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    Confluence
    Confluence
    Confluence
    Ebook124 pages1 hour

    Confluence

    By Ron Mueller

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Journey's End

    A small black hole devastates Mars

    Savitar

    Two hundred twenty-five million years later the small black hole

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAround the World Publishing LLC
    Release dateJun 2, 2023
    ISBN9781682233085
    Confluence
    Author

    Ron Mueller

    About the Author Ronald E. Mueller [email protected] Ron grew up in what is now Flint River State Park in Southeast Iowa. The 170-year-old house Ron lived in is built into a hillside. It faces a 125-foot-high cliff towering over the little Flint River. The house and the land talked to him about; the passing of time, the struggle to conquer the land, the struggles people faced and the wonder of nature. He climbed the cliffs, crawled into the caves, dove from the swimming rock, collected clams from the bottom of the pond, gigged and skinned frogs for their legs. He trapped muskrats for fur, hunted raccoon in the dead of night, and with only a stick hunted rabbits in the dead of winter. His young life was outdoors, and nature tested him. He walked to a one room stone schoolhouse uphill both ways. A stern but warm-hearted teacher, Mrs. Henry was instrumental in shaping his character as she shepherded him from the fourth to the eighth grade. A Montessori before its time. It was a great way to grow up. His experiences inter-twined with snippets of fantasy lend themselves to the adventures he leads the reader through.

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      Book preview

      Confluence - Ron Mueller

      1

      Astounding Discovery

      The Savitar was now functioning as an Earth escort and a science project platform. Zack had been elected the first President of the Savitar. He had positioned the Savitar as a neutral entity to be considered the Switzerland of Space. The relationship between Earth and the Savitar was evolving and various countries desired to have formal ambassadors and staff on the Savitar, but Zack was inclined to keep the political structure lean and at a minimum.

      Zack and his leadership team decided that an Earth Ambassador representing the entire Earth would be appropriate but the staffing for that ambassador had to come from the people who were already on the Savitar.

      This approach caused a mixed response but eventually the UN agreed to establish a post with one person who would be elected by the representatives in the UN.

      Zack and the leadership team were pleased with the final arrangement.

      Living space on the Savitar was limited and managing the Savitar to remain a viable entity was a task that kept all inhabitants totally engaged. Without exception person on the Savitar recognized that their life was better than the ones they would have had on Earth.

      Life was as good.

      Zack was proud of the active engagement his teams had with various teams on Earth. These teams were critical in bringing the critical skills and capabilities up to the Savitar.

      Craig’s team asked to give the Savitar’s leadership team an update on a new discovery. They showed them a series of pictures indicating that a previous intelligence had traveled the solar system. They displayed a series of pictures taken on the Savitar’s journey that had been studied in detail.

      He pointed out the evidence showing that a previous civilization had traveled through the solar system. He and his team had discovered this almost by accident but after their initial find on Mars they had found evidenced in pictures that the Savitar had taken as it had come out to capture the blackhole.

      His team had kept it under wraps until they were absolutely confident of their findings.

      He then said put in a request.

      "Gentlemen, we are sharing what my team and I feel very certain that we have discovered. We have found signs of a previous intelligence. There are indications on Mars, on the moon of Jupiter and most clearly on a moon of Saturn.

      The request that I am making is to utilize the equipment of the Savitar to scrutinize the moon of Saturn and determine if a full project expedition should be sent to investigate it more closely," Craig said as he put the pictures with the evidence in front of Zack and Enrico.

      Such a discovery would be astounding. It is hard from these pictures to conclude this is the case. What am I missing, Zack asked as he took in Craig’s request?

      "Here, see the rows along the wall of this deep canyon. This is a picture taken of a deep mantle canyon on Mars. This seems to suggest there are multiple floors cut into the mantle.

      Now look at the picture of Europa, a moon of Jupiter. See this huge post. It appears to be some sort of giant anchor with a ring at the top. It is almost totally buried in the ice, but we were able to enhance the picture to see it more clearly. It appears to be fabricated and put there for some purpose we have not yet determined.

