Path of Ranger: Volume 1 (39 page)

Actually, JB was greatly fond of the electronics and science achievements so he could be easily lost for days surfing in an exploration of the future world. But he knew that if he agreed to a computerized guidance, Nea would leave them. And yet, she had resonated with him more than anything else in that time.

“Earth history isn’t my specialty. I’m afraid, I can’t fulfill such a task in the depth that historical records can,” Nea didn’t expect such treatment from the strangers. They didn’t behave like the locals. She felt a sort of warm when talking to JB, it had happened very rarely before. “Still, I can try to tell you about the essentials… What century do you want to start with?”

“The twenty-first, I guess,” JB rubbed the back of the head modestly.

They hadn’t that detailed talk about JB and Gibson’s home time yet, so thinking about that, Nea still felt a bit odd.

“The beginning of the twenty-first century, right? I need to take a minute…” she walked towards the table to take a tablet. “Okay, let’s start.”

“Why don’t you use the hand projector?” JB moved off the subject for a brief moment. He nodded at her wrist tech.

“The tablet is more comfortable to me,” she explained.

The girl threw a short look at her listener and slightly smiled. Then she gracefully made a gesture for him to go over the two armchairs that stayed close one to another. The two came to the soft corner of the living room. It seemed to be a long story.

“Here’s some parts of the events of that time… There is not much information about what had happened before World War Four. It started in the late twenty-first century. When Earth’s population had grown over the twelve billion point, the resource deficit, an ecological catastrophe, a global economic depression, and many other factors fell on civilization. The territory disputes started with local conflicts and eventually grew into wars. The union of China-Russia attacked European Federation with a nuclear weapon. That attack was mostly shielded up by European defense system. But it was a call for the UCA, South America Republic, and India to get involved in the conflict. That war was one of the shortest in human history. The climate was ruined by the end of the sixth month of the war. The second wave of nuclear attacks initiated by Russia was enormously colossal, but something went wrong. The rockets detonated before even being launched. As a result, about eighty percent of Earth was burned out by plasma. Less than zero point one percent of the population survived. There wasn’t left any nations strong enough to continue the war. The survivors went deep underground to stay away from the radiation and surface overheat.”

“So those crazy bastards did blow it up…” JB mumbled recalling latest events from his own memory. “Gotta see it coming… Keep going.”

“Over decades, the heat from the sun melted the ice caps. Then a raised water level drowned most of the land. Eventually, the climate came into the nuclear winter stage. The planet went frozen. It was highly unlikely for humankind to survive."

JB looked aside, thinking. Nea noticed that he needed a minute to grasp the given information.

"Wow, this stuff is complicated. Man, I wish Neil DeGrasse Tyson was around to break it down for me..." the big guy spoke. Then he snapped back to give the lady his attention once again. "Excuse me, please, continue."

The girl went on.

"In twenty-three eighty-three, when the atmosphere was already stable, another kind visited Earth for the first time. The aliens came in search of valuable resources, but they found intelligent life instead. There weren’t many of humans left after three centuries below the surface. Yet, the visitors acknowledged us as equals and promised to help human civilization rise again. They shared the technologies that helped people to go back on the surface, fighting the cold. Those aliens called themselves ‘heliomoncers.'

“So we encountered aliens for the first time in the twenty-fourth century, right? How did they communicate with us?”

“Unfortunately, there is no detailed information on such matters. There are lots of holes in the history of our kind,” Nea didn’t look very concerned about such a question. Since she was born in the global interspecies civilization, that kind of question seemed odd to her.

“Interesting…” JB muttered thoughtfully.

“The collaboration of two civilizations’ technologies started a new era of discoveries. One of the most essential discoveries was the approach of using the thermonuclear reaction of hydrogen disintegration as an energy source. Water that had flooded the planet became the most valuable fuel resource. It all was possible with a use of an element that heliomoncers had brought along. They called it ‘mise.' The element had such a strong magnetic field that in large amounts it created a vacuum layer around itself. The mise was used in reactor creation pipelines, plasma could be isolated there, during the hydrogen atoms ionization process. Thus, our two kinds built a revolutionary method of handling energy. It gave an enormous push to other science fields. The ice coating was melted and the climate was changing back to normal. Although we got the planet back, it had changed over the centuries. The time period of wars and their consequences launched tectonic activity on the Earth. The planet’s shell had gone through drastic changes before it stabilized, only two continents were left: part of Africa and Australia. Australia increased in size about four times, but, on the contrary, Eurasia was mostly flooded. All that was left of it were spread-out isles,” Nea tried to narrate on her own, but she used her tablet from time to time to check the notes. “Basically, that was all that was left in records of that historical period. The next two point five centuries are a mystery for us. All we know is that heliomoncers had left Earth and no one saw them since. The reason for their departure remains unknown.”

“What? Wait,” JB interfered. “So, about two hundred fifty years of history is lost from all of the archives and no one knows why?” his tone felt more like resentment than wonder.

“I can’t tell you much more on that… Honestly, I’ve never seen someone being interested in these questions. Not many people think about that period at all,” Nea sounded so natural about those points that it was bringing a confusion to JB. It looked like the locals had lost their natural curiosity or something.

She continued with the narration.

“It was the end of the division of countries and nationalities. The new state was called ‘New Earth.' With the progress in technologies and the fast-growing increase in population need for a new direction in development arose. It was called ‘scouting.'”

“Exploring Earth?”

