by K. T. Hunter
"Yes! A sort of manufactured intelligence."
"That would imply that someone did the manufacturing," said Pugh.
"Yes," Gemma replied. "Someone else. Perhaps somewhere else. Someone else sent the Invaders to us."
"They simply used Mars as a base camp? A staging area? What evidence do you have?" Christophe asked. "That is quite an extraordinary extrapolation."
Gemma narrowed her eyes as she reviewed the flurry of ideas in her head. "Remember the plans that they found that were the basis for the Fury? The plans for the gravity plates?" She pointed to Maggie. "Maggie's body follows their typical design, even if she acts more like us. She was a ballet dancer when the gravity was off. As if null gravity is her natural environment. Why would they need gravity plates? Why have those complicated ship designs at all when a simple cylinder meets their needs? Unless those plans were for someone else? Their masters, perhaps?"
Gemma paced the length of the room, and her thoughts churned as she marched. "Look, the planet below us is the only lead we have. We have to go down there and investigate it. We came all this way. We have lost so much just to get here." She paused and looked into Christophe's eyes, hoping he would see the reflections of Jennie and Cervantes in her own. "It is dangerous, yes! But so was building this ship in the first place. So was leaving our home world and flinging ourselves out among the stars. We have to eliminate the possibility that there is someone else behind the Invaders, at the very least. We must do something; we must make the rest of that danger worth it."
"What do you propose?"
"That we take the Iron Wind down to the surface. We do not have to land. Just get a closer look. She can fly in an atmosphere, yes?"
"Of course," Christophe said. "But where would we start? Mars may be smaller than Earth, but it's still a lot of country to explore."
Gemma rifled through her notebook and stopped on a page of sketches. She plunked the book down and pointed to her drawing of the nearly planet-wide rift.
"I suggest we start here. Shoot the rift and search for any signs of life in the walls, past or present. It would be an excellent place in which to shelter from those dust storms we saw earlier."
"That is still a rather large territory," said Pugh. "It's thousands of kilometres long. It would be like flying the North American continent from end to end."
Gemma peered more closely at her sketch. She stabbed at the wider portion in the centre with her finger. "Look at these side-chasms here. Some of them are far narrower than the main canyon. Quite a cozy place in which to conceal a base."
"You have an interesting notion of 'cozy'," Christophe replied. "But why not check out the poles first? That's where the water is concentrated, even if it is all ice."
"Too cold," Maggie said with a shiver. "And I do not require much water, apart from what I get when I feed. I suppose the same would hold for them."
"But they would need more than just drinking water, surely," said Pugh. "Industry needs water, coolant!"
"I'm not sure we can assume their needs are like ours, but they could have underground sources as well," Gemma said. "However, I suggest that the ship monitor the poles for any activity whilst we poke around in the canyon. Have Alfieri put that telescope of his to work."
"And if they attack us while we're on the surface? The Iron Wind is unarmed. It's not a combat vessel. The Fury won't be of much aid. If we crash, it is over. We will have no means of rescue."
"That is a risk," said Gemma. "We would not have much hope to fight back, even if we were armed, as most likely we would be outnumbered. We would need only a small crew for the craft, so we can minimize the risk. But honestly, I believe that if they were going to attack, they would have already. We've been orbiting in plain sight for hours and hours. And before you say that it's too dangerous for me, just remember that of all the members of your crew, I am the only one to have lived in harm's way my entire life. At least now that danger will be for something meaningful!"
Christophe regarded her for a moment as he wrestled internally with the idea. "It will take a few days to fly it from end to end. Are you ready for close quarters with me for that long?"
"Close quarters with you?" Gemma asked, firing a stern look back at him.
"I will chaperone, if you like," said Maggie, "though I'm not keen on going down there."
He met her stare with a determined smile. "I'm piloting the Iron Wind. I didn't come all this way for nothing."
