IDEAS ON TUESDAYS 701

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them. Octavia Butler said, “SF doesn’t really mean anything at all, except that if you use science, you should use it correctly, and if you use your imagination to extend it beyond what we already know, you should do that intelligently.”

SF Trope: “Alien Life”
Current Event: https://news.arizona.edu/employee-news/new-conversation-extraterrestrial-life-may-look-nothing-life-earth-so-astrobiologists

Caw-clak-clak looked around, noted the Human children playing in the back yard of a nearby home.

In fact, it was the home a much larger Human who had been sitting in his back yard for several months now, attempting to communicate with various members of the flock. While most of the Edinburgh Clan thought he was ridiculous and a waste of time – and must be a mentally damaged Human because he kept trying to communicate with them by dancing around and flapping his arms. Caw-clak-clak thought he might be just sadly mistaken, or worse, misled by members of his own species.

Caw, for short, had spent months preparing for his experiment. He’d spent at least two nests of his progeny preparing them for his attempt to communicate with the Human, whose name apparently, was I Am Guy. Odd name, and though it didn’t sound like any of the other names the Edinburgh Clan had learned over the past eighty years, who was he to judge Human naming. I Am Guy was clearly intelligent and was making an attempt at communicating with them.

While Caw was the last living member of the group assigned to the project, he was nearly certain all of their work would pay off. He fluttered to a thick branch of one of the pines in I Am Guy’s territory and perched. The Human wasn’t around at the moment, but he’d made a habit of coming out to his communication station when the sun was two wings above the horizon for some weeks now.

Others had analyzed the sounds he’d made and through rigorous repetition of them, and an Edinburgh Clan member even breaking into a library one night and activating one of the electrical information devices, they had managed to build the largest vocabulary list ever assembled.

Of course, it had taken the sacrifice of thousands of newborn chicks to find the ones most adept at learning and mimicking the sounds Humans used to communicate – though Ravens had learned to do it several hundred years earlier – the fact that Humans needed sounds stung together in very specific orders to make sense of what Ravens had been trying to say to them. I Am Guy seemed to catch on faster than any other.

He also had a connection to the Ravens in the Far To The North And Grimly Certain Of Their Unchallenged Wisdom Humanland. Both the ones near Edinburgh Clan and Baikanour Clan had discovered that there was finally a way Ravens could escape the coming Human Apocalypse…

Names: ♀ Ravenoid
Foundation for story: https://www.google.com/search?q=how+smart+arre+birds%3F&sca_esv=016f34706b28a015&sxsrf=ANbL-n6dzJRKeIEcUJ6BoaPkhbhG9jH8hw%3A1771963848346&source=hp&ei=yAWeafHgEoStp84PitCR4QM&iflsig=AFdpzrgAAAAAaZ4T2I5fx2PKT1FJy_7llqcuNpuMneCE&ved=0ahUKEwjx5O7d9_KSAxWE1skDHQpoJDwQ4dUDCCE&uact=5&oq=how+smart+arre+birds%3F&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6IhVob3cgc21hcnQgYXJyZSBiaXJkcz8yBxAAGIAEGA0yBxAAGIAEGA0yBxAAGIAEGA0yBxAAGIAEGA0yBxAAGIAEGA0yCBAAGAoYDRgeMgYQABgNGB4yBhAAGBYYHjIGEAAYFhgeMgYQABgWGB5IikFQ-gZYgzxwAngAkAEBmAHQAaAB1BGqAQcxMS4xMC4xuAEDyAEA-AEBmAIWoALLEagCAMICDhAuGIAEGLEDGNEDGMcBwgILEC4YgAQY0QMYxwHCAggQLhiABBixA8ICCxAAGIAEGLEDGIMBwgIREC4YgAQYsQMY0QMYgwEYxwHCAgUQLhiABMICBRAAGIAEwgIIEAAYgAQYsQPCAg4QABiABBixAxiDARiKBcICDhAuGIAEGLEDGIMBGIoFwgIOEC4YgAQYxwEYjgUYrwGYAwHxBaauf5aFU9EHkgcGMTIuOS4xoAfqwwGyBwYxMS45LjG4B8cRwgcGMC4xNC44yAc9gAgA&sclient=gws-wiz&safe=active&ssui=on#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:f5f6f3d6,vid:7aWL2iEb6y4,st:288; MORE food for thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_intelligence

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg/220px-Falcon_9_Demo-2_Launching_6_%283%29.jpg

MINING THE ASTEROIDS Part 37A: Valentine’s Day In Space On An Asteroid Being Mined…Or NOT…

Initially, I started this series because of the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention, DisCON which I WOULD have been attending in person if I felt safe enough to do so in person AND it hadn’t been changed to the week before the Christmas Holidays…HOWEVER, as time passed, I knew that this was a subject I was going to explore because it interests me…As today is Valentine’s Day, it got me thinking about what holidays we might celebrate when we get to space; especially once people have lived there for some time.

As the initial inhabitants of space are MOST likely to be from extremely wealthy nations (or be extremely wealthy individuals) who HAVE sent people to space: the Soviet Union in April (now Russia), and the US in May of 1961; and China in October of 2003; only ONE has landed Human Beings on another world, that being the US in July of 1969.

The nations sending their people into space aboard launch systems built by one of the previous three pioneering countries (as well as developing the foundations of their own space programs); you’d think a number of holidays would spring up!

Together, we might celebrate a holiday that we already have!
What kind of traditions will form around THIS holiday? Hmmm…next week, I’ll come up with a few!

Later!

