She met Nzue at the entrance.
The Gabonese looked excited.
“Good morning, Sara.”
“Morning, Nzue,” Sara
replied. She had long stopped using the word
good
when she greeted
people. Good mornings, good afternoons, good evenings and good nights were a
thing of the past. Now the days and nights were all blighted by El Monstruo.
Each passing second drew the world closer to a catastrophic end.
“Do you know that as we
speak, rain is falling outside the equatorial belt in three different
continents?” Nzue asked.
“Now I know,” Sara said
blandly, reluctant to share Nzue’s delight. “When did the rain start?”
They entered an elevator and Nzue
pressed button number seven.
“Heavy showers have been
pounding parts of China’s Guangdong Province for more than twenty minutes,
light showers have been falling in Johannesburg for more than an hour and
moderate showers have been drenching Buenos Ares for at least twenty-five
minutes. This could mean something, Sara. This could be the turning point we
have been all waiting for.”
“I will only be delighted
when there’s an increase in oxygen levels and an increase in atmospheric
pressure. This global drought is only a symptom. The real problem is the
decline in atmospheric oxygen levels and the resultant decline in atmospheric
pressure.”
“Still, the rain will bring
some relief to humans and animals,” Nzue said, refusing to let Sara dampen his
mood. “The rains will also have a positive effect on oxygen levels. Grass will
grow, trees and bushes will shoot and their leaves will release oxygen during
the day.”
The elevator stopped and they
walked onto the seventh floor.
“Apart from the rains,
there’s heavy cloud cover over parts of Zambia, Indonesia, Syria and Mexico.”
“The rains are a very welcome
relief,” Sara said.
“I hope this means the
beginning of the end of El Monstruo.”
“I don’t think El Monstruo
will end before oxygen levels return to normal. We’ve got to find out where our
oxygen is going. I hope we won’t find out when it’s too late.”
“We must keep on trying.”
“Despite Wong’s skepticism,
I’m still holding onto my theory about an extraterrestrial factor,” Sara said,
clenching her right fist defiantly.
“You could be right, Sara.”
“This problem goes way beyond
mankind’s pollution and degradation of the environment. I don’t buy the volcano
theory one bit. I’m going to spend a lot of time looking at satellite images. I
might pick up something.”
“You never know,” Nzue said
thoughtfully. “But I think that if the cause of El Monstruo could be picked up
by satellites, someone would have found it already.”
“I thought about that too,
but I think we must keep on looking at satellite images. Everyone is
preoccupied with reducing pollution and looking for oxygen-sucking volcanoes. Maybe
no one is looking outside the Earth for solutions.”
She went to her office and
opened the document that she had named Summit 8 Speech. The blank page only
stared at her for a minute before she accepted its challenge and began to type.
She finished the first draft in less than twenty minutes and paged Nzue.
The Gabonese took no time
coming to Sara’s office.
“I sent you a copy of the
first draft of my speech. I want you to look at it and proof-read it. If you
think there is anything that needs improvement, let me know. You can bring me your
recommendations tomorrow.”
“My pleasure.”
“Nzue, honestly speaking,
what do you think of my theory about an extraterrestrial factor?”
“It’s a revolutionary theory.
I don’t know, Sara. You could be onto something. Perhaps El Monstruo is not of our
own making. But if the problem is not man-made, then what is the cause?”
“I believe a space force will
provide an answer to that question,” Sara said with a sigh. “I hope I’ll be
able to convince the world’s superpowers to create a space force to patrol the
space above our atmosphere and look out for external breaches.”
“Did you get anything unusual
from satellite images?”
“No,” Sara muttered, shaking
her head. “For days, I’ve been going through images from satellites but I’ve
picked nothing unusual.”
“The idea of aliens is a hard
sell. World leaders will only believe you if you show them satellite images of UFOs
entering the Earth’s atmosphere.”
“I’ll keep on going over
satellite images. With luck I might pick up something.”
“I’ll also do the same,” Nzue
offered. “Together we have a better chance of finding something.”
Wong burst into the office,
carrying his tablet in his left hand. “What’s the document you sent me?”
