Mission Mars (19 page)

Kirkoff swaggers in. My stomach tightens. He stands directly in front of me. Right in my face. It's like he never got the memo about personal space. Don't they teach you that in Kindergarten?

“Move, Kirkoff,” I say. I really don't want to cause a scene.

My jaw is set; my body stiff. He seems to think this is some kind of turn-on. The idea of actually having to touch him, push him out of the way, makes my skin crawl.

“Hey, Jerk-off,” calls Marco, “she asked you to move.”

“We're all adults here,” says Kirkoff condescendingly, “let's try to act like one.”

Marco is barking like a drill instructor. Kirkoff's yelling back. I can see Marco's fist balling.

My chest hurts. I need air. Fresh air. A breeze breathing soothingly across my brow, carrying away all this tension….

There is no breeze. There will never be any breeze.

“EVERYBODY JUST SHUT UP!” I scream.

Ten sets of eyes lock onto me. What do they know?

I'll have to go back to the canteen soon. I'm running out of things that can be cooked on a hotplate. Why can't I just stay in my room and subsist on Salty-Os. Forever.

Didn't we all come here to colonize Mars? What's it to them? Kirkoff's lack of rudimentary social skills is not a reflection on me, for crying out loud. It's not like I asked for guys to fight over me. I think Junia's a bit jealous. She hasn't spoken to me since. Part of me wants to know why. Part of me doesn't care. Is it bad that I don't care? Maybe I should. Maybe they should all stop staring.

Another brownout: essential survival units only. The temperature is lowered to “survivable.” I fumble around in the dark for my Mylar blanket, glinting silver in the moonlight. I curl up and feel my heat radiated back to me and long for my grandmother's soft, worn quilt.

The monotony continues. I lie in bed after my shift, listening to the hollow keening of a distant gale. The beige slats on the ceiling look like they were constructed by a kindergartener on crack. I try to count the cock-ups but loose count at forty-something.

The noise outside begins to shift to a metallic rush. I try not to think about the fact that mere dirt, dead red dirt, enjoys the wind's embrace—just beyond my grasp, their particles are being blown by the majestic force of its glory. What a waste.

The wall shakes like someone is being shoved against the corridor. Even this is routine. If I had any pictures, they would have fallen off already. They should have reconsidered their contractor—they should have given us better psych evals. But then, you'd have to be a bit mental to sign up for this.

What the hell was I thinking? What the hell were any of us thinking? Going to Mars? We may as well have volunteered for a life prison sentence. In prison everything doesn't taste vaguely of cod.

Kirkoff is dead. Tiny tear in his super suit. Toasted like a marshmallow. A radiated marshmallow. Given the
circumstances, they don't want everyone suiting up for the funeral. That could be … well … potential genocide. They're going to stream it. I debate whether I want to watch or not. Everyone else will. It would be pointedly cutting not to.

“Col.Stream on,” I sigh. The screen fades in with a soft glow. “Outlying Quadrant B.”

The signal switches from the little-used common room to Marco's shaky handheld footage. Even in the wind and the weight of a super suit, his shooting is composed. He told me that his experiences on the frontlines were what made him want to leave Earth, and here he is again, risking his life to document death.

He is going to need some encouragement today. I turn away from the on-screen schadenfreude to make Marco a cup of cocoa. Steam rises above my whisk as I listen to the eulogy declare Kirkoff to be a great man, whose death is an incurable loss to the colony, and I wonder if I might have been wrong about him.

The service ends and the transmission, now, is only the spectral sound of wind, blowing on the barren terrain of the Outlying Quadrant.

I walk down the hall toward Marco's room. The corridor is empty, except for Lou, who gives a melancholy nod.

I reach the last door on the left; there is no need to knock, everyone's footfalls are memorized, in the same way every scratch on the greenish-white walls, the flickering pattern of the lights, and the vague feeling of being asphyxiated by recycled air are permanently committed to our memories.

“Thought you could use some cocoa,” I offer with a wan smile once the door opens.

