“Of course the decision is yours,” Teacher said. “But, if you were to ask, I would prefer to have you whole.”
They fell silent for what seemed to be hours.
Finally, Teacher spoke up again.
“You need to know what has been going on,” he told Morning Grass. “You have been unconscious for over ten days.”
“That long,” Morning Grass asked.
Teacher nodded in the affirmative. “These humans are from the home world. They are promising to round up the remnant of the creators from New Australia and the west coast of the big continent,” he stated, with a tone of satisfaction.
“Too little, too late,” Morning Grass replied. “The damage is done and we’ve already taken care of things to the satisfaction of most.”
Teacher ignored her refusal to see the news as a good thing and continued.
“The Terra Novans were communicating with them from the moment they arrived in orbit,” he said. “If we hadn’t been so quick to end routine communications with the natives, we’d have known who the Earth humans were and why they were here. We would not have lost so many soldiers for no good reason.”
“No good reason,” Morning Grass asked, looking at Teacher as if he had lost his mind. “No good reason? These are humans, Teacher. They can tell us they are not of the ilk of the creators, but if they come from the same planet, and the same culture, they can’t be all that unalike. I say to trust these humans is tantamount to forgetting what the creators were and trusting them again.”
“The Terra Novans trust them, Morning Grass,” Teacher said, even though he didn’t expect that fact to make her give in and see reason.
“That means nothing,” she replied. “The Terra Novans are also humans.” Her teeth were clenched.
Teacher was familiar with this behavior. It meant he would be wasting his time trying to convince Morning Grass her inflexibility and prejudice toward humans was not endearing her to anyone. He tried to calm himself before responding.
“That may be so,” he said, trying not to scold her, but failing miserably. “However, not one Terra Novan has ever taken up arms against a feline except in self-defense. If they ever were to, I’m not afraid to say I believe they’d be justified.”
“We only attacked the Terra Novans at the whim of the creators,” was Morning Grass’ final argument. “Once we realized what was going on, we never attacked them again.” She closed her eyes and put her arm by her side. She seemed to be getting weary of the argument and Teacher could see she was almost exhausted from the day’s excitement and difficult news.
Teacher looked down at Morning Grass. It upset him she was so resolute in her dislike of the Earth humans but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He wanted to change the subject to what had been happening on Terra Nova since the ceasefire. However, he could see anything he told her at this point was not likely to be taken as good news. He decided it might be better to just sit with her and remain quiet until she fell back to sleep.
Chapter 5
30-August-2409
There were more than a dozen hands raised around the auditorium.
Colonel Herbert Zheng tried to guess which cadet might have the question he wanted to start with. He knew after reading his text and hearing his first lecture, most of the cadets would have no doubt where his views on the colonization period differed from those of officially recognized government historians.
There was more to the story than the government’s side and the Historian believed people the caliber of his students deserved to hear everything known about that time period. They were the future of the League and he felt that for the Central Government to expect them to enter into the responsibility of becoming that future without giving them the whole truth was criminal.
It was much more complex than ‘good versus evil’. For that matter, it wasn’t truly evident who was good and who was evil. To him it was whether or not mature adults had the right to see all of the evidence and make up their own minds.
Zheng felt the Central Government’s tight control on news and information was less than productive. He was quite concerned that a government choosing to control news and information might appear to have something to hide and it would eventually lead to distrust on the part of its populace. Distrust often turned into unrest and unrest tended to breed more serious problems.
Zheng watched Cadet Non confidently raise his hand.
“Ah,” he said aloud. “My old friend, Cadet Non. Do you have a question? Perhaps you would like to pick up our discussion from the beginning of class?”
“If you wish Colonel, Sir,” was Non’s reply. “However, I first have a question about the felines and their creation. That is, if no one in the class objects.”
The Historian looked around the class for a dissenting glare. He paid special attention to the large complement of felines in the class. They looked eager for Non to ask his question.
“I’m assuming nobody objects, Cadet Non,” the Historian announced. “But I’m not an expert in genetics, so my answers may not be complete or accurate. I will refer you to the Biology department if you wish.”
“That will not be necessary, Colonel, Sir,” Non replied. “My question is of a philosophical nature.”
The Historian gestured for Non to continue.
“It would seem to me the creation of the feline hybrids would be considered somewhat of a cause for celebration; not a moral and ethical dilemma; don’t you think,” Non asked. “The felines are courageous fighters and have served the League quite well.”
“Also, in my humble opinion, those who created them should be considered heroes, not only for creating the feline race, but for daring to use untested technology to explore other solar systems at a time when the government of their home world Terra, or Earth, or whatever you prefer to call it, was essentially impotent.”
“League historians refuse to acknowledge it but it has always been widely perceived, at least on Ekkida, that the government of twenty-second century Earth was unable to solve any of the planet’s social ills or even feed its population, which it allowed to grow unchecked.”
