Mars Burning (The Saving Mars Series-)

by Cidney Swanson

  “If that will be all, sir?” Zussman asked. “I’ve promised to aid Ethan in testing the satellite relay equipment.”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Pavel. “And thanks for the quick thinking, Zuss. That was some nice hand–eye coordination getting that bag to me in the nick of time.”

  “Yes, sir. Much obliged, sir.”

  With that, Zussman bent forward in what Jess first thought was an extremely odd sort of bow. But as the butler shot forward down the room, Jess realized it was a handy way to launch forward.

  “Has Zussman been up in space before?” Jessamyn asked.

  Pavel frowned, drawing his brows together. “I have no idea. He acts like it, huh? The more time I spend with him, the more I realize I don’t know his story at all.”

  “Plenty of time to ask questions now,” Jess said, sighing softly.

  She hadn’t yet spent much time deciding what, exactly, she might do aboard a space station in orbit. The station’s library was impressive—Ethan had told her that already. And there was always Pavel and figuring out how to kiss in zero–g. But what was a pilot supposed to do on a station with no human guidance required? It was an extension of the question that had been plaguing her ever since she’d lost the Red Hope last month. What would she do with her life?

  Jess gave herself a mental head–shake. You’re assuming you’ll have a life to live. It was no good worrying about what the years might bring. When it came down to it, all she really had was today. She stretched a hand out to Pavel, who was looking out the porthole window again.

  “Hey,” she said. “I’m glad I’m here with you.”

  He gave her hand a tight squeeze. “Me, too, Jess.”

  They stared out at the blue planet beneath them—or was it above them?—until the sun became too bright and they had to look away.

  32

  New Houston, Mars

  During what she thought of as her final days as elected Secretary General and CEO of Mars Colonial, Mei Lo spent every minute of her free time attempting to reconstruct the record of failed agricultural efforts on her planet. Crusty’s suspicions were surely too extreme, but it couldn’t hurt her to become more familiar with the history of farming on Mars.

  In the years of war with Earth, Mars had lost a critical resource: Greenhouse Mars, which had been destroyed during General Bouchard’s one and only attack upon civilians. With that one attack, the Terran government wiped out the planet’s repository of botanists, entomologists, and bacteriologists: all those who had studied the science of growing things on the barren planet.

  The backlash from Terran citizens against the strike had been severe enough to force General Bouchard to avoid future direct assaults upon Marsian civilians.

  But Bouchard had chosen his single civilian target well. Mars lost the collected knowledge of an entire generation, built upon the know–how of several previous generations. Mei Lo was coming to the conclusion that the red planet had never truly recovered.

  In time, there had arisen a new generation of those fascinated by soil zoology. They continued the earlier attempts to introduce an Earth–like ecology into the sterile dirt Mars provided in such abundance.

  But in the meantime, a generation grew up who knew ration bars as their only source of food. Raiding for the bars solved a problem that ranked roughly fifth on the hierarchy of needs on the red planet. The prevention of starvation was an important task, but it was less essential than at least four other tasks on the “lose this and you will die” ladder.

  Go a few minutes breathing Marsian “air” instead of the enhanced blend of nitrogen and oxygen favored by the human animal, thought Mei Lo, and you would die. Then there was atmospheric pressure: that which occurred naturally on the red planet would kill you. In fact, it would kill you before the planet’s bitter temperatures would.

  However, without heat (the third most important need), you would die of hypothermia. Which would occur before you had a chance to die of thirst (the fourth most important need.) And even Terrans on Earth knew water was more essential to life than food. At least, the Secretary was fairly certain they knew this.

  All of which meant that the men and women dedicating themselves to Marsian agriculture were seen as participating in a somewhat less–than–essential activity and were compensated in accordance with this estimation. Forward thinkers, such as Mei Lo herself, made frequent reminders that the greening of the planet would solve the other issues of air, atmospheric pressure, heat, and water, but actual, visible effects of terraforming were at least a generation away.

