Soulwaves: A Future History Part #9

This is the ninth part of my channeled future history of our planet Earth and humankind. The last pulse before the Big One is detected and plans have to be accelerated as the end of all life on Earth is possibly only 5 light years away. So the plans for migration to Mars have to be brought forward leading to two small steps for women and one large step for humankind.

Transcript

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

The last pulse before the big one is detected,

So plans have to be accelerated as the end of all life on Earth is possibly only five light years away.

So the plans for migration to Mars have to be brought forward,

Leading to two small steps for women and one large step for humankind.

Chapter 81 New Beginnings 2100 Nine Years Left The start of the new century saw several comings and goings on the moon.

Towards the end of January,

Gia requested to go back to Earth,

As she couldn't stand another two weeks not seeing her home planet.

She had though thoroughly enjoyed the previous two weeks,

Marvelling at the majesty of Mother Earth,

And would treasure that memory for the rest of her life,

All nine years of it.

Huey dutifully and reluctantly went back with her.

Shen made sure Mia took them all the way back to the monastery in a single jaunt in a tet.

On her return journey to the moon,

Mia arrived back with a very expectant and excited Lance Boyle.

He just arrived a day before the Heart of Gold turned up in moon orbit.

It arrived under unmanned control,

But fully airtight and radiation hardened,

As the drive was working perfectly,

But the real fit-out had yet to begin.

It was parked in a geostationary position 150km above the moon base on the far side.

It was vital it wasn't detected from Earth.

The other arrival Mia brought with her was a package she was told to pass directly to Shen.

In it was every molecule of Aquanine that Ning had managed to collect and distill.

He already had a small vial from the pool in Wuhan,

But needed as much as possible of the substance for his new entanglement navigation system.

The shielding that the mass of the moon gave from the Earth made detection more accurate.

By the middle of the year,

The Earth-Moon system had orbited to a sufficient distance around the Sun for him to triangulate where the planet Aquanine might be located.

It looked like that it was either right in the galactic centre,

Or on the other side of the galaxy.

There were several comings and goings on planet Earth too.

The sea level rise of 42m meant some cities had to eventually succumb.

Most of the eastern seaboard of the USA,

As well as most of the Netherlands and Denmark had been evacuated long ago.

As had populations on the once vast river basins like the Ganges and Amazon.

Some cities like Lisbon,

San Francisco and Rio de Janeiro had built vast elevated platforms so the city that was previously near the coast was now 100m up into the surrounding mountains.

The combination of even lower birth rates and increased suicides meant the population of the planet was predicted to drop below 2 billion before the end of the first decade of the new century.

This was a population level not seen since 1930.

Nothing was having trouble finding any more traces of Aquanine,

And this was mirrored in no significant further drop in the numbers of whales and dolphins.

Shen rightly assumed that this was because all the cetaceans who wanted to port had already gone.

It was Freya who shed light on why some had stayed behind.

She told Shen that some of the guardians of the noosphere would always be required while there was life on the planet.

On planet Earth,

Conspiracy theories abounded.

The internet was still intact and increasingly active after all.

There were reports of strange black tetrahedral shapes flying at night.

The possibility that there was a secret base on the far side of the moon was prevalent.

Neither of these theories were new.

Both had been postulated back in the 20th century,

So many gave them no credence.

The spaceport was also awash with rumour and gossip.

Most of the orbiting citizens knew about the moon base now,

But were sworn to secrecy.

The penalty for leaking was unthinkable,

And there had been some mysterious disappearances already of those who never made it back to Earth.

The tittle-tattle at 250km above the Earth was all about who might be selected for transfer to the moon base.

On the moon base itself,

Everyone knew about the terraformation of Mars,

But only tens of people knew that there was a ship hovering above the far side,

Currently being fitted out for a test flight.

At the same time,

Only a handful knew about the pulses,

And the possible connection with the disappearance of the cetacean population of the blue-green planet.

Only Shen,

Cheng and Miang knew of the possible existence of Aquanine and its theoretical location.

Only Freya knew that there would only be one more big pulse before something cataclysmic would arrive.

She had been considering whether to tell Shen or not,

But her intuition was it wasn't the right time,

As it might lead to some decisions being made,

That weren't necessary right now.

Chapter 82 The Great Attractor 2101,

8 years left.

Only one week?

Asks Cheng?

That changes everything.

Yes,

But if the Q-computer is right,

It will still take a month to get back,

Confirms Cheng.

And still after a wait of a couple of years.

The unmanned test flights of the Heart of Gold,

Slingshotting around the Earth and then back to the moon,

Had unearthed a strange phenomenon.

At first,

Cheng had thought the increases and decreases in speed exiting Earth's orbit had been due to minor gravitational influences from raised landmasses.

It took analyses from the Q-computer to work out the true source of the speed variations.

The greatest increase occurred when the craft entered Earth orbit over areas with the largest human populations,

And then exited over remote,

Unpopulated areas.

Shen consulted with Jia and Freya for confirmation.

They both tapped into Mother Earth and agreed with the Q-computer's findings.

Shen explained to Cheng,

So we seem to get a boost between 1 and 2%.

This means that a series of around 70 strategic slingshots could boost the exit speed of the craft when it went to Mars by a factor of 4 or so.

The Q-computer had also trawled back through records of other craft that were sent inward to slingshot around Venus and Mercury,

And then back via Earth.