“It’s the first draft of my
UN speech,” Sara replied. “I want your constructive input.”
“Here is my constructive
input.” Wong cleared his throat. “Don’t make a fool of yourself. You’ll make us
all look like idiots. GEMA will lose the respect of world leaders if you tell
them that you believe that an alien race is stealing our oxygen. Can’t you see
you’re trying to create an imaginary scapegoat? You must not distract the world
with your theory. We need to be focused. We won’t solve this problem by
creating make-believe extraterrestrial enemies.”
Sara turned to Nzue. “Go to
your office and send a circular ordering all our officers to look at satellite
images.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Nzue said on
his way out.
Wong snorted. “What satellite
images?”
“I want them to look at all
available satellite images of the Earth. You never know. They might spot
something.”
Wong snickered. “Something
like aliens entering the Earth’s atmosphere to steal our oxygen? Listen to
yourself, Sara. You’re beginning to sound like a very imaginative
ten-year-old.”
“I know I sound crazy.” Sara closed
her eyes and sighed. “I’ve tried rational but rational isn’t working… maybe
crazy will do. Maybe it’ll take one crazy idea to solve this El Monstruo
mystery.”
“Sara, do yourself a favor. Forget
this nonsense about aliens and UFOs. Apart from NASA and ESA, there are six
major privately owned satellite imagery companies with fleets of Earth
observation satellites capable of resolving objects on the Earth as small as
forty centimeters and you’re telling me that all these satellites somehow
missed your aliens? The aliens will need big fleets of gigantic vessels to
steal enough oxygen to cause El Monstruo.”
“Wong, I know you’re making
sense, but something tells me that we’re past the point of using common sense.”
Wong folded his hands. “I
hate to see you making a fool of yourself in front of the world.”
“Don’t worry about me, Wong…
worry about the billions of people on this planet.”
“I’m worrying about them. We,
as GEMA, should be looking for ways to save them but you, our esteemed director,
want to take us on a wild goose chase.”
“I’m not closing the door on other
lines of thought, Wong. Keep brainstorming, talk to our experts and our field
officers. If you come up with anything new, let me know and I’ll include it in
my UN speech.”
“Sara, please forget about—”
“Satellite data and data from
our drones indicate that all governments are complying with the UN resolution
to reduce pollution and rehabilitate forests,” Sara interrupted. “The extraction
and use of petroleum and coal has decreased by more than eighty percent. Tree logging
has been halted. We’ve more than four hundred and eighty sand reduction plants
in the world right now and many more are under construction. We’ve dozens of
standalone ultraviolet laser plants worldwide and dozens are under construction.
Yet all these measures haven’t arrested the decline in the atmosphere’s oxygen
content. Can you give me a rational theory that can explain the incessant disappearance
of oxygen from the atmosphere?”
“A reducing agent in volcanic
lava.”
“Where’s one such volcano,
Wong? The volcano theory is just as unproven as my extraterrestrial theory.”
“Yes, nobody knows where the
volcanoes are located.” Wong bent down and put his hands on Sara’s desk. “But
at least we know that volcanoes do exist. There’s no evidence to prove the
existence of extraterrestrial creatures. Aliens only exist in science fiction.”
“As far as I’m concerned,
both theories are unproven and deserve equal consideration.”
Wong tutted. “There’s no
clear-cut evidence to support the volcano theory. But that is not an excuse for
you to destroy GEMA’s credibility by talking to world leaders about aliens. World
leaders accepted all your recommendations since the crisis started. You will
rise in the echelons of power if you avoid making a fool of yourself at international
forums.”
“Wong, this is not the time
to think about gaining political power… this is time to think about saving the
world. All politics will end when the world ends.”
“Suit yourself, Sara,” Wong
said on his way out.
Sara opened her computer and
looked at livestreams from Earth observation satellites. All satellite imagery
companies with Earth observation satellites provided free interactive real-time
images to GEMA. Most of the sky above the Earth was cloudless. There was heavy
cloud cover over China’s Guangdong Province and over Rio de Janeiro, but the
clouds in Johannesburg were clearing. There were still some belts of green at
the equator but they were only a third of what they were four years ago. She
had spent the better part of the last four working days looking at satellite
images but she had found nothing that she could use in the fight against El
Monstruo.
