Planets Falling (3 page)

Chapter 3
– Aftermath

Within 24 hours of what the colony's residents were calling the "big breach", the nefarious brown slime had eaten various sized holes in five other sectors of the colony.

Dome 2 was devoted to administration and interment.  When a portion of the north wall collapsed, two lunching bureaucrats were sucked clear of the structure into the dusty martian air.  Their bodies were recovered a day later, frozen and desiccated, like Peruvian mummies curled up in their shallow desert graves on earth.

Dome 6 housed the schooling sectors.  Luckily, the children were on holiday and the breach was contained with no injuries.  In Sector 2 of housing Dome 3, three boys who were born and raised as true martians in that area were not so fortunate.  They were bouncing a ball against a wall that had stood steadfast for their entire short lives.  During the last few moments that their minds worked, they marveled at how the wall dissolved before them and then wondered why the air in their chests was being forced out like water through a straw.

The transportation hub, the center of arriving and departing vessels in the colony, experienced only a minor hole in its arrivals bay.  No one was hurt.  But shipments of repair supplies and even rescue cruisers were impeded until the integrity of the area was assured.

The final breach occurred in the sector containing Jon Fuerst's laboratory.  The wealth of his equipment was smashed against the lab benches when the air rushed out. Hama, the brilliant student who Jon had trained for months and who was only twenty five years old, became trapped between two tables and suffocated while the emergency sirens blared.

Jon and Pinchot emerged from the tunnels just before the walls came down.  They stood dumbfounded sipping cold
herbal tea in a biological staff lounge as they listened to the chatter on the staff communications network.  Holst had vanished.  They suspected that he was meeting with corporate leadership brokering a deal to protect the biological section.  However, given the events unfolding in the domes, it was apparent that their days of research on mars were over.  When Jon heard about his lab, he wanted to rush there, see poor Hama for one last time.  But the sector was sealed and it would be weeks before access was granted again.  Pinch paced the room, exhaustion awash on her face.

On the screens of the general communications network,
Director Ansa Heldren peered out at the entire colony, her mouth tight around her brilliant teeth.  She smiled, calmly gazing at the camera, her eyes tarry black.  "Dear citizens and patrons.  We are in control of the situation.  During the past day, several small explosions were set by an unknown person.  Be confident that our security is patrolling the perimeter of all living areas and will ensure that no further damage will occur.  We ask that any information about suspicious behavior be reported to us immediately.  Please remain in the confines of your living areas and do not leave them until further notified."

"And the cover up begins," Jon murmured.

"I guess reporting that an uncontrolled pathogen that eats plastic and perhaps some metals is on the loose would be a bit unsettling," Pinch laughed quietly.  "If this stuff is propagating naturally, it could consume the entire colony and any ship coming to rescue us.  We’d be the mars equivalent of a leper colony.  And we’d all be dead in a few weeks."

As the two scientists worried, panicked people from all walks of colony life amassed at
the trans hub.  The hub was a huge building with hundreds of gates that connected transport vessels to the colony interior.  Only a small section had been isolated following the breach and outbound transports were still available. Throngs of visitors fought to get onto departing vessels either to other stations on the planet, or more desirably, off planet to earth.

Those who called the colony home had more complicated considerations.  Parents attempted to arrange immediate passage for their children.  Others were ready to leave all their belongings and jump ship to a new life away from the domes.  For those remaining in their living areas, they awaited another breach and possibly an agonizing death.

Over a few short days, the colony settled into resolute silence. Most of the paying visitors had managed to escape off station.  The maintenance and technical staff were either busy wandering the perimeter searching for additional damage or staying clear of the gaze of security.  Many families associated with colony governance or with biological studies were discretely planning their own flights.  Security was questioning biological staff, but did not seem to be particularly earnest in its job.  The thin air smelled and tasted particularly artificial.  Inhabitants were dreaming of green earth only to awake in the dim martian light.

Then came the directive.

To: All personnel.

Subject:  General announcement.

From: Directors Heldren and Holst.

Effective immediately, all egress from the colony is prohibited. An extensive search for the perpetrators of the incidents on Dec 12-13 is underway. Once repairs are completed at the transportation hub, supplies will arrive as normal.  The threat of more explosions has been contained.  Access to all authorized areas is granted.  Please resume all normal work activity. Avoid damaged sectors until further notice.

With apparent martial law imposed on the colony, most of the inhabitants slowly resumed working and living their lives. Other than the uncertainty of the walls falling away, a semblance of resigned normalcy settled on the researchers and staff.  The colony was very much the same as before, but subdued.  The bustle of activity at the local haunts vanished with the absence of the tourists and adventure seekers.  Many of the residential sectors were eerily quiet- most disturbing was the lack of children playing.  Parents kept their brood near safety.  Those residents with the wealth and influence to move away had gained access to transports before the directive and moved to other martian colonies or back to take their chances on earth.

