Resurrection

by Jeffrey Burger

  “Yep, 3.7m/s2. They have artificial gravity and antigravity technology. The main rooms are set to 9.4m/s2 - near to Earth standards. The corridors in-between pods drop down to about 6 or 7.”

  Mary-Anne clutched her helmet like a teddy bear, “This is all so exciting. There were a couple of geologists seated near me on the transport - they were talking about going to the Hellas Basin with a survey team looking for water… I wouldn’t mind tagging along and seeing some of the landscape, it sounds fascinating.”

  Michelle shrugged, “As long as we’re waiting for completion, there’s not much else to do here - I’m in.” She waved toward the open corridor leading to the pod of dorms, “Let’s get you situated, where’s your gear?”

  ■ ■ ■

  It took the crew skimmer, something Michelle Fabry equated to a flying bus, a very fast flying bus, about two hours to make the fourteen-hundred-mile trip from the research base on the Hesperia High Plain, to the Hellas Basin. The bus could make the trip much shorter, in thirty-minutes if need be, but the crew needed a chance to accurately plot the terrain and make surface surveys on the trip. Something they were going to be doing a great deal of, in the coming months. With a planetary rotation only thirty-seven minutes longer than Earth, there would be more than sufficient time in the day for boots-on-the-ground exploration as well. Currently in the summer months of it’s 687-day year, the Mars climate could reach the mid 60◦’s to mid 70◦’s Fahrenheit near the equator in the middle of the day. But with its extremely thin atmosphere, it has no ability to retain heat and quickly falls to -100◦ Fahrenheit in the same regions at night.

  “Alright everybody,” clapped the man standing in front of the seated passengers, his back to the skimmer’s cockpit like some space-version of a stewardess. It was the same man with the blue complexion and piercing blue eyes who came to see Michelle on her first day. She later learned his name was, Zedman, a lead foreman. “I need everybody to pay attention, this is extremely important. These suits,” he pinched his sleeve between his thumb and finger, “are day suits. They are not meant for extended night-time survival. You will likely freeze to death out here at night if you wander off and get lost.”

  “What’s the night-time temperature?” someone inquired.

  “At base we’re much nearer the equator, about minus-one-hundred, there. Here, we are considerably further south. My estimation, minus-one-fifty.”

  “It didn’t seem that cold when we left this morning…”

  “It was minus-ten when we left just after dawn. And you walked a hundred feet from an airlock to a warmed bird,” Zedman motioned at the floor. “You didn’t have time to notice it. Take what you remember and subtract an additional hundred-forty-degrees.” He held up his helmet, “Some rules to live by for you people new to this; never ever take your helmet off outside, no matter what. Do not take your helmet off in this bird until you are told to do so - if it’s not pressurized, you will die. Claustrophobia? Can’t breathe? See a red or yellow flashing light in your HUD? You take off your helmet, you die. It’s that simple.” He tucked the helmet under his arm. “Stay in pairs. Do not wander off. Stay within sight of your escort, or the craft, or the drill rig. Out of that line of sight and everything out here looks the same, it’s all the same color…”

  “What about our footprints? We could…”

  “You would think that,” admitted Zedman, “unless there’s any kind of atmospheric movement. The dust is as fine as talcum powder. Your footprints can disappear in a matter of minutes.”

  “Over the landing zone. Touching down…” announced the comm.

  “One last thing,” added Zedman, “there are bound to be softer areas out here, possibly unstable surface conditions. If your footing doesn’t feel right, back up immediately - don’t simply try to walk across it. I don’t want the boys to have to try to recover a dead body from a sandpit.”

  “He’s such a cheerful guy,” whispered Mary-Anne.

