Post by goldenmyst on Oct 4, 2022 19:03:50 GMT -6
1
Galactic Spider’s Web
Jim could no more circumscribe the reflection of forever in her eyes than circumnavigate the infinite sea on which they sail.
Her eyes have the blue fire of a habitable planet which beckons across the light years with warm oceans and aqua skies. They turn his heat driven tears into the laughter of birds singing in the wind.
From the observation deck, the milky blue marble adrift in the ancient and vast cosmos was a hypnotic pendant.
Jim says, “Rochelle, please put this into the twentieth-century southern American patois you studied.”
“That planet looks like a pumpkin with the blues. She is hanging out there on a muscadine vine with more juice than a black hole of flap jacks on Mama’s finest china.”
“And what goes with those cakes?”
“Why the finest pancake drippings made from
her corn syrup straight from momma’s garden where them ears grow nice and sweet.”
“Shucks I’d have never thought you knew what to do with an ear of corn. But it sure sounds like you do.”
“I’ve been shucking corn since I was knee high to a blackberry bush.”
“Well you sure know your stuff. So tell me what drink makes those cakes go down nice and smooth like blackberry jam?”
“Oh sure nuff honey. Nice cold sweet tea served with honey from Papa’s hive not none of that store bought stuff.”
“Tell me more about that big ole beach ball hanging out in front of our windshield.”
“She looks like one of them round ole watermelons straight from the patch but blue as a woman done lost her beau to them merchant marines.”
“Surely he’ll come back.”
“Well you know the sea got the charm of a preacher man’s mistress who can’t fool the flock no matter if she sits in the back of the church.”
“Rochelle, you passed the test with flying colors.”
“I aim to please. When we raise our children let’s teach them the ole suthern talk so they know a praline from a mint julep.”
Generations had passed onboard Long March. People dreamed of the open spaces and greenery of a planet like the mythical earth. They approached the new solar system, eager with anticipation.
Through their telescopes, they had sighted the distant planet. Spectrum-analysis showed it had enough oxygen to breathe. As they got closer they found that the equatorial region had equable temperatures, much like the North Atlantic of distant earth.
They settled into orbit with silent grace. After studying the planet for six months they decided to send the first landing party. The air was thick with excitement on board Long March. The landing craft looked like a spider with folded legs. There was a silver cone-shaped heat shield on the bottom. The stars were visible, glowing like candles in a sacred ceremony.
Below them, the ocean fanned out in an azure dream. Rochelle was squeezed between Jim and Gordon in the landing capsule like a baby bird in her nest. Long March, the only home they ever knew, looked like a caterpillar lost in the infinity of space hovering above the clouds of the planet. It drifted away until it was a pinpoint of light, then vanished. While checking systems they passed into the night, where far below in the sea of darkness
Jim could see the glow of volcanoes.
The final systems checks had been completed and the inertial guidance system was initiated. Lilith plunged through the atmosphere. A red fire blazed around the craft as it raced towards the planet’s surface. Parachutes billowed in the air, slowing the descent. Rockets fired with brilliant fireworks. Then with a thump, they landed. The crew tested the atmosphere for poisons. They analyzed the surface and spent a week meticulously studying their surroundings. Finally, they departed the craft. The air was cool and salty. The soil was dull red and powdery with green lichen-like plants covering small boulders. Out in the distance, there was an azure blue ocean. The sky was deep blue. They were on a rise in the land and had a magnificent panorama.
They camped out that night below a starry sky. The stars twinkled in the atmosphere, something none of them had seen in the vacuum of interstellar space. The wind rustled Rochelle and Jim’s polyurethane tent. She said, “Jim we don’t know the climate here as observed over years. For all, we know this could prove to be an uninhabitable world incapable of supporting life. Come on Jim, you know as well as I do only a preliminary assessment was done on whether or not the soil can support crops here. The decision to establish a colony here was done hastily. We don’t know how harsh the winter will be.”
“’I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform and tell you ev’ry detail of Caractacus’s uniform in short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral I am the very model of a modern Major-General.’”
“Well I am not sure if your resume is space age friendly. So here are a few of my skills. ‘I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news With many cheerful facts about the square of the Hypotenuse I’m very good at integral and differential calculus I know the scientific names of beings animalculous In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral I am the very model of a modern Major-General.’”
“Mine was rib tickling while yours was cerebral humor at its finest.”
