The Children of Cerulea

By Harden Taylor

“Be careful what you wish for,” a saying so appropriate for the Sarast family. They are the only humans on the verdant, primitive and dangerous planet of Cerulea. The third generation has just arrived, turning the once brave adventurer to harried grandma, while Mother Nature rages, children bicker, memories ache and the first signs of wrinkles appear. And then there's the Sphere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harden Taylor
• Release date: Apr 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476283173

Harden Taylor

Yes, I was a cog in the industrial machine, grinding out reams of technical and business writing to support the once mighty American manufacturing colossus. But something happened in the early spring of 1995 – a bolt of lightening from the god of letters. “Fiction,” She said. Bit-by-bit I tried it, a little more each year till it became for me the quixotic enterprise it is today. Yet, I can’t complain, though my family may from time-to-time, because I found in this experience a liberation of style and content that is very appealing, drawing me into a new kind of grinding – a love/hate enterprise that wears the repetitive trudge down to fine dust.Recognition for my short stories (in descending chronological order):• “One Dish at a Time” – Honorable mention in the 2007 New Millennium Writings Short-short Story Contest.• “Mentors” – Honorable mention in the 2006 New Millennium Writings Short Story Contest• “What Will You Do for Me Yesterday?” – Published in the 2005 Dan River Anthology and was in the top five out of 75 submissions to Jerry Jazz Musician Magazine, June 2004 short story contest.• “A Rock by Moon World” – Honorable mention in the SpecFicWorld.com’s 2005 Speculative Fiction Contest magazine out of 93 entries.• “Where’s Jason” – Finalist in the 2005 Abroad Short Story Writing Contest. All finalist attended workshops & lectures given by Michael Bishop, Dan Chaon, Margaret Drabble, Anne LeClaire and Margaret George in Bourdeilles, France.• “Experiments of the Mad Chemist” – Semi-finalist in the 2005 New Millennium Writings Short Story Contest.• “In an Instant” – In the top five in Jan. 2005 Jerry Jazz Musician short story contest.• “Numbers Four and Five” – In the top 10 out of 90+ submissions to Jerry Jazz Musician Magazine, March 2004 short story contest.• “Stones, New and Old” – Honorable mention in the Whim’s Place on-line short-short story contest, May 2004 and published online 2004 by Whim’s Place.• ”Theraxis Comes to Visit” – In the top 14 for the SpecFi World magazine 2nd quarter 2004 short fiction contest and was in top 10% out of 1200 entries in the 18th Consecutive New Millennium Writing competition closing July 2004• “Flying Flowers” – In the top ten in the September 2004 Jerry Jazz Musician short story contest.My body of work (Fiction only):v Four full-length novels under my copyright –ÿ Project 334 – The first person to leave the solar system discovers and attempts to understand a battered civilization. His presence generates conflict (this is the first expedition.) – unpublished.ÿ Cerulea – A History of the Second Expedition – A pregnant female Robinson Crusoe-type story. She raises her children & incestuously created grand children alone on a forbidding planet – unpublished.ÿ Outhouse by the Moon – A series of murders at a small midwestern university by a Christian doomsday cult of prominent citizens leads to revelations of a terrible conspiracy – unpublished.ÿ A Rock by Moon World – Two twelve-year-olds discover a Lilliputian world ripped apart by war. They save them from the rages of a maniacal leader – published on Kindle. Based on my short story of the same name.v Completed short stories – This is an eclectic assortment of over 40 stories with different styles, themes and character portraits ranging in length from 240 to 40,000 words.v I have other novels short stories and poems in various stages of completion, including sequels to Project 334 /Cerulea and A Rock by Moon World.

Book preview

The Children of Cerulea

The Second Exploration Continues

By

Harden Taylor

Smashwords Edition

Also at Smashwords.com by Harden Taylor and on most electronic platforms discover:

Project 334 - The first human to leave our solar system.

.A Cerulean Hug: Lost, betrayed, alone - can she find the strength to survive?

A Rock by Moon World - A children’s adventure novel - understand your enemy or die.

