The Pedestal

by Daniel Wimberley

  Nothing in his demeanor is in any way threatening; firm, sure—but not at all hostile. He’s a model of self-control, and I don’t doubt him for a second. I’d like to level with this guy, but the truth is simply too unbelievable. I feel I have no choice: I have to lie.

  “I work at the GFL loading dock,” I tell him. “I must’ve bumped my head in the cargo bay and lost consciousness.” I don’t even know where that came from, but it sounds thinly plausible. In another spurt of genius, I add, “I’ve never been popular with the guys I work with; this might even be their idea of a prank, knocking me out and all.”

  The only thing more ridiculous than my laughable inability to deceive is that I repeatedly bother to waste my breath trying. Had this particular fib fallen from the lips of someone else—anyone else, in fact—Hollister might have bought it. As far as fibs go, this one is completely within the realm of possibility, after all. Alas, just as always, I’ve betrayed my duplicity with a barrage of tells—any one of which would tip off a person with half a brain. One look at Hollister reveals that he knows I’m blowing smoke. As sure as he senses that his cunning is more powerful than my physical prowess—which is average, at best—he also senses that I’m grasping at straws, even if he doesn’t yet understand why.

  I should’ve taken his warning more seriously; I should’ve told him the truth. Sure, it may have damned me as much as the lie, but at least the absurdity of my plight would be to blame rather than my shameful failure to follow basic instructions.

  Wordlessly, Hollister frowns and walks briskly from the room. Unthinking, I rise to follow. At the door, he turns and—surmising my intentions—shakes his head with an ironic frown. I’m struck by a barely containable compulsion to tackle him—or something likewise radical—before he can depart, leaving me otherwise helpless to do anything at all.

  But I don’t.

  Hollister shuts the door, and as the locks engage in a tribal symphony of clinking finality, I hear my window of opportunity slam shut. A half hour later, he reappears; this time, he’s trailed by seven other men, each visibly more dubious than the previous, as if ordered by their useless ability to exude distrust.

  “Wilson, I’m offering you a final opportunity to plead your case,” he says calmly—condescendingly, really, as if addressing a child. “Just so we’re clear, I don’t believe a word you’ve said so far.”

  I swallow, my tongue grating like dry sandpaper against the roof of my mouth. No point in defending my honor, I suppose. “What are you going to do with me?”

  “Well, let me just say this: we don’t have the resources to hold a prisoner, and we have no intention of risking your return to Earth if there’s a chance you’ll endanger our flight crew. You’re a liability, and the rules out here aren’t very forgiving.”

  I swallow again. “What exactly are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that if we can’t be satisfied that you’re not here to harm us, we’ll have no choice but to dispose of you.”

  I feel the blood trickle like cold acid from my brain into the hollows of my shoes, scouring the pipework of my heart with the stinging burn of dread. I’m not sure what to envision, exactly—the phrase disposed of leaves much to the imagination: banishment into space, perhaps; incineration with the weekly trash?

  Oh, God.

  I don’t even realize that I’ve begun to speak until I pause in midsentence to take a breath. I don’t bother to correct myself now, though, because it’s clear to me that my body has wisely deduced—even before my feeble little brain could form a sound conclusion—that there really is no other play left.

  The truth shall set me free—if there is freedom in death, as there is in vindication, anyway.

  Nevertheless, I spill the beans, every last one. When I’ve finished, my face is shiny with sweat and unashamed tears. Hollister glances about the group, betraying nothing of his opinion on my narrative—at least, not that I can discern. Yet, almost in unison, they clear their throats and leave me to stew in my own fear.

  An hour passes, and then another. My mind crowds with disorganized thought; my NanoPrint can do nothing to channel them, and they bounce around like rubber balls with infinite momentum. Without warning, the door opens again, and Hollister enters bearing unexpected gifts: another bottle of water and a meal-supplement pill, both of which must be of considerable value in space. His face is unbearably impassive. I can’t stand not knowing what’s in store for me—surely the not knowing is even worse than the fate itself.

  “Please,” I whisper. “Tell me what’s happening.”

