Ghost Dancers

T. Richard Williams

____________________________________

SO HERE’S THE FIRST SCENE:

            We’re in the Com Center of Cassini Station, orbiting peacefully about a thousand klicks above Titan.   Located on Level 24, the lowest on the Station, it’s a room twenty meters square with several dozen ComScreens floating in mid air, each swirling with untold information--everything from messages to and from other outposts to complex mathematical readouts from the Station’s biomechanical computers, life support system, HydroGarden, and hive of living quarters.  A Com crew of six men and two women move among the screens in the dim blue ambient lighting, some touching hand held pads or the implants behind their ears, while others reach out to the holographic surfaces slowly floating and shifting about the room.  It is a ballet of movement—people and Screens slowly interlacing, separating, rejoining.

            Three walls of the Center are translucent, revealing the electronic veins of the Station, alive with pulsing lights and a barely audible serenade of humming sounds.  The fourth wall is dominated by a floor to ceiling ViewPort.  Titan’s swirling atmosphere fills much of the panorama; the rest is the ink of space and the pinheads of icy stars.

            “Seen it, Father? Titan be fillen our Port. Even down here. Even in the Com Center.”

            “I know, Tanner.”

            “Gut of Station. Seen it, Father?  Big machines, with flicken, whirlen, blinken lights. Hear it? Dronen, dronen, dronen of low noise.”

            “Yes,” Father Thom says. Patience, patience--he’s new to all this.  He’s a Mars boy.

            “Tanner, I been.”

            “I know.”

            “You come me when you needen a message sent home blicken--or as blinken as light can blinken.  Until CORP makes the Fold Machine, that’s all you getten--three hunderd thousend kilos per tick-ticken, na more, na less.”

            “That’s true, isn’t it?”  Play along. Be kind.  He can’t help it. He knows that, but patience isn’t always his virtue. Something else to work on.

            “Fold Machine will be wonder. Dimensions will melten. Over a billion kilometers of space gone--poof.  I callen out Mom on Mars. She hearen me hello a milli-tick-ticken after I spaken. In fraction I hearen back, ‘Hey, kid, how goes it?’ But now, hours between hallos.”

            “Yes, yes. The price we pay.”

            “But I gotten me other things, too, right? Like checken all those messages.  In-goen, out-goen, I see ‘em all.  CORP woulden never callen such things censor. So I don’t. I just getten to read everyone’s mail.  Woo-hoo!”

            Don’t wince. “Well, woo-hoo, indeed.” Crap.  You winced.  Pretend you didn’t. Hell, he doesn’t notice anyway.  He’s too excited about being a hero.

            “So today, Father, I’m sitten here, playen me long-distance poker game with me brother-pal over on the biggen Ganymede Station--hours twixen moves--when I seen it.  This EtherScript from Pel to someone on Triton.  Looken all lamb-lamb enough it does.  ‘Hi. How are ya? Was the baby born yet?  Nothin’ new here.’  That kinda stuff.  Then I thinken I seen something.  A subtext echo.  I checken.  Nix.  Ah, but I knowen.  Somethin’s hidden underside.  I looken again. Nix again.  But still I oath me seen something.  That’s why I callen ya here, Father, rather than them. Before I been sayen anythin’, I comen you. To confess this before they finden out and be blamen me.  I doin’ nix.  Nix.”

            “You did the right thing, Tanner.  And no one’s going to think you did anything wrong.”

            “Really, Father? Really true? Oh. Oh. Glad so.  But I tellen you deep, Father. Someone’s finden the trickster way to cloaken a subtext.  Or at least Pel has.  Maybe.  Anyway, it be trickster sharp, but not for ol’ Tanner.” He holds out his hand.  The coin-sized disc glimmers.  “I maken the copy for you.  There’s nix other record, OK.”

            “Thank you, Tanner.  I’ll make sure this gets to the right authority.  The average Com Messenger would’ve blown it off as a blip, especially after the initial pass from Security.  You didn’t let that stop you.  Good work, Tanner.”

            “Thanken, Father.  You taken to Commander Ryner now?  After you blessen me?”

            “Yes, Tanner.”

            Tanner kneels before Father Thom, who places his hand on the young man’s extremely oblong head--a sure sign of someone born and raised in Martian gravity.

            “By the Universal Power of the Great Spirit, know you are blessed, loved, and forever embraced.  Go in Peace.”

            “Thanken, Father.”  Tanner rises to his full seven foot, 120 pound frame, which to an outsider appears to be something of an animated skeleton with enormous hands, gangly feet, and the most vivid green eyes Thom has seen since his last stint at Mars Base One about a decade ago.

            “I’ll take it from here.  I promise.”  He takes the disc from Tanner and walks away--My turn to seek forgiveness--flipping it in the air, catching it.

            Smiling.

            Then the guilt. 

TRANSMIT 1

·                     So I had a choice. There’s two ways of doin’ this, I said.  The 60-word HoloCom where they get to see our pretty faces.

·                     Or the EtherScript version--24 units at a time--all text, but more information.

·                     Obvious choice, right? I said and went with the Ether.

·                     So let’s start this way:

·                     Some facts:

·                     Rom (as in Romney), the Dad, is 54.

·                     Sim (taken from Simon), his son, is 17.

·                     Their workdroid, Fizz, is 134.

·                     And they’re on 24CORP, a freighter haulin’ Helium 3 and supplies from Aldrin Base on the Moon to Cassini Station orbitin’ Titan.  CORP’s creatin’ a launch platform there for deep space travel--past Neptune far into the Oort Cloud.

·                     Exploration.

·                     Colonization.

·                     Minin’.

·                     Profit.

·                     Though the voyage to Cassini Station’s only eight months thanks to the latest magnetoplasma engines, it’s still eight months.

·                     And for a 17 year old stuck with an old timer like his Dad, eight months might end up feelin’ like eight years.

·                     Oh yeh, I’m Pel, formerly of Sydney City in AUSTROCORP, formerly of Aldrin Base, now Station Master at Cassini.  Rom and Sim are my deep mates.  So was Val back in the day.

·                     This is what they told me.

·                     This is how we’ll get the word out.

·                     This is how we’ll keep pissin’ off CORP.

·                     They can’t really do a bloody thing.  We’re too far away; it’d cost too much to send out their Police; and I bet the bosses are thinkin’ old saws like Choose your battles wisely and all that.

·                     They’re also bettin’ too few people will actually see this stuff, too few to matter.

·                     Speakin’ of saws, guess they never heard about acorns and oak trees, right?   

·                     Anyway, we’ll be takin’ this story out there to Neptune’s Cloud Station, Sedna Base, anywhere else that’s measured in Astronomical Units and light years. The first of many stories.

·                     OK, let’s get crackin’.

AND NOW WE’RE HERE: 

            Thom stares at the Screen floating above his desk.  Images of Pel, Val, Rom, and Sim slowly fade in and out.  He’s touched the Screen to pause the AudioFeed; he’s just listened intently to the first Transmit in his quarters.  It’s a small, rectangular room on Level 7 with a cot, a desk and chair, eating table and stool, and two small cushioned seats for Thom and any visitor who might happen by.  One wall--pale blue--has a fold-out toilet, wash basin, and a FoodServe unit.  The opposite is dominated by the round entrance port.  The other two are alive with ever-changing scenes from Mars, Triton, Ganymede, and Europa--all images that Thom took while stationed there on his various assignments as a Base Chaplain.

            How do I handle this?

            Thank God the kid called me first.

            Imagine if he’d gone to Ryner directly.

            Poor Pel.

            Maybe that should be my next move.

            Talk to Pel.

            He was careful.

            But not careful enough.

TRANSMIT 2

·                     This is how it begins:

·                     During their third week out, Rom comes up with an idea.

·                     Like this: “Sim? You around?”

·                     A few moments later, his CortiCom clicks.  “Yeah, Dad.  What’s up?”

·                     “I got an idea.  Wanna head up here for supper?”

·                     “Now?  I was about to start the lacrosse interface with Fizz.”

·                     “Can it wait?  Just wanna run something past you, something you might like.”

·                     Finally, the reply comes, sigh included:  “Yeah, all right.”  Then:  “Give me a few.  I’ll be up.”  The Com clicks off.

·                     Yeah, I remember seventeen.  He grimaces at the thought.

·                     Now here’s stuff about Rom you need to know:

·                     He rarely leaves the Control Dome.  He likes being “up front,” at the head of the fifteen hundred meter ship. 

·                     Here, “riding the dragon,” as he calls it, he can monitor the ship in style--storage locker and cargo bay temperature and humidity, radiation levels and meteoroid detection, engine efficiency, fuel use, the Com and Navigation links back to Aldrin Base on Mare Imbrium, and a hundred other possibilities--all things that make a freighter the size of 24CORP efficient and, in the end, money-making. 

·                     But there’s more--always is, right?--the aspects that burrow in a bit deeper:

·                     Here, Rom can spend time just takin’ in the universe outside.  There’s somethin’ about its immensity that enthralls him.   That’s a good word I think:  Enthrall.  Like he’s enchanted or somethin’ by a mythical sorcerer. It’s almost like that. He never tires of watchin’ stars, planets, or all those countless, far-off galaxies through the ViewPort.  Sure, he has BookChips, VidChips, long-distance card games with a few of the boys back at Aldrin or ahead on Cassini.  Or a dozen other diversions, but he always ends up here, sittin’ and watchin’ the bloody cosmos.

·                     Simply told, after Val died, all those stars became his solace--and escape.

·                     He’d done this round trip dozens of times over a nearly thirty-year career.  Sometimes with a crew of two or three droids.  Sometimes with a human companion or two.  Twice with Val.

·                     But most of the time Val, a tech engineer, was back at Aldrin with Sim--which is how I knew Val.  I was an engineer there, too. 

·                     Anyway, Rom was gone a lot, sometimes for 16 or 17 months at a clip. 

·                     Not easy for Val.

·                     Not easy for Sim.

·                     But he couldn’t undo it, could he?

·                     When CORP whistles, you bark.

·                     So now the chromosome of guilt winds round his DNA like a prickly vine, the little gnaw in his gut that never quite goes away.

·                     But the trip I’m talkin’ about was gonna be a little different.

OUR NEXT STOP: 

            Now we find ourselves in Pel’s quarters, Level 4.  It’s more spacious than Father Thom’s but possesses the same general amenities; however, it also has a sofa and a lounge chair for viewing HoloFlicks and other entertainment.  Father Thom and Pel sit opposite each other at the round eating table.  

