The Secret of Utopia Colony
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Creator: Scott Skye
Machine generated Science fiction Serial Audio Book
Synopsis:
After their uncle breaks his wing Goro and Kiyoko go to spend the summer with their human friends Arthur and Samantha, and their parents at an old outpost in Elysium province. Goro wants to be a marine biologist, and when he finds out about Utopia Colony, the abandoned underwater colony of the coast, he decides he's going to visit it. Unfortunately the only sub at the outpost belongs to the grouchy old handyman, and he won't let anyone near it. Goro and Samantha put their heads together to figure out a way to visit Utopia Colony, but then wish they hadn't.
Format: Audio Book
Continuity: Serial
Writing: Scripted
Voices: Machine generated
Genres: Science fiction
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Episodes:
Chapter 26 - The End of the Summer
Sat, 05 Jun 2021 16:00:00 GMT
"How are we going to get it out of here?" Samantha asked looking around at all the crates of crystal-ferrite.
"How about we figure out how to get ourselves out of here, before we worry about the crystals," Arthur suggested.
"They can always drill a hole into the other side of the cliff to get the crystals out," Raven said.
"There was another button on the elevator," Goro mentioned. "Another level above this one."
They climbed down off the crate and walked back to the elevator, and Samantha put one of the heavy crystals in her backpack. The elevator carried them up to the level above, and they walked out into another big room, but this one was empty. Their crystallite torches lit it up well. It was some kind of launch-pad for aircraft, above them they could see where the roof had once opened to let the aircraft out...
Chapter 25 - The Tunnel to Outpost Acadia
Sat, 29 May 2021 16:00:00 GMT
When they woke up, none of them where sure how long it had been. They were still tired, but now it was too cold to sleep, and their muscles were tired from sleeping on the hard cold rock of the cavern floor. The big door behind them was now freezing cold. "The mines must be completely flooded," Raven said as she felt the door.
"Will the old city flood too?" Kiyoko asked, worried about the forest and animals.
"No," Raven answered quickly. "Underwater cities have all kinds of safety features to stop that."
"So I guess Os'Surale and his gang are trapped until the Park-Rangers show up!" Goro said, suddenly happy that he wouldn’t have to see Os'Surale again.
"Do you think these doors will hold?" Arthur asked, changing the subject. "I mean these old doors could collapse under the pressure of all that water."
"Not to scare you," Raven said, "but they could. The sooner we’re through this tunnel the better."
They started walking up the old mining-cavern. Arthur pulled one of the old maps out of his backpack and started looking at it as they walked. "I wonder where this tunnel ends up."
"It must be in a part of the outpost that you haven’t explored yet," Samantha said...
Sat, 22 May 2021 16:00:00 GMT
"What are we going to do?" Samantha asked after Os'Surale had left them in the old storage cell.
"Relax," Raven said. "We won’t get anything done if we start panicking."
"We can’t go back to the sub," Arthur said. "They’ll be up there loading up their stuff."
"Go back to the sub?" Goro asked, beginning to panic. "We can’t even get out of this room, and you’re worried about getting to the sub?"
"Everybody sit down and relax," Raven ordered. "We’re going to be okay. Now relax. Samantha, do you still have that book?"
"The book about the outpost?" Samantha asked in surprise. "Yes. Why?"
"I thought I might do some reading," Raven said with a smile. "Why don’t you guys have something to eat? That should calm your nerves."
They realized that they were hungry again, and so they sat down pulled out the snacks they’d been carrying. Everyone was surprised to see how much food Goro had in his pouch, so he explained where he’d gotten it. Raven silently red through parts of the book, looking for information on the tunnel from the mines to the outpost...
Sat, 15 May 2021 16:00:00 GMT
The first thing Raven, Arthur, Samantha and Kiyoko did when they got back to the mines was send out the Arrow to search for Goro.
Then the kids led Raven towards where the miners were working, so she could get a first hand look at them. The Arrow shot through the pitch-black mines at an incredible speed, using radar to guide itself, and infrared sensors to search for Goro.
The kids were leading Raven down the passage leading to the storage cavern, when a light appeared in front of them. They all froze not sure what to say. But then whoever it was, turned to run away, and they realized who it was.
"Gõrô!" Kiyoko called...
