The First Poet Laureate of Mars

by T E Olivant

  “Are you sure you don’t want to wait back at the shuttle station?”

  “Not going to happen.”

  The came out of a long corridor into the hangar itself. It was underground, like most structures on Mars. It seemed to be some sort of dumping ground for old machinery. There were massive drills that must have been used in long closed mines. Vehicles that were twice Hester’s height were covered in dust and looked like they hadn’t been driven in decades. When they got closer Hester could see that many of the smaller pieces of metal had been stripped from them and they were little more than skeletons. Everything could be reused somewhere.

  “Where did you arrange the delivery?”

  “They just said the rear of the hangar, so we just keep walking.”

  Derek moved closer to her and they kept striding forward. The further they walked, the dimmer the hangar became. Hester looked over her shoulder. They had been the only people to get off the shuttle at this stop, and there didn’t seem to be anyone else around.

  “I don’t like this,” she said softly.

  “We could go back? Is this really worth risking your life for?”

  She bit her lip. “I’m not going back. If they wanted to kill me, Cortez could have done it any time. I need to get as much information on what’s going on here as I can. Especially as Tolly might not have much time left.”

  “What’s the story with you two anyway. Are you… an item?”

  “What? You’re asking me that now? Don’t you think we have bigger things to worry about?”

  “I find my libido distracts me from thinking about our impending deaths.”

  Hester stopped and put her hand on his arm. “You should go. Honestly, Derek, you are not cut out for this. I’ll be fine, but there’s a good chance you might not make it out of this alive. There is no shame in going home.”

  Derek put his hand on hers for a second, then pulled it away. “You really think so little of me? Come on, this place is huge but I can see the rear walls. We’re nearly there.”

  He turned away and started to walk.

  “Derek?”

  “Yes.”

  “There is no story with Tolly. We are not an item. Just so you know.”

  He turned around with a smile and at that moment she spotted the glint of metal and a voice called out from the gloom:

  “Are you armed?”

  The sound echoed around the empty hangar.

  “No. I have only brought my delivery.”

  “And your friend?”

  “He is unarmed. We just want to hand over the package and go.”

  “Walk forward.”

  Hester moved slowly, trying to give herself time to think. There must be a way that she could gain some sort of control of the situation, but she just couldn’t see it yet.

  “Stop there.”

  A man emerged from behind an old tanker truck. He walked towards them with a long, slow stride. He was tall and his face was etched with tattoos. Hester had never seen him before, but she could tell from Derek’s intake of breath that he knew exactly who this was.

  “Please hand over the package.”

  Hester hesitated. She looked around once more. She couldn’t see anyone else in the hangar, but the room was full of perfect hiding places to stage an ambush. Still, what other choice did she have? She walked over and held out the package to the stranger.

  The guy opened up the box with a swipe of his palm, then spun it around to show her. It was empty.

  “I… I don’t understand,” Hester said.

  “We didn’t need anything delivered. What we wanted was the courier.”

  Chapter 33

  Tolly had no intention of simply sitting in a room waiting to die. He had lived for so long and he had always imagined embracing death. but somehow his body was still clinging on to those final moments.

  He allowed himself a smile at that. Perhaps there was more of the human left in him that he had thought. H-men always clung to life to the bitter end, and he supposed he was just doing the same.

  Ever since he had learned that he had not gone willingly into the brain wipe, he had found a renewed purpose. One that he would not have shared with the poet or her pretty but dumb boyfriend. He didn’t tell them because it was entirely selfish. Yes, he wanted to discover what the Augments were doing with regards to the Merchant base. But what he really wanted was revenge.

  He grinned again and reached up to feel his exposed teeth. How strange it was when you turned off your augmented safeguards. Your face could betray you with a single gesture. And the thought of getting revenge made him smile. Not many murdered men got the change to avenge themselves while they were still alive.

  Tolly forced himself up from the massive sofa and lurched towards the door. He had pins and needles in both his feet, but he was doing his best to ignore it. At least his head had cleared a little, and he would need all his faculties for where he was going.

  The shuttle to Alcedine was silent. There were no other Augments, just wary looking h-men who wouldn’t meet his eye. Tolly felt a flash of irritation at this. When he had been in charge, Augments had been the equals of h-men they certainly hadn’t been feared. As he stared out of the window his mind floated backwards three centuries:

  “I will be dead by the end of today,” his father said.

  Tolly did not hold the old man’s hand. He was an Augment. He had no need for outward shows of emotion. Instead he simply nodded his assent. Yes, his father would be dead soon.

  “You were my first child,” his father said, in the rasping voice that Tolly had began to associate with illness and death. “I created you as an Augment, to give humanity hope. To show them that their lives could extend beyond the cramped, pointless existence on the satellites.”

  Tolly nodded. “This was true.”

  “But I made a mistake.”

  Tolly leaned forward, sure that the old man had misspoken.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I wanted to prolong life, but I went to far. Death is the price we have to pay for the sweetness of life. Without death we can not learn to love life for what it gives us.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “You Augments live too long. You will watch every person you know grow old and die, and that knowledge hardens something inside of you. It is not the augmentation process that strips the Augments of their humanity. It is the loss of death.”