Swim in the Lake of Fire - An exploration of the black heart of righteousness.

Tangled Hearts - A collection of short stories on the facets of love.

Visit my website beta53.com for more information about me, a writing/reading blog, links to my other books and other interesting links.

Copyright pending, March 2012, John Harden Taylor

Smashwords Edition

License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to your bookseller or Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 - How Long?

Chapter 2 - Fire and Brimstone

Chapter 3 - Aftermath

Chapter 4 - Water

Chapter 5 - Chemistry 101

Chapter 6 - Food

Chapter 7 - A Journey Starts

Chapter 8 - A Thin Bridge

Chapter 9 - The Next Leg

Chapter 10 - Farming

Chapter 11 - Breathing Hard

Chapter 12 - Hard Times

Chapter 13 - Trek to Survival

Chapter 14 - Reap Ye, Your Harvest

Chapter 15 - Return

Chapter 16 - Transition

Chapter 17 - Plan B

Chapter 18 - Unseeing Heads

Chapter 19 - Holey Rocks

Chapter 20 - Smoke and Fire

Chapter 21 - Road to Plenty

Chapter 22 - Brilliant Ideas

Chapter 23 - A Winter of Distress

Chapter 24 - The Road to Safety

Chapter 25 - Footprints

Chapter 26 - The Trek to Nowhere, Part I

Chapter 27 - The Trek to Nowhere, Part II

Chapter 28 - The Trek to Nowhere, Part III

Chapter 29 - The Road to Nowhere, Part IV

Chapter 30 - The Sphere, Part I

Chapter 31 - The Sphere, Part II

Chapter 32 - The Sphere, Part III

Chapter 33 - The Sphere, Part IV

Chapter 34 - The Sphere, Part V

Figure 1 - The Symbol and Number Table

Figure 2 The Sphere’s Schematic of the Beta 53 Planetary System

Figure 3 - Cris’s True Cerulean Age

Figure 4 - Twins’ True Cerulean Age

Chapter 35 - A Family Affair

Figure 5 - Cris’s Age & Location History

Figure 6A - Age and Location History of Jessica Ann Sarast (JAS)

Figure 6B - Age and Location History of Aron Richard Sarast (ARS).

Figure 7A - Age and Location History of Sarah Joyce Sarast (SJS)

Figure 7B - Age and Location History of Patrick Henry Sarast (PHS)

Figure 7C - Age and Location History of Quicksilver Hg Sarast (QHS)

Chapter 36 - The Morning After

Figure 8 - Jeff Gordon

Chapter 37 - The Grand Production

Figure 9A - Aron’s Key to the Sphere

Figure 9B - Aron’s Distance Comparisons

Figure 9C - Aron’s Distance Question

Chapter 38 - A Child is Born

Chapter 39 - Birthdays - Part I

Chapter 40 - Birthdays - Part II

Figure 10A - Aron’s Birthplace Question

Figure 10B - The Sphere’s Response

Chapter 41 - Expect the Unexpected

Figure 11 - A New Message

Chapter 42 - Words Across Time

Chapter 43 - A Font of Information

Appendices

Appendix A - Seasons

Appendix B - Cerulea: Time and Distance

Appendix C - Animals of Cerulea

Appendix D - Plants of Cerulea

Appendix E - The Planetary System of Beta 53

Appendix F - Places and Things

Appendix G - Characters’ Data

Introduction:

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Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to be ever more highly structured and to struggle against entropy.

Václav Havel

For those of you new to the mission of the Ahranian Society let us now state it simply:

We monitor, edit and publish transcripts of telemetry received from the first two voyages of human beings beyond the confines of our solar system. We also send useful information to the voyagers.

The first to leave was Tom Wilson who departed from our solar system December 15, 2067 in a ship designed and constructed by Wilson Enterprises, a company founded by Tom’s father and continued by him after his parents, wife and child were killed by the terrorist group WAG (We are Good). Tom made two identical ships, each designed to carry only one person on a 12-light-year, 120-year-long one-way trip to the Beta 53 planetary system for the purpose of exploration. For years enticing but ambiguous radio signals had been received from what was thought to be the second planet in this system, thus making it the target of Tom’s exploratory ambitions and the place where he ended his journey.

