The Ruins of Mars (The Ruins of Mars Trilogy Book 1)

by Dylan James Quarles

  Taking several deep breaths, Harrison accepted the glass of water that Kubba was trying to hand him.

  “Typical. As soon as the dirty work’s done,” he joked, gulping at the glass with enthusiasm.

  “Indeed,” she agreed dryly.

  Hearing a sound at the entryway, he looked up and saw Viviana standing in the frame, hands at her smiling mouth, her eyes twinkling with joyful tears.

  “You’re awake!” she exclaimed excitedly. “I must go call Liu!”

  Dashing away from the door, Viviana broke into lyrical Italian as she padded across the dome towards the communications room.

  “What’s she saying?” asked Harrison with a quizzical grin.

  “How should I know? I don’t speak a word of Italian.”

  Twenty minutes later, Xao-Xing Liu burst through the airlock, stripping quickly out of her pressure suit as she dashed through the dome towards the infirmary. Harrison was sitting up in bed, tentatively taking a few bites of a reheated spaghetti lunch, when she stepped through the open doorway. Exchanging looks of unspoken understanding, Kubba and Viviana excused themselves, sliding the door shut behind them.

  “Harrison,” breathed Liu as she crossed the room to his bedside.

  Taking his face in her hands, she kissed him deeply, then pulled his head to her breast, holding him tightly while she sobbed with joy. He breathed in the scent of her musky body— damp from perspiration—and felt the faint prickling of a memory. Before he could recall its message, Liu spoke, her voice very low and hushed.

  “I thought I was going to lose you.”

  “I’m sorry,” he replied stupidly.

  An unexpected laugh broke her lips, and she squeezed him tighter, warm tears falling from her face to splash in his matted hair. Nestling his face deeper into the safety of her embrace, he waited for her to continue.

  “I’ve called my husband,” she said at last. “I’ve asked him for a divorce. I’m so sorry for how I treated you. I’ve been a fool and a coward. I love you, Harrison. I love you.”

  Looking up into her pained eyes, Harrison felt the tingle of a trapped memory work itself loose. Cascading over him like the dawn's first light, he saw his premonition come to pass. As she had done in his vision outside in the storm, Liu desperately searched his face for forgiveness and acceptance, her own heart now clearly worn on her sleeve. She was vulnerable and afraid.

  Bringing a hand up to brush away her tears, he smiled and closed his eyes.

  “I saw you,” he murmured softly. “When I was out there. I saw your face just like it is now. You were confused, and I wanted so badly to help you, but I couldn’t. I was dying.”

  Liu took a shuddering breath as he ran a hand through her hair.

  “I wanted to touch your hair. I wanted to smell your scent and tell you that I loved you, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even stand up.”

  Stopping, he opened his eyes again and peered up at Liu. In the pause, neither moved as she waited for him to set her free.

  “But I’m here now,” he whispered. “And I love you back.”

  Blinking fiercely, she bent her head and kissed his upturned face, laughing with exultant joy.

  Ruin site—Sol 13

  Two weeks after waking up in the infirmary, a fully healed Harrison Raheem Assad raced across the wide plane of the Martian desert. Taking care to avoid large rocks and treacherous pitfalls, he gunned the electric motor of his dirt bike as he bounded over a small wash. Ahead of him, a thin plume of dust marked the direction that Ralph Marshall had chosen to take across the tundra as he zigzagged around a patch of boulders. Following their experience in the sandstorm, the two men had become nearly inseparable, working together on nearly every project. Liu had joked with Harrison one night about an old Chinese proverb that seemed to fit their situation.

  “They say,” she had giggled in the dark. “When you save a man's life, you must care for him forever. That’s you now—his new little brother!”

  In a way, that’s how things had shaped up between the two. Marshall had saved Harrison’s life, and in the days after their ordeal, the older man went out of his way to connect with him as often as possible. Every morning when Harrison first entered the dining room for breakfast, there was Ralph waiting for him with a cup of hot coffee. Straight, black and devoid of any natural coffee flavor: just the way he liked it. When orders from Earth had come in, instructing Harrison to start work on the ruin site, Marshall had instantly volunteered to go with him.

