Infinite

by Jeremy Robinson

  Gal stops over a flat patch of empty land surrounded by rough terrain. To the west is a hint of infrastructure under the dust, lines of ancient roads, tree lines and buildings. To the east and south, ocean. “The dry lake bed is just five hundred feet from the new coastline.”

  “Zoom in on George’s Swamp,” I say.

  The image shifts again, moving northeast. When the lake, like most in the world, began to dry, the waters shifted to this portion of the former lake. It became a patchwork of swampland, protected and only open to visitors with special permission, visitors who were supposed to stay on designated boardwalks…but didn’t always.

  “What are we looking at?” Capria asks, after recovering from her nausea.

  “Is the air breathable?” I ask.

  “Air?” Capria is aghast, and probably a little annoyed that I ignored her first question. “We’re not going down there.”

  “You don’t need to,” I tell her. “Gal?”

  “You’ll want rebreathers,” Gal says. “Oxygen level is ten point six percent, comparable to the O2 level atop a very tall mountain. It won’t kill you, because, you know…but it wouldn’t be comfortable to breathe and would likely leave you lightheaded and confused, if not unconscious.”

  “How is the oxygen level even that high?” Capria asks. “There’s nothing green anywhere.”

  “Much of Earth’s oxygen is trapped in the ground,” Gal says. “It could be leaching out. It’s also possible that phytoplankton are still abundant in the ocean. I can’t be sure without sampling, but they contribute fifty to eighty percent of the oxygen on Earth. Ten percent oxygen suggests their populations have dwindled, but they could still be surviving near the poles, where it’s cooler.”

  “How hot is it down there?” I ask.

  “One hundred thirteen degrees. Hotter in the west, where I detected temperatures in excess of one hundred fifty degrees.”

  “You’re not seriously considering going down there,” Capria says. She’s spent her entire life inside composite walls. She’s never breathed open air or been able to see to a horizon that wasn’t virtual. She’s never felt a breeze, or felt earth between her bare toes. The idea of stepping onto the planet’s vast openness must be intimidating.

  “You don’t need to come,” I tell her. “Gal, you can fly a lander?”

  It’s tempting to just hack myself to the surface, but the fewer changes we make to the code, the better.

  Gal huffs in mock offense. “I piloted an FTL spaceship outside the borders of reality. Do you want an excavation drone?”

  “Excavation drone?” Capria’s level of apprehension is rising along with the pitch of her voice. “What are you planning to do?”

  “What I should have done a long time ago,” I tell her and look her in the eyes. “Bury the dead.”

  Two hours later, I’m standing behind the closed door of a lander, rethinking my decision. To my surprise, Capria decided to join me, despite her fears, and despite not yet knowing what I’m looking for. That means a lot. Says a lot.

  When my hand begins to shake, she takes hold of it.

  “You’re sure about this?” she asks.

  “He’s sure,” Gal says, her voice coming from the large excavation drone behind us. It’s huge, needing four repulse discs to keep its octagonal, UFO-shaped body aloft. The drone was designed to clear terrain and help construct habitats for the crew, but it will work well enough for what I have in mind.

  Capria shoots the big drone a look. “I wasn’t asking y—”

  “I’m fine,” I say. If Gal and Capria start not getting along, my life could feel a lot longer than forever. I strap my facemask on, don a pair of tinted goggles, and say, “Let’s go.”

  When Capria finishes putting on her head gear, the door splits horizontally, the bottom forming a ramp to the parched ground and the top opening like a clam shell…if there are still clams down in the depths. Hot air assaults my forehead and scalp, the only parts of my body exposed to the open air. It’s prickly, like the water is being wicked from my body. I cringe as I take a deep breath, like the heat will permeate my breathing apparatus. When it doesn’t, I take a tentative step down the ramp and get my first ground-level view of my old home.

  It looks like another planet.

