Earth Three

Earth Three

MikeC

No-one can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Sometimes though the vacuum is in your life, in your family, in your culture or even in the history of your people. Sometimes you scream and no-one hears. History records the events and the facts, sometimes even the causes but never the screams of the people suffering, of the cultural destruction, of the loss of identify. In the middle of all this are people trying to be who they want to be, people screaming silently.

Sometimes I climb right to the edge. I can lay on the grass and look across at the world. If I turn my head to the south I can see the blue planet Earth One. Earth One is where we all started centuries ago. They call it the cradle of mankind and I guess it is. Different from Earth Two it is a globe and people walk on its surface. It seems strange to me to have the air exposed to the vacuum of space. You would think the air would drift of into space, luckily for us gravity holds it in place.

I live on Earth two. It uses a clear roof to hold our air in. We are a giant tube spinning in space. It is hard to imagine we made it because it is so big. If I look north though, I can see where Earth Three is been constructed. It, like our world, is eleven hundred and twenty kilometres across and twenty seven, hundred kilometres long. It spins, like ours, once every twenty four hours giving it the twelve hours of day and twelve of night. The top half of the wheel is a framework to maintain the circle. On Earth Two Sky city had been built on to the end. Only we farmers live on the surface of Earth Two. There are four point eight, six million square kilometres of farm lands. That’s enough to feed the thirty billion people who live in the sky city and to export to Earth One.

My family is a farming family. I hate farming so I sit up here on the edge and wonder what my life would become if only I wasn’t a farmer. I mean our mob were the first space explorers. My great great great grandfather was one of those who built the space elevator that made getting into space affordable. That was over two hundred years ago. They chose our lands as the oldest and most stable, close enough to the equator to use the earth’s spin to maintain the outward centrifugal force required to keep the Space Terminal in place. The elevator is made of six twisting spines with space trains that make regular shuttle runs up to the Space Terminal. The central column is so big it creates its own weather. The Space Elevator Authority SEA negotiated with our ancestors the original land owners. Our proud ancestry goes back over thirty thousands year and is described as the oldest still existing culture on Earth. Part of the deal with the Elders was that the young people would be trained to be the major workforce. They became space engineers.

My father is so proud of our heritage and of our farm. We are a family mob that farm together I have many uncles and aunties and lots of cousins. My father is the Elder of our mob and our country’s range is a five kilometres wide strip from the central river almost to the edge. So it’s long and narrow, five hundred kilometres long. The curve of Earth Two means the centre is very warm and humid, where the outer edge is dry and much cooler. We grow grain, fruit, vegetables and herd animals. The central river holds fish but that is farmed by another mob.

I look toward Earth One. One day I want to visit it. I want to live in the Sky Band that circles Earth One. Where Space Terminal is orbiting the earth four hundred kilometres up, the Sky Band circles the world from pole to pole at two thousand kilometres. It never moves relative to its position around Earth One, that rotates beneath it. It is basically an enormous gravity free space station. When first constructed almost all manufacturing moved up into the zero gravity environment. The population of Earth One was over ten billion at the time. There was considerable pressure on the environment and the Sky Band allowed half of those to migrate to better job prospects as production moved off the surface. Food production however was much more difficult in the low gravity. Even before the completion of the Sky Band, construction started on Earth Two. The human population was exploding and the demand for food and space was more than Earth One could sustain.

At the time the construction of the Sky Band was the largest project ever undertaken by mankind. It was a remarkable consensus decision as governments around the world recognised that Earth one was wearing out. The rate of species lost and global warming was seriously risking our long term survival. Our mob had been warning the Australian Government for ages. We could see that modern farming was disrupting the ecology but of course no-one was listening. It took several huge storms, that wrecked havoc on crops over five years, to show the world governments just how vulnerable we were. People all over the world were starving as the food stocks dwindled. It was people power that demanded action. Increasingly proactive governments were elected until there was enough momentum for change.

A huge summit of world leaders determined that a unified global effort was needed. No more broken targets, no more self interest, it had become a universal problem. Solutions were proposed chief among them was the need to be able to get off the planet in an economic way. It took another five years of planning and the establishment of the Space Elevator Authority to get the first project underway. Our mob had been contacted during the planning phase and so were busy educating ourselves to become space engineers in exchange for the use of our lands in Central Australia.

