Planets Falling (6 page)

Chapter 10
– Separation

Adam felt the ground tilt.  He fought back the urge to rip off his helmet and stared blankly at his mother.  She walked back to the vegetation and resumed collecting data.  He called to her repeatedly.  But she was either ignoring him or had shut off her communications link.  He left her to her casual tinkering and rushed back to the shuttle.

Tuning in the general communications network, he accessed hundreds of media reports - the chatter on both mars and earth.  All was quiet, except for the usual bad news – starvation, skirmishes, droughts, fires, a massive hurricane raging up the Atlantic, and an earthquake in the Antarctic provinces.  If a catastrophic event was occurring, it was not yet apparent.  And did his mother force Holst onto the surface?  Should he call security and have them bring her in?  All of his confidence and drive had vanished.  For once, he did not know what to do.

Maggie met Adam at the shuttle that evening back at Colony 1.  "First, we need to determine whether your mother arranged any shipments to earth recently," Maggie calmly noted.  "Did she say that she sent the contents of the vial to earth?"  Maggie’s command soothed Adam’s panic.

Adam paced back and forth in the cargo berth.  "She never said that exactly.  But I know in my heart that’s what she intends to do.  She’s had it for a year and nothing has happened.  So, I’m assuming that she hasn’t pulled the trigger."

"Then we need to first get her into custody and then we need to find the vial and destroy it.  Adam, I know you are beholden to her.  But this is your greatest responsibility to all of us.  God knows how many lives are at risk here."

"I’ll make the call."  Adam was about to put the most popular person on the planet and the love of his life into prison.  He was crumpling.  The little boy was screaming.

In the very same drab room in which Tash was questioned long ago, Pinchot Ferris sat serenely.  Jon stood over Adam in the passageway.  "Son, you’ve got to be kidding me.  There’s no way your mom had anything to do with Holst or the bacteria."  His voice betrayed his lack of certainty.  All those years she spent in her gardens.  The changes he saw gradually occurring in her personality.  It was clear that she had changed.  She seemed a stranger to him.  Yet another soul had faded
in his life.

"Listen to her comments dad."  And Adam walked into the room to confront his mother once again.  Jon followed.

"Mom, it is very important.  Where is the vial?"

"Adam, sweetheart, it’s far too late.  I’ve set this in motion.  Actually, it began long before you were born."

"Mom.  You’re a scientist.  Rationality, you know?  Please quit speaking in riddles."

"I shipped the biomaterial to
earth two weeks ago.  It was in several time release capsules headed to various regions of the planet.  By the time you intercept it, you’ll be unable to stop it from spreading everywhere.  Nothing short of a nuclear holocaust across the surface will be able to stop it."

Maggie was listening in the adjacent room and bolted out toward the nearest
computer network terminal.  She had already prepared a long list of shipping manifests to search.

Adam glanced at the door and saw Maggie rush by.  He tasted bile.  "Thanks mom.  Now, what happened between you and Will Holst the night he died?"

"I killed him.  He wanted to stop me.  I had no choice.  It was his time anyway."  Her calm was unnerving.  She sipped her steaming cup of tea.

Adam and Jon did not exchange glances.  They turned and left the room. Pinchot was escorted back to her cell.

"I need to contact the Prime Minister on earth," Adam stammered.

Maggie
walked in, her face contorted.  "You’re too late.  Earth has lost contact with the colonies and the nauron government.  Security forces in the region are claiming that vessels leaving earth are disintegrating before they leave orbit.  It’s horrible."

Adam ran from the room and barely reached the toilet before retching uncontrollably.

Chapter 11 - Falling

Excerpt from book entitled "A History of the Terra Institute":

Shortly following his election to Principal of the Institute and leader of the mars colonies, Adam Fuerst became the first president of what is now known as "exiled humanity".  Exiled humanity was comprised of the mars colonies, various space stations, and the humans on the three colonized planets and nauron.

Earth was no longer approachable by vessels of any kind.  What is known about the events on earth is largely speculative.  Scholars believe a terrorist attack of unknown origin devastated all tech
nological material on the planet within a few weeks.  The material that caused this devastating event is unknown.  The best guess is that it was a fabricated nano-weapon (i.e., small machines) able to replicate exponentially and designed to destroy artificial materials.  Communications was lost instantly.  Direct contact with the surface became immediately impossible.

