The premise they had set forth was a simple one. Using the technology we had developed, alchemy as a respectable and reputable scientific field of study was once again possible. Skeptics around the world laughed! Nobody had seen this coming, except for those of the highest elite in the world of science. The Manifold, or so it was called, was a secret group of the 50 most advanced scientific minds. They had for years been collecting ancient documents about alchemy, and preforming tests. Now, less than 20 years since humanity had managed to establish a large and permanent space station in geo-asynchronous orbit around Earth, there was talk of a new plan. The plan to colonize another planet for the first time.
The plan was incredibly expensive, but what surprised people was how the funding for this "crazy idea" had cropped up all over the world! Some of the richest people in the world contributed huge trust funds to Manifold Inc., the business run by the formerly secret scientific group. In order to present their idea, they had come out of hiding, so to speak. The plan, however, was that only Manifold would get to go to Mars for colonization, which effectively kept them just as secret as ever.
It was only two short years after the announcement that the colony ship departed from space station Halo Watch. Equipped with some of the most advanced technology of the time, the Atlas made its journey to Venus, known to be exceptionally hot. It was that exceptional heat that would be the reason the alchemy would be usable with modern technology.
The crew of the ship activated the heat shield, and the ship descended onto the planet's surface. The acidic properties of the clouds would have troubled the scientists, if it weren't for the fact that the ship had been built to absorb sulfur, and reinforce the pressure-resistant plating. Through this marvel of science, the ship would be capable of surviving the trip to the surface, and surely it did.
The next few weeks were a bit troublesome, as steps had to be taken gradually to enable the scientists to begin their colony. First was the wind barrier, using a combination of weights and alchemy enhanced gels, a barrier would be constructed through a continued growth powered by the planet's own atmosphere. Like sandstone being formed when sand is put under intense pressure, is how some of the less eloquent speakers had described it.
Following this, the formation of the Eco dome was a primary concern. Fortunately, with the abundance of thermal energy, and the completion of the wind shield, the Eco dome was the first project on Venus to be made entirely through through alchemy. Scientifically, the abundance of carbon dioxide and heat meant there were plenty of supplies, if they could be changed properly. With the equipment they brought, old equipment designs modified to include modern technology, they managed to synthesize new materials. The Eco dome was ready to be utilized in a mere two days.
The next steps were all done around the same time, stabilization of the surface to avoid eruptions, minor terraforming, and the beginning of the basic agriculture needed to help sustain the environment. The entire process was going smoothly, and on schedule. Using wind generation, atmothermal power, and small-scale nuclear fission, the facility had more than enough power to provide chemical alterations, and basic supplies.
***
Several months later, Antares stepped out from his bunk, and went about his morning routine. A quick hydro re-utilization shower, a cup of coffee, and his morning reports. Lab 2, which had been working on their hydroponic agriculture had been doing exceptionally well and were ready for the harvest of strawberries this week. Antares was pleased, this would be the first crop of strawberries. He loved strawberries, and had been missing them since he left home. Lab 5 had been conducting further research on the pressure-based transmission system, and had finally managed to create a seamless transmission. Simply put, communications were now easier than ever from Venus to Earth and Halo Watch. It would be good for morale to allow the people stationed here a chance to speak with their relatives and loved ones back on Earth. Various smaller reports on projects and research here and there also surrounded his reading pane.
Finally finished with his morning coffee, Antares dropped his mug into the maitra d' (short for the matter iteration reclamation and disintegration unit). It popped out clean, and he placed it back in his cabinet. After getting into his uniform, he went to his office, where he was going to be watching over the system maintenance for the dome. Normally, things were pretty quiet. The system they used to monitor the activity of the planet and retain the stability of the dome was quite powerful. If there was even a small problem, it would alert Antares immediately. Antares was allowed to access the communication system first this cycle. Taking the chance he had, Antares opened a channel to his mother.
"Oh! Fred, come quick! It's our Ante, Ante's on the doohickey!" A scrawny lady with large glasses and curly hair called out. She wore a floral print dress, and a pink knit sweater. Antares sighed, he told his mother numerous times that he thought she looked ridiculous wearing that outfit. She didn't listen, she always said that a lady should feel comfortable first, and look good second.
"Who's on the what now?" A balding man asked as he entered the room on the display screen. The old lady repeated herself, and then started to talk about how she hated repeating herself. "What was that?" The old man replied again, earning him a quick knock on the head by the woman. She rebuked him for not having his hearing aid on. He reluctantly turned the dial. "Ok, so I still don't know what you said but we don't have time for that. Look who's calling us! It's Ante!"