                                    Thom’s wearing his clerical garb--a simple grey tunic over loose fitting black pants and a slender gold torque around his shaven head.  There’s a silver wedding band with a single ruby on his right hand--the silver ring a sign of his office, the gemstone indicating his relationship status.  Though his partner died years ago in a freak mining accident on the Moon, he’s never wanted to remove the stone and revert to a plain band.

                                    Pel, in his dark orange work coveralls, has a mop of shoulder-length unruly pitch black hair that makes his chlorine blue eyes all the more startling.  Having lived away from Earth for over a dozen years, he’s pale to the point of ghostliness, and like most Lifers--the term used to indicate those who’ll never return to Earth, either by choice or CORP assignment--he’s grown quite thin. Still and all, Pel is actually quite handsome in a square jaw, angular face way.  Nanobots circulating through his body, keep everything in constant repair, but there’s no need for big muscles in low G’s.  Instead, he has the striated muscular build of a very slender athlete.

                                    On the other hand, second or third generation off-world humans like Tanner, even with nanotech, already show signs of evolving into something quite new.  Only time will reveal what they’ll eventually look like—what they’ll ultimately become.

                                    The two men sip chai from ceramic cups Pel brought from Mars.

            “What were you thinking, Pel?  Thank God it was Tanner.  Imagine if Rhem or Stall had detected the anomaly?”

            “You’re right, but it seemed like the right time to start spreadin’ the word.” 

            “But that’s not for you to decide on your own, is it?”

            Pel lowers his head.  He hates upsettin’ his trusted friend. “I get it, Thom.  I understand the dangers.  But with Sim and his father now hidden away before CORP can act, it seemed right.  It was one of the few times the Com Center was understaffed.  Just me and four others on the midnight shift.  The three others’d called in sick.”

            Thom sees that Pel’s Screen is still open--a steady flow of news and entertainment words and images scroll across.   “You sure the ComSecure protocols are up?”  He asks.  “I’m more than a bit paranoid these days.”

            “They’re up. The room’s a tomb as far as Security’s concerned.  Can’t hear or see a thing.”

            “Let’s hope.  But you can’t keep it that way for too long; they’ll suspect something.”

            “I’ll say we were havin’ a Privacy Hour.  You’re single now, so . . .” he winks after the pause.

            Thom smiles.  “But they know my partners are women.”

            “You’ve become . . . flexible?”  He suggests impishly, with a shrug, another wink, and a killer smile.

            “Well, good for me, I guess.”  And thinks:  If I were to try anything, I could see myself with Pel.  Good-looking and fun.  But more important—a rebel.  Someone passionate about beating CORP at its own game.  He shakes himself from the momentary fantasy.  “Well, however you cover the blackout’s fine with me.”

            “Good.  Now to the matter at hand. You got the disc back?”

            Thom reaches into the tunic’s breast pocket and pulls it out.  “Here.”  He places it on the table.  “Now what?”

            “We’ve gotta find another way to transmit.”

            “I wonder how much got sent before Tanner cut it off?”

            “No idea.  Tanner didn’t say anythin’?” 

            “Nothing really.  Just said he read the surface message and then noticed the undercurrent.

            “So that means by the time he could really double check, the whole thing could’ve been transmitted.”

            “Or just a part.”

            “The point is that something might have gotten through to Triton.”

            “But who received it, Pel?  You sent it to Meeker?”

            “Exactly.”

            “CORP filters all incoming and outgoing messages on Triton—just like it does everywhere else. Maybe someone else saw the same blip Tanner did.”

            “I over-rode the system.  Sent it directly to Meeker.”

            “Wouldn’t they detect that, too?”  Thom takes a deep breath.  “Pel, I’m older and a helluva lot more bruised by experience than you.  You’ve got to assume that absolutely nothing goes un-noticed.  If you over-ride something, someone somewhere’s going to notice that.”

            “Assumin’ they’re interested.”  Pel reached over to touch his friend’s arm.  “Believe me.  Triton’s twice as large as Cassini, but its Com Center’s the same size.  Millions of pieces of information fly through that room every hour of every day--from Station readouts to interoffice memos.  The chances that one encrypted message on one innocuous personal note—addressed to the Chief no less—would even be noticed by an over-worked, over-stressed Com team is pretty slim if ya ask me.”

            “Yes, but that over-worked, over-stressed team has droid back up.  You can’t forget our Synth friends.  They never get tired and are equally alert and vigilant.  If one of them was stationed in the Center when your message was received, then all bets are off, right?”

            “But there weren’t any Synths on duty that day.  Meeker told me.”

            “How?”

            “Whatcha mean?”

            “Exactly what I said.  How did Meeker tell you this?  Clearly you asked.  He then responded, right?  How?”

            “Personal message.”

            “First off, you don’t think that looks like a suspicious question?  Second, you assume the person responding was Meeker.  Anyone can hack a HoloPic of someone.  For all you know your question was intercepted by someone in Command and it was that person who responded.”

            “I used double layers.”

            “And using double filters would go un-noticed, look un-suspicious? Especially if it was supposedly just an off-the-cuff Station-to-Station conversation between two pals?”

            “Thom, Thom--you really weren’t kiddin’ when you said you’d become paranoid.”

            “Oh, I’ve been so-called paranoid for ages.  I’ve been on four colonial bases in my lifetime, listening to confessions, hearing the most intimate details of lives, from Messenger boys like Tanner to top-ranking CORP personnel.  Trust me on this:  Not a word gets unheard.  Not a movement un-noticed.  Not a motive unchecked.  At every turn, someone’s there—and all under the guise of keeping CORP’s empire safe and peaceful for all.  If I’ve learned one thing, it’s this:  The bigger the operation, the greater the number of rules.  Something as big as CORP has more rules and regs than an unkept lawn back on Earth has weeds.”  He picks up the little disc.  “This,” he says with emphasis, “is a bomb.  And if CORP knows about it, it’ll try to defuse it quickly.”

            “I’m telling you, they don’t know.  I just believe that in my bones.”

            “Bones can be broken.  Bones can be fractured.  Bones can be . . .”

            “All right.  I get it.”  He leans back, frustrated.  “I get it.  But the damage is done, presumin’ there’s been any damage at all.  The big question now is: Where do we go from here?”

TRANSMIT 3

·                     Just before this scheduled run to Cassini, Rom gets a message.  CORP wants to try out a new idea that’s really a very old one:  To send Rom to Titan and back again with an apprentice.  Teach the new guy the ropes.  Get him prepped for his own ship one day.

·                     Immediately Rom suggested his son--which he knew was what CORP wanted.

·                     Even if nothin’ could be done about Val, maybe he could make it up to Sim, if only a little bit.

·                     And, as he expected, CORP loved the idea.

·                     On the Network, Sim and Rom’s run to Titan was a deep-felt human interest tale.  Rom was a father passin’ on a time-honored tradition to his son.  There they were: Rom and Sim, the future of CORP in the outer Sol system. A family workin’ for the greater good of humanity--and CORP’s great vision.

·                     Sim agreed to the trip and Rom looked forward to spendin’ time with Sim.

·                     So off they went:  Rom, Sim, and their side-kick droid Fizz.

·                     But...three weeks out and it was obvious the kid was goin’ stir-crazy. 

·                     Sure, he spent his time explorin’ the ship, playin’ Holo Games in one of the aft engine bays, runnin’ races down the long corridors--and, yes, he was a quick study, learnin’ the ins and outs of the freighter’s operation easily, most of which was automated or handled by CORP’s Lunar Command anyway. But...

·                     Truth be told, Sim wanted this, too.

·                     It was his way of dealin’ with Val’s loss as much as it was Rom’s hope to connect with his son.

·                     Yeh, he wondered about his Dad’s real motives--not that he saw anythin’ dark--but he figured it was really his Dad’s way of lookin’ out for him, tryin’ to create a better relationship.

·                     But...Sim soon found out that deep space was not for the faint of heart.

·                     So when Rom was indulgin’ in his secret passion this afternoon--readin’ medieval literature--and savorin’ The Canterbury Tales for the umpteenth time, he had his brainstorm.  One that might make the long ride to Cassini easier for his son.

·                     Let’s set the scene a bit more fully.

·                     The Control Dome. 

·                     It sits atop the forward-most section of the freighter, a bubble on a soccer-stadium sized box, a tiny eye able to look out on the universe.

·                     Despite early 22^nd century technology, there’ve been relatively few design changes since the first freighters began haulin’ things from Earth orbit to the first lunar bases a century before.  Sure, the engines are faster now and the Control Room interfaces are more advanced--Rom can tap a subdermal implant behind his right ear that allows him to “talk” directly to the ship’s bioengineered computers--but overall, a ship like 24CORP is still a string of enormous cargo boxes resemblin’ a 20^th century freight train.

·                     The Control Dome is about fifteen meters across, divided into two “hemispheres.”  The back half’s solid, made of meteoroid-proof, gamma ray-resistant nanometal that can withstand pretty much anythin’ space threw at it.  And if there’s an impact of some kind, the microscopic robots in the metal begin rebuildin’ instantly.  A self-healing ship.  Most humans have the same tech, too, makin’ hundred year old people as common as 50 year olds a couple centuries back. 

·                     Get a cut? You heal in minutes. Have some surgery? You’re up in an hour. Bullet to the head?  Give it a few days and you’re ready for the races.

·                     Helped make most violent crime pretty much a thing of the past, right?  Blast your mother-in-law with a laser and she’d be after ya next day. 

·                     Anyway, the front hemisphere’s dominated by the curved ten-meter-wide, five-meter-high ViewPort, an enormous panoramic sheet of 25 centimeter-thick SmartGlass that allows Rom to indulge in his star-gazin’, memory-soaked, memory-forgettin’ vigils.

·                     A semi-circular control panel in the center of the room is the brain of the ship.

·                     The buttons, gauges, and levers found on early freighter panels’ve been replaced by a touch-screen tabletop.  Nothin’ to push, nothin’ to move.  Just tap into the ship’s BioMind and your thoughts can literally move the mountain thanks to several subdermal, ocular, and cochlear implants every ship’s captain receives upon graduation from pilot’s school.  Once CORP grants your first commission, the implants are activated, makin’ you and your ship pretty close to a symbiotic organism.

TRANSMIT 4

·                     Last details:

·                     Two high-back, cushioned chairs in front of the panel; two more up by the ViewPort.

·                     But lotsa times, Rom just sits on the floor, like Val did back at the Rez, and makes like a shriveled sponge at the edge of a bountiful sea.

·                     So let’s pick it up from there:

·                     Sim enters the room from the back hemisphere’s LiftChute.

·                     Dad’s up by the Port.

·                     The kid’s slender, with long black hair revealin’ his Navajo heritage.  Val’s heritage.  Rom was the brown-haired, brown-eyed Anglo who came to live and work on the Rez--and ended up fallin’ in love.

