Parting Gifts

by gerald hall

  “Maybe Deborah should have tried to somehow get what was left of your family out of harm’s way? She has a lot of influence with the leaders here at Hebes Chasma.” Andrea noted.

  “I would never have asked Deborah for that. If my family wanted to leave the Pacific Confederation to be with me, they would have done so. We would have certainly helped them too. All they had to do was ask. But to be perfectly honest, they loved the lifestyle of the West Coast all too well to even consider uprooting themselves and living a much more spartan lifestyle here on Mars. Even I have to do my part in helping keep the colony running, you know. I know of several of my cousins who would have totally freaked out at the idea of actually doing manual labor.” Peter said with a chuckle.

  “I feel very sorry for the millions of people that we had to leave behind on Earth. Now they are all living under the thumb of those Islamists. Sometimes, I wish that we had somehow done something more to stop the Caliphate in its tracks and end the whole bloody conflict. We have most of the brightest minds in all of humanity up here, for Pete’s sake.” Arthur said with so much frustration, anger and pain evident in his expression and voice.

  “You know that Deborah could have ended the entire war on Earth all by herself. She could have destroyed every single weapon that the jihadists had all the way down to even their bayonets. If that wasn’t enough, she could have wiped them all out, root and stem, so that there would be no one left to carry the religion and philosophy that spawned this conflict. It would have even been humane as hell because they would have never felt an instant of pain when she was done with them. Such an act would be the ultimate expression of what an ancient Italian price ordered his troops to do which was to ‘Kill them all, God will know His own.’

  But Deborah knew that she was never given this gift for that purpose. She has steadfastly refused to use it to benefit herself either. If she wanted wealth or power, my wife could have possessed it all in an instant. But every time that Deborah has used her gift, it was to help others. She has also taken great pains to conceal that she had done anything at all.” Peter explained.

  “So what does Deborah want?’

  “I think that she wants to be ordinary, even though it is clear that God has made her extraordinary for some greater purpose. It actually pains her that all of your polymaths know that she has this gift and what she is capable of. She doesn’t know what all of you expect of her still.” Deborah’s husband explained.

  “We want Deborah to be herself. But most importantly, we want her to be happy. We fully understand the dilemmas that she faces every day.” Andrea replied. While Arthur was extraordinarily brilliant, his wife Andrea was perhaps even more intelligent. She had been one of the ‘Ten Thousand’ polymaths that had been born in the aftermath of the Second Event.

  “Well, I think that most of all that she wants to leave all of this conflict and find a place of peace for herself and her family.”

  “It won’t be too much longer before we will all be able to do that, Peter. Our special project is almost complete now.” Arthur casually mentioned.

  “The warp drive is ready?”

  “It will be soon. We are in the advanced stages of building a small-scale prototype of the drive that will be placed in a drone ship. Once we have a successful test of it, then we can finish the work on the first starship. But even with a successful test flight, it will still take years for us to complete the first starship.”

  “Will we be safe from the jihadists long enough for us to finish this vessel?”

  “Yes, we think so. Even if the jihadists were to make a concerted effort to build new spacecraft, we believe that it would take the Caliphate and its minions decades to regain the ability to reach space, much less go beyond Earth orbit. Every indication that we have says that they have done that much damage to all of the technological infrastructure during the course of their jihad. So we should be safe enough for our purposes.

  We also have the ability to defend ourselves from anything that the Caliphate could launch against us. The lunar colony has far more to worry about since they are far closer to Earth. But even the people on the Moon would be very difficult for the Caliphate to reach. I’m sure that the lunar colony is preparing its own defenses as well, just in case.

  But getting back to our original subject, that first interstellar ship will be the vessel that will take Deborah and the rest of us to a new home far away from all of this conflict. I know that we are going to leave a big hole in terms of the talents that we possess. But, there will still be a lot of brainpower here on Mars to run everything and continue to build upon our work in terraforming this world and building a safe haven for so many people.”

  Chapter Forty Five:

  Southern Edge of Hebes Chasma, Mars

  March 16, 2064.

  During the next decade, the colonists at Hebes Chasma had achieved near miraculous results with the expansion of the colony’s facilities, both underground and aboveground. This was being driven by an explosive population growth. There were now over a quarter million people living on Mars. Very few of these colonists were over the age of fifty, with nearly fifty percent being under the age of thirty.

  But equally dramatic was what the colonists were doing in the skies above Mars. There were now dozens of orbital platforms surrounding Mars. Most of them were either unmanned or only occupied periodically, but there were now four large manned stations including Space Station Freedom and the inflatable Bigalow Aerospace station that had been the first manned platform orbiting Mars. In addition to these stations, the six Class-M asteroids that had been placed into permanent orbits around Mars have also been turned into orbital habitats. One of these six asteroids had far more work done within it with extensively greater tunneling underway as it was intended to be humanity’s first interstellar warp ship. The polymaths tirelessly worked to create enough space for the new warp drive in addition to making the living space necessary for more than fifty thousand people to live for years on end within the warp ship. That project was nearly completed. But its progress was not nearly as evident to the naked eye as the changing face of Mars had been. There were also at least four more Class-M asteroids on the way to be placed into Mars orbit as well for mining and other purposes.

