Sol-6448
No Landing on Terra

The teacher, Beadean was his name, had recently arrived on Frey-558 from its neighbor Frey-557 to teach its young about their galaxy. Old and quite dignified, he was considered an expert on this part of the galaxy and his move to Frey-557 had come as a well-deserved promotion.

He normally enjoyed teaching youngsters about the neighborhood, but today’s subject lay outside his comfort zone. It had to be covered, of course, it existed after all, it was a part of our galaxy, but the area was sensitive and not really suitable for young ears and minds.

He launched the next holograph, showing Sol-6448 and its planets, hoping (beyond hope) that not too many questions about it would be hurled his way.

The third planet out from Sol-6448 was called Terra and even in this educational holograph sported the ominous red dot that warned of danger or other unpleasant things.

Warned of what, precisely, was the question he did not want to hear, and even less so to answer. He hoped that no one would notice. Just another planet circling another sun, going about its circling planetary business.

“Sol-6448 is a sun of average size, perhaps even leaning toward large. It has an unusually strong gravitational pull for its size, holding even the farthest little planet, which is called Pluto, in its orbit.”

No response from the class, they knew all about gravity and planetary orbits.

Then one hand rose.

“Yes?”

“If that Sol-6448’s pull is unusually strong, how come the planets closest to it have not been pulled in and absorbed?”

Beadean looked at the boy then back at the holograph, then back at the boy again, “They were.”

Long silence. Wheels turning and turning in minds digesting his answer.

“Ah. Oh, yes. I see,” said the owner of the raised, now lowered hand. A quick, embarrassed smile even.

Another long silence. Forty-two pairs of eyes examine the holograph. Just another solar system. Nothing special here. Except for that red dot.

A second hand rose.

“Yes.”

“Why does Terra—am I saying that right?—have the danger sign? None of the others do, do they?”

Oh, my. Here we go. Time to deflect.

“As you all know, some planets are not very conducive to life. Toxic gases, predators too ferocious to tame and too large and too fast to flee. Things like that. They normally warrant a red dot.”

“And Terra?” asked the second raised hand.

“And Terra?” Beadean affected dullness, badly.

“Yes, Terra. Why the danger sign for Terra? It looks innocuous enough. Could we have a closer view?”

“Oh, sure.” Beadean brought up a much enlarged version of Terra: a nice, blue ball streaked with white weather systems.

“Innocuous, indeed,” said the second hand, who then added: “Why is there no tag by the danger sign, no explanation? The red dots usually come with a footnote of sorts.”

“My question precisely,” said the first raised hand, also curious.

A murmur of assent rippled through the class. Yes, why indeed?

This was precisely where Beadean did not want to go. He looked at the two boys, eager and sure, confident in their respective wonderings. At the beginning of the semester he had been introduced to all of them, and for a week or so even remembered all of their names, but time being what time is and age marching right along with it, his memory had begun leaking and now he could not for the life of his remember the boys’ names.

“I don’t know,” he lied.

“You don’t know?” The second hand donned childish disbelief, blazingly. A few snickers throughout and two outright laughs from the back of the class. “You’re the expert on these things.”

“Yes,” said the first hand, “that’s why I chose your class.”

Beadean looked from one boy to the other, and then out over the whole class. He cleared his throat, “I wish I could tell you,” he said. Another lie. He had suggested to the headmaster that the red dot be removed from Terra altogether but had been refused. We don’t display incomplete holographs, was the reply. Perhaps where you come from but our standards are a little higher than that.

“There might be hard-to-answer questions,” he had suggested.

There had better not be, was the headmaster’s answer.

Wishful thinking. And here were the questions, and here he stood, the expert fool, buttoning down on the secret but now playing with the idea of letting it out and into the ears of these cocky boys.

“Is it true?” said a third boy, hand raised. The class went very quiet.

“Is what true?”

“There is no landing on Terra?”

“Where did you hear that?”

“My dad once told me. As a surveyor, he once approached Terra for a closer look, carefully though, for he had been told specifically to keep a safe distance and that he must not, not under any circumstances, land.”

“Your dad? And who might he be?”

“Elleroon.”

“You are Elleroon’s son?”

“Yes, Sir. In the flesh.”

Oh, my Lord. His luck. He sighed. He tossed around for some help or a solution of some kind but none and nothing came to his aid. Then he heard himself say:

“All right. I will tell you.” He would get in all kinds of trouble with the faculty and the headmaster for this, of course, but all these youngsters would be told eventually, so why not here and now? It was not a part of the fifth-year curriculum to be sure, but what’s to be done about that? He really had no choice.

He took a deep breath.

A still lake of upturned faces awaited his next words, his explanation. Then he said:

“It is a prison planet.”

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