Red Sands of Revolution

The Red Sands of Revolution

by

Tom Wells

SMASHWORDS EDITION

*****

PUBLISHED BY

Rescue Publishing House

Registered Copyright © 2012: by Tom Wells

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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*****

The Red Sands of Revolution

By

Tom Wells

Preface

Richard Laroby, a historian and biographer, sat at the starboard bar on the aging cruise ship Intrepid. He sipped at his third martini and watched a much larger spacecraft glide by on its way to Mars, passing the Intrepid like it was standing still. The Intrepid had left Earth two weeks ago. The larger cruise ship had left Earth only three days before passing the Intrepid. Mars was once the main destination for a vacation cruise. Now it was only the first stop on most trips which visited several outer planets on each cruise. The larger ship was also headed for a rendezvous at the larger Martian orbital space station, Unity. The Intrepid was due to arrive at Trinity Station which could only serve smaller ships like the aged ship Richard was on and the private yacht class ships of the rich.

Richard was glad that the two week journey to Mars was nearly over. He was anxious interview Anita Ronad, the wife of the leader for the Martian War of Independence which had taken place nearly one hundred years before.

A man seated at the bar next to Richard made a remark about how hulking and out of scale the new interplanetary ships had become. Richard acknowledged the comment with a nod trying to not get sucked into the stranger’s attempt at conversation. He keyed a few entries into the display under the glass of the bar’s surface, paid his bill and left a tip. With that business done he left the lounge and headed back to his state room.

Once in his room he gathered his things. The Intrepid was due to dock at Trinity Station soon and he wanted to be one of the first ones off the ship. On Earth it had seemed like a great idea to follow the same route to Mars that Carl Ronad had followed ninety-six years earlier when he had returned to his home just before the revolution. Richard was surprised to find out that the Intrepid was still in service after all of these years and he was pleased to find out it had the gravity net flooring that was so new back when the ship was first built over a century ago. What Richard Laroby had not counted on was the anticipation that would build as he waited out the two weeks it would take for this older ship to cross the distance between Earth and Mars.

At Trinity Station Richard quickly made his way to the shuttle bays. If he had known that Carl Ronad had been detained at this station those many years ago, he might have taken a moment to familiarize himself with the station a bit more. But he wouldn’t know anything about that part of the story until he had a chance to begin his interview; and he wouldn’t be able to start that until he could get down to the surface of Mars.

To be authentic in retracing Carl Ronad’s steps back to his home at Valley Grand, Richard Laroby would have landed directly at Adamstown. Unfortunately, Adamstown was now nothing more than a suburb for the relatively new Martian capitol city of Ronad. He would have to land at Ronad Interplanetary Orbital Port and take a taxi flyer over to Adamstown in order to board the same monorail line Carl Ronad had taken on his final leg of the journey back to the District of Valley Grand.

While the city of Ronad had been built under an artificial ozone bubble, Adamstown still relied on several skydomes to hold its atmosphere in. The Martian atmosphere was much warmer and thicker than it had been back in the revolutionary days, but it was still several hundred years away from becoming breathable. The Polar Ice Melting Project that had been started one hundred and seventy-five years ago was working to fulfill the goal of another Earthlike planet in the solar system. It was becoming clear that advances in artificial ozone technologies might make an entirely breathable Martian atmosphere a reality much sooner. The sustained atmosphere around Earth’s Moon was a good indicator that the technology would be available here within a decade or two.

Richard boarded the Transplanatery Rail Line One in Adamstown’s central rail station. The train glided over the same concrete rail that had been used 96 years before for the first leg of the journey over relatively open and flat land. The monorail made one quick stop at Viking National Park and then headed off into the mountain ranges beyond. The train left the old concrete rail and glided on a taller composite rail that wound into the mountains with fewer curves and abrupt changes in elevation that the crumbling old concrete rail followed below.

As the monorail train crested the mountain range, Richard could see the shimmering elegance of the artificial atmosphere floating over most of the District of Valley Grand beyond. The train slipped through the atmosphere five minutes later and fifteen minutes later the monorail stopped in the historic Dome Ten stop at the Ronad Family Settlement which was now operated as another National Park. The station at Dome Ten and all of the other twelve domes of the park were kept intact to preserve the history of earlier life on Mars.

Richard disembarked with a few other tourists and the monorail sped off through an air lock whose doors no longer had to open and close with each arrival. There was a push to have the airlocks operate as they did for the last time twenty five years before, but the Transplanetary Rail Lines Corporation threatened to close down the marginally profitable line if delays were forced into every historic stop.

Richard scanned the people gathered at the receiving platform, searching for a possibly shaking and frail old woman well over one hundred years of age. He was instead surprised by a striking and dignified woman whose white hair was the only real indicator of her age from a distance. Anita Hannash Ronad recognized her guest from their earlier halo-phone conversations and went to him at once and greeted him with a firm hand shake and a warm smile.

