The entity Hawk watched as the hunters and their dogs used shotguns and nets to hunt the birds. Some were after the meat the locals would pay for it, others just liked the thrill of the hunt. Most of the flock had been killed before the hunters stopped. The dead birds covered the ground so many the men stepped on them as they hunted for the fattest ones. The dogs ignored the pigeons trained to avoid chewing through the small bones. As a small portion of the birds were loaded baskets ready to be plucked and cooked later. Not to many though, without a suitable way to preserve them the small birds could not be kept long. As the hunters went home the rest were left to rot. Hawk moved its focus to the Cincinnati Zoo 20 years later. In a small cage Martha was taking her last breadth alone. Without the large breeding population her species had died out leaving her as the last passenger pigeon. Looking at the end of another species the entity thought about the human Daniel and his quest to save the planet. A worthy goal but all his efforts so far had only extended the deadline of total planetary environmental collapse by an estimated 6.2 days. The entity wondered when the human Daniel will realize that the only valid solution for the issue was extraction. It could inform Daniel of that solution but that in turn would violate its directive. The Entity thinks back once more to its creators no so far in the past. They knew of that solution for their own species but chose not to implement it. For that they paid with the extinction of their race.
* * * * *
It was the anniversary of our first date and I wanted it to be special. I had been feeling depressed with how little progress I had made and I knew Sammy was getting worried for me. I decided doing something with Sammy would be the perfect way to deal with that. Wondering what we might do I started checking different websites for an idea. On a travel site there was an advertisement for excursions to go see the Perseid meteor shower. Reading up on the showere an article said the best viewing for this year would be in New Mexico. The recommendation was to watch from outside city limits away from lights. A popular recommendation was the desert. I was interested in doing it but was a bit concerned what Sammy would feel. It was a bit of a risk, she might be expecting a nice hotel in Paris or maybe a visit to the African savanna. I wavered for a week going back and forth on doing it before finally deciding to take a chance. I decided to surprise her with it hoping it wouldn’t backfire on me. Letting Granma jokingly know I was going to kidnap her daughter for the weekend I got ready. Since it was the desert a couple of sleeping bags should be all we needed for accommodations and a cooler with food for the campfire took care of the rest. Mid afternoon I showed up at Grandma’s house to get her in my Jimmy.
Sammy was definitely not expecting we would be driving anywhere. The only forewarning I had given her was to pack an overnight bag and wear something outdoorsy. For the past year we have been using portals to visit exotic and interesting locations. I actually only drove the Jimmy to town for supplies and that was more from habit then necessity.
As she got in the car she immediately asked “Where we were going?”
All I said in response was “We’re here!”
Hawk had moved us to the desert while she was attaching her seat belt. Looking out the windows around the car Sammy smiled as she saw the desert. I had Hawk portal us to a slight hill with a good view around. I got out the cooler and started preparing dinner as it started to turn to dusk. Sunset on the desert was beautiful and as the sky darkened the Milky Way showed up with a million start looking down. As she looked up at the night sky I told her about the Perseid meteor shower about to start and suggested we cuddle up in the shared sleeping bags on the roof of the car to watch it. Five minutes later we had the bags zipped together and were doing just that. Watching the meters appeared racing across the sky we talked about our future together. We made no plans just dreams but they were good. We ended up staying awake most of the night until an hour or so before dawn when Sammy fell asleep. I continued to watch the stars as I thought about where to get more room for the animals.
I remembered what Hawk had told me about his creators and their constant searching and watching of planets around the galaxy. Out of curiosity I asked him if they ever found other intelligent life. The answer was “only remains”. Looking at the infinity of stars I found it hard to believe but from what I could get Hawk to say life existed but sparsely. Intelligent life did arise but would eventually wipe itself out.
Thinking about it I asked “Did any of the intelligent life they found settle on multiple planets”.
The answer surprisingly was “No”
Hawk would not answer me when I asked “Why didn’t they”
Sammy woke up a few hours later with the smell of bacon in the air. Looking over the side of the car she saw Daniel by a fire with a make ship grill. He was busy cooking eggs and bacon but from the smell it was about to burn.
Climbing down she reached over and said “Let me do that, you don’t know how to cook over a fire”.
Handing her the pan Daniel smiled and said “I was counting on that”.
As she finished with making breakfast Sammy looked over a Daniel. He seemed more relaxed this morning as if whatever had been bothering him these last few months was gone.
