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Chapter 4 - The Plan ChangedApart from the fact that nobody understood how the ship had arrived at the distant planet that had become our new object for exploration, life hadn't changed much on the ship. Most people had barely realized that a new rule on the bridge had been ushered in. For most of the crew it was business as usual. Perhaps the disaster had been expected by the crew, and since it hadn't been avoided by anyone's own action, nobody cared to talk about as if they were all moved by some hidden shame. Or maybe it was Olaf's presence in the midst of all that, which took the brunt off the effect of the tragedy. And so, what could have become a crushing emotional defeat, resulting in an unimaginable demoralization of the crew at the end of its now six-year struggle that suddenly seemed all in vain, was completely avoided. Nobody talked about what it would have meant turning the ship around empty handed, facing another six year struggle going home with nothing to show for it at the end. Instead, the opposite happened. Everyone that I talked with was exited about the prospects at hand, which Olaf had described in such glowing terms. The reason for their optimism was based on the simple fact that Olaf had gained such a huge credibility with his previous forecast, as gloomy as it had been, that they now trusted him completely. Olaf saw this as a problem. The problem was that nothing should ever be taken by faith. "Science and blind faith don't mix," he said repeatedly. In order to avert this "crisis" as he saw it, he staged a lecture series in the great Auditorium to explain in detail why the 'O' people could be trusted not to cause another tragedy, and why a great deal could be gained from them for humanity by exploring their history as a highly successful and advanced society. Olaf addressed the crew as fellow explorers. He invited them all to go to the ship's observatory and look at the planet, although there was little to see, and then look at the planet with their mind's eye by interpreting the new streams of data that a few sensory sweeps around the planet would gather. He promised a "treasure" they couldn't imagine yet. He also promised that in the process of this exploration they would make profound discoveries about themselves, discovering aspects of our humanity that had remained hidden but was reflected in the spirituality of the 'O' people and in their culture by which they had evidently succeeded and even exceeded what mankind would presently measure as success. Nobody seemed surprised therefore, after this lecture, when planet 'O' revealed its secrets in about the same fashion as Gamma .8 had. The main differences were, which became the general topic of conversation and questions even during the lecture, that planet 'O' was a significantly larger planet, much heavier than Gamma .8, with a 70% cloud cover that effectively prohibits visual observation. Its relative gravity measured 1.319G. A 170-pound person would weigh 224 pounds on the planet surface. The biology officer had assured Captain Natalia Ostropovitch and the ship's crew during the lecture, that this large increase in relative weight is still within the range of variations that a human body is able to tolerate. Consequently she allowed the Mission Control Officer to go ahead with making plans for a landing. All this happened in front of the whole crew, even before Olaf's lecture series concluded. Nothing was hidden anymore. Nothing was kept secret. By the time Olaf was finished there wasn't a trace of despondency left about the previous failure that had ended in tragedy. To the contrary, everyone's eyes 'sparkled' again with excitement. People felt privileged to be at the forefront of the greatest event in human history that was about to unfold. Some had tears in their eyes. The mapping operation, this time, proved to be more difficult than it had been at Alpha Centauri. For one thing, we lacked the advance data that the scout probes had provided about Alpha Centauri. It had allowed us to make detailed plans before we could even see the planet. All of this was not availabe this time. In addition the cloud cover of Planet 'O' made visual observation of the surface impossible. The mapping had to be performed entirely with infrared interference spectroscopy; a computer assisted mapping process that in the end reveals more details than any common light spectrum mapping would. Input to the infrared mapping system was derived from two groups of sensors, spaced 1500 feet apart at opposite ends of the ship. In a single sweep, using this wide angle stereoscopic mapping process, we were not only able to distinguish between rivers, highways and rail lines; but also measure altitudes, determine the temperatures of its oceans and land formations. We were even able to do a limited mapping on the planet's mineral makeup and resource distribution. One of the surprises that came out of this mapping process was an unusually high temperature indicated for one the planet's two oceans. || - page index - || - chapter index - || - Exit - ||
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