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  There were exactly 1,000 seats in the Public Pod. This morning, it was filled beyond capacity at 1,098 (there were actually a total of 1,100 people in the V1 colony, but apparently two posts were too critical to be abandoned). The back of the auditorium and the aisles were easily able to absorb the overflow, but it was evident that someday they would need to find a new solution for the half dozen or so times a year they all congregated. There was talk of converting the dome — by far the most voluminous structure in V1 — into a mixed-use public space as soon as the better than 100,000 ferns it housed in order to provide V1's oxygen were replaced with a more efficient solution.

  Kelley almost always spoke at public events like these, but he was usually introduced by someone else. A woman who worked in the Juice Pod (Energy Department) had somehow assumed the role of default Master of Ceremonies, and had gotten good at building up a little suspense before calling him out on stage. But today, Kelley hosted the event alone. Everyone knew that Kelley took a very special interest in Gen V, and particularly in their education. To him, this was personal.

  Kelley was the boss. That was the best way to describe the air of authority that he projected. He didn't hold any official political office (V1 was entirely administered by the GSA), but he was in charge. He was seldom seen which was a clear indication of his importance. It was assumed that he spent his days coordinating the complex affairs of V1, constantly on the horn with Earth, negotiating on behalf of his people, making a case for more supplies before the next launch window. When he walked out on stage, the wall lights dimmed, and the room settled down into a hushed deference.

  "Good morning, Ishtar Terra Station One." The conductive polymeth walls captured and amplified his voice evenly throughout the room. No need for a mic. "Today is a very special day — a day I've personally been looking forward to for a very long time."

  It was already quiet, but the sincerity in Kelley's tone somehow settled the room still further. Kelley had the air of a used car salesman sometimes, but he also had an authentic and vulnerable side to him that even his detractors admired. He was roughly the same age as Arik's father, but looked much younger. His dark skin and short hair helped conceal his age, though his big, kind eyes could sometimes look impossibly tired.

  "Once again, we acknowledge and celebrate the Pinnacle of Human Achievement. You've heard me use that term before, but never has it been as relevant and as true as it is today."

  He looked down at the stage and took a few wandering steps while gathering his thoughts.

  "It's hard to overstate the significance of this day." Kelley raised his head and looked around the audience. He seemed to be addressing each member individually. "Let's take a moment to consider what this ceremony means. Today is not just the day that these 100 students graduate. Today is the day that we hand the reins of the first off-Earth colony over to the first off-Earth generation. Today is the beginning of a new future, not just for us, but for all of mankind. Today will mark the dawn of new ideas and fresh creativity. Someday when we're all marveling at the advancements of the human race, when the technology we use today seems hopelessly obsolete and even comical, we will think back to this day, to this very moment. Generation V is the foundation on top of which the future of V1, and therefore the future of all mankind, will be built."

  Kelley lapsed indicating a transition, and the audience took the opportunity to get in some light applause. The graduates seemed a little stunned and unsure as to whether they should applaud themselves or not.

  "But don't just take my word for it," Kelley continued. "You're about to see for yourselves. Right now I want to bring up two people who I believe represent the very embodiment of the spirit of V1 — two people who saw past all the limitations and all the impossibilities of life here, and instead found inspiration and opportunity. Ladies and gentlemen — friends — it is my pleasure to introduce to you the winners of our very first student innovation contest: Arik Ockley and Cadie Chiyoko."

  There was a fresh round of applause. The woman from the Juice Pod was sitting next to Cadie, and stood up to help usher them to the stage. By the time they got up the steps, Kelley had already stepped down. When Arik turned toward the audience, he was thrown off by how little he was able to see in the glare of the spotlights. They had rehearsed with the house lights up, and now the experience felt completely unfamiliar. Without being able to monitor the audience's reaction, he would have no way of knowing how their presentation was being received.

  "Hi, I'm Arik and this is Cadie," Arik began, a little too fast, seemingly startled by the amplification of his own voice. "Today we're going to show you a project we've been working on called ODSTAR, or Organic Data Storage and Retrieval. ODSTAR was the result of extensive research in the fields of DNA nanotechnology, DNA computing, biochemistry, and genetics."

  He was unable to sense any reaction at all. He suddenly had the feeling that he was wasting everyone's time, and that the entire colony would resent him for the backlog of work the presentation was inevitably creating. Did anyone really care about ODSTAR? Was it going to make their jobs any easier, or their lives any more fulfilling? Were they genuinely interested, or were they just listening out of respect for Kelley?

  "The theme we were given for our final projects was 'maximizing minimal resources.' There are a lot of things we don't have in V1, but rather than dwell on what we didn't have, we decided to focus on two things we have plenty of: computing power, and DNA."

  When they first began rehearsing, Cadie tried to get Arik to do all the talking, but Arik equated talking time with credit for the project, and refused to take it all. Cadie was a brilliant biologist, and Arik repeatedly reminded her that he couldn't have done the project without her. Although Arik wrote all the software and designed and built the hardware, he wouldn't have known what to build without her. Cadie finally agreed to co-present, and they wrote their talking points together, alternating passages. Now it was her turn.

