"Space Oddity" David Bowie

"I think my spaceship knows which way to go," said Basrat, as she tapped the wrong icon for our solar system destination.

I sighed. I nodded to Jorab, who voided the entry, and entered the correct destination. The ship vibrated as it entered hyperspace. The stars stretched out as the ship moved between space and hyperspace before settling down.

Basrat stared at the screen and turned to us. "Captain, the ship didn't take the coordinates I entered."

I said quietly, "Those were the wrong coordinates, Bas. We're going to Wellspring, the mother planet. You selected Arcon VII, which is all underwater."

She stared at me, then the console, and lastly the screen. "Oh, really?" she shrugged. "They look alike." Jorab snorted.

They don't look alike to a Spacer who wants to live to get home to Sciona, the Fatherland, I didn't scream. It would go in one ear, rattle around, and if it didn't get stuck in fluff, out the other.

Basrat, a typical parn, was not included on this mission for her intelligence, her astrospace skills, or her explorer abilities. All were well below the minimum required for the Space Service. Oddly, she was here mostly because of her parn qualities. Like most parn types, she was used to getting her way as many people, actually, nearly everyone, spoiled her in their admiration for her beauty, charm, and warm personality. Unlike so many parn types, she was an empath, actually caring for the people she met. That was why we had her along. I knew she was very good at interacting with aliens, and very beautiful, so I tolerated her parnhead comments. If only she knew when to keep her full, lush lips shut.

"I'll actually see the Mother Planet, Wellspring." She grinned widely, beautiful white teeth shining. She rubbed her hands. "The planet we left when we destroyed its environment all those years ago."

Nine-hundred-seventy-three thousand, one month, and five days, to be exact. We kept count.

"We'll see what Wellspring is like now, and what the sister planet has become since the very first diaspora fled the destruction there." She sighed. "Our people, who traveled into space, finding Sciona, will meet our cousins and welcome them to our Alliance," she said, enraptured by her voice, as though she were reciting the great deeds of a hero. "They'll bring their learning, their culture, their history, to us, and we'll share ours with them." She stared out the view screen at the flashes and glimmers of hyperspace as though adding up the wonders we'd find on the home star system.

"Where was I?" she asked, giving us a brilliant smile. The glowing sparks in her hair, typical of a natural-born parn, were dazzling. "Oh, Wellspring. When will we get there?"

"Tomorrow, 1930 hours," I said for the fourth time that day.

Wellspring. The mother planet, the homeland, abandoned all those years ago. In a few centuries, our industrialization advanced, destabilizing the environment. We destroyed the planet, raiding its resources without replacing them, polluting, destroying the environment as the planet heated up steadily year after year, decade after decade, until all our scientists and all our renewal efforts couldn't reverse it.

The Lords and Ladies decided we would build a fleet for interstar travel, and send a tiny group of settlers, a mere 25,000, hoping to reach the habitable planet circling the Red Cat Star. Another group of pioneers would emigrate to the sister planet, the next one out in the habitable zone of our system. They would rebuild our civilization, improve interstar travel, and join us. Only 75,000 Wellspringers could go, selected from 10,000,000 by a lottery arranged by needed skills and education.

Our group left first, after days of goodbyes. We found that our early Spacer technology was not advanced enough to be accurate. Instead of arriving at the Red Cat Star in 17 Wellspring years, we reached another system in 1075 years. We were lost. It was another 970,000 years before we developed accurate interstar travel and explored our bit of the spiral. Last year we found the coordinates for Wellspring's star. Home. The Mother Planet.  Our mission was to return to Wellspring and find out what had become of it and our pioneers.

The sister planet had a breathable atmosphere, and was well populated, nearing the breaking point, with large cities and large barren areas. There were several large bodies of saltwater surrounding the land masses and the polar caps were frozen. Vast pollution, fouled waterways, and aftereffects of warfare, including radiation, were obvious. The environment was similar to the Mother Planet several decades before we left.

The pioneers who settled the sister planet had not found us, nor reached any system we had already explored. We didn't know what had become of them. Had they survived? Had they progressed, caring for their new planet? Had they died out? Learning what had become of them after nearly 1,000,000 years on a new, fertile planet was the second part of our mission.

What had become of Wellspring? Had it recovered from the trashing we left behind? In a little over a day, we'd know. First stop, Wellspring.

One hour before arrival at the Mother Planet, everyone not necessary for piloting the ship or preparing for arrival had found a spot in front of a viewscreen, and we who were busy with arrival kept an eye on the screens. The excitement and tension had everyone, spaceship crew and expedition corps, on edge.

On the command deck, Jorab said, "Captain, one minute till we exit hyperspace."

"Aye. Prepare for exit."

"Commencing countdown, engines on, Check ignition."

