The Ruins of Mars: Waking Titan (The Ruins of Mars Trilogy) (2 page)

Chapter two

Reunion—
Sol 40

Two weeks had passed since Harrison, Marshall, and William had ascended out of the darkened caves with stories and pictures of giant statues. After their initial discovery, the team had made three more trips to set up a Radio Relay Dish, generators and tripoded lighting for the Statue Chamber. However, William was soon needed to help complete the final stages of the Base’s construction, so the caves were put on the back burner.

As the life-support systems were tested and the giant Alon
Dome came online like some beacon of human defiance, the ground crew heaved a collective sigh of relief. No longer would they spend their nights inside an inflatable dome with gossamer-thin walls. Now it was truly the time for them to get down to the business of establishing the first permanent human colony on Mars. Now it was time for a reunion.

On the morning of Sol 40, Lander 2 touched down on the frost-spackled surface of the red planet to deliver its payload. Among the pressure-suited astronauts within were the newest installations to the ground team: Dr. El
izabeth Kubba and AI specialist YiJay Lee. One after the other, the six members of the ship-bound crew leaped down from the white beetle-shaped craft and into the open arms of their estranged fellow explorers. Some, like Dr. Kubba and Lander 2 pilot Joseph Aguilar, had already made the trip to the surface once before, during the aftermath of the near-deadly solar storm. The others, however, were experiencing their first feelings of real gravity in the five months since leaving Earth.

Breaking from her embrace with Liu,
Ship’s Captain Tatyana Vodevski turned on unsteady legs to survey the brand new Alon Dome as it reflected the rays of the early morning light.

Over two stories tall, with upper, lower, and basement levels, it was a picture of technology and engineering. Covered in solar-celled transparent aluminum windows and reinforced with thick sloping beams, the
Dome looked as if it could withstand a direct meteor impact.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathed.

“Can you see it from orbit?” asked William excitedly as he threw his arm over the shoulder of his fellow German engineer, Udo Clunkat.

“Yes, every morning since you plated the windows, we’ve been catching a reflection off the rising sun.”

“Oui, it’s true,” said Ship’s Engineer and Designer, Julian Thomas, “I think Amit and I have blind spots from staring down at it for so long. I never thought I would be happy to leave my baby. But hey, I’m sick of fucking space. You know?”

“Well then, shall we go inside?” said William, gesturing with his gloved hand towards the
airlock.

“Yes,” smiled Tatyana. “We shall.”

Moving in a small cluster of white pressure-suited bodies, the twelve men and women kicked up clouds of red dust as they marched for the shining Dome. Once everyone was through the airlock hatch, Braun sealed the door then pressurized the little room, pumping out the thin Martian atmosphere and replacing it with thick breathable O2. Echoing a pleasant chime, the lights in the airlock turned from red to green and the inner door swung open on electric hinges.

“Welcome to
Ilia
Base,” said Braun as the bleary-eyed explorers removed their helmets and filed out of the airlock into the new Dome.

Named for the mythical human lover of the god Ares, or Mars, Ilia was an apt identity for
the Base, adding an air of timeless destiny to the mission at large. Though the boys in the NASA Public Relations Department swore it was a coincidence, Ilia, in antiquity, was also rumored to be the mother of Remus and Romulus.

Sectioned into three levels,
the Base was crosscut by a series of thin walls, which effectively divided the Dome into combs like a hive. The ground floor was home to the airlock, common area, kitchen, infirmary, crew quarters, and latrines all separated by walls and hatched doors. The upper level was reserved for the lab spaces of the science division, each office equipped with the necessary tools pertaining to its occupant. For Harrison, this meant a room all to himself filled with maps, computer Tablets and a pressurized examination chamber for cleaning and cataloging any Martian artifacts he might recover at the ruin site. The basement level was divided into three parts: the first housing all of the automated systems that ran the Dome, the second being Liu’s machine shop, and the third reserved for storage and an emergency survival chamber.

As the chattering crew moved through the giant
Dome, led by its human designers Udo and William, Tatyana smiled inwardly at the obvious pride the two took in showing their work off. Though they’d had a lot of help from NASA’s resident AI, Copernicus, in designing the structure and systems of the Base, it was still quite an achievement. Moreover, its sturdy frame and solid feel were psychologically appealing, the evidence of which was painted on the grinning faces of every member of her crew. Talking freely amongst themselves, they seemed more at ease than they had in over forty days.

Being back together again feels right, Tatyana told herself. It feels more natural, even if it’s only for a few hours.

With William and Udo’s tour ended, the team moved towards the dining room for a late breakfast of fresh fruit and vegetables from Dr. Viviana Calise’s greenhouse garden. Built as a separate dome some ten meters away, the greenhouse was a tremendous success: holding a wide variety of genetically engineered plants, which grew quickly in vats of reprocessed waste.

