Trapped - Mars Born Book One

by Arwen Gwyneth Hubbard

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  About the Author

  Thank you

  Mars Born Book One

  TRAPPED

  Written and Illustrated by

  Arwen Gwyneth Hubbard

  Dedicated to the future Martians. And all those who will help to make their civilization possible.

  Copyright © 2015 Arwen Gwyneth Hubbard

  www.MarsBornSeries.com

  The story continues! Visit MarsBornSeries.com for additional free Mars Born paintings and content!

  Members of the Readers’ List receive a FREE copy of an exclusive (available only to the list) interview with the main character by the “Interplanetary Society for Cultural Understanding” and a character painting.

  Chapter One

  Orange dust coated my faceplate as I brought the last crate into the cargo bay. The hatch thudded closed, blocking out the fading sun’s light. I shivered in the sudden darkness. My suit had been operating at full force to compensate for the sweat worked up while loading our soil samples. Now the world seemed too still. Too cold.

  I clicked my suit’s light on. It wasn’t like I really needed it; my eyes would adjust to the dim surroundings after a few moments, but I was impatient. The past two days had been hard work, and Rumer, the oh-so-eager-to-prove-herself Rumer, had pushed us tirelessly. So, I wanted to secure the samples. If I was lucky, I would not have to think about them again until I came back in the spring to mine the stuff. Hopefully with someone less bossy than my sister.

  The final connector snapped beneath my gloves. At last I was free to do the one thing I had really wanted to the whole trip, the real reason why I had even agreed to participate in the first place.

  I hoped there would still be enough light.

  At the rear of the cargo bay, the airlock’s narrow door slid open for me. I stepped through, let it close, and waited for the burst of air. The first burst was almost enough to knock a person over. The second was not so bad, but it was always followed by the vacuum, which was a notoriously uncomfortable sensation. And only once you had been sucked cleaned from the Martian fines would the tiny chamber re-pressurize itself and let you through. The process wasn’t perfect, but it made hand vacuuming the suits later a whole lot easier.

  Back in Cradle, the crater village we were raised in, I actually enjoyed the de-duster most of the time, despite the vacuum part. Well, maybe because of it. It felt purifying. But, that day I wanted to climb up to the Habitat Rover’s second level and look out at the landscape. Yep. Just look. Ideally I would want to explore it of course, to appreciate its every small detail. No human being had ever been here before. We were the first! Mars was still a mostly unexplored planet. In the 13 orbits (about 24 and a half earth years) humans had lived here for, barely a tenth of it had been explored. Coincidentally, Rumer and I had been alive for only 10 of those orbits. Rumer was lead on our “mission” and both days she had started work before dawn and only ended right at dusk. So my chances to see the land were limited.

  Swinging my arms, I waited for the door, opposite from where I had come in, to slide open and let me into our controlled environment.

  I entered and checked the gauges on the Hab’s wall. Pressure, Temperature and Air all displayed SAFE, so I unfastened and yanked the helmet off. In front of me the curtains were open to the cab. There were two seats, one driver with the control stick and one passenger, but usually we took turns driving while the other would stay upstairs in the living area, instead of sitting together. I turned left towards the stairs to remove my suit and stow it in the compartment under them. As I did Rumer appeared.

  Her smile stretched the full width of her caramel face, “I just reported. Last communication for the night. Bryn is pleased!” Her hands moved in front of her, signing the words as she spoke them, “I told her our data looks like it confirms the satellite’s.”

  “That’s great…” I tried smiling at her enthusiasm. But really, it was not like anyone honestly doubted we would find the clays. They just sent us out to double check before bringing more equipment for harvesting, and to give us some practice on our own, now that we were “adults”.

  “Oh, and they said not to worry about my suit. About the radio in it. They are old and need to be replaced soon anyway. But that we shouldn’t go for any EVAs just in case,” my sister continued.

  I groaned. Just because it was the “safe” thing to do didn’t mean I had to like it. Without radios if one of us got lost we might not be able to find the HabRov before our oxygen ran out. And with Cradle 200 kilometers away, there wouldn’t be much they could do to help.

  “Anyway… Wash up, and help me with backing up the data, okay? I want to have it finished before we get back.”

  I felt my hands shake. How oblivious could she be? “Seriously, Rumer? Nooo. I’ll do it tomorrow on the ride.”

  A pout dampened her face and she crossed her arms, “Emory, the colony is counting on us.”

  I rolled my eyes, “It’s just silicates. Clay that we already knew was there.”

  “You’re so thick! Do you really think this is just about the silicates?”

  “I get it, we’re “big girls” now, you don’t want the council to think we can’t handle ourselves.”

  “It’s not about us! You and I, we mean something to everybody else. We’re the first Mars Born.”

  Not this again! She thought that just because we were born a few weeks premature, that that made us special. Our colony was the first to get its 1G Ring going, so it was the first to have children. Because of complications with our pregnancy, Rumer and I were born early, making us the first people ever born on Mars. She let it go to her head.