  "There are a total of approximately 100 quadrillion human cells in V1," Cadie began. Her pace was more appropriate than Arik's, and it was evident that she had memorized her lines word for word. She was standing up very straight with her hands laced together in front of her, speaking into the glare with no hesitation whatsoever. "Each one of those cells contains strands of human DNA, and each strand of human DNA contains about three billion base pairs, or 750 million bits of information. That's a total of approximately 75 septillion bits, or 75 yottabits, of information inside us — almost as much data storage as a portable solid quantum storage block."

  The presentation shifted back to Arik.

  "We also have an abundance of processing power in V1. Since replacing the parallel cores in our computing cloud with electron cores, each resident of V1 now has more computing power available to him or her than the entire history of the human race combined up until the creation of the first electron computer."

  "And the more computing power you have," Cadie continued, "the more you can understand and work with DNA. Modifying and improving our DNA, and even adding entirely new chromosomes to the human genome, is already so common that in the next 50 years, there won't be a single human left who doesn't contain extensively engineered genetic material. In fact, we've gotten so good at scrubbing our gene pool that over 99% of the cases handled by the Medicine Department relate to acute physical injury rather than disease."

  There was a short, awkward pause before Arik realized it was his turn to speak again. He was supposed to make a joke about removing the gene responsible for clumsiness, but he suddenly had the feeling that it wouldn't go over.

  "As good as we've gotten at modifying and manipulating DNA, no one has ever tried using the human genome for storing and retrieving non-biological instructions and information. While not nearly as efficient as inorganic quantum storage, encoding data in our own genetic structures can literally allow us to pass information down from one generation to the next which we believe might someday even be accessible to us on a conscious lev
el, dramatically increasing our own capacity to store and retrieve information with 100% fidelity."

  As Arik spoke, a podium with a sloped transparent surface emerged from the stage floor. Arik removed a small dark box from one pocket, and stepped toward the podium. Cadie produced a thin red cylinder from a pocket in the front of her dress. Arik presented the box to the audience.

  "This is the ODSTAR interface," he said, and placed it deliberately on the podium. A red square flashed on the surface directly beneath the box as the device interfaced with Arik's workspace. Arik looked at Cadie.

  "This is approximately one milliliter of Arik's blood containing DNA which we modified to include a specialized twenty-forth data-storage chromosome."

  She handed the blood sample to Arik, and Arik pressed it against the surface of the box. The red square began to flicker, and they both turned to watch the huge polymeth wall behind them. Pixel by pixel, a giant blue sphere begin to assemble.

  "On one of the very first flights to Earth's moon, the crew of a ship called Apollo 17 took what is still one of the most breathtaking pictures of our home planet. This picture turned out to be the most famous image in human history, and has been reproduced tens of millions of times. But this is the first time it has ever been reproduced from human DNA."

  The picture was a stunningly clear photograph of Earth, fully lit, showing the arid desert of Northern Africa with its horn jutting up toward the Arabian Peninsula, and the sapphire blue southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans lying beneath thick white swirls of clouds merging with the southern polar ice cap.

  "This is The Blue Marble."

  Arik's fear that the audience might not be following exactly what was going on, or that they might not appreciate the significance of the experiment, turned out to be entirely unfounded. From inside the glare, an immense wave of applause erupted. Arik and Cadie hadn't expected such a reaction, and weren't sure what to do next. Arik stepped back from the podium, and he and Cadie stood beneath the enormous blue sphere and smiled. Kelley appeared between them and put a hand on each of their shoulders. His grasp was firm, and for the first time, Arik realized what an enormous man Kelley was.

  "The Pinnacle of Human Achievement!" Kelley announced triumphantly above the noise. Through the glare, Arik could see that the audience was rising as the intensity of the applause increased. When Kelley spoke again, his voice was calm, but it resonated steadily from every wall of the room. "And with that, we turn V1 over to a new and eminently capable generation."

  CHAPTER THREE

  The History of V1, Part 1:

  The End of the Space Age

  At Kelley's request, the Founders painstakingly compiled an enormously comprehensive history of V1. The project took over two years to complete, and ended up being a sort of interactive multimedia documentary containing hundreds of news and encyclopedia articles, interviews, written and recorded personal journal entries, and dozens of hours of news broadcasts. The assumption was that Gen V (and beyond, eventually) would be immensely curious about their miraculous and unprecedented circumstances — that with their scientific and analytical backgrounds, they would one day become obsessed with researching and learning every last detail of how they came to be born and raised on Venus.

  That assumption turned out to be wrong. Naturally, the Founders were looking at V1 from their own perspectives. The fact that they were the first humans to permanently colonize another world was still sometimes difficult for them to fathom. They still dreamt of Earth; they still knew plenty of people on Earth; they sometimes talked about Earth as though they had never left, then caught themselves and laughed awkwardly. The fact that they would very likely never go back to the planet on which they were born and raised was something all of the Founders occasionally struggled with, and would probably struggle with for the rest of their lives.