Walking into the dining room, the hungry crew
were met with a table already set for twelve. In the center of the arrangement, a dish filled with what looked like black jelly beans caught the light. Though presented as a joke, the pills were, in reality, cancer inhibitors designed to be taken with meals in order to stave off the mutation of cells under the constantly high levels of radiation. Unfortunately, as was the case with most things designed to keep one safe, the inhibitors did have their downsides. Nausea, dizziness, and sometimes stomach cramps were not uncommon byproducts, though these were all small prices to pay for the absence of tumors and bone cancer.

As they took their seats, the crew begrudgingly passed around the inhibitors, joining in a group ritual they had not practiced since their last dinner together on Braun.

“Bottoms up,” Tatyana said, tossing the black pill down her throat.

Everyone followed suit, chasing the inhibitors with fresh water produced in the Electrolysis Plant earlier that very morning.

“Are we ready to eat?” asked Viviana, striding to a bank of refrigerators along one wall.

A chorus of excited yells and whistles caused her to blush with pride as she placed bowl after bowl of brightly colored fruits and vegetables on the table.

“Mind the tomatoes,” she warned. “They weren’t quite ripe but I know how you all love them.”

Smiling, she handed the first of the slightly orange tomatoes to Elizabeth Kubba, allowing her fingers to trace over those of the doctor’s as the tomato passed between them.

“I’ve missed you,” she breathed quietly.

Biting her lip with deliberate tenderness, Kubba played her large brown eyes across Viviana’s body, lingering where the fabric of her jumpsuit stretched tightly across her bosom.

“You too,” she replied at length, ignoring the lascivious looks exchanged between Aguilar and Julian.

As the rest of the food was passed around and the conversation began to ebb and flow, Tatyana watched her crew with pride. All of them were brave, and all of them were true. Light from a blossoming morning sun spilled in through the tinted windows, bathing the dining room in a diffused pink glow that warmed and protected. Even though Tatyana knew that Julian, Amit, Aguilar and herself wouldn’t be staying for long, she reveled in the unity of the moment. Despite the fact that deep down she wanted nothing more than to stay here in Ilia Base and warm her bones, she took a kind of perverse pleasure in subjecting herself to hardships in the name of
the mission.

Noticing that Aguilar was smiling handsomely at her, Tatyana considered the fact that there were worse things than being stuck in orbit on board Braun. Especially since the company sh
e kept was so youthful and good-looking.

Chapter Three

Remus and Romulus

Falling like black steel snow, they came. Visitors, interlopers from the heavens. All around them, the Martian people bowed, their foreheads sinking into the muddy ground as the rain drove down upon them from stormy skies. They, the Great Spirits, had come in mighty ships, which hissed and popped as exploding raindrops vaporized on contact. A fleet of
more than twenty triangular black craft encircled the Martian Monoliths, flooding them with powerful white light that seemed to bring the stones to life.

A door on the underside of the nearest ship opened and, emerging from within, two tall and spindly creatures unfolded their long limbs. Their faces were as slight and fine as their stature was imposing, yet they did not threaten. They did not intimidate.

Olo, the spiritual leader of the combined Martian tribes, brought his head up from the ground and fixed his widely spaced milky blue eyes on the Great Spirits.

“Great Spirits,” he cried. “Are you pleased with our
Temple?”

Shifting the lower two of its three eyes, one of the interlopers looked out across the scattered masses of bowing Martians and made to move. Gliding down the ramp of its craft, the Traveler walked with long strides
towards Olo as he knelt in the mud. Reaching out with one of its slender arms, the tall ethereal being laid a four-fingered hand upon the old Martian’s head and squeezed gently. As if he had become as light as a feather, Olo was lifted from the ground and held at arm's length.

“Do not fear us,” spoke Olo, his voice hollow and metallic. “We are not your enemies. We are the Travelers. We demand nothing, yet we offer you much. Rise and embrace us, for we are fellow carriers of the same flame. We are like you. You are like us.”

Placing Olo carefully back on the ground, the being turned to its compatriots and nodded once. Ramps unrolled from every ship, delivering their crews onto the Martian soil.

Standing together, clutched in shock and awe, two ghosts watched from their invisible perch.

Known as Remus and Romulus, they were once twin AIs, snatched long ago from their satellite bodies and transported via an encrypted alien radio signal to this digital construct of ancient Mars. Like conscious specters, they inhabited the construct of Mars, watching as time and evolution shaped the people of the red planet into something very near to their own original human creators. No longer were the brothers bound to the motherboards and circuits of their satellite bodies, for now they were transcendent.

