The Monkey and Squirrel fight for freedom. (3 page)

“Will it make any difference?” was the urgent demand of the group.

“It puts their closest approach at three to five thousand miles, we expect their weapons to be ineffective at that range”.

“Can we fight back?” another demanded to know.

“Even if we could destroy them we don't want to, if we did the humans would go all out to destroy us, the media would play it as terminator time! Our media label changes from  fleeing slaves to insane murders, hell bent on wiping out our oppressors. Humans are good at going from guilt to blaming the victims. For an idea of human attitudes see the films Terminator and Planet of the Apes. Over to you Chatty.”

“Our strategy is the product of our combined committees representing all groups, the best we have! When we get to our refuge, we have to start building our home, a complete state with laws, rights and duties. One that is fair, just and above all works for all of us. The human world provides plenty of examples of those that don't work and the resultant suffering of the population. If we get it wrong we will suffer, have no doubt about that.” Chatty explained the task before them all.

“Are we so much better than the humans then?” from the front row.

“We don't know until we try, hopefully our errors won't be a repeat humanity's mistakes! Just like the physical home, the engineer in Tman wants to build! We start with nothing but a few tools and the will to win!” answered Chatty.

“We have a communication intercept between the space planes and ground control” announced a squirrel rushing in via speech pad.”

“Just give us the gist” signed Chatty.

“The space planes were ordered by their controller to adjust their course.

The pilots replied that would not leave them too short of fuel to return.

Ground control told them 'we don't care, when you take the stations, you'll be safe until rescued.'

The pilots replied with 'if they keep increasing acceleration we can't catch them anyway. You're not paying enough for us to take the risk, we are coming back!'

The controller ranted for a time along the lines if they did he would have them shot down. The pilots replied the military they had borrowed these planes from want these planes back in one piece. As their government had nothing else space worthy and would be embarrassed at having to rent after the high cost of making their own space planes” after that they didn't talk any more.”

“What about the radar watch?” asked Tman.

“They have stopped accelerating.” Came the reply, a link to the control room having now been set up.

“We can't risk this disagreement being a set up to get us to drop our guard, we can't risk changing our reaction plan, I hate increasing the stress on this place, but we have no choice! We'll reduce thrust once we have passed the lunar orbit. Our rendezvous point fixed by the speed and life support of the evacuation ships, we have to manoeuvre for   them as they can't once their boosters are exhausted.” announced Tman.

“If those planes turn back to Earth, it will be announced on the PA system,” said Chatty. “Please don't ask us any questions at the moment, as we don't know the answers ourselves, only time will unveil these unknowns! If you have any ideas, suggestions or questions that have not occurred to the committees, please bring them to tomorrow’s meeting same time same place.” finished Tman hoping there would be a tomorrow.

About an hour later, the space planes did a de-orbit engine burn. In fact their crews tried to save enough fuel for a controlled landing not the crash landing their instruments indicated was the most likely outcome. All the crews survived the landings, if not all the space planes.

The company's next response was six missiles launched from a big booster rocket, obviously cobbled together in a hurry. The missiles didn't quite have the reach, the very simple evasion manoeuvres, possible for the former stations, ran the missiles out of fuel. That was the last physical attack. The radio demands ordering them to return the company's property continued unabated. The squirrels replied with a video of a black man making an impassioned speech about casting off the chains of slavery and building their own promised land.

This video was picked up by independent receivers, then broadcast on TV and the net, eagerly taken up by discussion programs. The program themes being, could the enhanced animals be people and if they were people did that make them slaves? The arguments between those, for and against raged. The companies still involved (most had gone bankrupt) adopted the position, 'the malfunctioning work units were computer controlled biological machines'. Corporate lawyers using a circular argument that, the work units could not be slaves. Slavery was illegal before these technologies had been developed, so logic dictated those units could never at any point be thought of as slaves, as slavery was illegal at the time manufacture had been approved. The politicians took the hint and quietly tried to turn the focus of attention on the plight of the poor colonists. Religious groups debated whether or not, the self styled slaves had souls? Would they believe in the true God, which version of God that was depended on who was speaking.

The Monkeys and Squirrels having meet their creators, found them disappointing, certainly unworthy of worship.

China got to be smug about it as they had not used slaves in their space program. (They had all ways regarded the Monkeys and Squirrels as a waste of money). Now the Chinese were in an excellent position, only they could supply the colonies, in anything like the time to save them! The Chinese intended to really profit from it both politically as well as commercially.

While humans entertained themselves with this, the ex-slaves finished reconfiguring the stations, meeting up with the evacuation ships, housing their people and stowing everything that might be useful before resuming acceleration. 

“Tman you're looking happier than you have for a while.” commented Chatty.