“Fun is my middle name buster.”
“And you can sing. Mine was off key.”
“Oh, you and your earthlore. Leave it to you to bring up two-thousand-year-old song lyrics when I’m talking doom.”
“Land of Goshen, I got me a country girl. I bet you can chop wood and carry water as well as the men.”
Rochelle said, “You’re buttering me up to do the heavy chores. This gal can carry her weight but you’ll be the woodchopper of the house.”
“I’ll build you a log cabin with my bare hands.”
“This ain’t Appalachia and you ain’t Paul Bunyan.” They awoke at dawn and saw the sun float above the horizon glowing yellow and warm.
Soon there would be amber fields of grain with tassels waving in the breeze. Houses would be constructed. There would be villages with white cottages by the sea, like on the coast of New England, light years away. It would be a Garden of Eden for a while. It was the natal hour on the new planet, Eden. This was a place to start anew.
2
Planetside
The years gathered speed like an automated seedpod ship whose artificial wombs would bear a future for humankind. They had ripened until their wrinkled eyes looked cute to each other. Tweaking her outie became a favorite pastime for him. After over a decade of homesteading, they found themselves kissing each other’s liver spots like they were sexy.
“We’ve been married for twenty years. How should we celebrate? I’m a really happy guy.”
“Please, tell me why you are happy. Your wife needs to know.”
“Honey, I can always count on being your
shoulder to cry on. You are moody, prone to weeping spells, and in need of constant attention.
Besides that, you’re cute as a button.”
“Oh, you are a silver-tongued charmer. Jim when you get a tickle in your throat you act like you’ve got pneumonia. When your allergies kick up you have me apply mentholatum ointment, drip salt water down your nose, and it’s like being at my moonlighting job at the infirmary. If your soy burgers aren’t well done, you curl your lips. When I substitute tofu for tempeh in your lasagna you play
with your food and leave a pile of bean curd while eating only the pasta.”
Jim said, “Honey, let’s celebrate both our anniversary and the little tyke who has blessed our life. How about we share a quart of carob Tofutti?”
“Well, there is all that fat and sugar. But we burned a lot of calories working in the fields today, so it sounds reasonable.”
“Maybe we should just make a gallon to last a week,” Jim said.
“I have no self-control. But I may put on some pounds.”
“More to love” he riposted.
“Let’s grow fat together” she quipped.
“Giving birth gave you those love handles which I love to squeeze. Aren’t you glad for what the stork brought us?”
“There you go again with those antiquated earth phrases. But of course, how else could I stay sane without a toddler to break into my chocolate stash?”
3
Android
The robot who could walk backward steps through our extraterrestrial greenery whose broad leafy protein-rich plants shade us settlers from an alien sun. His cortical wiring is ten percent away from human consciousness. But for now, he is the dancing android to entertain our young and old with premonitions of wired people whose silicon circuits take them on an inner and outer voyage into a utopia where sleep need not interrupt progress.
4
Housewarming
Their pioneer community was as diverse as the people of their birth world. Their founding fathers and mothers strove to include all races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations for their last chance to preserve sapient life. But their unity of purpose, togetherness, peace, and love became divided by mistrust, social status, race, and religion while cloistered on that giant submarine in space they called home. Though their humanity united them like the arms of the Milky Way, they didn’t see the galaxy for the stars.
Personality conflicts proliferated with the emotional equivalent of the sting of jellyfish in a tropic sea. Crabby hermits were evicted from their shells only to bury themselves in the sand of conformity where they molted their old personas hoping for no irreparable trauma.
But on the frontier of this new world, they relived the days when the vast continental prairies, deserts, and mountains took months to traverse. There was a feeling of kinship with their neighbors. They had barn raisings in which people would flock from across the countryside to help their neighbors in a joyous celebration of togetherness. There were housewarmings during which neighbors would chatter like chickadees. They talked of how the corn was coming along with the alien soil composition, the thunderstorm last night with its life greening rains, and about other neighbors, not in their presence of course. Once more, families ate together, worked together, and lived together.
Divorce was the exception rather than the fashion.
From atop the watchtower, Rochelle and Jim saw their laughing children scatter across the fields whose barley stalks swayed in the breeze. Birds sang like on the first morning when the earth awoke. Life spread across the globe with the planet blushing green.
