Children of the Dark World

by Will Townsend

  “Well Mariko,” the gray haired, sixty-ish looking man said in heavily accented English, “I believe the time has come that we must face a rather unpalatable truth, and that is, that the colonies were unable to survive on their own after they were separated from Earth. I believe the sooner we move on from this subject and onto the subject of reclaiming the asteroid belt and the lunar surface for our own use the better for humanity. I’ve drawn up and submitted plans to allow the six corporations you see before you to commence this project and I believe the World Council will agree to our generous proposal.”

  “Thank you Mr. Werner. Dr. Covington, as a frequent contributor on this satellite network we’re all eager to know your viewpoint on this matter. Would you please respond to Mr. Werner?”

  “Certainly, Mariko, thank you.” Then without any self-consciousness at all he turned his gaze directly toward the camera and spoke as if he were speaking to a close friend. “Mr. Werner’s comments are very premature and let me tell you why. We’ll just simplify this with an example a lot of us can relate to. Let’s suppose you had a good friend during the Dying who spoke with you regularly and brought food and other items that you needed. Then one day that friend doesn’t call. You don’t see or hear from him again. How long are you going to sit by the phone, so to speak, waiting for that call to come? One year? Two years? If you’re really stubborn maybe you’ll sit there ten years waiting for the call that you’ve begun to believe won’t come. How long will you put off the business of surviving and getting on with your life? During the Dying it wasn’t very long I’m sure. Well, these colonists knew what was happening on Earth. They even had some instruments and telescopes that aided them in gathering information about the situation on Earth. Human beings are survivors and that is the plain undeniable truth. If they were used to getting certain things from Earth then they turned their attention toward duplicating that item locally. Habitats had to be maintained, food had to be grown, water purified and the list goes on and on. What the gentleman failed to mention is that most of the people who were off world were not tourists or even colonists in the traditional sense. They were technicians and engineers and biologists and geneticists who were out there developing habitats and not intending to stay forever. But that is just what the cruel hand of fate did to them,” he paused and added, “and the betrayal of the corporations.”

  “Now just a damn minute!” an executive at the other end of the table interjected. Mariko, seeing a developing newsworthy argument in the making, wisely melted into her chair and gave the protagonists the floor. The man who spoke was obviously of Caucasian descent unblemished by any mingling. His hair was iron gray and his jawline chiseled from stone. His eyes were colder than the depths of the sea. He was obviously the moving force behind the corporations. “Those allegations have floated around for ninety two years and I’ve never seen any documented proof.”

  “Well, I have some for you.” Covington then handed out a small bound packet of material to everyone at the table including Hiyoshi. The CEO’s looked flustered and caught off guard by these developments. “These are documents gathered by President Lansing’s and Premier Lao’s assistants after the Calamity when they were intending to prosecute CEO’s from the corporations, most notably Alekos Antonopoulos. The folks at home will remember him as the corporate mogul who betrayed the people of Earth through his avarice and incompetence. They never got around to it because of the many problems that occupied their time and they were unwilling to lose a single human life in the pursuit of vengeance. By the time it became possible the men and women in those reports were dead or had disappeared so completely that they must’ve been dead. These documents are flight plans required to be filed with the Earth Control Center at that time. All thirty two ships that returned to Earth did so under a corporate flight plan signed by a CEO not the Masters of the vessels. They made no attempt to bring back any personnel. The teams that assembled these documents believed the ships were ordered back to evacuate corporate members who had not counted on the confiscation of the ships by the military. That the support and building teams were left in place led the teams to believe that the corporate hierarchy intended to flee to the off world colonies.”

  “There’s no way to prove that one way or another,” the man shot back.

  “And I’m not here to do that. I’m here to address the silent sky critics who say that the colonies are long dead. Besides the natural thought that should occur to us all, i.e. ninety two years is a long time to expect someone to still be waiting by the phone, the simple fact is that they may have forgotten how to use that equipment or were unable to repair it. Not many corporations back then built machinery to last a century.”