Thirty seconds later the ship's plasma engines shifted as we exited hyperspace, and we felt the soft tingle from the vibration. The solar system appeared in the view screens.  Crew and corps gasped and cried out. Our yellow daystar, nearly a million years older, was a little dimmer, a little cooler, but still warm enough to support life. The several planets continued in their orbits around the daystar. 

We were on the opposite side of the daystar from Wellspring and the sister planet, so we couldn't see them. There were no signs of settlement on the planets we could see, though. No cities, no spaceports. They looked as they did in the records from before our departure. I gave Jorab the order to depart for Wellspring.

We orbited Wellspring 37 minutes later. We all stared at the planet, dismayed. "Oh, mother, mother," came a whisper from the shadows. "We have lost you."

"Reconnaissance, report," I ordered.

"Aye, Captain," said Major Arkan Tom, their commander. A few hours later he reported to command deck with a preliminary report.

"We observe that Wellspring is veiled by a cloud layer about 42 miles thick, composed mostly of sulfuric acid particles, beginning about 30 miles above the surface. Temperatures vary from about -173 F to 459 F on the surface as measured today. Winds up to 220 mph are present. We have sent drones to take samples. There is no sign of survivors or recovery from environmental damage since the time of diaspora."

There was much more of this, but it's all in the reports.

"We grieve our lost people," I said. After a brief silence, our ship resumed normal activity, allowing for the curious watching our barren homeland. After the drones returned, I gave the orders to circumnavigate Wellspring from pole to pole, and around the equator in farewell. We traveled next to the sister planet. Crew and corps spoke in whispers, moving quietly in the aftermath of finding Wellspring a dead planet.

"Approaching the sister planet, Captain," said Jorab. "Commencing countdown, engines on."

We settled into orbit behind this planet's solitary moon, large and white in the light of the daystar.

"So beautiful," said Bas. She was correct. The sister planet is beautiful. How have our people done there? Are they even still there?

Bits and pieces of small, primitive spacecraft zipped through space, blinking, extending panels, and orbiting the sister planet. One was occupied. A tiny figure in an unbelievably antique spacesuit floated alongside. Major Tom sighed with relief. Life existed on the sister planet and humanity had entered space, but from these examples was still in the earliest stages.

"There are people there. Ours? Or descendents of the native population?" Tom asked the cosmos, quietly.

"How primitive," said Bas. "Why doesn't that spacer float away?"

"They're leashed to the craft," said Jorab grimly.

"Reconnaisance, prepare to investigate and report." I gave the order, and the crew went to work.

"Reconnaissance ready to depart, Captain," said Major Tom. "We've selected a large city in the temperate zone as our landing and search area. According to radio and video transmissions we translated, the natives call it 'New York City'."

The half dozen members of the team, including Bas, were beamed down to an isolated spot in the heart of 'New York City'. A small Ground Control unit on our ship kept in contact with the Earth unit. We followed them through their vid and recording equipment.

Here Bas would come into her own. Her people skills had proven successful when contacting other sentient races. Now to see how she did with the people here and learn what happened to our pioneers.

Nearly 1,000,000 years ago we left Wellspring for distant space, and 800,000 settlers were sent to the sister planet, all we could manage at the time. We knew this planet had a livable environment and abundant flora and fauna, both on land and in the large seas. The dominant races were various types of primitive hunter-gatherers, many, many evolutions behind us. Their genetics were compatible with ours, but it was unlikely our settlers could associate with them. An ice age was creeping towards its end. Our settlers chose a warm, landlocked sea between a frozen north and a warmer south. 

The landing party relayed that the inhabitants called their planet, Earth, and named our mother planet Venus. Analysis of their genetic code showed all were descended from our people and the native hominids. Major Tom traced the settlers and discovered most died when the transport crashed on landing. The survivors lost our civilization over the next few generations and joined with the hominids, which evolved into the people of Earth today.

The Reconnaissance team spent seven days observing the Earthers before trying to make any sort of contact. They learned English and Spanish, dominant tongues in New York City, or the Big Apple as some referred to it, as we shall from here on out.

The descendants of our people and the native hominids were of several types, tall, short, different complexions and body types, professing various nations as their motherland, instead of a single mother planet. All, however, had a common genetic base. Unlike Wellspring, where we had lived more or less harmoniously under the Lords and Ladies, the various Earthers fought, invaded other's territories, and Governments met to discuss options with more or less success. Fortunately, the Big Apple was the meeting place of the world's nations, and Reconnaissance learned much of our cousins there.

Reports from Reconnaissance arrived over the next two weeks. The Big Apple was a fortunate choice, as we were able to easily investigate many Earth cultures in one place. The Big Apple was in the Autumn phase of its orbit, with cooler weather. Parents rejoiced that their children were returning to school, teachers groaned at returning to school, green leaves changed to bright colors, and sports were popular.

