April 24, 2167: Mars Runner, loaded to the gills with cargo and
passengers, leave Mars Orbit, destination Earth.
July 25, 2167: The A1is loaded with cargo and passengers from Mars
and departs for Earth. Five days later The Arton Four departs.
August 1,2167: The Arton Two is loaded and departs Mars for Earth.
The A1Makes Moon orbit. They rotated the staff at Moon Base and replenish
their supplies.
August 5, 2167 : A1and Arton Two make Earth orbit and begin to offload
passengers.
August 7, 2167: Mars Runner and the Arton Four make Earth orbit and
begin offloading passengers.
It took them nearly a month for the seven Shuttle that they had brought
along to offload their cargo of 10,222 humans, six thousand assorted farm
animals, one million fresh water fish, 500,000 salt water fish and five million
Earth worms to their chosen location. The new colony would be located at a
place formerly known as Mission Bay, San Diego, California. The 1822 human
beings all worked for the company, Earth Colony, Inc. The Company manager
on Earth was Josh Erkin.
Somehow San Diego had been spared a direct hit during the brief war
that had ended life on earth. In the intervening 42 years the corpses of all living
beings that were on Earth had just disintegrated. At the very worst there were
harmless piles of dust that had to be swept up and disposed of. Various metal
objects that people had on their person were sometimes found in the little piles
of dust.
The ocean water was once again clear of any contamination. One of the
first orders of business was to close off a lagoon at Mission Bay and release the
salt water fish that they had brought from Mars. There were several pristine
little lakes and reservoirs to receive the fresh water fish. A crew of seven
people was formed to make fish food and care for the fish.
As it turned out life on Earth had not been completely destroyed. Many
of the lower life forms in the ocean had adapted or survived in their original
form. Bacteria, algae, single celled creatures of the ocean had not only
survived but had prospered. These creatures were at the bottom end of the
food chain. With all the sea creatures that had fed on them gone they had
multiplied with gusto. The colony found that they did not have to feed the salt
water fish. The colony had their choice of any number of Yachts and
commercial vessels that had not fared too badly and could be restored.
September 10, 2167 : The nuclear facility at Green Valley that Tom Eddy
had left for them was found intact. Technicians from the ships who had been
taught to tend the nuclear power plants in the ships were brought in to see if
they could get the plant into operation. Tom had even left instructions as to how
to reactivate the facility in anticipation of this day.
An Ariel reconnaissance of other nuclear power plants in the Western
United States had revealed that more than one hundred of them had been shut
down properly. a supply of Nuclear fuel that had been waiting for instillation and
had not gone to critical mass. The protective containers were still intact and the
fuel rods they contained were still in their new condition. Electric Helicopters
were plentiful but none of them had usable batteries. New batteries from Mars
were installed in a few of them. The new batteries did not fit but once the
holders had been modified the batteries worked. Some old museum relics of
air planes, helicopters, heavy equipment and automobiles that ran on gasoline
were found. A refinery in Southern Nevada was found intact which still had a
huge amount of crude oil in tanks. Operation Manuals were also found there
and intact. A crew of fifty had the refinery in production within a month and
were producing gasoline and diesel fuel. The old choppers, aircraft and heavy
equipment from the museum were brought back to operating condition and
used to fill the gap until batteries could be manufactured on Earth once more.
Near the Southern Nevada refinery stood Hoover Dam, still intact. Lake
Mead was full and overflowing over the top of the dam. They sent a crew down
that figured out how to open the spillways and drain off a lot of the water from
the lake into the Colorado River. The river flowed all the way to Yuma, Arizona
and then spilled off into Northern Mexico. In the process they had succeeded in
restoring the water supply to The farms in the Imperial Valley. That gave them
all the room and water they needed for growing crops. Crews harvested some
of the fresh water fish that they had seeded around San Diego and restocked
Lake Mead. Someday they would send in crews to get the hydro-electric
generators functioning once again.
They established giant compost piles which they were able to fertilize
and bring the top soil back to life. Most of the plants on Earth had survived so
there was plenty of mulch. The bacteria had never completely died out. The
colony never lasted long as a colony, they were spreading out all over the west
wherever they found the facilities that they needed intact. One thing that was
still in critical short supply was The Lithium Ion Gel batteries that powered the
machines of twenty second century man. Once a factory had been found that
could be put back into operation, on a limited basis they were able to abandon
the refinery and return the gasoline and diesel powered relics to the museum.
