Nowadays all candidates for astronaut duty were carefully screened and were not expected to remain away from home for lengthy periods of time. They all watched each other carefully for signs. All supply shuttles contained specially fitted passenger pods to facilitate emergency evacuation. Out of Aurora’s original contingent of twenty, only three, the Australian mission remained, including herself and Terry and Cath. All the rest, except for Paola, were safely back Earth-side. Paola had opted to go for a walk outside one day without wearing a squeeze suit.
Most people who came to Mars did not stay more than a year and Aurora had been here for two and a half, making her the senior scientist, in terms of Mars time, on the planet since Terry and Cath were in logistic support. Some might argue that she had not been as productive as others. She had not submitted a single paper in her tenure here, but with a world waiting to be explored Aurora felt an urgency to collect as much data on the ground as she could. There would be plenty of time to reflect on her findings later. She felt it was more to her testament that, while she had not published, neither had she perished.
In this moment Mars was the home Aurora had never found elsewhere. A cramped world of expectation and obligation completely left behind, millions of kilometers away, literally. Even Antarctica had been stuffed with an entrenched and ossified bureaucracy. The Earth was full. Mars was empty.
Aurora was not lonely amidst this titanic desolation. She could spend the day out, pursuing a variety of projects, on her own time, free in the infinite now. Tonight, she would return to the warm embrace of her family of co-workers, sharing the intimacy of their mutual isolation.
The hours passed cleanly, interrupted by very few thoughts other than wonder. At last Aurora and Denali rounded a familiar rise and descended towards a group of cylinders near the edge of a great cliff, attached to one another at various points like a hamster habitat. The accidental looking complex was the solitary inhabited outpost on the entire planet, the Mars Alliance Scientific Org Research Station 1, or MASO 1. The Australian contingent had nicknamed the station “Mawson Mars” after the Australian Antarctic station and in keeping with the proud, if somewhat slack, Aussie tradition of recycling names.
The walls of Mawson Mars sported a United Nations of Gov and Sys flags along with a peppering of various Com, Org and Net logos. Aurora’s eyes targeted the most recently added green and gold of the Confederated Sys of Australia bordering the Southern Cross of the old Gov. Her eyes purposely skipped past the large banners proclaiming the new operators, slapped on the axis and other high-profile spots, but the effort only highlighted the oppressiveness of Mirtopik Com’s unwelcome presence.
A squeeze-suited figure exited one of the out sheds and walked on a course to intersect hers.
“Hi Aurora.” The high, delicate voice chiming through the neurolink brought a smile to Aurora’s face. It belonged to Xiao Li, her best mate. Xiao Li had shipped out to Mars with the Many Sys One China expedition, which arrived soon after the Australians had. Before Mars, Aurora and Xiao Li had remotely collaborated on the same scientific proposals to MASO and, until recently, they’d worked those projects together. Before Phillipa had gone and mucked things up, that is.
“G’day Shel.”
“We became worried when you didn’t respond to the radio check.” There was strain in Xiao Li’s voice as she delivered the admonition.
“Yeah. Terry’s already belted me round the ears for that,” Aurora admitted sheepishly.
“I should have gone out with you on this Away. It was too dangerous.”
“Well Shel, you’ve been given your own projects now.” Aurora could almost hear Xiao Li roll her eyes.
“Those are not my projects Aurora. Anyway, you must tell me, did you find any more sulfanogens?”
“Just where you said they’d be.” The familiar cadence of shoptalk accompanied them back to the shed where they unloaded the sled.
Aurora unbuckled Denali and released him to prowl the night and mark off the boundary of his lonely territory against the universe. He would later let himself in, download his data, and collapse into shutdown mode at the foot of her bunk tube. Aurora watched him weave out into the dunes.
“Denali looks after me Shel.”
Xiao Li tightly gripped Aurora’s hand as they walked back to the airlock of the main station.
“Denali does not have hands.”
These unselfconscious gestures of endearment were what Aurora valued most about her friend.
