by WADE, T I
As Mars drew closer over a couple of months, the work routines revolved around the clock, around education, sleep and survival. As the newbies quickly learned, work was hard in the mother ship, and so was the enjoyment, and new types of entertainment grew from creative minds.
A drama club was formed, mostly by the females of the crew. They spent a few hours a day in the cafeteria working on ideas on how to entertain the others. They did have zillions of things on hard drive, movies and documentaries, but nothing was added, new or present, and over time what was worth viewing was watched.
All had been taken away from Earthlings who had grown up being entertained 24/7, and that meant that something had to be done about it. Many assumed that the same was happening with the old crew on Mars. By now they had been inside their new home for nearly a year. Even though the new vegetation fields were producing, as with farming there was a never-ending work cycle.
Chickens and rabbits bred, plants grew and were harvested, and much of the work done by everybody was to sustain themselves in an alien world that wasn’t friendly and did not forgive mistakes, any mistakes.
For the crew in America One on the bridge, it was a constant surveillance of monitoring the ship, its power usage, its direction, and the overall importance of meeting up with the red planet.
With the astronauts not flying, apart from daily simulator training and schooling for the NextGens, everyone had chores to complete. Security was always an issue, especially in down time, as this was when modifications or new parts could be designed and produced by the hundreds of 3-D scanners and printers. Each department had these, sometimes a dozen units of each. Even the doctors had the latest gear from Israel. Instead of making bioplastic or metal parts out of cobalt or nickel, they gathered new substances from Suzi and worked on making new body parts like heart valves, veins, and arteries.
Dr. Walls was in heaven, as much as every scientist aboard. While the doctors with help from interns invented new medicine and body parts, the robotics lab under Vitaliy and VIN’s control designed new metal body parts and mini-lasers that would one day be the crew’s defense.
Chapter 18
Home Again
One hundred and eighty one days after leaving LEO, America One entered a 200-mile high orbit of Mars.
Two weeks earlier, much to Ryan’s dismay, Fritz Warner the base commander of The Martian Club Retreat told Ryan about a flyover visit from a spaceship they had thought was Commander Joot returning. Through a scratchy reception Ryan and Commander Joot spoke with Fritz.
“You thought this ship to be mine?” Commander Joot asked Fritz in English. Ryan had suggested that English be the language spoken on any radio communications with Mars, in case anybody else was listening. The bridge knew that nobody on Earth was.
“Affirmative, Commander,” Fritz replied a few minutes later, still 200,000 miles away. “Everything is fine down here. We have had very few problems. All projects are running according to plan. You guys are early, six months earlier than your earliest estimated return date. I would assume you couldn’t stand the politics on Earth, over?”
“Correct there, Mr. Warner,” smiled Ryan. “Tell us when it happened, and what this craft looked like.”
“It was first seen about four weeks ago, after sunset by an outside detail on security patrol. The observers thought it to be silver, about the size of Commander Joot’s craft, and it sped over extremely fast in the dying sun’s rays, like a meteor crossing the sky at about 10,000 feet. The next night, it came back at exactly the same time, slower this time, and flying in the opposite direction, east to west. Our security personnel took video footage. I am sending up the feed to you as we speak. The third night it returned again, always several minutes after the sun had gone down. This night, several of us were in the outside chamber looking up hoping to see it. It returned very slowly, descended and hovered over the shields for about a minute, and then headed back in the direction it had come. Then it did not appear for 20 days. We had a pretty bad storm outside for most of that time, a really bad dust storm. A few nights ago, two craft appeared, once the skies were clear. They hovered over the two shields and again returned back the way they had come. We thought it your two Matt craft, and were surprised that they didn’t come in to land. We tried radio communications, but received no reply, over.”
“And you say both these craft looked like my Matt craft?” asked Commander Joot for the second time.
“Identical,” was the reply.
“Mr. Warner, we’ll get back to you,” added Ryan, telling Fritz of their arrival date, and then he looked at Commander Joot for answers.
“All our craft have been accounted for, except the craft used by the Ruler. We believe that to be on the blue planet,” replied Joot. “From what I have read about from the creation of our spacecraft, written inside the earliest Inventor’s chest, is that the designs from the visitors were copied by us. Only their propulsion systems we couldn’t understand. Thanks to making the shields, we managed a simplified fuel, the one that Mr. Jones seems to enjoy drinking. I believe that these Matt eaters have found our base on Mars.”
“Did they have any weapons? Did they kill any of your people? Do any records show them having a weapon like our lasers and hurting your people, Commander?” VIN asked.
“So far, there hasn’t been any record of somebody seeing them hurt anybody. The writings by Ruler Got, the first ruler who allowed them to take our women and children, said that the visitors appeared friendly. They spoke a similar language to what we speak today, and it seemed that the women and children were needed by the visitors and given in return for the systems information they were happy to exchange. I have read records from the three chests from the time they came to see us at the base of the Pig’s Snout. It seems that our history lessons didn’t include later visits by these Matts. The next Ruler wanted it kept secret, so even I have learned from these chests. Over the seven years they stayed, they came and left ten times. Each time, some new information was given to us. The records show that only one spacecraft arrived on each visit, and all believed it was the same craft. It usually stayed for about 44 days after the first three visits. On the first visit it stayed for 300 days, and once negotiations were complete, the visitors took 13 women and 20 children over that time.”