Much smaller anomalies had been noticed,

But never attributed to consciousness on planet Earth.

We,

We,

We,

Think the nanofans like the place they came from and the people who made them.

The Q-computer had enigmatically said.

Shen had confirmed that flying east over the Chinese landmass,

And then exiting over the expanded Pacific,

Indeed seemed to give the maximum speed increase.

The main issue now was not the maximum speed of the drive,

But how much acceleration and deceleration the occupants could stand.

Mia and Mei,

Of course,

Became the first test pilots.

Unlike any other spacecraft,

The drive's cell-powered nanofans allowed for virtually unlimited testing,

With many permutations.

It took them three months and thousands of slingshots before Shen and Lance were able to confirm the one-week transit time to Mars was possible.

The nanofans on the seats mean Tychonauts can sustain 25G at least without even noticing,

Shen said.

Is radiation still a problem?

Asked Miang,

Who had developed a keen technical interest and understanding of the project.

Not really.

The hardening is pretty impervious,

Replied Lance.

I'd say boredom was the biggest issue.

Yes,

Boredom and a crushing sense of isolation,

Said Shen.

Even at over a million clicks,

Once Earth shrinks to a size of a dot,

It will appear as if you're not moving for a few days.

The test flights had involved the craft travelling out way past the orbit of the Moon.

So tell them what it's like to travel further away from Earth than any other human,

Said Lance.

Miang went first.

It's both scary and peaceful at the same time.

As you approach Aphelion a million miles out,

Everything is just still and the Earth is just a blue dot.

Freya had confirmed even better news,

And we can confirm Zero Comm's delay.

It will take me some time to train the first students and flight control crew,

But it's like riding a bike,

Once you know the trick,

It's easy.

Freya had sussed it out during the test flights,

As Mia and Mei went three times as far away from the Moon than ever before.

So when's the first trip,

Asked Miang,

Knowing he was referring to the unmanned round-trip journey.

The next Hoffman window for conventional rocketry is August next year,

But we can leave seven months later,

So March 2102,

Said Shen.

And the first rocks will be back when,

Asked Cheng?

The next Mars return window is December 2103,

But we're going to simulate an emergency evac,

Said Shen.

If we leave five months earlier and use a Venus slingshot,

The samples will be back with us after two months,

So by October the same year.

While all this frenetic off-Moon activity was going on,

The two sets of twins had been kept busy on more pedestrian but equally important tasks.

Eva and Kristen were working with Xing and Chef Chang on how to make the inside surfaces of the Lower Tet into a virtually unlimited food bank,

Most importantly in how to create a food source that was tasty and varied.

Jun and Li had now been seconded to Mike Spence's team,

And were getting their heads around the amazing ingenuity and complexity of the terraformation programme.

Structurally everything was in place,

All that was really left to do was to alter the atmosphere in the canyon so it was breathable.

It was Jun who came up with a bright idea of how that might be accelerated.

He had become fascinated by Mike's nano-insects.

He first introduced them into Xing's biodome to tease him,

Flying them past his ears and getting them to crawl in his hair.

It was Xing's chastisement that got Jun thinking,

Could you please do something useful with them?

When Mike learned that Jun had got the nano-insects to pollinate some of Xing's crops,

A whole new opportunity opened up for the canyon.

Chapter 83,

Mars Rocks,

2102,

7 years left.

There was not much to do with the Heart of Gold ahead of its trip across to Mars in March,

But to play with it and extend its capabilities.

Shen was busy programming the Q computer for two main tasks,

Firstly to image the binary star system from a different angle to see if any more information could be gleaned about the tertiary object,

Secondly to test the entanglement engine in interplanetary space,

Well away from the gravitational influence of any large bodies.

Lance knew about the engine,

But not that it now contained molecules of aquanine.

At Freya's intuitive suggestion,

Shen had also commissioned the construction of another ship down in Xizhuan,

Due for delivery to the Moon by the time the next pulse was due.

She had also suggested a design change that neither Shen or Lance had come up with.

Just in case either the upper or lower tet was compromised,

She suggested both tets should be able to detach from each other,

And for either then to be used as a life raft.

Shen was too busy and involved with all projects to stop and ask Freya if she knew something that he didn't.

Freya had thrown herself into getting the school ready for its first intake of potential Martians later that year.

With Jia's help,

She had already started teaching the most promising students how to delete the comms time delay between Earth and Moon,

While they were still at the seven immortals.

She had also suggested to Shen that those who were most talented at performing the feat should be considered for the first intake.

Deleting the delay involved forming a psychic bond with the person you were talking to,

So you knew what they were going to say just before they said it.

You then give your answer before you hear what they have said.

It just took a little trust,

But once perfected,

It became second nature.

In the gap between the slingshot tests and its departure to Mars,

Mia and Mei had been tasked with training Jun and Li on the heart of gold systems.

The twins became expert at detaching the inner lander tet from the lower tet and travelling to and from the Moon's surface with it.

This was how Mia and Mei had been getting to and from the heart of gold for the slingshot tests.

They also performed a few dockings with the Moon port too,

As well as a couple of unsanctioned trips back and from Earth orbit.

All in all,

The design concept that Shen had come up with in the vacuum chamber at the seven immortals only seven years earlier with Liu Seng's assistance was proving to be pretty versatile and resilient.

