She needed his insight and guidance. She would call him when her team confirmed her discovery. She missed his collaboration but his focus on the third Orb from the Grand Orb now absorbed all his time.

Nadia was a little jealous of her father’s fixation. He had moved his office out to the new space center, and she missed their walks along the top of the canyon.

She suspected he had moved in order to be far enough away to give the space she needed to make her own way.

2 Raulens

Raulens was the only child in his family.

His father was a farmer.

His mother was a librarian at Ulm University.

She often brought Raulens to work with her. He loved the library atmosphere and would get lost in the maze of books. His mother would often have to hunt him down when he hunkered down in one of the hundreds of shelf rows. Other than his adventures at the university, he grew up as most other boys and young men of his generation.

From early on he dreamed of going to the University. Entrance to the University was open to anyone meeting the scholastic requirements. Knowing this motivated him and he excelled in school. From his first years to his final lower-level education, he excelled through hard work but also because he had an exceptional mind. He was always at the top or near the top of his class.

He tested for the University and easily met the requirements.

His chosen field was the newly formed area of Astronomy. He took all the math and science courses required and was soon focused on the solar system and the stars.

Two things happened at Ulm that launched Raulens on his future path.

One was meeting the quiet but very beautiful woman of his dreams.

The second was his participation in the creation of a better telescope.

The beautiful woman of his dreams came first. She walked into the library where he was studying.

He looked up from where he was studying and knew immediately that he wanted to know her. He approached her and said hello.

Her black pupils and yellow eyes froze him on the spot. Her smile radiated warmth that he felt in his soul. He was left speechless. It seemed that he stared into her eyes for hours before he finally invited her out for a walk around the rim of the canyon.

To his surprise she accepted.

He would forever remember being overwhelmed each time she looked at him and smiled.

He knew he had met his soul mate, and he learned her name!

Milan was a good listener and from their first moment became his sounding board and occasional advisor. She never engaged directly in the discussion of theory or technical matters. She would periodically ask a clarifying question.

The questions were what Raulens loved. They seemed innocent and clueless, but they would always pull or push him in a new direction. He struggled to answer her questions in clear simple terms. Her questions were magic.

They were the icing on the cake or the sugar on his berries.

Soon Raulens came to realize how much in love he was with Milan. She was constantly on his mind, and he found himself talking to her even when they were not together.

He joked with her that her questions were even better when she was not around.

He asked her to become his mate. Her acceptance overjoyed him.

His parents were overjoyed. They also fell in love with Milan. They asked Raulens what he had done to be so lucky. He smiled and joked that he had to show Milan pictures of his parents to ensure her that he was suitable before she agreed to be his mate.

Overwhelming in its totality of the physical evidence, the physics and the astronomy convinced Raulens the universe randomly but continuously built and destroyed the stars and any orbs traveling around these stars.

He and his colleagues postulated that their Orb had almost been destroyed by some huge space traveling object and the canyon where they all lived was a result of this collision. The canyon was a fracture of the surface mantle.

Their model had much of the original atmosphere being lost at the time of the collision.

Additionally, the impact had been so powerful and deep that it most likely distorted the core and created an imbalance of the magnetic field of the planet. This in turn allowed the radiation from the sun to stream in through holes in the magnetic field that was now more like a roof that the wind had ripped some covering off and allowed the sun’s rays to come through in an unfiltered way.

He was not religious, but he believed in miracles.

It was a miracle that life on the Orb had evolved at all.

It was a miracle that there was sufficient oxygen left to sustain life.

It was a miracle that sentient beings had survived in the radiation rich environment.

His enthusiasm for learning was complemented with a tenacious need to create.

When he took basic astronomy, he was disappointed by the lack of clarity of the telescopes pointed at the night sky. He could see the stars very clearly with his own eyes but saw larger but distorted blobs of light through the telescopes. The available telescopes at the university made the stars larger but fuzzy and disoriented. It was hard to learn anything from what he saw.

He preferred to use his direct eyesight to learn about the lights in the night sky.

