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Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Pilgrims' Moon
-Awakening
Scott saw that the commander wore the dark black uniform favored by the
employees of Terranova Corporation, or T-Corp, the corporate owners of the Argo
as well as the administrators of the Terranova Colony. On one side of Adams’s
broad chest was a stylized red “T” shaped like two intersecting narrow
triangles.
Adams playfully punched Scott on the upper shoulder. “Jess tells me that you’re
doing well. How do you feel?
“Better all the time. At first I felt like I had been hit by a truck.”
Adams grinned. “I understand. I usually feel the same way after coming out of
biostasis. It’s sort of like getting drunk—you don’t know why you keep doing
it.”
Scott was taken aback by Adams’s demeanor. He seemed awfully young to be in
charge of such a large starship, and Scott wondered why he did not recall
meeting Adams previously.
“Commander, I need some answers about what’s going on here. Doctor Colby wasn’t
very talkative.”
Adams glanced at Jessie with a puzzled look on his face.
She shrugged defensively. “I thought it best that the commanding officer be the
one to break the news to our guest.”
“News? What news?”
Commander Adams folded his arms across his chest and sighed nervously. “We’ve
had an unexpected deviation in our flight trajectory.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re off course—the Argo is presently in unexplored regions of deep space.”
“I don’t understand. How could this happen?”
Adams gestured toward Jessie’s illuminated computer monitor. “Blame it on the
TCS. We recently learned it has some bugs in it.”
“You lost me. TCS?”
“Tachyonic Computer System—the Argo’s main computer. It apparently malfunctioned
while we were all in biostasis, sending the Argo off course.”
“So make a course correction—”
“It’s not that simple, Scott,” Jessie interrupted.
“The Argo passed through some sort of unknown space anomaly. We are now too far
to proceed to Terranova or return to Earth,” Adams said.
“Space anomaly?”
“Our navigator theorized that it was some sort of distortion in the fabric of
the space-time continuum. In any case, the Argo passed through this wrinkle in
space and emerged hundreds of light-years away from its original position.”
Scott rubbed his chin as he recalled reading a recent article on such phenomena
in a prestigious scientific journal. “Space-time distortions have been theorized
but never directly observed. If what you say is correct, we’ve made a
significant scientific discovery.”
Jessie rolled her eyes. “You may find that interesting from a scientific point
of view, but the bottom line is that we’re on our own out here, Scott.”
“I understand.”
“It’s the only possible explanation, Professor Thorne,” Adams grumbled, “because
not only are we hundreds of light-years off course, but we’re also hundreds of
years off course.”
“Did you say years?”
“Yes. It was a space-time distortion. We estimate that the Argo has traveled
forward in time by about 500 years.”
“Either that or 500 years elapsed in the outside universe in the meantime while
the ship was trapped inside the space anomaly,” Jessie added. “Regardless, the
effect is the same.”
“Five hundred years!” Scott gasped as the realization washed over him and turned
his knees to rubber. “How could that be true? Surely I didn’t sleep in that
miserable glass chamber for 500 years!”
“According to the ship’s internal chronometer, the Argo has been in flight for
just ten years,” Adams explained.
“But it was only supposed to be a two-year voyage!”
Jessie motioned toward a darkened biostasis chamber on her right. “You can see
that some of us weren’t very lucky in those ten years.”
Scott swallowed and glanced at his feet with embarrassment. “Sorry.”
She gently grasped his forearm. “Are you okay? I know it’s a lot to process.”
He did not respond as he grappled with the ramifications. “If what you say is
true, then everything of our world is…gone.”
She bit her lower lip and nodded almost imperceptibly.
Scott drew a deep breath. “I would like to review your evidence of the existence
of this space anomaly and check your calculations as soon as possible.”
“Of course,” Adams said. “However, we’re confident that our conclusions are
correct.”
“We know that this news is very difficult to digest, Scott,” Jessie said. “It
took us a while to accept it as well.”
“We estimate that it’s currently the year 2704 based on the relative location of
various stars; however, our calculation is imprecise, and we may be off a few
years,” Adams said.
Scott mouthed the year. It seemed unreal. They had been scheduled to arrive at
Terranova Colony in the year 2191, and now it was 2704?
Unbelievable!
Excerpt from Chapter 19 of Pilgrims' Moon -The Bloom
No wonder people were excited about the bloom. They're looking forward to a national drug-induced orgy.
The approaching Festival of the Bloom added to the air of excitement. The Shimarans were expecting a lively celebration, congregating in the parks and gardens of the city or leaving to camp in the surrounding forest.
Scott was curious about the life cycle of the tara trees and Eli had eagerly explained the process. "Tara trees are the dominant vegetation of Kayra and the ancient Kayrans revered them. They grow in vast communities with interconnected root systems. In fact, most of the mass of the plant is underground. A distinct tara tree organism may be hundreds of square kilometers in size-genetically identical, but appearing as numerous individual stalks. They grow quickly from shoots budding from the existing root system. Then, every 11 Earth years some internal signal tells the plant that it is time to reproduce, to eject spores. All the tara trees do this more or less simultaneously around the world, even those on isolated islands like Shimara."
"They may emit some potent signaling hormone that synchronizes their biological clocks," Scott added.
"That's probably correct. Anyway, at daybreak on the predetermined day, the spore-engorged pods burst, filling the air with genetic material. The trees will die back after they bloom, but new stalks will quickly emerge."
"It reminds me of the flowering of various species of bamboo on Earth."
"We call the 11 -year time period an Interbloom." "
So this festival is a celebration of this natural event?"
"Yes. We also enjoy the side effects of the Bloom," Eli said happily.
"Side effects?"
"During the Bloom, the plants emit some powerful chemical-maybe it's the signaling hormone you mentioned-along with their reproductive spores. The chemical has a joyful effect when inhaled by people. It causes intense euphoria, lowering of inhibitions, and a surprising degree of sexual stimulation."
"It sounds like some kind of narcotic."
Eli shrugged. "Even an old man like me gets a few hours of pleasure during the Festival of the Bloom. The only people who are not affected are prepubescent children."
"The chemical must interact with the human endocrine system in some fashion."
"However it works, it's a wonderful time. One doesn't want to be alone when the Bloom occurs. One wants to be surrounded by people-by beautiful young women, if you know what I mean." He winked at Scott.
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