·                     Still so young, Rom thinks. Old enough to understand loss; young enough to be haunted by it.

·                     Sim sees his Dad, still in great shape, but more grizzled than he remembers, his salt and pepper hair cut close. He seems old already.  Is this what I’m in for?  Is this what I really want?

·                     “What’s up?”  Even if he’s havin’ his doubts about bein’ onboard, he tries to keep up-beat.  After all, he can’t turn back.  Then he’d have to face Val’s death by himself back on the Moon.

·                     No, it’s better here. Might as well make the most of it.  If I don’t go nuts first.  He tries to smile, but it’s getting’ to be a real fear.  They’re still nearly seven months from Titan.

·                     “Take the load off.”

·                     Sim falls into the seat next to Rom’s: “Ready?”

·                     “I had an idea.”

·                     “Uh-oh.”

·                     “Hear me out before you shoot.  Think about it.  You can let me know.”

·                     “Well, mysterious.”

·                     “Listen, let’s just get it out.  We both miss Val. We’re going through the motions up here.  Brave face and all that. On top of it--let’s be honest--you’re getting’ bored, more and more restless.  And we still got months to go.”

·                     Sim couldn’t help laughin’.

·                     “What?”

·                     “Cos I was thinkin’ the same thing.  We got seven more months, and I’m not sure how much more I need to learn as your so-called apprentice.  The ship’s on its own most of the time.  And when my shift is through, I don’t have a heck of a lot to fill my time. I can run the hallways only so many times--or check out the cargo hold--or play lacrosse or football with Fizz.”

·                     “That’s what I wanted to talk about.  Maybe we could play a game of our own instead.”

·                     Sim pulls a bit of a face. “You’re kiddin’, right?”

·                     He loves his Dad, despite all his absences, but Sim’s at that age when a guy wants to be independent, even if it hurts to be alone.  Psych 101.

WE’RE STILL IN PEL’S QUARTERS

            “Which is why,” Father Thom says after a sip of his drink, “we’re now going to try it my way.”

            “Which is?”

            Thom holds up the disc. “Which is to take the Transmits directly to Triton via the shuttle.  We know Meeker’s with us on this.”

            “Exactly.”

            “Which is why we’re not going to see him. Too obvious.  Too dangerous.  If CORP suspects anything, they’ll look to him first.”

            “But Tanner gave you the disc.  By your thinkin’, wouldn’t that make you CORP Enemy Number One?”

            “You’re right. I’ve got no idea how many CORP watchdogs saw him do it.  Assuming—by your thinking--they were even looking or chose to review security tapes for some unknown reason.”  He shakes his head.  “Pel, it gets too complicated, doesn’t it?”

            “Yeh.” He can see how agitated Thom is—and nothin’ I can do about it, is there?

             “So the bottom line is simple; I’ll take the disc directly and give it to someone else.  Maybe Phelan.” 

            “How’ll you get there?”

            “Told you—by shuttle.”

            “No, what I mean is under what pretense?”

            “No pretense at all.  I’m a Chaplain.  I’m visiting my Triton flock.”  He smiles and reaches into his tunic pocket and this time pulls out his black-market MessagePad.  With deft thumb work, he plucks somethin’ out and hands it over to Pel.

            Who reads it.  Then presses the blue button.

            They both smile.

            “Just in case they’re listening,” Thom mouths.

            “Yeh,” Pel nods and types out on Thom’s Pad: “Just in case.”

TRANSMIT 5

·                     “Don’t worry, I’m not talkin’ something stupid.  Though maybe I am.  Hear me out.” He sits on the edge of his chair. “I got an idea before when I was readin’ Canterbury Tales.”

·                     “From the Archive? One of those antique BookChips again?”  He loves razzin’ his Dad about his quirky hobby--readin’ things by long-dead writers about a world that doesn’t even exist any more.

·                     “Yeah. One of those BookChips. It’s not as bad as you think.  You should try one.”

·                     “Yeah, yeah. We’ve been through this.  Not my thing.  Anyway, what great idea did these Canterbury guys give you?”

·                     “Stories.”

·                     “Stories?”

·                     “Yeah, stories.”

·                     Crap.  “Where’s this goin’?”

·                     “Well, it’s like this.  A couple of dozen people--men and women from all levels of society--take a Spirit Walk from London to Canterbury, about 90 klicks give or take.  Not much by our standards, but back then, back a thousand years ago, that was a long haul.  So anyway, they come up with this plan to tell stories comin’ and goin’ to pass the time.”

·                      “And you’re tellin’ me this because . . .?”

·                     “Because I think it might be cool if we did the same thing.”

·                     “Tell each other stories?  Last time you told me a story I was about ten.  Aren’t we a little old for that?”

·                     “Hey, I was good, too, wasn’t I?  You always liked my stories.  And don’t forget you told some, too.  Remember how we’d spend time at the drillin’ station out on the Mare or down in the HydroGarden at Aldrin and you’d make up fantastic stories about moon monsters and asteroid crashes? Com’on you gotta remember that.”

·                     “Yeah, I remember.  But that was then.  Now…”

·                     “…Now what?  So we’re a little older.  Big deal.  Besides, I was thinkin’ of a way to spice it up, make it a game, something that challenges us.”

·                     “Such as?”  He doesn’t want to let on he might be a little intrigued.

·                     “Rather than just tell a whole story, maybe one of us can start and then let the other person continue for a while.  Then toss it back to the first person and so on ‘til we decide the story’s over.”

·                     “Isn’t there poetry like that?  I forget what it’s called, but one poet starts a poem and then another builds on it.  It can go through ten or twenty writers--or just be exchanged back and forth between two.  I think it’s from SINOCORP or somewhere like that.”

·                     Rom reaches over to slap Sim’s leg with a laugh.  “Wow, you actually did learned somethin’ in school.” 

·                     “Yeh, imagine that.”

·                     “But let’s get back.  Whadaya think? Kinda cool, right?”

·                     It does sound fun, somethin’ different, but he says as plainly as he can manage:   “Could be interestin’.”

·                     “Oh com’on, I can see it in your eyes.  You like it.”

·                     Sim turns away with a smile.

THE HALLWAY OUSIDE PEL’S QUARTERS. 

            Generic, tubular.  Grey walls, recessed lighting, neutral blue carpeting. Doors to labs, offices, private quarters along the way.

            What Thom had written was simple enough.  Of course i’m taking it to meeker but don’t want corp to know. not trusting they aren’t spying on u right now. don’t want an audio record just in case. erase this NOW.

            But now, walkin’ towards the lift, back to his quarters, getting’ ready to pack, he wonders whether CORP might even have a way to keep track of personal messages and notes on his supposedly unregistered Pad, too.  If they did, then they already knew he wasn’t goin’ to see Phelan to hand over the disc.  They’d be waitin’ for him at the dock--or, at the least, watchin’ him, ready to pounce the minute he showed up at Meeker’s door.

            Yes, he smirks, life anywhere in the Sol System means never-ending paranoia.

            The lift door opened.

            And trust rarer than hope.

TRANSMIT 6

·                     “I may’ve been away a lot on the freighter, but I’ve also been your Dad for 17 years, ‘member?  I think I can read you pretty good by now.”

·                     “Guess so.”

·                     “Guess right.”

·                     They sit for a few moments watchin’ the stars.  Mars is beginnin’ to show brighter on the port side--a dot last week, a ping pong ball this week.  It’d be a week or so before they reach its orbit and then use its gravity to help boost them towards Saturn.

·                     “When were you thinkin’ about startin’ this literary adventure?”  Sim’s mask of indifference is quickly slippin’ away.

·                     “How about after we eat?”

·                     “Today?”

·                     “Why not?”

·                     “I’ll need to think of a good start,” Sim says.

·                     “You assume you’re startin’?”

·                     “Yeah,” Sim laughs, “funny how I assumed that.”

·                     “Yeah.  Funny.”  He loves the ease he can feel with Sim at moments like this.  Sure there’s all that teenage stuff goin’ on, and Sim had been closer to Val.  But when they’re together, like now, there seems to be a connection, a comfort on Rom’s part.

·                      “Well if you wanna start after supper, then you might as well go first.  Then I’ll go.” Sim pauses. “But what if I can’t think of anything?”

·                     “Just keep goin’ anyway.  Don’t let the ball drop.  Just keep addin’, even if it sounds stupid.  We’re not out to win a literary award.  It’s about the fun.”

·                     A momentary quiver passes through Sim’s gut.

·                     Which Rom senses:  “What?” 

·                     “You reminded me of Val just then.”

·                     “How?”

·                     “Val was always tellin’ me to have fun, to enjoy life.”

·                     “Good advice, right?”

·                     Sim nods his head, brushin’ aside the mood.

·                     “So let’s eat,” Sim says, “and then have some fun.”

·                     “Yeah, let’s eat.”

·                     So they do.

BACK INSIDE PEL’S QUARTERS:  

            Thom has just left.  Pel sinks to his desk chair, looking totally relieved.

            I hate using him like that, but what were we supposed to do?

            The door chime sounds.  Pel gets up, looks through the peephole, and smiles.

            He presses the wallpad and the door rolls open with a placid pneumatic whoosh.

            “It’s done.”

            And let’s the door shut again.

            He sits back down.

            Yeh, it’s done.

TRANSMIT 7

·                     But it’s durin’ supper--which they eat in front of the ViewPort--that Sim gets his own blast of inspiration.  It happens this way:

·                     The ship’s HoloCom beeps.

·                     An incomin’ message for Sim.

·                     A miniature Holo of his pal Den appears in the air above his food tray, the caller’s spiked haired flyin’ off in a thousand directions, the green eyes as real as life. 

·                     Hey Sim.  Just wanted to connect.  Aldrin’s a bore without you.  Tri and Van got suspended.  Again.  They did something to the HydroGarden and it started snowing instead of raining.  Commander Freemont went nuclear.  See what you’re missing?  Anyway, hope you and your Dad are OK.  Say hi when you have time.  Oh, yeah, Sal says to tell . . .

·                     And the Holo dissolves in a whirl of sputterin’ electrons.

·                     “Must’ve hit 60.”  Rem shoves in a mouthful of a Synth peanut butter and jelly.  It’s not too bad actually, but the FoodServe never quite gets the flavors of any food perfectly. It’s an approximation at best.  But you get used to it.  By the time you arrive at Cassini Station, you’d swear it’s four star cuisine--or so you convince yourself.

·                     “Yeah. Wish they’d figure a way to get more data into the HoloStream.  I mean it’s tough to say what you want in 60 words or less.”  Sim’s clearly disappointed.  Den’s his oldest friend back at the lunar Base.  When Val, Rom, and Sim moved up to Aldrin from the Rez, it was Den who showed the seven year old Sim around the Base and volunteered to walk him to and from the Base school.