  Mars had Raiders, which meant Mars had food. To put it crudely, thought Mei Lo, agricultural work just wasn’t as sexy as raiding.

  Well, she decided, regardless of the outcome of the election, she was going to devote herself to turning agriculture into the sexiest job on the planet.

  Catching a glimpse of her serious expression in the reflection of a window, she laughed at herself.

  “You’re nothing but a crazy dreamer,” she said aloud, shaking her head.

  33

  New Houston, Mars

  Dr. Lillian Jaarda, PhD, thanked the guard who admitted her into Daschle Crustegard’s cell as per the orders of MCC’s highest authority.

  “Lil, good of you to come,” said Crusty. He stood, offering her the room’s one and only chair.

  It was more on the order of a stool, truth be told, and Lillian smiled, shaking her head, No thanks. Compelled by the assortment of green at the room’s far end, she crossed to the potted algae and—was that an orchid? Her brows arched in frank disbelief.

  “You’ve been busy, old friend,” she murmured, glancing from plant to plant.

  Crusty smiled. “Old friend,” he said. “I like that.”

  Lillian blushed. She’d called him worse. Particularly on the day he’d refused her proposal of marriage some ten annums past. They’d not spoken until recently, and some of the awkwardness of the years hung in the room like a puff of Mars dust.

  “It’s real good to see you,” he said. “You hear anything from them kids of yours?”

  Lillian’s face crumpled a little, but then she straightened her shoulders. “They are both well,” she answered. She also changed the subject. “Your algae looks healthy. Astonishingly healthy.” She moved closer to the potted plants. “These look like…well, they look like a set of pots I have at home.”

  Lillian saw Crusty’s brows furrow, but he didn’t say anything in response.

  “Have you been feeding your pots the improved nutrients I recommended after Plan Ag released the last study?” asked Lillian. She was afraid she already knew the answer.

  “No, ma’am,” Crusty replied. “I’m sorry to say I ain’t been usin’ any of it.”

  Lillian eyed him carefully. “You look like you’re keeping secrets.”

  “Mayhap I’m keeping promises, not secrets,” said Crusty.

  “Promises to whom?” she demanded. “Did someone at Planetary Ag contact you?”

  “Plan Ag?” Crusty snorted as if in derision. “Not very likely.”

  “So how do you explain the fact that your plants are healthy when everyone else’s—around the entire planet, I might add—are dying?”

  Crusty looked very uncomfortable indeed.

  “I simply don’t understand it,” said Lillian, sinking at last onto the room’s only stool. “I created a new feeding regime based on some very positive results I verified at work. But at home, I kept a few of the pots off the new nutrition. Out of…I don’t know…idle curiosity or something.” Lillian looked up at Crusty. “Suspicion, maybe.”

  Crusty remained silent. He reached to one of the pots and pinched a few leaves off, popping them in his mouth, looking very distracted.

  “Crusty! You’re not supposed to eat it.”

  “Sorry. Right. I mean, I know that.”

  “Listen,” said Lillian, rubbing her forehead. “I don’t know who else to talk to about this, and you and I have talked plants before. I’m worried
, Crusty. I’ve been seeing things over at Planetary Ag that worry me.”

  This seemed to grab Crusty’s attention.

  “What kind of things?”

  She detailed the “coincidences” that had resulted in repeated loss of data, plants, and healthy soil. “And then there’s this latest,” she said, “with the Household Algae Pot Program. They’re about to pull funding because so many pots are dying. But they shouldn’t be dying. They should be more robust than ever.” Lillian shook her head.

  Crusty cleared his throat, shaking his own head. “Listen, I weren’t goin’ to say nothin’. I promised the Secretary General I’d not trouble you with my crazed notions. But seein’ as you brought it up and not me, well…” Crusty shrugged. “I think things’re fishy over at Plan Ag. You let something slip that first night I stopped by with Jess. So I been reading up. Hades, I got nothin’ but time on my hands these days, seein’ as they won’t let me near anything with moving parts.”