As they removed their helmets the soothing sounds of Freya’s guitar and the rambling buzz of evening conversation issuing from the main cabin welcomed them. Aurora and Xiao Li stowed their buckeygel outer layers of the squeeze suits and helped each other strip off the constricting body stockings that compensated for the weak atmospheric pressure of Mars.
“You must go first,” Xiao Li directed Aurora to the shower stall.
Aurora eagerly embraced the penetrating warmth of the hot shower - lukewarm in truth but as hot as anything could be on Mars. Invasive red fines fizzed as the water found them. The stuff was corrosive – loaded with hydrogen peroxide and other nasties. The first experiments on Mars brought on board the Viking lander had mistaken this chemical reactivity for signs of life. What they were really seeing was the long-term effect of a planet with no ozone layer.
She inspected her body, tracing the overlapping scars on her bronzed skin from where the fines had worked into her squeeze suit. Aurora noted a new area of rawness and applied some nanosorb and noted with relief that a dark patch under her left breast had receded indicating that it was at less risk for becoming a melanoma. Her hands worked around her breasts, completing the routine check. Their voluptuousness seemed so excessive, so out of place on this barren world, that Aurora lately felt embarrassed for them. She preferred them flattened down underneath the squeeze suit. Perversely Mars accentuated them, where the gravity of Earth would have pulled them down to more modest dimensions, here they floated out unrestrained. She worked the soap expeditiously over the remainder of the curves of a body that was plainly from another world.
Flipping off the shower in response to the ration meter, she turned to the mirror. The face that reflected in it utterly betrayed the body that it was attached to. A tight grin beamed from a thin face, and the yellow highlights in hazel eyes glinted with the remainder of joy from so much time alone out in the field. Whereas the other girls would condition and dye theirs, Aurora had let the peroxide sap the color from her red hair and left it to frizz. The lines etching up to the corners of her eyes mirrored the crags and jags of the planet she loved.
As Aurora stepped out Xiao Li filled her in on the latest gossip.
” …and so Phillipa reduced computer time for Ramibai’s Org. She says the modelling work is slowing down her neurolink to the Mirtopik office.”
“How’s that? Phillipa using her neurovisor to virtually attend meetings Earth-side again is she? The time lag would have to be awful. What did Ramibai say?”
“That is just what Ramibai says. She recommended to Phillipa that she must use the 2D conferencing or e-mail. And then Phillipa put in a notation against IndraSys's mission time.”
Each person’s time left on Mars was dictated by a points system designed to predict the risk of team members developing Outlanders. Notations from authorized persons, such as Freya as medical officer or Phillipa as chief scientist, could add up to a costly early departure for an entire mission. Aurora suspected that it had the opposite effect, causing crew members to mask their symptoms instead of reporting them. She was doing it herself. Aussies seemed better at this subterfuge than most, which likely accounted for them still being here.
“I don’t believe it. What was the note?”
“Phillipa marked her as Irrationally Combative. Ramibai doesn’t contest it. Chandra put in a counter diagnosis as psychology officer, but Ramibai was angry.”
Aurora had a hard time imagining Ramibai getting angry about anything. The eldest crewmemb
er and head of the IndraSys mission, Ramibai was like a wise older sister to everyone. She suspected that what Ramibai really objected to was the dangerous precedent set by Phillipa playing politics with Notations.
“Ramibai never gets angry. You’d think by now Terry would have picked up enough Notes for all of us.”
“That is how Phillipa justified it, an uncharacteristic change in personality.”
“Because she knew Ramibai would put up and shut up. No chance of that with Terry. Plus, Ramibai’s scientific, more of a threat. Terry’s just logistics.”
“Probably. Devi is developing some interesting scenarios on Martian prehistory. She told me yesterday, she linked one causal chain through 213 distinct Syns, cross-audited. Can you believe it?”
“Yeah?” Aurora scratched her head, struggling to keep up with the casual pace with which her friend flitted between topics, never an easy task for her, but particularly so after a long time in the field.
