The First Poet Laureate of Mars

by T E Olivant

  Hester rubbed her face. She was still acclimatizing from the spaceflight. Stasis might make travel quicker but it sure as hell didn’t help with the jet lag. Not to mention the psychological pain of losing two years of your life.

  She pulled the datastick out of her console and shoved it on the shelf with her books. Probably best just to ignore it until she worked out what the hell she was meant to do with it.

  She lay back on the bed trying not to look at the slim black datastick that seemed to be staring at her, accusing her of being an idiot for not working out what it was for. Maybe it would have been better if the damn thing had just blown her up.

  Chapter 9

  Tolly was more eager than ever to get the ship flying over the dark spot, but the crew didn’t seem quite so keen.

  “It’s creepy,” Suzu said when he questioned her. “You know, if you have emotions you find it creepy. No one likes going down there.”

  “We’ll be flying above it,” Tolly said, irritated by her irrationality.

  “Unless we break down again.”

  Tolly didn’t answer that one. The way the woman looked at her it was as if she blamed her for the previous day’s breakdown. Well, they might be a man down because of him but the ship’s maintenance was purely down to h-men.

  “Ready to start?” The Captain asked, not meeting his eye.

  “Of course.” Tolly was disappointed it had taken so little to unsettle her. He had barely hinted about her indiscretions – a little double dealing between the Augments and the Merchants, nothing that a hundred other Captains didn’t try on every space flight – and she had lost all her confidence. A pity, but not one that he cared to dwell on. He had his own problems without worrying about those of his crewmates.

  “In fact, there are several dark spots on Mars. This is just the biggest,” Tolly explained.

  “They are called the albedo features. The light and dark rock that color the surface. People used to think that they were great seas, before they got proper telescopes. The dark spot was known as the Hourglass Sea.” The voice came from the crewman assigned to monitoring the ship’s systems.

  Tolly had barely noticed the young boy until now. He had darker skin than most of the people of Mars which suggested that his ancestors must have been some of the last to leave earth. His big deep-brown eyes looked permanently petrified. He also bore a collection of silvery tattoos that marked him out as a descendant of the permafrost miners.

  “Are you a historian?”

  The kid blushed. “No… Aug…”

  “Tolly will do.”

  “No, Tolly. I just like reading about old Mars. You know, before the humans arrived.”

  “Good for you,” Tolly was genuinely smiling. “I remember when…” A bolt of adrenalin stopped him in his tracks. What had he been about to say? I remember when the first mines opened on Mars. When the first men pulled the blocks of permafrost out of the dust and extracted the minerals that founded the Augment empire’s first wealth? Stupid. To give away so much with a slip of the tongue.

  “I remember when I first became interested in geography,” Tolly finished, rather lamely. “It started with learning about the landscape of Mars. Perhaps you could become a Cartographer.”

  “Aren’t all Cartographer’s Augments?”

  Tolly toggled his hormones once more. How had he let himself get so unsettled? “They are now. But you never know. Just keep studying. Knowledge is its own reward.”

  He turned away and activated his survey equipment before the boy could draw him into any more mistakes. Damn. He would have to find a way to explain his unsettled vitals on the evening’s report. He didn’t think that command would understand something along the lines of ‘nostalgia’ as a reason somehow.

  “Five minutes to take off,” the Captain said, even though they weren’t really taking off from anywhere. They were docked on a floating maintenance station that orbited the planet. There was a slight thunking sound as the clamps released and then they were ready to start the survey once more.

  The ship may be old, but it was small and fast and pretty soon they were skirting past the area where they had made their initial survey. Tolly checked his vitals. Blood pressure was definitely elevated. He brought it back down with a cocktail of artificial depressants.

  The ship slowed as it started to make its survey. Tolly leaned over to peer out of the small porthole-style window. All he could see was the clouds of dust from a Martian sandstorm, but he knew that underneath his equipment would be stripping back the layers of alien atmosphere, revealing the planet’s secrets.

  “Twenty percent complete,” the Captain said. “All systems are normal.”

  The crew relaxed a little. Even the engines shouldn’t give them any trouble now that they were at cruising speed. Tolly barely noticed while some of the h-men set up a game on their datapads. His eyes never left the window but his mind was already on the surface, looking for answers when he wasn’t entirely sure what the questions were.

  Just at that moment the sandstorm cleared and suddenly he didn’t need his augmented vision one little bit.

  “What the hell is that?” The Captain shouted.

  “That shouldn’t be there,” the young boy said. “There isn’t meant to be any construction on the dark spot. And nothing that big. It’s got to be…”

  “A kilometer across. At least.” Tolly’s voice was so soft they didn’t hear him. It didn’t matter he was talking for his own benefit. The construction below them was beyond what the earlier scans had hinted at. It was almost half the size of the Mars colony. But it was more irregular, a collection of circles and rectangles.

  “What is it?” The Captain asked. She poked at her console, as if that would be able to tell her anything. “Why isn’t it coming up on the sensors?”

