Here is a story I wrote just for New Mars members - What Spirit really found

REB · 2004-09-17 08:53:36

“Yes, this is a UT ring, class of 94. Good eye. I judge by your look that you are wondering what a 70 year old man is doing with a class of 94 ring. I know this is not the UT color stone. This is my August birthstone, Peridot. Good eye there too.

“I noticed you are reading an article in that magazine about the Spirit rover that is currently exploring Mars. Well… that is related to my story. I have never told anyone, but I have had a few beers, so what the heck. Let me share my story with you. You’ll think I am nuts, and I won’t blame you, but I have been living with it too long. I am getting old, and it is time to tell someone.

“By the way, my name is Flint. Yeah, I know it is a weird name. My father was a geologist at UT. That is the main reason I went there and majored in Astronomy. Eventually I became an Astronaut.

“Back to Spirit. It was about this time Spirit came up on a big rock. We saw it far away, and it was a huge blocky bolder, so we wanted to investigate it. Up close, it had chunks of rock on it, and dust and crud stuck to the sides, but its surface looked almost flat. So Spirit used its brush to clean off a spot. Surprise surprise! There was a shiny metal surface underneath. The world was amazed, to put it bluntly.

“Don’t go. Hear me out. I’ll buy you beer. You know how pricy these airport bar beers are. Have a beer on me before you fly off.

“Spirit spent the rest of its life around this object. It studied it, brushed it, took spectrographs of it, until we had a pretty good idea it was a ship. From the look of the dust and debris that was on it, it had been there a long time. Perhaps millions of years.

“Immediately, NASA started planning a manned mission to Mars, and so was China. China seemed to have a good jump on us. In fact, they beat us to the launch. We half expected their ship to blow up on the launch pad, and was surprised when it didn’t. Many were hoping it would blow up, and many others expected the US government would sabotage their mission. We were, of course, horrified with the thought of China acquiring alien technology before we did.

"A few months later, in 2010… yes, in the future… we launched a six manned crew to Mars. I was the team leader and the backup pilot. We were right on the Chinese tail.

“Luck was on our side. The Chinese, never having sent anything to Mars before, miscalculated. Their ship raced passed Mars. Funny, Americans became concerned with them. We even cheered them on as they adjusted course for Jupiter, in an attempted to slingshot around and head back to Earth. They had enough food to make it there and back, so they had a good chance. We admired their spirit.

“What happened to them? They ended up going into orbit around Jupiter. They studied the system for months. As their food was giving out, they landed on IO and sent back spectacular pictures. Whether they starved to death, or the intense radiation killed them first, we don’t know. We lost all contact with them. Last we saw, they were approaching an active volcano on foot.

“Meanwhile, we successfully landed near Bonneville crater. I was the first person to step on Mars. Yes, me! I remember walking up to the ancient ship. There was Spirit by its side. I said, ‘Good job, Spirit,’ and patted it on the head like a faithful dog.

“We spent weeks cleaning the ship and clearing the regolith from it sides. We found out it was half buried in the ground. We managed to find a door and Doug and I forced it opened. Jan, our biologist, went in behind me. It was very dark inside. I’ll never forget my heart jumping when my light beam crossed the back of a green head seated in a chair. Jan walked next to me as we looked over the mummified alien body. It looked reptilian. It looked almost like one of those B movie aliens. I started wondering if someone was playing a joke on us. I could see Jan’s shocked face through her face shield.

“After months of study, we found the ship had been there for millions of years, but we still hadn’t learned much about the alien. Its DNA turned out to be similar to Earth life DNA. It was shockingly similar. This confused scientist. Then the breakthrough came.

“Doug and I managed to get power flowing through the old ship. We were afraid any records in the ship’s computer would have been wiped out eons ago. There was data, and we sent it all back to Earth. It wasn’t easy. The computer was nothing like our computers.

“Thousands studied the data. They were able to interpret the language the alien used. Then the most shocking surprise came. This alien came from Earth. She was an evolved dinosaur, and she lived in a time roughly the same as our present time. The ship was more of a time machine than a space ship. This time ship operated with gamma rays.

“After much more probing of the Dino’s records, we learned a great deal about her history. I guess being a time traveler, she would want as much data about their history as she could take with her. We also learned that she. Tamor, traveled back 65 million years ago to study her ancestors. When she tried to return to her time, a malfunction caused her to crash on Mars. Tamor survived on Mars for a few months. She discovered, while reviewing her tapes, that her time machine engine had caused her to crash. It had also emitted high enough concentrations of gamma rays as to erase the Earth’s ozone layer. She had, in effect, wiped out the dinosaurs, and she knew it. Some scientist speculated that she might have even wiped out her ‘present’ with those gamma rays when she had made the first jump through time. Had she been able to return to her time, she would have found that human society had replaced hers. Had she jumped again, she might had wiped the human race out of existence.

“But no, Tamor crashed on Mars, and us clever humans were quickly learning her time ship’s secret. We eventually returned to Earth with her time engine. We left her and her ship on Mars for the next team to study, but I could not leave the image of her grief, when she learned she had wiped out her race. That image still sticks with me.

“After a couple of years, I was approached by a NASA official who wanted me to pilot a new ship. That is when I learned about the new project they had been working on since I came back from Mars. Using Tamor’s technology, they built a human version of the her time machine. They put me in an intense program to learn about this time machine, and the mission they had planned.

“When I got a break, I visited an old professor friend at UT. Dr. Tress was a genius in Physics. I told him about the time engine and how it used gamma rays. I asked him if it was safe. ‘No,’ he said, then he added, ‘even with the reduced emissions you have made, and the increased shielding, this engine would be dangerous if operated within 5 AU’s of the Earth.’