Today’s Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2025/national-holidays-real-fun-unofficial/
Other sources on today’s THEME – Holidays Of Space: https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/johnson/nasa-johnson-celebrates-25-years-of-holidays-in-space/; https://www.un.org/en/observances/world-space-week#:~:text=Related%20Observances,do%20we%20mark%20International%20Days ; https://www.reddit.com/r/nasa/comments/1ptf21u/holidays_in_space_25_years_of_space_station/ ; https://www.planetary.org/articles/calendar-of-space-events-2025#:~:text=October,with%20binoculars%20or%20a%20telescope. Image: https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/international-day-for-human-space-flight-april-12

MARTIAN HOLIDAY Read Chapters 1 & 2

FOUNDATIONAL QUOTES

RED MARS

by Kim Stanley Robinson

“People searched for signs of past or present Martian life,

anything from microbes to the doomed canal-builders, or even alien visitors.

As you know, no evidence for any of these has ever been found. And so stories have naturally blossomed to fill the gap…”

THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“And what prayer, what confession, what hymn of praise will it be?

It will be the prayer of earnest love for these very children of perdition who stand around and gaze at us with eyes aflame with hatred, and who have perhaps already raised their hands to kill us.”

 

CHAPTER 1

Paolo

Robinson Dome

Paulo Marcillon bent slowly to brush ochre Mars dust from his surface suit but froze mid-motion. A few words of Jesus leaped into his head: “…shake the dust off your feet…it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than this city…”

He set his foot gently down. He wasn’t quite ready to wish fire and brimstone on Robinson Dome. Others like Sojourner, Opportunity, Malacandra, and Bradbury? They’d been airlocking proselytizing Christians and any other faith that encouraged conversion, since the unofficial pogrom began. If anyone deserved divine wrath, it was those Domes. His days as a Disorder Reconnaissance and Community Service agent – universally known as a “DRaCS dragon” – had given him bad habits and when he resigned, his best, now angry ex-best-friend had turned rabid as she sought him out to arrest and execute him as well as anyone around him. It had brought home the fact that he could easily become the target of the dragons or any other group or person loyal to the Unified Faith in Humanity. UFiH – or “youfee” – was a secular faith founded on the certainty that Humanity was bound, determined, and destined to perfect itself. First and most important, according to doctrine, was to throw off the once-valuable belief in a higher being or higher plane of existence. UFiH posited that it was this misplaced belief in salvation outside one’s self that had led to the vast majority of wars Humans fought since the first Human society formed out of the simple government practiced by Human’s ancestral founders.

He shook that train of thought out of his head.

After they spilt, Hanam vo’Maddux had taken a regular job, then got promoted to Assistant to the Chief Security director in Bradbury Dome after the previous assistant had died in a lightflyer crash. Bradbury had been the First of the Five Domes, so she became de facto head of DRaCS dragons. Finally, vo’Maddux had been promoted to Chief of Security in Opportunity Dome. Finally, she had power to draw on and could make him disappear if she caught him. He had no allies in Robinson Dome that he knew of, though. Only possible enemies.

That she hadn’t found him, made Paolo nervous. She’d ignored him for nearly five Martian years; twice as long as in Earth years; shortened to “myears” which was pronounced “meers”. He took a deep breath and focused on the work at hand. Other Domes, Cūnzhuāng, hogar lejando, stations, and even Quianshao had airlocked Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Artificial Humans, Buddhists and even a few misanthropes who found the idea of Humanity itself unpalatable. Their executions were based on real or false crimes, though mostly because they loudly renounced the Unified Faith In Humanity.

This Dome had restrained itself, fining, shaming, and jailing dissidents. But that leniency had spawned a darker underground, too. A truly scary cult calling themselves the Soldiers of the Face believed that on Cydonia Mensae, ancient sapient Martians had left a message, calling the faithful to fight against the Humanization of Mars.

They espoused violent revolution – with themselves and their alien overlords in charge.

Paolo’s call was to lead Martian society from their rigid adherence to the Unified Faith in Humanity. The two forces were on a collision course. He was certain God had called him to return Mars to its roots, as God had called Martin Luther to challenge the path the Roman Catholic Church had taken.

Paolo felt the call of a Martian reformation. Despite the European Reformation’s roots in dissent and revolution, he wasn’t certain that peace could come between those who held that Humanity was ultimately perfectible by Humanity; and faith in a living Christ.

He sighed and sloughing dust, skinned out of the surface suit down to his briefs, then hung the suit with the others. ID beepers with DNA keys made it nearly impossible to steal anyone’s suit, so it was safe to leave it with the dozens hanging nearby. Besides, each one was tailor-made and in the unlikely event someone tried to run off with it, each suit was also coded to its owner by their voice. Paolo said, “Baptisma?”

His suit glowed midnight blue. Certainly no one else on Mars had named their suit for “baptism” in New Testament Greek. He pulled a tan indoor overall from the suit’s rigid thigh pack, shook it out then went into an open decontamination slot – there were fifty functioning with only eight or nine out of order. He was irradiated in near-full-spectrum EM radiation, then hot air passing over him deposited fast-acting nanobots that chomped on whatever surface pathogens he might have picked up. Sixty seconds later, the slot blipped and opened into Arrivals and Customs.

Neatly dressed in his original hometown, Kowal Cūnzhuāng overall, with its ID applied to his right shoulder, and carrying no luggage, he passed through to an airlock door that swung ponderously open then closed after him.



