Secret Mayday: A Historical Novel About the Future 1*

By Finn Seldal

When somebody need to repair or build something not on Earth, Norn deSpace is the right man to ask. This time he must move a whole asteroide. He must do it hidden for all but in the open and it will cost more than small change.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jul 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781524637231

Finn Seldal

Find Seldal, born in Høle, now part of the municipality of Sandnes in Rogaland, Norway. With small breaks, he has lived his entire adult life in Bergen. After completing military service and education, he was one of the first in Europe who began designing the then-new microprocessor into some highly advanced electronic products. Often as a consultant in collaboration with clients, an idea was developed into a finished product. It became his principal occupation, working in electronics, approaching the millennium. Then he began to write. He started writing poems before he got the title and started working on his first published novel. Space has been his lifelong interest. Ten-year-old, in 1952, in discussion with an older brother about when the first human would visit the Moon, he said within 1970. He has read a lot about astronomy, geology, and human development; he has been very fond of reading. Some readings were science fiction. He has two daughters.

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© 2000-2021 Finn Seldal. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Cover idea: Finn Seldal.

Graphical design: Finn Seldal.

Logo designed by Finn Seldal.

Translation by Finn Seldal.

2nd edition, revised.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/02/2021

ISBN: 978-1-5246-3762-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-3763-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-3723-1 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Secret Mayday

Prologue

It Happened In Those Days

Rainy Sun

Full Day

Dialogue In The Dark

From Dawn At Day Two

A Vacation Is A Must

Principal Plan

Diamonds

Intermezzo

Clearing The Table

Grunder Business

New Revolutionary Ideas

The Meeting

2050Ha

Large Ore Deposits Discovered

Seedtime

Search

Selection And Training

Making The Future

Test Of Metal Deposits

Next Phase

Harvest

Luther Cant Inspects

Plans For 2050Ha In Earth Orbit

With A Little Bang

Racing With Death

People Disappear

The Crossing

Another Novelty

The Landing

Down At 120 West

One Hundred Years Later

Injured Far-Reaching Bird

Shipyard In Space

A Little Detour

Something Is Up

The Final Year

Back From The Dead

What Will Be

Epilogue

Named Persons

Organizations

Names And Places

Inventions, Words, And Phrases

About The Author

ABOUT SECRET MAYDAY KNOW THIS

In the following text, the names used for places and persons can be authentic or made up. All areas accord with what the author found fitting, imagined or not.

The names of and a possible description of a person living today (2048-2076) are all as the author imagined them. However, if some persons should think of recognizing themself, it is wholly unintentional.

In the following text, there are words and expressions and short descriptions of innovations marked with an asterisk* that do not exist today (2001) other than in the author’s imagination.

For example, the designation of this book: A Historical Novel about the Future*, translated from Norwegian: Historisk Fremtidsroman*. The meaning is naturally here and now projected into the future, the history of what will come, clairvoyance if you like. It must not be confused with Science Fiction. The closest comparison is the Historical Novel, which fantasizes to different degrees with and about old persons and events. Market with *, they are all author’s original thoughts, see INVENTIONS, WORDS, AND PHRASES, in the back of the book, for more details.

Reasoning and comments from the character in this book are precise: the individual character’s thoughts and thinking.

Copyright © 2000 – 2021 Finn Seldal.

All Rights Reserved.

© 04%20B%26W%20Duologo%201%2c9x1%2c9dpi960.jpg Finn Seldal Publisher.

OF NOTE

I wrote this book from 2000 to 2002, the first final manuscript I sent to a publisher in 2003. The translation from Norwegian to English finished in 2021. Much has changed since 2003; my ideas for inventions in this book, new and unknown then, are now known. Some astronomical data I rewrote in 2008. One other thing to mention, especially regarding astronomy, like the fly-by of Pluto in 2015, I estimated 2021.

I choose to keep my translation close to my original script to show that fantasy and real-life are often not far apart.

In truth, many things are just fantasies at the start.

THANKS TO ALL NOTED

In alphabetical order.

