CHAPTER –41- The Two Ships Arrive on Arton

May 1, 2175: A little less that six months after departing Earth Orbit the
Arton One and Two Space craft made Arton Orbit. The Arton Four had
successfully refueled the Arton Three.
The crews of the Arton ships were very pleased to find out that not only
had Arton survived for the last fifty years but the respect for the Arton Three that
the people on the planet showed. They had accepted that the Arton Three did
not have enough fuel to ever return to Mars or Earth. They still held hope that
someday they would have the capacity to manufacture the fuel on the planet to
refuel the ship. The crew that had flown the Arton Three had long since retired
and most of them were now dead. They had the wisdom to train replacements
from the youth of Arton. That crew in turn had trained their replacements. The
Arton Three was still fully staffed and capable of space travel even though one
whole generation of crew members had never got out of planetary orbit. The
other Arton ships had also replaced their crew members in the same way but
the young crews on the other three ships had made several space voyages and
considered themselves seasoned veterans. The fleet commander shuffled the
crews of the four ships so that an equal number of seasoned veterans would be
on each ship. Since refueling of the Arton Three had been accomplished, all
four ships were declared sea worthy. The ships reduced to skeleton crews and
took turns visiting touring and learning about Arton for the next four months.