Chapter No.29. Discovery.

Bridget and I went down to the surface in the water tank shuttle and landed near the dome city to hand off another drum of conifer seeds. The men who received it thanked us and quickly got it into their rover and drove away.

We got in our shuttle and flew a course that would take us over the boarder of New York State and Pennsylvania.

"That looks like a good spot," Bridget said, pointing. "It's near Lake Erie."

I looked it over and turned the shuttle to put it on a course for the location. I sat the shuttle down near the water so that the hoses would easily reach it. Bridget unloaded a robotic planting device to start the seeding operation.

After getting the water pumping started, I walked to where Bridget was running the robot device using a handheld controller. I stopped when I heard a strange buzzing noise that was barely audible over the noise of the robot device and the water pumps.

I held my hand up. "Shut that down!" I yelled.

She looked at me and hesitated before shutting the device down.

"What's wrong?" she cried.

"I'm hearing a buzzing noise," I said, cupping my hand around my right ear.

She looked around before turning to me. "I think it's coming from the lake."

We walked over closer to the shore and looked out at a calm lake.

Bridget pointed. "It's coming from that."

I took out binoculars from my belt pouch, activated it and then began looking at it, adjusting the zoom factor. "I don't believe this!"

"What?" she asked, squinting at me.

"It's a motorboat! What the hell is that doing on the lake?"

"Maybe it's from the dome city," she said.

"I doubt that. They would have to be out of their controlled atmosphere too long."

She took the binoculars and after following the boat's progress she had an opinion. "Yeah, the guy driving that thing is definitely not a dome citizen. He looks too scruffy."

I activated my handheld communication device that allowed me to talk directly to the ship.

"What's wrong?" Janet asked.

"There's a motorboat crossing Lake Earie down near the southern New York edge. Track it."

After a pause, she replied. "I got it. I'll check it out."

After completing a run with the planting robot and collecting all of the water we could, Bridget and I returned to the ship. We hooked up the lines to pump the water down to engineering, and then went down to the crew deck.

"Where did that boat go?" I asked Janet the instant I got to the command station.

"I traced it to what was once Chicago. The city looks dilapidated but maybe people are still living there."

"That would make them feral humans," I said. "It could mean that there are more of them all over the planet."

"Why wouldn't the dome citizens know about them?" Sharon asked.

"They might, but they don't want to admit it. In any event, we're going to check it out. If there are feral humans on Earth, our plans might get changed."

"Why?" Janet asked.

"Because it could alter the methods we could employ to mitigate climate change."

"I think we should do a more thorough survey of the planet to determine if there has been changes since we first arrived here," Sharon said.

"I agree. Have COMA alter our orbit to allow that."

Fortunately, the burns to achieve a more productive orbit were not that disruptive because we weren't in a hurry. COMA waited until we were in our bunks before completing them.

It didn't take long for Janet and Sharon to find some interesting things about Earth after we had achieved an orbit that allowed a better survey of the surface.

"Since our survey when we first arrived here, it appears that both the Amazon and the Congo have begun to sprout vegetation. There's also ice forming in the Artic and more of it in the Antarctic."

"That's great!" I reacted. "That means that some carbon dioxide has been removed from the atmosphere."

"I'm measuring it at 0.07%, which is not all that bad. In fact, it way lower than I had expected."

"Interesting. Maybe we can achieve our goal of reversing global warming after all."

"I don't get it," Natale said. "If the carbon dioxide is that low, why do people have to live in a domed city?"

I pointed at her. "That's a very good question. I think there's something else going on here that we're not aware of."

"Maybe it has something to do with the feral humans," Bridget said. "There's something wrong with this Earth condition. The climate change is not all that bad. In fact, it's not in a runaway condition. When we left on our mission, Earth's population was over nine billion. Where the hell did all those people go?"

I rubbed my jaw. "Yeah, you're right. The dome city has maybe twenty thousand, and we haven't seen evidence of any large group of feral humans. I don't think the dome city people are telling us the full story."

"What about the aliens who abducted people five years ago?" Sharon asked. "Maybe they've been coming here and abducting people before that."

"I can't believe that they abducted billions of people," I said. "We've found the people that those aliens abducted, and they told us what happened to the people they took from Mars Colony and Lunar Base. If humans were taken off the Earth, it wasn't those aliens that did it."

"None of this makes sense," Janet said.

"I agree. COMA, establish communication with the dome city."

After a few minutes, Adal's face appeared.

"We're confused. When we left Earth on our original mission, there were more than nine billion people on Earth. We're not detecting any indication of mass graves or a sizable group of feral humans. Where did those people go?"

I could see in her face that what she was about to say was not good. "Our ancestors have handed down references to an exodus."

"Exodus?"

"They described them as appearing as angelic beings wearing brilliantly white robes. They offered escape from the ravages of climate change. Many believed it was the end time gathering."

"Are you inferring that these aliens removed billions of people from Earth?"

"Yes. They promised a nirvana on a planet in their system."

"How long ago did that happen?"

"It occurred over a fifty-year period starting in 2130."

"Is there any indication of where they took all those people?"

"The only reference refers to it as Nirvana. We assumed that it was a reference to a planet."

"Is there any physical evidence of these aliens?"

"I recall hearing a tale that described the crash of one of their ships. It didn't reveal where it happened."

"Thanks for the information. We'll see if we can locate the crash scene."

She nodded, and the link was broken.

I turned to Janet. "Begin a scan for a possible alien craft."

She turned to her station and began a high definition radar scan of Earth's surface.

It wasn't until the next day that she found something.

"I found this on the Island of Puerto Rico. I had to scan it several times to determine that it's a crashed saucer."

We looked at the magnified image on the main screen.

"It crashed in the East Valley of Desecheo Island near Puerto Rico. I had one hell of a time finding it. It's been overgrown with vegetation."

"Another sign of climate change reduction," I said. "Have you detected any signs of humans there?"

"No, and that includes the main island of Puerto Rico."

"Are we going down there?" Bridget asked.

"Yes, and you and Sharon are going with me."

We didn't realize what we would find, but we had to investigate it to understand what happened to Earth's population.