  Hollister scrutinizes me with a tired sigh, scrunching his eyebrows indecisively. “Here’s the thing, Wilson: more than one of our group suspects you’re either a terrorist or spy.”

  “What?” I gesticulate. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  Hollister laughs dryly and shows me his palms. “You don’t have to convince me on that point; I know who you are.”

  My face must look thoroughly confused, because he motions toward my wrist, where my NanoPrint continues to whir but makes no progress in reaching the nexus. “I scanned your implant while you were out cold.”

  “Then you know I’m not a spy!”

  “No, I don’t believe you are. Truth be told, I think you’re simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Thank goodness. “Hollister, if you believe me, you’ve got to help me.”

  “I wish it was that simple, believe me. But if any part of what you’ve told us is true, we’re no better off than if you were a terrorist. Surely you’ve considered what will happen if it gets out that you’ve been here?”

  “I won’t say a word, I swear it!”

  “You don’t have to, don’t you see? If you don’t think someone with the resources of Palmer Gunn can reach you here, you’re sadly mistaken. And he’ll burn right through the rest of us to get to you.” I don’t dispute this point, though I don’t really grasp it.

  “We’re all bachelors here,” Hollister elaborates, “with the exception of Dr. Wan—though he would sooner die in space than spend a day on Earth with his wife. Nevertheless, we all have loved ones of one form or another back home. If Palmer Gunn has any reason to believe you’ve survived your journey here, he’ll have just as much reason to believe you’ve infiltrated our ranks and won an advocate among us.” He pauses to scratch the back of his head, a fleeting shadow of shame scampering across a pair of wiry eyebrows. “I don’t wish you any harm, Wilson—really, I don’t—but I won’t put my family at risk for your sake. None of us will.”

  My body grows numb with dull resignation. I’m about to die, and now that I know it for sure, I begin to wonder about things I’ve taken great pains to keep under the rug.

  What do I have to be proud of in my life?

  What if there really is a God? What if we’ve all talked ourselves out of the truth?

  Before I can give these questions much attention, Hollister gives me an ounce of hope. “You do have one option, however.”

  A maniacal guffaw escapes me, fresh tears glazing my vision with a blur of uncertainty. “I’m not a picky man, Hollister.”

  He chuckles sympathetically, a dry hack like corn stalks rubbing in the wind. “Somehow, I thought you’d say that.”

  He raps sharply on the door with the back of his knuckles. Moments later, another man pops his head into the room. Hollister acknowledges him with a curt nod, and the stranger shuffles inside.

  “Kurt Grogan,” he says, approaching me with an outstretched hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

  I shake his hand, though I’m thoroughly confused—and just as suspicious.

  Hollister notes my wariness and coughs out a brittle laugh. “Mr. Grogan here’s in the market for some help, Wilson.”

  I glance at him, raising an eyebrow.

  Grogan takes over, nodding appreciatively to Hollister. “I run a research lab, and it just so happens that I need a lab technician.”

  My incredulity is rewarded with a crooke
d grin. “I know—you’re not a certified technician. But the truth is the work isn’t as technical as the title implies. Just follow instructions, and leave the science to the researchers. Pay’s pretty good.”

  I smile cautiously, thinking this sounds a little too good to be true. “Okay. So, what’s the catch?”

  Grogan shrugs and puts his hands into his pockets. “No catch.” Then, as if it’s only just now occurred to him, he adds: “Of course, the lab’s on Mars.”

  I blanch. “Did you say Mars?”

  “I did.”

  “I can’t go to Mars!” I exclaim, eyes bouncing from Grogan to Hollister and back again.

  Grogan cackles. “Sure you can—the way I hear it, you don’t have much choice.”

  We leave around dawn. Hollister sees me off with a limp handshake and a tired smile. His colleagues are undoubtedly fast asleep at this hour, but I’m sure they send their best wishes. Sunrise out here is a bit like a flashlight creeping from behind a brick wall—not at all the beautiful terrestrial display I’ve grown up with. The turning of the day is so unfamiliar—and unexpectedly bland—that it seems a little moot. My usual good-morning stretching of limbs and coffee-induced leap into the day certainly isn’t triggered, anyway.

