Earth Day Chance

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A different look at Earth Day.
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Kate stepped out of her apartment and walked to the corner. She knew it wouldn't be long before a tram came by for the short trip to the observatory. "What could Jack be planning for Earth Day and why there?" she wondered. She had never heard of a party to celebrate the event. Somehow, all things considered, it just did not seem appropriate.

The tram arrived and Kate climbed the three steps to board, dropped a token in the slot and took a seat. The tram moved away from the corner and gained speed. Soon, the tram was moving very fast on the throughway toward the western end of the city. Already, the great dome of the observatory could be seen at the farthest end where the lights of the city would least confuse the vision of any observer.

When the tram stopped, Jack was waiting for Kate. "Good. You made it," he said, giving her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "The party will begin shortly. Nearly everyone it here."

"Who is everyone, Jack?"

"Oh. I didn't tell you, did I?" Jack said, looking somewhat embarrassed. "Nearly the entire faculty from the University. This is a special anniversary, you know."

"Special?" Kate asked, confused.

"Yes. It's been exactly fifty years today."

"Jack, I have no idea what you are talking about."

"Just wait, darling. You'll see. Professor Hewitt is going to make a short speech. It will all be clear to you then," Jack said, taking Kate's hand and leading her into the observatory dome.

Already, there were seventy people assembled under the brightly lit dome. Kate recognized a few of them from various University gatherings. Over there was Doctor Winn, the Environmental Engineer. Near the podium was Ann Regis from Chemistry. But most of the people there were unknown to her. "Who are these people?" she asked Jack.

"Most of them are from Ecology. That's Doctor Evers talking to Ann Regis. You know her. That group talking in the corner are Doctors Franklin, Blevins and Peters. They are from the Geophysics Department. Over here is Frank Reynolds and Justin Marsh. They run the air quality project."

Kate found this all too confusing. This didn't seem like the usual University gathering. She had been to many of those over the years. She hated those gatherings more than she could ever admit. Mostly she hated all the hotsy-totsy University big shots sitting around trying to make everyone believe they were far more educated and important than the next person. They had their pinkies cocked like a garden party, sipping green tea, while trying to act cultured. And it was all a fraud. Most of the men would just as soon have been guzzling neo-beer down at O'Neil's, while most of the women would just as soon been screwing each other husbands - all in the name of research, of course.

Unfortunately, Kate saw that old bastard, Dr. Ezra Hewitt, climb the podium set up at the back of the room. The old man was a perfect letch. His little, spindly legs could barely support his ugly, sagging body with it's disgusting, protruding "beer belly." Hewitt was the last of the founders and proud of the accomplishment, even though he had not done anything worthy of note since. It was whispered throughout the University that Hewitt was generally useless and a waste of good air.

Every time Kate had been in the same room with him, he had spent hours staring at her tits. Once he even had the audacity to try and cop a feel - all very "accidental," of course. But still, he had tried. "No wonder his wife left him," Kate thought.

As Kate watched, Hewitt tapped the microphone irritatingly. "Hello? Can you all hear me," he said in his cackling, nasal voice. Kate was glad to see everyone in the room ignored the old fart.

"Hello?" Hewitt said again into the microphone, followed by a loud screech of feedback.

Everyone stopped talking and looked at the old man standing at the podium. Hewitt shifted back and forth on his feet as if he was about to lose control of his bladder. Inwardly, Kate was laughing hysterically at his obvious discomfort, but outwardly her face showed nothing.

"Okay. Let's get started," Hewitt said. "I've prepared a little speech for this occasion." The old man reached for the breast pocket of his cheap and worn jacket. He pulled out a pile of note cards.

"We are the best that mankind has," Hewitt began. "We are what's left of a civilization. How did we come to this?" Hewitt peered out at the audience. Nobody spoke.

"Man is one of the baser animals of Earth. He makes war. He is so egotistic he tries to tame his environment. He even lords it over those species he sees as lesser than himself.

"And what did it bring him? More war. Finally, a war to end all wars. And who won you ask? The answer to that is both nobody and us."

The lights in the room began to dim and the stars began to glow faintly through the clear, plasteel roof. And there, centered over their heads was earth. Kate could hear breaths being sucked in as the crowd stared at the home planet. Once Earth had been known as the "Blue" planet. It was home to all manner of species. The environment was warm. But most of all the planet itself and every living thing on it was protected by a thin layer of atmosphere.

But now, even to look at the home world was not done. Here, the survivors had found a new place - a new home.

Above them, hanging in space was Earth, a burned out hulk. It's atmosphere gone. The surface scotched by the atomic munitions of the last war. Now Earth was lifeless, hardly recognizable as the place where life had sprung forth.

The crowd was quiet. Nobody spoke. Everyone just stared. Fifty years ago some of them had walked on the Earth that was. All the others parents had done so too.

