by Cliff Roehr
CHAPTER – Artonians arrive on Mars
February 12, 2176: Arton Three makes Mars Orbit. The the fol owing day the other ships made Mars orbit For the remainder of the journey Ben and several of his companions were taught various jobs that were being performed by the crew. When they reached Mars approach Ben and his people were at the controls and made Mars orbit without a hitch. Of course they had competent human supervision, but not once did a human have to intervene. The little Artonian space men had performed their assigned jobs to perfection. Ben had been on the bridge and fil ed the role as Captain with Captain Horn looking intently over his shoulder.
The Artonians destined for Mars had traveled on Arton Four. They proved very popular on Mars. While the Arton ships had been gone nothing big had transpired on Mars. Mars had pleaded their case successfully with Earth that even though they stil had fifty thousand population the people who remained were mostly past their child bearing years and if they didn't get some young people back from Earth Mars could eventually die out. Even though Josh had a thousand things that had to be done for every worker he saw the reason and logic behind Mars argument. A trade was negotiated to trade two thousand five hundred older Martians for two thousand five hundred younger people from Earth who stil had their child bearing years in front of them. The ones that Mars sent to Earth were all accomplished journeymen in their trades and could be of immediate use on Earth. The two thousand five hundred young people that Mars got in return were mostly stil in school. They were not worth all that much to Earth at the moment. The people who transferred were al volunteers. A lot of the parents on Earth sent their children to Mars to live with their grandparents, a lot of the people from Mars going to Earth had a chance to see their children and grandchildren. Now that Mars Runner was not overcrowded nor overworked and now that the ticket price was just a nominal service charge for travel in either direction there were more people moving back and forth. There were even some people traveling as tourists between the two planets. The journey between Mars and Earth in the twenty second century had become tantamount to travel between Europe and the Americas in the nineteenth century.
Mars launched a communication to Earth every evening at 1800. Earth launched one to Mars every morning at 0600. The latest news from each camp was always Included with every transmission along with personal messages, photos, film footage, Including home videos. There was of course no charge for this service. They hoped at both ends to one day have the internet working on Earth again so they could reestablish the direct internet connection but for now twice a day radio communication would have to do.
The Artonians were a big hit with the Martians. These adorable little imps won their hearts immediately. When the Martians finally realized that the Artonians were were actually sentient beings and not animals they were welcomed into the Martian society. There were plenty of vacant houses available because of all the Martians who had been sent to Earth. The Artonians were given their choice of where they wanted to live. Most of them elected to settle in New Phoenix. All of them had numerous job offers. The Artonians had come to Mars prepared for a new life style. For their first six months on Mars they would all be working with Carl Jacobs, Abner's son who now ran the farm operations on Mars, in establishing the Artonian plants on Mars. Carl thought it would be better if they were scattered throughout the many caverns rather than to be located all in the same place. Within two months there were over a mil ion Artonian plants growing on Mars. Within six months they were harvesting fruits, vegetables, nuts and greens. At first the Martians thought so many plants was overkil but once they tasted them they were almost ready to let the Earth plants die out. Everyone preferred the Artonian products. The winery even started experimenting with making wine from Artonian fruit. Within little over a year there were new wines on the market different from any they had ever produced before. There was some concern whether or not the Earth Bees would pollinate the Arton plants but not to worry the Bees couldn't tel the difference, they just pol inated all the plants. Five hundred of the one thousand Artonians made it their life's work tending plants and trees for the farm. The other five hundred found various other employment within the Mars Community. The Artonians loved the reduced gravity but kept jumping too high and spraining ankles when they came down. A monument had been erected in New Phoenix in memory of Tim Erkin, a true pioneer who had become known as the father of Mars. Tim had a place in the history of Mars equal to that occupied by George Washington, in the United States. The inscription at the base of the statue read “In Loving Memory of Timothy Farnsworth Erkin, Born in Houston, Texas July 14, 2082 arrived on Mars September 28, 2107. Died in New Phoenix, Mars September 28, 2167 at the age of 85. He spent the last 60 years of his life developing Mars. Tim had lived long enough to see settlers leaving Mars returning to Earth.
February 22, 2176: Arton One and Two break Mars orbit bound for Earth.
PART III
CHAPTER – Contact with Dedov
One of the scientists had shown a couple of Artonians how to operate the now abandoned Telescope in the observatory and the Radio telescope there. They were fascinated by the optical telescope and began spending their free time searching the heavens.