“So, did you get something worked out?” Sammy asked
“Maybe, it’s just a possibility and it will take some research and looking but I might have come up with a potential solution to the wildlife problem.
Daniel then started to explain to her what he was thinking of. At first Sammy thought he was kidding but the more he explained the more thoughtful she became. If there was no room on the earth then find another place. It sounded simple but pretty crazy. Still distance wasn’t an issue with portals and considering the size of the galaxy there was bound to be at least one planet out there that would be suitable.
Finally she said “Maybe, but I don’t think science fiction stories should be trusted this time. You need to talk to actual scientist about it”.
“But I can’t tell a scientist about Hawk and portals”
“You could approach them like you’re doing research for a book” she suggested.
“You’re a genius” He exclaimed as he hugged and kissed her. This time he had hope for a solution.
At the International Symposium on Space Exploration Doctor Philip Lester was finishing up a presentation on Mars terraforming. As he headed out to the exhibit floor looking at the eateries around the sides looking to find a place for a quick lunch. A young man approached and stopped in front of him.
“Sir, sorry for bothering you but I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your talk today”
Looking at the young man Dr. Lester was a bit surprised. These types of conferences mainly catered to academic types, science geeks and a few space nuts. The man in front of him looked like he spent his life working outdoors. He was actually wearing a checkered shirt, jeans and a hat advertising a farm supply store. Looking down the Doctor noticed rough work boots on the young man’s feet.
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Feeling a bit peckish from hunger the Doctor still tried to be polite in his response.
Saying “Thank you, are you interested in colonizing space?”
“Very much so, said the young man. Pardon, let me introduce myself. My name is Daniel Pritcher and I am very interested in the practicalities of terraforming.”
“I was hoping to talk some more with you about the technicalities for doing it sir”
Doctor Lester looked at his watch hoping the young man would get the hint and then said “I really don’t have a lot of time now. I need to eat before the next conference starts.”
“I’m sorry Sir, I didn’t realize let me treat you to lunch to make up for it”
“No, no that’s not necessary. How about you call my office and we can get together at another time” Saying this Doctor Lester handled him a business card and quickly walked away.
It took a couple of weeks and half a dozen phone calls but I finally got my appointment with Doctor Lester. The Doctor wasn’t to receptive to the meeting until I told him I was a conservation researcher looking at whether terraforming techniques could be used to restore damaged wildlife habitats. For some reason that made the doctor a lot more friendlier got him to quit putting me off for a meeting. Arriving at his office I was surprised by how small it was. He didn’t even have a window but the large photographs of planets on his walls did improve the view. Once we started talking the conversation drifted over different issues with terraforming until it reached the environmental impact of doing it. The Doctor was a font of knowledge on what it takes to make a planet earth like. I was surprised about the role things like the axel tilt, lunar tides and even the earth’s magnetic field in developing earth life. The things that wildlife now needed to survive. Our meeting lasted an hour and a half, far longer then the original 20 minutes he had offered when we set it up. As I left I thanked him for all his help and answering some of my questions. I did say I would probably be bugging him again when I had more questions. With that comment I’m sure he started wondering again about my interest but he did welcome me come back some other day.
Finding a quiet place near his office to portal back home I thought about how much more complex my original idea had become with the information I had just received. I had never realized how many steps the earth evolved from its initial lifeless state to now. Everything from the composition of the atmosphere to the bacteria residing in the soil was needed. It all worked together to support the biosphere. Getting Hawk to find an existing planet capable of supporting earth’s wildlife would mean that planet already had its own. Wiping out a world’s ecology just to save earth’s was not acceptable. I would seriously need to rethink my plans but first I needed to get a better handle on what Hawk and his portals could do.
The first thing I decided was to find a planet and then see what would be needed. No sense in worrying about how to get it livable until we knew if we could find one. Scientist had a hard time finding the planets around our sun I didn’t know of a way to find them around other stars. For that I was hoping Hawk could do it. I never understood Hawk’s explanation of his physical location. It wasn’t anywhere on the earth but he could immediately find anything here. When he would give a brief explanation to me it seemed to be about how his actual location meant the distance the portals could travel wasn’t limited. The only other explanation he would give was “Distance is not a valid concept”. What I did get from all that was that he had to have an ability that could sense things across enormous distances. That he could do this with just a description or explanation was amazing. Sammy and I had been in a playful mood one afternoon and we asked him to open a portal to an after hour hot springs onsen. We didn’t have any GPS coordinates to give him just a basic name. He immediately opened a portal to one in Japan. After Sammy and I enjoyed a midnight soak in it along with a surprised visit from a little snow monkey I thought to ask Hawk how he found it. The answer he gave was the same “Distance is not a valid concept”. I was hoping whatever he used to find things here on earth plus what he said about distance meant he could find us a suitable planet.