  “You are wrong.”

  “Ah, you are young still.”

  “I am eighty years old.”

  “Wait until you are dying, then you will understand. And you must make the others understand. All the children I have created. You must teach them how to die.”

  Tolly’s hands had clenched into fists then and he had nearly hit the old man. That was before he had learned to entirely control his augmented emotions. Instead he looked deep into the man’s eyes.

  “You have turned off your augmentations,” Tolly said. “That is why you are not making sense.”

  “No. I was never a true Augment, just a man who experimented on himself. That is why I am able to tell you what you know but won’t admit to yourself. You will understand eventually, Tolly. You are the cleverest of them, but also the most human.”

  “You insult me,” Tolly said, but the speech had exhausted his father. He had fallen into a deep sleep from which he would never wake up.

  The shuttle eased into Alcedine station. Straight into the lion’s den, wasn’t that the old expression? It was a shame he had no idea what a lion was.

  He walked over to the front desk.

  “I wish to speak to Rowhan.”

  The young male Augment nodded. “You have an appointment.”

  “Tell him Tolly is here to see him.”

  The receptionist looked about to argue, then lifted a radio.

  Satisfied, Tolly walked over to a bench and sat down. He was so weary and it was becoming harder and harder to separate past and present. Perhaps he could just rest h
is eyes for a moment.

  When he opened them, he saw a face full of hostility.

  “Why are you here, Augment?” Cybill, Rowhan’s assistant glared at him from under lowered eyebrows.

  “I want to speak to Rowhan.”

  “He is busy. You should be resting. Go home.”

  The new part of Tolly, the animal that was baying for blood wanted to throttle Cybill where they stood. He struggled to keep himself under control.

  “I will not go home. Fetch me Rowhan.”

  A momentary loss of control saw Cybill raise their eyebrows. For a moment the Augment said nothing. Then they nodded.

  “Follow me.”

  Cybill led him down a flight of stairs and along a corridor. It wasn’t until they entered the room that Tolly realized they must be somewhere near where he had taken Hester. He couldn’t remember where exactly, but the picture on the screen was of somewhere nearby. A strange coincidence.

  Only… was it a coincidence? When Cybill turned to face him there was a something in their expression that hadn’t been there before. A sort of recognition. They know, Tolly thought. Somehow, they know what I am here to do.

  “You do not need to protect him,” Tolly said. “Rowhan, I mean. I know what he did to me. I will not let him get away with it and if you stand in my way, I will destroy you too.”

  Cybill sighed, then collapsed into the chair with their head in their hands. “Why would I stand in your way?” They spoke in a voice that was smaller, but also… more human. “Why would I do that when I am the one who has been pushing you forward all along.”

  Chapter 34

  It was an ambush. Only there were no armed men, no team of Merchants ready to drag her off to some punishment mine. Just the man in front of her, smiling.

  “Who are you?” Hester asked.

  “Why don’t you tell her, Hawk?”

  Hester turned to the actor. His normally perfect skin had turned pale and blotchy. Derek didn’t meet her eyes; instead he stared at the stranger.

  “This is Ant T. Fisher,” Derek said in a low voice. “He is head of the biggest gang of miners on Mars. And he also works for the Merchants.”

  “No, no. The Merchants work for me.”

  Hester was getting a sinking feeling in her stomach. She wished Derek would look at her, but he kept staring straight ahead.

  “How do you know him?” Hester asked.

  “Business associates,” Derek said.

  “Why do I get the feeling that is not the whole story?”

  “She’s a clever one, Hawk. But then we knew that already. Clever enough to fake her way into a job on Mars. Kind of impressive, if we hadn’t created the job for you in the first place.”

  “You… what?”

  “Well, the logistics were worked out by my friends at Alcedine Tower. And it was Hawk here who came up with the Poet Laureate idea. Genius, wasn’t it? We knew that you would be dying to apply, and sure enough you did. Never imagined the poetry would be so awful though.”

  Hester felt his words like physical blows, but she gritted her teeth, refusing to show how much they hurt. As for Derek…

  “You’re part of all this.”

  “A small part,” he said, finally looking at her. “I didn’t mean…”

  “To hurt me? Now I’m sure you’ve said that in a hundred movies. How about this time you just don’t bother.”

  White-hot shame burned inside her. She had introduced Tolly to this guy! Risked the Augment’s life for what? Some kind words and a six pack. Damn!

  “Well, this is fun,” Fisher said. “But we do have work to do. Can I ask you to follow me, Hester? I could force you, of course, but let’s be civilized. One businessperson to another.”

  Go to the Earth’s frozen core, Hester thought, but she nodded instead.

  “You can leave now, Hawk,” Fisher said, dismissing the actor with a wave of his hand.

  “I’d like to stay,” Derek said, shooting a pitiful look at Hester. She turned away.

  “Sorry, kiddo, mum and dad have work to do. Off you go.”

  After one more look, Derek turned and started to walk back to the shuttle. He didn’t look like the weary hero heading for home anymore. He looked like a minor character, cut from the film for being irrelevant to the plot. And good riddance, Hester thought.