Chapter 22 - Back into the Mines
Sat, 08 May 2021 16:00:00 GMT
During this time Goro had been wandering around in the mines. He didn’t know the others had been caught, or that they had escaped, he was still looking for them. After he found Meki, they had become completely lost, wandering from cavern to cavern. Every passage they followed seemed to lead them into yet another long abandoned mining cavern, and some of the passages he followed just led to dead-ends where entire caverns had collapsed. Goro was becoming afraid that the ceiling above him would fall down on him as well. He was also afraid that his crystallite torch would run out of light, and he would be left wandering the old mines in the dark.
"We could be lost forever," Goro admitted to Meki. "We could be kilometers away from the main cavern by now."
"We could be lost forever," Meki repeated in an affectionate voice that made Goro smile...
Chapter 21 - A Confession from Raven
Sat, 01 May 2021 16:00:00 GMT
"Where did you see Goro last?" Raven asked Arthur.
"I could show you on a map," Arthur answered.
"Of the mines? There aren’t any, I checked," Raven said.
"Oh, well we have one," Arthur said. "We got it from the captain’s quarters on the Phantasm, you know, that crashed starship that was pushed up onto the beach during the tsunami? Well we found an old safe in it, with maps of the mines, the old city of Utopia Colony, and the outpost."
"You have a map?" Raven repeated in surprise. "Did you bring it with you?"
"No, that’s why I asked if you had one," Arthur answered. "But anyway, you know the passage from the cavern where they store their food and chemicals, to where they’re mining? That’s where we saw him last. He followed Mechi back up the passage to the storage cavern, and never came back down."
"You actually saw them mining?" Samantha inquired sounding even more surprised...
Chapter 20 - A Surprise for Raven
Sat, 24 Apr 2021 16:00:00 GMT
When the kids got back to the outpost, they found Ms. Rylie waiting for them at the door.
"Where have you been?" she demanded. "I’ve been worried sick about you."
She looked sick, and even while she was speaking she trembled a bit, and Arthur jumped forward and caught her as she fainted.
"You shouldn’t be out here," he said, helping her indoors, and to the couch. "Sorry we worried you. Samantha, bring her some water."
Ms. Rylie was feeling a bit better after she drank the water, but it was clear she was really sick.
"We’d better not tell her about Goro," Samantha whispered to Kiyoko. "It’ll just make her worry, and there’s nothing she can do."
"I’ll help you to bed," Samantha offered her mother.
As soon as Samantha and her mother left, Arthur went to look for Os'Surale. ‘He’s not back yet,’ he realized as he looked into the garage and saw the old hover-car was still missing. ‘Great, then he can’t know we took his sub.’ He went back inside, and found Kiyoko pacing back and forth in the living room, looking out to sea...
Sat, 17 Apr 2021 16:00:00 GMT
Arthur, Kiyoko, and Samantha were locked up in the small room for what seemed like days. Kiyoko finally stopped crying, and then fell asleep. Arthur and Samantha couldn’t sleep, so they decided to look around the room, and found there was more in the room than they had first noticed. The room looked like it had once been a storeroom of some kind, and the walls were lined with shelves. Most of the shelves were bare, but there were a few boxes left. Samantha got up to look at them.
"They’re old," she said as she carried one of the boxes to the table.
"This one is filled with old tools. Look, a hammer like Goro’s," she said pulling out a hammer. "Made in Sri Vijaya Colony, Singapore Technologies Tool Co., And look, an old wrench of some kind. "Made in Etruria Colony, Rasenna Tools Co. Well, you wanted a souvenir like Goro’s, you take the hammer. I’m taking the wrench."
"I didn’t want one the exact same as his," Arthur said, getting up to look in the box himself. "Here see this? I’m taking this."...
Chapter 18 - Caught by the Miners!
Sat, 10 Apr 2021 16:00:00 GMT
The kids stayed in the end of the passage, trying to see what was in the cavern, letting their eyes adjust to the bright light. There was a pile of boxes in the cavern, but nothing else. There were no people, but they could still hear the sound of machines coming from somewhere.
"Let’s go back," Kiyoko said scared that they could get caught.
"No, let’s look around a bit more." Arthur said. "There’s no one here, lets see what’s in those boxes."
Kiyoko didn’t really want to, but everyone else did, so they quickly ran over to the pile of boxes, and started looking at them.
"This looks like its all food," Samantha said. "Look, canned tofu, and vacuum-packed sausages and carrots."
"This is food too," Goro said looking at the boxes in front of him. "Īräwāmhî-seed bars, ôkônīk mushrooms, and ûzîäd, that’s a Tenko food, there’s no Human word for it."...
