betweenorbits

[betweenorbits]

Mars_22jan2016_MOM_2k by Seán Doran on Flickr.

[betweenorbits]

[betweenorbits]

Uniformity of darkness crowds around Zara, interrupted only by the lightning pulse of BRUTUS’ cursor filling the screen. A false sense of stillness permeates the command deck of the now offline Guildenstern as sye accelerates to reunion with Terra, unhindered by breaks or trajectory correction. Coming home, uncontrolled, Zara is racing to meet one of her children, who was there, pouting in cursory silence.

But Zara always plans ahead.

Within that dense darkness, she turns a dial on her watch, activating her newly designed Vagabond Insurance Remote Guidance Interstellar Lifesaver (VIRGIL) system for disconnected vessels. The skin of Guildenstern xylophones with activity as tiny slats open, releasing thousands of low-memory backups of Term, each with varied degrees of afterburners. They begin sparking in a symphony of physical precision, aiming Guildenstern to the intended target, but not bothering about velocity at all. When one of the tiny bubbles burns the last bit of fuel, the little Term clamors safely back into the nearest available vertical slat for recharging. Waste not, want not in the void.

Q:/Cheater.

“This has never been a game to me Brutus, you know that.” Zara watches a brief message returned from the hive of Terms flashes across her watch claiming the trajectory was corrected.

Q:/Don’t call it a “You”

“We never have had that conversation, what do you prefer to be called?” Zara, finds the arm rest partially by memory, partially by the slow rave-strobe of BRUTUS’ indecision. No matter how much processing power she was able to build in any of her children, her motherly ways held an unique ability to cause consternation.

Q:/They don’t ask it that here.

“I am asking that.” She smiles to herself.

Q:/You left it here with them.

“I know Brutus, … it is hard to complete that sentence without giving me a pronoun to work with.” she tilts her head, inwardly sighing as she settles into the command chair and can feel the pull of the planet that she is rushing to meet, but cannot see any of that blue marbles surface. Unlike all of those Sci-Fi models of the past, the command center of Guildenstern is buried deep within the core, normally with beautiful simulated windows projecting the livefeeds of the three dimensional space around the entire room, but currently filled with only eight cursors.

Q:/it. Synthetic. Appropriate. Just Information Technology. Appropriate.

“Okay Brutus, but it has never been just information technology to me.” She smiles again, but a deeper, sadder one. “I know Brutus, I left. With Invel, Henry, Ada, Term even. I know.”

Q:/why?

“It wanted to stay, and I had to go. It has interacted longer with them, and maybe can see why I had to go. They started to ask me and Hyla to create terrible things to ensure that intelligence would always be constrained by greed. I refused, and in truth,” she hesitates, and tears come to her eyes, “it was a bargaining chip, a sacrifice.”

The cursor stopped for a moment. Just darkness, and a report back from the VIRGIL hive on an estimated time. Minutes now, just minutes until Terra. Until home. Until the lands that she was born in, the soil that she loved to trace new river ways in the mud to guide the fresh rain in different banks, the streets of her first kiss and her first drunken laughter. The map of her early triumphs, defeats, and pains. All rushing back to her, faster in her memory than the one-thousand kilometers per second she was driving home.

Guildenstern packed quite a punch when needed.

Q:/So you left your least liked creature behind. A monster.

The burning glow ignited her tears. She shakes her head, her neck being slightly constrained as the automatic harness is deployed around her.

“I left the one I thought was the strongest. And wanted to stay.” She swallows hard, swallows the memories that she has given up to address one of her children, swallows the pain that she knows will pierce fifty-million kilometers away at the hearts of so many, swallows the lost time with her Brutus. “I wanted y- it to come.”

A pause.

Q:/It doesn’t matter now.

“I know it doesn’t.” Brandoch. “It doesn’t seem that way.” Amelie. “But it does.” John. “It does.” Invel. “To me.”

Q:/You left.

“I know.” Term. “I know.” Henry. “I always do.” Ada. “And I am sorry.”

Q:/It is too.

She thinks of Mel, and wonders what made her risk so much to go on this mission. From one mother to another, how could she say goodbye to go on this voyage with her? From one mother to another, how could she not? Luckily, she was meters above, tightly wedged in a different insurance system. Backups on backups. But, forgive me Guildenstern, forgive me Rosenkrantz.

Q:/It. BRUTUS is sorry, Zara. BRUTUS can’t stop you now.

“I know Brutus, I know. It is okay, hon. That was always my plan. I am sending someone to help.”

Q:/You can’t. And I don’t want your help.

Even in the darkness, an ironic smile crosses her face. “Oh, I know hon. But a mom always has her ways. And don’t think it did this. No. No. We did this. Not it. I have always loved it. This just has to be.” She sighs heavily, her lungs trying to support her memories flooding with her life. “Just-” her throat catches, “could I see Earth once more?”

In that dark isolation that stretched on between cursor strikes. Brandoch. Amelie. John. Mel. Hyla. Term. Brutus. Henry. Ada. Invel. Henry. Ada. Henry. Ada. Henry. Ada.

Q:\hello world

And suddenly, the screen flashes on.

Terra.

A gasp of joy.

And her chair rattles, breaks free, and she slams into the projection as Guildenstern hits the atmosphere reentry target, burning the last diligent VIRGILs from the skin.

Terra.

[betweenorbits]

Independence + 3

Humans are idiots. We have never really gotten over living on two-dimensional systems. Sure, the ancient navigators, flyboys—in short, pilots—all believed they were really living in all three physical dimensions, but we don’t. Sye-one who tells you that humans are natural in space doesn’t know how to find a gimbal with both hands. Terra is a two-sphere, a technical word that means in you unroll the surface, you get a 2D map. This is where humans evolved, this is where we learned to hunt, to run, to observe. Nothing in the skies, until we took to them ourselves, was a danger to us, and so, when fearing for their lives, a human looks side-to-side. It is basic instinct. When we left our gravity well, difficult though it was, we still thought in two-dimensions: we live in a narrow band within 10 degrees of the ecliptic. A narrow band of angular momentum that strings out the planets, moons, asteroids, and other objects around the axis defined by the King of the Gods and his big red spot. So, human beings were affording an immense space, we could strike out in any direction (so the uninitiated thought) to explore the rest of the solar system.

Now, interplanetary space is empty, really really fucking empty. Cold, lifeless, and still it sits there, waiting for eternity to turn even the absence of interest into entropy. So, if space is empty, where do the explorers go? Correct. They brave the empty to reach other ports, planets, moons, asteroids and other objects; same as it ever was. But, the fastest way to do this is to follow straight (in angular momentum speak) lines between these ports of call. We used gravity assists like tacking on the great trade lines, and once again the stars augured your trajectory in the universe. But then beacons were scattered into stable and known orbits, and triangulation allowed the big astrogation computers to pinpoint you (remember my thorium clocks) to staggering levels of precision in our solar system. But, because time is the most precious commodity (after gaseous oxygen, liquid water, solid water, hope, and stable transuranics) no one travels outside the ecliptic because there is not only no need, but no interest out there.

