Mars- The Red Planet Awakens

by Paul Reaver

  A meeting had been scheduled for that afternoon, once again with Kirlin, Jenore, John, and both the Earth and Mars teams. The team members had received promotions, so to speak. Due to the complexity and size of the projects they were now involved with, and the fact that so many Martians had been awakened and were available to help, the Earth and Martian team members were now project leaders. Per Kirlin, each original team member was in charge of their own team of Martians. Due to the scientific nature of the projects, the first Martians awakened all had scientific backgrounds, although they were not specifically scientists. However, this made them easier to work with on the projects because they more easily grasped the concepts and help that was needed.

  All of the team members assembled in the meeting room, which was quite large by necessity; not only were the original Martian and Earth team members there, but all of the additional Martian team members as well.

  Jenore went to the front of the room and began the meeting.

  “Welcome, everyone,” he said. “May I use telepathy if there are no objections?” He posed the question to get permission from the meeting attendees to allow direct communication with each person using telepathy rather than speech. To do so without asking permission was, as always, considered very impolite at best. There were no objections. The humans found it interesting but not overbearing. As John thought of it, the effect was “comfortable.” To the Martians, it was a standard communication method.

  “We have so much to be proud of,” Jenore began, telepathically, “because we have accomplished so much. Our first large dome is complete. I understand the humans often refer to it as a “megadome.” which is very appropriate.”

  Polite laughter echoed through the room. Martian laughter sounded like someone whispering in an unknown language. To the people from Earth, it seemed unusual but pleasant.

  “We need to discuss what our plans are moving forward,” continued Jenore. “To put the plans into words makes it sound simple. The fact is, we still have an almost unbelievable amount of work ahead of us. Fortunately, as we continue over the next few hundred years, we will awaken more and more Martians until they are all awake to help us with our efforts. As time goes on, we can give them a place to live, food to eat, and plenty to do.”

  There was more polite laughter.

  “Our fusion powerplants are becoming more powerful all the time. And as if it wasn’t obvious to begin with, we can use multiple fusion reactors with a single dome, with the aggregate power being sufficient to power domes of almost any size. While this might seem like we are pushing our limits, our plans now are to begin construction on two new 200,000 square mile domes simultaneously.”

  There were murmurs from the entire group. Two new 200,000 square mile domes? It seemed like a lot. However, Jenore had made it clear that there was an almost unbelievable amount of work ahead. And that was certainly easy to believe. Anyone who lost sight of that needed only to remember that they had 56 million square miles to terraform.

  “Please hold your comments for now,” came Jenore’s thoughts. “We expected some, shall we say, disbelief in the scope of this next part of the project. However, I assure you that we have carefully planned everything. Our dome-building process is now almost fully automated. For lack of a better way to put it, we accumulated a lot of practice with our building techniques when we built our current 100,000 square mile dome. We expect the process to become easier and more fluid as we progress. We are ready to begin on our two new domes tomorrow. I ask that all of our project managers gather with their teams this afternoon and have meetings to discuss how we are going to begin this next phase. If any of the team members have questions, please direct them to your project managers. They, in turn, will be in constant contact with Kirlin, John, and myself so that we have a conduit of information. Thanks to all of you for your efforts so far, and I am quite optimistic about our future.”

  He walked back to his seat next to Kirlin and John. The project managers began to collect their team members for follow-up meetings in other meeting rooms in the facility.

  Chapter 42

  Although the various teams were tasked with specific parts of the dome-building process at various times, depending on the need, each of them “specialized” in certain niche aspects of the tasks. For example, one team might be in charge of the fusion power plants. Another would oversee the placement of the plants. Another would be responsible for obtaining the necessary atmospheric gasses from the Martian crust. Yet another would be searching for underground water and making it available as potable water as well as for any bodies of water that were in the design for that dome.

  Everyone realized that, as time-consuming as creating the domes would be, and creating enough to cover the entire planet, which was estimated to take several hundred years, it was not the ultimate goal. That goal was to make the world completely self-sufficient, with its own atmosphere, but without domes. Making that transition would likely take another hundred or so years after the completion of the domes. Fortunately, Martians were phenomenal planners, down to the most minute detail. So even though their ultimate goal was hundreds of years in the future, everyone had a clear road map of what they needed to do and what role they played in the process. They knew precisely, step by step, what they needed to do to restore their planet. Naturally, the plans would require changes at times for various reasons; perhaps to ensure a superior outcome, or to overcome an unexpected obstacle or glitch. But these were minor details.

  After the first several hundred years had passed, the Martians would begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Unfortunately, the humans would not be along for the ride due to their comparatively limited life spans. The Martians had waited in stasis for their probes to explore and communicate once a suitable planet for them to occupy had been found. They felt as though this was the approach with a guarantee, and although it would be a monumental task to colonize another planet, it would save the Martian race. They also hoped that, relatively early during this period of stasis, people from Earth would make contact with them, just as John’s team had done. But it was unknown whether that option would present itself. If it did, since the humans would have developed the technology to travel to Mars, the Martians held on to the hope that they would have also developed technology that could somehow help them with their dilemma. Little did they know that, not only would people from Earth arrive, they would play an integral part in establishing a clear path to restoring Mars to its former glory.

