EARTH PLAN (3 page)

CHAPTER 6

It was another dawn when the man and the woman woke up in each other’s arms. He was glad to see that she was still there, as some of the other women used to run off after mating. They hugged each other again, and he felt the urge to mate once more. They did so.

After, they went for another swim in the pond, then gathered fruit to eat.

As they were sitting and eating, the man noticed something moving across the field.

It was far away and moved fast, but it was no animal like he had ever seen. This one was silvery. He didn’t know it, but it was one of the robotic carts, sent out to retrieve any animals that had gotten injured.

The robot scooped up a deer that was on the field in its large metal arms, the animal having already been sedated by tranquilizers in the air. It carried the animal towards a door, rolling smoothly on its metal tracks, bringing it inside so it could have its broken leg tended to.

The man took an instant dislike to the robot glittering in the lights from above. He felt like it was invading his territory. He grabbed his stick and ran after it, yelling. The woman watched, wishing the man would just sit down and finish his fruit.

The man crossed the field quickly, making for the robot carrying its load. The robot was moving more slowly than usual due to the added weight of the heavy animal. The robot sensed that the man was getting close and that he was not in a good mood. The robot opened a compartment and out shot a directed cloud of calming mist.

The man was coming at the robot so fast there was no way to avoid it, and he breathed in a big gulp of the calming air. Then, the man fell down, laughing at the robot and the deer. He was laughing so hard that he was crying, and his stomach hurt.

The robot scuttled into an open door and took the deer into some unknown place in the ship, a medical room the man and woman had not seen before. The door closed, and the robot was gone.

The woman had been watching, fearful. She had seen many men die in the past like this on Earth, running after someone or other. She could see the man was on the ground after running to the robot, and she feared the worst.

She walked to him, thinking she might find him dead or badly hurt. But to find him just laughing was something she had never encountered before. The man’s laughs were infectious, and she found herself starting to laugh, too.

Soon, she was rolling around with him on the ground, laughing and hugging. This led to another mating session, and it was even better than the last time they did it.

When they stopped mating, the man got up and went to the wall where the door had been. They could both see the outline where the door had closed over. He ran his fingers over it and pushed on the door, but it wouldn’t move. He started to get angry and pushed harder into the door, banging it with his body.

There was a nearby hissing sound, and they both noticed a puff of mist coming from one of the nearby vents. They ran away, knowing it would make them sleepy—or maybe die of laughter.

The computer saw this evasion and knew they had caught onto it. It deduced that it had to use another way of subduing the humans when they got too agitated. There were several means at its disposal, like drugging their food, or shooting them with tiny darts filled with tranquilizers.

But an easier way was to control their moods through the use of radio waves. The ship could broadcast most any type of signal it wanted to inside its cargo area. It simply had to send out the radio waves in the direction of the human or animal in question. The radio waves would alter their thoughts and brain chemistry to a more docile state.

The man and the woman went down the wall a distance to get clear of the mist drifting in the air. The man found another closed doorway and started pounding on it with his stick and then with his fists. The woman tried to pull him away, but he growled at her and went back to attacking the door.

The ship aimed an antenna on the ceiling at the man and fired some radio waves at him.

Instantly, the man stopped pounding on the door and got a confused look on his face. He forgot what was he was doing and had trouble controlling his body.

The woman was glad he had stopped, and she grabbed his arm and led him away, because he was just standing there drooling, staring at the door. She was afraid something had happened, and he had really injured himself.

But, he was fine a short time later. The computer was just testing out the radio waves on him and didn’t want to do it for too long, or at too great an intensity and risk damaging him. So, it shut off the waves once the man was away from the door.

The man and the woman went back to their spot near the pond and got under the thick cover of trees, laying in the shade. It was like noon on Earth, and the lights in the sky were hot. They slept, touching each other and that felt good.

The man had strange dreams that caused him to stir and cry out in his sleep. The woman comforted him the best she could. It was no wonder he was having nightmares in such a place as they found themselves stuck in, she thought.

After the man woke up, the woman wanted to see the confines of their world. She pulled the man forward, so he would come with her as she explored the boundaries of their large prison cell. He remembered that he had done the same thing, and while he grew frustrated with having to repeat the exercise, he was able to show her some features he had discovered which she found most interesting. There was the metal wall at the far end of the field, and the doors behind the grove of trees.

Finally, after hours of looking around, the woman slumped down under the trees near the pond, looking despondent and sad. The man sat with her, knowing her feelings well, because he had also discovered their confinement. If they weren't outside, then where were they?

They had no frame of reference for this new experience, and it made new connections in their brains, changing them, expanding their capacities. These changes were not intended to happen, but they of course would, as the humans were introduced to new situations and technologies they had never encountered before.

It was a lot for them to take in and process, and they were exhausted. They fell asleep.

The computer scanned their brains, checking to see what was wrong, as they were both looking lethargic. The new connections in their brains were picked up by the scanner that was able to get a good snapshot of their state, as they were asleep. This allowed the scanner to go deep. The findings were recorded and sent back home, as the computer's masters would want to know about this new discovery.

