Contact across the Solar System

The Northeast Again

The Gang departed the way they arrived, at a beach at night, and they went on to Washington, DC, staying at some more residents' houses. Their arrival point was a bit distant from DC; it was a beach near Ocean City, Delaware, on the Delmarva Peninsula.

At DC, they and their hosts took in a lot of touristy sights, including the National Air and Space Museum, with its great collection of outer-space hardware.

Ramu took some time to look over the Voyager spacecraft mockup that they had there. "So that's what everybody was bugging me about," he said, chuckling, referring to the Voyager 1 and 2 Saturn flybys.

Ilmuth then had to explain to Ramu and Zuhl what an RTG is. "It's a sort of radioactivity battery. The Earthers like them because they are always on and they are very reliable."

Ramu said "I'm guessing that the Earthers use them out at Saturn because they don't need sunlight."

Ilmuth said "Right. The Earthers use solar panels on nearly all their spacecraft, but they obviously don't work very well outside of the inner Solar System."

While they were in DC, Kalna decided to pay a tribute to George, a tribute done in Earther fashion. She went to a florist and bought some flowers, and she also bought a cutesy friendship-themed greeting card. She also got a clear plastic bag, to protect the card against rain and snow. She wrote a short tribute in it in the SSC shared language, and she got her fellow Adamski-Gang members to do likewise. She also wrote a tribute in English for whichever Earthers might find it:

For George Adamski, our emissary to the people of the Earth, and one of our greatest passengers. Your soul has moved on, but we knew you when you were in this body. From Orthon, Kalna, Ilmuth, Firkon, Ramu, and Zuhl.

They then went out to Arlington National Cemetery and Kalna placed the flowers on his grave. She also wrapped the card in the bag and placed it among the flowers.

The Adamski Gang went on from there to New York City, but they used a kind of Earther vehicle that some residents seemed to love: a high-speed train. Though such trains were mostly running at the eastern and western ends of Eurasia, some of them were running elsewhere, like between DC and NYC. The two cities were close enough to make Earther transport convenient, so they decided to take Amtrak's Acela train. Kalna bought tickets for all of them, and they were on their way.

They went to their train rather early, so they could get good seats, and they walked its length out of curiosity. Both ends of it looked like the nose of an airplane, rather evidently aerodynamically designed. They went aboard and they found some seats with tables between them, a nice place for them to sit and converse with each other as they looked out the windows.

The train departed from the station, going slowly at first, then faster and faster. It went through DC and its suburbs, and into some forest.

Zuhl said "This looks like the biggest garden I've ever seen."

The others kept themselves from laughing, but Zuhl said "It's OK. I've seen a lot of it from the air, but it was so overwhelming seeing it from the surface, and being right next to it."

Orthon noted "The ride is incredibly smooth. It's like you're flying at ground level. I almost can't believe that this is a wheeled vehicle."

Kalna pointed to some tracks outside one of the windows. "That's what we are riding on", she said.

Orthon looked at them and noticed their great smoothness and straightness. "Yeah", he said about them. "I don't think that our scouts' safety systems will let them go this fast this close to the ground. That's not an experiment that I've been eager to try, however."