The First Poet Laureate of Mars

by T E Olivant

  “Already in hand.” Tolly cut off the call.

  “What was that about?”

  Tolly’s breath caught in his throat. What the hell was the Captain doing creeping up on him again? He flicked some more of the calm drugs into his synapses and composed his face into a perfect mask of calm. He also turned his augmented hearing back on.

  “Augment calls are highly confidential,” Tolly said, no pretense now at friendship.

  The Captain narrowed her eyes. “I’m not going to play at who’s in charge, Auggie. Here on Mars your people have realized that they need to work with us, not against us. Believe it or not, I really don’t have a problem with Augments. The good ones anyway.”

  “But?”

  “But I’m not sure you’re one of them. You’re one of the old-fashioned breed, the Augments that think they have some sort of divine right to lord it over the rest of us.”

  “Is that right?” Artificial hormones were coursing through his synapses trying to keep him calm while all he could think about was screaming in her face.

  “That’s right. I know all about you. How old are you really?”

  That old question. How dull. H-men were so obsessed with age. Tolly guessed it was because their lives were over in a blip. What was the life expectancy on some of the earth Sats these days? Forty? Fifty? He’d spent longer than that in stasis.

  “If you know all about me then you know we shouldn’t be having this conversation. It’s a waste of my time and yours.”

  Now it was the Captain who looked like she was losing her cool. “I lost a man today. Not a good man, but a pair of hands that I couldn’t afford to lose. And it’s thanks to you. So I think that this conversation is highly relevant. And what about your other little problem?”

  “What’s that?” Tolly asked, as if he didn’t know.

  “I’ve read your file. I know where you came from. When the rest of the crew find that out Fudge’s little tantrum is going to look like a hug.”

  Tolly’s fingers flexed, then relaxed. “I’ve read your file too, Captain,” he said, his voice slow and deliberate. “Let’s not go there, all right? Otherwise I might have to mention some of your recent cargo abnormalities.”

  Derouge looked like he’d slapped her. “Right,” she said, blinking once. She took a step backward, then another. By the time Tolly had turned back to his datapad she was practically running back to her crew.

  Chapter 6

  Hester woke up just before six, her heart thudding with excitement. When she had arrived the day before she had been too exhausted to truly take it in, but she was here, she had made it.

  “I’m a Martian!” she shouted out to her tiny single room, then giggled to herself. She was showered, dressed and out the door in fifteen minutes.

  She checked the station plan that she had downloaded to her datapad. The Mars complex was a giant triangular shaft bored into the rock of the planet. It had taken generations to create a colony of more than two million people. Most of them lived on one of the floors around this central shaft. Which probably explained why her accommodation was on the small side. Still, it was a million times better than the dank interior of Sat Three where the walls were crumbling around her. How the thing stayed up in the sky no one seemed to know, but it was only a matter of time before it would be decommissioned. Hester was just glad she wouldn’t be on one of the refugee ships when it finally did collapse. There was nowhere for them to go.

  “Oh wow.”

  Hester stopped in her tracks. She had turned a corner and walked right into the Sun.

  The artificial star was so much larger than she had imagined. It filled her vision so that it obliterated everything else. It throbbed in a rainbow of color: yellows and orange of course, but flickers of red and even green-tinged light danced in front of her eyes.

  It was enclosed in a case of glass. Hester walked closer and realized that she must be at the very center of the shaft. If she looked down, she could just about make out the ghostly outlines of the lower floors. But mostly she just saw an ocean of light.

  Hester placed her right hand on the glass. It was warm and vibrated almost imperceptibly. She raised her left arm and reached out with those fingers too until she was pressed up against it. She closed her eyes. Yes, she had made it. She had escaped.

  “Are you sick or something?”

  Hester snapped backwards, pulling her hands from the glass. She turned around to see a shadow in front of her.

  “What the hell are you!” She yelled at the apparition. Only as soon as she said it her vision started to come back and she realized it was just a man. She took a step backwards, tripped over her own feet and nearly ended up on her ass.

  “Ok crazy lady, let’s get you away from the bright light.”

  To her shame, the man took her arm like she was a small child and pulled her away from the Sun. If her eyesight hadn’t still been multicolored and weird from staring at the light she might have resisted.

  The man led her over to a bench and she sat down with as much grace as she could find. Which wasn’t much.

  “Thanks,” she said, blinking her eyes to try and clear the floating spots.

  “Let me guess, you’re new here.”

  “You guess right.”

  Hester rubbed her eyes. Her vision was starting to come back. The guy was tall, well built…

  “What were you doing? Praying or something?”

  “Praying?” She laughed. Religion was for Augments, or people with enough money to indulge in that sort of thing. “Not praying. I guess I kind of got carried away. I always wanted to see the Martian Sun ever since I watched an old movie…”

  “The end scene in Godfather of Mars. Yeah, it’s pretty epic.”

  “That’s right!” Hester’s smile was genuine. She’d never met anyone else who’d seen that old twenty-fourth-century movie before. She took another look at the stranger. He had muscles. His muscles had muscles. Not that that was Hester’s type. She generally preferred the slim, sophisticated look. Still, there was something to be said for the way the rays from the artificial sun reflected off the sculpted pecks hinted at by his tight-fitting shirt…

  “You still with me crazy lady? You kind of went quiet for a while there.”

