The Wanderers

By Vincent Tanner

An expanding sun, a doomed Earth, and a race against time to save a small fragment of the world’s people. Their only hope lies in an aging observation platform being hastily retrofitted for deep space travel. This vessel is the only existing ship large enough to accommodate the courageous pioneers on their long passage through space.

The Wanderers takes you on a journey of more than forty years—from the initial discovery of the coming cataclysm to the space voyage inside a wormhole. The travelers find a planet in a distant solar system that they believe to be their new garden of Eden, replete with not one but thousands of serpents. No one is prepared for what they discover on the surface of Arilias-6, or worse, what discovers them.

Greatly influenced by the writings of authors such as Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Vincent Tanner’s tale of the wanderers seamlessly blends action and dialogue into a moving and imaginative adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662460654

Book preview

Chapter 1

The Love of Autumn

A golden leaf gently cascades to the forest floor, making nary a sound, settling ever so softly, resting on the others preceding it. The autumn traveler gently glides in among the pile. You, listen! If you remain perfectly still, not moving a muscle, holding your breath, you just might be able to hear the quiet rustle the moment it lands, calmly resting where it drops until the gusty autumn wind decides to move it further on. The air is filled with the lingering sweet smells of a warm fall day, slowly drifting into the crisp stillness of the coming evening.

How I love to walk through the woods alone, alone with my thoughts, especially at this time of year. I am at peace with my heart, my mind, and myself. I take in the beauty of the forest surrounding me. I feel one with the spirit of the deep woods. The trees shed the last remnants of their lush green summer garments, which have now turned to vivid red and gold hues, yellow and brown. Each one is delicately plucked from their branches one at a time or, often, in large groups, the gentle breeze pulling at their fragile fastenings. The season is growing colder.

A gray squirrel splits the quiet autumn air with his chattering. Hidden from my view by a tangle of tree branches, he spots me way long before I could ever hope to see where he is hiding among the many boughs. With his unceasing chippering, he is letting all the rest of the woods know precisely where I am. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the flashing red flutter of a cardinal darting from one tree branch to another, alerted to my presence by the fluffy-tailed sentry’s alarm.

The velvety-gray watchman chatters on, following me along the path I tread. His steel-colored, furred body hops from limb to limb alongside my path for a considerable distance. Leaping from one tree to another, he trails after me. He becomes silent only when I move a far enough distance from his home territory, where he no longer feels threatened by my intrusion.

The young saplings sprouting along the wooded path struggle to get a hold on life. My foot tangles in some of this year’s new root growth. The musty smell of last year’s leaves wafts up, assaulting my nostrils with the aroma of decaying vegetation. I pull my foot free, pausing for only a moment to adjust my shoe. I spot a young yearling doe off to my right grazing on some of the last greenery she will see for some months to come.

I know there is sure to be a buck somewhere close by. The young female deer are never alone in the forest at this time of year. Their antlered counterparts are continuously in pursuit, gathering the does together into a harem. Still unseen, I hear his snort from behind me the moment he catches my scent; the doe, ears twitching, bounds away. I watch her leap over the underbrush, soon joined by the cunning master of the herd. They flee away together into the shelter of the deep forest cover.

Far off in the distance, I hear the muffled drumming of a ruffled grouse. More than likely, he is perched prominently on an old tree stump somewhere in the dark forest. The majestic fowl is forcefully thumping his wings against his breast. The slow, accelerating rhythm, with its increasing tempo, repeats at intervals.

The drumming of his wings echoes and reverberates through the quiet woods. His territorial call resounds through the entire glen. Here I am! he is letting the world know. This is my domain, my part of the forest, my patch of ground! Unless you desire to be my mate, keep out!

I continue to dream of walking along through the forest hollow, and my mind begins to recall the wind and rains of spring and summer heat. I am thankful they are now long past and no longer a bother. I find the fall season, by comparison, much more enjoyable. I dread the thought of the deep chill of winter fast on its way when the sheer thought of even moving around becomes a chore. Winter is not something I even wish to consider thinking about on such a beautiful day as this. Winter can wait. Now it is the fall season!

Autumn is such a wonderful time of year! There is a slight chill in the fresh, clear air. It is not yet cold enough to be uncomfortable or cause me to shiver. I take a deep breath of the brisk, lingering scent of the woods. Instead of chilling me, it fills me with a sense of being alive, a sense of being free.

The gentle breeze whisks a few more remaining leaves from their branches one by one. Slowly, they tumble down, forming a new layer on top of those already on the ground. I continue onward, my feet brushing through the leaves lying on the pathway, crinkling under my shoes with each step.