The second ship left Earth three years later with only Cris Sarast aboard. Tom had hired her as an intern working on an MBA but Tom’s project ignited her passion for space exploration. Beyond Cris’s successful completion of her internship the result of their working closely together was a loose romantic relationship. They agreed to meet on Ahran if possible where they hoped to learn as much as they could about what life forms were there and pass this information back to Earth. Tom was successful in landing on the second planet of the Beta 53 system (Ahran) and we published his initial adventures there in a historical novel styled document titled Project 334, which, incidentally, contains some detail about his ship’s design and operation as well as his personal history.

However, due to a program bug in the guidance system on Cris’s ship, it gradually drifted off course causing Cris to arrive at the Beta 53 system on the opposite side of the system’s star than was planned. The same bug was in the directional program guiding the focast (very high coherence laser beams on which a digital signal is imposed) communications from the solar system to Cris’s ship. This resulted in her ship not receiving focasts from Earth, which would have kept her History of Earth database up to date. Fortunately, this program in Cris’s focast system was of an earlier version, which did not have the bug and functioned perfectly, allowing her to send focasts to us continually. When she came out of hibernation, she sent messages informing us that she had no communications from us since the beginning of her trip. She also investigated, found the error and corrected it. Her Earth History Database contained no information about Earth beyond 2069. Since total communications have been restored, we have been updating 120 years of detailed Earth history for Cris’s database (keep in mind there is a 24-year delay in two way communication between Earth and Cerulea). We of the Ahranian Society apologize on behalf of those individuals who made these errors to all those hurt by their carelessness, especially to Cris and her descendants.

The upshot of all this was that Cris ended up on the third planet from Beta 53 (Cerulea) instead of the second one (Ahran). After she discovered her true location, she named her new world Cerulea because of the color of its oceans. It turned out to be a verdant world though primitive and harsh, reminding her of the holographic diorama she had seen at the Chicago Natural History Museum depicting the forests of Earth 100,000,000 years ago. In all of her searches she found no trace of native sentient life on Cerulea, a planet from which she could never escape and on which she would never receive visitors. Her initial experiences we published under the title A Cerulean Hug and it included details on how her family on Cerulea came about. This story, The Children of Cerulea, continues with edited transcripts of the focasts sent by Cris and her children - each had a private channel generating a separate signal to Earth. There was also a common channel, which recorded all their voices at once (with the common mic, everyone hears everyone else and everyone can talk to everyone else all at once, whereas the private mic option transmits a focast to Earth not heard by the other members of the family. The private mic option, not anticipated by the designers of the ship’s communication system, was figured out by Cris in desperation - see The Cerulean Hug for details).

Cris was able to receive a mishmash of radio broadcasts from Ahran generated by what she surmised was a civilization technologically at the level of Earth in the 1930’s but she was not able to decipher any meaning from it. She also received nothing she could attribute to Tom Wilson coming from Ahran. However, during the period reported in this book she and her children found and explored The Sphere, a discovery more profound than hers and Tom’s combined.

We have stayed as close to the truth as we could in creating this history but should point out that the truth includes more than just the demonstrable facts - it includes the emotional and situational inferences haloed around the facts - the larger reality of human experience. Thus, we used our knowledge of the participants and their environment to describe their feelings, to assess outcomes and to reveal motives when, at times, the facts did not give them explicitly.

Amazingly, our little organization, The Ahranian Society, has survived with few interruptions since the days Tom and Cris left Earth. Many dedicated people have joined us then left, usually only after disabling illness or death but the mission has carried on for over 120 years. The jobs of transcribing and editing were difficult, time-consuming and sometimes heart breaking and the job of deciding what information to send has been tedious and often controversial but the rewards emotionally and intellectually have been outstanding (though financially sparse).