Welcome to Valley Grand Mr. Laroby. It is a pleasure to meet you in person. I hope your trip from Earth was pleasant.

Yes ma’am it was. I’m looking forward to our interview.

Good, then come with me and I’ll take you to my house where we can begin. It’s going to be a long story. I hope you plan to stay a few days.

Richard had of course been prepared to stay several weeks if necessary. The two of them climbed into Anita’s personal flyer and they flew back up though the atmosphere to her retirement home in the mountains overlooking Valley Grand. She and Carl had built the home together before the atmosphere had been activated over the valley below.

They seated themselves in the main parlor of the home, which had a commanding view of the Valley Grand, and Richard set up the dictation recorder. He sat back and asked a leading question. From there Anita Ronad told the astonishing personal story of how it was that her husband Carl Ronad had come to be the leader of the first independent planet beyond Earth.

Chapter 1

The seeds of revolution were not planted in the red sands of Mars Mr. Laroby. They were planted in the fertile soils of Earth.

You mean that the United Nations controlling Mars at that time were doing so from too far away.

No, what you have to understand is that the independence of Mars was not about any one person like my husband or any one controlling interest such as the United Nations. I'm sure that you have been reviewing all of the news accounts and speeches from that time. I wouldn’t doubt that you’ve also reviewed the battles and all of the documents concerning the War for Martian Independence, but the reason you are here with me now is to learn what all of those facts add up to.

My husband said it best in his first speech as a leader of the Martian independence movement, We are all human, but we are more than just that. We are Americans, and Japanese and Russians and Britons and Europeans and so much more; and now we are the People of Earth and we are the People of Mars.

You see it was never about being under anyone's specific authority. We all need some form of organized control. What made Carl Ronad the great leader of the Revolution was that he was the first person to articulate the fact that Martians were no longer colonizers from Earth. Carl and I were from the first generation of native Martians. Our grandfathers and grandmothers had been born on Mars but people from earth had raised them. Their ties to your planet were still strong. Our mothers and fathers had been raised on Mars by people born there and had begun to think of themselves as true Martians and they raised my generation to be Martians and not Colonists.

Your planet considered us to be outcasts and runaways and that implied we were more directly connected to Earth in some way. This was no longer the case. We depended on Earth for trade, but we no longer depended on Earth for survival.

Excuse me Mrs. Ronad,

Mr. Leonard, we are going to be here a long time talking about my husband Carl. I insist that you call me Anita. Here it’s been twenty minutes with the inscriber recording and we haven't said word one about my husband's life story. You’re not here talking with me to find out what day it was when he went to the prom or what happened at his graduation from the University of Mars at New Angeles. You want the story about what it was that inspired Carl to become the first President of Mars and that is going to take a long time to explain. I am not going to spend the next God knows how may days with you calling me Mrs. Ronad. It makes me feel the 112 years old that I am. To be referred to so formally by such a good looking young man like you just doesn't feel right.

O.K. Anita, at 50 years of age, I had begun to think of myself as old. Especially in the mornings, but I suppose I'm barely middle aged to you.

I haven't broken any longevity records yet but I am up there in years, even by today's standards. Besides, I feel the age I am more and more every day. I’m not saying that I feel suicidal or anything of that nature, but I am looking forward more and more to the day I join my husband. Anyway you were about to ask me something?

Hmm? Oh yes. Right, but now I've forgotten what it was. Let me just read what you were saying just a minute ago. Oh yes, here it is at the top of the screen, you were talking about Martians and how you had all come to think of yourselves as natives of your planet. But you had started out by saying that the idea of the revolution had started on Earth. How does all of that tie in?

Carl was not the first man to realize that Earth was too distant to govern the affairs of Mars. In fact, there were two major clandestine efforts during the time Carl had spent on Earth, which sought to build up the strength to fight for Martian independence. These people were more or less operating on some sort of instinctive yearning for self-determination.

Carl however was the first to see that we had become a different culture, if you will, than the cultures of Earth. I don't know how many times I've read the theory that Carl had started thinking of independence when he found out what really killed his father. First of all, Carl had been told the truth about his father’s death on the day of Jake Ronad’s funeral. This was much sooner than he could officially admit the timing of when he knew about the circumstances surrounding the accident. You’ll understand why later. Still, it wasn’t his father’s death that had made Carl realize Mars needed to be independent and not a member of the Earth United Nations. It was a number of weeks before then that Carl finally realized this. It is not a coincidence however, that it was on the same day as Jake Ronad’s accident.

You see Carl was a graduate student teaching a class called the History of Exploration Beyond Earth. Carl was the student teacher who was naturally favored by Professor James Reed for all subjects having to do with space colonization. This wasn’t too surprising considering Carl’s upbringing on Mars. But it had as much to do with how impressed James Reed had been with Carl since their first encounter five years before when Carl first went to Earth.

You don't mean the same James Reed who wrote the Declaration of Inseparability in response to Mars's formation of the first Extra-planetary Congress.