When the man and woman awoke, she went to him, into his arms. She was scared now on a different level than just survival, since finding they were trapped inside something. She thought of it as a vast cave, but it was unlike any cave they had known. She clung to him for comfort, and he put his arms around her, making her feel a little better; if he could not get her out of the situation, at least she was not alone.

It made him feel good to offer this comfort to her and brought out his protective instincts. He was pleased that she now trusted him and turned to him for this intimacy. It was too lonely on the ship to be alone, and it had been tough on both of them to be in solitary confinement in those metal rooms. He would sooner die than go back to such a room, and he was sure she felt the same way.

But what to do now? There was not much they could do, except go about their lives as best they could in this altered environment. They had what they needed to survive: The cycle of the days and nights was maintained, with a proper temperature range, and they had food to eat, water to drink, and air to breathe. Still, the urge to explore further, to push the boundaries of their confinement was always there, nagging at them, as they had once been free beings.

A couple of weeks later, they got their chance to explore further, past the boundaries. And while it was something they wanted to do, they would regret it.

Robots were working on some plumbing and had removed a section of wall. The work was done at night, as it was an emergency repair due to a water leak. The area was far enough away from where the man and woman were sleeping that the computer took no extra precautions; the humans had settled in a predictable routine, made easy by the tranquilizers that were put in their water.

But the humans had developed a tolerance to the tranquilizers and had come awake at the sounds of the robots clanging around. The man sat up, looking in the direction of the sounds. There was nothing to see, as the robots worked without lights, able to see in the dark. The woman stirred near the man, waking up too, wanting to know what was wrong. The two of them got up as quietly as possible and crouched down, moving toward the sounds.

They moved from tree to tree, using the thick trunks for cover as they ran through the wooded area. Up ahead, just past the trees, was where the noises were coming from. They could see in the dim light as the robots worked on the pipes, making frightening sounds. But it didn't seem that the robots were moving from that spot, so that was good, the man thought.

He moved closer.

The woman tugged on his arm, wanting him to stay back. He broke from her grip and kept going. Not wanting to be left alone, she followed him.

He saw an open door near the section of the wall the robots were working inside of. The man and the woman crept closer. Tools and equipment were scattered near the opening, and the humans had to step around them carefully, not wanting to touch them as they didn't know what they were. They ran through the open door and found they were in a hallway that went on ahead. Lights flickered on, showing the way, so the man and the woman ran farther inside.

They turned a corner and saw an open room. Noises came from behind them in the hallway. They froze in place, listening. It sounded like the robots with their metal feet on the metal floor.

The man and the woman moved into the room and went as far into it as they could. They came to a window and were again frozen in place, this time with what they saw.

It was a window looking out into space, and they could see planets and stars.

The sensation was at once disorienting and fascinating to them, awe-inspiring. It was like they were up in the night sky, which in fact they were. It felt like a dream, but then also like a nightmare as they realized something far stranger than they had imagined had happened to them. They were someplace they couldn't comprehend and stared out the window, unable to move with shock.

A robot entered the room and searched for them, moving its head around, scanning for motion and heat.

The robot found them at the window. They shrank back from the advancing robot, but there was nowhere to hide in the empty observation room. The robot shot a fine mist over them that put them to sleep, blessedly taking away the confusing thoughts in their minds. They sank into a dreamless sleep and slumped to the floor. The robot picked them up and carried them back to their habitat, sealing the door up after them.

The computer monitored all of this, making sure the humans were not damaged. It guided the robot to put them down where they had been sleeping in the wooded area. With any luck, they'd wake up from their heavy sedation thinking it had just been a dream.

The computer took this as an opportunity to scan them both and check on their health. They were doing much better; it seemed that being outside the confinement of their rooms and given a more natural habitat, closer to what they used to have, was doing them good.

Also, the computer found out that the woman was pregnant.

This was something the computer didn't expect to encounter, and it was not sure how to deal with it. The computer knew this was part of the human's biology, but it didn't think it would need to monitor the humans for this, as it didn't expect them to breed in captivity, as most animals it had captured did not. It had seen them coupling together but knew the humans did this for pleasure as well as for actual mating, so it assumed they were not going to have any offspring. The computer had been wrong and having to send that message to its masters was making it worried that it would be reprogrammed for its mistake.

But the Watchers were not upset with this, as the computer feared they might be. They simply instructed the computer on what to do next, and that was that. The computer would monitor the woman more closely now and take steps to protect her, as the Watchers were interested to see her have her offspring. It would be the first one born in such conditions. The ship would not reach the Watchers before the birth, so the ship was told to record the event.

The computer found this most curious, as it had thought to put the woman into cold storage, as was the standard procedure with any medical case. But that was not the instruction given here. The computer would learn what this development meant, and watch, and record, it knew. Something akin to excitement flashed across its silicon brain, and it had many thoughts about the days and months to come.

The man and woman woke up near the pond, their favourite dwelling place. It took them some time to come awake, shaking off the drug that had put them to sleep. It was late morning, and they had slept for a long time. Their bodies were stiff and sore, and they had bruises from where the robot had handled them roughly. But otherwise they were unharmed and found their way to the water to quench their immense thirsts.

That done, they mated again, not knowing that the woman was pregnant. Even if they did know, they would probably have mated anyhow, as they did like it. The computer watched, making notes of this and recording video; it would all go into the file for its report when it got back home.