"How far have we come?" Kate asked herself. "And how far do we have to go? Have we learned anything?"

Hewitt continued from the podium, "We are the remnants. We founded a new home here on Earth's moon. Here we are protected by plasteel domes. Here we raise our food. Here we raise our families. Here we have made a new home. And I would point out that I was instrumental in creating an environment here that is designed to be optimum for our survival."

"But we have fallen into the same trap. Some want the weather in our little world warmer. Some want to change the light and dark periods. Others still want to pack up and move to another area and start their own colony. Isn't this how it started there," Hewitt said, his arm raised, pointing at the dead rock that had been the home planet above them. "All their whining would do nothing but upset the fine, delicate balance, I have created."

Kate felt a shudder as she stared at the planet Earth. "How could we have done this?" she wondered. She had seen pictures of earth before the end. It had been beautiful with its blue oceans, hazy clouds and green continents. Everyone, learned in school the history leading up to the great war, but now, looking at the burned out rock that once had been home, it all came crashing down on her.

Jack touched her arm and said, "Something is bothering me, Kate."

Kate turned to Jack. She could see an odd look on his face. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Old man, Hewitt got me thinking. I'm wondering..."

"Wondering what?"

"Well, it's hard to explain. But looking at what Earth has become, I've had an awful thought. In the end days, the population grew to over 10 billion. Factories worked harder to provide the goods the people needed. New ways were found to exploit the resources of Earth. Then those nations that were resource poor began to covet the resources of the rich. That lead to..."

"War. Yes, I remember the history, Jack."

"Think about what Hewitt just said. Divisions are already beginning here. And something even more disturbing. When the colony was set up, how he had decided what the quality of air would be? What resources would we bring with us and what would we find here? But Hewitt and the others were not always right. Look at what resources we didn't find here they thought would be?"

"I see where this is going, Jack. But, I'm not worried. The founders knew what they were doing, even that old bastard, Hewitt."

Jack thought a moment, then said, "Have you ever seen grass?"

"Of course. There are pictures in all the books."

"No. I mean, have you ever seen it here? Felt it? Walked on it?"

"No, silly. Everyone knows grass would take too much water to have here."

"What about real meat. Not the synthetic meat we have, but real beef or pork?"

"No. Of course I haven't. Those are grass eaters."

"That's what I mean. Grass, trees and all the vegetation that made Earth green is not here. On Earth, the vegetation scrubbed the carbon dioxide from the air, provided shade and such. And the animals ate the grass and fertilized the grass. We ate the animals. It was a cycle.

"Here we have mechanical scrubbers that do the job. But they aren't efficient. They break down. They require constant maintenance. And the air has to be constantly monitored."

"Everyone knows that, Jack. What are you getting at?"

"What if the system begins to break down? What if some groups break off and form their own colonies and they take scrubbers with them leaving us without back ups?"

"We'll just build more scrubbers and go on as usual."

"Build them? With what? Do we even have the materials or the knowledge to do that? All the scrubbers we have, we brought from Earth."

"Oh. I see what you mean," Kate said staring up at Earth. "Nature did it for us. Until our ancestors began chopping down forests and denuding the land."

"Yes. And now we are dependant on a closed system that may not always work for us."

"But, Jack. There's nothing we can do about it."

"Maybe there is, Kate. Maybe..."

"Maybe, what, Jack?"

But there was no answer until much later.

***********************************************

The videophone buzzed and Kate pressed the receive button. "Hello."

Jack's face appeared on the screen. "Kate, I have some work to do tonight. I'll be late."

"Oh?" This was a very odd thing. Jack was like a fine watch - always on time. But tonight he's working late? "What's so important, darling?"

"Something you will be interested in, I think. Why don't you meet me later at the Middleton Pub? Say around nine?"

"Alright. I'll see you there." Kate hung up the videophone. This seemed far too odd to her. She checked the time and found it was already half-pasted seven. Kate walked into the sleeping room and changed her clothes from the t-shirt and sweats she wore around the apartment to a more casually-formal pale blue boat-necked sweater and khaki shorts.

On the short tram ride to the industrial district, Kate could not help but wonder what Jack was doing. She was, in fact, somewhat bothered by his unusual behavior.

Kate left the tram on Commercial Road and walked the two short blocks to the pub, arriving just after nine. Jack was sitting at a booth near the back with another man she did not recognize.

Jack smiled as Kate slid onto the bench next to him. "Darling, I want you to meet Howard Benson. Howard works over at Environmental." Kate reached across the table and shook Benson's hand warmly.

"Good. Now tell me what you've been up too, Jack."

"Remember, old man, Hewitt's speech at the Earth Day party? He said something about people wanting to mess with the environment here. That got me thinking. That's when I contacted Howard."

