Was this a trick? Was the administrator testing his loyalty? Lance reached up to his chest as though to scratch an itch, dropping the speaker into his shirt pocket. He looked around for a hiding place. He walked a short distance toward the restroom, but all it had was a plastic door. He didn’t want anyone to see him, or be able to eavesdrop on him if he was inside there. He then remembered the new airlock. Its interior end was already finished, but it wasn’t connected to the outside world yet. The airlock door was airtight and soundproof, and it contained a small window.
Lance turned back to grab his broom and mop. The cleaning gear made excellent camouflage. He left the storeroom, marched to the right, and made one more turn to the right. It was impressive how quickly Mars City was growing. The former Spaceliner 1 passengers had quickly received their own rooms, and Administrator Summers was now managing the development of the community’s infrastructure. Supposedly there would soon be a casino here! Most of the people that Lance had talked to sounded satisfied with their new lives on Mars.
The half-finished airlock was located at the end of a corridor that ran past a newly opened fitness room. Through the closed doors, Lance heard someone groan with effort.
The airlock door was standing open. A cordon ran across the doorway. He stepped over it, climbed into the airlock, and closed the door with the locking wheel. Nobody could listen in on him. He hoped the airlock wouldn’t cut off the radio link that operated the portable speaker.
Lance hunkered down and held the small, round device up to his mouth like a microphone. “I’ve found a quiet corner,” he said.
“Good,” replied the voice he recognized from before. “I’m searching for like-minded people. Have I found that in you?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “First, I need to know what you have in mind.”
“You should be able to deduce that from the way in which I’ve contacted you. But if not—I’m unhappy with how and by whom this city is being ruled.”
“I might feel similarly,” Lance said, “but how am I to know that you don’t just want to test me? I haven’t met a single person here who is unhappy with the administrator.”
“That’s perhaps due to the fact that it’s inadvisable to express such an opinion in public. Even the walls here have ears.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t convince me of anything.”
“Then I can’t help you, Lance. I understand your dilemma, but you also have to understand ours. We know that there are collaborators among the MfE people. This contact also represents a certain risk for us, too.”
“Then we probably won’t be able to work together,” Lance said.
“I didn’t expect that we’d become instant friends with this initial contact. You have two days to consider. You can meet me the day after tomorrow in the afternoon at the fitness room. I’ll be there working with the free weights. The room will be secure.”
“I understand.”
“Please put the speaker back behind the box.”
“Alright.”
“Thanks, Lance.”
Lance didn’t reply. He slowly got to his feet. He checked through the window to see if anyone was in sight in the corridor before sticking the speaker into his pocket, opening the door, and leaving the airlock with his broom and mop. He definitely needed to discuss this offer with Mike and the MfE men. What did the stranger say? Someone is spying for the administrator. He found it hard to believe. No, he shouldn’t let himself be swayed by vague innuendo.
Sol 324, Flammarion Crater
He’d never before had blisters on his backside. Walter sat in his tiny tent lit up by the flashlight he’d found in the rover and thought about the best way to disinfect the wounds on his skin and dry them so that he’d be able to sit in the rover again tomorrow.
He hadn’t expected the drive across the Mars landscape to be so difficult. When Rebecca and Theo had given the reports about their trip, he had listened with one raised eyebrow. They’d sounded more like the kind of adventure stories you might tell around a campfire. It was clear to him now that the two of them had rather under-exaggerated it all.
Today, he had crossed the Flammarion Crater and set up camp near its far edge. Although the plain before him looked smooth, it wasn’t. It was as if someone had sprinkled the entire planet with salt and pepper. The peppercorns were easy to avoid since they were easily noticeable. They were pointed rocks that he could steer around. For a while, it was even fun—at least, until his arm muscles started to ache from all the steering.
The ‘salt’ crystals were more menacing, as they were partly submerged in the ever-present layer of dust. It was as if they were baked in and anchored to the ground. The worst part was that they were hard to see, and whenever he hit one with the rover, it did a real number on his soft parts. And, unlike Theo, Walter was made up almost exclusively of soft parts, having never been particularly sporty. He had only embarked on this journey because he was nearing the end of his life. He had wanted to do something sensible with all the money he had made from a lifelong career—and colonizing Mars sounded very enticing. Then, unexpectedly, someone had offered him a place on the Santa Maria, presumably thinking that was what he had wanted when he’d donated his millions to the cause.
It had been his chance. His cancer, unbeknownst to anyone but himself, was already far advanced. Before leaving on this journey, his doctor had told him what signs to look for in order to gauge on his own how his cancer was progressing. He had only another three to four months left. The doctor who had been along for the ambush at the MfE base had picked up on the severity of his condition, and that was why he alone had been excluded from the men’s roundup. And, to his surprise, the doctor had honored his request not to tell anyone else just how bad off he really was.