The Historian smiled. That was exactly the topic he wanted to tackle first. It was also the one for which he was the most prepared. Apparently Non was paying him back for allowing him to save face earlier.
“Congratulations on perceiving what the most important lesson to be learned here might be, Cadet Non,” he stated. “These points have been debated in my classes many times before. I don’t deny these early explorers were quite courageous and inventive, but it is their motives that have been called into question for all these years.”
Most of what was known about the creators and the time period up until the diplomatic mission from Earth arrived at Terra Nova, came from the archives that had been captured by the felines during their fight for independence from their human masters. The rest came from the heavily edited transcripts from war crimes proceedings against the creator remnant and combined only told part of the tale of their journey to Terra Nova.
For years Zheng had believed there was much more to the story. Many of the actions of the Earth government, the native Terra Novans and the Feline War Council during the debates over whether or not the creators should be returned to Earth did not add up.
He had attempted to fill the holes in his knowledge of that time period for almost twenty years. His attempts to get the information he needed from the historical archives of the League and the member planets were met with varying degrees of resistance.
When the time came to teach this part of the subject during every term, the Historian tried to present only the facts as recorded and didn’t make an attempt to spin them. This day, however, he felt the need to depart slightly from his usual approach. He pulled up a chapter from the newest revision of his textbook on his tablet.
He could possibly get into hot water with the Academy and the Bureau of Historical Sciences if any of the cadets mentioned he had strayed from his syl
labus and openly questioned Central Government policy, but he decided to gamble. This chapter hadn’t been cleared for publishing as yet, but it was more likely to be cleared than the original version he wrote before thinking better of it.
With every edition of his textbook, the Historian had revised the chapters about the creators’ activities; leading up to and including their invasion of Terra Nova; with anything new he learned from his investigation into the subject. The chapters covering that period in the first two editions of his textbook sounded like the Earth government’s indictment of the creators verbatim.
Successive versions had slowly moved toward a neutral presentation, but the last two revisions clearly showed the Historian’s misgivings about the official story. His view had changed drastically after he found some news stories from that era that spoke of the degenerating conditions on Earth at the time.
The Historian read aloud to the cadets from the copy of the manuscript on his tablet.
“John Edward Chamberlain and His Followers.”
“The creators were a group made up of the most wealthy and politically powerful families on Earth (Sol IIIa, or Terra) during the last half of the Terran historical period known as the 22nd Century A.D. Their de facto leader, John Edward Chamberlain, was a United States industrialist born of a British mother and father who left the south of England and settled in the state of Illinois.”
“Of course, Chamberlain’s followers didn’t call themselves the creators. ‘Creators’ was a name given them by the original generations of the felines who were painfully aware they owed their existence to these humans. That is the name by which the feline species still refers to them, even though the Earth government and most historians call them by the more neutral term ‘expatriates’.”
“At the time the creators left the Earth, the planet was in turmoil. It was dangerously overpopulated and already taxing the resources of all the other bodies in its solar system. Still, the planet could not fully meet its needs for energy, food or raw materials.”
“Even with highly systemized ranching and livestock cloning, meat was becoming scarce and expensive. Water was also becoming scarce because the oceans and many of the fresh water sources were polluted.”
“Large hydroponic facilities were built in orbit to assist in the production of food. The orbital stations were not bound by fixed growing seasons or susceptible to lack of rain or unpredictable weather. They were essentially giant terrariums in orbit. Necessary grains and vegetables were being grown there year-round but hunger was still a problem.”
“Riots and demonstrations were becoming the norm. Armed conflicts over dwindling resources and political wars between various factions were rampant and increasing in brutality.”
“The creators used their economic and political clout to the best of their ability to try and coerce the global government into passing laws to curb population growth and to force austerity measures upon the general populace. That met with great resistance and forced the creators into doing what they saw as the only way to save their own lives and to ensure the survival of the human race.”
“The creators bought large amounts of time on the huge orbital telescopes Earth’s supreme scientific body had built. They did spectrographic analyses of all the planets that had been discovered orbiting yellow or yellow-orange stars within twenty light years of Sol. The study found three that were promising, all showing evidence of Earth-like atmospheres with high percentages of water vapor.”
“The closest to Earth was the fourth planet that circled Alpha Centauri A, or Terra Nova, as it would eventually be called.”
“So, these richest and most influential families of Earth set their plan to escape in motion. They decided they would build a space ark to hold ten-thousand immigrants and all the equipment, weapons and biological resources they needed to ensure a successful new beginning on the one planet that had the most potential of the three that were considered.”
“The first part of the plan was to build the Ark and two smaller escort craft. The escorts would be used if needed to defend the Ark, upon its departure, from the new fleet of military cruisers being built to patrol the solar system. After the colonists were safely away from the Sol system, the escorts would break off and each head for one of the other two planets under consideration as the Ark made its way to Alpha Centauri A IV.”
