Mars Nation: The Complete Trilogy

by Brandon Q Morris

  Ewa looked back one last time. Behind her, Spaceliner 0 still looked elegant with its small back fin, but a dark, rectangular hole now gaped in its lower level, as if a gigantic surgeon had removed a vital organ from there. What would the ship’s owners have to say about that? Ewa shook her head. They weren’t here yet, and nothing was really wholly broken. The hangar could be welded shut again, the robot had only been shorted out, and she was just borrowing the two machines for a few weeks for a good cause. Why should they just sit around in the ship when someone could be making good use of them?

  She activated the loader’s remote-control program. It would follow them at a distance of fifty meters. She then authorized the drill’s navigation system to depart. The huge truck cautiously picked up speed. It drove halfway around Spaceliner 0 before pointing its nose toward the south, where the sun had just reached its zenith. Its sallow light fell softly onto the Mars surface and its scattered rocks. Ewa relaxed into her seat and leaned her head back against her crossed arms.

  6/30/2042, Spaceliner 1

  At exactly noon, the sirens rang out across the ship. Proximity alert! Rick moved unhurriedly into the command center. He was just floating through the hatch as the sirens stopped. All he could do was watch as the three others on the bridge calmed back down. Rick had almost lost his patience. The universe had been taking its own sweet time in bringing his plan into play. But now something had finally happened.

  “What were the sirens for?” he asked innocently.

  Jean Warren answered him. “A proximity alert.”

  “And what was out there?”

  “An asteroid.”

  “Why was it so loud? Shouldn’t we have picked it up earlier?”

  “We’re checking on that. The boulder was large enough that we actually should’ve picked it up from a greater distance than this.”

  “Chad, aren’t you on watch? I expect you to do a thorough investigation of what happened. We can’t allow any errors. We might be our planet’s last survivors.”

  One hour later, there was a knock at his cabin door. It must be Chad, Rick thought as he called, “Come in!”

  Yes, it was the NASA astronaut who had participated in the inflammatory conversation with Jean and Isaac. Rick smiled at him. It felt good to be in the know without anyone being aware that he was. He hoped that Chad was about to lie to him so that he could take both him and Jean out at the same time.

  “The alarm from earlier,” Chad began. “You asked me to look into what happened.”

  “Correct. Something like that shouldn’t just happen. Just imagine what would’ve occurred if the asteroid had hit us.”

  “The odds of that were never more than a fraction per mil.”

  “Nonetheless, Chad, what likelihood would you have placed on us being left high and dry by Earth on our flight to Mars?”

  “You’re totally right. That was a serious incident. I didn’t mean to trivialize it.”

  “Good. And what have you discovered?”

  “The good news is that I didn’t find any technical failures. The asteroid was detected at a greater distance.”

  “But?”

  “Someone had shut off the system’s corresponding alert system.”

  “Why? Do you suspect sabotage?”

  “No, not at all. It’s just that during every shift we pick up several asteroids at a greater distance. The sensors can really get annoying. I simply assume that the signals were deactivated because of that.”

  “So someone put our ship in great danger as a matter of convenience?” Rick grew intentionally louder. He must make his horror crystal clear.

  “That would be one possible motive, but I can’t see inside her brain.”

  “In her brain?”

  “Captain Jean Warren was on duty during the shift in which the signals were turned off. The log indicates that they were deactivated from her account.”

  “Thank you very much for this information, Chad. I am quite grateful,” Rick switched to a more confiding tone. “And I won’t forget you when it’s time for future promotions.”

  What a brilliant move on my part, Rick thought. I will knock Chad out completely when I have the captain arrested based on his statement and reward him for it. The mutinous cell around Isaac and him will be totally shut down.

  “I... That really isn’t necessary. I was just doing my job.”

  “We need more people just like you, Chad.”

  At seventeen hundred hours, Rick called the entire crew together in the common room. He was even able to convince the senator to join them as a member of the assembly, just in case someone challenged his authority to do this.