In my mind, I inhale the fragrance of the newly fallen leaves mingled with the musty aroma of decaying matter from all the previous years. Only in my thoughts, I continue to walk along the wooded path in deep reflection, listening to the soothing, crunching sound of the leaves under my feet.

How I wish I could go back to Earth, back to those almost-forgotten beautiful days of autumn, when there were once lush forests and an abundance of leaves to tread through. How I long for the tranquil sounds of the woods instead of the resounding metallic clang of the crew members’ magnetic gravity boots striking the steel mesh decking surrounding me. How I long for the quiet flutter of leaves instead of the clatter their boot-laden feet make, holding them in place one step at a time.

The MABUS platform—our Star Traveler MABUS is short for Multinational Astronomical Base for Universal Studies—is too large and too compartmentalized to rotate to produce artificial gravity, hence the gravity boots. The crew does not even take notice of them, because they have been wearing them for so long. They have an advantage in that one compartment’s floor can become the floor of another instead of a ceiling. In zero gravity, there is no up or down. One good thing is, you know where your shoes are from where you left them the night before. You can stick them on the floor, the wall, or even the overhead; they do not move while you slumber in weightlessness.

It has been almost a year since we left Arilias-6 and nearly eleven years since I last heard the soothing sound of crisp leaves under my feet on Earth. Eleven years of enduring the sterility of space. Our travels are seemingly unending, broken up only once by our brief sojourn on the surface of the one planet that came so very close to resembling what we remember life being like on our long-dead world.

Chapter 2

Finding a New Home

Date Ship Time: Year: 10; Month: 9; Day: 17

Post-Earth Equivalent Year: 2178

My name is Commander John Correy of the North American States Air Force, first officer in command of the Multinational Astronomical Base for Universal Studies, or the MABUS platform, our Star Traveler and only home for many more years to come. MABUS is an aging Earth orbital observation station painstakingly converted to an immense interstellar vessel that transports the small segment of what remains of Earth’s people to the distant stars. Our mission is to seek out a suitable planet to call our own.

I cannot help but think about the lost, dead world we left behind so long ago and dream about the beauty it once held. I especially miss the short seasonal interlude between the hot, insect-laden summer days and the icy, frigid winter snows. I did enjoy the autumn so very much.

The events that occurred after we landed on the first suitable new planet we found have reduced our number to less than half of what we were when we initially set foot on Arilias-6 more than nine and a half months ago. Now back in our wormhole, we must press onward, always looking forward and never back. There is nothing left to look back to, and there is only uncertainty ahead! Earth is gone, and Arilias-6 was far too hostile for us to remain on its surface any longer. We press on.

Along with four other crew members, I sit at the central command console of our massive transport. I must force myself to put my reminiscent daydreaming aside and return to monitoring our platform’s flight path through a wormhole, continually tracking our forward progress on computerized holographic displays since there are no windows. Even if there were, when traveling through a wormhole, there is nothing to see. Straight out ahead of us is nothing; behind us, more nothing; all around us, more nothing. We are traveling at speed 4.61 times faster than the speed of light, which means 858,000 miles pass for every second we remain in this wormhole. Millions and millions of miles disappear behind us with each passing hour.

Inside the wormhole, we are free from the confining physical laws of space and time. The speed of light is no longer the maximum attainable speed. We have far exceeded the known limits of space travel until a few decades ago. There is no friction within the wormhole, no inertia, no g-forces, and by all physical description, no mas. We are outside the realm of physical space and time.

* * *

We wait with great anticipation for news from our three remaining piggyback probes as they race toward our next destination. These probes were dispatched into wormholes created parallel to ours as soon as we cleared the Arilias star system. Earlier, two- and three-stage exploration probes were sent out from our orbit around Arilias-6 when it became clear that we could no longer remain on the planet. One by one, they reported back with negative findings, except for the very last of a set of seven planet seekers. It reported finding two planets capable of supporting human life, both located in the same solar system, which still lies trillions of miles ahead of us.

These probes each measure between ten and eighteen meters in length depending on the number of booster stages making up their propulsion systems. Each, with a diameter of four meters, were sent out at regular intervals. The boosters, housing only an e-matter drive with the associated equipment, are jettisoned with the activation of each successive stage’s drive engine. Each probe’s central exploration capsule contains a complex array of scanners, sensors, mini probes, and two small, mobile landing crafts for gathering information. In addition to the e-matter drive, each probe is also equipped with conventional thrusters necessary for slowing the exploration probe to sub–light speed while still inside the confines of the wormhole.