"I said it was Ante! I said it twice, but you didn't hear me because you weren't listening. Keep your hearing aid on, you know your doctor said" she started, but as she did Antares decided to interrupt. After all, he was limited on how long he was allowed to use the communication system before someone else was given access.
"Hi, mom, dad. Its been busy over here. Say, when am I calling, exactly?" Antares asked, and although his mother was a bit upset at first for being interrupted, the parents both soon looked at him in a manner befitting a person who has been asked the most difficult riddle ever.
"I thought my memory was bad, honey! Look at how Ante can't even remember what day it is. I'm shocked!" Fred replied.
"It's not my memory, dad! Geez. No, it's just a bit hard to know how long it has been since I talked to you. I mean, our days are almost a year long. Here, we go by 'cycles' not 'days, months, and years'. So, as I was saying, when am I calling?"
"Don't mind your father, you know he likes to joke about this kind of stuff," she gave Fred a swift look, grinning, "but you're right you've taken way too long to talk to us! It's been almost a month since you've called. Which reminds me, was our reception always this good?"
"You call this good, Doris? Well, ok, actually this is pretty good. Why can't the cableman get our soaps to come in clear like this, but he makes the phone nice all the sudden."
"Actually, dad, that's on our end. We just upgraded our communications so that our reception would be much better. The cableman didn't have anything to do with this."
"Ah, I see. Well, then maybe you could make our soaps come in clearer. Come back home son, I'll have your mom cook some real food for you, maybe even a strawberry shortcake or something, and you can fix our tv while you're at it."
"Dad, you know I can't do that. I have to stay here for a while, you know that. All this is way off topic, though. How are you both?" Antares responded
"Oh, honey, we miss you so much, really. I understand you can't come home yet, but your father and I are so worried about you. Are you eating well? You look a bit thin. You haven't been going hungry have you? Oh! I knew I should have packed an extra sandwich into your travel case before you left!"
"Mom! Stop it about the food already! What could one more sandwich several months ago do that hasn't already been done? And, you don't have to be worried about me. If anything I'm the safest one here. I monitor all the equipment that tells us if there's a problem. I'd know if there were a problem before anyone else."
"Well, Ante, I don't like it. You're too far out there. And what about kids, huh? When do I get to have little grand-kids? Never if you stay out there! Honestly, why couldn't you have stayed home and just settled down with a nice woman. You know, I hear Barbra has a nice daughter around your age..."
"Mom! Ah, do I have to explain this to you again? I'll have plenty of time to find and marry the right woman, but right now I'm on the most import..." alarms and lights started flashing, and Antares wasn't able to finish. According to the monitoring system, there was a breach in the wind shield. From the looks of the readout, Antares could tell that it was bigger than simple erosion would explain. Antares had to act fast. The Eco dome wouldn't be able to sustain the sheer force of the winds for very long before collapsing.
Disconnecting from his parents, Antares alerted the labs to take shelter, in case of a complete loss of structural integrity. After this, he burst out of his office, and into Lab 1. Lab 1 was in charge of all the maintenance and repairs of the colony, and now it was their time to shine. The crew all donned their pressure suits, and headed out of the dome and into the barren landscape beyond it.
The winds pouring through the rift in the wall were strong. According to the instruments, it was causing significant damage to the wall just by the strength of the winds due to the wind tunnel effect. Winds on Venus were usually faster than the planet's rotation anyway. As the drag caused by the wind increased, loose portions of the wall's stone-like structure were being broken free, and flying away through the air at high speeds.
Antares and the three men he had brought with him were equipped with some of the more advanced technological construction equipment devices. Using a cold-fusion, the machines were capable of producing something that seemed to be a "matter beam" from the operating end. In reality all they did was compress molecular structures, and crystallize them instantaneously. These devices were better in many regards than welding torches because the didn't require any heat output and their fuel was something found in abundance on the surface of Venus: atmospheric pressure.
Instructing his team, Antares began to get the repair underway. Things were moving along well, and the rift was closing again. Meanwhile, Antares checked for the cause of the problem. An eruption had occurred on the surface about 30 meters from the site of the wind shield. Some debris had flown into the shield, and broken it apart. Antares left his three men to examine the eruption closer.
Entering the area where the eruption had occurred, Antares noticed that it had been a small one, and was seemingly finished. Taking his alchemy equipment down inside the rupture, Antares began analyzing the composition of the residue on the interior to determine the type of eruption. According to his scans, it had been a forceful outgassing of hydrogen. This made Antares uneasy. Hydrogen wasn't supposed to be on Venus naturally. Antares sent down a probe he had developed to investigate problems like this, should they arise.
