The boy gently placed his toy sailboat
in the water and let the afternoon breeze fill the sails and push it
towards the First Landing statue in the center of the lake. It was
the boy's one true possession and he watched it with concern hoping
it did not capsize or hit any of the other craft moving through the
lake waters.
Once the onboard artificial
intelligence chip sensed it had reached the proper speed and detected
a strong enough updraft, the rigging and sails reconfigured turning
it into a glider. As the craft gained altitude, the boy took control
of it using the neural interface wired inside his brain. Feeling the
interface take hold, the boy stood next the lake with his eyes closed
and his arm stretched out letting the glider became an extension of
his own body. Only then was the boy able to forget his concerns and
feel free and at peace. Still though, in the back of his mind he
remembered that he only had a year left before coming of age and
being apprenticed to some profession.
Looking through the glider's sensors,
all of First Landing Park sprawled out beneath him, with it green
grass, trees, monuments, decorative fountains, and people enjoying a
peaceful afternoon. Beyond the park was the city with its towers
encircled by what looked like graceful ribbons that made up the
transportation network that connected the city to itself and the rest
of the planet. Occasionally, the boy would catch sight of one of the
sleek modules attached to one the ribbons taking people to their
destinations.
As the boy turned the glider back
towards his location, he caught sight of a strange person standing
close to him. The boy felt no fear, peacekeeper 'bots would come to
his rescue if they detected a disturbance or he called out. This
person though was nothing like he had ever see before. Part of its
head and its right arm gleamed in the sunlight. With his curiosity
growing, the boy disengaged the link to the glider allowing the AI to
bring it back to the lake. As his vision returned, that was when the
boy realized there was a Martian standing a couple of meters away
from him.
For well over a thousand years after
the invention of a practical faster-than-light drive Humankind
traveled among the stars exploring and colonizing the habitable
planets they found. Early in these journeys, humans discovered that
while life was abundant wherever they traveled, it rarely evolved
passed simple creatures and analogs to chlorophyll-based plant life.
The few times humans found planets with complex ecosystems similar to
Earth, they were wise enough to leave them alone except for building
space stations in orbit or bases on their moons to study them.
Needless to say, with complex life rare, humans never once
encountered any other intelligent species.
That all changed when the Wisps came
out of the void and started attacking human worlds and the starships
that tied their civilization together. By that time in human
development, conflicts were rare so at first the Wisps ran roughshod
through settled space. Many humans colonies in the early stages of
development were easily wiped out, while the more established worlds
fought off the attackers for awhile.
But the Wisps were relentless and after
several decades were finally able to mount an assault on Earth
itself. They obliterated everything in Humanity's home star system
from the giant orbital habitats, to the cities scattered about on
Luna, Mars, the Jovian moons, and Titan. But their greatest wrath
fell on Earth itself. They sterilized the surface of the planet
killing all five billion of its human inhabitants and everything else
that lived. Then with the few survivors on Mars and Titan expecting
the Wisps to return and cleanup what they missed, the aliens
disappeared from not only the home system but all of human space.
The damage was done though, the
survivors on Mars and Titan spent centuries just trying to rebuild.
For the rest of human settled space, the situation was just as bleak.
Hundreds of worlds fell headlong into a new dark age once again
unleashing the worst aspects of Homo sapien behavior.
“Who are you young man?” The
Martian asked.
“My name is Michel Cor,” the boy
answered unafraid since the arrival of the Martian starship was the
most exciting thing to happen to his world in decades. While the ship remained in
orbit, its crew were instant celebrities everywhere they went,
despite the sheer alienness of their appearance. Since Michel had
never seen a Martian closeup, he openly stared at the man.
Half of his skull had been replaced
with a cybernetic interface that only vaguely conformed to what a
human face was supposed to look like. Michel studied the seam where
the organic skull and the cybernetic addition met, it was abrupt but
looked like a perfect meshing of the two. The designers and engineers
went as far as to make the artificial side of the Martian's nose a
match in shape to the biological. However, the Martian's mouth was not
designed as well, the biological portion had full expressive
movement, while the artificial side had much less. It was the
Martian's cybernetic eye that intrigued Michel, it glowed red and
protruded outward providing space for other types of sensors. Michel
could only imagine what sights and information it provided for those
possessing such technology.
Michel then remembered from school that
the Martians were not just enhanced cyborgs, but that their very
minds had been merged with a type of artificial intelligent forever
removing them from true humanity. Among the different human worlds,
it was whispered that these enhanced beings had the ability to
predict events by seeing all possible futures. That they had other
abilities that transcended normal human comprehension.
Such concepts were a bit too abstract
for Michel to truly appreciate, it was the Martian's right arm that
fascinated him. Because while the silver appendage looked human
enough, it could morph into hundreds of different tools and even
weapons. The Martians were not about to let the Wisps get a second
chance at driving humanity extinct.
“I was impressed with the control you
had over your sail glider. You have a natural talent with the way you
anticipated the changes in wind patterns beyond the lake.” The
Martian said with the organic half of his face trying to smile.
“Thank you, Citizen...” Michel said
beginning to address the Martian in the proper custom of his world
before thinking better of it.
