On a well-settled Mars, the five major city Council regimes
struggle to meld into a stable, working government. Embracing an official
Unified Faith In Humanity, the Councils are teetering on the verge of pogrom
directed against Christians, Molesters , Jews, Rapists, Buddhists, Murderers,
Muslims, Thieves, Hindu, Embezzlers and Artificial Humans – anyone who
threatens the official Faith and the consolidating power of the Councils. It
makes good sense, right – get rid of religion and Human divisiveness on a
societal level will disappear? An instrument of such a pogrom might just be a
Roman holiday...To see the rest of the chapters
and I’m sorry, but a number of them got deleted from the blog – go to
SCIENCE FICTION: Martian Holiday on the right and scroll to the
bottom for the first story. If you’d like to read it from beginning to end (50,000
words as of now), drop me a line and I’ll send you the unedited version. ? z Z
FardusAH, assistant to Mayor-for-Life
of Burroughs Dome, Etaraxis Ginunga-Gap leaned back in her chair, studying the
Mayoral Consort, Aster Theilen for some time before finally saying, “Depending
on the outcome of your party, I may have some questions about your God.”
“If you do, I will be happy to answer
them.” She bowed slightly. “I’ll see you later.”
As Aster strode from the office,
FardusAH touched her mauve lips with a navy blue finger, nails done in
complimentary yellow. She said softly, “You most certainly will, your Honor.
You most certainly will.” She turned to her screen and got back to work.
Aster stopped outside he office. Most
people – certainly vo’Maddux’s agents, as well as the few “watchers” FardusAH
employed – would expect her to hurry to the Mayor’s Pylon to begin planning;
possibly to start picking colors and start the guest list. In the months since
Etaraxis chose her as his main consort, she’d learned more about the elite of
the Dome than she really cared to know. She pursed her lips, then went to edge
of the ramp that spiraled from the uppermost levels, deep into the planet.
Above, a lens shield that both collected and concentrated sunlight. The
physical dome overlay that, stretching a kilometer in either direction from the
Core, all the way to the Rim. The wealthiest Opportunians lived in the upper
level of the Core and around the edge – what was called by some, the HOD. In
that part of the Dome, people actually owned their own homes – owned a piece of
Mars. Only the wealthiest, most deeply connected families lived there. That
didn’t necessarily include the First Humans on Mars. He father was one of them,
poor by HOD standards, but owning, nevertheless, a growing portion Mount
Olympus.
He had friends as well. Some of them
were not happy with how Mars had turned out. She sniffed. If her father had
ever wanted to start an insurrection, he’d have plenty of tinder. The First
Humans were scattered among the Domes – but some lived in the High Desert of
Mars. Some were pariah to the common humanity that lived their lives out hardly
noticing that they were aliens on an ancient world.
She sighed. He father knew them all;
loved many of them. They would know where to find lots of orphans. But she had
another kind of orphan she wanted to bring into the Orphan’s Ball. She wanted Artificial Human
children to be part of the celebration. They were different, but not less
Human. She knew that her viewpoints would have gotten her killed just to speak
them in some of the Domes. Even so, as the Mayoral Consort, she could actually
effect change on Mars. The cast off Artificial Humans – they called themselves inti – were part of the future of the
planet. To exclude them would not only incite rebellion, it wasn’t, as her
father said, “Part of God’s plan.”
While she’d never been the fanatic her
father was, she loved the Triune God and wanted to serve Him. This was her
chance. She was in a place to do some good and she had allies. Undermining the
status quo had never been her dream, but if she ever wanted to see a Mars
unified and equitable, someone had to start something somewhere. She had to be
transparent – using the shunt, in this environment, surveillance was a given. Mars
had a society that an ancient science fiction writer had predicted with uncanny
accuracy – a transparent society. Security and probably vo’Maddux herself, were
happily spying on her even as she stood here. She resisted the temptation to
wave and came back to the problem with the Orphan’s Ball. It regularly excluded
the people who have less power and low status – the people that orphans ended
up becoming. All of Martian society needed to be responsible for lifting them
up and helping them meet the people they need to meet in order to grow up
empowered.
She smiled bleakly at FardusAH’s
response: “But they aren’t even Human! Some of the little freaks look like
furless kangaroos!” She’d had the grace to blush black when she realized what
she’d said. But FardusAH, with her network of assistants to all of the other
Mayors of Mars, would be her most powerful ally.
In vo’Maddux’s mind, the Mayoral
Consort should head to the Pylon and start her party plans. Instead, she headed
down to her Dad’s. Her father was very familiar with the proletariat, the
person-on-the-street; those who had been called “blue-collar” workers back on
Earth in the middle of its Twentieth Century. Those were the men and women who
listened to her dad; who attended his secret Christian churches – and who quite
literally kept Opportunity Dome from falling apart. She needed to let him know
that what she planned wasn’t “a stunt” by the Mayor’s Office.
She needed to form a new union of
Martians, is what she needed to do.
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