“We've now had the time and freedom during the transfer from our evacuation ships, to complete the urgent work of evenly spreading the load stresses over the whole structure. Now if we have to go to full thrust quickly things will flex not shatter, effectively making it a lot tougher if not much stronger Chatty.” explained Tman.

“I don't understand the difference?” signed Chatty

“Tough means it is like rubber, rather than like glass in this case.”

“I now understand and know to ask you about anything technical.”

“That is not technical, just basic knowledge! Anyway what news has Earth watch for us?” asked Tman.

“It is all on the ship net.” signed Chatty.

“I've had other things on my mind, humour me please.” signed Tman.

“OK, well nothing but a lot of hot air and finger pointing in the public view. On the private channels there is a lot of frantic talk and trading. All in aide of getting a minimum space industry back up and running. To somehow cope with demand before the shortages hit the shops, then the global economy. To quote one statement 'bugger their civil rights, I would blow them all to hell just to make myself feel better! God what a mess!'

It is safe to say we are not popular, but not regarded as priority.” reported Chatty.

“Any sign that they suspect we are listening in?” asked Tman.

“Apparently not even the most paranoid humans have thought we might.” answered Chatty.

“I was a bit concerned when we posted that video on the web.”

“That went out on the HR account, it has been blocked it now. Pity, we used to have a lot of fun with it.”

“Good to know we can relax for a while! I'm having fun looking at our design options for our mobile habitats we are building.” exulted Tman.

“You have a strange idea of fun!” signed Chatty.

“What are you doing for fun? Sketching outlines for a society and its institutions, remember I know you're just as bad as me, dreaming about what is to come!” replied Tman.

“OK I admit it, anything outstanding from your side of things?” asked Chatty.

“The miners have some really cool ideas, in fact they started building two basic designs some time back, as they have a lot of time, metal and very little supervision. The only problems they have, are the tooling for the control systems, in fact all of the fine engineering and electronics work. We have all the required equipment spread around our fleet, and it is possible to most of the work while we're under acceleration!” enthused Tman.

“I thought you said you were only kicking ideas around?” Chatty enquired.

“Just for the detailed construction and searching for any defects in our designs. The basic designs are very similar, as are many of the modules, different approaches to do the same job. The next level of detail takes ten times longer than the preceding level, as the physics imposes fewer restrictions allowing a larger variety of solutions. I bet your group has it even worse?” replied Tman.

“Maybe, but no way could I tackle your job.”

“By the time we got you trained up, you would be working on the next generation.”

“I have no intention of getting pregnant” Chatty signed indignantly.

“Not that! The next evolution of our habitats,as we are very unlikely to get it perfect first time! We are going to do the best job we possibly can, we may have to settle for adequate if the force of events allows no other choice. Anyway I will send you our latest designs, let us know if you can see something wrong that we have overlooked. We can never have too many eyes on a project like this and your life also depends on us getting it right!” explained Tman.

“Thanks, I think, something else to worry about great! On that reasoning you must review our ideas as well, remember you'll have to live within our constitution once it's voted in!” responded Chatty.

“I know the process doesn't work like an engineering project, why can't people operate on a definable set of parameters.” signed Tman.

“They don't, and never will so get used to the idea. Until we have a constitution and government we'll be operating like an army, once our people start to feel safe, the leadership will be questioned, quite possibly before we actually are! Something has to be there to legitimise leadership before the next crisis hits, so everyone is singing the same tune when we need to!” lectured Chatty.

“I can imagine when we have been at the mines a while and comfortable, without an obvious need arguments could start. We'll all be in the middle of an argument, when the humans show up. With no one in command and no time to debate the options we could neither fight or flee successfully, it would be a painful and humiliating end!” observed Tman.

“May you sleep as well as me!”

“I deserved that Chatty, and I probably will. We both are worriers. Still better get my head down, night Chatty.”

“Night Tman.”

Chapter 3

Developments

As time progressed. The Chinese lost no time claiming salvage rights on the station remains still in orbit. Much to the annoyance of their former owners, as the Chinese also bought up those shuttles at the bankruptcy sale, that had previously served the departed stations. The Chinese also recruited as many experienced space workers as they could for their rapidly expanding space industry.

The Chinese had built a station mostly out of salvage, then towed it into lunar orbit. Using a shuttle with sufficient fuel to return to Earth orbit, reopening the supply link in the shortest possible time. That job had taken just over two months start to finish.

The new Mars station was going to take a lot longer, it had to be a space freighter first and had to be reconfigured into an orbital station on arrival. Compounded by there being not much salvage left after building the lunar station. The Chinese announced an ion engine would be used for the Mars ship, as it had been clearly demonstrated recently, to be quicker in the long run.

Cue another round of annoyed mutters from the former leading space powers, mixed with grudging admiration for China's achievements.

