A rare Earth delicacy was offered in abundance at the annual celebration on Mars celebrating the founding of the Capital Dome. Tens of millions of sea urchins are harvested each year and brought to the Capital Domes. The elite among the Martian citizens gifted at least 2-3 sea urchins of a modest size and quality. While Martians grow their own local varieties, they find the succulent flesh of an Earth sea urchin of a quality without peer.
Arlen prepared a whole platter for Pei, Kallos and myself. He was rationed several small wooden crates and we marveled at the sight of all of them atop a bed of ice. To the untrained eye they looked no different from a Martian varietal and when properly seasoned and prepared by an expert hand, almost indistinguishable.
They melted on the tongue and we finished the platter. It was a luxury neither Kallos and I had ever experienced on Io Station. The only sea creature we were well acquainted with dried algae and sea kelp protein. But here on Mars we enjoyed and spoiled ourselves. Himetsu became our favorite haunt on weekends when not in training or on drill.
The Grand Traveler was being retrofitted as new parts were made available including what was rumored potential substitute pieces for the inoperable star drive. This surprising turn delayed its departure and Arlen thumbed his nose at Pei.
For centuries, scientists on both Earth and Mars have tried to reverse engineer and build a working star drive. They came close on several occasions, the most recent with a small probe they launched past Neptune and tracked making its way near Alpha Centauri before losing contact. That test was kept secret and conducted by a hand picked scientists by the Neo-Artesians who long suspected the sisters have withheld the technology.
The naval summit was also convened to discuss preparations for a full scale test of the rebuild star drive and the Grand Traveler was the obvious candidate. The Neo-Artesians wanted to see for themselves why the sisters abandoned deep space travel and what did they find on Alpha Centauri.
Kallos and and I both resounded in unison that they found proof of sentient alien life. And that the entire universe was teeming with little green men. Pei smiled at our childish antics and shared that the sisters did indeed finding something on Alpha Centauri and specifically on one of the unknown planets orbiting the binary star system. She herself was never made privy, but the rumors among the initiates was they did find ruins of an ancient civilization and that they were our ancestors who came here to inhabit planet Earth.
They were leaving a dying world in search of a new one. But to the sisters dismay, mankind had already traveled to Alpha Centauri thousands of years before and from the ruins they scavenged much of the advance technology we take for granted today. It should come as no mere coincidence that mankind in a few short decades progressed to such a pinnacle that should have taken many centuries. The pace of progress was too much for mankind and nearly brought about their downfall.
We pondered if our purported ancestors from Alpha Centauri were so advanced that we later learned to improve our own technology, why did they lack all of that when they first made Earth their new found home? Pei had thought the same thing years before and accepted the theory that for whatever reason the Alpha Centaurians shunned their technology as anathema and wanted to start a new, simpler existence. But like our ancestors, we share the same penchant for finding our woe.
In any case, once the Grand Traveler completes its final retrofit and the restoration of its star drives we would all discover the truth of what the sisters found. Pei then asked, as she balanced a shot glass, if the Neo-Artesians wanted to keep this a secret how she as a sister marine already knew this. She laughed at the incompetence.
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