Mars Burning (The Saving Mars Series-)

by Cidney Swanson

  She strode over to her brother and sat in the grass beside him, saying nothing.

  At last he spoke. “I will miss Elsa.”

  Jessamyn broke off a stalk of grass and ran her fingers backward along the shaft, pinching off and scattering the seed. It was an act she would never have contemplated upon her first visit to Earth. Seeds were sacred. No proper Marsian would consider interrupting the life cycle of even a simple blade of grass.

  What kind of Marsian was she, anyway?

  She threw the stalk of grass down.

  Her brother spoke again. “However, it is urgent that I gain control of the satellites. The Terran government has employed very intelligent individuals to combat my efforts. I fear for what I will find when I arrive on the station and begin my endeavors once more after such an interval of days.”

  “It’s so easy for you,” Jess said, sighing heavily.

  “To what are you referring?”

  “Following orders. Going to the station. Doing what you’re supposed to do.”

  “On the contrary. It is very difficult for me to overcome my reluctance to travel to and live on the space station. But I have orders.”

  Jessamyn grunted.

  She had orders as well. Same as her brother’s. And her orders did not include finding a way back home.

  “Pavel will be aboard as well,” said Ethan. “That should make the experience pleasant for you.”

  Her brother took it for granted she would go. It made her want to insist that she didn’t have to, that no one could make her go.

  “What makes you so sure Pavel’s going?” asked Jessamyn, petulant. She knew, of course, Pavel would go. The whole thing had been his idea. His dream, for that matter.

  “It is logical. Harpreet has indicated a desire to stay, as has Brian Wallace. Kazuko and I must part in order to ensure a greater chance that one of us can complete my mission. Pavel, yourself, and Mr. Zussman stand at greatest risk should you be apprehended on Earth. Therefore, the three of you must accompany me to the station.”

  Jess wanted to say that, no, she didn’t have to go just because it was logical. That she wasn’t afraid of staying behind and getting caught.

  But there it was: the tiny fluttering in her belly, telling her what she had to do. She ran her fingers over the tops of the grasses growing beside her, felt the tickling softness of the seeds where they clung to the individual stems.

  You know what you have to do.

  She sighed heavily. Her gut was speaking loud and clear now. She was under orders. She had to go.

  “I guess you’ll have me instead of Elsa,” she said at last, reaching over to stroke the dog’s fur.

  “I am glad to know that you will be there,” said Ethan.

  “It’s the right thing to do,” she said. She felt an ache in her heart. Why couldn’t doing what was right feel better than this? “I have orders, too, Eth. Even if I don’t like them.”

  She rose. “I better get back and tell Harpreet.”

  30

  New Houston, Mars

  Lillian Jaarda had put off the visit twice already. It was, for her, a kind of crossing of the Rubicon. There were things one could not “un–know” once they were shared with another person, spoken aloud. Visiting Crusty would mean exposing those things she’d only shared with her husband thus far.

  “So don’t visit Crusty,” Geoffrey said, kissing the top of her head on his way to work.

  She could put the visit off again, she said to herself as she tossed her ration wrappers into the recycle mech.

  She could plead a flare–up of dry lung: an excuse she hadn’t used yet. A few hacking coughs on the comm, and she’d be off the hook. She could continue to look herself in the mirror and say, You are Lillian Jaarda, plant specialist, whose work will change the face of Mars forever.

  But could she say that anymore, even without the visit to Daschle Crustegard? Lately, she’d been less and less certain. Whether she consulted Crusty or not, the seeds of doubts had been planted by her own observations. Those seeds had sent out roots and become a part of her personal ecosystem. Something was off at Planetary Ag, and she knew it.

  One way or another, things had been shifting off target at work for some time. The last–minute alterations, the supposed power outages which included failures of the back–up and failsafe systems. How many of these “mistakes” could a good scientist overlook before she had to admit there were too many of them to attribute to mere chance?

