‘Celebrity or not, I still have to get these crates unloaded. The work shouldn’t be too bad now that the gravitonic field is up and we can use the float drives. I’m looking forward to that party tonight. Look, we’ve got a thousand things to talk about.’
‘Yeah, I could use a little down time, no pun intended.’ Adrian replied. ‘I know a lot of people are excited about the crab and lobster. It’s the dinosaur meat that they aren’t too sure about.’
‘Well don’t you worry.’ Tom said as he moved another crate from the cargo belt to a floating platform next to him. ‘We tried a couple of chunks of hadrosaurid last night and it was good. It tastes a little more like turkey than chicken. Same texture and it cooks up the same way. There’s just a little more of it on the dinosaur than the bird. There’s about a ton of meat on each dinosaur if you can get at all of it. We didn’t have the power to flip it over so we only brought back half of the beastie’s meat. Bottom line, if you didn’t know it was hadrosaurid you would think it was turkey.’
‘Well, let’s get a move on. If we finish early could you give me a personal tour of that grotto?’ Adrian asked as he moved over to help with the next crate.
‘Yeah sure. That’s one of the things I wanted to talk about. See you then.’ Tom replied and went back to his work.
* * * * *
‘Last night’s supper was interesting.’ Alex thought to himself as he threw some more wood onto the end stove. The hadrosaurid meat was very much like chicken. The legs had a thicker, darker texture than the breast. Like a chicken, the breast cooked up into a moist, white texture. Dave had thought it tasted more like turkey than chicken but it sure did cook up nicely.
Initially the crew feared that the meat would taste strange because of the dinosaur diet of fern and rough ground palm. Some were even afraid it would be poisonous. Their fears were unfounded and the dinner had been delicious.
The opening of the sea-netting was an adventure in itself. They needed to keep the crabs and things fresh but could not leave it in the water all night. It would have been dangerous to open the net there and try to put them into boxes. So, that night they kept the netting sealed and lifted it to the top of the cliff with the crane. Dave had the great idea of hooking a heat pump up to a nearby SilFuse shed and they refrigerated it.
Before dusk the next day, they returned to open the netting. The cooler temperatures had done their trick. The creatures were all slow moving and easier to handle now. When they opened the net, they found that, besides the crabs and lobster, there were three large snake-like creatures and a small reptile that Sara said was a mosasaur. The mosasaur looked like a cross of several animals. It had an alligator-like head with a dolphin’s front body and flippers. The tail was long as though a great eel was attached to the back. Sara mentioned that this mosasaur was obviously a very young one since it was only three feet long. Adult skeletons found uptime have shown them to grow upwards of fifty feet in length with a head that could swallow a man in one gulp.
Fortunately, the creatures were all very slow moving because of the cold. The snakes, or whatever they were, looked nasty and the mosasaur was supposed to be a meat eater.
‘We’ll have to do a lot of work before we open the beaches for swimming.’ David had commented. ‘Let’s grab a few of the crabs for dinner tonight.’
Alex and David had began planning the dinner as they walked back to the station center. ‘I have little doubt that the seafood will be good eating.’ David said in passing. ‘I’m not too sure about the hadrosaurid though and I’m definitely wary of that mosasaurous thing and those eels.’
‘Yeah,’ Alex replied. ‘How in the world could a ten foot, feathered beast with a duck-billed mouth full of teeth and arms that could be used for grabbing or running ever taste like a chicken?’
Alex had eaten many strange animals in his career. Most of the Blackwave people were used to variety in their food. The problem wouldn’t be with these people but with the scientists and their families.
‘Think of it this way Alex, humans have eaten almost every type of bird there is. We just like some better than others. People used to eat peacocks and ostrich as special treats. Romans even ate owls and hummingbirds.’
‘We know these dinosaurs are going to die out but they are from the same family that later evolves into these birds. I expect they will taste “just like chicken”.’ He laughed at the simple joke that must, in itself, be ages old. Better for us to at least test the food tonight and directly answer all of the potential fears before anyone has a chance to ask the question.’