  ■ ■ ■

  Still within sight of the skimmer’s tail over the rise behind them and the very tip of the drilling rig over the ridge to their left, Michelle paused, looking up, an early morning cloud of vapor and ice crystals passing slowly, revealing a day moon. “Phobos,” she commented. “It seems so strange to see a moon that’s not our own…”

  “Stranger than actually walking on Mars?” replied Mary Ann, toeing a red rock in the dust at her feet. “This is all so surreal - it’s hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that we’re actually here.”

  Michelle giggled, “That’s how I felt when I walked across the flight deck of the Conquest.”

  “Oooh, that’s right, you spent some time on one of those big ships. What was it like?”

  Michelle shook her head inside her helmet and continued walking, “Fascinating. The technology is… well, fantastic. To think they’ve come light years… And it’s all so normal for them - they don’t even consider how remarkable it is.”

  “It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it,” said, Mary-Anne, stopping to pick up a deep-red rock with something that looked like black glass in it. She turned it over in her gloved hand, examining it for a moment before dropping it into her sample bag. “Do you think we’ll get the opportunity to travel farther than this?”

  “I think we can walk a little bit further,” Michelle replied from ahead of her.

  “No, I mean in space - like them. You and me. I’d like to go further. I’d like to meet more of them, see their planets, their cities, their culture…”

  “Oh. I don’t see why not.” Michelle bent over and picked something up, dropping it into her sample bag before standing back up, Mary-Anne walking up behind her. “Some of them were actually born in space,” she continued, “on a ship or a station, never having even seen their home planets.”

  “Really…” Mary-Anne tilted her head, “I can’t decide if that’s sad, or exceptionally amazing.”

  Michelle shrugged, “They seemed unaffected by it…” she attempted to put her fingertips to her mouth in contemplation and was stopped by her helmet’s face-shield. “Or maybe it’s more accepting than unaffected,” she finished. “An, it is what it is, kind of attitude.”

  “Huh…” Mary-Anne pointed at the disappearing ridgeline in the distance, “Speaking of it is what it is… what is that?”

  Michelle sidled up next to her and followed her point with her eyes. “Hmm,” she huffed, “I think that’s a dust devil.”

  “That’s awfully big to be a dust devil,” observed Mary-Anne. “Look at the clouds above it… the sky is turning red…”

  Michelle nodded, “The dust is so fine once it’s carried up, it may take hours to fall back to the ground…”

  “We should head back Mitch, this looks scary, I can’t even see the horizon anymore…” she sucked in hard with surprise, “Is that lightning?”

  Michelle grabbed her by the elbow and spun her around, “Yes! Move, move, move!”

  With nearly sixty-mile-an-hour winds, it came upon them fast, the red-ish monotone of the environment, the dust and the storm fooling their depth perception into believing it was much farther away than it was. Everything around them disappeared in a red-brown swirling cloud, the wind making waffling noises on their suits and helmets without the associated buffeting produced by Earth’s winds - though with the gravity a third of Earth, there was still a definite push.

  Like nearly weightless Styrofoam beads, the dust clung to every surface it came in contact with - the girls having to constantly wipe their face-shields, to little effect. Flashes of light surrounded them, dancing through the statically charged dust.

  “Damnit, I can’t see a thing…” griped Mary-Anne as she stumbled, dropping to all fours.

  Michelle tumbled blindly over her, “Shit…”

  “Maybe we should wait here until this passes, Mitch.”

  “We need to keep moving, Annie, the temperature has already dropped fifty-degrees. And these things can last for days.”

&n
bsp; “But we can’t even see where we’re going,” complained Mary-Anne, getting to her feet, “how do we know if we’re even headed in the right direction?”

  Michelle guided her forward with her hand on Mary-Anne’s shoulder, not wanting to answer the question. “We are,” she lied, unsure, “just keep going…” The static flashed around them, crackling, and Michelle went to ground again, her hand slipping off Mary-Anne’s shoulder.

  Mary-Anne spun around, “Mitch, are you alright?”

  Michelle pushed herself up from her face-first landing, wiping the dust off her face-shield. “I think so. I swear, I could feel that right through my suit.”

