Offworld

by Robin Parrish

  The four of them sat quietly and stared at the framed newspapers. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the pages behind the glass. They were wrinkled and rough around the edges from much handling. The one on the left had a few small grease stains and tiny spots from drops of some kind of liquid. Coffee, maybe. The frame was a marker of two days in history that they had helped make happen, but its contents showed signs of being roughly handled, displayed before friends and family, and buried under other papers and books.

  It was a silent symbol of the futility they were all feeling.

  Trisha let out a long, weary breath. "Guess this doesn't really matter anymore," she said.

  Terry looked up at her. "Why not? Why shouldn't it matter?"

  She gave a single, mirthless chuckle.

  "We still did it," he argued, turning to Owen and Chris for support. "We traveled to another planet and lived there for a year and a half. We proved that it can be done. We made important advances, strides in-"

  "There's no one left to care, Terry," Trisha said, smiling ruefully as if all of this were some grand cosmic joke.

  "We made history!" Terry cried, his voice echoing in the emptiness.

  Owen mused without making eye contact, "Is history still history if no one is around to remember it? Learn from it? Continue building the future on its foundations?"

  Terry looked as if he was about to argue the point, but Chris cut him off with a wave of his hand.

  "I think we're all agreed that we've learned everything we can from this place."

  Somber faces of agreement. No one would look him in the eye, all of them lost in their own private worlds.

  "We're all in shock, I know," Chris went on. "That sounds pretty dumb, actually, because this is so much bigger than shock. I'm not sure there are any words that can describe the situation. Under ordinary circumstances, we'd be undergoing debriefs and physical and psychological re-acclimations. But this world left `ordinary' behind about two months ago. So the only question remaining is, if we're not staying here, where do we go?"

  "Wherever we want," remarked Owen. "There's no one to stop us."

  "Maybe we should go to D.C.?" Trisha asked. "Or New York? Someplace that might hold more information about what's happened."

  "How about Maui?" Terry attempted a joke. No one laughed.

  "Houston," Chris said. It wasn't a question or a suggestion, and he didn't realize it was coming out of his lips until it had already happened.

  A silence spread among the other three as this one word lingered in the air. When Chris had said "Houston," what they heard was "home" Houston, Texas, was where all American astronauts were trained, and almost every astronaut made his or her home in Houston, venturing to Florida solely for launches. The four of them were no exception.

  "Because of that light we saw on the satellite view?" Trisha voiced the clear question.

  "That crazy bright light is the only real clue we have," said Chris. "We have to follow it."

  `Agreed," Owen said, somber. "Let's head home."

  "I don't want to go home," admitted Trisha. "My family isn't waiting for me there. Let's investigate the big light, but Houston won't be home. Not now. Not like this."

  More silence.

  Owen leaned back in his seat. "I haven't been to the place where my family lives for two and a half years ... and I need to ... be there. For a little while. I need to see with my own eyes and feel with my own hands that that place is still there." When no one responded, he kept talking. "I've been away from my family for a long time. Too long. I know I'm not going to find them there, but if I can't have them, I just need to feel ... home."

  "Okay," Trisha conceded. "But I'd like to make a brief stop in Orlando on the way there."

  Even Terry didn't comment on this; they all knew what it meant, and no one was in the mood to make light of it: Trisha's did-he-ordidn't-he-wait boyfriend Paul lived in Orlando.

  "So would I," said Chris, though he did not elaborate. `But then it's straight on to Houston. Assuming we have transportation, we should be able to do it in a day and a half, two days. Whatever that light is, it isn't natural, and I want to know what's causing it."

  When no one argued, Chris sighed, but not in a tired way. "Then Houston it is. Let's get to work. Terry, Beech, you're on supply duty. Pack up anything you can find that might be useful, especially food, clothing, medical supplies. Trisha and I will find our rides."