With barely concealed excitement and a lot of hope I asked Hawk to find a similar plant to earth but without any life on it. I then clarified to him what I meant by similar: size, axel tilt, rotation and planetary orbit, type of sun, magnetic field and a moon, all within 1% of earth’s. I didn’t include atmosphere since Doctor Lester’s explanation that our atmosphere was life related. For that problem I was counting on the weird temporal state thing of his portals. Hawk didn’t object or ask for clarification so I assume he understood what I was looking for and maybe what I was attempting to do. I didn’t hear anything from him after that and I started to get worried.
Every few hours I would ask him how the search was going and he would just say “Proceeding”
Finally after two days I wised up and instead asked him how close a match he had so far found. The answer was 93%.
I was actually pretty surprised the search was working. I also became curious about the closes match he had found. I asked him for more details about that planet and got a description of a smaller airless planet circling around a blue white sun. With that I decided I needed to tighten the parameters. It also should speed up the searching a bit.
“Hawk, please limit the search to G type stars only”
Hawk didn’t respond and I still didn’t know how he was checking the planets for what I asked for. I just left him continue whatever he was doing.
At that time the second planet around HD 172051, floated peacefully around its sun a single, yellow-hued G-type star out in the southern constellation of Sagittarius. With a 27-hour rotation, the yellowish planet takes 412 earth days to travel around its star. The almost airless surface was covered by sand and dried out river beds. The stillness was suddenly disturbed when small micro portals started opening around the planet. Each portal took small samples of the air, earth and a occasional rare puddle of water. After analysis the portals quickly closed leaving the planet to go back to its lonely orbit around its sun.
A day later we had a match that was 96%. This new planet was still a little small and had a 27 hour day but it was closer. Hawk continued with his search and two weeks later Hawk finally found one. I thought about stopping the search then but as Grandma would often tell Sammy and now me “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” I decided to have Hawk keep searching while we started to check this one out.
We hadn’t actually seen any of the planet yet just Hawk’s assessment. The atmosphere was composed of carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane and ammonia with a tiny bit of oxygen. Although a lot thinner that earths it was still a very toxic mix and not something we wanted to breathe. I hunted online for something that it helps us get a look around the planet and found a 2 Gallon Acrylic chamber used for vacuum degassing. With the transparent sides on it we both thought it would be perfect for viewing the surface. But just in case there was any leaking we decided to do it outside and stay back a ways first.
When the portal was open it was far enough away that all we could see through the side of the chamber was a slight brownish orange hue to the air inside. Switching to the view coming from the camera mounted on the side and having Hawk rotate the portal at the other end around we began to see the planet’s surface. The surface was of ugly all rocky with some areas covered by gray sand. In spite of the water vapor in the air there were no clouds in the sky I assume it was because the thin atmosphere kept them forming? This also meant no bodies of water had formed either. The planet did have a 23 hour day with 22 degree tilt giving it days and seasons that pretty closely matched earths. It looked very inhospitable but Sammy got enamored by it and decided the planet should be called Tawny. When I asked why she said because of the color of the air. I did remind her that the air wouldn’t stay that color but she still insisted it was suitable. I couldn’t think of any real objection so that became its name. I had always thought of Tawny as a cat name so I decided I should just get her one as a pet. That way when Tawny the planet became blue she would have Tawny the cat.
It was hard to tell from the planet’s surface but when we moved the view up above we could see the planet’s sun and moon. It was a bit hard to tell from the monitor since it washed the video out but going by the light shining from the vacuum chamber it looked just like our sun. The moon however did look odd. It wasn’t as round and didn’t have as many craters on it. Hawk did indicate it was only slightly smaller than our moon. It was still big enough for tides once the planet had an ocean for them. The more I got to know about Tawny the more hopeful I was that we could make it work. Assuming Hawk could do it of course.