The Scrolls
“I hope, nobody finds
these writings! If one does, it means someone else between Earth and Mars or
some other planet has been here, and God help them if they have no way off this
planet. That is to say, they’ll most likely have to face these awful solar
winds and storms which you will find out are quick and intense. They have
stripped away most of Mars’ atmosphere, edged rock formations, rivers. I am the
last person left here, most of us left, escaped to earth a decade ago. Earth is
quite primitive to our race yet it is rich with life. We look more like the Cro-Magnon,
and they, well, only time will tell, I venture to say, an earlier stage of
mankind.
From my
radio reports, some of our spacecraft had an emergency landing on an
asteroid. What their fate will be, time
will tell.
I am
Commander Mruts, I stayed behind, voluntarily, for the simple reason—if not,
then what? And someone had to man the last of Mars’ stations, and monitor what
needs checking, watching, observing.
Although I get updates from Earth and the Asteroid.
They
have now been gone five years. I am
writing these scrolls out, for posterity, should anyone find them in the future.
I do understand our astronauts, and those civilians on those spacecraft’s, were
hurled through space, it turned out to be a nasty trip, with a comet nearly
shifting the ships courses as it orbited by. The Asteroid, will not allow the
Martians to live much longer I am told, their supplies are down, as is their
fuel, and there appears to be no escape, or launch ability.
We
call Earth the blue planet, and Mars the red planet. At one time Mars was
shrouded in thick gases which supported our presence, and we had much water on
the surface, many rivers. Like Earth, at one time our presence of air, I mean its
content was antiquate, our Co2 level & O/O2, level within the atmosphere was like Earth’s is today ((the oxygen
within the air consisting of 21% of the atmosphere by volume) (a diatomic gas)), today on Mars
that number is less than 5% of Earth’s, and our water supply on the surface is
completely frozen solid. And the atmosphere is so thin, being removed from high,
to higher altitudes yearly, through interactions with the sun, we have built
underground abodes, which supply most of our daily survival needs.
On the
other hand, as I have been informed, Earth has a global magnetic field that
continues to operate and protect the life within its climate system, but I
suppose it could in time be altered in a very similar manner Mars’ has been.
Should their moon be kicked off its orbit, or an asteroid half the size of
Pluto tumble outside its belt, sideswipe it, and move it a foot here or there,
consequently, their moon protects them quite well from the sun, and its orbit;
yet at present, makes it favorable to light the night, and shade the day for
Earth, how fortunate, God has been gracious to the Earthlings.
On
another subject, we must mingle with the Neanderthal, which we call their
primitive race, and what will we get in the future is any man’s guess. Perhaps
we’ll all die out, and God will take a few of our DNA, and their DNA, and
implant them into a new kind of man!
Who’s to say?
Again
I stress, I hear oxygen and carbon dioxide are plentiful on Earth, this is
important as is water for the planet life overall, which keeps this balance
between mammals and vegetation and flora.
I must
say, alas, our magnetic field is crushed, so there is no coming back to Mars
other than for old time sake, and so here goes 4.5 billion years of history, to
a nearly unusable, unstable, unpredictable planet, other than holding down a
station for whatever purposes. I mean we are 50-million miles from Earth, and
43-million miles from the sun, kind of lost in the Gobi Desert of space.
I hate
going out to the surface, hard to breath, and the temperature is above 150c at
present. But reader, do not dismay, I volunteered for this, someone had to.”
Update
In the year, 2050 A.D., the scrolls of Mars were
found, during an exploration of the planet by none other than an old space dog
and his astronaut master, Staff Sergeant Hector Hecker, of the U.S.A
Independent Space Continuum, (privately owned by Donald Frump, a billionaire), whom was from St.
Paul, Minnesota; the dog, weather-beaten went by the name Max III; Max’s great
grandfather fought in the Afghanistan War, and thus, Max III is now in the
annals of Interplanetary Space Exploration. As for the Staff Sergeant he didn’t
do the finding, and well, —dogs have their rights too.
#4919/11-21-2015 (Reedited and revised
slightly, 12-28-2015)
Note: The original ten SF Stories
called:
‘Out of Time Warps & Space’
(‘The Huancayo Analects’) 11/2015
Copyright © By Dennis L. Siluk, Dr. H.c.
Commentary on the Ten SF Vignettes
(…Also considered:
‘The Huancayo SF Analects’)
While up in the
Mountains of Huancayo, Peru, the Andes, in November of 2015, there was a few
weeks I was ill, and boredom crept in; not being a SF writer per se, but
interested in physics, and Quantum theories, and the cosmos, I figured I knew
enough to write a few tales of SF. During my 10-week stay I had written a
little over a hundred poems, and I had dog-eared myself out on poetry, and so
these ten vignettes came to me night and day, for three days, between the 20th
of November, and the 22ed. Thus, they
came to mind, one after the other, and for the quick and short reader, these SF
Vignettes might be your cup of tea, if not, then it is better you seek a novel.
Each story is a quick read, as they were meant to be. And vastly different. And
I hope imaginative. Being not my genre, you may have to look over a few
incidentals, like: details, and description.
But the storylines are interesting, if not entertaining.
The Art work is done by the poet/author
as well. D.L. Siluk
