IMAGINATION'S PLACE
FICTION
JOURNEY TO THE LIGHT
By; Speaker Gerald Polley
All rights reserved.
Chapter 29
Carol looked around. "Where are you?" she
asked.
The leaf of one of the big plants near her trembled.
Carol timidly went over. The leaf's texture changed and the words
appeared "Please put the device that you talk with near me."
Carol took out her communicator and sat it on the shelf. Fine
filaments unrolled from the plant. As Carol watched in amazement
they went into the communicator. A moment later a voice came from
it. "Can you hear me?" it asked.
"Yes," Carol answered, "quite well! You're sentient?
You understand speech?"
"Of course we are!" the plant answered, "You know
that. You always have. You used to communicate with us even when
we had to go deep into the ground. We talked until you took the
big rock and went off to find another place where you could live.
We are aware the rock is above us. But it does not answer
us. Why do you talk through these things that turns your voice
into energy waves?"
Carol was totally bewildered. Then she
realized. "Those who were here before!" she managed "They were
telepathic! You communicate telepathically. We resemble those
people but we're not them. We don't have that capability.
We had no idea you were sentient beings! I'm sorry we've been
feeding your shoots to our animals and eating your fruit."
"Oh, that does not matter!" the plant answered. "If
every seed was to germinate this world could not sustain us.
Sometimes we even consume the essence from our fruit so it doesn't go
to waste. That does not matter. We have been crying to you
for help. We received messages from some of the colonies that the
ground was getting too hot. Then everything trembled and we did
not receive any more messages. We are afraid our friends are in
peril. We need assistance."
"Oh!" Carol cried, "Oh God! Oh Lords! We had
no idea! It must be around the volcanoes. What can we do?"
"I was hoping you could suggest something," the
plant answered. "The shelter you took us to above was
comfortable. Perhaps you could take those in danger there for a time."
"I doubt if we'd have enough space!" Carol
complained. She ran to the door and stuck her head out.
"Harry!" she screamed to her assistant, "Give me your communicator.
Mine's occupied!" Her assistant quickly came over and handed her his
communicator. Carol quickly adjusted the frequency.
"Asteroid commander," she snapped, "do you read?"
"Yes!" the commander answered. "Why does
your voice sound so troubled?"
"The plants," Carol answered, "they're sentient. Did
you know?"
"No!" the asteroid answered. "I have no record
of any sentient plants."
"They're in trouble!" Carol continued. "Some places
it's getting too hot for them. I think it must be around the
volcanoes. Can you detect anything?"
"Scanning!" the asteroid answered. "Yes!
Hundreds of ball shaped objects of different sizes on the
surface. If these are living beings they're not going to survive
long there. I think we'd better begin immediate rescue
operations. I do have space for growing plants. However,
all I had with me died."
"Same god damned problem," Carol moaned "as the
people. All right!" she snapped "I'm getting everything we have. I'll
head for the smaller volcano east of me. Why don't you
concentrate your efforts on the big one?"
"Agreed!" the asteroid answered.
Carol switched frequencies. "Ship's
commander!" she snapped, "Do you read?"
"Yes!" a startled voice answered, "What is it,
ma'am?"
"We have an emergency," Carol explained. "I need
every shuttle we have to the volcanoes to the east of me. The
plants we have been examining are sentient. The heat is too much
for the ones in that area. We have to abandon all operations,
pick up as many of them as we can, and get them to the asteroid
ship. Give me everything you've got! I'm heading over
there!"
"Understood!" the ship's commander snapped. Sending
out orders immediately! Everything we have on its way!
Everybody we can spare is coming. We'll make sure they've got
thermal shelters and such and they can put the ones we can't
immediately evacuate in those."
"Good thinking!" Carol praised. As she went
back to the plant she found it had shrunk down to the ball size.
"Take me with you," it asked.
Without hesitation Carol picked it up. She rushed
outside. "To the shuttles!" she snapped, "I'll explain on the
way." She told everybody what was going on, they loaded up and
headed for the volcanoes.
When they came down they saw the extent of the
problem. There were thousands of balls everywhere and Carol could feel
the heat in the ground through her boots! "Start loading!" she
screamed. "Get as many in the shuttles as you can! Just
leave room for the pilot! Go! Go! Go!"
