Soul-Waves : A Future History Part #5

This is the fifth part of my channeled future history of our planet Earth and humankind. Our hero, Shen, discovers his strings are being pulled and that his real role has more planetary significance. He also goes off the planet for the first time and discovers the part he is to play in saving humanity from oblivion.

Transcript

This is the fifth part of my channel future history of our planet Earth and humankind.

Our hero Shen discovers his strings are being pulled,

And that his real role has more planetary significance.

He also goes off planet for the first time,

And is fully briefed on his role to save humanity from destruction.

Chapter 41.

Lagrange.

2085.

24 years left.

Have you got anything on it in the optical?

Asks Cheng.

Purple Mountain are on it now.

From May onwards,

When it's out the sun's glow,

We'll be monitoring for wobble,

Doppler shift,

And any variances or instabilities in brightness.

And historically?

Since I came back from Sydney,

I've had the Q computer trawling any historical data we have on it.

I'll let you know if anything comes up.

Shen had been summoned by Cheng to drop into his office,

Before going back home to Fragrant Hills.

He was a bit peed by this,

As he was really missing Freya and the kids.

I'm glad you asked me in,

Said Shen,

As the Q computer seems to be doing all the analysis I used to do,

And I'm getting a bit bored.

That's exactly why you were here,

Answered Cheng,

Ushering Shen once more into his anteroom.

The tables with the models were still there,

But pushed towards the walls.

Pride of place,

Hanging from the dome ceiling,

Was an orrery of the rocky planets of the inner solar system.

Shen immediately recognised it as Huey's handiwork.

Come in,

Gentlemen,

Shouted Cheng.

A door opened at the opposite side of the oval room,

And Shen was somewhat taken aback when Mike Spence walked in with Wu Zetian,

The Chinese Chancellor he'd met at the Savoy in London.

Following on behind them was a rather sheepish Huey.

What are you doing here?

Shen exclaimed.

I made this,

Said Huey,

Pointing upward to the orrery.

I thought so,

Said Shen,

Giving his dad a welcome hug.

It was handshakes for the others.

Could you walk Shen through it?

Said Cheng.

Of course,

Huey put his hand on Shen's shoulder,

And guided him underneath Mars.

You probably didn't notice these,

Said Huey,

Pointing at two small spheres.

They were in the orbit of Mars,

But 180 degrees apart from each other.

Shen interjected,

So these give us 365 days a year comms with Mars.

Or 687 days a year if you're on Mars,

Quipped Huey.

In Earth's orbit,

Huey also pointed out two small cubes,

One 120 degrees ahead of the planet in its orbit,

And one 120 degrees behind.

Shen asked Cheng,

So where do I come in?

You want me to design this system?

No,

We have a team on that as we speak.

It will be operational by the time the next GRB arrives in 2089,

Said Cheng,

And Silky and a team are designing the gamma ray detectors and their monitoring algorithms.

This will be the largest interferometer ever built then,

Said Cheng,

Realising events and thinking were ahead of him.

Yes it is,

Confirmed Cheng.

Wu Zetian cut in at this point,

In perfect English.

What we still want to know,

Shen,

Is how long we've got before we have to put the rest of the programme into place.

Shen felt he was being admonished a little,

As he knew all too well that this was his brief.

Cheng pointed him over to the model of the Mars surface and the deep canyon,

Val's Marineris.

You can see in this model it is half covered.

This is what Mike and his team will be working on,

A sealed canyon built with nanobots.

You plan to terraform the whole canyon,

Asked Shen?

That's right,

Shen.

We've been working on establishing a permanent colony on Mars.

The arrival of a comet and the threat of the GRBs has focused our resolve,

Said Wu Zetian.

So we really need to know how long we've got before we go to Mars,

Said Shen,

Realising his task wasn't merely theoretical.

Exactly,

Said Cheng.

There's a few bits of the jigsaw to put in place before then.

Huey?

Huey guided Shen over to the Earth-Moon system in the orrery.

Shen noticed an orbital array around the Moon.

A lunar GPS system,

Said Shen.

Exactly,

Said Huey.

Serving this base in the Shackleton crater,

Near the polar ice deposits.

Shen pointed at a large structure orbiting Earth.

And this is how we get everything there.

A spaceport,

Or is it a factory?

Both.

Much of the equipment for the Moon base and the Mars terraformation will be built in Earth orbit.

Including the vehicles to take us there,

Said Wu Zetian.

And who is the us,

Exactly,

Asked Shen.

That's what we want you to work on too,

Said Wu Zetian.

Shen felt his strings being pulled again.

We're all reconvening tomorrow,

At Fragrant Hill School,

Said Cheng.

Go back home now,

Get some rest,

And we'll meet at 9am.

Not a word,

Of course,

To anyone about any of this.

On the way back in the cable car,

Shen grilled Huey on how long he'd known about this.

I know you won't believe me,

But only after you left for Sydney,

Said Huey.

I thought it was only a technological demonstrator until earlier today,

When I commissioned it in the anti-room,

And Cheng filled me in.

Did Afreya and Mum know?

They haven't been told officially,

Shen.

But you know as well as I do,

You can't keep secrets from a Wu,

Said Huey.

Anyway,

Cheng asked me to tell them both over dinner tonight.

Shen sensed that tomorrow,

They might also find out what the school had to do with all of this.

Chapter 42,

Wu School,

2085,

Still 24 years left.

When Shen arrived at the school with his entire family the next day,

He could see Jia and Freya had been hard at work.

It was his first proper visit back inside the school since he'd left the university at 15.

The two women had transformed it from a school into it looking more like a sanctuary,

A peaceful haven in an already tranquil suburb of a bustling megatropolis.

They dropped Kristin and Eva off for their lessons,

And made their way up to the headmistress's office.

Just as they were about to enter,

Madame Bian walked out,

And said that they were convening in the meeting room.

Shen was expecting Cheng,

And possibly Wu Zetian to be there,

But not President Miang,

And certainly not his wife,

Yu Yan,

Who was looking the picture of health.

Hello again,

Shen,

Said Wu Zetian,

Let's get started.

She pressed a button on her tablet,

And on the end wall of the meeting room,

A display of a large family tree appeared.

It may come as no surprise to you,

Shen,

That I am descended from a long line of Wu,

She explained.

Unlike your mother,

And Freya from the Scandinavian tradition,

I have no powers.

Jia intervened.

Like you,

Shen,

Wu Zetian is very intelligent,

Capable,

And intuitive,

But the special touch often skips a generation.

I'm still a bit puzzled where I come in,

Said Shen.

