“Grab your friend. Let’s go.”
Zale led them to an identical shuttle of the one Liam came in on. This time it was only Zale, Debra, and Liam in the cabin. Wordlessly, Debra took a seat in the back. She was quiet during the lengthy walk to the shuttle. Liam and Zale once again sat next to each other across the aisle.
“Alright Zale—what’s your story? Have you always been EPSD?” Liam asked.
“Since university. Have you always been a mining criminal?”
“Not a day in my life. So why choose a life in security? I was military back before all this, so I get the appeal. But, correct me if I’m wrong, you seem to have a peaceful society going on, right?”
“We don’t kill unless we have to if that’s what you mean. There will always be crime, however. Someone trying to take advantage of the peace we’ve created. That’s why I signed up.”
“Sounds like why I joined the military. Things were going to shit and I wanted to help maintain what little peace we had left. Unfortunately others had bad intentions.”
“There are no militaries anymore. But I hear you. Peace is a fragile thing. Any cracks in its surface exposes the truth underneath.”
“What truth?”
“Everyone, human and Proximian alike, even if they claim otherwise, has a dark side. Without peace, the dark roams free to do whatever it pleases.”
“That’s the damn truth. Why do you say the Proxies claim otherwise?
Zale gave Liam a strange look, considering him. “You’re either a brilliant actor or maybe you are telling me the truth. I’m starting to hope you are who you say you are. And ‘Proxies’—I like that.”
Liam noticed she dodged the question. “You know, before the ships took off, the STS ships, that is, we were under threat by a terrorist organization called the WWLO. Heard of them?”
Zale shook her head, but let him continue.
“Figures the history books would wipe them out. Anyway, they attacked two of our construction sites. One in a place called India, if that’s still around, and the other where I worked, almost killing me. Ann, my girlfriend, worked at the same place. I was in charge and I wanted to keep her safe so I sent her away to the STS ship in Dallas. After the terrorists were gone, I kept her there as a precaution. We agreed that once the STS fleet was safely away we would rendezvous on my ship. Then the aliens came and our ship fell behind to make repairs so they went on without us. Now I’m here and she’s there—light years apart.”
Liam’s head dipped down, chin to chest. Zale saw how upset his story made him and again wondered if the man before her was telling the truth. The story of the STS ships was a tragic lesson in her world, almost as much myth as fact in the history of her time. The classic fable of giving up when the going gets tough when if you had waited a bit longer things would’ve turned around. But seeing this man in front of her, she wondered if there was truth to the story. Her professionalism wrestled with a want to comfort him. She settled with: “I’m sorry, Liam.”
“Thanks.”
Nobody spoke the remainder of the ride to Mars which was roughly a half hour trip from the EPSD ship. Debra slept while Liam and Zale were both lost in their own thoughts. The atmospheric turbulence broke their concentration and it was Liam who walked back to wake Debra.
“Hey. We’re here. Are you ready to walk on Mars?”
“Can’t be any worse than Earth before it or Triton’s hellscape,” she said.
“That’s the spirit.”
Liam helped her up from her seat and they followed Zale out of the shuttle’s doorway and down the stairs to a landing platform.
“This is Mars?” Debra asked.
They were on the rooftop of a lofty skyscraper in the middle of a city. Neon lights on the sides of buildings began turning on as the sun began its evening descent. The skyscrapers were much different architecturally than the ones he knew on Earth. Each was environmentally friendly—featuring trees either on roofs or on their hundreds of balconies. Flying vehicles weaved their way between buildings. One sped past the platform causing Debra to jump. Liam peeked over the edge and saw ground traffic of hovering vehicles, a floating monorail making a stop a few blocks away, and thousands of pedestrians out for the night.
The Mars Liam expected to see—a red clay desert—could only be found past the city’s borders behind the glass dome they passed through upon entry to the city. He looked up toward the center of the city and saw a similar, but much larger, version of the petal tower he saw on Triton supplying invisible energy to the dome.
“What does that do?” he asked Zale.
“The tower? It’s the source of the shield’s particles that absorb cosmic radiation. Without it, atmo-domes wouldn’t be possible.”
“Right. Is it not possible to simply terraform the planet?”
“Nothing simple about terraforming. It’s a long process and won’t be finished any time soon. Probably not for another thousand years at least. For now, we live in domes.”
“How many?” Debra asked, her interest peaked.
Zale began leading them to a roof-top elevator bank. “On Mars? Eight. In the solar system? About thirty. Most of Jupiter and Saturn’s moons have at least one. Ganymede has five cities.”
“And where are we now? What’s the name of this city?” Liam asked.
“Are you kidding? Oh, right—you’re ‘from the past’” Zale said with air quotes. She pressed the button to call up an elevator. “You’re standing in Pearl City, the capital of the PAG.”
“PAG?” Debra asked.
“Planetary Authoritative Government,” Liam answered. “I would’ve thought the capital would be on Earth.” The elevator door opened and they stepped in. Zale pressed the button for the forty-third floor.