  After the room fell silent, he asked Jean Warren to come to the front.

  “I apologize, Jean,” he said without making eye contact with her. “You are undoubtedly a deserving colleague, which makes the error you committed all the more tragic. It might have cost the last survivors of the human race their very existence. A collision with an asteroid could have virtually pulverized this ship. This is why I am relieving you of your duties, effective immediately. In addition, I am ordering a fourteen-day arrest period, at the end of which you may attempt to regain the crew’s trust through your new duties in the kitchen.”

  The crew members at the back of the space began to murmur and whisper. He had to be even clearer.

  “It is specifically because of your service and accomplishments that I am choosing to not view your error as an act of sabotage. Under the current, exceptional circumstances, I would have otherwise been forced to sentence you to lifelong imprisonment or even death.”

  The audience grew quiet. Now they get it, Rick thought.

  Sol 86, Mars surface

  Ewa had dreamed a nightmare the night before. In it, she had set fire to the NASA base she was driving toward, like Nero had done to Rome centuries ago. The flames blazed away. She ran off, but in some magical way, the fire could also be seen beyond the horizon. It seemed to have been seared into her retina.

  That wasn’t a realistic scenario, of course. The higher percentage of oxygen at the station increased the fire risk, but a fire couldn’t be sustained in Mars’s atmosphere. It would burn out all the rooms, but would die as soon as it worked its way to the outside. Was her dream trying to tell her something? As the drill bumped across the Mars landscape, Ewa touched her tool bag. It was hanging on the outside of her spacesuit, which she had draped over the armrest of the passenger seat. Moving her hand over the laminated material, she could feel the weapon’s metal.

  Maybe it was time to dispatch that thing inside her head. She touched her forehead with her right hand. It must be sitting a few centimeters behind this spot, that electronic implant housing the uninvited guest who had turned her into a danger to the others. Even if Friday had helped her, could she dismiss the possibility that she might once again become a tool for him to complete his mission? No, she couldn’t. Nonetheless, she felt like it would be a mistake to use the taser today. Mars wasn’t paradise. The planet was unforgiving, demanding every last ounce of strength from its residents. She could use every bit of help she could get.

  Ewa imagined what would happen when she reached the base. In every respect, they would approach her with skepticism. Initially, the NASA people wouldn’t believe the treasure she had brought to them. And they wouldn’t readily accept her transformation, especially not when she declared that she had been controlled by something inside her head.

  Ewa chuckled quietly. She wouldn’t have believed herself either. In a best-case scenario, she would lock anyone who made such a claim in solitary confinement. But that wasn’t what Ewa wanted. She wanted to be active and helpful. So she couldn’t reveal what was inside of her. She had to make up a story that would at least halfway clarify her motive. She didn’t expect them to take her in with open arms, but she did want them to accept her help.

  “Proximity alarm,” the vehicle’s comp suddenly announced.

  Ewa sat up, startled. What could be
approaching her out here in the desolate Mars desert? She couldn’t see anything on the screen. She increased the contrast. There really was something moving on the horizon. Ewa experimented with various light wavelength ranges. In the infrared spectrum, it became clear that the object was composed of heated air. It had to be a dust devil. Ewa measured the distance. It was about five kilometers away and was slowly moving toward her. The phenomenon was approximately fifteen meters across. In the visible light, it seemed to be almost a hundred meters tall, dissolving at that height into the ever-present dust layer. However, the infrared image revealed that the tube of heated air reached significantly higher. The little tornado was lifting dust from the surface and carrying it upward. Ewa measured the wind speed as approximately forty to sixty kilometers per hour. It wasn’t really a threat to her. The atmosphere was much too thin. She leaned back again. The dust devil wasn’t anything more than a nice distraction. It would miss her by about two kilometers.

