Second generation, p.6
Second Generation, page 6
Leo smiled at his daughter, the senator. If he craned his neck, he could see the magenta glow from the sun which was setting over the city, lighting all the domes so they shimmered with pink fire. He could hear animated chattering from the gallery overhead. He sensed the same anticipation he felt. There had never been a meeting like this in his memory. The crowd hushed and he looked back at the podium to see his mother step up. Snowy hair brushed back to reveal her piercing blue eyes which darted around the chamber and gallery, assessing the mood.
“Good evening. Most of you will have heard the rumours. Many of you will have strong views. I ask you to listen to those who have spent the last three days analysing the information before your opinions become as hard as the rock this chamber was cut from. Doctor Sam Grayson will present what his colleagues know so far.”
Leo’s mentor stepped up beside Verena. They both looked elderly, yet not frail. Small, yet not diminutive. Whatever these people, born on another planet, lacked in height compared to the native Martians, they made up for in veneration and esteem.
“Thank you, Verena. And thank you for your interest,” Sam paused, looking at his tablet, as if martialling his words. He rarely spoke in public, but his clear steady voice held everyone’s attention. “Three days ago, we received a signal. In that time, we have determined several important facts. It is from Earth…” murmuring rippled around the gallery, “it has only just started transmission and it is a recorded message, addressed to anyone in a position to respond.” The murmurs erupted into lively exchanges. Sam waited patiently for people to stop and listen again. “The message was encrypted in binary code, translated into several languages, and emitted in all directions. Our decryption reveals that it gives a location on the surface of Earth, using Eastings and Northings. The location is preceded by a title: ‘Ark One’. The message is concluded with a request: ‘Help.’”
The silence was thick enough to breath.
Leo’s heart leaped. Sam and Trish had taken him aside to hint at the content of the message before the public meeting. He’d asked for more, but Sam just smiled, saying it would be fairer to share the message with everyone at the same time. Now he understood why. What was Ark One, and why was it calling for help?
A few heartbeats later, there was a rising wall of voices all clamouring to be heard. Verena held her hand up and scoured the gallery. As the noise fell away before her glare, she spoke.
“We will not debate this here and now. I repeat, we will not debate this now. The senate will take the next two days to absorb the information and call on expert advice. Even if we were able to launch a mission to Earth today, which I hasten to say we are not, it would take over ten months to arrive. Mars and Earth are in opposition, which means they are approaching each other from the furthest points of their orbits. We gain no time by starting early if we should start all. And that question will be the focus of our next debate.”
The chamber roared with speculation.
Verena followed Sam off the podium.
The Elder Chamber, Tithonium City, Mars – Demetria Philippou
Demetria was indulging in a strange yet familiar sensation, sitting between her parents. Familiar because she had enjoyed sitting between Georgia and Leo for the first five Martian years of her life. Strange because she had never done so since. They would not sit directly together, so she felt as if she was occupying no-man’s land, keeping the warring parties apart. But there was still some part of her that enjoyed their closeness. Infront of them was her nanna, Verena, who looked as if she wanted to shout at all of them. Loudly. Demetria was nervous. She sensed Leo was too. Georgia seemed oddly calm, and Demetria wondered why.
“The elders are under siege. I’m under siege. Every Martian citizen wants to tell us… no, lecture us, on why we should or should not go to Earth. They are calling on innumerable facts to argue their case. That is one of the many drawbacks of living in a community descended from colonists who were selected for their intelligence.” Verena grimaced, evidently unconvinced by the survival advantages of intelligence. “Everyone has a carefully considered and well-presented argument, and they all contradict each other.”
“What do you th…” started Demetria then trailed off as she was caught in Verena’s withering stare. Twenty Martian years leading the colony had shaped her nanna as much as her nanna had shaped the Martians. Verena knew how to avoid getting into conversations she considered irrelevant or counter productive.
“What I think is not the question,” said Verena. “As Trish and Sam wisely anticipated, it is what the youngest Martians think that should have the greatest weight in our collective decision. There can never be unanimous agreement. But I know from bitter experience that a fifty-fifty split, or anything close, can be dangerous. I shall make this clear at our senate meeting tomorrow. As if this is not enough of a concern, I find my family are more deeply involved in this discovery than almost anyone else. And no one thought to speak to me!”
“Sam and Trish told you,” said Leo.
“Yes, they told me before we called the senate meeting, because they are dear friends and responsible people. Why not you?”
Leo and Demetria both flinched. Demetria caught a sly smirk on Georgia’s face which surprised her.
“Today I find out from another dear friend, Jan, that our Hal has made an equally jaw dropping discovery at the North Pole. And you knew about that as well, Leo.”
“Hal should have told you himself,” complained Leo, “And you told me to go speak to Jan, I just happened to be…”
“Stop! Silence breeds rumour. Rumour obscures truth and divides us. Heaven help us, there are only five hundred souls on Mars and, despite these incredible discoveries, we may yet be the only human souls in existence. I have seen what division does and I have worked to keep us united ever since. You will talk to your family. You will work together, even if you can’t stand each other,” Verena paused to glower at Leo and Georgia, though Demetria noticed how she held Leo’s eye longer. “You will share everything you know.”
