Verron_Birth of a Nation

by Douglas Varnell

  There was plenty of the day left even after they decided to take a look around the small town in the middle of the agricultural belt of Verron. Paul could see all kinds of potential in this little community. He envisioned it would one day be the size of St. Louis or Kansas City; possibly even Dallas-Fort Worth. The river here was about as wide as he remembered the Mississippi River being as it flowed past Tennessee and Mississippi, except the surrounding land appeared to be a bit higher than the flood plains of the Delta. It didn’t take much for Zimuel to convince Paul that they needed to spend some time now on developing his use of The Power. So they headed northeast, back toward the Robert’s Range and the deserted valley Zimuel spotted the day before. Soon the rolling hills grew to be small mountains and flowed into the shadows of The Robert’s Range. Paul gradually increased his elevation as soon as the mountain range appeared on the horizon. He was cruising at 60,000 feet by the time they reached the mountains. Once over the southern cluster of peaks he started to descend into the high plains. Zimuel had a good sense of direction and actually remembered the coordinates of the valley from looking at the navigational gauges on the control panel when they flew over the previous day. As they approached the area they were seeking, Paul brought the ship down to 30,000 feet, about 25,000 feet above the valley floor. It was undoubtedly one of the ugliest places either of them had ever seen. It really did look like the surface of some uninhabitable planet. The mountain walls rose above the valley floor 30,000 feet to the south and at least 20,000 feet to the north. The faces of the surrounding mountains were straight up, as if the sides of the mountains had sheared off and fallen into the valley in massive chunks of stone. There was not a tree, a blade of grass, even a weed in this waterless wasteland. Paul had a hard time finding a space level and free of boulders large enough to land the ship. He decided as he was trying to squeeze the ship into a wide ravine that they needed to get themselves a smaller ship for cruising around Verron. His next stop would have to be the ship yard, “Lucy, this is ridiculous, this ship is clearly too large for exploring the planet. There has to be something smaller, in say, a 6 passenger capacity, not equipped with offices or sleeping quarters, you get the idea. I want to be able to access every nook and cranny on Verron.” Lucy responded, “As you….wish.” Paul laughed, telling her, “It’s OK, I’ve gotten used to it now and it’s kind of cute. Hey, instead of us flying out to the ship yard, can you find something and fly it back to Mountain City? I trust your judgment to find what we need.” “As you wish” blurted Lucy. Paul quickly responded, “It’s cute but don’t wear it out.” “Yes Sir, Mr. Verron.” He and Zimuel had a good laugh as they climbed out of the ship and into the brisk mountain air.

  “Alright, boss, what do you want me to do first?” asked Paul. Zimuel looked around at his surroundings and replied, “Well, there is no shortage of rocks, why don’t you start by working on those. Just remember that with fully developed psychokinesis there are very few limits to the possibilities of what you can do. If you can think it, you can make it happen. We are on Verron away from the large population centers of Xhondar for the sole purpose of allowing you to relax and use those powers without restraint. Once you learn the full potential of what you can do, then we will work on the control.” Zimuel looked around the boulder strewn valley. “I don’t think you can hurt anyone here, but I am going to keep behind you just in case.” Paul looked across a small clearing and decided to not waste his time on small objects. There was a boulder as big as tractor-trailer truck leaning against another about twice that size. Paul concentrated on the levitation of the boulder. He had easily moved dozens of objects at once back on Xhondar but never anything this size. As the giant bolder began to vibrate and lift off the ground, he quickly realized that, from his perspective, the size the object to be lifted mattered very little. What really mattered was the size of his attitude. He soon had the massive rock hanging 20 feet in the air. To Zimuel’s surprise, the second chunk of mountain began to rise from where it had been for thousands of years, and was soon floating in the air next to the other. Without blinking, waving his hands or any other movement for dramatic effect, Paul hurled the two boulders simultaneously a distance of over 100 yards. On impact, they both exploded into a wave filled with thousands of smaller stones. Although the flying stones bounced off of rock walls in every direction, not even one of them landed within three feet of where Paul and Zimuel were standing. Paul grinned as he turned to Zimuel, “How’s that?” Zimuel patted him on the back and answered sarcastically, “Not bad for a beginner.”

  They spent the next couple of hours moving rocks and boulders, making them explode, or turn into fireballs as they flew across the valley. Paul even held several dozen smaller rocks suspended in front of him then propelled them one at a time toward a selected target with speeds equal to a rifle shot, 800 yards across the valley, with deadly accuracy. Before he switched to doing something else, Paul hurled one last truck sized boulder across the valley floor, striking the side of the mountain above. It exploded on impact and caused hundreds of tons of rock to break loose from the mountainside and rumble to the ground below. They were far enough away to be completely safe, but the roar of the avalanche was deafening and it took a good while for the dust to settle as it swept across the narrow valley. Paul then turned and began walking towards the other end of the valley. As he walked a straight line across the valley, every object in front of him, regardless of size, was either blown apart or thrown clear of his path. About 100 yards away from where they started they both turned and looked back. There was a perfectly clear and straight path about 100 feet wide, all the way back to where they had begun. He grinned and said, “We shouldn’t have any problem finding a place to land next time we come here.”