  He was attractive. She couldn’t deny it. But he was also kind of… familiar.

  “It’s pretty offensive to keep calling me crazy.”

  “Only if it’s not true.”

  He grinned a perfect white smile and that’s when it hit her. She did know him.

  “You’re Matt Magee!”

  The man winced. “Actually, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are. Matt Magee, space pirate. And Falcon Dallas, the best cage fighter of the dying Earth. Ooh, and what was that pansexual creature from one of Saturn’s moons. You know, Fix… Fax…

  “Urban Flux. Not my finest hour I have to say. The Velcro underwear was rather chafing. And can you keep your voice down?”

  “Are you shooting another space pirate film? I know it’s been a couple of years.”

  “Not right now.”

  “Matt Magee, I just can’t believe it.”

  “My real name is Hawk, in case you were wondering.”

  “I thought I read that your name was Derek? Your parents were originally from Old England or something.”

  “My legal name is now Hawk,” the man said. His grin was becoming rather fixed. “Anyway, crazy lady, I didn’t just take you away from the Sun because I’m a great guy. I did it because I think you’re cute.”

  “Really?” Hester was kind of speechless. She was kind of average looking as far as she was concerned. Although her eyes were a shade of green that changed with the light and she’d always thought that was kind of cool.

  “Really. And I was wondering if you wanted to come for dinner. Hell, tell you the truth I was thinking we could skip the dinner.”

  Hester blinked. Then she started to laugh. She couldn’t help it. Hawk’s face went from confident t
o furious, but she still couldn’t keep in the snorting belly laugh that was rising inside her.

  “Does that work?” she gasped, “I mean, do people generally just sleep with you because you’re in the movies? And you said they were hot?”

  “Honestly? Yeah.”

  “Oh.” Hester wiped her eyes. “Well I’m afraid you’re not my type. But good for you. Good for you.”

  Hawk turned his back and strode away, the Sun silhouetting him just like when he’d played a Ranger in the wild west trying to destroy an army of insect androids. As he walked away, she saw his hair was thinning at the back. She suddenly felt bad for laughing at him. Mind you…

  “Skip the dinner! Honestly!” she fell back on the bench and let the laughter take over.

  Chapter 7

  Augments were known for their detachment, but Tolly was generally an exception to the rule. In fact, if his superiors had known just how much he had ‘reverted’ to h-man traits, that had packed him back to the little padded room that he’d only just managed to talk his way out of last time. The problem, he believed, was largely one of time. Tolly had been around a long time. Longer than he would care to admit. What he had found was that time itself had an impact on the synaptic structure in a way that no one who had lived less than a century could ever have imagined. But that was ok, because there was no one to question Tolly about it. He had outlived them all.

  One thing that he had never quite understood was the h-men obsession with entertainment. The Augment high command had grasped it all too well. They had become pioneers – no, that was not quite the right term. Unlike true pioneers they were not interested in risk or innovation. No, they were more like custodians. Guardians of artistic expression. This was especially true in what Tolly regarded as the lowest artistic endeavor of them all: the movies.

  “Hey Auggie, you’re in the way of the screen!”

  The squat female engineer known as Suzu to her friends (of which Tolly was not one) waved her hand at him.

  Tolly moved his seat slightly to the right so as not to block her view of whatever drivel was currently onscreen. It hadn’t helped that during his quiet years his datapad had only been loaded with seven movies. All robot Westerns. All terrible.

  Maps, now they were never disappointing. Planetary surveys had been his specialism since… well, since he had left Earth orbit, and that was certainly a long time ago even by his reckoning. And with his Augmented skills it gave him a knowledge that no other person in this solar system had ever experiences.

  He went through his mental filing system until he found the button to activate Cartographic mode. In reality, it wasn’t a button, of course. It was a particular set of hormones that combines in a way only made possible by his augmented neural pathways. Synapses fired. He was away.

  In front of his eyes the map on the console came to life. It was not just 3d, like the virtual reality movies the h-men were fond of. It was a true representation of the landscape, complete with sights, smells and a cacophony of sound. This was what those poor human beings were missing. With the spacesuit on Tolly had not been able to listen to Mars. Now, in the unassuming control room of the survey ship, he finally could. He shut his eyes for a moment to hear the wail of the wind that crashed around the plain of Arabia Terra. He reached out and felt the rough surface of Martian rock against his skin.

  His own body became the mode of survey, his nerve endings giving constant reports on the data the survey ship had collected. It would all be passed on to the Augment command in his nightly report, but for the moment it was uniquely, deliciously his alone.

  The only blot in the picture was the occasional gap in the survey data where he would suddenly find himself in a dark chasm bereft of sensory input. Each time this happened he felt a surge of frustration. If that fool Fudge hadn’t stopped his work early…

  He just had to be patient. A tiny hit of oxytocin helped with that. The ship would be back to full functionality the next day, even with a crew man down. Tomorrow they would be surveying the Syrtis Major Planum, what h-men call the ‘dark spot’ of Mars. It was the reason that he had agreed to take this position in the first place. Well, that and the fact that turning down anything the adjustment center offered him would get him sent back for another evaluation.