Stepping into Robinson Dome, his eye followed a crystalline arch that rose like a frozen waterfall to its gold-capped peak. Virtually identical to the other four main Domes of Mars, it was distinguished from them by a slow, iridescent rainbow that drifted lazily across the surface, like refracted sunlight on a bubble. Each Dome was twenty levels, five above and fifteen below the surface. They’d been identical once. Half a Martian century of occupancy had led to Five Domes unique in population, philosophy, reputation, industry, art, and architectural style. Robinson had been “his Dome’ since he was a kid.

It was here he’d been recruited into the DRaCS. Here he’d taken his oath. Here he’d reported until Captain Meirge had been promoted to DRaCS headquarters in Bradbury, which was the defacto Capitol of Mars.

Wildly different though familiar smells rolled over him: baking bread, incense, flowers, too-strong perfume, rotten potatoes, machine oil, and French fry grease. He caught the tang of spicy, rice vinegary kimchi, as well as Navaho fry bread, and roasting turkey. It hinted to him that the diversity of Mars could become a pleasing aroma to God as well as Artificial and natural Humans! Cacophony pummeled him after the silence of his hike from his marsbug. He heard at least six different languages near at hand. Transuranic rock music shook the leaves of banana trees. The faint squeal of a pulley belt, and the thunder of air moved by immense blowers first assaulted then faded to background noise.

Visitor arrivals marked by their blue coveralls, or returning residents slipped past him. No one noticed him immediately, though he knew his face, while not on the official Behavior and Culture Enforcement website, was well-enough known because of his regular live podcast. The holographic descendant of the on-line two dimensional cellphone broadcast, it had become the sole source of entertainment and visual information transfer on Mars.

Ten long strides brought him finally to the goal of his entire trip from Lewis Cūnzhuāng. Passing through grim Hellas Cūnzhuāng, bypassing dour Malacandra, to Robinson had taken nearly a month by marsbug. His much-patched, highly modified home-on-balloon-and-wire-mesh wheels – his marsbug – was hidden several kilometers outside the jurisdiction of Robinson. Hence the long hike.

But this was it. The Areopagus of Robinson Dome. Modeled on the idea of its ancient counterpart outside of Athens, Greece on Earth, it was truly a “big piece of rock”. Carved from an immense disk of Martian sandstone, polished, sealed, and floating a meter off the ground above a gravity modification field, it was deeply layered with soil, then landscaped and planted as a grand park. There were Earth plantings of course, but over half were trees, bushes, flowers, and crops which geneticists were being modified to live on the surface of Mars one day. In the center, reaching up to the Dome’s apex, was The Redwood. It was also a sapling, just eighteen meters tall.

A cluster of school children boiled past him, like chattering steam following their brilliant, albeit rare, honeybee-striped android teacher as it said, “Our next stop young learners, will be the hydroponic farms…”

Paulo slipped through the crowds, making for the Redwood in the precise center. Scattered around it were concrete benches, chairs, patches of Earth grass, and countless fat blue pillows. Men, women, children, robots, androids, holograms, and even a dusting of blue Artificial Humans reclined, talked, argued, sang, or gesticulated passionately. He took a deep breath.

When he was a ten-year-old, Dad and Dad had brought him here to tell him the complete stories of Paolo’s ancestors – the ones who had actually immigrated from Earth. Solar enhancing lamps set in the Dome itself added to the pale light of the distant Sun hanging in the dark blue Martian sky.

At that time, there’d been a church with a spectacular circle of blue and red stained glass on one side; a synagogue with a brushed iron menorah over there; a Buddhist temple with a lovingly carved façade of wood imported at great cost from Earth beside it; standing not far away had been the elegant, perfectly square polished basalt entryway to the Rationalist Forum. All those and the other, smaller philosophy societies, temples, meeting houses, and even open-air worship fields…were closed now. Where the Forum had stood, now there was a softly grey statue of a subdued, genderless, almost faceless robed human, arms relaxed, clasped hands over their faintly round belly; the symbol of the Unified Faith in Humanity. Paulo blew out a breath. Originally, Mars had resisted the proclamation of UFiH from Earth, choosing to remain eclectic in its religious or non-religious tastes. They fancied themselves homo post religio but flexibly tolerant of the wide variety of Human metaphysical expression.

But Earth had had enough of religious fanaticism, so it banned and outlawed all religions, merging spiritual beliefs into one, non-proselytizing faith in Humanity.

Most Martians had been happy for Earth, but not interested in being the object of Earth’s non-proselytizing-evangelism of the ultimate perfectibility of Humanity. Irritated by the rebuff, UFiH missionaries had flooded Mars.

During a period of unrest, Bradbury, First Dome of Mars, had been breached, killing eighteen hundred and twenty-six men, women and children. The backup “bubble” technology had failed to protect an entire neighborhood when the disruption of the sandwiched dome material had occurred. An evangelical Christian gang and a radical Buddhist gang were having a turf war and a Jewish gang and a Muslim gang had gotten drawn into it. There was an accident. The media spun the gang war into an intentional terrorist attack. Mars panicked and responded violently, the resulting pogrom forty-five myears ago making Earth’s legal maneuvers against all religions but the UFiH look reserved by comparison. Fourteen thousand, nine hundred and three people had died when it was all over; as it had spread from one Dome to two others.

Paulo took a deep breath. There were still enough Understory believers – both on Earth and Mars – to equip small armies. But they no longer fought. Their fragile peace held because to continue fighting would only give Earth and Mars an excuse to wipe out the last vestiges of ancient Earth religion. He’d been called out of his tiny church in Lewis Cūnzhuāng to talk to the people of Robinson Dome about the God of the Bible; to appeal to their vanity if necessary, in order to free the faith lives of Martians everywhere.

