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© Evgeniy Shmigirilov, 2015
© Natalya Zavyalova, illustrations, 2015
Created with intellectual publishing system Ridero
Swing back
Super Queen-Mother went up to the terrace and, sitting in the armchair, looked at the sky. The stars were brightly twinkling in the night sky dome. Nothing reminded her of deathly, violent battles somewhere out there, on one of the planets, which was healing its wounds after Super Queen-Mother had visited it.
The Moon came out from behind the tree branches and floodlit the terrace.
Super Queen-Mother remembered about two precious asteroids she had hidden on the other side of the mysterious hollow Moon, and welcomed the Orb of Night, waving her hand to it.
New life was coming.
Chapter 1
In the morning Super Queen-Mother went up to the terrace and looked down.
The sun, coming out from behind the mountain, lit the still sleeping town.
Cars were rolling on the roads by easy stages, taking their masters to work.
Janitors were finishing their morning street cleaning.
Dump trucks were following their usual routes.
Sometimes, barely audible alarm signals reached her when sellers opened the doors of their shops.
Super Queen-Mother looked at the far corner of the bay.
A train was noiselessly emerging from the tunnel. Braking on at the station, it whistled, warning absent-minded, sleepy passengers about the approaching danger.
Super Queen-Mother looked over the bay again. She liked what she saw.
“Let it always be so”, she thought and went down to the living room.
She invited the security officer in and commanded him to gather all the specialists of her team intended for support of her activity as the Mistress of Earth. She appointed a meeting with them for the next day, at ten sharp.
In the meantime, Super Queen-Mother decided to fly to the Moon. Nobody knew about this – people thought she stayed alone to have a rest before the hard work.
So as not to attract the attention of her guard to her private trip to the Moon she decided not to use the starship, allocated to her by the Galaxy, and waiting for her in the ravine, behind the “dog ground”.
Super Queen-Mother went to the terrace, pressed her arms to her body and zoomed up. The roof of the house and the town remained miles behind. She thought that at such speed it was unlikely that anybody saw even her shadow.
Having overcome the earth’s gravitational force, she viewed the space around her.
The near space was littered with orbiting garbage. Various debris – worn out and outdated satellites, written off and operating unannounced flying machines, launched by different countries at different times, were floating here and there.
Super Queen-Mother defined this as one more urgent problem – cleaning the local space.
She mentally represented the future terrestrial-space grouping of spaceships. They had to be tracking ships, independently regulating their location and capable to avoid straight-line impact with any kinds of bodies.
All flying cosmic equipment had to be integrated into the Single Control System.
However, to substitute this stuff for new equipment, the cosmic space had to be first quickly cleaned; otherwise, temporary absence of artificial satellites, necessary for economic activity, might cause catastrophes on Earth.
Further on, her flight went on without delay or hindrance.
The Moon was becoming larger and larger, covering the whole sky dome.
Super Queen-Mother took to the other, dark side of the Moon, which had never showed itself to the earthly people.
Her flight was not long, and soon she was grounding the surface of the Orb of Night, near her hidden treasures.
The dusty asteroids did not distinguish themselves from the surroundings. They began to sparkle and shine only when Super Queen-Mother had cleaned some small areas on them with her hand.
She counted the approximate volume of rich ore her spaceship could take to Earth at a time and grouped the asteroids according to her calculations. She did not need to disguise the asteroids again – no one ship would go into space without her order.
She only had to make arrangements with the corresponding enterprises and then to transfer the asteroids to Earth.
She again looked over her treasures, then rose three miles up and embarked on the second part of her task.
She wanted to answer some questions:
– Why did the Moon drone like a bell when her asteroids hit it during their landfall on it?
– Why is the dark side of the Moon never seen?
– Why does not its celestial motion comply with the law of free movement of bodies in space?
– Who adjusts its motion?
– Why is its orbit a circle and not an ellipse, as in other cosmic bodies, moreover that its gravitational center is shifted towards Earth for more than a mile?