“My name is Jonas Harper,” the
Martian said enjoying the boy's momentary confusion. “But you can
call me Jonas.” He added not wanting to cause the boy any possible
discomfort.
“Jonas Harper?” Michel asked more
to himself than his new companion. To the boy the name sounded
clumsy, weird, even bizarre.
“Yes, it is an ancient name used all
the way back to when humans lived just on Earth.” Jonas said. “With
the destruction of Earth, we Martians carry the weight of human
history so our society works hard to stay connected with the past.”
“Have you ever been to Earth?”
Michel asked.
“Once when I was a boy,” Jonas
said, “before I accepted the burden of my new consciousness.”
“Is it true you restored life to the
surface?”
“Yes, we used much of the same
technology there that we used here on Sonora.”
Michel's homeworld was never supposed
to be colonized. While the air was breathable, the first explorers to
Sonora had determined there was not enough water on the planet to
justify any attempt at settlement. So the world was cataloged and
promptly forgotten about, that is until the Wisps bombarded several
relatively nearby colonies.
A damaged civilian starship entered the
Sonoran system looking for any rocky world to land and make repairs.
The rediscovery of a semi-habitable planet in such desperate times
was looked upon as a blessing by both the crew and passengers. The
Wisps had already bombarded their planet and were still attacking any
ships they found,so they quickly decided to stay on Sonora
permanently. Unfortunately, other starships with better historical
records or star charts began arriving a few years later looking for a refuge as well. Within a couple of decades the reason Sonora
was never colonized became apparent with the emerging cities often
fighting each other over water and usable soil. When a joint
Mars/Titan expedition found the planet again three hundred years
later the small Sonoran human civilization was on the verge of collapse.
Seeing the situation, the Martian
vessel, equipped with planetary engineering equipment, stayed behind
and began a twenty-year project to reshape the entire world. Several
hundred comets were taken from the outer reaches of the star system
to create oceans for Sonora. While that was going on, the Martians
built massive land crawling machines that prepped the surface soil
for terrestrial-based plant life. The final touches were the planting
of rapid growing grasses and trees that turned the Sonora into a
virtual copy of Earth.
When the Martian ship finally departed,
Sonora had a unified government whose leaders decided their purpose
was to make their world a major interstellar power. Part of that plan
was to increase the planetary population as quickly as possible, so
the human creches were established. Places where humans are grown in
breeding pods and raised to adulthood by android caregivers. This
allowed Sonora to go from a population of twenty-million at
rediscovery to over three-billion in two centuries. To the normal
human-raised citizens of Sonora, their world is a paradise but to
Michel and all the others born in the creches it was a burden.
“I would love to see the homeworld,”
Michel said more to himself than to the visitor. The Sonoran
government was officially a democratic meritocracy. A place where
the rights of the citizenry superseded the government's interests
and prospective leaders had to prove their stability and rationality
before being allowed to run for elected office. But to the
creche-born, these ideals didn't really apply to them. For those like
Michel, the government had their lives planned out until the age they
could retire. Most would be assigned to the unsettled regions of the
planet while a lucky few might find themselves living in one of the
orbital habitats mining the asteroids for metals or building the
shipyards where future Sonoran starships would be constructed.
“Such a possibility could be worked
out,” Jonas Harper said to the boy. “My ship is returning to Mars
and we have empty berths for lower crewmen. The duty would be
difficult, but upon reaching Mars you would be accepted to our
service academy.”
“Would I have to be augmented like
you to join?” Michel asked pointing to his skull.
“No, augmentation is only for those
who freely choose. We do not force any individual to go against their
will or desires. An individual normally serves ten-standard years
before Fleet Command approaches them about the possibility.”
Michel stood there in the park looking
at the Martian considering his options. An unplanned life of
adventure where he was allowed to make his own choices. Or one where
he spent his life running a supply outpost or an agricultural station
out in the wilderness.
“I'll go,” Michel told the Martian.
“I need to go tell the creche manager. She will consider me a
runaway if I'm not back by nightfall.”
“No need young Michel, I have already
alerted everyone involved. We can leave now and be on my ship in time
for dinner.”
Michel had never been allowed on one of
the transport modules other citizens used. As creche-born, past
experience had shown there was too big a chance young ones like him
would use it to disappear. Sitting next the Martian, he enjoyed the
looks all the normal born folks were giving him.
For the Martian, his thoughts were
flung in a thousand different directions. While the Sonoran
government had dreams of becoming a major power in interstellar
affairs, they had absolutely no idea about the bigger galactic
picture. In fairness, most human worlds were willfully trying to
forget about the Wisps. They were happy to pursue their singular
dreams at the expense of their overall futures. Mars remembered what
they had done to Earth and the other worlds that only now were
beginning to recover.
Above all else though, what took
precedence in all other considerations for Mars was that they knew
the Wisps would one day return. Young Michel didn't know it but the
vast collective consciousness that was the Martian ship and crew saw
something in him that could mean the ultimate survival of the
species. So Jonas had no real issue taking Michel from one planned
life and placing him in another. It wasn't like he would be the only
one.