“Yes. It seems that Boreal Vastis Ocean could have lasted several hundred million years longer than previously thought.”
Give or take a few, thought Aurora, and that was over a billion years ago. The idea that it could once again come to life filled with water from redirected comets or by some other absurd fantasy, was the official fiction for which they all were required now to feign enthusiasm.
“I wonder how that finding will affect our share price today?” remarked Aurora cynically.
Few things got under her skin like the charade forced upon them by Mirtopik’s “rescue” of the MASO mission. In return for free energy and space transport they were now beholden to twist every minute scientific finding into corporate propaganda supporting August Bridges’ grand plans for the human race. It was sickening. Ramibai’s team from IndraSys were the best planetary systems modellers out. Their time on Mars was precious. Here they were being forced to beg resources behind Phillipa’s marketing of Cloud Cuckooland. Aurora’s own excursions to find life on Mars had to be constantly justified in these fraudulent terms.
“Julia?” Aurora asked guiltily as Xiao Li passed her a towel.
Xiao Li looked down as she took Aurora’s place in the shower.
“Shel?”
“She is not doing well.”
“Shit.” Aurora wrestled into her tracksuit.
“It is definitely the Outlanders, Freya and Chandra both agree. Everyone can tell by now, it’s coming on very rapidly. She needs to be evacuated very soon.”
“How long until the next shuttle?”
“Two months.”
“Jesus.”
“Yes Ror, I’ve been praying to God every day.”
And there was nothing more to say. Aurora felt a silent prayer of her own stick in her throat as she dressed and headed for the door.
“Oh, Aurora,” Xiao Li called out, “I really need to warn you.”
The door slid opened and Terry stuck her head in, close-cropped ginger hair, oil stained from daily rounds keeping the wheels from falling off the station. “What’re you two lessies getting up to in here?”
Xiao Li stepped quickly back into the shower.
“Wishful thinking, Terry?” Aurora punched playfully at Terry’s shoulder. “Xiao Li was just...”
“I can see,” Terry aimed an exaggerated leer towards the quickly drawn shower curtain. “Come on, we’re waiting up for you.”
Aurora followed Terry’s lead down to the toroidal main node of the station that housed the mess. The remaining population of Mars, all twelve of them, were waiting as they entered.
“Where have you been Aurora?” Chandra, always the shrink, never asked a question that didn’t come off as loaded.
“Out near Hyblaeus Catena.”
Terry whistled, “Now that’s a way beyond the black stump.”
A small, defeated voice whispered from the alcove near the doorway to the mess hall. “I thought you were dead.”
It was Julia. She had lost a startling amount of weight in just these few days. Her eyes had bored back into their sockets and her hands lay slack at her sides. It was a far cry from the hilarious and vivacious character that had kept them all in stitches since the day she had first arrived on Mars. It didn’t seem possible that a person could undergo this drastic a change in her personal presence, virtually overnight.
“Hey Jules, I’m sorry mate. Neurolink went on the blink.” It felt like a lie. Aurora went over to lay her arm across the stooped shoulders, which felt disturbingly fragile. Aurora cradled the deflated woman and Julia collapsed into her.
“Terry ate your pudding,” Xiao Li chimed, abruptly challenging the mood as she entered the room. This was customary. It didn’t do to dwell on how close to the edge they all really were. Julia smiled and quietly slipped into the seat up next to Aurora, seeming to take some strength by contributing to the groups shared denial. “Terry’s a pig,” she said with considerable effort, and laughed.
“Terry, you bastard.”
“Dob me in why don’t ya?” Terry aimed a sharp look at Julia, “It was getting cold.”
“And I wasn’t? –75 C. Not exactly balmy.” Aurora protested.
Cath intervened unnecessarily, “They’re j-just winding you up Rory, it’ll be in the pantry with the roast.”
“Oh yeah, the roast, now won’t that be delish?” The comment evoked sympathetic sniggers. Tucker at Mawson Mars was not the best. Freeze-dried, shrivelled or powdered, just add Martian water and hope.