– Why are its craters shallow? Is its rock denser? Then, why does its density equal only 60% of the earthly one? Is it hollow?
– Or, is it a galaxy ship put out of service?
Questions, questions, questions…
Super Queen-Mother started to fly around the Moon. The moon landscapes spellbound her with its emptiness and quietness.
Super Queen-Mother was flying at great speed; nevertheless, she had time to look over everything unusual on the Moon’s surface. There were many queer things.
She flew over huge, seventy-foot high blocks, cut, polished and set inside the crater.
Ruins of an old town inside a meteorite crater surprised her. It was a square with a side more than one and a half mile long.
Super Queen-Mother divided everything she saw into dangerous and interesting things. She did not ask herself what they were and how they had appeared there. Super Queen-Mother just registered in her memory that they were on the Moon.
She flew over big semitransparent castles, long pipelines, arches and bridges.
Super Queen-Mother saw pits and gaps.
One of them resembled a heel print, sixty-eighty feet deep.
There were also huge pits with right angles, looking like commercial developments of mineral ore.
She flew over enormous, strange constructions, scattered in disorder.
She saw many interesting things on the Moon’s surface, but could not compare them to the dangerous ones.
The only thing that alerted Super Queen-Mother was a cave two hundred feet in diameter. She did not find any other holes on the Moon.
Super Queen-Mother decided to examine it. She landed and came up to its entrance. Its dark walls were fire-polished and smooth, without any visible sag. The rough floor was homogeneous lunar rock, melted into a single mass.
Super Queen-Mother came into the cave. The first one hundred feet of the passage were straight, and then it curved, leading inside the planet. It resembled the caverns on Earth, left by magma streams.
Super Queen-Mother went farther. The passage widened and came abruptly to an end. She stopped at the edge of a huge abyss.
It was a giant cavern.
Far below she saw opaque light, coming from a big column, about half a mile high and fifty-sixty feet in diameter.
It went out of the center of an enormous ribbed semi-sphere, which was smoothly moving counterclockwise at uniform speed. The ribs and the blanks had the same width.
The very same semi-sphere was below, ten-fifteen feet from the upper one. It was mainly moving clockwise, not very quickly, now smoothly, then brokenly, stopped for a short time and came back.
Bright yellow light was breaking through from behind these semi-spheres. It was coming from dozens of luminous poles, which were under the second semi-sphere, about sixty feet from it. The poles narrowed at the top and had rounded sloping surface.
Their bright yellow light was broken by moving semi-spheres and illuminated only the foot of the column.
Super Queen-Mother was watching the formation of plasmoids.
They came out of different parts of the column and had different areas of blowing, like soap bubbles from tubes of different diameters. The plasmoids grew, and after they reached their critical volume, flew off from the column.
“Probably, it’s a side effect of the device’s operation”, Super Queen-Mother thought.
The plasmoids came off from the column and slowly rose up. They resembled big, cloudlike, shining pieces of jelly, because they were shaking while rising up.
They quickly went away to the upper part of the rock. When a large number of plasmids came out of the column, they formed one big plasmoid at the top, which immediately went away into the ground.
Super Queen-Mother understood what kind of shining formations of different sizes the astronomers of Earth saw while watching the Moon.
She flew out of the cave and saw that plasmoids were coming out of the ground not directly above the working device, but dozens of miles from it, in different directions.
After that some plasmoids under the action of some forces, perhaps, of gravitation or a magnet field of ore deposits, or some other natural causes, again went away into the ground or just disappeared; sometimes they tore off from the Moon and with high acceleration vanished in cosmic space.
Everything worked in a random way and without any visible external control.
Suddenly, she saw some plasmoids that acted in a different way in comparison with the others.
To be on the safe side, she gave a command to her battle ship on Earth: “Active guard!”
She at once got a reply from the Administration of the Galaxy “Milky Way”:
“The Moon is under surveillance, there’s nothing dangerous”.