  “Or they may be dead,” interjected the man, who was obviously the leader in the group of businessmen, with barely concealed venom.

  “That’s true, they may be, but the data I’m holding indicates that they may not be.”

  “And just what data might that be? Have you been receiving messages from space,” the man laughed.

  “No, not in the way your joke was meant to convey, and yes in many other ways. But just let me explain to the people at home how ridiculous this silent sky “garbage” really is. First, the heavens are never silent. They are always talking to us but we have to listen in the right ways. Receiving radio transmissions is only one of the many ways we can “listen” to the night sky. Over the past few months my teams have been listening in many different ways such as infrared heat blooms, Doppler shifting of light sources, spectral analysis and chemical signatures. Now first, we can’t find any heat signatures on the nearside of the Moon. The Moon itself was hit almost as many times as the Earth during the Calamity and there are now mountains of ice available on the lunar surface. We couldn’t find anything out about the far side for obvious reasons but we were eventually able to bounce lasers and other signals off of a passing NEO, that’s near earth asteroid for you folks at home. Anyway we bounced the signal and there are two sources of heat on the far side that coincide with the two colonies that were there.”

  “Their reactors could’ve just melted down and they’re still giving off heat,” the corporate man inserted.

  “The heat range would have been much higher from a meltdown. And if the population of those colonies were dead then I think their reactors would’ve gone critical decades ago due to lack of maintenance. But these are not the only heat signals we’ve found. In the asteroid belt we’ve discovered heat signatures around eight of the asteroids that were supposed to have been inhabited.” At this point Hiyoshi stepped back into the conversation.

  “You’re saying they’re still alive then?”

  “I’m saying it’s more likely that they are alive than dead at those locations. Now at four other asteroids we didn’t find significant heat sources but the chemical spectrum indicated chemicals that would’ve been emitted during the manufacturing process.”

  “That could’ve been residual leftover from the mining operations conducted before the Calamity.”

  “No, I think not. First, the asteroids processed their metals so that the exhaust fumes from these operations were vented directly into space. If we are talking about this discovery being old chemical signatures from mining around the time of the Calamity that hardly seems possible. Such gases were vented at speeds of up to two hundred meters per second which exceeds escape velocity on these asteroids by an order of magnitude. No, any old gases, because of their initial velocity and the solar wind are far away from these asteroids by now. For these gases to be in the concentration we see in the spectrometer readings they would’ve had to be released in the very recent past maybe less than a year ago.”

  “It seems then that our proposal to construct ships and go back to the asteroid belt is in accordance with your findings then.”

  “No, I suggest we use what is already available in orbit and just update it. Five corporate ships survived the Calamity and entered a polar stationary orbit. They sit there still. If you rea
d the old texts you will find that many of the surviving crew attempted to escape in life support pods, which was a death sentence under the prevailing conditions that existed at the time. There may still be crew members who died on board, but I believe we can send enough material to upgrade and refurbish these ships using as little as four to five trips by the ETO’s.”

  “Those ships are rightly the property of the six corporations represented at this table as we are the successors in interest to the original corporations,” one of the executives opined drawing a sharp glance from their leader.

  “That would be an incorrect assertion. Executive Order Two signed by President Lansing and a similar order signed by Premier Lao confiscated all corporate property and in particular, that of the companies that owned these ships. No, these ships belong to the people of Earth and I’ve already sent my recommendations along to the Council.”

  “President Lansing was the president of the United States and that entity no longer exists.” Another executive intoned. “There is no reason that we should be bound by that order almost a century later.”

  “Yes, in fact there is, because the World Council, as successors to Lansing and Lao, specifically adopted all laws and controls set in motion by President Lansing and Premier Lao in their inaugural meeting. Those ships belong to Earth and I believe we can have one mission ready within three years to conduct an extended mission in the asteroid belt.”

  “So, Dr. Covington, and correct me if I’m wrong, but you just said there is very strong proof that the colonists in the asteroid belt are alive?” Hiyoshi said.

  “Yes there are very strong indications that they are still alive in the asteroid belt and possibly on the far side of the Moon. Mars is more problematic.”