Leo, Georgia and Demetria nodded. Verena was fearsome. She was also right.
“I understand one of you called your informal group ‘The Return Club.’ Am I right?” asked Verena.
Demetria tentatively put up her hand, feeling like she was back in nursery school.
“I have heard of several, similarly named groups, all formed in the last twenty-four hours. It may not surprise you that there are almost the same number of groups who take names like The Remainers, Mars First and, probably the most worrying, Let Earth Burn!”
Demetria stifled a snigger then caught Verena’s glare.
“Old people like to bore the young with stories they repeat. We repeat them because no one seems to listen. When I arrived, I was called a Seconder. A name which was every bit as demeaning as it sounded. Your granddad, Cathal and I arrived in the second team. We were treated like second class citizens. The people already here, in the first team, called themselves Firsters. Before long, we had half the tiny population of Mars living in one dome and half building another. Cathal was beside himself. He blamed me for dividing us. I blamed Hal Bulman for dividing us. Hal Bulman was busy trying to build a defence that would stop the Earth from being obliterated by an extinction event meteorite, so he really didn’t care what the rest of us were doing and he rather liked the fact we were distracted. But it nearly killed us all before the meteorite killed everyone on Earth. That would have been beyond tragic.”
Verena paused, letting them re-absorb the old story in the light of new events.
“I’m sorry,” said Leo, quietly. “I’ll share all I know.”
Verena narrowed her eyes, “Good. Because I want each of you to tell me everything. Now.”
Demetria listened as Leo recalled his satellite observations of Earth over many years. How he had seen gaps in the cloud cover come and go, gradually getting wider and lasting longer. How he had recorded the glimpsed outlines of remaining seas and mapped them against old charts, estimating the volume of water left on the planet. The regular spectral analyses of the atmosphere, which he logged and compared with old records. Earth had daylight, water and air. The findings confounded the assumptions made after Goliath ravaged the planet long ago.
Demetria could tell Verena was both surprised and impressed, though she hid it behind a rocky façade.
Then they listened to Georgia give her views on the potential for life on Earth. She had changed those views considerably after hearing Leo’s research and reviewing his records. She now thought some limited life was highly likely, though not inevitable. Primitive plants, perhaps microscopic creatures on land. More likely were shoals of fish surviving around volcanic vents at the sea floor.
“What about people?” asked Verena.
Georgia frowned, “I guess it’s possible some survived the initial onslaught from the four shards of Goliath. Bunkers, mountain refuges, deep sea stations. But all infrastructure would have been obliterated. The plants and animals capable of sustaining human life would have died in the tsunamis, the fires, the years of acid storms and cloud cover.”
“I disagree,” said Leo. Demetria saw Georgia smile, which puzzled her again. “I only started my observations twenty Earth years after Goliath hit. But I’ve been looking at the patterns. Extrapolating back, I think there’d have been enough daylight and breathable air to sustain some small populations of fish and land creatures. Enough to feed a few survivors. Besides, we have a message which starts with the words ‘Ark One.’ Arks are built to survive a storm.”
“That’s guesswork,” said Georgia, calmly. “Yes, you could be right, but equally you could be way off.”
“I’ve analysed the patterns; they show steady change. It’s reasonable to work backwards to show how Earth was.”
“We can’t assume constant change. It could have been extremely volatile to start with. The truth is we don’t know. No one was looking at Earth until you started. We were all too busy surviving here.”
Verena turned to Demetria, “What do you think?”
Demetria pulled back a little, “I… I’m training to be a doctor. Not a researcher.”
“But you have an opinion. Else you wouldn’t have started ‘The Return Club.’ Would you?” There was the hint of a wry smile tugging at her nanna’s lips.
“I think people are clever, just like you say. They’re good at finding ways to survive in extreme conditions. We have.”
Verena nodded, “We had our own battles with Mars. So far, we remain one step ahead. So far.”
Demetria was aware that everyone was looking at her. “It’s not just me, my friends too. Most say we should go look. Even if the signal is just some random blurt from a machine, we should see what’s happened to Earth.”
Verena nodded. Her face was impassive. Demetria sensed some struggle behind her nanna’s eyes. Perhaps a hint of reluctance to face Earth herself. “That is an important consideration. I expect you will all be at the senate debate tomorrow. It seems the whole of Mars will be, whether virtually or in person.”
Subterranean Mars, below Tithonium City, Mars – Leo Meier
Leo’s fingers and toes tingled. He had just arrived in Jan’s small warm dome at the edge of the aquifer, after a long walk, through frozen tunnels. He was thawing.
Hal was on the screen in front of them, looking agitated.
“What have you got for us, Hal?” asked Jan.