  So could she square her shoulders and take the blow? Accept that the work she’d curated for nearly ten annums might mean nothing? That Mars Colonial was no closer to solving the food problem than it had been a hundred years ago, at the destruction of the Greenhouse Mars facility?

  That was the question before her as she contemplated visiting Crusty.

  One thing felt certain—she could no longer continue working within what she was coming to believe was a carefully constructed web of lies. This much, Lillian knew: the soil in Hermes Lab hadn’t poisoned itself, nor had the substrate in Aphrodite Lab sterilized itself. And Ares Lab? Her eyes rolled upward. “Don’t even get me started,” she muttered to herself.

  Lillian had mixed feelings regarding the practice of compartmentalizing the groups one from the other. They were told this segregation of the data was to keep their research untainted by undue influence.

  She now wondered if it had been to keep them all in the dark. She had literally no idea what avenues Hermes Lab had been pursuing the past four years or more. She wasn’t meant to know, much less to question why she couldn’t know.

  And she’d let them get away with it.

  This galled her most of all. At any moment in time, she might have objected. But no: she’d been glad to be free of the endless meetings people like her husband suffered through at work. She was free to work uninterrupted, answerable only to the head of Planetary Ag. She’d never seen this as a suspicious or an undesirable situation.

  “But you do now, eh, Jaarda?” She shook her head.

  How could she have been hornswoggled like this? A small smile tugged at one side of her mouth. Hornswoggled. That was a Crustyism if ever she’d heard one. Where did he get his seemingly unlimited supply of odd words and phrases? She shook her head, smiling.

  She ought to have responded to Crusty days ago. Lillian Jaarda walked to the front airlock, donned her walk–out suit, and drove to New Houston’s jail.

  31

  Low Earth Orbit

  Jessamyn sat in the cockpit of the Star Shark, Pavel at her side. Pavel’s face positively glowed in the confines of the Star Shark as the two, along with Zussman and Ethan, rocketed into their first low orbit.

  It made something soften inside Jessamyn, seeing the expression on Pavel’s face. From the first hour she’d met him, she’d known how deeply Pavel yearned to travel out among the stars. And maybe, aboard one space station, they would be able to discover something about the deaths of his parents aboard another station.

  Ares knew she’d have plenty of spare time on her hands. So long as her brother remained mentally healthy, Jess would soon have very little to do. She shot another glance to Pavel, his profile sharply chiseled in the dim light of the spacecraft. She smiled. Maybe she could think of one or two things to pass the time. She ordered another burn, taking the ship to a higher orbit.

  Jess felt nervous—and a little excited—about the rendezvous of her moving craft with the also–moving space station. She’d never done this sort of procedure before. But the docking went smoothly, the two crafts coupling exactly as they should. The real surprise came when they exited the Star Shark and boarded the station.

  “What’s with the station’s gravitational controls?” asked Pavel, floating along the tunnel leading from the docking station.

  “It appears to be inoperative,” said Ethan. His chair tipped lazily to one side. “I am familiar with artificial gravity systems. It should be within my ability to effect a repair.”

  “Let�
�s comm the Ghost and ask what he knows first,” suggested Jess.

  But when they established communication with their absent host, his response surprised them.

  “Gravity?” asked the Ghost. “No. Never been a fan.”

  “I can examine your gravitational generator,” said Ethan.

  “No. Don’t bother,” said the Ghost, his gravelly voice becoming more gruff. “Gravity is for people who want to live on planets.”

  Pavel and Jess exchanged glances.

  “How long have you been without it?” asked Pavel, pushing a longish hair back from where it had floated to cover one eye.

  “Oh, thousands, hmm, tens of thousands of orbits. I don’t know. I don’t think about it. Leave it alone. Goodbye. Oh, and welcome aboard.” The comm went dead.

  Pavel and Jessamyn stared at one another and then Pavel burst out laughing.

  “That was one interesting conversation,” said Pavel. “Too bad he vacated the premises.”

