Eccentrics (provisional)

A Knowing Mars story, by tycho garen
on 17th September 2008. (commentary)

I’m going to take a little more time than ususal before today’s installment of a Knowing Mars story to say a few things. First off, this is the last installment of the second chapter of the novella (10 chapters total), and it’s also the 20th installment of Knowing Mars. I look forward to sharing the rest with you. Having said that, I’m pretty ambivolent about this section, and it’s been dragging down my enthusiasm for Chapter 2. In conventional publishing, an editor would probably tell me to throw it out, because it’s preachy and it streatches Matt’s narratorial role a bit too far, but since you all are my editors you can tell me to ditch it, if you don’t think it fits. Hence the “provisional” tag on the tile. I want to thank you all for putting up with me this far (and telling your friends as well!) and I hope you stick around to see what happens. The plan is Station Keeping for the rest of the week, and more Mars next week. Thanks again!

Eccentrics

I’ve mentioned before that Taban and Kalian, were unusual and memorable individuals. While telepathy itself doesn’t affect observable morphology at all, this didn’t prevent Taban and Kalian from seeming, well, a little bit off to the casual observer. Those of us that spent a lot of time with them, adjusted quickly, which made interacting with the unknowing public an interesting experience when Taban and Kalian were around. By now, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve avoided referring to Taban and Kalian as being either male and female: this is a reflection of their own custom, and a tradition that I hope to cary on. While I’m not sure that it had much to do with telepathy; it does, even to the most contemporary readers, require a little bit of explanation.

It would be incorrect to say that Taban and Kalian didn’t have gender, or sexed bodies: they had both, and for the most part fairly typical in their expression of these traits. I said earlier that they had slight builds which I am convinced allowed them to “pass” their avoidance of “man” and “women” with some success. When in public situations, particularly on earth, they were almost always assumed that they were both “she,” in print they were almost always both “he,” at least sometimes. I’ve attempted to remain true to their wishes to “not get pinned down” in this text.

Without fail questions about Taban and Kalian’s gender or sex are among the most common that I’ve received since I got to know them closely. I’m sure this is a remnant of them speaking, but the fact that society can never seem to decide if it’s “sex” or “gender,” at least in popular usage, only confirms the fact that no one really knows what they’re talking about. Taban and Kalian, were eccentrics, rebels, or deviants and I think that their refusal to claim “man” or “woman,” was a large part of this feature of their characters: so I suppose in this respect, their gender-rebelion was part of a larger revolt against convention that grew out of their experience of telepathy.

At the same time, while I met Taban and Kalian before they had reached the height of their ability, I only knew them after they had met each other, and after they had made their original discoveries into telepathy, so I guess my perspective is less than helpful on this matter. I don’t think Taban and Kalian’s rejection was anything more than a specific rejection of categories that by all accounts did not fit them, and I have attempted to remain true to this aspect of Taban and Kalian’s story.

Matthew Connor, MD
Mars, 2597

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SA Thom Busby, ISA; Part 2

A Knowing Mars story, by tycho garen
on 15th August 2008. (commentary)

This is the second part of another excerpt from Matthew Connor’s narrative written in 2597 in the Knowing Mars story. Read part 1 if you haven’t already.

In the intervening years, I have tried to avoid considering if Taban and Kalian–all of us really–attracted undue attention to ourselves by hiding out or leaving Earth, but Quinn assured me that this wasn’t the case, and that despite appearances Busby was really too busy pining after some ill gotten notion of lost glory or some-such, to think through his cases objectively. And yet, I do believe that although Busby might not have set out to chase after telepaths, there is no doubt that he became a telepath hunter.

Yet, I remain unable to completely comprehend his motives, even after all these years. Telepathy, or more properly, the existence of free telepaths living and operating in society was a possibility that he was unable to assimilate normally. Many people had problems with telepathy in similar ways, but it’s clear that Busby was exceptional in this regard. He was not simply worried that someone might learn his deepest and darkest secrets, but rather took telepathy as some sort of personal affront. This is conjecture: I never talked to him earnestly, if that were possible, and no telepath that I’ve ever known of got a read of him, so I suppose we’ll never know.

At first, Busby wasn’t a special concern concern, there were ways for Taban and Kalian to avoid getting caught for cyber-crimes, but as the Morgans developed their skill they became much more worried about discovery. Or perhaps I should say, they were worried about being discovered if it wasn’t on their terms. Even before they left for Mars, there was a fairly substantial community of telepaths on Earth, and a minority of non-telepaths like myself, who were all “in the know.” Particularly in retrospect we all knew that it was something of an open secret, but it was hard to see that in the moment.

