Biome
Page 1
PRAISE FOR BIOME
“Superb. Fast-paced young adult sci-fi that combines all the action of a psychological thriller with the angst of coming to age. A fascinating premise deftly executed.”
—Tosca Lee
New York Times bestselling author of Forbidden
“Within the first few chapters I gave up trying to predict where the story would go and simply let it carry me on a wild, extraterrestrial ride.”
—Anne Elisabeth Stengl
award-winning author of Heartless
“A real page-turner, reminiscent of both The 100 and Doctor Who, Biome is a refreshing take on Young Adult Science Fiction.”
—India Edghill
author of Wisdom’s Daughter
“An indelible red-planet backdrop enhances an already rugged, tenacious story. The ending, meanwhile, satisfies on every level.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“[E]xtremely engaging. I can’t wait to read a sequel.”
—Hannah Alexander
author of The Hallowed Halls series
“The twisting plot and fleshed out characters lead to a satisfying ending.”
—The BookLife Prize in Fiction
Copyright © 2016 by Ryan Galloway.
All rights reserved. Published and distributed in the United States and Canada by Stranger Fiction LLC in Portland, Oregon.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2016 by Ryan Galloway
Cover art copyright © by Carissa Galloway
First edition, December 2016
Summary:
When seventeen-year-old cadet Lizzy Engram of Mars Colony One wakes with a head full of stolen memories, she has six days to uncover what the doctors are hiding before they realize what she knows—and erase her from existence.
ISBN: 978-0-9978558-2-1 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-9978558-0-7 (ePub)
ISBN: 978-0-9978558-1-4 (Kindle)
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the author. For information regarding permissions, write to hello@strangerfiction.co. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
For a glimpse into how Biome was self-published, visit strangerfiction.co/biome.
To Carissa—
For showing me the world through your beautiful eyes.
Chapter One
Something is missing at the back of my head. It eats at me slowly, dripping like a faucet, tapping just under the surface. I can never place what it is, exactly. Maybe a forgotten name. Or a warning.
Whatever it is, I have a feeling that it’s important. That if I don’t remember, something terrible will happen. And soon.
But I don’t remember.
So it keeps on tapping.
This is how I feel all the time. As if I’ve had a leak in my brain since we landed on Mars. As if everything on this planet, from the soil that stains my weighted boots to the dust-red world outside my porthole, reminds me of something.
Maybe tomorrow, when we’re finally allowed to leave the domes and see the planet for ourselves, I’ll know what I’ve been missing.
Yet for reasons I can’t explain, that idea only fills me with dread.
“How is the harvest coming?”
A rustle of ferns precedes Doctor Conrad’s approach through the recessed herb garden. I straighten, shaking off my troubled thoughts.
“Getting there,” I say.
“Looks to me like you’ve finished early. As usual.” Conrad’s gaze sweeps the herb bed, his brows raised approvingly. I can tell he likes me. But not because of my personality or anything. It’s only because I’m more efficient than the other greenskeepers.
“Am I getting predictable?”
“Reliable is the word I’d use.” He looks at my face for the first time, concern making the cross-hatched wrinkles around his eyes tighten. They always remind me of dried-out clay. “Are you feeling all right, Elizabeth?”
“I’m fine,” I reply automatically. To be honest, I feel exhausted. But I feel that way most of the time. Not so long ago, we were in cryosleep for the interplanetary trip. You don’t just bounce back from an eight-month nap.
How long has it been since we landed—three months? Four? It feels like a decade. Which is kind of funny, if you think about it. Martian days, called “sols,” are thirty-nine minutes longer than a day back home. That means time is moving faster on Earth, depending on how you look at it.
Conrad consults a tablet pulled from the pocket of his white lab coat.
“You’re one of Shiffrin’s patients?” he observes, fingers scurrying over the glass.
“I wouldn’t exactly call myself patient.”
He either doesn’t get the joke or doesn’t think it’s funny. I watch him nod and jot out a note with a swollen finger, skin cracked at the knuckle.
Here in the Forest and Woodland Biome, it can be easy to get dehydrated, at least during the artificial dry season. Warm air strokes the brushwood at our knees, moving out over the olive trees at the bottom of the slope, their limbs twisted behind a line of jagged, toothy rocks. All of this is housed inside the geodesic dome we currently stand in: saplings, bushes, herbs, and undergrowth. All pioneers on an alien world, like me.
For now, the edible varieties augment our food supply. Once the terraforming is complete and the atmosphere can support organic life, their seeds will be the first inhabitants of the newly transformed planet.
Sometimes when I’m working with my hands in the dirt, I forget I’m inside a giant, billion-dollar golf ball.
Conrad finishes with his notes and stoops for a look at the rosemary growing in one of the divided herb blocks. Beside it are genetically enhanced strains of lavender, garlic, dill, and chives. Fast-growing versions of their earthly cousins.
“Incredible,” he murmurs. “It looks like this one is already beginning to flower again. We’ll want to trim it back to ensure it doesn’t harden.” He dusts off his hands and rises, looking at me a bit sternly. “You seem fatigued, Elizabeth.”