  The ground is gray and brown, sand and waterless soil. It stretches out five hundred feet and then ends in a sheer drop. Beyond the Earth is the ocean, colored like slate, but alive with waves courtesy of the moon and sun-born wind, and the tides they still faithfully generate. At the bottom of the ramp, I crouch down and run my fingers through the soil. It’s dry, and lifeless, but it’s home. Eyes closed, I listen to the crashing waves, focusing on the steady rhythm, letting my racing heart slow to match them. When it does, I stand and turn back to the lander. Capria and the drone piloted by Gal wait at the top. Cap’s face is hidden, and the drone doesn’t have one, so I can’t really see how they’re feeling, but I sense their concern.

  “Let’s go,” I say and head around the lander.

  The land on the far side is equally stark but stretches to the horizon, a vast desert. I stop and look for anything familiar, but my imagination isn’t powerful enough to recreate a world that’s been missing for thousands of years.

  The drone stops beside me. Gal’s tone is somber, lacking all trace of casual speech or humor. “Based on historical documents and maps, the edge of George’s Swamp should be one hundred feet ahead. There’s not a lot of data to go on, but there are temperature fluctuations and disparate soil densities where the path and waterline used to be. Based on reports, I believe I can identify an approximate location.”

  “What location?” Capria asks, her frustration brewing.

  But I don’t have the fortitude to answer her yet. If I voice it, make it real, I’ll probably turn around.

  This is going to hurt.

  A lot.

  The drone forges ahead and I follow, leaving Capria behind us.

  “Seriously?” she grumbles, but then I hear her feet crunching over the soil behind us, leaving footprints that are as anomalous on this planet now as they were on the moon when man first walked its surface.

  The drone pauses less than a minute later. “This is the edge,” Gal says.

  “How close are we?” I ask.

  The drone turns its red not-eyes toward me. “Approximately fifty feet from where you were found. Where should I search?”

  I point straight out to where a vegetation-covered sheet of water once existed.

  Gal turns to the remnants of George’s Swamp and hovers out over the barren surface. A loud thumping resonates from the drone’s base as it moves back and forth, following an evenly spaced grid.

  “Will,” Capria says, taking my hand again. Her touch nearly brings tears to my eyes. I’ve done a good job keeping them at bay so far, but my emotions are a tsunami beating at a hastily built dam. “What are we doing here?”

  I point to the drone. “Ground penetrating radar.”

  “I know what Gal is doing, but I don’t know why. I don’t know what you think is here.”

  I purse my lips, defiant, unable to contemplate any other answer. “The swamp had several feet of mud at the bottom. Anything in it would have been preserved, even after all this.” I motion to the dead earth surrounding us.

  “You’re looking for bones,” she says. I don’t hear a question in the words, but I do hear budding annoyance.

  The drone issues a loud beep, followed by Gal’s voice. “Will!”

  It takes me two steps to reach a sprint. I’m by the drone’s side in seconds, just thirty feet from shore.

  Just thirty feet…

  The drone’s black skin has retracted, revealing a fifteen inch screen displaying a three dimensional image of what the ground penetrating radar has discovered. I wasn’t sure if this moment would come, even after we discovered reality’s source code, returned to Earth, and stepped out of the lander. I expected it to break me open, to undo me, but I feel a new k
ind of resolve. Something in me says, ‘This is right. This is good. You can heal.’

  When Capria arrives, I’m not a sobbing mess like I expected, I’m a man transformed by the power of his past laid bare. I can make this right. I can say goodbye. I step to the side, allowing her to see the screen. “This is why we’re here.”

  I can’t see her eyes, but I can see her forehead wrinkling as she opens them wide. “Who…”

  “This is Steven.” I place my hand on the display of a small body, curled up in a fetal position. “This is my brother.”

  39

  Capria’s stunned silence isn’t unexpected. After a series of droughts that left much of Earth’s vast population starving, births were only approved by lottery for those with genetic advantages, and even then only one per couple. One of the few exceptions had been my parents. They didn’t win a second lottery. My conception was an accident. Beyond an accident. A miracle. After a couple successfully gave birth to a healthy child, the father was given a vasectomy. I was conceived twelve months after my father’s surgery, and the pregnancy wasn’t discovered for another three months.

