Rising groggily to leaden feet, I’m drawn to the window. Peering through the thick resin portal, I notice that the tiny pinpoints of light outside have begun to grow tails. Soon, they’ll be stretched taut like ribbons through space. We must be traveling hundreds of thousands of miles per hour by now.
I’m suddenly terrified by our velocity: what if we collide with a piece of passing debris? At this speed, it would surely punch right through us like a bullet through a foil balloon. I wonder: would the ship explode on impact, or would it implode from the rapid loss of pressure?
I take a leisurely half-hour tour of the vessel, noting countless unmarked doors and hatches throughout the maze, wondering what mysteries lie beyond them. It’s a large ship—equipped for a sizeable crew, if needed—yet Grogan and I haunt it alone. At some point during my outing, I realize that I no longer have any idea where I am. I continue to poke along through endless corridors—each seemingly identical to the last—because there’s really nothing else I can do, but I’m getting a little freaked out. When I find Grogan sitting in a small cafeteria, I take great pains to appear blithe, but I’m actually trembling with relief.
“Ah,” he exclaims. “Sleeping Beauty awakens at last.” He cocks his head curiously, appraising me with a raised eyebrow. Suddenly, his mouth forms a ridiculous smirk. “Got lost, huh?”
I can’t help but blush, my sheepish smile slipping into a thin line of mortification. “How long was I out?”
“Oh, the better part of a day, I guess.” Good grief—I gotta get some of those pills. “You want another pill?” he offers with a wry grin. A bona fide mind-reader, this guy.
“No, thanks,” I laugh. A few more of those, and I might never wake again.
“You sure? Gets pretty boring out here—no shame in sleeping through it.”
“I’m all right. I feel like I’ve been asleep for a week, anyway. I’ll be lucky to sleep at all tonight.” I stifle a yawn. At once, a terrible thought cuts through the billowy veil of grogginess. “Now that I think about it,” I say with a halfhearted—and completely disingenuous—chuckle, “I guess I’d rather be asleep if there’s any danger of us crashing into something out here.”
Grogan laughs, a youthful cackle, full of zeal and the sort of abandon that I’ve never committed to in the best of circumstances. “I know, it’s hard to get used to. But eventually you learn to trust the ship, and you stop worrying about stuff like that. It’d take a rock the size of a couch to make it past the magnetic repulsion systems, and anything that large is easy enough to circumvent.”
I smile, though inside I’m terrified. Weighed down by doubts, I realize there’s really nothing I can do to protect myself; like it or not, I’m at Grogan’s mercy. My worries—however plentiful—are worthless out here. Regardless of how many I manage to accrue, they have no power over fate.
Or do they?
It’s been two days, and I’m starting to see what Grogan meant about boredom on this trip. Who knew that a spaceship could travel at near light speed with so little noise or vibration? It’s so quiet I can’t even think straight. I never realized just how vital the white noise of my implant was to my sanity until it was stripped away. I find myself humming to fill the void, sometimes talking quietly to myself—full conversations, I mean, that go nowhere.
What’re we gonna do now, buddy boy?
Dunno; what’s there to do on a Monday?
Monday? Wait a second, now; today’s Tuesday, isn’t it?
Actually, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure it’s Wednesday.
Okie-dokie. So what’re we gonna do today? Not much to do on a Monday, is there?
Grogan may be a space veteran, but he’s no more immune than I am. At first, I worried about wearing out my welcome with him, so I gave him wide berth to do his thing without me underfoot. Since then, it has become clear that he’s as starved for conversation as I am. We’re the only living things on this ship, after all, and if serendipity hadn’t chosen to cross our paths, he’d be here all alone.
Speaking of my host, you’d think Grogan has spent his entire life in space, for he seems almost childishly uncultured about life on Earth. You mention something like digital flavors or the new cinema add-on and he’s completely lost. His implant has been idle for so many years that he literally can’t remember what it feels like anymore. Hearing this, I’m both terrified and lustful of that possibility for me. Mine is still oscillating under my skin, sending out tiny bursts of signal to the nexus, waiting for a reply that isn’t likely to come. I wonder how long it’ll continue before it finally gives up. I ask Grogan when his eventually shut off, but he can’t remember.