Standing at the edge of the Areopagus he looked down at his feet. Unlike his namesake, he actually had a cloak of invisibility, a device that could destabilize any gMod grid, like the one holding up the Areopagus disk, as well as a few other tricks under his skin and in his tablet. Timo, a young woman in the church at Lewis, had insisted he be equipped to defend himself in case someone tried to airlock him.

Paolo walked up the steps, kept going until he found an open, freeform iron bench and sat, his pulse pounding in his ears. The metal piece of art was called a Proclamation Seat or The Bench. He held his breath as people noticed and those who might want to hear something new stepped toward him. When he had a polite crowd, he waved to the mural and said, “People of Robison Dome,” he paused to let conversations conclude, then continued, “I can see that you’re a spiritual people.”

There were nods. An elder drifted toward him, a young woman in attendance. The elder sat in a gMod chair, nodded to him, smiling as it settled. Encouraged, Paulo said, “I know, from traveling through Hellas Basin, and as a child visiting here, that no one else produces as much oxygen and iron from the sand as you do. I’ve heard that innovation is encouraged here in a way that it’s not encouraged anywhere else. Last of all, I know you celebrate each other and stick close together in just about every way.” He’d have been surprised if anyone had argued. Robinson Dome was well known for all of those things. He held his breath then plunged ahead, “That’s why I was surprised when I heard that you readily joined the Unified Faith in Humanity fifteen myears ago,” he pronounced it like southern Martians did, saying “meers”. Grumbling mutters in those gathered. The old woman frowned faintly.

“Why it surprises me is that in order to get everything to work so well here, you have to have met the challenges face-to-face. You had to understand the nature of Humanity better than anyone else in order to get people to work together so well. You had to know more about people than they knew about themselves.” Surprised silence.

Every eye was on him, focused and listening as he said, “That’s why I have no doubt that you understand that Humanity is made up of more than just the body, mind, and heart. It has a soul that belongs to something outside of itself.” Several people had joined the outer fringes and a tall teen had hiked his girlfriend up on his shoulders, where she waved like a queen. Paolo smiled. At that age, he’d do anything for a girlfriend.

Paulo continued, “I’m here to say that the soul belongs to the Water God – who, like a pot of frozen water on a hot stove is solid, liquid, and gas, yet is water all the same. The God of Heaven is Father forever, Son crucified and alive again, and Spirit of unimaginable power – yet all the same. That’s who I and other old Christians belong to.” There was laughter, angry mutters, and words that sounded like “slavery” and “haters” and “terrorists”. Rather than shouting over them though, Paulo’s lowered his voice as he said, “Our water-like God wants us to turn away from evil and come to Him.” He stood abruptly, ending his session.

Most drifted away, but some stayed. The woman in the floater approached him and raised herself up until they were face-to-face. She said, “You should leave here quickly, young man. Some have gone to fetch the dragons.”

“Why would you want to help me?”

She smiled faintly. “I hear a little bitterness there, young man. Take it from an old pro: prune that feeling back. Even your Christian forebears had friends in high places who believed that people should be able to choose for themselves what they believe. Some of them never became Christians themselves, but they were willing to take risks so that others had a safe place to make their choice.” She waved gently. “Go, son. Go! You have other places to share your gospel.” She gestured, “Step down from the Aeropagus, go right. Take the first door on your left, past what was once the Ancient Faiths pavilion. It won’t open easily, but ram it with your shoulder and it should pop open.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

She snorted, then said, “In that case, you should run fast back to the Port. Your words have put you in grave danger.” Her chair rose, turned, and drifted across the Aeropagus, then turned back to him, saying, “Are you ready to die for your words, Christian man?” She turned and scooted away, Paolo staring after her.

He left the Aeropagus, hurrying to the edge of the park, striding past food vendors, and cloth merchants, and beer gardens, and patio dining restaurants until he reached an alley that circled the edge of the park. It was dimmer and dirtier, hardly the Rim, but not a place for a novice to wander. Robotic trash scavengers vied with rats and darker, shadow vermin. A saffron wrapped monk stepped from an access hall and DRaCS dragons each grabbed an arm. A third stunned him with a neural jab to the neck then recited, “You are under arrest for proselytizing an illegal philosophical system to unwary Bradbury Dome residents. By so doing, you forfeit all rights for trial and for detention. Your execution will occur when we reach a suitable airlock and will be recorded for the purpose of public education.” He slapped a circle of tape over the monk’s nose and mouth and the dragons picked him up and carried him around the alley until they could step up to the Aeropagus and cross it. Anyone there watched silently, some even spitting on him. One man did a pile driver with an elbow to the monk’s stomach. He threw up.

Paulo found the door and without hesitating, rammed it. He bounced off.

He glanced both ways wondering if God would allow him to experience some of the pain he’d inflicted. He wondered if, before he became part of a change on Mars; to validate Artificial Humans and Artificial Intelligence so that anyone could worship as they pleased; he wondered if he’d see that change, or if he’d die before it happened; maybe even face a martyr’s death. The woman’s warning had carried a sense of inevitability.

He crouched, sprinted, and slammed into the door. It banged open, and he spun, shoving the door closed. The corridor was dimmer than the alley, but he knew his way. Though the Domes had diverged culturally, the physical plant remained mostly unaltered.

He was alone most of the time, once turning to pretend he was examining a power junction while a busy plumber hurried past. He fiddled until the person said, “Excuse me, may I pass?”

