The Man From Mars - Episode Twenty Five

   The Scientific Compound, where Chief of Security Officer Vice President Ponleak set up shop for his Space Program, had buildings which looked other-worldly on Atlantis compared to the rest of the planet.
   His buildings had the look of early Roman texture. Masonry of cut stone blocks, formed to create beautiful efficient structures, instead of the Mars clay plastered, layer upon layer, to form an architecture of molded design.

 

   The use of steel was quite prevalent too. A metal structure was holding up, what looked liked an old United States Saturn 5 Capsule, but without the huge rocket to carry it up into space.
   It looked like it was already prepped and ready for launching.
   The only way I can describe its shape, comparing it to the old Saturn 5 capsules, would be if you had just purchased a new large size shower head. Before you connected to the plumbing.
   It was round, with a flat top. It had a straight, thirty foot part that looked like the screw portion of a shower head that would attach to the plumbing. Then it coned out aggressively, with a slightly curved bottom.
    And even I knew, whatever they used to protect the curved bottom, it would absorb all of the heat caused by hitting the molecules of an exosphere and then descending through the rest of a planet's atmosphere.
   Unlike the the Earth's cone shaped crafts of the early 1960s, which barely fit two astronauts, the Atlantean craft was large enough to fit a small colony. Maybe thirty to thirty five passengers. With enough room for food and provisions to colonize a new planet.

   I knew by looking at it, given this was a reverie from Ponleak past, that the technology used for space flight for this Atlantean space ship was based on magnetism.
   And I knew, from the knowledge that both I and Ponleak now shared through his dreams, that magnetic forces were throughout our solar system.

   All of our planets, in our Sun's system, have magnetic fields during this time, in the solar system's evolution. A time before Mars and Venus lost theirs.
   Before the core of those planets stopped rotating, or to other forces I am not yet privy to.
   Jupiter, of course has the strongest field amongst the planets, but not known until recently to scientist on the planet Earth, the Sun's magnetic field reaches to the edge of our solar system. And unlike what you were taught in school, the solar system does not end with the planets, it extends even further, beyond the Kuiper belt.

   A region in the outer reaches of our solar system, full of disc-shaped icy bodies and dusty comets beyond the orbit of Neptune.

   The Sun's magnetic field protects even these unbelievable far off celestial bodies from galactic cosmic radiation. The heliosphere, as mankind has named it, is the magnetic lines in which the Ponleak spacecraft travels.
    I walk onto my compound, with security guards saluting me every where I go. Security Officer Bopha runs up to me and briefs me on the situation at the building for scientific study, while we walk towards it.
   As soon as we are in sight of the building, one of the hostages is thrown from a fourth floor balcony, and falls to his death. Screams of horrific shock and anger can be heard from the men and women scientist looking on, and from the security guards standing near the fallen victim.
   It seems, hostage taking is something quite new here on Atlantis. The shock of someone actually killing someone else, who is bound by ties and completely defenseless, is appalling to the spectators.
   From the balcony, one Atlantean stands forward, dressed in the uniform of the Board Member's Security Team.
   "Ponleak. You can see we mean business." Says the lone Guard. "We will kill one hostage every Atlantean hour if our demands are not met."
   I spoke in a calm and judicial manner, when I said, "What will you bargain with once you have killed all of the hostages then?"
   He was stunned by my question. Something he and the group he represented, were not expecting.
   He stood there, confused.
   So I spoke up again.
   "I have a different offer. I will let you and your men live if you release the rest of hostages unharmed."
    He retreated behind the rail of the balcony without saying a word. I assume to speak to his compatriots.
    Everyone on the ground watching could hear as a heated argument pursued from the fourth floor balcony.
   The lone Guard was losing his command.

To Be Continued...

Next Thursday.

This is,

Wondering How The Hostage Situation Will Work Out,

Jim Hauenstein,

And,

“There is a flower that grows on Mars. It is red and harsh and fit for our soil. It is called haemanthus. It means “blood blossom.”
- Pierce Brown, -

That is my story and I am sticking to it!

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