·                     They even dated briefly, but they decided they were better off as friends.

·                     Seeing her made him homesick.

·                     Seeing her reminded him of Val--of missing Val.

·                     So, like he often has this past year, he ignores his feelin’s and continues: “Or not have the damn time lag.  We can build plasma engines, but we can’t get invent a system that let’s us send a message in real time.”

·                     “Sorry, kiddo, but light speed is still light speed.  And the further away we get, the longer it takes. And,” Rom makes air quotes and says in a Network voice, ‘Foldin’s still a long way off’.”

·                     “Yeh, yeh. That’s CORP-speak for ‘Who knows when’.”  He finally takes a bite of food.  “Still, it’d be nice to get more than a tease.  Sixty words, fifteen or twenty seconds if you’re lucky.  It sucks.  And EtherScript’s just not the same. More words, but still just words.  Not people. And all because CORP is too cheap.”

·                     And that’s when he has his brainstorm.

·                     “Hey, that’s how we could do it.”

·                     “What?”  Rem’s trying not to inhale his food, but even Synth peanut butter was better than none at all.

·                     “Maybe we could use the 60 word or less rule for our story.  Makes the whole thing more of a challenge, right?  We’ll get Fizz up here and he can keep track.  When one of us hits 60 words, we stop and the other guy has to pick it up from there, even if it’s the middle of a sentence.”

·                     “Love it.”  He wipes his mouth.  “We can have some real fun.”

·                     “Yeh, but let’s try to make a good story.  No green elephants on Jupiter dancin’ to Beethoven or anythin’ like that.”

·                     “Why not?  You got somethin’ against green elephants?  Besides, that was one of my better stories.”

·                     “Dad. Really.  I mean it.  I know it’s your idea to do this and I’m willin’ to go along, but let’s see if we can at least make it an interestin’ game.”

·                     “Agreed.”

·                     “So when do we start?”

TRANSMIT 8

·                     Ten minutes later:

·                     Fizz stands to one side of Sim and Rom who face each other in the ViewPort chairs.

·                     The lights in the expansive room are turned down both for efficiency and effect. 

·                     Much to their amusement, Fizz has brought up a real wax candle from one of the Cargo Bays and placed it on a small table between the two chairs.  It smells like cedar.

·                     “What’s this?”

·                     “Your campfire, sir.” The droid’s voice was a light, pleasant baritone.

·                     Rom laughs. 

·                     The droid gives a static chuckle.

·                     Sim looks over his shoulder.  “So you understand the rules, Fizz.”

·                     “Yes, sir.” 

·                     “You stop us when we hit sixty words.  If we stay under, that’s fine, but if we hit sixty, you can beep or somethin’.”

·                     “And the next person starts up,” Rom adds.

·                     Fizz--five feet of whirrin’ lights and wires beneath translucent skin, lookin’ vaguely humanoid--nods his football shaped head. “Understood.”

·                     “So,” Rom claps his hands together and rubs them briskly.  “Let’s get started.  Ready?”

·                     Rom nods, takes in a deep breath and, lookin’ outside, sees Mars, smiles at the idea that’s just come to him, and begins:

·                     “Jeremy Walkin’ Moon can finally relax.  He writes in his journal:  The tension’s been intolerable--only until they left.  Once they were gone, I was free again. Even if they’ve left all of us to die--it’s still freedom.  The tyranny of years is now over.  He looks out the port in his quarters…” 

·                     He interrupts himself. 

·                     “Fizz, could you please tap into our Corn-I’s?”

·                     “Yes, sir.  May I ask why?”

·                     “Because you could tick off the number of words for us and we’d see the count in our corneal implants. We’d know when we’re getting’ near our 60-word limit without you havin’ to interrupt us.”

·                     “Good thinking.’ Keep the flow goin’.  Assumin’ we can keep any kind of flow.  Especially if you keep stoppin’ us.”  He laughs.

·                     “Promise. That’s it.”

·                     “OK.  Let’s do that tap-in, Fizz.”

·                     “Yes, sir.” 

TRANSMIT 9

·                     Fizz opens his channel to their implants. Almost every human has one now--a direct interface to any other person with Corn-I as well as a connection to the Network. With one touch to your Temporal implant, you can tie into any Com, Data, or Archive system; with another you can talk to just about anyone in the Sol system, assumin’ you don’t mind those long-distance time lags.

·                     Simply put, Corn-I made old-fashioned computers and mobile TelCom obsolete by the end of the 21^st century. Even the once poor nations of Earth, now controlled by CORP subsidiaries, offer Corn-I capability under the guise of humanitarian outreach.  Many love the idea that we’re all one now. Others feel it’s a way to keep tabs on potential resistance movements that fight their underground wars against CORP.

·                     Whatever the case, it’s possible that if you actually want to talk to someone in one of the few aboriginal regions left in Africa or interior Asia or Australia (a.k.a AFRICORP, SINOCORP, AUSTACORP), you can, assumin’ he or she’s got the implant and is inclined to speak to someone livin’ in the “Big Man’s CORP.”  An image of the person appears in the lower right of your peripheral vision and you hear his or her voice over your cochlear device.

·                     “Can you see it, sir?”

·                     Both Sim and Rom see a blue number 54 glowin’ softly off to the right.

·                     “Great stuff, Fizz,” Rom said.

·                     “I won’t interrupt, sir, but you’ll know you’ve passed the limit. I’ve adjusted the number to automatically become red once you pass 60.  For good measure, I’ll also let you both see the exact threshold word.  This way the next speaker can pick up from there.”

·                     “Sounds like you’re havin’ fun with this, too.”  Sim says.

·                     “I enjoy a good game, sir.  Keeps my synapses fresh.”  He lets out another static giggle.

·                     “All right, let’s do this again.  No interruptions this time.”  Then Rom winks at Sim:  “Promise.” 

·                     “Yeah, right, but I won’t be holdin’ my breath.”

·                     Rom adjusts himself in his chair. He starts, watchin’ the numbers slowly mount quietly in the corner:

·                     “Jeremy Walkin’ Moon can relax now.  He writes about it in his journal: 

·                     The tension’s been unbearable lately. But now that they’re gone, we’re all free again. Even if they’ve left all of us to die--it’s still freedom.  The tyranny of years is now over.

·                     He looks out the port in his quarters and...” 

·                     Fifty-five words. He stops and gives a nod to Sim.

·                     Sim takes a moment, then starts: 

·                     “...And sees the Quad surrounded by the 20 huts makin’ up the Base.  For the first time he can remember, no police. Just circles of light cast from the dome.  Just the concrete paths connectin’ huts.  Just the sound of stale air wooshin’ through ventilators.  One by one he sees people emergin’ from their quarters. An hour before they’d all...”

·                     The number 60 blinks.  He stops in mid-sentence.

·                     Just as Rom’s about to pick up his thread, he feels a kind of epiphany. He realizes that this game of his requires more than just casual listenin’.  His mind can’t drift for even a moment.  He looks at Sim and begins to well up.  When?  When have I ever listened to you this intently, this intensely? 

·                     My son. 

·                     The very image of Val.

·                     He clears his throat.  “An hour before . . . they’d all been roused by the sound of vehicles moving out of the airlocks and garages and then the pulsin’ shuttle vehicles from the nearby launch pad.   Jeremy went to the window in time to see the streaks of electric blue smudge the early dawn and fizzle into nothin’ness…”

·                     After a nod from his father, a sly smile emerges on Sim’s face: “…like when Aeneas left Dido without so much as a goodbye. Only we won’t kill ourselves like she did.  No, our Aeneas ain’t worth it, Jeremy thinks, as he watches his friends one by one fill the Quad.  Time for him to go join them, so he leaves his desk, opens the door and begins to greet them…”

TRANSMIT 10

·                     The reference to Aeneas gets a firm thumbs up from Rem.  “…Jeremy joins everyone outside.  They talk about the past few months--all the betrayals. Different people start to report:  It’s been a clean, quick break.  The spies and Administrative officers destroyed the communication links, contaminated the hydro gardens, and left only one workin’ land rover…”  Less than 60, but he stops.

·                     Sim looks out the ViewPort.  If you stare long enough, you can begin to see the motion of the ship, see the stars slowly, slowly slippin’ past.  He stares at Mars, then turns to Rom as if to I’m gonna do this:  “…As they’re sharing their findings, suddenly, there’s a howling sound outside the camp.  At first everyone thinks it’s an approachin’ Martian windstorm.  Then Jeremy realizes that it’s an animal sound--one he’d heard back on Earth decades ago on the Reservation. ‘I know that sound,’ Jeremy says, his eyes fixed on the outer airlock door…”

·                     Rom leans forward.  OK, I’ll take the bait: “…Jeremy’s wife, Yoko, asks, ’What is it?’  She stands next to him, graspin’ his arm. The howl gets closer. Materializin’ through the metal door hatch as a man might slowly emerge through a fog, a white wolf, the size of a large dog, appears, walkin’ through the air lock and into the open space of the Quad…”

·                     He looks at his Dad, at those often sad grey eyes.  He decides to go on, to take the potentially dangerous risk.  After all, isn’t that what this trip’s really about?  Isn’t this the reason you brought me along?  “…The colonists are terrified at first and back up towards the surroundin’ huts.  But with an imperceptible sound of wind, the shape of the wolf slowly begins to blur and swirls into a new form.  Molecules and glitterin’ dust become taller and paler, the whirlin’ subsides and there before them stands the tall naked body of Robb Walkin’ Moon…”

·                     A wave of memory hits Rom.  He looks at Sim.  It’s a dare, isn’t it? You want to see if I pick up the stick.  It’d be easy not to.  But I won’t do that to you.

·                     To us.

·                     “…The Base doctor, Rick, grabs onto a nearby chair for balance.  Yoko and Jeremy let out soft gasps.  The others stand frozen.  There’s a long pause.  The familiar lyric voice speaks:  ‘Don’t be afraid.’  Robb looks at all of them warmly.  ‘You weren’t expectin’ me, and this certainly wasn’t the way you would, but it seemed better than waiting’…”

·                     It’s gonna happen, Sim thinks, isn’t it? Finally.  “…So Yoko runs into the Walkin’ Moon hut and reappears carryin’ a blanket.  She walks slowly up and wraps him, endin’ with a warm mother’s hug.  Jeremy begins to weep and approaches his son ever so slowly.  The three of them cradle each other.   Robb breaks from them and approaches Rick, takin’ him in his arms.  ‘I’ve missed you so’…”

·                     Sim and Rom spend a few moments in silence. 