Rochelle and Jim could see the ship they grew up in as a bright cylinder crawling across the cloudless night sky. The nuclear fusion engines ignited with an exhaust like a comet’s tail spreading out behind the ship. Their crew was to journey across the light years to a new star one hundred and
fifty light years away.
The starship’s pattern of colonization would stretch across the galaxy from star to star carrying sentience to the worlds. Ships would cross the galaxy, with paths like spider’s webs linking the stars. Planets would be terraformed and made verdant. Starships would light across the galaxy, their nuclear engines blinking on and off over the centuries like fireflies in a forest at night.
5
Urbanity
A signal makes its way from deep space to their monitoring antenna. The message says a ship is on the way with a cargo manifest of robotic construction crews and urban planners. Rochelle’s heart sinks. Also in the message is a plan for the rapid conversion from a communal economy to a free market one. And so a few years down the line a multigenerational ecosystem habitat arrives in orbit around their planet. Jim convenes a council meeting to discuss the implications of these new settlers for their community.
The first delegation from the strangers above makes landfall in their fields. The robust leader marches with his followers in tow. He reaches out a hand in friendship to Rochelle and Jim. They accept it with deep-seated reservations. The emissary speaks. “What a quaint little commune you folks have built for yourselves. Just to breathe in the scent of your flower gardens was heavenly. I’m sure your plot will make a wonderful museum when our urbanization plans are developed. I hear you don’t use money. Well, every capitalist society has room for socialist enclaves.”
Rochelle says, “Our people need plenty of space. There is room for your cities on the other hemisphere. I’m sure you understand our need for fresh air and open fields for our children. My husband Jim and I would be glad to negotiate an arrangement with your committee suitable for both our needs.”
Rochelle leads Jim by the hand to a private space. “Their leader is appropriately named Argon after the gas which in sufficient amounts can choke the oxygen out of the air.”
Jim replies, “I know. We’ll convince them to build their cities far away. I have a plan which will appeal to them.”
Argon approaches them. “There you two go hiding. No need for secrecy between us. My agenda is open to discussion.”
Jim tells him, “Sir, there is a reason you may find the opposite hemisphere more suitable for
your cities. My team has found large deposits of iron ore, uranium, and even surprisingly titanium.mostly absent round these parts.”
Argon gets jubilant. “Those uranium ores are especially of interest because we plan to use nuclear energy to power our cities.”
Rochelle is shocked. “But sir, we use solar and wind energy with great success. Please don’t contaminate our atmosphere with the meltdowns which will inevitably occur. Those are accidents waiting to happen with catastrophic results. Reconsider for the sake of our progeny. There really is no need to resort to such drastic sources when clean energy is abundant.”
Argon says, “How many days of sun does this world have on any given year?”
Jim replies. “The majority of our days are sunny. We have a global climate much like that of the Mediterranean on earth.”
Argon grins and raises his hands skyward. “Then yes your idea sounds viable. Energy from the sky should work. Let us hold hands and join forces for a future on this beautiful planet. Of course, we don’t want to endanger our children. But for now,
let’s dine on this luscious vegetation which I hear
tell you’ve prepared into a meal for us.”
Rochelle smiles and says, “Come join us in the community room. Let me introduce you to the bounty of edibles which our agrarian economy has grown from the soil.”
Argon says, “Jim, are there any other natural resources we should know about on the other side of this sphere?”
“There is gold. Our people have no monetary need for it because we don’t use money or accumulate wealth. But for a capitalist, it may be of immense interest. There is some evidence, though not conclusive, of an enormous diamond vein. Though we haven’t mined it or explored it to its fullest extent.”
Argon says, “You have sold me, good sir. We shall not encroach upon your piece of heaven. We will visit you but not build nearby to protect your environment. Let us drink a toast to good neighbors.”
Argon and his team head out to map their own version of paradise. Rochelle fans herself and says, “Jim you know eventually their urban sprawl will overtake the whole planet. That is how their system works. It will be just like old earth. Those robots work fast. We may see the first skyscrapers on the horizon in our lifetime.”
“We’ll have many summers before then. There will be plenty of time to convince them to at least allow us our collectivist dream.”
Rochelle says, “We will be the beauty spot of our world and it may just be my pipe dream but perhaps the new settlers will want to emulate us.”
“Green spaces everywhere as far as the eye can see. If I were them I’d jump on that bandwagon.”