“Space. The scouts were the bravest of the people. Their mission was to find new suitable planets for civilization expansion. We had already had appropriate spacecraft technologies even before World War Four, but now it was pushed even further. The next decades brought us settlements on Mars, Venus and Neptune. Artificial faunas suitable for humans were becoming more advanced with the time. Soon scouting broke the Sun System barrier. New types of resources were found, it made the settlement process even more flexible. All that was needed for a planet to be colonized was water on the surface and the right distance from the star. Everything else, from the atmosphere to the vegetation to the animal breeding was just technicalities.”

“What about other intelligent species? Can you tell me about that?”

“Sure,” Nea nodded and turned to the tablet. “The first encounter in modern history occurred in Betelgeuse System. Two planets were already populated by ‘clomtuimh’ race. We call them ‘clomtueens,'” Nea showed JB a screen with a picture of one of these creatures. It was a pale-blue humanoid that had long spurs coming down from the face as a mustache. Three pairs of frog eyes and a skinny body. Bridgers recognized such a creature, he had seen a some of them a few hours earlier that day, in the mayor’s office. “There are six intelligent species that we’re aware of in our galaxy. These are humans, clomtueens, rahtiongs, namiamificans, acleemans, and fitoxes. Five of them are civilized. All of these are friendly, and together we form the Galaxy Union. This Union was founded to maintain peace and prosperity. Since the human race was the one that had found and united all of the species, the human language became the common one in the union.”

JB flinched in perplexity.

“Human language?”

“Hum…” Nea lingered stepping off the topic to delve into JB’s question. She did a quick search on the tablet. “Here… By the twenty-third century there was only one language left, I believe you may know it as ‘English.’ It was an official language among the allies; other kinds called it ‘tongue of humans,' so it became a custom.”

“Who are ‘allies’?”

“It’s another name for Galaxy Union civilizations and fitox kind,” Nea explained.

“And these fitoxes aren’t civilized?” JB wondered.

“No, they are plants.”

“And yet, smart?”

“Intelligent, rather.”

“Oh, I see,” it still wasn’t fully clear for JB what that meant, but he didn’t want to look as silly as a child.

The girl went back to her story.

“We have lots of in common in our life forms: the carbon base, a need of star energy, water, oxygen and so on. The namiamificans are different, though, we can’t visit their planets, those are too highly energized for any other race. But for the rest of the species' homeworlds, there are certain ways that let humans visit them.”

“So, I may freely fly over another planet and it’s safe?”

JB started suspecting something, even though he didn’t know what exactly.

“Not quite. Atmospheric conditions are suitable for humans just on the acleemans’ and clomtueens’ planets. In case of others, there are lots of biostimulators and technical equipment available for making it possible. I’ll leave descriptions of other kinds at your digital terminal so you can study them later. And don’t forget about the gravity, it’s different on each planet…”

“Okay, fine…” JB shrugged.

Doctor Gibson finished his personal business. He had found fresh clothes in the wardrobe. He also took a shower and shaved. All of the consequences of his latest adventures were left behind. A bright, handsome man in a blue outfit joined his comrade and the young woman in the living room. Mark’s eyes kept running around from one new thing to another, with even more interest than before. The mech wasn't an inconvenience anymore, so exploring those various details got much easier. With the first seconds after joining the others Doc understood what was going on there. He didn’t interrupt, just went on with his activity and tried to listen to the girl’s storytelling.

JB and Nea noted Gibsons presence by a short look at him. Then the woman went on.

“Now, let’s get to the late history…”

“Excuse me,” JB interrupted. “Let’s talk about something practical. Would you tell me about space traveling?”

“Why not,” Nea shrugged and tapped on the screen. “The most essential event among modern transportation achievements is customarily considered an exploration of the fuel element by Yuriy Rudnitskiy. You may recognize it by the look; it’s a black crystal substance that may also take a liquid form under the right conditions. It was named after its explorer, ‘Rudnitskiy’s matter.’” Hearing that JB recalled how Mark named gibsonium after himself, he looked at the scientist, who was lying under the table, examining something, and smiled. Nea noticed that too, but she didn’t stop. “The element has incredible power potential, which may be transformed into heat or electricity. It’s the most common fuel for the spaceships in the galaxy. We also refer to it as ‘solar dust.’ Because of the location where it was found, in a dark star system, not far from the Procyon star. That was an unknown dead star at that time, which had seven dark planets around it. All of those planets are full of solar dust, and all of that was hidden in the shadow of the cosmos. Besides its energy capacity, the solar dust is also rechargeable. When being under direct starlight, close to the star, the substance crystallizes and gets very fragile, just like dust. They charge it in such a way. You may see the charging stations on the stars’ orbits, just don’t try to visit them, those are for machines only.”

Nea turned the tablet to JB so he could see an image of solar dust crystal.

“There are two marks of solar dust fuel. The first one is ‘YR-24.’ This one is used for general power supply-purpose. Spaceships, buildings, vehicles, anything where electricity is needed can be powered by YR-24. The second one, ‘SN-10,' is more specific. It’s an isotope of solar dust, which purpose is to power up warp engines.”

“Yeah, so, if I need to travel from one solar system to another, I have to use both kinds of fuel, right?” JB clarified.

“Exactly,” Nea confirmed. “The human race has a monopoly on the fuel industry among the Allies. All seven planets of the Gamma-Theta system are held and guarded by the Blue Fleet. By the way, the core of Atlantis is powered by YR-24 too.”

“And I thought that the future was gonna be like all ecological… With free solar energy and stuff… But, yet, here we go monopolizing the juice all over again…” the big guy expressed his thoughts out loud.

From Nea’s look, she didn’t get that quite entirely.

“But it is solar energy, and very affordable,” she commented.

“Never mind.”

JB stood up to stretch his legs. He walked across the room to look outside. The traffic was running right in front of their suite, at that height above the ground.