“I’m fine,” I say again. “Just homesick, I guess.”
The words are out before I can stop them.
“For Earth?” He seems surprised. “Well, you’ll speak to Doctor Shiffrin about it tonight, I trust. You’ve got First Expedition tomorrow.”
“Right.”
“Got to keep in good health,” Conrad says briskly. “Mentally, emotionally, and physically.” It’s practically a motto for him. He turns on his heel. “If you’re finished, go ahead and take your produce to the kitchen for dinner.”
Watching him go, I secretly resent him. Not because he doesn’t care. It’s because he views me the same way he views the plants.
This week alone I’ve been reminded about the importance of my general health probably a hundred times. The constant questions and reminders, the note-taking—it makes me feel like another root in an herb block. And what’s it matter? Who ends up reading the notes anyway?
As for First Expedition… I don’t want to think about that right now.
Clutching my bucket of herbs, I trace a path along a walkway bordered by Aleppo pine. The warm, slightly bitter scent of tree resin tickles my nose. It reminds me of our family trip to Italy when I was ten. I try to picture my mother and father ambling the cobbled streets of
Florence. Their faces are blurry, I realize.
Do other cadets forget what their families look like so quickly? I feel a stab of guilt. It’s strange, but the truth is I’m not homesick. I don’t really miss the people from home, from my old life, at all. I just feel lonely.
But for who? And for what? Even if I could go back, it’s been almost a year since I entered cryosleep. Things are different now.
The path crawls up a gentle incline, past quartered patches of Meyer lemon and sweet Seville orange. I catch a glimpse of the swamp at the north curve of the dome just as I reach the portal, which regulates humidity and temperature. Each biome has its own atmosphere to ensure that the plants are growing in optimal conditions.
Here on Mars we have no bugs, blights, or parasites. And everything grows like a weed.
The door whooshes open and I feel a rush of cool air, a ghostly caress against my skin. As I step into the hall, there’s a melodic ding-dong on the overhead speakers. A pleasant female voice informs me that it’s now seventeen hundred hours—or five o’clock, Earth time.
I’m almost an hour early with my harvesting. Most cadets are still scattered throughout the various biomes, performing tasks such as watering, pruning, trimming, mulching, fertilizing, irrigating, and so on. Glamorous, astronaut-y duties.
When we all auditioned to be the first cadets on Mars, I’m not sure anyone realized just how much yardwork would be involved.
The kitchen area is a wide hall of cabinets and drawers, with a hexagonal ceiling like a Chinese checkerboard. Every surface gleams.
Chloe, a fellow cadet, is unloading a crate of bell peppers onto a counter. Willowy and fair, she has long chestnut hair and giant green eyes that look even bigger behind her glasses. She’s bright, kind-hearted, and an excellent listener. Admired by almost every cadet on the colony.
I’m nothing like her.
“Hello, Lizzy,” she says. Though she spent only her summers with her grandmother in France, Chloe still has a slight accent. It shows up most in her habit of dropping the “h” out of words, making hello sound more like ello. “Good harvesting today?”
As I open my mouth to answer, it happens. The sense that something is missing, that something is forgotten, suddenly grows louder, taking shape, washing over me in a thousand tingling needle-pricks of familiarity. It’s as if I’ve seen this before—this, exactly this moment, exactly this way: Chloe, the bell peppers, the light catching the rim of her glasses. Even my hesitation in the doorway.
But I haven’t seen it, and I know it. Which again leaves me dizzy with the feeling that there’s still something I’m missing.
“Hey,” I manage.
“What’s wrong?” Chloe asks.
“Nothing,” I say as I place my bucket on the counter. She raises a quizzical eyebrow. Chloe has an uncanny way of reading me.
Also, I’m a terrible liar.
“It’s just…” I begin. “Do you ever feel like you want to say something, and it’s on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t find the words?”
She considers this a moment, a frown tugging her lips.
“What would you be trying to say?” she finally asks.
“I don’t know. Just… never mind.”
“Have you been having déjà vu again?” she guesses.
“Well, ‘again’ would imply that I ever stopped,” I say irritably. “And since I’ve had it almost every day this week, I think that—”
“J’y crois pas!” Chloe bursts out. “Every day? Lizzy, this is serious. Have you spoken to Doctor Shiffrin?”
Immediately I regret telling her. I know that look, that tone, when someone starts trying to fix me. That’s why I don’t talk about my déjà vu. Or my family and how I don’t miss them. Letting people in only makes you vulnerable. And I’m not about to be anyone’s project.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” I say. “Hallucinations are pretty normal, you know.”
Her mouth drops open in a hybrid of worry and disbelief.
“Lizzy, hallucinations are not normal,” Chloe tells me. “They are a very serious symptom of several potential neurological disorders. You need to speak to a doctor.”
Chloe isn’t great with sarcasm. I begin removing cilantro stems from my bucket and their sweet, zesty aroma fills the air.
“I promise to speak with a doctor about my very serious hallucinations,” I reply. “Okay?”
“That does sound serious,” says a sugary voice.
