Civilisation: Chapter 5

Aldon had ended up sleeping through most of the day, so it was late in the afternoon when he reached the laboratory. As he arrived, Zolin looked ready to explode.

“Where have you been?” he shouted as Aldon sat down at his computer. “I was up most of the night worrying, and then when you didn’t come in this morning, I started calling around to see if anyone had saw you or knew where you were.”

“Will you take a breath and sit down, please?”

Still pacing, Zolin was red in the face. Finally, he sat opposite Aldon, but it was clear he was annoyed at being made to wait so long. “Well, come on then, out with it, don’t keep me in suspense.”

Before he said anything, Aldon walked around the laboratory, waving around a small black plastic box.

“What are you doing?” asked Zolin.

“I made this earlier, it will beep if there’s any interference caused by transmissions.”

“Are you checking to see if we’re being listened to?”

“I am, but if anyone is listening, they now know what I’m doing.” Aldon smiled at the other man. “We’re ok. I didn’t think anyone would be listening, but I wanted to check. What I’m going to tell you needs to stay between me and you for now, understand?”

“Of course, you know what gets said in here stays in here.”

“Oluania is my contact. She believes that we shouldn’t ignore any possibilities and plan for every eventuality. I feel better about this situation now, knowing that she will be involved and be helping our cause.”

“Are you sure that we can trust her?” Zolin asked, frowning.

“I know she hasn’t been on our side through all this, but I have always trusted her with my life, you know that. She wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise our friendship. I think she understands the need to at least have options.

“If she doesn’t help us and we are right, then she will die with the knowledge that she could have saved our people. If we are wrong, then she has not lost anything by helping us. We need to start trusting people and accepting help when it comes, otherwise we will fail.”

“I know. You’re right.” said Zolin. “But sometimes I don’t know who we can trust.”

“Well, we are going to meet more of those willing to help us soon enough, but we must also start putting our plans in place. What we need first is to get an idea of how many people are willing to help us. What we need the most is ships and pilots to scout for a new home.”

“That’s a lot, Aldon. Are you sure you want to ask people to go on a potentially one-way mission to find us a new home?”

“What choice do we have? We need a new home and you and I aren’t enough to handle it alone. We need more than two pilots to scout the universe looking for a habitable planet.”

“I know you’re right, but . . . it’s just a lot to ask.”

Aldon gave a shrewd nod, and with a heavy sigh, said, “I know it is, that’s why people must volunteer for the mission. I would never ask anyone to do it, they must want to do it, to do it for all of us.”

***

“Where’s Aldon?” Oluania asked Zolin, looking around the laboratory. This place could do with a tidy, she thought to herself. It seemed all their experiments, all the data they had collected, was sprawled across all the tables and part of the floor. “How are you able to find anything you want when the lab looks like this?”

“Most of the papers are not needed now the data has been input into the computer, but with there only being two of us, it’s a bit difficult to keep on top of everything. In answer to your first question, Aldon returned to his quarters for a shower and something to eat, he is due back now actually.”

“You don’t trust me do you, Zolin?”

“Should I?” Zolin asked looking at her suspiciously. “It doesn’t matter what I think, Aldon trusts you with his life, and I trust him with mine, so yes I do.”

“You need to trust me, or at least put your feelings aside. We need to be able to work together and start putting your plans in place so that if everything is true and we are destroying our planet, then we will at least have a fighting chance of surviving.”

“I understand all that, but I have this nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that someone is going to try and stop us—stop what we are trying to achieve.”

“And you think the devil will wear a familiar face?”

Just then Aldon entered the room and Oluania and Zolin stopped talking, both turning to look at him as he sat down with them.

“This cannot be a good sign,” Aldon said.

“It’s ok, we were just talking,” Zolin said. “We are all here for the same reason and we need to discuss the next steps. We know what we need to do, we just need to do decide the best way to do it.”

“I’m glad that you two are ok working together on this, it’s bigger than our petty differences. Have you told Oluania of our plans and what we are going to need?” Aldon asked, pouring himself a drink from the collection of bottles on the table.

“No, we were just talking about my apprehension towards having other people involved with this, but we need to make to a start and try and get as many people rallied to our cause as we can,” replied Zolin.

They sat there for several hours talking about everything they wanted and making mental lists of the more difficult parts of their mission. Oluania knew the supporters and so she had allocated some of the jobs to those more suited. By the end of it, they still needed ships, pilots, and access to the wormhole.

Oluania was going to arrange for Zolin to meet with someone who he could work with to get the ships through the Algerian Beta wormhole. The trick would be to do it without anyone knowing they were using it. The key to the whole mission would hinge on this, if any of the council knew they were using it, then their operation would be shut down and they would not be able to continue with their research let alone the mission. So, being the most diplomatic, Zolin was given the task of arranging everything with his new contact.

Aldon had insisted on taking the task of the pilots. All this was his idea and so he needed to be the one to offer people the chance to help their race while risking their lives. He had decided long ago that he would be the one to do this. Even if the council had agreed to his proposal, he would have still insisted on being the one to announce that pilots were needed and that it may be a one-way trip.

That left Oluania with the problem of the ships and that turned out to be the perfect pairing. With being on the council she had many connections and had always had a gift for convincing people to believe in her cause. So, she knew she would not have a problem getting people to supply ships, especially as there were those out there that wanted to do all they could to help. Since Aldon had spoken in the council chambers, people had been approaching her and the other members of the council urging them to help and she had taken note of who they were.

They were about to retire for the night and Aldon looked at both Oluania and Zolin. “It looks like things may just go as planned. Each of us has a responsibility now and there is no going back, only forwards. If we can achieve only a fraction of what I envisage, then we will have succeeded and saved our race.”

“We will do all we can for you and for our people Aldon,” Oluania said, nodding towards Zolin.

“You know we will, Aldon, we believe that this has to be done, that this is the only route forward. Even Oluania here knows that this is something we need to do.”

“Ok, I think we should get some rest, we have a lot of work to do over the next few days, so we need to be ready for it,” Aldon said.

They all retired to their homes, apart from Aldon. He knew that the next few days were going to be tough, but he wanted to get it straight in his mind now exactly what he needed to do for his part. He couldn’t let the others down, so he put off sleep so he could gather his thoughts into something coherent, for in the morning, he would be meeting with Kruff.