A Colony on Mars (29 page)

Our original reports mentioned the presence of dinosaurs, that report was only accurate to a degree. There are animals here that look like all the pictures of dinosaurs that we have seen in books but these are quite different. For one thing the largest dinosaur I have ever seen was about the size of a horse. Most of them are closer to the size of dogs. Actually when you think about it the only difference between a dinosaur on Earth and a horned toad is its size. These dinosaurs on Arton are all vegetarians, in fact we have never encountered a carnivore on Arton. Nothing on this planet eats anything else on this planet. Al of the inhabitants eat fruits, nuts, vegetables and plants. The growth here is as profuse as it is in the Amazon Basin, only here on Arton everything is eatable. Nothing is poisonous. The only kinds of animals that we have encountered here are the dinosaurs. They wil come if you call them, the little ones would make good house pets because they are so friendly. They are smart but if you teach one of them a trick he will do it for you again for maybe the next hour but the next day you would have to teach him the trick all over again. If they encounter one of our work crews they will just graze nearby and watch what we are doing for as long as we remain. When we leave they will sometimes follow us home and sometimes just wander off in some other direction. There are fresh water pools lakes and streams al over the islands. The weather is about perfect.

This is really more like the garden of Eden than it is like the Amazon Basin. The most popular vacation on Arton is to just go native for a while. There are no continents as we know them. The entire planet is covered by water and dotted with islands. The natives don't like salt water because in the salt water there are carnavours. Quite a variety of them. On a few Islands there are the upper class the people with a better education. The Islands that they live on have buildings and some of the citizens dabble in the arts and in a limited amount of science. Their science is about up to where man's scientific knowledge was at the time of Christ. They have discovered the wheel and domesticated a few dinosaurs to pull their carts. They have named the closest stars that they can see with the naked eye. They have built boats and learned to navigate their boats that are propelled by sails. They have even melted down gold and made a few coins, not for circulation as money but as cooperatives of important events and to honor their past leaders.

Artonion natives have an interesting way of disposing of their dead. They wait for low tide then they drag the deceased out to the low tide mark and wait the body down with rocks. When tide comes in and then recedes again the body is gone. They don't grieve for their dead the same way humans do. They just accept the death as a part of life. They hold a simplistic view of the hereafter and they do believe in reIncarnation. So in their view the deceased person has not died he has just moved on to his new body. We have made an effort to educate these people but with only limited success. Down deep they have the same personal characteristics as the fools that live on the other islands. If one of their people is trying to solve a particular problem when you happen on to him and you show him the solution he wil remember that solution and apply it the next time that he faces that same problem. If you sit him down in a class room and try to teach him the solution to other problems he will loose interest and walk out.

One time I went to a boat yard where some men were building a boat. When I showed one of them a better way to do a certain task he was courteous and interested and told me that he understood what I had told him and he sure appreciated learning a better way. When he came to the same task a few minutes later he did it the same way he had always done it. What I had taught him just didn't register. If he was faced with a problem he couldn't solve and you showed him how to solve it he would remember what you taught him and he would do it that way from then on. So much for their elite people. The problem with this planet is that once the new wears off there is nothing to do. You can't real y improve it. You don't need to tame the animals, you can't teach them much. The people are really friendly but they are worthless. Food is plentiful but we have to conceal the fact that we are carnivores from the natives. They just wouldn't understand eating another animal. It would get them confused. On the Island where there are no natives we have farms where we raise cows and goats and the like for meat and dairy products but on this Island we do not raise Earth animals or Earth plants. On the humans Island it is more like Earth We have an observatory that has done some real y fascinating work. They have charted at least one hundred other planets worth exploration. The observatory however, has been closed down for the last 20 years.

We haven't had a shipment of anything from Earth in over fifty years so there are no stores and most of our money has just rotted away. We stil have a few coins left but mostly we just use the barter system or help anyone that needs any help and give away anything we don't need. The way the economy works is that if you make cheese you give it away to anyone that wants it. If you make anything you just give it away. A lot of people just do nothing but people are always asking them to help with some task like building a fence or a barn or something. If asked they cheerfully lend a helping hand. When those freeloaders want something from someone who produces it the producers usually assign them a small task that they must do first before they get the product that they want. For example if a freeloader wants cheese the cheese maker will ask him to sweep out the office in exchange for the cheese. If the freeloader were to refuse he would not get the cheese.

A lot of the people are just fed up with Arton. I think many of them would return to Earth if given the opportunity. It sounds exciting there now and I think most of us would like to be a part of that. My guess would be that 50% of the people would return to Earth if they could, the rest would perfectly content to remain here on Arton. If you did take some of these people back with you they would be of marginal value. The could not or would not do more than was required to survive.

There has been a feeling of apathy set in on the planet. We had local Government 4o years ago but then an election came along and nobody wanted to run for office so they devolved the government. If someone commits a crime they just give them a boat and tell him to find another island to live on. That has only happened a couple of times though. We built churches but people just lost interest and quit attending. Al we have ever accomplished is cottage industry. If the people need wood to build something the women hound the men until they go out and cut down a few trees. There is a fifty year old saw mill where they can cut the trees into lumber but the logs usually just lay there for a few months before a crew gets together and fires up the mil . We have schools that run through the fifth grade but most kids don't attend regularly and their parents don't usually make them attend. Besides most of the time a teacher does not show up. If things continue like this in another two hundred years we will be living like the natives. The only thing that separates us from them now is that our women get pregnant easier. This planet could easily become overpopulated with humans. Our population keeps growing. We have examined several native women and found that hey only ovulate about once a year so they have babies a lot less frequently than human women do. That is why the planet will never be overpopulated with natives. When one Island gets overcrowded with humans a few of us just move on to the next island. Some islands have natives living on them and some do not. Everyone just picks an island to their choosing and lives there.