“It was initially, but many in the outer colonies thought the PAG was biased in favor of Earth, with it being the home planet of us humans and the planet with the highest population, so eventually it moved here about two hundred years ago.”
“What about nations? The United States, Britain, China?” Debra asked.
“Phased out. Each planet or moon has a number of representatives based on population size in the PAG. On Earth, for example, where nations once ruled, now each continent has their own smaller government controlled by governors.”
“Fascinating,” Debra said.
The elevator stopped and its doors opened into a grandiose lobby. While they may have stopped on the forty-third floor, this room was three stories tall and a marvelous chandelier hung in the open space above. The marble floor was so shiny the chandelier’s reflection practically lit the room a second time. The room’s acoustics echoed the sound of their footsteps as they walked. Men and women of both species in suits were either working at one of the several desks that bordered the edge of the room or sat in chairs in what was clearly the waiting area. At one employee’s desk, the employee was speaking with a miniature hologram figure that projected on top of it.
A young man holding a translucent tablet approached them halfway into the room. Zale informed him of their business. He told them they were expected and showed them into an adjacent room. A dais in the back of the room held nine empty chairs of varying sizes. By now Liam knew that some were sized for humans, others for the Proximians. In the front of the room was one empty seat. Zale gestured for him to take it while she and Debra stood beside him. To the right was a window showing the last of the sunlight dip beyond the horizon of Pearl City, which was now completely illuminated by a dazzling array of neon lights. A lane of flying traffic buzzed by their building thirty feet beyond the window.
Moments after he sat, a door slid open behind the dais and nine humans and aliens entered the room taking their individual seats.
An older female human took the middle seat and said, “Good evening. We are the Mars district one review board representing the interests of the Planetary Authoritative Government.”
“I am Liam Donovan.”
“We know who you claim to be
. Liam Donovan was the managerial supervisor in charge of the fifth ship of the Save The Species initiative in the twenty second century. He left Earth behind a thousand years ago on a ship called The Hawking on a fateful voyage to the planet Proxima b.”
“Our ship malfunctioned. We woke up a few weeks ago at the edges of the solar system. We turned around and were found by Mrs. Alday and the EPSD.”
“All that is in our preliminary report. Why don’t you start from the beginning,” the board member suggested.
Liam spent the next hour telling his story. He went over every detail and could hear Debra to his left stifling back tears when he recited what happened on Triton. He told them about Ann and how the other four ships must be at Proxima by now. He didn’t fail to notice that when he mentioned Proxima some of the board members exchanged glances. When he finished his story, the board excused themselves and left the room.
“That’s it?” he asked Zale.
“They’ll go deliberate and return with a verdict.”
“What? So they’ll come back and tell me they believe me or tell me I’m a mining criminal, which I’m not, based on one story and no evidence? I don’t even get a lawyer?”
“While we’ve been here a PAG ship docked with yours. Investigators have been sweeping your ship and interviewing your people. They have immensely powerful methods of detecting lies and forgeries. Instruments in this room,” Zale pointed to a small black device mounted on the wall above the dais, “analyzed your every movement as you were talking to determine if you were telling the truth or lying. They will review your analysis and compare with those conducted on your ship. It won’t take long.”
“Wait. You’re telling me that tech exists and you still had to bring me down to a review board? Why not just use that on your ship when you first brought me on board?”
“Let’s just say the PAG is very protective of their proprietary technology. Our job is to merely bring the people in. They determine their guilt or innocence.”
Liam shook his head. “Seems like a backwards way of doing things, but also very different from the system we had in place. This whole process would’ve been dragged on for months by lawyers.”
“The EPSD has been fighting to get our hands on that tech for years, but they’ve made it quite clear what our role is in all this. We keep the peace when able and bring back those who don’t comply with the system. They have complete control over guilt versus innocence.”
Turning to Debra, Liam asked if she was holding up alright.
“I just want this to be over,” she said.
They waited fifteen minutes before the review board retook their seats. The woman in the center pulled out a tablet and spent a moment pulling up Liam’s file.
“Well, Mr. Donovan, you told us quite a story,” she said. “We went over the facial analysis that determines whether you are lying or not. Of course that system isn’t infallible. Many think they might be telling the truth or have otherwise trained themselves to not give anything away, which is where the nine of us come in. We reviewed the analysis and compared it with our own thoughts. In conclusion we’ve determined you are telling us the truth—as is those we’ve been concurrently interviewing aboard your ship.”
Liam couldn’t help himself but to look over at Zale who surprised him with a wink.
“What happens now?” he asked the board member, returning his gaze to the front.
“You and Ms. Sizemore will be put up in an apartment owned by the Planetary Authoritative Government. You say there are twenty-five thousand on your ship. They will need to be rehomed and that won’t be easy or done quickly so for now they must remain on your ship in orbit around Mars. You will all need time to reintegrate into our society. The government will assist you in the process.”
“What about the four other ships? The ones on Proxima?”
The board member looked left and right at the others then over to Zale. “You didn’t tell him?”
“No ma’am. I wasn’t sure of the validity of his story. If he was lying then he already knew. If he was telling the truth, I figured I’d tell him then.”
