July 28, 2176: One by one the space fleet of Dedov began to return to
their home planet. One ship had stopped at Arton and installed the hyperspace
radio equipment in the Arton orbiter. The men working in the orbiter had
no idea they were coming. They just didn't know what to make of having Alien
technicians board their orbiter and start installing radio equipment. The
technicians did not seem threatening and seemed to be doing what they had
been told to do so the two men on the orbiter did not interfere. In the Mars
communications center the radio message from Arton came in loud and clear.
The speaker on Arton was speaking in the language of Dedov. Someone at
Mars communications called Gil. Gil was nearby and was there almost
immediately. Gil listened to the brief message for a moment then began to
speak into the microphone on the desk. Gil conversed back and forth with the
speaker on the other end for about five minutes. Then Gil began to speak in
English, addressing the men in the Arton orbiter and the men in the Mars
communications center at the same time. “This is Gil on Mars, the technicians
who are in your orbiter are from the planet Dedov. We are already quite familiar
with this race on Mars. The people there have just finished installing a hyperspace
radio in your orbiter. They are leaving another radio with you that you will
have to figure out how to install on Arton. I suggest that you install it where my
people live on the upper class island. Artonians are more adroit at
communications than Earthlings are. One of the men working in the orbiter
came back in English with one question after another. Within the next hour Gil
had brought them up to date on the entire situation. The radio had already
been installed on Mars Runner and on the Earth orbiter. Arton now had instant
communications with the star fleet Mars and Earth. Gil told them that the four
Arton ships were en route to Arton and should arrive in about two months to
assist with the evacuation of refugees from Dedov. Gil asked them to try as
best they could to prepare islands on the planet to receive up to one million
refugees over the next several years. Gil explained that this would be
temporary until the bulk of the refugees could be transported to Mars and Earth.
April 22, 2178: All four of the Arton Ships had been to Dedov and had
transported 40,000 refugees to Arton. The Dedov fleet had transported 60,000
more so now there were almost as many people from Dedov living on Arton as
there were humans and Artonians. The natives of Arton no longer seemed as
oblivious to the affairs of their planet and the other beings on it as they had
once seemed. The assignment that they had received to teach English to the
people of Dedov had caught their interest. The island of elders had sent boats
to the islands where the Artonian natives resided and transported a
representative group of natives to each of the islands now populated by
refugees. Even the disinterested Earthlings on the planet had taken up the
cause and were using their boats to transport what surplus they had or could
produce to help feed, clothe and otherwise assist the newcomers. Despite the
best efforts of the Earthlings and Natives of Arton the conditions in the refugee
camps was appalling and still deteriorating. Yet more new refugees arrived
almost daily. When they arrived they each had a small valise of their personal
belongings and nothing else. They had been told that there was plenty of food
on Arton and there was. Plenty of food to prevent starvation but not the food
that they were accustomed to eating. They had taken up fishing and were
developing a taste for the abundant seafood of Arton, that resource that had
never before been harvested, was abundant and easy to gather. No one
starved or even went without enough to eat but they had to improvise beds from
plants, occupy caves when available, do without toiletries and all the
conveniences that they had enjoyed on Dedov.
May 17, 2180: Conditions on Dedov had worsened much sooner than
had been anticipated. The planet's orbit had rapidly become more eccentric.
The rescue effort knew that they would be lucky if it held together for another six
months. The efforts of the combined space fleet had succeed in removing
another 150,000 refugees but conditions on Arton had also deteriorated.
Disease and hunger for their customary foods were taking it's toll.
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