      Finally, look at the ruins of some giant structure on Titan the largest moon circling Saturn. We did not see it until we were able to screen out the thick cloud cover.

      This picture seals my belief of some intelligence traveling our solar system in the distant past." Craig said as he explained the pictures to the group.

      Let’s agree to the exploration of Titan as our first scientific investigation. I am not sure I am bought into Craig’s interpretation of the pictures but investigating and learning about our solar system is what we are about. Zack commented to the leadership team.

      Enrico nodded in agreement and made the official proposal to travel in toward the orbit of Saturn and send a scout out to Titan for a closer look.

      The leadership team agreed and the first scientific journey for the Savitar was put into swing.

      Enrico suggested that the Savitar would move part of the way toward Saturn, but it had to stay far enough away to prevent any undesired effects the presence of the Savitar might have. Having a captive black hole worked well to provide the Savitar with an almost perfect one G gravity but it still exerted its presence on the paths of the various objects in the solar system.

      Captain Rajkumar of the Rama eagerly volunteered his ship as the perfect match for the task at hand.

      The leadership team agreed and suggested that the team that would do the exploration decide what they needed and start to prepare the Rama for its first excursion.

      The journey to Saturn was much slower than the journey out to the black hole. They were now moving carefully and staying away from the orbits of the planets. And moving the Savitar meant determining where they might be going next after their move toward Saturn.

      Currently the Savitar’s travels were synchronized to the match the speed that the Solar system was moving. It chose to slow down just a bit and move toward the Saturn just a bit. A bit was the best they knew how to communicate what a slight deviation was to be. They were still in the learning process of pushing the black hole in the direction they desired.

      The Rama was made ready for the exploration of Titan.

      The Indian crew was excited to be the ship to be named to be engaged in the first exploratory mission. Their community had several celebratory gatherings to celebrate with the crew.

      The leadership team had agreed that Craig would lead this first expedition.

      The Rama was capable of landing on the surface and taking back off from Titan. This would allow for firsthand exploration.

      As the Savitar got closer to Saturn, they verified earlier analysis of the makeup of the atmosphere and the seas of Titan to be a methane-ethane mixture.

      It was in essence a sea of gasoline. This was an obstacle to the plans of landing on to the surface.

      The Rama would not be able to land after all. Their engines would potentially ignite the atmosphere and the seas.

      New plans went into full discussion,

      The powerful telescopes scoured the surface of Titan. The ability to filter out much of the cloud cover allowed Craig and his team to examine the surface of Titan. They spent almost a month meticulously examining the surface.

      The day the scene of the surface revealed a ring in the surface ice of the moon a cheer went up from Craig and his entire team.

      They took a series of pictures and then compared it to the picture of the other ring that they had taken on Europa. The ring was a duplicate.

      Craig brought it to the leadership morning meeting and made the point that the second ring confirmed the existence of a previous intelligence.

      Zack complemented Craig on his team’s thorough and correct analysis.

      You would have to have a mighty big dog to hook his chain to that ground ring, Janet joked as she stared at the ring.

      Her comment caused Zack to jump up in excitement.

      He pointed at Janet and said that she was a genius. She had just described a ring to hook a space elevator to. It is the anchor point of a cable. We of all people should recognize it. The Savitar is held together by cables. We rode up and down on the welding elevators for several years. There were huge rings at the ends of those cables.

      How could I have missed it when Craig first showed me the pictures?"

      It made sense. The previous visitors would not be able to land their spacecraft, but they would be able to hook up and set up a space elevator and then visit the surface.

      They could not chance using the existing ring since they did not know its true condition.

      They would need their own anchor.

      Analysis of the atmosphere and the gravitational attraction showed that the Savitar would be able to land a glider near the existing ring.

      They would design a similar anchor to which the Rama would connect. The expedition would then go down to the surface in an elevator. The solution was simple but executing it would be a new experience.

      They would need to construct the elevator container and the motor system to run it up and down. They decided that the downward power would be the weight the elevator and the upward pull would come from a cable hooked to a motor on the Rama.

      The crew of the Rama promised that they would be

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