The Circle

by Harold R Watson

This, I think quenched the fire and we were both able to slowly return to a calmness and peace such as we had not felt in a very long time.

  The calm lasted for a perhaps for an hour as we covered ourselves and laid close to each other, before we realized, we wanted to do it again to try to recapture the feelings we had previously experienced. We did so two more times before morning.

  At daylight, we located our swimsuits and put them back on and had began making our way back toward the motel. We were both weak and hungry by the time we reached the motel. After taking a refreshing shower, we dressed and went down stairs to the restaurant and had breakfast.

  After satisfying our appetites, we went out to the beach and walked along the edge of the water in our bare feet until our fatigue over came us and we decided to go back into our room and sack out until we regained our strength. We woke up refreshed and made love a few more times before having supper delivered to our room. We watched a little television and Tess called her mother and talked to her and the girls.

  It was Sunday night and we made arrangements to meet with them on Tuesday morning for brunch about ten before beginning our house hunting.

  Monday, we more or less repeated what we had done Saturday and Sunday not straying far from the motel.

  On Tuesday, we drove to Tess parents house and had brunch. About noon, we left their home with Tess s mother to look at some of the houses she had picked out for us to see.

  We thought that we might like to live closer to the beach than she did until she told us about some of the storms they have from time to time destroying many of the homes near the beach. We looked at four homes that first day and six on the second day. We were becoming somewhat discouraged until on the third day of our search, we came upon what we felt was the perfect home for us.

  It had everything her parents home had and then some things theirs didn t have. They said that if we wanted it, it was ours. We took it and flew back up to the mother ship a few days later to start moving some of our things from our quarters there to our new residence on Taos Island.

  It took us two weeks to complete our move in but when finished, it was worth all the efforts we had made.

  Soon it was time for the mother ship to leave. We went up there to bid our farewells and to give Admiral Collins and Mrs. Collins a few last minutes instructions. Then we returned to the surface and the mother ship left for the next leg of its journey but this time without Tess and me and the girls.

  The month of my wife s parents vacation also ended and it was now time for us to go with them to see the marvels the two cities under the ocean.

  We caught a boat early on a Tuesday morning to make the thirty-mile boat trip between Taos Island and Crystal City. The trip lasted a little over two hours. Crystal City is the largest known under ocean city in the Toren Empire. It is home to more than a million people. Every square mile or so, there are large towers which rise hundreds of feet into the air. These towers provide ventilation to the massive domes below the surface of the water.

  The domes are like giant bubbles constructed with pipes making triangular patterns into which transparent materials are fastened in a watertight configuration. Each dome is around two miles across the diameter base. The domes which number in the thousands are all connected in at least four places by tunnels that provide a place for connecting roads and rail systems that make transportation between the domes possible.

  With so many domes connected and with the triangular patterns of the connecting pipes, the city appears to be a series of crystals or diamonds when flying over from a high altitude as the reflective light plays tricks on the eyes.

  There are landing pads and runways above the water line used to carry passengers between the city and the islands and large landmasses. There are also many ship docks and cargo warehouses where large ocean liners can dock to be loaded or unloaded by giant cranes used by the steam adores and other dock workers.

  The large ventilation shafts also contain large freight elevators and smaller higher speed people elevators to make moving to various levels of the domes possible.

  We saw most of these things on the trip over on displays and models of the city but had no conception of just how massive the city is until we arrived and saw it for real.

  All the shafts are numbered and transportation above the water line is available from the terminals to the particular one closet to the dome to which you wish to travel. Once inside the dome, you will find additional travel can be made with the use of trains, buses, cars, and people movers.

  The transportation system uses a combination of crystalline fuel and electricity so there are almost no exhaust fumes to pollute the air.

  Inside the domes you will find main thoroughfares and local streets. Condo style multiplex buildings have been constructed in the living sections of each dome. Most of the commercial areas are in domes by their selves and are conveniently placed where a resident doesn t have far to travel for groceries, clothing, and other necessities.

  The air inside the domes is constantly refreshed by using a network of intake and exhaust fans powered by generators in power plants on the decks above the water line. Construction of new domes is a constant and on going process so as to provide for the growing population.

  Modular sections are manufactured on the mainland and floated and barged to the site where final assembly is made. The dome foundations are sunk and anchored to the bottom of the ocean floor and each section is then sunk and anchored to the foundation in a circular pattern moving ever upward with each section anchored to the one below it with the diameter of the circle decreasing with each section until all sections are in completing the dome.

  When all is ready including the connecting tunnels to the other domes, the seawater is pumped out to complete it. Once a dome has been tested and rendered water tight and properly ventilated, the interior construction of roads septic systems, wiring, and all the other required things necessary for living are connected and construction of homes and or commercial buildings are added last.