  But Ewa impulsively turned off the autopilot function. She steered the vehicle by hand, directly for the mini-storm. After all, she was a scientist! Nobody had ever measured the precise pressure and temperature readings inside of a Mars dust devil. On the other hand, these phenomena were well-researched back on Earth. She had learned about this work as a student. Of course, there wasn’t anyone back on Earth with whom she could share her findings, but the scientist in her still compelled her to act. Ewa decided to follow the practices of geologists back on Earth. She needed a pole and double-sided tape. Hadn’t she come across a tent in one of the boxes?

  She quickly pulled on her spacesuit. The unexpected activity suddenly made her feel very alive. She authorized the life support system to suck out the air in the cab before stepping out of the hatch. She found the tent in the second crate she checked. She removed its rod system. If she connected all the rods into a single pole, it would reach about three and a half meters. She had tape in her tool bag. She needed to use it sparingly, which was why she wrapped single strips of tape at ten-centimeter intervals along the length of the pole. That should do it.

  Ewa looked at the horizon. The dust devil was still five hundred meters away. It had shifted direction. If she wanted to overtake it, she would have to run. Ewa turned momentarily toward the drill. It wasn’t even noon yet. What would happen if she moved a short distance away from it? She estimated the windstorm’s movement and then set off toward the west, running faster and faster, in order to intersect it. The motorized knee and hip joints worked wonders. Ewa took giant steps. She suspected she was moving at about thirty kilometers per hour.

  These spacesuits really were marvelous. This was probably some form of military technology, otherwise NASA would at least have something similar. She made it! The dust devil was now coming right at her. Ewa came to a stop. It looked quite impressive up close. The dust was thick, cutting off the sunlight. It looked as if the Eiffel Tower’s little brother had set itself in motion and was racing straight for her. The atmosphere was too thin for it to be dangerous, she reminded herself. Years ago, around the turn of the millennium, a Mars rover had even benefited from an encounter with a dust devil, which had instantly cleaned off its solar cells. Nothing would happen to her.

  Then the storm reached her, and it was magical.

  Dust particles danced around her. Her view of her surroundings grew blurred. She froze, standing still. Ewa stretched out her arms. She drew bright, hovering lines in the dust. She had to keep reminding herself that this wasn’t some form of magic—the dust was simply bouncing off her outstretched arms, and behind them, areas with less dust were being formed. The wind wasn’t actually as strong as it had seemed from the outside. The dust particles it was whirling along had to be very small and light.

  Ewa remembered the pole. She stuck it into the ground and held onto it tightly. She looked up. The storm didn’t have an eye, which had to be because it wasn’t reaching straight upward. It was bending in all directions, coiling like a giant worm reaching up on its tail to the sky to beg for something. What might be going on with the dust devil? Ewa laughed loudly. Anyone who could see her would think she was crazy. The dust devil didn’t have any wishes, of course. But it was fascinating to imagine what it might wish for, if it could.

  Maybe it would like to just take her with it. The wind tugged on her. It was only a minor difference in pressure. It was easy for her to resist this force, but it was alluring. The dust devil had chosen her of all people as its target. No, she had actually been the one that had gotten into its path. Ewa turned and walked in the direction that the storm was dictating. She set one foot in front of the other and let the wind conduct her movements.

  The dust devil no longer seemed to be in such a hurry. Hadn’t it been wandering much faster across the Mars surface than it was now? Perhaps it, too, was happy to have found a living creature with which it could communicate? It was possible that it had been wandering around the lifeless desert for centuries, searching for a companion that its father Mars either couldn’t or wouldn’t provide. What if the dust devil wasn’t made up of grains of sand, but of living cells that surrounded its center core, creating a loose organism?

  Now my imagination is really running wild, Ewa thought. She stopped walking. She had to let the storm pull away. It gusted against her a few more times, insisting that she accompany it, but then it realized that it didn’t stand a chance. Suddenly, the air was as clean as it ever could be on Mars. The dust devil headed off northward. Ewa felt a flash of panic. What if the storm had carried her off, against her will, to a secret kingdom? Would Friday pipe up any moment with, ‘I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore?’