March 18, 2176: One evening while they were searching for Pluto they caught a spaceship coming out of Warp and entering the solar system. Since the four Arton ships were accounted for this had to be from some unknown location. They immediately had the presence of mind to hit the record button and caught the event on video. One of them continued to monitor the ship while the other used his cell phone to call for assistance. When the scientists arrived they couldn't believe that these two little people had just made the biggest discovery in history. From that minute on every move the vassal made was caught on tape. The space ship established orbit around one planet after another working their way in toward Mercury. They would remain at a planet for a day or two then move on in to the next planet toward the sun. Eventually they reached Mars and made orbit behind the Arton Two. By the time they arrived the two space ships had been fully crewed. The Aliens apparently mistook the Arton Space craft for orbiters, they paid the ships little attention. They then launched four shuttle from their ship. The Shuttle made methodical passes over the entire surface of Mars. Seeing the few buildings on the surface and the now inactive mining operations and apparently reading the atmosphere and finding it unusable they returned to their ship. Three beings wearing space suits then boarded one of the shuttles and flew toward the Mars Orbiter. Their docking equipment was a large suction device that would match up with any object that they found in space.
Since the ship was first spotted in the solar system the communications crew in the Arton Three had been recording all their radio transmissions and feeding them into translator equipment. It was determined from the way they spoke that these were very humanoid beings. Their language was very difficult for the translator to do much with. Two of the communications crew members were Artonian. They were doing better than the electronic device. When the translator made an error in translating a word the Artonians were beginning to pick up on it and correct the translator. The crew had determined that the visitors meant them no harm and that they carried no weapons. They were amazed when they entered the Orbiter and saw the two Fred Harley and Alvin Jones on duty. The beings acted very excited. They were definitely humanoid. They had two arms and two legs and were actually so similar to Human Beings that one of them could pass as a human but if you were to see a group of them together you would notice that their heads were a little higher in back and a little wider and the skull protruded about half an Inch further in back. Later analysis showed that their internal organs were almost identical to humans. They were on an average two Inches shorter then humans and weighed on an average seventeen pounds less. Some of them had dark blue hair that could pass for black. Their blood types and teeth were identical to humans.
Fred and Alvin had known they were coming so they showed no alarm when the aliens entered the or
biter. Fred merely looked up and nodded a greeting to them then continued with what he was working on for a minute or so. Alvin just more or less ignored them. The aliens had consulted a hand held instrument then removed their space helmets. The Earthlings noticed that the older of the three aliens had positioned himself in front of the other two. both Earth men left their work stations, moved slowly over to the one that was obviously the boss. It had earlier been discussed and decided that they should the little traditional Japanese bow rather than to offer to shake hands. Alvin, standing just slightly behind Fred held the translator in his left hand. Fred addressed the Alien first, “Welcome to Mars,” he said slowly and distInctly. The machine uttered four syl ables that were Incomprehensible to Fred and Alvin but it brought a smile to the faces of the aliens. The leader then uttered three syl ables and and the alien translator said “Thank you.” “The translator parroted the same three syl ables that the alien had just uttered. Alvin kind of chuckled, switched his machine off and laid it on the table beside him. This could get confusing using two machines. It was obvious that both machines had the same function.
. Finally the alien holding their translator machine smiled at the others and gave the thumbs up. He must have indicated, “Got it.” The leader of the group was then handed the device by the technician, who had been working with it. The leader spoke into the machine is his native voice and the machine translated what he said into imperfect English. “We from planet #######, we come peaceful. Explore #######. What planet you from?”
Fred did not have a chance to respond, a smal intercom speaker affixed to the wall of the orbiter came on. “This Captain Cummings of the space ship Arton Four.” The alien machine did not translate this but all three aliens looked up at the box on the wal , indicating they had heard the noise but their translator couldn't handle the translation. Alvin retrieved his translator and repeated, “This Captain Cummings of the space ship Arton Four.” Alvin's machine translated that immediately. The alien continued, “Thank You, we need new planet, our planet break up, loose orbit looking for home for our people.” “Any other planet this system make home for many people?” “No, Fred answered these planets al dead we use for mining operation.” “You have room on your planet for more people?” “No, too many people now,” said Fred” hungry people we need more planet also. “OK we ask other ship visit your planet soon? Maybe we can help you people. If we find more good planet than we need we tell you people. Our ship very fast, go warp 4.” The alien turned to leave, “Wait, how many people you have need home for?” “Our planet now has four mil ion people and it is no bigger than this dead planet here.” Fred pulled out a copy of a chart of planets that had been discovered from the observatory on Arton that showed the 105 other planets worth exploring someday. “Is your planet on this chart?”
The alien studied the chart for a minute. “Yes, Yes, Our planet circle this sun right here, that our planet see.” The alien pointed to a planet six or so light years from Mars. “Fred thought these poor guys are a year and a half from home already at warp 4.
Fred also noticed that the quality of output from their translator had suddenly improved. Fred had started to say “Sorry I can't help you when the intercom from Arton Four kicked in. “This is Captain Cummings again, you did a wonderful job ensign Jones now please direct these people over to the Four. Tel them I will have the door open for them to fly their Shuttle right on board and tell them I wil be expecting them. “What was that noise?” The Alien asked.
