Melinda's Dreams (The Advent of the Stars)

by Paul Harm

  “We’ll see each other in a week from now, same day, same time.” “But we didn’t talk about...” “There’s no need to, we’ll see each other next week and after that we can talk.” “Ok, if you say so.” Joseph was angry that this patient clearly had no interest of getting better besides being a huge pain in the ass. “I’ll see you next week, then.” Joseph answered but could not hide all his anger and some of it held on to his words and travelled towards Melinda’s ears. She smiled an apologetic smile at him. “I’ll see you next week.” She responded, and his anger vanished, it was strange but just normal with her, he would be way more suspicious if that woman would not break a rule of interaction every meeting they had. She left the office in a hurry and Joseph sat back in his seat configuring his notes about Melinda, filed them in and pouched his communicator into his pocket. He got up and left the office as well because as usual Melinda was his last patient at the last day of the week. “See you tomorrow Gabriela.” “Goodbye Mr. Grey, have a nice evening.” If it were not for Gabriela with her goodhearted nature and occasionally uplifting spirit this job would have been unbearable, he thought, and with that he left for the waterway system.

  XIII. Red is the New Blue

  “This is Commander Russo from the UEF support ship 743 615 - Cetacea - asking permission for docking, do you copy Ruby station?” “Good evening, Cetacea, docking procedure requested waiting for closure, please stand by.” “Copy that.” The Captain in the zero G Cargo ship floated towards the control panel and cross checked some numbers with her communicator. “Cetacea, you’ve got clearance for docking bay Tango 7. My Flight Operator tells me your vector has to be aligned, please confirm.” “Copy that, Ruby, we’re firing correcting thrusts in 3 - 2 - 1.” The magnetic propulsion drive lit up with a blue glow. “Status report Brian.” Captain Romero commanded from behind her control panel. “We should be at the incoming vector in two hours 34 minutes and 13 seconds Captain, Ruby should comply any second now.” “Cetacea you’re good to go. Commander Cromwell wants to see Dr. Silverman immediately.” “Understood, Romero out.” Captain Lucia Romero cut the channel and turned back towards her crew. “What do we have, Brian, is everything within parameters?” “Looking good, captain.” “The cargo?” “Seems to be alright should I go check for myself?” “No need, we’ll see it once we’re on Ruby, and besides it should be fine anyway.”

  Ruby station was the pride of human engineering, it was a fully operational deep space station in the orbit of Mars. It had dozens of laboratories, testing fields on the ground and scientific wonders to explore. The scientific team on Glacier, the outer ring, was led by Dr. John Silverman a Nano-Tek specialist whose technology made it possible to send a space station towards Mars and assemble it in orbit. Within the last fifty years the station had grown and grown, housing hundreds of biologists, botanists, physicists, chemists, astronomers, engineers; the list covered almost every branch of science there was. The station had always been energy independent since the fusion reactors were so power efficient and about six months ago Dr. Silverman’s team dropped a nanotech package on the planet. It worked for about half a year and created a carbon fiber dome-like structure on the surface which would be complete with shielding once the reactor was on the ground next year and was going to be the second biosphere the UEF ever created. The first one on Lunar did not need to be as self-sufficient though because resources had been so ‘close-by’ galactically speaking. But it is not only a matter of supply chains, the other dimension in which the Martian biosphere was different was its sheer size. It is about the size of a little over 85 km², which was ten times the size of Lunar Complex. But besides the lookout Mars could theoretically be covered with as many Biospheres as they were willing to put up, if this one successfully became operational. An underground tunnel system would connect biospheres to form a planetary sized city in the distant future. Dreams about re-establishing the old Mars atmosphere are not in the grasp of mankind, but that was not a bad thing. If humanity gets a foothold on Mars, the other solid planets would follow considering their rich resources.