The wormholes created by each of the two- or three-stage exploration probes we launched en route to our destination are now gone, but we encounter their new ones as we travel along. As each additional booster activates, it destroys the old one and forms a new wormhole running parallel to the one we are in ourselves. The fact that wormholes are even there is comforting. This reassures us that the probes are still functioning out there ahead of us in the vast reaches of space. If they were to cease operating suddenly, their wormholes would vanish, and we could very well be heading for the same fate.

The separation of the two stages and the firing of the second e-matter drive propel the primary probe to twice the original configuration’s terminal velocity, which is twice the speed at which we are traveling, destroying the original wormhole’s trailing end and creating a new one in its place. Simultaneously, it propels the probe forward to an even greater velocity, almost four times the speed it had been traveling before release.

When an explorer probe is jettisoned behind the MABUS platform, there is a short burst from their conventional thrusters, slowing the capsules. The explorer begins decelerating behind us, falling farther and farther back from the MABUS station, until the piggyback probe is safely a few hundred thousand miles to our stern.

At the precise moment that the probe is safely far enough behind the MABUS platform, the e-matter engine on the booster is fired, destroying the trailing end of our wormhole and creating a new one parallel to ours. This initial firing of eleven e-matter pulses nearly doubles the exploration probe’s velocity to over nine times the speed of light, twice our speed, and the probe is instantly millions of miles ahead of us.

Two or more wormholes cannot exist with one inside the other. They will still form outside the primary trajectory and bond in a parallel configuration, creating a different wormhole for each probe following the same passage as the MABUS platform’s original flight path. Our sensors are able to detect the other holes as they continue to parallel us.

At a safe distance of two to three conventional light-years in front of us, the second stage e-matter drive on each probe is brought into play. The exploration capsule moves out at nearly eighteen times light speed, vaporizing its original wormhole and possibly disrupting the leading edge of our own. The probe creates an entirely new passage that it will follow into the outer reaches of the cosmos. This new wormhole extends both forward and back to infinity, again paralleling our own.

Calculating our progress in time instead of miles, our chief navigator holds a constant vigil, watching for slight curves in our wormhole, alerting him if we are approaching a black hole or a very massive galaxy. He also keeps a close eye out for any adverse changes to our wormhole caused by the severe energy released when the first and second stages of each probe return to physical space at over nine and, again, at eighteen times the speed of light. The sudden eruption of physical matter traveling at such speed back into real space and time must be a remarkable sight to see. The booster is instantly vaporized into individual atoms, which, in turn, are split apart as the wormhole protecting them disintegrates.

The amount of energy released by each booster as it returns to physical space is more than all the explosions, from the smallest firecracker to all the most extensive nuclear and conventional detonations, ever taking place on Earth throughout all history combined. This massive release of energy occurs at such a tremendous distance from us. We have calculated that the expended force should have completely dissipated before we arrive at the breakout location. So far, we have been correct in our assumptions.

Our main propulsion coordinator must keep a close eye on our e-matter drives’ status and the containment periphery inside the wormhole. A constant balance must be maintained between the e-matter we have stored in the gamma flux magnetic chambers and the e-matter keeping us within the wormhole. If the e-matter enveloping the platform is lost or ever varies out of phase, the MABUS platform would return to physical space and time at over four and one-half times the speed of light and vaporize in the same manner as the exploratory probe boosters.

Our fuel reserve for the conventional thrusters is now running below 50 percent. The shuttlecraft ferrying personnel and supplies back and forth between the MABUS station and our ground base on Arilias-6 used up a significant part of our reserves. We used fuel at a rate of three times faster than we could remanufacture new hydrogen to replace the shuttles’ fuel.

We were not overwhelmed by the need to immediately set up a secondary fuel facility on the surface when we first reached the planet; there were plenty of natural resources to manufacture more shuttle fuel when needed. For the time being, the platform could continue to synthesize the necessary thrust producing liquid hydrogen. We were sure we could construct a fuel plant on the surface within the ground base’s confines long before we passed the point of having to curtail flights to conserve our reserves. If we had more time before we were forced to leave the surface of Arilias-6, the partially constructed fuel plant would have been completed and supplies replenished.

Our primary concern when we first arrived on the surface of the planet was with lodging and the survival of our 1,800 people. The simple task of breaking water down into hydrogen and oxygen would have given us all the fuel necessary. Although we have the ability aboard the MABUS to accomplish this task using our drinking water, it is energy intensive, and our supply of water is much too precious to use. Lieutenant Farmington, our main propulsion coordinator, estimates that we can successfully break and accelerate three more times if necessary before having to resort to manufacturing additional hydrogen while in flight.