This final trip was a way for him to kill three birds with one stone. He would find the peace and privacy he longed for in which to meet his death, his actions would present a deliberate snub to the administrator, and he had spared the MfE women from having to put themselves in danger by making this trip. As his last good deed, he would activate the Japanese robot and send it to the MfE base so that they could use it as a secret messenger and, he hoped, eventually play a role in bringing down the administrator. It would be the final piece of the puzzle, and he would have made some difference with his life.
But first, he needed to reach the Japanese probe. Its name, which had finally popped into his head after all, was Nozomi 2 and meant something close to ‘Second Hope.’ Its predecessor had been damaged during a solar storm on its way to Mars and had been orbiting the sun ever since as an artificial asteroid. Walter had found Nozomi 2’s landing position written down in his own records. He had never expected this information to be of any use to him.
He pulled off his underpants and lay down on his stomach. It was the only way to bear the pain. However he wasn’t going to be able to drive the rover lying down tomorrow. He took a dry towel from his bag and pressed it lightly against his lower back and buttocks. It was worse than he had thought. His skin was one big open wound. He carefully lay the thin towel over it. It provided momentary relief, but how would things look tomorrow? If he lay like this for long, scabs would start to form that would almost certainly rip open when he stood up again. He pressed the towel a little firmer. Perhaps it would keep his skin more supple. There wasn’t anything else he could do for the time being.
And what about tomorrow? Walter couldn’t imagine sitting on his wounds for twelve hours. He had intended to make the journey in ten days, and the robot would need even more time to return to the base. Perhaps… could he drive the rover while lying on his stomach? It was certainly worth trying. He could take the board from the tent base and fasten it over the seat. He would probably need to shorten the back end of it, which would also make the tent shorter, but that didn’t matter.
Would he be able to secure the board at the right angle so that he could still steer the rover with his arms? He wouldn’t dare make any crazy turns
or he might be thrown off by the inertia. Fortunately, he was alone, and there was enough room in the rover. However, if he’d had a passenger with him, that person could have strapped him to the board, which would have made his idea much less risky.
But he had no passenger with him, and didn’t want one either. He was having enough trouble with just himself. It was becoming more and more difficult to endure his current state. If he wasn’t on his own, he would have to take the other person’s feelings into consideration. He would have to radiate confidence despite knowing that this was the end, feigning interest for the other person though he had barely any interest in himself. He just wanted it all to happen as painlessly and as peacefully as possible.
Walter laughed. In this respect, his plan was a flop. He had never before had to endure such pain as he was coping with on this journey.
“If nothing else, it proves you’re still alive,” one of those rarely-welcome eternal optimists might have quipped.
What bullshit! Walter thought. He had absolutely no use for the pain at the moment. If this was his end, then so be it. Although, it would be nice to be able to accomplish this one last thing beforehand.
Sol 325, Mars Machine
‘A little more,’ said Friday.
“I’m on it.” She pushed the contacts in a little harder. Her back was hurting like crazy. She sneaked a glance at the time so Friday wouldn’t notice. Wasn’t it noon yet? She felt a flash of annoyance. She didn’t owe Friday anything! If she felt like it, or if her energy flagged, she was going to take a break, whether it was noon or not.
‘Just... no, wait.’
“What’s wrong?” she asked while still desperately holding on to the contacts.
“I thought...,” said Friday.
“Well, that’s a new one.”
‘I thought I had something. And look... the values are now better. The surface is becoming transparent!’
“That would be wonderful!”
‘Yes, I will play around some more with the current. You don’t have to press on the contacts anymore. I have recorded the coordinates.’
“Good.” She let go, and her muscles were immediately grateful.
‘Do you see that?’
Friday was right. The formerly black surface was becoming more dimensional. It looked like a large lake you could peer into. Not to the bottom, but if fish had been swimming near the surface, they would have been clearly visible.
“Amazing,” she said. “It really worked.”
‘And it wasn’t wizardry,’ Friday answered. ‘Just physics.’
Ewa took a step forward. She now stood at the edge of an increasingly transparent structure. Something was happening below. It looked like whirlwinds were rising from within it, as though the source of the deep lake was at its bottom. Of course, it was only an optical illusion. Its transparency was not yet complete. Friday was apparently still working on that.
And then, quite abruptly, she was hovering over a cavern. The material had become invisible. The black boulder had made space for atomic nothingness. The transparent effect was absolutely perfect. Ewa knelt down and ran her hand over the surface to convince herself that it was still there. Humans were not yet able to produce such impressive effects.
Below her lay the great hall she remembered. She had already spent time in there with Friday trying to put the machine out of commission. But this time, she and Friday needed to do the opposite. She wanted to use the ancient technology to solve an immediate and urgent problem. She needed to free her friends from the administrator’s tyranny, and to do that, she required a convincing argument. An enormous mountain that she could drive to Mars City, that would indeed be a compelling argument. But there was a long way to go yet. They hadn’t done more than see the command center of the machine. They still had to somehow make contact with it.
“And now?” asked Ewa.