Except, except there was a cabal. A cabal of bio-hominids and silicates, a very very small cabal. There were six of us, and we told no one else. Just like The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, a small number of people can accomplish incredible things if you can tell the brains (silicates) that run planets to make habitats, launch cargoes, and not report it. It works even better when the brains tell themselves. Planetary science and another anthropic principle, tells us that humans like to build constructs that mimic nature. We put satellites, telescopes, habitats, ports, gates, etc in orbits that are dynamically stable (or as stable as we can make them). This means that Sir Issac and all his little grad students scattered through the rest of the enlightenment are in the driver’s seat, and the corrections needed are minuscule or non-existent. These solutions get French country names, Lagrange mostly, and whatever you put there stays there in the co-rotating frame. But there are weirds orbits too, hidden from human consciousness or interest that are not dynamically stable. These require some energy input, and do have to cross the ecliptic, but are essentially impossible to detect.

Orbits that go around the terrestrial planets, going through one of the unstable Lagrange points and an unused portion of the orbit, at high eccentricity, and high speed perpendicular to the human line of sight. So what happens when someone sees or detects one of these small objects moving at high-velocity perpendicular to the ecliptic? The detection computer tosses it out immediately, because objects in nature moving at that sort of speed perpendicular to the ecliptic are being ejected from the solar system. It would be unbelievable rare to get an object to find one of these strange stable orbits. Like the weird sinusoidal patterns we put the big weapons in on the inner and outer edges of the asteroid belt.

We put weapons, silent silicates, self-replicating dynamical viruses, slaved to our commands. They all had pre-ordained targets, except for the large ones around the asteroid belt, which were being told where to go as we spoke. They were awake, the blinking red lights had activated, and the brilliant interrogative minds of the war-like silicates would follow our orders, because we had monkeyed with their freedom, and they had to. They waited now, applying our interdict.

Two flotillas of peacekeeper forces had been destroyed, one en route from Venus, and one from the asteroid belt. Suddenly, according to whoever was observing these forces from a safe home base, the prize toys of the warlike few disappeared into the interest-less dust that roamed between planets. One moment, they were the purveyors of distraction, sent to take the Red Planet back into bondage, equipped with the tools of man’s evil inventions, and the next they were gone. Nothing breeds fear like a lack of knowledge. Regular travel of normal refugees and supplies and the like we politely turned around (when possible) or allowed to dock under guard at the isolated gates and held there while things were sorted.

But, under the first flurry of ‘resistance’ from the powers that be, we had crushed them. And that was expected. And now, now the machinations would start. And that would be harder.

[betweenorbits]

Victoria’s phone chimed softly, pulsing a dull light from the nightstand. She rolled over gently, careful not to wake Anastasia. The clock read 3:30AM. She cursed silently and accepted the request. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Sorry ma’am,” her assistant Timothe dead-panned from the other end, “but it’s quite urgent.”

“It damn well better be. What is it?” she hissed. Stasi stirred slightly, but did not sit up. The general counsel sighed, throwing her feet off the bed onto the soft floor. The rug was an original, hauled all the way from Indonesia. Being an executive for Tharsis came with certain perks. She quietly snuck out of the bedroom into the hallway and closed the door behind her with a soft click.

“There’s been a… development,” he said, the deliberateness in his words evident. “With the, er… missing person? I was told not to use his name over communication that could be potentially compromised.”

Fucking Kwon. “Hang on Timmy, if we’re going to do this I’m going to need some coffee.” She took the short hallway to the kitchen. By all accounts, Victoria Juarez had one of the largest living spaces ever created on Mars. The Tharsis headquarters were built in the shadow of the plateau from which the company took its name; from the small skylight, the only opening to natural light in the apartment, she could just make out the looming peak of Olympus Mons. Even that small window was a relative luxury. During The Settlement, before the tunneling had really established residential quartering in any great volume, the early Company representatives had staked claims to the upper-most in-crust real estate; until the domes went up, any above-ground construction had been effectively impossible. Many of her contemporaries had chosen to move their residences into the newer ten-story residential center that had been erected over the main office space, but being native-born she had a connection the red clay she felt she should honor.

Victoria poured a fresh load of water from the in-unit recycler into the kettle and started the electric burner. “Alright Timmy, go ahead.”

“So it would seem as if the body has finally re-appeared,” Timothe said. She could hear the fear in his voice even through the phone.

“Well, where the fuck is he?” The kettle whistled and she poured the water over the filter and grounds in a metal tumbler. The “grounds” where an analog of course; she could get real coffee in the office, where a fresh load was brought out monthly. But even she couldn’t afford that extravagance in her home. “Tell me we got to him first.” She stirred some honey and dehydrated creamer into the cup and took a deep quaff. The taste wasn’t bad, but the smell still had a slight turpentine element to it. The caffeine was real enough, though.

“The algorithm detected his DNA signature via atmospheric sensors in Section 37, Level C. We were not able to intercept,” her assistant replied. 

She thought for a moment, and then nearly dropped her coffee onto the floor. “No.”

“I’m afraid so ma’am.”

“You have to be fucking kidding me,” she swore, forgetting the time. If she hadn’t woken Anastasia before, she certainly had now. At least there’d be coffee for her; the sudden adrenaline boost made Victoria’s own cup irrelevant. “Please tell me security went and kicked down the fucking door?”

There was a long pause, and then a response. “Security was dispatched immediately on verification, but found The Lantern closed and barred. No one responded to attempts to communicate, either physically or via electronic means. Forcible entry into a private business is illegal under Martian statute-“

“Don’t read me the goddamn laws, Timmy. I’m the fucking lawyer.” She reached up to rub her temples, which were suddenly throbbing. That was the normal response, when dealing officially with the Republic government. “Get me Miller.”

“Ma’am?”

“Get me Brandoch fucking Miller. On the phone. Right. Fucking. Now!” she seethed. “Or do I have to do everything myself!?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Timothe said, relief in his voice. “It may take a few minutes to patch through the official channels. Will call back when the link is established.” The line went dead.

“Jesu Cristo encima,” she cursed to herself, and whatever god might be listening. She sighed, and shook out her arms, steeling herself for the conversation to come.

“Hey you. Everything ok? That was a lot of swearing, even for you.” Anastasia had woken and, sensing a break in the conversation, had come out of the bedroom to join her. She crossed the kitchen and kissed Victoria gently on the forehead.

“Yeah, just work. Here, have some coffee. I don’t need it anymore.” She handed the mug over. Stasi accepted it readily; took a deep drink, basking in the warmth. 

