The E Utopia Project (25 page)

“I say let’s jump the drone
and see if it will bring us pictures of the planet again,” Cruz said all his
physical discomfort forgotten. “Hitchcook, what do you say?”

Hitchcook sighed into his
breathing machine. He felt heavy and disoriented due to the change in gravity,
and he was jealous of Rudolf’s moment in the lime light. All he wanted to do
right now was to lie down and fall asleep. “Okay, sir,” he said. “Let’s jump
the drone.”

They refueled the drone and
remote-conned it to the spot where it made the jump that took it within sight
of the new planet. They launched the drone into space and jumped it, and sure
enough, it brought back pictures of the planet.

“We need to go there,” Cruz
said. “Maybe this gas giant has oxygen.”

“You’re right, Mr. Cruz,”
Daniel Foreman, the group’s geologist and metallurgist finally broke his
silence. “We have to find out whether the gas giant doesn’t have resources we
need here.”

After several test jumps with
an unmanned Transgalactic, Rudolf, Hitchcook and Cruz jumped to the vicinity of
the gas giant and sent a drone to collect samples of air from the planet’s atmosphere.

Cruz was disappointed when
tests showed that the gas giant’s atmosphere had no oxygen. The air contained 92.5
percent hydrogen, 7.4 percent helium and trace amounts of
ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, methane and water vapor.
When they isolated the hydrogen, Hitchcook, Bolton
and Rudolf were delighted to find out that it had a much higher percentage of
heavy hydrogen than was found on Earth. While naturally occurring hydrogen on
Earth contained less than one percent heavy hydrogen, the hydrogen from the gas
giant contained forty-seven percent heavy hydrogen. Of the heavy hydrogen,
twenty-nine percent was deuterium and eighteen percent was tritium.

“Mr. Cruz, we’ve found our fuel,” Hitchcook announced.

“How can we use hydrogen fuel if we’ve got no oxygen to burn
it?” Cruz asked.

“This isn’t just plain hydrogen, Mr. Cruz,” Rudolf said,
unwilling to let Hitchcook take all the glory. “It contains heavy hydrogen in
very favorable proportions for us to use what we call the
deuterium-tritium reaction.”

“Mr. Cruz, if
we use the
deuterium-tritium
reaction we’ll need very small quantities of fuel,” Bolton
entered, keen to showcase his knowledge. “The deuterium-tritium reaction is
four million times more energetic than burning combustible fuels.”

“And one
other thing,” Hitchcook said, desperate to show Cruz that he was the most
knowledgeable of the E Utopian pioneers. “The hydrogen from the gas giant has
more deuterium than tritium which means we’ll have plenty of deuterium to make
ultra-dense deuterium that fuels the laser nuclear reactors which power the
jump drives of our ships.”

“In short
you’re saying that we have an abundant supply of fuel,” Cruz summed up.

“Yes,”
Hitchcook said. “The gas giant has more fuel than we will ever need. I think we
should call the planet Fuel Ball.”

“Fuel Ball it
shall be,” Cruz said. “What kind of waste will our spaceships produce if they
are powered by the
deuterium-tritium
reaction?”

“Helium and neutrons.”

“Are they safe for the
environment and living organisms?”

“Helium is an inert gas,”
Hitchcook beat Bolton and Rudolf to the answer. “It won’t have a negative
impact on the environment.”

“And the neutrons?”

“Free neutrons can harm the
environment,” Bolton jumped in. “They react with atoms to form isotopes which
maybe radioactive.  They’re harmful to living organisms because they can lead
to the production of dangerous free radicals in the body. To avoid polluting
our environment with free neutrons, we should only use deuterium-tritium fuel
in space. Each one of our spaceships should have an additional pair of engines
that operate on hydrogen fuel. The spaceships will use the hydrogen engines to
travel from the ground to the fringes of the atmosphere. Then they’ll switch to
deuterium-tritium engines.”