  But not so with Gen V. In fact, Gen V rarely gave Earth much thought at all. Having been born on Venus, they never wondered about the slightly weaker gravity, never questioned the level zero oxygen lockdown emergency drills, never complained about the things they didn't have. The Founders eventually had to come to terms with the fact that Gen V was just as accepting of their circumstances — and just as disinterested in their history — as pretty much any other teenage member of the human race since the species' inception.

  To Gen V, life on Venus was simply normal.

  In retrospect, it was clear that the History of V1 documentary was really more for the benefit of the Founders than for Gen V. It was a welcomed distraction during some difficult times. It helped them maintain perspective, deal with the isolation, comprehend their place in history. But since it didn't really speak to Gen V, the Brain Pod decided to take a different approach to instilling a sense of the past in the younger generation. A small committee was assembled and assigned the task of reducing the entire history of V1 to three succinct parts: the beginning and the end of the world's first Space Age, the Earth Crisis (including how it almost led to the extinction of the human race), and finally, the birth of the second Space Age, and how it gave rise to the first (and so far only) successful permanent off-Earth colony. After being approved by both a subcommittee and Kelley himself, each document was stored in a public place on the central solid quantum storage grid, and a short message was sent around requesting that Gen V review the material on their own time. That was it. As far as anyone in Gen V was concerned, those three documents represented the definitive history of V1, and quite possibly all they would ever know of their parents' home planet.

  * * *

  Part One of the History of V1 began "It all started 13.73 billion years ago with a very Big Bang." According to the logs, that part was inserted relatively recently, and was a good example of the kind of thing that passed for a practical joke on Venus.

  The document actually began with the 1957 launch of the first satellite: a shiny aluminum alloy beach ball called Sputnik 1. The very first living Earth creature was launched into space only a month later aboard Sputnik 2: a dog named Laika (aka Muttnik) who, despite the Russian's great care, died from excessive heat and stress. At the time, it was entirely unknown whether it was possible for any form of life to survive even a relatively short trip into lower orbit, much less the long and arduous journey to other planets.

  Sputnik was a wake-up call for the Americans who were unaccustomed to having their technical and engineering prowess challenged. After revamping the entire American education system to counter the impending scientific threat and forming the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the United States finally responded to the Russians by launching Explorer I. The Space Age had officially become the Space Race.

  For a time, the Americans and Soviets traded victories, though the Soviets had a definitive early lead. They got the first man into space (Yury Gagarin), and the first spacecraft to land on another world (the Moon). The Americans fired back with several of the first functional satellites (weather, communication, navigation, spying), and ultimately claimed victory for the first human to set foot on another celestial world (the Moon's Mare Tranquillitatis, or Sea of Tranquility). But even back when the Moon was the prize, the world was already taking an interest in Mars and Venus. The American Mariner 4 flew within 10,000 kilometers of Mars in 1965, and the Soviets actually crashed a spacecraft into Venus in 1966. Back then, just aiming for and hitting another planet was a major accomplishment, never mind actually landing on it.

  But it wasn't until the 1970's and 80's that planetary exploration began in earnest. The Americans achieved the first flybys of Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus, and got the first photos of the surface of Mars along with a rudimentary soil sample. The Russians, apparently preferring harsher environments, focused on Venus, achieving the first Venusian orbit, and even successfully landing a few very robust spacecraft on the surface. In 1981, Venera 13 managed some pictures, a soil sample, and even the first sound recording on another world before being destroyed after 127 minutes by the immense heat and a
tmospheric pressure. It was during this time that Venus was declared the most inhospitable planet in the inner Solar System, and the least likely to ever be inhabited. You'd be better off vacationing on the sunny side of Mercury, it was said, than in the shade on Venus.

  The Space Shuttle years finally began to break down international borders in space. It was a joint mission with the European Space Agency that successfully landed a probe on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and the People's Republic of China became the third nation to independently launch a person into orbit. The Space Shuttle also gave rise to the International Space Station which was an immense achievement in human history, but in terms of public perception, suffered from the fact that it looked nothing like any space station anyone had ever seen in a movie. The Americans continued their obsession with Mars, landing several rovers and probes on its surface since evidence of life on another planet — even ancient fossilized microscopic life — would all but guarantee decades of generous funding. In 1996, American scientists even announced the discovery of Martian bacteria found fossilized within a meteorite recovered from Antarctica, though it was never determined whether the microfossils originated on Mars, or post-impact on Earth. In 1990, the first orbiting telescope was launched, but promptly failed because the main mirror was ground one millionth of an inch off specification. The astronomy community watched anxiously as an optical component designed with precisely the opposite flaw was installed in the telescope in-orbit, successfully compensating for the error and turning an international embarrassment into an unprecedented triumph.