  Captain Romero saw Ruby approximately for the twentieth time, but it never got old. It truly was a piece of engineering ingenuity. In the middle of the station there was the power core, unlike the name suggests, Ruby was just a silver metal-like structure but when the sun rose behind Mars, the station glowed in red for a couple of minutes. And now the sun was rising behind the red planet, Ruby started to glow in a red shimmer, it was quite a sight. In the middle of the station floated the power core, a giant fusion reactor in the form of an orb. It was this orb that powered the whole thing. The actual station was layered in three rings circulating the orb and thus creating enough Coriolis to create an artificial gravity in the rings of about one G. The biggest challenge was to first create, afterwards move and finally assemble the whole thing. This was why they built it in layers, the first ring was both the smallest and oldest. The beauty of the design laid in its ability to adapt more and more rings. Each one of the rings was a closed system and thus the station gained a lot of resilience in the process. Backup generators were able to power the rings independently and the orb’s job was basically to just get them rotating at a constant speed. Once they rotated at a constant speed the orb shut down and just powered up to adjust velocity if necessary.

  Both the orb and the rings had extraordinarily strong electromagnetic plates. The orb was covered in those plates, but they could be activated separately thus creating a very defined magnetic force which was caught by the electromagnetic plates on the inside of the rings. This all allowed to first fix their relative position to each other and second to slowly start spinning them really slowly, because in empty space acceleration was directly converted into movement, and it did not reside, it kept accelerating therefore it had to be caught at the right time to have a constant G-force. The fusion reactor in the center therefore stabilized the rings via extremely strong electromagnetic force so the rings remained stable. Therefore, the inner segment of the ring was magnetically fixed towards the orb. In the background of the station ran software carefully monitoring the distance and a low magnetic force was constantly active on four spots on the inner rings’ belt. The inner rings’ belt ran on three rails and was a rather loose part so to speak, no human was there except the repair crew. The picture it made was pure awe when this station without visible structure formed itself out of nowhere. And today the Cetacea’s crew was especially lucky as they all stood at the bridge looking out into the night as the orb did it routine power-up every three weeks. Usually the orb ran on 0,001% of its capacity since it requires so much starting energy. The orb was powering up the spaces between the magnetic plates shining in a luminescent blue glow just like the hottest part of a flame. The crew of the cargo freighter knew only from videos what was going to happen now, but they had never seen it themselves. The reactor needed to be tested every couple of months since when it failed the station’s process of adding more rings stops. Sure, the rings can hold a relative position towards each other indefinitely, but the core was needed for recharging energy circuits and a lot of the scientific equipment relied on it too.

  “Here it comes.” Captain Romero warned as she put on her sunglasses. With that the orb lit up in a glowing ball like a small sun for a few seconds. The power scorch was so quick that the orb emanated a glowing ball of solar energy with the holes where the magnetic plates had been. “It’s much better in real life than it is on the videos Ma’am.” Brian declared as the light passed by their ship illuminating the bridge for a second, almost too fast to see. “Copy that crewman, now get ready for docking procedures.” “Yes Ma’am” The eight-man crew split up into their workforces and were gone. Captain Romero took a seat at the bridges chair and opened a control panel showing her the specification of the docking procedure, cargo specifications and other stationary systems. As she was about to go through it and get her part of the job started she looked up one more time. The station was still far away but you c
ould spot all four rings by now. Too majestic, almost unreal, she thought and started to make the ship ready for docking. The beauty of the station was unintentional it wasn’t beautiful by design, it was beautiful by accident.

  “Dr. Silverman please report to the bridge.” The speaker system yelled with the Captain’s voice and Dr. Silverman complied immediately. “What can I do for you, Captain?” Silverman asked with a cheeky smile on his face. The bridge was empty, the crew busy and the autopilot kicked in about five minutes ago leaving the Captain with a bit of leisure time on her hand. “I’m afraid, Dr. Silverman, we’ve got a situation here.” Lucia Romero replied slow and taunting. “Well maybe I can help you.” They smiled and hugged each other, they stayed like this and kissed for quite some time. They knew this was the end of a two week long lucky coincident journey where they had spent more time with each other than the three months before that transfer combined. Love towards another being is a strange form of gravity. Maybe that is why we refer to it as attraction. “I already miss you, Lucia.” He softly whispered in her ear. “I know what you mean, John.” She kissed his cheek and brushed through his black hair. That was the problem with two people in love working so far apart from each other, when both are in love with their jobs as well. They stood there gathering each other’s presence for the long absence which both knew lay ahead. They had a hard time missing each other but they still made it work somehow.