He and his lifelong friend Pandl, an electronics specialist, began to study and develop a better way to make the lenses for the telescope. They pioneered a new way of making the lenses in pressurized chambers under the canyon waters. They were able to get a ten-fold increase in lens size and clarity

The design changes he made to the telescope and the new lenses he developed dramatically increased what and how far the telescopes could see.

The more than tenfold improved clarity was a huge break through.

Pandl went on to invent light amplification technology that digitized the visual information and created a computer image. This allowed for the refined correction of the light being focused.

Once again, a dramatic breakthrough was achieved.

Together the two guided the building of the current telescope and control system housed in the Observatory. They had been the key designers of the concept of raising the telescope at night and retracting it during the day.

The protective water filled seal had been another concept that they had initiated. This allowed the telescope to escape the destructive radiation from the sun.

Their improvements and their subsequent work in the field leapfrogged the knowledge of the Orb System.

The clarity provided by the telescope lens allowed Raulens to discover eight Orbs traveling around the central star.

This revolutionized the understanding of their system.

This elevated the standing of both he and Pandl.

Subsequent discoveries and calculation proved their central star and its orbs traveled around yet another center. This center was not visible with their current technology but what they could see with their telescopes allowed them to postulate the mathematics of this grand central point.

The improved telescopes allowed Raulens to see and become mesmerized with the third orb from the sun. It seemed rich in oxygen and in water. It seemed alive. He wanted desperately to see it up close.

His achievements, his fame, and his home life combined to make Raulens a person that was empowered and motivated.

He knew he was rich in everything that mattered.

Family life took Raulens on another journey of discovery. He was overjoyed when Milan announced she was pregnant. He put as much energy into the planning for his family as he had done in the field of astronomy.

First, he found a home to share with Lamens. This meant that both of them moved away from their families into their own home.

This was rare in the Orb’s society, but he knew that he wanted to be closer to his work than either of their family abodes.

As a professor at the University, Raulens was able to gain access to a small but very comfortable habitat just a short distance away from the main campus. It was a lucky break for him. He was still too junior to rate these specific accommodations but no one else was seeking them.

Lamens approved as soon as she walked through the habitat. It was relatively humble, but it felt right.

Raulens spent all his extra time making the habitat a place that he and Lamens could call their home. He wanted a place where their child or children could grow and develop. Their habitat soon became a refuge for both of them.

Both of them were leading developers and inventors in their field. Their energy went into both their personal work in their fields and into making their home life a focal point.

They both worked a great deal of time from a joint office in their home.

Kerin, his first born, was almost a duplicate of himself. He was a serious young cub but one that loved to be with the two of them.

The birth of his son brought new meaning to the work Raulens was doing. Raulens doubled down on his studies and writings about the condition of their Orb and the study of the space around the Orb. He was now thinking into the future of his son. He spent a great deal of time with his son and many of his traits transferred to the young cub.

His consistent accomplishments over the years moved him up in his field. He quickly went up the academic levels and became the Dean of Astronomy. This allowed him to continue his study of the orbital system.

He scoured the night sky and found multiple objects that he wrote about and illustrated.

Two sun cycles later, Lamens once again announce her pregnancy. This time it was a girl.

Raulens knew from the moment he saw her that she was special. Her eyes were yellow and black like her mother’s, but they had a deeper more mysterious depth. The first time Nadia looked into his eyes he knew there was a deep bond between them. He could feel her in his mind and in his soul.

The future of his two children became the driver for his search for an alternate world for the Orb’s population. Such a quest was now more personal and closer to home.

He once again poured over all the learning he had done to date and planned ahead to even more detailed studies of their solar neighborhood. He wanted to provide a way to escape his fractured Orb and locate to a rich and whole one.

The fragile condition and the situation on his Home Orb made Raulens look out to see if there was another orb that could provide a home for his people.

It was during a new study of the Orbs and using yet another enhancement of his telescope that Raulens made another discovery that would become his obsession.

