“They are crystals of beryllium, exactly aquamarine, but they are microscopic.”
“The bacteria have subsumed the crystals.”
“All the crystals,” Anna specified, showing an enlarged image with some azure-dotted bacteria, whilst the space around them let the white light of the microscope freely pass through.
“You can’t say that with absolute certainty, without checking the whole sample,” Michelle stepped in. Her cautious attitude annoyed Anna.
“It’d take a lifetime to check it all.” She didn’t like when someone contradicted her. She had spent the entire day on that wad of dust and, when she worked, she did so with extreme care and professionalism. “But I have checked enough of it to be reasonably certain I’m not wrong.”
Michelle didn’t look convinced at all. “Curb your enthusiasm.”
“I think Anna is right.” Hassan had just spoken. His unusual statement hushed both women.
“That’s a good one! You agreeing with Anna about something.” Michelle’s voice tone was sarcastic, but he ignored her.
“As far as I know, there’s no reason why bacteria should selectively absorb some microcrystals of beryllium, so much as to concentrate them in their cytoplasm. It would be strange even if they just contained the double the amount compared to the outside.”
“They may have been bound to organic particles already available on the floor, which the bacteria have then taken via phagocytosis.” Was Michelle just playing the devil’s advocate in that situation, to avoid easy enthusiasms, or was there something else she couldn’t stand?
He grumbled. “Anything may have happened to this sample. It remained in a damp, highly contaminated place for many hours. But this is still a bizarre phenomenon.”
Anna placed her hands on her hips. It seemed absurd to be joining forces with Hassan, but as long as it turned out to be useful, she couldn’t see any down side. Within the group dynamics, his point of view was the important and second only to Dennis’s. And the commander always set great store by his opinion.
“Have you analysed the crystal in the original sample?” Hassan turned to her.
“I’ve handled the content of the first vial during the observation under the optical and the scanning electron microscopes. Although I’ve worked in a sterile environment, I cannot exclude any possible contamination, given the small quantity. I was going to use the other one for the chemical analyses.” If Robert hadn’t disintegrated it.
“You said there was a sample from a probing pipe,” Michelle said.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t come from exactly the same spot as the other two. There were some beryllium crystals, but their concentrations were so low compared to the other elements in the regolith, that the analyses I’ve performed weren’t quite conclusive. In general I haven’t identified other strange substances …” The sentence remained mid air.
“But …” Hassan prompted her.
Anna looked at him, and then she turned to the screen occupied by Michelle’s head and shoulders. “But … in the deepest layer, where there was a slightly higher quantity of crystals, I detected some traces of carbon compounds.” She pronounced the last words in an almost reverential tone.
“Organic molecules?” Michelle asked with scepticism.
The other woman hesitated, watching an undefined point in front of her. “Biological …” She just whispered that.
“Biological?” Hassan asked, surprised.
“Nucleobases, mostly.”
“In how many samples?!” he urged her.
“Just one.”
“Ah!” Michelle exclaimed, pleased. “It’s surely an artefact. You’ll have touched the inside of the pipes without gloves, maybe Robert did, and some DNA coming from his skin remained there.”
“I didn’t say I’ve found some nucleic acids, but just some components of them,” Anna protested. Michelle wasn’t listening and was making every effort to contradict or belittle her. That got on her nerves.
“Okay, you have found some degraded DNA,” the other woman said, hushing her up. “So you haven’t properly sterilised the equipment. That’s all. In other words, the entire sortie was a disaster.”
“I have found traces of adenine, guanine, cytosine, and … uracil. And, before you ask me, no, there was no trace of thymine, therefore it cannot be degraded DNA.”
“Degraded RNA,” Hassan commented.
Anna shrugged. The ribonucleic acid contained uracil instead of thymine, hence, at least in theory, it might have been degraded RNA.
“It’s quite unusual to contaminate something by mistake only with your RNA, unless your DNA ends up there, too. But we are talking about traces, it might still be a less than an ordinary artefact …”
That latest statement made Michelle gloat.
“Or …” Hassan continued, placing a hand on Anna’s shoulder, who had to rely on all her strength not to retract from that uninvited contact. “Someone here has just found the building bricks of life on Mars!”
It sounded more like a mockery than a serious assertion, but it made her feel strange to hear someone else say it out loud, particularly a qualified person. It seemed almost real, surely much more important than finding an ice sac. It was for her and that was the only thing that counted.
But Michelle let a laugh escape, which nobody followed.
She didn’t want to give in. Was it envy, a sense of competition, jealousy? Anna didn’t know whether she should worry more about Michelle’s stubborn aversion or about Hassan’s public support. He neither said nor did anything without a well-defined ulterior motive.
“Excuse my interference,” Dennis’s voice said out of sight. A hand peeked out from the right side of the screen and touched something. The picture enlarged to include him.