Even while that project was underway plans were drawn up for the Sky Band. Some of us became space miners flying to the Moon initially and then to Mars and establishing huge mines for the resources required. The original idea was to settle on the Moon and Mars but a faster solution was needed and so again the planning for Earth Two construction started while the Sky Band was being built. My imagination goes into overdrive just thinking about it.

I’ve seen every video book I can find. My father has prohibited me from sourcing any more. “Stop filling your head with all this dreaming. We are farmers. No we are proud farmers. The world’s depend on people like us. We are noble and you need to learn how to manage our country. One day you will become an Elder like me.” He didn’t confiscate my books. Perhaps he too had dreamed as I do. Maybe he is right. So I try to learn, I go out into the lands with my father or mother and they teach me. Some days like today nothing they say means anything and my mother angrily tells me to go off and find something useful to do.

Today we were up on the high pasture. We live much closer to the centre near the river about three hundred kilometres away. The view up here on the edge is better. I love coming up here, it so much better than the video books. After a while I walked back down to where my parents were waiting by the mobile cart. I’d stayed up on the edge too long and my father was angry. “Where the fuck have you been?” he demands.

“Sorry Dad.” I knew I was in for a beating. “I was just checking up on the edge for stock.”

“Bullshit boy.” He yells. “You been dreaming again and now we are late. We are going to drive through the night.” We were going to be late probably three hours after sundown. Sundown on Earth two was a sudden event. Bright one minute a short twilight and then dark so we be driving with the lights on and that was dangerous.

My father is still in a rage when we finally make it home. Mother starts to prepare a meal for us while I try to stay out of everyone way. The next thing my father emerges from my room carrying my video books and throws them into the disposal unit.

“No Dad, Please No.” I scream.

“Now that will get this bullshit out of your head.” I wish he'd given me that beating, destroying my books is far worse.

I run outside, my mother calling. “You haven’t eaten your dinner.” as I disappear. It is the destruction of my books that has finally made up my mind. I am never going to be a farmer and if my parents don’t understand then I have to leave. I run over to the shed and retrieve a hover bike and head toward the river following the track. The track is the safer at night even though it will make finding me easier if my father decides to follow.

No-one comes and as the night wears on my anger dissipates and I start to let my mind drift. It is dark all around but I can see the sky. Along the edges of Earth Two I can see the faint glow of the sun. As I look south I can see the skeleton of Earth Three. I am too far down to see Earth One. Just as the sun starts to crest the eastern edge I reach the river. I can turn north toward Sky City, the lock there is closer. The river flowed toward the north so perhaps I can float there. My father will guess I might go that way so I decided to turn south. At the southern end the city was much smaller. It was mainly the launch point for the construction of Earth Three. I want to be part of that action so it is my best choice. I will follow the river keeping out of sight. Being caught in another country can be dangerous, some mobs defended their country with violence. I think about my father and wonder if this was why he was always angry, maybe he was just like me and couldn’t leave our lands.

I make my way to the river bank trying to stay out of sight. The river mob negotiates with all of the other mobs because this was how we get our wares to market. If we want haulage then we put a flag on the boundary and they will meet up to discuss terms. The Corroboree is usually a pleasant occasion where we are able to purchase all sorts of treats, new clothes and equipment. Father would give us some credits while he negotiated for the transport of our products and the collection of anything he had ordered. We be able to get the latest gossip and news.

I wasn’t sure though how they would react to me travelling through their lands. I had just pulled the hover out of sight when I hear the family transporter. I peer through the brush watching as my father pulls up to our boundary. He gets out and stomps around looking at the tracks. Fortunately I have ridden my hover into the bush so there are no tracks for him to find.

He turns circling toward me scanning the bush for any sign of me. He pauses as he passes my hiding place but moves on. I glance back at the hover realising I had managed to place it behind some very dense low plants and the hover would be invisible from the track. He stepped across the border into the River Mob’s lands. He looks to the north trying to spot me and the hover he then looks intently along the shore. He then comes back to the transport and calls back home.

“He’s not here.” he says, “There no sign of the hover either. That a valuable bit of kit, the little shit better not have taken that with him.” He pauses as a return message comes back. “Well he is. He has no interest in our business. He more of a liability, so good riddance.” again a pause. “Yes I’ll go back up to the edge he’s probably sulking up there.” He starts up the transport and drives away.

I feel betrayed and so angry. I’ll show him I promise myself. I had decided to leave the hover, it might be quick but it will eventually run out of charge and it is not something to sneak around on. I’m now temped to take the hover out of spite but I know it would hurt the whole family so I ride it back about a kilometre and leave it standing near a bush to conceal it from the River Mob. I place a note to my mother tucked under the seat.