  “Yes it is! It’s all about you!” I started to push past her, but movement caught my eye. What was that… Holy shit! Someone was outside the window.

  There in the evening light, jumping up and down was a suited figure. It waved at us.

  “Look!” I grabbed her, throwing my hand towards the window.

  “Hi! Can I come in?” he signed through the window.

  Rumer and I exchanged looks. People didn’t just wonder around on the surface of Mars. They had to have shelter, a supply of oxygen, food, protection from the extreme temperatures and radiation. Suits could only hold a few hours worth of oxygen at a time, 10 hours at most.

  Where had he come from? I wondered. Our colony was the closest habitat we knew about for at least 500 kilometers.

  “Ares!” Rumer muttered, then signed back, “Come around to the back.”

  “Do you know him?” I asked and put my helmet back on.

  Rumer, who had not fully taken her suit off before radioing back our accomplishments, pulled on her boots and gloves, “No. I have no Idea who that is!” she said, grabbing her helmet.

  I went to the window as she fastened it, and checked to see if the stranger had gone around to the rear of the HabRov. He had. When I turned back I saw Rumer remove her hand from the first-aid box on the wall, and place a small gun in her suit’s hip pocket.

  Are we in danger from another person? We couldn’t be. Not here on Mars.

  “He could be in trouble, we can’t not help. But, we have to be careful,” Rumer warned me.

  I nodded while we stepped into the airlock. It was faster to leave than come back in. No de-duster on the way out.

  I wonder if he is Mars Born? I thought as the
airlock door let us through and we crept across the length of the HabRov.

  “Hi! Thank you!” the figure signed when we opened the back hatch, ushering him inside.

  We lead him to the rear of the cargo hold and into the airlock. He stumbled a few times and I had to catch him during the de-dusting process, otherwise he would have ended up face first in the wall.

  Rumer waited until after the stranger and I had both removed our helmets to take hers off, never moving her hand from her hip.

  “Thank you for letting me in!” rushed out of him in a lightly accented voice, his hands forming each word in unison with his speech. “I am Taavi. I’m really glad to have found you. Where are you from?”

  Yep. He was most definitely a Martian, like us. He looked too young to be from Earth. Probably not that much younger than us, and we were the oldest Mars Born there were. Furthermore, he signed too fluently to be from Earth. Most people born on Mars had limited to no hearing, so MSL (Martian Sign Language) had evolved from being an occasional field tool when the radios were choppy to an integral part of how all people born on Mars communicate. Nobody really knows why yet, but it seems to be a universal; no matter where on Mars someone is born or in how much artificial gravity. Rumer and I have some, enough that we can hear each other when we are close or with the radio speaker right in our ears, but nothing like the older generations who were born on Earth.

  Before giving us time to answer his first question he continued, “You’re not from Noctis City are you?”

  “No,” I signed, and couldn’t help but laugh. The young man reminded me of one of the farm goats, or perhaps a puppy.

  “We are from Cradle, I am Emory, and this is my sister, Rumer.” I held out a hand, interrupting him from continuing.

  He grabbed it and shook vigorously a few times too many.

  “Oh. I don’t know where that is, but good to meet you Emory!” he rolled on heels as he spoke and looked around, “This is a lot smaller than it seemed from the sky. I parked my plane near by. I’m trying to get to Noctis City. Are we close?”

  I had to laugh again, “We’re a good 30 or 40 degrees south, and 20 east. We’re still in Argyre.”

  His eyebrows wrinkled. What a funny looking man.

  At this point Rumer interjected. Actually I was amazed she had been quiet as long as she had. “You said your name was Taavi, it is a pleasure to meet you,” she offered a hand and looked him directly in the eyes, “As Emory said we are from Cradle, it’s a crater village in Galle, Argyre Quadrangle, about 200 km from here. And where are you from?”

  “Um.. I am from Aurora, in the Australe Quadrangle,” He spoke at a normal pace for the first time.

  I saw Rumer’s eyes light up.

  “Aurora? Wow! You guys are big, I’ve never met anyone from there in person, only on the nets,” then she frowned, “That’s a long way to fly. That’s a pretty long way to travel by any means.”

  Taavi fiddled with his gloves, “I guess it is.”

  Great job Rumer, make things awkward, I thought into the silence that followed.

  Finally Rumer seemed to relax and put on a smile, “I have to say, it’s exciting to meet another Mars Born. Why don’t we show you the rest of the HabRov, and go upstairs for dinner? You may stay with us until the morning.”

  Once out of our suits I showed him the lower level and we then climbed to the upper deck, only eight meters long and five wide, it was just large enough to not feel cramped. Behind the stairs was a tiny kitchenette on one side and a wash closet on the other, and before us was an open space with a large multi-purpose table, and a lab desk that doubled as our communication center at the back. The ceiling was an elongated geodesic dome, each cell filled with compressed gas, which helped to protect us from cosmic radiation. A rib-like arbor covered in tropical vines mirrored the domes shape beneath it.

