Seed

For a while after hearing the proposal, Trusk sat absolutely still, taking it all in.

Then he leaned back in his seat, and squinted, as if to properly regard his friend.

“You’re serious?” He said in utter disbelief.

“Yes.” Said Mark Venzer.
 
“It’s crazy!” His voice trailed off.
 
“Yes.” And a conspiratorial smile crept across his face.
 
Now Trusk leaned back in.  “The consequences are truly epic.  We could also get in a LOT of trouble.  I could get in a lot of trouble!”
 
“Yes.  But I can’t do it without you.” Venzer conceded.
 
Trusk paused for a very long time.
 
“OK, I’m in.”
 
Eighteen months later, a privately owned rocket was being readied on the launch pad of a South American nation.  
 
Some distance away from the launch pad, the a large number of press gathered around the two billionaire entrepreneurs, anxious and curious to hear what their mystery announcement was.  
 
Also in attendance was a wary-eyed USSOUTHCOM commander, Admiral Leary, who was not at all comfortable about two prominent Americans sending something unknown into space from a less regulated, and not entirely friendly Latin American nation.   The launch could also go bad, raining debris down on some other nation and embarrassing the United States.  As a precaution, he had an Aegis cruiser standing by to shoot it down should it develop any problems.
 
“Ladies and Gentlemen, please gather around for the countdown.”  
 
The press and guests gathered around the podium with the two billionaires in front, and the rocket in the background.  
 
“Five, Four, Three, Two, One…Ignition.”  The sleek rocket lifted off from its mobile launcher, climbing at first slowly, and then faster into the air on a pillar of flame, and impressive rumble in the distance.”
 
Venzer began, “Ladies and gentlemen, as you know Dezan Trusk and myself have long shared the dream of going to Mars.”
 
So that is what this was about thought Admiral Leary.
 

Trusk continued, “We would like to announce that this will be the first ever privately funded probe to Mars.”  He paused for a moment to let this sink in with the press.

“But,” said Venzer, “this is not just an ordinary probe.  As you know, Mars is a lifeless world, and presently, completely unsuitable for human life.  As the leading synthetic biology company,”
 
Leary suddenly got a sick feeling in his stomach, and a panicked feeling.  Turning to his aid, indicated for him to dial the Aegis immediately.
 
“… we have spent the last several years custom creating microbes that we think can survive, and begin terraforming Mars.”
 
Leary grabbed the Satphone, “Shoot it down, shoot it down, shoot it down.”
 
But it was too late, the probe was already outside of the window, and on its way to Mars.
 
Months later, despite repeated injunctions from various groups to block the signal, the NASA administrator and Presidential Science Advisor watched in morbid fascination as the probe returned its dazzling HD video, dispensing its atmospheric aerosol bomblets to seed both poles with radiation resistant microbes tailor-made to live in Mars’ arid climate, self-replicate, change the albedo of the martial poles to release water, and pump out ever increasing amounts of super greenhouse gasses.  Venzer’s team had sent a great variety, a complete eco-system that within a generation or two would completely adapt themselves to their new environment, becoming fully Martians, and within a few more would have also adapted Mars to them as well.
 
“Those smug bastards!  Years of ethical adherence to planetary protection protocols, and these cowboys just decide on their own to make an entire planet their experiment.  I want to see them behind bars.”
 
“Is there even a crime we can charge them with?”
 
A year later it was confirmed that Venzer’s elite team of synbiologists had done their job.  New pictures returned from the probe showed clear signs of dark colonies of life living on the poles.  
 
Sitting in the International Criminal Court, Venzer marveled again to see the stunning images, wildly successful beyond his dreams.  He smiled as the prosecutor left the images of his “planetary genocide.”  Glass half empty kind of guy…. He let them remain on the screen as Venzer took the stand in his own defense:
 
“It is in the nature of life to spread; to seek new niches; to find a way.  We know not whether life exists elsewhere in the universe, but if it does not, it is our job to spread it, to better its chances of survival against a hostile universe; to help procreate our biosphere.  Today is a triumph.  Today life has spread to another world.  The Earth has begun to procreate and man has been her agent.  Humanity has become the gametes of Gaia.”