Chapter 8: Questions on Origins
12:01, just in the afternoon. Peter and Alma had talked to the family about the homestead and more on what they do in general, everything they said to them was very interesting to say the least. They went on to show Peter and Alma how they made new fields, how to plant seeds, and probably the most interesting one; how to water the crops. Everything they said Peter would note down as he couldn't take in how remarkable they were with something as basic as farming. They still had some crops left over from last time, and so they showed how they stored it too. It just seemed... too interesting, something wasn't right, but Peter couldn't understand what it was.
"All right then, uh... I'll get the shuttle over here and leave Peter with you guys. I'll be right back!" Alma quickly ran off, leaving Peter in it's dust wake, before turning back to the family. "So uh, you guys got any questions for us, well, me?" He asked, since he asked so many to them it was only natural for them to do the same. However he did not expect them to start walking. Following them, they soon stopped, before lying down. "The grass isn't wet Peter, you can sit down."
"But why sit down?"
"You don't really have much to show us around this place. So we might as well stay here until Alma comes back. Arlo, Buck, Libby, you got any questions for this... uh..."
"Human, but just 'man' will do fine." Peter finished, before adding "I know some of you are begging me to ask something, like where I came from, what's the place like where I came from, you know? So who's brave enough to start?" Arlo instantly grew excitement, for a fraction of a second, but long enough for Peter to notice. "How about you Arlo?"
He could tell Arlo didn't want to hear that, as he grew slightly nervous "It's okay, there's nothing to worry about."
"You might want to go easy on him Peter, he's been through a lot within the last week or two."
"Ah right. I guess to make it easier I'll just say a few things about myself that you don't understand, that might start something. In that case, my full name is Peter Brooks, I come from San Jose in California and I'm a geologist." And sure enough, they all gave him the look he was looking for - the look of confusion and curiosity. "San Jose?" Arlo finally asked, it was the thing Peter wanted to have, conversation where he was the one that knew more about something. But in this case it wasn't just a life out in a farm, no Peter had to find a way to explain everything mankind has done or do... somehow. It was going to be a very intriguing and frustrating conversation from now on.
Preparing to start explaining, Peter sat down on the dry grass, feeling slightly small compared to the others. "Allow me to explain. Imagine you just had more than the one homestead here, what if you had say a couple dozen, each with a family like yours, across this entire plain? Where I come from we call that a village, a small community with hundreds of people. Now imagine more people come, more houses are built, some make bigger houses with more than one floor. We call that a town, thousands of people living in one small area as a community. And then, imagine even more people come in, taller houses are made, some are made for entertainment purposes, some are made for work purposes. That's a city, tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people living in an area the size of these plains, from Clawtooth mountain to those hills over there. We give each city a unique name so we know which one we're in, and the one I live in is called 'San Jose'."
Peter took some breaths after all that, realizing that he had been talking for the last two or so minutes. "That's uh, quite the explanation you had there Peter. You also mentioned California?" Buck broke the silence, Peter talked so much just about a city, now he has to talk about countries and states? It was going to be a tough time explaining all this when he noticed the family turning their heads to Clawtooth Mountain. Confused, he soon heard a rumbling sound, and looked over to where they were looking. Amazingly enough, the shuttle had just passed over the mountains and was set to land fairly close to the homestead. Upon landing the side and cockpit doors opened up, with Alma walking out.
"So uh, what did I miss?" Alma asked, unaware of what had happened while it was away. "What in tarnation is that!?" Ida asked expressively. Everyone walked over to the shuttle, for they had never seen something as large as this move or even fly. "Oh that, that's the shuttle Alma mentioned when it went off to get it. Kinda big compared to you guys." Peter replied.
"Wait, with this, you guys can go... anywhere?" Libby asked, at first it was a confusing question, but it soon became obvious as to what she was thinking. "I mean yeah, this thing can take you anywhere around the world, in a very short time nonetheless. However it still needs a proper fix, as we said earlier it crashed during a storm a couple days ago. It can go a short distance but we can't take it as any measurable speed. With enough work we can get it fixed in about two days."
"You made this?" Arlo asked, Peter glanced behind himself to look at the shuttle, before looking back at Arlo. "No, I myself didn't design this, a group of specialized people, along with Alma, came up with the design of the Shuttle. It was designed to take me and Alma to Mars to accompany the others on the planet, but things went wrong and... we're here."
Peter sighed before anyone else could reply. "Mars?" He heard Ida say curiously. "Mars is a planet, another world, smaller than this one we're on. It's very far away from here, too far for you guys to comprehend. Actually, hang on..." Peter climbed up into the cockpit of the shuttle, before climbing back down with a relatively small device. Alma looked at Peter with concern, knowing what it was, but Peter gave Alma a reassuring look. He placed the device on the ground, triggering it to display a holographic screen for his size. Using just his fingers, he resized it to a fitting size for the family to see. They all took a step back when he'd done so, but after a moment they walked around it, he knew that this was something they weren't used to seeing normally.
"It's a hologram, with it is all the information you need. Just ask it anything and it'll give all the information to you, need to know what a word means? Then ask it the definition of that word and it'll give you it. Ask for what anything looks like and it'll give you an image, it's definitely better than me at explaining things, that's for sure. It's all yours now!" Peter explained.
Arlo was the first one to ask, just as a test. "What is Mars?" The Hologram lighted up, before quickly showing a picture of Mars "Mars is the 4th planet from the Sun and the 2nd smallest planet in the Solar System after Mercury. Named after the Roman god of war, it is often referred to as the 'red planet' as its surface contains iron oxide, a mineral that gives the planet it's rust-like color. Mars is a terrestrial, rocky planet with a thin atmosphere, along with surface features resembling craters on the Moon and valleys, deserts, and ice caps of Earth."
"Uuuh, thanks I guess." Arlo said. "Sorry if it gives more than you want, it doesn't know that you guys have little knowledge of things outside of what you already know. I'll give you guys an easy one to understand." Peter stepped in, before adding "Show me an 2-D map of the world." The hologram responded by displaying what he'd asked for. "Okay, now give me a 3-D Globe of the world." The hologram quickly changed the image into a 3-D Globe, Peter grabbed the globe, before enlarging it.
"Okay, this is what the world looks like. Amazing isn't it?" Peter asked, looking at the family who were all in awe. "And I have one more thing to show you." Peter spun the globe so that the night side was facing them, and on that side were small white dots that scattered across where the land would be. "Those are the lights of the cities we made. Right then, I think I'll get back to work on the Shuttle and you guys mess with that thing, if you aren't doing anything else that is."
A/N: There's not much to say about this chapter, apart from how long it took me to get everything sorted out, this chapter specifically was one of the reasons of why I was so late, as the topics within the chapter were so hard to stay relevant to the plot. I hope you enjoyed this chapter - and more importantly the story so far, there's much more to come, though how many chapters specifically I'm not sure. Let me know what you think so far, and as always... see you, in the next chapter. Bye for now!
Next Chapter: Invitation
Notable Facts: None