  "Speaking of supplies ..." Owen said, pulling a laptop out of a backpack beside his seat. "Trisha and I put our heads together and patched this into the feed from that high-tech satellite we looked at yesterday-the one orbiting over the U.S. This remote view will give us a twenty-four-hour eye in the sky, so we can keep tabs on the weather, that light in Houston, and anything else that might come tip"

  "Nicely clone," Chris replied, impressed with their forward thinking.

  As they were rising from the table, Terry looked at the sky. "Where are the birds?" he asked no one.

  "What?" said Chris, and everyone turned to face Terry.

  Terry pointed up. "We're standing on a wildlife preserve. There are always birds; I see them when I come down to the Cape. Where are they?"

  Owen turned, intrigued. "You know, I haven't noticed any gators or manatees either." Both animals were frequently spotted among the creeks and marshes throughout the grounds. "Not even a squirrel."

  The four of them glanced at each other and at the sky. As usual, it was Terry who voiced what everyone was thinking.

  "Did the animals vanish too?"

  It was midday by the time a red pickup truck and a black SUV sped around the stationary cars on Highway 50, entering Orlando. Terry was behind the wheel of the truck, Owen at his side; Chris drove the SUV in front with Trisha riding shotgun.

  They traveled largely in silence, though Terry and Owen had found some two-way radios so they could stay in contact on the road. In the time they'd been away, the technology had improved, and these were small enough to fit just inside the ear.

  Chris couldn't believe it hadn't occurred to them before now that the roadways would be clogged with vehicles that had been rendered out of control when their drivers disappeared. It made for very slow going, dodging so many abandoned automobiles. They were everywhere-trucks and cars and motorcycles and buses, stopped in the middle of the road, slid off the side of the highway, or rammed into barriers and poles and buildings. More than once, Chris and Terry were forced to go off-road to get around the piles of stationary traffic.

  Eventually they both turned north onto 417 toward Jamestown, the suburb where Trisha's boyfriend Paul lived.

  "Hey, Chris?" Terry spoke into his earpiece.

  "Yeah?"

  "Isn't 417 a toll road?"

  "Why? You out of change?" Chris quipped.

  It wasn't long before the toll appeared, six lanes for differing kinds of drivers-some with electronic credits, others with radio-enabled passes that deducted funds automatically as a vehicle passed, which didn't even require the driver to stop.

  Every one of the six lanes was blocked off with a long line of vehicles. Concrete barriers prevented any attempt to slip around the roadblock.

  They had no choice but to stop and take the time to move each car individually until one of the lanes was cleared. Fortunately, every car still had its keys in the ignition. Unfortunately, the electric or hydrogen-fueled engines on almost all of them were dead, having idled until there was no power left. Shifting the cars into neutral and manually pushing them aside by hand was often their only option.

  An hour later, when the work was finished, Chris froze where he stood in the middle of the road. He had just moved an old station wagon out of their path but now stood completely still, the hairs on his arms standing at attention.

  The dead calm of the highway had been disturbed by a new sound. A sound not coming from the four of them. One of the first he'd heard at all besides the wind.

  The others were already back in their respectiv
e vehicles, waiting for him to return so they could resume their trek. But he didn't move, listening carefully to the new sound. It clicked.

  Chris bolted for the SUV, cranked the engine, and gunned it back out of the toll stop area.

  "What?!" Trisha cried from the passenger's seat. "What is it?"

  Chris didn't reply; he barely heard her. He rolled down all of the vehicle's windows, concentrating, listening.

  Their path became an on-ramp that returned to the highway, and as soon as the walls surrounding the toll ramp were gone, he barreled straight through the low steel barrier between the northbound and southbound lanes.

  They'd barely crashed through the barrier into the southbound lane, traveling in the wrong direction, when Chris slammed on the brakes, screeching the tires to an ear-piercing whistle and stirring up smoke.

  A tiny subcompact was coming straight at them and it likewise hit the brakes as hard as it could. The noses of the two vehicles crunched lightly against each other as both came to a sudden stop.