“My sentiments exactly,”
Hitchcook said through gritted teeth, cursing himself for not thinking of the
idea first.

“Where will we get the
hydrogen?”

“From electrolysis of water?”
Rudolf jumped in.

Cruz grimaced. “We can’t do that!
It will reduce the amount of water on this planet.”

“It won’t, sir. The hydrogen
will be oxidized back to water in the rocket engines.”

“That is a master plan.”

“Mr. Cruz, if we make
spaceships that run on deuterium-tritium fuel,
we’ll have
enough fuel to go to the Solar System and take carbon dioxide from Venus
,”
Hitchcook said. “
Then we’ll simply break the carbon dioxide
into oxygen and carbon.”

“We’re not
going to take carbon dioxide from Venus,” Cruz declared. “We’re going to take
oxygen from Earth.”

“Mr. Cruz,”
Akpobori said with shock. “Did I hear you correctly?”

“Yes, you
heard me correctly,” Cruz said with a poker face.

“Why do you
want to take oxygen from Earth? It’ll asphyxiate people.”

“Listen,
young man,” Cruz said tartly. “The people on Earth are killing themselves.
They’re committing suicide by destroying the environment. If we let them, they’ll
destroy everything.”

“But taking
oxygen from Earth will destroy Earth’s environment beyond repair,” Jacquet
scoffed. “Mr. Cruz, I thought you loved the natural environment.”

“It won’t
destroy Earth’s environment beyond repair
. We’ll bring animals, plant seeds and seedlings of as many species
as we can. When Earth’s polluters suffocate, we take some of the animals and
plants that we saved back to Earth and we’ll have two planets that we shall
rule under strict environmental law.”

“Like Noah
and the deluge?” Akpobori asked.

“Sort of,”
Cruz replied matter-of-factly.

Akpobori
sneered. “Mr. Cruz, I can see that you see yourself as some kind of Noah. But
Noah didn’t create the deluge if you remember.”

“Mr. Cruz,
what makes you think that the world powers will let you take oxygen from
Earth’s atmosphere?” Rudolf asked.

“They won’t
let us. We’ll steal it.”

“Suppose your
plan succeeds,” Bolton said. “What will happen to our families and friends on
Earth?”

“Each one of
you, as an E Utopia pioneer, is entitled to bringing one hundred and fifty people
of his choice to E Utopia. You just give us a list and we’ll evacuate your
loved ones.”

“I can’t
believe I’m hearing this,” Alonso said with disgust. “This is just sick, man.”

“Mr. Cruz,”
Foreman said. “I’m still waiting for the part where you will laugh and tell us
that you were joking.”

“Joking?”
Cruz roared. “You think it’s a joke that people are polluting the Earth? You
think it’s a joke that I spent billions of my money in vain attempts to educate
them to preserve the environment?” He poked Foreman’s chest. “Have you ever
heard about a thing called global warming, Foreman? Have you ever heard about a
thing called the ozone layer? Tell me, Foreman, how many species are now
extinct? I know you are a geologist but I think you must forget about rocks for
now and think about the plight of living organisms. Earth’s biota is being
annihilated as we speak.”

Foreman
parried Cruz’s hand away from his chest. “Go and have some rest. You’re not
thinking straight.”

“Mr. Cruz, I
know you are passionate about saving the environment but, seriously, you can’t
contemplate wiping out the billions of people on Earth,” Jacquet said. “This is
worse than Hitler or Daesh.”

“Mr. Cruz,
that won’t help,” Rudolf said. “It won’t be a surgical operation to remove
polluters from Earth. Such a measure will wipe out Earth’s flora and fauna. It
will destroy Earth’s natural environment beyond repair.”

“Earth’s
environment will recover when we bring animals and plants from here. Before we
do that we’ll re-oxygenate the Earth’s atmosphere with oxygen that we shall extract
from Venus’ carbon dioxide. If we let polluters and greedy people continue to live
on Earth, most of Earth’s life species will become extinct, including humans
themselves.”

