EarthFall

Epilogue

One year later.

Everything had gone smoothly the past 6 months. Carson had healed well enough that he didn't need a Cane anymore to walk around finally. He still did limp lightly, but he hardly noticed it anymore.

Maias transmission on Titan, the conversation between Hail and the Director, among other things, like footage of the children in their cells, had reached every Martian alive. There had been rioting. But all that was on Mars. That was Tucker's problem now. He was the Ambassador to Maia, or caretaker, or custodian of Mars, or whatever you wanna call it.

Him and Maia worked there tirelessly, working on their Terraform project.

There was now one Quancell for Earth, and one Quancell for Mars.

Apparently, they had to get some specialists to get rid of the fail safes in the ships, but after that, people came down in droves.

Abel and his band of horse riding Miners were held in high regard. They were brave, honest, and they knew the land. Suddenly everyone wanted to learn how to ride a horse. That was a headache...

When Carson last counted, there had been over 350,000 souls that had moved to Earth. It took time. They traveled slowly through the distance of space.

The Ai's couldn't help with this particular problem, Carson learned, because they needed a special mineral as a fuel source, and it had been running out on Earth.

They still wouldn't tell him what it was, but he didn't mind. No one could settle 2 million people overnight... it took time. Adjustments.

The kids were thriving. Him and Brianna had refused to think of them as anything else. Not clones of their old friends, just kids. It was working out so far.

Carson visited the sanctuary occasionally to watch the wolves grow. It was always slightly unsettling. Especially when they would lick the kids faces. It was like they were tasting them....

Brianna occasionally checked on the director, Stalfon, when she was bored or in a bad mood. It lifted her spirits.

The day before she had pulled up the camera view, and found him sleeping in his little doorless cell, hundreds of feet below the surface. There were hatches and processes for the necessities, but there was no physical way out. Gaia had made sure of that.

Carson overheard their conversation in passing.

"I told you. That's the only condition. You must physically remove your genitalia, and you'll be let free."

"But there are no tools! No equipment I can use!"

"Sounds like a personal problem to me. Try twisting. Or growing your nails out."

She shut the screen off and laughed hard, slapping her knee.

"One of these days..." She wheezed.

One of these days they would turn on the screen to find a dead man on the floor of his teeny prison, laying in his own filth, Carson thought. Or maybe not... Either way, the solar system was a little bit safer.

They had let the old Commander Hail serve life in jail on Mars. It had been a good publicity move for the planet's dedication to Democracy, Tucker said.

Carson spent his free time talking with Gaia in the various underground complexes that the Ai had carved out of the Earth. There were many, over many different continents, and they ranged from a few dozen, to a few thousand feet deep.