AT LAST the great day had arrived, when Jacqui was to board the mighty spaceship that was to take her back to Earth. She knew full well, of course, that she would be under the ‘sleep’ field for most of the forty-three years’ voyage, but she had begged Major to be allowed to ‘wake up’ before the landing, so that she could see Earth from space. After some negotiation, it was agreed to install a human life-support system in part of the spaceship, although Major warned her that it would only sustain her for five or six days. If they failed to locate a suitable landing spot in that time, she would have to be placed back ‘under’.
Besides her poncho and sandals, Jacqui took just one possession with her for the journey. Her pack of precious writings and sketches was stowed in a sort of rucksack, surprisingly light for the amount she had written and drawn, which she could wear on her back. Major had assured her that the ‘paper’ and writing on it were quite impervious to water. She was taken on a ‘cocoon’ trip by Transporter to where the spaceship stood, waiting to be launched. It had legs like the Transporter but was about twice the size and shaped like the ‘airship’ she had come in. It had only one tube-like filament hanging from its rim. She found that, to her relief, she was not to be ‘cocooned’ for the trip: instead a ladder had been installed, leading to an open hatchway under the bulk of the vast ship.
She wondered how she was to make her farewell to Major, and on impulse flung her arms round his ‘body’ and gave him a quick hug (but with her poncho on, this time). Major seemed nonplussed, and she explained that this was a common sign of affection amongst her kind. She could not even begin to thank him for all the time he had afforded her, and the help he had given. Major acknowledged her thanks, and reminded her how helpful she had been to his species, too. With that, they bid adieu.
She boarded the spaceship and found that she was inside a small dome-shaped compartment not unlike the one she had been housed in upon first arriving here. The hatch closed behind her and the ladder was withdrawn. Kneeling on the ‘floor’, she discovered the knob that controlled its transparency, just like the one for the wall of her habitat. She was experimenting with this knob when she experienced a strange feeling, as if the walls of the dome were closing in upon her, and she felt dizzy. She found that she was sprawled upon her ‘floor’, and it was dark beneath her.
*
It was a minute or more before it dawned on Jacqui: she had been under the ‘sleep’ field once again, and forty-three years must have passed, ship’s time! If she had ‘aged’ she would be 122 years old! But she knew she would still look like the thirty-six-year-old she was.
Not quite dark beneath her. Adjusting her floor to full transparency, she could see a few stars faintly, and also a small greyish half-disk like a planet. Earth? No—it was heavily cratered: it was the Moon, apparently its ‘far side’ but recognisable. And beyond it was another, smaller half-disk—the Earth. She was nearly home!
She realised all of a sudden how heavy she felt. The ship was decelerating, and must have been for some time, at a little over Earth’s gravity. It was certainly not going at two-thirds the speed of light any more! But it would be some time before she got used to terrestrial gravity.
She was impatient to see Earth close-up once again, and wondered if the remaining journey would take three days, as it had for the early Lunar astronauts. But it was less than a day before the ship was hovering above the clouds of her home planet. She could make out nothing of the surface: the cloud layer was too thick. She could only wait.
A voice came through in her cabin—a voice similar to Major’s, but it could not be Major. She could not see where it came from, but she realised that the robots had been trained to speak in her language. She started to speak, but the robots did not hear her, it seemed. So she listened.
“We are hovering about the region of your planet called the British Isles, which is where you originate from. The atmosphere has more carbon dioxide than when you left there, and the temperature at ground level is 62ºC. We have been instructed not to attempt a landing there.”
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Indeed not! Was Earth now uninhabitable? She could make out nothing through the clouds. Had she arrived at a dead planet—and was her only option to return to the Sous’ planet?
“Try somewhere else. Please!” Jacqui was now weeping. “Try going north.” The robot acknowledged. So it could hear her after all. The ship began moving, and seemed to skim rapidly over the clouds, making for the North Pole.
But the North Pole was shrouded in darkness: she had evidently arrived in the northern winter.
“We are over sea, covered with sheets of thin ice. The temperature is around 10ºC and the ice is melting all around.”
No good. She could not live like a polar bear or a seal—if there were any of those creatures left.
The ship was passing over Canada, and they were in daylight again. Here there were some breaks in the cloud, and she could make out the landscape. A bleak, almost barren desert, with hardly any trees. She could just about see the odd giant cactus here and there, mainly by its shadow. The ground temperature was 37ºC. Bearable, but not to her liking.
Nowhere had she seen any signs of human habitation.
The ship skipped over the western United States, which seemed to be completely barren desert, with temperatures approaching 80ºC. She wondered in what condition Death Valley could possibly be—perhaps molten lava. Further south, flying over the Andes, she thought she could make out trees shrouding the highest peaks—but could she breathe the air there? And where could she live?
“Further south. Try Antarctica. Our last chance!”
The ship acknowledged. It crossed a gap of ocean and was then skimming quickly along the Antarctic peninsula, the northernmost part of the continent.
But wait! The sky was clear, and there seemed to be fertile land down there. Jacqui thought she could make out buildings. There were even signs of smoke. That may be the last habitable spot on Earth. She was too amazed to speak at first, but then she yelled “Robots—stop!”
It was too late. They had overshot and were now skimming over West Antarctica, the smaller half of that vast frozen continent. The ice-cap had almost gone, although there were still patches showing. What was left behind by the ice seemed to be tundra, and Jacqui thought she could make out herds of large animals moving slowly across the plain. Reindeer? The temperature was reported as about 5ºC.
She called on the robots to return to the peninsula. The ship wheeled around to the east, briefly crossing the Trans-Antarctic Mountains, so that she had a glimpse of East Antarctica, whose ice cap seemed to be intact—although Jacqui was sure much of it must have melted. The ship then crossed a huge bay—the Weddell Sea, she guessed—although the Ronne Ice Shelf had entirely vanished.
Over the peninsula once more. Ground level temperature was reported as 19ºC—just right. “Down please!” yelled Jacqui. The ship descended until it was a few hundred feet over the sea just west of the coast. Jacqui could see a pleasant, partly wooded landscape beyond a narrow beach, dotted with a few isolated buildings here and there. Well—if nowhere else on the planet was habitable, she could at least live out her days here. As she wondered what she would find, the ship gently set down in the sea, about a hundred yards from the shore.
The hatch leading from Jacqui’s chamber opened, and Jacqui could see that she was a few feet above the water line. With her poncho and her precious papers stuffed into the rucksack she had brought with her and the rucksack strapped to her back, she stood at the hatch for a moment, then jumped. With a splash she was in the water, which was quite warm. Real seawater! Treading water, she found that she was just out of her depth, but no great distance from the shore. She began to swim.
Just as her feet touched sand, she heard a rush of air behind her and a big wave broke on her back. Looking round, she saw the spaceship lift from the sea, making very little noise. That was quick! It had another, more pressing mission to perform: she was merely a passenger—unwanted ‘baggage’ conveyed as a special favour. Jacqui felt she ought to be grateful for all the Sous had done for her.