*Major General’s Song from Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Pirates of Penzance.” Chapter One Public Domain, 1879
Galactic Spider’s Web
Jim could no more circumscribe the reflection of forever in her eyes than circumnavigate the infinite sea on which they sail.
Her eyes have the blue fire of a habitable planet which beckons across the light years with warm oceans and aqua skies. They turn his heat driven tears into the laughter of birds singing in the wind.
From the observation deck, the milky blue marble adrift in the ancient and vast cosmos was a hypnotic pendant.
Jim says, “Rochelle, please put this into the twentieth-century southern American patois you studied.”
“That planet looks like a pumpkin with the blues. She is hanging out there on a muscadine vine with more juice than a black hole of flap jacks on Mama’s finest china.”
“And what goes with those cakes?”
“Why the finest pancake drippings made from
her corn syrup straight from momma’s garden where them ears grow nice and sweet.”
“Shucks I’d have never thought you knew what to do with an ear of corn. But it sure sounds like you do.”
“I’ve been shucking corn since I was knee high to a blackberry bush.”
“Well you sure know your stuff. So tell me what drink makes those cakes go down nice and smooth like blackberry jam?”
“Oh sure nuff honey. Nice cold sweet tea served with honey from Papa’s hive not none of that store bought stuff.”
“Tell me more about that big ole beach ball hanging out in front of our windshield.”
“She looks like one of them round ole watermelons straight from the patch but blue as a woman done lost her beau to them merchant marines.”
“Surely he’ll come back.”
“Well you know the sea got the charm of a preacher man’s mistress who can’t fool the flock no matter if she sits in the back of the church.”
“Rochelle, you passed the test with flying colors.”
“I aim to please. When we raise our children let’s teach them the ole suthern talk so they know a praline from a mint julep.”
Generations had passed onboard Long March. People dreamed of the open spaces and greenery of a planet like the mythical earth. They approached the new solar system, eager with anticipation.
Through their telescopes, they had sighted the distant planet. Spectrum-analysis showed it had enough oxygen to breathe. As they got closer they found that the equatorial region had equable temperatures, much like the North Atlantic of distant earth.
They settled into orbit with silent grace. After studying the planet for six months they decided to send the first landing party. The air was thick with excitement on board Long March. The landing craft looked like a spider with folded legs. There was a silver cone-shaped heat shield on the bottom. The stars were visible, glowing like candles in a sacred ceremony.
Below them, the ocean fanned out in an azure dream. Rochelle was squeezed between Jim and Gordon in the landing capsule like a baby bird in her nest. Long March, the only home they ever knew, looked like a caterpillar lost in the infinity of space hovering above the clouds of the planet. It drifted away until it was a pinpoint of light, then vanished. While checking systems they passed into the night, where far below in the sea of darkness
Jim could see the glow of volcanoes.
The final systems checks had been completed and the inertial guidance system was initiated. Lilith plunged through the atmosphere. A red fire blazed around the craft as it raced towards the planet’s surface. Parachutes billowed in the air, slowing the descent. Rockets fired with brilliant fireworks. Then with a thump, they landed. The crew tested the atmosphere for poisons. They analyzed the surface and spent a week meticulously studying their surroundings. Finally, they departed the craft. The air was cool and salty. The soil was dull red and powdery with green lichen-like plants covering small boulders. Out in the distance, there was an azure blue ocean. The sky was deep blue. They were on a rise in the land and had a magnificent panorama.
They camped out that night below a starry sky. The stars twinkled in the atmosphere, something none of them had seen in the vacuum of interstellar space. The wind rustled Rochelle and Jim’s polyurethane tent. She said, “Jim we don’t know the climate here as observed over years. For all, we know this could prove to be an uninhabitable world incapable of supporting life. Come on Jim, you know as well as I do only a preliminary assessment was done on whether or not the soil can support crops here. The decision to establish a colony here was done hastily. We don’t know how harsh the winter will be.”
“’I can write a washing bill in Babylonic cuneiform and tell you ev’ry detail of Caractacus’s uniform in short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral I am the very model of a modern Major-General.’”
“Well I am not sure if your resume is space age friendly. So here are a few of my skills. ‘I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news With many cheerful facts about the square of the Hypotenuse I’m very good at integral and differential calculus I know the scientific names of beings animalculous In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral I am the very model of a modern Major-General.’”
“Mine was rib tickling while yours was cerebral humor at its finest.”
“Fun is my middle name buster.”