  Ewa spun around quickly. No, two hills were there on the horizon looking like elephants—the drill and the loader. She folded up the pole and retraced her footsteps. She was sweating by the time she reached the ladder to the cab. A light was blinking on the drill’s navigational screen. Ewa didn’t bother with it. She first wanted to examine the pole. She closed the hatch and let fresh air flow back into the cab. She then took a seat at the analysis tool at the back of the cab. This work station had obviously been built for a physicist or a geologist. It seemed obvious to Ewa that the passengers in the drill would occasionally need to examine soil samples. She had already caught sight of the microscope. She carefully removed the tape from the upper end of the pole, pulled a slide out of the drawer, and brushed some of the material stuck to the tape onto it. After pushing the slide under the microscope’s lens, she gazed carefully through the eyepiece.

  Ewa was disappointed. Of course, she had known how fanciful her idea had been, but she had still secretly hoped to be right. But what she saw didn’t include living cells. They were obviously crystals. She recognized silica with iron particles, along with a little ice that melted on the slide. What she had was perfectly ordinary Mars dust. It was significantly finer than what was typically found on the surface, but that was also normal, since the dust devil wasn’t unusually large or especially strong. She looked out the window. It was gone. Maybe it had already dissipated. Some dust devils only lasted for a few minutes. Those that covered a hundred meters or more in diameter could move for days across the Mars surface, leaving behind trails that could even be seen from Earth.

  She looked at the clock. Her excursion had lasted almost two hours. But she had the time to spare. She would probably reach the NASA base by Sol 101, a day earlier than initially anticipated. She packed the pole away neatly. Tomorrow she would more precisely measure the dust density at varying elevation levels. This would at least give her something to do. And perhaps she would find a few more interesting crystals under the microscope.

  Her eyes were drawn once more to the flashing light on the navigation console. She sat down in the driver’s seat. She had received a message. Who was trying to contact her? No one knew where she was! Her heart pounded faster, and her forehead grew warm. She played the message. It was an audio message that had been forwarded to the drill from the transport ship. />
  “My name is Rick Summers,” she heard a human voice in which the owner’s sense of self-importance was quite evident. Ewa quickly realized that this was the unpleasant person who had very openly advertised for spies among her crew.

  “I am the administrator of Spaceliner 1, and am speaking in the name of Senator Rick Ballantine, who—after the probable collapse of the government of the United States—represents the highest political power on this planet.”

  As if, now that Earth had stopped communicating, any title from there meant anything at all!

  “I have been informed that you have stolen property from our expedition. An act like this can only be interpreted as an expression of aggression. You will be held accountable for this, unless you immediately return our property to where you took it from. This is no empty threat. The camera footage has enabled us to identify you as Ewa Kowalska, a member of the Mars for Everyone project. If you refuse to right your illegal actions, we will demand recourse from MfE. Since your entire ship is presumably worth less than the vehicles you have stolen, MfE will have to spend the rest of their lives working for us to pay off this debt. I possess the means and the authority to carry out this warning, and will begin doing that as soon as Spaceliner 1 lands on Mars. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

  Well, he had certainly told her! Ewa sat in the driver’s seat, her arms crossed. A giant drill that allegedly belonged to this Rick Summers now followed her wishes alone, and Summers couldn’t do a thing about it. This message was, in her opinion, primarily an expression of rage. But she could live with that. Summers didn’t have to be her enemy. His threats left her strangely cold. The man sounded like any other bureaucrat. He had to be one of those insolent bureaucrats, as otherwise he wouldn’t have taken things this far. But he still had no idea of what life was truly like out here. Mars was no walk in the park. Life on Mars was a matter of survival, especially since they could no longer expect any support from Earth.