  Chris had to shake his head to clear away the jarring sensationthere hadn't been time to put on his seat belt as he looked through the windshield at the place where the driver of the other car was. But the subcompact's windows were tinted, making it impossible to see its occupants.

  Terry squealed to a stop behind him in the pickup. As Chris jumped from the SUV, his friends rushed out of the vehicles as well. He glanced back at them with a mixture of surprise and concern, then climbed over the hood of the SUV and approached the subcompact's side door.

  Terry caught Chris' glance immediately and pulled out a highpowered handgun from his waistband, holding it down at his side.

  Where did he get a gun?

  It didn't matter just now. Because suddenly they were not the only four people on Earth. Whoever was in this car had to know more about what was going on than they did, and it went without saying that anybody left behind was, by default, automatically a suspect in whatever had happened to everyone else.

  Chris crept carefully to the driver's side door, but before he reached it, it clicked and swung open, and the driver stepped out.

  A diminutive girl, no more than twenty years old, stared back at him. She was less than five feet tall, her red hair cut well above her shoulders, without bangs, covering her ears. Her hair looked as if it hadn't been washed in more than a week. The girl's teeth were mostly discolored and crooked. Freckles dotted her sunburned complexion. Creases folded beneath her eyes, the only thing that made her look older.

  She displayed a blank, mildly curious expression.

  Chris looked back at his companions, at a loss. Their reactions echoed his.

  The girl's striking eyes shifted between each of them, taking them in. When she'd gotten a good look at each one of them, she opened her mouth to speak.

  The one word she said came out long and slow, the way a small child talks.

  "Wow."

  THREE

  Burke blinked awake in a haze of confusion, uncertain of where he was or how he got there.

  With a look at his surroundings, it came to him in a rush....

  Oh, right. Mars. Lost. Almost out of air.

  He was no longer leaning up against the large boulder hed sheltered against before losing consciousness. He was near it, but had slumped over onto his stomach while asleep.

  The sandstorm had abated, but Chris' newfound visibility brought equally had news: the sun was almost gone. It would be down in under twenty minutes, leaving him in freezing conditions that bed never s u rvive.

  He checked the timer on his arm. 7:15 PM. Less than two hours of oxygen remaining. He d slept for quite a while.

  So what will it be? Freezing to death? Or asphyxiation?

  Habitat, this is Burke, do you read?"

  Nothing.

  The historic Ares mission had been graced with incredibly good luck and positive results thus far. They d made important discover- yd advanced numerous scientific fields. Where the crew of ies. The Apollo 11 had once rallied a nation, the crew of the Ares had rallied the globe. To have come this far, to achieve so much, and then have things go so wrong ... It was a terrible thought.

  I was the first man to walk on Mars.

  I'm about to be the first man to die on it.

  The light was already waning, unless his eyes were fooling him. Or he was passing out again.

  The Rover. Where's the Rover?

  He cautiously rose to his feet, and did a fidl three-sixty. The Martian land vehicle the crew had brought with them was big enough to carry all, four of them if necessary. But Chris had taken it out alone about midday to undertake a routine survey of what appeared to be a dry riverbed, part of the crew's ongoing search for evidence that life may have once inhabited the planet. The sandstorm had caught him completely off guard. Hed had no warning.

  This is impossible.

  The Rover was gone. He could see fbr miles in most directions, and there was nothing but craggy, brownish orange land and the lighter shade of orange sky overhead-which was quickly turnings black.

  I couldn't have wandered this far from the vehicle....

  How could it simply be gone?

  The ground quaked, and he teetered over once more, facedown. Dust swirled tip in a sudden gust of wind, the cursed orange dirt again blocking his sight.

  After the quake died away, Chris was lying perfectly still when he felt a subtle shy in the soil. The dry lake bed cracked right under his chest, the cracks spreading outward like breaking glass. Slowly, dangerously.