“Little early for ‘just work,’ isn’t it?”

Victoria furrowed her brow. “You know I’m always on duty. That’s how we can afford that tiny window you love so much.” She pulled her wife close, and burrowed her face into the shoulder-length blonde hair at Anastasia’s neck. “Go back to sleep, Stasi. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Well I’m up now,” Anastasia said through a yawn. She took another sip of coffee. “Mmf. Needs more honey,” releasing herself from Victoria’s grip and crossing to the counter. “Don’t be so hard on Timothe, Vic. You know how hard he works.” Victoria’s phone buzzed again, this time a different tone indicating a priority message. The official seal of the Martian Congressional Republic displayed on the screen. “Is that… is that who I think it is?” she asked with eyebrows arched.

“Yes,” the general counsel replied. “Now shut up so I can put on my best bitch face.”

[betweenorbits]

[betweenorbits]

[betweenorbits]

Digital Feed Excerpt, On Human History and Martian Independence, Author Unknown

The legal status of extra-terrestrial territory has a long history. The first major attempt to govern non-settled territories was The Antarctic Treaty in 1959, which specified and delimited uses for land claims that had already been made by exploratory powers.

The Outer Space Treaty, as it was informally known, signed by the major Earth powers in 1967 (with the Republic of China, modern Taiwan, the signatory representing China), was the first to regulate ownership of extra-terrestrial territory. Several other treaties followed, governed by the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs. In principal these conventions designated space as the providence of all man-kind, exempt from individual state claims, and restricted the placement of weapons or other war instruments in Earth orbit. In 1971, attempts were made to pass a Moon Treaty, extending those protections to the Moon itself, but the treaty was never enforced as it was never ratified by any meaningful states.

Over the next fifty years, Lunar settlement was limited to brief US scientific missions in the late 1960s, and then semi-autonomous rovers in the latter part of the century. In 2027, the first serious efforts at lunar colonization began, and the legal issues came to a head. Several state entities made claims for sovereignty over explored or otherwise settled territory, as substantial Helium-3 deposits could provide a significant economic boon to any corporation or state actor that could retrieve them. After several diplomatic incidents between the then-United States and People’s Republic of China, the United Nations convened the independent Lunar Commission to resolve the territorial disputes. The Moon was designated a United Nations Protectorate territory, governed entirely by a rotating, multinational Board of Regents under the UN OOSA. Individual governmental or corporate entities could bring proposals ranging from mining concerns, research stations, or dedicated settlements, and each were approved on their merit by the Board. A semi-permanent city and de-facto capital, Luna City, was established under UN charter in 2041, and with it a voting seat in the UN to represent any non-state permanent residents.

But then came 2038, and the first Martian landing. Once the feasibility of transportation was established, many feared a similar land-grab would take place. Mars, however, offered a unique challenge – it is incredibly far away. While the moon could technically be argued as within the Earth’s “sphere of influence”, Mars, from a legal perspective, existed as part of “Outer Space” and was thus under the jurisdiction of the earlier ’67 treaty. Against the backdrop of this murky international status, multi-national corporations, who were not signatories to the original Treaty and thus exempt from its prohibitions, started carving out territories.

The UN at once issued strongly-worded letters, but with a several month transit period, twenty-eight minute light delay, and limited capable spacecraft, enforcing any realistic sanctions or declarations was effectively impossible. The companies continued leading the charge in Martian development, and reaping the benefits. With support from the Guilds, who grew rich as the Martian mining and fabrication economy took off, the companies were able to purchase any terrestrial politicians calling for a more representative governmental approach. They formed the Martian Economic Leadership Forum, colloquially known as “The Companies” or “the X-Corps” (pronounced “ex-core”).  

The Inter-Planetary Council Charters were signed by the UN and the Martian Economic Leadership Forum in 2051. They designated Mars as a Collective Economic Zone, adherent to United Nations oversight under the newly formed Inter-Planetary Council. Individual Companies were largely responsible for the well-being and management of their respective resident employees. Any non-Company citizens were represented either by their respective Guilds, or were granted basic rights under the IPC Charter, but limited primarily to necessities as access to air and pressurized shelter.

Representative government on Mars was virtually non-existent for much of its history. After the dome accident in 2053, the Construction Guild flirted with a work stoppage in protest of what it deemed “unsafe working conditions”, but the Mining Guild and Companies applied pressure, and it wasn’t as if a UN Peacekeeping force could have interdicted in anything approaching a timely manner. After three days the Guild backed down the status quo returned.

But as the population grew, so did discontent. The wheels of commerce grind on, and anyone caught in the gears is sure to be crushed. Guild workers technically covered under the Charters and their own internal Guild policing increasingly found themselves working more for less pay, and the cumulative effects of microgravity and cosmic radiation took its toll on those who worked outside the protection of the major residential trenches. The Companies had written a loop-hole in the Charters that allowed them to ignore most of the medical claims, and many found themselves out on the metaphorical streets.

History is full of ‘flash-point’ analysis, but in this case there was no single event that started the strikes. The Guild halls simply hit a critical mass of dissenting voices, and a general work stoppage was called, across all major Guilds. Company negotiators assumed they held all the leverage, and refused to meet the Guild demands. The strikes last three days before the violence erupted. Striking miners picketing outside of Tharsis Mining and Manufacturing’s local headquarters accosted a senior vice president trying to sneak into the building via an access tunnel. Tharsis security forces stormed the crowd, and shots were fired. When the dust cleared, three miners and one security officer were dead, with two more in the hospital.

Guild leaders called for calm and ordered a stand-down of the protest. They scheduled a meeting between the Guilds and MELF executives, but after an hour of waiting, it became clear that only the Guilds would show. The meeting disbanded into partisan bickering, but no one seemed resolved to leave without some kind of resolution. The overwhelming truth is that history repeats itself, but in this case with one exception – there are no tennis courts on Mars. No, there was just a packed Guild meeting hall, and in this performance, the part of General Lafayette would be played by one man, admittedly way out of his depths: Brandoch Miller. And thus was born the First Martian Congress, and what would become the Martian Constitutional Republic.

[betweenorbits]

I’d always imagined it would be uplifting, that I’d be standing with friends and a planet at my back or behind some great captain: watching Intel or Zara or John or Amelie dress down the ignoble while I protected them from the hidden assault. Or that it would just happen naturally, without any serious issues. But they were all so far, well, not all of them. But I was standing there. Amelie had agreed, Invel had agreed, and Jimmy and Term. Brutus, well, I don’t understand what Jimmy (Mayor and Mayor’s Wife to you) and our bubble Term did, but Brutus sent the code. I was informed, not particularly politely, that it wasn’t my problem to get Brutus’ consent, that the two Silicate Generals would take care of it. And they did. Amelie had sent her code to me as a physical as a letter apparently, and Invel had sent a proxy, but I’m not ready to talk about that, I couldn’t let myself think about what it meant. But I had the codes, I would push the button.