  “Did you get zapped?”

  Michelle gulped air, “Yeah. I’ll tell you - that really smarts…”

  ■ ■ ■

  Visibility was fleeting, whether it was the suspended, blowing dust, the dust coating their face-shields, or the intense flashes of static lightning. Michelle could hear her heartbeat in her ears and she was sweating, despite being able to feel a noticeable temperature drop. “What’s the temperature?” she wheezed.

  “My HUD say’s it’s nearly zero. Why, what does yours say?”

  Michelle staggered, dropping to her knees, her head tilted downward, “I don’t know, it’s not showing…”

  Mary-Anne folded herself into a crouch next to her friend, “What’s not showing, Mitch - your temperature, or your HUD?”

  “HUD,” she wheezed.

  “How long has it been out?”

  Michelle shook her head, drops of sweat hitting the inside of her face-shield, “Don’t know… Can’t seem to catch my breath…”

  Mary-Anne looked up in the direction they had been moving, “Look Mitch, the bus is right over there, see? We’re almost there…”

  Michelle raised her head and wiped her face-shield, blinking slowly, trying to focus, dark spots swimming in her vision, “That’s a rock, Annie…”

  “No, no, it’s just past the rock on the rise… remember?”

  “I can’t get that far, Annie,” Michelle whispered. “You go,” she motioned, “bring someone back… I’ll wait here…” she started to collapse, her eyes rolling up.

  “No, no, no, no, no, no!” shouted Mary-Anne, locking her arm up under Michelle’s armpit, standing up, carrying her friend up with surprising ease. “C’mon, Mitch, let’s go, c’mon, walk with me…” Hiking her up, slinging her arm around her waist, Mary-Anne held her off the ground as she walked. “Help us!” she shouted, “Help us…!”

  “Unit Mary-Anne Nobert, do you require assistance?” came a female voice in her helmet.

  “Yes! Yes!”

  “What is the nature of the assistance you need?”

  “Medical - Mitch’s suit is down…”

  “I do not recognize the name Mitch…”

  “Michelle Fabry! Michelle Fabry!”

  “Michelle Fabry - recognized. Are you together? Would you like to activate your emergency beacon?”

  “Yes! Yes!”

  “Please say; activate emergency rescue beacon.”

  Michelle’s body had gone totally limp and Mary-Anne was on the verge of panic, “Yes - yes! Activate emergency rescue beacon! Activate emergency rescue beacon, damnit!”

  “Command accepted. Beacon activated.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CASTILLE SYSTEM, BYAS-KUYOL CLINIC : MULTIPLICITY

  Rikit Lobat wasn’t a smart man, at least not on the surface - but he wasn’t without his talents. Contrary to what some would believe, his mother didn’t raise an idiot… an oddball perhaps, maybe a weirdo, but certainly no idiot. Rikit was a survivor. Against all odds, he had survived in the jungles of Byas-Kuyol, and, he had survived the Byas-Kuyol Clinic massacre. Not by any measure of heroism, mind you, but by simply remaining unseen and unheard. Basically, he hid. And he hid well. Much like he had hid in the jungle from the monsters there; the six-footed, the four-footed, and the two-footed kind.

  Though he promised himself he would never return to the jungle, he was returning to the clinic - for something he was forced to leave behind. Something important. Something valuable.

  ■ ■ ■

  He was unsure what to expect at the clinic, having avoided it, and all of Byas-Kuyol City for that matter, hiding on his grandmother’s abandoned and overgrown ranch for a week. If you could even call it that. Built closer to the trees for shade, the jungle had reclaimed the house, growing through it and around it, rendering it unlivable - even with extensive work. The barn on the other hand, built in the cleared farmyard, had fared better, allowing him a relatively safe place up in the loft to hide out. The fields were overgrown, the animals long gone, the farm equipment nothing more than rusted hulks… It was sad to see what he remembered to be a joyous place to visit in his childhood. He could almost smell his grandmother’s freshly baked fruit-bread, mixed with the aroma of brewing coffee and the warm morning sunlight playing through…

  “Rikit! Where have you been?!”