Sat, 03 Apr 2021 16:00:00 GMT
Later that evening, Samantha and Goro told Kiyoko and Arthur about their trip to Utopia Colony, about the channel through the reefs, the forest that now filled the dome of the old city, and the mysterious path through the forest with the pile of garbage. Once Arthur and Kiyoko had heard the story, the four kids tried to figure out what they were going to do next. Should they tell Raven about the trip to Utopia Colony? Would she be angry because they’d gone to Utopia Colony in someone else’s sub, after promising not to go in hers? They thought that she might be very angry. She might think they'd broken their promises.
"So do we tell Raven?" Samantha asked. "We wouldn’t have broken our promise and taken the Chidori to Utopia Colony, or the reefs. And we didn’t, we took the Rengilffed instead."
"You know how adults are," Arthur said. "They don’t think the same way we do."
They pulled out the map of the mines, to examine it better than they had before. The mines were much larger than they’d expected...
Sat, 27 Mar 2021 16:00:00 GMT
The next few days the kids practiced piloting the sub every chance they got, until they were almost as good as Raven. She was pleased, "It’s nice to see kids sticking with things, even if it’s difficult."
One afternoon, after checking that Os'Surale was busy working up in the outpost, the kids went down to the dock to have a close-up look at Os'Surale's sub. They stood and looked at the Ren-gilf-fed, bobbing up and down in the water, it was bigger than the Chidori, but not by much, and they were sure they could handle it.
"I wonder when Os'Surale is going to town again!" Samantha said. "I can’t wait to try it."
"Me too," said Goro. "I keep thinking of that giant-thornback-ray I saw. I just have to find it again."
"You probably won’t," Samantha said. "But wouldn’t it be funny if you did, imagine what everyone would think. Nobody’s seen one in hundreds of years and then a kid finds one!"...
Chapter 15 - A Map of the Reefs
Sat, 20 Mar 2021 16:00:00 GMT
Samantha told the others her plan on the way back to the outpost. At first they didn't think it was a very good idea, but as they talked about it, they started to get excited.
"Do you think we could really find a way in?" Kiyoko asked.
"I’m sure we could," Samantha said, who, once she had made up her mind, wouldn’t stop at anything. "That must have been a way in through that channel we saw today, and I memorized the co-ordinates. Once I’m comfortable handling Raven’s sub, I’m sure I could handle Os'Surale's sub."
"Are you sure that’s a good idea?" Arthur asked. "How will you do it without him knowing?"
"I thought about that," she answered. "I’ll wait for the next time he goes shopping in Acadia City, and take the sub out right after he leaves. Hopefully I’ll be back before he returns, but if not, you’ll have to distract him."...
Sat, 13 Mar 2021 17:00:00 GMT
Os'Surale spent the night thinking about how they could have gotten to Acadia City and back so quickly.
"Someone must have given them a ride. But who?" He decided to watch them closely, until they went to visit their friend again.
The next day he spent the whole day following them around, pretending to be doing this or that. If they went down to the beach, he found a reason to go down to the beach. When they went to the cliffs, he did too. And in the end, when they decided to stay inside, he found things to do inside. They couldn’t go visit Raven, and it was irritating them. That night the kids went up to the tower-room, to figure out what to do.
"If he follows us around all day tomorrow too, we won’t be able to go visit Raven again," Kiyoko complained...
Chapter 13 - A Trip to Acadia City
Sun, 07 Mar 2021 05:00:00 GMT
In the following week Raven and the kids became good friends. She showed them another entrance to the cave on the other side of the cliff, facing inland, where she parked her hover-car. She told the kids she thought the cave must have been used by refugees during the war, and the path out to the rocks must have been used by people watching for skyships. Raven was always happy, and never seemed to get mad, even when Arthur’s robot bug ran onto her arm one day. Samantha was angry that Arthur would let one of his robots run off like that, but Raven just handed the robot back like it was nothing.
Raven liked the kids too, and took them for rides in her sub. They explored the underwater cliffs, and trenches, seeing many strange types of fish and crabs and other sea life. Goro named each type of sea creature they came across, and talked on and on about the ocean and the life in it. Fortunately for Goro, Raven was always interested in exploring the coast in her sub. She even taught them how to pilot the sub, and soon they could pilot it without any help. It was a lot of fun. One day Raven gave Goro a pile of plazper books on marine-biology...
Sat, 27 Feb 2021 17:00:00 GMT
"Where exactly did you see that sub?" Goro asked as they walked along the cliff-tops.