“I’ll show you,” Hal shared a vid on the screen without any comment. It looked like a drone cam; Leo could just see the edge of a shadow from its own lights flitting across the icy floor of the tunnel. The same undulating elliptical walls as they’d seen before. After a couple of minutes, the tunnel ended abruptly. Chunks of ice scattered across the floor and walls. It looked like a cave in. The vid went blank for a couple of seconds then resumed. It showed the same heap of ice from another angle. The other side? It had a hole in it, presumably cut by Hal. The cam tracked around and the tunnel continued for a few more seconds. Then it broadened into a wide-open cavern. Smooth walls. The floor was black. No… blue-black. Iridescent. The cam zoomed in, closer and closer. It wasn’t the ice that was blue-black, it was something lying on it. Thousands of tiny shapes all catching the light from the drone at different angles and shimmering. The drone extended a scoop and lifted the iridescent shapes from the ground. As it drew them in for a close-up they disintegrated into a fine dust. Only one remained intact on the centre of the scoop.
“It looks like a tiny shell,” said Jan.
“An insect shell?” wondered Leo.
“Perhaps,” agreed Hal, rubbing his beard.
“Where the hell did they come from?” asked Leo, shocked.
“I was hoping one of you would tell me,” said Hal.
The Senate Chamber, Tithonium City, Mars – Demetria Philippou
Demetria wriggled on the packed bench, jammed between Leo and Georgia.
Verena struck the lectern with a ceremonial hammer and the hubbub started to subside. If the chamber had been full at the last meeting, then it was rammed now. Not every senator could make every debate, and only a few curious Martians would lean over the railing of the gallery above unless it was an important issue. But today every millimetre of space was crammed. Cams and relay screens showed Verena and the line of speakers behind her. Everyone on the planet was watching unless they had a vital task.
“Good evening, Mars,” began Verena. “Before we discuss the signal and Earth, I have another piece of news. Perhaps relevant. I shall let you decide.” She shared a vid on the relay screens showing Hal.
“My name is Hal Meier. Yes, Verena’s my mum. I’m at the North Pole. Those two facts are not related.” There was a flutter of nervous laughter from the crowd. Verena pulled a sour face. “Let me show you what I’ve found here.” He shared the same drone cam vid that he had showed to Leo and Jan the day before. As the vid unfolded, he made sparing comments. “You can see the tunnel I discovered. I’ve measured it. Allowing for movements of the ice, it’s a perfect ellipse, three point four-five metres at the widest part. See the undulations in the tunnel walls. They are exactly three point four-five metres apart, crest to crest. No variation. This crumbled ice looks like a cave in, but it isn’t. I looked all over the precise location above and can’t find any sign of a depression in the ice. The tunnel continues beyond. Same size. Same waves in the walls. This is the chamber. It is circular, ten point three-five metres diameter. Precisely three times the width of the tunnel. The floor is not black ice. It is covered with the bodies of iridescent shells. Each is about five millimetres across. They crumble to dust if you touch them. We don’t know what they are. We don’t know who or what made the tunnel and chamber.”
By the time Hal had finished and ended the vid, the chamber and gallery were as silent as the dry seas of Mars.
“At the moment, we only have questions, not answers,” said Verena. “Anyone thinking of joining my son at the North Pole should register their interest and qualifications online. The exploration sub-committee will select six candidates to take a rover there next week. Not only does this news rival that of the signal from Earth it might, and I stress it might… be connected. I’ll let Doctor Sam Grayson explain.”
Sam stepped forward. “Hal’s observations imply that the ice tunnel and chamber were made. We have no records of any historical mission from Earth or us. Hal’s expedition is the first. That leaves relatively few plausible options. Perhaps the mission was unrecorded, to keep the action secret, or perhaps it was made by a visitation from Earth, hence the relevance to our debate. An even more challenging answer is that they were made a very long time ago, before humans came to Mars. None of these answers begins to address the presence of the iridescent shells, which appear so perfectly preserved in the ice. They could be years, centuries or millennia old.”
The chamber exploded with passionate clamour.
Verena waited a minute before slamming a hammer on the lectern. “ORDER! ORDER! This is not some chaotic Earth government, this is Mars! You are Martians and you will behave with consideration and restraint, or you will leave the chamber.”
Slowly, the noise abated.
“We will not have answers until we send more experts to examine the evidence,” said Sam, “Neither will we know who or what sent the signal from Earth, unless we go there too.”
Sam then summarised Leo’s observations of Earth and Georgia’s views on the potential for life to have survived. “None of this tells us whether life has survived or not. We have spent the last two days sending messages back to Earth on every channel we can but so far, we have no reply. This doesn’t mean there’s nobody there. There are many reasons why they may not be able to receive or reply. Again, the only way to find out is to go there.”
Verena took the lectern again, “I propose a vote among the senators to decide whether we organise a mission to Earth. First you will want to air some of the many views I have received so far.”
The first senator to speak stood and listed all the risks that would face a team going to Earth. He was a slender white man in his late thirties with a carefully trimmed moustache. His accent was English, in contrast to the eclectic mix of accents spoken in English as the first language among most Martians. A hangover from the official Mars Mission language when the colonists first arrived. Verena listened patiently then replied, “Yes, that is a very long list. It is almost as long as the list we had coming to Mars. The only difference is that it’s already been done. We survived. We’re here.”
Demetria recognised the second senator, a woman in a business-like suit called Parvati. She listed the many pressures it would place on Mars, including the drain on resources and people.
