To Preserve Humanity E-Book

Suzann Dodd

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Just before Earth is Invaded, those deemed worth saving are contacted, placed on Arks, and sent off into unexplored Sectors.   These are the lives and thoughts of those on the Ark.

Leseprobe

Suzann Dodd

To Preserve Humanity

The First Park

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

On An Ark Going....?

Lois Rathchive

ArchivistAboard the ML-909Classified Location.

One hundred years before my birth, the Noah Project was created. Hidden within helixes of secrecy, it would not be activated, until...

It seemed a project unlikely to be implemented, a 'worst case' scenario that couldn't happen.

It was, I suppose, comforting to know our foreparents had considered the possibility, achieved the solution and one need not be concerned about such contingency.

Each day, for one hundred years, in the bowels of the Central Computer, the program ran. Updating, changing criterion, deleting.

The Com made the entries. The Com scanned reports selected. Until readout was demanded, no one knew who was chosen nor why.

I assume a human might be authorized to enter facts into the records when it was believed the Com might not recognise attributes considered vital.

Selected persons were inserted into the roster. Over time those no longer relevant; whether deceased, over the age of seventy, disabled, would be deleted and replaced by others.

One hundred years before I was born it was decided that no human, no group of humans ought be given the burden of selecting who would live and who would die. Who would be chosen for a place on an Ark, who would be left behind.

Tinkering with the roster was possible but as the program ran every twenty four hours such tampering would be ineffectual.

Further, the number of operational Arks was kept cloudy.

There were rumors of thirty taking ten thousand each, which would have meant three hundred thousand. In truth, there were only one hundred thousand places on those Arks.  The religious suggested there were one hundred and forty four thousand.

The com output was 98,274 for some unfathomed reason but as it was possible to squeeze one hundred thousand within, selection of one hundred thousand human beings for preservation was ratified.

There it is. Clear. On a planet of over a billion people less than .001% would be saved.

And this is how they were selected.

As reproduction was key sexual definition was part of the record. Those who would not be capable or likely to engage in productive sexual intercourse had minus points and would not be on the roster.

Those under fifteen years of age and those over sixty had minus points.  Those between eighteen and forty had plus points.

Selection depended on qualifications established by the program. Doctors, especially those with more than one field of expertise. Jurists, primarily those who could make ethical choices and had the charisma to get them obeyed.  Engineers, Agriculturalists, Artistes, Sportsmen, Mechanics, Geneticists, a slurry of different professions and interests changing constantly, to provide the widest crosssection of persons.

Among them would be pilots who would leave on the Ark, make trips back 'home' to report.  Once the ship reached a point in space, the pilots could not return but were to continue making reports to the com sats the Ark would deposit at intervals.

Those who were on the Ark would create Earth again. Somewhere else, some when else, they would keep our cultures alive.

Along with the selected, were the tanks of fertilized embryos. Within those tanks were the progeny of the myriad races of Earth. Sperm from scientists, from the beautiful, the strong, all packed in neat rows to live someday, somewhere, some when.

Each Day the Noah programme ran.

New names replaced old, new professions included. The mechanic who could play basketball would replace the mechanic who painted for there were physicists who painted.

The final list, whenever the date became the end of time would be printed. Those selected would be put aboard the Arks.

As few knew of the project there would not be a last minute addition of sweethearts and children. Those who would collect the passengers would not be told why, nor would the selected.

Ferries would begin transporting within one hour of the printout and continued until the Arks were full. As each Ark obtained it's quota it would break orbit.

No longer an observation post or an auxiliary sleeping quarters for Station workers; no longer a piece of space garbage nor an extra warehouse.

Suddenly these huge cylinders, ignored, save for monthly system checks, yearly inventories for a century, would suddenly become the most precious vessels in space.

For these vessels were the salvation of the human race.