Ramera - Prologue

PROLOGUE

THE EARTH
        If you were to look at it today, you would see a pristine and beautiful planet.  A brilliant sapphire set amongst the other vari-colored gems around the star Sol.  There are green and brown landscapes with brighter areas of yellow for the desserts.  Vast deep blue seas fading into pale greens around the more tropical coastlines.  Oceans are once again covering the bulk of the planet.  We see brilliant white ice and snow located on the highest mountain peaks and in the Polar Regions. 
    If we look a little closer we no longer see the smudges of pollution that were once like bruises on the planet over the biggest of the modern cities.  The cities themselves are no longer there.  Look closer still we see the remnants of the Great Wall of China and the Pyramids of Egypt are still standing resolute, if considerably more crumbly.
    You see very little signs of civilization.  Large cities and populations are a thing of the distant past. 
  There are only one million people on the Earth now, and not a soul more. Per Alliance decree there are to be no more than one million humans on the planet. 
  The populace of earth is primarily made up of care and maintenance personnel.  The select few non essential personnel on the planet are the chosen ones of the Alliance.  People that have either purchased or earned the privilege to reside on the planet of our forbears.  The Alliance grants and revokes its favor at will and wields this power with the temperament and ruthlessness of a child.
        What was once the cradle of human life is now a vast wildlife preserve?  There are animals, but not many, yet.  In fact the first generations born on the planet are now about to issue forth their own young. There are fewer species now, not all were saved in the exodus from the planet.  The animal populace is carefully nurtured and guided by the many caretakers.  The major predators are not yet been re-introduced into the wild. The population of their prey is still much too low.  The herbivores are allowed to breed and prosper unmolested, for now.  The introduction of wildlife and the creation of the food chain is a carefully choreographed dance between man and nature. 
        What happened to the countless varieties of animals and the billions of humans that once lived and thrived on Earth? 
  No, there has been no tear in the fabric of time; we are currently in the year 2986.
  We are currently looking at the newly resurrected planet, a planet that had been decimated to the point of being unable to continue to support life.  Chance and generations of hard work from the Alliance’s team of Planet Redeemers, a group known widely as the Redeemers, were the only things able to breathe new life into the dying planet. 
  However you will not find any trace of these saviors of lost worlds anywhere on Earth anymore. Officially they have been sent on to other worlds. Unofficially they have been terminated in a massive act of Genocide. 
  Why would the saviors of this once lost world banished from the Eden of their creation?  Why is the fruit of long and arduous labors not being enjoyed by those that worked the hardest?  I guess to understand the current situation and answer these questions we will have to go back quite a ways into history and learn what happened to the Earth and its inhabitants.  What the reason was for the creation of the teams of mentally linked humans and the Species created to restore and repair damaged ecosystems.
        At the beginning of the 21st century, history texts tell us, the world and the human populace that inhabited it were awash with turmoil.  The Middle Eastern counties of what was once Europe were still at war with each other. They had finally managed to drag the rest of the world into it as well through various atrocities. 
  Mankind was caught tightly in a multifaceted net of its own weaving. The economies were all consumers based, everything was disposable. No one was taking responsibility for their own actions and decisions, expecting to be bailed out by their governments or anyone else stupid enough to do it.  Thus the honest man was paying the price for the foolish man. 
  The planets resources were being consumed at an ever increasing rate, the foolish were making bad decisions.  Mankind did not perfectly understand the intricate balances and cycles of the planet and were in actuality working against themselves in many ways. 
  Mankind faced a difficult fork in the road of fate.  To choose wrongly would end the termination of the life they knew and seemed to be enjoying thoroughly.  The other choice, while a very difficult path to follow, could lead them through and allow them to improve their situation. 
  The benefit of hindsight allows us to see that the choices they made were at the time, what seemed best for the safety of humanity.
  However greed and corruption had become so commonplace amongst these leaders of men that all decisions were really made by the highest bidder, the one who could put the most money in the right pockets.  The politicians and their owners manipulated the flow of information into the public. The surfaces of these political decisions were all squeaky clean, until you flipped them over to see the slimy underbelly.  The masses of city dwellers were making the voting decisions for the rest of the country.  The general use of common sense was thus lost to the democratic countries. 