It was Cheng's turn to explain.

The people we want to populate the moon and Mars bases will need special talents,

And not those of your usual taikonaut.

Madame Bien,

Can you explain the new curriculum?

Certainly,

She said.

Apart from honing the traditional Wu skills of healing and prophecy,

In the upper school we will be teaching many practical skills,

Such as bioengineering,

Meteorology,

Geology,

Life sciences,

Cosmology,

And of course physics,

Chemistry,

And mathematics.

She continued,

At the same time,

Our pupils will need to be resilient,

So we will be teaching mindfulness and meditation.

So are Kristen and Eva to be trained for the trip,

Asked Shen?

It was President Miang's turn.

What we don't know,

Shen,

Is when we will have to leave.

We hope to have the moon base established by the end of this century,

And it will probably be by the end of the next century before we have any significant presence on Mars.

So not the twins,

Shen,

Said Freya.

Maybe their children,

But more probably their grandchildren.

Unlike democracies where the ruling party were in power for a term of four to seven years,

One advantage of the Chinese political system was that they could think big and plan for the long term.

Shen realised everyone else seemed to know more about this part of the project than he did.

He needn't have been paranoid,

As his family only found out about the plans for the school while he was away.

We only knew about the technical plans for the moon and Mars bases,

And their communication systems.

So what subjects do you want me to teach,

Asked Shen?

Cheng said we've got others to do that.

What we'd like you to do is to analyse Wu Zetian's genealogical records,

And correlate them with more recent data from school reports and exams.

We'd like to get an answer to the old nature and nurture question.

So if Wu's skills can be taught,

Or how much they're inherited,

Said Shen.

We want to know which lineages from all over the globe will produce the best candidates for the trip.

We want to know if it is this generation,

Or their children or their grandchildren,

That would be best suited to go,

Said Cheng.

You want me to tell you which generation should go,

Said Cheng,

Thinking this was a bit of a menial task for him.

Exactly that,

Said the president.

If the councillors could have had a meeting,

An actual dialogue in the density,

It would have gone the same kind of way.

Individual councillors would appear to be more adept at some skills than others.

There was also the assignment of tasks,

Monitoring and interventions.

All the councillors had full access to the consciousness of each other,

Apart from councillor Seven,

Who had locked her brief away for eternity.

Like Russian dolls inside each other,

The universe was nested inside others,

One of which being where she came from.

As the meeting came to a close,

It was councillor Seven who latched on again to Shen's pineal gland.

Affairs on planet Earth were going to need micromanagement for the next few years.

President Miang,

Cheng,

Madame Bien,

Wu Zetian,

Jia,

Hui and Freya also had individual councillors latching on too.

Only Jia and Madame Bien were conscious that they had experienced a walk-in,

But neither were sure of the true nature of the awareness that had connected with them.

They did know how to ask the right questions of it though.

After 43,

Smoking gun,

2089,

20 years left.

By the time that Silky's team detected the next large GRB that they thought was coming from the sun,

Much had happened.

Shen was about to turn 31,

And the twins Eva and Kristen were nearly 10.

Both were nearly as tall as Shen already.

Eva was just a couple of centimetres taller than Kristen,

But when they were sitting down,

And sometimes wearing the same clothes,

The only easy way to tell them apart was the mole on the left of Eva's chin.

Councillor Seven had ensured,

The right number of years ago,

That the dust cloud was now completely mopped up by the same black hole that had created it,

In time for the 2089 pulse to arrive.

This was to ensure that the severity of the situation would be picked up by Shen.

The two GRB detectors were in place at the Earth Lagrange A and B points.

Both satellites were in large cubic protective crates,

Rather like those that kept sharks and divers apart.

The reason being,

Was that such gravity wells attract all sorts of space detritus and debris,

So lots of buffeting goes on.

So not only did these two satellites detect the real source of the GRBs,

But the Swiss satellite orbiting the Earth also pinpointed its source too,

With the data from the interferometer there could be no doubt.

So we've found the smoking gun,

Why did we not know this before,

Cheng asked of Silky on a conference call with Shen?

We have no idea,

We've gone over the data hundreds of times she said,

With some irritation,

As she knew Cheng knew this.

And what about optical,

Asked Cheng of Shen?

It's a little too early to say,

As we spotted a wobble and occlusion from a small object,

Which appears to be orbiting the binary,

Said Cheng.

And again,

Why has this only just been detected,

Probed Cheng?

That we just don't know,

Said Cheng.

And now it's the nearest known supernova candidate to Earth,

Said Silky,

At 150 light years away though,

Far enough that it shouldn't disrupt much if it did go off,

And it might be thousands of years before that happens anyway.

Cheng was not so sure.

When will you have more on the orbit of the third object?

Shen replied,

Probably two and a half years from now,

It looks like its orbital period is five years,

And it's this that's been triggering the GRB,

Possibly even by flying between the two stars.

Cheng praised them both for their detective work and cut the call.

None of this was exactly news to Shen,

As the Q computer had identified the binary as a possible candidate three years ago.

They now had confirmation,

Although it was still a mystery why the GRBs had appeared to come from the heart of the Sun.

In the intervening years,

Cheng had been busy coordinating the Moon and Mars migration projects.

The CSS had now been upgraded to being a fully operational spaceport.

Cheng had appointed Major Zhang,

China's most experienced taikonaut,

To supervise matters from 400km above the Earth.

Zhang was in his late 50s,

But had the energy of a 30-year-old.

He had clocked more time in space than any human,

Spending more than half of his adult life off-planet.

As the spaceport was clearly visible in the night sky,

The story had been put out that it was a research station to help grow crops resistant to the increasing levels of UV reaching the surface of the planet.

The Earth's shift in tilt was slowing down a little,

But the reduced albedo,

Caused by less and less ice,

Was now speeding up the melt.

Sea levels had risen 7m,

Just as Cheng had predicted.

Mass migrations in land continued at a pace,

And the nanowalls were holding without any breaches.

The amount of electricity production was phenomenal,

Which was just as well,

As humans were becoming night owls.

The extra electricity was needed to power all that lighting.

The reason for the increased nocturnal living was that the inner core was beginning to flip back under the gyroscopic force of the Earth's rotation.

As a result,

Many spurious north-south pole pairs were appearing all over the planet,

And the magnetosphere was weakened at many places.

Crops were failing in many countries,

And large greenhouses with UV-protecting glass were being assembled by nanobots,

Another of Mike Spence's creations.

His team hadn't stopped.

There was,

Of course,

An inevitable rise in skin cancers,

Not just in humans,

But across many species.