A week before the heart of gold was to begin its 60 million mile crossing to the red planet,

Jun had the honour of taking Shen,

Cheng and Miang up and into the craft before it left.

As they exited the lander tet,

They could see the walls of the lower tet covered with empty containers,

Readied for the production of all the food the first Martians would need for the crossing and while in orbit.

As they emerged into the upper tet,

They met with eight dummies packed with sensors,

Strapped into their seats.

Shen smiled when he saw Jun and Li had stuck a picture of his face onto the dummy in the pilot's seat.

Shen waved his hands over the pilot's controls and several screens burst into life.

One contained a packed star field.

Shen zoomed in until the centre of the screen was blank,

Just with three stars around it.

What's that?

Asked Miang.

That black point in space is where Mars will be in a few weeks time,

Cheng butted in.

Indeed,

So once the initial slingshot acceleration sequence is finished,

The drive will send this beauty to that point in space,

Explained Shen.

We'll start the deceleration once the gravity field of Mars is greater than the pull from Earth.

And getting back?

Asked Miang.

That's where Venus will come in,

Said Shen.

With no conscious life on Mars,

We can't use it for any boost.

Miang pretended he had got his head around it all,

But this level of sole wave interaction escaped him.

Shen and Cheng knew his role was merely to oversee the prolongation of the human race and the Chinese dynasty.

Shen was not a politician,

But sensed an agenda was driving all his invention.

Only when they got back in the lander did Miang spot the rover nestled under the pilot's seat.

So this will be bringing back a bit of Mars to the moon?

Well not exactly,

Answered Shen.

Once the rocks are on board,

They will be staying on board for the next mission.

We can't risk any cross-contamination,

Cheng added.

That's why most of the innards have been built in moon orbit by nanobots.

This rover will be staying on Mars too.

Miang's trip to the heart of gold was the first time he'd left the moon's surface for five years.

He asked Jun to fly him over the Earth-facing surface before they went back to the moon base.

He wished secretly that he could be amongst the first Martians.

Once a president,

Always a president.

Chapter 84 Changes of Plans 2104 Five years left.

The heart of gold's test flight to and from Mars went off without a hitch.

A small extension to the mission plan meant it didn't get back into moon orbit until January 2104.

The reason being was that it was decided to return samples from several landing sites,

In addition to the soil samples at the entrance to the Valles Marineris.

The slingshot around Venus was a long way back,

But what was even more successful was that the Q computer worked out the altered return path and orbital dynamics by itself.

It had also suggested that bringing back more than one sample was feasible in the same mission.

The reason it had done so was of course influenced by the counsellors.

They were a little dismayed that Shen had not even thought to look into the process of teleportation as an alternative mode of transport across the cosmos.

He had evidence that it was possible from the dolphins.

In the forms of Gea and Freya,

He had people who could achieve it with a little practice.

When he bilocated as a child,

He had even experienced one of the unintended spin-offs from being able to port.

The counsellors now foresaw that Mars could now become the second sentient planet ahead of a potential rebirth to Earth.

This would mean more sites would have to be terraformed,

Hence more samples needed.

In the intervening time between the Heart of Gold,

Leaving and returning,

Freya and Shen had to make an unexpected return trip to the seven immortals.

In late summer 2103,

Huey suffered a stroke.

Gea didn't think he would last a week,

So they were piloted straight to the monastery by Mia,

With Li as co-pilot.

It took them a few days to adjust to one Gea,

Having been away for over four years.

It took them a little longer to come to terms with Huey's decline.

He had lost the use of his right side,

His mouth was drooping and he needed feeding.

He could still speak,

Albeit with much slurring,

And had full mental capacity.

Even with all Gea's skills as a healer,

The light had gone from his eyes.

Shen's and Freya's appearance seemed to rally him though,

And his son's ingenuity is what saved him.

They had planned to stay a month,

And at first Shen thought he couldn't take that much time away.

While Freya and Gea worked with Huey's subtle energies,

Shen busied himself in Huey's 3D workshop.

Freya,

At first,

Thought he was burying his head in the sand and more work,

Until he emerged a few days later with a rather bizarre looking half-suit.

It was a hybrid mix of 3D cogs and gears,

Combined with an ingenious nanotechnology layer.

Huey seemed to grasp straight away what Shen had built for him.

The suit was awash with nanofans,

And with voice control,

Huey quickly learned to raise his arm and move his leg.

Like all strokes,

It was to be a slow journey.

Shen made modifications to the half-suit,

So that it picked up subtle movements from Huey's muscles.

After a month,

The thoughts he wanted to move a muscle were controlling that bit of the suit.

Within two months he was walking again with a support frame.

Three months in,

He was self-feeding with his right hand.

In between healing sessions with Huey and catch-up time with Gea,

Freya took time to chat with each of the students at the monastery.

An ageing Madame Bien was running a tight ship,

And had amassed a hugely talented bunch of students.

They were not just intellectuals,

But all compassionate humanitarians,

Just what you need to start a new world.

Early in the new year,

Shen and Freya left the monastery for a few days,

For a much needed break together walking in the mountains.

When they returned to the Seven Immortals on foot,

They were greeted by May and June and the sight of a space-ready Tet.

The fact Huey was able to hug them both fully in his goodbyes,

Was simply amazing.

It was Gea's parting words that brought tears to their eyes.

This really is goodbye both of you,

She said.

