(Nathan – Years ago, the founder of The Price of Liberty (whom we always called Lady Susan) wrote this snippet of science fiction). Sadly, she never do anything further with the idea, like developing it into any more than a short-short story. I thought it appropriate to share again with readers.

It reminds us that people (singly and in groups) can easily fall into habits – patterns of life so engrained by their raising and environment – that make it difficult for them to accept liberty and hope.

We must constantly remember that there is a future.  A bright future.)

Lady Susan’s introduction: I’ve not yet decided whether this will become a new novel… but it seemed like prophesy, so it seemed good to share it. There is hope for the future. Always has been and always will be. The human race will have to endure many hardships, trials and sorrows to get there. But then, we always have. No matter how dark the night, the dawn cometh.

I Remember Earth
By Susan Callaway (MamaLiberty)

“This is how it used to be on earth,” said Becky, glad to finally see the night sky without the massive dome that had stood between the people and their world for so long.

“How do you know?” Cassie’s “big sister” tone was annoying, as always. She refused to leave the doorway of their underground home, but she had been curious until she saw the open sky.

“I’ve always known,” Becky replied, a little dreamily, “always.”

The planet had been called “Mars” for many thousands of years, long before the establishment of the colonies there by free traders in the earth year 2030. A hundred years later, the teraforming had been completed and the old domes of the settlements had begun to come down one by one. Earlier that day the last segment had come down over Becky’s town.

The final success of teraforming the planet had spawned a controversy in some places over whether or not to dismantle the domes, and a few towns had decided to retain them. Those few people who simply could not be comfortable with life under the open sky would likely populate them, at least for a while.

But now the people were free to expand their towns and increase their productivity so they could truly participate in the growing trader network among colonized planets, most well behind Mars in teraforming. The early wars with earth had delayed the process badly for all of them in the beginning, and many people were convinced that only the collapse of political society on earth in 2050 had spared them the fate of the moon colony, now just a bleak cinder in the sky of the home world. Total nuclear war on earth had followed, and the planet no longer supported any rational human habitation beyond a few research domes at the poles.

“It’s not safe!” Cassie cried, “It’s simply indecent to be so exposed,” then vanished behind the closed door.

Becky walked out a little farther, actually feeling a little vulnerable herself. A lifetime of conditioning is not overcome in a moment, or even a few years. But she welcomed the ever decreasing uneasiness and knew that the freedom of the heavens above her were the normal and precious birthright of all humans.

A bright star rose in the east, and the blue light seemed to blend with a sudden burst of moving air that Becky recognized as what earth folk had called the wind. The scent of the fresh turned soil in the valley combined with the tang of salt from the nearby sea. Strangeness blended with a haunting familiarity… things she had never experienced before woke memories she couldn’t account for.

“Come to bed,” her mother said, voice distorted by the speaker beside the door. “The sky will still be there in the morning.”