Once the Nuclear power plant was on line the technicians from the ships
started seeking out a production facility that produced the Nuclear rods from
Uranium that would be needed, not only to replace those in the power plant
when they had become spent but more importantly to replace the nearly spent
nuclear rods in the space craft. The facility they sought was soon located and
nuclear fuel was being manufactured.
November 18, 2174: Once the ships had received new fuel the three
Arton Ships departed from Earth orbit within a week of one another. It was
decided that the Arton Four would stop briefly on Mars for supplies then
proceed on to Arton. The Arton Four carried enough Nuclear fuel in safe
containers to get the Arton Three refueled and back into service. They knew
that the Arton Three was low on power when it left for Arton the last time.
Everyone knew that it would never be able to return once it was there. Oh
perhaps if a nuclear fuel source was eventually developed on Arton new fuel
could be manufactured but that wouldn't be a realistic hope for many years.
The other two ships were to be put into service moving people from Mars to
Earth.
The Earth was firmly established and well on its way to recovery.
Because of the Nuclear complications the space ships had remained in Earth
Orbit for almost two years. The Earth orbiter was back in operation. Mars
Runner was permanently docked at the Orbiter because the Arton ships didn't
require the services of an Orbiter. They could just open their cargo holds and
take the Shuttle right on board.
Over the next two years The A1and Two moved over four hundred
thousand people from Mars to Earth leaving Mars with only a skeleton
population but Mars remained self sustaining. Mars was just, once again to
restructure their economy. They would always maintain a colony on Mars
Most of the people who had recently arrived on Earth were not returning
to Earth because they had been born and raised on Mars. Earth was a whole
new experience for them. The classes that Tim and Carla had taken when they
were migrating to Mars were given in reverse, teaching Martians what they
needed to know to survive on Earth.
These people found the gravity on Earth oppressive. It took many of
them up to a year to get accustomed to moving around in such heavy gravity.
Some adjusted quickly to Earth gravity, there was just no to tell who would and
who would not.
Along with the passengers most of the Zoo population from Mars was
also returned to Earth and housed in the San Diego Zoo, the largest Zoo on
Earth. The Zoo keepers were transported with the Animals and immediately
commenced an accelerated breeding program in San Diego. They even
brought some bees but not the ants and flies. Unfortunately the flies showed up
on Earth anyway and the ants had never become extInct on Earth. The flies
seemed to like the San Diego Zoo.
Some of the animals that had never been domesticated were soon being
released back into the wild where, not encountering any natural predictors
rapidly proliferated. There were even eight American Bison which were
released in South Dakota. Several of the Eskimo's wanted to visit the Arctic but
once seeing the place wondered how their ancestors could have lived in such a
place. They enjoyed seeing their native homeland but soon wanted to return to
San Diego. Domestic Animals also rapidly proliferated and soon the people of
Earth had all the products that they needed that could be produced from
domestic farm animals.
One of the mathematicians calculated that it would take the Earthfifty
thousand years to fully recover and even then it would be a vastly different
Earth. There would be only one race and one language. Most species that had
shared the Earth with man were now extInct. The only animals that would ever
populate the Earth again would be only those that were no threat to man.
Five years after man's return to Earth an expedition sent to explore
Southeast Alaska made a remarkable find, it was one of those things that could
never be explained. Salmon were spawning in several of the rivers, not many
of them, and comparison of these Salmon with what existed before revealed
that there were subtle difference s but they were Salmon, none the less. This
discovery spanned a more thorough investigation of sea shores and off shore
waters world wide. There was one startling discovery after another. The
conclusion they finally came to was that the Oceans of the Earth were
recovering everywhere they looked. Not all species had survived but most of
them had. Where conditions had traditionally been ideal for shrimp they found
shrimp. Where conditions were ideal for Lobster they found lobster. Coral reefs
that had completely died after the Holocaust were growing. Sea weed was
abundant. The Oceans of the planet would eventually return to normal.
Without pollutants being dumped into the oceans by man the Oceans would
eventually return to the state they were in when Columbus Discovered America.
For several years after these discoveries they continued to harvest the fish that
they had pinned up in Mission Bay but eventually the harbor was reopened and
the remaining fish could come and go as they pleased. Fishing boats once
again trolled the offshore waters harvesting sea food. Salmon hatcheries were
established in a number of Northwest locations.
On land they were also discovering species that had survived. None of
the large animals had made it but they had found bats and some insects.
Unfortunately mosquitoes were among the survivors.
Back on Mars there were fewer than fifty thousand people remaining,
most of them elderly. Enough young people remained to sustain viability of the
planet.
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