  Lillian choked on a tiny laugh. It had been a long time since she’d laughed at anything.

  Crusty continued. “I’m seein’ repeating patterns, Lil. Of a sort that ain’t normal in nature or machinery. Patterns of this variety come from human interference. Your group—Aphrodite Lab—how many major setbacks you seen the last five annums?”

  “Two,” Lillian said without missing a beat. “We had a heat distributor go out on us four annums ago and last annum we took damage to water filtration on my Household Algae Pot program.”

  “Both incidents resulted in the total loss of research, did they not?” Crusty paused, waiting for her nod before continuing. “So here’s the thing: these problems been showin’ up in each lab every three annums. Every three annums, Lil. Just like planet hoppers come home to roost.”

  Lillian didn’t believe planet hoppers did any such thing, but she didn’t interrupt.

  “That strike you as odd? ’Cause it sure did me.”

  “How long have you known, Crusty? ”

  Crusty shoved both hands in his pockets and appeared fascinated by a crack in the flooring.

  “Reckon I’d never have put two and two together without this long spell here courtesy of Mars Colonial.” Crusty gestured expansively to his accommodations, grinning.

  “I didn’t want to see it,” said Lillian, running her fingers along the waxy leaf of the orchid. “That’s the only excuse I have.”

  “Don’t expect anyone wants news like this,” grunted Crusty. “You got, what, ten people over there in Plan Ag?”

  Lillian nodded. “Eleven if you count Meigs. But he’s never around.”

  “In engineering, I had more’n two dozen on my crew alone. That oughta tell you something right there.” Crusty snorted. “The money goes where the hope flows. Aphrodite’s flowered nightie! Makes me madder than a hornet, it does.”

  “I should have come when you first sent word,” said Lillian.

  “Well, you’re here now. Okay, so here’s what I thinks goin’ on. You know Cavanaugh Kipling?”

  Lillian crossed her arms, looking irritated. “Of course.”

  “Did you know his uncle ran Plan Ag before Meigs came on board?”

  “Archibald Kipling’s record is exemplary. They made real progress in his day. It was right before I came in as a new hire.”

  “I don’t know about progress. He was the one responsible for designing the program so’s only ten of you would be working on issues they shoulda given to a hundred of the planet’s best minds.”

  Lillian nodded, her brow knitting together. “Go on.”

  “Here’s something else. I think Archibald handpicked Meigs and made sure he got the job.”

  “That’s not possible. They hate one another.”

  Crusty shrugged. “The hatred’s all smoke and mirrors. Two of ’em is thicker than thieves, you start looking at their mutual acquaintances, where they spend New Annums, that sorta thing.”

  Lillian shook her head. “Why would Meigs want things at Planetary Ag to fail? We need to grow food for ourselves if we’re ever to be truly independent.”

  “Independence is a dream he don’t believe in. Just like Archibald. And if there’s enough evidence that growin’ food on Mars is a fool notion, well, that could influence the powers that be. It forces the agronomists, the ones who should actually know the score, to admit there’s no hope.”

  Lillian shook her head. “I’ll never admit that. But I sure wish…” She shook her head.

  “What?”

  “There are some things you can’t get from books and vids,” said Lillian. “Maybe if we hadn’t lost an entire generation of scientists…”

  “Used to be a saying on Earth that you can’t make a cattle rancher outta someone ’til the family’s been at it four generations.”

  “I can believe that. There are things I don’t know how to quantify or write down.” She reached out and ran her fingertips along the algae. “How do I describe the way I know simply by touching the plant how it’s doing?”

  Crusty grinned. “I know what you mean. Same thing in engines. Some stuff you just know in your bones.”

  “I don’t know, Crusty. Maybe it is a hopeless cause.” Lillian ran a hand along her forehead. She was getting a headache.

  “Way I see it, it’s only hopeless once you give up. First thing we need is proof someone can eat nothing but Mars food and stay healthy.”