        War across the world, terrorism running unchecked, pollution killing the planet and its denizens, rampant disease, insufficient recycling and healing technologies.  Humans wanted faster and better toys for entertainment more than they wanted to heal the hurt and ill. 
  Humans were either starving to death or morbidly obese.  Drugs and violence were the replacement for industry and hope of the newest generations. 
  The healthcare industry was disastrously anchored to a sinking ship; they were dictated by the policies of the uneducated, misinformed, and corrupt.  They were centuries away from making true genetic discoveries and cures that were so desperately needed.  The ability to stop all birth defects and diseases with a simple injection that altered the person’s genetic code wasn’t even a pipe dream Such innovations were common fodder for writers of science fiction and fantasy novels.  The ability to pass on information at the genetic level was also of similar remoteness.
        After years of disaster, both natural and manmade the world leaders held a monumental summit to help determine the best course of action to take.  After weighing the moral implications and ongoing financial obligations for all of the countries trying to police and diffuse the ongoing catastrophe in the warring countries.  The leaders were forced to act decisively.  In a desperate move they decided to evacuate the innocent women and children and any men that could be trusted out of the areas and literally fence off the war zone. They wanted to allow the separate factions to annihilate each other and die off.  Like cauterizing an artery, necessary and unpleasant.
  Once the decision was made the actions were taken quickly and brutally.  The fences were zealously built and guarded, while the unsteady world waited in breathless anticipation. 
  Within fourteen years there were no more terrorist attacks on innocent countries.  The residents of “The War Zone”, as it was commonly called, were energetically killing each other off.  Approximately twenty eight years after the War Zone was established, it finally fell quiet.  Since none were allowed in or out of the War Zone, the world assumed that it was over and all that was left was for the victors to grow old and die.  The rest of the world had lost interest in the War Zone and its condemned occupants. Other topics of interest quickly found their way into the nightly news and daily newspapers. Since there is seldom a happy ending achieved simply, the figurative the shoe was about to drop.
        As in most battle and survival situations the smartest and strongest survive.  The survivors had found the buried oil lines and hidden oil wells that were still valuable to the rest of the world.  They had also stumbled across the rumored and well hidden nuclear facilities. The caches that had been often searched for by other countries, one of the original reasons for intrusion and intersession in the first place.
  The survivors were well able to come up with uses for their new found treasures.  As I am sure you have guessed already the results were inevitable, and horrendous. 
  Lashing out like a group of angry children, their last desperate bid for world dominance was in a sick and skewed way as effective as it was suicidal.  The few remaining fanatics ruptured the oil lines and set fire to the spills. Easily cutting the world off from the oil wells it needed.  As a grand finale to their vile scheme they managed to place and detonate all the nuclear weapons they could find. The contamination and pollution released into the air, water and soil was devastating enough on the short term. The long term effect was like toppling the first domino in a long string.  It was much worse than even the direst of scientists could have predicted.  Human kind had pushed the ecology out of balance and still had an excellent chance of recovery. However this tipped the scales too much for recovery to be achieved. 
        Like venom from a poisonous snake, the contamination spread and wreaked devastation and sickness wherever it touched.  The oceanic and air currents helped it to spread even faster. 
       

THE ALLIANCE
        The head of a small underfunded government agency in the United States called NASA had attended the War Zone world summit and felt that the world’s leaders had gone down a self destructive path. He would have to do what he could covertly to salvage what he could of humanity from itself.  George’s arguments were powerful and poignant but the governments were not very motivated, a small spree of attacks by suicide bombers seriously damaged scientific buildings in the US and in Germany motivated the officials to concede with Georges plan and was the deciding factor for the leaders to vote for the wall.
  Under the guise of fear of terrorism attacks on major scientific research facilities for both private and government classified projects. So George Rasmus managed to convince the world leaders to pool their space agencies into one and pool both knowledge and resources for the greater good.  They would be able to create first a moon base then one on Mars for the protection of the scientists and their work from terrorist attacks. The current climate of fear made their decision to form the Alliance prudent and they had the support of the people. 
  The Global Space Alliance was born, their whole mission was to make sure that the world could continue to evolve and function regardless of the many attempts to bomb it back into the Stone Age.  All of the world’s best were gathered together under one roof.  They created the first colony on the moon for the scientists and their families. 