Orbital satellites and low orbit robotic flights continue to monitor earth to this day.  The human population of 35 billion on earth before the event has declined to an estimated 15 million.  The inhabitants are largely hunter-gatherers with limited agriculture. A small network of villages with pre-industrial technology has arisen in the northwestern North American continent.

According to the Institute, atmospheric concentrations of pollutants have declined to pre-industrial levels.  Species of mammals and birds on the surface have rebounded.  High performance images suggest that rapid evolution has occurred and many new species of animals and plants appear to inhabit the planet. Most remarkably, carbon dioxide concentrations have declined and the planet has cooled considerably.  An ice cap has reappeared at the north magnetic pole.

During Fuerst's time, several attempts were made to contact the humans stranded on the surface.  However, every probe or ship attempting to surface on the planet was lost.  It was apparent that the nano-weapons were still active.  In recent years, forays to the planet's surface have been made by robotic surveyors. The Institute still forbids direct contact by humans or other sentient species.  Also, no probe or vessel landing on earth's surface is allowed to return to space, lest the unidentified weapon be unleashed on the remainder of the galaxy.

The likelihood that the humans remaining on the surface would be able to adapt to the technological life we now enjoy is low.  Earth has become a large reserve for life and a valued crucible for remote ecological and sociological research by Institute scientists.

Almost immediately following the devastating events on earth, Pinchot Ferris (link to: 
Dr. Pinchot Ferris
) fell into reclusion.  She became inactive in research and was rarely seen.  She appeared at Fuerst's first inaugural speech but was absent during his subsequent inaugurals.  She is believed to have died shortly after the birth of her first granddaughter, Margaret Pinchot Fuerst.  Maggie Fuerst produced a long line of talented and influential Institute scientists that shape progress to this day.

Chapter 12 – Rebirth

Adam never accepted that his mother was capable of genocide.
He didn’t have much time to dwell about it during those weeks following the loss of earth.  His life was steeped in being a leader, ordering reconnaissance, trying to arrange relief to the billions of starving, thirsty people, and foremost, trying to determine a way to stop the progression of an aggressive, terrifying microbe about which he knew nothing.

Maggie, Jon, Sarah, and Adam had entered into an unspoken agreement to not implicate Pinchot in the event.  After all, she would have to be tried by an objective panel before guilt could be assessed.  She may have simply gone insane, was fabricating her story, and this was a bizarre coincidence.  Of course, they knew this was untrue.  But this false thought kept them from descending into their own form of madness.  They had another reason to remain silent.  Announcing to the remainder of humanity that their chosen leader's mother was potentially responsible for the worst disaster in history would undermine Adam's authority, fracture ties with the naurons, and cause chaos to reign completely.

Maggie and Sarah spent countless days sifting through Tash's old research notes with no success.  A solution had to exist somewhere.  They searched diligently for any trace of information left by Holst.  He either destroyed it or sent it earthside to his mysterious contact.  If Pinchot knew anything, she wasn’t going to tell them.  They were spinning on a carousel that would not stop.  If Maggie closed her eyes, she saw the brightly colored animals around her- horses that she never had a chance to touch or ride on earth.  As the world spun around her in wild streaks, she knew that mars was the home of the space-faring human race now.  Humanity was about to diverge into two species.

Two months of zero contact with earth had shaken Adam.  He sat in his office looking across the horizon at Jupiter brightly rising.  In contrast, earth was barely visible - a dim blue star high in the sky.  His forces tried dropping food and supplies on earth from orbit.  But how do you rescue billions of people from space with a few care packages?

Reports from the various satellites and recon flights were discouraging.  Entire cities had been engulfed in flames and were now dark cinders.  The surface of the planet, once brightly lit at night, was pitch – dark as velvet.  Surprisingly few people were visible on the surface.  He did not know whether they had killed each other or had moved underground.  He doubted that survival would be high.  So few people knew how to raise food or fish.  Few animals remained to hunt.  Even clean, fresh water depended on technology, as it was now, or rather was, collected by massive atmospheric condensers.  The strong and selfish probably hoarded any remaining reserves and left their subordinates to starve.  One horrific report from low orbit suggested that cannibalism was occurring in some regions.  The blue gem suspended in the heavens was stained in crimson blood.

