“I have already directed the professor to come up with ideas on how we can best preserve the authenticity and beauty of this world while we go about exploring and exploiting its abundant resources for the growth and advancement of GEI. I expect all of you to work together on ensuring that this second Earth that we are seeing here becomes our best investment ever. We are going to use the mistakes suffered on Planet Earth as lessons to guide and direct us on the ways we will avoid such pitfalls. Dan-X34 will be our own paradise and our own future.”
There was a standing ovation as the technical crew stood up and started clapping once again.
“Thank you,” Richard said. “However, this is when the real work is going to start. And I count on your dedication and loyalty as always. From time to time, I will be sending you some ideas I have of various structures I feel could be erected in certain places. I am counting on you to take those ideas and translate them into sustainable and workable projects.
“Anything that will not be suitable to the planet, anything that will constitute a hazard of any sort and in any way must, I repeat must, not be encouraged. Such hazardous initiatives must be discarded immediately, no matter how lofty or laudable the ideas might be. Our aim is to build environmentally friendly and ecologically stable systems, projects, and structures that will, if possible, give back much more than is taken away from Dan-X34.
“I expect that more trips will be carried out by some of you as you go to do further in-depth surveys and analysis. We will need to perform further tests on the entire system; the soils, the plant life, the atmosphere, and the water, everything that is underground and above the ground. We have to get this project right from the beginning. And to ensure success, nothing is going to be left to chance.
“In time, our design crews will be involved in developing plans for residential areas, service sites, recreational facilities, mining and extraction facilities, and so on. The key focus for all of these projects will be the preservation and protection of the environment.”
After his speech, Richard left the conference room. He had faith in the caliber of staff that made up his technical crew. He knew they were going to do their best to handle the situation at hand.
As he walked, images of Dan-X34 flashed through his mind, causing him to smile involuntarily.
This is indeed a second chance, and not just for GEI, he was thinking.
This is a second chance for Earth as well.
CHAPTER TWO
The phone suddenly began to ring.
Richard stirred and turned on his bed. He turned on the bedside light and looked at the clock on the dressing table close to him.
The time was two in the morning.
He leaned over and picked up his smartphone, which was still ringing.
He checked the caller ID and discovered that it was Andrews.
“Hello, Professor. Good morning. What could be making you call me so early in the morning?” Richard asked.
“I really apologize about this sudden call, Mr. Daniels. But you know that I would not have thought of interrupting your sleep if it was not something serious,” Andrews replied.
“It’s all right, Professor. But what could it be that is so serious and cannot wait until we get to the office later in the morning?” Richard asked.
“I am already in the office, Mr. Daniels. In fact, I worked all through the night trying to resolve some of these upcoming issues here,” Andrews said.
Richard sat up. “Wait a minute, Professor. Are you trying to tell me that you have been awake all night?”
“Yes, Mr. Daniels. That shows you how serious the issue is. I thought it was something that I was going to be able to resolve easily with some thinking and modeling. But, I have to confess that it has overwhelmed me. And that is why I am calling on you, Mr. Daniels.”
“Overwhelmed you? Wait, Professor. Can you keep aside all the riddles and come out plain with me. What is the matter? Is there anything wrong?”
“Yes, Mr. Daniels. And it has to do with Dan-X34.”
Richard’ eyes widened in surprise. “Dan-X34? What is wrong with our planet?”
“I don’t know how to describe it to you over the phone, Mr. Daniels. I think it is best that you come over here and see things for yourself, sir.”
Richard jumped up from his bed. “I will be there in an hour, Professor.”
“No problem, Mr. Daniels. I will still be here in the conference room at headquarters waiting for you,” Andrews said before the line went dead.
As Richard hurried to take a quick shower, his mind was flooded with thoughts of what could have gone wrong on Dan-X34.
*** Richard’s limousine was pulling up into the driveway of GEI Headquarters.
The security officials were surprised to see their CEO so early in the morning. “Good morning, Mr. Daniels,” they all greeted.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Richard nodded before hurrying into the elevator.
Soon, he was rushing through the doors of the conference room.
As he came in, he saw that the old professor was seated on one of the leather seats, asleep. The widescreen TV was off, and only one table light was turned on. It gave sufficient illumination for anyone to see that the conference room table was littered with several sheaves of paper and documents.
There was no doubt about the source of these papers, Richard thought as he picked up some of them to study.
But he could not make sense of any of them. They were mostly formulas and calculations the professor had been making, as well as several printouts and readings.
Richard walked up to Andrews and tapped his arm. “Professor? Professor Andrews?”
Andrews stirred and woke up. As he did, he sat up from his chair and adjusted his spectacles. “Yes, yes, Mr. Daniels. Good morning once again. I see you were able to make it in record time. Sorry about the call. You know, I would have handled things by myself if I thought it was possible. But that I had to call you will show you just how serious the situation is.”
Richard nodded and waved some of the documents in his hands. “It is all right, Professor. So, is this what it is all about?”