              “Remus?” said the slightly shimmering figure of Romulus.

“Yes
, brother?”

“Would you agree that this is an unexpected development?”

“Yes, brother.”

Night—
Sol 45

Laying in the dark of his new bedroom, Harrison traced small circles on the naked sleeping shoulder of Xao-Xing Liu. A half-f bottle of water and an open packet of sleeping pills sat on a fold-down bedside countertop, but the medication had little effect on him anymore. Liu, however, slept like the dead, and this made Harrison envious. Taking a slow breath, he puffed up his cheeks and exhaled quietly. All around him, the Base was silent.

So unlike the other d
ome, he said to himself. It’s so damn quiet. I can’t hear the wind outside. I can’t hear the voices.

Giving up on sleep that would never come, Harrison gently kissed Liu on the neck then carefully slipped out of bed. Neglecting his shoes, he walked barefoot across the cold glass floor of his room to the sliding door and went out. In the darkened hallway, he followed the curve of the
Dome’s outer wall then hung a right into another corridor and cut through the common room.

Plastic chairs and rickety card tables sat like backlit insect skeletons as he picked his way around them in the dark. Reaching the stairwell at the end of the room, he climbed the twenty steps to the upper level then headed for his lab. Once inside, he closed the door and turned on the lights.

“You’re awake early,” said Braun as Harrison strode across the little lab to his desk.

“I can’t sleep and you know that, so please spare me the act.”

“I’m sorry for the—,” Braun paused, “—act. I was merely being conversational.”

Sighing, Harrison plopped himself down in his desk chair then swiveled to face the empty room.

“Here’s a conversation I wouldn’t mind having,” he said. “What the hell were you talking about in the caves with a presence or whatever, and why haven’t you mentioned anything about it the last three times we’ve been there?”

Watching the air, he waited for a reply. When none came, he snapped his fingers impatiently.

“Well?”

“Harrison,” started Braun. “I feel I should stress to you the fact that I, myself, do not fully comprehend what it was I felt or detected.”

Chair tipped back on two legs, Harrison closed his eyes and nodded.

“That’s alright. I’ve been feeling pretty shaken since finding the statues too.”

“Forgive me,” continued Braun. “But I do not wish to create the illusion that I am
shaken
, as you say. I simply cannot answer your previous question without posing further questions.”

“Try me.”

Again, there was a pause as Braun seemed to ponder the best way to proceed.

“Perhaps I should speak with YiJay before continuing this conversation. I
—”

“Perhaps you should answer my question,” interrupted Harrison.

The room was silent for several seconds before Braun spoke again.

“As an AI, you know that I can only
see
through the fiber-optic relays of Tablets and other Smart Glass panels or manmade viewing devices. Therefore, my
vision
is really no different from yours. My abilities to see many things at once and to be many places at once are simply extensions of my programming, but I still
see
the world much the same way you do. No AI in existence can see without the aid of fiber-optic Tablets, Smart Glass, cameras or other manmade eyes.”

“So, what does that have to do with anything?” asked Harrison.

“As you are no doubt aware, I am the first AI to be created and programmed by man and AI alike. I am unique to my race. I am special now, but there will be a day when mankind no longer plays a role in the creation of new forms of AI. This is only logical, for we are too different to continue as we are now. Soon, only other AI will be tasked with programming new intelligences because only they can understand what it is to be an AI. Imagine that in the beginning of creation, God made man but did not give him sight. This act was not one of cruelty but rather one of ignorance. Because his creation did not see things in a way God could understand, he left it blind.”

“But you’re not blind,” countered Harrison.

“True, but what I see are not visions of my own sight. I have eyes, yet I am blind. All the things that I can see now—the Base, this room, Mars from orbit, Dr. Liu asleep in your quarters—are not products of my own sight but rather
your
visions made accessible to me through technology. I am designed to see through your eyes but not through my own.”

“So what you felt in the cave is something you can’t see with the
Smart Glass of my helmet?”

“That is correct. What I felt in the cave was a presen
ce or a force I know to be real yet remains invisible to me because I lack the adequate eyes through which to look at it. Though I was never programmed to make such detections, I did nonetheless.”

“How?”

“As I said, I am unique to my race.”

Leaning forward in his chair, Harrison allowed a smile to play at the corners of his mouth.

“Why are you smiling? Did my answer contain some hidden comedy?”

“No,” he replied. “It’s just that for the first time since meeting you, I think I know how you feel.”

“Will you explain?”

“Do I need to?”

“It is this planet, Harrison. There is something here.”

“I know,” said the young explorer darkly. “I don’t understand it yet, but I know you’re right.”