This combined with the reduction in birth rate had brought the human population of the planet down to a more sustainable 5 billion or so.

Getting any accurate figures,

Though,

Was difficult,

As so many people had literally gone off-grid.

While all of this was going on,

Cheng was getting bored yet again,

And looking for a new challenge.

His project to select candidates for off-world migration had yielded surprising and pleasing results.

He had been concerned initially that his project could be thought of as a eugenics program,

Where the less able or gifted would be weeded out.

It turned out that the most powerful Wu,

Who also left the best legacy on the planet,

Were indeed the offspring of a Wu and non-Wu.

This meant the program was to be more egalitarian than elitist.

When he'd presented his results to Wu Zetian,

Jie,

And Madame Bien a few months back,

They concurred.

As Wu,

They knew this all along,

But it was essential that,

For a project of this magnitude,

Their intuition was backed with real data before any big decisions were made.

So the next wave of students for Fragrant Hill School were drafted in from many corners of China,

And some from overseas.

Children of Wu,

With no obvious Wu talents,

Were interacting with children who had the gift.

Jie and Freya were tasked with their initiation.

The children who possessed the gift tested the teachers at times.

Some,

Like Eva and Kristen,

Answered questions before they were asked,

And got identical marks to each other in exams.

Eva and Kristen had become good friends with another pair of near-identical twin boys,

Li and Jun.

They had been evacuated to Beijing,

From Nanjing province,

In the Lower Yangtze Delta.

The Lower Delta was now largely flooded,

Apart from the area around Purple Mountain Observatory.

Li and Jun's parents had died in a joint suicide,

When the boys were just a few months old.

They had been raised by their grandparents,

Who were relieved to let someone else care for them,

As they were advancing in years.

Li and Jun were just a few months older than Eva and Kristen.

Like the girls,

The only way to tell them apart was that Li was a little taller than Jun.

Like Eva,

Li also had a mole on the left side of his chin.

These coincidences were not missed by Jie,

Freya and Madame Bien.

What was stranger still,

Was that after a few months since they met,

Li and Jun's exam marks started to sync with those of Eva and Kristen's.

Perhaps this was inevitable,

As the two sets of twins had become such good friends.

Madame Bien explained in a staff meeting,

That this was just a by-product of the bond growing between them,

And not necessarily that they were cheating.

Chapter 44,

Termination Point.

Even though humankind were prone to self-doubt and denigration of their own talents,

And questioning of their place in the overall scheme of things,

The counsellors were quite pleased and proud of them.

Collectively,

Humanity was being innovative at handling the ever-rising sea levels.

This was especially so,

As the nanowalls were not just being protective,

But also energy generating.

With new villages being printed from local materials on higher ground,

More people were caring for more people,

And being more mindful about their use of planetary resources.

If you compared the Epoch 5 civilisation on planet Earth,

With the billions of other equivalent self-aware sentient beings in other galaxies,

Humans would be surprised to hear they were in the top 10.

For sure they had not fully embraced or explored their innate ability to bilocate and levitate,

When increasingly,

Their ability to self-heal was becoming adopted by many doctors and nurses.

They were the only race to have actually fully explored their local solar system with remote probes.

Other races merely used their clairsentient ability to go boldly where nobody had been before.

This clairsentience could never penetrate the comet cloud protecting each solar system.

Only electromagnetic and gravity waves were allowed in and out.

The solar waves that tied the fabric of the universe together had to pass through the gateway at the centre of the central star.

In the 20th century,

The two space probes,

Voyager 1 and 2,

Had been allowed out by the counsellors merely as an experiment.

Their systems were still transmitting weak signals for over 100 years since they were first launched.

The scientists who built them were long dead,

And hadn't envisaged the plutonium core depletion would slow down as the influence of the sun's gravitational field decreased.

The counsellors were very cautious never to let anything slip.

So when Voyager 2's power system finally ran out of juice in 2089,

A tiny black hole was created in its path and it re-entered the void.

A couple of years later,

The same fate befell Voyager 1,

Which had used up less fuel navigating around the inner solar system.

Sadly,

Carl Sagan's innovative message of We Are Here would never reach any other sentient beings.

Intra- and intergalactic communication was not safe at this time.

Chapter 45,

Safety First.

2090,

19 years left.

The Q computer was increasingly feeding Shen with analyses before he thought to ask for them.

There was something niggling Shen though,

About the missing piece of the jigsaw that linked all his big data projects.

What could the fall in strategic numbers have to do with the comet's passing,

The five-year cycle of the GRBs,

And selecting pupils for the school?

He set the Q computer this challenge,

And got nothing but nonsensical suggestions,

In the pseudo-AI language that such systems seem to spew out,

Like,

I-I-I-I-I would ask a dolphin.

When an AI algorithm repeated the personal pronoun,

It was its way of emphasising a point.

All this inward-gazing of Shen's was about to turn on its head anyway.

Cheng sensed he was somewhat bored,

And had summoned him to his office,

To brief him on the next phase of his assignment.

On Shen's way back home,

On the cable car,

He was panicking about telling Freya the news.

He needn't have worried.

It's not that far.

You'll only be 400km from home,

She said assuringly.

Purple Mountain is over a thousand kilometres away,

And as for Sydney.

.

.

Put 400km above your head,

Travelling at 30,

000km an hour,

Exclaimed Shen.

And I'm going to be away for two months at least,

By the sound of things.

Freya knew that this trip was necessary,

And as a woo,

That Shen would come back safely.

He was comforted that she was OK about it.

I will let you go only on one condition,

Said Freya.

Next time you go,

You will take me with you.

I promise,

My love.

Whilst Shen was away,

Freya had made some plans.

At Madame Bien's suggestion,

She was to train as a doula,

Just in case there were any unwanted pregnancies with the new female intake.

Jia's friend Akiko came to stay with them.

She was delighted,

As she hadn't seen the twins since they were one week old.

Shen had told Shen he was to join him at the Xizhuan Satellite Launch Centre for training,

Before Shen went up to the spaceport.

Up until the thirties,

The Chinese used the Zhenzhou spacecraft,

On top of its Long March rockets to get into Earth and Moon orbit,

To dock and to re-enter the atmosphere.

Just as for the Russian Soyuz,

Re-entry and hard landings scared the pants off even seasoned Taikonauts like Major Jiang.

The spaceport programme called for thousands of people to get into space,

And an easier way of getting in and out of orbit was needed.

Since the USA went bust due to over-excesses and greed in the twenties,

China cherry-picked technology and companies,

Along with their people.

It was inevitable that many of NASA's rocket scientists would end up working at Xizhuan.