·                     They both know what this has become.

·                     Rom starts up again:  “…‘I’ve missed you so,’ is all Robb can say and hugs Rick with all his might.  Rick breaks into sobbin’...”

·                     Rom stops short.

·                     Despite an effort, he starts to cry.

·                     Which becomes deep sobbin’.

·                     A year of pent-up sobbin’.

·                     A year of feelin’ no star-watchin’ vigil can quite push away.

·                     A year of avoidin’.

·                     “It’s all right, Dad.”  Sim gets up and walks round the table, the candle still flickerin’.  He kneels down.

·                     And puts an arm round his father’s shoulder.

·                     “Should we stop?”

·                     “No, no. It’s OK.”  He holds his son’s hand.  “Really.  It’s OK.  Actually I’m glad you showed the cajones.  Someone had to.  Good for you.”

·                     “But I don’t want you to if it’s gonna hurt too much.”

·                     “Nah.  It’s good for me.”  He looks up.  “For you, too.”

·                     “Guess so.  It’s the big rock in the middle of the room.  The one we never talk about.”

MEEKER’S QUARTERS ON TRITON BASE: 

            Everything about the Base is dusky metallic, pewter, burnished, chrome.  Even the crew quarters.  It’s a close-to-sterile environment that’s softened only by amber-hued recessed lighting and neutral cadet blue and taupe for some of the walls and the carpets.  Even the functional decor has an angular, industrial look.  Desks, chairs, sofas, pull-down beds, whatever furniture you can imagine—it’s all utilitarian and shades of grey, shades of black.

            Which may explain why everyone seems to favor the most vibrant colors for their clothing.

            Meeker—another Mars-born man, second-generation—wears a brilliant scarlet coverall over which he dons a loose-fitting tunic whose vivid geometric patterns remind you of ancient African tribal designs—a feast of golden earth tones. Even his gravity slippers are a remarkable lime green.

            Thom, in his black trousers and grey cleric’s tunic, nearly fades into the background.

            Since he wasn’t intercepted when he arrived—as he feared might happen—he’s made his visit look quite legitimate, seeking out old friends as well as strangers, offering blessings and counsel.

            Meeker is simply another of his pastoral visits.

            Meek, as his friends call him, has turned off the Com, which brings a half-smile to Thom, who thinks:  If he uses the Privacy excuse again, CORP’s going to think I’m an outright whore.

            They’ve just spent a few minutes listening to a section of Pel’s disc on Meek’s portable Screen.

            “So we hearen 10 of the 17 Transmits and I been confused. Truly. Deep.”  Meeker, uses the same Martian dialect that most Mars-born colonials choose to speak—already a bit of anti-CORP defiance, though CORP claims to tolerate the language as part of its “we embrace all people” attitude.  Thom thinks it sounds like English spoken with a EUROCORP accent, something akin to the Old Dutch or Norse he’s heard in HoloFilms.

            “Why’s that, Meek?”

            “First, why is Pel talken the tale? Why not direct Sim and Rom? And then why disguisen the tale like it’s Martian.  Everyall knowen Val be killt on Moon—for that be what their sayen, right? It happenen on Mars. They been sayen Val’s tale in cloaks, yeh?   And shapeshften?  Nix thing as that—all children beddy-bed yaren.  They no even spaken Mars dialect. It sounds more like Moon Talk.”

            “You’re right, of course, but I think Pel did it because he wanted to tell the story with enough fiction that it could be denied in case CORP discovered it—or decided to make an issue.”

            “Still, so strange.  But moren important—where are they, these two?  Rom and Sim?  Is Pel hidden ‘em on Cassini?  If not, wheren?”

            Thom sits back and smiles.  It’s suddenly very clear to him:  “Oh we can figure that out, can’t we?”

WILL THE COMMANDER AND FALCON STOP THE BROADCAST?

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO RICK, ROBB, AND THE REST?

WHAT ABOUT VAL?

YOU'LL JUST HAVE TO WAIT 'TIL THE FULL STORY'S PUBLISHED. 

STAY TUNED...

It’s the 22^nd century and Earth is about to be destroyed—what environmental disasters started, a stray Oort Belt planetoid will finish.  At the instigation of a mysterious alien species, the Cryllians, a handful of scientists and corporate moguls (many of whom wonder whether the message from the depths of space is a hoax) build Habitat to preserve a sampling of human life and various cultural achievements spanning continents and recorded history.  As they and a hundred voyagers head towards a rendezvous with the aliens, all out war breaks out onboard.  In the end, much of Habitat’s enormous Archive is destroyed and only five humans and ten clones of a 17 year-old wunderkind—Mars Walking Moon—survive. 

…and Milton, the only one of twenty so-called Mechanicals who makes it through the conflict. 

12 Minutes... is Milton’s tale.  Armed with only a three thousand word vocabulary and a rudimentary emogram system that lets him approximate what the survivors are experiencing, he tells the saga of the last remaining humans.  Much of his memoir-like narrative focuses on the supposedly identical 17 year-olds, who prove to be anything but “identical.”  His attempts to understand them and the human condition raises a myriad of important existential questions regarding ethics, religion, politics, and humanity’s place in the vast scheme of the Universe. 

As well as his place.  Does he, a robotic being, have a purpose?  Is he, when all is said, “alive”?  Can and will the Cryllians help him achieve answers and closure?

(c) 2010 William Thierfelder [T. Richard Williams]


The following is a selection from the novel . . .

12 minutes . . .

(c) 2010 William Thierfelder [T. Richard Williams]


CHAPTER ONE:  LIMITATION

     The little girl with the purple hair stops.

     Her eyes widen with wonder.

     And then . . .

Logdate: 21 January 6743

Logtime: 14:07:32

     . . . From the North, the ships arrive.

     And my first thought:  Why did I wait?

     Was I beginning to think I had all the time in the universe? 

     Or was I afraid of facing reality?

     That if I collected all the scraps and told the story of Habitat that I’d have to admit it was over.

     Regardless, it’s time now.

     Get the story told.

     Now.

     For them, whoever they are.

Dataunit 1:  Mechanical

     This is a tale of bits and pieces--snippets of narrative from untrained writers, personal logs, and Archive files--that make one larger story.

     I’ll start it here:

     This may not be a jovial story, but it’s a tale about courage and love, strength and hope. 

     About anticipation.

     Most of all it’s about a small group of men and women who became my companions for decades. 

     They were my friends. 

     I may be a Mechanical--I’ve had many possible names--Droid, Robot, A.I.--all depending on the political mood of a given day—but to The Five and the dozen clones, I was always Milton, and they treated me as kindly and fairly as if I were made of flesh, blood, and bone.

     And that’s why--while I’m sitting in the Dome, watching the ships appear--I want to tell this story to you.

     . . . which makes the girl smile.

Dataunit 2:  Parameter

     Unfortunately, I don’t have a knack for story telling. 

     Mars Walking Moon (one of The Five)--and later his ten clones (whom he thought of as brothers or, perhaps, even sons)--could rattle off a narrative as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

     (I never discovered whether the additional two clones who arrived much later had such gifts.)

     Ironically, just like me, none of them thought they had the talent to tell a good tale either, but actually they did.

     Certainly compared to me they did. 

     They were human; they had imagination. 

     I’m a Mechanical; I have recollection.

     Humans have adjectives.

     I have thousands of nouns and verbs.

     They have an ocean of connotations.

     Much of my world is denotative: Generally for me, a meal is food, a morsel is a milligram, the soft rainy afternoon in the HydroGarden is manufactured precipitation.

     For all of the Walking Moons, the universe outside the Habitat was vast, endless, spectacular, profound, mystic, terrifying.

     For me, it is space, measured in kilometers and light years. 

     I know what all these descriptive words mean--and I will use them as best I can in this story--but remember that my narration abilities are an approximation. 

     So, yes, I know that vast means very large, but for my human companions, a word like vast had untold feelings buried in those four alphabet letters. 

     The implant Tulku Najari (also one of The Five) devised for me is only a prototype of a more sophisticated Emogram used—illegally--on Earth, so the range of my emotions is limited.

     That’s the niggling gap between knowing and feeling, between comprehension and understanding that my programming can only begin to bridge.

     In sum: I will do my best to communicate a faithful tale and to tell it with as much flare as a Mechanical can muster. 

     And as quickly as I can.

     I won’t have time to edit.

     I might repeat things.

     I might put things in the wrong order from time to time.

     But I’ll try my best--and as Mars Walking Moon always said, “That’s all that really matters.”

     So the girl settles in and listens very carefully.

Dataunit 3:  A Tease

     So I’m going to start my story about Habitat the way all of the Walking Moon brothers liked to tell their stories.

     Sometimes we would gather on a Friday evening in the Village on Level 1 of our Habitat to entertain one another. 

     Trip especially enjoyed teasing us with what he called a Sneak Preview, a bit of the story towards the middle or the end that would make us want to know how we got to that point, much like the old Holofilms we’d watch.

     You see a murder or an explosion or an exciting race at the beginning and then the Holo will take you back and fill in all the details, often with a phrase like Three Days Earlier . . . or Ten Hours Ago . . .

***

     It’s the year 2284, and First--the original clone of Mars Walking Moon as well as our Habitat’s librarian--is speaking to his nine brothers and me.

     We’re in one of the sub-levels of Habitat, Level 15, where the Stasis Pods are stored.

     First is talking passionately:

     “Milton, we’ve got no choice.”

     Of course, I know they’re right.

     I’ve been thinking the same thing for days.

     But still I say:

     “If we do this, that’s it.  Once the Pods are opened, they can’t be reused.”

     “We know that, but we need Mars and the others. Pure and simple.” 

     “First is right,” Trip says.

     “You also realize you have the potential of living indefinitely, thanks to the nanotech flowing through your system.  Your weekly doses assure that.  But that tech isn’t compatible with the Five.”

     “Maybe we can fix that once they’re awake.”

     “It’s a terrible risk.”

     “It’s a greater risk,” Octane says, “not to know what to do.  We can’t just sit out here and do nothing.  Maybe they can fix the Com.  Maybe they’ll decide it’s best to turn around.”

     “To what?” Nonce interrupts.  “There’s no Earth left?”

     “Let’s not get off track here.” Deuce says.  “We know there’s no Earth, but I’m not willing to give up on the Cryllians.”

     “Sure, because you don’t want to admit you got it wrong.” Nonce hasn’t let up for days.

     “Shut up, Nonce.” First glares. “We’re in a mess.  But our whole purpose out here’s been to meet up with the Cryllians.  They gave us artificial gravity.  They gave us stable fusion tech. And they were right about the destruction of Earth.  Along came Raymond.  He compromised every system we have.  It’s possible that Deuce is indeed reading everything correctly,” First looks at Deuce, “but it’s also quite possible that the systems are giving us false readouts.  Maybe we’re not in the right place.  Or maybe our messages really are getting sent. Maybe . . .”