"Adam, what are you planning to do?"  Maggie walked in and sat on the edge of his desk.  She stared at the sky as well.

He sat silently for a long time.  "We move on.  We continue our research.  We do not allow worlds to become overpopulated and overused.  We fill space with thousands of habitable worlds."

Chapter 13 – Probes
Have Feelings Too

Adam’s eyes had long closed and returned to the cosmic dust.  Centuries passed.  And the reach of life stretched through the galactic haze.  Philosophers and scientists realized that the promising planets were seldom exciting.  They didn't shine like jewels in their orbits, begging for a second look.  Not one boasted high gravity or tempestuous storms or magma fountains spouting grandly into the sky.  Gas giants were too boisterous.  The tiny chunks of rock spinning wildly around their white-hot stars were too risky.  Rather, the planets that won the attention and acclaim from those living and pondering (and still searching for profit) in the galaxy were monochromatic lumps of dirt and water, taking no risks as they revolved around their yawning, yellow stars.  The mundane, overlooked things held the most potential in the universe.

In an unobtrusive patch of space a narrow beam of radiation carried an urgent message across a vast distance.  The creator of this little arc of information was a tiny probe not much larger than a hummingbird - nothing exciting to look at - a drab ping pong ball in space.  But it had a bold announcement to make.  In tiny letters on its side were the words
Data Logging Orbital Satellite 7C, circa 7150, Terra Institute
.  This mechanical culmination of centuries of science and technology from four intelligent species, was ticking through its standard systems checks as it completed its umpteenth orbit around Planet C9.  It was created to think a little, enough to decide when to adjust its right acension and declination in orbit and to make minor repairs to its primary systems when hit by a stray cosmic ray or a chunk of debris.  With this wisp of intelligence, it faintly recognized the import of its discovery.

The northern regions of the craggy, foggy ball of dirt and rock rotating beneath its belly were starting to stir.

The activity in the northern hemisphere would have measured as no more than a minor electrical glitch in the atmosphere of most planets, but for Planet C9, it was extraordinary.  Sparks and flashes jumped playfully where they certainly shouldn't be.  As the faint light show reflected on the probe's ceramic sensors, the satellite's circuits jumped to life and started streaming data homeward, if such a place really existed. 

Transmissions telling the probe what to do originated from that hallowed place in deep space, so something must be out there, guiding it, caring about it.  If a machine could be described as excited about sending a message - a mechanical prayer perhaps - to its apparent maker, so it was.

Chapter 14 – The Platform

Goodness was Verat Wilcoxin tired. He was on the downward slide of a second shift in the remote sensing deck of the space station.  Everyone called the station the Platform.  To Verat, it was his hell in space.  Just a few more double or perhaps triple shifts and he would earn the time to rotate off the Platform for a few months.  Maybe he would head home for a bit.  There was the mandatory psych evaluation and additional training at the Institute, of course.  No getting around that.  But he would do his best to slack through those exercises and spend time enjoying real gravity in real sunshine.  Verat was a direct descendent of one of the Founding Families
– linked to Pinchot Ferris in fact.  This distinction allowed him liberties that others from less fortunate bloodlines could not enjoy.

Verat was cruising through his mid thirties and wondering when the excitement - the reason for life - might hit him in the face.  He was drifting in this deep space assignment.  It was better than being near his family.  His childhood was spent in misery...living, rather existing, in a cold, emotionless void.  Parents dead.  Uncle and aunt constantly reminding him of his worthless existence.  His parents left him with debt and a pedigree, but little else.  All in the past he reassured himself.  No need to dwell on the disappointments of life.  A little alcohol and lots of strong tea were the waves that washed him away from the shores of despair.

His fists firmly massaged his eyeballs when a small blue light began pulsing on the master console in remote sensing.  An alert technician wouldn't miss this obvious announcement.  However, Verat was heading for the lift, prepared to call it the end of a long day when a voice made him jump.

"Dr. Wilcoxin.  The probe array has detected an anomaly.  How shall we proceed?"

He stopped, stared at his toes peeking back at him from his sandals, and sighed.  The Platform's human-machine interface (HM, as in ho-hum) annoyed the spit out of him.  HM was more vexing than many of his colleagues - more like a physical manifestation of his conscience, plaguing him at all hours throughout the many decks of the station.  From HM, unlike his conscience, there was no escape.