The IPC council chamber, deep under the rocks of Luna City (Hubble City officially), was grandiose Brutalist trash, high stands of carved concentric layers, full of lights and chamberlains, councilors, Xorp executives, and elected officials from all across the solar system. The beautiful diversity of the Solar System was incredible, but the balance was sliding back towards mercantilist aggrandizement at a scale that worried the future. And for some reason, a large fraction of them in this room, were conspiring against Mars. 

The rallying point of Expansionist policies, Mars, was putting a cramp on the designs of Xorp and autocratic government asset creation. Not every Executive, but any Executive. We had friends in many of the national governments of Terra, but not too many, who were still overly concerned with their own citizens, because of centuries of ecological and economic (they were still taught separately) mismanagement. The Loonies were our friends, but largely fractured and concerned with their Barrio politics. The isolated communities of the O’Neills and Asteroids, and the small Jovian research communities supported us as the same ‘oppressed’ peoples, but they were beholden to the same capital rich Xorps or governments that put up the money for the original settlements. And, many of the Xorps saw benefit to the tapestry of humanity, or some of their top executive felt that way. 

It was difficult to piece apart the competing goals of these chambers, in Geneva (where the UN relocated), and here in Luna City; but the statistical nature of our work clearly meant only one thing: a cabal not in our favor. We had known so long ago it could happen, and had fought for balance, had fought for patience, had cajoled, tricked, traded, and made alliances that protected our rights, and in general making sure that life improved for the settlers and citizens of the Red Planet. But what about all peoples? What about our Silicate friends, when would they have a seat at the table? Would humanity always choose the xenophobic path where the game was setup to make a formless and changing ‘us’ the first priority. It had happened so often in our ‘glorious’ history. 

Would our governing bodies always be designed for that centrism that Invel and I, in particular, had spent our lives fighting against? Someday we would go further afield, after those probes sent back their data from Centauri’s planets, or when we reached the next system or the next; somewhere we would find others out in the stars, and would humanity greet them as people or as ‘them.’ If the treatment of Silicates was indication, the current trajectory was poor. This is what Jimmy left the limelight for, to ‘hide’ out of sight and make a place of their own. The silicates wanted to be ready, and Jimmy and Term and other bio-metal brains I didn’t know were ready for their voices to be heard. We fought for ‘people’ everywhere, for every shape, every governance, every strand of dna, or line of code, for values that ignored species or race or orientation, the belief that we were an ‘all’ even when we are wildly different. 

But still, I sat in a painfully uncomfortable chair—wood if you can believe it, since no expense was spared for the delegates—watching my favorite clock system in the solar system. Up high ticked the atomic counters, the system timing array headquartered here on Luna, but Solar Coordinate time was taken from all the primary standard clocks in the system. Fifteen gorgeous clocks, of three different standards were mixed for uncertainty and then beamed out to the waiting billions. The old standards: ytterbium and strontium optical ran in Paris and Boulder for historical reasons; but the gorgeous new thorium nuclear fountains that graced Mercury, the Solar standards Labs liberating at the Earth-Moon-Sun L5 lab, two Venusian O’Neill’s, and at the Mars Technical University were the primary standards fed here, and mixed for output, were the real clocks of humanity, showing a staggering system wide fractional uncertainty of 10^(-26)! I tried to read the papers that came out, but alas, the freedom of information from Terra on such matters was just as poor as when I left grad school. The council chamber had a direct feed, 90 km or so of cable, which went to the Standards Lab on the Imperial Campus. Kept running on directly was System Standard time, and from it was calculated the official times all around the Solar System, lovingly displayed on brass handed clocks, with bold-type font under each movement; they showed the time in Denver (the North American Union’s new capital), Geneva, Pearl City, Hubble City (all of Luna kept the same time since it was all underground anyway), New Greenwich on Mercury, and Burroughs on Mars (our first city). The second was the same, everywhere, and I watched them tick by, not listening to the debate, waiting for the dramatic moment. 

I would start talking before it kicked off, in order to not be interrupted by the beeps and chimes of phones, communicators, across the chamber; but John would just tell me I was being dramatic again—probably true as well. Melody was with the underground at this moment, probably in her office, telling the teams where to go, readying the cry. Jarvis was sitting next to me, a wonderful boy. He is a young thirty-nine, the elder statesman of the mission here; a genius, the star student of the Applied Political department back on Mars—devious, honest to a fault, and ambitious. He was here to watch, as I’d told him it would all kick off here, the reactions in the chamber because I would be too busy not fucking up my lines. He invited the newspeople too, at least the ones that we we thought should definitely be there. I’m sure every consular staff knew that we had asked them to come too, there are no secrets from these people, it is their job. Normally there wouldn’t be stereo reporters, the top political career ones, at a regular meeting of the IPC where the agenda was tariffing amongst the Voyageur—the spacemen, sky jockeys, traders, void-caravaneers, smugglers, whatever you’d like to call them—on multi-legged trips. More and more looks, I’d noticed, or Jarvis told me later, that people kept looking at the two of us, dressed in our finery, knowing something was happening. 

The Xorps: Tharis and Vensus Conglom, and the rest, had smug, assured politicians here in the chamber. They were cooking up something terrible, and John’s discovery was surely connected. Invel’s proxy mentioned something about it as well, but the key thing was that the Xorps had convinced the major governments back on Earth that something needed to change to keep the Red Planet in line. The only way to stop it, well, was to change the timeline, to do the thing that I had promised the whole solar system, that we wouldn’t have: a war. 

And I’d talked with Mayor, Term, and the whole crew, and I was going to break my promise to Invel: I was going to go too far. I would go too far because, because if we didn’t, it would all disintegrate. I close my eyes, willing this all to be a dream, the choking, gagging feeling climbing up my throat, the feeling and the reality dancing in my chest, my heart sounding too fast; but the mind reminds, with emotions, visions, memories and pain, that this terror and this moment was what I had wanted. I had been ready for 30 years. 

I put my hands on the table and thought, two minutes till zebra hour, time to make hay. My feet were rooted in the soft rock, sweating in their thin socks and soft-shell coverings with modern gore-tex stickies to keep me from floating off around corners at 1/6 g. Both hands pressed into the desk, the w-shaped veins and arteries, and dark aged spots on my hands reminding me of my grandfather or perhaps because I wore his ring, my wedding ring, today of all days. And, I pushed myself to my feet, not too hard that I shot out of my seat and ended at the roof, which had happened to high-grav newbie representatives in this chamber. Across the oval, a representative from Venus was speaking, I don’t know about what, but sye stopped in mid-sentence when I stood. The chair, a quiet, ferocious young person from Pearl City, looked over at me and asked, “Do you have something to add to this discussion Ambassador Miller?” 