Gemma could not help but recall the last time she had been on this deck. She hoped for a less painful experience this time. Her ribs ached a little as she scanned the crew that had gathered to see them off. That took her mind back even further. When she had left Earth, there had been no one to say farewell to, except perhaps the technician that had belted her into the launch pod. This time, she had had a steady stream of well-wishers, from Caroline to the Knopfs to Hui. How different! The thought made her ribs ache even more, but for a different reason.
She plucked at the seam of her trousers. Unused to such clothing, nonetheless she had yielded to Caroline's insistence that they would be more flexible and useful than her skirts. Christophe himself had appeared in a flight suit that she had never seen before, one that was slim-fitting but allowed much freedom of movement. Despite its practical cut, he still managed to look rather dapper -- which given Caroline's silent reaction to it, was having its intended effect upon the female of the species. Gemma allowed herself a moment to watch him move in it, and then she snorted as she recalled their near-miss in the orrery. She told herself that it had just been the longing for warmth after a funeral, and that was all.
She fingered the edge of her notebook -- a fresh one with plenty of room for new sketches -- and watched Maggie converse with Dr. Hansard as they moved towards the vessel's hatch. She could not see the good doctor's face, and she could not hear Maggie's responses in her head. Gemma smiled, though, as Humboldt appeared in their path, took one of Maggie's tentacles in his hand, bowed over it, and kissed it lightly.
"Oh my!"
Gemma heard the bubbling response this time. Maggie shivered and jiggled her knitting bag, which was clutched tightly in another limb. Whether it was with delight or disgust, Gemma could not tell.
She felt a warmth next to her, and she turned to the source of it. Christophe beamed down at her with his most disarming grin as he set the bulky ditty bag in his right hand on the floor.
"Looking forward to stretching my legs, so to speak," he said. "I haven't piloted the Iron Wind since our trip to the moon." He leaned down and whispered, "I am glad that you and Maggie will be with me."
Gemma inclined her head towards him. "As am I."
Mr. Pritchard approached them next and saluted Christophe. Gemma could see a slight tremor in the man's hand as he lowered it.
"All set, Mr. Pritchard?" Christophe asked. "Or should I say, Acting Captain Pritchard?"
"All set, sir," he replied. "And I hope I'll be just first mate again soon. Be careful down there, sir. And take care of my two friends here." He nodded his head in Gemma's direction. "I do wish Mr. Cervantes could have been here."
Gemma watched as Christophe gazed up into the steel rafters of the cargo bay. He said, "Oh, he is here, Captain. He is." Shaking off the dreaminess of his voice, he clasped Pritchard's hand and shook it. "I'll fly better knowing the Fury is in your capable hands, Ron. We will be back before you know it. Let me know the moment you hear from Admiral Thorvaldson, should he respond."
As they continued to converse, Gemma felt a hand on her shoulder. Pugh loomed over her with a wan smile on his face.
"Come back safely, child. And watch out for my son, would you?" He winked at her. "There is more than one reason why he is the Fury's captain instead of her pilot."
When the hatch sealed behind her, Gemma had a quick flash of memory back to the last time she had entered a small craft with this man. It seemed more than forty days ago. She smiled at Maggie, who was attempting to secure herself behind the pilot's sea
t. Yes, far more than forty days ago.
"It's fine if you are a little nervous, Miss Llewellyn. I certainly am," Christophe said through a shaky smile. "I haven't done this before."
The ride down was a haze of bumps and jolts that Gemma would rather forget. The ride up from Earth in the small capsule had been heaven compared to this, and now she was thankful that her first ride had been sans viewports. She clutched a small paper sack in her hand and prayed she would not revisit the heavy breakfast that Frau Knopf had forced upon her.
The features of the Red Planet grew as they neared the surface. The Rift started as a sketch on a crimson map, then it was a dry riverbed, and then it yawned like a hungry beast below them. Light and time, past and present, were merging at last, as Alfieri had promised; Gemma was about to discover what happened when they collided.
As they descended, Christophe angled their course so that they would enter the gigantic corridor near its centre and then turn north into the niche. She sketched and wrote as quickly as she could in her notebook. She used the CDV of Aronnax that Christophe had given her as a bookmark as she worked.
