Markus Red (Jasper R.)
- Department: Navigation
- Sector: Red
Eternity
Extract from Heroes of the Flip
There are few historical figures of the Asimov quite so interesting, in this writer’s mind, as the briefest ever holder of the post Head of Navigation, Markus Red. Executed for the crime of deliberately losing material from the ship when he fired an ITTS carriage out of the core, severely damaging the Toroid 6 engine, there are many today who say that his death was unfair, as he is understood to have been acting in the greater interest of the ship. Nonetheless, laws were strict in those days and Computer could not be swayed. It is the less well known events of this man’s life which most interest me, however. Recent research has revealed that, far from just being the quiet, studious man, ship saviour or criminal complicit in the Overwrite, there was much more to this man than was previously known.
A history of the infamous Cosa Nostra group reveals Markus to have been a member for several years before his death, a fact which seems to have been entirely unknown to his peers. He worked tirelessly to keep the Molecular Foundry, then hidden in Toroid 4 and used exclusively to amass wealth for the CN by creation of assorted drugs, out of the hands of the ACTP. However, as he is credited as being the ‘Mysterious Benefactor’ responsible for providing the cure for Toroid 3’s virulent plague, and said to be largely responsible for the creation of the second foundry, it seems his criminal nature did not make him any less a hero of the ship. The nature of Navigation’s newfound status as a knowledge bank is also said to be as much his vision as any others’, though he did not live to see this dream completed.