Tesla Town

‘Were you born on Mars, grandpa?’ Andrea said.

‘No, I wasn’t’, Victor said, bent over the pitiful carrot patch. ‘Damn slugs! Thought I got rid of them.’

‘Mom says you were.’

‘I was conceived there. Know what that is? Conceived?’

‘I know. I’m six years old.’

‘Your great-grandmother was pregnant with me, and she only discovered it on the way back home to Earth.’ Victor stretched his back and moaned. ‘I’ll have to put wool on the soil. Think your mother has some lying around, from the sheep shearing.’

‘Why wool?’

‘Slugs don’t like wool. They get caught in it.’

Andrea wasn’t distracted. ‘So how come you never talk about it? Mars?’

‘Long time ago, sweetheart. And since I wasn’t even born there, what would I know?’ Victor smiled at the girl. She was nothing if not a charmer. Inquisitive, though, he thought, but inquisitive is how you learn.

‘How come there aren’t people there anymore? Why did my great granny leave?’

Victor let his shoulders drop. It’s a sad story. People got sick, and …’

‘Did she get sick? What about your dad?’ Andrea said.

‘They … all died. Except for my mother and a few others, who somehow survived the plague. They squeezed into the only shuttle left at the space port and managed to manoeuvre it back to Earth.’ Victor scratched his greying beard. ‘Now let’s go look at the cabbages, if they’re faring any better.’

They set off to the other end of Victor’s vegetable garden, Andrea tugging at her grandfather’s shirt sleeve. ‘Your dad died there, too? And you never got to see him?’

Victor sighed. ‘I never knew him. So yes, he died up there, in Tesla Town. Together with more than three and a half thousand people.’

‘What was Tesla Town, grandpa?’

‘A sort of town, a small town … did you know Tesla was a car way back in the old days? They named the car after an engineer who improved on the use of electricity. Or something like that, if I remember right. Then the town was called Tesla Town because of the car company, I guess.’

Once they reached the cabbage field, on the top of an incline, they could see the city towers sticking up on the horizon. All cities were built from the same blueprints, accommodating those who were willing to become part of the Great Uplift.

Integrated in the enormous towers, hydroponic gardens made the cities self-sufficient in farm produce. Infrastructure, transportation and public services were for the most part taken care of by automatons, under the control of all-encompassing city brains. The few people who opted out of the city life usually took up farming and trades in abandoned areas between the tower clusters. Victor and his small family were among them.

The Uplift authorities mostly left people outside the cities to their own devices but provided them with free medical care, as well as education for the children. Under some doubt, Victor’s daughter and stepson had decided to enrol Andrea in the nearby school, and she seemed to be thriving there together with a handful of other children from the neighbourhood. Although the schoolhouse was situated only a couple of kilometres away, Victor had never visited it, nor the nearby clinic.

Infrequently, Uplift representatives paid them visits, politely urging them to join one of the cities. With birth rates stubbornly falling at a dramatic rate, the Uplift needed every soul it could persuade to become part of the great future, they explained.

The cabbages were ripe for harvesting at this time of the year and had all reached normal size. Victor hunched down to inspect the outer leaves. ‘These look fine. The neighbour persuaded me to plant lavender in between, and it seems to work. The bugs and snails don’t like the smell. Of lavenders, I mean.’

Andrea persisted. ‘But what was it like? Tesla Town?’

Victor tore off a leaf and shoved it into his mouth. ‘Well, they tried to build a place to live safely. It was to become a real town, on Mars, but beneath the ground. It was madness, but the Tesla guy sent hundreds of spaceships with supplies and equipment. Hey, these leaves taste pretty good. Want to try?’

Andrea shook her head and made a grimace. ‘Why did they have to live under the ground?’

‘There’s no proper air on Mars. No oxygen. You cannot breathe on Mars. And then there is the radiation.’ Victor pointed upwards. ‘Like the sun, when you get sunburn when you’re playing outside and don’t use sunscreen.’

‘Why didn’t they use it? Sunscreen?’

‘No use up there. Radiation was … like, hundred or thousand times stronger. Not only from the sun, but from space itself. It burns you to death. They had to wear heavy suits to walk on the ground, suits like they use on the moon, and for short periods only.’

‘And then they built houses in tunnels?’

‘Well, not exactly houses, Andrea. It was more like people had their own rooms in big caves. Still … radiation got through. And after a few years something much worse.’

Victor looked at his grandchild and realized it was too late to backtrack. He sighed and dived into it. As best he could he explained how microorganisms brought along from Earth mutated at high speed when exposed to cosmic rays and the strange surface compounds of Mars. The idea had been to accelerate growth condition for vegetables, and initially it was a great success. But eventually, the organisms changed into virulent pathogens in the soil, in the air, and ultimately inside people’s bodies. No one understood exactly how it happened, much less how to stop it.

Victor got down on one knee and held a hand on Andrea’s shoulder. ‘So, over a few weeks … they died one by one. Only a few got away, as I explained, and my mother was one of them. However …’

‘What?’

‘She was infected, after all, just like the others who returned to Earth. Infected means …’

‘I know what infected is. Getting influenza or catch a cold. Or covid.’ The girl hesitated. ‘But you were born before she died?’

‘Yes.’ Victor got up again. ‘And by that time, the maniac had long forgotten us.’

‘What maniac? Who had forgotten you, Grandpa?’

‘The Tesla guy. The X guy. He …’ Victor made a wry smile. ‘Never mind, Andrea. By this time, he had his hands full creating the new order back here on Earth. Making the world what it has become. The Uplift shit.’

‘Why do you call it shit?’

‘As I said, never mind. You’ll learn more in school. Though not the whole story. Definitely not the full story. Come on, girl, let’s go make us some lunch. OK? Grandpa’s home-grown tomatoes and cheese?’

They walked together in silence towards the small farmhouse. As they approached the front door, Andrea stopped.

‘Grandpa?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’ve seen him, that guy you’re talking about.’

‘You have?’

‘It’s the man outside the schoolhouse.’

‘What man? The man I was talking about is long dead, Andrea.’

‘I don’t mean a real man. I mean the statue. We greet it every morning and sing that song.’

‘A song? For him?’

Andrea nodded, drew her breath and started to sing.

‘He freed the whole of humankind, to live and join the Uplift Mind.

He made the Earth a greater place, set our path and taught us how.

Onward and upward let us race, he decides from here on now.’

She paused and looked up on Victor.

‘Do you know it, Grandpa? The song?’

‘No. I don’t’, he said hoarsely, his stare trained in the direction of the school. ‘Come on inside, Andrea. Lunchtime, right?’

That night, Victor went to the tool shed and found his heaviest sledgehammer. He made sure the others were asleep and trudged off into a darkness only broken by the misty skyglow from the city towers.

© Copyright Jørn A Jensen - A Norwegian version has been published by nyenova.no