  Then again, the lackluster sunrise is truly the least of my concerns; I have to assume I’m fixating on it because I need the distraction. I’m doing the best I can to stave off tears, but it’s hard. My whole body has begun to shake and no amount of effort is enough to control it. I absolutely can’t believe this is happening. I’m not a brave person; I’m afraid of a lot of things, many of which would only embarrass me to confess, yet this is more frightening—and equally exciting, if I’m being honest—than any fate I’ve ever imagined.

  Grogan’s ship begins to accelerate with maddening sluggishness, which conflicts with my heightened state of anxiety. I watch the Unified Space Station shrink until it’s a faint twinkle against the Earth’s atmosphere. This alone takes half an hour; at this rate, I’ll need a denture fitting by the time we finally reach Mars; hope they serve dinner at four p.m., too.

  “How long will it take?” I ask Grogan. My voice wavers, and though I’d rather not air my terror for all to see, I don’t know this guy well enough to care what he thinks of me.

  “Four days. It’ll take a couple of days to reach light speed, and a couple more to decelerate again.”

  “Huh.” Nowhere near as long as I feared, yet still a surprisingly lengthy trip. “Why does it take so long?”

  “Well, it’s not the ship, if that’s what you mean—this baby can go from zero to light speed and back again in about four hours, but you’d be a quivering pile of gore within the first fifteen minutes. Biological masses can’t handle the g-force, so we have to taper out the acceleration and deceleration over a few days.”

  It has never occurred to me that g-force exists in space; I guess I’ve always attributed it to planetary gravity—shows you how little I know about physics. Once upon a time, I flaunted this ignorance like a badge of honor because it struck me as evidence that I wasn’t a complete nerd.

  Our velocity might be a little underzealous this early in the trip, but I’m already feeling pretty queasy. Maybe it has less to do with our speed than the realization that I’m headed into an immense blackness as deep as infinity, and that I’ll never see my home again.

  Either way, I’ve felt better.

  “So tell me more about this job,” I say, perhaps more out of need for distraction than genuine curiosity. Grogan sighs and rubs at a sore spot at the back of his neck.

  “Not much to tell, actually. A lot of mindless busywork. We’re employed by an R&D company out of China. PRMC—that stands for Planetary Research and Mining Company—set up shop on Mars a few years ago to develop a proprietary species of medicinal plant. Sounds illogical, I know; but it turns out Mars is an ideal setting for our research.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Well, for one, the plant has some chemical properties that make it desirable as a toxicant.”

  “So you can’t legally grow it on Earth,” I infer.

  “Yup. We initially suppressed those qualities in the genome, but they turned out to be necessary for the more desirable medicinal properties to maintain the intensity we’re after.”

  “So why Mars? Seems a little out of the way; why not the Unified Space Station, or even the moon?”

  “Good question. It would certainly be more convenient, wouldn’t it? Thing is, PRMC already had a base in progress on Mars. About a decade ago, the company was contracted by the Unified Government to gauge the potential for harvesting iron from Mars. Only, halfway through construction of the research facility, the price of iron dropped in half back on Earth, and the government suddenly pulled out.”

  “Leaving your company holding the bag?”

  “Exactly. A blessing in disguise, if you asked me. Mars’s iron content is limited to its surface, anyway, so it was a short-lived venture at best. A few years, and the whole planet would’ve been stripped.”

  “Why only the surface?”

  “Well, unlike Earth, Mars doesn’t have an iron core.”

  Just like everything else I’ve heard today, this is news to me. I hope I’m not accentuating my ignorance with questions that any ninth-grader can undoubtedly answer, because they’re coming either way. “Okay, so where’d the surface iron come from?”