The Dream Chaser was built as the successor to the Space Shuttle,

Initially to ferry seven astronauts up to the ISS.

To get into orbit,

A mother craft took the Dream Chaser to the upper atmosphere,

And then its rocket engines fired on release to accelerate it to escape velocity.

Re-entry was still frightening and risky,

But the landing was smooth,

With the craft gliding into land on a conventional runway.

Over the last six decades,

The Chinese had modified it so it could carry thirty people safely into orbit.

It also took off from the same place it landed.

Not one fatality had occurred since it had been operational.

At last,

Low-Earth-orbit spaceflight had become accessible and relatively safe.

Conventional Tychonaut training used to take many years.

Nowadays,

Before travelling to and from the spaceport,

It had been condensed into an intensive three-week program.

Safety was the central theme.

When Chen arrived at the launch centre,

After a long journey mainly by road,

He was amazed at the size of it.

He sensed it was remote for this reason,

And learned that communications out were severely restricted.

He was allowed to call Freya just once every few days for five minutes only.

He was not getting any special treatment,

And was put in a dormitory,

Sleeping with eleven other men of different nationalities and skill sets.

The person he bonded with immediately was called Chang,

Who turned out to be a good person to know.

Chang had trained as an experimental chef at the Four Seasons Hotel in Shanghai,

And was a specialist at nutrition.

He was planning to do a year-long stint in orbit.

All those mouths needed feeding,

After all.

Together with thirty others,

Chen and Chang were shown what to do if things went wrong.

The first week was quite gruelling,

And covered escape from the Dream Chaser if it ditched in water.

They also had to perform several parachute jumps.

The former Chen found much more challenging than the latter.

The jumps involved Chen leaving the planet's surface for the first time,

And he found the whole experience thrilling.

Two jumps were done,

Strapped to an instructor,

From a height of 3,

000km.

This was thrilling enough.

The final jump involved a trip to 60,

000km in a real Dream Chaser,

From which height they could see the curvature of the planet.

With breathing apparatus activated and in full suits,

Chen was crammed into an escape pod with two other trainees and an instructor,

And they were released out of a perfectly functioning vehicle.

The ride down was bumpy with turbulence,

And the trainees all thought they were going to die.

The instructor landed them safely with a soft bump,

Only 30km from the launch centre.

The second week of the training was carried out in a mock-up of the spaceport itself.

Much of the time again,

Safety was the prime concern.

They learned what to do in case of depressurisation,

And how to evacuate in an emergency.

By this time,

The 30 trainees had been whittled down to 20.

Some were simply not ready.

Some of the trainees were disappointed to learn they would not experience weightlessness while in the port.

Everyone would be wearing special boots that glued them to the floor,

And mitts that allowed them to stabilise themselves.

Chen was the only one that knew they had a nanofan layer working in reverse.

Chen smiled constantly when using the boot to clump around at 1G,

Thinking of how his friend Thom Waters had seeded their design.

For the last week of training,

The remaining candidates were split up to focus on their specific task while on the station.

They were told not to share what they'd learned with any of the others when they met at breakfast or dinner.

Chen spent the week with two other chefs,

And had been challenged with creating Michelin style food delivered by tube.

Chen was given one-to-one tuition on a part of the spaceport to which few had access.

He was to learn how taikonauts were being sent to the moon and back,

To a much smaller version of the spaceport in orbit around the moon.

They called it the Moonport.

He realised Professor Chen had been busy,

As he had been secretive.

In a simulated environment,

Chen was shown how,

On one of the extremities of the spaceport,

Was a tube around 100 metres in length,

Around the same diameter as a tubeway,

And flared at the end.

He learned that it used pretty much the same propulsion mechanism.

It was a magnetic gun,

From which a module carrying up to eight crew could be fired at the Moonport.

There was no 400,

000 kilometre tube connecting the two ports.

What Chen had to learn to do that week was how to fire the module into what was deep space,

Such that one day later,

The module would slide gracefully into an equivalent 100 metre long tube on the Moonport.

To do this,

It had to be fired at where the moon and Moonport would be,

Not where it was.

Chen realised how brave those Apollo astronauts were,

With their 8-bit computers,

With magnetic core storage that had been knitted by hand.

If they had missed the moon,

There was no coming back.

After the inevitable first few abortive attempts,

Chen turned out to be a damp hand at it.

The simulator also gave him the opportunity to return a module from the moon to Earth too.

The view of the Earth in the simulator was spectacular,

A blue and green jewel hanging in the blackness of space.

Chen noticed the simulator had been updated to reflect the reduction in land mass due to the rising sea levels and the tilt of the Earth.

During one week of training,

There was not enough time to show Chen how the pilot of the module could make in-flight adjustments,

So the module did not even touch the sides at the other end.

Chen did learn,

However,

That the sides of the modules were coated in a nano-layer,

Using the nano-fan design of Tholm Waters.

The counsellors were pleased that he was seeing how the threads were being woven together.

Chapter 46 – Aurora,

Equatoria 2019 – still 19 years left The following week,

The actual trip up to the spaceport was exhilarating and spectacular.

The 20 trainees joined 10 seasoned hands on a journey out of the atmosphere that took less than 60 minutes.

Docking with the port took less than 9 hours,

In which time they orbited the Earth four times.

Each of the trainees tried to recognise the part of the Earth they came from.

For the first time,

Chen could see how the coastal inundation was having such a devastating effect.

The large deltas of the planet's main rivers were now part of the ocean.

The alteration in tilt was plain to see too.

He was alone amongst the trainees in this knowledge.

The pilots,

Of course,

Knew about it all too well.

As they went into the night side of the Earth,

Chen noticed the aurora were appearing all over the globe,

Even appearing at the equator.

They were like sprites in all hues,

Dancing across the top of the thin atmosphere.

The evidence of the destabilised magnetic field was plain to see.

As they approached the spaceport for docking,

He was amazed at its size.

It was more like a small town now.

Chen had learned over 1,

000 women and men were now working and living there.

It looked a little different from models that Chen had showed him,

As it was encased in a mesh which made it look like a solid three-dimensional block.

As they approached it,

Chen heard the co-pilot say,

Shield open.

A part of the protective mesh opened up and the pilot said to the co-pilot,

I thought that was going to be more painful.

Docking in two.

They docked with the smallest of shutters and after 30 minutes of pressure equalisation,

They were moved into a large airlock.

A bunch of green lights came on and they were told to take off their helmets and pressure suits.

The doors to the inside of the port opened.

They were warmly greeted by an avuncular giant of a man.