  He froze in place, wondering Y 'be should try to move, to crawl away, or if that would make the cracking go faster.

  Before he could choose, the ground gave way and he foil.

  Chris staggered, but recovered quickly before he could topple.

  Another dream, or flash of memory. And this time it had come while he was awake. He fell through the surface of Mars? How could he have survived that?

  He looked around, getting his bearings. Right, the girl in the car on the highway ...

  Silence filled the air as the four astronauts and the girl examined one another.

  Chris looked upon the small young woman with nothing but confusion. Terry put away his weapon, but couldn't take his eyes off of her. Trisha's brows were knotted in suspicion, while Owen remained, as ever, calm, thoughtful, and noncommittal.

  The girl, for her part, appeared oddly detached. She examined all four of them as though they were vague curiosities she'd never encountered before, but nothing important enough to be excited about.

  Her appearance was a peculiar balance of appalling and charming. Not a single garment was correct in size, and nearly everything was torn, with fringes around the edges and dirt stains all over. Mismatched socks were covered by tennis shoes that barely clung to her feet. She wore a hooded sweat shirt, only its arms had been cut off, letting her dark, tanned skin show through. Indeed, all of her visible skin was a dark shade of amber, leathery and hidelike, and her cheeks were burned red from too much sun exposure. She had three tiny braids in her hair on one side, with a few charms flopping around on the ends.

  The girl's expression struck Chris as almost innocent and full of wonder. Yet there was something about her eyes that seemed to counteract this effect. Her irises were a curious shade of silver; they were more than beautiful, they were haunting, almost inhuman. Captivating and magnetic. Once Chris gazed into her eyes, he found it hard to turn away. They looked as though they had seen too much of the grays of life and had taken on this peculiar hue as a reflection. It seemed to Chris that she was sizing him up, and his friends as well, with those weary, entrancing eyes.

  "Who're you?" she asked.

  Chris blinked. That wasn't what he'd expected. He didn't have a conceited fiber in his body, but the four of them were historical figures, internationally famous, and he found it difficult to believe that anyone could be so out of touch with world events. "Who are you?" he replied.

  Asked you first," she shot back.
<
br />   Chris tossed a look at Trisha, hoping for help, but she was projecting distrust, rooted to her spot and squinting at the girl.

  "Well," he began, "we're the crew of the Ares."

  "What's a air-ease?"

  Chris took a moment to regroup, his mind working hard to blunt his memorized talking points and NASA-speak. "We're astronauts. We've been in space for a few years, and we just got back."

  "You was what dropped out of the sky," the girl observed. "Thought that was a falling star."

  "You've really never heard of us?" Chris asked.

  "Would remember if I did," she replied. "Got a photogenic memory."

  Chris blinked. 'A photo-what?"

  "When you remember everything exactly how it was."

  "Yeah, I-I know what it means, I just ..." He shook his head rapidly, as if trying to shrug off a blow to the skull. "Um, where did you come from?" he doggedly pressed on.

  She shrugged. "In between."

  "Between what?"

  "The cracks."

  Chris didn't know what to do with that. "What's your name?"

  She recoiled a bit, as though he'd just suggested something absurd, or offensive. "Don't tell that to strangers."

  He opened his mouth, then closed it. She may have been an adult, but she didn't sound much like one. He reframed the conversation in his mind. "Well, I'm Chris. This is Terry," he said, pointing to his youngest companion, who had slowly made his way closer to the conversation, "and over there, that's Owen and Trisha. Now we're not strangers anymore, are we?"

  The girl was still frowning, clearly thinking this over, yet she stood very still, barely moving at all as the wheels in her mind spun.

  Finally, she said, "Mae"

  "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mae," Terry said, offering her his hand. Her eyes fell to the hand he held out in front of her, and simply lingered there. She made no effort to return the gesture, but there was no coldness in her manner.