by Keith Martin
The chairs erupted again but this time with applause. It was obvious that this was soon to be the law of the land on Earth.
“PLEASE COME TO ORDER LADIES. WE CANNOT SPEND ALL OF OUR TIME HERE VENTING OUR EMOTIONS. WE MUST DO THE WORK THAT IS BEFORE US.” They again started to quiet down. “I believe there is a motion on the floor from the Chair from China. Only PhD’s to be eligible to leave the Earth on missions or to move to the Moon to breed. I personally second this motion. All in favor say ‘I’.”
It was now law.
Otto and Linda both added their positive votes and it became the second motion to win by a one hundred percent vote.
It was for the good of all of mankind in the long run. The human race was at a crossroads. If we, as a race, were going to improve our gene pool we had to clean it up first. Over the generations, this law would make a huge difference in how mankind would evolve.
* * *
“It has come to the attention of the Master Chair that you have located a new source of highly concentrated fuel on the moon. Is this true Chair Otto?” Chair Doreen changed to new business.
“Yes, we have found a concentrated fuel on the Moon. We have not assessed its true potential at this time, preliminary tests show it to be very clean burning and extremely powerful. More powerful than any fuel manufactured for the space industry ever. Once full testing is complete, if this fuel proves to be what we believe it to be, it will enable us to go faster and lift more than ever before. We are also going to be designing a personal transfer container that will hold thirty-six individuals for flights up to the Moon and back. Along with the twenty five in the main shuttle cabin that gives us the ability to relocate up to sixty-one women per crossing in the G Class Shuttles. This will aid in the slow and well organized population of the Moon with viable woman for breeding and training for future missions.” Otto reported.
“And are we correct that the population of S.M.B. has voted into law that each man take up to five wives?” Master Chair Doreen asked for conformation
“Yes, up to five wives. We are still leaving this up to each man in kind. But the law is in place to not just aid in the birthing of healthy children. It is to keep control on the number of wives any one man can have. We don’t want men turning into a new Solomon and having thousands of women in a harem. As you all know I have just married two beautiful, bright and kind PhD’s from California.” He put his arm around Linda and Jill entered the screen for all to see. “I’m sure you all know Chair Linda from California, and this is Jill. Linda and Jill have made me a very happy man. We on the Moon all want to do our best to help save the human race. But know that being good breeding stock is the least of our abilities. When Joshua put out the call for men to be brought up from the Earth he asked for skilled men with or seeking degrees. We are only as strong as our weakest link, we men tried to stack the deck for the good of all mankind when we got our butts up here.”
“We as a race must find a new home planet to move people to if no cure for the virus on Earth can be found. This must be the true goal of all the people of Earth. If we do not find this new planet we will become extinct. There is no way we can live on the Moon for the rest of time. For a few hundred years, yes, we can do that. But to keep humans alive we must find a new home. We all know it’s the truth. Cloning will perhaps extend humans time on Earth by a few hundred years at best. So we as a race must look towards the heavens to find a new planet, we have no choice.”
“I for one would like some time to digest the information given us by Chair Otto and we can all use a break for lunch. We will reconvene in two hours.” Master Chair called for a break before anymore was said. She wanted all of the Chairs to have time to think about what Otto had just reported to them all before they started to ask for a vote.
The afternoon session started with a short declaration by Master Chair Doreen. “I will be calling for a vote on the subject of a mission to Mars in seven days time. This will give us the time needed to meet with all our industry heads and start making some kind of real plan for Earths Space Program. I too believe that space will be our only true hope for a future.”
The rest of the afternoon was all dealing with Earth bound problems, politics’ and programs. Otto and Jill both sat by their station and enjoyed hearing all that was happening on Earth.
Otto reviewed every meeting of the New World Government as they happened. He was glad that they finally added the Moon to the list of Chairs.
The women of Earth were handling the governing of planet quite well without men. The last thing voted on was for total cooperation with the Moon to seek out a new planet to relocate humans too. The vote taken and passed the chamber erupted into such a din of conversation that the Master Chair did not even try to regain control of the meeting. She just gaveled it to a close and let the Chairs vent their feelings and thoughts with each other.
The NEW WORLD GOVERNMENT was on its way to reaching out for the stars to save the human race. It reined in all that men had done to help destroy the planet and now it would guide mankind to this new future.
* * *
The main frame from The Seeker held more information than anyone could have believed. There were thousands upon thousands of photos of planets and stars. There were billions of flight path coordinates to be plotted to discover where The Seeker had been on its mission.
Hackett worked on it all for close to six hours when she decided to just skip past all the hard work. She quickly wrote a program that would break all the information down to find what we were all looking for, a habitable water world.
It took an hour for the new program to kick out three hits that could possibly sustain life.
All were water worlds that had landmasses large enough to look into. It took two more days to plot them on a star chart to discover where they were located.