  “Because it’s shielded,” Tolly said. “It’s putting out some sort of signal that blocks the sensors. Unless you know what you’re looking for. But we got close enough to see it through the window. Turns out the human eye does have the odd advantage over machines.”

  “We weren’t meant to see this, were we?”

  Tolly didn’t reply to the Captain. Instead he was thinking, you’re not stupid are you, Derouge. Now what are you going to do next?

  Derouge met his eye. “What do you suggest we do now, Augment?”

  Tolly stood up. He brought the gun out of his pocket. “I suggest you all go for a little sleep.”

  Chapter 10

  Hester left the datastick in her apartment. She didn’t want to carry it on her until she had worked out what the hell the thing was for. It was radioactive, at least in her mind. It was another marker that she didn’t belong on Mars.

  Perhaps she wouldn’t have to worry about that for too long. It was time to meet with the head of the Entertainment department at the University. A bead of sweat trickled down Hester’s back as she hurried along the corridor. She had no way to convince this expert that she was a poet. She had hurried scribbled down some lines from her Irish literature book, but the more she plagiarized, the bigger the chance that someone would catch her out. She just hoped that Doctor Devay was dumber than he sounded.

  When she got to the office, she realized that Devay was not dumb, and was in fact female. The lecturer had adopted the Martian practice of letting her age show, with grey streaked hair that was piled into a knot on her head. Hester thought she looked like a fairytale queen, but there was nothing otherworldly about her shrewd expression.

  “First time I heard we were getting a Poet Laureate was when you were appointed,” Devay said before Hester had even fully eased into her chair.

  “You… ummn… weren’t involved in the selection process?” Hester had always assumed that the University had judged the entries.

  “No I was not.”

  “Your poem was…”

  Hester held her breath.

  “Quite remarkable.”

  She released it with an audible ‘oosh’.

  �
��Thank you,” she said.

  “It felt like something from another era.”

  “Mmn.”

  Doctor Devay gave her another searching look, but Hester held her gaze even though her nails were digging into her palms under the table.

  “And you intend on completing a series of poems while you are here?”

  “That’s what I said on my application form,” Hester said with a fixed smile. “It may take me a little while to get up to speed.”

  “So, you won’t have anything new for us at the ceremony tomorrow?”

  “Umn, no. Not yet. In fact, I’m not sure we need a ceremony in the first place.”

  “Unfortunately, that is not up to me. The arrangements have been made by the Augment council themselves.”

  “The Augments?”

  “That’s right. They appointed you after all. You did know that, didn’t you?”

  “Of course,” Hester managed to squeak out a reply. “Do you know I just had a great idea for a poem. Better go and write it down before I forget!”

  Chapter 11

  “I believe that your orders were clear, Augment.”

  “They were.”

  “Then why did you not eliminate the crew like you were supposed to?”

  This time Tolly could not resist letting out a sigh, although he managed to cover it by turning away slightly. When he turned back to the screen his face was as composed as ever.

  “It was not necessary to eliminate the crew. They had no idea what they were looking at. I decided it would be wasteful to kill them. I disabled them with tranquilizers and brought them back to the base for neurological reprogramming.”

  “A costly process.” The face on the other side of the viewscreen pursed her lips.

  “I do not believe the Augment council needs to worry about costs. They have sunk enough money into this project as it is.”

  “That is not your concern.”

  “Nor is it yours. I acted appropriately given the external stimulus. The crew of the survey ship will have their memories wiped with no lasting damage.” Except they might have the odd mental quirk, Tolly thought, like not remembering their first love or their parents’ names. But better than being dead. Not that Captain Derouge had looked particularly grateful when he had shot her in the chest.

  “You exceed your remit, Augment.”

  “You have no idea what my remit is, supervisor. It is well above your clearance. Just take a quick look at my file if you don’t believe me.”

  The other screen went silent while she did just that. Tolly watched the woman’s eyes widen and felt more than a little self-satisfaction.

  “I… apologize, Augment. I see that you are in a… unique position to operate on your own initiative. I will update the report accordingly.”

  Tolly clicked the screen off. He stood up and stretched out his back. He was stuck on Alcedine, the base of the Augment Council on Mars. Tolly could remember when it was a plexi-bubble stuck on the surface of the planet. Now it was twenty stories deep and another five stories that the Augments thought no one else knew about.

  He watched out through the reinforced plastic window as the medical transporter took off carrying his former crewmates. Alone once more.

  He smiled. Just like the quiet decade. How he’d missed it.

  His datapad buzzed and he came back out of his meditative state. The survey reports were in. Time to get to work. He plugged in his Cartographer program and slipped into the world of the map.

  Only this time it wasn’t the immersive experience he was used to. The world around him flickered and changed. The blocking technology. He had suspected as much. Well, the data was there, he just had to work out how to access it. And once he did Mars would give up all his secrets. And then would come the hard part: what would he do about them?

  Chapter 12

  “This is a really bad idea.”