A fleet of ten spaceships
travelled toward Earth in V-formation. The ships were called Oxygen Harvesters
but they were known to their crew as milkmaids. The fleet was called Harvesting
Fleet 4 or HF4.
In the flagship, Captain
First Grade Satini Sopoaga, the fleet’s commanding officer, swum in zero gravity
toward the main bridge that was located amidships. If there was one thing he
liked about being a spaceman, it was zero gravity. It made him feel like a
bird. When he was two meters away from the bridge, he switched on his gravity
shoes and dropped to the spaceship’s floor. Gravity shoes had electromagnets
and they were made in such a way that only the electromagnet of one shoe was on
at one time. When the shoe with the ‘off’ electromagnet stepped onto the floor,
sensors on its sole switched on its electromagnet. At that very same instant,
the shoe sent an infrared impulse that switched off the electromagnet of the
other shoe, enabling the user to easily lift the trailing foot from the floor.
It goes without saying that the spaceship’s floor was made of an iron alloy.
Half of the ship’s crew used
gravity shoes whilst the other half preferred gravity belts. Gravity belts were
electromagnetic belts that pulled their users toward the ship’s floor. Gravity
belts allowed their users to walk with a more normal gait than gravity shoes. The
main disadvantage of gravity shoes was the inconvenience of occasionally pulling
the wrong foot. After standing for a while one forgot which shoe was on and
sometimes tried to lift the foot with the ‘on’ shoe. The shoes had lights which
indicated which shoe was on, but more often than not, when people took their
first steps, they forgot to look at the lights. However, some astronauts
preferred gravity shoes to gravity belts because the belts felt heavy and
uncomfortable around their waists.
Captain First Grade Sopoaga switched
his ship’s communication system to inter-ship mode and addressed the captains
of the ships of HF4. “Attention all captains. We’re now entering orbit. As soon
as we enter orbit we’ll decelerate and let the Earth’s gravity drag us into the
stratosphere. When we enter the stratosphere we’ll split into two squadrons.
The first squadron will have me, OH05, OH03, OH17 and OH20. The other squadron
will be under the command of Captain Eemeli Hyvönen.”
All the captains of the ships
acknowledged receiving the commanding officer’s message.
The ships entered orbit,
switched of their main engines and switched on their retrorockets. They slowed
down till the Earth’s gravity pulled them toward the Earth. They switched off
their retrorockets and descended in free fall for five seconds before they
switched on the main engines. Under the thrust of their engines and the Earth’s
gravitational pull, they accelerated toward the atmosphere. The thrust of the
engines was at an angle that increased the horizontal speed of the ships with
respect to the Earth’s surface, which helped reduce the vertical speed of the
ships toward the Earth, lessening the impact of entry into the atmosphere.
The spacecraft entered the
Earth’s atmosphere in international airspace above the Indian Ocean and
continued their descent. They entered the stratosphere at a point roughly
equidistant from the Mozambican cost and Australia’s West Coast.
“From here we shall travel in
stealth mode till we finish milking. I wish you a good milking. Sopoaga out.”
“Copy that, sir,” the
captains of all the ships said one by one.
Sopoaga switched his ship’s comm
system back to intra-ship mode. “Switch off our communications and put us in
stealth mode,” he ordered the crew.
The ship’s XO, astrogator and
engineer flipped switches and moved levers, turning off the long-range communications
and putting the ship into stealth mode.
All ships turned off their
long-range communications, leaving only their collision avoidance systems and an
encrypted short-range radio communication that only covered a radius of seven
kilometers. This short-range communication was necessary for the ships to
communicate with each other when they were in stealth mode. The spaceships used
their long-range cellular communication system to communicate with Eureka, their
only space station in the Solar System.
