Who Mourns for Methuselah?
This fan fiction takes place some 80 years in the future from the time frame of the Astro Boy canon. Please note that Astro Boy is the creation of Osmau Tezuka, and all rights to him belong to Tezuka Productions.
Chapter 4
The Day after arriving at the Mars base, Astor and Cobalt reported in to the command center to register. It was Cobalt's first day as commander of the base, and he had lots of paperwork to fill out as he formally took over his new position. Astor had to fill out all sorts of paperwork himself as he was formally becoming a citizen of the Mars base, and transferring his resident status from Earth to Mars.
"I feel like I've just become an immigrant or something" Astor told his brother.
"Well not exactly. Since the Mars base is under the jurisdiction of NASA it's sorta considered as US territory although the planet itself belongs to no country under international law. Someday, Mars will be considered an independent nation, I think an application to that effect has already been submitted to the UN." Cobalt replied.
Astor handed Cobalt one of the forms he had been filling out, and had just signed.
"What's this?" his brother asked.
"I think that's fairly obvious. It's my identity certificate request." Astor said.
"I can see THAT. What I don't understand is the name you've filled in."
"Yeah, about that. I feel like I'm making a new start here, but I also feel like I'm returning back in time as well. You've always used Ochanomizu as your surname, the Dr. was the only father you ever knew. Uran adopted Mars surname of Yamanoue after she married him. After his death, she never reverted back to using her maiden name. I had two fathers, and I finally made piece with Dr. Tenma just before his death. I had already changed my name to Astor Boyton and had gotten married to Cora by then. Now that I'm starting anew here, I decided to go back to my former title. At first, I was thinking of using the name Tobio since that's what my father called me when I was created, but that wouldn't be fair to the human boy who has been mostly forgotten. You know, I don't think his grave even has a headstone. I might be the only one who even knows where it is. Anyway, that's why I filled out my Id request as Atom Tenma." Atom replied.
"That's fine with me bro." Cobalt said. "You know, now that you mentioned it, I always wondered why Mars used Dr. Yamanoue's name as his surname. I always thought of Dr. Kawashimo as his real father. He was certainly a better person and a better father to the little guy."
"I think Mars may have felt the same way about Dr. Yamanoue that I did toward Dr. Tenma. By the time Mars had matured, he had made peace with Dr. Y. I guess it was his way of honoring the man after he died. I feel the same about Dr. Tenma." Atom said.
The new residence that Cobalt had been promised was ready later that day. The two brothers wasted no time moving in. Atom was pleased to find that it was just has his brother had described, and better. He had his own suite consisting of a bedroom, an office, bathroom facilities complete with a whirlpool bath, tub and shower, and a small kitchenette. The shared area had a dinning room, a large kitchen, and a living room complete with a huge TV screen, sound system, and several sofas and chairs to accommodate quite a few guests.
"This looks like the Ritz." Atom said.
"Yeah, I guess it will do." Cobalt dead panned.
"Where will Uran be housed?" Atom asked.
"Well, she won't get here for about a quarter of a year, but I've already put in a request for a nice apartment for her. She'll be staying on the other side of the planet most of the time though, that's where the first batch of transplants will be introduced to the terraformed areas of the planet." Cobalt answered.
"Wait, I thought she was due in about six months time?" Atom said.
"Yes, six EARTH months. When I said a quarter of a year, I meant that in Mars years. This planet takes almost two Earth years to go around the sun you know." Cobalt explained.
"Yeah, that is going to take some getting used to. At least the day here is almost the same length as back on Earth." Atom said.
Cobalt walked Atom over to where his office was.
"I get an office?" he puzzled. "I thought I was going to be doing mostly field work."
"That is entirely up to you." Cobalt said. "All of the paperwork, the project reports, budget requests, personal assignments are your problems as well. Welcome to the bureaucracy! If you have any time left over after taking care of all of that, you can do as much field work as you like."
Atom found that there was a pile of paperwork on his desk already. Most would require little more than reading, a few comments, and his signature. He'd have to get familiar with the personal roster of all the people under his direct command of course.
"Good thing I'm a speed reader." He sighed.
"Come with me and I'll introduce you to your team." Cobalt said.
The elder brother took the younger by the hand and dragged him out of the office. They boarded a tram which exited the main building of the base and glided along a paved roadway on the planet's surface. Each car of the tram was enclosed in a plastic bubble to contain a breathable atmosphere.
"This transportation equipment goes back to before there was much atmosphere on Mars. Someday the pressurized bubbles on these cars won't be needed at all for human transportation. At the moment there are still a few areas on the planet that have barely enough oxygen content, especially at night. Also the pressure outside is somewhere between 5000 to 10000 feet Earth normal so many people feel a little dizzy if they stay out in the open too long."
As they whizzed along Atom could see that some of the Mars inhabitants were wearing simple respirators in the form of an O2 bottle and a nose clip.
"How many robots are there in relationship to humans?" Atom asked.
"Actually there very few android robots here by percentage of the population. Maybe ten percent or so. There are many intelligent machines that humans used to call robots, of course." Cobalt answered. "But don't worry about being in charge of humans on Mars. This is one place where the kind of ill feeling between humans and robots that was common on Earth, never took hold."