Many of us from Earth have become aware that there is something about this planet that changes the way you view things. It never had much effect on the ones of us who came here from Earth but the people who were born on Arton are more like the natives than they are like us. Some of us have blamed it on the atmosphere of the planet, some have speculated that there be something in the food but I have developed my own theory. That is that the living here is just too easy.

You wanted me to tell you about Arton that is about all there is to tell. This document copied and distributed to all crew members courtesy of Arton Fleet Command since they do not have copy equipment or paper on Arton.

CHAPTER – Admiral Carter's Decision May 2175

Admiral Joe Carter was holding a staff meeting for the four ship captains and their executive officers. “Have you read this update gentlemen?” They all nodded that they had. “Not only have I read it but I have visited the planet and verified it. Considering this report I would like to propose a course of action. This course of action is based on the conclusions that I have reached from reading the report and seeing conditions for myself. We could take maybe eight thousand people to Earth and Earth could sure use more people.” If we did that we would be cherry picking the youngest, the brightest and the best from this society on Arton. These are the very people that are needed here. After all this is the outpost of humanity. Arton may someday prove to be as important as Earth. As it turned out the best investment that mankind ever made was the investment we made in developing Mars. As it stands now Earth could use a couple hundred million people and Mars could even use a quarter mil ion but both Mars and Earth are sustainable with the people that they have. It will just take a little longer to repopulate. Adding eight thousand more from Arton would hurt Arton and it really wouldn't change all that much on Mars or Earth. I propose that we take no more than a couple hundred people back with us and only those that are determined to go. I would like to take as many plants as we can. Obviously we could not fil our ships with plants but we could take enough to establish several hundred new species on Mars and Earth. We should take a sampling of Animals back to the San Diego Zoo and that is about it. We should cal on this planet once every twenty years or so but not bother to resupply them. They have everything they need or deserve. I think we should park two of these ships in orbit around Earth and two in Orbit around Mars, so if Mars Runner ever craps out we can stil get back and forth to Mars. By the time Earth is ever postured again to take on space exploration these ships wil have been long dead. By having them, though if some catastrophe were to hit the solar system we could always use them to move a few thousand humans to Arton. Any suggestions or comments?” “Yes,” said one of the Captains. “We don't have the final say, but I believe the planarity leaders would agree with the plan that you just outlined.

It took them four months to load the plants, some thought that they should take some Arton Natives back to Earth. They finally settled on taking no humans other than the crew of Arton Three and only one hundred Arton Natives. The justification for taking any natives at all was to preserve the species if Arton were to be destroyed. They knew that the natives would never be contented living among Earth people so they decided to plant some of their native plants on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai. It came closer than any place on Earth to matching their native habitat. They would assign only two human volunteers to live with them and care for their native plants which needed no care on Arton. They already knew they could not count on teaching the Artonians to care for them. They had considered putting them in the San Diego Zoo but these weren't animals these were sentient beings. They decided that they would select 75 natives from the outer island population and twenty five from the more advanced inner island group. They decided to take none to Mars. They figured that Artonians would not understand low gravity. It was a real shock when they were approached by one of the Artonian inner island natives who had read about Mars and he wanted to go there. Not only did he want to go there but there were another thousand Artonians, all from the upper class who were well informed on Mars and said they wanted to live on Mars also. We know that your people eat animals and animal products and we condone your practice because we realize that you are from a different culture. We also know that Mars already produces a huge surplus of fruits and vegetables and with the addition of an ample supply of our native plants and vegetables that we can grow on Mars we wil be just fine. I think I would enjoy the low gravity and I know the importance of the required daily workouts. It seems that this group was motivated to learn about Mars and once an Artonian is properly motivated he can accomplish anything that a human can accomplish. They had a lot easier time in learning English than humans had in learning their language. There had long been held on Arton that these upper class people were the next evolutionary step for the natives of Arton. Admiral Carter had a long talk with the members of the group that wanted to go to Mars and finally they managed to convInce him that they were sincere and understood what they were getting into. The crews then harvested enough Artonian plants with the help of the ones that were going to Mars to fil the cargo bays of the Arton Three. Arton Three and four would be the two space craft that would establish a parking orbit around Mars.

They then reconsidered and elected to take only upper class people to Earth. They put the word out that they were seeking volunteers to migrate to Earth and had over five thousand applicants. They took one thousand of them but only the ones that knew about Earth and knew what conditions awaited them. The group themselves decided that they had rather go to San Diego than to Kauai. Most of them volunteered to raise Artonian and Earth fruits and vegetables. Some of them even volunteered to work in the San Diego Zoo as grounds keepers and care givers to the animals. Once again, they were motivated. They said that they understood about caring for plants. This group selected even more plants from Arton for them to care for when they reached San Diego. Before they departed they had two of the giant ships loaded with Artonian plants.

CHAPTER – Captain Horn reevaluates the Artonians

September 4, 2175: The four Arton ships departed Arton bound for Mars. Two days underway an Artonian entered the human dining room of the A1and walked up to a table where Captain Horn and two of the ships officers had finished dining and were engaged in small talk while remaining at their table.