“Mr. Cruz is
right,” Hitchcook said. “We’ve got to save the Earth’s biota from humans.”

“Come on, gentlemen,”
Bolton said. “We’ve got our own planet now. Why worry about Earth? We should just
get oxygen from Venus’ carbon dioxide. We’ll have our own pollution-free
paradise when we bring animals and plants from Earth. Besides, our ships can
travel at
superluminal
speeds; we can still discover more planets. Who knows? We might even
discover a rocky planet with oxygen.”

“Yes, we’ve
got E Utopia now but Earth is our home,” Cruz said grimly. “We can’t just leave
it to the polluters.”

“Mr. Cruz, I’m
struggling to understand your obsession with Earth,” Akpobori said. “You’ve got
a whole planet here. And it’s bigger than Earth. You even have a star named
after you, for God’s sake.”

“We have
found enough fuel to bring oxygen and flora and fauna to E Utopia,” Alonso said
“Let’s stop obsessing about Earth and concentrate on bringing life to E Utopia.”

“Alright,”
Cruz said. “Let’s vote. Those who support the idea of creating a two-planet, pollution-free
empire stand this side. Those who say we should abandon the Earth and concentrate
on E Utopia, stand that side.”

Only
Hitchcook stood on Cruz’s side.

“You must be suffering from
some kind of post-space-trip madness,” Foreman said. “Akpobori, please give Hitchcook
and Mr. Cruz a sedative.”

“You think
I’m crazy?” Cruz hissed. He pulled out  a semi automatic pistol. “Let me show
you crazy. Hands up!”

“What are you
doing, Mr. Cruz!” Rudolf shouted with hysteria.

“I said hands
up!”

The six men raised
their hands and Cruz pulled the trigger three times.
Foreman, Alonso and Jacquet fell to the ground.

“Mr. Cruz,” Akpobori pleaded.
“I’ve got a wife and little kids.”

“We can work
this out, man,” Bolton said. “Please don’t kill us.”

“Please Mr.
Cruz,” Rudolf begged. “Please spare our lives.”

“Shut up!”
Cruz barked before he fired two quick shots that aurally blended into one. Rudolf
and Bolton fell.

“I change my
mind, Mr. Cruz,” Akpobori whined. “I’ll go along with your plan. I’ll do
anything. Please don’t kill me. I promise I’ll help you carry out your plan.”

“Liar!” Cruz
barked before he pulled the trigger. Akpobori tried to draw his gun but the bullet
struck him before his hand dropped five inches.

“Let’s bury
them, Hitchcook.”

Hitchcook
remained motionless, his mouth agape with shock.

“Hitchcook!”

“Yes Mr.
Cruz.”

“I said let’s
bury them.”

Cruz trembled
when he looked at the bloodied corpses. “Did you have to kill them?”

“Yes. If I
let them live, they would steal a ship and return to Earth to warn the
polluters. They would bring government people here and this planet would become
free for all polluters.”

“Is it true
what you said about me bringing a hundred and fifty of my loved ones here?”

“Yes,
Hitchcook. In recognition of your great work, I grant you the privilege to save
one
hundred and fifty
people of your choice. We must return to Earth and find people who
believe in our cause. And you must design rocket engines that can operate on
heavy hydrogen.”

“We
discovered metal deposits here, Mr. Cruz. When we return, we must mine the minerals
and use them to build ships from here.”

“That,
Hitchcook, is a great idea. But when we mine we must minimize environmental
degradation. Now let’s give these six gentlemen the distinction of being the
first people to be buried on E Utopia. When we have imported enough oxygen, I’ll
plant a tree on their grave. Their bodies will provide nutrients to the tree
and contribute to the well-being of our environment.”

“What will
you tell their families?”

“We’ll make
up a story. They died in an accident, blah blah blah. I’ll give a fine speech
about their dedication to duty before I give their families nice little compensation
packages. They’ll be smiling all the way to the bank.”