He started, then said, “Sorry, didn’t hear you coming.” He stepped back, pressing into an alcove. He got back to work. Shortly, he glanced down the corridor to see if they were gone. He moved faster, not running yet, but moving as fast as he could. It took him twenty minutes to reach Arrival and Departures.

He logged out, passed through Customs, then hurried to the decontamination station. The computer scanned his ID and after a perfunctory examination, opened the hatch. He said, “Baptisma.” His surface suit, now rotated to a different spot flashed deep blue . He lifted it free, and slid into it without changing out of his coverall. Biting his lower lip, he sealed the helmet, and careful not to knock off the dust still clinging to his boots, he cycled out and back on to the surface of Mars.

He’d a long hike and it was well past noon. The bright sun shone down undimmed by clouds or sandstorm. He followed the well-marked, fused sand track away from Robinson, breathing easier now that he was out. He picked up his pace, adding what people from Earth called a ‘Mars skip”. He spent lots of time running out on the surface. Some Martians ignored the fact that they were fifty-five million kilometers from the homeworld of Humanity. He never took it for granted. Even less so since his spirit had been seized and wakened to the fact that God had a plan for him. He reached the first rise out of the crater that housed Robinson.

He glanced back to see two other figures in surface suits, a kilometer or two behind him, also Mars skipping.

They were following him.

CHAPTER 2

Aster

Opportunity Dome

Mayor Etaraxis Ginunga-Gap of Opportunity buzzed Hanam vo’Maddux, Chief of Security for Opportunity Dome, “Please come to my office and make sure we’re completely alone.”

Hanam smirked and strode across her office. She stopped for a moment to admire the view from the Mayor’s Pylon. The roots of the Pylon were several sublevels below the surface of Mars, where energy created by the fusion reactor was used to generate electricity. Dome Maintenance and Utilities shared space with the technicians from Reactor Control. Her people held several key positions in those hot depths. She knew everything that went on deep down.

Built from common plans, the Main Domes on Mars governed everything on the planet. She had her people peppered into the staff of all of them. The Pylon hadn’t been constructed in all the Domes – that had been the choice of each First Mayor. But the foundation was there, and in Opportunity, the Pylon rose to the apex, pierced it, and halted two hundred meters above the Dome itself.

One day, she would live there. After she became Mayor, it would only be a matter of time until she called in her favors and made good on her threats, and her pawns moved to make her Governor of Mars. She smiled; in her private fantasy, she would be Empress of Mars. She toyed again with title, laughing low, an intentional and melodramatically “villainous” sound. Absurd, but it would make terrific video and when manipulating the masses, that was all that counted.

She turned to check her business suit in her office mirror, then hurried to the Mayor’s office via her personal passage. One wall housed a half dozen secret security monitors and various surveillance equipment and weapons stashes. The other wall was glass overlooking Al-Qahira Vallis, a canyon created by rushing water when Mars was young. On the floor of the valley, her people had unearthed a half dozen ultradense meteorites that only she knew about.

She’d created a “paleoxenoarchaeontologist” from one of her key spies. They were working out the origin of ancient beings on Mars who had been extraterrestrials. They assured vo’Maddux that the material was manufactured – but not on Earth, the Moon, in the Clouds of Venus, or on Mars. They worked hard to awe their assistants because there were spies sent by Malacandra’s Mayor Turin among them.

With her, she and the spy spun tales of extraterrestrials, stressing that it was more in an increasing body of evidence that indicated that Humans were not alone in the universe – and that there might be intelligences even more formidable than Humanity. She’d worked hard to create individuals or small cells who had evidence, or had found reports, or even heard rumors of Martian artifacts in addition to reporting actions or writings or gossip reflecting badly on the Mayor’s Office.

She’d also engineered it so that they reported to any one of a baker’s dozen of individuals – all of whom were her aliases. Over the past myear, she started to suspect that the fantasy that Mars had hosted ancient aliens was true rather than the fabrication of unconnected events and artifacts she’d started off with.

vo’Maddux’s heart raced, so she closed her eyes, centering her chi until she whispered her mantra, “Everything in its time.” She opened her eyes, tugged her blouse down, then whispered, “The time is almost now!” She swept a bow to the grand arc of the valley and the Martian plateau beyond.

With a confident smirk, she opened the door into the Mayor’s private quarters, not pausing as she passed his personal guard. There was a formal entrance, and she knew from history that it had been built to intimidate the proletariat. It had always seemed to lessen her, so she’d created her own connection to the Mayor’s office.

She was in charge of Mayor Etaraxis’ security! The private hallway reinforced their intimate relationship, encouraging office gossip. She knew her trap better than she knew the Mayor. She knew each delicate secret. Anyone who used it without her permission would be marked so that only she could find them. She smiled.

The formal door could derail a security officer in depleted uranium body armor. Her private passage could derail any Consort who thought to suborn vo’Maddux’s property: the Mayor.

Once she was through and had shed her usual security guards, she gave herself a more sensual walk, tugging downward on her blouse in order to expose a bit more cleavage than usual. She was nearly certain that he was going to propose an alliance between them that would be mutually beneficial as well as enjoyable when they weren’t in the public eye.

The Mayor looked up, his attention caught. He frowned slightly then looked away. “Chief vo’Maddux, I have a question for you.”

She paused. Maybe he wanted to start their new relationship slowly. After the shouting match between Etaraxis and his last Consort, vo’Maddux was fairly certain she herself would appear the best choice for his next Consort.