They built a wood fire and steamed as well as grilled a sample of the all of the food. Each volunteer for the meal then voted on their favorite and was asked to comment on what they ate. Later that evening the crew all declared the shellfish fully edible, the dinosaur delicious and resolved to volunteer for any future dinner experiments.
Tier-one cargo involved the basics needed for the Station. Cretaceous Station would be a scientific studies base. Unlike remote bases on earth, they could not simply move in pre-manufactured goods. They needed to establish a moderate manufacturing capability on site and fabricate most of their tools for the next few years. They would also be building most of their larger pieces of test equipment for the experiment.
The Argos was crowded and those aboard set a high priority on the external sleeping quarters. Water, electricity and all of the other essentials of modern life took immediate precedence for the Station.
‘Drop the pallet over here by pad seven.’ Alex called over to Dieter Chintz. ‘Be careful with that thing and try to keep your eyes on the job. There will be plenty of time for gawking later.’
A very accomplished mechanical engineer, Dieter came to Blackwater from the SolTrans corporation operations in the asteroid belt. He had spent the last two years of his life in a spacesuit or space station with no access to natural sunshine. That had been then but now he was in a tropical wonderland. To call the place exotic would have been an understatement.
Dieter loved dinosaurs as a boy and had often thought of paleontology as a career before the reality of job availability hit him. The lucrative job on the asteroid belt had taken him as far from his hobby as he could envision. The vacuum of space and distance didn’t dull his love of the subject. Reading material could always be downloaded.
On a supplies run to Europa, Dieter had attended a presentation by Doctor Zoeller on some of the proto-life discovered in the liquid seas beneath the ice surface of that moon. Zoeller and Dieter had talked over dinner afterwards and two weeks later a job offer had been sent to him along with a contract settlement to SolTrans. Dieter took the offer. He’d had enough of the cold, barren asteroid work. He thought it would be nice to have a comfortable base apartment on Europa and work on the new supercavitation subs. Anything that can travel at over four hundred miles per hour under water just had to be interesting.
Dieter never landed on Europa. They made him sign a hefty non-disclosure along with his employment contract. Even then, for months he only knew that he would be security engineering on the Argos. Then the mission announcement came and he was stunned. Who had ever heard of someone actually being able to travel through time? The Argos was obviously a starship. Dieter knew the theory was there in the general relativity models but there was too much technology that had to be developed before anyone could hope to travel more than one direction in time.
This job was the dream of a lifetime and the irony was that Dieter could not tell any of his family or old friends.
‘Best job in the world, or at least on several worlds, and it’s going to get better.’ He thought to himself as he watched the antics of the small pterosaurs flying around the cliffs.
‘There’s your pump Alex. Should I remove the packing?’
‘Yep. We want to assemble this heat-pump right on the pad. Here are the drawings for attachment to the power grid and wireless transmitters. Assembly instructions should be in the package or you can download them.’
Alex tied a link to the drawings onto Dieter’s HiveTab. ‘This is going to be our main power supply for the next few months so when you run the heat exchanger down into the surf make sure the fastenings are both storm and animal proof. You might want to SilFuse a casing around the line for protection.’
Dieter knew that Alex’s “you might want” comments always actually meant “you must”.
‘Most of all, stay out of the water. If you need to go down to it for any reason at all let me or Dan know first. I’ll send over two other guys to help you.’ Alex told him and then walked over toward the residence pads.
On his way over to the residence park, Alex noticed that the ion drill was already running at the center of the plateau. They could have set up desalinization plants but ground water was always better than processed water. The limestone rocks of the cliff would provide natural salt removal. They would still have to remove the dissolved limestone from the supply but that was a minor problem.
A crowd of on-lookers had gathered by the residence.
‘I thought this was a work period people. What’s going on.’ Alex commented
Dan looked up as Alex approached. ‘One of the Hypes tried to jump through a window. He hit the clear pane and stunned himself. I think he’ll be alright though.’