A.G.V.S. Realist and feminist for high-quality input.

A.S. Advisor for advice about correct spelling and grammar.

D.J. Advisor for encouraging words and suggestions about prose.

Flight leader at Flesland Airport. Tips about how to fly VFR, Visual Flight Rules, and other general information.

E.S.L. Total review.

F.J. The family for a loan of the name.

F.S. Second version.

G.S. Title: Professional Engineering Trouble Shooter. About seabed constructions using concrete in the North Sea.

G.S-O. Teacher and author, giving valuable insights.

J.S. Oil geologist providing information about the seabed in the North Sea.

K.J.R.Ø. Astronomer. About the moon Europa and antimatter.

K.L. Gemologist, giving information about diamonds.

The Norwegian Defense Department of Information. About firing torpedoes.

SECRET MAYDAY

PROLOGUE

There exist more

Between Heaven and Earth

Than Elsewhere

IT HAPPENED IN THOSE DAYS

You often saw this person dashing along the forested slopes in Lærdal, a river valley leading inland from a fjord on Norway’s West Coast — his ideal form of bodily exercise and mental relaxation from the intensive, challenging work he had in the North Sea. It gave him an excellent time to ponder on various ideas and notions. He was 180 centimeters tall, with an athletic, slim body. The oval face was more austere under the brown-black hair, a high forehead, the dark, thick brows, and the curious, keen blue eyes and chin adorned with a small dimple. He had a slightly unusual feature, the mustache more reddish in tone contrasting his darker hair. Youthful looking — when his smile was freely playing on his face, he seemed to be much younger, not even forty. It was as if age did not take hold.

The description could fit many. What did set this dashing person apart, one discovered by first eye contact? Those ice-blue eyes and piercing gaze, as if scrutinized by some arctic ice. And then the transformation, a smile, and you felt like under a soft and refreshing azure sky.

Norn deSpace, known only by that name.

A few quick steps across the shingle in the yard and, he was well at home from this last mountain workout.

Norn turned on the television program:

"This is News from Solar News, on Tuesday 17. March 2048. The time is 19:00."

The voice of Luther Cant beat upon him:

"Anyone not asleep, if only they could get a glimpse of the skies, saw for just some four months ago, a great, powerful but short-lived brilliant light strafing the heavens. It was possible to see from all the places in the solar system. The flare was so powerful that one could easily read by its light. Briefly, it illuminated the night side of Earth as if by a full moon. Fareye LUNA Observatory, the telescope in orbit around Earth’s moon, the second successor to the Good Old Hubble, caught excellent data records. Of high value was an outstanding record of the dazzling radiance obtained on Phobos, one of Mars’ two moons. The crucial third set of data came from some adventurers, a new kind of gold miners, who outfitted for exploration for precious metals, are searching in the asteroid belt.

Analysis of the recorded data showed many gamma particles in the blazing flare, something to note. That one got decent records from three locations as well, gave a secure cross-bearing. It showed that the flash came from the same direction as Jupiter in the sky, just below the star Botain in Ares’ constellation. In astronomical terms, it is R.A. 03h, 12m, DE 18 degrees ... but far beyond Jupiter, closer to the solar system’s outermost boundary. It is mind-boggling 18,000 million km from our Sun or nearly 121 AU. The planet Jupiter, which then was only four AU from Earth, and thus at its brightest, disappeared in the glare.

AU stands for Astronomical Unit — defined as the distance from the Sun to the Earth. The radius of Earth’s nearly circular orbit around the Sun, 149.6 million kilometers. Therefore, AU is an appropriate yardstick to use for long distances in the solar system.

Nearly one thousand minutes, the flare spent from the Oort cloud until detected by Fareye. Time spent crossing Kuiper’s Belt, lighting the way past the outer planets’ orbits, Jupiter as the innermost. This bright light was increasingly inching inward with lightning speed, for finally to cross the asteroid belt, into the inner system, past Mars, until it shone on the Moon and Earth."

