Twinks in Space: Fantastic Voyage - Part Two - 19. Chapter 19 - Heat Gear

Stawren and Lyoth were seated together on the front porch of the inn where they had spent the night. They were waiting for the volcanologist they met the day before to join them so they could gear up and collect the parstiline from the moon Eckas-3.

Valli had not designated a specific time that she would be arriving, but it was still early, and the sun was slowly rising above the rocky planet.

Stawren and Lyoth were each sipping coffees. It was quiet and peaceful.

“Lyoth, will you please tell me a little about your home planet?”

He let out a chuckle. “It’s green,” he declared. “Almost the whole planet is green. There are small lakes and an underground ocean, but lush forests stretch across most of Jitha. The planet is on the smaller side, with only 0.7 gravity, which makes everything a little interesting.” Lyoth laughed again. “Being on a low-G planet takes getting used to. Also, Jitha orbits close enough to our sun that there’s only a single ice cap on either pole at any time. When the north pole is frozen, the southern summer sun melts the ice on the south pole, and when the seasons switch, so does the ice. The forests grow all the way up to both poles.”

“Are there many cities on Jitha?”

“No, only two,” Lyoth replied, “Togoa and Carthal, but the planet isn’t really set up with cities like you’re thinking; Togoa and Carthal are primarily spaceports with very few actual residents. Since there are no oceans to divide the landmass, Jitha is made up of a network of interconnected villages that spider-web throughout the forests across most of the planet’s face, which is where my people live.”

“Does your village have a name?”

“Not really,” Lyoth said with a snicker. “I was born in the village of Togoa-87.”

Stawren was confused. “Your village was numbered?”

“The cities of Togoa and Carthal were the first two settlements,” Lyoth explained, “but they weren’t established to serve as residential or community areas. Initial scans of Jitha’s planetary system before it was inhabited showed that it possessed the right circumstances for high concentrations of precious metals, and in particular gold.”

“Gold?” Stawren repeated.

“Yes, but there was none on Jitha. Turns out the scans were accurate about the system, but the gold was trapped in a different one of the planets, and it was not in a usable state.”

Stawren was puzzled. “What do you mean? Where’s all the gold?”

Lyoth smirked. “When the system was formed, there was a much higher amount of gold than most others, but instead of solidifying and becoming veins hidden in the bedrock of Jitha, our gaseous giant called Rogoo stole almost all of it. The gold exists in a vaporized state as a major component of Rogoo’s atmosphere. There’s no way to extract it.”

“Gold vapor? That’s crazy!” Stawren considered something and added, “Think Ilial and our new scientist friends in Aergoroth could come up with some means of extracting it?”

From down the street, Valli called out, “Hello, you two!” She approached the front of the inn. “Oh no,” she added, “you’re not drinking their house coffee, are you? Let’s take you for a proper cup!”

Stawren nodded. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but this is a bit bitter.” She held up her mug.

“Good morning to you, Valli the volcanologist,” Lyoth declared.

Valli laughed at his alliteration. “Come on, you two, follow me!”

After getting themselves much fancier cups of coffee from a nearby café, Valli brought Stawren and Lyoth to her team’s warehouse.

“The sample-collecting kit is in this crate,” she informed them, patting its lid. “We’ll pack it on the shuttle after we find you suits in your sizes.”

“We’re not taking the Galaxy Surfer to Eckas-3?” Stawren asked. “I know you mentioned your shuttle last night, but the Surfer has really powerful shields.”

Valli shook her head. “As soon as you would lower the shields to exit the vehicle, the heat on Eckas-3 would wreak havoc on your ship. You need a shuttle that was designed to handle the extreme temperatures.” She opened a sliding door and revealed a closet lined with thermal suits. “This one ought to fit you, Stawren,” Valli said, handing her one of the bulky outfits. “And Lyoth, here’s another that should work for you,” she added, extending a second suit to him. “While you two are outside the protection of the shuttle, the intensity of the radiant heat is so severe that it’ll cause static interference between the suits’ communication capabilities. You two won’t be able to talk once you’re on Eckas.”

After Valli helped seal them both in the gear, she loaded them and the collection kit of the molten rock onto the shuttle, and she activated its preprogrammed flight to Eckas-3. Fourteen minutes later, Lyoth and Stawren were in the heat-shielded airlock.

The doors opened, and even within their protective suits, the moon’s soaring temperatures were a brutal assault on them. Stawren and Lyoth stepped unsteadily onto Eckas-3’s rocky surface, and they immediately saw the parstiline. It exuded up from cracks all around them. Lyoth opened the crate of tools, and he took out the scoop. Stawren held up the containment unit that the advanced scientists of the Aergoroth Nebula had designed to keep the parstiline from degrading. She pointed toward the nearest eructation of the foul sticky substance, and Lyoth used the scoop to collect some. He tipped it above the mouth of the container, and the parstiline oozed like honey.

For almost ten grueling minutes, Lyoth and Stawren collected the thick viscous material, slowly filling the container until their tedious task was done. Once completed, they sealed themselves inside the shuttle again and activated the return flight.

Valli had warned them to remain inside the uncomfortable suits for the short journey back to the planet Issdur. She informed them that the shuttle would run a cooling sequence to equalize the temperature of the ship and the exteriors of their suits, before arriving at the volcanology research and technology development center in Wilg Town.

The entire excursion had taken less than an hour, but Lyoth and Stawren were exhausted from the exertion. Valli helped them out of the heat gear, and she activated the shuttle’s recharging program.

“I need a shower,” Stawren declared.

Lyoth nodded in agreement. “Thank you for helping us, Valli.”

“Happy to assist a couple of worker bees,” she replied with a chuckle. “Do me a favor,” she added.

“Name it,” Stawren replied.

“Let me know what the scientists you’re working with end up doing with that nasty stuff.” She pointed at the containment unit.

Lyoth laughed. “We can do that.”

Valli led them back to the inn, and after Stawren and Lyoth cleaned themselves, they grabbed a bite to eat downstairs in the tavern and went back to their rooms to sleep.