“Well, myself, I did not find the roast to be that bad,” Ramibai offered, “Vegetarian as well.” This observation was met with a collective groan.
“Ramibai, with all due respect you’d eat a dag off a sheep’s bum and make out it was better than fillet.”
“It always pays to make the best of the situation Terry. But, in any case, please, now you must satisfy our curiosity and explain. What is a dag Terry?”
“Wool balled up in poo.”
“How gross,” Julia whispered timidly, pulling one of her bizarre faces and then collapsing back from the effort. Everyone laughed a bit too hard.
“Aurora, what did you find out there? Any little red men?” Alice asked as Aurora warmed up supper.
“Yah, because we could use some of them. Men, that is,” Freya weighed in.
“Explored that geo thermal vent scald. I think I identified some archaebacteria fossils in a fissure. I’ll need to get Nyi Song to cut some slides for me.”
“You mean when she’s not doing any more important work,” Phillipa offered. Phillipa. Phillipa had the most annoying “quirks,” which was as charitable a way as Aurora could put it. Aurora disliked almost everything about the Mirtopik installed Chief Scientist, whose credentials were more in public relations than science. She’d tried to separate her feelings about the role from her feeling about the person, but with Phillipa there didn’t seem to be a difference. Phillipa had arrived with the most recent rotation. She kept her cards close to her chest and mostly spoke in that annoying tone she used when filming those horrid infomercials for Mirtopik. She’d interfered with everyone’s projects and had even tried to turn the mission into some kind of voyeuristic freak show by installing 25-hour neurocams around the place. Thankfully, Chandra had argued against that on psychological grounds. The tight confinement was bad enough without turning the place into a fishbowl.
To be generous, she was not as bad as all that, not nearly as bad as some at Mirtopik. But that was being generous. The fact was everyone hated her, except maybe Xiao Li who couldn’t hate anyone.
“Well, when Nyi Song has some time to spare from investigating the extraordinary economic potential of this rock, I’d appreciate it.” Aurora regretted letting Phillipa get to her as she followed the microware buzz to her steaming meal and made her way over to sit next to Julia. She was not in a mood to exchange blows with Phillipa just now. However, their exchange had provided an opportunity for Terry to engage her new favorite pastime - getting up Phillipa’s nose.
“Too right. Li
sten Pippa, mining water and oxygen’s a fine idea, but where you going to send it? Earth? Even the asteroids have more water than we’ve got, and it’s accessible. In case you hadn’t noticed we’re on a planet and it’s really cheap to launch stuff out from here.”
“A planet, that’s right, we’re on a planet Terry, and the planet is going to need to know where its reserves are to develop.” Phillipa sighed as if her answer was too self-evident to warrant voicing it.
Terry rolled her eyes right back. “Yeah, true Pip, they’re gonna terraform Mars. This place is an UV baked, dried up, hard ball of shit in the middle of bloody nowhere. They can’t afford to keep us here let alone emigrate. We'd be dead in the space of months without a regular care package from Earth.”
“You have to think more strategically, over the long term,” replied Phillipa, as if explaining the color of the sky to a three-year-old.
Intentionally avoiding the confrontation, Aurora stroked Julia’s hair. The distance between the group’s argy-bargy and her being seemed to stretch. Her hand seemed to take forever traveling the length of the hair, which seemed to grow longer as her hand progressed. It began to flow like water, like water within water. Aurora licked her parched lips, where chap had overlain chapped. Lifetimes of dryness. The urge to join the stream overpowered her mind and she followed her fingers into the stream, pulled by an irresistible tide. The current hardened around her and she was being dragged into a waterfall of hair, being crushed underneath it, dropping into a bottomless well.
Wheatbelt Wallaby put her foot down, hard into the ground to anchor herself against the upwelling, but the force was too strong, and she began to dissolve into the current. Pebbles broke off from her leg in odd places and were carried away.
“Aurora, what is going on?”
Ten Directions Page 6