by C. J. Nash
“My orders were to report immediately.”
“Yeah, about that…You might as well get used to the idea that the colonists never do anything immediately. The clock on the wall,” Janet pointed, “is set to local time. We use a standard 24 hour clock, but don’t let it confuse you. The hours, minutes and seconds are just a tiny bit longer than what you are used to. Time moves more slowly on Mars. If you don’t need anything, I’ll be going.”
Janet extended her hand. Mason grasped the offered appendage. He felt thoroughly overwhelmed.
Chapter 2
THE GOVERNOR
At oh-nine-fourteen the next morning, Janet rapped on the door to Mason’s apartment. When the door was opened, she asked, “Ready to see the governor?”
After they had walked in silence for a couple of minutes, Mason said, “You know…my clothes smelled funny when I took them out of the LaundryMate.”
“Funny?”
“Well they smelled good, but I couldn’t place the smell.” Mason sniffed his sleeve and then offered it to Janet. “You can still smell it a little.”
Janet sniffed. “Smells like sunshine.”
“What? You can’t smell sunshine.”
“That’s what my mother always said. What you smell is ozone.”
“Ozone? Why ozone?”
“Closed system. We recycle our water and air and everything else. We do everything we can to kill harmful bacteria and viruses. The LaundryMate irradiates the clothes with ultraviolet light. Makes ozone.”
“Okay…but what makes that smell like sunshine?”
“When I was a little girl, our LaundryMate stopped working. It was right in the middle of the technician’s strike and we couldn’t get it repaired for over a month. Fortunately, my mom was resourceful. She washed our clothes in the bathtub. To dry them, she hung a rope outside and let them dry in the open air. That’s when we discovered how good it smelled to dry the clothes outside. Even after the LaundryMate was repaired, Mom would still find time to hang the clothes in the sunshine. Every time I do laundry, I can still see my mom carrying in an armload of clothes. She would bury her face in them and breathe in the fragrance, and she always said, Smells like sunshine.”
“It does smell good.” Mason sniffed his sleeve again. “Are your parents still on Earth?”
Janet’s face clouded, the pleasant memories swept away. “No. They both died in the riots of ‘39.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…” Mason trailed off, unable to find the right words.
“It’s okay. That’s one reason I joined the Mars colony. No family ties to hold me on Earth. How about you? You got anyone on Earth waiting for you to return?”
“No, not really. My mom was a smash addict and I never knew my dad. When I was eight-years-old, Mom said that she was going to the store. She walked out the door and I never saw her again. I don’t have a whole lot of friends. But I like my job. I would like it a whole lot better if I knew why I had to come to Mars to do it.”
“You’re here because the Governor requested an investigator. You’re here because officials on Earth don’t understand that the Mars colony would function much better without their constant interference. You’re here because people on Earth refuse to understand the needs of the colonists.”
****
Without bothering to knock, Janet led Mason into the governor’s office. “Governor Bartholomew Richards,” she announced, “Mason Turner would like to see you. Mr. Turner is the investigator that you requested.”
The governor stood. He was 1.8 meters in height (about 6 feet) and his temples showed a slight peppering of grey. The governor closed his computer and offered a hand to Mason. “I hope Ms. Edwards has helped you get settled in.”
Mason grasped the governor’s hand. “Well, yes. I have an apartment but my clothes haven’t arrived yet, and I don’t have a functioning notepad. I am comfortable even if I am still in the dark as to why I am here.”
Governor Richards peered over his wire rimmed glasses in Janet’s direction. With no indication of apology she stated, “Things take time. There are priorities.”
“Then your priority will be to see that Mr. Turner is comfortable and has all that he needs to commence his investigation.”
Mason glanced toward Janet and noted that she appeared to have no interest in what was being said. He addressed the governor, “Speaking of the investigation, what is it that I am here to investigate?”
“Before we can begin, I will have to invite…” The governor scrolled through his notepad. “Here it is. I will have to ask Robert Tellus to join us.”
“Why Tellus?” Janet inquired.
“Tellus represents the Deep Mars Project.”
That got Janet’s attention; her eyes were daggers. “A Morlock! Why do we need a Morlock here for the investigation?”
“According to Tellus, the result of the investigation could be used to affect the future of the Deep Mars Project. I can have him here in an hour.”
“Okay.” Janet started for the door. Glancing back over her shoulder, she said, “We’re going to get breakfast. We’ll be back in about ninety minutes—two hours at the latest.”
Outside the governor’s building Mason asked, “Is it really going to take that long for us to get breakfast?”
“No. But I’m not in a hurry to deal with a Morlock.”
“Morlock? What’s a Morlock?”
“I’ll tell you while we eat.” Janet tugged at Mason’s sleeve. “In here. The food’s good.”
They entered a building that had no outward indication that there was food inside. Delicious smells assaulted Mason’s olfactory. “Oh…This smells wonderful. I haven’t eaten real food since I left Earth. I smell bacon.”