“And what about the plasmoids I see? Some of them divide and take the form of balls and disks. It seems to me they are watching me”.
The answer was quite unexpected:
“According to the agreement with the General Cosmic Civilization, a space beacon was set on the Moon, acting in autonomous regime and served by automatic ships.
Those are their ships, but they mind their own business, there is no harm from them. Their technologies are better than ours; that is why their ships are so unusual. Don’t pay attention to them”.
“Stone the crows!” thought Super Queen-Mother, “Maybe, there is something more nearby that I don’t know about? That won’t do. I will certainly report about this at the meeting of the General Council of the Galaxy!”
Super Queen-Mother got a general impression about the Moon. There were no inhabitants from other planets or other worlds on it, but the Moon was TECHNICALLY inhabitable.
“For how many thousand or million years is this technical device working inside the Moon? It’s unknown. What kind of device is it? This is also unknown. Only one thing is clear – if something is uncertain, one has to beware of it, in spite of the assurance of safety”.
She decided to visit the Moon again when she had time, and now every minute counted.
Super Queen-Mother thought over all she had seen. Except for the technical device she had discovered inside the Moon, she found nothing dangerous for the people on Earth there.
She left the Moon, accelerating with every minute.
Her beautiful Earth grew larger and larger, and the Moon became smaller.
A thought about a rest on some uninhabited island in tropics came into Super Queen-Mother’s mind. She wanted to stay alone for a while and relax before the long workdays began.
Chapter 2
Flying over the ocean, she was looking for a small island or rather an isolated deserted reef. She had no need to worry about prophylactic immunization.
Soon she found what she was looking for.
It was a small piece of earth in the form of a horseshoe, elevated on the ocean sand bar, with an internal lagoon and thirty or forty palms, nodding at the blue water.
There was nothing besides snow-white coarse sand, mixed with the remnants of broken shells, and the crabs, sidling on the shoreline in search of food, washed to the sand by quiet breaking waves.
Super Queen-Mother landed near the island oasis and lay on the sand near the shadow of the palm.
Only the monotonous noise of the oncoming waves and the rustling of sand, carried away by the withdrawing waves, were heard. After a short rest she decided to swim in the ocean.
Super Queen-Mother got up and stretched herself. Some sand stuck to her body, but she did not want to shake it off.
The light wind took away the tropical stuffy heat. Small waves added to this picture of the settled world order on this small island.
Super Queen-Mother slowly came into the water and swam.
The ocean bottom mainly consisted of sand, coral and shell debris. Numerous corals, fantastic in their beauty, shells and algae were growing on them.
Small fish schools were swimming round them; they resembled a rainbow, broken into pieces. There were all colors one could imagine.
They had never met a human being and swam close to Super Queen-Mother without fear.
The fish tried to bite off a piece of her, but, as they had no teeth, their tingling made her laugh.
She dove for some time in the shallow waters and swam farther from the shore.
Super Queen-Mother plunged her head into the water and opened her eyes.
Sun rays reached the bottom, lighting the underwater world.
Fish were larger at this depth. Huge devilfish, like underwater sailing-ships, soared slowly above the other dwellers of the ocean. Smaller fish gathered into schools, it was safer so.
Super Queen-Mother turned over with her face to the sun, undulating on the waves, half asleep. Neither people, nor planes, nor ships…
Only herself and the ocean…
It was the state Super Queen-Mother dreamt about for a long time.
She opened her eyes and saw… a yellow-waxen picture.
Super Queen-Mother instantly intensified the yellowish-waxen color of the picture and swam aside.
The big jaws of a shark with several rows of bared sharp and curved teeth showed up on the surface of the ocean, where she had just been lying.
Its body was running out of the ocean at great speed. It seemed it would never end.
The thirty feet death flew out of the ocean, rising ten feet above its surface, stopped dead for a second and, having made one-half turn in the air, fell down into the water with a loud noise.