“The escorts would survey the other two worlds for natural resources and suitability of environment. The space ark would have a big enough crew to carry out the survey of Alpha Centauri A IV and watch over the colonists who would be put in cryonic stasis for the journey. Once the surveys were complete, a small percentage of the colonists would be awakened from stasis. These representatives would make the final selection of a new home world from the three planets.”
“The creators decided to use a multi-reactor modulated thrust engine theoretically capable of pushing the Ark to velocities of up to sixty percent of light speed, but these had never been tested on a ship even one-fifth the size of the ark. The smaller escort craft would be fitted with newer engines of the same basic design with some untested modifications that should have been able to push them to nearly 0.85c.”
“Best estimates were the Ark should have been able to reach Alpha Centauri in about seven years at maximum speed, but the creators would be happy to make it in ten since the escorts would not be able to reach the two other candidates before that time. The surveys would take approximately two years to complete and the results would not reach the other crews for ten or more years afterward. If the Ark were required to move from Terra Nova to the planet farthest away, it could be there in another seven to twelve years, worst case, making the total mission time somewhere between twenty-five and thirty years.”
“The creators knew it would be impossible to openly reveal what they were trying to accomplish. To use the Earth’s dwindling resources for what would be considered a vain and selfish purpose would be seen as treasonous and surely bring the wrath of both the global government and the general population down on them. So, they used the pretext of establishing another orbital hydroponic station.”
“This station would be three times as large as any previously built (almost one-and-a-half kilometers in length) and would also house both livestock research and cloning facilities. The creators would have to secretly construct cryonic stasis chambers for most of the ten-thousand scientifically selected men and women that would be needed to build the homes, farms and factories on the new world. The recruitment of these potential colonists would also have to be done surreptitiously.”
“The creators started on construction of the orbital facility as soon as the Earth’s global political body gave the okay. The shell, complete with lodging and crew facilities, was constructed in about four years. Workers started to arrive and begin construction on the hydroponics and cloning facilities shortly after.”
“As these facilities were being completed and put online, the workers who built them were being systematically replaced by the recruits for the interplanetary mission. Supplies and material needed to construct the cryonic stasis units and the two survey craft were brought on board little by little over the next five years.”
“Some small suspicions were raised by the fact the engines being built for the orbital facility were rather large, but the Earth government soon stopped asking questions. They were happy to see vegetables, grain and meat starting to flow back to the planet, which at that time, had over twenty billion inhabitants that needed to be fed.”
“Fifteen years after construction was started on the ‘Ark’ as Chamberlain and his followers named it, all of the technology was in place for the trip to begin. The creators told the world government the facility would have to be shut down for six months for renovation of some of the hydroponics and cloning facilities.”
“Over the next six months, as final preparations were being made to leave orbit, the solar arrays were closed and the hydroponic units were retracted into their bays. Supplies and
any newer technology deemed desirable for the mission was brought aboard under the guise of being necessary for repair and upgrade of the facility.”
“About a month before the facility was to re-open and start production, the leadership of the creators announced a grand reopening celebration on board that would include a tour for dignitaries and families of the crew and administrators of the facility. This was a huge opportunity for the Earth government to see this marvel of engineering up close. For security reasons, few people outside of the workers and administrators had ever been allowed on board up to that time.”
“Of course, the creators hand-picked the officials and dignitaries who would be attending. All of these were in on the creators’ plan and needed to be brought aboard before the launch. The last people were brought aboard and the last supply ship delivered cargo to the Ark on the fifteenth day of August, 2160 A.D., by the Terran calendar.”
“On the seventeenth day of August, 2160, at approximately 0430 Zulu time, when the Ark was at a point in its orbit that placed it in direct sunlight and on the opposite side of Earth from Luna (Sol IIIb), the alignment thrusters were fired to change the attitude of the Ark so the stern was aimed slightly away from the planet. Plasma from the three redundant fusion reactors was then vented to the reaction chamber in the main propulsion unit to mix with the reaction mass.”
“A plume of superheated water, which quickly separated into its component hydrogen and oxygen, shot out the main engine nozzle and started to burn, creating a jet of bright blue that stretched almost twenty-five kilometers. Had the Ark been on the night side of the planet, the flame would have lit the surface to almost daylight brightness.”
“The thrust from the engines quickly dropped the Ark from its parking orbit of five-hundred kilometers to about two-hundred and then the ship started climbing again. Its course was corrected to keep it between Earth and its sun as long as possible. That would make it difficult for those on the surface of Earth to visually confirm what was going on or track the Ark easily with microwave or laser scanning equipment. It would also give the creators a large head start over the space fleet which was in lunar orbit.”
Chamberlain's Folly (The Terra Nova Chronicles) Page 4
