It was pointed out to me I never mention holidays in my stories. As far as I can recall, even as Catholic as so many of these people are, I never even mention Christmas or Easter. The way this segment ends makes me think there should be some kind of “Thanksgiving” holiday for the Martians. But, what date? Colonization was not like the landing of the first ship from a distant star, it’s been going on for more than a generation now. Allie’s amazing discovery? Why give “thanks” for that, as it creates a million new problems and possibilities? And, of course, there are three very distinct cultures, led by two races, on Mars; do the Russians and Japanese have the equivalent to a “Thanksgiving Day” in their current cultures? Perhaps I should just stick to shoehorning the religious one’s in where I can.

Back home into the bosom of her family, Allie makes a surprise announcement – on someone else’s behalf – before learning from her diplomat father the leading edge of the ramifications of her accidental discovery.

Still and all, Allie’s parents have something to give thanks for; Happy Thanksgiving to my FUSA readers!

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On the first leg of her journey home on the flight from Ekaterinberg to Macon, Alicia busied herself with the rest of Kira’s reports.  Some to Aqua and Reina were far too classified for her, ironic, as I was the one down there, and she was cheered to get the message that Nichole 5 had been recovered with no additional damage.  Squiddy wouldn’t come up and play, was her message to Allie.

Now, from Macon back home to Neo-Yokohama, she stretched in her skinsuit, happy to have been out of it at Faustina’s mansion, and closed her eyes to think carefully about the memories she had been gifted.

The overall outline of the city matches to what NY is now, but was bigger, more developed, and notably more Mediterranean.  And that great plaza, next to where she worked, we’ve nothing like that now.  Perhaps it’s built later.

“Sometime in the next three hundred years,” she whispered, eyes still shut.

As they were someone else’s memories, it was not as if she could just amble around, but she could skip from scene to scene…that’s interesting!  Humans must be changed a bit as there’s no way that young woman could be sculling a gondola…

Into her mind, she began to hear a song.  Was that girl singing?  It was the most beautiful thing and tears came to her closed eyes.

I can begin to understand, Faustina.  After the life you had, and still have, to live three months like this, then be told to go back.  You let your sons take heaven away from you.

They were getting ready for approach.  Alicia stilled her mind and looked out the window, trying to match her hometown of now to what she glimpsed.

“Well, looks who’s finally home!” her father, Anton exclaimed as she came down the few steps of the intraplanetary transport.  One of the many benefits of being attached to an imperial family.  Oddly, for a human, he only had a noseline for air rather than a helmet.  He must be cold.

“Duty, Dad, as you well know,” she said, already turning him about and pushing him toward the airlock.  Alicia and her mother Saras were already deep in conversation, their way.

“Oh!” her father said as the airlock cycled.  “I’m demoted to “dad” now?  What happened that respect you talked about, Saras?  Saras?”

He turned to look at his wife’s bright eyes and silly grin before turning back to his daughter.

“And what am I not allowed to hear?” he demanded.

“It’s a question of what you cannot see, my husband,” his wife said, taking his arm with hers.  “Your daughter’s status is changing even as we speak; princess, hero, xenobiologist.  Allie’s future is unfolding in way no one can imagine.”

“Just like my little brother’s, I guess,” Allie smiled back.

“Your WHAT!” Anton demanded of his wife.

“It was after last night – and so much fun, too – that your next son is under construction.” Saras blinked, her eyes human again.  “What a new world he shall see.”

“Oh.  Well.” With this news, Allie watched her father’s entire body change from great concern and mild anger to a desire to protect his family at all costs.

We softly make him older as to our clan, Allie thought to her mother.

Until you marry you are his daughter, Hero of Mars, she replied with a bit of an edge, so behave.

Allie dipped her head in obedience as they made their way to their apartment block under Neo-Yokohama’s main residential dome.

“Is Big Brother Anton…?” she began.

“On Earth, at the Heroic Military Academy,” her father answered.  “A shame he wasn’t here, you’d be quite show.”

“I’ll make time for him when I go to Earth, which I suspect shall  be sooner than later,” she replied, bouncing up to kiss his cheek.  “I’m not sure how much you, as a human, know, but the world of last week is gone forever.”

Used to his wife and her nature all these years, Anton didn’t take offense at all.

“You mother has been in contact with the Midwife so knows more than most,” he dropped into the voice he would use as a diplomat.  “I’ve no idea what Reina is sharing with the Russian colonies.  Here, the Japs only know the basics, which are still huge:  you going missing, a lost alien race – and I’ll come back to that – then your rescue.”

He paused their walk just before their building.  They are already painting in pastels, Alicia thought, Faustina’s future memories bubbling in her mind.  Will I live three hundred years to see what she saw?

“And,” her father went on, not knowing why his daughter gave a tiny shake, “the fact that those aliens built structures and had some kind of writing is also fairly common knowledge.  To say the scientific world is tearing their collective hair out would be an understatement.  Religiously, the Japs here just think of adding them to their list of kami, spirits.  In other lands…”

Allie stared at his face, seeing how carefully her diplomat father chose his words.

“…thanks to people like you Hartmanns as well as the Machines, the Catholic and Orthodox Churches are rolling with the news pretty well.  Some Indian sects see all this as proof of their ancient texts as visitors from the sky.”

He laughed.  Odd for a diplomat.

“The Deseret Republic on Earth says this proves their Book of Mormon, that the faithful get promoted to be gods on other worlds,” he said with a smile.  “I’m glad my country, Mexico, never annexed them.  What a bother.”

“And what do you think, Dad?” she asked in total honesty.

“’Dad,’ again,” he muttered before looking down and holding her odd white eyes with his.  “I think that if I were anymore proud of you, my heart would burst and I’d die the happiest man alive.”