     “. . . And maybe the god Santa Claus will materialize with his dwarves in the Observation Dome.” Nonce sneers.

     “The truth is,” First continues.

     “What the hell would you know about truth?” Nonce takes a step closer.

     “Stop being an ass. Now’s not the time.” Dix stands between his brothers.

     Before Nonce can respond, First moves on--loudly, vehemently punching out key words:  “The truth is that despite the risks, it’s important that the Five should be awakened.  Clearly we’re at a loss.  Maybe they can come up with a fresh approach that we’re missing.”

***

     So that’s my tease.

     Who are all these clones?

     Who are the Cryllians?

     What are the Pods all about?

     Who are the Five?

     Let’s find out some answers.

 

     She applauds . . .

     and then leans in even closer for the experience . . .

CHAPTER TWO:  MOVING

Logdate: 21 January 6743

Logtime: 14:07:56

     A swirl of glitter-mist forms around the three huge mirror-metal globes.

     Is it really them?

     Finally?

     The Cryllians?

     How long do I have?

     A few minutes at the most?
     Less?

     More?

Dataunit 4:  How It All Got Started

     It’s hard constructing this so rapidly.

     There’s so much, and I’m drawing on several internal data banks and a feeble link to what’s left of the Archive to cobble this narrative together.

     It’s even harder having a three thousand word vocabulary and only the rudiments of an imagination to make something engaging out of those words.

     If I had lips to smile, they would be curled at this moment.  

     As you can see, Tulku’s Emogram has given me aspects of self-doubt. 

     I used to analyze it: Is doubt intrinsic to humanity? 

     Is there no such thing as the perfectly secure individual? 

     My conclusion: Of course not. 

     Doubt is part of the fabric of all Sentients and though I’m a Mechanical, my Emogram has made me partially sentient--an existential dilemma to be sure: I am a machine that comprehends feelings and knows the meaning of tears.

     But doubt? 

     Yes, I not only know it, I’m beginning to feel it as well.

     Then that’s a start, right?

     The rudiments of a sentence: Milton the Mechanical lives.

     <Smile>

     And so my perpetual doubts about this narrative and your reaction to it--Is it dull? Is it detailed enough?  Is it too detailed?  Does it ring true?--are all part of me now thanks to Tulku Najari. 

     I’ve got to stop interrupting the Narrative, don’t I?

     Move on, Milton.

     Only a small portion of Habitat’s original Archive remains--fragments with little or no chronology. 

     Some highlights include 343  Holofilms (most of them from the 20^th century), 92 TeleNovelas from the 21^st and early 22^nd centuries, 1275 historical files (out of nearly a million) which contain bits and pieces of Earth’s record (with whole centuries missing), and 237 books--many also fragmented--including a handful of novels (102 out of the original tens of thousands), some short story collections (91 out of thousands), biographies (17 out of five thousand or so),  four cookbooks (I can’t find an exact number for the original count), eight graphic novels, seven travelogues, five books of art history and design, and three dictionaries (English, French, Mandarin).

     The Archive had once been vast--the history of humankind from its beginnings.

     Enough information to fill three full levels of Habitat.

     Science, Theology, Politics, Timelines, Personal logs, Art, Music—anything and everything one could think of all housed in row upon row of microscopic data chips, many made of biotech material. 

     Indeed, large portions of the Archive were a kind of living brain. 

     Sadly, these were the very sections that died during the Uprising. 

     Only a few purely electronic sections survived.

     Along with that, I should tell you that because many humans were afraid that robotic beings like myself posed a potential threat--would we be able to evolve or, worse, reproduce?--every political union on Earth as well as the lunar and Martian colonies mandated that all artificial beings were to be completely non-biological.

     Hence the name Mechanical to underscore our non-human status. 

     Like the original Archive, however, Tulku’s Emogram possesses an element once considered dangerous--evil to some:

     Nanobots.

     Microscopic machines able to replicate and repair damaged parts in my metallic, synaptic body.

     More of this as we proceed.

     For now: 

     My estimate is that about 7 percent of the Archive still survives--a mere corner of Level 4 and a few sections on Levels 5 and 6 that weren’t burnt out by the massive overload and firestorm.

     Raymond and his cohorts saw to this during the Uprising.

     I’m just trying to let you know that any information prior to my activation in 2160 is difficult to discover--and anything after is based only on what I could observe or what others shared with me. 

     I’ll do my best.

     Though at this point, I worry that I’ll lose some of you with all the jumping around.

     So let’s do this:

Dataunit 5:  An Approximate Timeline

2050 Human.2 established.  

     Humans who have the financial resources can now have two implants. 

     TeleCom:  A temporal lobe implant using nanobotic transmitters that allows instant communication with anyone else who has a Com.

     Corn-I:  An ocular implant with synaptic transmitters in the brain’s frontal lobe that gives the ability to access a database called the Universal Archive—a worldwide library headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

     Both are operated by a subdermal touch pad implant on the arm. 

     This technology further separates the rich from the poor.

2060   Human.2 expands its scope: 

     After years of struggle, most human disease is eradicated through the manipulation of a person’s genes.

2063  Human.2 stages another coup:

     Nanobotic technology is allowed in most nations on the planet. 

     In combination with genetic manipulation, humans can now repair themselves when injured and get cured rapidly if they get ill. 

     The potential life span of a human now becomes “of indefinite duration.”

2064 The Only Human movement, comprised of many small groups that begin as early as 2051, takes flight--a fiercely political “counter-revolution” to the Human.2 organization. 

     Repeatedly, the Only Human minority has a hard time opposing the Human.2 majority who embrace--and demand--all the various tech advances, which some factions of the Only Human party define as the Antichrist.

2081 Last of the Arctic Ice Cap melts; the Antarctic ice shields are nearly melted as well. 

     Water levels around the planet are now at all time highs. 

     This causes catastrophic climate change.

2094 The Water Wars begin in Africa.

     The first of many conflicts between poor countries and their richer counterparts for the most precious commodity on the planet--fresh drinking water.

2098   The former United States, Canada, Iceland, and Greenland create the CanAmerican Union.

     These dates are all suspect, since the Habitat’s Archive is fragmented. 

     I’m piecing this together from dozens and dozens of sources. 

     While the exact dates may be a guess, the actions are not. 

     And so by the beginning of the 22^nd century there were several kinds of wars engulfing the planet. 

     There were the literal wars--soldiers, bombs, physical destruction. 

     And there were the other wars; what someone in the 20^th century called “culture wars.” 

     These conflicts were contests between primarily religious fundamentalists who were against nearly all the scientific advances that were sweeping the globe and those who saw such advances as the next step in humanity’s evolution. 

     Genetic engineering, cloning, nanotechnology, the mass introduction of TeleCom’s and Corn-I’s, even the creation of robots like myself--all of this became a battle between the Human.2 groups and the Only Human factions. 

     I’m uncertain of a date, but sometime before 2130, Mechanical beings like myself couldn’t be programmed with emotions or any form of nanotech, something Tulku Najari “corrected” after the 2170 Uprising.

     We move along:

     The history of Habitat starts in 2134 when astronomers began receiving a faint radio signal from deep space. 

     At first many thought it was a practical joke, the stuff of blockbuster Sci-Fi Holofilms and pulp fiction, especially when the mysterious emissions seemed to be coming from our neighboring galaxy in space, Andromeda. 

     One scrap I uncovered said that a scientist actually joked about how the Andromedan message reminded him of an episode of a 20^th century television program called The Outer Limits that he’d seen in the Communications Museum in Helsinki.   

     “And that story’s over a hundred fifty years old!”

     Evidently he had the whole room laughing along, no one wanting to believe that this mysterious clattering and whistling was anything but a sophisticated prank.

     Of course, none of the news services on the Global Network carried anything about it. 

     A few blips from a galaxy 2.5 million light years away hardly warranted comment from a planet embroiled in three raging wars--China versus the Japan-Korean Alliance, Iran and Syria against the whole Middle East (also called The Two Hundred Year War), and the European Union against The CanAmerican Union.

     At the time of the Andromedan message, The CanAmerican Conflict was the most brutal, with dozens of nations fighting for the rights to the Great Polar Sea. 

     Centuries before the area had been called the Arctic or--according to one Archive--just “The North Pole.” But that was before everything melted in the 21^st century. 

     As a result, most of the major coastal cities above the Equator were completely flooded and uninhabitable.

     Geopolitical Unions north of the equator fought primarily CanAmerica and, to a lesser degree, Russia over trade routes across the turbulent Sea and--more importantly--the vast wealth of minerals beneath the Sea’s floor. 

     The combatants in all three war zones used supposedly outlawed biotech weapons, nuclear bombs, and a host of other horrors. 

     Smaller Unions began to form larger alliances as economies collapsed. 

     Soon enormous corporations ran most of the governments on the planet (a trend that had actually started in the late 1900’s). 

     I can’t begin to list everything--the Archive records are a mish-mash of facts and dates. 

     But you get the picture, don’t you? 

     The Earth was destroying itself as fear, greed, overly zealous religious convictions, political arrogance, stupidity masked as social concern, and human-induced viral plagues swept across every continent like the winds of some unimaginable hurricane.

     Misery ruled the day for the 500 million survivors on a world once stuffed with nine billion. 

     Hardly survival of the fittest, yet survival nonetheless.

     But a terrible survival.

     Terrible and terrifying.

     So the squeaks and squawks may not have garnered Global Net’s attention, but by December of 2134, the handful of scientists who were communicating among themselves truly thought the Andromedan signals were authentic. 

     They decided to meet in secret in an observatory high in the Andes Mountains in a place called Chile. 

     It was one of the few locations on the planet not ravaged by war and the only station that still had working astronomical equipment, including a primitive, century-old radio telescope. 

     An entry from one scientist says that they would jokingly caress the outsized console that housed the telescope’s electronic guts or pat it with their hands and laugh, “You see? A dinosaur can still be good for something!” or “The dinosaur lives again!”

     These men and women believed the message, which in simplest terms said this:    

     Deep in the Andromeda galaxy was a planetary system orbiting a G2 main sequence star. 

     On the fourth of twelve planets, a unified civilization flourished. 

     There had once been over 100 nations, but now all worked together collectively, calling themselves the Cryllians. 

     Their scientists had developed something called Folding that allowed them not only to travel from spot to spot in mere moments but to send messages nearly instantly across vast distances by “folding” time and space. 

     I can’t fully explain the process; its working principle doesn’t remain in any Archive record.