  The development of the base and its facilities was not made public and completed as quickly as possible, support personnel and their families were added as the facility was expanded.  There was no back and forth to Earth, it was a one way trip.  The base prospered with technological leaps in hydroponics and water reclamation being as celebrated as newer less cumbersome models of space suits. 
  Decades later when the last survivors of the War Zone made their final move, all of the world’s best and brightest minds were at a very safe distance.  They watched in sadness and shook their heads at the probable outcome. 
  At this time George called a mass meeting of his personnel and let them know of his real purpose behind the Alliance and why he felt their work was so vital to humankind. 
  He also introduced a young scientist named Elias Schwartz.  Elias had a farfetched but probable idea of how to build a spaceship engine that would allow the vast distances of space to be traversed in a matter of hours to months depending on the distance to be traveled. Elias had been a young prodigy and George had discovered him as an intern at NASA while he was still in school.  George saw the tremendous potential in the awkward young man and cultivated his trust and his career.
  George had quietly added him to the Alliance staff and brought him to the moon base, where he began to share his theory with George, who greatly encouraged his further development. Elias gladly shared his research with the others on the base and work began in earnest to develop the new drive. 
It was called the Worm drive since it created worm holes into subspace.  Emergence from subspace caused the loss of all forward momentum. Ships were able to avoid the problem of the massive amounts slowing a ships speed. Avoiding the extra time and braking required that antimatter and negative energy drives projected. 
  Amazingly construction only took a little over five years for the team.  The first trip was from the moon to the Earth, it took approximately twelve minutes.  On Earth, they picked up the supplies needed to make the first trip to Mars to begin building a small transfer base on Callisto, Mars’ moon.  It took less than a day to arrive there!  A week later they returned to the Earth's moon base.
  George then proceeded to put phase two into action.  The planet was beginning to deteriorate and so he began actively recruiting people from the planet for the Mars and Callisto Colonies.  He also began to collect the massive amounts of biological samples of all the life forms that he could. He wanted them for archival protection since the world was in crisis. The samples were given to him freely and with gratitude.  George also began collecting massive amounts of non scientific records and data for archiving and use on the colonies.
        The Alliance began to look to Jupiter’s moons for another possible colonial site. It would be used as a jumping off point for leaving the system and exploring other systems in our galaxy.  Man's desire to see if there were other hospitable worlds for man and any other life forms out there was still alive.  With colonization in mind George was recruiting heavily from the less glamorous Geological and Biological communities. 
  George had to begin to offset some of the costs they were incurring, so anyone not recruited was charged heavily for their transport and housing costs.  People George had recruited however were charged a decreased rate for the transportation of their immediate family.  Members of extended family were considered but not allowed to come if they did not possess the needed skills. 
  Once George had skimmed off the cream of the worlds academic and professional communities he began to pull back and allow others to come to him.  There was no discrimination of race, religion, sex, or financial situation. You were either useful or you weren’t.  For once the rich were not able to buy their way into what they wanted; there was no real need for many of the powerful people on the planet. Politicians were not needed, neither were the big Wall Street players or company executives.   
  As the planets people began to sicken he had to present the facade of seriously considering any applicants, he accepted all the applications, and he also accepted all of the bribes. No promise was given in return for bribes beyond the review of an application. 
  When the plagues began to rage he no longer allowed others off planet, unless deemed as necessary personnel.  Any potential candidates were sent to isolated quarantine compounds on the planet. If no illness was apparent after six months they were medically examined and then given final consideration for being taken off the planet. 
  Most people would spend the rest of their lives trying to work off their debt.  The debt would be paid back out of their wages for working after cost of living and purchases of non-essential items were deducted.  Hundreds of years after the abolition of slavery, enter the indentured servants, a fancy name for a modern slave.    Children were required to attend extensive and specialized schooling after being subjected to extensive aptitude and personality testing to help specialize their schooling and allow them into the workplace as soon as they were able to be on their own at sixteen or at the completion of their schooling.  Testing and schooling were expensive and so many kids were sent into the workplace as soon as possible because they were found to not have high enough intelligence and aptitude levels required to enter the advanced levels, however all people were working to pay off their own debts and any leftover debts of their parents, since when a person died their descendants were responsible to pay off the remaining amount.  There were always opportunities for bonuses at every level of age and employment. 
  The first pandemic ended all planetary landings; the risk was too great for everyone in the Alliance.  George agreed to take possession of frozen samples of the bacterium and contagion’s for study via a capsule capture in space from a missile launch. 
