Athena Lee Chronicles 7: The Martian Inheritance (2 page)

“Min, why were you checking up on Mr Theai?”

“I wanted to thank him for hiring so many veterans and to ask if we can use his club for a Militia fundraiser next month.”

Laughing I pointed at the Vid screen in the kitchen. “Min, ask his yourself. He’s right there.”

The image of a tall, thin man in blue jeans and a yellow western shirt wearing what looked like a leather vest, neckerchief, and a cowboy hat appeared on the screen. His face was long and he had deep brown eyes. “Howdy? I heard you were looking to speak with me Miss Lee.”

Min glanced at me and silently mouthed. “How?” to me. She turned back to the screen and responded. “Yes, Mr Theai, I wanted to thank you for hiring all the Militia veterans who work at your club. I also wanted to know if we can host a charity event from there sometime next month?”

“Well Miss Lee, I think we could do that. Give my business manager Andy White a call to set it up. I’ll let him know it’s OK from my end and the club will be all yours. Anything else I can do for you?” The cowboy had a beaming face now.

“Will you join us for the fundraiser? I am sure that a man of your stature will solicit lots of donations.”

“Well, darling, I would love to do that, but I’m shipping out next week for an unknown period of time.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Do you have business elsewhere to take care of?”

The cowboy began to laugh. “No, no business. I’m on my way to Mars. In fact I’m leaving at the same time as Athena.”

Minerva looked at me with a strange look on her face. “Athena, is this man one of your shipmates from the James Cook?”

When she said that Dar, almost fell off her chair she was laughing so hard. I looked over at my father who had been watching us this whole time. He had a smile on his face like he knew.

“You need to explain this to me right now! Why is what I said so funny?” She looked back at the screen and the cowboy was gone. In his place was one of the RAM units except this one had a smiley face drawn on it. “Sorry for the deception Minerva but it was too funny not to play it up.”

“Minerva meet Wilson.” I pointed at the screen. The robot was now dancing and jumping around.

“
Your
Wilson? The AI, that Wilson?” she looked over at father.

He looked back at her and said, “You’re not thinking daughter. I suspected it the first time I heard the name. Write it out if you have to. Wilson Theai. Wilson the AI. Made sense to me. It reminded me of the word games your mother used to play.”

He did not look too sad for once when he said that. Usually any mention of our mother shut him down completely.

Min looked at me. “How did your AI come to own the hottest dance club on the planet?”

“Ask him. He might even tell you.” I looked over at my father. “Dad, are you OK?”

I rarely called him anything other than father. He looked over at me and smiled. “You haven’t called me that since you were tiny. I mentioned your mom because of where you’re going next week. As you might remember, your mother was a Martian.”

I could vaguely remember the stories that both Min and Han had told me as a child about our mother. She had been a city girl that father had met on a trip to Mars. They had met and fallen in love. She had gone against her family and come home with him to Hong Kong. Min had played it up as like a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ style play. Our mother’s family against that of Dad’s. I'd always dismissed that aspect of the story as an exaggeration for the sake of good storytelling. But was there more that I did not know about?

Chapter 3

It had been a long time since I’d last seen a real smile on my father’s face. Too many years of playing politics had changed him or so I’d thought- for the worse. He had seen too much, and been responsible for too much to relax properly. But, even with all the turmoil and rebellion the last year has been somehow good for him.

My mother. I hadn’t really thought about her at all for a long time. She had died when I was almost too young to remember her. We have vids and pictures of her around here somewhere, I’ll have to ask Min for some of them.

Alexander Lee looked at his two daughters and smiled some more. They had turned out so well! Amelia would be proud of them both. “Athena, Minerva let me tell you a bit more about your mother.” He paused. Both girls were now watching him. “I know the past … I know that in the past I have ignored or stopped you both from asking questions about her. I’m sorry about that. The pain of losing her was just too great. She would be proud of you both, you know. She loved all her children, even Hannibal. Yes, I can say his name. He was always a difficult child, easily led astray”

“Dad, Han made his own choices and you know it.” I wasn’t going to let him believe that BS about my idiot brother.

“Athena’s right, father. He was a little shit as a child and grew up to be a bigger one. You were too wrapped up in getting the Militia organized after the war to notice what an ass he’d become. But it’s not your fault. He just made the wrong choices.” Minerva had a grim look on her face. She had tracked down some of his friends and beaten the truth out of them. The idiots had kept records.

I nodded. “Dad, you need to admit to yourself that he was a fool. Don’t take the blame for him.” Men! Big strong wimps.

“Fine, fine, I bow to my daughters judgment. But we're getting off topic here. Now, as I was saying about your mother. Amelia, loved all of you. She knew the risks and came here with me anyway.”

“Dad, why are you bringing all of this up now?” I hoped that nothing was wrong with him, bringing up the past was not his way!

He gave me a sharp look at my tone. Then he laughed. “I’m fine, don’t worry about me. I am bringing this up because of the trip you are about to make. Mars colony, is the reason for this.”

“Dad, I know that mom came from Mars. That is what Min and Han had always told me growing up.”

“Neither of you, or your brother, knew the real truths about your mother. We did not set out to keep you in the dark, but events got away from us and then with her illness and your birth Athena… Well we are going to talk about it now.”