So by early 2542, Taban and Kalian left Earth for Mars. I had never expected to join them, nor do I think at the time they intended to move back to Earth when telepathy had “blown over,” but that is I suppose the reason why the future is always “yet to be.” In any case Mars Colony was far from perfect in many respects, more so then than now, but it was controlled and Mars represented a fresh start that we all found attractive in contrast to Earth, which to all of us felt wrapped up in too many traditions and stale habits.

I suppose if I had to come up with only one thing that I learned from Taban and Kalian, it would that we all need fresh starts from time to time. Thankfully I don’t.

Matthew Connor, MD
Mars, 2597

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Morgan Arrival, Part 5

A Knowing Mars story, by tycho garen
on 11th August 2008. (commentary)

This is fifth and final part of the “Morgan Arrival” Story from the Knowing Mars project. Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. My original header for this section was Morgan Residence, Mars Colony 2542. Which, though descriptive, isn’t particularly unique or distinctive, so instead we have “Morgan Arrival.” This is the final five part sequence of Chapter 1. Enjoy.

“First day on Mars wasn’t so bad…” Taban said, taking the encryption pendants from their ports on the computer. Taban handed one to Kalian, and although tired they spent a moment refastening the pendants to to the straps around their necks.

“Thanks.” Kalian, said. “The day was a little bit long, you have to admit.”

“Only forty-minutes,” Taban protested as they stumbled awkwardly towards their bedroom. They hadn’t even explored this far into the apartment yet, but beds, unlike computers, didn’t require a lot of custom setup.

“Thirty-nine and a half, and you’re the one who wanted the longer days,” Kalian said laughing as they reached the bedroom.

“Fine fine,” Taban said. “Lights out?”

“Sure,” Kalian said, and then it was dark. They were asleep inside of ten minutes.

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Morgan Arrival, Part 4

A Knowing Mars story, by tycho garen
on 8th August 2008. (commentary)

This is fourth part of the “Morgan Arrival” Story from the Knowing Mars project. Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. My original header for this section was Morgan Residence, Mars Colony 2542. Which, though descriptive, isn’t particularly unique or distinctive, so instead we have “Morgan Arrival.” This is the final five part sequence of Chapter 1. Enjoy.

“Ok, sure.” Kalian staved off a yawn and then thumbed the command button. “Hi Doc–Matt. We’re here, we have the space and it’s great. Bigger than your place! There’s a bit of dust around though… Anyway, we have the computer in order, it looks like,” Kalian looked away from the recorder unit to Taban, who gave a quick nod. “Yeah, a lot of our stuff is here, there should be a few more coming. But you probably know all this stuff. We’re well… but tired.” Kalian blinked a couple of times and looked at Taban for another cue. Getting the message out was so important an hour ago, and now that the work had been done Kalian couldn’t remember what was so important to say. .

Taban moved closer to Kalian and continued, “Any new information you have on what Busby has been up to would be great. I think we almost ran into one of his staff at the space yards on Earth, but I don’t think they were on the transport with us, and we’ve been clear since then. Though I suspect you all back home were a little nervous over it, radio silence was really great idea, and after the initial shock I think we enjoyed the break.” Taban chuckled. “Since we’ve been offline for so long, I’m curious to see whats happened; I know it isn’t your thing, but I’m still worried about whats happening on the nets Earthside, I can’t imagine that there’s anything good happening here, what with the population what it is but we’ll have to wait and see. Kyp should know more.” Taban realized that he was rambling. The main point of this message was just to check in to send back some of the data and to write what they had worked on in transit. He paused and looked at Kalian for a continuation.

“Anyway, we hope you find the drafts and documents that we worked on during the trip, interesting or helpful. In any case we’ll be in touch as we get settled in.” Kalian raised a hand in a lazy wave in farewell. “Be well.”

Taban, smirked and threw a lazy salute, and stopping the recording. Their system already had scripts in place to handle the encryption and routing to Matt, and unless there was a bad solar flare, the package would be encrypted, routed, and on Matt’s desk by morning. “Well, morning somewhere, at any rate,” Taban thought, not really wanting to do the time conversions.

“Ok, time for bed.” Kalian said. Finally.

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