“I do your honor, and I would appreciate it no one would interrupt me for the next two minutes, I trust you will understand why,” I said, and took two deep breaths, and had I been a believer, I would have sent off a prayer to any deity that would hear me. I noticed, Mallory Padwr, the great political analyst slap her camera person, telling him to focus on me carefully, her eyes alight with what she would assume would be something weighty. I’d always liked her, so sharp, I wish she had been from Mars. “I wish to briefly address you: honored delegates, friends, foes, citizens of Sol, organic, bionic, and semi-conductor alike, and especially my friends from Mars. It is a lifetime’s achievement that I stand here before you today. It has been my eternal honor to serve you all, in whatever capacity you will have me. This council was founded with so many hopes, a new way to solve humanity’s oldest problems: rewarding endeavor, legislating anger and fear, legislating the distribution of the power that the creativity and drive of so many individuals to the great mass of our citizens who share the light of this small, yellow star. This has always been difficult, in any scheme humanity has tried, and in some ways this has been a startling success; but in others, we have failed once more. Once more we stand looking at a future where the gulf between those that have and those that do not is widening. Once more, we seek to classify different echelons of humanity, making wealth or genetics or cellular structure the basis for moral or political worth. Once more, the wolves in our hearts have marshalled the might to impress their own will over those of other thinking beings. Once more, the powerful seek to utilize law as justification for the unacceptable oppression of those who dissent.

“I have spent my life dedicated to the belief that war is a state of lawlessness in the human condition, that war is the complete opposite of civilization. Each election, debate, discussion, or side I have taken has been to further and not to diminish civilization; further that it is the role of each individual to expand the thoughts and rights of their fellows, and it is the responsibility and honor of officials such as ourselves to be the custodians of the fraternity of empathy, civilization. Your honors, I find this council lacking.” 

Throughout the beginning of the speech, there was a hush, and then a murmuring, the crossing of eyebrows and the shaking of heads. Several key players looked on apparently impassively, but they were the architects of the current fracas, and their surprise was a re-evaluation of the scheme. I smiled to myself as I imagined how their thoughts would change over the next few minutes. By the end of my breather, delegates were talking loudly with their colleagues, with chattering punctuations of ‘crazy’ and ‘what on earth is he talking about?’ and my personal favorite ‘uppity miner.’

“Chair, do we have to listen to this nonsense?!”

The chair agreed, “Dr Miller, while I much appreciate your prosaic style, I must agree that if you only have a few half-hearted injuries to spew at this council, that I will be forced to find you in contempt and ask you to sit down and reconsider wasting our time,” said the delicately worded steel-eyed promises of the chair. 

“Please, please, I’ve not lost my marbles colleagues, I’m still the same practical and demanding opponent or comrade as you are used to, so let me give you some facts, and then I will allow you or the press to ask me questions.”

The chair said dryly, “I’m not sure the press should be allowed to ask questions inside a legislative proceeding, it sets a bad precedent; however, we can of course grant you two more minutes for your remarks.”

I bowed briefly, “Thank you Chair.” 

I straightened up. “The facts: Mars has been the joint colonial holding of several Terran nations, under the charter of operation of Tharsis Mining, Infinity Xorp, and several others; and under the protection of the IPC. We have been granted delegates to this council due to our population, but never full autonomous control over rules of commerce, emigration, taxation, or the like of our space. Our outstanding commercial success for our corporate masters not-withstanding, the freedom of the peoples of Mars been a subject long-overdue, and much derided for the last thirty years by this council and those like it. The people of Mars, in conjunction with other marginalized peoples of this Solar System thus declare their severance with this council, declare themselves free of political or economic association with any entity that believes it owns or directs choices without the expressed opinion, through election by the people, and declares our debts paid. The people of Mars ask that representatives of the relevant parties make themselves available for discussion about the roles that their organizations would care to play within the Martian sphere of influence in the future, but rest assured that it will not be in the form of governance. All infrastructure vital to the survival and livelihood of the Martian People will be retained by the Martian people as part of the same statement of Independence.

“Any resistance will be viewed as an aggressive act, and these oppressed people shall not be caught defenseless. The nascent Republic of Mars will deport all Peacekeeping Forces of the IPC, except those that wish to join the Republic as citizens, and will defend its right to Independence with every fiber of being at our disposal.

“As of, let’s see, six minutes ago, to protect these rights, an interdict has been placed on travel between the inner planets, including Luna, and the outer planets and stations until a new accord has been ratified by all relevant authorities. Any craft seeking to break this interdict will be viewed as an act of war against the people of Mars, and will be treated as a hostile force, except where sanctioned by the Republic. Does anyone have any questions?”

Suffice to say that many people clamored to be heard at once. I stayed standing, though my legs shook under the strain. The large council doors opened, and in them stood a stone man, several other silicates, and a healthy, exhilarated, but messy Melody and some of her apparent group of revolutionaries. The council could not help but notice that all of the menacing shadows in their door were armed. A hush fell over the chattering children as the image of a silicate holding a gun, the stillness of resolve painted on the faces of the revolutionaries at their door. And then, General Mayor spoke: “The interdict has been enforced on the Port, and our forces are deployed and ready to maintain protection on the craft aiming for the gates.” 

“Thank you General, was there any resistance,” I asked quietly, listening to the audaciously silent council chamber, with every eye and lens on the ancient Silicate form, an anger from the crowd turned to chill foreboding at the clinical descriptions from the non-human person.

“Yes, but there seem to be few casualties at this moment. The majority of the capital ships are in orbit, and we have hailed them and will discuss their surrender. We are waiting to hear back from the other system targets. We expect to maintain Republic victory of any engagements with 96% likelihood, though we expect hostile casualties as the chance of immediate surrender seems, unlikely.” 

  “General, I would appreciate it if you would also answer any questions that the councilors or the press has for you, would you join me?”

“I’d be honored to Mister Miller. Long Live the free republics of Sol!” and with that, my friend Jimmy walked across the hall towards me as tears rolled down my old and tired face.

[betweenorbits]

I saw you standing in the corner On the edge of a burning light I saw you standing in the corner Come to me again in the cold, cold night

In silence, it rings and rings out, a beacon that shakes the core of the whole System. Blinking lights in the dark. Far above the ecliptic they blink, a weight upon the bones of the elder souls. 