     My guess is this:  Imagine a piece of string a meter long. 

     You live at one end of the string. 

     I live at a point on the opposite end, a full meter away. 

     In order for me to reach you using a conventional vessel--like Habitat--I must chug down the entire meter-long distance of the string. 

     Even with sophisticated chemical, fission, or fusion engines, that trek could take a great deal of time, especially if that one meter were really hundreds, thousands, or millions of light years. 

     What the Cryllians did was create a mechanism that allowed them to “fold” that string so that my end and your end could be drawn together almost instantaneously. 

     I envision entering a door on one side of a room and exiting a door on the other, moving from my point in space and time to your point in a matter of moments.     

     Evidently they could send messages using this method as well: 

     The Cryllians “folded” their message from their end in Andromeda to our end on Earth.

     My problem, of course, is this: 

     If we lacked Cryllian technology, how could we receive their message? 

     Wouldn’t one need to establish both a sending and a receiving station for transporting such messages?

     How could our primitive apparatuses receive something sent by their complex instruments? 

     Wouldn’t this be like trying to play a 22^nd century Holofilm on a 21^st century Blu-ray Player?

     My doubts aside (yes, one of the many aspects of doubt my Emogram has given me), the scientists of 2134 did believe--or wanted to believe for what might be a host of reasons, including the sheer fatigue of living on a war-torn planet--and they listened to the Cryllians as an ancient human might have listened to the gods through the messages of an oracle. 

     A brief pause:

     I believe I’m experiencing frustration.

     Things that I think might be interesting to you, I can’t explain because there’s either no record or the data file is woefully incomplete. 

     And things that are quite mundane, I could tell you--but it wouldn’t matter. 

     Do you really need to know what the scientists were wearing the day they gathered for the first time?

     There’s of photo of that. 

     But what they actually said--those conversations are gone.

     Missing. 

     Destroyed.

     If the hot flicker that courses through my synapses at these times is what humans call frustration, then, yes, I’m very frustrated and very angry at Raymond Tucci for setting off the bombs and planting the electronic viruses that demolished over 90 percent of the Archive. 

     It left all of us bereft of great knowledge--of human history. 

     But that was his goal, wasn’t it? 

     That was the goal of his war against progress.

     His belief that humanity should just die.

     Well, back to the story: 

     These Cryllians claimed to have visited several planetary systems in the Milky Way, including ours. 

     They chose to remain observers--learning languages and studying cultures. 

     Until 2134.

     They knew all about the wars on Earth, about how the planet was destroying itself. 

     But now there was a new, even greater threat.

     I pause again:

     If I hadn’t actually witnessed it, I would say that the impending disaster foretold by the Cryllians was definitely a hoax.

     I’ve seen several films and read enough to know that humans have invented apocalyptic tales for untold centuries.

     But I did witness it, that apocalypse.

     So what follows really happened:

     A small dwarf planet, knocked out of its Kuiper Belt orbit, was tumbling towards the inner worlds of the Solar System.

     It would slam into and destroy Earth on 21 June, 2166. 

     Their estimates were unequivocal:

     Total destruction of Earth, shattered into a million pieces.

     The Cryllians urged humanity to save something of its civilizations and flee.    

     Build a ship, if that were still possible, and meet them at a rendezvous point at the far edge of the Oort Cloud--a foreboding place approximately 50 thousand astronomical units from the Sun.

     “Why so far?” The scientists asked.

     “Because,” they answered, “the devastation to the inner planets will be so catastrophic that the rest of the solar system will be affected irreversibly.”

     The Rendezvous with the Cryllians would take place in March of 2284.

     “Can’t you share your Folding technology with us?  Then we could meet you much earlier.”

     “No.  We can’t interfere.”

     “But you’re already interfering by telling us that we’re doomed.  You’re sending us on a trek nearly a full light year away from Earth.  If you can’t help us with our propulsion speed, couldn’t you at least shorten the distance?  Over a century in space is a very long time.”

     “We’re saving a handful of you, promising you a place in orbit around our home world, assuring you access to our planet, guaranteeing you supplies, giving you an opportunity to preserve a portion of who you are--but we won’t furnish you with a technology that might further jeopardize your people. Technology has brought you to your ruin.  Why should we give you even more?”

     “Well then, at least something to make the ship we’re building more comfortable.  After all, it’s going to be, for all intents and purposes, the New Earth.”

     The bantering went on for a few weeks and a compromise was reached--the Cryllians would give them the “secret” to creating artificial gravity for the vehicle as well as the key to making an efficient fusion engine. 

     But that was all. 

     At least that’s all I can uncover.

     The agreement was finalized.

     A secret agreement.

     And so it was on New Year’s Eve of 2134--one hundred and fifty years before the Rendezvous--the Habitat Project was begun, with twenty scientists and the ten heads of once-rival international companies signing on.

     They became known as The Thirty.

Logdate:  21 January 6743

Logtime:  14:08:12

     It must be them.

     The Cryllians.

     Deus ex machine--the gods by machine.

     Three ships.

     Magnificent ships.

     Focus Milton, focus.

     Continue the tale . . .

Dataunit 6:  Habitat Sets Off

     One data fragment says that Habitat was supposed to be completed in 2150.

     Another says 2151. 

     Either way, the project wasn’t finished when it was supposed to be.

     I can imagine looking up from Earth into the night sky and seeing bits and pieces--a patchwork of sections floating, slowly inter-connecting far above--wondering what I was looking at.

     The project was kept secret, but anyone with a telescope--for those still curious enough to look--would have been able to see something circling the Earth.

     Activity. 

     Building. 

     Three or four cargo ships and shuttle craft arriving and leaving regularly. 

     Enormous units of construction appearing slowly, expanding with the months. 

     Separate units, jigsaw pieces needing to be fit.

     I can also imagine The Thirty screaming at one another in total frustration. 

     I gather that Earth fell further and further into financial collapse, if that were possible.

     Simply put, it was a mess.

     Then a message came. 

     The Cryllians wanted to know if Habitat was ready for launch. 

     No.

     They had only 16 years to get far enough away from Earth’s orbit to survive the cataclysm.

     Didn’t The Thirty realize that the longer Habitat was delayed, the more danger there would be from the debris?

     Yes.

     “Then you must act.  Our analysis remains unchanged: The explosion will take place on 21 June 2166.” 

     “Yes, we know,” the Thirty responded, “but you don’t understand how difficult this is.  Trying to build something in Earth orbit, trying to keep Habitat secret from Earth’s remaining population for fear of further eroding the planet’s morale, trying to collect the sum total knowledge of humanity into an Archive database, trying . . .”

     “Trying is not good enough,” the Cryllians said.  “If you want any part of humanity saved, you need to work as quickly as possible.  Work past mere ‘trying.’  Achievement is the only acceptable word.  Don’t try, do. Don’t hope, act. Achievement.”

     Despite the Cosmic scolding, Habitat wasn’t finished until 2160, a full decade behind the schedule the Andromedans had given them.

     Here, the Archive is even sketchier.

     Literally five static-ridden, pretty badly corrupted files from which I gather two certain things:

     One is that the Rendezvous would remain 21 March 2284.

     [Apparently it was decided to keep Earth’s 24 hour clock and 12 month calendar as a way of maintaining historical continuity.] 

     The new route would give the humans time and space to navigate through the debris that was likely to be thrown out by the enormous explosion of Earth.

     The other thing is the number of the original Habitat passengers. 

     It was launched with 50 people--the Thirty plus twenty others. 

     I don’t know how that came about, how there came to be extra passengers, or exactly how they were chosen. 

     All I can find is the original passenger manifest. 

     There are fifty names. 

     I also discovered that a major decision about population was made:  The total number of passengers for the long journey--and the number of “colonials” who’d live in orbit around the Cryllian home world--was never to exceed 250. 

     That number would be maintained through fairly strict family planning and birth control; I also gather that this method deeply bothered the religiously conservative among the crew.

     According to an undated entry by Mary Petersen (one of the few personal journal entries still partially in tact), the original 50 passengers represented a cross-section of Earth’s population, which meant Earth’s political and religious squabbles--animosity and hatred that were thousands of years old--were transferred onto Habitat. 

     The entry ends with this line:

     “When you move, YOU move with you.” 

     What I gather this means--in terms of human psychology--is that you can move many miles away, hoping that things like your relationships or your status in life will be different, but if you haven’t changed your way of thinking, if you haven’t resolved your conflicts, those issues will follow you to your new home and in due course your new home will be as miserable as the one you left--or ran away from. 

     And that’s exactly what happened on Habitat.

     Fifty people brought their prejudices, their fears, their good points and their bad to Habitat, and within ten years nearly destroyed everything.

     To quote a tale I read in one of the 91 short story anthologies, an engaging narrative called Bartleby by a Mr. Herman Melville: “Ah, humanity!”

CHAPTER THREE:  REDUCTION

Logdate:  21 January 6743

Logtime:  14:08:15

     The three ships move in a little closer, but keep a distance of about 1.5 kilometers.

     They’re enormous, maybe a seven hundred meters in diameter.

     Remarkable moons that fill my sky.

     Perhaps they’re not sure what to make of Habitat.

     It looks a mess from the outside--scorched and scarred.

     Perhaps a foolish wish:  I actually want them to take a little more time.

     Then I could include more in my file

     Then I could edit a bit.

     Polish things up.

     Is that ego?

     Am I developing one?

Dataunit 7:  The Cast of Characters

     I have no idea how to do this.

     Especially since I’ve only got minutes or less to create this file.

     I just keep telling myself: You’re doing this for Mars and the others.

     For my visitors.

     (The Cryllians?)

     Back to the task:

     I could just give you an alphabetical list of the main characters. 

     That could end up being very dull.

     I could also do a whole bunch of flashbacks in which each of the characters is introduced. 

     I’ve seen that done in Holofilms. 

     But that could take a lot of time and end up being confusing. 

     I want something engaging. 

     It’s an important story.

     It’s the story of humankind, and I’m its ambassador.     

     Let’s try it this way:

     We’re looking at Habitat at some point in the year 2060. 

     It orbits about one thousand kilometers above Earth--or as my friends would say, a thousand klicks away. 

     On the night side of the surface, you can see fires raging--glowing spots and deep clouds of soot wafting across millions of acres. 

     On the day side, the thin cellophane of the planet’s atmosphere is gray with smoke. 

     Individual features are often obscured by the roiling banks of weather systems and the ash of humanity’s still raging wars. 

     If you stare long enough, you might see the brilliant flash of a bomb detonation.

     After so many years of war, the fact that there’s anything left to destroy seems incredible.