She’d had the former Consort dealt with quietly. She crossed Etaraxis’ opulent office, continued until she stood beside but slightly behind him. He was looking out over the city to the wild desert beyond. They could see the city below, but his interest seemed to be on the Opportunity Mass Driver, north of the Dome, by far the largest one on Mars. Closer to the equator than any of the others, it could fling ore and other non-compressible items into orbit using the rotation of the planet directly. Fifty kilometers away, it still stretched an appreciable length of the horizon, glinting silvery red in late morning light. “Lovely, absolutely lovely,” he said.

She nodded, looking out the transparent aluminum window, echoing, “It’s one of the ten engineering wonders of the Solar System and it will eventually lead you to dominate Mars.”

He looked sideways at her then laughed, saying, “Not the Mass Driver!” He strode away from the window and continued, “I’m talking about Aster Zhylin! What an incredibly intelligent woman! She knows something about everything – she might even be one of those true...what do you call them? Renaissance women! She can cook, sew, keep the books, file, requisition, program, integrate with the AI – she even made a suggestion for beefing up security in my household! She also started an Opportunity Lightflyer Club!”

“What?” Hanam said, confused. She lifted her tablet computer and brought the name up, scanned the file then said, “What could she possibly know about the security for your House? She’s just an administrative assistant from the temp bank!”

When he turned to face her, he said, “It’s ‘reserve administrative assistant bank’. You were a teenaged housekeeper when I plucked you from obscurity and sent you off to the Marines. Even less than that as I recall. Didn’t one of my sergeants pick you up on the Rim of Sojourner when the Mayor there called us to put down one of their interminable food riots?” He shook his head. “You were a scrawny thing.” He smiled appraisingly then sniffed, “Never quite filled out into a proper woman though, did you? Always vaguely masculine.” He turned away shaking his head. He picked up his tablet from the desk and aimed it at her. “Here’s the suggestion Aster made last night. See that it’s checked and implemented. Let me know when you’re ready for it to be tested. I need to have it in time for the Formalization Ceremony.”

Hanam vo’Maddux blinked and rocked backward as if she’d been slapped. “The what, Mr. Mayor?”

“The Ceremony. It’s obvious to me that Aster is what I’ve been looking for. She’s smart, she’s served me – us,” he shot her a hooded look, then continued, “by discovering a potentially deadly security breach. She owes me nothing, hasn’t even actually ever met me, yet she is concerned for my safety. Enough so that she let me know about the security issue. I’m positive it wasn’t easy for her. She’s heard about your reputation for thoroughness, but also about your irritation when someone else is right.” He shrugged, “It’s a matter of extensive gossip at all social levels.”

He watched her, waiting. vo’Maddux swallowed, abruptly aware that she was traversing unknown sands. He’d never been serious about any other consort! She’d need to examine the data more carefully, angry as well as impressed that a novice could see this. She made a note on her tablet to hire a teenager to work with her security technicians. She ground her teeth, looked up and said, “My supposedly perfect defense of your private quarters had a hole in it large enough to drive a North Dune Sea ice miner through. It shouldn’t have been that easy.” The supposedly airtight security surrounding the Mayor’s personal residence could be breached via an education link and protocol installed when a Mayor some eighty years ago had had a mob of children and chose to homeschool them. That Mayor’s husband had been a licensed query marker guru, a “teacher” in old fashioned English; and he’d used the equipment and links to great advantage. Of their ten progeny, three owned their own interplanetary transportation fleets, six had served in some governmental capacity on Mars, the Moon, Earth, or in the Cloud Cities of Venus. One had died a hero’s death saving a bus load of children from a Buddhist terrorist’s bomb during the Faith Wars on Earth forty years ago. No one had ever canceled the link or cut it. Conceivably any sort of computer virus could be invisibly injected into the Mayoral system.

She looked up to catch the Mayor’s eye; to promise sexual favors in abject apology if the opportunity presented itself, but his eye was elsewhere. He said, “Dismissed for now. Set up an appointment with Aster Zhylin for later this afternoon. I want to approach her when she’s tired and hungry.”

Flushing red from equal parts embarrassment and fury, she left the office. There was only one thing she could do about this woman the Mayor had chosen to obsess about.

Destroy her.

She closed the door to her private passage softly behind her. Rage boiled up as the sound-proofed door hissed and sealed. The part of the security protocols she’d written to keep him safe if there was a breach or if an enemy chose poison gas to assassinate him, signaled it was active on her tablet.

It also had the advantage of being soundproof.

Her screamed curses were silent. She would have punched a wall if it wouldn’t have broken her hand. She stormed into her private rooms, her blue Artificial Humans standing, awaiting her orders. “Get out of here you worthless pieces of trash!”

They fled before her wrath, and for a moment she was gratified that her mild flash of temper could elicit such fear in them. She threw herself into her office desk chair and put the VR circlet on her head, immediately immersing her in a world far more beautiful than the rust-colored wasteland she lived in. She reigned in her anger, knowing she needed to clear her head and calm down before she did anything else. Her volatile temper would prove a liability if she couldn’t get a handle on it. She’d tried meditation. She’d even tried praying that a god would grant her peace in her desperation. Tranquility drugs only blunted her edge. She’d need all of her skills if she wanted to realize her goals. She leaned forward and tapped her secure line. “Security Chief Hanam vo’Maddux to Malacandra Security Artificial Intelligence.”

