Free Phobos: Mayan Fear by Steve Alten

and three times as long, each of these seven-story buildings contains two monstrous bay doors that lead onto one of two launch tarmacs. Unlike the antiquated STS shuttles employed by NASA, the Mars fleet are space planes, designed for horizontal takeoffs and landings.
    The private office of Lilith Mabus is located on the fifth floor in Building 1. Bay windows look down upon one of the twelve completed Mars passenger shuttles, the transport vehicle four times larger than those designed seventy years ago by NASA’s engineers and more than twice the girth of H.O.P.E.’s original Earth-orbiting space plane. The CEO works at her computer, carefully finalizing the list of 875 passengers and twenty-four pilots who will be granted salvation on Mars Colony.
    The remaining eight thousand elitists who were guaranteed passage, along with the world’s other 9 billion people, will remain behind on Earth to die.

    Selecting the survivors had been a tricky process. To design and build the Mars Colony and the fleet of space planes and supply shuttles necessary to complete the venture had required fifteen years, two trillion dollars, and a small city of skilled laborers, engineers, and rocket scientists. Acquiring the talent and money while safeguarding Yellowstone’s rapidly changing timetable had required cunning. Lilith knew how to play the game, offering passage for favors, the threat of cancellation ensuring secrecy. It never bothered her that her financial partners in the New World Order would be left behind. In truth, Lilith had no use for the vermin on Mars; her priority was to amass the most qualified experts in the fields of science, engineering, agriculture, and medicine, then scrutinize the gene pool. Variety was as essential to ensuring the colony’s survival and future expansion as the tens of thousands of frozen plant seeds already en route to the Red Planet. Just as important was compatibility. Democracy was a luxury reserved for large populations—a useful tool that provided the masses with the illusion of freedom.
    Mars Colony would function best under autocratic rule. No one perceived as a potential future threat to the Mabus clan’s leadership would be permitted on board.

    Lilith is reviewing the medical histories of three hundred electrical engineers when the video communication blinks to life on one of her monitors, establishing a connection with Mars.
    Alexei Lundgard’s face appears, the bearded Russian engineer’s expression grim. “The supply ferries arrived. We’re still short seven hundred metric tons of steel.”
    “Two more supply ships will launch on the tenth.”
    “This does me little good now.”
    “What about mining operations on the two moons?”
    “Deimos is yielding water and organic compounds. Phobos appears to be a hollow mass of iron, we’ve destroyed three drills attempting to excavate its surface. There is some potential good news. One of our tomography satellites detected a vein of metallic ore approximately 220 meters below the surface of the Vastitas Borealis basin. If usable, there should be more than enough to complete the third biodome.”
    Lilith accesses a map of Mars on her monitor, quickly locating the basin. “The area’s not volcanic, it used to be a primordial sea. How could—”
    Devlin bursts into her office, the teen’s pale cheeks flushed, his blood vessel–laced eyes wide with excitement. “Did you feel it? There’s a disturbance in the higher realms.”
    “What sort of disturbance? Has Immanuel finally entered the Nexus?”
    “It’s not Immanuel, it’s Jacob. His light is filtering down from the Upper Worlds.”

4

Dreams that you gather, until the day that you are taken
from the Earth. Dreams are the substance of the heavenly
juice, the heavenly dew; the yellow flower from heaven is
dream. Perchance have I taken from you your time, have
I taken from you your sustenance?
—CHILAM BALAM,

    THE BOOK OF THE ENIGMAS

    MIDNIGHT

    W aiting for Lag b’Omer