The Seeker had taken time lapsed photos of thousands of heavenly bodies. But these three held water and landmasses. Two of these looked as if they where still dead planets. There was no green vegetation on the land, and the seas looked to be devoid of life.
But one looked to be teaming with life. The landmasses were greened over and the seas had color variations indicating plumes of growth of some type of life form. The poles where covered in ice and snow and the photos showed weather systems rolling across the planet in the atmosphere.
Hackett didn’t like the numbered reference to this planet; so she named it ‘Hope.’ Simply because she hoped what she was seeing was real.
First her calls went out to her mother and father to come see what she had found. Then she contacted Fred asking him to meet her right away.
“Be right there Munchkin.” He said as he hung up.
As her parents walked into Fred’s office, they were surprised by the changes being made there. A massive screen now filled one wall and there was a workstation their daughter was sitting at now sitting across from Fred’s desk. From the personalizing done in the office it was obvious that this was Hackett’s place of work. “Why are you not in school?” Her father started to scold her as Fred walked in behind them.
On the screen was a planet with water on it. But Fred could tell instantly that image was not of Earth. It stopped him in his tracks. “Is that real young lady?” He was not in the mood to joke around.
Hackett understood his apprehension upon seeing this for the first time. It had taken her breath away too when she first found it. “It’s a good hit but the total land mass is only one point four million square miles, that’s very small Fred, and there is no life on this one that I can detect. Its rotation is only 19 hours and it looks to be holding a workable atmosphere. I call it Blue Seas.”
“Don’t call the General by his given name Connie!” Her father scolded her again.
Fred tried to calm him down. “It’s fine Mr. Keys. I have been demoted to just Fred Bragg. It was time; the whole military force was just eighteen men. So I demoted them all right along with me. All accept the Pilots. A ship needs a Commander, o
ne person to be responsible for the lives of the ship’s crew. Don’t you agree?”
Hackett was mortified that her father was here arguing with Fred and didn’t seem to understand that they were looking at photos of new planets that humans could move to. She knew he just didn’t comprehend what was being said. He was too interested in exercising his will upon her. She didn’t understand why her mother just stood by and let him make a fool of himself.
Mr. Keys didn’t know how to respond to Fred’s words. It was all just too much, too fast for him to grasp.
Hackett continued while saying a silent prayer that her father would just listen and not embarrass her again. Her mother was red faced with shame, standing stoically hoping this would end well. She didn’t want to say a word now that her husband was on a roll again.
Hackett put the next planet up on the screen. It was a white globe and areas of liquid water broke it into continents. They’re where no visible land masses to be seen. “This is a good planet if we wanted to go skiing. But it looks a little too cold for me. I don’t want to live in an igloo anyway. I call this one Aspen.”
“Connie Keys, you will show the General respect. Why are you talking to him like that?” Her father was growing angrier. He did not understand what they were looking at and he was mad that his daughter was trying to make a fool of him in front of the General talking of things he didn’t or couldn’t understand.
“She is fine Mr. Keys. Connie is doing research for me now.” Fred tried to calm Hackett’s father. Her mother just stood like a frozen statue. “She is a bright girl, and she is working on a project that could save all of mankind. Let her give me her report if you please.” Fred was starting to get a little angry.
Pulling up the last image she just waited for Fred to get over his reaction to what was now on the screen. “I call it ‘Hope’” She began. “It seems to be covered in growth of some kind, the total landmass it larger then all of Earth. It is around twenty times as big as Earth. Its seas look as if there is life in them; it is hard to be sure from this distance. Land mass came out to one point four billion square miles. Seas came out to two point six billion square miles. We won’t know more until we can send out a probe for a closer look.”
“Is this real?” Her mother asked visibly amazed.
“Yes Mom. It’s real!”
“Can we get to it?” Asked her father gruffly.
“Yes, but not right now.” Hackett assured him. “I wonder if there is anything walking, swimming or flying on Hope?” Hackett stated out loud.
“Hope?” Fred asked his little hacker.
“Well, I found it so I get to name it. Isn’t Hope a perfect name?” She said with child-like innocence.
Fred was amazed with this impulsive young woman. “We could call it Hackett’s Place?” He said with a wry grin teasing her.
“That’s a good one Fred.” She shot back without skipping a beat. “...Or we could call it Freddie’s Fishen Hole.”
“Why do you keep calling him Fred? It is disrespectful young lady.” Her father blurted out again.
Fred had enough of this man already. He wondered how he could have lived here for all this time and not known about this man by now. He was now number one on Fred’s watch list.
“I have had enough of this Connie.” He was totally confused and he was mad at her because he thought she was making a fool out of him on purpose. “Come with me right now young lady. You are going home and you are not to bother the General any longer.”