Those
colonists with roots in the colony -or nowhere else to go - stayed.  Most of the stragglers and stranded were scientists.  Abroad, the colony was viewed as under investigation for terrorist activity and avoided by travelers plus wary merchant vessels. The media carried the story earthside for a few days but quickly became preoccupied with other baubles: the various wars, diseases, and disasters continually bubbling up on earth.

Neither Fuerst nor Pinchot knew what to do.  The company leaders including Holst were clearly attempting to deceive the colonists; no one believed that the wall breaches were caused by explosives.  The general theory pinging around the populace was that some lifeless inorganic corrosive -a nasty acid- was used.  Even the experienced microbiologists doubted that the holes were caused by a biological agent.  If Fuerst and Ferris were to implicate an outbreak of Tash's superbug, panic and fingerpointing would ensue.  Even Tash, now released from confinement and reunited with his wife and children, was silent about the matter.

So, they all worked. Contrary to their expectations, Holst encouraged the colonists to continue their research and provided them with ample resources - perhaps more than before the incident.  Fuerst's lab was quickly repaired once the damaged sector was declared safe; he dove into his experiments. It was the least he could do to honor Hama's memory. He and Pinch spent many days and evenings in the subterranean earth room quietly talking about ways to make mars habitable and how to use their lessons to save earth.  Within a few months, access to the outside of the colony was re-established.  And only a handful of colonists cared.

A year passed.  The quality of the coffee improved and life in the colony ramped up.  The anniversary of the incident neared and a collective of colonist researchers were planning the first of a series of small experiments outside the domes.  Pinch had gathered all the families in celebration.  Children were again playing in the tepid martian sun.

Visitors never returned to the colony. The researchers and their support staff had the domes to themselves. Holst assured them it was a new corporate directive to keep research separate from recreation and housing. Although Pinch occasionally wondered about the company's true intentions, she kept leading her people forward.

That bright day, Ferris spoke clearly and directly to her friends and family. 
"My dear friends, we're about to embark on the next phase of exploration."  She paused and relished the attention.  "We plan to introduce a series of engineered bacteria and microalgae that can withstand the harsh environment outside and begin to condition the soil for further life.  We're moving beyond the lab incubator and into the real world."

Applause followed.  From the crowd, Ben Pettit, a climatologist shouted, "When's the baby due?"

Apparently, the first child of Drs. Ferris and Fuerst was beginning to show - a little bump protruded hopefully from her belly.

Chapter 4 – A New Generation

Excerpt from book entitled "A History of the Terra Institute":

Adam Fuerst became the first Principal of the Institute following a unanimous vote of the founding families.  Fuerst was an original colonist of mars and greatly advanced science and engineering approaches in planetary reformation.  After the discovery of intergalactic travel during Fuerst's early childhood, economic interest in mars colonization and exploitation briefly waned.

Corporate focus on building enclosed colonies on the mars surface and exploiting plus terraforming the entire planet was diverted toward exploration of the galaxy for suitable colonization by earth's expanding population.  The scientists thought there should be endless numbers of planets with life that could be exploited and colonized for profit.  While earth turned toward the stars, the scientists on Colony 1 of mars continued their ecological and climatological research, training their children to follow similar pursuits.  It was during this time that the colony became an autonomous branch company - acting as a consultant to the various exploratory corporations- a move that would prove most profitable to the Institute in the near future.

During Fuerst's early teen years, contact with the nauron species was established.  As with humanity, the naurons were searching for habitable planets, with surprising parallels to those of humans, although the naurons required more aquatic habitats given their amphibious life cycle (link to: 
nauron physiology
).  The combined exploratory efforts of the two sentient species yielded a discouraging fact.  Life was surprisingly rare in the galactic neighborhood.

It was with this sinking realization that the corporations and the one remaining earth government (link to: 
Great Intercontinental War
) turned toward the small cluster of colonies on mars.  The red planet was streaked with green by this time.  It was there that Fuerst had spent most of his childhood traveling with his mother between the various domes of the colonies.  He was an attentive, brilliant child with broad interests.  He excelled academically and learned much from the labs he visited.  Memoirs of many of the early Institute founders including biologists, chemists, and geologists mention how inquisitive and insightful he was, as if he had read all the available literature on their subjects.

