~~~~~oOo~~~~~
How did this all happen? This started off like any other day on the farm. Joe sees it all unwinding in his mind as the Controller continues to loop its call for everyone to present themselves for questioning.
Joe begins reliving the day starting at the moment he returned to the house after his morning walk to the field. He sees himself enter the kitchen and call out for his wife... “Hun? Hey Carrie...” He walks to the living room door and looks in. “Hey, Carr what’cha doing?”
She looks up at him from the sofa where she sits holding a view frame that is slowly showing images one after another. “Oh just reminiscing. I came across some old pictures of Bobby. You know the ones we took when he was here right before he went to work on that agro-sphere.” Her voice takes a noticeable jump and sharpens on the word agro-sphere.
Joe walks toward her a few steps. “Well, I know how close you two were.”
He waits...
“Yeah, me and Bobby did everything together when we were growin up.” She laughs a short chuckle. “We even wore each others cloths. Ain’t it a sin?”
He smiles and steps over to give her hair a soft brush. “You always were a bit of a hard case. I’m just glad my coveralls don’t fit you.”
She looks at him again, this time with a question in her eyes, as if hoping to open a long closed subject. “It’s not like it used to be. Something is very wrong in the way I feel the world. It was there before Bobby died, and now it’s never...”
She almost starts to cry but stops herself. She starts speaking again, this time, as if determined to get beyond the personal connection she feels to this thought. “My dad used to read to us kids. He told us some secret stories too… mostly when the wind would be howlin and rattlin the house. Me and Bobby could listen to him for hours on end. One of our favorite stories was from a time when people could plant whatever they wanted on their own land. And if somebody wanted to change their mind and up and move on...”
The man touches her shoulder to get her attention. He sees where this is going. “I have to go to the barn to make sure all the machines came in from the field. You wanna come along for the walk?” He winks and nods towards the door.
She suddenly seems to snap out of her daydream and over a few seconds perks up. She stands... “Sure I’ll go with ya. Why didn’t you just say so?”
They are silent as they start down the walkway toward the barn. They start out as quickly as possible for folks their age, but as they reach the fence they slow to a crawl and begin talking; him first...
“Carrie, I know what your dad told you, and it’s all true. It really was like that. But that was a long time ago, before even our grandparents were born. We can't risk getting all upset about it inside. You know how it is, even here the farm we gotta be loyal.”
“I’m telling you Joe, I know somebody lied about Bobby. I let it rest while the kids were growin, but these last couple years it’s been coming back to me.”
“I know Hun... he wanted to go into space. He was a good farmer and he got picked to do what he wanted to, that’s the truth.”
Carrie stops and waits for Joe to turn to look back at her... “That’s part of the truth. But why didn’t we hear from him for so long. That agro-sphere exploded 2 years after his last letter. He wrote every couple weeks for a year and a half, then just like that nothing.”
Joe steps towards her while glancing this way and that... “Shush, Carrie. You’re gettin all upset.”
Carrie starts to wave her arms a bit while talking now. “I want to know. Damn it, where was he for those 2 years.”
Joe sees that he needs to get his wife as far as possible from the voice receivers that surround the house and barn. He grabs her by both shoulders and looks into her eyes. “Follow my lead.”
They head into the barn where he does the usual once over of the automated farm-hands that have just come in from a long night in the field. He’s checking mostly for leaks and any units that didn’t plug themselves in correctly. He walks back to the area where the tractors are; half a dozen huge fully automated and completely adaptable rigs capable of doing every type of major field maintenance job with only a minimum of human attention.
Actually, all of this attention to the farm equipment is just make work for Joe. Kind of like a running wheel in a hamster cage; meant solely to entertain Joe and give him something to do to feel useful. The robots don’t really need Joe checking on them. And somewhere in the back of Joe’s mind, he knows that, but they do leave something or other broken or undone for him to take care of every now and again. Not this morning though... and once the sun is a little higher all these units will begin charging for tonight’s work.
Joe takes his wife’s hand as they walk about the tractors. Eventually they come to a stop. There in front of them is a beautiful red and black 2019 Case-International Harvester 225 Magnum Pro. This tractor is almost 2000 years old and yet, it looks brand new. And while Joe does start it up now and again, and sometimes even rides it around inside the barn, he has only driven this baby outdoors a few times since he inherited it. One of those times was the day he married Carry.
He looks at her with a sly smile. “What do you think? You wanna to go for a ride?”
She looks surprised and at the same time starts to get the idea. A mischievous grin forms on her aged lips. “Why Joseph Turner, are you proposing something scandalous?”
He opens the cab and offers her a hand up and in. Once they are both inside he goes through the ritual required to fire up the tractor. It moans a few cranks and then that loud 21st century bio-diesel engine screams to life and drowns out everything. They can hear each other, but only if they just about yell. He points to the door. She feels like a little kid making a break for it.
