The realms of S17 & S17a
I'm including this one as it doesn't give too much else away. By the way the character of Farath is a different one from the one in the other story (it's quite a common girl's name)
Exploration had restarted with a realm where they did not hold out much hope for there being much of interest – S17. Their expectations turned out to be accurate. Farath wasn’t sure to be relieved or disappointed when the realm of S17, several realms directly south of S9 turned out to be boring. The only difference between it and most of the other empty realms they had visited was that it had an official name. There seemed to be no indication that anyone had even visited it in the past, there was not even anything in the logs.
It was the journey back that was interesting. They had just passed the first realm, the one that if given their current naming system would be called S17a when an alarm sounded and the shuttle turned round and headed back the way it had come.
Farath, ran into the cockpit. The look on Hyinorich’s and Torril’s faces indicated that neither of them knew what was happening.
That didn’t stop her asking, “What is going on?”
“Some sort of alarm.”
“What …” Farath started to ask before being interrupted by …
“Flare alert, for your safety, we are diverting to the nearest realm,” the shuttle’s computer announced.
“What’s a flare alert?” Farath asked.
“The sun flares and if we got caught out in the open by a major flare, then it would be lethal.” Torril replied. “It could be a false alarm. There are routines that detect sun activity and if a flare is predicted then any shuttles in the area are forced to return to the nearest realm. The danger happens when a flare happens that is not predicted.”
“What about people on the ground?”
“The Inner Sphere protects them,” Torril replied. “It can even darken, if there are problems in the visible spectrum, in order to protect people. Most of the time nobody knows these happen.”
“Why not?”
“Because the inner sphere only darkens the relevant wavelengths, so if the flare is in the x-ray part of the spectrum, which is the usual case, then the Inner Sphere, which was designed to only let small amounts of x-rays through, it then becomes even more opaque to x-rays, but you and I would never even notice.”
Farath was impressed, every time she found out more about the Sphere she realised how sophisticated its design and construction had been.
Fifteen minutes later they were gliding into the shuttle bay of the realm of S17a. They jumped out of the shuttle to the sounds of identical alarms.
“Everyone should get into the lift and get to the lower levels,” Torril said walking towards the lift door.
They waited until shuttle two entered and Farin joined them before descending to the lower levels.
“We may as well give this the realm the onceover,” Torril said as they descended.
“How long do these flares last?” Jac asked.
“They can go on for days, if the sun is going through a serious period of flaring, then we may have to completely abandon inner-system travel and use the outer shuttles,” Torril said. “The thing is we’re not even sure if there are any outer shuttles anywhere.”
“There are in S4,” Jac said. “There are manufacturing facilities with them there.”
“When we get back to the control deck, I’ll get on the tight laser and ask how many there are.”
As expected, the realm showed no sigh of habitation. They walked into the control room and looked at the system logs. There was nothing.
Torril got the wall-display to show the realm. Unusually S17a had a far higher proportion of land to sea.
“There would probably be lots of deserts here,” Torril said. “Unless the weather settings were set specifically to cater for the large amounts of land and that would take some clever programming. Especially with no life.”
“Should we have a look outside?” Parinil asked.
“I don’t see why not.” Torril said. “We could see if we could detect any difference in the sun, if and when the flare occurs. We’ll see if we can set some viewing system up.”
The security routines detected no dangers outside and they opened up the Spire’s door to see standard bedrock.
“Right, I don’t have to tell you not to look at the sun,” Torril said. “I’m going to see if there’s anything here we can use to project the sun onto a screen or something. You never know it might be visible.”
Torril wandered off and had only gone for about ten minutes before the alarms stopped.
“Oh well,” Torril said returning. “We missed that opportunity. I suppose we should return to the shuttle and spend some time in quarantine. Anyway that’s another realm to tick off the list.”
“How many realms are there?” Farath asked.
“Originally they were only going to have tens of thousands but when they were designing the Sphere they realised they needed more. I think the final number was about three and a half million. I would have to check.”
Farath tried to comprehend the size of the Sphere.
“You forget how big the Sphere is,” Torril said.
“And it was all designed for people to live in. Imagine if they were all populated. You could spend your life just visiting different realms.”
“It would take lifetimes to visit every Spire,” Torril said. “And if you wanted to explore them properly then it would take forever.”
They walked back towards the entrance of S17a’s entrance. Torril closed the door and they got the lift back up to the shuttle-bay.