“So much for a paradise”, Super Queen-Mother thought, “one can appear in somebody’s belly in it!”
She imagined how this artful terror of the ocean had found her out and then took a run from the bottom vertically up, having opened its formidable jaws, while approaching its prey.
The prey was not at the spot, however. While the beast did not attack her again, Super Queen-Mother rose a little above the water and returned to her sandy beach, under the palm’s shadow.
From there she was watching the shark and its congeners, attracted by the noise, looking for the vanished prey. Sharks’ fins were cutting the surface of the ocean in all directions.
In the meantime, their prey was taking a tan on the sand and smirking to herself, looking at the unlucky hunters.
This minor accident in the ocean did her good. Super Queen-Mother threw off her sleepy state, took a glance around the island that had hosted her and… set off for home.
Chapter 3
Nobody looked for her at home; everybody was sure she was having a rest in one of the rooms.
Super Queen-Mother walked about the house and went into the yard. It was small and cosy. She thought that soon she would have to move to another place.
Super Queen-Mother tried to imagine what her new place of work would be. She had to discuss everything with architects to help them to arrange it as she wanted. That would be a little later, however; now she had to meet the people she would work with.
Super Queen-Mother took a pencil and a copybook and went up to the terrace. There she dropped into a chaise longue, put on sun-glasses and settled in to write.
She wanted to write down the structure of governance as she had pictured it to herself, and then to discuss it with the specialists. Then she would cut some links and would add the new ones she had missed.
It was not a simple task, and Super Queen-Mother sat up at it deep into the night. She could not sleep. She was tossing and turning in her bed, thinking that Earth managing would be a difficult task, though she did not have any enemies here, willing to kill her. The Earth Keepers checked in: she heard the light noise of the breakers, the remote cries of sea gulls, and saw a great number of beautiful, small fish, jumping out of the water and shining in the sun.
They were falling down into the sea and jumping out up again, playing their games, which nobody else could understand.
Super Queen-Mother quickly fell asleep, charmed with this shining vision.
In the morning, after a brief breakfast, she was ready to work.
The security officer reported to her that everything was ready for the trip to the forthcoming meeting.
Super Queen-Mother looked back.
The empty roadway from time to time revived – an emergency vehicle, rushing at great speed, sparkled with signal lights and broke the silence with a wailing siren. Then it became quiet again.
Super Queen-Mother raised her head. Helicopters were hovering in the sky not far from her, forming a big circle with her house in its center.
Farther and a bit higher, two military planes were flying, also in circles.
Super Queen-Mother went up to the roadway and got into a black car. The motorcade took off.
Fifteen minutes later it stopped in front of the entrance to the stadium, where she had usually held all her meetings.
Super Queen-Mother got out of the car and looked around. Everything was the same, as if she had never left it.
Military ships, submarines, missile launchers and planes were at their usual locations.
Super Queen-Mother went inside the stadium and stopped in the middle of the field.
The stadium was full. Members of her team and her security were also there. There were not enough vacant seats, so all aisles were also crowded.
Super Queen-Mother fixed the microphone she had brought with her, greeted the audience and congratulated them on their first working day.
In her speech she described the work of her department in general terms and defined the location of her main team.
A big complex of buildings was chosen as a temporary place of work. Each separate building was the headquarters of one continent.
The offices were located in the alphabetical order – from “A” to “Z”, from the first floor to the top one, the same number of offices for each country.
Super Queen-Mother read out her appointments order to a position of the heads for departments and their staff. She also determined the primary task of arrangements at the new spot and for setting up information channels of each department with its country.
The official part was over, and Super Queen-Mother wished everyone good luck in their work.
She came back home and began to plan her own working and living place. It had to consist of two interconnected zones – an insular one, on the sea, and a mountain zone.
Super Queen-Mother drew an ellipse on a big ground map. It was two miles long and a mile wide and began about fifty feet from the offshore coastal strip.