“How many visitors were there?” Ryan asked.
“The writings always tell of three visitors, and over that time none of the women or children were ever seen again. On the second and third visits, it was the same visitors, and their visits were 150 days and then 75 days. There was a two-year period between the first three visits.”
“The opposition period between Earth and Mars maybe?” said Captain Pete.
“I believe you are right, Captain,” Joot added. “The fourth visit was in the last year, and the aging Ruler Got was still in command of the tribe. It is written that he was angry with the visitors because none of their ideas worked. It seems that it was up to Ruler Got to find the necessary supplies needed. Of course he didn’t know what iridium or palladium was, and there wasn’t supplies around our home. Ruler Got offered only three women and six children on this visit, and told the visitors to bring them the necessary supplies. They did 40 days later. By this time Ruler Got was a very old man, and they laid all these shiny metals, about two tons in your weight, at his feet. The records state that there were ten different metals. He kept his word and gave them more of our tribe. Ruler Got died 33 years later, but he saw the frame of our first spaceship, and the working of the first colorless shield over our chamber.”
“So you had learned the shield technology?” Ryan asked.
“Yes, but it did not work properly. One more metal was needed. Igor told me that it was osmium.”
“Yes,” added Igor. “From our lab reports of the shield’s color and the walls of the bases, it seems that the rare metal osmium gives both systems their luster. The blueness of the shield is composed of minute atoms of osmium floating in the shield wall and sp
arkling, like light hitting billions of tiny diamonds. The same with the base walls. Osmium heated by the base’s Cold Fusion reactor glows and this time is pink. The color represents the heat of the wall: blue has no heat, pink is low heat, and white is ultra-high heat.”
“Continue,” Ryan instructed Joot.
“With Ruler Foy, the next Ruler, his history said that he thought they had been cheated, and that there was to be no more women or children. Forty years of inactivity passed until the same three visitors, now very old, arrived and gave them two tons of osmium. They received what they wanted, applauded the work done so far by our Inventors and left. They did not arrive for another 80 years, and this time they were new, younger visitors. They arrived with another two tons and wanted women and children. This group secretly arrived five more times, each time with a cargo load of osmium. On their tenth visit, we were mining our own osmium from a smaller meteor that had struck the planet, which the writings show many miles from our base, and the visitors were told not to come back as there were no more women and children for them. That is as far as I have read, and I believe this was the end of our visitors’ arrival history.”
“So they never hurt any of your tribe in front of the others?” Ryan asked.
Joot said that Ryan was right. “So, we don’t know if they have weapons or not, and it seems they are never in a hurry.”
Two weeks later America One went into orbit around Mars, and one by one the shuttles descended to the base transporting the newbies. Fritz Warner was happy to see the returning crew, much weight taken off his shoulders. There were hugs aplenty and introductions made for the newbies. Dr. Rogers, pale and thin but healthy, was happy to meet the new doctor. Suzi was happy to see Mr. Rose, and he was extremely happy to see all the Swiss chocolate purchased for him: fifty pounds of it. The fields were in excellent condition underneath the two shields Suzi and Ryan found out, as she and the new crew of biologists were toured around by an extremely proud Martian team.
The large amount of supplies had diminished somewhat, and there had been five new births, all girls, since they had left. The Mars crew were happy to see several boys in the returning group. The averages were still not good, three girls to each boy, but at least if the “bus” headed back and forth every two years, more boys could be brought out.
The accommodations were just enough for the new members, and the robot miners were programmed to start work on a new level below the base for extended housing.
Much to Commander Joot’s shock, many of the Martian Matts, including Elder Roo’s mother Tow, had turned the way of Jonesy, and during the welcoming party, he was completely shocked to be offered a glass of fuel by Tow herself. She happily told him how good the drinking of rocket fuel was. Even to Ryan, the crewmembers who had stayed had changed somewhat. They were all thin, extremely pale, and even though Dr. Rogers gave them a perfect bill of health, he explained to Ryan that the only long-term condition he was seeing in the crew was the gradual loss of bone density.
This he had found when checking the newborns. Their skeletons were minutely different, with less strength than the skeletons of those born on Earth.
After a three-week study by the whole medical crew, Dr. Nancy ordered that changes had to be made in the diets of all the crew. Vitamin C had to be increased by 300 percent to adjust the bone loss in the babies. Dr. Nancy had preplanned for this problem, and while in Australia, had asked Doug for several whole Kakadu plum bushes grown only in that country. Often called the Billygoat plum in Australia, Dr. Nancy knew that it had the highest Vitamin C content of any other plant. It was used by the Aborigines for several diseases, including leprosy. She hoped that this one plant would help in the most dangerous problem facing them living off Earth, and with Suzi, had nurtured and grown several more of the plants on the journey home.
