Distant past - Four hundred years earlier.
“We are definitely not ready to be cut loose. We have got to have that solar orbiter. We simply can’t get enough power out of the ground array.” Bill Jantzen’s voice was shaky with fatigue and declining health, which more or less the norm on Mars. He had already been living on Mars since he was a teenager, having gone with his entire family.
“Bill, I really don’t even know how to begin to empathize with your situation. If there were any way at all, it would be happening for sure. But the situation here is, … , well we are just running out of options for launching payloads.” Art Fabre talked with his eyes closed. It somehow made the conversation easier, feeling the darkness . It gave him an ability to concentrate. It also allowed him to doze off between exchanges, which varied from ten to twenty minutes apart due to the distance involved.
“Art, I knew what the answer would be. Look, we have the two MERVs. I can send back about twenty eight in each and there are a lot of people here with serious problems. I believe they might be able to recover on Earth. If they stay here, they won’t survive. In fact I would like to send more than fifty six but we have done a selection process already.” A MERV was a Mars Emergency Return Vehicle.
“Bill, let me run it by Command and see if there is another perspective on that.”
“No! You don’t understand! Those MERVs will launch next week when we have the window. I need to pare down to below six hundred. It’s unsustainable. What’s the point of the MERVs anyway? Isn’t this the point? We can’t all go home. Buy by god we would if we could. That’s for sure! But we can’t!” Bill Jantzen took some deep breaths, trying to calm himself.
“Okay, okay! Just let me get back to you with some other thoughts on the subject. Maybe it will be fully supported, probably will be,” Art lied. The prospects for fifty six mentally imbalanced or physically impaired individuals returning to Earth was not what it had been forty years earlier when the colonists first began populating Mars. Earth’s decline had been precipitous, just as many had predicted. But despite forewarnings and eventually a general consensus, mankind slavishly continued to gut the planet of resources, while poisoning the environment in equal measure. The fundamental drive for individual gain and personal survival was part of human programming. Nothing else, including irrefutable logic, could establish much of a foothold.
Ironically, the various space programs seemed detached from the reality that was unfolding all around them. In the heady days of the 1960’s when people waited for days to witness the latest launches at Cape Canaveral, flags waved and bands played. Now, the military spent a good deal of its dwindling resources managing massive protests that assembled on the same hallowed ground. The protests focused on a variety of dissatisfactions including the reopening of coal mines to fuel the production of liquid hydrogen and oxygen.
The old promise of gaining mastery over gravity never came to fruition and in fact it was now believed to be physically impossible. Thus, the shuttling of people and supplies to bases on the moon and in orbit, as well as on Mars, still occurred the old fashion way, akin to lighting a giant firecracker. And making water was still the most potent reaction within practical reach. But now, Mars was in a relatively more stable position as far as the ability to produce oxygen, water and food. The problem was more to do with the long term effects of being away from Earth.
Aside from an obvious absence of any real atmosphere, there was too little gravity, and a much weaker magnetic field. The days were only slightly longer but there was no moon exerting a rhythmic gravitational influence. All of these changes wreaked havoc on physical and mental health. It was especially impactful to reproduction and child development. Modeling suggested there would ensue a kind of natural selection over a series of generations and it would weed out more than ninety eight percent of human traits, evolving a human subspecies far different from earth humans.
The new subspecies would be as ill suited to Earth as the human population was to Mars and the two groups would eventually be genetically incompatible. The original basis for the modeling and the eventual outcome were not merely theoretical. The future roadmap was laid out in a fossil record that had been discovered beginning a decade earlier. At first, Bill Jantzen and the scientific team were staring at the discovery of a lifetime, indeed among the most remarkable discoveries in the history of mankind.
But it didn’t take long for intelligence and imagination to decipher the true nature of the discovery. Earth was in fact the lifeboat for the Martian people. Not the other way around. How could it be, that a dead world, abandoned by man’s predecessors, could ever serve to rescue humanity. Studying the extensive trove of fossils and evidence of technology had the scientists of Mars staring at their own future - one that was sure to be bleak, as Mars sifted through man’s DNA looking to bring back the Martian’s of old. It was to be nature’s logical but cruel and insensitive way, making for a long period of adjustment - a period full of struggle and unimaginable suffering.
Following the realization, the colony thought it best to call it a day, and return home. But that was no longer possible. There was simply no longer the wherewithal to bring home such large numbers. It was one thing to launch supplies and new immigrants from Earth to Mars. These were one way missions, as the fuel required to return to earth would preclude the ability to carry any significant payload, in either direction. Mars had always been understood to be a one way ticket. Everyone had signed up knowing that.
But now, the inhabitants of Mars were mostly those that were young or not yet born. They were not given the choice and they wanted out. But there was no way out. So Bill and others, realizing that the situation on Earth might not represent a future, even if they did make it back, started to think of another approach. Fortunately for them, they had an advocate. Lola Villasenor. Once she understood the Martian findings and the implications, she was determined to develop a path forward for these brave, distant explorers.
“Bill, I will see what I can do about the orbiter. But for now, I suggest we start some trials back here.” Lola and Bill Jantzen were on one of their regular calls, which took some getting used to. “We won’t be able to connect the individuals real time because of the time delay but we have been making progress on the sleep sequence.”
