The Abyss of Time

Chapter Twenty Six

     Back at the camp, it had been several hours since the four quad riders left. Everyone else was sitting around, waiting for the riders to come back and tell them they'd found a good place to create a diversion. In the meantime, there was nothing to do but wait.

     Except for the Felgins, who were busily examining the local wildlife and uttering exclanations of delight to each other. Feeling bored, Miller went over to see what was getting them so excited.

     "See here," said Connie, pointing to a row of creatures sitting along the bank of a narrow stream. "Take a look. What do you see?"

     Miller knelt down to get a better look. "Waterwheels," he said. "They've got wheels, being turned by the flowing water."

     "Exactly!" said Felgin, beaming with delight. "There was nothing in the natural world like this back in our day. An organism would have to split into two parts. The rotating part and the still part. Then they'd have to find a way to turn mechanical energy into chemical energy. Given a billion years, it looks like something found a way and then evolved into a thousand different forms."

     "It means there's another way to harvest energy from the environment," said Connie, equally excited. "Not just sunlight. Well, in a way it is sunlight. The sun evaporates water, the water falls as rain, collects into streams and turns the waterwheels. It means the living creatures of this world have a way of harvesting sunlight that doesn't fall on green leaves. It possibly doubles the amount of energy available to the biosphere."

     Miller agreed that was very exciting, and then got up to leave them to it. At least they're happy, he thought. How are the rest of us going to pass the time?

     The time did slowly pass, though, and when the Orchid crew began to get hungry Miller gave orders for the tents to be unloaded from the mules. Each tent inflated in seconds when the activation button on the two metre tall canister was pressed. The main body of the canister became an airlock while, behind it, tough but flexible material ballooned outwards to form a dome-shaped habitat that had been designed to house three or four people in reasonable comfort. Unfortunately, they had only been able to fit three of them on the mule, which meant that each one had to hold twice as many.

     The Miller family, six of them while Jack was absent, had to share with Felgin and his wife, therefore, while Simon Rogers and his three guards had to share with Pangiran, Bradley, Gilbreth and Rolf with the others crowding into the third. It wouldn't be much fun, Miller mused as he opened the airlock and stepped inside, but it was better than being trapped in their surface suits for the entire journey to the Alpha site.

     They had to go through the airlock one at a time, each of them carrying a small, sealed bag of personal belongings, and then they gathered in the centre of the dome, the floor feeling soft and bouncy under their feet. "Everyone set their visors to opaque," said Miller. "Confirm when you've done it."

     "Confirmed," said Zanele and Lucy together. "Maddie and Phil as well," Zanele added.

     "Confirmed," said Felgin.

     "Confirmed," said Connie.

     There was a pause. "Tensy?" said Miller, looking at her. "You set your..."

     "Yes, yes," she replied. "Comfirmed."

     "I have to be sure," Miller told her. "The UV light will burn your eyes out if..."

     "Yes, I know," Tensy replied irritably. "My visor's opaque."

     "Okay," said Miller. "Turning on the UV."