He had never suspected it would be used like this. When Antares had made this probe, he figured it likely that it would be used for surface exploration sometime after the first year, or to examine local eruptions that went too deep to safely traverse in person. He had never thought the first eruption it would be examining would be a hydrogen outgassing. It had a mounted camera, which sent a live feed to the handheld device that was mounted to the pressure suit (to prevent its loss in heavy winds).
The tunnel showed no signs of tampering, it had been a natural occurrence. Further in, the probe sent back footage of a large cavern. Now he understood, it was a pocket of hydrogen located just under the surface. But why had it erupted now, after all this time? The probe moved about a little more, and found a crack caused by tension in one of the cavern's walls. Of course, that meant there was more than one pocket of gas, and they were all under pressure.
It dawned on Antares suddenly that they might not be safe. Leaving the probe behind, Antares rushed back to the wall, which was almost rebuilt. He signaled the men to come back to the dome as soon as they were finished. He rushed inside the dome, and went quickly to Lab 1 to begin doing some simulations on the current surface activity and subterranean tensions.
When the others arrived from repairing the wall, Antares displayed the footage for all of the Lab 1 workers to see, and then began issuing orders to run a variety of simulations. Taking the handheld probe device out of the holding mount on his pressure suit, he began once again to explore the region. A short distance in, and the ground collapsed behind the probe, trapping it inside the area. The probe chipped away at a formation in front of it which was small, and filled with loose gravel. Directing the probe to move further inside, Antares saw though the video feed that located almost directly under the surface of the planet where the Eco dome had been placed was a huge cavern. There was, of course, no cause for concern about a collapse, as several measures had been taken at landing to ensure stability of the ground beneath the structures.
On the far side of the cavern, Antares' probe caught a glimmer of light. Curious of what it was, Antares drove the probe closer, and discovered that there was some kind of metal embedded in the wall. A few key presses later, the probe had begun to extract a sample to see what type of metal it was. This was the biggest blunder Antares had ever made. He hadn't realized it, but for some time, the probe had been completely submerged in a high-pressure high-concentration pocket of Hydrogen. When the probe struck the metal with its claw, there was a brief spark.
"Sir, we ran the simulation, and we've determined that there's the possibility that we could" one scientist said as he burst into the office, but he was cut off by the sound of a huge explosion inside the dome. Antares pressed a button on the wall, which activated an automatic message informing all inhabitants of the colony to don their pressure suits immediately. Antares and his people were quick to follow these safety precautions.
Everything they had worked for so long to achieve was gone. It was like walking into a disaster scene. A crater opening up beneath labs 3, 6, and all the labs with identification numbers higher than 9 (about 12 in all) was all that remained where places of research once stood. The Eco dome had been blasted away through massive over-pressurization followed by massive decompression. The Atlas, was fine because of its location. So were labs 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 9. Sadly, the most important supplies were located in the labs that had been lost. Fortunately, since lab 2 and lab 5 were still around they could still eat and communicate with Halo Watch (however they could not make a clear connection with Earth for some reason).
Antares had to make a decision. He didn't hesitate, but made a choice that would affect the way humankind would develop over the course of the next decade.
***
"The surface of Venus was too unstable for inhabitance at the time. An explosion accidentally triggered by a probe caused the loss of a majority of the equipment and supplies. The Atlas remained intact, and so the colony was withdrawn." Antares read the report out loud to the executive.
"I see, so I'm guessing that you know the amount of money that was lost on this venture as the result of this decision?" The executive asked.
"Yes, sir. In addition, the casualties from the seed group totaled at almost 20, 40% of our initial group. I have personally informed the families of those who died in this accident, for those who had any that is."
"And I suppose you feel this was a lesson well learned? I suppose you're happy with this outcome?"
"Of course not! We can't just give up, but Venus was a risky choice for the first colonization, anyway. We can always try again later. We still managed to advance our research and technology significantly."
Antares watched as the executive stood from his seat at the lone mahogany desk in the skyscraper's top floor office. Slowly, the executive walked around the desk, and stood face-to-face with Antares. It was very clear what was about to happen. Antares had been dreading this day from the moment the Atlas had taken leave of Venus' surface. The executive walked over to the door, and opened it.
"Then I suppose the seat is all yours again, and good riddance. I'm glad I no longer have to deal with the mounds of paperwork that come streaming in everyday. It was nice having all the power, but I don't know how you put up with the work that goes with it. Have fun!" The man said as he left, closing the door behind him.
Antares reclaimed his rightful seat at the desk. Heaving a huge sigh, he began filling out the paperwork that was stacked next to him. Insurance claims, severance packages, and numerous other legal and financial documents. This was the reason Antares had gone in the first place: to escape from the paperwork. Now he was trapped once again in the tedium of life.
"Soon, I'll be able to leave again. I can't bear dealing with this for long. But that's ok, I have another plan(et)." He said to himself.
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