Benson smiled. "Yes. And I'm glad he did. You see. This is something that has bothered me and some of my fellow workers at Environmental for some time." Howard thought a moment, then said, "It goes back to when the colony was set up. The pattern for our environment was Earth itself. But that's a problem."

Kate looked dubious. "I don't understand."

"Well," Benson continued, "By then the Earth was already ruined. We are too warm here. There is too much carbon monoxide in the air. And, just like Earth at the end, we use mechanical scrubbers to clean the air. But we don't really know what the environment is supposed to be. So we just continue copying what we have. Meanwhile, the concentrations of contaminate gases in our air increases every year."

"But it seems to work alright," Kate said, confused.

Benson leaned over the table. "Have you noticed that you tire easily? The work day is only four hours and you are exhausted. Am I right?"

"Well, that's true. But it's the same for everyone."

"That's the affect of carbon monoxide in the air. Historically, work days were twice as long, followed by another seven or eight hours of personal time." Howard sat back on the bench and looked at Kate. "Could you even think of living like that?"

"Lord no. That's so unnatural."

"On the contrary," Jack interjected. "That was the norm for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. Howard nodded in agreement.

"Well, if you think it's wrong, just scrub more stuff out of the air."

"We can't. The scrubbers are operating a maximum now. The contaminates are separated and reused in various things. We know the amount of contaminate is increasing at the rate of 3% every year. And if we could scrub more, what could we do with it? We can't store it. We don't have the capacity to recycle any more. Eject it into space? This colony is a closed system. Nothing comes in, nothing goes out. That's the same as Earth before the end - a closed system."

"So, what do you think we should do?"

Jack took Kate's hand. "We should move, darling. Find a new Earth. A place with trees and grass and animals. A place where the air is clean and natural."

Kate rolled her eyes.

"You don't understand. We've already found it, Kate," Jack said, with a smile.

"Where?"

Jack's eyes moved upwards. "Out there, Kate. Out among the stars. But a place where we can try again."

"And how do you plan on getting there?"

Howard Benson smiled this time. "We are mounting a scientific expedition using one of the ships that brought us here fifty years ago. At least, that's what we've told the Admin. But we won't be coming back."

"You mean you are going to fly off to God knows where in a fifty year old scrap heap?"

"No. The [i] Manhattan Ark [/i] was never cannibalized. It was sealed after the survivors were offloaded. It still has scrubbers and is quite capable of making the trip. We have 700 going. You are most welcome to join us."

"Jack. This is home. We can't leave." Kate was obstinate.

Jack's arm slid around Kate's shoulders. "The colony is dying, Kate. It won't last more than another 30 years at best. We have no choice."

Kate looked at the two men, then around at the others sitting in the pub. Her mind was racing. A whole lifetime had been spent here. Now she should leave? "This can't be right. There has to be some way of saving the colony."

"No, Kate. The colony will die because we don't have the means to save it. We can either stay here and die with it or move on."

Benson looked steadily at Kate. "It's your choice, Kate. Will you die here or take a chance on the survival of our kind?"

"How far is this place?"

Benson looked at Jack, then at the floor. Jack shook his head and said, "A very long way, Kate. It's almost fifteen light-years."

"Ok. Fifteen light-years. What's that in something I can understand? How long will it take?"

Benson scratched his chin as he spoke, "It's not really a distance that you can relate to, Kate. It's such a very long way. And neither you nor I will ever see it. Our grandchildren will see it though."

"What? You mean..."

Jack took Kate in his arms. "Yes, darling. We will leave her and live on a ship traveling very fast away from here. We will have children as we always planned. They will grow up and have children too, before the ship arrives."

"But...But, how can you be sure, the colony is dying? And how do you know what we...I mean our...whoever...will find when they get there?"

"It's a chance, Kate. But, the only chance we have." Jack kissed Kate's forehead. "Now, do we take that chance? The choice is yours, my love. But you must make up your mind. The ship will be leaving soon. So, what will it be? Stay and die or go and give our grandchildren a chance at life on a new, undefiled world?"

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19 Comments
MunachiMunachialmost 17 years ago
Great story!

Couldn't stop reading because I wanted to know what is going on...

_Lynn__Lynn_almost 17 years ago
Food for Thought...

Great concept here. Good luck in the contest!

Selena_KittSelena_Kittalmost 17 years ago
If you're gonna...

If you're gonna write an earth day story, THIS is the way to do it... Wow, Jen. Duly impressed.

Selena

damppantiesdamppantiesalmost 17 years ago
Shook me up!

That could just be our future. A wonderful and thought-provoking story, Jenny.

HikergirlHikergirlalmost 17 years ago
What a sobbering thought...

Your moon colony reminds me of my son's science project last year...to create a living ecosystem in a closed container. A very few students were successful...and years later their jars are still displayed, functioning well. My son's, however, turned into a black ooze. I hope that isn't our fate as well.

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