The third Orb from the central star appeared to have life!

His analysis of the light spectrum being reflected by this orb confirmed what his eyes saw looking into the telescope. The Orb was oxygen rich. It was over eighty percent water with what appeared to be a huge land mass. The evidence of abundant life was overwhelming.

The type of life and whether it was intelligent in the same way as he, was the central question needing an answer?

The orb was a blue, white, and green gem in the heavens.

He spent several cycles convincing himself of his conclusions. During this time, he would take Nadia with him to the observatory. After the setting of the sun, the two of them would walk the path along the top of the canyon. He would point out the constellations and tell Nadia stories about the different groups. These were stories he made up to entertain Nadia, but he used his stories in his writings about the various stars. The stories became popular throughout the Orb and eventually textbooks.

His astronomy textbooks were used in all the other universities as well as at Ulm.

Periodically Keren would accompany him as well. Keren was more interested in the biological plant work Lamens was doing and would more often be with her.

The discovery and the realization that there seemed to be life on the third orb changed the course of his career.

He had swiftly risen to the leadership of the Astronomy Department at Ulm. He had been in this role for five cycles.

It took him another three cycles to convince the Orb leaders to fund the program he proposed to develop the technology to support the exploration of the third orb.

Raulens put all his energy into establishing and getting the funding for the development of space travel. This was a rather long and tedious effort that entailed convincing allies and in some political arm twisting and deal making with those on the other side of the issue.

Educating key leaders to the rapidly decaying atmosphere of the Orb proved to be the most powerful means of reaching an agreement that moved their funding request forward. Finally, after almost a full cycle of struggle, the resources needed to build a new space complex was appropriated.

This was a huge victory, but it also offered another source of employment for a growing population, and it provided the means of extracting a large amount of materials from under the mantel.

He and Pandl pioneered the development of the rockets needed to get out to space. They spent two cycles designing and testing a series of rockets. They launched two orbiting telescopes as part of testing their rockets.

The in -pace telescopes provided an immediate improvement of the ability to see even farther out into the space around them.

The success of the telescope launches solidified the support and the continued funding of their efforts.

Raulens now had the leverage he had sought. He obtained enough support to get a large facility designed and built to house their space program.

Raulens was out on the newly developed space exploration site located one hundred ticks away from the edge of Ulm. The site, like all other facilities, was mostly underground.

The rocket launch sites were round tubes bored down into the ground and designed with a heavy cover similar to the one shielding the telescope at Ulm. This protected those inside the tube. It allowed the building of or maintaining a rocket in a radiation free area.

The site had six launch tubes. These were built in a straight line.

The maintenance facilities were built along each side at the base of the tubes.

The labs and other manufacturing and assembly facilities were built farther underground on both sides of the launch tubes below the maintenance facilities

He and Pandl had been directly involved in the design and building of the space exploration center. The site was now fully operational and staffed with over twenty thousand personnel. The possibility of colonizing the third Orb had been taken seriously and the funding to build the facility went through the council in relatively smooth fashion.

It was actually supported by both the believers of the program and those who thought it would never pan out. The non-believers saw it as a major source of new jobs that were needed to boost the economy.

A site located well away from Ulm had been chosen for safety reasons. Several of the rockets tested by Raulens and Pandl had exploded on their launch pads or shortly after launch.

After seven orb cycles the construction was complete and the site was fully functional.

Raulens was studying the schematic of his latest rocket design. These were the blueprints and plans for a rocket designed to travel to the third orb. Launching and propelling the rocket was a challenge the team had easily overcome.

The remaining obstacle was to provide adequate radiation protection for those in the rockets. And it was a monumental and so far, unsolved issue. To date only a partial solution had been developed. Shielding could easily be achieved. But weight of the rocket made it impossible to lift it into space. They did not have the engines with enough power to provide such enormous lift.

Raulens divided his time between rocket engine design and the continuing study of the Orb.