  We were scheduled to see completed domes as well as domes in the process to gain a better appreciation of the scope and magnitude of what can be accomplished when engineers and other scientists and workers get together to make it happen.

  In the weeks and months that followed, we spent much of our time in the domed city beneath the ocean. We learned much about the importance of controlling one s environment under the most difficult conditions.

  We learned about the harmony of man and the sea creatures around him. Every manner of marine life can be studied from the domes and actual specimens can be extracted as necessary for food and for study.

  Crystal City, the first of kind, was built primarily to provide living space for the population. Diamond City on the other hand was built primarily for mining raw materials used in the production of the crystals. It houses the miners and their support teams primarily.

  The raw materials they mine are only available on the floor of the ocean. They have mining subs that go out day and night to gather the precious resources that are later carried to the surfaces and loaded on barges and taken to the mainland to be added to other ingredients gathered through out the planet needed to create the crystals.

  Crystals are formed through advance chemical processes that include the necessary ingredients including the catalysts and temperature variations learned long ago through trial and error.

  The shear volume of crystal mixing vats computer controlled turned out to be their secret to producing such high quantities of the crystals. As you probably already are aware, the crystals manufactured on Aquarius are used for fuel of space ships on long space voyages.

  To be able to carry enough conventional fuel for such a journey would require more space than is available on a spaceship. If a space had to carry bulky conventional fuel the amount of cargo, and passenger space would be greatly
reduced and the distance of each journey would be severely limited.

  The compactness of the crystals and their tremendous fuel capacities solve the space problems. Crystals are also used for most laser technology weapons systems used through the empire.

  When we return to Earth someday, we hope to make the best crystals again as we did before the holocaust but to make enough of them to compete with Aquarius for a greater share of the market throughout the empire.

  If we can compete, we will be in a much better position to finance our rapid reconstruction efforts. That is why this time on Aquarius is so important. We learned much that should help us in the five years on Aquarius. The mother ship returned on cue.

  It was now time for us to leave the place we had learned to love and return to Starsis to prepare for our final journey home to Earth.

  My wife s mother s and father s tour on Aquarius had also come to a close and they planned to accompany us back to their home planet of Starsis where they would aid us in our final preparations for our return home.

  Our stay on Starsis this second time will keep us busy for several years until the Earth is rejuvenated enough for us to return.

  Once our final arrangements were completed, we left Aquarius in the mother ship and headed toward Starsis. It gave us much pride to add Aquarius to our flag symbol circle and signaled that our journey was now nearing completion.

  CHAPTER 15-THE DOCTOR’S WIFE

  Tess’ father, with his expertise gained primarily on Aquarius, will oversee the design and construction of a domed city that will be built on Earth near where Cleveland stood before the holocaust.

  The dome will provide the additional protection needed for the transitional workers in the early years while the planet’s flora has time to recoup and to create sufficient oxygen for a safe and comfortable out-of-doors living.

  The planet will have some oxygen by the time the doom components, that were constructed on Starsis, are moved to the earth for final assembly there. The additional oxygen required inside the dome will be provided partially from evaporation of water from the great lakes converted into hydrogen and oxygen and partially from the plant life growing in the area naturally converting carbon dioxide to usable oxygen. In addition, Tess’ mother’s field of expertise is Botany and her primary responsibility will be to select, care for, and prepare seedling plants from Starsis to be taken to Earth and transplanted there that will also add to the recovery of flora on the planet.

  We felt fortunate indeed to have Tess’ parents on our transitional team. While on Starsis, our daughters also planned to complete their doctoral degree requirements. They found apartments near the University of Quantum City where they would be living while finishing school.

  Doreen s primary field of study is architectural design and the arts while Susan is more into physics, mathematics, and spacecraft design.

  Before reaching Starsis, our long-range scanners picked up a group of space ships heading in our direction. We decided to take no chances so we cloaked the mother ship. This stymied the pursuers. We came close enough to see them but they couldn t see us. They were Atlantean ships and we knew they were up to no good.

  We made our way passed them and soon were able to resume our speed and continue on toward Starsis. It is necessary to reduce speed from WARP to IMPULSE when cloaking the mother ship. Should they be able to find us while at such low speeds, we would become sitting ducks and venerable to their attacks.

  Fortunately, we had the newer cloaking devises and they were unable to break the cloaking codes so they could find us. We reached Starsis about two and one half years after leaving Aquarius no worse for wear. It was good to see Tess and her mother spending so much time together. I got to know her father quite well also. We played golf together and he spent more time teaching me the finer points of sailing. We looked forward to continuing these activities on Starsis.