There was no hesitation. Though she loathed talking to a machine that called itself Pareidolia – in some ancient, barbaric, Earthly language no less! – she did because her control over the AI’s program was absolute. It had been one of the first things she’d done when she’d risen to her position. Bradbury Dome and Sojourner Dome still had AIs outside of her control, but Malacandra would be hers, Opportunity’s was irrelevant and she was nearly through with an assassination program that would take down Robinson Dome’s AI. “Pareidolia here, how may I help you, Chief vo’Maddux?”

“Has the assignment been concluded?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s the body?”

“Disintegrated in the reactor.”

“The second assignment?”

“No success, Madam vo’Maddux.”

She pursed her lips then said, “What obstacles have you encountered?”

“The system used by the Federation of Ice Miners, Mechanics, and Technicians is both ancient and connected to the rest of Mars by three physical cables that run under the North Dune Sea. All three are physically guarded at points between the Federation and each major Dome.”

“They’re guarded all the time?”

“No, they do not have the resources to do that. But, they have irregular patrols travel them often. It has not proven possible to predict their pattern.”

“Sounds like the miner’s AI is against us as well.” vo’Maddux shook her head, leaning back in the chair. This wasn’t something she needed to deal with now. But, she needed to find a way to cut the North Dune Sea off from the rest of Mars in order to make her next move. She said, “I’ve heard rumors that the ice miners have discovered new deposits of the ultradense metal. The deposits are supposed to be halfway between Becquerel Crater where Ísgrunnur Cūnzhuāng is, and the North Pole.”

“That is an immense area.”

“Agreed, but…”

“How close to the Face on Mars were the deposits?”

She rolled her eyes and stifled a sigh. Pareidolia, had taken up Mayor Turin’s fanatical obsession with the thoroughly debunked “Face on Mars”. Originally photographed by a spacecraft so primitive, she marveled it had even made it into Mar’s orbit, it had returned crude images to Earth that were instantly interpreted by the gullible as some sort of face. The even more gullible created an entire imaginary theory that somehow the Face on Mars was part of a city built on Cydonia Planitia consisting of very large pyramids and mounds arranged in a geometric pattern. The perpetrator of the theory felt that the monuments were evidence that an advanced civilization might once have existed on Mars.

Mayor Mykola Turin had become a believer in the Face on Mars, as well as UFOs, alien abduction, alien gods and their Chariots, and finally that the pyramids back on Earth were linked to those on Mars, and whoever found a key, could open a Gate between worlds.

He might have been easily removed if he wasn’t a superior administrator and surrounded himself with fanatically devoted and competent people. Because of them, Malacandra in the deep south, stood to become the next source of water for Mars once the population grew another two hundred thousand. vo’Maddux would have to fight for control of both the Great Southern Plain and the North Ice Sea. Persuading Turin to cede his power to her depended on her cultivation of his peculiar lunacy.

Etaraxis paged her again, “I noticed you disappeared,” he said.

“I had urgent business to attend to machine…”

“More important than lending your expertise as the primary social assistant to the Mayor?”

She winced. He knew she hated the description of that part of her job. Gritting her teeth, she said, “On my way, Sir.” She counted it another slight to her skills. When she finally demanded payment, she would make certain he wouldn’t survive tendering it.

IDEAS ON TUESDAY 700

Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them? Regarding Fantasy, this insight was startling: “I see the fantasy genre as an ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that allows the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with impunity. Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” – Melissa McPhail.

Fantasy Trope: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/index_report.php
Current Event: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army

I know this is just a wiki, but this idea was inspired by a former student of mine who became a physics teacher and is currently teaching in China. He visited this site several weeks ago and has posted pictures on Facebook. His pictures of this army came up recently and though I couldn’t link directly to his Facebook, I linked here:

It got me thinking – if there are some 8000 pieces (and about as many are still buried)…what if the mother of a teenager was working as part of an international team and uncovered something unusual (not that a standing army of 16,000 horses, soldiers, acrobats and various and sundry other “people” isn’t unusual enough!) What if an archaeologist intern, Wu unearths a unique figure, say a woman, knocked down, crying out in terror, with her arm upraised as a man draws back a spear and is obviously about to run her through…

Is there a curse on this piece that comes to haunt the head archaeologist’s teen boy, Shun when he sees it and is strangely attracted to it?

Or is it case for a forensic anthropologist (or would it be, more appropriately a forensic terracottaist) and was a MURDER involved which someone commemorated? Who did the commemorating, who was the perpetrator – and what if it had a connection to the present?)...

Caihong stared down at the face of the terracotta daughter, the sole female discovered some distance from the terracotta army. A soldier with a raised sword held over his head – except his was missing the arm…and the sword…threatened her. “He’s going to kill her!” she said. “It’s obvious. Besides, he’s armored and she’s just wearing a sack.”

Dong, who hated his name and went by Chuck in school back in Minneapolis, shook his head. “How do you know she was afraid? You can barely tell what her face looked like.” He glanced as his sister, “Though she sort of looks like you.”

She cut his snicker off. “Shut up, Tiny-Dong. She’s terrified.”

Glaring, he said, “What do you know? Mom’s the expert on this creepy terracotta army.”

A young man looked down at them from above. He said in British-accented English. “She’s one of the only Americans to study the Army.” The way he said it made it sound…capitalized. He sat down at on the lip of the short trench. It was separated from the main army by a kilometer. “I think her history is interesting, but not complete.”

Caihong sniffed. “You can’t be any older than Ding-Dong here.”

“My name is Gang, I’ve…studied the terracotta acrobats.”

Chuck frowned then said, “You look like one of them.”

“You’re familiar with the statues?” said Gang.