  For the Martians, clarity would continue to grow as they approached their goal. As they began to reach the point where they would eliminate the domes, the team in charge of the gravity generators would have prepared by placing many, many generators around the planet’s surface. The specific design of the generators would attract all of the components needed to maintain an atmosphere without domes. Although the atmosphere would be relatively “shallow” to begin with as had been planned, ultimately it would become miles deep as it had once been. However, the terraforming teams realized that the gravity generators on board the satellites would not have sufficient force to maintain such a deep atmosphere, so the generators on the planet’s surface would step in to take their place. The satellites would still be able to provide additional assistance with maintaining the atmosphere should it become necessary. And since the satellites were shielding the planet from solar winds and CMEs, and had been from the beginning of the terraforming project, they would not have to worry about another catastrophic event of the type the planet had already endured.

  Once they had started working with the people from Earth, and had reached the milestone of building the first 100,000 square mile dome, the Martians had complete confidence in the total restoration of their planet. It was only a matter of time.

  Chapter 43

  John leaned back in his rocking chair on the front porch and put his feet up on the footstool. He was completely at ease and took in the Martian night sky as a warm breeze played across his face. Earth was
visible as an evening star. He ruminated on his path to this point in his life.

  Only a few years after he had been on Mars, the Martians had perfected their longevity technology for humans. Thanks to that development, he was now over 500 Earth years old, with the prospect of living another 1500 years or so. In the last 500 years, with his team working together with the Martians, they had completed the terraforming of the entire planet. The use of the word terraforming was at a bit of a slant here, since it usually only applied to altering a world to host Terran life. However, the point was that the planet was now completely inhabitable by both humans and Martians, and domes were no longer needed; the planet was self-sufficient just as it had been before the CME disaster, with a little help from technology. In essence, it was better, due to the protection by the satellites.

  Although it had taken the majority of 500 years to reach this point, they had only reached it that quickly because as time went by, their terraforming technology became more sophisticated and advanced. Therefore, they had managed to achieve this ultimate goal in a somewhat abbreviated time frame.

  John’s thoughts drifted to another profound achievement. Simultaneously during the terraforming process, Mars social engineers had worked with the leaders of Earth to help them to achieve the peaceful and balanced society that Mars enjoyed, as well as helping to solve the literally growing problem of overpopulation. This process also took several hundred years. The social interaction of Earth was unbelievably complex, and many countries were hesitant or even unwilling to change. The fact that the Martians were telepathic helped to accomplish this goal. They could put the images of a unified Earth society into the minds of those in power over the various countries and political factions to make them see what an almost incomprehensible advantage it would be to accomplish that goal. Their telepathic intervention made it clear that the goal was, in fact, not only comprehensible but also achievable. All of the people on Earth would prosper like never before. And as if that weren’t enough, the leaders of Mars made it clear that there could be no interaction between their two peoples until Earth’s population was stable and unified. It wasn’t easy, but the Martians were patient. Earth was, finally, as stable as Mars. The people of the two planets could live in harmony, and they were beginning to coexist with only positive results. It had taken much time, but the results were commensurate. With their telepathy, the Mars social engineers knew that the relationship between the two planets would work.

  John’s mind dwelled on these thoughts for a few moments, so happy and thankful that things had worked out. It was as though the Martians had paid Earth back for their terraforming assistance.

  And then his thoughts completely changed gears.

  He chuckled to himself as he thought about the rocking chair he was sitting on. Mars had so much more advanced furniture, but this was like a piece of home for him; so was the design of the house. Instead of using one of the Martians’ “organic” house designs, he had built a two-story Earth farmhouse replica. It still had most of the advanced technology in the house and on the property, but this chair, the front porch, and the house design maintained a connection to his past, and he liked it.

  He heard the sound of the screen door swinging open, and moments later, he felt a kiss on his cheek. He looked up at Abigail with love in his eyes. She returned the look.

  “Here are some homemade chocolate chip cookies,” she said. “Perfect for such a beautiful evening.”

  “It certainly is,” he said. He stood up, and they gave each other a long, affectionate hug.

  “Did you ever, in your wildest dreams, imagine our lives would end up like this?” asked John as he stepped back slightly, and they gazed into each other’s eyes.

  “Well, to use another well-worn cliché, not in a million years,” she said, smiling. “When we began our relationship close to the completion of the Mars terraforming project, I had no idea that there was the prospect that we would end up sharing such a deep, abiding love - not to mention getting married.”

  John smiled back; his expression clearly conveying that he felt the same way, and was grateful for it. They kissed, briefly but tenderly.

  He sat back down in his rocking chair. She sat in hers next to him, and both put their feet up and relaxed. He took a bite of cookie, looked at Abigail, and said, “Delicious! Thank you.”

  “Enjoy,” she replied, and took his hand in hers.

  They both looked up at Earth in the sky with peaceful, relaxed contemplation.