Tomorrow's Paradise World: Colonize (6 page)

They kept up their monotonous work, but with little success. The only other point of interest was the vague mention of
“the great conflict,”
whatever that was. Another question to add to their growing list. Four weeks and this was all they had? They were disappointed, but at least they discovered answers to some questions. Really, how could they expect more? The directives were just that, directives. They decided that they would spend the next week on the earliest historical records.

That week was not so disappointing.

Chapter Five:
Chamber of the Past

On the first day, in the morning, they looked around by the shelves where the earliest records were located. Taerg stood in front of the beginning shelf against the wall, he noticed that his lamp’s flame flickered because of a slight breeze. Where was this air flow coming from? Was it the fireplace? He stepped closer to the shelf, trying to peer behind it. He could detect a crack in the wall extending behind the wooden shelf unit. He pointed this out to Victor. Together, the two of them removed the documents and put them in neat piles, so that they would look at them later in the correct order. They moved the heavy shelf unit away from the wall. From this point of view, they could see that straight cracks in the wall formed a large square. This was some sort of door. Taerg pushed on the wall. Nothing happened. Victor looked behind the shelf that was next to the vertical crack in the wall. He took some of the documents off the shoulder level shelf and set them on the floor. He positioned his mission recorder’s light to illuminate the space on the shelf. There was a hole cut in the back of the shelf here. This hole revealed a square box fixed to the wall. The box had two buttons on it, one blue and the other green. Victor smiled, as he said, “Could it really be that simple?”

Yes, it was that easy. One button was evidently for open and the other was for close. They did not know which button did what. There were no markings on them. Only colors. The question was, which one opens, blue or yellow? Victor pressed the blue button. The door opened.

They walked in through the door and they could see lights flickering on panels all around the perimeter of the room. It appeared to be some sort of control room. At the other end of the room there was another door that was already open. They walked through it and immediately felt a stronger breeze in their faces. This was a larger chamber almost as big as the
Cavern of Lights
itself. It was dark here, but as they walked further into the chamber, the lights automatically illuminated the chamber. They could clearly see their surroundings as their eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness.

Taerg said, “I think this chamber should be called the
Cavern of Lights
and the one with all the records in it should be called the
Chamber of the Past
.”

This chamber resembled a large launch bay. Although, the most remarkable object, a ship occupying the center of the bay claimed their immediate attention. Victor recognized it as being capable of flight in space. Taerg was stunned by such a sight. Victor was even more surprised, though for other reasons. He sauntered up close to the ship and put his hand on it. It felt cool, smooth and hard.

“This is remarkable. It closely resembles some of the ships that we used in our earlier history to colonize Homeworld. This is required study at the academy for computer science and computer engineering. These basic models are unsophisticated enough to teach new students the fundamental principles behind the systems that control ion drive technology. I can’t believe it. This is like a museum piece to me.”

“Victor this is why you knew which button to push to open the door. A long time ago, your people had a base set up here.”

“Taerg, how did we stumble upon this place so easily? We noticed a breeze and moved a shelf. We cannot be the first to discover this chamber. This ship might be part of the reason for the secrecy concerning the contents of this place.”

“What do you think we should do?”

“Well, I would like to take the rest of the day to examine this ship and this bay more closely. Perhaps, you can begin taking a look at the earliest historical records. If you see anything interesting, bring it to me and I will inspect it too.”

Taerg went outside to look at the records. In ten minutes he was back standing in front of Victor with a book in his hand.

Victor said, “I did not see any books like that on the shelves. Where did you get it?”

“The documents were covering it and four others just like it.” Handing the book to Victor, he continued, “This first log book has nearly all of the answers to all of our questions.”

“What? How could that be? You were not even gone long enough to read all of this book.”

“I did not need to. I read the first three pages and skimmed the rest. Believe me Victor you need to read this book now. Let’s read it together, before you examine the ship and this chamber.”

“Okay, by the serious look I see on your face, I agree.” As soon as Victor read one entry he knew that Taerg was right. This was the entry Victor read:

Daily log entry number one:

Date: 6.2 - 5 - 9722

We are left here, with only one disabled ship. The Kastat rebels have taken the remaining ships after destroying all of our military bases. With the exception of this small one. My disabled ship was here being repaired. There is no one left with the knowledge or skills to service it. We are now unable travel to our moon to live there.

This great conflict has inflicted a great wound on our world that I am afraid may never heal. The death toll is staggering. We were 17 billion people and now we have been reduced to a few thousand survivors in scattered camps here and there. It is hard for me to accept the reality of the atrocities we have committed against ourselves, our families, our children. The cities have all been destroyed. The remaining people are a simple folk from the country. The majority of them are farmers and fishermen.

The Kastat have taken nearly everything of worth. We are hopelessly left in an age of darkness, in the rubble of a once thriving world. In the following months, I will journey to the various camps and rally them together to come to this place. Those who are not able to come will be sent messengers with instructions for their survival. This area is relatively untouched by the global destruction we have experienced. We need to establish order. Otherwise, this planet will become a savage world. I will choose some responsible older men and women to form a temporary committee, so the people will have some direction. This will suffice until we organize a better system, a well thought out governing body that will constantly promote peace. One that will not repeat the same tragic mistakes. Another catastrophic conflict could again leave us in ruins or even destroy us all together.

It is thought that the Kastat have ventured into deep space. After we sent scout ships to a distant planet they returned claiming that it supports life.