They worked and worked. More shuttles
came. They tried to map where the concentrations were.
Carol was desperately tired. But the one who had talked to her
told her those that remained probably would not survive another night
in the cold, so no one thought of stopping. Finally the last of
them were rising in the shuttle. Carol crawled to a shelter, laid
down in it, and went to sleep. When she woke up with the need to
find a waste disposal unit she found herself surrounded by the
children. She went and relieved herself and when she came back
her youngest daughter sat up. "I'm really tired, mommy!"
"What are you doing here?" Carol asked.
"They said they needed everybody. Aren't I
somebody? Me and the other children picked up the little ones, the
babies, while the adults got the big ones. I thought it would
never stop there were so many! But you could feel them tremble
when you picked them up. I think it meant they were happy.
And every time it did it made you feel good."
Carol bent down and kissed her child. They
waited for daybreak. The shuttles came down again, scanned the
area one more time, and the ball with her told her the area was
clear. Her pilot spoke up. "There's still more at the big
volcano. They're asking for help."
"Come on, everybody!" Carol cried, "It's not over
yet!" They landed at the volcano, the modules were working
feverishly and they joined in. Finally about mid day there simply
weren't any more. The two parties that had been working in opposite
directions met each other. "Thank God!" somebody muttered.
"I'll second that!" Carol agreed.
They got back to the original shelter, made sure
everything there was all right, decided to leave a team just to make
sure nothing broke down, and were preparing to head back, when
Basketball, as the children had come to call their new friend, asked if
he might accompany Carol. "Is there not some space I could occupy
at your dwelling?" he remarked. "My kind have kind of designated
me their leader, and I would like to be near your people's
leader. So if there are problems I can represent my kind."
"Well, I'm not really these people's leader," Carol
remarked. "But I certainly think it's a good idea! The ship's
commander really runs things. However, he's very cooperative when
I need something."
"You are so much like her!" Basketball
remarked. "It's hard for me to believe you are not the same
person! She was really the leader among her people, too.
But you could never get her to admit it. Even her own people
found this frustrating at times."
Everybody around Carol grinned. They headed
back to the ship. They began to manufacture more shelters. The
asteroid ship could take care of the balls but he wanted to return them
as soon as possible to their own environment. Carol agreed
entirely! Her husband came to her after things quieted
down. "You know," he sighed "it's getting really tiresome going
from crisis to crisis. Wish we could find some way to settle
things down."
"I don't think while we're here," Carol managed,
"there's going to be a possibility of that! We're going to be
going from one excitement to another! I don't think there's any
hope of anything else."
Her eldest daughter looked at her father. "Daddy!"
she commented, "Why would you want to stop having so much fun?"
Everybody looked at each other and roared with laughter.
"Out of the mouths of babes!" Carol commented.
"One of his favorite expressions."
"Because it's the absolute truth!" her husband
replied. He picked his daughter up, kissed her on the cheek and said
"O.k.! We'll continue having fun!"
His daughter gave him a big hug. Carol could not
believe that life had gotten so interesting! She thought back to
that moment in the jail when she made the decision to take the
recruiter up on that offer. She had never regretted it. No
matter what the problems they faced, no matter how much excitement they
found themselves in, she never regretted it.
"Mother," her youngest said coming in, "Basketball
wants to talk to you. Do you know there's more water coming?"
"What?" Carol asked.
"He says there's more water coming," his daughter
repeated, "from out in space. It should be here in two or three
days."
Carol's eyes widened. "Ice!" she managed.
"Probably comets! Oh, Lords! See you later!" she snapped
and headed for her telescope. It took her an hour to find them,
three of them, quite large. There was no doubt about it, they
were headed straight for Mars!
"Don't worry!" the asteroid ship told her, "I'll
break them up and they'll all melt in the atmosphere as they go down."
"Still," Carol warned, "that much water coming down
on dry ground that has nothing to hold it? We've gotta think of
something!"
Tin spoke up. "What if we put hundreds of
small force field generators on the surface," he suggested, "with the
tops open? The water would fall into them and be held in place
'til it could be absorbed into the ground."
"That may help!" Carol snapped. "But we've
gotta get busy! We've gotta figure where they're coming down and
catch as much as we can. Good thinking, Tin Head!"
Tin grinned at her. Again they went into
crisis mode. They were getting very, very good at it!