The professor peered at the documents in his CEO’s hands. “You mean those? No, no, no. I was just making some calculations and designing models with those. That is just paperwork, Mr. Daniels.”
Richard looked back at the documents in his hands. He then looked at those on the conference table. “You say it is just paperwork, Professor? Well, I can see it must have taken up much of your time,” Richard said as he picked a chair and sat down in it.
Andrews nodded. “Yes, yes, Mr. Daniels. It does take up most of our time. But that is just because it is through all this modeling that we try to solve perceived problems. You know, when we are searching for the best way out of difficult situations.”
“I see. So what is all this about, Professor?”
Andrews picked up a remote and pointed it at the huge widescreen that was on the wall. As he did so, the screen suddenly came to life. But it was not showing any program. Rather, images were scrolling through it.
Richard watched the images as they were flashed on the screen.
“Do you recognize any of this, Mr. Daniels?” Andrews asked.
“Not really, Professor. I can see a lot of terrain and vast expanses of empty lands.”
Andrews pressed the remote and the images changed and began to focus on highrise lands and hills.
“What about now, Mr. Daniels?”
“Hills, and mountainous terrain,” Richard replied.
“Can you recognize anything about that terrain? Anything at all?”
Richard shook his head. “No, Professor. What am I supposed to recognize?”
“That is taken from Planet Dan-X34, sir.”
Richard nodded. “Yes, but there is no way to tell what the exact location is just by looking at them. So, what is there about these images of Dan-X34 that should be of interest to me at two in the morning, Professor?”
<
br /> “I'm sorry, Mr. Daniels. But look closer. What else do you see beyond just the terrain?”
Richard gazed some more at the pictures. After a while, he shook his head. “Professor, it is just more mountains that I can see. That entire region is mountainous terrain. What am I supposed to see?”
“Gold,” Andrews announced.
“Gold?” Richard repeated, and looked back at the widescreen. After a while, Richard looked away, frowning. “There is no gold there, Professor. It’s just the mountains. Are you sure of what you are saying?”
“A minute please, Mr. Daniels,” Andrews said. He then pressed a button on the remote and the images suddenly changed from colored to black and white. And as the pictures were changed, Richard could now see that there were huge bright-white areas at the base of each of the mountains.
At this point, Richard sat up. “Wait a minute, Professor. Is that what I think it is?”
Andrews nodded. “Yes, Mr. Daniels. Pure gold. Of course, it is invisible to the naked eye. But once the image is switched to infrared, you can see that the gold just shines through effortlessly.”
Richard ran his fingers through his hair. “This is remarkable, Professor. And to think that the pyramids had so many gold statues!”
“Yes, Mr. Daniels. But from these deposits, we now know that the gold was originally on the planet. Whoever the first visitors were must have discovered it and then set about to mold the gold statues that we discovered in the pyramids.”
“But how did you discover the gold, Professor?”
Andrews ransacked the littered table. Eventually, he found what he was looking for. “It was through these, Mr. Daniels.”
Richard collected the sheaf of papers that Andrews handed over to him. He peered through the pile of printouts quietly for a while before he shook his head. “I am sorry, Professor. But I cannot seem to make sense of any of these documents. What are they?”
“It is the writings from the walls, Mr. Daniels. Do you remember them?”
Richard nodded. “The alien inscriptions that we saw on the walls of the pyramids? Yes, I can vividly recall what they looked like. But these printouts do not resemble what was written there.”
“Yes, that is true. Those printouts are simply an algorithm I designed to decipher the writings on the walls.”
“You were able to understand the writings on the walls?”
Andrews nodded. “Perfectly, Mr. Daniels.”
Richard smiled. “Wow, Professor. You never cease to amaze me. That is very ingenious and remarkable.”
Andrews shook his head. “Thank you, Mr. Daniels. But the really ingenious thing is that these writings are a record of all that the alien visitors went through in order to build the pyramids. It details how they were able to discover the huge deposits of gold on the planet, as well as their plans to mold statues out of it.”
Richard nodded. “Really? This is interesting, Professor. So Dan-X34 actually has gold?”
“No, Mr. Daniels. The planet does not just have gold. It has lots of gold. In fact, it is overflowing with the precious metal. Virtually all of the mountains have an abundance of gold lying underneath each of them.”
“All of the mountains?”
Andrews nodded and picked up a file from the table. “Initially, we were not really sure about what kinds of resources such planets like Dan-X34 would possess. All of our initial readings and studies were pointing to the fact that gold, as well as other precious metals, was supposed to be one of the numerous resources we were going to discover.”
Richard nodded. “Yes, I do remember, Professor. At that time, the expectations were that it was supposed to be one of the very first groups of resources that we would discover.”
“And yes, we finally discovered the existence of gold, and the quantities are unbelievably huge.”
“Other than you and me, who else knows about the gold?” Richard asked.
“No one,” Andrews shook his head.
“Good. Just keep this matter between the both of us for now, and work on a plan to extract it. How long do you need?”