Behind Cant, the studio was a giant T.V. screen, one of the latest ideas for a more modern blackboard. Mr. Cant was explaining while showing part of the sky with stars and planets on this display. Presented on this background panel, it complimented what Cant was telling in a much better way than using a small window on the same T.V. screen. Cant was a rising star in the T.V. world ... with new ideas. He reinforced and made clear what he said uniquely.

Cant took in another sip of water from the glass while the backdrop screen took on another disposition.

Cant continued:

"From around 1990, there came better instruments at our disposal. The computer age was, in earnest, making its entrance into astronomy. Computing and data from all the probes gave us a quantum leap in what the astronomers found of new, exciting objects in the solar system. These probes were astronomical instruments sent out with rockets traveling from one planet to another. Discoveries took momentum in the 20th Millennium. Many moons, many comets, and several icy asteroids — planetoids is perhaps a more appropriate name — were discovered far away from the Sun. Out there, Pluto, in its very inclined, elliptical orbit, crosses the Kuiper Belt in its path around the Sun. The Belt looks like a slender torus extending 30 to 70 A.U. from the Sun … probably filled with a myriad of objects of all sizes of rock and ice. One of these objects was Sedna, discovered in 2004. It was speculated about as the tenth planet, although it was smaller than Pluto.

So in 2005, the discovery of UB313, a rocky, icy body with a diameter of 2400 kilometers, was more massive than Pluto. Until then, one had thought of these as the Kuiper objects. The discussion about what to call the planets was speeding up; there was no proper scientific definition. Some would even downgrade Pluto to a dwarf. Pluto did not fit their idea of what a planet should be. And so it became. In the autumn of 2007, UB313 got the name of Eris, the first and largest dwarf planet; Pluto degraded to the second place."

Again, Luther Cant fixed his whole attention upon his viewers. It was somewhat intense, almost hypnotic in his eyes underneath his entirely white Einstein looking mane of hair, as he continued:

There are boulders, ice, and rock in all sizes at the solar system’s boundary. — The remains of the gas cloud, Oort cloud, five billion years ago, was the source, the building material for the entire solar system. That cloud is like a shell around our Solar System, as the far wall bordering the void and the stars — and is probably the birthing field of most comets. What else is out there and that we do not know are still only hypotheses and wild predictions.

Luther combed his hair with his fingers:

"Well. The flash four months ago started all kinds of speculations. The discussion in 2006 - 2007 of what is a planet was only like a ripple in a teacup in comparison. One hypothesis was that a collision between two asteroids caused the lightning spell far out there. In the astronomical forums, where the vast majorities are men, this explanation has gotten considerable support. Only a lone woman astronomer, an astrophysicist, disagrees. She points out; it had to be some genuinely alien asteroids if that is the case. The woman put forward a different theory. She believed — and still do — that the flash with that kind of high contents of gamma particles was the first indication that the solar system has a so-called wormhole at its very edge. According to Nora Creek, a wormhole is a highly vague, conjectural astronomical object — which, again, is not so abstract and speculative anymore. On her website, she explains that this flash of light could be a reaction to a wormhole opening up or that it disappeared. A very exotic theory massively argued among astronomers who provided the opposition. Just outside the astronomical community, people I’ve talked to say that the idea is fantastic, especially given the future possibilities. The rumors tell that because of this, she became a pariah in the inner astronomy sanctums.

I want to point out that throughout history, many a great discovery has had a thorny birth. I would argue, often because the well-established scientists were not the first to promote this new idea. Very well. We all have to wait and see. Something fresh has happened!"

Luther Cant studied some papers, took a sip of water from a glass on the table, and continued:

Now, in retrospect, it appears that at least Creek was right to reject the theory of collisions between asteroids. A week ago, a new gamma-ray burst forth. This time, it was close to Jupiter’s position. RA03h, 16m, and 55.2 s, DE 17.38 degrees. This second flare was not as intense as the first had been and quite short-lived. The flash last week was probably too short for somebody other than LUNA Observatory to record anything, and LUNA only got data from the end of the flash. If someone else had got a record of the flare from a second spot strategically placed, we could have calculated the flare’s distance. Now we only know that it was in the same direction as the first gamma radiation. Our solar system beyond Jupiter seems to be an exciting place filled with new phenomena.