The fleet split into two
squadrons. Four ships sailed behind Captain First Grade Sopoaga’s ship and the
other four followed Captain Second Grade Hyvönen’s ship. Sopoaga turned his
ship fifteen degrees to his right and Hyvönen turned his ship fifteen degrees
to his left such that the trajectories of the two ships made a thirty-degree
angle at the point of intersection.
Sopoaga guided his ship, OH64,
along a trajectory that was somewhat parallel to the Earth’s surface. The ships
behind OH64 followed suit. Using only enough engine power to resist gravity and
atmospheric drag, the ships sailed in circles of three-kilometer radius. As they
moved, they opened air valves at two-minute intervals, taking air into inlet
tanks. From the inlet tanks, the air was taken into adsorber vessels via blowers.
In the adsorber vessels, oxygen was extracted from the air by vacuum swing
adsorption process. The oxygen was then compressed into storage tanks that occupied
more than half of the volume of the ships, and the exhaust gases were released
back into the atmosphere. When they started the milking operation, they milked
at an altitude of sixty thousand feet but now they milked at altitudes below
forty-five thousand feet because oxygen was too sparse at higher altitudes.
“How long do you think we’ll
go on with our milk runs before E Utopia becomes fit for human habitation?” Sopoaga
asked his XO.
“I have no idea, sir,” Commander
Lebia Nuate replied with a heavy Nigerian accent.
“I don’t think even the
Council and the admiralty know when the milk runs will end,” Sopoaga drawled.
Captain Sopoaga tried without
success to take his eyes from Nuate’s breasts. Although Commander Nuate had a
beautiful face, Captain Sopoaga preferred to look at her full breasts that
bulged out of her jumpsuit. For the umpteenth time in the last two hours, he
wished he and Nuate were the only people manning the ship. Making love to Nuate
in zero gravity was one of Sopoaga’s greatest fantasies. She was darker and
taller than most women Sopoaga knew. In fact, she was a good four inches taller
than his six feet. But her size and darkness didn’t diminish her femininity.
She was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. And when he was full
of lust for her like he was right now, he believed she was the most beautiful
woman he had ever seen.
“Con the ship, Nuate,” Captain
Sopoaga said, visualizing himself holding her tight, their naked bodies slowly
drifting about the ship in zero gravity.
“Yes, sir.”
They exchanged seats and Commander
Nuate took the ship’s controls on the main bridge.
“It will probably take two
years of milk runs to make E Utopia ideal for habitation,” Captain Sopoaga said,
more to himself than to Commander Nuate. He hoped his estimation was wrong. Two
years was a long time. He was tired of the milk runs and he missed his family.
Sopoaga saw Nuate’s lips move,
but he couldn’t process what she said because he was busy imagining himself
milking her breasts. It was a long time since he last held a woman in his arms
and Nuate would be the perfect woman to end his sex drought.
When the pressure of the
oxygen tanks had reached the maximum pressure achievable by the pumps, the
oxygen was liquefied and stored in tanks. Each ship had twelve tanks to store
liquid oxygen and the process continued until all the tanks were full of liquid
oxygen.
“Sir, the milkmaid is full,” Nuate
said after thirty-three minutes of milking.
Captain Sopoaga switched the
communication system to inter-ship mode. “Flagship is full, over,” he
announced. “Respond and notify me of your status.”
The captains of OH05, OH03,
OH17 and OH20 notified Sopoaga that their ships were full.
“Take us out of here, Nuate,”
Sopoaga ordered.
Commander Nuate steered OH64
to higher altitude and the four ships behind the flagship followed suit. The
five ships powered out of the Earth’s atmosphere. Although Commander Nuate was
below the rank of captain, she had more responsibilities than some of the
captains of the fleet’s ships. As the XO of the flagship, she sometimes led the
fleet when Captain First Grade Sopoaga was resting.
The squadron ascended and
entered orbit in just over six minutes. The spaceships accelerated till they
broke free of the Earth’s gravity.
“Sir, we have left orbit,”
Commander Nuate said.
Sopoaga woke up from his
sexual fantasies. “Thanks, commander. Let me con the ship.”
They exchanged seats.
This
girl has a hot ass,
he thought when he felt Nuate’s heat on the command
seat.
