A New Home

Prof Schubert sat in his chair, face buried in his hands. The hypertensive quinquagenarian could not take the escalating anxiety any more. Suddenly there was a loud cheer shattering the eerie silence of the floor. “Good news Davy. There has been a clear communication. They have all settled well.” Tracy’s voice shook him out of his trance. The painstaking calculations and hard work of five and a half years had finally borne fruit.

It all began on the day they found underground ice at a dramatic site there. More probing revealed that the ice was dusty and could melt. The startling discovery gave a fillip to the ongoing research. The more they delved into it, the more intriguing it got. The day Zeus 11 spotted living creatures on the Martian surface was a red letter day for the entire humanity. As glasses clinked at NASA, it meant more hard work for Schubert and his team. Inter-species communication was the biggest roadblock ahead.

After two years of rigorous efforts of matching frequencies, communicating with them was finally possible. And surprisingly the Martians turned out to be a sporty lot. They expressed their desire to visit Earth for a high-level dialogue. The small Martian contingent was duly received at the Kennedy Space Center, a secret that was closely guarded from the media. Apart from the ones involved with the project, nobody had an inkling about this.

According to the MOU signed between the two parties, Mars opened its doors for settlers from Earth who would guide them in agriculture and industry. Furthermore they would supply a chemical found in the Martian atmosphere which could help the Earth seal its Ozone hole. After an agonising wait of seven months there was finally some verbal communication from the first batch of human settlers. Yes, they had landed safely and all were doing fine. The Martians had left no stone unturned in welcoming them. As his office burst in euphoria, Schubert quietly left for home. He hadn’t slept properly for years.