The tram entered another building, one that was clearly not an office or living area facility. They passed storage areas for construction equipment, heavy machinery intended to move earth and rocks. Their transport came to a stop and they got out. A crew of about two dozen workers were gathered around tables and lockers. This was clearly a staging area where the workers gathered before setting out on their field assignments. Coffee, tea, juice, muffins and other breakfast items were laid out on one of the tables, and the group was taking advantage of it. As Cobalt approached a few of the people looked up and made eye contact with him, some waved a coffee cup or a hand in greeting. Cobalt took the moment to pass the baton of command to Atom.
"Good morning guys. I'd like to introduce you to my brother Atom, who will be taking charge of the terraforming operation. He has a bit to learn, and I hope you can guide him through his first few days."
One of the workers, an older man who looked to be in his upper 60's, yet quite fit and in good health, stepped forward and looked Atom over for a few moments. He scratched his chin in thought.
"You remind me of someone, but I can't quite place it." He said.
"If so, it was on Earth, since I haven't been to Mars in nearly 80 years. What is your name?" Atom asked.
"Ketchup, Sir. My father was on the second expedition to this planet just about that long ago."
"Yes, I remember him, I was the commander on that mission. I thought he died fighting off the alien invaders that we barely defeated. He was reported to have died a hero." Atom said.
"Well Sir, the reports of his death were not quite true. He was found a few days after your expedition left the planet, badly injured but still alive. He returned to Earth on the next rocket. …. Wait a minute, now I remember. You're Astro Boy, aren't you? My father wrote all about you in his journal when he got back to Earth. He had a picture of you taken with him during the trip."
Atom's memory of the Mars mission flooded back to him. Ketchup's activity on the mission during the trip to Mars, had bordered on treason. Most of the expedition crew resented a robot being put in charge, especially a robot in the persona of a ten year old boy. Ketchup had sabotaged Atom's life line and he had drifted away from the ship while going EVA to make some repairs. However, the elder Ketchup had redeemed himself during the battle with the Alien invaders.
"Yes, I once went by that name. I called myself Astor Boyton for many years while I was married and had a family on Earth. After the recent death of my wife, I decided to join my brother with NASA and make myself useful on Mars." Atom said.
"Gee, I'm really sorry to hear about your loss sir. But you're luckier than me, I suppose. I never married, and I don't have any family left. I'll probably die and be buried here on Mars. This planet has been my home for about half a century now." Ketchup replied.
With the breakfast break over, the crew boarded the tram to head out to the field. Cobalt and Atom also took their place on the transport.
"Might as well show you first hand what is going on in the Terraforming operation." Cobalt said.
It took the tram some twenty minutes to reach the work area. Some of the crew started up the heavy equipment that had been left overnight from yesterday's last work shift. The earth, or rather mars moving operations resembled life on a farm back on Earth, but on a somewhat larger scale. The Mars soil needed to be dug up, transported to a facility that would chemically treat it to make it compatible with Earth based biology, and then transport it back to be mixed in with the existing soils. By changing the Ph of the soil, and adding Earth base bacteria and spores the soil would slowly break down into a form that would support higher forms of plant life. Where this had already been done grasses and small shrubs were now growing. The more plant life that was seeded, the higher the oxygen content of the small world's atmosphere became.
Atom and Cobalt took one of the smaller Jeep like vehicles and visited several of the work sites in the area. Atom could see how the planet was slowly being transformed to support green plant life. In several areas there were small herbivore mammals roaming about, mostly rabbits, hamsters, and other rodent like creatures.
"Once the population of these small mammals reaches a stable level the plan is to introduce some carnivores to the animal mix. Probably small cats and canines at first, but Uran will be handling that end of the program." Cobalt explained.
Just ahead of them one of the earth moving machines seemed to have got itself stuck. The operator slowly backed it up and then inched forward again, but the ground was unstable and the going was rough. Cobalt raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes to get a better look. Atom didn't need them, his eyes could zoom in closely with their built in telescopic vision.
"Parts of the Martian terrain are a bit hazardous with underground domes of softer material left over from the wetter periods of the planet's early days." Cobalt explained. "There are also soft areas that came into being due to the frequent sand storms that once regularly occurred. Now that the atmosphere is thicker, these storms have become somewhat rarer."
The earthmover seemed to have overcome the troublesome terrain, but as the operator again resumed his forward motion the machine suddenly began to sink below the surface as it fell into a very soft spot that was like a sinkhole back on earth.
"That's not good!" Cobalt cried as he turned the vehicle to head to the distressed machine.
"He's sinking rapidly!" Atom yelled "He needs help now, did the operator get out?"
"I don't see him." Cobalt said adjusting his binoculars.
Atom's old reflexes hadn't left him. He suddenly found himself a few hundred feet in the air, flying toward the machine. Only the very top of the earthmover was now visible, the rest had disappeared beneath the red Martian soil. Atom landed on the top of the machine and grabbed onto what looked like a suitable handhold. He poured on the rocket fuel and amazed himself that he still had the brute strength to lift the multi-ton machine with his leg jets. The red soil refused to let go of the earthmover at first, but Atom continued to fight it, and eventually he was carrying it about 50 feet off the ground. He looked for a solid spot to set it down, and landed slowly just yards from his brother in the Jeep.
"I guess you still have it in you, bro!" Cobalt smiled. "How did that feel?"
"Fantastic!" Atom said.
The operator of the machine cracked the hatch and stared at the two robots that had come to his aid.
"Oh my God, I thought I was a goner there. Who the hell are you?" he asked Atom.
"I'm Atom Tenma, now in command of the Terraforming operation. If you look back in the history books, you might find that I was once known as Astro Boy."