Yes, he was the same man. You will come to understand that you can study facts until you’re blue in the face but you won’t find out the fun details until someone puts it all together for you. Carl had first met Professor Reed in his first semester at George Washington University. Reed was teaching a freshman course in history which Carl had to take to begin earning his masters degree in History. Carl had a Bachelors of Science degree from University of Mars at New Angeles, in Engineering as you know, but he had still been required to take this freshman class. A master’s degree in history would require a few more background courses first.

Why did Carl first earn an Engineering degree and then move on to a Masters in History? The two disciplines seem so unrelated.

Carl wanted to become an Engineer so he could help to build up Mars as a stronger planet. But he also had a curiosity about history. In fact, it was his early studies in history at UMNA which taught him that Mars was not so unlike the colonies which had been established by the Ancient European powers. At the time when Carl first came to George Washington University on Earth, he thought that he might find a way to help Mars avoid the great epochs of wars for independence followed, by nation building only to rejoin alliances with the governments that former colonies fought so hard to break away from.

That sounds pretty lofty and ambitious for a twenty-eight year old graduate student.

Remember we are talking about President Carl Gene Ronad, builder of great cities, hero of the revolution and the first human leader of an independent world other than Earth. You don't accomplish all of this in one lifetime without some ambition and a king-sized ego.

Point well taken.

Yes, well as I was saying, when Carl and Professor Reed had first met they hit it off immediately. Reed later told me that he had seen the fire in young Carl's eyes the day they met. Carl had challenged Reed about the principal cause for the United States’ Civil War. Reed had been lecturing about the usual causes such as slavery and trade, but Carl began asking about the desire to assert the culture of the North over that of the South. Carl of course lost the debate in class but the two went on to discuss the issue well into the night at a local brew-pub. Reed went on to take Carl under his wing and mentor him though the next few years.

You, Mr. Leonard, would not be here today interviewing me about my husband if James Reed had not died in the terrorist bombing on Lunar 7. Reed and my husband were at odds with each other during the War of Independence, but they had a unique understanding of each other. Reed had been very excited when the war ended and Carl had become president because he realized this was his opportunity to be an eyewitness author to history rather than a distant observer.

Yes, I did of course read the manuscripts Professor Reed had written just before his death. But you would never have guessed the close personal ties to President Ronad you’re describing.

Well, Professor Reed didn't want to let his personal relationship with Carl prejudice his chance at recording history. That is what will make your book about my husband so much more interesting Mr. Leonard. You will not sidestep these personal relationships in an attempt at objectivity and that will make your story very compelling.

Anyway back to the story about what started the whole thing. At about the same time that Carl's father was working on the skydome at Jefferson's Ranch on Mars, Carl was teaching this class about the tragedy of the first colonists on Mars. Carl lecturing about the crash landing and the long two years they had to struggle to live, and about the cannibalism. Those were old details he’d learned growing up on Mars so he could recite the events almost without conscious thought. This was fortunate since on that day what was mostly distracting Carl was the pair of legs on a student sitting in the first row of the lecture hall.

For most of the semester Carl had only seen this woman in sweats with her hair in a bun, but today she was dressed in a short black skirt and her hair had turned out to be a length that hung down to just above her breasts. Carl had been going over his notes for the day’s lesson at the teacher’s podium when this girl had first entered the room with the other students. She had made a point of brushing his lectern as she made her way to her usual seat. At first he hadn't recognized her as the same person who had sat in that very same seat all semester long. To Carl, she had never been more noticeable than the other anonymous students in the class had. Today however she was dressed to catch his attention.

At twenty-eight Carl was a very good looking man with broad shoulders, but he was a modest person and the fact that this girl across the room had suddenly dressed this way would not have struck Carl as a gesture towards him personally. In fact he may not have noticed her right away if she hadn’t brushed the podium as she went to her seat. He had noticed how attractive she was and had taken a long appreciative look at her, and then went back to calling up the smart-board displays from his network files when a message had appeared at the top of the note screen on the podium desktop. It read, Yes Carl, I would like to go out with you tonight, Jcole73

From then on, Carl had taught his lecture with only half a mind on what he was doing. That day’s discussion as I said was about the first colonists on Mars, and he recounted the same story he had grown up learning so the students in the class couldn’t tell he was teaching on auto pilot. While doing so, Carl had dialed up the class-seating chart on the desktop interface and put a name to the face, Jenny Cole. The name Cole seemed familiar to him. He looked up and smiled at the strawberry-blonde beauty across the way and she smiled back just as Professor Reed entered the class unexpectedly. You see, this was officially Reed’s class, but like most professors at the University, he rarely taught at the undergraduate level. That was a job for graduate students like Carl, so it caused quite a stir when the professor himself had entered the room.

You would be interested to know that a direct descendent of those original colonists is here in the room with us today, Professor Reed was saying to the class as he crossed in front of the class heading in Carl's direction. Carl Ronad's great grandparents were among the survivors of the first colony, Reed said taking a place alongside of Carl at the head of the class.

"That's right;