  Maybe just a peek, he thought. The survey they had completed today only ran up to the edge of the dark spot, but he could use some of the long-range scans to take a look. The quality would be poor, and it would be vision only, but still…

  Tolly flicked his hand in front of the console and the picture blurred. A shadowy landscape appeared. Tolly leaned forward. He could just make out the basalt rock that gave the area it’s dark appearance. Volcanos long dead appeared tantalizingly out of the gloom. And there was a –

  The laptop snapped shut. Tolly rested his palms on its cool surface. As he tuned back into the real world, he realized the movie was coming to a close. The handsome man had saved the spaceship, overcoming his own personal hubris and endearing himself to the young woman who had dismissed him at first. All of this assaulted Tolly’s ears. But his mind was still full of what he had seen on screen. Of what couldn’t possibly have been there, hiding down on the surface of Mars.

  Chapter 8

  When Hester got back after her encounter with the Martian Sun, she noticed that someone had left her a message on her datapad. A voice call from the Professor.

  Just wanted to know if you were planning on giving a speech at your commencement ceremony. We need to know how long to book the film crew for. Maybe a chance to show off some of your work in progress?

  Crap. She tapped out a quick message.

  Thanks Professor, I don’t think a speech will be necessary. I’m sure everyone will have better things to do than to listen to me! Besides, I wouldn’t want to release anything quite yet. Not until I’ve absorbed some more of the atmosphere here. I have many poems on the go of course, but nothing in a state of completion.

  Hester clicked send then flung herself back into bed with a groan. Poetry. Why did she have to say she wrote poetry?

  Mind you, she had written the script. It had taken nearly a decade to get it right, but poetry was probably quicker. Fewer words. Shorter sentences. Now if she could just think of some rhymes for dust, she’d probably be fine.

  She lay down on her bed and stared at the metal ceiling. Less rust than on Sat Three, but the same old problems.

  A chime sounded. It took Hester a second to realize that it must be the door. She walked over to the screen and saw it was a guy in red maintenance overalls.

  “Package for you.”

  “Just leave it out there I’ll come get it.”

  On the screen the guy shrugged, then dropped the small box he was carrying and walked away.

  I’m probably being paranoid, Hester thought, but best to keep contact with strangers down to a minimum. She gave it another minute then scurried out, grabbed the package and slammed the door shut again.

  What if it was a bomb? Like in that movie with the cute dog? Hester shook her head. A bomb was pretty unlikely. She gave it a shake. It felt too light, almost like it was empty. She sighed and ripped the plastic off, holding it at arm’s reach as if that would somehow make a difference if it was about to explode.

  Inside was a datastick. Black metal with a green cover. Somehow that wasn’t very comforting. The network on Mars was the most sophisticated in the galaxy, so why didn’t someone want to send her something by message? That either meant that it was confidential or dangerous or both.

  Hester chewed her lip. Better to know than to wonder, right? She plugged the datastick into her computer console.

  Only one file. Called, imaginatively, File 1. She opened it.

  It was a map. Hester’s first thought was that it was a bit of an anti-climax. The contours and whirls of terrain meant absolutely nothing to her. Was it a map of the surface? She moved the picture around with her fingers. It had to be of Mars, but it was black and white, and she didn’
t recognize anything.

  Wait. There was a large triangular shape, that had to be the colony. She peered at the screen. Off to one side were the mines, which she knew were largely disused as they had been emptied of every precious material they had to give when the colony was built. Apart from that, it might as well have been in another language. None of the place names meant anything to her.

  She sat back with a frown line deepening between her brows. Ok. So clearly this had been sent to her for a reason. But why? She knew less about Mars than pretty much everyone on the station.

  It couldn’t be something to do with the poetry, could it? Her stomach sunk. Maybe she was supposed to make a poem out of the map somehow? She stared at the strange names. How the hell was she going to rhyme with Tharsis or Valles Marineris. Yeats sure as hell didn’t write about them.

  She stared again at the triangle of the colony. What would happen if – let’s face it, when – the people at the University realized that she wasn’t really a poet? First flight back to Sat Three? Or something worse. Hester had brushed off Cat’s warnings about the Augment’s views on plagiarism, but now that she was on Mars, she couldn’t help but wonder if they would really punish her. They weren’t exactly known for their mercy.

  But as long as she was in that tiny triangle on the alien planet she was a million times better off than she had been back on Sat Three. Her parents had both died before their fortieth birthday. Lung disease for both. No prizes for guessing that it was something to do with the air on that rusting hulk of metal. She might be underground, but at least the aircon was a hum and not a dilapidated clacking noise.

  It was lucky really that she wasn’t claustrophobic. How far down were they? A mile? Two? No wonder the families of the miners who built the place wore their tattoos with pride. It was an incredible achievement. And yet…

  And yet it wasn’t Earth. The planet that she had looked down upon her whole life. The planet that froze and died before she was born. And yet it still had that hold over them. They were human beings and it would always be home. Mars would never be anything more than a poor imitation.