“That was the intercom from the second ship behind us in orbit. My Captain is on that ship and wants to talk to you.” The alien thanked Fred, disappeared through the air lock broke connection. As the alien shuttle approached the Four a gaping hole appeared as the boarding lock opened. The alien commander never hesitated, he flew his craft right into the Arton Four. Captain Cummings had rigged his office so that everything said on the ship was being transmitted to the planet.
Cummings started out by saying that he did not have a translation machine so they would have to use the one the alien had. Actually Cummings did have one that had become programmed to the alien's language during the last five hours. Cummings figured that two translation machines in operation would just confuse matters. The alien's machine said “Greetings, my name is
##### #########, of the planet ########## (that is the way Cummings translator worked also, if there was no word for what was being said it would just beep, this one clicked.) We are unarmed and come in peace, Our ship carries no weapons not even for our defense.” “I know said Cummings that is why I am talking with you. We have already scanned your ship and found it clean.” “We scanned your ships and the mining colony down there and found them clean also. Where do your miners stay, underground? If you can breath the atmosphere on this ship you sure couldn't breath the air on that planet.”
“Yes the miners are housed in an underground airtight cavern.” “Did you listen in on my conversation with ensign Fred? If you did then you know why we are here. We are disparate people, we have more people than we can feed, many are dying from starvation. We are not and never have been aggressive people. We are what you would call pacifists. The only way that I have of proving this to you is our literature which you can't read at the moment and our videos. You can watch thousands of hours of our videos and never see a weapon of any kind.” About that time a shuttle from the planet flew into the landing bay.
“Please come with me gentlemen, we are going to take a little trip to the planet. If you have any others you would like to bring along we can pick them up at your ship on the way down.” “How many more does your shuttle carry?” Each shuttle holds sixty passengers how many shuttles do you require?” “First lets just us go to your planet then we can send for others.” After boarding the shuttle the two other aliens handed their translators to the leader who plugged them into his and pressed a button on his. Al three translators began to hum. In less a minute the leader had apparently updated the other two translators.
CHAPTER – Dedovians visit Mars March 2176
“I never expected anything like this the alien said when he stepped out of the elevator in the Utility cavern and onto the waiting bus. They were whisk away through the Ocean cavern, then a slight detour through the vineyards in the Hour Glass cavern to New Phoenix. When they got off at the old Federal building in New Phoenix all of the leaders of Mars were waiting for them. They had all either heard or been briefed on what the alien had to say. “If what you have to say is true and so far we have every reason to believe that it is perhaps we can help you. Here is our situation.” He described the destruction of Earth, and the loss of their nine bil ion people. He explained that the population of Mars had been depleted to help with the re population of our home planet. He told them that either Mars, Earth or Arton could accommodate their entire population. Our question for you is how fast you could move people to Arton and how fast could those people learn our language.”
The Alien studied the chart, did some computations then announced, “I make it to be a little under one light year from ####### to Arton. We have thirty ships, capable of Warp speeds They can each transport 864 passengers. With no cargo and over crowing we could maybe take 2,000 per trip. A round trip would take by your calender, about five of your months. That would only be 60,000 of our people in one of your years. By making new ship production our only priority, we could possibly move a little over one mil ion of our people to Arton, and then if our planet remains viable for another fifteen of your years.”
You must understand that we never entertained any hope of getting all of our people off of Our planet. Our aim was to establish a significant presence on some other planet in order to preserve our race.”
Captain Cummings put in, “the people that you transport wil not be able to remain on Arton indefinitely, but Arton is still closer to your home planet than it is to our home planet of Earth. Arton would be just a temporary place for your people to wait for transportation to Earth. There is someone h
ere that I want you to meet. Gil come up here.” A little Artonian stepped forward and held out his hand to the alien. “These people have said much but let me be the first to say “Welcome to Mars.” A dead silence fel over the crowed. Gil had just addressed the alien in his native tung. “Captain Cummings stammered “Where and how did you learn their language, Gil?” “Oh, I am not yet proficient in their language yet but I have been listening to every word that has they have said since they arrived and I have picked up enough to say a few simple things, it would probably take me more than a week to become proficient. How did you think that all of us learned your language as quickly as we did? There are some things that Artonians are better at than humans are . Language just happens to be one of them. You might just say that Artonians have a faculty for languages.”
Gil then addressed the alien “ You have probably guessed that I am a native of the planet Arton. There are about as many humans on Arton as there natives. Soon I wil be able to speak your language fluently. Our brains are arranged differently than the human brain. The temporal lobe of our brains is almost three times the size of the temporal lobe in the human brain. The Frontal Lobe however is half the size of the frontal lobe of the human brain. In a nutshell this means that humans are better than us at reasoning and problem solving and we are better at languages and speech. Humans show more individuality.” Gil spoke his later words in English and they went through the translator machine.