Luther Cant shifted mental gears:

Under these circumstances, I believe it is entirely appropriate to use a metaphor: In the ocean of space," the rocks are not fixed like typical natural reefs. There indeed, everything is flowing around, although in mostly fixed orbits.

Well then, so close together in time, we have had two flashes of light with a touch of gamma radiation in them, and collisions between asteroids cause both. Might that be possible?

I dare to say that the astronomers, with their unchangeable truth, went head-on against this mentioned reef. The discussion about the previous first burst of light had almost fizzled out. Now this second flash has started heated talks anew. The well-established astronomers and others argue what these light flashes with such high content of gamma particles mean; what was the cause? Currently, I have more confidence in that woman’s theory, although it’s pretty wild.

There is only one thing most can agree upon, to speed up the upgrading of Fareye, adding an infrared eye. It will open up the possibility to have a better look through a fuller window of the electromagnetic spectrum.

I am Luther Cant with the magazine News from Cosmos at Solar News."

Norn smiled. He sat and listened with great interest. The celestial firmament had always fascinated him and now even more so. Norn deSpace noted the name, Nora Creek.

Strengthened proverb:

There are many a reef floating in the sea.

Somewhere else. Spring 2050:

The pale sunlight crossed yellowish across the ice fields out there. The Rays were faintly reflected from some pack ice, some like mountains with sharp peaks, before penetrating the window of crystal plastic into the room. There the feeble sunrays intermingled with the blue-white light from the fixture in the ceiling.

The room was not very spacious. The muted light from the fixtures in the roof mixed with the yellow light from the Sun gave the room a greenish and eerie, melancholy feel.

A rather austere room. An oval table-looking fixture got your first glance; a dim light penetrated the tabletop from below. At the table was a couple of chairs? A Dane may well have designed them. Along one wall, on the floor a bench, perhaps a possibility to take forty winks. Next to a wall was a closed cabinet reaching from the floor to ceiling and just at its left-side, something that was a computer, judging from an array of bright, blinking, tiny lights.

Flat screens on two walls of the hexagonal room displayed text and diagrams. So did a diagonal panel on the table. Two more picture surfaces on the opposite wall showed landscapes and animal characters in play or match. The pictures were the only decoration in the room if you’re not reckoning the green vine. The plant grew up from a large amphora, and like well-grown ivy, it climbed the wall and sprawled in a stirring vane across the ceiling.

Complete silence was prevailing. The figure in the chair at the table bearing three data panels made not even a breathing sound. The great body halfway turned towards the window but was otherwise motionless. If this was a man or woman, the head covered with a cowl, the body with a full-length, loose coat, was not easy to discern in the dim light. However, one could guess that the figure was gazing restfully at the sunny icy landscape outside while contemplating the monitors’ data.

Suddenly, the silence broke a rustling. The diagrams changed. The light in the room dimmed, the sunlight was gone, and time went on. Finally, the graphs and text transformed into images of the Earth and the Moon. The figure stood up and almost slipped out through an opening in the sixth wall.

An ordinary ending one may very well surmise. However, it is more exciting to imagine that this was the end of the beginning of something new.

An ice Sun doesn’t make sunny ice.

News; the summer of 2050:

"This is Luther Cant with News from the Cosmos, Friday, 1 July 2050. The time now is 19:00.

Tonight, there will be a salad of news. I will first highlight all the new observations of U.F.O.s; we’ve had in the past year. Two are of particular interest, one from the mountains of Scotland, from one studying eagles. The second event is from two characters hiking in the border regions of northern Norway and Sweden. From both observations — within thirty days — several pictures were taken showing a flying object. The object looks the same in all images. Unfortunately, it is so easy to manipulate digital photos, thereby making their authenticity questionable.