"Right out there, in the reefs surrounding Utopia Colony," Arthur said pointing towards the abandoned underwater city. "It wasn’t a very big sub, so it couldn’t have come very far, and the license was Acadian."
"I wonder where it’s kept when it’s not being used," Goro said. "Someone must live pretty close, but I don’t see any buildings."
"There aren’t any real buildings around here," Arthur said. "People used to live around here before the war, but the whole of Acadia Province was scorched, and now there are only some old ruined buildings. Maybe there could be someone living in one of the old ruins, but I don’t know why they’d want to."...
Sat, 20 Feb 2021 17:00:00 GMT
That night Goro just couldn’t sleep, he’d spent all day looking at what the tsunami had done to the beach, and couldn’t stop thinking about it.
"Most of the seaweed and fish are gone, but I did see a few crabs and shrimp," he had explained to Arthur earlier. "Do you think the dolphins survived? What about Utopia Colony? What kind of damage do you think the tsunami did to the coral reef? Utopia Colony seems so mysterious, an abandoned underwater city. How bad was it damaged during the war? Do you think the dome was damaged? Do you think the dome is flooded? If it is flooded, what kinds of fish live inside?"
Arthur didn’t know the answers, but Samantha was sure the dome wasn’t flooded. She couldn’t explain why...
Chapter 10 - Opening the Captain’s Safe
Sat, 13 Feb 2021 17:00:00 GMT
The first thing the kids did after breakfast the next day, was to get the captain’s safe, and start examining the lock to figure out a way to open it. It looked like a small metal suitcase, with a handle on one side.
"It doesn’t seem to have any power," Arthur said. "Maybe if we power it up, it’ll be easier to open."
"Maybe it’ll be harder to open," Samantha argued.
"Maybe it will be," Arthur agreed. "But we can’t even try to pick the lock unless the safe has power."
"How do we power it up?" Goro asked...
Chapter 9 - Exploring the UNS Phantasm
Sat, 06 Feb 2021 17:00:00 GMT
Arthur woke up first the next day, right as the sun was rising over the hills to the east. He stayed in bed looking up at the ceiling for a few minutes, and then remembered what had happened the day before. He got up and looked out the windows, and for the first time saw the full devastation of the tsunami. The ocean had returned to its normal level, although it now had a grayish-green color, but the tsunami wave had dropped large boulders all over the Acadian countryside, and new streams had appeared bringing the wave’s waters back to the sea.
"Goro, hey Goro get up and have a look at this!" he called when he saw the starship Phantasm lying up on the beach.
Goro got up and staggered half-awake to the window, stared for a couple seconds and then said, "Wow! How did that happen?"...
Sat, 30 Jan 2021 17:00:00 GMT
When the kids got back up to their room, their muscles were aching, and their clothes, hair, and feathers, were covered in dust.
"What took so long?" Samantha demanded as they climbed out of the air duct.
"What took so long! What took so long!" Meki repeated running back to Goro as he emerged from the air duct. "Wipe your feet! Close the window!"
Meki was happy that Goro was back.
"You won't believe what we found!" Arthur said excitedly.
"We found where the refugees hid during the war!" Kiyoko said, showing Samantha the old doll she'd found.
"And the old outpost power generator!" Arthur said.
"Really? Great!" Samantha replied. "You'd better go turn it on, all our power up here's gone off."...
Chapter 7 - Exploring the Outpost
Sat, 23 Jan 2021 17:00:00 GMT
The next day the kids wanted to go looking for the owner of the sub that Arthur had seen in the Utopia Colony reefs, and even though the weather was perfect, Ms. Rylie made them promise that they wouldn’t leave the outpost.
"Mars Weather Authority says there’s going to be a meteor storm today," she explained. "Somewhere out over the Utopian Ocean. None of the meteors should be very large, but there could be unpredictable waves, and unusual rip tides. You’re safer up here."
Fortunately Os'Surale didn’t seem too interested in what they were doing. He was only interested in ruining their fun if he thought they were having some, and since they were stuck inside the outpost, he found other things to do...
Chapter 6 - The Crashed Starship
Sat, 16 Jan 2021 17:00:00 GMT
The weather was perfect again the next day, so Samantha and Goro decide to swim out to the old starship.
Before they left for the beach, the boys slipped back into the storage room, and found that Os'Surale had piled the boxes back up in front of his secret door.
"He sure is a weird old man," Goro said. "Imagine going to all that trouble to hide his groceries."