“I’m afraid this discussion is becoming a bit sterile. As I understood, the collected samples can’t be considered completely reliable …” Anna was about to open her mouth, but Dennis raised his tone. “Whatever the reason. Things like this happen. Anyway, to avoid further doubts, you can do another sampling at the same site, maybe collecting many more samples, after making sure you’ve sterilised all the equipment. A diagnostics of the steriliser may help, just to be sure. One way or the other, if it doesn’t work properly, it might jeopardise all the work we are doing, whatever you may have found or not found.”
“I’m going to do that right now,” she exclaimed, with renewed enthusiasm. She would check it bit by bit, to dispel all doubts. And she would re-sterilise everything at least twice.
“If you are able to finish it by today, you may do another sortie tomorrow.”
As she heard those words, Anna remembered what had happened earlier. “Talking of Robert,” she started, but Dennis cut her off with a hand gesture.
“Have you fixed the west turbine?” he asked Hassan.
The latter shook his head. “It wasn’t possible: it was too windy.”
She looked at him, incredulous. He had no intention of reporting the accident and didn’t appear at all worried about it.
“Let’s do it like this,” Dennis continued. “I’ll take care of that with him tomorrow. You can go with Anna.” It wasn’t a question.
Anna’s mouth gaped. “Pardon?”
“Please, don’t start.” Dennis rolled his eyes and snorted. He didn’t notice his wife was staring at him in anything but a friendly way. “You need someone to accompany you and help you do the sampling. Hassan is more than suitable for this purpose.”
“Tomorrow’s going to be interesting,” Hassan commented with a sneer fixed on his face.
Michelle turned to the camera. And she didn’t look at all pleased.
She was sitting alone, staring at the half empty glass on the table, just in front of her. The drumming of her fingers was the only sound in the room. The implications of her discovery, supposing that it was confirmed, were enormous. The entire Isis mission was born with the purpose of proving the existence of present or past life on Mars, and perh
aps she was about to achieve it. But that wouldn’t be the end of it, if she did. Such a success would mean new missions with more sophisticated equipment and more staff to carry on the research.
It was supposed to be a thrilling thought, but then, why wasn’t Anna feeling thrilled?
There was of course the dread that everything would burst just like a bubble, that what she had discovered wasn’t anything but an unusual contamination, but that wasn’t what unsettled her.
Truth was that she felt nothing. She had decided to go to Mars to make history and she’d already succeeded. But she had also done it to start a new life, a life on a new planet. What better opportunity to make a clean sweep of the past? And she’d succeeded in that purpose as well. The life she had lived on Earth was so remote, it was just like an old story she’d read somewhere. The memory of herself like she’d been then had almost faded, like she had never really lived before coming to Mars. Even Jan felt like part of a beautiful, distant dream. There were days when she didn’t even think about him at all, but when she did, the pain didn’t grip her as it did in the past.
Yet she wasn’t satisfied with her new life. She had thought the feeling was due to the dread that no new launch would take place, but now the finding of an ice sac by Michelle would suffice to confirm it. No, there was more.
The cohabitation inside that prison surrounded by an immense desert was becoming more and more unbearable. The entire world out there was in fact prohibited to them. And in there, in Station Alpha, all was too narrow, monotonous, repetitive and it did nothing but amplify her deep loneliness, pushing her to perform silly and dangerous actions just to feel, for a few moments, the sensation she was still alive.
A noise coming from outside made her turn to the window. The hatch of a rover was closing. Two persons were walking towards the entry to the station, carrying a big container.
The sun had just set, but it was already dark. Only she had stayed up, waiting for them. She hadn’t seen Robert since that afternoon. She wanted to talk to him, but perhaps it was better to let him cool down, for today. And Hassan, who knew what he was plotting?
A deep clangour announced the opening of the heavy airlock door, not too far from the kitchen, followed by a cheerful shouting and the sound of steps; Michelle’s laughter, getting closer and closer.
Anna swallowed another sip and yawed. By now, they were accustomed to wake up before dawn and go to bed not long after dusk to reduce the energy consumption to minimum in the absence of light. It would’ve been nice to spend all that time sleeping, dreaming of being elsewhere, of being a different person.
“Hey,” Michelle started off, as she entered the room. “Is it only you? We were expecting a welcoming committee.” She had a happy expression, she seemed not to notice Anna’s dejection. Or maybe she didn’t care. Once they had been friends, but things had changed in an imperceptible way, day by day.
“You look grim!” Dennis walked around his wife and moved close to the table. He was holding a jar with some soil at the bottom.
Anna gave a hint of a smile. The commander was the only one who had always stayed the same. Pity that he often kept to himself. The few times she had talked to him alone, he had always succeeded in injecting new enthusiasm into her.
“You’ll like this.” He opened the jar and, triumphant, he showed some tiny condensation drops on the inside of the lid.
At first, Anna didn’t understand what he was referring to.
“We extracted this sample from the layers just over the ice sac, and we took the internal pressure to one atmosphere to avoid letting the crystals sublimate.” He goggled, faking amazement. “And at room temperature, it finally appeared.” The regolith contained in the jar was dark, damp. “Behold the water of Mars!”
Michelle laughed, while her husband let some drops drip on his palm and then he rubbed it on his face, wetting it.
