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conversation that her front porch could
bear.

 
     
     
    Chapter 5 The New
Universe
     
    The discovery of the universe, the
existence of stars, planets, moons, and of endless distances had a
profound and enduring effect on ObLaDa society. That ancient,
scientifically sophisticated civilization had evolved with no
history, belief, or mythology of an extended universe, and no
concept of that a world might exist beyond the surface of ObLa.
Even the simple fact that the sky could be clear, or that distant
objects could be seen, was contrary to all experience. Facing the
incontestable imposition of an entire universe onto their
collective consciousness, the ObLaDas responded by developing an
obsession with space exploration and travel that would change the
future of the galaxy.
    The certainty that they existed
among a countless number of other stars struck at the emotional
core of the population. It inevitably led to the formation of
planet-wide consortia to develop new technologies needed for more
telling astronomical observations and for the eventual exploration
of space. This was no easy task on a perpetually cloud covered
planet. The balloons that were used in the early discoveries were
an especially poor platform for astronomy. They would not stay in
one place, and the Das had never been good flyers. Fixed wing
planes never took off, so to speak. Flight meant immediate entry
into fog, rapid disorientation, loss of any sense of direction, and
an ever-present threat of an overly abrupt return to solid ground,
or with forty percent statistical probability, to wet muck. The
ObLaDas had never dreamt of flying amongst the clouds and soaring
with the birds as we have done, since you could touch the clouds by
standing upright and there were no birds.
    On the other hand, the
mathematically gifted Das had advanced theoretical physics far into
the heights. They understood that satellites were the only feasible
platform for the exploration of space. While the ObLaDas had a
marvelous understanding of materials and could fabricate almost
anything, they had no large industrial base. The population was
distributed among the many small villages and towns that were
scattered across the land. One place was much like another. The
necessary dispersal of effort between innumerable small
laboratories and factories made the development of large rockets
and exploration technologies inefficient, but it was just the type
of cooperative effort that made the ObLaDas feel good about
themselves.
    The ObLaDas’ conquest of space
started with nothing and had a long way to go. Progress was ever
slow on ObLa. Nevertheless, their program advanced at a steady
pace. Their early satellites were small short-lived things, limited
by weak rockets launched from drones that flew high into the thick
atmosphere. But they progressed, decade-by-decade,
century-by-century, to place proper platforms into high orbit and
begin the serious exploration of outer space. And popular it was,
too!
    Keeping up with the new images,
discoveries and theories of the universe was far and away the
favorite hobby on ObLa. Every village and town had its society of
space enthusiasts who were directly connected into the latest
findings, all freely distributed from the telescopes, space probes,
and radio antennae. They collected the reports and theories from
the space research centers and compared these to their own ideas
and proposals, not always favorably. They looked forward to the
launch of the large radio telescope array that was to be used for
deep space exploration and construction of a radio wavelength map
of the Universe. The most important contribution from this large
array, ironically, was that it replaced a smaller space-based radio
telescope that, after some debate, was devoted to a full-time
search for artificial radio transmissions within the
galaxy.
     
    Everyone she knew believed that
NorHan NorBa had the most interesting job on the planet. NorHan did
little to correct the