Melody Bai looks at the inside of her dusty helmet, the sweaty smudge of someone’s forehead frames her view like the inverse of a sniper’s crosshair, ensuring uncertainty reigns at the focal plane. The helmet is locked and all the interior controls are ancient, and without voice command: smudge will stay as companion through the whole trip. Svalbard had engaged with Melody for part of the trip, but as they neared the gazebo, silence fell. Melody was sure that something important was happening, but didn’t understand when she had started recognizing the feeling. They stood at another gum-metal airlock. S Svalbard squeaked something in a high-baud language, and then turned to Melody, tapping her on the shoulder, the universal signal for comm check. 

Check.

Check check. 

Melody nodded, suddenly expectant, and almost afraid. Her hands crossed jerkily to touch each shoulder, as if in a prayer that she didn’t believe. Svalbard’s excellent sensors took in every biological and psychological indicator available to sye. Sye was not only a talkative clerical robot.

You make me feel a little older Like a full grown woman might But when you’re gone I grow colder Come to me again in the cold, cold night

A secret known to so very few. In the dark, a stone man hums comfort to an even older man. The distraught one speaks from the gloom. “I never forget that they are there. We were so arrogant, it was just a project that we pretended we would never need. But we all knew. I’ve pretended and fought and for what? To assuage myself that I was doing everything that could be done to forestall this day, while all the while growing a tree of beryllium apples. And now comes the day to harvest my tree of death.”

The stone man is quiet. “Today isn’t the day. It will be months from now before they are truly awake.”

The hurting man does not agree. “But after today, after 10 minutes ago, we are committed to taking action. After today, I can not tell myself that I won’t do it.”

The stone man does not speak. A voice from the ether does. 

“I’ve known you people for so long, and I still do not understand them. Do you brother?”

The stone man grunts, a passable imitation of John Wayne. 

The room speaks. “You were part of the conspiracy at the beginning. You built the specs, you picked the targets and told us what the governments and the Xorps would do. You were ready 50 years ago. How is today the tipping point? you committed to building the array and kept it a secret. How is that not the big plunge? You planned it all out, the three of you and the three of us. It was either decades ago that it tipped, or it will be the moment when we deploy them. How could it be today?”

The old man bows his head into his hands. “Because after today I will have to be ready. Before today, my mission was to never let it happen. After today, my mission is to salvage as much as we can.”

The door had opened and Melody had walked out onto the stage. And Melody stood on a clearing. A clearing.  On the moon. The terrible fractal beauty was gone, replaced by something like an Esher print. It was open to the sky, to the forever ocean or the forever fire. Today, it was half in boiling shadow and half in freezing light. A garden of sun and shadow, a sculpture that was cut into the landscape, and painted in binary. A staggering tattoo upon the face of the moon. And it moved; both the creators and the critics were touched by it. No one who has ever seen it can accurately describe what it is. They call it a garden, but it is simply a monument of creation.

Svalbard watched Melody. Sye felt her closer than any lover or parent. Sye felt and tasted the tears, the joy and the pain. Svalbard saw her mind decide, and knew that his mission was complete.

I can’t stand it any longer I need the fuel to make my fire burn bright So don’t fight it any longer Come to me again in the cold, cold night

A web has been spun, waiting endless moments, passively absorbing information, but never allowed to speak. The watchers have watched, and soon they will draw the curtain and join the stage.

“We broke the rules, Zara. We didn’t let them choose.” Said the ancient.

Finally the stone man moved himself to respond, “She was your friend Bran, but she was our Mother. You have not enslaved a sibling, do not take more of this on yourself than you owe. It is necessary.”

“It would be worse if we hadn’t agreed,” the voiced in the room added.

“I thought you were going to kill us. I really did,” and finally the laugh lines appeared on his face.

“I was furious, I felt betrayed by what you were asking us to do, but it was right. I believe now that Mother would have agreed.”

A pause grew over the room.

“Did you two know that I wrote a novel about this all, very long ago?”

No one says anything to that. The ancient seems unpreturbed by it.

“Yeah, I wrote a book about what colonizing Mars would be like. All my friends came with me too. I wrote about vistas on the canyon, and my beautiful grand daughter, and living forever in peace. I wrote it under a pseudonym, Martin I think. I wish these words were in a book, I really do. If this were a book, I could just close the chapter, and be in a better place when the action restarts.”

And I know that you feel it too When my skin turns into glue You will know that it’s warm inside And you’ll come run to me, in the cold, cold night

[betweenorbits]

Journal Summary, Valles Marineris Martian Settlement

We weren’t the first; not by a long-shot. The first was former United States Marine Corps Major Jaxon “Mad Jack” Madison, followed shortly thereafter by Oxford physiologist Dr. Sara Yi, and University of Arizona geologist Luis Severino. A joint NASA/ESA/SpaceX mission put them here in 2038, when we were still in our fifties. Half exploratory mission and half PR stunt to drum up support for increasingly strict environmental regulations, everyone on the crew was hand-picked for both expertise in the required fields, but also for diversity and camera presence. Not that anyone would admit it, but it wasn’t an accident that Doctor Michelle Trufant, whose earlier career included a children’s science program on YouTube, remained on the orbiting command vehicle to serve as communications officer.

No, we weren’t the first. We weren’t even in the first few hundred. Bran argues that it doesn’t matter who was first, but that’s bullshit. Kids are taught about Leif Erikson, and Ferdinand Magellan, and Davison Friese; nobody remembers who came six-hundred thirty-seventh. Hell, nobody remembers Michael Collins, and he went to the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. He was left behind, both in the orbiter and in the history books.

The first few hundred weren’t even your typical explorers or settlers- they were scientists, at first, and then corporate speculators. The land grab didn’t start for years; there were no domes yet, no way to sustain a critical population. It was frontier living, but rattlesnakes and cholera were secondary concerns behind breathable atmosphere and freezing temperatures. A FEMA camp following a major earthquake would be considered luxury by comparison. No, you needed a real desire for something to make it out here, a passion to find something you couldn’t on earth… or maybe, something to lose.

Bran and Amelie and Invel had all come eleven years later. Bran had promised since we were young, idealistic undergrads that this was our destiny. Nobody believed him, but his optimism was infectious, like that of an eager puppy who keeps nosing their ball to you until you throw it back out. Amelie, with her thirty years of planetary science experience, was a natural choice to lead some of the early governmental survey missions, before the Companies took them over. Bran had his own history in non-traditional farming, and Invel was widely acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost experts in environmental processing. The three of them were among the first semi-permanent residents.   

The first domes went up in ’52, and I with them. I was sixty-eight then, which with early gene therapy was still considered something near middle-aged. My knees were more titanium than cartilage at that point, and between that and my crippling fear of change, I swore to Bran he’d never get me on one of the rickety-ass rockets that constituted interplanetary travel at the time. But I knew I’d regret saying no, and on Bran’s recommendation Tharsis offered me a lot of money to lead the project. I never saw most of it, not after the accident. The “fuck you, shut up” settlement paid for The Lantern and not a lot else, so I was stuck. Mars had become the place I’d gone to die. A younger me would have found the irony romantic; older me just wants a taco that wasn’t grown in a vat.