"Ok.  I'll take a bite.  Where's the signal coming from?"

"Orbital Probe 7C.  Located at 57 degrees north. Anomalous energy patterns on the surface and subsurface.  Not of terra-formed origin."

"Is it malfunctioning?  You better not be wasting my time here.  I'm tired and don't need to do your job for you."

"Dr. Wilcoxin it is unlikely that it is a malfunction."

Verat was further irked.  "Well, you mechanical nitwit, send probes 6C and 3C over there and bother me when you have confirmed that it is a real thing on the planet and not some burp in the probe.  Leave me alone until I get some sleep.  When are we finally going to program you things to think on your own?"

As the lift descended, he was followed by the omnipresent voice, "Very well. Probes are being redeployed.  Good night, Dr. Wilcoxin."

The Platform was an organic thing, much like the planets it was built to develop and monitor.  The omnipresent Family Collective commissioned it over two hundred years earlier. 
A ship was always bringing something new and useful to the growing station.  Occasionally some obsolete section was being removed or reconditioned.  In an apparent but certainly unintentional contradiction, the station was fashioned as a huge cube in space - in angular contrast to the celestial globes to which it was dedicated.  The big space cube was not quite planetary in scale - yet. But it was vast by any scale of architecture. Each side of the Platform spanned hundreds of kilometers.  It was massive enough to generate its own gravity, which required constant compensation by its fusion reactors.  The Platform was at risk of buckling under its own mass.

Surprisingly, the Platform's complement of sentients, as humans and the three other known intelligent species in the charted galaxy called themselves, was quite light.

Most of the creatures - both organic and artificial- bustling throughout the structure was there to tend to the needs of the Platform and its small group of scientists, engineers, and soldiers.  One-third of the structure was dedicated to power generation.  Nearly the remainder of the cube was composed of experimental decks.  These were vast environmental chambers isolated in cold, empty space, allowing for secure terraforming experiments with no risk of contamination to inhabited planets.  If it were sliced in half, it would resemble a busy ant farm in a child's study.

Stepping into Verat's vacant position in the remote observatory was Grey Commons.  Grey was a year older than Verat and wiry, with the forward stoop of a dedicated runner.  He enjoyed spending hours jogging throughout the many passageways and portals of the Platform.  Stretching his back, he scanned his surroundings.  As expected, the data logs were a mess and the observation area was unkempt - typical style for Verat.  Crumbs littered the control panels.  Grey muttered under his breath as he began sifting through the night's paperwork and, of course, spilling a cup of cold tea on a data pad.

"Hello Dr. Commons, additional data streams arriving from deployed probes.  Would you like to open a new case file?"

Grey was confused.  "HM.  You scared the crap out of me. What are you talking about?  I don't know anything about a case?  What happened with Verat?"

"Anomalous data stream confirmed with replicate probes. Planetary activity recorded.  Energy source unknown but coherent."

Grey's eyes widened as he began compiling the terrabytes of data accumulating in the central console.  "Yeah, HM, you're right.  Open a new case file.  Call it unknown activity.  Dammit, Verat is dropping the ball again.  I am going to wring him like a sponge."  He tapped on the flashing blue light and it dimmed.

Like Verat, Grey descended from a long line of exoecologists within the Founding Family Collective of the Terra Institute.  The thought made him feel queasy most of the time, as if the weight of his lineage would create a critical mass, eventually causing him to collapse in a fury of dense, unfulfilled obligations.

Boy, that would be a great fireworks display
he thought.

Still, he had a genuine passion for biology in his gut and he desperately wanted to understand the processes of biotransformation at a planetary scale.  And to see the first colonists breath deeply of bioengineered air, experience their first spring on a new planet, would fill him with such
satisfaction.  Sweet closure - an opportunity to fondly savor the memory of his father and feel his dreaded familial burden lift into space.

The Platform, perched in its position in deep, cold, lifeless space, may have seemed to be a strange place for scientists so thoughtful and entranced by the wonders of organisms and their relationships.  In many ways, though, it offered a much more diverse set of opportunities than a single planet for the biologically inclined.

The experimental decks were vast in scale and terrain.  With the aid of a nearly limitless power source, the energy pumped into these levels was solar-like.  The photosynthetic potential was considerable and with that came the opportunity for the researchers to tinker endlessly.