  The living areas in HabRovs were one of my favorite places to be. With windows all around one could look out on Mars, and yet be simultaneously surrounded by life. It touched something deeply human in me, I didn’t understand it yet, but I knew it felt right.

  Rumer went to a chest by our collapsed beds and removed a folded bundle of clothes and handed them to Taavi, “Why don’t you go ahead and bathe first, while we begin the food. Do you have any dietary restrictions?”

  “Me? Nah, I eat everything!” he grinned, and I directed him to the wash closet.

  When I joined Rumer in the kitchenette she gave me a strained smile, and silently signed, “We’ll report in the morning, in the mean time we need to be careful.”

  From what I had seen the young man didn’t look like much of a threat, “I don’t think he’ll hurt us. He looks pretty innocent.”

  “I agree,” she responded, handing me a pot, “But, I don’t mean that. We can’t let him mess up the mission.”

  “You’re sooo dramatic. We have the data. The mission’s done,” my annoyance from earlier flared back to life, “We’re not that important.”

  “Why are you always so difficult?” she asked.

  Me difficult? I gave her an exaggerated eye roll, “What happened to Rumer ‘the diplomat, uniter and connector of all the young Martians to build a truly great and just human civilization, blah blah blah?” I paused, “You know, I think maybe you are just jealous the mysterious stranger talked more to me than you.”

  “Jealous? He’s just a kid, Emory”

  “Don’t be rude!”

  “I am really not,” she said with words, and went to clear the Hab’s center table.

  Later, after we had all washed and dressed in clean clothing, Taavi in borrowed loose fitting grays, we sat together around the table and ate. We had brought fresh vegetables, tubers, and fish from Cradle, and ate them with cold water. He seemed confused when we filled his cup for him. I remembered seeing other guests throughout my childhood respond the same when we served them in Cradle. Our cups were large and round, almost bowl like, unlike the ones I had seen in other colonies meant to be held in just one hand. Rumer was kind enough to demonstrate but not comment.

  At first we were too hungry to speak, and ate eagerly.

  When we had finished most of the food, Taavi launched into the story of his day. He told us he had been traveling many hours, and described the changing land below as he flew, although he was clearly leaving details out, like why he was traveling to Noctis City in the first place. Every time we would ask, he would direct the conversation away. All the while his smile was getting bigger and bigger.

  I liked his smile; there was something goofy but genuine about it. It fit the rest of his appearance perfectly. Black curls, loose ones, not tight and crinkly like Rumer’s and mine, framed his face, and he shaved away what hair might have grown on it. I thought both of them were crazy for not just buzzing their hair off like I did. It made helmets so much easier, no worrying about it getting caught. But Rumer liked hers too much and would braid colored ribbons into it. It was a fashion common in our crater. I wondered if people did that where Taavi was from too.

  Night fell as we talked and the stars were visible above, twinkling through foliage, creating hundreds of soft reflections dancing on the leaves. I could see the pulsing glow of buttons from the comm center by the lab.

  Rumer took a deep sip of her water and nudged my shoulder, “Hey, Emory. Dim the lights for a moment.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  I did, and Rumer pointed up, “See that star?”

  “Which one? That one?”

  “Yeah, the blue one. Know what that is?”

  After a pause is was Taavi who answered, “It’s Earth.”

  “Yep. Who would have thought… Do you remember,” she asked me, “when we were children, and they showed us Earth for the first tim
e? They dimmed all the lights in the dome and had us paddle out to the middle of the water. We laid there looking up. It looked like any other star, just a bit brighter, though nothing like Jupiter or anything. But, then they told us somebody was standing there on that distant planet, that distant world looking right back up at us. That all of humanity was looking up, waiting to see what world we were going to build.”

  The silence that followed several minutes was a comfortable one.

  “Well.. I am glad we’re here,” Taavi broke the quiet, signing as he spoke. My eyes had adjusted to the new lighting enough that I could see his relentless smile had not faded.

  “Me too,” I sighed, “I wish I could be out here on the land like this every night.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  Rumer coughed, “It’s not like the HabRov belongs to just us. Everybody in the crater decides what it’s best use is.”

  “There is only one?” He asked curiously.

  “No, we have four. Some of the others from our cohort are on their own assignments right now. But, we always leave at least one for backup at Cradle.”

  A strange look crossed Taavi’s face, “So, you have cohorts too?”

  “Yes,” Rumer answered, “They are pretty much the norm throughout the Southern Hemisphere. Though, I heard there are a few settlements in the far north that do Earth families. But really, it just takes too long to grow a population that way.”

  “Hmmph, that’s true. There aren’t a lot of us. It can get boring,” Taavi shrugged.