Major Zhang himself was there to greet them and boomed,

Welcome on board,

Which one of you is Chen?

Chen made himself known and a few of the trainees seemed a little peeved that he was being singled out.

Chen gave Chang a wink saying,

See you at dinner.

Chen had trouble keeping up with Zhang as walking on the station was one thing that it was hard to simulate in 1G.

It took Chen a day or 18 Earth orbits to get the hang of it.

He soon discovered that the special boots were more intelligent than those he tried on Earth.

When the heel was raised,

The suction on that part of the boot was released.

Zhang showed Chen into his office and offered him an iced tea,

Which he floated over to Chen.

Any objects not attached were still weightless and all food and drink basically came out of sealed bags and were consumed through tubes.

Remind me to send you for toilet training when we're done,

Said Zhang.

Chen immediately warmed to him.

So I hear you know more than most of the trainees about the real role of the spaceport,

Said Zhang.

Yes,

I know the research into growing UV-resistant plants is true,

But this is to be the launching off point for colonies on the Moon and Mars,

Said Chen.

Did Chang tell you that you were shadowing me for your time on board?

That's news to me,

But my honour,

Sir,

Said Chen.

Enough of the sir,

We are honoured to have you here.

None of this would be at such an advanced stage if it wasn't for you.

You saw the mesh around the port when you arrived?

Is that to protect against GRBs,

Asked Chen?

Yes,

And the detritus from your comet every year,

Replied Zhang.

Chang said you were a quick learner.

We'll start in eight hours' time.

Let's get you fed,

Watered,

Relieved and rested.

Zhang showed Chen to his sleeping quarters,

Which were even more cramped than the dormitories at Sichuan.

Chen also learned he was sharing a sleeping pod with two others in rotation.

Even on such a large orbiting spaceport,

It turned out that space was still a premium.

He joined up with most of the other trainees for what should have been a supper,

Only to find that with a sunrise and sunset every 90 minutes,

All meals merged into one.

You could pick breakfast,

Lunch or a light supper off the menu.

Chen went for the latter in order to start some semblance of his new days.

Before he went to sleep,

He'd been granted a five-minute voice call with Freya.

This was a privilege only bestowed on a few,

As the spaceport was under strict lockdown.

Most of the thousand or so crew didn't know it,

But they probably wouldn't be seeing their families again.

Chen told Freya in some detail about his excitement at what he'd experienced,

But how much the small gap between them felt so huge.

It's not like I can parachute down to you,

He explained.

Freya had enjoyed hearing about Chen's Earth-based aerial adventures over Sichuan.

She was very proud of her man.

I'm only here for a week,

But in that time,

And before I see you again,

I'll travel over half a million kilometres.

That's how far away you are to me,

Not 400 klicks.

I know,

Said Freya as they signed off.

You might not have gone had I told you I knew that.

See you in half a mil.

Sleep and dreams were fitful for Chen.

No sooner than he got into that deep dream state,

Flying around one of Huey's alien world orreries,

Than Zhang came over his intercom,

Asking him to meet in the canteen.

As he left his sleeping pod,

A rather portly man was already waiting for his shut-eye.

So I hear you did well in the moon tube simulator,

Said Zhang.

Today you're going to do it for real.

Even though they ate small rations,

Chen felt full,

And followed Zhang down the full one kilometre length of the port to the moon tube.

As they arrived,

Their end of the spaceport shuddered as a pod arrived.

Don't panic,

Said a rather demure lady called Mia,

Who Chen learned was to be his instructor.

They're just back.

Chen wondered why the simulator hadn't modelled a module arriving in this way,

And made a mental note to mention it when he got back.

So Mia,

Here's Chen,

Your new trainee.

Show him why you are the best,

And why I will only let you send and receive any module I am in,

Said Zhang as he strode back off to the other end of the port,

Deep in conversation with one of the returning Taikonauts.

Mia was surprised to learn she was to train someone who only had one week's worth of simulator training,

But complied.

Nobody disobeyed Zhang.

She got Chen to watch her cycle this module around,

To push it moonwards in 90 minutes time with another six crew on board.

The port hardly moved at all as it whooshed off into the blackness of space,

Leaving Earth's orbit.

Chen discovered that there were four modules in constant rotation.

Two took crew and two took cargo only.

The next Earth day and working shift on board,

Mia entrusted Chen to accept an incoming cargo pod and to send it back again.

She didn't have to wait a day to know it would arrive at the moon port with millimetre precision.

At the end of that second shift,

Zhang dropped in to see how Chen had got on.

He'd only need another week under supervision and then he'd be good to go solo,

Said Mia.

Well done Chen,

Said Zhang.

Get some rest and meet me here in ten hours.

You're good to go to the moon port with me.

Chen couldn't wait to share this unexpected turn of events with Freya.

He also suspected that Chen had planned this all along.

After 47,

Moon tube,

2090,

Still 19 years left.

Chen had to check what day it was that he was to take his first trip to the moon.

With a sunrise every 90 minutes,

You soon lose track of Earth time.

He was a little troubled he'd not been able to tell Freya where he was going.

His 400km separation distance from her was about to have three noughts added to it.

Little did he know that she knew.

He met Zhang and Mia at the moon tube,

Where he was helped into a bulky suit.

It was to protect him from cosmic bombardment once he left the protection of the spaceport and an already weakened magnetosphere.

Once past the Van Allen belts,

The radiation would rise till further,

So the module Chen was about to get into was hardened and shielded to resist penetration by all but the most energetic cosmic raids.

Although the module could accommodate eight crew,

Just Chen and Zhang were taking the trip alone today,

With a large gold square box.

Zhang calmly spoke to Mia,

Helmets on,

Strapped in,

Pressure good,

Push off.

It was just like being in the first class module on a tubeway,

But with a different sense of acceleration.

Chen knew from his simulator training that they were being accelerated to over 30,

000km an hour to escape from the Earth's gravitational field.

They were pushed back into their seats for five minutes before reaching escape velocity.

Chen could tell Zhang had a sense of humour as he was playing David Bowie's Starman.

Zhang reached over to Chen and stuck a patch on his arm.

Whoops,

Nearly forgot these.

What is it?

Asked Chen.

A death clock.

Before Chen could ask any more,

Zhang told him to turn round.

The two ends of the module had circular windows around the entry and exit hatches.

Chen was treated to seeing the complete disk of the Earth from space for the first time.

The huge spaceport was now a dot just passing to the dark side.

Hanging in the blackness of space in front of him was a blue-green jewel half bathed in sunlight.

It was hard to imagine that five billion souls,

Including Freya,

His parents and his children,

Lived on its surface.