     But here, in space, high above an angry world, Habitat slowly turns, brilliant, silvery, glittering, a husky disc five hundred meters wide and two hundred meters deep: Eighteen levels topped with a hundred-meter-wide Observation Dome rising thirty meters above the top level. 

     We descend, gliding, circling closer and closer to that Dome, and pass through its clear skin, settling in the center. 

     It’s a huge space, cathedral-like, dozens of ribs made of Smart Metal holding the curving pie sections of window-wall in place--a massive atrium in which the citizens of Habitat can gather under the starry sky to talk, to play, to wonder at the universe beyond.

     It’s the night before the launch. 

     You see all fifty people gathered here. 

     Some are sitting on the perimeter benches, pondering the planet below for the last time. 

     Others are lounging on the many chairs and sofas scattered around the room. 

     A few lie stretched out on blankets in the central space--a kind of town square--with their arms behind their heads, looking up, gazing out into the galactic ocean that will now be their home.

     In the center, woven into the thickly carpeted floor, are directional arrows marked N, E, S, W, like the kind one might find on an old compass. 

     The one that points East also bears the words CHUTE ONE.   

     If you let your eye follow the line, you’ll see the top of an elevator tube shaft about two meters wide and five meters high, rising from the floor near the edge of the curving dome like a large, shining oil drum. 

     Here, the citizens of Habitat can enter and exit the Dome.

     At the moment we arrive, we see the Chute door open with a pneumatic whoosh and watch Jaja Huang and her husband Tulku Najari come in.

     Jaja--five feet of kinetic energy--is 29. 

     She manages the elaborate computer and electronic systems on board.

     She also helps run the propulsion system.

     [That seems like an odd combination to me, but remember, I’m going by bits and pieces--and I never had a chance to discuss it with her back then.]

     Tulku--born in a country (or is it a village?) called Mombasa--is two years younger than his wife and is Habitat’s chief linguist and historian. 

     He’s helped stock the Archive with a database of Earth’s languages and many of the details of the planet’s geological record. 

     He assists his wife with Habitat’s computers and is directly in charge of the twenty five Mechanicals on board. 

     In the Uprising that will come in ten years, I will be the only one of the 25 to survive. 

     Tulku will utilize remaining fragments of electronic devices to piece together an Emotion Program--an Emogram--that he’ll install in me.

     Next to the Chute, we see a grouping of dwarf trees--cherry, weeping willow, palm--planted in enormous terracotta pots. 

     Kelvin McLoughlin is tending to them.

     He’s in his early 40’s, has a shaggy head of blond hair, and wears a grey-colored canvas apron in which various gardening tools are arranged--clippers, a small shovel, a watering bottle.

     He stands on a three-step ladder, reaching to cut a stray twig from the top of the willow. 

     He’s in charge of the HydroGarden that takes up all of Levels 10, 11, and 12. 

     There, Habitat’s fresh food is produced, waste recycled, oxygen created. 

     Only a portion was destroyed in the Uprising; since then, it’s been completely restored thanks to Septimus Walking Moon.

      You’ll meet him later.

     As we move away, we come to a few groups eating picnic suppers in the open spaces. 

     The laughter of a young man catches our ear; we look. 

     It’s Mars Walking Moon. 

     He’s a 6 year-old aboriginal--a Navajo boy from a reservation in the deserts of North America.  He sits cross-legged with his father, Solomon, and his aunt, Mary Petersen.

     Theirs is a sad and romantic tale.

     Back on Earth, on the reservation, Solomon and his wife, Sonja, hoped for children more than anything else--Mary (Sonja’s beloved sister) would tell me this years later. 

     They tried many times, and after a series of miscarriages, Sonja became pregnant.

     At the doctor’s request--and Solomon’s insistence--Sonja stayed in bed and pampered herself through relatively uneventful trimesters.

     The morning of the birth arrived, and, as if on cue, the contractions began.

     The doctor was called.

     One hour of labor became two, became three, became four . . . and after the sixth hour it was abundantly clear something was wrong. 

     The Reservation hospital had been shut down long before.

     There were no ambulances in the region--they’d all been deployed to one of the West Coast war zones.

     So the doctor called the midwife--even the local Rez medicine man with his herbal remedies.

     Nightfall: The tenth hour.

     Men and women from the tribal council arrived, huddled at the doorway, keeping vigil, chanting prayers, burning fragrant incense.

     Solomon and Mary were frantic.

     Finally, the twelfth hour.

     The crown of the baby’s head appeared, the rest of the body following in a burst.

     The boy was born, and, with a slap, began a newborn’s fervent squall.

     Aunt Mary took the baby.

     Some of the elders rushed in, and with the others desperately tried to revive Sonja.

     Despite everyone’s efforts, she died.

     Her body had endured too much, had lost too much blood.

          The doctor sobbed on the midwife’s shoulder.

          The medicine man stared at the floor, shaking his head, moaning.

     Solomon howled like a wounded animal, cradling his wife in his arms. 

     It took three council men to pry him lose.

     He ran from the trailer to the corral, where he mounted his horse--he’d named it Rising Moon because of the crescent of white on its forehead--and roared to the top of the mesa.

      Up there, at the northern cliff edge, he screamed and wept until dawn and then collapsed in the dust.

     Utterly broken.

     Later that day, members of the council coaxed him back down.

     He entered the trailer.

     It was empty.

     The breezeless heat of the afternoon, the sun cutting through the voile curtains Sonja had just made, dust motes hanging in the air.

     An abyss.

     Mary walked in with the baby.

     Solomon looked at it--and then tenderly took it his arms, cradling it to his chest.

     He cried quietly.

     Then he said:  “Your name is Mars.  Mars Walking Moon--like the bright red star your Mom and I . . .” He stopped and took in a deep breath.  “. . . like the star she once loved to watch on clear desert nights.”

     From that moment on, the father and his son were inseparable.

     “Such love,” Mary said.

     After the funeral--a traditional Navajo burial--Mary would come every day to help Solomon with the baby.

     Time passed.

     The boy grew--and it was obvious from the start that he was special.

     Brilliant.

     Shining.

     Full of laughter.

     Full of delicious spice.

     And then, perhaps best of all, Solomon and Mary fell in love.

     Yet, out of their respect for Sonja, they never married. 

     Sonja would be Solomon’s wife till the day he died.

     Mary understood that without question.

     But Mary became his life’s companion--the helpmate, the comrade, the confidante.

     They also chose to remain celibate--another way to honor Sonja.

     Some people thought this very strange; indeed, many on the Rez begged them to marry, saying that Sonja would want it that way, that Sonja would celebrate the love that Solomon had for her sister.

     But they’d hear nothing of it.

     Then, when Mars was around 5, Solomon and Mary--because of their skills as scientists at the region’s remaining University--were asked to join the Habitat team. 

     They agreed, but only if Mars could join them.

     Not only did they want to keep the family in tact--the alternative would have been to let the boy to be raised by the tribe, and “We never would have agreed to that”--but they sensed that he’d become a remarkable scientist in his own right, a valuable member of Habitat. 

     “We knew he’d be great.”

     Time proved them right.

     So tonight, there they sit. 

     Solomon and Aunt Mary have been telling a story to Mars, and he laughs heartily.

     Solomon, 40 years old, is a bioengineer. 

     He’s also an astrophysicist. 

     Two different passions merged into one multi-layered career.

     His Mary--whom he calls Loved One--is a bit younger (34) and is the chief Maintenance Officer of Habitat. 

     Both of them will die.

     But we won’t think of those terrible things; for now, we see a family laughing, enjoying each other’s company on the eve of humanity’s greatest adventure. 

     Mars starts telling a story of his own--Sol and Aunt Mary listen intently; he is the pearl of their eyes. 

     Mars, though 6, is already what they used to call a wunderkind--a prodigy--one of those one-in-a-million humans capable of world-changing thoughts. 

     He’ll be 17 at the time of the Uprising and, like his father, a great bioengineer.

     But now we’ve got to turn to the darker side.

     Every tale has its villain, and we can spot Raymond Tucci--35, dark-hair, somber brown eyes--sitting on a bench near the Southern end of the Dome with his friend, Sidney Feldman--27, un-smiling, a devoutly religious man.

     I really do want to believe that there’s no such thing as a purely evil man. 

     I still think Raymond started out with all the best intentions, was loved and loveable, sometimes even called a “sweetheart of a man.” 

     But things change; souls can darken; beliefs can warp. 

     Habitat’s chief engineer and dazzling computer expert will become convinced--we will never fully know why--that Habitat’s mission is an “abomination.” 

     He and Sidney--who turns into a spiritual fanatic of the worst kind, claiming personal messages from God--will start the Uprising by convincing a handful of others to join their cause. 

     Thanks to them, two-thirds of Habitat will lie in ruins, a burnt-out tangle.

     Tonight, however, you can’t imagine that. 

     You see two men sitting side by side in quiet conversation, looking out into space.

     You would never think these comfortably dressed, gentle men would become raging anarchists a decade later.

     Such is the mystery of the human mind--and why I sometimes fear Tulku’s implant. 

     I think: Who knows what I might do someday now that emotions are beginning to root into my programming? 

     Fear is new to me, but from the data I’ve studied, my inner reactions to certain things are just that: Fear.

     And my greatest fear is that I might one day destroy something, perform an irrational act.

     Of course, now that the ships have arrived, perhaps that fear can be laid to rest.

     Let me come back to the story.

     Though there are others in the Dome, these people are the main players in the first part of our drama. 

     All of humanity reduced and reduced and reduced until its entire history can be told through the lives of a handful of men and women.

     Such a mysterious place, this Universe of ours.

     And so it is that all of them remain there through the night.

     The next morning, Jaja, Raymond, and Sonja take the Chute down to the Command Center on Level 2, and begin the launch process.

     An announcement is made.

     Forty seven people take a last glimpse.

     And with an almost imperceptible tremor, Habitat slowly moves away from Earth.

     So slowly at first that some think Habitat isn’t moving.

     But it only takes a few minutes for everyone to realize that the continents below, the cloudy atmosphere, the gray oceans are becoming increasingly smaller.

     An hour later, the hulking, icy mountains and craters of the Moon begin to fill the sky above the arching Dome. 

     The dazzling silvery light reflecting off the plains contrasts with the intense blackness of space. 

     Every eye is filled with wonder--and the realization that not only do the fusion engines really work (some had doubts despite the many tests) but there is now no turning back. 

     Read their eyes.

     Explore their faces.

     What do you see?

     Such deep truths and revelations:

     They are the last humans.

     This is a one way trip.

     They will never see Earth again.

     And for many, there exists the most exciting and most terrifying thought of all:

     What lies ahead?

(C) 2010 William Thierfelder