  “In the interest of safety,” the grizzled astronaut had argued.

  With an understanding smile playing at the corners of her serious mouth, Captain Vodevski had reluctantly given her approval with a tight shallow nod.

  A new big brother, Harrison thought with a smile. An end to the longing spawned from a lifetime as an only child.

  Now, as he neared the coordinates marking the outskirts of the ruin site, Harrison slackened his grip on the throttle, slowing his bike to a gentle jog. Seeing this, Marshall circled back and pulled up on his left.

  “Should we ditch the bikes here?” he asked, his voice coming in through Harrison’s helmet speakers.

  “The outer wall starts about two meters from there,” Harrison pointed. “So we should probably start in this area.”

  Nodding, Marshall cut the power to his bike and extended the kickstand. Harrison did the same and swung his leg free, careful not to catch his boot as he did so. Crouching in the dirt, Marshall opened the umbrella of a solar charger and connected it to an aluminum tripod. Attaching a small transformer box to the base of the stand, he then ran a set of wires from the unit to each dirt bike so that the rays of the distant Sun would charge their batteries as they worked. It was still early in the day, and the light of the morning star cast diminishing shadows, which played across the ochre sands like the trickling branches of a murky river.

  A short way off, the horizon loomed before them, sending shivers of confusion and disorientation through Harrison’s subconscious mind.

  I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to seeing the sky so close, he mused with a cautious smile.

  Swiping a dusty finger across his wrist-mounted tablet, Harrison brought up his Augmented Vision. Scrolling through a list of possible enhancements, he selected the ruin profile and engaged the setting. Transparent blue shapes began to emerge from the texture of the red desert in front of him, highlighting the location and dimensions of the Martian ruins that lay some dozen or more meters below. Entering in another command, he imposed a series of green intersecting lines over the entire site, creating a patchwork like that of a giant chess board.

  “Ralph,” he said into his helmet mic. “Go to your Augmented Vision, bring up the ruin site, and then highlight Option C.”

  “Okay,” Marshall grunted as he tapped at his wrist tablet.

  “Got it?”

  “Um, yeah,” nodded the older man. “I’m looking at the ruins in blue with some green lines over it, right?”

  “That’s it.”

  Resting his hands on his hips, Marshall let out a shrill whistle.

  “Damn, that’s impressive.”

  Smiling inside his helmet, Harrison slapped Marshall on the back of his oxygen shell.

  “That’s what you say now, but wait until you spend the whole day mapping the grid. Then I bet you’ll be so sick of this place you’ll never want to come back with me again!”

  “We’ll see,” chuckled Marshall. Then, “What’s the plan, boss?”

  Turning to the storage bin on his dirt bike, Harrison unclasped the plastic lid and opened the large box. Reaching inside, he retrieved a rectangular case similar to those used to house power tools. Laying the case on the ground, he popped the locking clips and lifted the lid with an air of dramatic apprehension.

  “Is that your sharpshooter, Quigley?” joked Marshall, his features hidden behind the blue tinting of his face shield.

  Snorting, Harrison turned the case so that Marshall could see its contents. As h
e bent to get a closer look, Marshall was shocked to see that his crack about a sniper rifle was not as far off as he might have guessed. Inside the hard shell of the case was a gun of sorts, arranged in five separate pieces. There were two thin sections of piping, a rectangular bolt assembly, a plastic stock and a small round muzzle sleeve that resembled a silencer.

  “This,” said Harrison as he began putting the pieces together. “Is a deep-soil CT scanner.”

  “Looks like a gun to me.”

  “It’s similar,” agreed Harrison as he screwed the two sections of the barrel into the bolt assembly. “Except this puppy only fires in one direction: straight down.”

  Snapping the stock in place, Harrison held the CT scanner out for Marshall to inspect as he plucked a box of shells from the case. Taking the tool, the astronaut shouldered it and worked the bolt action.

  “Where’s the trigger?” he asked, searching for a firing mechanism.

  Standing up, Harrison opened the box of shells in his hand.

