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A Whirlwind Tour of Space

Tom Ball

    Sherry said, “I am looking for an adventurous man who will help me explore Earth and Space.” I, Owen, said, “I am your man and I think you are sexy.” Sherry said, “Let’s go to Mars for starters.” On Mars there was a plethora of new colonies. We selected, “Rowdy city,” for starters. Rowdy city was a haven for Hell raisers. The people here were all very aggressive, in your face types. And they angrily debated the future of the city. Some wanted a party city of fun and games; others were more serious and wanted to build up the military and some serious people wanted android love dolls to bring them satisfaction. Still others wanted to be an agent provocateur on Earth. Some wanted to legislate that all people here must be happy using mind reading technology. And those who weren’t happy were hypnotized to be so. But we quickly bored of the aggressive debates here and went to Stubb’s colony.
    Stubb’s colony was a laid-back place which the people here claimed was Heaven in our time. And everyone was kind and polite. It was kind of the opposite of Rowdy city. The people here treated us royally and we went out of the dome into the wilderness where new kinds of plants grew and freak animals prospered. The freak animals all greeted us, and we said “hello,” to them.
    They then took us to Roberto’s city where we were greeted by Lord Roberto himself. He said, “My city is a freedom city in which people are free to love anyone they want. But I do all the ruling. And he asked, “What kind of loving are you looking for?” We told him, “We were fine as it is.” He said, “Join us in a feast in your honor!” And we had convivial company at the dinner and really enjoyed it. But it seemed everyone wanted to love us. We were the new kids in town. But the people here seemed thoroughly fixated on loving and there wasn’t much else to the city.
    Then our final Martian destination was Steel city. Here all the buildings were of solid steel and the dome was made of steel, so no light could get in. All the very colorful lights were artificial and featured poetry in lights. The people here were mostly steel androids with no human skin. We asked some of them, “What is your philosophy?” Most of them said, “Life was all about living life as an android and converting other people to that idea.” And they said, “Their android minds were the best minds in the Universe. And they were sending out missionaries to recruit more humans and androids to be ‘Men of steel.’ Just like them.” And they said, “They were rocket androids who designed the best aircraft and had sent out long distance aircraft to other Star systems. And they all had jet packs on their backs. We politely took our leave of them. Sherry said, “Mars was boring!” And I, Owen, had to concur. What’s a really interesting place to go? We asked Online. And the city that kept cropping up was the city of Titans on Triton, Neptune’s Moon. So we went, a journey of two weeks during which we went on a virtual tour of the whole Solar system. We enjoyed in particular, lake Genivieve on Mercury’s north pole which was quite hot and full of beautiful people who did no work, just relaxed in the sun with head bubbles for air and partied. And we felt the dome at Venus Ƴ 12 was interesting. Here people were all busy terraforming the Planet. And we thought it was useful work. It seemed everyone had their own idea what to do. And we liked Jupiter’s Moon’s Ganymede and G-city. Here the people were all ranked 1-50,000. There were 50,000 people in the city. The top 100 ranked people were the rulers and everyday people fought to improve their rank.
    But finally, we arrived on Triton. This colony was billed to be the greediest place and the richest place in the Universe. We ate the finest food and partied in zero gravity discos and had a number of robot servants plus an android concierge all for us alone. People here wanted to ask us, “How to make more money?” Sherry told them, “Bring in artists of varying kinds to attract tourists.” I, Owen said, “Artists need wealthy patrons and will enrich everyone here.” They said, “They hadn’t done it because it was too risky,” but we assured them, “It was the right thing to do and something you people could be proud of.” And the concierge made sure we met their leader and she was a very gracious host and she told us, “We will bring in artists. It’s a good idea. Preferably artists who are starving and willing to work cheap.”
    And so that was our whirlwind tour, and we went back home to NYC, which we felt was the most balanced and harmonious city in the Universe. And lived happily ever after.

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