The Men of Collosia - 6. Escape From The Planet

Three years passed very quickly, and the space project was nearing completion. Brad and Alden were elated to think that they would be going back into space, but thinking about leaving the home that they had learned to appreciate, and which had nurtured them so lovingly, made them terribly sad.

They were both very healthy specimens, and it did not appear that their backup, Chris, would make the hazardous voyage. Chris was not in the least bit disappointed.

On the night before the voyage, Brad and Alden excused themselves from Dr. Vasco, Sr. and Chris, Sr. They said they wanted to be alone tonight. In case a disaster should befall them, they wanted to have several intervals of total and uninterrupted sex.

“That’s not very likely to happen,” Vasco assured them. “Everything will go according to plan.” The four men kissed goodbye and goodnight.

Alone in their room, Brad and Alden fell into each other’s arms. They kissed sensuously for a very long time. Their tongues tickled and probed beyond endurance. Finally, they fell into a sixty-nine position, and they swallowed each other’s very hard, very erect cocks.

“Please,” Alden said, “cum in my mouth. We’ll fuck later when we’ve recovered.”

“Can you believe how much we resisted male sex when we first arrived here?” Brad asked.

“We were fools, then, so let’s get on with it now,” Alden suggested.

And so, they did. They alternated fucking and sucking through most of the remaining rest-time intervals.

******

The tiny spacecraft had no suspended animation pods. Every bit of space was needed for the scientific equipment which they would use for their experiments, and for the test flora and fauna. The trip from planet to planet was expected to take sixty periods each. With that timetable, suspended animation was not necessary.

When they were close to C2, cameras began to take hundreds of pictures. Like C1, only one side of C2 faced their star. The picture taking was concentrated on that side. Brad and Alden determined that there were as many streams, lakes, and rivers as on C1. However, the landscape was barren. Not one sign of plant or animal life existed. They expected this. They sent the pictures back to C1.

Upon landing, the two space warriors had to don heavy space suits with breathing apparatus attached. More than ever, they appreciated the liberating nudity of their adopted planet. The weight of the spacesuits bogged them down in performing their tasks.

Their first order of business was to analyze the atmosphere. They managed to drag out several heavy pieces of equipment with them as they exited their ship. They didn’t need instruments to tell them that the specific gravity was the same on C2 as on C1.

They rested from their labors for a fraction of an interval, and then they set up the equipment. Immediately they were rewarded with readouts, and they smiled and embraced clumsily. The atmosphere of this alien planet was the same as on C1.

“I wonder why life never developed here like on C1.” Alden mused.

Brad shook his shoulders. “We’ll never know. Let the scientists figure it out, if they can.”

“Maybe many millennia ago, a race from another solar system or another galaxy settled C1,” Alden conjectured, “just as we are about to do to C2 and C3.”

“Hold that thought,” Brad said.

Slowly, they removed the breathing apparatus and the helmets from their suits. They both took deep breaths. If possible, the air smelled fresher than on C1. The temperature reading was slightly cooler than on C1. It was where C1 had averaged less than a decade ago.

They radioed the good news back to Dr. Vasco and his colleagues. The members of the Council celebrated with a variety of fruit juices. There were no beverages stronger than that on C1.

Brad and Alden packed up the heavy equipment and stowed it back on the ship. They took a short break, and true to Collosian tradition, they had sex. It was a first on Planet C2.

They reconstituted a powdered lunch, and while they were eating Alden remarked, “I don’t know if the strange air is causing me to hallucinate, but my orgasm seemed so much more intense here than at home.” He had no trouble calling C1, home.

After eating, they prepared for the next experiments. The two men took all the potted plants assigned to C2 and stowed them just outside the ship. They walked naked several yards from the ship to a small gurgling stream. The soil there was moist and nearly black. Alden took some samples of the soil, and brought them back to the ship for analysis. The soil was richer in nitrogen and carbon than on C1. He prayed that his plants would adapt, just as he did when he first came to C1. There was only one way to find out. He and Brad returned to the stream, and they bedded every single plant along the edge.

When that was done, they released the lower animal life among the plants and along the edge of the stream. They put a variety of fish into the stream along with water plants and algae. Fully exhausted, they returned to the ship to rest, eat dinner, and have sex during the next few intervals.

They couldn’t wait to test their theory of intensified orgasms. In the end, they concluded that it was true. Neither man had ever squirmed or screamed so loud when their climaxes approached. They agreed that they would be happy to relocate, along with the rest of the inhabitants of C1, when the time came.

Before retiring for a few intervals of rest, they did one more job. Just outside the ship, they set up the machine to test the heat and activity of the planet’s inner core. The specialized equipment would take readings all through their rest intervals. The data would be transmitted to Dr. Vasco for his analysis.

The next period, they received a message from the Science Council. So far the readings showed very little activity in the core, and the heat level was normal for the inner core of any planet.