  “Time to see the secret heart of Mars,” Fisher said, linking his arm through hers as if they were going for a date. “Get ready for all your wishes to come true.”

  Chapter 35

  Tolly’s brain was not working fast enough to process what Cybill was trying to tell him.

  “You are the one that has been trying to expose the Augments?”

  “Not just the Augments. The Merchants too.”

  “But… why? Why would you…” Tolly’s left leg collapsed under him and he fell to the floor in a tumble of limbs. Cybill rushed over to help.

  “I’m ok.” He had managed a sort of half sitting half lying pose. “I don’t want to try standing again yet.”

  “They really screwed you up, didn’t they,” Cybill said in an awed tone.

  “Was it you that sent the datasticks?”

  Cybill nodded. Their eyes darted from left to right. They had almost as poor a handle on their emotions as Tolly did.

  “You sent them to me and to Hester and the actor guy as well?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you know that we would meet?”

  “I didn’t. Yours weren’t the only datasticks I sent out. I gave out twenty or thirty to people on the fringes, people who might be able to stand up to the Council.” Cybill talked in a flood of syllables, as if afraid the words might injure them. “I targeted outcasts like yourselves, people who had reason to distrust the Augments. My plan was to drip feed information and then call everyone together to present the evidence. If it had only been me standing up against them, I would have failed. But with others… But it all moved too quickly. Only the three of you showed any potential for rebellion.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? Rowhan had become a monster. I tried to make him realize, but he couldn’t see it. He got to the point where the whole of humanity could burn as long as the Augments survived.”

  “But you don’t think like that. You are different from all the other Augments.”

  “No. Only the ones who have forgotten where they came from. That’s the problem with the augmentation process. They want you to forget who you were. I remembered. Then, once the process was complete, I went back to see my family. The family that had supported me all through my transition to non-binary. The most accepting, loving people. And they were scared of me. My parents could barely look me in the eye. My sister hid under the bed. I was the creature from her nightmares. And do you know what the worst of it was?”

  “I can guess,” Tolly replied, his voice low and rasping. “The worst was you didn’t care.”

  “That’s right. I wanted to be sad that they hated me, but each time my brain tried to grieve those augmented hormones just kicked right back in and I was fine. An emotionless robot, but fine. It took me nearly a decade to work out how to turn off the worst of the augmented areas of my brain, but by then my parents were dead and the rest of my family had moved on. I went back to being a normal Augment, but I never forgot.”

  Tolly nodded. There was nothing in Cybill’s words that he hadn’t thought himself. But was that enough to trust them?

  “Tell me about the base the Merchant’s built.”

  Cybill wrung their hands together. “I still don’t know everything. But the reason I started investigating in the first place is that it is all linked to the Venus disaster.”

  Tolly couldn’t hold in the cry of pain. “That damned memory. That’s the one that hurts the most, worse than anything about Mars. But it was ten years ago. I don’t remember it, but Hester told me. Surely if they were so scared of that memory they would have removed it at the time. So what’s the connection to now?�
��

  “I’m not sure. But that memory, I won’t use the name, that memory is something to do with why the Augments allowed the Merchants to build on Mars. It’s like the Merchants know something about Ve… the thing that gives them a hold over the Council. I’m the closest person to Rowhan, I’m sure of it, but when he met with the Merchant’s it was only the oldest Augments that were allowed to attend. And they’ve kept their secrets to themselves.”

  “They’re good at that,” Tolly said. He noticed in a detached sort of way that he could taste blood, although he wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Time, he needed more time.

  Cybill checked their datapad. “I need to get back before Rowhan gets suspicious. Listen, you nearly ruined everything by coming here. At some point the Council will work out what I’ve been doing. You need to stop them before its too late for all of us. I don’t know exactly what is happening with the Merchant’s mine, but the Augments have been talking about ‘necessary losses’. Sounds to me like they are going to push humanity out onto broken ice once again. I know who you are, Augment. You have a responsibility to the h-men, and to the rest of us. It has to be you that stops them.”

  Tolly wanted to say he was too broken even to try, but he nodded instead. What good would it do to kill Cybill’s hope?

  “I will stop Rowhan,” he replied. “By the end of today it will be over.” For one of us at least, Tolly thought.

  Chapter 36

  Hester Dousainy never learned a single damned thing. That was what the first and only Poet Laureate of Mars was thinking would be her epitaph as she travelled deep into the heart of the Merchant’s base on Mars. She had been fifteen when she had first been caught trying to outsmart the Merchants and now here she was, ten years later, in the exact same situation.

  Except that ten years ago they had been lenient. She had only been forced to return the fuel stabilizers that she had stolen from the dopey old supply manager’s cupboard. Of course, what the Merchants hadn’t realized was that the entire robbery had been a set up. What she had really been after was the new code to the lock. She knew that the manager would change it as soon as she broke it, and the little recording device she had hidden there just before she got caught had worked perfectly. For the next six years she could come and go into the supply room without anyone ever realizing. That had been a good day.