2952-12-25 – Tales from the Inbox: The Surveyor’s Monument
Marta K. took a deep breath as she stepped off the lander’s ramp and onto the gravelly dirt of Theobald’s Rest. The wind that whipped her short black hair bore an acrid and salty taste, but she knew well that the place was eminently habitable, with no serious atmosphere toxins.
In fact, it had already been successfully climate-formed in preparation for colonists, and those settlers had been on their way when nearby Adimari Valis had been invaded. The colonists had, probably wisely, turned their little flotilla around and returned to Maribel rather than try to set up their new home under the nose of a hostile fleet.
Marta walked around her lander once, looking for any sign of loose dirt, damage to the craft, or anything else that might render it unable to lift off. She had learned, mostly from the experience of her hapless peers, not to leave anything to chance when she was the only sapient on a whole planet. Anyone who did might end up being that planet’s permanent inhabitant.
She had come to Theobald’s Rest to investigate whether the Incarnation had put its talons into the world’s stony soil, but that mission didn’t really require landing. Indeed, she had finished that task in a few dozen orbits; there was nothing to see on the ground, and no artificial objects orbited the world except the satellites Naval Survey had left to monitor the ecological and climatological conditions. Landing was in service of a personal objective.
The lander had come down to a computer-selected landing site, the flat top of a low, stony hill overlooking a broad plain. Behind it, rugged slopes marched upwards toward a tremendous, white-capped mountain peak, the southernmost end of a long line of mountains. As Marta worked her way down the hillside, tiny, lizardlike animals skittered away from her feet and into any convenient hiding place. She paid them no mind, except to verify that they didn’t resemble any of the five dangerous species known on this world.
Long ago, Marta had lost count of the number of worlds she’d put boots down on somewhere north of five hundred. Most of them were just catalog numbers and file entries; habitable perhaps, but situated in poor locations or with undesirable conditions that saw them passed by for colonization. A dozen or so had been on the colonization track at one point or another, but only three had actually been picked up by the Colonial Initiative and assigned colonists. Of those three “babies,” only the eldest – 87216531c, now known as Theobald's Rest – had actually had colonists dispatched.
Marta had been a frontier surveyor for most of her life, and it was, in most respects, a solitary and damned thankless life. She always traveled the stars alone, except for a brief period when, love-struck, she’d married a colleague and tried to merge their affairs. That had ended as soon as it had started, as most frontier romances tended to, and she’s learned her lesson. The only lasting result of her forty odd years charting, exploring, and cataloging habitable worlds along the Coreward Frontier was the addition of three worlds to the Initiative’s roster. It was not much, but it could bear much fruit in generations to come.
Knowing that as soon as the war was over, thousands of eager settlers and vast quantities of machinery would be making long-delayed planetfall down there on the plain, Marta wanted to leave them a message. She had hoped to be there looking on when they landed, or at least to visit within the first few months to see their early successes, but years of war had brought colonization no closer and retirement was creeping up on her. Marta was still sharp as ever, but it wouldn’t be long before she was too old for solitary wandering and survey missions. Perhaps by the time the colonists arrived, she would no longer be able to visit.
At last, halfway down the slope, Marta found a spot ideal for her purpose, a relatively smooth vertical cliff formed by a freshly broken slab of hard granite. Sizing up the rock face, she unslung the plasma cutter off her shoulder, warmed it up, and aimed it up at the top. She would have to do things freehand of course, but this was far from her first pass at cutter graffiti.
After a moment’s thought, Marta pressed the trigger, adjusted the cutter’s beam length, and carved her message into the rock:
BLESS ALL WHO SETTLE
ON THIS GOOD WORLD
AND THOSE BORN TO
CALL IT HOME
M.B.K., SURVEYOR, AD 2952
With that, she lowered the cutter, surveyed her work, and started back up the slope with a wistful smile on her face.
Though Marta has not been in many of our episodes, you may recall that when we launched the text feed series, one of her adventures was the first Tale from the Inbox presented here. Now apparently nearing retirement, she responded with this brief story when I reached out to her to check in on her current situation, and I could think of nothing better to schedule for our Dec. 25th entry. Obviously we will be enjoying the Feast day here at Sagittarius Gate in the traditional Navy way, with service, food, good company, and singing. 2952 is drawing to a close, and we have many hopes for the new year, perhaps the last of this sorry conflict.
Marta, even now, is looking forward to peace, and the restarting of such joyful activities as colonization of new Frontier worlds to be lived on for generations to come. Perhaps Theobald’s Rest will become a great metropolis like Maribel some day, or perhaps it will be an insignificant and peaceful place, but whatever becomes of it will be a blessing to many millions spanning the centuries.
Nojus and the rest of the team wish you all a happy Emmanuel Feast, or Christ Mass, or whatever variation of the holiday your family celebrates.