“And you can sing. Mine was off key.”
“Oh, you and your earthlore. Leave it to you to bring up two-thousand-year-old song lyrics when I’m talking doom.”
“Land of Goshen, I got me a country girl. I bet you can chop wood and carry water as well as the men.”
Rochelle said, “You’re buttering me up to do the heavy chores. This gal can carry her weight but you’ll be the woodchopper of the house.”
“I’ll build you a log cabin with my bare hands.”
“This ain’t Appalachia and you ain’t Paul Bunyan.” They awoke at dawn and saw the sun float above the horizon glowing yellow and warm.
Soon there would be amber fields of grain with tassels waving in the breeze. Houses would be constructed. There would be villages with white cottages by the sea, like on the coast of New England, light years away. It would be a Garden of Eden for a while. It was the natal hour on the new planet, Eden. This was a place to start anew.
2
Planetside
The years gathered speed like an automated seedpod ship whose artificial wombs would bear a future for humankind. They had ripened until their wrinkled eyes looked cute to each other. Tweaking her outie became a favorite pastime for him. After over a decade of homesteading, they found themselves kissing each other’s liver spots like they were sexy.
“We’ve been married for twenty years. How should we celebrate? I’m a really happy guy.”
“Please, tell me why you are happy. Your wife needs to know.”
“Honey, I can always count on being your
shoulder to cry on. You are moody, prone to weeping spells, and in need of constant attention.
Besides that, you’re cute as a button.”
“Oh, you are a silver-tongued charmer. Jim when you get a tickle in your throat you act like you’ve got pneumonia. When your allergies kick up you have me apply mentholatum ointment, drip salt water down your nose, and it’s like being at my moonlighting job at the infirmary. If your soy burgers aren’t well done, you curl your lips. When I substitute tofu for tempeh in your lasagna you play
with your food and leave a pile of bean curd while eating only the pasta.”
Jim said, “Honey, let’s celebrate both our anniversary and the little tyke who has blessed our life. How about we share a quart of carob Tofutti?”
“Well, there is all that fat and sugar. But we burned a lot of calories working in the fields today, so it sounds reasonable.”
“Maybe we should just make a gallon to last a week,” Jim said.
“I have no self-control. But I may put on some pounds.”
“More to love” he riposted.
“Let’s grow fat together” she quipped.
“Giving birth gave you those love handles which I love to squeeze. Aren’t you glad for what the stork brought us?”
“There you go again with those antiquated earth phrases. But of course, how else could I stay sane without a toddler to break into my chocolate stash?”
3
Android
The robot who could walk backward steps through our extraterrestrial greenery whose broad leafy protein-rich plants shade us settlers from an alien sun. His cortical wiring is ten percent away from human consciousness. But for now, he is the dancing android to entertain our young and old with premonitions of wired people whose silicon circuits take them on an inner and outer voyage into a utopia where sleep need not interrupt progress.
4
Housewarming
Their pioneer community was as diverse as the people of their birth world. Their founding fathers and mothers strove to include all races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations for their last chance to preserve sapient life. But their unity of purpose, togetherness, peace, and love became divided by mistrust, social status, race, and religion while cloistered on that giant submarine in space they called home. Though their humanity united them like the arms of the Milky Way, they didn’t see the galaxy for the stars.
Personality conflicts proliferated with the emotional equivalent of the sting of jellyfish in a tropic sea. Crabby hermits were evicted from their shells only to bury themselves in the sand of conformity where they molted their old personas hoping for no irreparable trauma.
But on the frontier of this new world, they relived the days when the vast continental prairies, deserts, and mountains took months to traverse. There was a feeling of kinship with their neighbors. They had barn raisings in which people would flock from across the countryside to help their neighbors in a joyous celebration of togetherness. There were housewarmings during which neighbors would chatter like chickadees. They talked of how the corn was coming along with the alien soil composition, the thunderstorm last night with its life greening rains, and about other neighbors, not in their presence of course. Once more, families ate together, worked together, and lived together.
Divorce was the exception rather than the fashion.
From atop the watchtower, Rochelle and Jim saw their laughing children scatter across the fields whose barley stalks swayed in the breeze. Birds sang like on the first morning when the earth awoke. Life spread across the globe with the planet blushing green.