Of course, each deck required a set of key autotrophic organisms - creatures that could capture the artificial sunlight, transforming the energy into useful molecules, rich with potential.  The plants required to get things cooking in a new deck were not the broad-leaved, veined and barked trees and bushes reaching for the sky in forests on so many worlds.  Rather, the key to terraforming was in the realm of the microscopic.  In this miniature world, tiny organisms held the capacity to do miraculous things with sunshine, making all the building blocks necessary for bulkier and needier life forms in a terraformed world.  Best of all, these single-celled manufacturing plants reproduced quickly and came in all manner of flavors.  Some specialized in sugars, others in fats - some synthesized molecules so novel that the substances had yet to be discovered and named by biochemists. Each variety of microbe was responsible for something essential to the bigger organisms to arrive later. In a matter of a few days, an entire deck would be dripping with microbial ooze, bathed in fake sunlight and bursting with the potential for life to come.

Grey was jogging through one of these decks earlier in the day. This particular area was advancing nicely.  His research crew had started a simulation in this deck with a new set of microbes, consisting of thousands of species. These creatures had quickly colonized the artificial hills, lakes, streams, and fields that Grey and his colleagues had configured on the deck.  Within each nook and cranny of the artificial landscape, different groups of microbes had already found ideal homes, leading to a rich canvas for the next phase of the experiment.  Grey could smell the palpable potential for life.

The microbes were changing the climate of the deck.  Some creatures formed dense mats, reflecting the artificial sunshine onto his skin, bathing him in warmth.  In other areas, pillars of microbial colonies were growing from the simulated soil, creating areas of delicious shade.  It always amazed him how such tiny things could create such large and diverse masterpieces in such a short time.  The small artificial lakes and streams were fizzing with the bubbles of life, emitting various gases that would moderate the atmosphere in profound ways.

Of course, relying on centuries of past research, Grey had a fairly good idea about how the experiment would proceed.  The computational models were robust and typically produced reliable predictions.  But surprises were always expected - that's how they learned new things.

Grey pushed the communications button and linked to Verat's quarters.

"Verat, wake, the hell, up," he huffed.

A few seconds passed and Grey repeated his call, rolling his eyes.  Finally the screen flickered and a bedraggled head appeared in shimmering, holographic technicolor.  Stubble, eye goop, and creases on a cheek.  Verat's appearance was dismal.  He spit out something,
mouthwash?  whisky? in a wash basin to the left of the screen.  "Wha?  Grey is that you?  Did you see that 7C is malfunctioning?  I meant to warn you about that, but HM had to wrassle up some additional satellites probes.  I could've waited around.  But I needed shut eye."

"No, you dip.  7C is working fine.  Thanks for leaving this to me.  You have been doing this to me since we were kids.  Always dropping the serious stuff in my lap.  Forget it.  No point in going off on you.  Won't make a difference."  Grey slumped back in his chair.  "What do you think it is this time?"

"I think we got some campers cooking marshmallows on the surface.  And probably making drugs.  This is a job for Fromer and his people.  I am going back to sleep.  I feel like I've been dragged through the recycler and spit back out onto a deck."

"Not this time for God's sake.  If you’d wean yourself off that strong tea, you’d not have this problem.  Get down here.  Several sectors of the frigging northern hemisphere are blinking on and off.  Unless someone has invaded the surface and the subsurface, this has got to be geothermal, not some smugglers or pirates crawling around."

"Blah.  I’ll be up in a few minutes.  Be a dear and put on some tea for me - the strong stuff."  The image blinked out as Verat began scratching his nose.

Grey closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and walked over to the observatory's kitchen to boil some water. Tea in its endless flavors, colors, strengths, and aromas was Verat's greatest weakness.  His habit of always wandering with a warm cup had worn off on most of the crew.
  An entire deck was devoted to growing different strains cultivated from the leaves of plants from a dozen planets.  Verat was reknowned for his ability to grow, harvest, dry and mix hundreds of different tea blends.  Each was very unique and typically very potent.  Some were great for staying alert, others were calming, and a few would render the drinker helplessly trippy for many hours.  Grey knew that the best way to garner Verat's support was to make sure he had a bracing cup in his hand.