CHAPTER THREE

Coulter stood on the wooden deck that overlooked the backyard. As the cool breeze flowed across his face, he wondered what it was like when his father was young. It was so different now, the electric vehicles moving on the ground and the passenger drones flying above were virtually silent. He remembered hearing the roar of a gas powered engine at a museum. It must have been deafening, with thousands of gas powered vehicles travelling through Calgary. 

It had been a long day at the Western Space Academy. Coulter had spent an hour in each of the morning classes; Alien Recognition & Interaction, Navigation & Astrophysics, and Fitness & Martial Arts. The afternoon included three hours of safety drills; fire fighting techniques, and timed evacuation simulations.

Coulter went inside and joined his family in the basement. His younger sister Jessie was in her first year of university. Despite the heavy course load, her marks were excellent. They watched as the holographic image of a network symbol appeared in the center of the room; followed by the theme music of The Caslem Report. 

The dream had come true; Earth had finally established a colony in deep space. The Caslem Report was a multi-media juggernaut; you couldn’t walk through a shopping mall, use city transport, eat at a restaurant, visit online websites, or enter a public washroom, without seeing its logo. 

Each installment of The Caslem Report focused on a different aspect of life in the colony. The day before, it had been a profile of how wind turbines and solar panels were being used  to minimize the human imprint to the planet’s environment. Tonight, however, the focus would concern vegetation, and that meant his Aunt Angela would be featured.

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Dr. Angela Hazlow stood on the roof of the main administration building on Caslem. It was a weird feeling, knowing her image was being watched by over a billion viewers back on Earth. It wasn’t being seen on Earth at that exact moment, but since the signal wasn’t edited, it felt like it was live, to anyone watching it later.  

She smiled at one of the cameras, and pointed at the sky. “Isn’t’ it beautiful, how the moonlight reflects off the ice in the debris field? If you’re a student, you’ll have to ask your Language Arts teacher if I got that one right. Perhaps, since there are two moons, it should be moonslight, or light of the moons.”

“There are times when  life on Caslem can feel just as routine as life on Earth; you do your job, you go to the cafeteria, and you go to meetings. Sometimes they’re interesting meetings, sometimes they’re just pointless arguments over petty differences. We may be on a great adventure, but we’re still human.”

The smile disappeared from her eyes as she remembered what had happed to some of her friends. “On the other hand, there are very real dangers on Caslem. An attack by a large creature isn’t that different from the same experience on Earth; being mauled by a Zerol produces the same result as walking between a pair of grizzly cubs and mama bear.”

“One of my colleagues, Dr. Avery, received a bite from a insect. He survived, but the results were the same as a massive stroke. He can’t move his left side. We’re hoping he’ll eventually make a full recovery, but this is uncharted territory. He’s the first human to be bitten by an insect called a Kottak. As on Earth, the rule for scorpions applies, the smaller the creature, the more potent the poison is likely to be. A Kottak is an insect so small it’s almost invisible to the human eye. The same insect repellents used on Earth work here,  but you can’t completely eliminate the risk.”  

After a few minutes Angela Hazlow climbed down a ladder attached to the side of the building, and went inside. Entering the main lab, she made a cup of coffee and settled down to analyze data she’d recorded about various plants, during her last trip to collect samples. She wasn’t sure if she’d define the area as a forest, or jungle.

“As you see the data appear,” she began, “I’ll try to put it in perspective for you. If you look at them as separate lists, they seem rather boring, but when you see the big picture, when you realize you’re looking at an entire eco-system, it’s really fascinating.”