James Axler – Parallax Red Parallax Red

The voice droned on, providing a history of the fascination held by all Earth cultures toward Mars. The three-dimensional image on the stage continued to display a leisurely flyover of monotonous terrain.

“I hope this picks up,” said Kane, stifling a yawn.

It didn’t. After the novelty of the holovision passed, the presentation became almost intolerably tedious. Sindri sensed their impatience and growing boredom.

“Keep watching,” he said. “There’s a little secret hidden in this documentary, and it’s worth a bit of your time.”

“Don’t you have a fast-forward button on your remote?” Grant asked.

“Of course,” replied Sindri, sounding a little peeved. “I’d prefer if you watched it through.”

Exterior views of Parallax Red appeared with the narrator providing an excruciatingly detailed account of its construction and purpose. The scene shifted to the interior of a manufacturing facility aboard the station, full of forges and presses. People wearing pressure suits swabbed down thick slabs of a translucent substance.

“Utilizing zero gravity,” the voice intoned, “the engineers aboard the Parallax Red station developed a method of plasticizing metals that could revolutionize every Earth industry that today depends on either material. Indeed, armaglass is already in limited usage.”

The scene suddenly switched to a desolate, wind-swept landscape, with clouds of reddish dust billowing about. Figures in space suits operated heavy machinery, digging and excavating equipment.

“Employing the discoveries made upon Parallax Red ,” said the narrator, “the establishment of Cydonia Compound One began in late 1990. The organic environment of Mars, in all its complexity, presented the most difficult challenges for the brave colonists.”

On stage, single-storied, metal-ribbed domes on concrete-slab bases began appearing across the terrain. An interminable number of exterior-construction sequences dissolved into an equally interminable number of interior-construction sequences. Though he felt himself nodding off, it occurred to Kane that no mention of the so-called Monuments of Mars had been made.

The narrator declared, “The colonists had to adapt and they did so with great ingenuity.”

The scene changed to a view of a field of rich soil, with leafy vegetation sprouting out of it. The perspective widened, showing that the field was enclosed within a pressure dome.

“Another development made on Parallax Red benefited the Cydonia Compounda method of synthesizing from ordinary soil any kind of vegetable growth. Human ingenuity, adapted to a world not native to humans. However, adapting an alien world to fit human physiologies is only one of the options open to us.”

Sindri sat up straight in his chair.

“It might be more convenient to adapt the descendants of our colonists to the alien world. It is certainly more desirable, more cost-effective than terra-forming. If humans are to live on Mars, they must adapt to a low-gravity, oxygen-poor environment. They must stay warm in low temperatures and draw oxygen from the thin atmosphere.”

The image jumped to a setting inside of a sterile laboratory. People in white smocks, surgical masks and caps bustled purposefully around pieces of gleaming equipment and racks of test tubes.

“If there are to be humans spending their entire lives in space or on the surface of Mars,” the deep voice stated, “we must improve the body’s ability to adapt itself and redesign it to suit the new conditions. To this end, Overproject Excalibur’s subdivisions have proved exceptionally helpful.”

A side view of an upright human skeleton appeared on the stage.

“The fact that human beings stand erect against Earth’s gravity poses certain problems that have been solved by skeletal and body-mass modifications.”

The image of the skeleton seemed to shrink in size, acquiring a hunched-over posture. At the same time, the length of the arms increased and the foot bones rearranged themselves, the big toe sliding down toward the heel and extending outward, transforming into a double-jointed thumb.

“In a lighter-gravity environment,” said the narrator, “strain would no longer be put on the spine by maintaining an erect posture, and our heavy supportive legs would become redundant. Modifying the legs into a second pair of arms would be particularly useful because one of the problems in working in a near weightless environment is anchorage.

“Obviously such an undertaking is difficult, but in the fullness of time, it will be attempted and”

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