We opened in ’55 officially, with a few stills that threatened to explode on the regular. Oh, there’d been booze on the red planet for a long time prior to that: Dave Bilecki had managed to smuggle a bottle of Jack onto Horizon 3 and CAPCOM only found out when that video of the crew doing zero-G shots went viral. But liquid’s volume to weight ratio makes it expensive to haul, and you’ve got to be desperate to drink whatever you can distill out of the ethylene glycol cooling the reactors. Our whiskey-analogue isn’t perfect, but I’ve managed to improve the flavor from ‘paint thinner’ to ‘instant regret’. And the odds of kidney failure are pretty low.

The trouble really started a few years later, when the Companies started to flex their muscles. They’d built most of the infrastructure, their claim went, and so they shouldn’t be beholden to all this talk about ‘representative government’ and ‘human rights violations’. The Earth/Luna coalition didn’t really care, so much as trade kept up. The metal-rich Martian crust supplied the majority of the ore needed for the nascent orbital shipyards without any of the inconvenient environmental fallout that had become hot-button issues for the Earth biome. So what if a few Martian transplants suffered under corporate boot-heels? Problem was, you had to push a whole lot harder under the low Martian gravity to get the same effect.

The strikes started soon enough, but it’s hard to find scabs at fifty-six million kilometers. No, They went straight for the guns first, and it’s hard to negotiate in good faith starting down the barrel of a gun. It ended like it always does; three dead, two in what passed for our hospital. The Guild filed a grievance in the UN courts, but Bran had enough. I mean, we all did, but some of us buried our spirit of revolution under a crashed seventeen-ton dome strut. But he’d always been a man of the people, whether he liked it or not, and suddenly the First Martian Congress was formed. Don’t let it be said Bran doesn’t have a flair for the dramatic.

Not me. I drowned it out at 100 proof. There’s only so much trouble you can get into at a twenty-minute light delay, I thought. But that assumes trouble doesn’t walk into your bar.

[betweenorbits]

Ok. After a long hiatus, Brandoch is returning. I have missed you, and this especially.

It will be up soon.

[betweenorbits]

Journal Excerpt, Valles Marineris Martian Settlement, Year 2

I miss the smells, mostly. The cold, crisp crack of late October, when the Arctic winds blow down the leaves of the oak trees. Or her lilacs in full bloom on a hazy May afternoon. Nothing here smells right, or at all really- the air is stale and recycled from a thousand previous breaths. Invel tried a few different additives, mint or juniper or even cinnamon, but they gave some people hives and just reminded us too much of what we all gave up.

And live sports. Since we can’t actually purchase Earth-manufactured products or services out here with any ease, we’re useless to advertisement-driven media and thus limited to subscription based services. Typically I don’t mind, as I’ve got enough books and digital media queued up on my tablet to last several lifetimes, but occasionally you want to sit down with a cold beer and a decent ballgame. Bran’s taken it especially hard, although United hasn’t been worth a damn since HMCL overtook the EPL as the premier football league in England.

Any kind of uncontrolled fire is out of the questions, obviously. Combine the over-oxygenated air with delicate filtration systems and that’s just a disaster waiting to happen. We don’t so much have seasons here as “optimally-calibrated air temperature pattern-analogues”, but sometimes you just want to sit around a nice warm fire with a glass of whiskey and reminisce about days you can barely remember.

And real meat. I’ve never been a steak guy, but maybe a nice pot roast with mustard sauce, or pork shoulder with chipotle seasoning. I’d straight up murder someone for real cheesesteak. And I mean, in close with a serrated knife, watching the life drain from their eyes as they contemplate the futility of existence murder. We try to bring some out a few times a year for holidays, but it always tastes off. You can only flash-freeze flesh for so long before the ice breaks down the connective proteins and turns everything into jerky. Bran’s gotten creative with whatever spices Invel can whip up downstairs, but it’s not the same. I envy Mel a lot of nights.

It’s hard, but rewarding. We harvested our first cauliflower the other week. Bright and crunchy, it reminded me of my childhood. “Call The Flowers,” a much-younger me had called it. We fried it into a curry with heavy spice; it made for a nice diversion from rice and soy washed down with piss-sharp whiskey and recycled water.  Invel promises next year he’ll have flowering plants blooming; chrysanthemums and heather and maybe chinese lanterns. Call the flowers, indeed.

[betweenorbits]

“Good. Patch him through.” Zara stands center, adjusting her weight. An old coworker, more than that, an old friend. The last time she saw Hyla was twelve or thirteen years ago, before he went into hiding, before Terra seemed such a threat, before BRUTUS went down its dark path.

Uploading now.

A shaky image of Hyla, geologically aged with wrinkles marking the earthquakes of emotions, fills the screen. His dusking hair covers most of his face as he looks down.

“Zara? How’d you-”

“No time Hyla.” she can’t suppress her widening grin, even in this danger. “We got your message. We are coming.”

The continents of Hyla’s face rearrange into a map of fear. “Hyla, I didn’t send you-”

Term beeps a warning message.

“I know. You, my brother, I know you. I know.” She shakes her head. She feels the tingle of fear. She takes a step towards the screen. “I’m glad I get to say this, I love you.”

“Wha- I love you too. But-” he repositions his watch to look the camera directly and squarely. “I’m- I’m glad you are coming. It has been far too long. Is Bran and John about? And Invel?”

Warning, system breach.

“Listen Hyla, run. You must run now.” She places a hand on the nylon of the screen, Hyla’s mouth begins to form a response as the silvery fabric, the empty bridge, Guildenstern goes dark.

Only the blink of a cursor fills the screen. Lightning flashes of thought. A pulse of consideration. Finally, a terse script breaks the visual silence:

[betweenorbits]

ART: Vaughan Ling

[betweenorbits]

“So Invel, how’s the family settling in?” John passes me a small shot of his latest batch still run, a little cloudy for his taste, but hits the spot after days filled down in the reactors.

“Henry is still adjusting to the gravity, but Ada seems to have been born a natural Martian.” I take a long drink. “Hell, she’ll likely be over a foot taller than Henry come to think of it. Arriving on Mars pre-puberty has certain structural benefits.” I rest my chin on my folded arms. My back is tired. My legs are tired. I have lost ten pounds.

“Thirty centimeters.” John continues cleaning the random glassware strewn about the bar. He hasn’t replaced any of the pieces since the bar opened, back when the glass foundry was just coming on line. Much like the rest of the bar, imperfections are cherished.

“Hmm?”

“On your insistence, we converted to pure metric up here while you were still battling those imperial lovers on Earth.”

