Mati made use of Rini’s orbital junk chart as she carefully lowered the ship toward the planet. She took them near one of the metallic objects, almost as large as the Manessa Kwi, just to satisfy everyone’s curiosity.
“It’s a communications satellite,” Ilika explained, “designed to receive audio or video signals from one place on the planet and send them back down to another place.” He worked with Rini for a minute, and they detected a working energy source within the huge device, but no signals coming or going.
Mati continued the descent and soon entered the noxious yellow atmosphere. “Real-time surface topographics, Rini.”
“Channel
four.”
“Synchronized map is on channel five,” Sata added.
Mati arranged the new information on her display. “Atmospheric thrusters, level two.”
“Warming . . . green,” Boro reported.
“Kibi has command,” Ilika said, standing up.
Kibi swallowed once, glanced at a few things on her console, then stepped down to the command chair. “You have that chart of the places we’re not supposed to go, Mati?”
The pilot poked at her display selector. “No. I need that, Sata.”
“I’m adding it to the map on channel five. There.”
“Got it. Where to?”
NEBADOR Book Five: Back to the Stars 39
Kibi thought for a moment. “I’m sure we all want to see a city. Other requests?”
“Any oceans or lakes?” Boro asked with a twisted grin.
“Not any more!” Rini replied. “It’s so hot down there, all surface water is now just vapor mixed with the foul air.”
“So this . . . sickly soup I’m flying through . . .” Mati began.
“Is a mixture of smoke and fog,” Rini finished.
“Smoke from a million factories,” Ilika explained. “By the time they realized the planet was overheating and they could never get the stuff back out of the atmosphere, it was too late.”
The interior of the ship was quiet for a few minutes as Mati guided them toward a large ruined city. Ilika went from station to station, giving little reminders or pointing out new controls.
Their visual displays were useless until the Manessa Kwi was almost on the ground. Huge metal skeletons of crumbling buildings appeared in the putrid yellow mists, most of them towering over the ship.
Ilika went to the steward’s station. “I suggest inertia straps.”
Kibi nodded and everyone strapped themselves in.
Boro moaned as twisted metal seemed to reach out toward them when the yellow vapors parted for a moment. “Ugliest place I’ve ever seen. Makes Rumble Town look nice.”
NEBADOR Book Five: Back to the Stars 40
Mati guided the ship between crumbling towers, some partly collapsed, others leaning. Brownish fumes lurked at the base of one ruined building.
“Why did they make them so tall?” Rini wondered aloud. “Were they trying to touch the sky?”
Ilika was silent for a moment as he gazed at the statue of a sea creature in a bone-dry fountain. “I don’t know, Rini. Most sapient races seem driven to crowd themselves close together, then compete violently for the scarce resources caused by the crowding.”
Rini
shrugged.
Mati took them through a large archway of bent metal and broken stone.
Before they were all the way through, a loud thump filled the ship.
Rini looked up. “I th-think something hit the hull.”
“Yes,” Ilika said, working at the steward’s console. “Many of these buildings were covered with stone, and now it’s slowly falling off. No risk to the ship.”
They gazed at their visual displays and saw piles of broken stone surrounding most of the buildings. At other places, broken glass glinted in the harsh yellow light. Where no rubble had piled up, the paving stones themselves jutted at odd angles.
“I suggest external audio, Kibi,” Ilika said.
“Good
idea.”
Rini touched a control. “I don’t hear a thing out there.”
Mati guided the ship around a corner and they came face to face with the collapsed frame of a once-tall building.
“What was that?” Boro suddenly asked, looking up as if listening.
Everyone was silent as they strained to hear.
“I don’t . . .” Sata began.
“Wait!” Kibi ordered, hand raised.
A few seconds later, a loud metallic creaking sound made them all shiver.
“I saw some metal move!” Rini yelled. “That building on the left!”
“Give us some distance, Mati,” Kibi ordered with all the calmness she could muster while gripping the arms of her chair with white knuckles.
“It’s coming down!” Rini shrieked at the same time that Sata yelled, Boro moaned, and they all heard a loud crashing sound. The entire metal frame of
NEBADOR Book Five: Back to the Stars 41
the tall building slowly collapsed onto itself, sending a huge cloud of brown dust outward in every direction.
Mati was still backing the ship away, and they appeared to be out of danger, when suddenly a loud clang was heard, the entire ship shuddered, and falling beams of rusty metal and chunks of broken stone came raining down, covering all the visual displays.
Falling debris continued to pound the hull of the Manessa Kwi for the next half minute, becoming softer and softer as the layer thickened. Then silence filled the ship as the crew-in-training realized what had happened. Ilika could almost taste the fear as five pairs of wide eyes looked around the bridge.
After swallowing several times, Mati found the courage to speak first. “Um
. . . I’m . . . sorry . . .” she said through tears.
Kibi shook her head to clear her thoughts. “Ilika, I imagine you want to take . . .”
“No. It’s good for people to clean up their own messes, whenever possible.”
She bared her teeth at her captain and lover for a moment, then took a deep breath. “Status reports, all stations.”
Mati was wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “I’m the worst pilot in Nebador, and I want to go off-duty and clean toilets or something.”
“Denied,” Kibi said firmly. “And I still need a report.”
“Um . . . I think I backed into a building, and it fell on us.”
“I guessed that much,” Kibi said as Rini started chuckling.
Mati cracked a tiny smile. “Um . . . I’m okay and we’re . . . um . . . on the ground, I think.”
“Sata?”
The navigator turned, eyes still wide. “I thought we were going to be crushed! Um . . . like Mati said, we’re on the ground. The map on channel five shows our exact location.”
“Boro?”
“I’m fine. Engines are all green.”
Kibi nodded and smiled at the engineer, always solid and reliable in any
NEBADOR Book Five: Back to the Stars 42
emergency. “You can shut them down, do diagnostics or whatever they need.”
Boro turned back to his console.
“Rini?”
“Um . . . visual sensors in all directions are blocked, air outside is full of dust but otherwise the same. Mati doesn’t have to clean toilets when she goes off-duty. Instead, she gets a neck massage.”
Mati turned and smiled.
Kibi swiveled around. “Ilika?”
“Hopefully you are all a step closer to believing me when I say that very little in the physical universe can harm our ship in any way.”
Deep Learning Notes
A well-made communications satellite could remain in working order much longer than the civilization that built it, if not hit by an asteroid (space rock).
Most of ours are solar powered and could continue to work during the day, even if the batteries failed and they could not work at night. Of course, if the planetary civilization failed, the communication satellite would have nothing to do.
Sonmatia Two was experiencing a pollution problem that we have never had to deal with. We have a working hydrological cycle (oceans, clouds, rain, rivers) that cleans our atmosphere almost constantly with rain and snow. If a planet gets too hot and loses its hydrological cycle, most pollution will simply stay in the air.
The word “smog” was made by combining “smoke” and “fog.” It was first used to describe the air in London during the 19th century. The primary cooking and heating fuel at that time was coal.
What was Mati’s mistake?