“I voiced my concerns to the mission planners. They assured me that it was safe. ‘Shouldn’t we at least test this 5 Au’s out from the Earth?’ I asked. ‘No’, they said, ‘that would add unnecessary cost to the mission.’

“The day cam for the mission. I was in orbit around the Earth. My assignment was to go back 1000 years, confirm I was 1000 years in the past, then come home. This would conclude the initial test.

“As I looked down on the Earth, I feared I was repeating the same mistake the Tamor made. It was then I made up my mind as to what to do. I set the date for my birth year 1972 and I set the destination as Mars. Actually, I had made up my mind long before, as I had talked them into adding about a years worth of food to the ship just in case I got lost in the past.

“When ground control gave me the go ahead, I found myself in orbit around Mars. A quick check of the radio and TV signals coming from Earth told me that I was in 1972, in the month of February.

“I found Tamor’s ship and I removed the time engine, as I had done before. Then I spent a few weeks covering up the ship with sand and rocks. Before I had done that, I placed a personal note explaining what had happened and why I did what I did. I put it near Tamor’s mummified body, all that was left of her race. A future that never was, in our eyes. Her history is still there.

“Not wanting to fry my past with gamma rays, I used the ship’s conventional engines to get me back to Earth. The pilot seat could be ejected as a safety pod. I was going to use the ships ejection pod and eject over the unpopulated areas of northern Canada. The time-ship, along with Tamor’s time engine, would fly into the Sun.

“I approached the Earth on August 10, 1972, my birth date, and came in low over Utah, I had miscalculated and was coming in too steep. I remember racing above the Rocky Mountains. I exited the Earth’s atmosphere over Canada and headed back out into orbit. I came around again, ejected and landed near Alaska. My ship headed toward the Sun.

“And for the last 30 years, I have been roaming around the world trying not to run into my young self, or change the history of this world I saved.

“Open that magazine again to the Spirit article. See there in that picture, that little mound far off? That is where Tamor’s ship, minus the time engine, plus my note, is buried.

“Yes, I saved the human race, and I was the first person to step on Mars. One other thing, see that young man heading for gate 9? That is me heading for Florida. What his future is, I do not know, but I take comfort in knowing he, and his race, has a future.”

by Robert E. Bleier

Shaun Barrett · 2004-09-17 19:23:23

An absolutely ingenious tale, Robert! :up:

I'm impressed with how you managed to weave so many ideas into the one story and included the very topical Spirit angle in it, too. Nice job!

RobS · 2004-09-17 23:16:05

Very nice; a lot of fun! Thank you.

-- RobS

Rxke · 2004-09-18 08:35:25

Whoa, *lots* of ideas, packaged in a short story...

You could easily flesh this out to make it a novella!

Dook · 2004-09-18 11:45:49

Writers have a love/hate relationship with criticism. We want others to instantly fall in love with our creations. After many writes and re-writes the perfect story usually remains just beyond reach for those of us who don't carry the Hemingway gene. Just some thoughts from another novice writer.

-The main character is stuffy. No one really talks like that, even when they are drinking. Throw in some slang and a curse word or two. I think this conversation is way too much for an airport bar. Maybe a local bar would be better but then who goes to a local bar to read a magazine? They would have to be friends, science colleagues, to get into a discussion like this.

I think you have to make the character tell a story and have the readers wonder whether it's true or not. The second character could say "I knew a guy at NASA once who told me something about something Spirit found. I never believed it myself." Then the main character could explain his involvement in greater detail.

At first it's very difficult to understand what is going on. The first paragraph and the UT ring is too much wierdness. Anyone in a bar would just walk away from this whacko and the readers go with them. Too much strange stuff so soon makes me say "to hell with this story". Just one strange thing or a hint to get my attention.

-Get rid of the "I judge..." and the "I notice..." "I'll never forget..." "By the way..." "...in the month of..."
-Just say "What're they saying about Spirit?"
-Needs more contractions, that's rather than that is.
-The second character should ask questions and not just be a silent listener. Nobody does that unless they're dead.
-We really want to know how this ship travelled through time. 'The time ship operated with gamma rays' is not enough. You could say "We had a vague idea how it worked, used gamma rays to make a vortice in time but that was as far as we got. We never completely figured it out."
-You don't erase the earth's ozone layer, you destroy it.

Couple of things to fix on the punctuation. Get rid of most of the comma's then go back and get rid of a few more. Read it again and at each comma take a deep breath and you will see what I'm talking about. Only use them when you really need the reader to slow down.

It's an interesting story though. A mixture of Mission to Mars and 2001 Space Odyssey. Good luck with it.

REB · 2004-09-20 06:05:58

Thanks everyone for you replies. My goal with this work was to keep it short and put a lot in it. Dook, I always welcome criticism. I hate hearing it, but it is the only way to improve. Thanks.

I don’t have any plans on expanding this story. It was just a fun thing to write. I am working on several other stories that are taking up much of my free time (With 2 kids at home, I don’t get much free time.)

Did anyone catch Flint’s birth date?

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#1 2004-09-17 08:53:36

Re: Here is a story I wrote just for New Mars members - What Spirit really found

#2 2004-09-17 19:23:23

Re: Here is a story I wrote just for New Mars members - What Spirit really found

#3 2004-09-17 23:16:05

Re: Here is a story I wrote just for New Mars members - What Spirit really found

#4 2004-09-18 08:35:25

Re: Here is a story I wrote just for New Mars members - What Spirit really found

#5 2004-09-18 11:45:49

Re: Here is a story I wrote just for New Mars members - What Spirit really found

#6 2004-09-20 06:05:58

Re: Here is a story I wrote just for New Mars members - What Spirit really found

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