Thank you for coming back,

And bringing my husband back.

We'll be keeping more in touch,

Said Freya,

Promising to call daily,

Rather than the weekly pattern they'd fallen into.

It's easy to forget about home when you are working elsewhere on something new and exciting.

The break had reminded Shen that his project could potentially deliver a new home,

Not just for a few,

But the whole population of the planet.

There was nothing that could not be scaled up,

So long as there was enough time.

In March that year,

The next pulse arrived in such a pronounced fashion,

That it was clear that enough time was just what they didn't have.

The moon base was exposed to the full force of the pulse,

But its roof provided the protection it was designed for.

The same technology held successfully over the Valles Marineris.

As the exact timing of the pulse could not be predicted down to the minute,

Shen knew it was somewhat of a lottery for the space and moon ports.

Luckily,

The less protectable moon port was on the right side of the moon,

So was spared.

The spaceport took the pulse full on.

When its comms went down,

The thousands of people living there were stranded.

There was no way down.

Mia and May came up with a rescue plan.

With Mia in the moon tube and May on a TET,

And both of them in radiation suits,

They made it over to the spaceport within an hour.

The crew of the spaceport were well trained in emergency evacuation procedures and saw the moon tube and TET coming.

When they both docked,

The airlocks were manually opened.

Like all communities,

The spaceport had a council that ran affairs.

Strangely enough,

There were 12 of them.

Major Zhang had assumed the role of their leader several years back.

Nobody had objected,

As he was the most experienced taikonaut.

All suited up,

The 12 of them were to make their first trip to the moon base with Mia in a cramped moon tube.

Before they left,

The news quickly went around the spaceport that a rescue mission was being mounted,

And there really wasn't any reason to panic.

May continued down to Zhuzhuan in the TET to relay the news personally to the ground team that all the population on the spaceport were stranded but safe.

Many of the inhabitants of planet Earth were not so fortunate.

Those that were outside in the sun at the time of the pulse received an invisible yet lethal dose of gamma rays.

Few of them would be around in five years' time when the next pulse that they knew nothing about was due.

One of them was Xiuyi,

Who was having one of his suit-assisted afternoon walks.

While all of this was unfolding,

Shen was briefing Miang and Cheng.

Lagrange A has been taken out,

Meaning all year-round comms with Mars is now lost,

He announced,

And the replacement Lagrange B was a month from being fully operational and seems to have gone too.

That's worrying,

And that's even with its extra hardening,

Said Cheng.

How long before we can replace them?

About three years because of launch windows,

Said Cheng,

But there is an alternative.

Which is,

Asked Miang?

We can be back at Mars in less time on the Heart of Gold,

With a team to manage the terra formation directly,

Said Cheng.

We still have to put replacement and extra hardened Lagrange comms links in,

But this would mean we could bring the whole project forward by several years.

But our training programme hasn't produced the first graduates.

Who do you propose goes?

Asked Miang.

Shen didn't answer,

But merely stated what had been unsaid.

Apart from any other consideration,

We might not have as long as we hoped.

Shen realised his next few months involved more modelling than he had ever done before.

His life,

His family's lives,

And those of all humanity were dependent on the results.

Chapter 85 Choices 2105 Four years left.

So you were sure,

Asked Miang.

While I'm 85% sure the Q computer's prediction is correct,

Answered Cheng,

Either in 2109 or a 15% chance in 2114,

The supernova ejecta will reach our solar system.

Cheng had been running the simulations generated by the Q computer.

The occlusion of the binary by the tertiary had not happened.

This implied it had fused with one of the stars,

Most likely with the secondary.

If this was the case,

The Q computer predicted the combined star mass would fuse with the primary in five years' time.

Miang was still struggling with the concept of light-years,

And that the binary went supernova,

Either in 1959 or 1964,

And that its energetic blast was four to nine light-years away from Earth,

Approaching at the speed of light.

The prediction of initial fatalities is low.

It's the cancers that will grow with a reduced magnetosphere that will have the medium-term impact,

Continues Cheng.

What we can only speculate on is the ecosystem may be irreversibly damaged for centuries.

Mike Spence chipped in,

The next wave of nanobots will complete the additional hardening we need here by the end of next year.

On Mars,

We have started at the cryosplanetia end of the canyon,

But we'll only just make that end of the canyon safe from the GRB by 2109.

So that spells the end of life on Earth,

Concluded Cheng.

Or life as we've known it,

Said Cheng.

So Major Chang,

Update us on the Mars mission,

Said Miang.

The second Hartford Gold just arrived in moon orbit only yesterday,

And we've now upgraded the existing ship so the two TETs are separable too,

Said Chang.

Both ships will be ready to leave,

In time for the next Hoffman transfer window in June next year,

And we'll have hardened replacements for Lagrange A and B in place by the time we get there,

Confirmed Cheng.

And have the crews all been decided upon now,

And told,

Asked Miang?

They have and they cannot wait to go,

Said Cheng.

Much had happened since Chang arrived on the moon base.

Despite the Major's earlier remonstrations,

A year after the pulse hit,

The first sections of the spaceport were now being detached and sent to burn up,

With their remnants ending up in the spacecraft's cemetery in the mid-Pacific.

The spaceport had been commercially and strategically unviable,

Especially now TETs could fly straight from the Earth to the moon.

Even the orbiting moon port's days were numbered,

And it was now completely unmanned.

