Time drifted by. We needed to go, but this situation was too exciting to leave. After four weeks, a female Quietusian, Stroya Elya had learned rudimentary English and was conducting fairly sophisticated conversations with Tosh and Mary. For the sake of ease of telling this story, I have not used the actual pidgin English, Stroya used, but have reworded it without losing the meaning.
During the conversations, I decided not to confuse things by allowing myself, Bill or Anna to participate, but we all listened to what was being said by Mary and Tosh.
Inevitably, the expected difficult question arrived. We guessed we’d be invited to the surface but knew that would lead to us explaining our current difficulties.
Stroya said, ‘You come visit us here now?’
‘Mark, how should I answer?’ asked Tosh.
‘She seems tech savvy,’ I said. ‘Send an image of the ship and explain the components and why we cannot descend with just one Rimor remaining. Then that we have to return to Earth but will come back here in the future. How does that sound?’
Tosh looked at Mary and got a nod. ‘Okay, we’ll try that tack.’
We’d learned a huge amount about the Quietusians, including worrying facts about their situation on Gelid. They hated the planet but had no way to leave the surface. They’d escaped Quietus several hundred years previously. They’d already had a base of about one hundred people on Gelid. The escape ships from their home planet brought a further fifty scientists and doctors. It had been a mad rush to escape the plant which killed vast swathes of the population of Quietus each time it released its deadly pollen. The population on Gelid had been increasing gradually since the evacuation and now, perhaps fifteen generations later, they totalled three hundred and ten.
Life had been bearable until a huge fire in the main hydroponic farm, about sixty Earth-years ago, destroyed more than half of their plant species. They’d already been managing without any livestock protein or byproducts similar to milk and cheese, but the loss of important plants had a serious effect on their health. The enforced vegetarianism was not good for the Quietusian metabolism. The loss of so many of their plant varieties caused by the fire exacerbated the crisis and had resulted in life expectancy beginning to fall. Reproduction had also been affected and Stroya told us the population was now falling. They believed the colony could die out within the next century. Until our arrival, they had resigned themselves to inevitable extinction.
Now, Tosh was telling them that there could be no immediate help. We all listened to his explanation of the reasons and wondered how they’d take the news.
Communication ceased. We heard nothing for some hours and Mary and Tosh called them several times without response. Finally, nine hours later, Stroya replied.
‘This is not good news,’ she said. ‘Since our first contact with you, hopes have been growing for some sort of rescue attempt. We’ve been discussing the possibility of travelling back to your world. We have also found a method of killing the plant on Herade (their name for Quietus), but it would be a long process over, perhaps, decades and we could not even attempt it without your assistance.
‘We were hoping you could help us with that project. We are in a hopeless situation otherwise. Our entire species faces extinction if we don’t get help.’
Mary replied, ‘We will do our best for you, Stroya, but we need to go home first. We ran into a problem with our spolding drive, which takes us through hyperspace. It’s too complex for me to explain, but it could cause us a problem on our journey home.
‘However, if we can solve that problem, I promise we will talk to our government about returning here to help you. If you have a way of killing the plant on Herade, then that is all to the good. We’d love to help you do that.’
‘A minute,’ said Stroya.
‘I guess she’s got senior people with her,’ I said.
Almost half an hour later we heard from her. ‘When do you think you might return? Our time is running out here. People are suffering from diseases caused by poor nutrition. We really do need help. Sadly, we have told our population about you. Expectations have risen and we’re worried about dashing them.’
‘Reassure her again,’ I said.
Mary said, ‘You have our promise that if everything works on our return journey to Earth, we’ll do everything within our power to return to help you, either by taking you to Earth or by staying with you to help rid Herade of the plant.’
‘Right,’ the alien said.
‘What do you call planet E, the one we named Haven, Stroya?’ asked Tosh.
‘Keradrol. It means sunrise star,’ she replied.
I broke protocol and joined the conversation. ‘Stroya, my name is Mark and I’m the leader of our expedition. While we cannot guarantee to come back, because it is our government who will make the decision, I can repeat Mary’s promise that all of us will make every effort to return as soon as is possible. We are all very sure that our government will not let us, or you, down.’
There was another pause of several minutes. I guessed she was translating.
‘Thank you, Leader Mark. You know how much we are counting upon you.’
‘You have our word,’ said Tosh. ‘If I have anything to do with it, we will be back as quickly as possible.’