  Yet, the changing face of the Martian surface eclipsed even all of this. The Martian terraforming program was progressing at an extraordinary rate. Two of Hebes Chasma’s residents were experiencing the early fruits of the terraforming program first hand even now.

  “It is utterly amazing what you have already done here, Julia.” Angela Turner said as she walked along the floor of the deep Martian valley without a pressure suit or mask. Hebes Chasma itself was located in a large trough, but this particular point about five kilometers from the main colony was very near the deepest part of the terrain feature.

  “We still have a lot of work to do to terraform all of Mars. Atmospheric conditions like here are only present on a tiny percentage of the Martian surface. The rising temperatures have freed up billions of tons of water and carbon dioxide from the soil. This, combined with the icy asteroids that have been transported to enter the Martian atmosphere have done much to thicken the air and even permit standing liquid water like what we have here.” Julia Cannon explained as she and Angela walked along a small stream of water that ran down the center of the valley floor.

  “This is why most of our vegetation is still being grown in the domes?” Angela asked.

  “Yes, there is just not enough sunlight reaching down into the deepest of these valleys where the water is to support crops. The soil is also still not ready for crops elsewhere due to a lack of organic materials. We do have a few things growing down here. The food that we depend on still is grown in the domes. But it is still wonderful to be able to walk around and breathe unaided, even if the air here is still thin.”

  “When we obtain or release enough water into the Martian atmosphere, hundreds of meters beyond where we are standing right now will then be un
derwater. The expanding shorelines of the new lakes and even some small oceans will then be suitable to support the growing of all kinds of crops. The atmosphere will be even thicker up there along the edge of the chasma than it is down here presently.

  On that glorious day, people will walk around on the surface without a suit or compressor mask just like they do inside the domes now. We already can look up towards the sky while in the domes. I also know that we are building more and larger domes every day. But looking at the skies through a transparent roof is still not the same thing as seeing it without anything in between yourself and the night sky.” Angela retorted, but in a pleasant manner.

  “I agree completely. What we have here now is still tremendous progress. What gives me chills down my spine is thinking of what this world will be like a few decades from now with our continuing efforts. Watching these valleys eventually become lakes with forests growing along their edges and fields of crops growing beyond them will be so wonderful for humanity.”

  “We will need all of this and more if we are going to be able to support all of the people that have come here to flee the tyranny of the Caliphate, not to mention their descendants. I’m sure they did not want to come here simply to be crowded inside of tunnels and tiny steel cans to slowly starve or be forced to subsist on algae byproducts and fish alone. This is why our drone ships continue to redirect asteroids with millions of tons of ice, frozen methane and carbon compounds to Mars orbit for delivery to the surface. Then we can finally have enough of the building blocks to create the organic material needed to make Mars into a garden once again. ”

  “We are still going to have some pretty tight reins on just how many people that we can allow to come here. We can’t afford any freeloaders from Luna or anywhere else. There is just too much work left to do here for us to try to support people who cannot or will not work to contribute to making this world a new beginning for humanity. Otherwise, they are just going to have to go to the Moon or stay back on Earth. Of course, on the Moon, they will have to work even harder to stay alive there. The power from the nuclear reactors will help, but life will still not be easy.”

  “There are a lot of people on Earth who would say that your attitude is pretty harsh, Julia. They are being forced to live under the rule of the Caliphate now.”

  “Maybe, but there’s still a lot of free air and water back there on Earth, even if freedom is a pretty scarce commodity after the takeover by the Caliphate. But there is no such thing as a free lunch, either here or on Earth. You have to work for it in either place. It’s just that you have to work a lot harder to breath and to have the other bare necessities here. It doesn’t take very many people who can’t or won’t do that work to screw it up for all of the rest of us here. Even the Marines here do a lot more than just train to shoot guns and blow up things. They participate in helping build and maintain things around here, just like the scientists, engineers and even the school teachers.”

  “What are the members of the Colonial Marine detachment going to do when we eventually pack our bags to travel beyond Mars?”

  “A few of them will come with us. After all, some of the members of our Marines are also part of the ‘Ten Thousand’. But the others will stay behind to help protect the colony from any threat to come. Ultimately, their descendants may even go back to Earth to reclaim it someday.”

  “That would be nice if our children and grandchildren will be able to go back to our homeworld. I just hope that it hasn’t been completely ruined by the time that they return.”

  Chapter Forty Six:

  AgroDome Nine

  Hebes Chasma, Mars.

  April 5, 2064

  Anton Merriweather walked into the aquacultural dome where his younger sister was doing her weekly maintenance and inspection. He looked around until he saw his sister’s curly blonde hair off in the distance. She was standing over a large tank of freshwater prawn checking on the water conditions when Anton spotted her.

