Читать книгу Overturned - Rothilda von Rotortod - Страница 6

The crucial question now was how this preliminary work could be carried out without arousing the mistrust of the Earthlings. In the Future Commission, where all issues essential to the planet were debated, it was quickly agreed that this would only be possible with the help of infiltrated pseudo-Earthlings who would conceal the true purpose of the construction sites. But with what kind of story should the actual function of the concrete towers be disguised?

The first to speak was the commissioner for the inner dynamics of cosmic events. His skull, which was bald as with all Kadohanians, was decorated with blue shimmering concentric circles. "What would it be like," he asked, "if we were to openly take up the mysterious, incomprehensible aspects of the structures – if we were to declare the concrete pillars to be sacred buildings?"

"I hardly think that would be a good idea," replied a Kadohanian woman who herself had taken part in the exploratory mission on Earth. Her dainty body almost seemed to sink into the puffy robe that was common on Kadohan. "Firstly, we need far more landing pillars than there are sacred buildings on Earth. And secondly, our reconnaissance mission has just shown that the importance of such buildings among Earthlings tends to decline. Additional sacred buildings would be very difficult to communicate to them."

"And if we label the landing towers as residential buildings?" pondered one who had been appointed to the Future Commission as a member of the construction team. His browless eyes gleamed full of energy.

"This is not a very realistic scenario either," replied the Kadohanian woman with the delicate figure. "The Earthlings live either all by themselves or in apartment blocks very close to one another. Single standing residential towers would contradict their everyday habits. And besides, how should we then explain the rotor blades we want to mount on the towers?"

"Exactly!" another commissioner agreed with her. "Landing towers as residential buildings – that wouldn't work. We would then be inviting the Earthlings to the landing sites ourselves, so to speak. In this case we wouldn't have to go through all the trouble of disguising ourselves!"

"We could explain the whole thing to the Earthlings as a power generation project," one of them finally suggested. "Energy seems to be a scarce resource for Earthlings, too."

"Let's just work it out with the simulator," suggested another. "Then we'll see whether this narrative has enough persuasive power."

So the simulator in the corner of the meeting room was fed with the data that would support the fiction "power generation by rotor blades at high altitude". The result was extremely sobering: high energy expenditure in the manufacturing of the turbines, uncertain, fluctuating energy generation, high costs for the later cumbersome disposal of the material, plus follow-up costs due to infrasound-induced health damage as well as soil compaction and the loss of green spaces. The narrative therefore hardly seemed to be suitable as a justification scheme for covering entire areas with gigantic concrete towers.

"Too bad – that was probably the wrong idea," even the person who had introduced the proposal had to admit.

At this point the head of the fact-finding mission, who had so far stayed out of the discussion, joined the conversation. "Now, wait a minute. I don't think the proposal is completely far-fetched," he contradicted the general assessment. On his skull he had drawn a window-like rectangle – perhaps a symbol for the view into distant worlds.

Everyone looked at him in astonishment. The expedition leader seemed to enjoy their amazement. He had a youthful appearance, but this was mainly due to the fact that he had only recently taken a rejuvenation pill. In truth, he was one of the most experienced experts in the group. After all, he had been head of the extrastellar exploration department for over 100 years.

"But even small children don't fall for this fairy tale," disagreed a Kadohanian woman with a particularly wide robe. It was waving like a stormy sea when she gesticulated mockingly.

"Maybe not on our planet," admitted the expedition leader. "We must not forget, however, that although we resemble Earthlings on the outside, we differ greatly from them in our brain structure. While in our case the processing of emotions and analytical operations take place in two independent brains, the Earthlings have only one organ for both. Therefore, the thought processes can directly be influenced by strong emotions."

"Very interesting," interfered another commissioner. "But how can we benefit from that?"

The expedition leader smiled mischievously – with the left side of his face, the one where his emotional brain was located. "Well," he explained, "all we have to do is create a catastrophe that demonstrates to Earthlings the unreliability of another energy source they depend on. The resulting feelings of fear will automatically increase the willingness to believe in our wind power story."