He steps aside for me to enter. I stand ineptly near the kitchenette. The black countertops look unnervingly blue under the lights. The laminate's glue is starting to fail, revealing how thin it really is, as it clings askew to the particleboard.

His eyes are a misty sort of grateful as he takes the cup.

Do they even know the price of what they asked him to do? I hold his gaze. His light blue eyes are still the eyes of someone who hasn't bought into their rhetoric. Yet, he did it anyway. For the innate beauty of a human soul.

“What you did … it was transcendent.”

Marco's shoulders weigh heavily inward. His face seems gaunt, frons carved with strain; his hair disheveled in a sweaty, post-helmet mop.

He squeezes my shoulder and I flinch slightly.

“I love you, Stel.”

“Love you, too.” I say cautiously, “you're a really swell friend.”

This day has been going on forever. I finally escape the crush of people. How do they crush with so few? Come at you from all sides, like a swarm of killer bees. Someone is knocking. Staunching the tears that have been threatening since thirty seconds ago, I take a deep breath, “Go away.”

It's Marco. No one else would be knocking on my door. He comes in and sits on the edge of the bed. My chest feels tight. Leave me alone. I keep my mouth shut, avoiding his gaze. He asks if I'm alright. I tell him I have a headache. It's more or less true. No, there is nothing he can get me. Yes, I will message him if I need anything. Goodnight, Marco.

My limbs have gone leaden. It feels as though my soul is perpetually falling from my body. It never hits floor. My eyes are puffy and there is a parched swelling in my throat. A cavernous chill in my chest. Raw, hallow, heavy. Fresh air, just for an instant, please, God, air. The drone of the environmental control system resonates like a bass drum in my ears. I reach shakily for the blue bottle of sedatives on the nightstand. Why is it childproof? There are no children.

The entire planet is covered in an arid stillness. In this silence, only artificial constructs remain, devoid of the reality they inspired. Vacant nothingness. I am forsaken. Abandoned to this asphyxiating excuse for oxygen. It is insipid. Useless.

Even the wind echoes hollow, like it, too, desires to be felt. If only I could run my fingers through the breeze. So close, but ever out of reach…. The scratching continues. The horrible scratching against the window. Like the very essence of the wind is trying to get in. It yearns for me. My hand grazes the sill as though I am looking for a latch that can never exist.

There is only one thing I want. One thing in the universe: the soft, teasing brush of the wind against my hair … against my cheek … my lashes … a simple reminder, that even in this hell, I am human—in this hell, I can feel something that humanity has not constructed for itself. Something real. My throat constricts. My breath is raspy from lack of fresh air. There is a pain in my chest. I will never breathe clean oxygen again.

The paper rustles on the small parcel Gwynn gave me at my going away party when she kissed me on the cheek and whispered, “Don't open it until your birthday.” The brown wrapping falls away, revealing an external drive. I connect it to the Col.Stream.

The footage has a strange rushing white noise…. Then I realize—I have forgotten the sound of rain. Gwynn is standing under the gazebo by the river. Our river. The squeal of excited children plays eerily on my mind.

“Stella, you have no idea how much I will miss you…. You're right. I should tell them. You deserve that. I just … can't right now. It isn't the time for me.” She has the deepest look of love and sadness in her eyes as she says, “I hope you find what you're looking for….”

Her translucent strands of hair blow in the wind.

I wrestle the sheets, which feel scratchy against my dry skin. I am too cold to take them off. The environmental control system emits a never-ending hum. There is a crick in my neck. I thrash the pillow while my mind reels like a globular gray rat running on a stationary wheel. Run, run, little rat. Run, run, run. Listen to the hum….

In my dreams, the memories merge and swell: I am blowing bubbles on the lawn, chased by my younger brother. He calls after me. I turn, expecting to feel one of his bubbles pop against my cheek. Sea spray blows cold and misty against my skin. The sea and sky rage against one another in cosmic war. I turn to tell him about the impending demise of the
earth, but there is no one there. Trees rise up from the banks of the sea. Their leaves blow in manicured unison. I am walking down the paving stones of Main Street, the October storms blowing a bit of newsprint into my face: “OPPORTUNITY OF THE CENTURY—BE A COLONIST ON MARS.” I wake up in darkness, a bead of sweat on my forehead.