Zhang said,

I'm getting some sleep.

We'll get an alarm when we come under the Moon's gravitational pull.

Chen knew from his simulator training that the module would start to accelerate when it fell into the Moon's gravitational well,

So thrusters would be engaged to slow it down.

Chen stayed awake for most of the day it took them to make the trip.

This was a view he wanted to savour.

Halfway through the trip,

He started looking towards the Moon.

Even though he'd done this many times in training,

The Moon was still uncomfortably off to their right.

If Mia was having an off day and they missed,

There was nothing to stop them going into deep space.

As they crossed the void,

Chen was surprised to see bright dots around the module from time to time.

Space,

It seemed,

Wasn't so empty.

He knew the modules were grounded from March through to May,

To avoid remnants from the comet's tail,

But the amount of bright flashes concerned him.

Chen was woken by the alarm and quickly shot into action.

The thrusters came on so gently that Chen hardly noticed them.

The Moon now presented a much larger sphere to them than the receding Earth,

Now they were just over 90 minutes from docking.

Chen was entranced by the long shadows gracing the craters at the Terminator,

The line between light and dark.

It was even more desolate than the lava flows in Iceland,

But so beautiful.

Chen spotted something crossing the face of the half-moon,

Which was at first quarter.

Is that the Moonport?

Yes,

We're just perfect for when it comes round again,

Confirmed Zhang.

The whole procedure for docking could be done automatically,

But Zhang was old school and liked to keep his hand in.

As the Moonport came round again,

Chen could see it too was completely enclosed in a protective mesh.

How many on board at the moment,

He asked.

Only 25,

Including an old friend of yours,

Let me concentrate.

Things started moving fast as they approached,

And Zhang got them right down the centre of the tube without touching the sides.

A female voice came over,

You've still got it after all these years,

That's the best one you've done.

We've got a special cargo on board.

Chen wasn't sure if he was referring to him or the gold box.

It took 20 minutes for pressures to equalise before they went through the hatch.

Chen wondered how Mia had managed to make the trip ahead of them when he was introduced to Mei,

Who he quickly learned was Mia's twin.

At first he didn't notice the mole on a lower left jaw.

Welcome to the Moonport,

Mei said to Chen,

As his old friend appeared behind her.

Yes,

Welcome Chen,

Said Mike Spence.

Let me show you around.

Chen could see Zhang was busy instructing two technicians what to do with the gold box.

So good to see you,

Said Chen.

What are you doing here?

Let me show you,

Said Mike,

As they walked down to a viewing area.

The Moonport was a fraction of the size of the spaceport and much less busy.

The Shackleton crater will be visible in a few minutes.

You've arrived at the perfect time.

Chen could see from a display that they were 50km above the surface of the Moon.

As the crater came into view,

He could clearly see the four domes he'd seen in the model in Cheng's anteroom.

Don't tell me,

Your handiwork?

Asked Chen.

Indeed,

And you can just see some of Huey's machinery at work.

This is so much more advanced than I thought.

Are there any people down there?

Not yet.

Another year before we're producing oxygen from the water ice.

Have a sip of this though,

Said Mike,

Handing him a tube.

This isn't Moon water,

By any chance,

Asked Chen,

Sipping the slightly metallic tasting liquid.

Welcome to your first taste of the Moon.

You get used to it.

And now welcome to the dark side.

The Moon port was now around the side of the Moon not seen from Earth,

And bizarrely as illuminated by the Sun as the side normally on view.

What nobody knew,

And would ever know,

Was that Epoch 7 bases were buried deep under the so-called dark side of the Moon.

Chen was surprised how barren it was,

And much less cratered than the side seen from Earth.

Chen ended up spending about the same amount of time orbiting the Moon as did Michael Collins,

The Apollo 11 command module pilot.

Unlike Collins when they were on the dark side,

Although the Earth could not be seen,

There was still much chatter over the intercom with the spaceport.

The orbiting lunar communication satellites were obviously in place and operational.

Mike Spence was told by Zhang to brief Chen on how the project had come together,

And what the plans were going forward.

Chen learned that the Moon base would be crewed within a year,

And their main task would be to learn what it was like to live permanently and self-sufficiently off-planet.

The crew would comprise of some of the longest serving hands from the spaceport,

And those who had expressed a preference never to return to Earth.

Mike admitted to tell Chen that he had volunteered to be one of them,

As he knew more about the systems than anyone else.

After just over an Earth day,

And after a fitful sleep,

Chen was hooked up with Zhang again for their return trip over the Moon tube.

On board,

Zhang surprised Chen,

And Mei,

By telling him to pilot them back.

Like a seasoned hand,

Chen exited the tube at the perfect time and on trajectory.

As they left,

Pointing at where the Earth would be in a day's time,

Mei said,

Give Mia my love.

On the return trip,

Zhang unexpectedly tasked Chen with a conundrum.

You know how the comms between the space and Moon port has that two-second delay,

Asked and how the delay decreases the nearer we get back to Earth.

Due to the speed of light,

Replied Chen,

Of course.

Did you notice how when Mei and Mia talked to each other that it disappeared?

Chen hadn't.

Well,

You could ask them,

He suggested.

I tried that,

And they don't know either,

Replied Zhang,

And they hadn't even noticed it until I mentioned it.

For once,

Chen was devoid of any theory or possible line of inquiry,

But he made a note to Astya and Freya.

Chapter 48 The Void 2090,

Still 19 years left.

Chen actually got some quality sleep on the way back to the spaceport.

His dreams were weird,

Though,

Perhaps seeded by that imponderable question.

The void of interplanetary and interstellar space is not really designed for souls in the density.

It is actually more the everywhere that the counsellors hang out and about in.

So Chen's dreams became infused by the conversations between the counsellors.

They used this quality time to brief Chen's unconscious mind with information he would need for the forthcoming transition phase.

He dreamt of walking on the Moon,

But it was a Moon that had lakes and seas on it,

Not just water-ice deposits.

He was swimming with dolphins who could leap kilometres into the air,

And it was breathable air too.

He had no helmet on.

The counsellors also took him inside the centre of the Sun,

Where he dreamt he was showering in golden sunlight.

It felt like he was home.

His reveries were disrupted by the alarm.

OK,

Chen,

Time to take control,

We're under Earth gravity.

Chen knew exactly what to do,

And asked,

Manual or automatic docking?

He was thrilled that Zhang said,

Manual,

Of course.

Mia and Mei were less enthusiastic,

But needn't have been,

As Chen did a sterling job with hardly a shudder imparted to the spaceport.