Caihong cut in, “He likes anyone that looks like him – skinny and wimpy…”

Names: ♀;♂China
Links: https://pushingtime.com/terracotta-daughters/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Acrobats Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg

WRITING ADVICE: Short Stories – Advice and Observation #36A: “Jack McDevitt & Me”

In this feature, I’ll be looking at “advice” for writing short stories – not from me, but from other short story writers. In speculative fiction, “short” has very carefully delineated categories: “The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America specifies word lengths for each category of its Nebula award categories by word count; Novel 40,000 words or over; Novella 17,500 to 39,999 words; Novelette 7,500 to 17,499 words; Short story under 7,500 words.”

I’m going to use advice from people who, in addition to writing novels, have also spent plenty of time “interning” with short stories. While most of them are speculative fiction writers, I’ll also be looking at plain, old, effective short story writers. The advice will be in the form of one or several quotes off of which I’ll jump and connect it with my own writing experience. While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do most of the professional writers...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome! Without further ado, short story observations by Jack McDevitt – with a few from myself…

First of all, I didn’t know that Jack McDevitt had been a classroom teacher before he “got famous”! In an interview marked below, McDevitt said, “Science fiction is, in the short form, at its most compelling. Aside from the Bradbury, any good Arthur Clarke collection, and the Science Fiction Hall of Fame anthologies. And I suspect several hundred other strong candidates. My all-time favorite story, Clarke’s ‘The Star,’ would probably get a teacher in trouble, so we’d want to stay clear of that.”

Funny, I think the reaction today would be, “Obviously the Christian god (if there was one) would be happy to explode a star as a show of force to Humanity to make them do what it wanted them to do!” Be that as it may…

I LOVE writing short. I even teach it during an elective summer school session for elementary-aged kids. You have NO idea how resistant they are to my suggestion. A parent even emailed me to tell that I had “no right” to place any limits on THEIR child – even the title of the class, the advertising, and the stated purpose is WRITING TO GET PUBLISHED. I use my first two novels as an example; I note that Andy Weir did the same thing: I wrote both FIRST as blog entries, then collected them together, gave them a hard edit, put them away for several months…well, I’m certain you know that taking even a short story from idea to polished finish – and eventual publication.

Here’s a few things I learned from McDevitt that I’ve actually applied to my writing:

Jack McDevitt emphasizes that short stories should focus on crafting an immersive experience, often relying on "what if" scenarios derived from everyday observations. He advises minimizing technical, hard-science explanations in favor of character-driven narratives, ensuring the plot moves toward a clear, impactful resolution. His approach often involves surprise endings and concise, impactful prose.

OK – while I’ve done this SOMETIMES, I’m not consistent. Not the “sciencey” stuff, but developing character. When I look at the list of publications on my blog site. My most recent rejection added the following note: “There are some interesting ideas here, but its all talk, the story, the action itself, is hidden from us. We could have seen much more about the relationship between Dex and his grandmother, and the loss he is feeling and how this project is bringing back their closeness. How Dex is feeling about being Salma's guardian and how she feels with her mother being on another planet. Salma clearly doesn't believe in fairies for most of the story and is humoring Dex. This story could be so much more than it is."

Ouch! HOWEVER, while I noticed it when I got the email (but skimmed over it), the commenter said, …“could be so much more than it is.” rather than, “It could have been so much more…” Hmmm…I’ve been going through old, rejected short stories to see if there’s anything I can do to save them. Maybe THIS one should be on the top of the stories to rescue…

The "What If" Approach: Many of his ideas stem from observing daily life, such as in a restaurant or a museum, and imagining scenarios based on those observations.

Ending First: He emphasizes the importance of knowing where the story ends before starting, ensuring the plot moves efficiently toward a resolution.

Overcoming Writer's Block: His first story, originally rejected, was only successful after major rewrites and taking advice, highlighting the importance of persistence and revision. The thing here is that I don’t believe in “writer’s block”. I know there are countless articles out there that purport to “cure writer’s block”, but…well, I won’t write here what I ACTUALLY think, but suffice it to say, if you find yourself confronted by it, just write ANYTHING. I once read that even writing a grocery list – physically writing it on paper – is beneficial to jump-start!

His work often features a strong, logical, and sometimes surprising, conclusion, as seen in his collection A Voice in the Night. I leave you with this piece of advice from him: “Keep writing. Don’t take a couple of years off. We need to keep our readers interested and happy. So produce some output.”

My only question is: What if I just couldn’t SELL anything? Hmmm? Love to ask him THAT question!

Constructing Experiences: Rather than just telling a story, the goal is to create an illusion of reality, allowing the reader to "live" through the events. Not sure what this means right now, but next time I’ll explore more next time

References: [If you prefer your interviews as YouTubes: https://libguides.ccga.edu/mcdevitt/videos]. I gleaned my information from these sources: https://www.sfwa.org/2011/12/21/nebula-awards-interview-jack-mcdevitt/#:~:text=Time%20Travelers%20Never%20Die%20was,and%20be%20lifted%20to%20safety. ; https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/mcdevitt_interview/; do a GOOGLE search for the following: How do I create an illusion of reality, allowing the reader to "live" through the story events? Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhK6miXJMTMNyB3kzq-r6I2LVCTZJj0CDS0dPV2Qapl6e9rZPuHx2u5QKcKT1QGeDg1_tPMv-lpnuSr_eiBjwPXmex9mcgtuH2-SUtZEpGWV0_HdtJQelVt5K69NulJBUqNju5GNjHgQibXsIo4NeWpTOj4ai85jCRjMHOtwtkqshzxFvZPUSjXZNq6=s320