Since the third Orb was much closer to the sun and was exposed to a higher density of radiation, the current theory was it was shielded from the significantly more intense radiation by a robust magnetic field. Raulens’ calculated that the radiation level hitting the third Orb was at least forty percent more intense than hitting his Home Orb. He then determined the magnetic field had to be at least twice as strong as the one on his Home Orb.

When he put this all together, he postulated that magnetic field strength was proportional to the shielding it provided.

Raulens sent his request out to gather data to prove this thesis. They gathered radiation data around his Home Orb. The Home Orb radiation field was well mapped, and the strong areas and the distorted areas were known. Field measurements taken around the orb verified the theory.

He made two additional and very discouraging breakthroughs.

The apparent gravity of the third Orb was almost twice as much as his own Orb. Refined measurements and calculations utilizing the interaction of the huge moon of the third orb put the exact gravitational pull at two point six that of his Home Orb.

This significantly higher gravitational force significantly decreased the possibility of directly colonizing the third Orb. This meant the explorer would need to withstand this dramatically greater force. These forces were well beyond what any Orbian could experience directly and live.

Exoskeletons were designed to overcome the physical strength required for movement on the third orb. These exoskeletons became an immediate success and were being deployed by his son Keren in the mantel tunneling projects.

They were excellent at giving individuals extra work capacity. This resulted in a speed up of the tunneling work.

Keren’s use of the exoskeletons also made the improvements faster and more economical.

There use was broadly advertised to show that the space program was resulting in immediately useful technology and was paying for itself.

However, the more complicated issue with populating the third orb was the stress the additional gravity would have on the internal organs of the Orbians. Testing on the ability of the organs to continue to function properly was currently under way.

The most successful approach was for the individual to be totally submerged in a liquid. This meant the individual needed to acclimate to use an incompressible liquid with which to breathe instead of just air. It was difficult to acclimate to this environment.

This was the same technology the deep-sea colonies were experimenting with. The fifty candidates for this program were all practicing with this approach. This solution would allow exploration excursions to the third orb, but it would not support long term colonization.

This fact was a huge disappointment to Raulens. He had hoped to open up another orb into which their total population could expand.

The increase in radiation as one went toward the blue Orb was another huge barrier. A rocket traveling in toward the third orb would experience a radiation increase proportional to the square of the distance traveled toward the sun.

Current technology did not have a way to overcome the radiation threat. Radiation shielding capable of shielding the Orbian needed to be designed into the rockets.

Very dense materials helped greatly but those were rare on the Orb. Water was effective to a degree, but this too was a very precious resource, and it would limit the size and number of Orbians able to make such a trip.

The quantities of all the materials required to make a safe environment was a huge barrier.

Launching the required amount of material into space was next to impossible. His team needed to come up with some material providing superior shielding but light enough to easily and economically be put into space.

The current focus was the development of a material capable of actively absorbing the radiation and converting it into useable energy. The goal was to develop a thin membrane that could cover the exterior of the spaceship. Currently the material in the lab was a one-use material that then became inert.

What was needed was a material that consistently and continuously converted the incoming radiation into useful energy.

Currently there was an effort underway to measure the radiation intensity more precisely. The whole endeavor pivoted on the success and information of the unattended probes. These probes had been launched and were beginning to send back the radiation data that would allow for a more precise understanding.

There was no question that the challenge of getting to the third orb was monumental. The combination of the radiation and the physical challenges of higher gravitational pull put a visit to the third orb many cycles away. It was perhaps a lifetime away.

Raulens took it hard, but he continued the learning and expanded his field of search out away from their central star.

Six unattended rockets were planned.

Two rockets were complete and already on their way.

They would serve two purposes.

One they would provide specific radiation level measurement between the two planets. Second, they would provide planetary data as they closed in on and finally entered the atmosphere of the third orb. This planetary data would provide final confirmation of the conditions and the status of life on the blue orb.

Raulens was in the middle of his current project focus.

The work on the development of a more effective radiation shield utilizing lead, gold and water vanished from his mind when he received Nadia’s call for help.