I looked at Min and she looked back at me shrugging her shoulders. We had no idea what was going on. Dar sat between us and was just watching dad in that calculating way that she looks at things.

“Time for a history lesson. Mars. Mars colony was the second major colony set up from Earth. The first one was on Earth’s moon, Luna. That colony was government sponsored and mostly military in nature. Mars was different. Mars first colony was a scientific station. It was built there with an international effort to prove that colonization was possible. With the invention of the Doohan drive people could get there faster and with bigger ships. The first setters were those with big bank accounts and wanted off Earth. Believe it or not, it truly was celebrities and science tech geeks that founded the first colony there.”

“Dad, that’s not what we learned in school, or even at the academy!”

“I know, on this planet we just did not know all that much about what happened both before and after the colony was founded here. Some of the fabled horrors of the Cyber War were still in our ancestors minds and they chose to forget them. Many history books were changed.”

“Dad! Isn’t that illegal? How can you justify…”

“Athena, calm down. There are historically accurate histories in both the planetary assembly library and at the University. Many of our scholars and government officials are aware of the real truths of our society. It is not that big of a secret.”

At that point Wilson reappeared on the screen in his cowboy persona. “It’s true Athena. There is lots of vids and text online about the hidden history.” I motioned at the screen and he buzzed out.

“I’m sorry Dad. Please continue.”

He smiled at me. “The Cyber Wars were ending and many people saw that the governments of the world were weak. They did not want to be there if a war broke out so they left. The corporation's left first, then those with personal money. Businesses like the Dorr corporation, Orange, TQB, BigHard, and a few others. Then the celebrities and then the Church’s. All of them were afraid that the governments would try and take their money away from them, so they packed up and went to Mars. A few went further than that, like those folks you found Athena. Soon after, the governments started sending their ‘undesirables’ out into space. Only they sent them a lot farther. They did not want them coming back. So, Mars. All those people built cities and began to terraform and change the planet. They found resources and water to help them build. The governments of Earth left them alone, for the most part.”

“Dad, what about the wars? It is in our books that they had wars on Earth.” That was what I remembered most about history, all the military stuff. I glanced to my right, Dar was totally enraptured to what dad was saying. I had to chuckle, he was a good storyteller.

“OK, the wars. The Cyber Wars were over. Earth had a international council of sorts called the UN. It stood for United Nations. After all the terrorists were captured or killed the UN started to throw its weight around. It began taking over. Many of the larger countries fought back, hence the wars we hear about. We don’t know all that much. I know more because of your mother. Mars was very close to the situation so they knew the truth. After Earth ran out of religious groups, undesirables, or political dissidents they started population reductions. They would sweep up whole neighborhoods or small towns and ship them out as colonists.”

Min reached over and tapped his arm. “Father, that’s crazy! Why would they do something like that?”

“I only know what your mother told me. Mars could still get radio or vid transmissions so that is how they knew what was happening. The UN conquered the big nations by bombing them back to the stone age with kinetic strikes. Then they mopped up and presumably sent the people off world. After that, nothing.”

“Why do you say presumably?” My eyes widened, Dar asked a question.

Dad looked at my girlfriend and threw up his hands. “We don’t know. Mars doesn’t know either. The last group of ships was launched and the colonies just disappeared. Only one was ever found and they only had a small number of people alive on it. None of them were old enough to remember Earth and they did not have any records or history tapes.”

Dar nodded her head. “Which planet was it? That the colony was found on.”

“Botany Bay 7, it’s in the Botany Bay system, uh sector 7 or 8 I think. The planet is overrun with dinosaurs and the colony was in this small valley surrounded by gun turrets. There were around 100,000 of them when they were found. They had cannibalized the colony ship and all the tech to build up the colony. So all the history records, if they even existed, were lost.”

“Dad, do you know the name of the ship that founded the colony?” I had an idea of what it’s name might be.

“Something Jewel, that is all I remember. Why?” My sister and Dar had turned to look at me.

“Could it have been the Precious Jewel?”

“Yes! That was the name. How did you know about that Athena?”

I related my story about Sam the junk dealer back on New Reno Station and his claim of being a colony ship pilot. I added that Wilson had researched him but had found very little. Sam kept a very low profile.

“I had no idea. So the New Reno government knows about him?”

“Yes, Dad. Or at least that is where Wilson found his information. I will have him send you what he found along with a vid copy of the story he told me.”

“I would like that, thank you Athena.” He leaned over and gave me a half hug.

‘Father, about Mars…” I could hear the impatience in Min’s voice.

“Sorry, so after Earth cut itself off and put up the satellites and stations, I presume that you know about those?” We all nodded. Everyone knew about Earth’s defense system. The defenses were regarded with an awe that would more usually be reserved for mythological monsters. No one went near them.

“After that Mars was on it’s own completely. The Catholic church tried a power play and lost, the Martian people were tired of big governments running things. They formed city states, very much like ancient Greece with Sparta and Athens. Each dome, or city, was represented in the Assembly. Which is what their government is called. They have mutual defense pacts and share tech and resources. About thirty years ago our planet sent a trading mission to Mars. This was just before the war. My father sent me to be one of the representatives to the Assembly. The jump took over six months to get there. When we arrived we were greeted by a small trading delegate comprised of people from all the domes. For us is was a real eye-opening experience. Mars is a little decadent.”