  Paul was getting bored with blowing up and moving rocks so he decided to do something a little different. As the two of them walked by a chunk of rock a couple hundred feet high, Paul began to rise in the air, headed towards the top. He landed on its peak and shouted down to Zimuel. “You should see the view from up here.” Without warning, Zimuel began to rise at a brisk pace toward the point occupied by Paul. After a good safe landing, Paul asked himself as he rubbed his hands together in mischief, “What next?” Suddenly he leaped from the peak he was on to another 50 yards away and a good 40 feet taller; landing safely. Even as Zimuel was saying, “No way,” he was flying through the air to join Paul. After Zimuel landed safely beside his friend, Paul smirked, “I suppose you would consider it cheating if I did this on our morning runs.” Zimuel smiled and joked, “I could probably deal with it, but poor 99 would most assuredly freak out.” Paul couldn’t help but notice how Zimuel was picking up his slang. They both laughed at the thought of poor 99 trying to figure out how he did it. The valley was so deep and the mountains so tall that it felt like it was after sunset shortly after the sun began to recede behind the peaks. Paul created a large fireball and had it hover above them as they walked back to the ship, then threw it at a car size boulder across from them just as he was about to board the transport. It burned a hole about 4 feet in diameter all the way through the boulder. As he stepped inside and closed the cabin door, Paul patted Zimuel on the shoulder and said, “Your idea of coming here to practice my use of The Power was first-rate. I would have been far too self-conscious to ever try any of this back on Xhondar. And you were right, most of what I did definitely needed more control before I could ever use it around others without getting innocent people hurt.” Zimuel paused as he thought of his reply then said, “I’ve said this before and I’m even more certain after today than ever before, Paul you have the potential to be the most powerful user of The Power that I have ever seen. But power without control as you well know can be very dangerous. You keep using the power to the maximum of your potential while we’re here and before long you’ll develop the control required to keep yourself and others safe. It’s still fairly early, any idea about what you’d like to do before we head back to Mountain City?”

  As
he used his antigravity to hover above the surrounding mountain peaks, Paul asked Zimuel, “What time is Tlase expecting us to be back?” Zimuel looked at his 36 hour Verron watch and answered, “In about 6 hours.” Paul pointed the shiny gold ship towards the west and replied, “That should be enough.” He gradually accelerated the ship up to just under 20,000 mph as he followed the Robert’s Range towards the western coast. “Let’s get a quick look at the rest of this place. At our current speed we should be able to make it all the way around by supper time.” Paul changed his heading in order to circumnavigate Verron closer to its equator. He reduced his altitude to 30,000 feet to get a better view of what was below; as brief as it may be at his current speed. He knew there were other mountains on Verron, but it was a clear day and he would have plenty of time to change altitude if it were required. They flew back over the wheat fields as Paul thought of the billions of people that wheat could feed and here it was just wasting away. He knew he had to do something as soon as possible. It wasn’t like the people of Xhondar were in a third world country, but with 70 billion mouths to feed he knew that not everyone had enough to eat. He could soon see the west coast of this huge continent is the distance and realized it was just as beautiful here as it was back around Mountain City. There were mountains of 6 to 20,000 feet about 400 miles from the coast that tapered down as they traveled west. From what he could remember from National Geographic magazines he had read over the years, the area along the coast and extending inland for almost two thousand miles looked like the tropical Amazon jungles of Brazil, Bolivia and Ecuador. There were miles of rivers, lakes and swamps; he could only imagine what might live down there.

  The flight across an ocean more than twice as wide as the Pacific would normally be extremely boring, but thanks to their speed and the fact that the ocean was strewn with thousands of islands ranging in size from the size of Bimini to a few almost as large as Alaska, neither of them were bored. Paul lowered his altitude to 10,000 feet to get a better look but soon realized that many of the islands had mountains exceeding 20,000 feet, so he went back up to his original 30,000. As he looked out below, the two of them couldn’t help but observe that there where things swimming in the oceans large enough to be seen from 30,000 feet and that some of the waves crashing against the shores of a couple of the islands had to be at least 50 footers to be seen so clearly from his vantage point. He thought that no doubt, the surfers on Earth would flock to this place. The eastern most coast of the next continent was coming into view on the horizon and Paul could tell that it also had a large mountain range running north to south along the coast. As he approached, navigational aids determined that the highest peak was 40,000 feet; most were in the 8 to 20,000 foot range. There was no beach, just a sheer rock face rising high above the ocean below. There were fjords miles wide with mountains looming above, some as high 30,000 feet. As they moved inland and the mountains began to recede and the fjords ended at the mouths of rivers, the land looked fertile and lush. It reminded Paul of the lush valleys of France or Spain that grew grapes for wine. That soon became a high plain or plateau that went on for miles in every direction and maintained a fairly consistent elevation of about 5,000 feet. It reminded Paul of the farm land where the wheat fields were, except totally wild and untouched. There were large herds of animals, of many different varieties, roaming these plains. From above, it appeared that there was plenty of water and vegetation to sustain them for years to come. The plains dropped off abruptly into a flat lowland area that extended for another 2000 miles. The area was full of rivers and streams and smaller vegetation. It reminded Paul of the flatter areas of Europe, like Belgium or Holland. He doubted that it was low enough to need dikes and levees, but it was the lowest land he had seen so far on Verron.