  Jessamyn shook her head. “I thought my brother was conversationally challenged.”

  “He’s been out here a long time, according to Jumble. All by himself. That’s got to do things to you.”

  The hairs rose on the back of Jessamyn’s neck. How long would they be stuck up here? Well, she wasn’t alone. Which had to count for something. She gave a small shake of her head. The action turned out to be slightly nauseating.

  She knew about micro–gravity from training back at the Academy. No sudden movements. It was basic. Of course, all her training had been aimed at stabilizing a short–term situation where the goal was to restore gravity as soon as possible.

  Jess felt pretty sure that in theory, you had to spend a few days being sick if you were going to experience micro–gravity for an extended period, as they apparently were going to do. It had something to do with tiny crystals floating in the inner ear and informing your brain as to what was “up” and what was “down.” Or, rather, not informing your brain, since the ear didn’t function correctly with no gravitational ups and downs.

  It’s going to be a rough couple of days, Jess thought, looking around for any signs of a vom–vac.

  “I shall return my hoverchair to the Star Shark,” said Ethan. “All but the wafer component. The chair will be superfluous here.”

  Jess smiled. Her brother was right. He would be as mobile as any of them up here without gravity.

  She heard a quiet throat–clearing from behind. It was Zussman.

  “If you will excuse me, sir, miss, I’ll be off to unpack.”

  “Sure, Zuss,” said Pavel. “That would be great. Thanks, man.”

  Once the former butler floated around the corner, Jessamyn confronted Pavel.

  “I thought you spoke with him about not…doing the butler thing anymore.”

  Pavel’s forehead wrinkled and he sighed heavily. “I did.”

  “And?”

  “And he likes…butlering. No, he freaking lives for it. He gave me this long apologetic speech about pulling his weight and what he owed us for helping him break free from my aunt, and the sum total of it was I came off like a complete jerk for even suggesting that he cease and desist in the manservant department.”

  “Huh,” said Jess. “Maybe it’s like if I were to ask Crusty to stop tinkering with machines.”

  “Yes! Exactly! Zuss likes tinkering with putting things where they belong. Making sure meals happen on time. Seeing that people get where they are supposed to be when they’re supposed to be there.”

  “I like pushing pieces of metal around in the sky, Zuss likes arranging people’s days. Go figure.”

  Jess noticed she’d begun drifting sideways relative to Pavel, and she turned her head—slowly—looking for something to grab hold of. But as she searched for a grip, she found something else.

  “Oh,” she gasped in wonder. “Pavel, look.” Behind them was a small porthole window aimed toward Earth. “The sun—it’s coming up. Or is it setting?”

  Pavel swung himself around so that he could peer through the window. “The large dark land mass is Africa. The sun is on the eastern side, so it’s rising. Over there—” he said, pointing the other way, “Would be sunset.”

  During the seconds it had taken Pavel to speak, it had become obvious the sun was rising.

  “It moves so fast,” said Pavel.

  “We’ll catch more than a dozen sunrises a day in this orbit,” replied Jess, smiling.

  “This is going to be amazing!” said Pavel.

  Jess nodded, slowly, so as to keep her rations down, and gazed as the sun seemed to leap forward relative to the planet. “Earth is so beautiful,” she said at last. “The last time I was up here, I didn’t have much time to admire stuff.”

  “We’ll have plenty of chances now,” Pavel murmured.

  After a moment, Jess let go of the handhold by the porthole and turned away, sensible of being watched.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You’re so beautiful,” Pavel murmured.

  Jessamyn felt her face growing hot. She wasn’t clear about the physical likelihood of blushing in micro–gravity, but it must be possible based on the temperature change she was experiencing on her face.

  Pavel leaned in to kiss her.

  Seconds later they were both giggling. As soon as Pavel’s lips had met Jessamyn’s, she’d been shoved away from him. The slight pressure of a kiss had been enough to send her drifting toward the far wall.

  “That didn’t work so well,” Jess said, between fits of laughter.