The lack of blue in the sky and the lack of green on the ground shocked her. Even the sun shone differently here, as if she were viewing the world through smoked glasses. Everything was dimmer; even the shadows were thin and weak. Dry mountains thrust up above them as they dropped lower and lower. The peaks faded into the distance in a haze of dust.
"So, Maggie, what do you reckon?" Christophe asked. "Does it look like home to you?"
A few of her tentacles twitched before she answered. "The sooner I get back to New Zealand, the better."
They passed over gullies that had not seen water in ages. There was not a blade of grass to be seen, nor any sign of the Red Weed that the Martians had spread upon the Earth, nor the treasure that the crew had dreamt of hauling home. Caroline had been correct; the entire landscape was one large patch of rust.
Rocky waves rolled beneath their path, like an ocean frozen in time. Some of the crests reached far into the sky, but they were still lower than the impossibly high cliff walls. As they plunged down into the canyon, they found the ground even farther below them than they had anticipated.
"The canyon walls are kilometres high," Christophe observed. "I do not believe we'll be able to scan an entire section of wall in a single pass."
"Let us start close to the ground, then," Gemma said. "We can pass back through if we don't find anything down low."
Hours later, Gemma unbuckled her harness and stood up. She stretched and yawned. Her neck was stiff, and her eyes ached. The wonder of a new world had rubbed off, and a routine boredom had replaced its lustre. Rocks and soil, soil and rocks. Rocks shaped by no other hand than wind itself, wind and time. Perhaps water had carved away at them, ages ago, but of a sentient design or plan, there was no sign at all.
She rubbed her weary eyes. Squeezing past Maggie's bulk, she took a few short steps to the back of the cabin to work the kinks out of her tense muscles.
"What sort of a name is Moreau, anyway?" she asked, just to have something to say.
"Pardon?" Christophe blinked at the sudden question.
"Just curious. I get that Pugh couldn't really give you his name without risk of exposing project Orion. But why choose Moreau?"
Christophe emitted an amused grunt. "I had always hoped that I was named after the artist, Gustave Moreau. Turns out it was a bit of a sick scientific joke by the other scientists on the project. Some wild tale going round about a mad vivisectionist named Moreau that attempted to turn animals into people. As the story goes, it didn't turn out well for anybody."
"I read the journal articles on his experiments long after they started calling Christophe that," Maggie growled. "The man was depraved. I was most displeased. But by then it was too late."
"Jennie told me such a story, once," Gemma replied, "but his name had escaped me, until now."
"I assure you, we're no relation!"
"I'd stick with the painter story, for my own sanity. Though I suppose it's no worse than my own mother not giving me her name. I am not sure where she got 'Llewellyn', anyway."
"I suppose 'Aronnax' would have been too obvious."
The awkward silence that followed was relieved by the wireless clamouring for their attention.
"Still nothing," Christophe said into the handheld microphone. "However, we have a long way to go."
"Take a rest when you need to," came Pugh's crackling voice. "Show Llewellyn how to fly that bucket so you two can trade off and catch a few winks."
Gemma took to the controls as easily as Maggie had to null gravity. Learning was a welcome relief to her brain after the unending tedium of the canyon landscape. She cast a glance out of the viewport every few minutes to check for any signs of habitation. She did not know what to hope for. At least Nothing was peaceful, if a bit boring.
When he was satisfied that she would not crash them into the canyon walls, Christophe leaned back in his chair and dozed. They had not taken his lanky form into account when they had designed the cramped bunks just aft of the tiny bridge. His heavy breathing -- just short of a snore -- accompanied the clicking of Maggie's ever-present needles. She worked row after row as Gemma piloted the craft and scanned the passing cliff wall. Gemma found the signs of life welcome in a ghost town that had neither ghosts nor town, and Maggie's knitting was less worrisome than her tendency to nibble on the edge of her tentacles in her more anxious moments.
