The Mystery of Eden Homeworld

Thanks for your votes and comments.

This is a non-erotic science-fiction story, the latest in the series of stand-alone short stories featuring Hana Jeffries. It's the story I promised at the end of Every Man's Fantasy, chapter 27.

There are some tie-ins to the Every Man's Fantasy series, where the story fits in between chapters 27 and 28.

I hope you enjoy it.

Erinaceous.

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The Mystery of Eden Homeworld

1 Leaving Capella

"What are guyots?" Hestia asked.

"They're undersea volcanic mountains with flat tops," Hana answered.

Hestia Smith and her honorary niece, fourteen-year-old Hana Jeffries, were in their seats on a hyperspace liner, waiting to depart. It was Earth-year 2,559 and they were leaving Capella Space Station for the Outworld planet Celetaris, a week's journey on the regular stopping service. An in-flight program about an optional excursion to Eden Homeworld captured Hestia's interest.

"It says Eden was once a volcanic planet covered with miles of water," said Hestia, "but after terraforming, it now has ten-thousand islands in a great ocean."

"Did they use electrolysis or photolysis?" Hana asked.

"Pardon?"

"The terraformers must have evaporated the ocean by splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen. On an Earth-sized planet, oxygen will stay in the atmosphere but hydrogen will escape into space or be collected for fuel. Electrolysis does it with electrodes. Photolysis uses plants or nanobots. Does the program say which method was used, or both?"

"It doesn't say. It just says if you choose one excursion this journey, make it to Eden Homeworld: it's a paradise. We should go there."

"You said you wanted to visit Erythos, Auntie."

"I do, but Erythos is for lazy rich people who like spa-treatments. You'd be bored. Eden's better."

Hana looked up the price-list for excursions to Eden. There were day-trips and longer holidays.

"They seem very expensive," she said doubtfully.

Hana was going to university four years early and her parents had saved hard to afford their brilliant daughter's flight and living expenses.

"Aw, Sweetie. My treat. We'll take the day-trip. It saves packing our suitcases again."

Aged 38, but still looking 23 thanks to rejuvenation treatments, the red-haired Entertainer had recently retired from her job of pleasing men for money. Now Hestia was looking forward to a new life on Celetaris, where she hoped she could be useful to her niece.

It was only forty minutes since they made a tearful farewell to Hana's family and their friends in the passenger dock.

While their trunks were settled in the hold, they trundled sheeplike through the lines of the customs and hygiene station, wearing magnestrip waistbands and overshoes to prevent them floating off in the low-gravity dock, tugging suitcases weighed down with magnetic lugs.

Despite her tears, Hana was excited to leave Capella Space Station for the first time in her life. Hestia was no less excited. She had not been on a spaceship in nearly twenty years, not since she left Earth to seek her fortune on Capella.

After embarkation, the crew in blue-grey uniforms and orange magnestrip vests smiled as they helped passengers to their cabins. Hana unpacked her case, clipping her clothes into the cupboard to prevent them floating around in zero gravity, securing her suitcase in a drawer.

She took her wash kit to the bathroom.

There was a shower cubicle which puffed out damp air, to be wiped off with a sponge, followed by a blast of warm dry air. The next cubicle was a toilet with an adjustable intimate attachment for each user. The spaceship was designed to accelerate and decelerate at 1g for long periods of flight, creating an Earth-like gravitation, but there would be times when the ship was just cruising, when anything not clipped into place or attracted to the floor by magnetic lugs would float around and be a nuisance.

Looking at the arrangements, Hana decided she would wait until they were accelerating before using the toilet.

"I can hold it in," she said to herself. "So long as I don't drink anything."

"What's that, Sweetie?" Hestia asked as she packed away her makeup case.

Hana showed her the toilet attachment.

"It's not so bad once you're used to it," Hestia said.

"Yuck!" said Hana.

Her last item to stow away was a big soft furry toy rabbit. White with pink ears, nose and belly, it was a going-away present from her best-friend Morty Bowman and his family. She hesitated a second, then decided she was not embarrassed, so she pulled off her magnetic waistband and overshoes, kicked off from the floor and floated up to the ceiling.