I then walk back along the track, I’m am very careful as I walk as my father may return later today and see the hover and try to follow me. I stay on the north side so any tracks will on that side. I cross the border and head north. After a while enough to leave a track I carefully walk back into our place. As I go I check that I leave no evidence of my passage. I circle back past the hover crossing the track further up this time I cross the track being very careful to hide my own footprints and disappear into the south side. I decide to travel along the boundaries of other mobs and the River Mob. If I’m discovered I can run across the border into relative safety.

The boundaries are marked by beacons. They were once white with a warning light and solar panel but the paint has faded and peeled to reveal the metal underneath and the lens of the lights have dulled. The law says the boundary is a straight line between the beacons. Following them is straight forward just line up on the next beacon.

The river meanders along. I remember asking why it didn’t run straight along the middle surely that was the most efficient. My grandfather explained. “If the river was straight then it would be uniform all along it length with just one environment. The original designers of Earth Two understood about diversity. They wanted to create different conditions some parts are fast, others slow, some part are wide where the water barely moves. It means that lots of critters can live in and around the banks and that provides food for the fish.” I loved talking to my grandfather it just filled my mind with the wonder of what we had created. It was he who had first taken me up to the edge. We would watch as sunrise moved across the curve of Earth Two. “See Earth Three over there.” He was pointing to the south at the construction underway. “That one is going to be a huge ocean. See this one is only land no sea. The sea on Earth One is almost dead. We need to build this new one so we can stock it with fish and let the old Earth recover. One day there will be a hundred earths all the way around the sun. See how Earth Three has very deep sides, that’s so we can make the oceans deep and still contain the atmosphere.” The sides of Earth two are over ten kilometres high to hold enough air to create weather. The land slopes down toward the river and moisture evaporates to form rain clouds. As the sun heats the air it drives the clouds up the slopes toward the edge where it rains. Usually all the rain has fallen by the time the air get to the edge. The wall is lower at the edge so it is possible to see right out into space. My grandfather was very proud of our heritage. We’d talk for hours about the wonders we had achieved as a race. He filled my heart and mind with pride. It was hard when he died. My mother understood but I felt so alone.

I decide to travel at night and rest during the day. The good thing about living on a farming world is that I should be able to find food. The only problem will be where will that food be when every country is different. I realise that I need to be careful as I don’t want to be caught stealing food.

I move to the edge of our country seeking a place to bivouac for the day. I find a clumps of trees with a branch low to the ground. It provides some shade against the baking sun especially around midday. I’d been awake all night so I find it easy to drop off to sleep.

It is several hours late when the sun is overhead that I wake. The sun has managed to shine through my cover directly into my face so I am now very hot and am starting to sweat. I roll over back into the shade. I have a sudden thought in my haste and anger I have run away without thinking about how I am going to survive. The days down here by the river are warm even hot as now but the nights are very cold. Without the mass of Earth One, Earth Two loses it heat quite quickly. That it doesn't fall below zero is because the sun warms the underside warming from below. But it is cold and I don’t have anything warm to wear. I should have collected some food I had rushed off in a temper and not considered what I needed.

I decide I really must be better prepared. I climb out of my hiding place and walk back into our country. If I am going to leave then I need to be both brave and determined not sneak off like a scared goanna. I walk back to the hover and start back up the track toward my home. It takes a couple of hours to arrive and although I am very scared I feel determined.

I arrive at the homestead and put the hover back in the shed. I walk to my home and open the door. My mother turns to see who has come in. She rushes up to me gathering me into her arms holding me tight. I hug her back as she lets go. She slaps me hard. “Don’t you ever do that to me again. You know you are in for a hiding from your father.”

“I don’t care Mom, I’m leaving.” I say

“And where do you think you are going?” Mother replies sarcastically.

I am frightened but try to muster as much conviction as I can. “Mother I don’t want to be a farmer, I want to help build Earth Three.”

I wait for her rebuke but instead she smiles. “Well son, somehow we are just going to have to convince your father.”

I look at her in surprise, I can feel tears forming and I brush them aside. She continues, “You are so much like your grandfather.” she says. “You are a dreamer, dreamers don’t make good farmers. Your grandfather was a lousy farmer.” I was so relieved to have an ally I sat and cried. Maybe just maybe my scream was being heard.