Somewhat ironically,

A skeleton crew chosen from the brightest engineers who designed and built the spaceport in the first place,

Were the ones that oversaw its demise.

The remaining 2,

000 or so inhabitants had been given a simple choice,

Sign a heavy and punitive non-disclosure agreement and transfer to the moon base.

Alternatively,

They could return to the Earth and see their days out there.

Two-thirds of them chose this latter option as they were homesick.

Those that chose to migrate to the moon base discovered quickly that they had landed on their feet,

Even though it was with feet that were sucked down with 16G.

They learned about the Martian terraformation program,

And,

As experienced taikonauts and space engineers,

That they had roles either as teachers or potential Martian settlers.

Mike had built several large new domes to house them all,

And food production had gone industrial.

Zhang's arrival at the moon base had,

Of course,

Been orchestrated by the counsellors.

It was Shen that changed Zhang's mind by seconding him to the Mars terraformation project.

To Shen's relief,

The Major had not only volunteered to be commander for the first mission,

But also to move to Mars and not to come back.

As Shen was planning to take Freya,

Eva and Kristen with him,

Having the most experienced taikonaut with them gave him much comfort.

It was now clear that it was unviable to stick to the original plan,

To go to Mars once the atmosphere in the canyon was breathable.

The current batch of students would form the second wave of settlers.

The Major handpicked the rest of the first wave team.

Freya and Mei were to be pilots of the two craft.

Jun and Li were nominated as co-pilots.

Zhang also insisted on taking Wang Yang and Den Yang,

A married couple who had carried out the most hours of spacewalks of any humans.

Although the craft were not designed for extravehicular activity,

You never knew in space what might go wrong.

Although Freya was an accomplished healer,

Zhang insisted that Dr Liu Yaping,

The leading surgeon from the spaceport,

Was on the crew.

There was nothing that she couldn't fix.

Shen insisted that Mike Spence came along,

As he knew more than anyone about the engineering of the canyon.

It was also Shen's idea that the final crew member should be the chef,

Chang.

There was no reason why they shouldn't eat well.

So it was planned that Zhang's team would be the first and permanent settlers.

Shen and his family would help make the canyon viable for life,

And may stay or return,

Should their help be needed back with the Earthman system.

Shen knew that he would never get Jia to come,

As she was looking after an increasingly ill Huey.

The Mars mission meant that he could not take time out for a last visit to see them.

They were in daily contact though,

And even Shen had learned how to delete the comms time delay.

Only one thing was concerning Shen.

He'd got the Q computer to run simulations on the DNA of both the first wave of crew and the current crop of students,

To help detect any possible genetic anomalies when the inevitable and planned matings occurred.

He was wondering when he should tell the Major that he knew Mia and Mei were his daughters,

And that their mother was probably a Wu.

Chapter 86 In Suspension June 2106,

Three years left.

Huey and Jia were the only two people on planet Earth who knew about the planned Mars mission.

Everyone else in on the project were now based at the Moonport.

The facilities at Xizhuan were being scaled down now that the spaceport had completely burnt up.

The last of the decommissioning engineers landed in the last remaining Dream Chaser that had been docked with the spaceport.

All the tets that could travel from Earth to the Moon were permanently parked at the Moonbase.

Only emergency visits were allowed to see dying relatives,

And the Moonbase was now completely self-sufficient in food production.

At the seven immortals,

Huey's cancer had stopped yielding to year's ministrations.

He was determined to hold on until he knew his son,

Daughter-in-law and granddaughters were safely in orbit around Mars.

Jia had told Shen privately that he wouldn't last a month to hear about the first feet to touch the Martian surface.

The two crews had been on board the two Heart of Gold ships,

Now designated Hog 1 and Hog 2,

For nearly two days.

This was useful as the hangovers from their leaving party to end all parties had just dissipated.

Much to Shen's annoyance,

Jiang insisted that the interplanetary trip would be dry.

Shen had secretly stashed some bottles though to celebrate successful entry into orbit and touchdown on the surface.

The two crews had been on board the ships many times,

Which helped them all get used to the landers that Shen had first seen emulated in the vacuum chamber.

The trip up from the Moon surface took just five minutes.

As they approached the ships,

They were impossible to see.

The only way to detect their presence was by the triangular black cutouts they made in the starfield.

Docking in the lower tet was automatic,

And like a graceful ballet.

One side of the 22-metre tet folded completely back for the 11-metre sided lander to float inside.

It was a small climb to get into the upper tet.

Its 33-metre long sides made it cavernous compared with rocket-powered capsules.

Weight and size were not a premium,

But an advantage.

Everyone had their own private sleeping pod on the tet,

And each had its own private toilet facilities.

They were fitted with a nanofan array that made evacuation close to the experience of sitting on a planet-based loop.

Dividing the 14 crew between the two tets was easy.

Mia and Mei were the two main pilots of Hog 1 and Hog 2 respectively,

Assisted by Jun and Li as their co-pilots.

Kristin was naturally on Hog 1 with Jun,

And Eva on Hog 2 with Li.

Shen was dubbed Commander of Hog 1,

But he deferred to Zhang as Commander of Hog 2 and the whole mission,

When it came to matters of safety.

The Major had little idea of Shen's multiple alternative strategies he'd been simulating on the Q computer.