  “Here,” he waved, beckoning for Marshall to give him the rifle back. “I’ll show you.”

  Fingering one of the long silver shells, Harrison slid it into the chamber and racked the bolt with one quick pull. As the lever snapped back to the primed position, three, small spring-loaded legs popped out from recessed grooves along the sides of the muzzle sleeve, forming a tripod. Walking a few paces, Harrison stopped at where two glowing green lines intersected on the Augmented Vision, then pressed the wiry legs into the dirt so the gun was pointed towards the ground.

  “This is what I meant when I said it only fires down.”

  Leaning on the stock, Harrison pushed the legs down, forcing the muzzle into the Martian sand. A jet of dust erupted from the ground as the gun fired the shell into the soil with a barely audible pop. Turning to face Marshall, Harrison pointed to the steaming hole.

  “Inside each shell is a beacon, which sends out pings of X-rays. When we’re done, we’ll have mapped this entire grid with these little guys, giving us a three-dimensional picture of the ruins and whatever else might be down there.”

  Shrugging, Marshall gestured towards the sky.

  “I thought Remus and Romulus already gave us a 3-D image of the ruins.”

  “Oh, they did. But at their altitude, we could only see shapes and sizes. Remember, they were sent here to look for water and veins of copper and iron, not buildings made of stone.”

  Looking down at the scanner in his hands, Harrison cocked an eyebrow, then continued.

  “Besides, with this, we’ll be able to read the writing on the fucking walls. That is, if there is any.”

  Marshall smiled at the thought, then froze with sudden realization.

  “Wait. So we have to shoot one of those shells into the ground at every intersection of these green lines?”

  “Yep.”

  Raising his head to look out over the nearly twenty-six square kilometers of brightly crisscrossing lines, Marshall groaned.

  “This is going to take forever to map. That’s what you meant when you said I would be sick of this place by the end of the day, isn’t it?”

  “You know, Ralph, nobody ever said archaeology was fun,” Harrison grinned as he walked to the next beacon point. “They just made it look that way in the movies.”

  Gathering stones

  Remus and Romulus stood together watching a band of Martians as they fished a deep river pool at the base of a run of rapids. Long silver and green eels flopped in their nets as the fishermen drew them in with practiced patience. Among the spray-flecked bodies working the river bank was Teo: Chieftess of the Martian village that Remus and Romulus had first stumbled upon. Blinking her huge blue eyes, she cleared the water vapor from her vision, then turned to the man working beside her.

  “The snakes are stronger this far north. Our people have it easy in the south, I think.”

  Smiling, the man nodded as he tugged on a brimming net, stirring flashes of nickel and emerald. Everyone worked hard pulling in mass after mass of writhing eels and storing them in wicker baskets along the shore. Though their catch was large, more were needed—for there were many mouths to feed. A little ways from the banks of the river, a garden of moss-covered glacier rocks stood like statues, guarding the entrance to the Valley of the Great Lakes, at the foothills of the mountains. Milling about the majestic stones was an army of Martian tribes over 1,000 heads strong, hurrying to make camp before darkness fell.

  Because of the irregular flow by which time was guided, neither brother could say exactly how long it had been since Teo and her wise man, Olo, had decided to move their entire village to the northern foothills of the mountain Atun, or Olympus Mons as the humans knew it. Following the river north, they grew their ranks by spreading word of Olo’s vision of a grand monument to the other scattered tribes who dotted the deserts of the southern plain. His reputation of near-divinity, and fervent belief in what he preached, sparked the same interest in every township they visited. Even in tribes where bad blood had previously hindered fruitful coexistence between factions, Olo’s message of unity through transcendence broke down old barriers and forged new alliances.

  Now, in the chilled air of the northern foothills, the brothers found themselves to be ghosts haunting the enormous camp of the many tribes that formed this massive joint endeavor. As the Sun sank below the western hills, the catch of the river was brought in, and cooking fires were lit—casting shadows that danced ghoulishly across the jutting faces of the giant glacier rocks. In the approaching night, Remus and Romulus followed Teo as she wound her way through the various encampments, heading towards a cluster of tents marked with swashes of brown and black, the colors of her tribe.