‘It’s a small one, she must be very young. Are you sure nothing is broken?’ Alex asked as the Hype began to rise.
‘Seems to be ok. She might have a headache for a little while though and …’ Just then a small blue dot flew across the ground in front of Dan. He looked up and saw Gabriel Zavtek hide a laser pen in his pocket.
‘Gabe, do you know what was going on here?’ Dan asked. Gabe is a high-energy boy. That means he tended to get into trouble without meaning to. He wasn’t bad, just very inquisitive and very high energy. Dave Pope had a habit on quoting Plato whenever he was with Gabe, “Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable”’.
‘Gee, I’m sorry Mr. Drake.’ Gabriel was almost in tears. ‘She was chasing my laser like our dog used to. I didn’t expect her to jump at the window like that. We’ve been having a lot of fun. It wasn’t my fault!’
‘Ok, that explains it then.’ Dan answered. ‘No harm done. Anyway here comes her mom.’
‘Can I hold her Mr. Drake?’
‘I think it’s best if she goes off with her mom and we get back to work. Besides, she’s as big as you. You shouldn’t be carrying her around.’
The Hype came over and picked up the little one. Mom decided all was well. She put the squirming baby down and immediately began exploring the new boxes in the residence. As she passed each human she stopped to whistle hello and see if they had any handouts.
Just then, the little one jumped up and knocked Gabe to the ground. Gabe grabbed her around the head and began to wrestle. Then they got up and he yelled. “Come on Fozzie. Let’s go over and throw stones at the birds.’ The two of them ran off into the brush with the morning’s excitement forgotten.
‘Well that took about two minutes for them to become best of friends.’ Alex mentioned to Dan. ‘We seem to have taken on extra crew.’
‘Well, it was their plateau first.’ Dan smiled as he replied.
* * * * *
‘Yes, of course I’ll authorize release of some of the beer and wine stores for tonight.’ Mark Nolen finally had a chance to walk alone and be off the ship and he was annoyed at the interruption. ‘I want them to begin moving most of the food preparation onto the plateau anyway so this should require no special approval. I also want extra ice cream and cake for tonight just like we set up in the authorization. This is a special occasion! Just do it!’
It’s good having a chief chef who carefully watched the stores but she sometimes carried it to the extreme. It’s not like we have to be as careful as we do when we are on a long voyage in space. Then we have to resort to using reconstituted foodstuffs and even those had to be rationed. This is one of the big reasons for an earth-based station. We should be able to grow our own self-sustaining food.
It felt good to have the sun on your face after so many months. The air was exhilarating. What a difference a high oxygen mixture and a drop in gravity made to lift the spirits. This was indeed an interesting expedition. Things have all gone smoothly. We’ve had early indications that we will see significant changes in at least two variables that our equations were treating as constants and therefore strong indications of the tests we need to conduct to confirm these observations. This was most unusual, almost a little scary. Things just don’t go this nicely, it isn’t natural.
He cut across an open stretch of land to avoid a pond. Sara had said that there shouldn’t be any snakes around but we don’t know what unpleasant life form filled that current ecology niche.
‘Best to avoid the pond altogether. Maybe the view over here will be better. I should be able to see the ocean and the river’s mouth from the cliffs.’ Mark said to himself.
As the path opened near the cliff, he saw another man standing near the edge, staring out over the ocean. ‘Good afternoon Doctor.’ Mark said to Ian Graeme as he approached.
Ian almost stumbled out over the cliff when Mark spoke. ‘Just what in the Good Lord’s Name are you trying to do Mark? Kill me?’
‘No, I’m sorry Ian, I was just saying good day to my ships doctor. A man whom, I must say, I seldom see so much at ease. I see you took my advice and finally took a break. You look very solemn. Are you regretting your decision to come with us or simply enjoying the view?’
‘You must be kidding Mark. This is more interesting than treating headaches and giving physicals back at the Europa base. I assume I can set up shop down here now or are you going to make me leave this bonny sunshine and reside in the deep dark confines of Argos.’