The Council instructed the men to stay on C2 for at least ten more periods. They wanted to make sure the heat readings remained constant. They also needed to find out how the flora fared in the alien soil, and how the animals and fish adapted to the alien water, terrain and atmosphere.

******

One of the lower animal life forms, the astronauts brought aboard, was a fuzzy little animal called a furrie. Furries were quite small. They never weighed more than twelve pounds. They were hairy, playful, lovable, and very huggable animals. They made excellent house pets, and were favored by Collosians for that purpose. Brad chose two males and two females for each planet. Both the females were pregnant. He hoped they would give birth on both planets to see what effect it would have on the babies. At the end of the last work interval of the previous period, Brad and Alden had left one male and one female furrie playing at the side of the stream. They seemed happy enough, but furries were always happy.

The two explorers were awakened the next work interval by the shrill yipping of the furries. They knew that sound well. They wanted to be fed. Brad reconstituted powdered furrie food and brought it outside in small dishes. The furries were beyond their frisky old selves. They were running around and trying to get Brad to play with them.

After they ate, he ran down to the stream with them, and was awestruck. All the lower animal life forms were thriving, but the shock was in the flora. The nitrogen rich soil had worked miracles. Every plant was twice the size it had been the period before. Evidence of budding was all over the fruit trees. They were going to flower and produce fruit very soon. Brad had no doubt the fruit would be tastier than on C1. He examined the stream, and was delighted to see that the fish were alive and well.

By the time the astronauts had to fly off to C3, the flora had spread and covered a very wide area. The animals, including the furries, were feasting off the fruit of the fruit trees and the flowers of the green plants. The female furrie had birthed two babies, a male and a female. Mothers and babies were doing exceptionally well. All of this was reported back to the Science Council. Brad and Alden failed to report that their sex lives were so enhanced, it was difficult to keep working, when all they wanted to do was have sex.

The Council reported that the temperature of the inner core was holding steady, and there were no signs of change. Alden and Brad were given the go ahead to go on to C3. They had brought life to a barren planet, and they had no doubt that the flora and fauna they brought would continue to flourish and spread all over the side of the planet facing the star.

As they flew closer and closer to C3, the astronauts began sending pictures back to C1. Again, only one side of the planet always faced the star. All they could see was a barren, reddish-brown landscape. There were no streams or lakes. When they landed they tested the atmosphere. C3 was void of life-sustaining oxygen. It was almost all carbon dioxide and some carbon monoxide. Brad and Alden sent the bad news to the Council. Their disappointment was evident, and Vasco ordered Brad and Alden to abandon the barren planet and come home.

******

When the astronauts returned, life on Collosia became severely altered. Every man, who was not in a vital life sustaining position, was recruited to build two spaceships, which would seat 250 passengers each. Both ships would shuttle back and forth carrying passengers to C2. Fortunately, they did not have to worry about manufacturing space suits.

When the two ships were completed they had no seats. For the foreseeable future they were to be cargo and construction worker ships. Alden and Brad would be transporting construction material, workers, and every known flora and fauna they could identify. A whole city had to be built before the planet could be populated. The elder Chris was assigned to head up the construction workers. He already had a nuclear crew with the men that he worked with every day, but now he had to train dozens of others.

Brad and Alden flew their first mission to C2 with two spaceships loaded with construction material, construction workers, and an abundance of flora and fauna. They were shocked at what they found. The flora they had planted had flourished and spread so much that they found a forest in the area where they had first landed on C2. Much of the flora would have to be cleared to start construction.

Likewise, the fauna had multiplied. The furries and other small animals were all over the construction crew. They were downright pests. Brad and Alden decided not to unload the additional plants and animals. It was bad enough that something would have to be done to control the furrie population.

Unfortunately, the men of Collosia could not change old habits. They took their sweet time doing their work, and had sex whenever and wherever the mood struck them. Consequently, it took fifteen Collosian years to replicate the city on C2. After that, the space ships were refurbished with seats, and the exodus began. It took another ten years to complete the move.

******

Dr. Vasco determined that conditions on C1 were deteriorating fast. Every day, C1 got noticeably hotter and hotter. The core was heating up at an accelerating rate. The population of C2 thought that they were safe, but now Dr. Vasco had something new to worry about. If Collosia erupted (and he was certain that it would), he feared that the debris would take the same orbit as the three planets now surrounding the star. They would be like asteroids of various sizes and shapes, and many could crash on C2.

As it turned out, he needn’t have worried. Most of the debris was sucked up by Collosia’s star. A small amount of debris formed an asteroid belt in the area once occupied by C1. The belt circled the star in the same orbit as C2, and as C1 once had. It was little or no threat to the planet.

Time passes swiftly as we all have observed. There came a day when most of the residents of Collosia were cloned on C2. Most of them were unaware of the transition. Only devoted history buffs knew about their home planet which had erupted.

The original immigrants had reconstructed an exact replica of C1 on C2, and life was as happy, stress-free, tranquil, and as full of sex as it had been on that doomed planet.