They joined the girls in the kitchen, and then all walked down to the beach. It was a hot day, with the sun shining through a clear blue sky. The ocean was calm too, with only small waves breaking along the shore.
"Well, we'd better go while the sun is still high in the sky," Samantha said. "Like I said before, it can get dark down there."...
Sat, 09 Jan 2021 17:00:00 GMT
The outpost seemed like the perfect place for a holiday, and would have been, if it wasn't for Os'Surale.
Everything was great. The beach just north of the cliff was the perfect place to go swimming; the water was shallow, always warm, and full of small fish. Along the cliff were several sheltered coves that the kids could go diving in, and look at the various kinds of fish and crabs living there. And all through the cliff were deep dark caves for them to explore. Unfortunately every time they did anything, Os'Surale would show up and ruin it. If they went diving he'd come along and tell them to stop, because it was too dangerous. If they went swimming he'd show up on the beach, doing something...
Sat, 02 Jan 2021 17:00:00 GMT
Ms. Rylie had already made an early dinner for Arthur and Samantha; but now had to quickly make more. All of it was great; the spaghetti and tomato sauce she had previously prepared, and the stir-fry she now added. Spaghetti was one of Arthur's favorite foods, but Ms. Rylie wasn't sure what Tenko ate, and so made a stir-fry, thinking it was a pretty common food. As it turned out, the Tenko could eat just about anything humans could eat; but watching them for the first time was a bit odd. They didn't chew anything, because they didn't have teeth; they just used their beaks to bite off small bits of food, mashed it with their tongues, and then swallowed it. Goro and Kiyoko both preferred the stir-fry to the spaghetti, because biting the spaghetti noodles into small pieces just took too long...
Sat, 26 Dec 2020 17:00:00 GMT
The train shot through the vacuum tubes at incredible speed, crossing the Martian sub-continents of Noachia and Xanthe in a of couple hours.
The planet Mars had once been a dead world; frozen, with a poison atmosphere. Planetary-engineers, also called terraformers, from Earth had changed all that, converting the planet to an Earth-like world, with two oceans, two ice caps, many seas and lakes, and one giant continent covering over half of the planet. The Martian continent was so big it was thought of as five different sub-continents: Noachia, Xanthe, Syrtia, Tyrrhena, and Sirenia. People lived on each of the five sub-continents, and in the Chryse Ocean. On the other hand, the Utopian Ocean, and the two polar ice caps: the Boreum in the north, and the Australe in the south, were all planetary parks, and no one was allowed to live in them...
Chapter 2 - The End of Summer School
Sat, 12 Dec 2020 17:00:00 GMT
Mr. Hailey was a fun teacher, and since there were only five students in his summer class, he could keep an eye on how much each student was learning. Everyone seemed to learn a lot; everyone except Goro. Mr. Hailey just couldn't get Goro interested in what he was teaching; Goro wasn't interested in anything unless it lived underwater.
"You would get 100% in all your classes, if you studied your school subjects the way you study your books about oceanography." Mr. Hailey complained. "You'll never become a marine-biologist if you don't learn self-discipline, Goro Yort."
"Where are your manners?" the monkey would ask every time Mr. Hailey seemed to be getting mad, which of course made Mr. Hailey even madder...
Chapter 1 - Goro, Kiyoko, and Mechi
Wed, 09 Dec 2020 06:14:41 GMT
"What are you doing?" an angry sounding voice demanded.
Arthur looked around again, but there was still nobody there. He had been trying to study history, but strange voices kept interrupting, and he couldn't concentrate.
"Close the window," another voice ordered. This voice was older sounding, musical and not quite human.
Arthur looked up at his school, the Chaco Academy, which was the closest building. It was a huge golden tower not far away, but it was too far away for him to hear anything from there. He looked around at the other towers in the distance, but they were even farther away. Many of the towers in Anasazi City were the same silvery gold color as his school, but others were different colors. Many of the towers were the same height as his school, about 200 stories high, and some were shorter, but a few reached a thousand stories into the sky, right to the edge of outer space. All the towers had the same design: a gigantic round tower, with a three-cornered pyramid at the bottom, and a flat round landing pad on the top. The building design was common in Anasazi Province, and almost all buildings in the province were built with the same design. Anasazi province was one of the Mars Federation's one hundred provinces. Between the towers were the sprawling green parks of Anasazi City, above which flew streams of hover-cars. Arthur looked back to his school...