A Colony on Mars (28 page)

The Earth was firmly established and wel on its way to recovery. Because of the Nuclear complications the space ships had remained in Earth Orbit for almost two years. The Earth orbiter was back in operation. Mars Runner was permanently docked at the Orbiter because the Arton ships didn't require the services of an Orbiter. They could just open their cargo holds and take the Shuttle right on board.

Over the next two years The A1and Two moved over four hundred thousand people from Mars to Earth leaving Mars with only a skeleton population but Mars remained self sustaining. Mars was just, once again to restructure their economy. They would always maintain a colony on Mars Most of the people who had recently arrived on Earth were not returning to Earth because they had been born and raised on Mars. Earth was a whole new experience for them. The classes that Tim and Carla had taken when they were migrating to Mars were given in reverse, teaching Martians what they needed to know to survive on Earth.

These people found the gravity on Earth oppressive. It took many of them up to a year to get accustomed to moving around in such heavy gravity. Some adjusted quickly to Earth gravity, there was just no to tell who would and who would not.

Along with the passengers most of the Zoo population from Mars was also returned to Earth and housed in the San Diego Zoo, the largest Zoo on Earth. The Zoo keepers were transported with the Animals and immediately commenced an accelerated breeding program in San Diego. They even brought some bees but not the ants and flies. Unfortunately the flies showed up on Earth anyway and the ants had never become extInct on Earth. The flies seemed to like the San Diego Zoo.

Some of the animals that had never been domesticated were soon being released back into the wild where, not encountering any natural predictors rapidly proliferated. There were even eight American Bison which were released in South Dakota. Several of the Eskimo's wanted to visit the Arctic but once seeing the place wondered how their ancestors could have lived in such a place. They enjoyed seeing their native homeland but soon wanted to return to San Diego. Domestic Animals also rapidly proliferated and soon the people of Earth had all the products that they needed that could be produced from domestic farm animals.

One of the mathematicians calculated that it would take the Earthfifty thousand years to ful y recover and even then it would be a vastly different Earth. There would be only one race and one language. Most species that had shared the Earth with man were now extInct. The only animals that would ever populate the Earth again would be only those that were no threat to man. Five years after man's return to Earth an expedition sent to explore Southeast Alaska made a remarkable find, it was one of those things that could never be explained. Salmon were spawning in several of the rivers, not many of them, and comparison of these Salmon with what existed before revealed that there were subtle difference s but they were Salmon, none the less. This discovery spanned a more thorough investigation of sea shores and off shore waters world wide. There was one startling discovery after another. The conclusion they finally came to was that the Oceans of the Earth were recovering everywhere they looked. Not al species had survived but most of them had. Where conditions had traditionally been ideal for shrimp they found shrimp. Where conditions were ideal for Lobster they found lobster. Coral reefs that had completely died after the Holocaust were growing. Sea weed was abundant. The Oceans of the planet would eventually return to normal. Without pollutants being dumped into the oceans by man the Oceans would eventually return to the state they were in when Columbus Discovered America. For several years after these discoveries they continued to harvest the fish that they had pinned up in Mission Bay but eventually the harbor was reopened and the remaining fish could come and go as they pleased. Fishing boats once again trolled the offshore waters harvesting sea food. Salmon hatcheries were established in a number of Northwest locations.

On land they were also discovering species that had survived. None of the large animals had made it but they had found bats and some insects. Unfortunately mosquitoes were among the survivors.

Back on Mars there were fewer than fifty thousand people remaining, most of them elderly. Enough young people remained to sustain viability of the planet.

CHAPTER – The Two Ships Arrive on Arton

May 1, 2175: A little less that six months after departing Earth Orbit the Arton One and Two Space craft made Arton Orbit. The Arton Four had successful y refueled the Arton Three.

The crews of the Arton ships were very pleased to find out that not only had Arton survived for the last fifty years but the respect for the Arton Three that the people on the planet showed. They had accepted that the Arton Three did not have enough fuel to ever return to Mars or Earth. They stil held hope that someday they would have the capacity to manufacture the fuel on the planet to refuel the ship. The crew that had flown the Arton Three had long since retired and most of them were now dead. They had the wisdom to train replacements from the youth of Arton. That crew in turn had trained their replacements. The Arton Three was still ful y staffed and capable of space travel even though one whole generation of crew members had never got out of planetary orbit. The other Arton ships had also replaced their crew members in the same way but the young crews on the other three ships had made several space voyages and considered themselves seasoned veterans. The fleet commander shuffled the crews of the four ships so that an equal number of seasoned veterans would be on each ship. Since refueling of the Arton Three had been accomplished, all four ships were declared sea worthy. The ships reduced to skeleton crews and took turns visiting touring and learning about Arton for the next four months.

CHAPTER – Settler's View of Artonians

A copy of the fol owing document was distributed to all crew members before they went to the planet surface of Arton.

“UPDATED INFORMATION ON ARTON”

May 2, 2175

By Rosy Kurtis, Settler

The last that Mars had heard was that the colonists on Arton had encountered an indigenous population of humans that were similar to Neanderthals who lived on Earth from 300,000 years ago to about 30,000 years ago. It was since learned that the Artonian development was much further advanced than first thought. The culture was at first evaluated by identifying markers common to early man. The civilization on Arton had not developed agriculture, did not hunt animals collectively, lived in caves, had the slightly bent forward stance of Neanderthals, with knuckles that almost reached the ground. They did not use fire. Thus they were classified as early to middle Paleolithic man.

