A Planet For Emily

CHAPTER NINE

Another port came and went. Suzanne was aware that the flood of immigrants was now easing, as all possible places in the mining colonies were taken, which worried her – what use would Rods have for her if there were no complaining passengers? But at the least for the moment the next load of passengers was two ports away and she had some spare time to take another look at her sister’s message. She arranged the texts underneath each other.

Fiery the Angels rose, & as they rose deep thunder roll’d

Around their shores indignant burning with the fires of Orc

And Bostons Angel cried aloud as they flew thro’ the dark night

Tiger, tiger burning bright.

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Then the numbers - 281334141622131411511621

And the planet names.

Xeno’s Dive III 9257610

Fermat II 9888392

Everest Folly 9645819

Mickey’s Dive IV 9140891

Suman IV 9557141

Jupiter VIII 9322893

Honmen II 9980672

Schrodinger III 9765813

Porter’s Place II 9874336

Concord Down III 9034221

Logan II 9546721

George’s Claim 9122045

Getty IV 9390221

Hamish II 9654983

Sabrina III 9224472

That night in her room she studied the riddle for what seemed to her to be an age, until the figures danced and the planet names whirled around her. Her sister’s numbers had no zeros, she realized, but the planet catalog numbers had zeros. Did that mean anything? Tired out by this endless go-round of verse, planet and numbers she eventually put her head on the table for just a minute, or so she thought. She dreamt of her sister.

Eve was just as Suzanne remembered her, when they last spoke in one of these few nooks at the crowded Earth Station where privacy was still possible if you whispered. She was a larger version of Suzanne with a preference for button-up shirts and skirts which she thought more professional, as opposed to Suzanne’s T-shirts and jeans and she spoke, as she often did, one hand to her face, her elbow resting on anything convenient – in this case a ledge. That was the conversation in which Eve had told Suzanne that she was leaving on the quest for El Dorado and that she would send for her, Richard and her mother as soon as she could.

“If I don’t come back, look at this,” she had said, passing her a folded slip of paper with the clues. “But you must never, ever put it in a computer system. The Zards knew about this place once, but it’s been forgotten somehow. The other colonists weren’t going to tell me where it was, but I wouldn’t agree to anything unless they told me where it was and they needed a medico.”

“Oh, Eve! It’s still a risk.”

“Don’t ‘Oh Eve’ me. Of course it’s a risk, but what choice do we have for a future with the Zards squeezing us? They don’t care about us. They’ll just keep squeezing until the human race goes under. This may be a way out, at least for us. Now go ahead and look.”

Suzanne unfolded the note.

“But what does this mean?” she said after glancing at it.

“I thought you might like Blake. I had to assemble it in a hurry.”

“The Tiger is the Blake poem?”

“First verse, yes.”

“Is this some literary code? And what’s the replicant reference?”

In real life, Suzanne recalled later, Eve had not answered. She had kissed her on the forehead said “love you, love mum” and had left. But in the dream Eve answered, sounding like Rods.

“I didn’t do literature Do you think I’m like those people in films who know ancient mysteries and make up riddles in Greek for others to solve? I tried to just use the first lines of Blake, but I was missing something.”

“What?”

Eve leaned forward to whisper in Suzanne’s ear. “I needed an M.”

Then she was gone.

Suzanne woke abruptly, looked down at the paper in front of her, her gaze falling on the numbers, then up at the poems.

“No,” she breathed, “It can’t be that simple.”

For his part, Rods was dreaming of engines that needed fixing and women who were getting him into trouble, when he became aware of someone pounding on his cabin hatch, shouting. He jumped up and flung it open to be confronted by an ecstatic Suzanne.

“I’ve worked it out! I’ve worked it out!” she yelled. Then did a double take. “Is that what you wear to bed?”

“Just be thankful I have shorts on, Cruise. Next time you’ll think better of disturbing the captain’s much needed beauty sleep.”

“Come to the table. Quick,” she said and dashed through the wardroom hatch.

He came in a minute later, unshaven and bleary eyed but had taken a moment to put on pants. Suzanne thought he looked good unshaven and then wrenched her mind back to the topic at hand.

“What’s all this fuss about, Cruise.” He thought he had not seen her looking so cheerful. “What have you worked out?”

“The numbers are just a code,” she said, putting the paper in front of him. “Look at the numbers.”

Rods saw 136746622211131, but with slashes after every third number – 136/746/622/211/131/412/422.

“It’s line, word number in line then letter. It spells out F E R M A T II.”

Rods checked for himself then said, “Max get me the scans on Fermat II, everything we have, and keep all this stuff tightly quarantined. No leakages. Project it on the table.”

“Coming right up,” said Max.

“Okay, a rocky planet comparable to earth in size,” said Rods, as the projection appeared. “With a single rift valley along the equator more or less. Mars-like as planet classifiers say. The rift valley is 16 kilometers deep. Now that’s a hole. Quite a scar on the surface. How old is the scan Max?”

“Twenty years.”

“Hmmm! Well, they would have to have atmosphere in the whole valley. There doesn’t look to be any vegetation, but it was 20 years ago and the scans were about minerals. Max, bring it right up and let’s scan along the valley.” They studied the image in silence for a few moments.”

“There,” said Rods, pointing. Suzanne could see an area in the middle of the valley where the image was slightly fuzzy. “Max, they would have done a thermoscan at the same time. Bring up the temperature contrasts.”

The fuzzy area turned a light blue, as did several other areas in the scan.”

Rods grabbed one of Suzanne’s hands and held it between his own, smiling at her.

She could not decide whether she was alarmed or pleased with this new, smiling Rods.

“You’re a genius, you know that.”

“I’m sure I am,” Mr. Rods, “but why am I a genius because those areas are blueish?”

“I’m pretty sure that means they’re clouds, so it had an atmosphere 20 years ago and might have developed a lot since. This is El Dorado.” Rods gestured at the map. “If your sister is anywhere in the Galaxy it is right here.”

Suzanne was initially pleased but when she later looked at the map in detail, she thought the place looked barren.