CITLALLI

“Sir, I believe we have found the perfect planet,” proclaimed a tall thin man seated on a backless stool at a small console attached to the inside of one of the outer walls of a spaceship traveling through a new unexplored galaxy. Included in the passenger list of the ship were almost five hundred people who had been displaced from their home planet. The man was the head engineer and it was his job to relay the most important information to the captain of the ship. The ship had been traveling through space in search of a new planet to inhabit as the planet the colonists had called home was too small and had become overpopulated.

“Are you sure this time? We don’t need a repeat of the last planet you said was perfect.” 

The last time the engineer said the planet was perfect one of the small recognizance transport pods sent to inspect the planet almost sank into the soft, squishy surface. It was an honest mistake but one the man had no intention of repeating. The man gulped, “Yes, uh, yes sir, I checked and double checked.” The man turned and looked at a small screen on his desk. “According to my data, the surface is solid, the air is compatible, and the water is drinkable. We should be good to occupy this planet except.”

The man he was talking to, the Elder, tilted his head slightly. “Did I just hear except come out of your mouth?”

Everyone who traveled on the ship knew the Elder to be a fair and wise man. Very rarely did he lose his temper or exhibit anger toward anyone. While not very old, he was called the Elder because he had led his people the longest to find a new planet.

“Well, see, the thing is,” the man began to say as the Elder stood up from his chair in the center of the ship’s viewing deck and walked over toward the man who had now begun to perspire on his brow.

“Yes,” said the Elder.

“Well, like I said the planet has perfect conditions for us to colonize except the planet is 98% water.”

“What? 98% water? How are we to colonize the planet if there is no land for us to colonize?”

“I knew you were going to ask that.”

“Maybe you should have led with that.”

“Yes, you’re right but if you could, uhm, look up at the viewing screen, I can show you what I meant when I said picking this planet would be a good alternative,” stammered the man.

The Elder gave the man a warning look, turned around to return to the middle of the deck, sat back down in his chair and looked at the large viewing window spread out along the wall of the ship. The view of a large galaxy had disappeared and was replaced by a three-dimensional image of a round planet. The planet was blue in color dotted by thick white swirls that covered its surface.

“This is the third planet in this galaxy which contains a total of nine planets, well eight. I don't know if I’d count the outer one as a planet, but it has all of the properties of a planet.” The man noticed the Elder giving him a look that suggested he get to the point.

“Sorry, I got sidetracked, the planets orbit around a large sun, which is a great producer of heat and energy for this area. Only three planets, however, could be considered viable for habitation.” 

The man zoomed the image outward to show three planets lined up in a row. “The first one on your left seems, by our measurements, to be very hot; the third one on your right is pretty close to what we need but we couldn’t find any water. This middle planet here, this is the one,” the man said confidently as he zoomed back in on the middle planet, “and as you can see right here,” the man spun the planet around ninety degrees clockwise, “there is a substantial piece of land on the planet. Granted, it would not be large enough to build one of our cities but it would work.”

“How can you say this will work if there is not enough land to build a city?” asked the Elder, amazed that the man could even suggest something so crazy.

“Well, it appears that there is some volcanic activity under the surface of the planet. Here,” the man rotated the view of the planet 180 degrees in the other direction, “watch and you’ll see.”

The Elder stared at the screen and waited and waited and waited. “What am I waiting for? Is something supposed to happen?”?”

The man began to get nervous. He looked down at some of the data on his screen. He was sure he had the right measurements. He looked back at the viewing screen. “Oh look a bubble, it's a bubble! Of course, it's a bubble,” the man cried out in relief, then quickly settled down. He didn’t want anyone to know he was as surprised as they were.

The crew, along with the Elder, watched intently as a small bubble of gas appeared on the surface of the water and began to expand like a rising hot air balloon over the churning water. With a pop, the gas bubble exploded into the atmosphere. The viewing deck was silent as they watched red hot melted rock burst through the surface of the water. The Elder could imagine the hissing sound that was produced as the hot rock hit the surface of the water and let out a huge belch of steam.

“There you have it,” said the man, pleased with himself, and extremely relieved, for timing that event correctly.

“There you have what?” asked the Elder. “All I see is melted rock exploding out of the water and producing steam. What good is that?”

“I’ll tell you what is good about it. We’ve been monitoring the activity that is occurring underneath the surface of the planet. This is not the only spot where the molten rock is erupting. As the rock hits the water it hardens. As more and more rock pushes up and cools, we believe the surface will be sufficient for us to build, grow our vegetation, and eventually introduce our animals.

“How long will this take to finish, this creation of new land?”

The man meekly replied, “About that.”

“How long,” demanded the Elder.

“A couple of years, at least two times around the sun, is our best estimate,” the man quietly said under his breath.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t quite hear you, could you repeat that?”

No, the man said in his head, he did not want to repeat that. “A couple of years.”

“What? You said that this planet was good. You said it was perfect. How can it be if we can’t use all of the resources on this planet,” the Elder said dejectedly. “We don’t have the time to spare we need to find a new base. What a waste of time this was, we will need to move on. What did you say about the fourth planet? It needed water or something?” The Elder was not happy and his words made everyone want to crawl into a hole.

“I get that it seems as if the planet isn’t viable but there are areas that are already showing some stability,” the man stammered, “we detected some really good raw materials underneath the surface and with what we can get from home plus other planets in our galaxy, why don’t we build a city underneath the water? That is until there is enough stable land on the surface to build another city?”

The Elder looked at the man and took a moment to consider that option. A city under the water, he thought, it had been done before but that was just a small outpost. What they needed was a large city. 

“Is there anywhere on this planet that is free from this volcanic activity yet close to this stretch of land and expansive enough that we would be able to build a city large enough to hold the people of this ship plus others?” the Elder asked the man.

The man could sense a glimpse of success as he rotated the image of the planet. “Yes sir, right here. It is deep enough that we would not be seen from the surface, in the event in the future we would need to be hidden, and the water is very warm. This chain of islands nearby is the result of completed volcanic activity so any other activity near the vicinity would not harm the city. As a bonus, we would be able to tap into the thermal properties for our heat and energy so we wouldn’t need to build an alternate energy source on the surface,” the man said excitedly. He had a feeling that he spared himself from being demoted, or worse, being sent back to the home planet.

The Elder nodded, “I believe you have a sound idea, from what you describe that is. I will need some more specifics, starting with the equipment we would need flown here to begin building, but I like it. Let's proceed with this plan and build a new city on this planet.”

“What should we call this planet? This is a new galaxy and we have no designated name for this planet.”

“I seem to recall hearing a name when I was younger in school. Granted I should have been paying attention to what was being taught but the name stuck with me. I think we will call this planet Earth.”

“Earth? That’s a funny sounding name. What does it mean?” asked the engineer.

“I don’t know. I do know we were talking about different soil compositions. I just thought the name sounded funny.”

“What should we call this project, we need to have something that we can refer to when the planning begins. What will the name of the new city be?” asked the man.

The Elder thought for a moment. “Let’s call it Citnalta.”