Once outside, the engine does not seem so loud and they are able to talk so long as they remember to speak up. They reach the edge of the field. He pushes a few buttons to enter the autopilot information, he releases the wheel... and the tractor starts down the center service lane out into the field. Carrie slides towards and right up against him. She is waiting for him to start.
“Okay, Carrie. I can see you getting more upset with this every passing day. We went over this 35 years ago when Bobby died. There was nothing that we could do then, and I don’t see the use of diggin it up now, but I know you... You’re not going to let it go... are you?”
She has a very serious look in her eyes as she looks into his and says. “I don’t believe a thing we were told about those last couple years. I don’t think Bobby’s death was an accident. I let it go back then because we had Taylor’s kids here. Well, I’m gettin old... We’re getting old.” she stress this thought by squeezing his arm... “I don’t give a damn anymore, I want the truth.”
He grabs the wheel with both hands, but not to steer... More to steady himself against what he’s about to say and the effect it will have on their lives. He locks his eyes on some point far in the distance.
“Okay... Let’s just git’it done then...
A couple months after we got the news about Bobby, when me and Jimmy went huntin, we talked it over. Jimmy knew some people that could find things out. He had already heard that the truth was a big mystery, even to his best sources. He did say that the rumor was that way too many people were reported dead... more than any sphere could ever support.
Well then he called me out of the blue a little later and invited me on a fishing trip. When I got there it was six guys, and me and Jimmy. One of those guys told me that he used to get radio transmissions from his kid on the Mercury Power Source Orbital sphere. His kid was...”
She interrupts. “How did he get transmissions? I thought they were outlawed, controlled.”
He glances at her, and then stares straight ahead again. “They are, but him and his son were both into some underground network.” He looks at her and raises an eyebrow... “Very t
ricky stuff... That’s why Jimmy invited me along, to meet this guy. Anyway, this guy tells me that his kid intercepted some message that was being sent from Mars. Remember when we were in school and they taught us that Mars was the death planet. That all who went there died. Well, there were still people living there 37 years ago. The message the kid intercepted was from some survivors or somethin; live people on Mars!”
Now, she is staring at him almost in shock, partly because of what he is saying, and partly because he has kept this a secret from her for all these years. Slowly she shakes the feeling off and looks at him as if she is about to burst with questions. Joe can see in her eyes what she is going through.
“Stay with me Hon. Just let me finish... The best this guy could figure, transmissions had been being sent from Mars all along, only they were being blocked. Somehow that one message leaked through towards Mercury and his son recorded it."
"Anyway, his son’s transmission to Earth about the signal from Mars was his last. He told me his guess was that the sphere was destroyed because it had been infected by the truth about Mars. If you go to town and ask anyone you’ll get the same answer; Mars is a dead planet. No one even thinks to question that any more. It must be important to keep that lie going, important enough to kill all those people. They tried to get that guy too. He was keeping alive by staying as low-tech as possible; stayin on the move and outta sight.”
Joe can see Carrie thinking. Everything has changed. What was the truth is suddenly interlaced with lies and deceit.
She looks at him. “But what about Bobby? Why no news for 2 years before that sphere exploded? What about him just disappearing? That can’t have anything to do with the message.”
“Yeah, well this guy had a piece of information about that too. At least it might have something to do with Bobby. The kid had intercepted stray signals from unknown sources a number of times before that one from Mars. One time, he picked up a message about a group of plant specialist going from an agro-sphere to look into “refining the process”. Part of that message talked about the spring growth line advancing towards the poles at a much accelerated rate compared to prior years.
Maybe the agro-sphere Bobby was on was connected to whatever was going on with Mars. Remember the old story that before they banned telescopes... people were reporting strange new markings on Mars near the poles, perhaps some sort ‘a growth? Maybe it’s not a myth...”
She looks at him and snaps her head back at the thought. “You don’t think Bobby went to Mars?”
“Don’t know for sure. This is hard cause it’s a lot of guessing and weak evidence. But we all knew that Bobby never had no call to go to Mercury... he would have told us about that. This next part I do know for sure though... cause I lived it”
They both stare straight ahead as he goes on.
“I checked around a little more after that, just asking a few simple questions of the county records office and like that... trying to see if there was an open door to the truth. So one day I’m in the field adjusting a weeder-bot; now this was right before Brianna had her first... all of the sudden everything goes black. When I came to I was in a hover lifter’s grip, looking down from above the field. A Controller was floatin right in front of me and saying that I needed to work harder and ask less questions.”
He looks over at her intently. “That’s why I never spoke of Bobby’s death again, I had my answer; what ever happened... it was not an accident. I'm pretty sure they used the Mercury Orbiter to get rid of a lot of people that weren't even on it, Bobby included. But, I needed to stay focused on you and the kids. So I pretended. Plus, with the grandkids and all, well I...’ He reaches his arm around her and pulls her tight against him. “I just wanted to live out the rest of our lives and enjoy what we have together.”