Good evening,

Excuse me as hang this new painting on the wall. I must admit it is a bit barren, only showing rain pock marked dunes against a green sky. As I write “The Last Friend” (see my previous post about Who is the Angel of Death), I will also be switching gears and working on a science fiction short story titled “Abraxas.”

Do you like moral dilemmas? In real life, I hate them. Most people would, I suppose. When it comes to writing about them, I am a sugar addict child in all you can eat candy buffet. That is the center of all my stories, as is the case with Abraxas. So, what is this moral dilemma?

A great man, whose name escapes me at the moment, once said “The Earth is the cradle of mankind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.” Imagine with me for a moment that mankind has destroyed his cradle. Did you just get a shiver up your spine? Why not? If you think about the environment and the weapons of mass destruction that are available now on the black market, you know that the possibility is all to close to reality.

With that in mind, imagine being a member of a crew of a colony ship sent to another world thought to be able to support human life. When you arrive centuries later you discover that the planet is undergoing a permanent Green House ala Venus. You have no fuel to leave the planet’s orbit. You are stuck. The atmospheric pressure is 30 times what it is here on Earth. Unprotected you would squash like a grape. The planet is desolate, made of only rolling sand dunes and hard rock. The rain that falls from the heavy clouds is acidic. It is your job to transform this desolation into a world man can live and thrive on. To the best of your knowledge, you and your crew are the last of humanity.

You set to work terraforming the planet, but equipment keeps breaking down and you discover the reason—you are not alone on this planet. There are others who can live in this toxic atmosphere and thrive on the desolation. They maybe nothing more than the ET version of the Spotted Owl or they may be as intelligent as you and I (assuming we humans are even half as intelligent as we pretend to be). What would you do?
1. Would you stop working on trying to change the planet? If so, mankind would live in a virtual prison or die out and you would be guilty of genocide; or
2. Would you continue and change the planet so that man may live? If so you may send a species into extinction or be guilty of the genocide of an entire race.

Ignore the devilish grin on my face, and share what you would do? Meanwhile I will start work on “Abraxas” and answer it for my characters.