Hana executed a perfect roll, twisting out to place her feet on the ceiling, cushioning her motion to stop dead. She tucked the rabbit under the blanket of the top bunk and pushed off again. With another twist and roll, she landed on the floor, with her feet ready to slip into the magnestrip overshoes.

Hestia watched her niece's self-taught gymnastic skills. "You'll do," she said.

With their clothes and cases stowed away, they left the cabin to find their assigned seats for the departure.

As soon as they sat down, a voice came over the speakers.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm your flight manager, Carol. On behalf of Captain Edwards and the crew, I'd like to welcome passengers who joined us at Capella Space Station. This is the regular stopping service clockwise through the Beltway Hyperspace System to the Outworld colonies. Our next stop is in about eight hours at Eden Homeworld.

"Please take your flight seats and watch the safety briefing on the big screen. Crew-members will be happy to help you in any way you need or answer any questions you have. I wish you a pleasant and comfortable flight.

"Crew announcement: fifteen minutes to departure. Check and secure the cabins. Thank you."

Hana looked around the circular deck. There were twenty cabins around the rim, with emergency escape pods and other amenities in between. The middle of the deck had lifts and stairs to other levels. Forty passengers sat in large comfortable seats facing a big curving screen toward the centre of the deck. It was showing the safety briefing. The seats had strong harnesses and pockets with clips to secure personal belongings in zero gravity, like Hana's computer tab. There were directional speakers in the soft protective headrests.

Carol, the flight manager, broadcast again.

"Crew announcement: check that all loose items are safely stowed away. Secure all passenger harnesses. Ten-minutes to departure."

Stewards came around to fasten the harnesses and check the headrests were curled into place.

It was now that Hestia looked at the in-flight magazine, projected in 3d by beams from her headrest.

She could have learned about guyots for herself but she liked that Hana knew everything. "Some people have the webopedia," Hestia would say, "but I have the Hanapedia," and Hana would roll her eyes.

With the safety briefing over, the big screen projected images from the surface cameras of the spaceship.

In a choreographed movement, six tugboats positioned themselves alongside the ship. Their long antennae-like grapples extended to three times their lengths and made strong magnetic fields. Their job was to pull the spaceship away from the passenger dock and guide it clear of the space station.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the flight manager said again. "Magnetic artificial gravitation has been turned off and lights guiding you to the emergency escape pods have been turned on. Crew: dim the cabin lights and take your stations for manoeuvring."

The cabin lights went down and they felt lighter in their seats. A new voice came over the speakers.

"Ladies and gentleman, this is Captain Edwards. We're ready to depart Capella Space Station and launch toward the clockwise Beltway beacon. Crew: manoeuvring in one minute."

Exactly a minute later, there was a soft jolt as the ship detached from the docking point and was pulled away from the space station by the tugboats. Powerful rocket exhausts washed over the hull, making a faint hissing inside. A deep slow vibration - felt rather than heard - signified that the ion drive had been turned on.

They felt the inertia as the great ship was slowly turned around and pointed away from the space station. The bass rumble of the ion drive became a smooth background buzz, like a radio hum, but it quietened down and was almost undetectable as they gradually picked up speed.

Ten minutes later, flight manager Carol's voice again came over the speakers.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we're clear of Capella Space Station and have said goodbye to the tugboats. We're on our way to the beacon, which you can see as a small blue dot in the centre of the screen. Captain Edwards has engaged the ion drive to bring us up to our approach velocity of just over 100,000 metres per second. Your harnesses will remain secure until we are at 1g acceleration. Thank you."

There was a surge as the drive flipped a heavy beam of ions out of the rear of the ship at nearly light-speed. The passengers were pushed down into their seats. The space station, Hana's home, began to recede.

"We're at 1g," Carol announced, as the cabin lights came on and the harnesses released.

"We will accelerate at this rate for 2 hours and 50 minutes to reach entry speed for the beacon, after which we will cruise for another half-hour. When we enter the hyperspace plume, it will take only three seconds before we emerge from the exit beacon near Eden Homeworld, 60 light-years away. We ask you to return to your seats before the acceleration stops and we become weightless again.

"Meanwhile, the restaurant, bars and shops are open. Please enjoy your journey."

"Can we look around the ship?" Hana asked.

"Sure. Let me get my credit stick so we can book our excursion."

"I need the toilet first," Hana said, having been valiantly holding it in all this time.