“Flares come in cycles,” Torril said. “The sun’s activity is in a period of increase at the moment, so don’t be surprised if we have to make more unexpected stops.”
They needn’t have worried, there were no further alerts and it was with some relief that they glided into SQ with no additional interruptions.
It was the journey back that was interesting. They had just passed the first realm, the one that if given their current naming system would be called S17a when an alarm sounded and the shuttle turned round and headed back the way it had come.
Farath, ran into the cockpit. The look on Hyinorich’s and Torril’s faces indicated that neither of them knew what was happening.
That didn’t stop her asking, “What is going on?”
“Some sort of alarm.”
“What …” Farath started to ask before being interrupted by …
“Flare alert, for your safety, we are diverting to the nearest realm,” the shuttle’s computer announced.
“What’s a flare alert?” Farath asked.
“The sun flares and if we got caught out in the open by a major flare, then it would be lethal.” Torril replied. “It could be a false alarm. There are routines that detect sun activity and if a flare is predicted then any shuttles in the area are forced to return to the nearest realm. The danger happens when a flare happens that is not predicted.”
“What about people on the ground?”
“The Inner Sphere protects them,” Torril replied. “It can even darken, if there are problems in the visible spectrum, in order to protect people. Most of the time nobody knows these happen.”
“Why not?”
“Because the inner sphere only darkens the relevant wavelengths, so if the flare is in the x-ray part of the spectrum, which is the usual case, then the Inner Sphere, which was designed to only let small amounts of x-rays through, it then becomes even more opaque to x-rays, but you and I would never even notice.”
Farath was impressed, every time she found out more about the Sphere she realised how sophisticated its design and construction had been.
Fifteen minutes later they were gliding into the shuttle bay of the realm of S17a. They jumped out of the shuttle to the sounds of identical alarms.
“Everyone should get into the lift and get to the lower levels,” Torril said walking towards the lift door.
They waited until shuttle two entered and Farin joined them before descending to the lower levels.
“We may as well give this the realm the onceover,” Torril said as they descended.
“How long do these flares last?” Jac asked.
“They can go on for days, if the sun is going through a serious period of flaring, then we may have to completely abandon inner-system travel and use the outer shuttles,” Torril said. “The thing is we’re not even sure if there are any outer shuttles anywhere.”
“There are in S4,” Jac said. “There are manufacturing facilities with them there.”
“When we get back to the control deck, I’ll get on the tight laser and ask how many there are.”
As expected, the realm showed no sigh of habitation. They walked into the control room and looked at the system logs. There was nothing.
Torril got the wall-display to show the realm. Unusually S17a had a far higher proportion of land to sea.
“There would probably be lots of deserts here,” Torril said. “Unless the weather settings were set specifically to cater for the large amounts of land and that would take some clever programming. Especially with no life.”
“Should we have a look outside?” Parinil asked.
“I don’t see why not.” Torril said. “We could see if we could detect any difference in the sun, if and when the flare occurs. We’ll see if we can set some viewing system up.”
The security routines detected no dangers outside and they opened up the Spire’s door to see standard bedrock.
“Right, I don’t have to tell you not to look at the sun,” Torril said. “I’m going to see if there’s anything here we can use to project the sun onto a screen or something. You never know it might be visible.”
Torril wandered off and had only gone for about ten minutes before the alarms stopped.
“Oh well,” Torril said returning. “We missed that opportunity. I suppose we should return to the shuttle and spend some time in quarantine. Anyway that’s another realm to tick off the list.”
“How many realms are there?” Farath asked.
“Originally they were only going to have tens of thousands but when they were designing the Sphere they realised they needed more. I think the final number was about three and a half million. I would have to check.”
Farath tried to comprehend the size of the Sphere.
“You forget how big the Sphere is,” Torril said.
“And it was all designed for people to live in. Imagine if they were all populated. You could spend your life just visiting different realms.”
“It would take lifetimes to visit every Spire,” Torril said. “And if you wanted to explore them properly then it would take forever.”
They walked back towards the entrance of S17a’s entrance. Torril closed the door and they got the lift back up to the shuttle-bay.
“Flares come in cycles,” Torril said. “The sun’s activity is in a period of increase at the moment, so don’t be surprised if we have to make more unexpected stops.”
They needn’t have worried, there were no further alerts and it was with some relief that they glided into SQ with no additional interruptions.