  “Hey, Sis. Do you have a few minutes available?” Anton called out.

  “Sure. Come on over, big brother.” Sandy Merriweather-Clarborne replied with a warm smile.

  “I just got back from a video conference with the environmental team over at the lunar colony. We had a most interesting conversation.”

  “How are our friends at the lunar colony doing now that they are not receiving any more support from Earth?”

  “The folks on the Moon have had to become very innovative to try to make their colony self-sufficient. They have a few nagging issues that they are dealing with. But otherwise, they are working very hard to expand the size of their main base to provide adequate accommodations for all of their population. The tunneling machines that were brought to the moon by our gravity drive shuttles have been working overtime creating new underground living space.

  Like us, they are harvesting the spoil from the tunneling for any useful minerals and water, then transporting it to the surface to provide thermal and radiation shielding for their aboveground modules. With the population growth on the Moon, they need all of the safe space that they can get. None of them have forgotten the catastrophe that we very nearly suffered as a result of that CME.”

  “I get the impression that you are leading on to something else here, big brother.” Sandy commented.

  “The people at the lunar colony were hoping that perhaps we could help them out, it seems.” Anton Merriweather remarked.

  “We will certainly do what we can. I know that we have already provided substantial support from our own limited resources in the past. What do they need to resolve their current issues?” Sandy asked.

  “It seems that their recycling systems have not been working quite as well as they had initially hoped. They are finding enough water, but they need more organic material to support their aquaculture farms.”

  “I think that we can help them out on that. We could easily divert a small percentage of our incoming raw materials from the asteroid belt to go to the lunar colony. That should be enough to supply their needs for a long time. Maybe they can help us out in return?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “I know that they received quite a few old nuclear powered submarines to use as habitats. But in a lot of cases, the reactor cores from the submarines have far exceeded their useful life spans. However, we could harvest the uranium from the cores and burn it within our LFTR reactors. This way, they can get rid of some of their transuranic waste problem, get some fresh food from us while at the same time, we receive more fuel for our reactors.”

  “That sounds like a great idea. They will have to figure out how to safely get the fuel pellets out of the reactor fuel core rods. I doubt that we want to try to transport entire irradiated rods all the way to Mars though. I’ll pass your proposal long to the folks on the Moon and see if they are receptive. I’m sure that they will figure out something however. They also have a lot of very bright people living there as well.” Anton replied.

  “That will give many of our people something more to do. The colony here is about to see some major changes as we finally complete our project. The work that we are doing on the starship is only a couple of weeks away from completion now. We’ve already started moving food, water and personal items aboard her.”

  “We have been fortunate in that there has been little resentment evident among the other residents of Hebes Chasma once they learned the full extent of our planned departure. I was worried that some of the others wanted to rely upon our particular talents too much as a crutch whenever a problem needed to be solved. “

  “Personally, I think that a lot of them want to get out from under our shadows and finish the terraforming of Mars. We, polymaths, are the four hundred pound gorilla around here, you know.”

  “Well, that and the fact that we have led the colony for most of its existence. I figure that they want to take charge for a while too.”

  “That’s fine, just as long as they don’t make a mess of things while w
e are gone.” Sandy chuckled. She knew that all of the most prominent residents living at Hebes Chasma, both from among the Ten Thousand and from all the others who had also traveled to live on Mars. They were all very competent managers and leaders. Sandy actually was very confident that the ones that remained would still do very well in the absence of the polymaths.

  “I hope that they are not expecting another ‘event’ to suddenly appear and bail them out of a new crisis though. Deborah, Peter and their son James will be leaving on the starship with the rest of the polymaths. Any new miracles happening on Mars will have to be the result of their own work now.”

  “Anton, you know that Deborah’s daughter Mary will be staying here at Hebes Chasma though. She certainly could have come with us, but she decided to remain. It is my understanding that Mary did not inherit her mother’s special gift though.”

  “True. That honor and responsibility went to James. But Mary is every bit as intelligent as Deborah or any of the rest of the polymaths. I think that she is making a very brave and truly selfless, decision in staying. At least she will still have plenty of people here that she knows who will love and take care of her. Marilyn Barnes and her children will not only be staying, but will also be moving into Deborah’s quarters after we all leave on the starship.”

  “The Barnes are all very good people. They helped protect Deborah’s natural parents even before the Williams’ very special daughter was even born. Mary could do a lot worse, I’m sure.”

  “Mary has had some great parents who raised her to do the right thing also. Besides, you never know what recessive gene might reemerge later on from her.”

  “We’ve known Mary for all of her life. She is a very special young woman even without possessing the ‘gift’ that her mother and brother have. She will make a tremendous impact on the success of the colony here at Hebes Chasma. If Mary decides to travel with one of the later interstellar colonization ships, she could be critical to that mission’s success also.” Sandy noted.