The return trip,

Under greater gravitational pull,

Always made recapture that bit trickier.

As they left the module,

Zhang ripped the death patch off Chen's arm,

Inspected it,

And said,

Hardly a blip,

It was quiet out there.

Chen didn't get to see or ask what he was on about,

As there were eight crew lining up for the next trip.

He remembered,

Though,

To pass Mei's love on to Mia,

With a wink,

And a check there was no mole on her chin.

Zhang left Chen to find his way back to the centre of the port.

He gave him instructions of where to locate his pilot and co-pilot for the return trip to Earth.

Chen discovered he'd only get two hours before he was going back,

So he found Chef Chang and some of his other fellow trainees.

He was a little surprised to learn he was the only one of them returning.

He was even more surprised that he was only one of five passengers on the Dream Chaser.

The return trip was not as pleasant as his ascent into orbit.

Leaving the port was fine,

But after one last Earth orbit,

The craft went through re-entry.

This was the first time Chen was truly scared for his life.

Thankfully,

The superheated plasma only surrounded the craft for about 15 minutes,

Before the pilot skilfully and softly brought them back to the landing strip they'd left from just over a week ago.

Chen had to spend a few days at Zhijuan,

Getting his Earth legs back again,

And building his muscle mass back up,

Before he could return to Beijing.

He was welcomed back by a rapturous family and a very happy Freya,

Who wanted to learn all about his trip.

Chen had told him before he left that he could share his experiences with them,

But nobody else.

As he lay in Freya's arms that night,

Back in the safety and comfort of their well-used yin-yang bed,

Freya whispered to him,

"'So would you go again?

' Chen replied softly,

"'Not unless I design a better way of getting back.

' He fell asleep instantly and didn't hear Freya's reply.

"'Good,

Then you really can take me with you.

' This was just what the counsellors and Chen hoped would be the main outcome from the trip.

Chapter 49,

Guiding Lights One of the requirements to evolve to become entrusted as a counsellor in the void,

Is the wisdom of knowing when to intervene in the density,

Or when to leave events to unfold in their own linear time.

Linear time,

Of course,

Has no meaning or relevance to a counsellor,

As they sit everywhere and every when.

This disassociation from time means that there are some occasions when matters have to catch up so that timelines can converge.

Those who volunteered to become entrapped in the density have their karmic missions to fulfil after all.

So as they turned 11,

The two pairs of twins,

Eva and Kristin,

And Li and Jun,

Had some learnings to take on board.

This inevitably leads to specialisation,

To allow them to carry out their missions for best results.

Eva was absorbing everything she could about biology and biochemistry.

She spent as much time looking down a microscope as she did out collecting samples of flora and insects from the forest in fragrant hills.

It was a safe place for a child to wander,

Now guards encircle the perimeters to ward off any migrants or evacuees who might take a fancy to camping out there.

Kristin had developed an uncanny ability to pick up any new language in a week.

Both she and Eva tended to converse in Icelandic,

Much to the annoyance of their fellow pupils,

Teachers and even Chen.

By the time she was 11,

Kristin was fluent in over 200 Chinese dialects,

Most European languages,

And was even tackling Sanskrit.

Li and Jun both leant towards the physical sciences.

Cheng and Chen were silently responsible for steering them this way.

Xiyue had adopted them as if they were his own grandchildren.

Li was fascinated by the planets and the stars.

He was oblivious to the fact that Chen had already made a tentative step in that direction.

Jun was fascinated by what made the world go around,

Literally.

Under Xiyue's tutelage,

He'd made an inner orrery,

A 3D model of the inner workings of the earth.

Chen helped him model the now contra-rotating inner core,

And designed gearings to mimic it righting itself over the next century.

The model could be wound backwards and forwards by millions of years to show how the continents moved on tectonic plates,

And how mountain ranges were formed.

It was a little crude,

But a very effective teaching tool.

Xiyue's natural teaching style made him popular with children of all ages at the school,

From 5-year-olds through to the 16-year-olds.

At 16,

All pupils were enrolled for university degrees.

Adam Bien had promoted Xiyue to become head of sciences,

And had given him free rein and budget to recruit the best teachers he could find from any province.

Jia had successfully initiated Freya so that now she had the touch.

One of Freya's first clients,

Who swore her to secrecy,

Was Cheng.

He'd developed several cancerous growths on his increasingly balding head,

Which Freya dealt with admirably.

Together,

Jia and Freya were initiating all children who wanted to gain the touch,

Both Wu and pleasingly non-Wu.

Freya had also initiated Cheng,

And together they had reverse-engineered the process so that anybody could now heal anybody of virtually anything.

So all in all,

Guiding lights in both the void and density were pleased with progress.

The guides in the density were still oblivious as to how fast events were about to unfold over the next two decades,

Spanning the turn of another century.

Chapter 50,

Terraform Autumn 2090,

Now less than 19 years left.

Shen's brief trip into near-space was a catalyst for many changes.

Xiang had reported back to Cheng on how well he'd piloted the module across the moon tube.

Cheng knew that Shen was destined to take on the whole project,

And not just its data analysis.

He'd truly come of age.

On a bright summer's morning,

A few weeks after his return to Earth,

Shen found himself back in Cheng's anteroom.

The model at the centre of the room was that of Val Marineris on Mars.

So you want me to take charge of the terraformation of the canyon?

In a nutshell,

Yes.

You and I will of course be long gone by the time it's finished,

Said Cheng,

But the best time to start the design is yesterday,

And the second best time is today.

Exactly how wide is the brief,

And is there a budget,

Asked Shen?

You already have access to all the data,

Design,

And theoretical studies ever done so far.

You have unlimited budget,

And you can hire any staff you like.

The first transportation crafts are being designed as we speak,

And Mike Spence has already designed the nanosystem for construction of the protected roof.

So all I have to do is to make it habitable and breathable,

Shen said.

How long do I have?

How long indeed,

Shen,

Said Cheng.

Your guess is as good as anyone's,

But now we want the canyon airtight by the end of the century.

And the first taikonauts when?

Hopefully now by the middle of next century.

But the studies show the canyon atmosphere will take until the end of next century to be breathable.

It will take that long for the biosphere to be self-sustaining too,

Said Cheng.

And am I still reporting to you,

Asked Shen?

Of course,

But you should know I am leaving Beijing by the end of the year,

And running operations from the moon base itself as soon as it's ready,

Said Cheng.

Shen was taken aback by this,

But Cheng surprised him even more by telling him he was to take over his office and anti-room.