The enlarged America One Crew slowly got all the new supplies down, the new topsoil, plants, luxuries and baskets of shopping the others had ordered. They hadn’t forgotten anything. Within a month of landing back at the Martian Club retreat, the base was a growing, thriving community.
Chapter 19
The First Visit
For the first year there were no unidentified flying objects seen by anybody. The base grew and the days turned into weeks, which turned into months. People stopped looking for aliens during the second year.
Jonesy and his crew collected water every other month, in between dust storms, which seemed to arrive out of nowhere and lasted up to a month at a time.
Without the new shields that had really increased their food production over the first year, life would not have been so good for the 210 inhabitants of the base.
Marriages and new babies arrived on schedule. Slowly over the first year, the two races grew together as the intermarriages increased. Everybody who was Homo sapiens seemed to grow or age while the Matts changed so much slower. For some reason still unknown to the medical team, the aging of the Matts seemed to be three times slower than the Tall People. The crossbred children also seemed to grow slower than at the speed of the pure Homo sapien children.
Jonesy’s mother was the first person to pass away on Mars. She died of natural causes and happily in her sleep 410 days after landing on Mars.
Joseph Jones didn’t survive much longer than his wife. Distraught by her passing, he was buried in a grave outside the shields and next to his wife just 55 days later.
For many this was a trying time. Jonesy’s parents had worked hard, stayed fit and were friends with everybody on the base. The Matts respected age more than the Tall People, and the aging couple were always courted in their chores by many young Matts always wanting them to tell stories of Earth. Joseph Jones enjoyed the limelight and could often be found with dozens of children around him, telling them stories Jonesy often thought he made up for the kids to enjoy. His father never told the listeners any bad stories about his family life or the youthful misdeeds of his son. They were more like fairy stories about children living on Earth.
Petra Bloom passed away in the third year. Two of the older scientists also died in the same year, and that made the other space travelers like Ryan and Jonesy realize that time was passing them by. The stories of the alien visitors wasn’t forgotten, but had faded from daily conversation.
The astronauts had held long discussions about returning to Earth during the next opposition, but by a majority vote had decided to put it off by another two years. Why go back and find the same planet with the same politics they had left two years earlier? America One tried daily to communicate with Earth, but it seemed that without any satellites in space around the blue planet, communications didn’t get replied to.
By the end of the third year, 2030 on Earth, Christmas was enjoyed as it was every year. This was the time of giving, and since there were no stores to purchase gifts, it was the time the new inventions or breakthroughs were highlighted in drama performances on a stage for the annual event.
Mars Noble, and rest of the crew of The Big Bad Five, as Mars, Saturn, Lunar, Penelope and Pluto Jane called themselves, approached fifteen years old. Over this Christmas they were to be presented with their Commander Flight Wings, and would be part of the celebrations.
On the first night of the five days of drama, both Suzi and VIN had stage debuts, although at different times. Each evening four shows of 30 minutes each were planned. The first evening was opened by Ryan who welcomed everybody to the Christmas celebrations. Captain Pete as usual stayed aboard the orbiting America One, which hadn’t seen much action for the last 36 months. With a skeleton crew of six, she spent her time orbiting Earth, while all her seven cubes grew vegetation of several different sorts. She produced large amounts of hydrogen and food, but most of her laboratories and accommodations were now empty. Apart from several technicians and a few scientists who needed to work on the mother ship, all production was down on the planet.
The shields covering crops outside the main underground base had grown over the years from two to four, a
nd now were twelve. Captain Pete could see The Martian Club Retreat from space as it had grown so much, covering more than five acres with bright blue light, and was powered by both Cold Fusion systems. The slopes outside the initial flat base had been topped with the new soil, and the crops grew down the slopes.
Jonesy was beginning to feel his age. So was Ryan, whose hair was turning silver. VIN was still feeling young, and over the last three years had been given new prosthetics as the robotic department designed and built new parts. Tonight was the robotics department’s first unveiling.
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” said an excited Fritz Warner, Master of Ceremonies for the evening. “Tonight we begin our annual Christmas festivities with four of the most modern, never-seen-on-Earth products, which might change your life, make you happy, or as Herr Jones would put it, might be a total waste of time.” Much laughter was heard with many looking in the direction of the chief astronaut, whose facial muscles didn’t move a millimeter with the joke about him.
Jonesy had heard it all before, and for him it all passed over his head. His mind was far away, somewhere in midflight back to his happy fishing grounds. He was working on how to get more “yes” votes for returning in 2031.
Jonesy had struggled with the loss of both his parents, and the kindness of everybody who liked and admired the man had kept him going. He loved his wife and family more and more as the years passed. He loved his pool visits with them, and with VIN and Vitaliy. Several men had a Men’s Night once a month in the base’s swimming pool room. A larger pool had been constructed out of excess cylinder parts when they had perfected the crew compartments for all the six small craft.
The three shuttles were now the main emergency escape vehicles, each able to house 40 crew, 12 in each of the two cargo compartments and 16 in the underbelly compartment. With two astronauts in each, all three shuttles could take more than half of the crew back to Earth.