As an adult, Fuerst's chosen field was astrobiology.  This developing discipline explored how the physics of planets, their moons, and suns influenced planetary life.  It was during this time that humans and naurons discovered the first three (other than earth and nauron) of the 31 known planets with life on them (link to:  planetary community) and astrobiology found that many of its theories could begin to be tested in space.  Many other planets had conditions that seemed appropriate for life.  However, to the disappointment of the explorers, life was absent or had long vanished on them.  The question posited to Fuerst's Institute was this:  Is it possible to make lifeless planets come to life?

It was Sunday morning on mars and Adam Fuerst always had breakfast with his
parents.  Pancakes, synth bacon, and steaming coffee sat untouched in front of him.  He'd recently been chosen as the leader of the new Institute and by this it meant he was the leader of mars.  The colony of researchers now was officially recognized beyond its borders. But with the exception of the new title for the colony nothing was particularly new, except perhaps the expectations of the expanding populations of two intelligent, spacefaring species vying to colonize the galaxy.  No real pressure there.

Most of the founding researchers brought there by his mother were raising families. In fact a few were already welcoming a third generation into their world.  And a few naurons joined them, their wet skin and enormous eyes never failing to capture the attention of the human children.  As was becoming tradition, many of their children elected to stay and learn the craft of science, expanding terraforming into new, exciting realms.  Mars was slowly becoming green.  What an amazing achievement, he often thought.

"Mom," Fuerst sipped his cranberry juice, squeezed from fruits grown in the depths of the planet.  "I was scrolling through reports of the incident.  I know I've asked lots of time before.  But I uncovered some new information.  It involves your old friend Will Holst."

Both Pinch and Jon shifted uncomfortably in their seats.  Adam was obsessed with the
big breach that occurred so long ago.  No suspect was implicated.  And no trace of the biological substance that caused the breaches was ever found.  They assumed that Holst, Heldren, and the company knew more, but their queries to the corporate leadership were always met by evasiveness.  Holst had died the year before.  It was an apparent suicide.  He walked into an airlock, deactivated the safeties, and strolled about ten feet out onto the martian surface before collapsing from extreme exposure.  He was found by maintenance staff curled in a desiccated ball in a small patch of moss. Within a few hundred years, he would have been able to sit in that patch of vegetation and suffer only a bit of a chill.

Adam gazed at his stricken parents. "Now that I'm involved in governance and we've gained autonomy from the company, I have access to communications between the colony leadership and the corporation. There’s a bunch of puzzling encrypted notes between Holst and someone high up in the company immediately before and following the incident.  I had Billings in computing and mathematics write an algorithm to decrypt them.  Most of the messages are reports about productivity, personnel evaluations, and costs.  But directly before hell broke out here, one of the messages says something like, 'project underway, chimera released'.  After the incident, Holst made several references to 'unintended consequences' and strangely a reference to the moon phobos and what appears to be coordinates on its surface."

Ferris looked at her son sadly.  She hadn’t aged visibly in years, although her eyes were deeper, darker.  "So Will had something to do with the release.  Adam, we haven’t been entirely honest with you or ourselves for that matter.  The incident wasn't caused by explosives." She and Jon described the events of those few days and the impact of Tash's bacteria.  The pancakes grew cold.  "We always thought that Heldren, the security director at the time and Holst either caught the perpetrator or at least knew more about the event.  They always were wrapped in the corporate drama.  But we just dove back into our science and let things sort themselves out.  Typical researchers.  Now it seems that Will had some hand in this.  But why?"

Jon sighed, an exhalation of decades of concern and guilt.  "Adam, we're so sorry.  We
really should have pushed harder.  I mean, kids died that day.  If Holst was remotely responsible, he should have paid.  What do you think is on phobos?"

Adam smiled at his parents.  His ability to immediately forgive people and to see their point of view were traits that made him a great leader and research collaborator.  It also rendered him, like his mother, a bit too trusting.  "Perhaps an answer to the mystery.  I plan to take a shuttle to the moon and check out those coordinates."

"Mind if I tag along?" Jon asked.  "It's been a while since we’ve done any space hopping together.  I miss those trips with you."

Phobos was a tumbling lump freefalling towards the surface of mars.  In a few million years, it would crash, undoing any works that humans had managed to accomplish. As they lifted from the surface, Jon imagined what awaited them.  Was it a confession?  A vial of the bacterium?  Meteors and an occasional piece of spaces debris routinely hit the moon, so it might be possible that nothing but a crater would be found there.  The shuttle entered space and Adam was humming some tune that Jon could not recall.  The moon neared and the ship mimicked the tumbling spin of the satellite in anticipation of an approach toward the predefined coordinates.  They descended and the ship landed in a puff of dust.  The low gravity made excursions dangerous, so Jon remained in the vessel while Adam departed, tethered to the bulkhead.  While he shuffled to the site, Adam kept humming.