That evening, we’ve just sat down to eat something when Grogan drops a bombshell onto the table, something I’ve never seen outside a museum—something that would get him a stiff fine and a week of community service back on Earth. It’s a book—I mean an actual, printed book. He tosses it next to his plate like it’s the most normal thing in the world, like paper is a plentiful commodity. It’s black-bound and thick. It isn’t until he opens it and begins reading that I realize it isn’t constructed of paper, as I first thought. The text is imprinted on some sort of synthetic material that resembles paper, but has a slightly translucent quality which differentiates it from the real thing.
Grogan looks up at me, as if he can feel my eyes bugging. “Pretty cool, huh?” he says. “My brother got this for me last year.”
“I didn’t even know they printed books anymore.” For that matter, who knew there was even a market for them? “Where’d your brother even find that thing?”
Grogan shrugs with a faraway smile and scratches the scruff on his neck. “Beats me. Apparently, they can have just about anything printed and bound. I have seven more.”
My disbelief must’ve been palpable just then, because later, when we’ve finished eating, Grogan retrieves all seven in a haphazard tower, supported by his hands at the bottom and his torso at the top.
I’m speechless. On Earth, I could access any published work in a split second via the nexus. But I’ve never been much for reading—I’m far too lazy. Why read a story when you can just watch the movie? I’ve never been ashamed by this; at least, not directly. I’m no different than most in this respect, really. But under the circumstances, I’ll take any form of entertainment I can get my hands on.
My never-ending hankering for movies—especially old ones—is certainly more significant than is probably healthy. I’ve inadvertently soaked up tidbits of the antiquated film vernacular and made them my own. With my NanoPrint out of commission, I realize I may never watch another movie again.
First my coffee, and now my movies? Jeez, what’s left to satisfy my addictive proclivities? I guess I’ll have to get used to using my imagination on Mars.
“Try this one out, if you want,” Grogan offers, nodding toward a slab on the top of his pile. The book looks as if it might slide off if I demur, so I pluck it off the stack and admire its heft. “It’s one of my favorites,” he confesses, watching me flip curiously through the fine pages.
Fahrenheit 451.
I glance at Grogan for more encouragement. “What’s it about?”
He sniggers and shakes his head. “I don’t want to spoil it for you, but I can promise you’ll never take reading for granted when you’re done.”
It would be rude not to accept it, and I certainly have nothing better to do. So I acquiesce, retiring to my dorm to read a printed book for the very first time.
The ship is slowing now. The sensation is subtle, but I feel as though I’m perched on the edge of my axis, leaning slightly to compensate for the disturbance in gravity. Grogan pops his head into my dorm to inform me that we’ll be landing in a matter of hours. I feel a quickening pass through me as I imagine dry ground beneath my feet. Bolting from the bed, I abandon the novel to peer through the window. I’m expecting to see something telltale of the end of our journey, but all I see are white threads of light, which shorten almost
imperceptibly as I track them. I feel the now-familiar symptoms of motion sickness creeping in, but I’m reluctant to take another of Grogan’s magic pills—I don’t want to experience my first glimpse of the Red Planet from its surface after waking from an eight-hour coma.
I leave the dorms behind and move to the flight deck, where Grogan is busy pushing all sorts of buttons and checking gauges. For the first time since we embarked on this journey, it dawns on me that this entire ship—which is easily the size of my entire condo building—rests under the exclusive control of Grogan; through this lens, the man looks strikingly different. I don’t know why he should impress me more now, but he does. As he goes about the cabin, making adjustments here and there, I’m a little awestruck that he seems to know what every little control—of which there are many hundreds, if not thousands—is for, and how it should be managed.
Out the front portal, I can see Mars ahead. It’s a surreal moment, catching my first view of the planet; it’s a rare experience that I proudly share with few men. And just like Earth, Mars’s strangeness is unbelievably beautiful from space.