Freya was on Hog 1 with Shen,

With Dr Liu Yaping providing medical support on Hog 2.

The experienced married Taikonauts,

Wang and Danyang,

Would be spending the trip apart.

Shen commandeered Chef Chang for Hog 1 for the week-long trip,

And had given Mike Spence the remaining seat on Hog 2.

As planned,

The two near-identical Heart of Gold ships left Earth orbit in June 2106.

The Major had agreed to stay on Mars indefinitely,

With one ship remaining in orbit.

The plan was to send one ship back at the reverse transfer time of June 2108 to pick up the next wave of settlers.

They had already proved this could be done either with a pilot and a crew,

Or unmanned.

Just in case they had to evacuate and come back sooner,

A longer transfer time would be required.

For this reason,

Shen had successfully developed a system of suspended animation,

Which oddly enough involved injecting the sleeping Taikonaut with about a litre of Aquanine.

He and Mike had now worked out how to synthesize it,

And it turned out easier to do this at 1.

6G.

All the Taikonauts were given the option of sleeping for the one-week trip,

But nobody took it up.

Perhaps this was because they didn't want to miss the ballot,

Scheduled for the halfway point of the crossing,

Where it would be decided who was to put their foot on Mars first.

It was decided that Mia and Mei would manually control the two ships,

With a slingshot sequence.

There was no real need for this,

But it gave them something to do,

For some of the trip at least.

Shen had convinced Yang that the entanglement engines,

Which both contained samples of Mars rocks,

Would be used to navigate them into Mars' orbital path.

Zhang was sceptical,

But Shen was insistent.

The skills of Mia and Mei would be called for when taking the landers down through the often turbulent atmosphere.

In total,

Only 50 elliptical slingshot orbits were needed to get the ships up to speed,

As Shen had been dabbling with increasing the contrarotational speeds of the upper and lower teps to increase their overall velocity.

So on each flypast of the Earth,

The ships went further and further out past the Moon,

And the rotational speed increased on each path.

If you were able to see the ships,

The triangular teps would have blurred into cones.

Inside the crew felt nothing,

As the increases in forward and rotational velocity were gradual.

They were,

Of course,

All strapped in for their safety,

But the nanofans in their seats meant they never felt like they were pulling more than 2g.

The teps,

Of course,

Had no exterior windows.

If they could have seen out,

The blur would have been stomach churning.

The Q computer extracted and processed just the right amount of pixels to give them a spectacular view of the flypast of their home planet.

Even then,

On Perihelion,

The closest approach,

The planet came and went in a few seconds.

As they flew off in the arc to intersect Mars' orbit,

Mia and Mei chimed in unison,

Engaging entanglement drives.

Everyone unbelted,

And they were all transfixed at the speed with which their home planet became a small blue dot.

At just a day away from the Earth,

It became impossible to pick out their home planet from the starfield.

Even though they were travelling at phenomenal speed,

As Shen predicted,

The reconstructed view of the surrounding starfield made it appear as if they were just stuck in suspension in space,

Going nowhere.

1987,

Evacuation,

June 2106,

Three years left.

Shen was able to test his newfound ability to talk across space without time delay by catching up with Jia.

At over 30 million kilometres out from Earth,

The round-trip delay would be nearly four minutes.

But as he'd been chatting each day,

With an ever-increasing time delay,

It was like they were in the next room.

He's still hanging on for you to get there,

Said Jia.

Nearly halfway now,

Mother,

Said Shen.

I can sense you,

Replied Jia.

You've never been this far from me.

Can Huey see where we are?

Asked Shen,

Who had reprogrammed one of his 3D aurorae to show their position.

It's what's keeping him alive,

Jia said.

He wants to talk to you.

A weak-sounding Huey came on.

Tell me what it's like out there,

Son.

Well,

Earth and Mars are just blue and red dots,

Said Shen.

We're travelling so much faster than any rocket-powered craft.

And don't tell me,

Said Huey,

It's not like you're moving.

That's pretty much it,

Father,

Said Shen.

We could be completely still,

Or going backwards to Earth.

We've got no visual cues.

Apart from I can see where you are,

On my aurorae,

Said Huey,

Who then pained Shen with an uncontrollable coughing fit.

Jia came back on.

He misses you,

Shen.

Sorry,

Mother.

Zhang's initiated a simulated emergency,

Said Shen.

Nothing for you to worry about,

But I must go.

OK,

But let me speak to the girls tomorrow,

Blurted Jia.

The Major and Shen had come up with a fabulous plan to both test the emergency capability of having two craft traversing the void of space,

And to relieve the boredom of the seven-day crossing.

Mia and Mei were in on it too,

And a day earlier had started slowing down the rotation of their respective lower tets.

They then began to spin them up to the same speed and direction as the upper tets.

Nobody on board felt or suspected a thing.

As they were just passing the halfway point,

They had to start slowing down anyway,

To match Mars' orbital speed.

Shen was pleased that their plan very neatly halved their speed.

Zhang came over the intercom of both tets.

This is only a drill,

So don't panic,

But treat it as if it's a real emergency.

He continued,

Eva,

Li,

Wang and Chang,

Please get suited up and descend into your lower tet.

Eva,

Sharp as a pin,

Said,

But we can't,

It will be like jumping into the fast spin of a washing machine.

Mia said,

Don't worry,

Eva,

It's rotating the same direction and rate as we are.

It's perfectly safe.