‘Do you want to relax in the rover for a little bit while I think of a solution?’
“I don’t need a break at the moment, but thanks,” she replied. “Or would it help you if I go hang out in the rover?”
‘No, not at all, I can’t stay here on my own anyway. If you don’t need a break, we can keep going. I don’t need one.’
“Then let’s go!”
‘My plan is to communicate with the computer’s internal system via all the possible transmittable means. Electromagnetic impulses can easily penetrate the window below us.’
“And what do you expect to happen then?”
‘Some kind of reaction. I’ll see it when it happens. I will just need to have you work the radio transmitter. But first, we have to make a technical change.’
“What do I need to do exactly?”
‘I’m referring to the sensors that record your biodata.’
“What about them?”
‘In your helmet is a device for measuring your brain activity. It lets others know from far away whether you are conscious or not.’
“But only someone who is inside my signal area.”
‘I need to ask you to reroute this sensor, so it is no longer connected with the biodata collector, but with the transmitter.’
“What’s that supposed to mean, Friday? You want me to transmit my brain impulses out into the world?”
‘No, not yours, but mine. It won’t be enough to just say something in English into the transmitter’s receiver. The Martians have probably never heard this language before.’
“There are no Martians.”
‘You’re right. I mean the machines that they have apparently left behind.’
“And how will you give them commands?”
‘I will go through all the established coding languages. I can go through them one after another at lightning speed, until I hit one that causes them to react.’
“And then?”
‘Then I will give the commands.’
Aha. Friday intended to take control of a giant machine that was constructed ages ago by the former inhabitants of Mars. Was this really a good idea? Had this been his plan the entire time? Ewa couldn’t really imagine it. There was so much that had gone wrong that no one could have foreseen. Thus, a tiny bit of uncertainty remained.
‘Was that not your objective?’ asked Friday, who had noticed her reservation.
“Yes, but I’m wondering whether all this was a good idea. I haven’t been very successful in the recent past with my ideas, even though each one seemed extremely clever at the time.”
‘Then your misgivings are a welcome change.’
“You’re right. Okay, I’ll agree to it.”
‘That’s not enough, you have to reroute your biosensor.’
“And how do I do that?” asked Ewa.
‘Just a moment, I’ll explain it to you,’ Friday replied.
Converting her biodata system took about half an hour. Afterward, her universal device beeped continuously. It was sending out the alarm announcing that she was apparently brain dead and in need of medical assistance. The system was not programmed to recognize the contradictory input from her ongoing heartbeat, even though it was still being recorded.
“That beeping is annoying,” Ewa said.
‘I know, but I can’t change it. We would need to deactivate the circuit, but then you would no longer receive any signals from your biosensor.’
Beep—beep—beep—beep—beep... she couldn’t not hear the device. The sound would drive her mad, sooner or later, but for now, there was no other option.
“Then hurry, please,” she said.
According to the scale on the transmitter, she saw that Friday was already at work. The system’s control functions were now reacting to certain action potentials from his own artificial consciousness. Ewa imagined an electric current from Friday’s thoughts fluttering over the sensitive devices down below.
She was watching one of the devices when it suddenly leapt at her, landing on her face and sticking to her skin. That was impossible. The meters-thick ceiling separated them, even
if it was transparent. The strange apparatus was wise and pulled itself back. Ewa stumbled a little and decided it was better to kneel down.
“What was that?” she asked.
‘What was what? I didn’t notice anything,’ answered Friday.
“Nothing? I must have imagined it.” But it wasn’t her imagination. The thing had clung to her face and reduced her air supply. It seemed as though it had wanted to go right inside her head. She observed the large box down below. Friday was right. Nothing from down there could have jumped on her. Perhaps the incessant beeping had driven her insane quicker than expected, and she really was bonkers.
Bonkers. That’s a funny word. She repeated it a few times in her head. Each time it sounded even stranger. Then it transformed itself into a worm. The worm crawled over her face. She had only just managed to grab hold of its tail as it tried to slip inside her ear. It hissed slightly as she gripped it. She held it up close to her face in order to understand what it wanted.
To go into your brain, is what it sounded like. She shook her head. That wasn’t happening. Her consciousness belonged to her and her alone. But the worm wriggled, and its skin became hot. She couldn’t hold it any longer without burning herself, so she let it go.
Dumb bug, she thought, just as the worm made a great leap and buried itself inside her right nostril—except that its tail was still hanging out. She grabbed for it but wasn’t quick enough this time. The worm ate its way to her brain. She reached for her temples with both hands but only hit against her helmet. How could the worm have gotten through her helmet’s visor?
Impos...
She didn’t get to finish her thought. Her vision went black, and she crumpled to the ground.
She opened her eyes to a dazzling light. This must be the afterlife, just as she had imagined it as a child. God would appear momentarily, a man with a beard, and would take her by the hand and lead her to a beautiful place. She had arrived in paradise. That was good news, considering all the things she had done wrong.
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