Lola’s idea was to upload some individuals and then connect the minds after the individuals were asleep. In his way, the communication delay would not cause confusion and distress. Lola was very old at this point and it was a strain on her physically, to manage the success of the mainstream effort on earth, while now taking on this new project. But she knew that at some level, the hope she could offer to the Mars colony was a life saver - a single glimmer of light in a future landscape of total darkness.
Bill had assumed the governorship of Mars about a year earlier. He dreaded taking it on but it was his calling and he knew it. He was a great communicator and had a calming effect on people, which was precisely what was needed. There were two large spaces, either of which could serve as a venue for an all hands address. Bill preferred the shelter of the large lava tube and held these general addresses every two weeks.
Years ago, the leader at that time, Gil Ochoa, only held general assemblies every three months or so. Everyone was so busy and still full of hope. Many people wouldn’t even bother to attend. But now was different. Every man, woman and child old enough to understand attended, and they hung on every word. Hoping to hear something positive, something to build new hope. But such fantasies were fading, especially among those that realized the implications of the fossil record, which was most people.
Bill stood in the expansive hall with its clear widows allowing a view of the surrounding rock and ice, as well as a brilliant view of the stars directly above the tube in the night sky. People filed in eagerly, the biweekly event playing a central role in their existence by now. Several transport rovers, each carrying up to twenty people rolled in and started to unload. The surface workers always brought with them, better spirits and a lot of laughter, much of which still persevered through the grim outlook and served to lift everyone, if only briefly.
Most residents brought their own foldable chair or a cushion upon which to sit. The ground was mostly grass, plants and scattered hardscape areas, but it was over two acres in size and easily accommodated everyone. The typical program was to begin with some science expert presenting new findings in their research, and in the past year there were plenty. Because of the unexpected and bizarre nature of the fossil discoveries, most of the reporting was on this topic. It was a blessing in a way, as it distracted everyone away from their former obsession with human medical conditions associated with Martian living.
Following two to three of these scientific reports, there would be a performance. Sometimes it was a children’s dance or choir. Often it was a musical or singing solo or a group. There was even a pop band that had formed among several teenagers who kept abreast of music trends emanating some one hundred forty million miles away on earth and they did a fine job playing their songs to a small but grateful crowd.
The last part was often the most anticipated, which was the state of the colony, and it was mostly a monologue affair by Bill Jantzen. It was a chore for him to deliver such a speech every two weeks but not for lack of material. The difficulty was in crafting everything with the right amount of reality and honesty, without creating panic and despair. The responsibility weighed on Bill greatly, but he soldiered on and in fact increased the frequency to its current schedule because of his belief that the psyche of the colony was becoming more fragile. Community was key. Isolation was dangerous.
This evening, Dr. Friederich Gramm talked about the latest fossil discovery and analysis. His collaboration with earth based scientists confirmed the undeniable connection between earth and Mars. But unlike most scientists, Fred argued that it was equally possible that Earth had populated Mars long ago, and not the other way round. This was not a mainstream belief but it was nevertheless possible and had not yet been ruled out by science. The most compelling part of his argument was that Mars appeared incapable of maintaining any significant atmosphere because of its small mass and low gravity. Even in the distant past. Additionally, the fossil record on Mars showed almost no biological diversity. It was more or less a single species planet, whereas earth had great diversity.
The second talk was even more interesting. Francois Yamamoto presented the latest fossils retrieved from deep in a group of lava tubes near the South Pole. They appeared to be the oldest to date, potentially some two billion years old. They were the familiar life forms, which appeared gopher like in size and stature, but they were eerily reminiscent of the little green men, straight out of early Hollywood. But this time there was more. A habitat of sorts. And more evidence of their ancient technology.
Now, too eroded to make sense of without years of study and guesswork, the structures of machines were still clearly evident, the engineered regularity of the shapes and patterns too orderly to ascribe to nature’s randomness.
Finally, Dr. Martha Stansbury stepped up to address a riveted crowd. “I have received the peer review of my latest theory and the evolutionary simulation of the Martians in an earth environment. You may find this fascinating but it does suggest some things about humans on Mars, that might be…, well, difficult to accept.” Following a rather lengthy recap of her research and methods, Martha came to part about her findings. “The simulation involving a biologically diverse Earth, receiving the Martians shows an evolution that eventually sets back the species intellectually, but they remain an intelligent species and of course they grow in size and strength. Therefore, given that we don’t find an intelligent species having evolved from as long as two billion years ago, I favor the simulation based on the second assumption, which is a relatively sterile Earth. In this case, the species devolves quite rapidly, as the environmental mismatch weeds out many traits including those required for high intelligence and complexity. Ultimately, there is only primitive life, stripped down to its constituents. And from there, complexity begins anew.”
“It is for this reason and for the similarities in the DNA, that my colleagues and I see the earth as having lacked in biological diversity or abundance two billion year ago, the time that perhaps the Martians first achieved a foothold on our planet. The incompatibilities then stripped them of their evolution and they devolved back to simple life forms. But billions of years later, there we were, the progeny of Mars. And now we have come full circle. But what will become of us?” Martha let the question hang. “Well if we run the simulations the other way round and try to predict what we will face here, it is much worse than what they faced. Because Mars is now so much more depleted from the loss of atmosphere and the sublimation of the frozen water, also lost to space. Our best prospects might have been to devolve back to simplicity and then reemerge. But honestly, we won’t have such an opportunity in such an inhospitable environment.”
Martha made additional closing points, but scarcely anyone was listing. They were all pondering the implications of what she had just said.
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