  Sometimes it seems so easy to solve people’s problems, just one of them could quit their job, that was what seemed to be the obvious illusion. But if one of them would let his or her job, nothing would be resolved, because maybe it was the reason for their attraction, not never to be with each other, but loving each other for what they truly were. Travelers on different but sometimes crossing paths, the irony was the part where one of them stopped the other one still was on his or her way. So, if travelers loved each other and one of them stopped travelling, their love stopped too because they could not love what they did not love. But after fifteen years they almost cried when they saw each other, and who did that after even a yearlong relationship nowadays. Tears of joy earned by hundreds of days of missing each other, it might not be the ideal scenario for love, but it was an honest one. At the end of the day, you might cheat gravity, you might cheat light, you might cheat DNA and you might cheat yourself away from Earth, but you could not, and you would not outrun your love, if you were ever lucky enough to find it. “How long?” “In four hours, we dock, and it’ll take another three days to load and unload the Cetacea.” “I’ll make dinner every single day for you and we’ll watch every sunset we can spot from the observatory lounge, ok?” “Sounds great John, sounds just great.” She looked deep in his black eyes and slowly rested her head on his shoulder, he pressed his cheek against hers and pressed her body against his chest. A perfect embrace.

  From outer space you could watch the Cetacea and Ruby align perfectly until the docking clam opened and the cargo ship docked on Glacier, the outer ring. While the crew of the Cetacea started to do their business unloading supplies, Silverman was on its way to Commander Cromwell, he stopped his fast walk, turned around and sighed when he saw Lucia Romero still standing in the cargo hangar, she waved, and after waving back he was on his way again.

  “You were asking to see me, Commander Cromwell.” “Ah yes, Dr. Silverman, I’ve something I wanted to share with you. Do you remember when we delivered the first package on Mars?” “Yes, four months ago.” “Yes, yes. Well, the good news is the carbon skeleton is ready for the shield overlay, well, anyhow I thought you might want to see this.” “But I thought it takes at least another three months.” “While you were away your aspiring second in research figured out a way to speed up the process, since our solar weather predictions were wrong we figured we’d take the risk and speed up the process.” “But...” “Follow me.” Cromwell opened the hatch to the bridge deck and the operating crew stood in there. “Lieutenant Anderson, magnify the bio-dome and give me the coordinates of the second package.” The display showed a bio-dome structure on the surface of Mars and in the lower right corner a fast mover closing in towards its coordinates. It slowed down, and a landing shuttle headed inside the huge structure. “Today humanity writes history, Dr. Silverman.”

  The shuttle dropped four fusion reactors on four different spots inside the structure as they were all placed they started to power up and they did not stop at 0.5% as the standby configuration of Ruby, no they went all towards 80%, when they all reached their surge they released a steady plasma ray slowly climbing on top of the biodomes skeleton. When the ray, which reminded John of a fountain, reached the carbon skeleton, the skeleton stiffened and the ray did not rise higher than the dome, the plasma crawling over the hexagonal layers of the skeleton making the carbon glow. “Ok drop the third package.” The shuttle which delivered the reactor now released a slowly decreasing gas over the glowing biodome and when it reached the plasma it glassed the whole thing, it took almost an hour, but the glass-like hull finally covered all of the biodome and it reached deep in the ground around its outer layers. “86 square kilometers of new land, it’s going to take another two months to create enough oxygen and set up the micro climate control but from there on out there will officially be Martians in the foreseeable future.” Cromwell pointed out with great pride.

  He patted John on the back and smiled. John stood there looking at the blue and purple shimmer that emanated from the shields he had tears in his eyes, that had been his dream for so many years! He had finally arrived, sooner than expected and it was more beautiful than he had ever dreamt of. He opened up a channel to Lucia. “Are you seeing this, Lucia?” “Yes, we watched the whole show, it was amazing.” “This is the first foothold of mankind on another planet. I’m going to cool the Champagne for later.” Commander Cromwell still stood next to him and smiled. “Well, Dr. Silverman, I see you have plans for tonight, so I say we celebrate another day. Work has just begun anyway.” John laughed. “Well said, Commander. I’ll return to my laboratory and observe the construction from there with my team, if you don’t mind.” “I don’t Dr. Silverman.” John left the bridge and was on his way to the laboratory.