The ground team sent back many samples of flora and fauna, and as many types of Earth products as they could in two weeks. Street tacos, pumpkin spice, and a most popular food called "slice" were added to our cafeteria. Slice, cut from a round foodstuff called 'Pizza' became so popular that the cafeteria served slice in many unusual and somewhat unpalatable (but eaten eagerly) varieties for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I had to issue an order that slice was only to be served as a main course on Fridays and Saturdays, although available as snacks other times. Slice was often paired with the beverage beer, one of the few things that didn't seem to have a pumpkin spice version. Beer was mildly intoxicating, and consumption was restricted by the Chief Medical Officer.

After two weeks later, Reconnaissance missed two required reports. Jorab attempted to contact Tom. "Ground control to Major Tom. Ground control to Major Tom."

The comlink, a loud burp came over and Major Tom reported. "Big Tom reporting. We've been celebrating an Earther festival called 'Octoberfest.' Lots of beer. Lots. Urrrrp." 

I ordered him to gather his corps and prepare to beam back to the ship. He refused, saying 'Octoberfest' would continue every weekend for the rest of the month and researching the fest was essential. 

After a good deal of argument Bas came online.

"Beer is mildly intoxicating, Captain," she said. "Octoberfest is exhilarating. Music, food, dance, happy people, and beer by the barrel. This weekend's festival ends in a few hours, and by tomorrow the effects of beer will have worn off. Most of them. I'll get the corps together and we can beam up at 13:00 hours tomorrow."

I agreed, but advised her that if the entire corps was not ready to beam up then, we'd send a party to retrieve them, and this would go on their records.

The corps beamed up as Bas had promised, and most were sent to sick bay to recover from the effects of too much beer.

We analyzed the data. I listened to Tom's report. Off the record, he said that the Earthers had much in common with us, their cousins. They even had a type of parn, called "blond." The Expedition Committee came to the conclusion that contact with Earth would not be successful for them or us. Our hopes of reunion were not to be fulfilled.

At the present time Earth was ever more rapidly heading in the way of Wellspring/Venus. Earthers talked about changing the ways they exploited their environment and making small progress. The reality of ET contact would cause half of Earth to celebrate as in Octoberfest and the other half would prepare for war. 

We had planned to bring 10,920 Earthers back to Sciona with us, but it was not possible to approach any important leaders with our offer. Bas said they would "freak out" (her words) at proof of what they called ETs, or extraterrestrial life. Captain Tom merely said the Earthers were not at a level to accept us and cooperate in the future care of the planet. We decided to end our mission at that point. Earth would survive or fail on its own. 

Major Tom and his team returned to Earth in the hope of persuading some of its peoples to come with us, as many believed in ETs and hoped for space travel. This turned to be much more difficult than we had planned. Some people we contacted behaved so bizarrely as meeting ETs they were locked up "for their own safety". Others thought we were scammers grifting them and set the authorities on us. Tom and Bas had to run for the subways to escape a posse determined to take them in.

Major Tom was able to collect orphans without guardians since older Earthers were too difficult. he also enlisted many grown ones who had unrealistic ideas of ETs and space travel, but passed our fitness tests. We got 479, mostly mostly immature Earthers. 

Most of the Earthers adapted to Space life, but we had to return some who developed unusual and unlikely conspiracy theories. One called us 'pod people.' We did not find out what that meant. Some of the older ones called me "Captain Kirk". Kirk is an honorific attached to Captain by Earthers. 

All the others, mostly young, adapted, happy to have food, clean rooms, and a friendly welcome from several carers brought along for this purpose. The young were 'adopted' by their carers and other crew members and the older Earthers merged with us.

In farewell to Earth, we circumnavigated the planet, from polar ice cap to polar ice cap, and around the watery middle before leaving for Sciona. "Far above the Moon Planet Earth is blue And there's nothing I can do," said Bas as she patted the head of an Earth toddler clinging to her leg. She was right.

I was enjoying a slice in the cafeteria during lunch when a young Earther in the crawling stage  started chewing my boot lace. I pried him off and he wailed like a siren, big tears running down his fat cheeks. 

I was ready to return the boot lace when Bas came over and picked him up as the shrieking continued. She offered him an Earth bread called bagel. He snatched it and began gnawing.. He gave me a dirty look, tears in his eyelashes.

"He's got powerful lungs," I said.

"He's teething. That's why he wants something to chew on. You should learn how to deal with personalities, Captain, beyond your command duties."

"You're right. I spend too much time with machines and star fields instead of people. Perhaps, if you are free tonight, you will join me for slices and beer and advise me."

She nodded, smiling her slow, bewitching, parn smile.