At the opposite end of the topic, far from Earth, I would remind you that the spacecraft Centaur has traveled farther into space than any other human-made object. The probe reports that it is now 1.4 light-years from Earth on its way to the star trio Alpha, Beta, and Gamma Centauri. The plan is to reach the star Alpha Centauri, similar to the Sun, 4.35 light-years away. The hope is to find a habitable planet. Centaur was launched from the moon using a catapult built east of Luna City twenty years ago. The sled sling gave Centaur its necessary escape velocity along a rail that extends far into the moon’s backside. Centaur amassed extra speed using fission rocket engines; the best around then. Momentum increased by the passage of appropriately selected planets in the solar system. It is resulting in only thirty percent of the fuel used. The rest is intended for any course corrections and, equally important, breaking velocity when closing in on Alpha Centauri in forty-three years. This probe works as planned and sends back more valuable data every second from its interstellar journey.

The catapult became upgraded several times and is now used chiefly for rocket-controlled containers aimed at inner solar system locations."

Luther Cant was getting a dispatch in his ear; he nodded:

We’ve been so lucky to get an interview with the initiator, designer, he who handled the construction of catapult on the moon ... Norn deSpace. He has been busy working on an assignment in the North Sea for a long time now. These days he is doing the finishing touches" on the world’s first fusion power plant on the now-famous Fusion Island. DeSpace — we know virtually nothing about his birthplace and childhood — is, as the name might suggest, still passionate about space travel. He advocates that Fusion Island should help more prospectors explore and look for precious metals in the asteroid belt. I would assume waiting for a sizeable compensation, the bulk of the value of any findings. I’ll ask. Maybe we get some tips about forthcoming projects. We will also ask about what he thinks of the now famous or infamous light flashes. Ideally, I would have liked to ask the astronomer Nora Creek. The lady with her exotic wormhole theories. Unfortunately, she was not available but was said to be on the moon, back from a trip to Mars moon Phobos.

We will also have some reports from some management representatives of the organization BED, Beware Earth Demand, demanding that we take care of the Earth and their views on space exploration. So stay tuned, folks. It may get a bit heated in the studio.

I am Luther Cant with the magazine News from the Cosmos at Solar News."

Toil of Life

The life tosses and turns like on a rough sea.

If only I have had a boat

RAINY SUN

Norn moved smoothly along the path that winded through scrubs and alder trees up from the river to the road. It was an early, rather drab August morning, Saturday the 20th in 2050. He quietly ascertained in his mind that there was no point in any fishing that day. The river’s water flow was still too small for the salmon to want to go on the river.

However, there was hope. Dark rain clouds were transported inland in the atmosphere from the sea. They had not yet started to empty their stores of water sucked up from the North Sea. Not before closing in on the mountains of the west coast of Norway, where the clouds would be force-lifted up and cooled, they would let go of their wet load.

Soon we will have torrential rain. One or two days, or just a night of pouring rain, and the salmon will dare to start their migration up along the river to their spawning grounds there far up.

That was one thought running through his mind. The next was.

It will be exciting to start fishing in more than one way since all fishing has been on hold for the last ten years.

He was rejoicing.

Norn let his thoughts go wandering.

Fishing stopped in Lærdalselva, indeed in all rivers along the Norwegian coast, anticipating the salmon stocks should rise to a safe level. Hoping that one could harvest safely from part the reproduction, Surplus yield, as called in more recent Norwegian.

The years from 2010 to 2025 had been years filled with apprehension. Diseases still readily occurred in salmon sea farms, and sick fish at times escaped in masses from their pens. This pattern had yet again; this time, it nearly decimated the natural fish stocks in rivers emptying into the North Sea Basin.

After defeating the diseases, the indigenous wild stocks had become so small that just a nudge needed to have them completely wiped out. Slightly over-fishing or more illness and native salmon would be something you caught between a history book’s covers.