“See to it that you do. The man who showed you in will assist you to your apartment. Dismissed.” And like that, the review board got up and left them alone.
“Tell me what?” Liam asked Zale firmly.
“Not here.”
The apartment was not what Liam had been expecting. Zale, Liam, and Debra took in the space as the man from the review board bid them a goodnight. Floor to ceiling windows in the living room looked out to the city while auto-dimming the bright neon lights. Luxurious furniture filled the apartment including a curved leather sofa, a grand piano, and the fanciest dining room table Liam had ever seen. Numerous paintings provided a beautiful decor adorning the walls. A stone fireplace roared opposite the sofa heating the room.
Two master bedrooms on either side of the apartment each featured king sized beds and attached bathrooms with a walk in shower that would rain water from the ceiling. The heated tile floors provided a special bonus. The kitchen was also fully stocked with an extensive range of food and drink.
“Wow. I can get used to this,” Debra said as she flopped on the sofa.
“Debra, do you mind waiting here while I speak with Liam? We have much to talk about.”
“Sure. I can think of worse places to be staying the night.”
“Thanks. Liam, let’s take a walk.”
They left Debra to enjoy herself in the luxury apartment and rode the elevator down to the ground level. Zale told him about a lovely park nearby where they could talk. The streets were packed with people out for the night. They passed several bars tempting Liam to ask for a change of location, but he thought of Ann and wanted to stay strong for her. Many pedestrians he passed wore the smart-contact lenses. He was told while on the EPSD ship that they displayed an augmented reality for the viewer so he or she could conduct a variety of activities on the go such as conduct business transactions or even watch a sporting match. The audio was connected to a small device implanted inside their inner ears so only they could see and hear what was being displayed.
A hologram appeared suddenly in front of them keeping pace with their walk. The figure was trying to sell them on entering his restaurant a block ahead. According to the hologram, they had the best steaks on Mars. Zale swiped her hand through the transparent man causing him to blink out of their sight.
“And also the most expensive steaks on Mars. Are you hungry?” Zale asked.
“Starving.”
A street vendor just ahead was selling a food Liam had never heard of out of a cart—something called ‘Worfros’. Zale paid for two and out of the cart the vendor pulled out what looked to Liam like a hot dog split through the middle and folded outwards between pita bread with a load of toppings inside.
Delicious, he thought after taking the first bite as they resumed their walk.
By the time they finished their meal, Zale was leading them into the sparsely populated park. Only a handful of others were out for nighttime strolls. The pathway she led them on took them through a small forest until they reached a wooden bench carved into an old tree trunk. A night jogger ran by offering a half-hearted wave as they sat.
“I love this spot. Every time I’m in the city I try to take some time to come here and unwind. Sometimes I spend months straight in space so any chance I have to enjoy nature I take. I hiked for two straight weeks on a mountain trail on Earth once. Best vacation of my life.”
“It’s nice. I had a virtual reality exercise machine at my old house. That was about as close as I came to hiking a trail. So, what is it that I don’t know about Proxima?”
“Have you given any thought as to why the aliens came to Earth?”
“At the time we all assumed they came to kill us. That’s why we left in such a hurry and fired nuclear weapons at their ships.”
“And now?”
“It appears we were wrong, weren’t we? What’s unclear to me s
till is why exactly they came and why it’s an apparent tragedy the other four ships are on Proxima.”
“They came to help us. From afar they watched as our planet fell apart. For years they debated amongst themselves whether to intervene in our affairs. From what we were told, their civilization on Proxima was one of tremendous technological achievement. Like us, even their planet went through a near self-extinction event shortly after their rise in technology. But then they discovered a way to turn the tide and thrive like never before. Over time their culture changed and broke down into three factions.
“Faction one wanted to use space travel and help others in need like they once were. This sparked a debate about whether or not they ethically should interfere with the fate of other species, namely us as we began making our own planet uninhabitable. Faction two wanted to remain on Proxima and not spread out to other planets. They believed space travel and relationships with other species could only lead to harm in the long run. The third faction was the most extreme. They wanted to return to the ways of their ancestors and disband all technology and only live off the natural world. They felt their society had grown too dependent on computers and machines and had forgotten how to simply live.
“The three factions were never able to come to an agreement. Fighting eventually broke out like it always does. Many died—especially on the anti-tech side. Not long after, they realized we were planning to build the STS fleet to escape Earth and flee to Proxima. Many of their society agreed that it was best for that not to happen and that humans should stay on Earth. Faction one argued that if they stopped the STS ships from simply leaving while not assisting humanity, then humans would soon go extinct or aim for another planet instead. So it was decided that if faction one wanted to save humanity then they would have to build their own ships to cross space and save us, but if they did then they could never return. Some decided to stay, but most of that faction agreed to the terms set.
“They used tech that they have never shared with us to create a wormhole that allowed them to jump from their solar system to ours in no time at all. The plan was for them to arrive at the edge of the solar system and slowly traverse our way so as not to take us by surprise and give us plenty of time to accept that other intelligent species exist outside our own.”
Proxima Page 23