And the same here,

Confirmed Mei.

So the same goes for you,

Kristin,

Jun,

Deng and Mike.

Yes,

You're all going for a little ride,

Said Zhang,

With whimsy in his voice.

So pleased he was at the plan.

When all eight taikonauts were seated and strapped in,

Mia and Mei began the most spectacular and audacious ballet ever attempted in the history of spaceflight.

Each lower tet detached from its upper tet,

And they swung around each other in a one kilometre wide arc,

One above and the other below.

For an hour,

The crews were split between four separate tets,

Until each lower tet docked with a new upper tet.

Everything was done in synchronism to the millisecond.

Mia and Mei said,

In unison,

OK,

It's safe to come on board,

Up you all come.

There was relief all round,

And Zhang was grinning from ear to ear.

He was wishing this never had to be done for real,

But pleased it worked flawlessly.

Shen and Zhang had held back from telling anyone on the Moonport what they planned,

As they were sure it would have been vetoed.

After 88,

Aquaforming,

55,

000 light years away.

While Shen and Mike were finessing their plans for terraforming a small section of Mars,

Across the other side of the galaxy,

Lucky was getting into his stride,

As an expert in aqua formation.

He was of course completely unaware that he,

Like Shen,

Was an incarnate counsellor of the light.

He was in his late teens now,

And while he was still a pup,

Was given by Pata,

The nanobots and aquabots,

As playthings.

Pata had no idea what they were,

Or what to do with them.

At first,

Lucky created macro-structures with them,

And used his sonar to nudge their growth in one direction or the other.

Like the young Shen,

He was fascinated by creating extremely elaborate fractal designs,

Rather like coral reefs.

The nanobots and aquabots had an intelligence of their own,

Directed by the counsellors,

Of course.

During the 18 short years Lucky had been on Aquanine,

The nanobots had created island peaks that broke the ocean's surface.

It was shortly after this happened,

Lucky discovered that when he poked his head above the water,

He could direct his clicks towards the shore,

And influence the direction of the bots.

He first started creating fractal shapes on land,

And next learned how to form them into regular geometric shapes.

At the same time all of this was going on,

The dolphins and whales had been using their teleportation abilities to bring more and more of the complexity from Earth's oceans to Aquanine.

Some species didn't take to H6O3.

Crabs were fine,

But lobsters didn't survive long.

Octopi were fine too,

But squid perished immediately.

As intelligent cephalopods couldn't communicate with cetaceans,

Having come from different galaxies originally,

This was a bit of a mystery.

In the early years,

The cetaceans had simply fished for their food on Earth,

And teleported it over.

Epoch 5 humans thought that the drop in fish stocks was down to their overfishing alone.

Such was their arrogance about their influence.

As cetaceans knew that time was running out,

For the last few hundred years they had been porting over whole food chains,

From phytoplankton,

Plankton,

And corals and krill,

As well as larger crustaceans and fish.

As for the kelp and seagrasses,

Some species thrived in Aquanine,

And some reverse porting had to occur for those that didn't.

This level of micromanagement was complex and time consuming,

So after some debate,

It was agreed to port over some apex predators.

Knowing that their peaceful existence was about to be threatened,

It was with some dread and regret that the first sharks appeared on Aquanine.

The only reason it was agreed was that most adult cetaceans could instantly port several kilometres away if threatened.

They would have to keep their pups close.

Chapter 89 One Small Step July 2106,

Three years left.

Excitement had been growing since Mars had become discernible as a bright red-orange disk,

Not long after the ballot was taken.

Nobody quite trusted the Kew computer for some reason,

So Chef Chang suggested they cut seven pieces of spaghetti,

And the person who picked the longest on each craft got to take the first step.

Mia and May were chuffed to bits when they both struck lucky.

The Major was especially proud,

And still didn't know that Shen knew he was their father.

Everyone else was happy for them too,

For a couple of reasons.

Firstly,

They would all get to feel what it's like to walk in Point 3HE before the year was out.

Secondly,

Other than the few thousand people on the Moon base,

Nobody on Earth would know.

None of them would accrue the fame that One Small Step gave to Neil Armstrong.

Two days out from Mars,

The upper TET's rotation was slowed to zero.

The disk of Mars was visible without any magnification,

And getting larger and larger by the hour.

The nanofans on the seats and the floor of both the upper TET and lander were adjusted to match Mars' gravity.

There would be no heavy sea legs when that first step was taken.

Mia and May were impressed at how well the entanglement engine not only brought them in to match the orbital speed of Mars at exactly 86,

871 km per hour,

But also right to where the planet was in space at the exact minute they planned to be in orbit around it.

Although the craft were well capable of entering a geostationary orbit,

Everyone wanted to circle the planet and get a good look around their potential new home.

After three days in orbit,

Everyone had got a reasonable grasp of the high-level geography of the whole planet.

They were of course viewing everything on screen,

But it was so different being there and seeing it,

Compared to seeing imagery from probes.

Mia and May then steered them right above the Val Marineris,

So they were geostationary at 3,

000 km.

The canyon was vast,

At 4,

000 km long and 7 km deep.

You could fit about 22 Grand Canyons into it.

It would make a big enough habitat for many humans for quite some time.

As Mia and May were in separate craft,

The Major gave the go-ahead to take two landers down,

But insisted that Wan Yang accompanied May,

And Deng Yang rode down with Mia.