A long concrete dam in the form of a horseshoe protected it from the sometimes raging sea. The dam was a quarter of a mile from it and was laid with stone boulders on two sides, covered with sand on the top.
Such man-made beaches could be an additional resting place for the islanders.
She drew a big lagoon inside the ellipse – a marine for pleasure yachts.
Then she drew a road from the island to the nearest mountain – a future tunnel which had to be a road and a railway tunnel at the same time, for a small archaistic locomotive and almost toy coaches.
After that Super Queen-Mother proceeded to the mountain part of her project.
This part of her plan was more detailed.
At the point of juncture of two mountain rivers, in front of the narrow, long gorge, she drew a high dam.
Its height allowed raising the water level in the gorge with the right tribute, to make it accessible to small boats and yawls.
The flooded left tribute would make an arch-like lake, with a curve near the dam, one and a half to two miles long. It would be an excellent area for boating.
The flooded river-banks had to be embedded in concrete with walking routes along them and a park with numerous fountains, flower beds and small comfortable cafes.
To the right of the right tribute Super Queen-Mother mapped a small railway station.
The trains, coming out of the tunnel, would cross the river over the dam and stop at the station.
Farther on it would cross the river over a metal cobweb bridge. A wonderful view of the beautiful gorge of white limestone opened from its pedestrian part.
From the bridge, the railway road ran to the mountain slope, to its track built in a half-oval cut out in the rock, above the precipice.
After that, the railway road went to another bridge, only a stone one, decorated with various granite sculptures and gilded copper statues.
It joined the two banks of the left river tributary. From it, the railway road went to the tunnel, leading to the island in the sea.
Super Queen-Mother thought that a two-storied café might be built in the dam body, from the side of the gorge, under the stream of the falling water.
It would be an assembly point for tourists and the start of the walking route from the left side of the gorge to the spring, spouting from the ground half a mile from it, down the river.
Right after the gorge, ahead of the spring, she wanted to make a walking site with a café.
Farther, a sideway would go from the walking site over a bridge, hanging above the river, to the right side of it.
Then the road would serpentine up the long-lying talus of limestone to the path, trailed during centuries, and lead to an old fortress.
Behind the fortress the path had to be widened and continued farther to the gorge, thus closing the walking route at the café in the dam.
Super Queen-Mother, in her mind, once more walked on the route she had drawn.
She saw a large rest site raised over the river, embedded in concrete, on its left bank, where the path went out of the gorge, with numerous small tables on it set with hot drinks and lap blankets on the chairs.
The area was bounded by a low parapet made of crude stone, which continued around the whole square, except for its left edge.
There the marble staircase began, going down to the spouting spring, for those, who wanted to drink water from it. From this edge of the site, near the staircase, a passage to the hanging bridge also began.
Super Queen-Mother pondered over her plan – what else she could do with the park zone at the lower tier of the plot of land, allocated to her, and… left it for the architects, to unite everything in one whole.
The upper tier of the tableland, just above the lower one, was her proximate place of work. It was a small mountainous plateau, stretching along the river, slightly sloping to the lower tier and ending in a rock-chasm.
She drew one hundred feet high fort walls at the precipice, with square towers at the corners and semicircular ones along the walls. Super Queen-Mother planned a wide walking path on them, under a transparent glass shed.
The walls of the fortress would extend not only over the lower tier of the site, but would also surround the upper tableland.
Along the wall there had to be a walking path and a bikeway.
The lowering part of the mountainous plateau had to be raised much higher by means of grouted concrete ceilings, supported by concrete poles.
She planned to provide the buildings with parking facilities, a power plant, all housing services and public utilities.
The remaining part of the plateau Super Queen-Mother divided into:
– Administrative zone, where they had to work;
– A housing area;
– A sport zone;
– An entertainment zone;
– A park.
The park zone was a small woodland on the lowering part of the plateau, bounded by the precipice, the river and the road, leading to a huge abandoned foundation pit (Super Queen-Mother planned to make an excellent lake out of it, filled with large carps).