  Lillian shook her head. “The last study commissioned was fifteen annums ago. It was cut off mid–session to, and I quote, ‘preserve the lives of the participants.’”

  “It’s a myth Cavanaugh and his bunch want to perpetuate: Eat Mars–raised food and you get sick.”

  “People got ill, Crusty. That wasn’t a myth.”

  “I’d bet my best walk–out boots on it comin’ down to lies spread by them evil Kiplings.”

  “Crusty, even I’m not brave enough to eat the stuff I grow.”

  Crusty laughed. “Good thing you got me, then. I been living off algae for a month.”

  Lillian’s eyes flew wide.

  “Ain’t never felt the worse for it. Well, maybe a little low energy. And I get hungry more’n twice a day. But so long as I eat up, I feel okay.”

  “Who else knows this?”

  “Just you, Mei Lo, and the guard who swaps me dry rations for wet rations.”

  “Holy Ares, Crusty. This is huge.” Lillian shook her head. “You say the guard knows?”

  Crusty nodded.

  “You’d better hope you can trust him,” said Lillian, a sudden chill running along the backs of her arms.

  34

  Budapest, Earth

  For a full day, Lucca Brezhnaya allowed herself to weigh the possibilities of making an alliance with Mars through the Martian, Cavanaugh Kipling. After all, she had already accomplished many of her objectives. The Martians and their sympathizers had all been wiped clear from the face of her planet. Perhaps it was time to move forward with some new Martian. By his own account, he held limited power. He was not therefore someone to be held responsible for the earlier invasion of Terran sovereignty.

  Besides, as this Mr. Kipling had pointed out, such a relationship could be mutually beneficial. Each world had things valued on the other world. There were vast fortunes to be made. Earth’s tellurium shortage would be completely eliminated. And finally, was not the reparation of relationships a morally superior choice?

  Lucca imagined herself in the position of a forgiving parent, tenderly guiding the prodigals back into the fold. She basked in the warm glow such thoughts created. It would be the right thing to do. Terrans and Martians ought to be reunited for the mutual benefit of each world, sharing as they did a common culture, common ancestry, common histories.

  But the more she thought about it, the more reasons Lucca discovered for not wishing to pursue a course of reconciliation. The two worlds did not, in actual fact, share common histories. The War Between Worlds had caused them to wander divergent paths. The hard facts that had shaped the p
eople of Mars into who they were today would always—always—pose a threat to whatever plans Lucca might have. Martians had been forced into an independent existence, and there was every evidence that they now cherished that independence to an unhealthy degree. Would they acknowledge her right to rule them?

  A small noise, derisive, escaped Lucca’s mouth. They would not.

  Even Cavanaugh, through all the deference in his letter, had skirted the issue of sovereignty. Clearly, he expected Mars to continue with its own governance.

  Lucca sighed. It was a lovely dream, her notion of fostering good will between the worlds, but it was impractical. Having tasted freedom, the people of Mars would never truly accept the yoke again. And Lucca did not want them under any other terms.

  An independent Mars, free to make its own decisions? Free to set the price of tellurium? Free to elect officials who would make unreasonable demands of Earth—of her?

  No. Lucca already faced that situation with the freeholds on Earth: The Republic of Chicago, Madeira, and so forth. She had no desire to repeat these headaches on a planetary scale.

  And she had another reason for disposing of the Martians. If knowledge of their existence leaked out, Lucca’s policies towards them would be scrutinized by the billions of people living on Earth. Admitting to the people of Earth that there were living Martians would unleash untold troubles. Lucca recalled all too well the situation faced in the last century where Terrans cried foul over so–called Terran interference with Mars and Martians. It had been a nightmare.

  No. There was no room in Lucca’s plans for a planet populated by those she could not control. It was unfortunate. It was sad, even, and the Chancellor allowed herself several minutes of grief over the steps she would be forced to take.

  And when she was done with being sorry, she laid her plans, carefully outlining her next conversation with Cavanaugh Kipling.

  35

  Station 92–AE