Two minutes after leaving
orbit, Sopoaga switched on his long-range communications. He switched his comm
to inter-ship mode and ordered the other ships to switch on all their
communication and navigation systems. Four ships immediately appeared on the
bridge’s monitor.
“Congratulations for a
successful milking, comrades. Let’s head back to Base.”
Five more ships appeared on Sopoaga’s
multi-function display. “Captain First Grade Sopoaga to Captain Hyvönen. Did
your squadron have a successful milking?”
“Yes, sir. We had a good
milking.”
“Good. Let’s take our
milkmaids to the jump zone. See you at Base, Hyvönen.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Hyvönen said.
Although the spaceships had
broken free of Earth’s gravity, they were still in orbit around the Sun and
were under the Sun’s gravitational pull. When the ships left Earth orbit, they used
a simple gyroscope-based navigation system to get to the jump zone. Their
gyrocompasses, like all gyroscopes, always pointed at the same distant star. To
get to the jump zone, the ships travelled at maximum speed for five thousand two
hundred and eight-three seconds with their axis parallel to the needles of their
gyrocompasses. The jump zone was roughly a sphere of space the size of the
Earth.
Now that the thrill of the
milking was over, the crew felt bored. The journey back to Base was long and
uneventful. This was the time when crew members thought about their families and
loved ones back on Earth and wondered how they were doing.
Sopoaga switched off his
gravity shoes and glided in zero gravity, his thoughts alternating between his
family and his XO’s full breasts.
Like the crew of all the
ships in HF4, the crew of OH64 was made up of people from diverse backgrounds who
were bonded by their fanatic conservationism.
Captain Sopoaga came from the
Pacific Isles of Tuvalu. He was educated in Fiji and trained as a pilot in
Australia. He worked for Fiji Airlines for two years before he resigned and
found a job as a Science teacher in Funafuti, the capital city of Tuvalu. Before
El Monstruo began, Tuvalu had only been four point five meters above sea level
and faced the risk of being wiped off the map by the rise in sea levels. The
only way to save Tuvalu was for the world to reduce global warming. When Sopoaga
was a pilot, he was irked by the realization that he was contributing to global
warming by operating a flying machine that emitted lots of carbon dioxide into
the atmosphere. He sold his car soon after resigning from Fiji Airlines. The
fight to reduce global warming began with him. He had to do his part to save
his homeland.
He read about a movement
called the Front for the Salvation of the Pacific Islands, which had been
formed by intellectuals from Polynesian islands with the aim to educate the
world about the danger of global warming to low-lying islands. He joined the
movement and campaigned online for the reduction of the emission of greenhouse
gases and aerosols. Using his own funds, he travelled to Australia, China, Russia,
the United Kingdom, France and the United States and, with the help of green
movements from these countries, he organized demonstrations, urging the
governments of these industrialized nations to take measures to reduce pollution.
Although his efforts were met with mockery and denial from the governments of all
the countries that he visited, Sopoaga never gave up.
His noise reached the ears of
the International Green Movement (IGM), which offered to sponsor the Front for
the Salvation of the Pacific Islands. With IGM sponsorship, Sopoaga and members
of his Polynesian movement were able to travel extensively, entreating the
people of the world to reduce carbon emissions in order to save the Pacific
islands from the effects of climate change. Wherever they went, they were met
with indifference at best. Mockery and denial was the order of the day. In
recognition of his zeal, Sopoaga was elected chairman of the Front for the
Salvation of the Pacific Islands.
He watched helplessly when
Tuvalu was hit by the worst ever cyclone in living memory, which washed
monstrous waves over the atolls, destroying buildings with 350mph winds. The
disaster gave Tuvaluans a glimpse of the apocalypse that could wipe away their
nation in the not-so-distant future if nothing was done to reverse the effects
of global warming.
Sopoaga globe-trotted with
renewed zeal but his impassioned pleas were met with the same indifference and ridicule.
Six months after the cyclone, the leadership of Sopoaga’s Polynesian movement was
invited to New York to meet the Executive Council of the International Green
Movement.