In 2030, Norway decided to slaughter all farmed salmon at all sea farms. The ancestors gave birth to it only from a few native species. To ensure more genetic material, one would begin to breed spawns and baby fish from most wild Norwegian salmon stocks, making each farm produce fish with a more local identity, an idea introduced probably in 2002. It was ignored and forgotten the same year. The protest against those plans was at the beginning immense, but it was only the first step in the undertaking. In 2036, the Council decided, in cooperation with the Norwegian government, to stop all fishing for salmon until 2050, for fourteen years, despite new, massive protests from many quarters. Fishing was an important leisure activity. Fortunately, this was a new trend, mainly in the western world, ensuring species diversity in different ways, flora, and fauna. Now, when the sea level had risen by over a quarter-meter because of the significant melting of ice in Greenland and changed estuaries, this work was more appropriate. Some wisdom did eventually dribble into some of the various decision-making bodies.

Norway and the northern area of Svalbard and the Arctic had become the European free lung, the most sought-after areas of unspoiled nature, and a peaceful neighborhood. It became a favorite place for recreation for the population living in dense, urbanized, and troubled central Europe. To the east, Russia to Siberia was also formerly large scenic areas. Still, they were more tarnished by ruthless oil harvesting, mainly from 2010 to 2030. Pollution and large scars in the landscape after construction activities, which do not heal as fast in the tundra, had made those areas less attractive. What was worse, the regions of Russia and Belarus were also in political upheaval. Even more inflamed were Ukraine and the countries bordering the Black Sea.

In the Middle East, the war of domination between active and missionary religions could not rest in a few generations. Religion is very likely the mechanism that is most divisive and segregating. Terrorism, in its modern form, was probably first developed in the Middle East, and holy war is a persistent thought. The pressure of an ideological dissident’s population in China was also palpable. From the south, from Africa, the flow of refugees northward had not diminished over the years. The fight against poverty that allegedly began, in earnest, nearly fifty years ago, in 2005, did not work. It may be relatively futile to fight against poverty if ordinary citizens do not even get a say in the matter. People fled from war and strife. To proclaim himself king or warlord in some countries in Africa and other places too were still high fashion. On top of that, conflicts initiated by religious thoughts were going on as usual.

Norn noted that gaffer, the man who usually helps to land big fish with a gaff or a rake, did arrive and enabled his Allinone on the sleeve. An all in one is a cutting-edge picture phone combined with a computer, access to I.N.E.T., the modern internet, notebook and planner, G.P.S. with maps, etc., quite indispensable.

Hi, there will be no fishing today, he said to the image of a man, the gaffer. The visage appeared on the display of the Allinone, on the lower part of the sleeve of his jacket’s left arm. The part transformed into a window to the world, ten times eight centimeters, in color.

The gaff coach nodded in agreement.

One or two days more if the clouds keep their promise, continued Norn.

Again, the gaffer nodded.

Norn had deliberated a bit before he decided;

Can you drive my car to my home during the day? I need a little exercise, so I take an invigorating hike across the hill. Just park the car in the yard outside the garage. I will take care of the fishing gear when I get home.

It sounded casual:

Okay! from the man, and the connection terminated.

At a brisk pace, Norn covered a hundred yards along the road and veered into a farmyard. It was one of the recently well-kept yards, before a courtyard of a traditional small farm, perhaps a thousand years old. It was just one of many mountain farms now flowering, threatened by depopulation and downfall at the twentieth Millennium turn. For a couple of decades, it provided a prosperous livelihood for the local people and an enriching, exciting recreation spot for young and old from all over the world. Alas, mainly for those who have time to spend, opportunities and money.

And now, permission is given; one could again fish for salmon.

He crossed the yard and closed himself out through a small wooden gate in an old stone fence to the outfields. Up along the hillside, on a well-trodden path, he went.

He got into a good running rhythm. Thoughts appeared.

Fifty years old, and I am now at the end of my biggest project. No, it is the world’s largest project. The space elevator will not be finished in the next ten years, at least. Not with the management they have now. It is no better with the plans for an African Bridge crossing the Straits of Gibraltar; those are even worse. The work has not commenced yet; they are still arguing. Will it increase the flow of refugees from Africa to Spain through Morocco or vice versa?