Subsequent contact and interaction with these people proved the earlier classification to be dead wrong. As it turned out they were different from early man and couldn't be put into the same mold. They had developed agriculture but did not practice farming except on certain Islands that did not have enough natural food. They did not hunt animals because they were vegetarians. They lived in caves because the caves were cool during the day and warm at night. They had the appearance of Neanderthals because that is the way they had developed. They did not cook their food because it had never occurred to them to do so. They preferred their food raw. They were capable of making small fires in the caves if they got a little chil y at night. They did go at least 40 feet from the cave entrance to expel their waste. On the inner islands they had developed a complicated board game that was similar to chess and were very good at it. I took our smartest people several months to win a game from one of them. These people were not war like, they were very friendly and hospitable. They welcomed strangers and were interested in learning about them. They had a spoken language that everyone on the planet seemed to speak, no matter where on the planet they lived. They went around nude because they liked to and because they had a warm fur coat that nature had given them. There was a written form of their language that used an alphabet of 24 letters or symbols but only their scholars and elders who lived on the inner could read and write. This is about where man was in the tenth century AD. These people had a profound sense of humor, they loved practical jokes if there was no serious or dangerous consequence and they could sit around and tell each other jokes and laugh by the hour. We later discovered that a typical adult knew the the same 10,000, or so jokes, that all the others knew and they would tell the same jokes to each other over and over. The object of an Artonian joke is not in the punch line but the telling. They were in a sense relating short stories that everyone liked.

Because there were few motivations to improve they didn't bother. They were patently lazy. Even though there were many hallucinogens available on the planet there were age old taboos against ingesting them. An Artonian had rather die than to get stoned, it was part of their culture. They had a concept of God but no concept of the devil. They had a concept of heaven but no concept of hel . They appreciated art but only their scholars ever created any. They had never had a reason to compete physically with others because, I guess there was plenty of everything to go around. They had doctors who they sought out when they needed them. The doctors were skil ed in herbal medicine and were quite good at it. Many of these people have learned English but few of our people have learned to speak Igaghu, their language. When we first made contact their names were Incomprehensible to us but now they come easily. They are intensely interested in everything we do, they are little pests, they will stay with one worker all day and ask him as many as a hundred questions in eight hours. Sometimes they ask the same question several times, it is as though they all have Alzheimer's. In their case it is just faulty memory. They can remember their language and where they live and who their friends and relatives are and what they need to know to stay alive but to try and teach them something you are just wasting your time. They did learn and retain our language because they were motivated. They remember their jokes because they are motivated but when you try and teach one a skill his mind wanders and he pays little attention to what you are telling him because he sees no practical application as to how it relates to things he needs to know. He may ask a workman “Why did you turn that valve” If the workman explains that he did it to let some of the gas in this cylinder, enter that system over there, the native wil look very enlightened and nod his understanding. When the system has been pressurized the native wil ask again why the workman turned the valve and the workman explains that the system I am working on has been pressurized so I am shutting the valve. Once again the look of intelligent comprehension comes over his face and he nods his understanding of what he has just witnessed. If he follows the workman who takes the same tank to an identical system and turns the valve again the native wil ask the same questions that he asked when the workman did the same job five minutes before. Natives are curious about why you do something but if it has no direct consequence on their lives they intentionally forget it immediately. On the other hand if you were spreading peanut butter and jelly on a piece of bread and you placed another piece of bread on top of it, forming a sandwich he would ask you what you were doing. If you ate the sandwich and decided to make yourself another sandwich just like the first one he would ask you the same questions again. If you were to give him half of the first sandwich and he did not like it he would throw his half away. Then if you made yourself another sandwich like the first one he would ask the same questions again. If he liked the half that you gave him of the first sandwich he would remember where you got the bread from, where you got the peanut butter from, where you got the jelly from and not have to ask you again about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. If you left him alone in the room and went outside to do a minor chore then returned to the room you would see that he had the three items necessary to construct the sandwich with on the table, had made himself a sandwich and was happily munching down on it. If he came into your house a year later, he might very well go to where you kept the ingredients and make himself another sandwich and offer you half of it.

If one of them is eating a piece of fruit and another asks him for it he gives it to the person that asks for it and goes to the nearest tree and picks himself another. They have no monitory system because they see no immediate benefit to having money. Everything they need in their lives is abundant and free.

They love to watch each other make love. That is one of their favorite pass times. They are not monogamous, they have no concept of fatherhood and no word for father. They are aware that sexual relations between a man and a woman produce children but they are never interested in who the father is. If a male is particularly fond of a certain female he is more likely to recommend her to his friends than he is to try to keep her for himself. Native men are with women like they are with everything else, they just have no sense of ownership of anything.

We just accept them the way they are, they are very amusing to watch and to hold conversations with. They are pests and nascences but they are so friendly and adorable that you can't get mad at one of them. First off they wouldn't grasp the concept of getting mad. You can close the door to your home and lock it but if they want to come and visit you they will try and find another way into your house and if they can't they wil stand and knock on your door for hours at a time. If their hands get sore they wil pick up a stick or a rock or anything handy and beat on your door with that until you let them in. If there is no one home they never try to enter, they won't even try your door because somehow they know you are not at home, but pity the poor householder who is at home and does not let the native in, he wil just keep knocking until your door gives way. When they come for a visit they may want to stay for two minutes or two weeks. When they tire of being there and want to leave they just abruptly get up and walk out. They have no concept of hello or good by. There are no words in their language to express those concepts. Some of our people have moved to Islands where there are no natives to get away from them. The natives fear the oceans so it has never occurred to one of them to build a boat. When boats operated by Earth people who live on an island where there no natives visit an Island Island that does have natives they thoroughly inspect the vassal before casting off to make sure there are no natives on board.