“Have you visited those oceanic planets?”, Barbz asked me. We were in the station’s pub and on the TV screen we were watching news about a discovery of a new sea monster on one of the oceanic planets.
“Well, of course”, I said.
“Sometimes I purchase a virtual tour when I get bored”.
“Oh not virtual. I mean have you visited the planet in person?”, Barbz laughed.
“Oh.. hmm.. let me see. I think the only time I visited an oceanic planet was when I was in honeymoon with my wife long time ago…”, I began daydreaming.
“I bet it was a sweet memory, buddy”, Barbz winked.
“Say, what do you think if we go to Agrallarier IV? It’s an oceanic planet and I want to show you something”, he continued.
“Sure, when?”
“Now”
“Now?”
“Yeah, it is only a few jumps away. And I have a place there, so no need to worry about accommodation”.
“Alright. Let’s fly the Ares. It will be very fast”, I said.
So there we were. We docked our ship at the custom office in orbit and then take a shuttle to the surface of the planet. We landed on a platform to be exact.
“Where are we, Barbz?”, I was confused. I thought we would be going to a resort but instead we were on some kind of platform and everywhere I looked there was nothing except the ocean. No island, no building, no people.
“Welcome to my facility”, Barbz said extending his arms.
“Your facility? What is this place?”
“Come”, Barbz walked to the edge of the platform and he peered into what appeared to be an old style telescope.
“Here and tell me what do you see?”
I peered into the telescope and I saw another platform with two towers on top. The structure looked small because of the distance but I could imagine it must be massive.
“I see a platform…..”
“Yupe, that is my extractor”
“Extractor? What are you extracting?”
“Water of course!”, he laughed out loud. Seeing that I laughed too. Somehow we both think it was very funny and we laughed for a minute.
“Ok, seriously… It is called ‘Aqueous Liquids’ or the water of this ocean as you see. It is water of course but not the kind that we can drink right away because of hazardous ingredients it may have. It must be purified first to become potable water. If you see further down on the right you will see several platforms. Those are the plants where pure water is being produced. It is then routed to a storage platform for transport here on this platform”.
“So all this facility is yours and you have been producing water? Do you make a lot of money out of it?”, I was getting interested.
“The production is a slow process but it is a good steady source of income. I have facilities like this on 8 planets now. Once a month I visit them to collect and sell the product”.
“That is very good investment, Barbz. But wouldn’t you have to compete with big corporations for it?”
“That is true. But there are many products you can choose to make. And I found out those corporations are more interested with stuff such as metals for electronics. They consider water production is too mundane and little profit. Which again, it is true.. for them. Their ‘little profit’ is big profit for me”.
Keep, the stories comming. GJ