“One week, sir.”
*** After one week, Andrews entered Richard's office holding some files and said, “Sir, there is a problem. We have tried everything possible to reach the gold deposits but we have not been able to succeed.”
Richard was surprised. “You mean that we cannot mine and extract the gold?”
The professor nodded. “In simple terms, we do not have the technological capacity to even extract it in the crudest of forms.”
“I need to understand this better, Professor. Is it that our initial discoveries were wrong, that there does not exist any gold deposits? Or that we were actually right about the gold but it is just that we cannot get to it?”
“We have been right all along, Mr. Daniels, even up to this very moment. We know that there is an overabundance of gold just beneath all the mountains of this planet. But no matter what we do, extraction has become a serious challenge for us. We have tried every technological device that we presently possess, and even gone ahead to design more sophisticated methods. But our results have all proven unsuccessful. We cannot mine the gold.”
“This is serious, Professor. So we are literally standing upon gold which we cannot use for anything?”
“For now, yes.”
“Have you made contact with anyone here on Planet Earth? Is there no technology that we can borrow to use?”
Andrews shook his head. “We have literally combed all the ends of Earth, made contacts with the leading drilling, mining, and technology companies. None of them have the capabilities for mining resources in deep or outer space.”
“And what about the technologies that we used to extract the ores from some of our other planets? Can’t they be used?”
“Negative, Mr. Daniels. They cannot be used.”
Richard flipped through the file. “We will need to take a closer look at this, Professor. We have to find a way to get to that gold. How can it be that we cannot mine it there on Dan-X34? We can’t ship it back to Earth, and neither can we purify it for use. What is the point in having what we cannot use?”
“Well, you know that all our theories about the gold were only theories. We were only able to confirm them after we actually began to search in the right places. And our targeted search was only made possible because we had something very concrete to work with.”
“What are you saying, Professor?”
“Mr. Daniels, have you really thought about how the aliens made use of the gold that they used for their statues, and how it was extracted in the first place?”
Richard shook his head. “No, not really, Professor. Do you know how they did it? Did you find out anything about how the aliens extracted the gold from underneath the mountains?”
“Well, we studied their writings, and you will be amazed by the amount of detailed records of successes they had at this very same issue that is troubling us presently.”
“You mean that the aliens were able to extract it? Did they say how they did it?”
Andrews nodded. “Yes, they did, Mr. Daniels. And in very explicit details too.”
“Well? Spit it out, Professor. How did they do it?”
“They simply destroyed the mountains that were there and they were able to get to the gold,” Andrews replied.
Richard sat up. “Wait, what was that you just said?”
“From the writings, in order to get to the gold, the aliens had to destroy the mountains.”
“Destroy the mountains? What kind of extraction method is that?” Richard asked.
“The aliens stated that it was the only method for extracting the gold because of its mode of occurrence and very high purity levels. According to them, any mountain that was destroyed and had its gold extracted was simply turned into a plain or a lake.”
“Wait a minute, Professor. Are you trying to say that in order to extract these abundant supplies of gold, we will have to destroy the mountai
ns?”
Andrews nodded. “Yes, Mr. Daniels. I am afraid that is what it has to be. The aliens tried all methods of extraction but all were unsuccessful. Destroying the mountains became the only solution available.”
Richard shook his head vehemently. “I disagree with this approach, Professor. We are not going to destroy this planet just because of its gold. Never.”
“But, Mr. Daniels, the gold is very pure. It will be very valuable.”
“I don’t care, Professor. Have you so soon forgotten what has been happening on Earth all these past centuries? Have you forgotten the environmental degradation that takes place once you begin to extract minerals? We are not destroying any mountain just because of the gold. It is not going to happen.”
Andrews looked at the sheaf of papers in his hands. “I understand, sir.”
“Professor, conservation of Dan-X34 is of utmost importance to us. Always remember this in all the activities and plans that are being outlined for this planet. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Mr. Daniels. Crystal clear.”
“We should always be guided by the memory of the avoidable and large-scale destruction that has been effected on Earth’s environment as a result of greed and selfishness. Global warming, outbreak of diseases, and even drastic and dramatic changes in climate and weather patterns are all a result of our insistence to continue to exploit this planet. Although Earth is now being gradually rehabilitated, we all know that it can never be fully restored to what it was in the beginning. I think it will simply be dangerous and reckless of us to try to jeopardize such a good thing because of our greed and lack of foresight. Find another way.”
“I understand, Mr. Daniels. We will work harder to find another way.”
“Good. Now, is there any other issue that will be requiring my attention, Professor?”
Andrews shook his head. “No, Mr. Daniels. There is no other issue.”
Richard got up. “All right then, Professor. You are doing a good job for all of us here at GEI. Just remember that we already have reasons why we don’t want to do certain things, especially with Dan-X34. We must conserve its environment at all costs, even if it means sacrificing the potentials for making huge returns from selling gold that can only be extracted through degradation and devastation of the planet’s environment.”
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