The tour took them almost the whole length of the ship, which was a strong tube with an ion drive at the stern and the pilot's station at the prow. The body of the ship was split vertically into sixty decks. Forty decks had passenger accommodations. Other decks were for the crew, restaurants, bars, games rooms, a children's play area, shops, a rudimentary gym, a helpdesk to report problems, cinemas and even a casino.

After they visited the travel agent to book the day-trip to Eden, Hestia and Hana went exploring.

The restaurants and cafes were comfortable and already busy. They were open only during periods of acceleration and deceleration. Food and drink were not permitted outside the restaurants, due to the nuisance of spillages during zero-gravity flight. The food looked good but it was afternoon by their body-clocks and neither was hungry.

They visited the shops and looked in on the entertainment deck but did not stay long at either.

When they returned to their seats, Hestia took out a fashion magazine and Hana studied a physics paper on her computer tab. She projected a 3d image of a Beltway hyperspace junction, a grey tube a kilometre in diameter, filled with complex electronics.

Hana rotated the holographic image with a flick of her fingers, zooming in to focus on the junction's mechanism, dismantling its components, learning how it redirected spaceships out of the Beltway onto a spur, either back toward Earth, where the hundred or so Homeworld planets were, or outward toward one of the dozen Outworld planets, where Hestia and she were headed.

"Are you worried about jumping through hyperspace? It's perfectly safe, you know."

It was the man in the seat next to her who spoke. He was a middle-aged black man with a moustache, a squareish face and a soft voice.

"Thank you, I'm not worried," Hana said, "though I've never jumped through hyperspace before."

"I asked only because I can see you're reading about the Goldrick junctions. I thought maybe you sought reassurance."

"I'm reading all Doctor Goldrick's papers."

"Hana's going to study astrophysics with Danielle Goldrick at the Celetaris Institute for Science," Hestia said with immense pride in her honorary niece.

"That's impressive. May I call you Hana? I'm Tom. This is my wife, Grace," the kindly man said, indicating a middle-aged black woman in a flowery dress.

"This is my aunt Hestia."

"How old are you, Hana?"

"Fourteen."

"Just fourteen," Aunt Hestia boasted. "She was fourteen yesterday."

"And you're going to university?" Tom said. "I'm even more impressed."

"Are you a physicist, Sir?"

"Please call me Tom. ... I'm an electronic engineer. I specialise in security systems but I like to keep up with all science and technology. I know that the Goldrick Junctions are being upgraded to Doctor Goldrick's new hyperspace technology. Like you, we're going to Celetaris, but from there we're taking the tethered link to New Exeter. That was the second hyperspace pathway built with Doctor Goldrick's new technology. The first one was to Samothea, as I expect you know."

"Are you going to New Exeter just to use the new technology?"

"It's not the only reason. Our son, Luke, is competing in the Airsuit Trials there."

"Airsuits are another of Doctor Goldrick's inventions," Hana said. "I've a paper on airsuit technology to read but I haven't got to it yet. How do they work?"

"They're very clever. They use microwaves to compress the air around the suit into a force-field, something like an exo-skeleton, but with an almost frictionless surface. With a good supply of air, you can fly an airsuit. On New Exeter, Luke flies his suit around ice lakes and abandoned quarries. We think he's got a shot at winning a prize in his age-group."

"Tom, stop boring the poor girl."

It was Grace who spoke. She had a round happy face and a warm smile. Tom's accent was East Coast American but Grace spoke with a warm Caribbean lilt.

"Please excuse him, Hana. If he's not going on about science, he's boasting about Luke."

"I don't mind, Ma'am. I love science and Luke sounds brave and skilled."

"Thank you, he is. Call me Grace."

The neighbours for the week-long trip spent an enjoyable half-hour getting to know each other. Grace was a senior nurse practitioner. Hestia explained that she would be looking for a new job on Celetaris. All four were going on the one-day excursion to Eden.

The travellers went to dinner together and stayed in the restaurant until closing time, when the flight manager announced that acceleration would stop in half-an-hour. They were back in their seats and secured with the harnesses in good time for entry to the hyperspace beacon.

The forward camera showed the purple hyperspace plume glowing with static electricity within the silver-grey ring of the beacon, with golden lights flashing around its rim. In a minute, they plunged into the plume and there was only static on the external cameras.