“No Sir she is not...” Fred raised his hand to Hackett to keep her in her seat. She did as he ordered. “I am the Commander here on S.M.B. and she is under my command. She is working under my orders and will continue to do so as long as I wish it. She is under my protection and will remain there for the rest of her life. No one is going to send her to her room for helping to save the human race. And if you can’t see that clear enough then I have a surprise for you mister!” Fred was livid.
Hackett tried to stop this before it got out of control in the only way she knew how. Her quick mind had formed a plan. “Fred is The Seeker still in working order?”
Fred turned to her reluctantly. He was burning holes through Connie’s father with his eyes. He wanted to beat the tar out of this ignorant cull. “What?” He asked trying to get under control again.
“The Seeker, could we use it for a mission?”
“Sure why not?” He didn’t quite get it yet. His fury was still controlling his thoughts.
“We could get Shianne to rework the thrusters and have it do a fly over up close to totally scan Hope. I bet she could get it there and back in no time at all.”
She could see that she had him coming around to her way of thinking. “With that new fuel; she could make that thing fly like a flash of light I bet.” She set the hook deep.
“Let’s get her up to speed on this right away.” He had completely forgotten about the man he wanted to kill right in front of him. His mind was racing with thoughts of the work that would need to be done to make this happen. In the big picture Mr. Keys didn’t add up to much and he didn’t see him ever contributing much if anything to help save mankind. His anger had to be put on the back burner for now. He had work to do.
* * *
Karen called Ashley seeking permission to go out to the ranch to stay for a few weeks. She needed a break and all that would need doing now had well trained technicians to handle the workload.
“Ashley Chisholm here, how may I help you?” She answered as she helped her sister with the work on the thruster bell for The Seeker.
“Hello Ashley.” Was all it took for Ashley to know who was calling.
“Hi Karen... how’s life down there?” She was glad to hear her friend’s voice.
“Just great Ashley...so great that I’m joining you and I’m going to take a break for a while. I was calling to get your permission to stay at the ranch for a few weeks.”
“You silly woman; of course you can stay at the ranch. You will have a great time out there. Our friend Ma is watching the place for us. I will call her right away so she can be ready for you. You’re going to love her. She is a real card.”
“Sounds great… I have a couple of friends that will be with me?”
“The more the merrier. Ma will love the company.” Ashley was thrilled to know that Karen would be staying in the protective arms of the ranch. It was the one place in the world that she felt completely at ease.
After some small talk, Karen asked a question that she had avoided asking for months. “So are you ever going to come back to Earth?”
“Of course I will. It’s been busy up here. Dad and Joshua have both been married, Shianne has been made a Commander so she can pilot shuttles now and I’m helping her to modify a few things up here so that I can better understand just what it is that my sister does for a living. I have been helping out around here, but I do need to get back to work.” She didn’t know how to tell Karen that she was going to continue her work on Mars as soon as they could finish the digging of the base.
“I don’t think your work is on Earth Ashley. Tracking calculated the meteor was from the area of, if not from, Mars. Like your father said it’s not from Earth. So you need to go to Mars and find this answer. I would love to go with you, but I think I’m just too darn old to be flying around in space just to get to work. It’s up to you now Ashley.”
“But I need you Karen.” Ashley stopped what she was doing and it caused Shianne to stop to listen also. Ashley was close to tears; she suddenly realized how much she missed her friends at the lab.
“Go to Mars Ashley. It’s the only way we can find the cure for the virus. Don’t you be worrying about old Karen? I will be just a call away, sitting in the shade at the ranch.”
Ashley knew this was all what needed to be. It was the direction she was headed in. But she didn’t like the fact that it would break up her life even more. “I will go to Mars Karen. I agree that the answer is there. But I don’t have to like it
. I miss you.”
Karen was glad that Ashley was so attached to their relationship. She loved Ashley like a daughter; she knew that it was time to set her free. “I have studied the photos of the skull and femur you sent me. And it took how long for them to be found? …Forty…. fifty years?”
“Or more!”
“Ok. So where will you find the evidence of the life there?”
“In the canyons.” She answered.
“I watched the Chair meeting and heard your father talking about the digging of the base there. It’s a great plan. But what you really need is good transportation. You need to talk to Shianne. You tell her what you need and she will design it for you. We will have it built down here and you will find what we are looking for.”
What Karen was saying was true, though she still didn’t like it. “I still need your help Karen!” She stated from the heart.
“I have news for you young lady. I kept working this long just to be with you and to watch you discover the things we were seeking. I’m retiring now. I have taught you everything I can. You’re teaching me things now. So its time for you to take control of this and do what you know is yours to do. I’ll always be here to give you advice any time you need me. Just call me and I will help you in any way I can. You know that. But now I’m going to do something you told me about and I have always wanted to try. I’m just going to go and enjoy the simple life of a rancher. I want to worry about what to feed a cow or horse. I want to get my eggs from under a chickens butt. Ashley... I’m putten myself out to pasture!”