Ruck Nor 3, Page 2

off the rainforests and evaporated the majority of the lakes.

  The next sections covered the crystal glass points. The readings explained how they are formed, which happens by the sand pockets heating up from the planets core. The sandy pockets turn to a form of glass and push up through the crust. They are hollow and the population on this planet use them to house thousands of people.

  The capital was formed in a slightly different way. It turns out that through planetary crust shifts; the ground had split and allowed a huge glass point to form with a variety of crystals. The capital is the largest point of its kind. I kept reading and viewing the images of various locations.

  I became tired and slowly drift off to sleep; I hadn’t noticed that I’d dropped my tablet onto my lap; I didn’t ever dream. I remember Giga and Tyte gently shaking my shoulders and speaking my name.

  I opened my eyes, "I’m awake," I told the two women.

  I slowly sat up; still in my clothes from yesterday. I still felt sleepy but knew if my instructors were here in my room, then I had to get up and change quickly.

  "You need to get ready immediately. We have an excursion to several geological locations today as part of your lessons." Tyte informed me.

  As I was being briefed, I decided to get changed into suitable clothes for the trip.

  Once I’d dressed and my backpack had been packed with everything I required we left the room; I was escorted onboard what looked like a bus type shuttle pod. Tyte and Giga were the instructors for this trip and I noticed 30 odd students were already sat in their seats.

  There were a few empty seats for me to choose from; I took a seat that placed me next to a purple scaled humanoid being.

  The creature looked at me as I sat down.

  The shuttle pod hatch closed and I felt a slight wobble as the hover discs lifted it about a foot off the ground.

  The purple alien kept looking at me.

  "Hello, my name is Craig." I said, trying to break the ice.

  The purple alien had blue reptile like eyes and long platinum blonde hair.

  "My name is Jaxsper." said the purple creature.

  I smiled and the alien smiled back.

  "I am female, just in case you didn't know." Jaxsper informed me.

  "I am a human male." I replied.

  We both laughed.

  "I heard a human male had arrived on our planet. You look handsome considering you are not reptilian." said Jaxsper.

  I held onto the railing as the shuttle pod took a sharp turn to avoid some medium size boulders.

  "Thank you." I replied to Jaxsper about my looks.

  I peered past Jaxsper to look out the window of the shuttle pod. The landscape was rough and rocky. The glass crystal spikes were in large clusters in this area; not so spread apart.

  "So, do you know where we are going today?" I asked Jaxsper.

  She looked at me with those blue eyes and appeared to give me a smile.

  "We are going to the Cothap caves. Every class goes to those caves." Jaxsper replied.

  I continued to look out the window, leaning slightly in front of Jaxsper. I could see something far off in the distance. Looked like a city of some sort. I picked up Jaxspers’ class zoom optics and used them. What I thought was a city actually looked more like a rural township similar to Ruck Nor but with a gigantic industrial work terminal nearby.

  "What is that township over on the horizon?" I asked Jaxsper as I handed her the Zoom Optics.

  Jaxsper looked through the Zoom Optics, "Oh that is the steam factory town of Gal-Oram. That is where they make nearly everything that the planet needs, from machinery, to weapons and food processing." Jaxsper informed me.

  A voice came over the shuttle speakers.

  It was Tytes’ voice, "We have arrived at the Cothap Caves. Today we will be looking at how the caves were formed.”

  The shuttle slowed down in a nice shaded area. The reason this hot sunny planet had shade here was because the cave openings were so gigantic. I looked at these cave entrances, it gave me goosebumps from taking in the actual size of them. The shuttle stopped at the front of the first cave and our instructors stood up and faced us.

  "We will line up outside the shuttle. I will remind you also to stay with the person you are currently sat beside." said Giga.

  Tyte gestured us to exit the shuttle. As Jaxsper and I stepped out, I was even more overwhelmed by the sheer beauty and size of the cave entrance. I noticed the temperature was much cooler in this area and I lined up with Jaxsper and the other students. Giga and Tyte finished talking to the shuttle driver and turned to face us.