  Grogan takes a deep breath. “Asteroids,” he replies. His expression is patient, though an undertone of irritation is beginning to leak from the seams. For the moment, he’s taking it all in stride, but I figure it won’t be long before he blows a gasket. “The generally accepted theory is that enough of them have blasted Mars over time that the surface has become impregnated with bits of iron shrapnel. The planet’s atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, but there are traces of ice in the soil. They’re apparently enough to allow oxidation, hence the red surface.”

  “Huh,” I mutter in comment, feeling more intellectually outclassed than I have in days. “So that venture failed before it could even take off, and PRMC figured, why waste a half-built facility?”

  “That about sums it up. It sounds dramatic, I know, but that kind of stuff happens every day in the industrial sector. You gotta roll with the punches to stay afloat, and that means making tough decisions and finding creative ways to make money with what you’ve got.”

  I have a million more questions, now that my interest is engaged, but I figure they’ll only draw more attention to my stupidity. I suspect most will resolve themselves soon enough, if I just give them a chance. One, on the other hand, has wormed its way to my tongue, and I’d be remiss to let it die there, unspoken. I clear my throat, aware that I’m about to broach what is likely to be a sensitive subject.

  “So, uh, who am I replacing?”

  Grogan blinks, the corners of his mouth bending into a suspicious frown. His eyes narrow a tinge, and I know my hunch was dead on. “What makes you think you’re replacing anyone?”

  “Just an educated guess; I figure if you were recruiting under any other circumstances, you’d need to be a lot pickier about your prospects.”

  Grogan smiles, cheeks flushing like I’ve just taken his queen with my knight.

  “His name was Lawrence Montague; most of us just called him Monty. He was a good guy.” He looks away.

  “What happened to him?”

  For a moment, Grogan doesn’t respond. Shaking his head, he allows his gaze drop to the floor, where it lingers for an uncomfortable five count. When he looks at me again, his eyes are hard, distant. “Mars isn’t an easy place to live, Wilson. I hope I haven’t oversold the place; it’s cold, dirty, and completely unforgiving. You let your guard down for a second, and you’re dead.”

  “Is that what happened to Montague? He let his guard down and was killed?”

  “I’ve really said all I can about him, Wilson. I’m really not permitted to discuss it. Suffice to say that ours is a dangerous job. If you�
��re careful, you’ll be fine. If not, you’ll be putting your life—and the lives of your coworkers—in jeopardy.”

  I gulp, hoping my consternation isn’t plainly visible on my face.

  “One other thing,” Grogan adds with a tight smile. “Maybe it goes without saying, but if anyone asks where you came from, I recruited you through our USS Moon mining operations liaison. I don’t know what you got yourself into back there, but I don’t need my crew getting caught up in it. I was in a pinch, you were in a pinch; don’t make me regret taking a gamble on you. Got me?”

  I do. I wasn’t feeling great earlier, but adding this conversation into the mix has me feeling a bit ill. Grogan senses my unease—or notices my greening pallor—and fetches me a bottle of water, along with a small pill. I look at him with weak amusement—a pill, for crying out loud? He’s got to be joking. I haven’t seen one of these since I was a kid.

  “If you want to feel better, take it,” he says. “Your implant won’t do you any good out here, in case you haven’t already figured that out.”

  Nodding dumbly, I swallow the blue tablet with difficulty, grimacing as it snails bitterly down my throat. “I guess these things take some practice,” I remark around a garbled cough.

  Armed with Grogan’s meticulous directions, I eagerly set out to find the dorms. It doesn’t take long, though I get the feeling one might easily become lost here. It’s only been a few minutes, but already a heavy shroud of drowsiness has settled over me. It’s a sensation completely unlike anything my NanoPrint has ever triggered, and not necessarily in a bad way.

  When I locate the dorms—a long hall of quaint, spartan rooms lined with steel-framed bunkbeds—I fall into the first bunk I encounter. One moment I’m sulking against a bare mattress, remembering with stinging eyes and an aching heart the smell of Adrian’s skin, the feel of her lips against mine—the next? Well, somehow I’m waking up. Time is a tangle of incongruities on this ship—no clocks, no nexus to keep me in synch. I have no idea how long I’ve been out, though the rumble in my stomach hints that it’s been a long time.