Rochelle and Jim could see the ship they grew up in as a bright cylinder crawling across the cloudless night sky. The nuclear fusion engines ignited with an exhaust like a comet’s tail spreading out behind the ship. Their crew was to journey across the light years to a new star one hundred and
fifty light years away.
The starship’s pattern of colonization would stretch across the galaxy from star to star carrying sentience to the worlds. Ships would cross the galaxy, with paths like spider’s webs linking the stars. Planets would be terraformed and made verdant. Starships would light across the galaxy, their nuclear engines blinking on and off over the centuries like fireflies in a forest at night.
5
Urbanity
A signal makes its way from deep space to their monitoring antenna. The message says a ship is on the way with a cargo manifest of robotic construction crews and urban planners. Rochelle’s heart sinks. Also in the message is a plan for the rapid conversion from a communal economy to a free market one. And so a few years down the line a multigenerational ecosystem habitat arrives in orbit around their planet. Jim convenes a council meeting to discuss the implications of these new settlers for their community.
The first delegation from the strangers above makes landfall in their fields. The robust leader marches with his followers in tow. He reaches out a hand in friendship to Rochelle and Jim. They accept it with deep-seated reservations. The emissary speaks. “What a quaint little commune you folks have built for yourselves. Just to breathe in the scent of your flower gardens was heavenly. I’m sure your plot will make a wonderful museum when our urbanization plans are developed. I hear you don’t use money. Well, every capitalist society has room for socialist enclaves.”
Rochelle says, “Our people need plenty of space. There is room for your cities on the other hemisphere. I’m sure you understand our need for fresh air and open fields for our children. My husband Jim and I would be glad to negotiate an arrangement with your committee suitable for both our needs.”
Rochelle leads Jim by the hand to a private space. “Their leader is appropriately named Argon after the gas which in sufficient amounts can choke the oxygen out of the air.”
Jim replies, “I know. We’ll convince them to build their cities far away. I have a plan which will appeal to them.”
Argon approaches them. “There you two go hiding. No need for secrecy between us. My agenda is open to discussion.”
Jim tells him, “Sir, there is a reason you may find the opposite hemisphere more suitable for
your cities. My team has found large deposits of iron ore, uranium, and even surprisingly titanium.mostly absent round these parts.”
Argon gets jubilant. “Those uranium ores are especially of interest because we plan to use nuclear energy to power our cities.”
Rochelle is shocked. “But sir, we use solar and wind energy with great success. Please don’t contaminate our atmosphere with the meltdowns which will inevitably occur. Those are accidents waiting to happen with catastrophic results. Reconsider for the sake of our progeny. There really is no need to resort to such drastic sources when clean energy is abundant.”
Argon says, “How many days of sun does this world have on any given year?”
Jim replies. “The majority of our days are sunny. We have a global climate much like that of the Mediterranean on earth.”
Argon grins and raises his hands skyward. “Then yes your idea sounds viable. Energy from the sky should work. Let us hold hands and join forces for a future on this beautiful planet. Of course, we don’t want to endanger our children. But for now,
let’s dine on this luscious vegetation which I hear
tell you’ve prepared into a meal for us.”
Rochelle smiles and says, “Come join us in the community room. Let me introduce you to the bounty of edibles which our agrarian economy has grown from the soil.”
Argon says, “Jim, are there any other natural resources we should know about on the other side of this sphere?”
“There is gold. Our people have no monetary need for it because we don’t use money or accumulate wealth. But for a capitalist, it may be of immense interest. There is some evidence, though not conclusive, of an enormous diamond vein. Though we haven’t mined it or explored it to its fullest extent.”
Argon says, “You have sold me, good sir. We shall not encroach upon your piece of heaven. We will visit you but not build nearby to protect your environment. Let us drink a toast to good neighbors.”
Argon and his team head out to map their own version of paradise. Rochelle fans herself and says, “Jim you know eventually their urban sprawl will overtake the whole planet. That is how their system works. It will be just like old earth. Those robots work fast. We may see the first skyscrapers on the horizon in our lifetime.”
“We’ll have many summers before then. There will be plenty of time to convince them to at least allow us our collectivist dream.”
Rochelle says, “We will be the beauty spot of our world and it may just be my pipe dream but perhaps the new settlers will want to emulate us.”
“Green spaces everywhere as far as the eye can see. If I were them I’d jump on that bandwagon.”
*Major General’s Song from Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Pirates of Penzance.” Chapter One Public Domain, 1879