Below is our condensation containing the material we consider the most valuable. The words of Cris Sarast and her family appear in normal font and our commentary, explanations and descriptions of important events, facts and non-verbal sounds we have put in italics. As best we could, we identified date and time for every entry - the location was indicated or implied in the words of the speakers. All recordings were taken from their common mics unless otherwise specified. Tagging the identity of the speakers we considered an unnecessary distraction since it was almost always clear from the content of the conversations.

Our time entries are all in Cris’s Cerulean Time System, invented by her. The time stamp is an automatic part of the focast and cannot be altered by those sending the signal. Cris was able to change it to her new time system by changing the stamp program settings but individual stamps could not be changed. To the best of our knowledge, there had been no tinkering with the time stamps after Cris converted to her new system. Cris’s time system is described in A Cerulean Hug.

At the end of the book you will find some appendices, which may help you follow the story with more understanding and enjoyment. You may use the hyperlinks to explore as you wish. Look in the Table of Contents (above) to find a link to the appendix you need.

Chapter 1 - How Long?

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182/11 [Earth date = 18-03-2188]

Cris laid her infant grandson down next to her mother, hoping his little eyelids would remain closed long enough for newborn baby and mother to get some hard-earned rest. Mother Jessica, exhausted after a sixteen- hour labor and the pain of birth, was so deep in sleep Cris commented that she didn’t even twitch as the little bundle snuggled up to her mother’s warm body and began to suckle. Cris tiptoed away, physically spent but much in need of solitude and an internal private conversation.

8:22 hours

(Cris’s private comments: Finally some rest. We’re all crapped out here in the ship’s ancient wreckage if for no other reason than to escape the coming storm. Jes and her brand new, just off the assembly line baby boy Patrick Henry are over in the forward storage area and I’m in front keeping the computer company. Mmmm … Patrick Henry, my first grandchild - an interesting choice for a name. I think Jes knew the history - delightful. Aron is outside securing all the fragile equipment that’s managed to survive these 17 Earth years and I’m stretched out in the command chair, worn and stained as it is from many years of use, but it’s still very comfortable. I’m holding Sarah Joyce, my contribution to the local population, while she nurses and I’m looking at the computer screen in front of me. The main computer, its back up and the two satellites are still functioning perfectly even though much of the other equipment from Earth has long since broken or worn out. That massive electronic brain and its eyes in the sky have saved us more than once but now I wonder if it’s time to break that psychological umbilical cord. The longer we continue to rely on it the worse it’ll be when it finally does break down. It’s un-repairable and anyway, most of its data pertains to Earth, a place none of us will ever see in person.

But, how to do it - how do we give up the weather info, the large game tracking, the big bug and woofly movements, all the unexpectedly useful reference data and … and the search for Tom - what a sad, useless, futile thing that is. Here I am, 42 Earth years old if I don’t count the 120 years I was in hibernation. Too old to have any more babies, too attached to this ship, too many memories I can’t forget. How many times have I sat here for hours hoping that red light would start blinking - that little signal that a message from Tom was waiting for my reply? I have children and a grand child, all healthy and strong and what do I miss the most? A bed partner to keep my body warm in the winter, to most effectively slake my libido’s thirst, to listen when I need to talk. That one night when Sarah was conceived, it was such a delicious and satisfying few hours with Aron’s warm body next to mine, his quiet breathing, his masculine musk. The fact that I did it hurt all of us so much, especially Jessica - it almost killed her. Even in this environment, incest carries a heavy price, especially when it’s mother/son. A powerfully dangerous game I played by letting my wants overtake my common sense. On the surface everything is forgiven but I just don’t know how deep that goes and I don’t want to find out. I know I should cherish the good times and stoically weather the bad times but now I just want to scream.

What did I say? Be strong, be perky, be positive? Sometimes the burden of survival is so heavy I can’t even stand up. The older I get, the worse it gets. Sometimes the future seems so terrifying I’m paralyzed with fear and dread. The worst is losing … whom? Who would be the worst to lose? I don’t know … it’s a stupid question.