“What you smell is bacon-flavored chicken. We also have sausage-flavored chicken, ham-flavored chicken, steak-flavored chicken and just about any other kind of meat-flavored chicken you can imagine. We even have chicken that actually tastes like chicken. So far we’ve only got one animal on Mars besides people and that’s chickens. Someday, we will get some cows and pigs, but right now we eat chicken.”
“I don’t care what it is made of, it smells delicious.”
“Well, get anything you want but don’t take more than you will eat. We try not to waste anything on Mars. Remember lesson number two?”
“Nobody likes me?”
“Yeah. If you waste food, everybody will really hate you.”
With lesson two in mind, Mason sparingly added items to his plate; in contrast, Janet’s plate was filled to overflowing. When her plate was filled, Janet led Mason to a payment terminal. She faced the terminal and spoke, “Janet Edwards authorizing Mason Turner for unlimited food purchases to be charged to the governor’s office. Expires in one year.” Then to Mason: “Look into the camera and state your name.” After Mason did so, she continued, “You’re buying.”
A man operating the terminal tallied the cost of their breakfast. “Any gratuity?”
Without blinking Janet replied, “Seventy-five percent gratuity on all food purchases by Mr. Turner for the duration of his stay.” Mason’s eyebrows shot upward and Janet continued, “It’s the NAU’s money. When I said that we don’t waste anything on Mars, this is the one exception.”
After spending eight and one-half months eating nothing but nutrient bars, Mason’s stomach filled so rapidly that even the meager fare on his plate was almost too much. After he had finished he questioned, “What are Morlocks?”
Janet held up her index finger until the latest mouthful had been chewed and swallowed. “No discussion until after I have finished eating.” Still, half of her breakfast remained. When her plate was emptied, Mason opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted, “Not yet. Dessert first. You want anything? You’re buying.” Mason shook his head.
Janet returned with two very large pastries and offered one to Mason. “Want one. These are the absolute best!”
Mason shook his head. “I can’t; I’m stuffed.”
“Good. More for me.”
Once the pastries had disappeared Mason asked, “Aren’t you going to have anything else?”
“Not right now. But I am looking forward to lunch—you’re buying of course.”
“Of course. Now, about the Morlocks. That name seems…I don’t know. I think I have heard it somewhere before. What are Morlocks?”
“It’s from an old H. G. Wells novel, The Time Machine. Morlocks were a race of people in the future that lived underground.”
“Like the colonists on Mars.”
“No, not like the colonists on Mars. Well not really. We live as near the surface as possible but there are a group of colonists that want to go even deeper.”
“Why?”
“The eight caverns that make up the Mars Colony have to be pressurized. We constantly monitor the pressure to ensure that there are no leaks. If we weren’t ever vigilant, even a tiny hole could wipe out the colony.” Mason’s eyebrow raised; Janet continued, “Yeah, I know, ever vigilant sounds melodramatic, but those are the words they constantly used when we joined the colony. So we’re ever vigilant. At least, our sensors are.
“But the Morlocks’ plan is to move the colony even deeper. If you go deep enough, there would be enough atmospheric pressure that you wouldn’t have to pressurize the colony. You would still have to watch for leaks because you wouldn’t want to exchange all your oxygen for carbon dioxide.”
“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea. How deep would you have to go, a couple of hundred meters?”
“About thirty miles.”
“How far is that in meters?”
Janet rolled her eyes. “Figure five miles equals eight kilometers.”
“Holy shit! That’s deep. Excuse my language.”
“Holy shit, it is deep. Someday we may actually test the feasibility of relocating part of the colony to that depth. Right now we don’t have the resources to waste on a really big hole.”
“You mean it might actually be possible?”
“Maybe. Mars doesn’t have a really large moon like Earth does.”
“What’s the Moon got to do with it?”
“Tides.”
“Tides? There’s no water on Mars.”
“Water’s not the only thing affected by tides. The entire Earth flexes as the Moon orbits. Any hole that deep on Earth would collapse in a short period of time due to tidal forces. And all that flexing creates heat. Thirty miles down on Earth the temperature would be over five hundred degrees but…Oh, those are degrees Fahrenheit. If you want Celsius, you figure it out. Oh yes, I was saying, without a large moon, Mars doesn’t flex very much and it is possible that the temperature wouldn’t be too extreme. In fact, the Morlocks theorize that the temperature would be just right without any need to heat or cool the colony.”
“Are they right?”
“Who knows? Right now we are focusing one hundred percent of our resources toward making the colony self-sufficient. Once we’ve accomplished that, we can afford to explore other possibilities—including the Deep Mars Project.”
“And Mr. Tellus is a leader in the Deep Mars Project?”
“I honestly don’t know. I know Tellus. In a colony this small, you know just about everybody. Since I am associated with the governor’s office, I probably do know everybody, but I didn’t know that he was a Morlock until today. For the most part, they are just harmless lunatics that show up every so often and demand that we divert money and manpower toward digging a hole in the ground. The vote always goes overwhelmingly against them and we don’t hear anything more from them for several more months. I don’t have a clue why he wants to be included in this investigation.
“And another thing…We do have water on Mars.”
“Well, of course, you’ve got water. You couldn’t survive without it.”
“No. We’ve got surface water.”