  Abortion was recommended, and the norm in such rare cases, but it could not be forced on my mother. My parents paid a sizeable fine, and I was born, healthy and unscathed, six months later. The first result was that my brother and I were one of three pairs of siblings on the North American continent. The second result was that my brother died ten years later.

  Right here.

  Because of me.

  After retrieving a shovel from the lander, I set to work on the hard packed earth. I haven’t used a shovel since I was a child, digging traps for imaginary enemies with Steven, but Capria’s never seen one. Like screwdrivers, we have drones to do this kind of manual labor now. The excavator would make short work of Steven’s exhumation. But this is my hole to dig. My penance to pay, alone.

  And then it’s not.

  Command, in their infinite wisdom, realized that manual labor would likely be necessary on Cognata. The landers are outfitted with a variety of tools and construction hardware once common on Earth, but unheard of on Mars, where things like wood, concrete, and stone aren’t used. When Capria sinks a shovel into the dirt opposite me, I flinch at the sound. I nearly bark at her for the intrusion, but if we’re going to work, we need to share everything, including what hurts us most. Plus, my coveralls are already soaked with sweat. I could use the help.

  It takes an hour to dig through three feet of packed soil. Capria and I have shed the top halves of our coveralls, tying the sleeves around our waists. She keeps her bra on, though the way she pauses every now and then to adjust it tells me she’d rather take it off, too. I feel like I should propose the idea, but don’t want to come across as a letch.

  “You’re close,” Gal warns. They’re the first words she’s spoken since the digging began. I think she might be upset that I let Capria help, but Gal’s assistance would have removed the effort, the burn, the self-flagellation.

  I stop digging and sit on the edge of the three-foot-deep, five-foot-long pit. Water drips down my forehead, the saltiness of it stiffening as it quickly evaporates. “We’re going to need to drink.”

  “A lot,” Cap agrees, sitting across from me.

  “I can finish for you,” Gal offers, and simulates a sigh when I shake my head. “At least let me dig the grave.”

  The idea of digging a second pit, twice as deep, sounds like torture. I nod my assent and then point to the shoreline where my ten-year-old self had fallen into the algae laden swamp thousands of years ago. “There was a memorial over there. There should be a sheet of metal. Can you find it? Dig the grave there?”

  “Of course,” Gal says, and then the drone is moving, its four, blue repulse discs humming loudly in the vast, empty silence of a lifeless planet.

  When I turn back to Capria, I’m surprised by the aghast expression on her face. “What?”

  “You’re digging him up just to bury him again…” She points to the shoreline where the drone is thumping away with its ground penetrating radar. “…over there?”

  “What did you think I was going to do?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, bring him with us?”

  A twinge of annoyance begins building deep in my chest. “You don’t need to be here.”

  The words wound her. “Will, he is already buried.”

  “In the wrong place.” I climb down into the pit. On hands and knees, I scrape away the last layers of soil. Were the body beneath me not my brother, I probably would have reminded her that Martians were cremated because they couldn’t be buried. And while many people on Earth opted for that fiery send off, my parents hadn’t, and it’s not what they would have chosen for their son.

  Capria surprises me once again, climbing into the pit to wipe away ancient dust and grit, sharing my pain.

  I stop, ten minutes later when my hand strikes something solid. There’s a brief moment where the reality of what I’m about to do sets in. When it passes, my hands are shaking and tears blur my vision. With a sniffling nose, I double my efforts, chipping, wiping, and peeling away earth. By the time his well-preserved body is unearthed, I’m a mess, unleashing millennia of pent up emotion.

  His clothing, and skin are intact, though the moisture has been removed from his small body, mummifying him.