  Hester had never had a panic attack before. Was that what the constriction in her chest felt like? She ducked as another transporter landed just in front of her.

  Alcedine. The Council of the Augments. The most powerful, most dangerous place on Mars. And apparently the perfect venue for a Poet Laureate Commencement Ceremony.

  “A really, really bad idea.”

  “Did you say something?” Professor Creighton looked over at her from his chair that he had been gently snoring in a moment before.

  “Not at all. Perhaps I’m just a little nervous. I wasn’t expecting all this…” Hester waved her hand to indicate the crowd of going on for two hundred people who were gathered at the glass balcony that looked out onto the Martian surface.

  “Neither was I to be totally honest with you. I thought the Augments wanted to get into movies, not literature. Still, any chance of a bit of extra funding for the Uni is always welcome. I’m sure you won’t let us down.”

  Hester looked away from the earnest old man so he didn’t see the tears prick at the back of her eyes. How had it got so out of hand? She looked down at the gilt-edged program she was clutching between her fingers.

  Welcome to the Commencement Ceremony for the First Poet Laureate of Mars

  It is our great pleasure to introduce the poet Hester Dousainy whose poem ‘The Second Coming of Mars’ so impressed our judges

  Introduction by Professor Creighton of the Martian University

  Refreshments Provided

  Thank god for the refreshments, Hester thought, taking another large gulp of the wine that she had grabbed earlier. It was already making her head spin but at least it deadened her chronic embarrassment. It was one thing to be exposed as a fraud and a laughingstock in private, but what if somebody called her out right here, in front of all these people. The Augments wouldn’t have to lock her up then, she would spontaneously combust from shame and disappear before they could lay a hand on her.

  She looked around the room and caught the eye of Cortez who gave her a cheery wave. She resisted the urge to give him a rather less civilized gesture back. Please let me make it through this, she thought, at least so I don’t give that guy the satisfaction of failing.

  An eerie noise started up from the corner and Hester let out a groan. An electronic string quartet. Just perfect.

  More people were turning up and just when Hester thought that no one would be able to hear her speak anyway, the room went silent.

  The Augments had arrived.

  There were seven of them, dressed just like ordinary citizens in the overalls of the non-manual class. But that was where the similarities ended.

  Hester had spent a long time learning everything she could about Augments. Know your enemy, isn’t that what they say? Most Augments were not that different from humans, after all, just with their emotions and reactions stripped away and replaced with technology beyond what most people even imagined was possible.

  But these were not just your average Augments. These people didn’t work on long range space travel or terraforming. These Augments spent their time controlling people, not planets.

  Hester found herself drifting towards them. Two were female, four were male and one had undergone so much cosmetic alteration it was impossible to tell what their original sex had been. Each had close cropped hair that didn’t reach beyond their ears and only barely covered the scars of where the machines drilled into their skulls. One of the men looked around and caught her eye for a second. There was nothing. No flicker of recognition, no reaction at all. Like the cold dead eyes of a doll.

  And these were the people who had brought her to Mars.

  “Come now, don’t be shy!” The Professor was trembling with excitement as he grabbed her arm and led her over to the Council. Hester allowed herself to be pulled forward even though every inch of her body was screaming at her to run.

  “Augments, may I introduce you to Hester Dousainy.”

  The androgynous Augment stepped forward. “Thank you Professor… Creighton.” Their eyes flickered while they searched their memory for the name.

&nb
sp; “I… thank you for this opportunity. It means a lot…”

  “There is no need to thank us. You will speak in three minutes from the lectern.”

  “Great. Just great.” She tried not to stare at the Augment. They must be one of the really old ones, judging by the thick scarring above their temples.

  Conversation over the Augments moved as one to talk to a group of men at the other side of the room. Hester felt her heart rate drop back to normal.

  “Who was that?”

  “The non-binary Augment? They go by the name of Cybill. Kind of spooky if you ask me. Not the non-binary thing. The… well…”

  “Non-human thing?”

  Professor Creighton gave a surprisingly high-pitched giggle. “Exactly.”

  Spooky. That was the word all right. Augments were spooky. But why? Human beings had been altering themselves with technology for centuries. What was it about the Augments that freaked everyone out?

  Hester didn’t have time to think of the answer. The Professor was pointing towards the stage. It was time to give her speech.

  Chapter 13

  When Tolly had heard that the Augment Council were too busy to meet him his heart rate, arterial tension and testosterone production went through the roof. It only took a fraction of a second to recalibrate but he knew it would be a black mark on his daily report. Well, that was a problem for his supervisors. Tolly had bigger problems, and so would the Council if they would ever get around to taking his call.

  Even Copper, his young Supervisor was ignoring him. Her calls went to a prerecorded message.

  The Council offices have closed early due to an Event.

  What event? Tolly plugged himself into the Mars station web. He put in a search for Augment Council and today’s date.

  20:00 MT. Commencement ceremony for the Poet Laureate of Mars. The Tower. Alcedine.