Another cadet glides into the kitchen, smooth and graceful. She pulls open a drawer and scans the contents, then bumps it shut with her hip. “And you know, if you have even a minor illness, you can’t go on First Expedition.”
Terra usually tends the Arctic and Alpine Tundra Biome. This week, a few of my fellow greenskeepers got sick, so Terra was commissioned to help out with our agrarian and culinary duties. She has an annoying habit of eavesdropping on my conversations.
I’m counting the days until she goes back to her side of the colony.
“It was a joke,” I say flatly.
“You shouldn’t joke about that,” replies Terra, tugging her bright hair back into a ponytail, revealing a thumbprint-sized birthmark on her neck. “Especially on Mars.Getting sick means getting quarantined. But of course, you know procedure.”
“What are you looking for, Terra?” Chloe asks.
“Cutting board.”
“That one on the left.”
“Oh, thanks.” Terra pulls open the cabinet. “Anyway, Doctor Harris said I’ll be leading a gathering crew on First Expedition. I’ll get to handpick who to take with me.” She smiles at me, her dimples like pinpoints. “Probably Chloe, for starters.”
“Good for you,” I say, biting back a harsher response. All week she’s been at me for no apparent reason, trying to lure me into a fight. Or make me jealous. Or something. I don’t know what her problem is.
“Well, I hope you feel better,” she says sweetly, then trots away to the other end of the kitchen. Chloe is silent.
“What’s going on with you two?” she finally asks.
“I don’t know. But I’m going to Terra-form her face if she doesn’t leave me alone.”
Chloe giggles as she retrieves her own cutting board and a vegetable knife. Wordplay, she can understand.
“What do you think we’ll find out there?”
“During First Expedition? I’m betting on troubled Martian youths,” I say, allowing myself a small smile.
“Oh, yes.” Chloe sighs as she chops up a green pepper, tossing the seeds and core into a compost bin. “The terraforming is probably speeding up their hormones.”
“Soon they’ll be starting a band. The Martian Boys.”
“They’ll be too popular for us.”
Other cadets stream in, lugging their own buckets of produce from the biome or unloading transport carts of fruits and greens from a neighboring climate. Their chatter echoes loudly off the flat surfaces of the kitchen as Doctor Bauer breezes in.
“Elizabeth,” she calls out, her dark curls bouncing around an even darker face with smooth, high cheekbones. “Did you see that the rosemary is already flowering again?”
“Yes.” Honestly, I don’t know what she’s so excited about. Like Conrad said, flowering means trimming. Just more yardwork for us cadets.
“Isn’t it wonderful? Healthy, flowering rosemary on Mars.” She clicks on a convection oven and puts her hands on her hips. “You’re not excited enough, Elizabeth.”
“I guess not,” I say, though I can’t help but laugh. Doctor Bauer is one of my favorite people in the whole colony.
“Fine. Then we’re having Mexican tonight. If you can’t be happy about fajitas, you have no business being on the planet. Chop up that cilantro.”
When I turn, Chloe has already slid me a cutting board.
“Thanks.”
She nods slowly.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she presses, just loud enough for me to hear. “You look… tired.”
“Well, so do you,” I snap, annoyed to be having this conversation again. “We all do. It’s hardly been a year since we left Earth, Chloe. It takes time to adapt.”
For some reason, the duration sounds different out loud. By the time my family makes the trip, another eight months will have passed. But that would be if they left right now—and they won’t. Because of how the planets orbit, the next mission won’t leave for two years. In total, that means almost three years will pass before I see my parents again. By then I’ll be twenty.
Whatever they remember of me, I’ll be an entirely different person. And they’ll have changed too.
“You don’t have to be so defensive,” says Chloe quietly, withdrawing.
“I’m not,” I say, but my voice sounds harsh even in my own ears. “I promise, I’m fine. Let’s just talk after dinner, all right?”
“Okay.”
Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. As she walks away, I concentrate on cutting the cilantro, trying to push down what I really feel. No more thoughts about home, I tell myself. Focus on something else. Like cooking.
You wouldn’t think so, but the food on Mars isn’t bad. For breakfast we have scrambled eggs, which are pumped out of a 3D printer using protein filament. Once you cook in the fresh rosemary and add sautéed onions, biscuits, gravy, and soy bacon—or “fake-on,” as we all call it—it ends up tasting like a better-than-average hotel meal.
For lunch, some days we have burgers made of lentils and beans with printed whole-wheat buns. Fresh yams and potatoes from the biomes, which we hand-cut into fries. Dinner is usually extra special: fajitas, or sushi, or zucchini pasta topped with lemon avocado sauce, plus a chopped side salad of nuts and seeds, and maybe soft, grilled apricots for dessert. We even make ice cream from cashew milk.
I guess that makes us all vegetarian out here, but it isn’t that bad. We ration what we can’t grow and get creative with what we can.
After dinner, cadets are allotted two hours of free time. Most of us read, watch movies, play video games, or have tournaments in ping-pong or cards. Some make a habit of sending messages to friends and family back home, but a disruptive solar wind has recently made it tough to get signal from Earth. Something about a geomagnetic storm.