‘Oh, come on. You make the Argos sound like a medieval castle instead of the luxury liner she is. As to the clinic’s location, we’ll be keeping the major equipment on board the Argos. Why go through an expensive move when we have a class one, clean room facility for your work on the ship. On the other hand I have no objections to you setting up your shingle for basic duties out in the village.’
‘We’ll be setting up a very substantial village here on the Station, Ian. Things will be moving very quickly. We’ve already been more successful than I had dared dream and as I was walking over I was already planning our next moves.’
Mark always likes to try his ideas against the wry wit of Ian. ‘If you recall, during the landing we detected some mass concentrations in areas of the continent that would one day be a source of raw gold, iron and copper. We will need these raw materials to support the modest manufacturing levels required to make our large frame toolsets and electronics. So our first excursions will be to establish some very light mining in these areas.’
‘Oh yes, I was in the conference review when they probed the areas.’ Ian replied. ‘During the data analysis I heard some of the crew wondering why we simply didn’t mine rare materials, like gold and diamonds, since we know where they’ll eventually be found. That should more than pay for the expedition.’
‘No Doctor, for all that we could transport back, that wouldn’t have paid the expenses for this little jaunt. You cannot lose focus of our real mission here. We need to improve our understanding of the true physics of gravitation. If we can improve our models then we can finally find out why our drives will not exceed the light-speed barrier.’
‘Think of it this way Doctor. Remember the state of the science of medicine in the mid-twenty first century, just about a hundred years ago to be exact. Research largely consisted of some base understanding of chemical reactions. Research would propose a set of base chemicals compounds to combat a disorder and then rely strongly on a finance-limited statistical sampling of test subjects to determine the human reaction to each drug.’
‘The physical sciences, on the other hand, had developed models to explain the laws of physics. When causal responses didn’t fit the model predictions then physics modifi
ed the models. As a result they improved their understanding of the physical laws and as the models improved they not only explained the results but could be relied on to accurately predict behavior when the input conditions changed.’
‘In contrast, medical research at the time was a hit-and-miss, trial-and-error process that relied solely on observed results without a mathematical model-driven understanding of the physical laws of the human body. Medical subjects varied in their response to the drugs with a significant number of them reacting negatively, sometimes fatally to the medicine. They had no way of predicting a drug’s response for all types of the human condition except to try an impossible number of variations. Financially and time-wise it never happened.’
‘The state of the art method of drug development was firmly entrenched in place by politically controlled government funding and the huge investments in existing prior art patents by the drug companies. This combined with an aggressive and highly lucrative trial lawyer practice firmly anchored the methods and prevented innovative advancements.’
‘It wasn’t until the mathematics based neural models for artificial intelligence were extended to the human physiology models that we developed our current ability to accurately predict human response to various chemicals. This required a thorough understanding of the entire matrix of human variables and their response interactions. Imagine releasing a medical procedure today without first modeling its response on the specific patient. A frightening thought.’
‘Well our development of the Gravitonic Drive relies on our understanding of the quantum laws of gravitation. These laws are complex and the reactions are far-reaching. Many of the variables change very little over eons of time but at least we know they are variables and not constants.’
‘Our models obviously aren’t accurate enough or we would know why our starships can’t travel at the same speed that gravitonic waves do. That is, they should be able to travel at speeds exceeding many times the speed of light. Our most favorable current assumption is that some of our so-called model constants are in fact variables. The problem may also lie in subtle interactions of existing variables that we don’t understand. This is not trivial research since all of these constants are so called Universal Constants that are fundamental to the laws of all physics. With this work, we are pushing the edges of our understanding of the universe we live in. However, until we determine which constants are actually variables and apply them to a modified gravitonic model then we cannot improve our theory and our star-drives. When we complete this work, we will then have the stars and travel between them will be measured in hours and minutes rather than years. This is what will pay for the expedition if we are successful.’
Nodal Convergence (Cretaceous Station Book 1) Page 14