Three seconds later the forward image cleared to show black star-filled space. In the rear was a hyperspace beacon receding from them, its purple plume stitching back together around a vaporous black hole caused by the exiting spaceship.

There was an announcement.

"This is Captain Edwards. We have emerged from the exit beacon and are now on course for an engineering station in a 3,000 mile orbit above Eden Homeworld. Crew: manoeuvring in five minutes."

The flight manager came on the speaker.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are cruising at 100,000 metres per second. Your harnesses and headrests will remain secured in position until Captain Edwards has turned the ship around. You'll be weightless as we cruise for half-an-hour before decelerating at 1g, when the harnesses will release and you can leave your seats. Thank you."

The spaceship began to rotate about its long axis, giving the passengers a sideways impetus, pushing them firmly into the backs of their chairs. After a minute, there was a different motion, like falling forward, as the great ship gently turned nose over tail until it faced in the opposite direction.

It was a delicate manoeuvre done slowly and carefully. Even so, a few passengers had queasy stomachs.

"Clever," said Hana, who knew something about gyroscopic motion and suffered no queasiness herself.

"What's clever?" asked Tom.

"How Captain Edwards twisted the ship as well as turned it over, to reduce the effect of the change in momentum on us all."

"Yes, I see that. It was well done."

Half-an-hour later the ion drive came back on and they began their deceleration at 1g, giving them the same downward inertia as gravitation on Earth.

Passengers could leave their seats again. As it was night-time by Earth standard time, Hestia, Grace and Tom went to bed, to catch a few hours' sleep before their excursion the next day. Hana never slept much. She stayed up to read Doctor Goldrick's paper on microwave compressed air technology.

2 Gravitation

Next morning, two-hundred passengers disembarked at the engineering station in a 3,000-mile orbit around the planet Eden. A large shuttlecraft waited to take them down to the planet. Most of the passengers had reached their destinations. Some were visiting Eden for a holiday, and some, like Hestia, Hana, Grace and Tom, were day tourists.

After the shuttlecraft made a hot and fast entry to the atmosphere, it levelled off at ten miles up and began a steady glide down to the surface. The pilot retracted the heat shields from the camera windows and the passengers took their first real view of Eden Homeworld. Those who had not seen it before gasped.

Eden was a paradise. From that height, its colours were mostly shades of blue and green, with wispy white clouds and a big soft yellow sun making the ocean shine and the land glow.

The ocean was vast, though only a remnant of the original sea that had been four miles deep, now mostly evaporated away by terraforming. Thousands of volcanic mountains rose as green pinnacles through the surface. Once underwater, the guyots stood proudly out, up to a mile in height.

Some mountains joined up to form large islands, with the water forming shallow inlets: blue fingers washing as milky foam against the shores.

As the shuttlecraft descended, more features became visible. Some steep-sided guyots had grey granite peaks, their slopes cultivated with light-green terraces, rich in crops, or pastures separated by dark-green hedges. Other mountains and the valleys of the bigger islands were covered by rich verdant forest.

Some volcanoes were bare granite pipes. On others, fountains erupted from their peaks and fell as waterfalls or fast-flowing rivers down their walls.

The shuttlecraft flew over dozens of guyots and coral atolls before making its final descent in a wide circle toward a large island formed from three mountains. This was 'The Three Ladies', a triple city built on an island.

The astroport was on Daughter City, on the eastern point of the triangle. Nine miles to the west was Mother City, the business centre. Thirteen miles to the north was Grandmother City.

As they circled the island, losing height and speed, the passengers had a good look at the three ladies.

Grandmother City was steep-sided and lush with pastel shades in the hazy sunlight. It had a pink and white fairytale castle on its granite peak over a cascading waterfall that fell into a wedge-like chasm.

A minute or so later they passed the crystal and steel skyscrapers on the flat peak of Mother City, glimmering in the morning sunlight.

Now on its final approach, the shuttlecraft circled Daughter City. Its flat top, more than a mile across, contained the astroport, its runways, conning tower, passenger buildings, hangers and transport links. Many light aircraft queued to land or taxied on the runways. A terrestrial stratoliner took off below them and made a turn out to sea, quickly gaining height, the sun glinting on its wings.