"Stop making that noise kiddo, I am trying to concentrate on your vitals and the gravity readings."

Adam chuckled.  "Sorry dad, popular tune that all the kids are listening to right now.  Okay.  I'm here.  Nothing obvious but a pile of rocks.  Wait, I see something."

Jon peered through the window.  "Be careful.  Is there a sign of any traps?"

"Do you think this is some bad movie
, dad?  No traps, bombs, or snapping alligators.  It's a relay of some kind - a small power source, a keypad, and what looks like a transmitter. I think its still operating and sending signals to somewhere.  We need to know where it is pointing."

Jon swiveled his seat to the navigation panel.  "Let me see whether the ship's receiver can capture the bandwidth.  Also, I'll have the computer calculate the trajectory of the signal.  Attach a transmitter to the antenna."

The computer analyzed the signal, randomly tuning through various known frequencies looking for a pattern.  After about half an hour, it captured the signals and deciphered their destination - earth.  Specifically, it was relaying messages to the location of a small transmission satellite belonging to the corporation.  The individuals privy to this information were likely very high in the company hierarchy.  The message on the relay was a recording, generated by Holst just a week before he died.  The encryption was the same as the one Adam had deciphered earlier.  The computer cracked it easily and revealed its content.  It said: “Chimera stolen.  Location unknown.”

Later that day, while the shuttle's engines cooled in the transport bay, Adam convened a meeting of the family leadership of the Institute – mostly human a few naurons.  After explaining to them what he learned from his parents, he conveyed the troubling information that Holst sent back to earth.  Concerned, surprised faces riddled the room.

Adam maintained his control. "I suspect that the some faction within the corporation intended to clear non-scientists from the colony and use it solely for terra-development research.  This probably wasn't a popular idea among the leadership.  Most board members plus the shareholders wanted to keep using the colony for recreation and housing.  Thus, Holst and whoever he was collaborating with in the leadership decided to use an incentive - a terror attack to scare people away.  The bacteria that Tash developed would be convenient and clandestine.  All Holst had to do was spread it in several locations and wait for it to cook.  I don't think he intended for it to be so robust or deadly.  Regardless, it worked.  Years passed.  I guess Holst stashed some bacteria. When it was lost, he couldn't bear the possible consequences and killed himself."

"Or someone killed him," Maggie Natano suggested.  She was the daughter of one of the founding computer engineers and was a competent mechanical engineer.  She and Adam circled around each other for many years. When she finally pushed him to commit toward marriage, Adam turned away and buried himself in his research.  She was one of the few in the Institute with a skeptical view of Adam’s leadership qualities and his apparent selflessness.

"Come on, Maggie.  The security override to get through the airlock was done using his unique codes.  There wasn't evidence of foul play," Adam countered.

"Our first priority is to set up detectors throughout all the domes, planet-wide," Sarah Anderson from microtechnology noted.  "We can set them to look for a set of fatty and amino acids unique to the strain.  I have a new detector design that'll work very nicely."

"Thanks Sarah.  We'll get you all the resources and personnel necessary.  In the meantime, I'll assemble a security detail to determine where the pathogen might have been stored.  We also need to identify who would have known about it and then stolen it."

Adam and Maggie led the security detail along with four other family leaders.  They formed pairs and set out to trace the last days of William Holst.  Holst had indeed shuttled into low orbit the week before his death, likely to send his message to earth.  After his death, his apartment was emptied and was now occupied by an elderly grade-school teacher named Harly Warren.  Warren let Adam and Maggie into the space.  He excused himself and left to visit the pub in the local plaza.

"Mr. Warren used to go to the pub all the time during school lunch, so I bet he'll be there for a while," Adam mused as they looked around the well-worn trimmings of the old teacher's home.  Harly was a well known alcoholic.  He was a wise and interesting teacher in the morning and a complete mess after lunch.  "Maggie, you were adamant about coming here.  What do you expect to find?  Holst's belongings were all recycled long ago."

"I think Holst was hiding the stuff here.  If we look in the right place, we'll find a hidden freezer or stasis compartment."

"How are we going to find it here?"  He pointed at the piles of old books, mounds of unwashed clothes, and walls covered with antique mechanical clocks.  The ticking was somehow comforting and annoying simultaneously.  Dust and cobwebs coated everything.  Maggie coughed.

"You, Adam the Fuerst of the colony, have no imagination.  You know so much.  But thinking outside the box is my side of the mountain.  We shut the power off to the apartment.  If the freezer was holding something so dangerous, Holst would've arranged back up power.  We simply search for a spike in the electrical field and that should be where it is hidden."