I’m so caught up in the view that it almost doesn’t register with my consciousness that my NanoPrint has just gone quiet. When it finally dawns on me, I’m not sure if I should laugh or cry; I want to do both. My fingertips travel tentatively to my wrist, as if to confirm or deny what I already know to be true: that my last link to the only world I’ve ever known has just been severed.
The countless images I’ve absorbed of Mars over the years have grossly underprepared me for the real thing. It’s not that they’ve built up grandiose expectations; on the contrary, actually. Everything I’ve ever seen of Mars has depicted a generally bland ball of dirt and ice—a planet only a scientist could love.
In reality—at least, in my view of it at this particular moment—Mars is nothing like that. Well, in a way it is—but it mostly isn’t. Laying eyes on its surface for the first time, it’s clear that no picture will ever do this place justice. You need the face-to-face depth of true binocular vision to fully appreciate its grandeur.
I’ve never seen a desert before today; I can’t count Nevada, since every square inch of the state is covered in solar panels and rainwater collectors. Though the term—desert, I mean—implies a certain barrenness—which is of course fitting—the surface of Mars is teeming with mountains, valleys, and some of the most dramatic rock formations I’ve ever seen. They’re like the fingerprints of the cosmos, left behind for my humble amazement. But all of this is incidental to my expectations when compared to what I see as I follow Grogan out of the cargo bay and onto the gritty surface of Mars.
At first, I think I’m misinterpreting what I’m seeing—perhaps my oxygen mix is too rich, and that my mind isn’t processing things correctly—but when Grogan comes to a halt and I nearly ram him from behind, I realize that I’m not imagining anything.
“Oh my God,” he exclaims. “What’ve they done?” Directly ahead of us, the ground is punctured in a neat row by an array of bizarre plants. How they got there, I can surmise from Grogan’s reaction. How they’ve managed to survive there, on the other hand, is something I’m incapable of wrapping my mind around.
Grogan storms toward the nearest building, unleashing a few expletives along the way that tell me someone just made his scrap list. The airlock is barely large enough to accommodate the two of us, and I’m quietly grateful that we’re at least helmeted right now—I can’t speak for Grogan, but I haven’t brushed my teeth in days. I feel the pressurization of the room change, and with a hiss, oxygenated air blows into the lock.
Until now, I suppose I’ve envisioned a small complex of cluttered labs, overcrowded by bumbling scientists. But the reverse seems to be the case; the complex is huge—even larger inside than out, because the lower third of the structure is buried in the ground—and seemingly void of human habitation. Grogan leads me deeper into the complex, which is effectively a large honeycomb of modular rooms. The farther he takes me, the more startled I am by the gluttonous ratio of person to square inch.
As if reading my mind, he explains: “Isn’t normally like this, in case you’re wondering.”
I nod, forgetting that he can’t hear my body language. “Is it lunchtime, or what?”
“Not even close,” he grumbles. “Think it’s more of a case of when the master’s away, the cats will play.” I’m thinking he must mean when the cat’s away, the mice will play, but I hold my tongue.
We’ve been here for nearly ten minutes before we finally see another human being. I can tell that Grogan’s relieved, yet his relief is shadowed—or even masked—by irritation.
“What’s going on around here, Winkley?” Grogan demands as he fumbles to disengage his helmet. I follow suit with my own and instantly wish I hadn’t. The air is stuffy, thick with the funk of body odor and mildew—and something else, something sewery.
“Gross,” I gag. “What’s that smell?”
Grogan regards me with surprise, as if he’s only just remembered that he didn’t arrive here alone. He wrinkles his nose and defers to Winkley. “You smell something?”
Winkley, who seems grateful for the momentary lapse in his rear-chewing, smiles broadly. He’s short and husky, maybe in his midforties. He looks at me with an amused grin and makes a show of sniffing the air. “Not a thing, boss. You?”
Grogan claps me on the shoulder and says, “Don’t worry, newbie. Just a little methane—you won’t even notice it in a week or so.”