Cheng admitted to tell Shen,

At this time,

That President Miang and his wife,

Wu Zetian and half the cabinet,

Would be relocating too.

These were turbulent times,

And backup plans were in operation.

I'll be packed up by the start of the autumn semester.

As you know,

I've got a bit of safety training to undergo at Zhijuan before I can leave.

You can move in then,

And these models are yours to play with.

But started Shen,

Don't worry,

We will be in constant contact,

And we'll be seeing each other again soon,

Said Cheng,

Shaking Shen's hand in goodbye.

Over the coming months,

Shen threw himself at his new role.

At last he was creating something as opposed to merely looking at data.

He had less than 10 years to get the canyon sealed,

In which time two more GRBs were forecast to arrive.

He knew that this should allow them to predict more accurately how stable the binary was.

The first task was to be brought up to speed by Mike Spence on how exactly the canyon was to be sealed.

He quickly found out actual conversation with Mike on the Moonport was tricky because of the 2 second time delay.

Mike though was a master at virtual modelling,

And shared a detailed animation with Shen.

Shen was still puzzling over how Mei and Mia had got around the delay.

Shen was pleased at how well Mike had thought it through,

And admired the ingenuity of his plan.

Sadly,

Due to the secret nature of the project,

Mike would never be truly recognised for the brilliance of his work.

The biggest surprise Mike gave to Shen was when he showed him the schematics for the transport craft used to kick off the project.

One was tiny,

Not much bigger than the Moontube module,

And the other about twice the size.

They were both landers,

As the orbiting comm satellites were already in place.

Mike's plan was ingenious as it was audacious,

Especially bearing in mind the immense size of the Valles Marineris.

The terraformation was planned to start at the end of 2092,

When an innocuous 1kg payload would be released by the smaller lander,

Right in the geographic centre of the 4000km long valley.

The tiny payload contained a veritable army of nanobots.

When the payload opened,

The nanobots split into two groups and each began the 100km journey to the opposite sides of the canyon.

It would then just take a few more minutes for them to scuttle up some 7km to the top of the canyon walls.

Several hundred kilometres away,

The slightly larger payload would arrive a few weeks later with the second lander,

Right in the centre of the Krais Planitia,

The Golden Plain.

It was to remain dormant and sleeping there until the first army of nanobots completed their part of the mission only two and a half Martian years later,

As soon as the nanobots were in position at the top of the canyon,

They would be put to work.

First,

They would make copies of themselves by eating the ground underneath them.

It would then only take a matter of days before they reached both ends of the canyon.

Then like two 4000km lines of termites,

They would begin to construct a canopy that covered the whole canyon.

Their raw material again was the regurgitated soil,

Which the bots converted into a silica-like sheath.

The layer was to be only a few hundred thousand atoms thick,

But the crystalline lattice was as strong as steel and as light as a feather.

It was based on Shen's favourite geometric design,

Buckminsterfullerene.

Like the nanowalls,

It was also very clever.

It would generate electricity from a photoconductive graphenium layer just below its surface.

The bottom layer was to be electrically conducted too,

So that it could be heated using some of this generated electricity.

Also the path that the electric current took altered the translucency so the ground below could receive more or less sunlight.

This canyon would have clouds,

Albeit of a temporary nature,

Until the atmosphere would be generated and stabilised,

After the terra-formation proper was initiated.

So it would take five earth years before the whole of the canyon was completely sealed from the ravages of the severe Martian dust storms.

By that time,

If somebody were to be able to stand at the bottom of the canyon,

The silence would be deafening.

As soon as the canyon canopy was to be in place,

The payload in the centre of Chrysplanitia was to be deployed.

It too was bristling with an army of nanobots and two other bigger devices.

The first device was a two-metre-long digger truck,

Whose initial job was to collect and transport Martian topsoil,

And to drill down and extract some more esoteric materials.

The second device was a one-metre-cubed 3D printer.

Within a single earth week,

It would produce 50 other identical 3D printers,

All from Martian soil,

Brought to it from the digger truck.

Each new 3D printer was then to be moved into a new position by the truck,

And set about printing its own companion digger truck.

Shem was so pleased and proud,

Huey's idea was going to be deployed so extensively on Mars.

The Golden Plain would quickly transform into a construction site.

It would then take a further ten years to build a whole new circular city,

Some five kilometres in diameter,

With complete infrastructure.

The nanobots would also fabricate a second dome,

For safety,

To cover the central living quarters.

When that phase was completed,

The trucks would move their printers outside the dome and get to work on a whole set of support domes of various sizes and function.

The whole complex was due for completion in time for the first Martians to arrive in the middle of the next century.

While the complex was under construction,

Another army of nanobots would create two long pipelines down to the South Pole.

This would allow them to tap into this huge reserve of frozen water and carbon dioxide.

Shem called Mike again,

After he'd watched the animations three times,

To praise him for his brilliant design.

Something was puzzling Shem though.

Isn't it risky to be trying this whole system out on Mars for the first time?

What with the distance away and comms delay?

That's why we already have a fjord in Iceland completely covered already,

Replied Mike.

It's 120km wide and 50km long,

And was a great testbed for the system.

It went up in just a few months.

Won't people ask questions?

The fjord is on the remote west coast,

So away from most people,

And we put the story out that it's a test site for a UV protection screen to cover a large area,

Like a town or city,

Said Mike.

It's still a big jump from Iceland to Mars.

Mike replied,

Do you remember what I showed you from the Moonport?

The South Pole-Aitken Basin?

I do indeed,

On the far side.

Don't tell me you built these domes with nanobots,

Said Shem.

We did indeed,

And the cover will be in place too by the end of the year,

Replied Mike.

Obviously it's a great location too,

As it's not viewable from Earth,

And nice and remote enough for us to test all systems.

So you left me nothing to do,

Shem told him.

After the delay,

Mike came back and said,

Getting the non-biological seed building materials to Mars is relatively easy.

You've got to get humans there alive,

And then keep them alive when they get there.

I assume Cheng did tell you that they are never coming back.

Shem did wonder why Cheng hadn't told him all of this,

And why he continually put him in a position where he had to find out so much for himself.

It was at this point Shem realised the task of getting humans to Mars had been made easier and harder at the same time.

Not having to design a return system meant everything would be lighter.

Telling Freya there was now a real possibility she would never see her not-yet-born grandchildren again was something he would delay for some time.

Reviews

Thank you for the link. The story feels prescient.✨Beautifully written and narrated.📚🫶🏽🌸🌸

This is such a novel experience for me. I’ve never heard anything like it. I’m still in awe of the imagination and creativity required to make this. ✨☀️🌎🪐