Should anything go wrong,

They were the best people to have with you.

Mia and May thought it amusing that the first time they'd meet in over a week was to be on the surface of Mars.

The four of them were fully suited up,

And the emergency parachutes in the landers primed.

The descent was smooth until they reached the top of the atmosphere at 10.

8 km.

Mia and May both took manual control to minimise the buffeting.

Below 3 km,

It was less of a rocky ride.

After a descent of just over 30 minutes,

The lander teps got to within 3 m of the surface and hovered.

We're down,

Chimed Mia and May in unison.

The whole of the moon base who were watching burst into rapturous applause.

This was 10 minutes after everyone in the orbiting teps heard the news.

The 360 degree views were spectacular.

It looks just like the Gobi Desert observed Wang.

Except the Gobi Desert doesn't have a wall on the entrance to a canyon like this,

Said his wife Deng Yang.

The landers were hovering 100 m away from the part of the canyon ceiling that joined it to the canyon floor,

Creating a hermetic zeal.

OK,

Said Mike.

Outer gateway opening.

As he announced this,

The nanobots rearranged themselves to create a perfect 12 m sided equilateral triangular shaped hole for the landers to pass through.

May took her lander in first,

Followed by Mia.

Outer gateway closed,

Announced Mike,

In a gateway opening.

A further 100 m away,

An identical 12 m sided opening appeared in the second protective wall of what was the largest airlock ever created.

It was 250 m in width and height.

Mike was making provision for some very large craft to come in and out in the future should Shen ever need it.

Unlike airlocks on the space and moon ports,

There was no actual breathable air inside the canyon yet.

This was more like a dust lock.

The two landers travelled in parallel a further kilometre to a virtual replica of the moon base.

The only difference was there were no lights on inside the domes and there was nobody home.

A smaller,

Dimmer and yellower sun was right overhead,

Casting no shadows.

It was like they were on a pristine movie set,

Everything seemed false yet all too real.

Mike had switched the landing lights on the lander pads on.

Touchdown announced May.

Unlocked in,

Said Mia.

Shen and Zhang did a virtual high five,

Being in two different craft.

Shen and Mike did a real one.

OK,

When you are ready,

Lower the sides,

Said Mike.

The two hull sides of the two landers opened gently until they lay completely flat,

Their apexes nearly touching.

May saw Mia for the first time in over a week,

As did the husband and wife taikonauts.

Unbuckling now,

Said May,

And Mia followed her.

They walked down the centre of the open face of the Tet and joined hands.

They then took a cautious step onto the landing pad and both said together,

That's two small steps for women and two giant leaps for humankind.

Zhang had given Wang and Deng his permission to follow them.

He kind of knew they would,

Even if he didn't,

And they so deserved to be the third and fourth humans to walk on the surface of Mars.

They had saved his life on more than one occasion after all.

While orbiting the planet,

It was clear the canyon was a huge structure,

A deep scar on the surface.

On the bottom of the canyon floor,

Its size became apparent.

We can't see the tops of the canyon walls,

Said Wang.

The four of them then unloaded two additional payloads that Shen and Mike had brought over five years ahead of the original planned time.

Mars was about to be awoken.

Unlike when 530 million people watched the Apollo 11 landing on July the 24th in 1969,

Only two people on Earth saw these first steps.

A minute after Mia and Mei made their first footfall,

One of those two on Earth died.

Chapter 90,

Maya Awakens,

July 2106,

Three years left.

Shen took Huey's death in his stride,

And saw it as a release.

It hit Freya and the twins hard though,

And they were relieved of any meaningful duties for a few days.

Unlike the Apollo 11 mission,

The first four Martians only spent an hour on the surface before making the reverse trip up.

Just because they could,

And for some variety,

Each lander returned to a different hog.

While an important life had slipped away on Earth,

The two payloads were the real seeds of new life on Mars.

After a long call with an understandably upset Jia,

Shen excused himself to begin work with Mike on the next and crucial phase of the mission.

The first of the two payloads dropped on the canyon floor contained oxygen-producing cyanobacteria and algae for the production of molecular oxygen on Martian soil.

Shen and Mike didn't know this wasn't for the first time.

The bacteria and algae were taken by nanobots across to both canyon walls.

The second payload contained methanogens.

These are microorganisms that produce methane,

And are present in the human gut.

Mars was about to start farting,

Which is one of the perils of interplanetary space flight that for some reason isn't mentioned in Tychonaut training.

When life arrives on the planet,

It alters a planet's consciousness.

Its noosphere,

In a subtle way.

So the arrival of the four sentient beings gave Maya a nudge and a reminder what it was like to be a planet that harboured life.

This triggered a large subterranean Marsquake near the South Pole.

Mike's seismometers detected it straight away.

What happened next surprised both Mike and Shen.

The nanobot-built pipelines had already reached the South Pole,

Having made a trip of over 5,

000 km over some pretty trying terrain.

The plant equipment that would melt the water ice and extract water and carbon dioxide and pump it to Val Marineris was just about to start heating.

The Marsquake did everyone a big favour by creating a huge amount of meltwater that could be pumped straight away.

This resulted in the greening of the canyon walls before the year was out.

For a little while only,

The counsellors had allowed sentient life to exist on three planets in the same galaxy at the same time.

Reviews

This is like spiritual black mirror!! One more to go!!