“I find that hard to believe,” I gag.
Winkley dials down his smile, just a notch. “Seriously; something about the soil here; it deadens your olfactory glands. Pretty sure most of us could walk right over a dead skunk and wouldn’t even smell it.”
I grimace in disgust, and in dismay. How sad that will be, to lose the ability to smell my own need for a shower. For now, I guess the upside is that no one’s likely to notice the neglected state of my breath. That aside, what I wouldn’t do for a toothbrush!
“Where exactly is everyone?” Grogan wants to know. “And what are the BPs doing outside?”
Winkley cringes, as if he’s been waiting for one or both of these questions with trepidation. “Yeah, that. Well, let’s see: Rogers and Cutterly are both recovering in the infirmary—I think the stitches came out earlier—and Fiona’s probably in her lab.”
“And the BPs?”
“You’ll have to ask the missus about that, boss. I’m out of the loop on that one.”
Without another word, Grogan sheds the remainder of his atmospheric suit and stomps past Winkley, pushing farther into the complex.
Winkley whistles a sigh through his round nose. “Always a treat, that guy.”
“He usually this tense?”
“Only when he’s awake. Actually, he’s perfectly happy on his ship. Me? I need a little ground under my feet.”
I nod, thinking, Here, here.
I get the impression that first names are silent with this group. Maybe it’s a blue-collar thing. If so, it’s all the more important for me to tread carefully; a name like Abby begs for mockery in a group of working-class men. Perhaps wisely, I introduce myself as Wilson and then begin the difficult process of removing my suit. It’s a substantial set of gear; thick, stiff and heavy. “Man, this thing’s a beast,” I wheeze.
Winkley snorts. “You won’t complain the first time you’re actually outside for more than a few minutes.”
“What do you mean?”
“These babies aren’t designed for occasional use in low-atmospheric conditions; they’re built to withstand serious abuse in the worst of conditions. Even then, when they’re all that’s between you and Mars, they don’t seem like much. You end up out there”—he gestures with a hooked thumb out toward the dirt—“without one of these on? You’re done for.”
I swallow, my mouth suddenly full of cotton.
“Never mind the air supply; even if you got past that, the temperature out there is all over the
map—thirty degrees Fahrenheit one minute, seventy below the next. If the cold doesn’t get you, the solar winds’ll impregnate you with radiation. Believe me—we’re lucky to have these.”
I am sufficiently convinced on this subject and decide to bite my tongue, lest I say something else I’ll immediately regret.
Grogan returns, and he’s not alone. As his associate steps into the room, my breath snags in the mousetrap of my throat. She’s startlingly beautiful, and her presence seems blatantly at odds with the drabness and stench of this place. She’s like a rare and exotic flower growing inextricably from a trash heap.
My reaction is lost on no one, least of all Winkley. He laughs boisterously at my expense, remarking: “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to her, too. Eventually, you’ll start to see her as just one of the guys.”
I sense a thought gathering on my tongue—the kind one might playfully consider inside, but would never speak aloud—and though I know I’ll regret it if the words slip into open space, I realize I can’t stop them.
“Let’s get started, then,” my traitorous mouth defects. “You wanna play fort in my room?” Oh, Wilson; you sad, little idiot.
The room resounds with a sharp intake of breaths—including my own—followed by a terrible period of dead silence. My ears burn as if aflame.
Keith would be so proud, you loser.
In unison, we dance a nervous shuffle until—at once—Grogan erupts into a blasting guffaw; Winkley squeezes out a weird laugh between clenched lips, sounding remarkably like a fart.
While welcome, the merriment quickly dwindles to a timid clearing of throats, ushering in a terrible spell of sheer awkwardness. All eyes shift to the woman, whose face seems paralyzed in an expressionless mask. Slowly, she trains her magnificent green eyes on me in a challenging squint—the way gunslingers do in old movies, just before they start counting off steps in a duel. It might be my imagination, but I think I detect a faint smile behind that façade, begging for freedom. I feel my heart swell in a lovesick hiccup.
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