I think that the rebels did not intend to cause such destruction. The battle escalated beyond their control and we ourselves have also caused much of the destruction in our retaliation. Perhaps they have assumed that we have some more remaining undamaged ships. Would they intentionally abandon us here in the dying polluted remains of this world? I find that hard to believe. They are overly aggressive and dissatisfied with our decision to slowly venture out into space. They want to quickly establish colonies in the neighboring star systems. So they have ventured off on their own to achieve their goals in their own way. They cannot know the scope of the destruction on the planet that they desert.

This event must always be remembered as a warning for future generations, so that we do not walk down the same path again. Our people could have been entirely wiped out with no survivors. Our planet would have become an uninhabited wasteland. We need to establish a new way of life, a simple, self-sufficient one that will create lasting peace for all future generations. To this goal, the rebuilding of a peaceful new world, I will dedicate the rest of my life. The processes that will eventually bring the conditions of paradise back to this world, will from now on be an important part of my life’s work. Conditions here will one day highlight the meaning of this world’s name. A paradise it was and a paradise it will once again become.

Captain James Talbot

After reading this, Victor looked up at Taerg and said, “I am so sorry that my people were involved in that horrific conflict, it caused such unimaginable death and destruction.”

“Your people are really my people Victor and this account shows that both sides caused the destruction.”

“Yes, but we abandoned you to scrape out a meager existence in as Captain Talbot calls it an age of darkness. How could we have so callously done that?”

“Perhaps it is true that your people did not know how stranded we really were back then. Victor you talk as if it is all your fault, but did you live back then? Did you cause the destruction?”

“No but my ancestors did.”

“My ancestors were participants in the destruction as well. If we look far enough back in our ancestry, we are bound to find some individuals who made serious mistakes. The captain is right, we need to learn from our mistakes as a people so we don’t repeat them. Look around at our paradise world, we have recovered quite nicely. There are many people on this world once again. We don’t know exactly how many there are, but it has been estimated that there are as many as four billion happy, contented villagers. Our planet has recovered and there is plenty of room for the expansion of our villages. The captain’s efforts and those who joined him in his life’s mission were successful.”

Victor smiled and said, “Taerg in a sense you are like a brother to me, now more so than I realized.”

“Victor, have you looked into a mirror lately?”

“I have to admit, not very closely. I’ve been just splashing some water on my face and heading up here. Why do you ask?”

“I noticed today that your eyes have a slight orange tint to them. Very slight, but it is there. Perhaps if you stay here longer they will turn orange like ours and perhaps your skin will darken too.”

“You mean I will finally fit in?”

“I’m not saying that,” Taerg smiled, “only that I think you are starting to look more like us.”

Changing the subject Victor said seriously, “This one entry has given us so much information. We have a lot to talk about with the grand council.”

“Yes we do. I have a question regarding the log entry we just read. Do you know what those numbers mean after the word date?”

“Yes, thankfully, I do. They give us much more information concerning the obscurities of time issue that we were facing. Let me explain them to you.

First, I will explain the meaning of six point two. As you know, one rotation of your moon takes five days. Your moon performs seventy two rotations in the time your planet completes one orbit around your sun. So the first number means, the second day of the sixth rotation.

The dashes in between the numbers are only to separate them. However, the first two numbers are closely related. The second number is the division number. Your year has three hundred and sixty days. The seventy two rotations were sectioned off into six sections of sixty days each, for simplicity. Each sixty day section is called a division. So therefore, the second number means the fifth division.

Each time your planet orbits your sun, it completes a cycle known as a year. So the third number is how many years from the beginning of when our people started counting the years in our ancient history.

So this means Taerg that captain Talbot started making log entries in this book in the year ninety-seven twenty-two.

“How do you know all of this?”

“Now that is the fascinating part. We keep track of the passing of time the same way. Look at the time display on this device strapped to the back of my hand. What do you notice?”

“It is the same configuration as the date in the log book.”

“That is correct. What year is this?”

“Eleven thousand eight hundred sixty-three.”

“Taerg, do you realize what this means?”

“That this log entry is very old.”

“Yes, two thousand one hundred forty-one years, to be more precise. A very long time ago indeed. I wonder why we were never taught any of this history on Homeworld. I was never taught anything concerning a great battle that took place.”

“Possibly, for the reason that those facts would not help in the situation they found themselves in. They were colonizing a new planet.”

“More likely they were embarrassed about being involved in the catastrophic decimation of a numerous population. The more I learn about my people, the more I am ashamed to be one of them.”

“Victor, as I said before, you were not involved in that war. It was our ancestors that participated in that terrible battle. You want to help our people. You are a good man. I am proud to be you friend.”

“Thank you, I greatly appreciate your friendship Taerg, but what happened was not right. How could the people in command have made such terrible decisions? How could those subservient to them just blindly follow the insane orders that they must have been given?”

“Victor, we should not answer those questions. The ones that should, have been long dead. What we need to do is learn the lesson that they did not. I would say that Captain Talbot learned that lesson and used his wisdom to help our ancestors here to become a better people.”

The rest of the week was spent reading a good portion of the earliest historical records. All penned by Captain Talbot. For the most part, they recorded his efforts and those who struggled with him in organizing the people. The people were completely in the dark technologically. They previously had handheld devices that they could individually learn from. The children relied on these for education and entertainment. Some of the weapons that were used in the great conflict completely disabled all of these. Rendered totally useless, they were simply paper weights.