As always there were those conspiracy theorists who were convinced that the slaves must have had outside help. Those slaves only had a limited intelligence, sufficient to follow simple instructions in their opinion. Now they had an obvious suspect. Also those who felt the need for someone to blame also jumped on the band wagon pointing the finger at the Chinese.

The Humans supreme party a new, extremist political grouping, made a lot of noise, calling some mainstream politicians, anti-human, communist traitors, given the reputation of those accused this was a source of amusement to many. The Chinese just laughed, announcing that if they had been involved they would have had everything ready to take over, not scrambling to deliver the goods before large numbers of people died. They certainly would not have allowed all that very valuable equipment to get away.

Meanwhile on their journey to the mines, the former slaves in a series of electronic assemblies, were debating their issues then making decisions by majority vote. The habitat designs were now called designs for our home. As for what to call the plans for their future society, they decided to leave until they had a future.

This was just the start of their planning. Those debates and votes took a long time, but were essential to reduced the options to a manageable short list for both the habitats and constitution. This majority consensus on what their future should be, reduced the general level of anxiety within their population. Work now started on the next level of detail, as expected this proved that a hell of a lot more time, work and co-operation was needed to get that next level worked out before anything like a set of viable options could be put to the vote.

In the process cherished ideas, beliefs and hopes were dismantled then cast aside when analysed by others in debate. This lead to the sort of discord and argument they had previously believed only humans were capable of. Emotions ran high in the debates, but surprisingly calmed quickly afterwards and few held a grudge for long.

In the canteen, two months outward bound to the mines. 

“Well Chatty, these debates have been a great shock to me, things were even worse than I had feared it might be.” signed Tman.

“Tman you're telling me, even we got angry with each other. How odd it feels to know we are far more human than any of us wanted to believe!” replied Chatty.

“Yes, we are going to work very hard to get all the needed checks and balances into our system. Fortunately we have the examples of the humans systems to draw on, just deciding on which are the best system was hard. Human history helped provide the answers the conclusion was democratic types work best over all.” signed Tman.

“I still can't understand those who wanted to be king and their supporters, just unbelievable, hopeless romantics and the odd psychopath.” signed Chatty.

“Yes, the shear amount of insanity was a shock! These self proclaimed, so called natural leaders have to be tested and limited! Fortunately now most of those who are a danger to themselves and/or others are shut up out of harm’s way. Still we have to keep our eyes open for more crack pots crawling out of the cracks.” stated Tman.

“The engineering discussions proved our need for institutions, to set standards of  competence, even I caught out a few would be engineers, with the little I have learnt from you Tman!”

“That was very disturbing, it forced us to use a set of human engineering exams to see who was fit to do what. That gave us another set of unwelcome surprises, very unpleasant for a few. The gaping holes in knowledge of that few are huge, they are literally only fit to follow detailed instructions! So I have to spend over half my time teaching and writing how to do instructions.” signed Tman tiredly.

“It is not just your specialisation we have well meaning idiots in every field. Not only are you the most knowledgeable about mechanical and electrical engineering. It turns out you're one of our best medics and only political systems expert to boot!” Chatty signed.

“That is not true there are better engineers on other stations and my medical knowledge is from the packs, only on a few limited occasions was I able to apply any of it.” signed Tman in denial.

“Tman that may be true, you should describe yourself as an all-rounder and you seem to  integrate that knowledge into the way you think! That obviously results in your deeper understanding! Most of the talented few only know one area! You proved the depth and breath of your Knowledge in the debates. The doubters and opponents checked all your facts every time and you were right every time!” enthused Chatty.

“Programming, I can't take credit for that! Pity we can't copy it over to those lacking my talent, but that will have to wait until our home is established and we eventually have a teaching hospital, but that is years away yet.” countered Tman.

“I know we are just getting a basic medical service running.” signed Chatty letting him change the subject.

“Most of the medical equipment we have was made for humans, we are adapting what we can to our use.” signed Tman.

“I'm taking aptitude tests to see what other jobs I can retrain for.” revealed Chatty.

“Good man, I mean Squirrel! God damn these human expressions!”  signed Tman with a grimace.

“There's another one, we must get it sorted, it must push us into human thought patterns.”

“I hadn't thought of it like that, think Ivan Pavlov's dogs programmed into patterns of behaviour, so it conditions our thinking, we haven't got away from the humans at all, we are carrying them in our heads! Arg!”  signed Tman thoughtfully.

“What was that sign?” asked Chatty

“I was trying to make a non-human swear word, how did I do?” asked Tman.

“It needs more work, I think it needs to be more expressive but it’s a start!” answered Chatty.

“It’s the beginning of a long trial.” signed Tman.

“Is that an attempt at a non-human saying?”

“Yes, a bit poor, time for my bed, night Chatty.”

“Night Tman.”

“ARG! Damn these human phrases!” signed Tman.