The kids are as well prepared as I knew how to make them and they seem to have accepted their fate, hopelessly stuck on this primitive planet. I know a part of them will forever resent this prison and me for putting them in it. It doesn’t matter that I was impregnated with them when I was unconscious - while he prepared me for the trip, the cowardly bastard. But I’ve run out of hate for Jeff - after all, he did give me two very precious gifts. And, as the only adult in the room I was the only one with a choice. I chose to live when I got here and to give birth to them and to raise them and to sleep with my son and here we are. But there’s no changing the past and there will be no regretting it. Damn it, we will survive.

Oh, but speaking of failure, what about my mission? Find civilized life on Ahran; study it live in it, inform Earth of it, prove to the doubters that our delusional hunch was, in fact, a reality. All I’ve been able to report to Earth is, yes, there emanates from the second planet from Beta 53 an intermittent flow of radio wave mush - undecipherable, not definitive. I did report seeing what I believe to be city lights on the night side of Ahran but the only telescope I had powerful enough to clearly determine what they actually were and send the images back to Earth … well, wouldn’t you know Mr. Murphy was at it again, damaging that beautiful instrument beyond repair when my ship crashed on this strange place. Meanwhile, one by one our technological wonders wear out, break, slip out of our lives casting us down into ever more primitive conditions.

I wish, hope … I’d pray if I thought it would do any good. I’d pray for relief from these awful feelings. Strangely, I always pull out of a funk before it’s too late. I don’t really know why. I just wish I didn’t have them in the first place - some kind of survival instinct I suppose, this bouncing back from the precipice. I just hope I can continue to pull out and not take that other option, the one that hurts everyone else the most.

The best answer I can come up with is to continue my mission - different place, same objective - expand our knowledge of our universe and share this with as many people as possible, as completely as possible and as honestly as possible. I just wish survival was not so demanding, so nerve wracking, so damned scary. It’d hard to be curious and brave at the same time. I think I hear Aron coming back.)

18:43 hour

Heh guys, anybody alive in here? Jes, Mom? What a bunch of lazy bums.

Aron, be quiet. Pat’s sleeping.

Oh, sorry.

We heard Aron’s footsteps trail into the control cabin preceded by Jes’s whispered shushing. Aron approached his mom and whispered that he had finished securing the outside and that his weather check indicated an especially nasty storm was on its way. As he spoke we could hear the beginnings of the mournful howl outside. Over the next two hours the wind speed telemetry clocked at about 100 km/hr with gusts to 130 km/hr. At the higher wind speeds, the outer skin of the ship vibrated making a frightening high-pitched scream - the perfect sound effect for a B level movie about hideous night creatures attacking their human prey. It didn’t seem to bother any of the Ceruleans though, not even the babies, but it certainly increased our level of anxiety here on Earth listening to nature’s fury on Cerulea 12 years later. It was especially terrifying for our new interns. It’s odd how frightening these sounds are even though we know they represent no threat to us. Fortunately time came to the rescue, as it usually does; the storm abated, the peace of sleep settled over the ship and quiet ruled for the rest of the night. Just in time for Annie Smyth saunter into our main control room for her 15:00 to 23:00 hours monitoring shift carrying her home made double fudge brownies. After wailing, cursing and complaining about our waistlines, we finished the large pan of her creations in about two hours. May our arteries rest in peace.

183/11 06:21 hour

Heh, Mom, Jes, wake up. I fixed genuine faux cappuccino a la nausea, scrambled repleturk eggs, whole grain bread and gulp fruit parfait without the par part. The chef will be highly insulted if you don’t come and eat.

Shut up Airgone and let me sleep. Now look what you’ve done, that baby’s awake.

Gee, how can you tell? He’s screaming at less than 100 decibels - well, maybe a little over a hundred.

Oh, Aron my sweet, there is a nice lake out there you could jump in and get eaten by the monster of the deep. It would be an exciting adventure for you lasting at least a minute or two.

OK Jes, I’ll eat your portion. Thanks. I was especially hungry this morning anyway.

You will not!

Please go wake Mom and … no need, I hear little Sarah whimpering. Maybe you should go anyway and tell her breakfast is ready.

06:30 hour

So here we all are, everyone’s eating. How’s the food?

Excellent Aron, especially the scrambled eggs. I love the spice - lace leaf isn’t it

Yep.