  “How so doctor?”

  “Well, our instruments are nowhere near as accurate and sensitive as they were before the Calamity devastated our world because, let’s face it, we’re relearning the discipline. But based on the good work I’m seeing we should be back to or slightly ahead of that benchmark within a decade. That being said our solar system has changed, at least the inner portion of it.”

  “You have the floor doctor. Please tell us what your research has found.” The corporate executives, looking very bleak, were simply no longer relevant to this forum and Mariko knew it.

  “Mars as you know was rather cold and dry when the Calamity struck. At that time it was known that other members of the group that struck Earth were peeled off by various orbital and celestial mechanics. It appears that Mars itself endured its’ own Calamity. Our observations are hampered because Mars has a good deal of cloud cover now, but it appears that its’ atmosphere has thickened considerably and may now be slightly more dense than that at the top of Mt. Everest. One would no longer need a pressure suit to walk its’ surface and that is news of an astonishing nature. It would’ve taken us centuries to transport enough material to Mars to accomplish this but the cosmos apparently did it in one tragic blow. The atmosphere of Mars would still be toxic to humanity because the carbon dioxide levels are extremely high but water appears now on its’ surface in many places. It’s impossible to tell if any of the colonists on this planet have survived but if their own Calamity didn’t finish them off I believe they would’ve been able to survive easily. To be perfectly frank Mars has far more resources than the asteroid belt and those colonies were completely self-sufficient before the Calamity.”

  “Observations of Venus have also revealed some remarkable discrepancies there as well since the Calamity. At first we were puzzled by the significant temperature differential that we were observing in the atmosphere on Venus and the apparent thinning of its’ atmosphere. But while we were observing the planet there were numerous explosions in and around the atmosphere. In other words Venus is currently being bombarded by remnants of the anomaly that caused so much destruction on Earth. It will be decades before we know what the outcome of this bombardment will be.”

  “Doctor, this is amazing. It’s as if we’ve awakened like Rip Van Winkle and discovered that the world around us has been irreparably altered.”

  “That’s exactly right Mariko. We’ve slept for a century and have awakened into a wondrous new world. And now it is time for us to discover all of the things that have changed while we slept. The very first thing we should do though is to launch a mission to those ships in orbit around the arctic. We need to commence the repairs and refurbishment that will be needed if we’re to keep our promise to the two beloved leaders.”

  “But those ships are a century old,” interrupted one of the executives.

  “They’ve been sitting in a geostationary orbit in the vacuum of space. There are no corrosive agents as you would find on Earth. On Earth the wind and precipitation, as well as microbial activity, would’ve long ago turned them into crumbling piles of rust. But in the location they’re in there are no factors, with the exception of micro-meteoroids, that would cause decay. So, it is time for us to honor the promise we, as a people, made to the two leaders of humanity.”

  “Finally, let me give you one more reason that I believe they’re still alive on these colonies, and this is just personal and something I believe without regard to the data. The corporations who were granted the licenses to exploit these other worlds hired only the very best to oversee their various projects. And I believe that, unless the colonies were actually struck by an outside force, such as the Calamity, they’re alive. I believe this because some of the greatest minds of the twenty-second century were stranded on these colonies. If you think carefully about it, you’ll be forced to come to the same conclusion I was. And that is, that the top scientist in almost every discipline was off world when the calamity struck. So, if anyone could’ve survived the events that occurred starting June 4, 2119, these colonies were in the best position to do so.”

  Hiyoshi, considered one of the savviest of the new media darlings gave an understanding nod and a rising of the eyebrows as if the truth of what had been said had finally dawned on her. Her reaction immediately transferred to the millions of live viewers and then on to the billions who would later review this conference again and again.

  Sitting quietly across the table from Stuart Covington, a subtle look of frustration crossed the brow of the chief corporate CEO, Elio Samos. It quickly disappeared though to be replaced by a paint-by-the-numbers smile. The men exchanged glances and the chief among them nodded his head ever so slightly. Each knew the day was coming and Covington was only a slight detour along their path.