The stale air wraps like a thick hand around my throat. My lungs burn. My chest convulses as I gasp. Sucking in the oxygen, I feel as though I am suffocating in an excess of thinning air.

Massaging my throat, I take a sip of water from the cup sitting on the nightstand. It stings to swallow. The blue bottle is empty. I run my finger inside the rim and suck on the pulverized medicinal dust that remains; it too is dry, impotent. Yet, it would be allowed to dance in the wind, be swallowed up in an instant, connected in a glorious, swirling rush. Forever entwined in a cosmic unison. Forever dynamic. Forever sifting deeper into the atmosphere.

My skin feels dry. Do the others feel it? The dryness in the air? The raggedness of their breathing? Can they sense it as they sleep undisturbed in their beds? Or are they roused to the wind calling to their bones? Begging to brush against their skin and wipe away the grime of this god-forsaken place.

The high Martian winds rattle the windows. Panes crack. The drinking glass slams into my shoulder. An emergency barrier instantly descends, blocking access to the atmosphere I crave. I feel hot as blood trickles down my forearm. Picking blindly at the shards lodged in my skin, I sidle to the exit, the low lights casting uncanny shadows across the corridors. Mechanically, I pull on a super suit and walk into the darkness.

Outside, in the cold, alien air, the second moon pads noiselessly like a ghost through its orbit. I shiver to think of it. The wind glances across my helmet.

I press the release button. A click echoes in my ears. The helmet lifts off my head and in one final instant the wind rushes across my face.

Steve Meritt felt strange drinking coffee, and knowing, but not feeling that the liquid was literally heavier when it hit his stomach. Fortunately, he had adjusted to the uneven gravity aboard
Transport Ring
M301 within a week. Even so, the ship had never felt comfortable.

M301 spun on its central axis, generating centripetal force as it swung through space. The gravity was imperceptibly uneven, and for many, spin sickness was a persistent reminder that there was only the thick outer skin of M301 between themselves and the vacuum of space. At the moment, though, it was nerves, not rockets that twisted Steve's gut. He imagined this was what spin sickness felt like as he took another sip, letting it slide down his throat. In the uneven gravity, he could almost feel the liquid growing heavier as it was drawn towards the slightly curved floor of the break room.

Tonight was his last night aboard the transport ring. Steve
sat and sipped the almost-coffee silently cursing his sense of adventure. Somewhere back on Earth, a computer analyzed the tests he spent the last three months aboard studying for, and determined his fate. M301 was an economy class transportation vessel and would never feel like home, but Steve wondered if Mars, where he was headed, might.

Just a few months ago, his life had been boring and slow. While his friends had moved to exciting places like China, Europe, and Antarctica, he had stayed at home with his parents. He lived in the suburbs near Burlington, North Carolina, and designed transportube interchanges and traffic patterns for the Department of Transportation. As much as he loved his family, there was only so much of the farm life he could take. After a chicken confused one of his more complex diagrams for a nest and laid an egg on it, he decided to take action.

Steve had always wanted to be an architect, but had opted for the more lucrative degree of Civil Engineering. Finally, it had paid off. Castle Infrastructure had been looking for Civil Engineers to “design the skyline of tomorrow!”

“We know you'll love working at the New America colony!” the advertisements had promised. He was enthralled by the promise of adventure and the opportunity to leave his mark on the Martian landscape. He fixed his mother's favorite view screen, argued with his dad about where to put the soy beans, and turned in his two-week notice.

Looking back, he realized now that he chose to overlook how truly early it was in the colonization of Mars. At this stage, the skyline was no more than one or two impressive buildings that would be built for the rich and powerful
investors, and to serve as a symbol of corporate power. For those beneath the elite, Martian colonies were still purely functional communities meant to support the common man as humankind struggled to gain a foothold on Martian soil. All too late, Steve accepted that the unrealistic dream peddled by the posters was only propaganda, and that everyone aboard
Transport Ring
M301 would pay for believing it.