  “I’m sorry,” I say between heaving sobs. I place my living forehead against his petrified forehead, wishing I could undo thousands of years of history to save him. The irony, I know, is that such a thing is now within my power. I could go back and change that day. I could return his body to its previous state, here and now. But both actions would likely result in the deletion, reset, or modification of reality. I’ve become an impotent god. Creator of nothing. Unable to do anything for the dead, except mourn them and send them off right.

  Capria’s hand on me soothes me out of anguish’s solid grip. “Hey.”

  Her face is as wet as mine.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  She smiles, sympathetic, wiping away her tears. “This is good. This is right.”

  My nod shakes more tears free.

  “Gal is ready,” she says.

  Gal waits by the shoreline, hovering beside a rectangular pit, at the head of which is a stainless steel gravestone. She found it…

  Even though his petrified body is partially shrouded in hard-packed grit on the verge of becoming stone, which I left in place to hold him together, Steven is light. I have no trouble lifting his frail body and carrying it the thirty feet back to the gentle slope that once led from the water to the shore.

  Gal waits for us, the excavation drone hovering by the grave she dug for me. I stop a few feet short when I see the grave marker, etched with the words:

  In Memory of

  Steven Chanokh

  Beloved Son

  Loving Brother

  “Engage”

  My eyes blur before I can read the dates, but I don’t need to see them. The numbers are etched in my memory even more permanently than the words on the stainless steel gravestone.

  When I reach the grave, I turn to Capria. “Can you hold him?”

  She nods, sniffing back tears, and reaches out to take him in her arms. We pass the body between us, moving him delicately, a newborn baby sound asleep. I slip down into the grave, dug six feet deep. I reach up for my brother and ease him down, back into the earth. On the surface, I understand why Capria might see all this as unnecessary, but I’m honoring the dead—my brother, and my parents who never got to bury their son—and I’m allowing myself to say goodbye, to free myself from this now-ancient tether of guilt.

  “Goodbye, Steven,” I whisper to his body, then I kiss his weathered forehead. “I love you.”

  Live for the both of us, I hear in reply. Though I’m certain the words are my own, what I long to hear from my long deceased sibling, I feel their truth. I’ve been given an eternal gift, and thus far, I’ve been squandering it.

  “I will,�
�� I tell him, hand on his chest. “For both of us.”

  I rise from the grave, feeling renewed.

  Reborn.

  Forgiven.

  Capria sees it in my smile and looks both relieved and saddened by it.

  “You okay?”

  “I just…” She takes a deep breath, working through her own complicated emotions. “I understand this now, I think. It’s not just for them. Not just about sending them to an afterlife. It’s saying goodbye. It’s saying ‘I’m going to keep living, despite the loss. Despite the hurt.’”

  She leans into my chest, and for the first time since she woke from cryo-sleep, we embrace. We stand there in the ridiculous heat, shirtless and sweating, wrapped in each other’s arms for five minutes. When she pulls back, Capria looks like a weight has been lifted from her as well.

  “We should bury them here, too,” she says. “All of them.”

  I’m about to ask who she’s talking about when I remember the ship full of corpses in geosynchronous orbit high above us—all of whom I planned to bury, and one of whom is Tom. She’s ready to bury him. Ready to move on. Ready to live again.

  Facing my brother’s body again, I forgot all about the dead crew, but now it’s time to fulfill my duty. The task will be depressing, and gross, but putting our crew in the ground, where they belong, on a home planet many of them never saw, will take a weight off my mind.

  The excavation drone stays behind to dig thirty six more graves. Gal pilots the lander back to the Galahad, where Capria and I move the dead. After wrapping the frigid corpses in white linens gathered from the crews’ quarters, several drones help us transport the Galahad’s crew to Earth, in groups of nine.

  We lay them out beside each of the gravesites. After four trips and fifteen hours of labor in daylight and through the night, our friends lie on Earth’s surface, most of them for the first time. Gal surprises Capria and me by providing metal gravestones for each crewmember, etched with their names. While we moved the bodies, she was also busy fashioning the memorials and digging the pits.