At first thought, you may consider that with so much free hydrogen and oxygen, MABUS would be nothing more than a stellular gas bomb waiting for a leak or accident. On the contrary, the hydrogen and oxygen are contained in the same manner as the e-matter—within magnetic flux containment bubbles. The precious gas is concentrated and condensed to a liquid within a magnetic field. With old technology, the gas had to be compressed under extremely low temperatures. The pressure was then removed, causing the resultant heat loss to chill the remaining gas further, causing it to liquefy. The liquid had to be stored in heavy containers at extremely low temperatures for it to remain stable.

Before separating the two gasses, hydrogen and oxygen, the water is infused with additional oxygen. It is converted from H2O to H2O2, good old hydrogen peroxide. The magnetic flux exerts such tremendous pressure that the gasses are turned instantly into stable liquids, separate yet confined together upon separation. If there is ever a significant failure in the storage systems, the resulting recombining of the hydrogen and oxygen would leave us awash in very cold hydrogen peroxide, probably bleaching all of us snow-white for the rest of our lives.

The two other crew members on the bridge are our life support specialist and our logistics officer. They are deeply involved in discussing possible ways of increasing the nutritional output of our shipboard-grown plants. The hydroponics gardens aboard the ship have produced some very unusual-looking hybrids after so many years in the weightlessness of space.

Our chief medical officer, a brilliant physician from the former Soviet Union’s Georgian province, steps onto the command deck. Captain Stephenalagorphy Vladisconifskoski, whose name is so difficult to pronounce that we refer to him as Dr. Stephski or simply Doc, interrupts r ponderous conversation. Dr. Madeira, I will need your assistance in reviewing the list of crew members due to be awakened from hypersleep tomorrow.

Some of the New Walkers, as we affectionately call them, will replace several of the standing crew and undertake their scheduled ninety-day tour of duty. The rest will return to hypersleep, along with the relieved crew members, in three days.

With our reduced number, the people with the proper fields of specialization, to ensure the continued function of the ship, must be awakened first.

Although the number of surviving crew members is now down to less than half our original number, a severe drain was placed on the ship’s resources when we attempted to establish our colony on Arilias-6. At that time, all personnel were awake from hypersleep for the entire time we were on the seemingly docile surface but ultimately proven to be an extremely hostile planet.

In the ensuing battles in and around our planet base camp, we were fortunate enough to be able to fortify our landing zone, forcing us to abandon very little on the surface when we finally did have to leave. However, we were given no choice but to abandon many valuable seed sources, especially those from the new plantings, which were just beginning to sprout in the fields we had so carefully tended.

This new leg of our long journey is estimated to take another 14.2 ship’s years, even at this tremendous speed. It will take an additional number of weeks to get everything and everyone ready before we begin our final breaking and, at last, exit the wormhole. Once back in physical space, we can again switch over entirely to the e-matter drives, and we will be able to collect even more of the e-matter, which is absent in the wormhole, to supply the drives as we go along. Using the e-matter drives exclusively after we are back in physical space, there will be no need to rely on our precious hydrogen fuel. However, that is still many years away.

For now, we are heading into the deepest reaches of space, on our way to the two nearest planets determined to be capable of supporting life as we know it. One of these yet unnamed worlds located in a star system we are designating as Alpha is where we hope to make our new home.

It is now six weeks and two days into my three-month tour of duty on this part of our voyage. It is a voyage that began in a laboratory in the midwestern United North American States more than forty Earth years ago.

Chapter 3

The Discovery

April 27, 2135

The solar research lab is quiet that sunny spring afternoon. Robert Jensen sits stroking quietly at his holographic display, comparing the new data he has just received from three other observatories worldwide with the figures from the previous week’s solar observations. He quickly combines the latest information with the stored data collected over the past several months. His fingers deftly glide over the projected data. He enters the newest data, his hands maneuvering the data on the screen. He suddenly freezes motionless, staring at the hologram displayed in front of him.

This can’t be possible! he says aloud to himself. His fingers, making no sound, begin feverishly sorting the accumulated information, recalling records from several weeks prior, comparing the information and transmitting each new batch for celluloid printouts. The further back he searches in the database, the more frantically he searches.

Georgia, look at this! You’re not going to believe what I’ve just uncovered! Look at the playback and check the printouts. Please tell me I’m having a really horrible dream! He executes the necessary commands to create the virtual model stored in his data.

Georgia Simone, Jensen’s immediate supervisor, walks over behind him and leans on the back of his chair. After scanning what is on his holographic display for several seconds, she stands bolt upright. Are you playing some sort of a game, Robert? This can’t be right! Where did you get the information to come up with something this absurd? If this is your idea of a joke, I’ll…

The brightly lit display shows a constant increase in the sun’s circumference. It’s almost undetectable in the earlier readings, but there is a definite, constant change. The display is sped up exponentially, taking into consideration standard variables and adding future predictions for coming solar events.

"Look at the printouts