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, 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 (70,000+ words as of now), drop me a line and I’ll send
you the unedited version.
Stepan Izmaylova shook
his head, and said to the group of Artificial Humans. He smiled a bit because
they all had the same puzzled look on their faces, “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 at Stepan, saying, “You found this in the glove of a dead Human,
turned to dust and bones in their spacesuit?”
Stepan nodded, “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. “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. “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 knew what they were doing on Mars. If
there is life elsewhere in the universe, why was it here? It was a creature
designed to live in water, yet two hundred years ago, Mars was as dry as it is
today.”
QuinnAH shrugged, “It
was dying?”
HanAH snarled, his hand
snapping back to strike the impertinent boy until Stepan said, “It could be.”
He shook his head, “But we won’t know.” He handed the artifact – VR unit – 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 roof
opening to the staircase, “May we take the steps down to the floor?”
“Be my guest. Be careful
of the spacesuit with bones.”
HanAH saluted, “We will,
Reverend.”
When the four vatmates had thumped down to the
bottom and the sound of their plodding footsteps faded, Stepan said, “All
right, now we get down to the real work…”
“What? you’re gonna just ignore this whole thing?”
said Quinn.
“It has nothing to do with feeding the poor out
here on the Rim…”
“But it has ta do with Mars, Reverend! What if
there was aliens here?” He used a vulgar word and Stepan frowned, but the boy
didn’t notice. “If there was, maybe there’s a reason for us to learn to get
along together! If there are aliens weirder than Humans or Artificial Humans,
then we’re gonna be more alike than we are different! Who knows, maybe there’s
really true monsters out there and we can join together in unity and defeat…”
“You read science fiction?” Stepan said.
QuinnAH’s face suddenly went blank. “I don’t know
how to read.”
Stepan stepped back, crossed his arms over his
chest and stared at the boy. Who squirmed then turned away. “Quinn?”
He whirled around, “Fine! I taught myself to read.
Nobody else would, so I hacked into public site and just did it.”
“Why?”
Quinn lifted his chin, “Why should Humans be the
only ones in charge on Mars? We’re Human, too. Just adapted for whatever
regular Humans want done that they don’t feel like doing themselves.” He
planted his thumb on his chest. “I’m as Human as you are!”
Stepan stared at the boy. In the secular world of
the United Faith in Humanity, what he’d just said was as close to blasphemy as
an Artificial Human could get. HanAH would have been justified in striking the
boy down, and Stepan realized, would have done it out of a sense of duty. The
four vatmates were certainly the strangest set he’d ever experienced. His
family had sequestered a genetic line of computational service Artificial
Humans. He’d grown up with them. His father had owned several sets up in the
HOD – the Home Owner’s District – when Stepan was growing up. On the other
hand, “So happens, I agree with you, Quinn.”
The boy stared at him, eyes wide, then managed with
only a minor crack in his changing voice, “You agree?”
Stepan nodded. “We are all the same.” Quinn opened
his mouth to start preaching to his choir, but Stepan held up a finger. Quinn
shut his mouth. “However, if you want to spread your word – and I know a little
bit about evangelization here – you can’t just blurt the truth out and expect
people to hail you a hero of the revolution.”
The boy blinked. “You can’t?”
“You have to earn the right to be heard. That’s why
I’m here to feed the people of the Rim. I am NOT going to walk out to the
nearest crossing and start telling people about the difference that my God has
made in my life.”
“You’re not?”
Stepan laughed. “Of course not! First I’m going to
grow a garden, help in any way that I can – and I was a paramedic in the Free
Martian Combined Forces, so I can run a clinic. I’ll share my food,” he looked
pointedly down at Quinn, “And I’ll work to guide those who want to learn skills
they can use to build a freer, stronger Mars.”
“You’d do that? When do you talk about your God?”
Stepan shrugged and looked down the stairwell,
“When the time is right. First I serve people, then I share with them.”
“So you trick people into wanting to know about
your god?”
Stepan spun around, suddenly reminded of himself
questioning Dad’s philosophy. Remembering Dad’s hand flashing out at his
impertinent son. Stepan grimaced and nodded, “I suppose that’s one way to look
at it.”
Quinn spread both arms wide, “What other way is
there to look at it?”
Stepan started down the staircase, looked over his
shoulder and said, “Earning the privilege to be heard.” He kept on down. Quinn
ran across the roof, presumably to grab the gMod disk, and followed Stepan down
a short time later. Quinn didn’t stop to examine the spacesuited skeleton. He
had better things to do.
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