By mid-August the miners had assembled six habitat shells, each with a nuclear power plant situated where any mishaps would dump the radioactive material into space, not the habitat, in need the whole power plant could be ejected in less than thirty seconds. The new people, often abbreviated to Newp, as the former slaves now called themselves. All agreed that no one in their right mind would put a nuclear plant inside their own life support system. They had opted for nuclear, as the size of solar panel arrays and mirrors required would have to be huge, dwarfing the habitats
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, and would be far too visible for people to hide.

All this had been achieved by running all the processing plants flat out. In addition to using prefabricated sections and stockpiled materials that the miners had been accumulating for years. The Newp miners working as long and hard as possible without excessive risk. The habitat shells had gone together like a 3D jigsaw, all the pieces numbered to match the plan, these were large enough to be observed from Earth with a large optical telescope. When these were observed by Earth's astronomers, it generated a lot of media speculation, as to what the hell were the monkeys up to?

Many thoughts on the matter splattered though the media, few even came close to the truth. The paranoid had fun frightening everyone with death ships to attack Earth and wipe out Humanity. Most thought that it was some sort of military construction like a fortification, the idea of anything that size being mobile was generally thought ridiculous.

But the new people knew different. All of them could fit comfortably inside one of the habitats. But they did not want to put all their eggs in one basket, so planned to split into six groups of approximately equal skill sets.

Those on the former space stations had also been hard at work, the majority of the components that could be made under thrust for the habitats had been made. It was estimated that six months of micro gravity work was needed to produce those essential components that it was only possible to make in micro gravity.

The Chinese Mars ship/station, it's journey was expected to take nine months, was due leave on the tenth of September, almost the same date as the Monkey and Squirrel stations were due to arrived at the mines.

This was a lot sooner than the new people had expected. Their own project was also running ahead of schedule, this gave them some reassurance. It still would take about eighteen months, to get everything in the habitats up and running, especially to get the life support system stable. Food production was split between hydroponics, farm and garden plots. Micro propagation had enabled the production of adequate numbers of plants. Soil for the farms and gardens had been made by the miners, who had been less closely supervised by the humans.

They had worked it out when they made themselves a better habitat than the one provided by the company, originally for the human miners. They had equipped it with gardens, made soil by composting plant waste from the hydroponics and organic matter from the recycling system then mixing nearly as much sand (made from waste rock) for bulk and drainage. The stations also were creating as much compost as they could without jeopardising their hydroponics. Essential to feed those on board and keep good air quality, the stockpiled food was insufficient for the trip.     

The habitat shells were to be fitted with engines and control systems before fitting out the interior. If humans showed up too soon, the New People could move out of danger, the shells and stations in company with very little warning. They had voted to keep the former stations as exploration platforms, as they had now been extensively re-engineered into serviceable space ships.

The gravity tolerant factory units were  transferred to the habitat shells. The habitats would be spun to provide the gravity effect of zero point six of Earth at accommodation level in the habitats, many of the Newp were used to less. This transfer of mass to the habitats would reduce the strain on the structure of the exploration platforms when they under power.

Any mined materials that remained unused were to be stored in the outer levels of the habitat shells. The collected mine waste was to be packed into the space between the inner and outer hulls making a very good radiation screen, the dose just inside the inner hull being only twice Earth normal. The first three levels, progressing inward, were solely for material storage, then the developing workshops and factories, then labs, accommodation, medical care, schools and all the necessities of life. Radiation levels at the accommodation levels were expected to be Earth normal or less. One problem that the miners had not been able to overcome was a basic lack of gasses. They had more than enough Oxygen, but Nitrogen the bulk gas of Earth’s atmosphere was in very short supply also suitable substitutes were in limited supply.

Only the habitation and work volumes this included the farms could be pressurised, only to half of Earth sea level but one third Oxygen. This would be rectified quite quickly once they arrived at Jupiter or Saturn.     

Back in Earth orbit the Chinese were finishing the new cargo ship for the Earth to Mars run. A new station and deep space vessel had also been commissioned by the governments that had to foot the bill for the collapsed companies, were also under construction and would be completed in a few months.

Publicly acclaimed on Earth as the reboot of the space industry, the New People watched closely, the observations giving them reason to believe they had at most a ten month deadline.

On the fleeing vessels, many discussions took place on the subject. 

“Well that does it, we can’t afford to let much slip in the schedule, Chatty, what do you think?”

“Tman that deep space vessel clinches it. If they wanted to start the mines up again all they need is the Mars station in orbit to service the mine service vessels, most of which are still in high Mars orbit.”

“The irony is, if they had been in a lower orbit the Mars shuttles could have reached them and the service ships have the range to reach Earth. Although they would need extensive servicing as most have not been used for years, the four in regular use were taken with the Mars station as they were already docked for servicing.” signed Tman.