  George placed the Earth on quarantine until the illness had died out and no new cases for at least one year were reported.  The samples were placed into deep freeze and not touched again, publicly he announced that he had a team working with the samples, but the analysis would take time and study.
        The Alliance had been busy in colonizing and developing their bases.  The discovery of underground water on Mars had made it possible for the indefinite withdrawal from the Earth.  George’s teams were also developing ice mining techniques on the moon Io, to create another source of water for the colonists.  George had no intention of opening the quarantine on Earth. He had managed to play the cards right and gather what he wanted to salvage from the Earth.  He had no desire to accept the unwanted leeches of society into his precious organization.  The Alliance was in control and George liked it that way. 
    There was originally a large population of “Colonists” as the first members of the Alliance were commonly called.  These were the original contractors and their families for the Alliance.  They had been given handsome signing bonuses and wages well above the wage they were receiving on Earth. 
When George implemented the new Charter they were granted the boon of the first three generations would receive their schooling for half of the standard fee and therefore would be easily free of debt if they worked diligently and managed their funds properly.  Most were already wealthy and so this was a nice boon, but not entirely necessary. They were granted first rights to any new colonial opportunities.  There were separate laws and codes of conduct for Colonists verses those indebted to the Alliance.
        There began to be Rogue scientists that were developing new things and not handing them over to the Alliance for immediate exploitation and use.  They were saving them until the most opportune time to make the most profit for themselves and their families.  Thus the development of the department of the interior was created.  Initially it was comprised of people of various trades and backgrounds planted in all the trades and professions that were willing for financial gain to report back to the Elder in charge of the system they resided in.  They were charged with identifying any possible renegades that were withholding things from the Alliance.  The Alliance would then have the scientists in question monitored more and more closely until all the information needed had been discovered in its entirety and the individual would meet with one of two ends.  If they were not a valuable scientist they would be disposed of, if they had been valuable in the past and showed continued promise, they would be convicted of a spurious crime and sent to a prison facility where they could spend the rest of their life repaying their debt to society doing the exact same work with none of the freedoms.  Most Moles were found out after the first or second revelation and were either moved to a different colony or dismissed from the service.  Without the benefit of proper training the moles began to become better at their task and cleverer in their tactics.  The Alliance began to formally train an elite form of mole for the really tough cases. 
        An intelligent and frugal person could be debt free by the age of fifty and with a few smart contracts could retire comfortably and live their life out a free person.  Longevity became a thing that was quite common; to live to be a hundred was very common without any cellular rejuvenation treatments, often one hundred and fifty was achieved.  Colonists often reached two hundred to two hundred and fifty with cellular rejuvenation. 
  There were many scientists that had elected to undergo the treatment to continue working on a long term project.  The Chancellor managed to live to a ripe Three hundred before finally passing one night in his slumber.  He had been a visionary if not more than a little mercenary in his decisions. He did try to make decisions that were best for all the humans under his care. 
  He was mourned by many since he had been the man to rescue so many from the ravages that destroyed Earth.  Everard, Georges son took over as supreme Chancellor and did his best to uphold the precedents and traditions of the Alliance as long as they coincided with his own vision of the future of the Alliance.  Everard began making covert changes to little seen operations.  He created vast mining teams to go in and mine the larger more accessible and valuable ores before releasing a new planet for colonization, so the harder and less lucrative mining could be done by the colonists.  This way the Alliance could make more on each planet before it was released.
        Each planet had to be sought out and evaluated by the Exploration and Evaluation Corps.  The projected planets were often highly dangerous and therefore the E&E corps had a high mortality rates.  Trained teams were worth more to Everard alive so he pressured the scientists assigned to probe reconnaissance to develop better probes.  Probes were much cheaper than trained explorers when it came to potential planets to be explored by the teams.  So much time was wasted going to systems and planets that turned out to be dead ends.       
  Everard thoroughly enjoyed his new status and powers and zealously guarded them.  As usually happens with people with those character traits, they become more and more paranoid.  Everard began pushing for complete automation of the worm drive assembly.  Once he finally succeeded, he decided that the remaining workers and scientists that assisted on the worm drive were just too much of a risk to keep around.
