Space & Time

Chapter 2- Our Time has Gone

Sergei entered through the door with Vlad, "Leon, are you okay. Leon are you in here? Leon!" Sergei hollered out.

"Look, over there" Ivan said as he pointed to the lump of a body on the ground for Sergei to see.

Both men ran to Leon and rolled him over, quickly finding no breath or pulse.

"Damn it!" Sergei said. "Come on man, Wake Up!" he shouted as they shook him and then started CPR procedures as a team to bring him back, Sergei breathing into his airway and Ivan counting and pumping on his chest. Even with the differences that Sergei and Leon had, they had become friends. Sergei was not prepared to lose a friend today. They carried on with CPR longer than necessary, knowing he was already long gone but not wanting to have to report the solemn news to his family.

Sergei looked at Ivan "He is gone my friend, let‟s leave him be and see if we can gather his research and make some sense of what happened to all of us. Then we will get a sheet to cover him with and go break the dire news to Izabella and their children."

Sergei walked over to the table where Leon had been working and continued "Looks like there are piles of notes right here which he had been making on the Petorium crystals, in all three stages, solid liquid and gas."

Ivan replied to Sergei‟s findings, "The dead fool continued to reduce the substance down to a gaseous form, look here on the table where he collapsed. He was working on this when he fell over. The blood from his head is splattered on the papers next to his tools and experiments."

Sergei stood there quietly for a moment and looked at the papers, quickly skimming through the notes. Then he looked up into Ivan‟s eyes. Ivan was correct. Leon knew he should not have worked with the new element in a gaseous state. He had put everyone in the colony in danger, just to further his research and ultimately it cost him his life.

"Ivan, think back for a moment. Do you remember when Leon started to study the Petorium and Viktoria noticed his health issues were gradually disappearing?" Ivan nodded his head, Sergei continued "and when we stored all of the Petorium in with the vegetables Vlad and Sonya harvested, nothing in the shed spoiled or ever went bad. I think this element as a gas has those same unexplained properties that maintain and repair carbon based molecules, only stronger."

Ivan cut him off, "You mean this element was responsible for stopping our molecular activity?"

Sergei replied, "Of course it was, it had to be. Leon shared news of a breakthrough with me. He discovered the gaseous state was at least ten times stronger than the other forms. Think about it Ivan, when Leon converted it into vapors on a large scale it must have overwhelmed him, then with the catalyst still active the liquid continued to become gaseous until it inundated the colony‟s ventilation system and rendered all of us comatose."

Ivan nodded his head in agreement with Sergei, and then he said, "It appears as though he was working with some sizable quantities here, there must only be a small amount remaining in the solid crystal state in the storage room. Since we discontinued bringing the mined element back to the colony until Leon did more research the supply had started to dwindle."

"Those are my thoughts exactly Ivan, now I wonder precisely how many hours the Petorium vapors knocked us all out for?" Sergei continued "Let‟s go to the control room, I see

the main power is starting to come back online now. I need to verify one more thing before we return to the others." They gently covered up Leon‟s body and locked the door to the lab as they exited and made their way down the hallway to the control room.

*****

Vladimir was returning with the boys from turning on the main power when he crossed the path of the two men. "Where are you two heading in such a hurry? Alexei, Josef and I have returned the power to full and now we all need to get back to the main hall to start discussing getting our mission moving again." Vladimir asked looking quizzically at them.