“I didn’t think that was possible.”
“In the deepest part of the Valles Marineris we’ve got one really big lake. There is actually enough atmospheric pressure to allow surface water to exist. The salt and mineral content of the water is so high that you might not recognize it as water, but it is surface water.” She glanced at her notepad. “Okay. Good. Tellus has been waiting at the office for about thirty minutes.”
“So, we should get back.”
“No hurry. First, I think I’ll have another cup of coffee. You want anything?”
“No. Nothing for me. I’m buying, right?”
“Right.”
Chapter 3
THE OBJECTIVE
When they returned to the governor’s office, Janet and Mason found the governor and another gentleman engaged in a game of chess. It was obvious that the governor was only several moves away from victory. Janet and Mason seated themselves to wait for the game’s completion.
But the other gentleman placed his king on its side. “You win.” He walked over and extended a hand. “Mr. Turner, I am Robert Tellus.” After shaking hands with Mason, Tellus offered his hand to Janet which she took, briefly and coldly.
Without further preamble the governor said, “The reason you are here, Mr. Turner, is to investigate a murder.” He passed a folder to Mason and glared at Janet. “Since you don’t yet have a notepad, I have printed the details of the crime and subsequent investigation.”
“I don’t understand why you need someone from Earth for a criminal investigation.”
“We don’t,” Janet interjected.
“Maybe we do,” argued Tellus stroking his well-groomed van Dyke beard.
The governor frowned. “Crime is almost nonexistent on Mars.”
“Except for murder?” asked Mason.
“One murder. First one on Mars and I would like it to be the last. At least the last under my watch.”
“What about other crimes, theft for instance?”
“The Mars colony has everything it needs to survive and little else.”
Janet interrupted. “Mainly because too many useless pounds of human flesh arrive on the ships.”
The governor glared at Janet. “Please excuse my assistant’s bad manners. Her opinions are not those of this office.”
“It’s okay, Governor. I think I understand why Ms. Edwards resents my presence. Hell, I didn’t want to come, and I still don’t understand why you think you need an investigator from Earth to solve a murder case.”
“It’s a unique situation.” After an uncomfortably long silence, the governor continued, “None of the colonists are willing to investigate because the murder was committed during a holiday that is unique to the Mars colony. It’s called The Day of Secrets.”
Mason searched the other’s faces. “They won’t investigate because of a holiday? Why?”
“Let me explain,” said Janet. The governor waved his hand in dismissal and Janet continued, “The NAU has called the colony a failure. There will never be any new colonists beyond those that are already here. That causes a problem.
“There are approximately two hundred fifty adult colonists. That gives us a fair amount of genetic diversity even though many of the colonists are related. But there is the possibility that there may not be enough diversity if we stick to purely monogamous relationships. So each year—Mars year—we set aside a day that is dedicated to secrets. Anything that occurs during that day is not to be spoken of.”
Tellus interjected, “That day, husbands stay at home and wives are free to roam. Couplings, whether performed or rejected are totally confidential.”
Mason offered a possibility, “Maybe the victim was killed by a jealous husband.”
Janet shook her head. “I won’t speculate. It’s your job to determine who killed him and I don’t think you will have a lot of success.”
“Because of the code of silence?”
“That and the fact that nobody likes you.”
“How about you, Mr. Tellus, do you think it could be a jealous husband?”
“Seems like a real stretch.
You really don’t understand the colonists, so I’ll try to explain. The Day of Secrets isn’t a night of uninhibited sex where we all jump from one bed to another. It is just the best solution that we have for our gene pool problem. I can’t be sure—because nobody talks about it—but I don’t believe that there is a large percentage of the population that actually participates in The Day of Secrets. I don’t see how a jealous husband would have even known if his wife had been with the victim.”
“He could have followed her when she left the house.”
Tellus shook his head. “Doesn’t work that way. All the men stay home. Any man on the street would have been extremely conspicuous, and the women all leave their homes. There are dozens of parties and the women drift from one to another. If they happen to take a dip in the gene pool between parties, it is unlikely that anyone could guess. And if someone did happen to see her enter a home, they would never speak of it. No one speaks of what happens on The Day of Secrets.”
“Jealous wife maybe?”
“She has an alibi.”
“A good alibi?”
Tellus rolled his eyes. “I was just jerking you around. No, she doesn’t have an alibi. No one has an alibi for that night. She could have spent the entire night with her best friend and neither one would ever admit to it. No one ever speaks of anything that happens on The Day of Secrets—ever.”
“How am I supposed to investigate a murder if I can’t ask questions about the night that it happened?”
Tellus leaned back and smiled, his fingers once again rubbing his beard. “That’s your problem. I personally don’t see how you or anybody else can solve this murder.”
For a couple of minutes, there was only silence which Janet finally broke. “The murder is no concern of Earth or the NAU. It is something that should have been handled locally. As there is no possible way to solve the case, there is no need to investigate further.”
The governor slapped his palm on his desk. “We will investigate because the victim deserves justice.”
Janet replied, “Is it possible that he has already received his justice? Maybe he got what he deserved.”