    He invited all of them to a celebratory get together on Calgary, the 6th planet of the Delcanna system, the Alliance’s main planet of operation.  The supreme Chancellor sent a luxury liner to retrieve all one thousand two hundred and sixty four people and bring them to him.
    The liner had had explosives planted throughout it by a member of his elite guard, having them set for a precise time.  The explosives did their job and thoroughly.  All the crew and guests aboard the liner were killed in the explosion.  Everard sent out a somber bulletin to the entire Alliance alerting them to the terrible tragedy.  He ordered all of his personal files to be taken to his private vault on Earth’s moon base. The base had long since been left empty and only had annual maintenance checks to repair and maintain it, should it be needed for any future use. 
  The Elite guard escorted both the courier and the sealed data crate to the moon and on the return voyage they jettisoned the courier’s body into space. 
  Everard then increased the rewards offered for the development of a recycling technology that would return mankind to Earth.  He would be the greatest Chancellor if he were able to return mankind to the planet of our birth.
        In an effort to make life in the Alliance more desirable Everard began to promote the experimental sciences rather heavily, he felt the through this avenue he would discover the way to go back to Earth and to improve his colonial success rates.  He developed new facilities and imported previously untouched species for study.  He even negotiated with one of the sentient but planet bound species from the planet Mowan.  He managed to gain permission for a small select delegation of scientists to be allowed to live with the Dernai while they studied their world and species under the guidance of the Dernai. 
  The Dernai were a primitive species at first glance but upon closer inspection there were a truly remarkable race.  They did not feel the need to explore space; they were so connected to their world that the thought of leaving it was like a punishment to them.  Their whole existence was completely organic with highly specialized plants and animals for literally everything.  They also had a religious rite; it miraculously passed all of the knowledge of one Derna on to another, which was considerable since they had such long life spans. 
  The humans had long suffered the fact that once a great mind had passed on all that was left of them was their words and ideas on paper or video, and could never be perfectly understood by others. 
  The Dernai managed to control every aspect of their planet, including the weather without the use of any type of machinery or technology. 
  The Supreme Chancellor had repeatedly read all of the reports and even visited the planet when negotiating the agreement for the scientists to come and study there for a few years. 
  The Dernai could be the key to regaining Earth.  He had even taken samples of some of their plants that specialized in purifying the air, soil and water. He sent a team with the plants to see if they would tolerate Earth and help restore it.  The poor plants were quickly overworked and died before they were able to achieve any results. 
        Everard began his careful search for the select few scientists that would have the distinct honor and privilege of studying with the Dernai on Mowan. 
  This took almost twenty years; there were many candidates and many more variables to consider.  He had to select the correct personalities that were open to learning new ways and culture and not egotistical so when told what to do they would not rebel out of sheer pique.  They needed to be young; the assignment could take several decades to complete.  They had to have patience.
  Most importantly they needed to still be in debt to the Alliance.
The winnowing process was time consuming and right up Everard's alley.  He felt like he was moving pieces on a chess board.  He was less involved with the daily mechanics of running the Alliance, his son Demetrious was beginning to take up the reins.
Finally he came across the file of an Emo Vonieuz, a young xenobiologist that specialized in genetic mutation of animals to enhance or assist their environment. Aha, he had just gotten married. No children yet and his wife, Lahaina happened to be a botanist of considerable potential, specializing genetically altering plants to better suit other environments.  She was currently an assistant to and experimental scientist; he had just finished his three years with in the same lab.  They were certainly qualified and their personality profiles were in the correct ranges.
    They had each discovered and developed a useful specimen for the Alliance, though not highly lucrative but useful still. Their educational and personnel records indicated above the board reports, some were even glowing.  They were still a little in debt; they would clear it on Mowan, which could be problematic. However a child or two would remedy that for them and they could still stay with the project, actually any children would be beneficial since the Dernai seemed to adore children.
        The Chancellor selected the Vonieuz couple for his assignment effective immediately.  He was sure that the salary and signing bonus would be enticing enough, factor in that they would be together and studying on one of the most unexplored and unopened planets in the known galaxy. A privilege that many would die for. 
  He then sent a message to the medic that would be performing their pre-mission exams.  He ordered the medic to replace Lahaina's mandated birth control injection with a placebo, the sooner the couple began to have kids the better it would cement them with the Dernai.  After sending his priority flagged messages he turned back to the task of selecting the other members of the Mowan team.