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. They are HanAH, the security expert (m); DaneelAH, xenoarchaeologist (m); AzAH, language
expert (f); MishAH, pattern recognition (f).
The four Artificial
Humans from Malacandra stepped forward. Stepan looked at them then pulled
something from the bag. He set the bag down and lifted what he’d found. It was
another bag, narrowing half-way down then flaring at the bottom; four meters
long and obviously ancient. Darkened, it was obvious even so that there had
been metallic parts that pierced it.
They stared,
uncomprehending until suddenly AzAH said, “I recognize this.”
“You’ve seen something
like this?” HanAH said.
“No,” she said.
HanAH looked at her,
scowling.
“Not something like
this. Part of this.”
“What?” said Stepan,
AzAH, and DaneelAH in unison.
She shook her head. “I
can’t even begin to speculate how they’re related, but I can only state that
Mayor Turin, in his personal collection of Martian geological artifacts, has
something like this. It has more metal and what were once four protrusions,
though two have been torn away. Seeing this, I can only come to one conclusion:
the two halves together would make a spacesuit.”
Stepan shook his head,
“It can’t be. No one could fit into anything like that.”
AzAH paused, “Not one of
us, people. Not something Human.”
HanAH guffawed, throwing
his head back. “What are you talking about? A goat space suit? An orangutan
space suit? A…a…tuna suit?” He laughed again.
AzAH rolled her eyes and
held out her tablet. A hologram solidified above it. Material dark and
crumpled, rags hanging from a helmet so badly scratched it was white. But it was
in one piece. The neck was a wide ring, the bubble swept down first to a
narrower smaller bubble, ending in a blunt cone. “You have the tail of the
suit, this is the front.”
“It is not!” HanAH
exclaimed. “They aren’t…”
“Don’t act stupid just
because you were mistaken, AzAH,” said DaneelAH. “They’re part of the same
suit. HanAH crossed his arms over his chest, scowling. “Stepan, what do you
think?”
QuinnAH nudged him, “His
name is Pastor Stepan.”
Stepan smiled slightly, “What
does it look like to me?”
DaneelAH shrugged, “Sure.”
“It looks like a
spacesuit a dolphin would have worn.”
“What’s a dolphin?” QuinnAH
said.
“A…sort of small whale
that lives on Earth,” said DaneelAH. “At one time its kind were feared extinct,
killed mostly because they were so smart, that the Humans of the time thought
the creatures might be better than they were.”
Everyone stared at him.
AzAH said, “How would you know something like that – and what could it possibly
have to do with Mars?”
DaneelAH snorted and shook
his head. “After that kind of response, I’ll just keep my thoughts to myself.”
He pointed at the wiry contraption with the glass rectangle. “What do you think
that is, Stepan?”
He shook his head. “A
spacesuit with a skeleton in it had this clutched in its glove. I don’t have
any idea what it might…”
“VR,” said QuinnAH.
MishAH nodded, “Exactly.
But not of Human design and not made for a Human head, either.” She held out
her hand. DaneelAH handed it to her. She spent several moments examining it. She
looked up, “You found this in the glove of a dead Human, turned to dust and bones
in their spacesuit?”
“Yes. In a room built
into the base of the Dome – and on the other part, an airlock that lets out of
the Dome.”
“An airlock?” HanAH
said. Stepan nodded. “Then this must have been part of the very first
settlement here.” He swept them with his eyes, “The skeleton could be two
centuries old.”
AzAH shook her head. “This
VR set is a lot older than that.”
“So it’s another
artifact,” DaneelAH said, “The stele, the dolphin suit, there are probably
other artifacts scattered all over the surface of Mars.”
“Why?” QuinnAH said
suddenly. “Really? So what?” There’s all kinds of artifacts out there! Why
should any of them matter to us?”
“Good question, Son,”
said Stepan. “They wouldn’t matter if we know what they were doing here. If
there is life elsewhere in the universe, what was it doing on Mars?”
QuinnAH shrugged, “Dying?”
HanAH lifted his hand to
strike the boy until Stepan said, “It could be.” He shook his head, “But we won’t
know.” He handed waved to them, “You can have the tail piece as well as the VR
unit. We,” he looked down at QuinnAH, “have work to do here.” He nodded. “Good
luck.”
DaneelAH said, “Thank
you, Stepan. Whatever we find, we’ll send word.” He gestured to the floor
opening, “May we take the steps down to the floor?”
“Be my guest. Be careful
of the spacesuit with bones.”
HanAH saluted, “We will,
Reverend.”
No comments:
Post a Comment