An hour later, he sat down at a cairn shelter from the wind on the hill’s top. There he dared to dwell on this new freedom, contentment. The mind cleared, and he let himself mentally touch this new-won freedom.

Here I can sit and keep an account of my last twenty years and plan my next five.

Those were the first thoughts that surged up as he relaxed, let his pulse slow down; he turned into a meditation-like state.

He did not notice that the sky darkened because the Sun signaled the beginning of a new day. A ray of gold played on mountain peaks on the eastern horizon. However, he noted a refreshing edginess in the air. The wind began to thrum in the rocks, where it blew a little brisker past the cairn.

His thoughts became a summary over the last fifteen years in the North Sea. It had been seriously planning and supervising work for fifteen years, only interrupted by some timely brief stays elsewhere. Elsewhere mainly was here in Lærdal, where he often went to plan the finer details. To do that, he needed distance to Fusion Island as the place in the North Sea was eventually called.

06%20B%26W%20Fusion%20Island%207%2c0x7%2c0dpi576.jpg

The work was first to build an octagonal island, an artificial land area with a diameter at sea level of 2400 meters.

I was first overseeing eight sections constructed on land at various locations around the North Sea. Then, using the time to supervise the towing and assembly on the seabed. There the structure, made of steel and concrete, stood up like a truncated pyramid. It had a slope of 45 degrees from the seabed 100 meters below sea level to 150 meters above. It ended with a floor 2200 meters in diameter. They took into account a significant increase in the sea level — possibly a rise of several tens of meters if Antarctica’s ice also started melting.

Second, from this floor, a glass dome vaulted itself to 450 meters. It would stand to be washed by the much-publicized Century’s Storm Wave.

Third, the skyscrapers sprouted through the dome, stretched high in the sky, maybe reaching for the stars if you dared to let free your imagination.

The two tallest buildings were 950 meters high or reaching wholly 1050 meters measuring from the bottom of the North Sea, and just as spacious at the top as at the bottom. No cheating to gain height by just building a slender spire the last few hundred meters.

On top of this, he supervised the building of all internal structures and machinery in the living quarters and fusion plants themselves. Lastly, he had been overseeing the two first superconducting electrical cables stretched to Hull in the U.K., to Cuxhaven in Germany. In his mind’s eye, he imagined the final sketches. It was not difficult. The whole island was an architectural innovation that pointed far into this new Millennium.

After spending fifteen years working, he knew the island as he knew his pocket. The bottle number one became an integrated part of the «basement" in the first skyscraper, Tower 7.5, the lowest, and commissioned during 2045.

The central part of the bottle was, in reality, a magnetic field that bottled in and restrained this fantastic hot region where the fusion of atoms took place. It fits inside a container made of concrete, surrounded by an additional bunker to hold instruments and converters. You found all kinds of fascinating equipment in the basement that made this astounding process possible, fusion from hydrogen to helium, hence these fantastic energy amounts. That energy then transforms into electrical power. An idea imagined at least a century earlier. Norn had seen to that the remaining seven bunkers were erected and put into operation one by one. Simultaneously, six more Super cables were built and laid on the ocean floor toward solid land.

The fusion plant had been operating for the previous five years. Sure enough, a few practical problems showed up along the way, but the operation proceeded without interruption. To sum it up, some tweaking, yes, but up to now, all had been running without any serious mishap.

This colossus sat there upon a human-made octagonal island, Fusion Island, in the North Sea. One could easily imagine the island’s layout as a cake divided into eight wedges where the central piece was missing, a major artificial lake. Now fully developed with eight magnetic bottles, one in each of the eight sectors, and eight electrical superconductor cables, two meters thick. The immense cords stretched across the seabed north, south, east, and west to the firm, dry land and brought with them tons of electric power. Another picture showed up. As an Octopus, the island lay there with its arms stretching to the shores delivered clean electricity to a hungry Europe.

Fantastic sixteen thousand terra watts of CO2-free, clean power was what a power-hungry E.U. wanted, but no one would cede land to a fusion power plant. No plant like that constructed in urban areas