Sleeping whilst a woman was at the tiller? Gemma was certain Christophe had never done that before, either. She blinked into the stillness, which was broken only by his breathing and the rumbling of the small craft's engines. She spotted something odd in the distance, something that did not belong in the empty countryside.
"Maggie, do you see what I see? I am not asleep, am I?"
The clicking stopped. Maggie scooted forward to the space between and just behind the seats.
"I see it, too," she said. "That does not look natural."
Rooted in the north rim was the end of an arch. About a mile to the south it turned towards the ground and pushed into the crimson floor of the canyon. From a distance, it had blended into the background, but as they pulled ever closer to it, it looked less natural and more artificial. Gemma had to bite back the phrase "man-made".
Maggie tapped Christophe's shoulder. He started awake, and only his harness kept him from jumping up. He shook off the sleep quickly, as any seasoned sea captain would.
"Martians?" he asked.
"Not quite. That thing." Gemma pointed ahead. "What do you make of it?"
They were much closer now. Dust and corrosion had robbed it of its gleam, but it was definitely made of metal and not rock.
"Christophe, will you take the controls? I'd like to focus on the structure."
With a nod, he kept them on course with the arch dead ahead. Gemma tensed with anticipation as it loomed higher and higher above them.
"Shall I pass through it, o geologist?" he asked with a wink.
Gemma chewed her lip. This wasn't quite the same as deliberately mucking up a calculation or sabotaging an experiment by swapping distilled water with acid. This was an entirely different world. Caution -- despite her earlier speech on the ship -- was called for.
"Can we turn? Parallel it on this side and get a closer look at the top of the arch?"
"I get a nasty feeling just looking at it," Maggie broke in. "The thought of flying through that opening? Ugh." With a shudder, she dug into her knitting bag and retrieved a second set of needles.
"Very well," Christophe said.
He eased the nose of the craft up and angled them towards the top of the structure. He banked gently at its anchor point to the wall and ran parallel with it. Neither door nor hatch presented itself.
"What an odd structure!" Christophe said. "Even Martians need maintenance hatches, surely."
They reached the outer edge. He executed a slow turn to wrap them around to the
far side.
"Perhaps it is not a building?" asked Gemma. "Perhaps it is a device or a machine?"
"Possibly. At any rate, it's the only sign of habitation that we've found. There are no signs of windows set into the rock adjoining it. If it were a machine, wouldn't there be, say, a control area close by? Even if they don't need tea breaks, they do need somewhere to do their work."
Gemma squinted as she studied the structure from this side. "Nothing here, either. Perhaps we should examine it underneath the main arm?"
"That would be an odd place for a hatch."
"Not if they can climb like me," said Maggie. "Or if they could fly up to it and dock there."
Christophe scratched at the scruffy spots on his chin. "Let us report in, then give it a shot."
Gemma continued to squint out the viewport at their jagged course as she listened to the grumpily affectionate banter between the captain and the man she now knew as his father. But now it was a comfort instead of an annoyance.
"Be careful, lad."
"Will do. We are heading in now. Everyone buckled in?"
The radio crackled for a moment, and then Christophe said, "Elias, it looks as if--"
~~~~
Elias
The transmission dissolved into a sudden silence. Dr. Pugh strained his ears, fiddled with the knobs, and bulged his tired eyes as he fought to hear another syllable.
"Christophe?" he shouted into the microphone. "Christophe! What happened?"
Gasps erupted behind him. Pritchard's hand shook his shoulder with an unexpected gentleness.
"Dr. Pugh," he said in a hoarse whisper, "look up."
The scientist turned to look at the viewport, where a bright light, centred on the North rim of the canyon, flared out at him, bright as the sun.
"No, no!" he screamed as the light began to fade, as if it were dragging his family away with it.
His knees buckled beneath him. If the new captain's strong arms had not caught him, he would have collapsed onto the deck. Pritchard eased him into a chair before taking up the microphone. He called for the captain, again and again, until the Fury crossed the terminator into the dark night of Mars.