  Pavel, now on the opposite side of the room, looked like a child who’d lost a toy. “Try again?” he asked mournfully.

  So they did. With moderately more success.

  “This is going to take some practice, clearly,” said Pavel.

  “Clearly.”

  From Jessamyn’s perspective, Pavel appeared to be falling backwards as she leaned in for another kiss.

  “Practice is good,” she said. Then, using her Academy training in a way probably not imagined by her instructors, she hooked her foot around one of Pavel’s legs, hauling him back toward her.

  “Clever,” he said, brushing her hair out of his way.

  “I need something to make a ponytail,” she said, wrapping her other leg around his midsection.

  Pavel gathered her hair, floating out in all directions, and held it in one hand.

  “Better?” he asked, his breath warm against her face.

  “Almost,” she replied, pulling his face into hers.

  Kissing felt more or less the same in zero gravity, Jess decided. It was, however, much trickier to keep your target in range.

  “More practice,” Pavel whispered, anchoring one arm around her back to keep her from floating away.

  Jess noticed the porthole window they’d been standing beside had drifted to the “bottom” of the room. Her stomach gave a small leap and she pulled away from Pavel.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Just felt…funny,” she said, placing one hand over her stomach.

  Pavel grinned. “Want to place bets on who hurls first?”

  Jess felt another twitch in her gut. “Actually, not so much,” she said.

  Something caught Pavel’s eye and he frowned at the something. Jessamyn turned her head—slowly—and saw Zussman approaching them. Upside down. Her brain tried to make sense of up and down and she felt another shift in her belly.

  “Uh–oh,” said Pavel, his hand flying to his mouth.

  In an instant, Zussman was at Pavel’s side, having produced a bag from who knew where. Pavel retched. Zussman turned discreetly to one side while his former charge completed the business of being the first to achieve space sickness.

  Jessamyn considered congratulating him on this achievement, but Pavel’s face was still ghostly white. And then, as she drifted upside down, she realized she was about to have the distinction of coming in as the second one sick. She shot out a hand to take Zussman’s proffered space sickness bag and put
it to good use.

  After a minute spent gathering her shaken dignity, Jess admitted to herself she felt much better.

  “I beg leave to apologize for approaching the pair of you in an oppositional stance, just now,” said Zussman as he placed the used containers into a wet trash chute.

  “Oppositional what?” asked Pavel.

  “We were upside–down relative to his position,” explained Jess.

  “Um, I think that was our fault, Zuss. Not yours.” Pavel’s face took on an embarrassed flush which made Jess want to laugh again.

  “Nonetheless, sir, I believe I was the immediate cause of your becoming nauseated.”

  “I studied space sickness at the Academy,” Jess said. “They told us about how seeing someone come at you upside down can make you lose your rations. But I’m telling you, it’s another thing entirely to experience it.”

  Pavel paled. “We have months of barfing to look forward to, every time someone flips upside down?”

  “No,” replied Jess. “We should all be adjusted in the next couple of days.” Addressing Zussman, she said, “It wasn’t your fault. We were the ones who got turned around.”

  “Yes, miss,” Zussman said with a slight nod of his head. “If you will just take note of the painted stripes upon each of the four walls.” He indicated one of the ten–centimeter–wide stripes of green. “Your brother was kind enough to inform me that the green indicates a common ‘down’ and the blue upon the opposite, er, wall, indicates ‘up.’ We are all, of course, free to ignore these suggested directions.”

  “No, no,” said Pavel. “If it’ll keep my lunch in the lunchbox, I’m good with following directions.”

  “The directional striping is consistently applied throughout the station,” said Zussman.

  “Smart,” said Jess.

  “It will additionally be best to avoid sudden head movements to ameliorate the tendency to, ah, empty the lunchbox, as Mister Pavel so eloquently phrased it.”

  “Well, pretty much, we’re going to have a couple rough days no matter what. But the colored stripes are smart,” said Jess, nodding appreciatively.