May

Issue 32

     My companions laughed and chatted while I felt bitter and grim, showing only a nervous smile. They didn't know our next mission had a projected 90 percent casualty rate. I wasn't about to break the news, not yet.

     "The most beautiful planet is, of course, Vesta, not that there's a heck of a lot of competition," Bartlett was saying in his raspy-throated, deep South twang. "Rainbow streams, soft velvet skies, lush green forests, scenic mountains. The planet's breathtaking."

     "And home to one of the greatest mysteries in the galaxy," Lupe said, taking a sip from her margarita.

     We sat at a table in one of the space station Magellan's bars, several hundred light years from Earth.

     "Vesta's also central to one of the biggest controversies back on Earth," Tequesta said, holding her bottle of Alpine Ale. She's the youngest of our group and didn't want to be left out of the conversation.  How old was she? Seventeen? But war has always been a young person's game. Only in the genetic age can older folks play equally well. Even so, the blond-haired, blue-eyed Tequesta could have led a high school cheering squad instead of blowing up Skellian jets. She has the diamond-tough confidence of the young. Once she was asked, "Are you as good as they say you are?"

     "Even better," she replied.

     Bartlett picked up his glass of ice and Jack Daniels.  "Politics," he  snorted. "Who would have thought that after man climbs up from the muck and mire, builds civilizations, manipulates his own genes and explores space, the biggest question our public officials are debating is real estate development. Real estate development!"

     “It's a serious question," Lupe said. "Vesta is the loveliest, most unblemished, pristine planet we've ever found. Even the animals are vegetarians. There are no predators. The birds eat insects and some big fish eat smaller fish, but that's the extent of the bloodshed there. So what do we do? We print tourist brochures and make plans to build condos."

     I touched her arm. "No, no. Not just condos. Golf courses."