Do I have to say it’s good?

Well, Jes, is it?

I refuse to answer on the grounds that it would be nice to do so.

Spoken like a Sarast.

A Cerulean Sarast. And this is so weird. You two eat while your babies eat off of you. It goes in scrambled eggs and comes out milk.

Well at least we produce something nourishing instead of just poop and pee.

I can’t argue with that. I have a question for a family meeting. Is it OK to ask it now?

Jes, you OK?

Sure.

OK, Aron, go ahead.

Well, Mom, I remember you telling us we are about 12-light years from Earth, right?

Yes.

And everything we say plus a lot of sensor data goes back to Earth, right?

Yes

Now Jes and I are 17 Earth years old so does that mean that in another seven Earth years we should get some kind of response?

Seven Earth years, that would be 4.5 Cerulean years but only if our communication system doesn’t break down and the people on Earth still have the means and the will to reply. Lots of if’s there but we can hope.

So you’ve been counting too.

Yes. I would be just as happy if they did reply and just as sad if they didn’t as you two. And by that time Sarah and Pat will be aware of what’s going on.

And, you know what Mom, I’ll bet they’ll roll their eyes at us when we find out and are either happy or sad.

Well, Aron, you’re talking like an adult.

Well, fathers are supposed to be adults aren’t they?

Indeed, yes indeed.

But why should we care whether or not they answer us? We can’t have anything like a conversation when you have to wait 12 years for an answer. All that’ll happen is we get excited or bent out of shape over something that’s ancient history. To be honest about it Mom, I think we should stop waiting and just focus on the here and now.

The here and now - no history, no lessons from the past, no new knowledge we could not obtain in any other way - is that what you really want Aron?

Well, we couldn’t use any of that wonderful knowledge anyway. We don’t have the technology or the tools or the ability so why torture ourselves? I remember you telling the story of the poor child looking in the candy store window, unable to buy anything, even unable to go in … not permitted in since the candy was only for people from a certain class of society. That’s kind of how I feel about it. We keep on losing things you brought here from Earth - wonderful things, almost magical things but it turns out they wear out and break and there’s nothing I can do to fix them or replace them.

Aron, think. The guns wore out and you invented the power bows that have saved our lives more than once. Those bows and arrows can do something the guns could not do - kill silently and so not scare away animals in a herd. And what about your idea to extract iron from seawater? You came up with that idea but it was knowledge from Earth that supplied you with the basic facts, which you applied to our situation. Someday I believe it will be a reality.

Aron’s right about one thing Mom, someday our link to Earth will be permanently broken and we’ll be completely on our own. I don’t like to talk about it or even think about it but all of us know it’s true. I love all the stuff we’ve gotten from Earth and anything new from there I’ll soak up instantly but sometimes I get that sinking feeling, like we’re slowly falling into a deep void.

Well, depression anyone? How about a mass suicide and get it all over real quick?

Mom, you have bad feelings too and we don’t mock you.

I know … I’m sorry Aron, Jes. You’re right but that’s no way to live life, always moaning about how dark it is. I was just starting to come out of a terrible funk myself so I’m in no mood to fall back into it again so buck up kids. We’ll make the most of this situation no matter how bad it gets. You got that?

Mom, I’m sorry. It’s me this time. I forgot to put the cover on camera three and the storm drove a lot of dirt and debris into it … ruined the lens and messed up some gears. I just realized that was the trigger for my getting all gloomy and negative, like my screw-up didn’t matter because it’s all going to Hell anyway.

Well, Aron, that was a very adult and brave thing to do, to face up to all that. You’ll make it and we can do without that camera. I love you and Jes and now we have work to do. Like they used to say, Idyll hands are the Devil’s playthings.

Mom, you did promise us a fashion show.

After the chores are done. OK, everyone finished with breakfast? Crew, muster at 07:00 hours. Sweep down fore and aft, then person your battle stations.

We could just see a lot of eye rolling by Jes and Aron after this mish-mash of Earth movie miss-quotes from their Mother. Nevertheless, they did turn