  When he arrived at the lab, staff were all over the place running from one instrument to another, typing commands in their communication devices and most of all staring towards the huge monitor on which the glassing process was displayed in real time. “Ok guys, not that you need my instruction on this one, but let’s do this as the pioneers we are in making new planets habitable for mankind.” His staff stopped for a moment giving him their undivided attention. John had recruited every single one of them personally. They were a team chosen from the best of the best and they burned for this project almost as much as John did. One thing was for sure if this was successful their names would be carved into history. Now that was quite a story to tell your grandkids. “We worked hard to get here, and we did not see results for decades. But! We held on for this long time because we knew we can do it and now we look in awe on our creation as it unfolds on the surface of the first human colony.” The team looked at him and in their eyes was pride and devotion for their supreme leader Dr. Silverman whom they did not only serve but would follow blindly just if he asked them to. He made them part of the biggest achievement since the invention of the fusion reactor and they idolized him for it. “Keep up the good work and keep giving it your best in three months from now we will have our first meeting in the red desert underneath our feet!” They cheered. If this succeeded there was nothing that would hold humanity back from conquering all of the planets in the solar system.

  It was a good day to be a scientist. After what seemed to be an eternity John could no longer hold it together and sleep started to overwhelm him. He was one of the last people in the laboratory and he addressed a short good night to his colleagues, then he vanished into his quarters. When he opened the door, it hit him out of nowhere. “I’m sorry.” He mumbled while he saw a candle barely shining at
his table and two eyes flash in the dark. “Are you?” “Yes, I’m sorry, Lucia, I was... we had this... and then there was this...” “It’s all right, I’m not mad.” “I’m sorry.” “Yes, you said that before. Are you hungry?” - That woman I’m about to give humanity the stars and she is asking me such needless... - His stomach rumbled like a thunderstorm. “Well, maybe I am.” She raised her wine glass. “To Dr. Silverman, the man who gives humanity the stars!” She was mocking him because she knew even if he had not eaten in days, and that happened occasionally, his ego would still be ten times the size of his hunger. He looked at her knowing he was being mocked but was too tired, way too tired, to start an argument about it besides the fact that he knew he would probably lose it. Lucia started to laugh as they toasted and then they had a delicious meal with delicious avocados and a spicy pumpkin risotto. After cleaning the dishes, they had a long, steaming-hot shower together and afterwards they laid in close embrace falling asleep peacefully. It was a perfect ending for a day with such heavy connotations.

  XIV. And So Fell the Sword of Fate

  The thunderstorm held on for most of the day and its constant rain fell on the city and its surroundings. It was one of those days where you snuggled up to your lover or a pet deep under the blankets and read a good book. Or, in Joseph’s case, drank coffee in the office. It was Friday again, and he had an appointment with Ms. Finch. Curiosity crept up from the back of his subconscious and made him wonder what today would bring. Carefully he decided to mentally prepare himself this time and he thought through every scenario that might occur during the next session. The problem wasn’t the content of the talk but its emotions that were always the problem. Usually he had thick skin but not with Melinda. Melinda just did not care about his usually thick skin and her emotions kept hitting him unfiltered. Unlike his other patients where he was basically listening and trying to understand their motivations and guess their emotional development in retrospect, with Melinda it was almost as if he was the one being guided. Someone knocked at the door. “Come in”, Joseph proposed looking at the clock. Well, it was about time. The door opened, and although he expected her he was a bit surprised to see her. “Hello, Mr. Grey.” “Hello Melinda, how are you doing?” “I guess I’m doing fine Mr. Grey.” She looked a bit more exhausted than usual, older and tired too. Something was off. She slowly walked towards the chair she always sat in and took a seat. Her tea was in front of her as usual Joseph prepared it himself, a little service he did for all of his patients. It helps him get into the necessary mindset of the person he was soon going to meet. For Melinda it always had been apple mint tea. Well, that was something predictable after all, Joseph thought and leaned forward after Melinda took a gulp and put the tea back on the table.