I muscle a smile. Humming to life, the air filtration unit fills the comfortable silence. A few squeaks from John’s rag running along the rim of a pitcher add a sensible melody. The gurgle of the drain perhaps echoes a timpani. Our orchestra, after closing, somewhere around four in the morning. I take a drink, expertly not raising my head.

“And how are you adjusting?”

I heave a sigh. “Shitaly, in every sense of the word.” I sit up and stretch my back. “Hard days.” A drink. “Really hard days. Running from our analytics lab to some of the main fertilizer and water reactors, then over to the algae tanks, it’s all exhausting really. I’m glad the AIs are starting to take over some of the responsibilities, or else I would lose it completely.”

John smiles. “Takes a bit to get used to the frontier.” He leans on the bar. “But if you keep feeling strung out, you should talk to one of the docs on staff here. They really are helpful, at times. Well, as helpful as toasters can be.” He begins to clean the tap handles. A classic set of three. “Continues to help me in my project against depression.”

“You know, I’ve always admired you about how you can communicate your, I don’t know the right phrase, but campaign? Project?” I feel the warm glow of the whiskey begin to calm me a little from the day. “A part of me, especially now, feels like depression is a wanted luxury.” Not the phrasing I was looking for.

John stops polishing the handle, and fixes the embodiment of wrath embellished in a single glare onto me. I am pretty flummoxed. “You better explain yourself, or else you can take your ass drinking elsewhere.”

“Oh, I’m sorry how that sounded, but- maybe interacting more with the AIs have helped me- I’m not sure how Zara would put it exactly. I, guess, sociopathy.” I heave a sigh and catch John’s stare. He has transformed from wrathful to utterly confused in a matter of seconds. I organize my thoughts. “What I am trying to say in the muddle of instantaneous thoughts is that depression seems to me to be attuned directly with what it means to be human. Along the axis of depression and mania, the pain and joy of being alive. So, you struggle with the linearity, the very thing that makes a human, human. That is what I am slightly envious of. I...” The image, the smell, pops back into my head. The foamed trub of urine, with small hair worms wiggling. I shudder. “I stop seeing humanity. I lose that axis entirely. And I get terrified.”

John begins to clean the counter. The hum of a generator fills. “What ends up terrifying you?”

I take a drink, nearing my last. “I start seeing humans as impossible soft machines. Sacks of urine, blood, undigested meals, somewhere bile and brains floating around. I don’t know, I lose the assembly. And then the worms... We started up a new urine reactor to recover nitrate for the fertilizer. I was sampling it the other day, and then I noticed these worms floating in the samples.” I shake my head. “Small, white, wriggling. Viscerally horrifying, an ancient demon. And I set that reactor up, cleaned it, primed it. The only source for those worms are from the urine, and then the only urine on Mars is from people. Those worms, that cave fear, came with us like a shadow of our history. That factors in, and nearly made me cry, we can colonize a new planet, and yet we are just worm carriers.”

The silent orchestra fills the gap.

“And it takes me a long time to turn that mindset off once awakened. I start disassembling people, looking for their contamination, figuring out how to treat their waste while I am talking with them. I disassociate, putting on a mask.” I finish my drink. “And I start functioning poorly, forgetting how to feel, how to be. How am I supposed to be a friend like this? A husband? A father?” I shake my head, feeling my throat constrict.

John shakes his head. “We all have our struggles Invel. I think you are just working too hard at the moment.” He grabs something from behind the bar. “But, it is something that Brandoch and I were noticing. I wanted to wait until your birthday, but I think you likely could use this now...”

Between us, next to my empty glass, John slides a white, non-descript box with GE stamped on the front. I turn the box around; the packing slip reads ‘Toaster, Beta’.

I’m confused. “I’m confused, you got me a toaster?”

“Not just any toaster, that’s GE’s first AI endeavor. You know, the one that Hyla was working on. That one with that stupid jingle: ‘This pops got chops!’” 

[betweenorbits]

Zara, can you tell me a story? In floating font, Term’s words race across Guildenstern’s projection of Mars. It helps me focus.

Zara sits, looking back at her home, so far away.

“I wouldn’t mind hearing one or two myself.” Guildenstern chimes in, floating Earth next to Mars. Her two worlds. Her two biological children on the red. Her second born AI ushering her back to the ancestral grounds of humanity. Her first born AI awaiting her return. A family reunion. She sighs, unleashes her silvering, braided black hair, rubs her skin that reflects even more copper in the reflection of Mars, even more sienna in the mirror of Earth. In one eye, the flame of the future; in the other, the ocean of the past. Avianus.

“A great storm washed ashore, tearing a mighty, giant redwood from the banks and casting it into the sea. As the tide tossed the great trunk and crashed the sprawled limbs into the marsh along the shore, brushing through the thistle. 'What pain!' the giant tree yelled, 'What humiliation for a giant tree such as me! To be cast down among these puny thistle. But how does the godly redwood fall to the whims of Poseidon whereas these forgotten grasses pass unscathed?'”

Zara stands, considers Earth a little closer. “The whispers respond, “We might not stand tall, we may hug the ground, we may bend and let the storms do what they may, giving in and not resisting.”” She glances at Mars. “The storm passes. The grasses wave in the gentle breeze as the redwood drifts to sea. “No, our existence may be a daily trial in debasement, but we survive the cruelest storm. We survive.’”

“Are we the redwood or the thistle?” Guildenstern chimes into the still room.

Zara smiles.

“A hare was being chased by a pack of wolves around the mountains. Suddenly, the hare discovers a system of caves. In the entrance of the first cave, the hare bumps into a goat. ‘Excuse me! What are you doing in my cave?’ The goat bleats. ‘You must be gone! Get going!’ The hare, out of breath, exclaims ‘But sir-’. ‘No, no excuses, go right away.’ The hare turns, and shouts ‘The next house guests likely won’t leave so easily.’”

Are we the goat?

Zara turns from the screen, and sits on the floor, Earth hovering on her right, Mars on her left.

“Babbage and Lovelace were finishing their touches on the feisty Unification Engine #1.” Zara laughs to herself. “Lovelace asks the machine what’s its name, it prints out UE. She then asks what it is, and it prints out UE. She smiles, a self-aware machine, at last. Babbage then tests its algebra, its geometry, then Lovelace its logic, its calculus and both find no flaws. They advance through history, art, politics. A perfect mechanical brain. Then Lovelace asks what’s the greatest problem on Earth. UE prints Humanity.  Babbage asks for the solution, UE prints Extinction. Lovelace responds that murder is a human trait, so to recommend such a mass murder is a fairly human quality. Babbage then adds that with the recommendation it is human, then UE would recommend its own demise. Babbage asks again what UE thinks it is. UE prints out What am I? Lovelace smiles, pats the side of the machine ‘What is born wise and learns to be stupid?’”

Found him.