  As they approached the western coast of another continent, Paul could see a mammoth island rising high out of the ocean a short distance from the coast. As he got closer he realized that it was one colossal rock. It had to be at least 300 miles wide from his eastern perspective and rose straight up from the sea to 20,000 feet above sea level. There was no vegetation anywhere to be seen. It was perfectly flat on top and he soon could see that it extended for at least 500 miles to the west. As he got closer he actually slowed down and hovered alongside the northern face of the behemoth. The thing was full of caves, many large enough that he could easily fly his ship into it with room to spare. Flying around the massive stone were thousands of extremely large birds, at least four times the size of a Golden Eagle or a Condor. There were nests in many of the caves and hundreds of young. Zimuel got excited and told Paul, “Those are Sea Eagles. I have heard of them from Tlase, but always thought it was some kind of myth. It’s said that they can catch the winds and stay aloft for days at a time while they hunt for the only kind of fish they eat. The fish are migratory but the birds live in only one place. So they will fly thousands of miles to find their food. They never land anywhere but here.” Paul could see several of them circling his ship being lifted by the currents of air. They were a beautiful sight and Paul realized his presence was disturbing them. He moved on.

  The stretch of ocean to the next continent was as boring as any other ocean. Paul could see some islands off to the south and one or two to the north, but nothing exciting. He picked-up his speed and was soon looking at the east coast of the continent he had started from. This side had a tapered terrain. It looked more like the Carolina or Virginia coast and even resembled those states for the next few hundred miles, gradually rising into mountains very much like the Appalachians, those abruptly turned into mountains more like the Alps filled with lush forests and fertile valleys. The rivers cutting through the mountains had their source in the Robert’s Range and as Paul followed one of those rivers west it flowed through the opposite end of that tremendous canyon that he and Zimuel had flown over just a couple of days before. It had to be the longest and deepest canyon imaginable. No less than four rivers cut through it and in places it was 200 miles wide. The rock and land formations in the canyon were like none either of them had ever seen. There were natural bridges, miles of giant pillars rising out of the canyon bed, an area of at least 100 square miles filled with continuous ravines hundreds of feet deep that looked like a maze. They finally reached the tributaries of the Crystal River and followed it toward home. Five hours and twenty three minutes from when they began. Paul was glad to be home. Home, it was hard to comprehend that this was his home and everything he had just seen was his. It made him feel so small. As they were approaching Mountain City, Zimuel made a point, saying, “You realize of course we actually saw little of what’s really on this planet?” Paul nodded and replied, “I intend to make it part of my routine to visit a different part of the planet as often as possible, after all, I don’t need to use one of these to get there in the blink of an eye. Besides, I’m here to practice using The Power, what better way to practice Dimensional Travel than to hop around Verron using gateways and teleportation jumps.” Zimuel agreed with Paul’s concise assessment of his situation and replied, “I intend to go with you, at least in the beginning.”

  As they entered the hanger, it struck Paul that it was beginning to look like his family’s driveway, each person with his or her own vehicle, a recreational vehicle, the Destroyer, and a work vehicle. He landed next to a small black, sleek looking craft only about twenty-five feet long. He immediately took a look at it when he got out of the executive ship. It was perfect. It carried four passengers plus the pilot and co-pilot. There was a small stowage area behind the four passenger seats. It reminded Paul of a small commuter airplane, but a bit wider. The over the top stubby wings were typical of Xhondarian design. As he checked it out Lucy spoke through his neuro implant, “I hope this is satisfactory. It is much smaller, but unlike a transport, it will hit escape velocity, has a warp drive and can reach 50 L.S. It should meet your requirements. The only armament is the force-field and 20mm Photon cannon with 5,000 rounds.” Paul laughed at the thought of a family sedan equippe
d with a 20mm cannon. He glanced briefly at the large mobile lab sitting across the hanger from the other three ships and perked-up as he noticed something interesting beside it. Before he could walk across the hanger to take a closer look 99 came out of the lab yelling, “aul, aul.” He couldn’t help but smile as the little guy ran, not to him, but to the two machines parked beside the lab, and once again yelled, “ook, ook.”