  "We are going into the first cave as a whole group. Do not leave the group. Any questions will be answered after we leave the first cave." said Giga.

  We began to enter the enormous cave, it was so much colder inside. The surface of the walls, ceiling and floor of cave was smooth and curved and I had the impression it was man made. Jaxsper decided to hold my hand as the light became dimmer and we made our way further into the cave.

  On everyone's left shoulder was a small golf ball size pod, I saw students tapping it and the pod lit up. Jaxsper tapped her pod and I tapped mine.

  The light helped.

  As we walked along some students unclipped their tablet to take holo images; I decided to do the same. Jaxsper looked around but didn't take out her tablet. The instructors didn't talk to us but kept leading everyone through the cave.

  I snapped a few holo images, trying to capture the sheer size of the space I was walking through. I noticed a fairly large indentation to the left; I took a few holo images of the indentation. I didn't expect them to turn out well due to the dim light in that area.

  Before I knew it, I could see a bright light ahead before we came out the other side. I saw a circular clearing that had rocks of various sizes and beautiful clusters of different coloured crystal glass.

  Our instructors turned to us.

  "Find somewhere to sit and we'll answer any questions about the cave you have just seen." said Tyte in her very neutral instructor's voice.

  I began fiddling with my tablet. Looking at my holo images in 2D on the screen. They weren’t very good. I opened up a CPU Image Correction program. I had already read up on these caves while suffering the solitude of my room. According to scientists, these caves were formed by a very powerful heat source that must have filled this area, millions of years ago. According to the holo image data, the width of the cave tunnel is 263 feet and the height is 302 feet. I flicked through the images until I came to the three images of the large indentation.

  "Craig, I hope you are paying attention. This is history of this planet; the planet that is now your home." said Giga.

  "I am paying attention." I replied.

  As soon as the instructors went back to talking about the history of the area, I looked again at the tablet. I ran the first image through the image correction software. It sort of made it look better. I then selected the manual option and raised the brightness up to 40% higher than recommended. The image looked grainy and had pixilation in some areas. I saved the image before fiddling with the image more.

  Jaxsper elbowed me. "Pay attention Craig, If Giga sees you slacking off again, you'll be back in the supervisor's office and in big trouble." Jaxsper whispered.

  I sat the tablet on my lap and looked up at the instructors. They were answering a student's question. As I sat listening, I noticed that the rock I was sat on and the ground my feet touched felt warm. Warmer than out in the sun. I stomped my feet on the hard ground a few times and I soon realised that everyone was looking at me.

  "Is there a problem, Craig?" asked Tyte.

  "In all the text I read about these caves and this area, I never read anything about why the ground in this clearing would be warm, like a lot warmer than the ground exposed in the wide open view of the sun." I asked curiously.

  "Geological scans have shown very strong heat source deep down below
the surface. More than likely it is that same source that forms the crystal glass points." answered Tyte.

  I looked back down at my tablet as the instructors continued to talk about the historical importance of the caves. The indentation in the holo image was brighter now so I could see into the depth of it. The texture of the indentation was rougher; it looked like someone had carved it out of the rock face.

  I tapped the crop icon and isolated the back section of the carved area. I tapped the icon again and the holo image was cropped to just that segment of the image. It looked like something was at the back of the indentation.

  Something small.

  "What are you looking at?" asked Jaxsper with curiosity in her voice.

  "Trying to work out what is in the background of this holo image I took while we were walking through the cave." I replied.

  Jaxsper took the tablet from me and started quickly using both hands to manipulate the image; but not treating the image as 2D; but as 3D and running her finger tips across the screen to move our view through the image as if we were walking there.

  Jaxsper examined the area I noticed.

  "It looks like a cave painting." Jaxsper said as she handed me back my tablet.

  I took a close look at the image and realised Jaxsper was right. It looked like a primitive drawing of an animal. I adjusted the image settings and saved the holo image. The adjustments made the image much clearer.

  "Everyone can take photos if they want and then we'll head back out and go to the next cave." said Giga.

  I took many holo images of the clearing; the colourful crystal glass