“Not just the few drops we extract with difficulty around here, but plenty of water. Over there the terrain fifty metres down is more and more soaked, of course, it’s in its solid state, but if you go deeper, the regolith is almost completely replaced by ice. It’s a very small area, but it might be very deep.”
“It’s wonderful news.” It was indeed, and Anna was doing her best to appreciate it.
“I do believe that in a while we’ll have to squeeze together, to make room for the additional crew.” Dennis kissed his wife. “Well, I’m going to do a last report to Houston, but I’m starving.”
“Leave it to me,” she said, caressing his face. It was such a tender family portrait, but it struck no chord with Anna. She had the facts.
As soon as Dennis left the kitchen, Michelle put aside her joyous expression. What a great actress.
“What are you doing? You shouldn’t drink alone.” Her voice tone sounded more sarcastic than worried. “It isn’t a good sign at all. What’s going on with you?” She took a glass, poured some vodka and sat beside her. She was trying to play the friend role. “Aren’t you glad about the news? You can relax now, the launch will be confirmed. A new crew will arrive. It’ll be fun. Maybe there will be some nice guy …”
Anna shot an icy glare in her direction.
“I mean, for you,” Michelle specified and gulped the whole content of her glass. “I’m good.” And she laughed again.
“Oh, yeah,” she got as answer.
“Come on, I’m serious.” Michelle poked at her with an elbow. “Aren’t you curious? There were some remarkable ones during the training, weren’t there?”
“I didn’t notice that.”
“Well, of course, Robert would become jealous.”
That latest statement roused Anna from her apathy. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Hey, don’t act scandalised. I see the two of you are buddy-buddy, I thought there was something more …” She winked in a conspiratorial way.
“There’s nothing between Robert and me.”
“Then what’s wrong with me wanting to find you a fiancé?” And here she was laughing again. “I know, I shouldn’t drink with an empty stomach. I guess I’m already drunk.” She stood up. “I’ll better prepare something to eat.”
“I’d like to go,” Anna murmured.
“Go?” Michelle asked, as she opened the fridge and started looking for something inside.
“Back to Earth.”
The other woman turned to her, perplexed.
“I want to ask Houston for the authorisation to get on the return spacecraft.”
The Isis 2 mission included a return spacecraft, to take back some Martian rocky samples to Earth for the very first time. She was remotely operated, but her interior was arranged with accommodation for up to three persons, in case of the need to take someone home for medical reasons. Actually, it was too early to ask to leave the mission, although such option was contemplated in exceptional circumstances. Lately Anna had reached the decision to try it anyway. She was sick, perhaps not physically, but surely at a psychological level. She was going to suggest that she kept on working on the mission on Earth. Maybe they would listen to her. She had to try.
“There’s nothing more for me here.”
Michelle stopped what she was doing and sat back. Her concern seemed genuine. For the first time in many months, Anna believed she glimpsed in her face the dear friend she had once been.
“Forgive me. I didn’t know you were feeling so bad.” She placed a hand on her arm. “No, what am I saying? I supposed so, but I was so wrapped up in my business that I preferred not to see.”
There was a long waiting pause, but nothing happened.
“I’d like you to talk to me.”
“There’s not much to say.”
“Is it because of Jan? Have you contacted him in the end?”
Anna shook her head. “He made a new life for himself where there’s no room for me.”
“And so, why?”
“I want to breathe again in an open place. Go about and meet other people.” Th
e memory of her first encounter with Jan forced its way into her mind, but she shooed it to a remote corner. Instead, she concentrated on the sea in front of Stockholm City Hall, the cries of the seagulls. “I want some peace.”
“What’s happening?” Anna’s words didn’t seem to convince the other woman. Even she had realised it was an umpteenth desire to escape from something.
“You know very well what’s happening!” She couldn’t pretend not to see. “We can keep on saying we are family, but the truth is that life here is becoming impossible. There was a little accident today and Robert accused Hassan of trying to kill him.”
“What?!”
“The point is that we’re becoming paranoid, we don’t trust each other. You can’t deny that.” Michelle was about to speak, but Anna stopped her. “We have secrets.” And she fixed her gaze on the other woman’s eyes.
Michelle’s hand moved back. She looked around with evident embarrassment.
“Shouldn’t you make dinner for your husband?” Anna asked, pushing her glass away and standing up.
The other nodded and, without saying anything, went back to the fridge.
The corridor light in the lodging came on, as Anna was walking. She wished she were sleepy, so that she could stop over-thinking for a few hours. For a second she considered knocking on Robert’s door, but then she didn’t feel like it. She still had his accusations ringing in her ears. If only she’d had to go out with him tomorrow, they would’ve had time to talk, clarify things. She didn’t want to lose her last and only friend.
Instead, she would be doing that sortie with Hassan.
Unwittingly, she turned to the end of the corridor, where her enemy’s quarters were. The previous night she had covered that distance lightly, without thinking. That had made her feel good. It all seemed so unreal now.
Sooner or later, she’d be forced to clarify things with him, but she didn’t fancy that. She felt she owed him no explanations, but she also felt he wouldn’t let go.
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