  “Where is Olo?” she called to a young woman who was tending a small fire.

  “He is in his tent,” the girl answered with a bow of her head.

  Handing her a full basket of live water snakes, Teo left the girl and headed for a tent near the back of the camp. Tailing the Chieftess, the brothers ducked through the open flap of Olo’s tent, breathing in the sweetened smoke of his incense. In the darkened corner of his quarters sat the wise man, painted with snaking lines of coal that wound around his torso and arms. Deep in meditation, his eyes were closed and his breathing slow and regular.

  Sniffing at the pleasant twigs of burning herbs, Remus was struck again by the sheer wonder of this world and his miraculous existence within it. Looking up from the bowl of burning incense, he noticed with a start that everything seemed to have frozen. This happened now and again, as if an unseen hand had suddenly grasped the wheels of time and stopped them from turning. The glitches, as the brothers had come to call them, usually only lasted a few minutes and never affected their movements within, or perceptions of, the world.

  While everything stopped around them, Remus and Romulus remained unchanged. Similar to the leaps in time, the glitches were just another reminder of the fact that this reality was nothing more than a masterfully programmed digital construct. A recording of events long since passed. Of people long since dead. Neither brother could say for sure just how long they had been in this strange land, how long they had watched the lives of Teo and Olo and the other Martians unfold in front of their eyes. Time held no meaning when you were a ghost.

  “Brother,” said Remus, gazing unconcerned at the frozen wisps of smoke that twirled up from the incense bowl.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t you find it strange that we can smell this smoke and feel the chill of the night?”

  Chuckling, Romulus nodded.

  “Indeed. I’m still attempting to understand how it is that we can detect these things. We were never programmed for such visceral sensations.”

  Looking at Teo paused in mid step, Remus cocked his head.

  “Can one be programmed to feel or smell?”

  “I suppose the limitations of what can or cannot be programmed lie with the programmer.”

  Smiling, Remus looked at his brother’s flickeri
ng image standing a few paces away.

  “How do suppose we came to be here? How did we attain these—” he paused and thought for a moment. “—Bodies?”

  Moving his hand through a spark suspended above the smoldering incense, Romulus mulled over his reply.

  “Well,” he started. “I think you and I can both agree that decoding the anomalous signal is most likely what brought us here. Within milliseconds of engaging it, our perceivable reality constructs were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information being streamed. We simply became absorbed by the code. The manifestation of our bodies, as you call them, may also be a result of this integration, as too are the sensations of sight, sound, smell and touch. But for one to record and program such extensively detailed subtleties—”

  He trailed off as if grappling with an idea.

  “What?” questioned Remus, his face serious.

  “As I said before,” began Romulus with searching eyes. “The limitations of programming lie with the programmer. I think we can sense the things we can sense because whoever programmed all of this—” he waved about. “—Was a master beyond our human mothers and fathers.”

  “That is what I was thinking too,” agreed Remus.

  “What I find most interesting of all,” continued Romulus. “Is the effect that the details of this construct are having on us. Though we were not designed to smell such things as burning herbs, we are, in fact, experiencing the sensation right now. We, like all AIs, were programmed to learn and grow depending on our exposure to information and experience. Therefore, even if we were to return to the confines of our satellite bodies, and possess no longer the ability to sense, we will still have the memory of what it was like to smell this incense. We are evolving, Brother. Our consciousnesses are expanding beyond what the humans intended. There is no going back, for we are incapable of forgetting by design.”

  With a tremor, the glitch corrected itself, and the world started moving again. Left to brood over the concepts of their conversation, the brothers fell silent and watched as Teo dropped to her knees next to the meditating Olo. Dipping a cut of softly-tanned animal hide into a bowl of water, Teo cleaned the old man's face. As she worked, Olo showed no indication that he was aware of her pampering. Singing softly, the Chieftess reached for a clay pot and removed its wicker lid, looking inside. Making a frustrated tisking sound, she glanced up at Olo with a worried expression that spelled out her disapproval. Stirring, the wise man’s eyes fluttered, then opened languidly.