  He and Tess mother, like the other Torens we had met, never seemed to age. He looked to be in his middle to late thirties and his wife looked to be in her early to mid thirties.

  THE TOREN TWENTY was reassigned temporarily to a new crew once so it could continue its trade routes once we had settled on Starsis for such a long stay. It would continue its trade route for the next seven years before returning to Starsis again to be re-assigned to us. By that time, we should have the dome modules ready to be loaded and taken to Earth so we would again need THE TOREN TWENTY.

  In the meantime however, it was too valuable as a trade ship to just stand by and wait until we needed it again.

  We were able to lease a condo by the lake near where Tess parents had lived the first time we were on Starsis. They had to move to another part of the planet to work on their assigned projects. Tess and I needed to be close to Quantum City to coordinate all the efforts necessary for the eventual transition back to Earth.

  Dr. Miller and Mrs. Miller (Margaret) lived across the hall from us in a condo in the same complex as ours. Margaret Miller and Tess continued to be very close friends and they spent much of their free time together.

  Dr. Miller worked at one of the main hospitals in Quantum City during the day and returned home each evening after work.

  Tess had an office in Quantum City near the capitol building where she did much of her work when she was not out having meetings with government officials or with her transition team.

  I had an office located in a local commercial office building where I did most of my work on other projects of equal importance. I too had my own transition team. Tess and I split up the work projects in an effort to complete them in less time than if we worked on the same ones together.

  We didn t see each other much during the work day but when we returned home in the evening, we discussed the events of the day to help us stay focused and cognizant of each other s progress. Sometimes I had ideas to help her over a hurdle that was causing her concerns and sometimes she had ideas to help me. We had a good system and I felt we were both making good progress toward accomplishing our goals.

  One of the main projects that Tess group was working on presently, was the design and eventual construction of several communications sites to be built between Starsis and Earth.

  These sites would greatly enhance our ability to and shorten the time needed to send and receive messages between Starsis and Earth.

  These manned sites would also provide us with an early warning system detailing unauthorized movements between that sector of the Atlantean Empire and Earth by alien forces.

  The part of the mission I was working on at the present time was to list the necessities we would need on Earth during the period between our arrival and when we could produce for our own needs without outside help.

  It was estimated from our computations that we should have about two hundred and forty thousand people in the earth contingent by the time we left Starsis. That s a lot of supplies and provisions to be listed, gathered, transported, and secured before attempting to permanently relocate so many on Earth.

  It was not all work and no play though. We had acquired the sail boat from Tess parents that had been maintained for them at a local marina while they had been away on Aquarius. It was in ship shape and ready for sailing when it was delivered to our boat dock by Tess father. He asked us to take good care of it for him until he could move back to the lake again.

  Every weekend when the weather permitted, we would sail on the lake to help us unwind and relax. More often than not, Dr. and Mrs. Miller accompanied us on these cruises. Occasionally, we would visit Dr. Collins and Mrs. Collins who lived on the south side of the lake. Our condo was on the north side of the lake.

  Dr. and Mrs. Collins were both on Tess transition team but were often away from Quantum City on special assignments working with manufacturing facilities that could help them turn their designs for communication stations into prototypes for testing purposes.<
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  When they were there, we would sometimes dock the boat and go to their place for a cook out before returning to the boat at night to sleep.

  We were becoming excellent sailors and I liked it when Dr. Miller came along because he helped with the rigging and because we both liked to fish. I don t think Tess and Margaret ever really got the hang of fishing and I don t think either one of them enjoyed fishing very much.

  Sometimes the girls would come home for the weekend and go sailing with us but more often they would remain at the university because of homework they had to complete before returning to Monday classes.

  We saw Tess parents about twice a year when they would come to visit us or we would go the visit them on vacation. After nearly two years working on the communication site project, it came time to test one of the prototypes in space. It would be the first of three such sites.

  Tess and her team which included Dr. Collins and his wife and several other scientists had the various parts loaded on six star cruisers that would go to the proposed location in space and erect the station from the parts they had stored aboard the cruisers.

  She and her party would be away from Starsis for six to eight months at a time before beginning a rotation back to Starsis for the next set of parts. The actual assembly of this first site was expected to take about three years.

  Once it was completed, a work crew would move to the second site to finish the second one and then on to the third site.

  Tess and Dr. Collins would help to train construction crews while at the first station. They would not have to go with them on the construction of the second and third stations. She would be busy on other projects that would keep her back on Starsis after the first one was completed.

  I did not look forward to the day that Tess would have to leave. She could be away from Starsis possibly as much as year or more. The day of her departure came much too soon. Before she left, she brought home a female android she and her mother had designed to look and talk like her. It had her dimensions and its features were molded from her body and face. Its hair even looked like hers.