  Rikit Lobat froze for a moment, halfway through the clinic’s doorway, suddenly shocked back to present reality, cursing himself for daydreaming instead of paying attention - the clinic’s director glowering at him.

  Having fled the carnage at the first sign of silence, he hadn’t stopped to even look back, much less check for signs of life. Her survival was a little tidbit of realization adding to his stunned reaction.

  “I… I… I…” his mind reached for the prepared and rehearsed explanation he had devised for his absence, but it eluded his best efforts, his mind still locked in his memories.

  “Sometime in this century, Rikit,” she scolded.

  “I… I… I…”

  She stood with her hands on her hips, scowling at him, standing in front of the nurse’s station where two of the mercenaries had been flash-frozen to the floor, blood splattered… everywhere, frozen and crystalized like glistening rubies. “Where have you been?” she hissed. “Do you have any idea how much work it was cleaning this mess up?” she pointed at the floor. “By the Gods, the blood…”

  His eyes flicked around from the nurse’s station to the corridor behind her, to the floor in front of them, still seeing the dead bodies and blood in his mind's eye, “Blood?” he asked, innocently. At least he hoped that’s the way it sounded.

  “The blood, the bodies, the body parts…” she rubbed her forehead… “and some of them weren’t even dressed…” her voice trailed off. “I don’t even want to know what that was about. We lost so many people,” she whispered, before snapping from grief back to anger. “It took us an entire week to clean this mess up, we could have really used your help… Which brings us back to, where were you?!”

  “My grandmother is dead.” It wasn’t even close to what he had planned or rehearsed, but it was the first thing that popped into his head. And it wasn’t a lie… though she’d been dead for many years.

  “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. But…” she was trying to process it all. “So, you weren’t even aware of…” Rikit’s head tilted to one side like a puppy and suddenly she felt sorry for the custodian, her anger ebbing away. “The Pathfinders said it was a drug raid, though the entirety of what happened isn’t exactly clear. They killed everyone, Rikit. Our entire evening staff, patients, visitors…” her eyes glazed over. “By the Pathfinders’ estimate, I left work only minutes before it started…”

  “You were very lucky then.”

  “But the Pathfinders say they think the raiders missed someone. Someone who killed them all before disappearing. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?” she eyed his with some suspicion.

  “What - me? No... How is that possible?”

  She shook her head, “I don’t know…” her eyes were staring blankly. “I’ve never seen so much blood. It was everywhere - floors, walls, ceilings…” She blinked mechanically, trying to erase the indelible images. “Um, why didn’t you call?”

  “My grandmother’s ranch - it’s… not on the power grid. I couldn�
�t.”

  “I understand,” she nodded. “As much as we needed your help, we were worried. You were unaccounted for.”

  He watched two workmen walk past, carrying tools and materials, “I should probably,” he motioned toward the back of the clinic, “get to work…”

  She nodded, “Yes certainly.” Her eyes had that far-away look again.

  ■ ■ ■

  The director stayed longer than she usually did; interviewing new staff, overseeing the workers restoring the clinic’s walls, floors and glass, tracking the shipments of new equipment to replace what had been damaged or destroyed - all to get the clinic ready to reopen in two-days’ time. She looked exhausted when she left and Rikit escorted her out to her vehicle, “Don’t stay too late, Rikit…”

  “Yes Ma’am,” he replied, his finger absentmindedly tracing a body line on the burgundy car. “I just have a few more things I wanted to get done before I go home.”

  “Ok, but I need you in early tomorrow - that new equipment is due in.” She shook her head, “I sure hope we can get everything done before…”

  “We will,” he assured her.

  “Thank you.” She looked at him with weary eyes for a moment, shifting uncomfortably, “And, again, I’m sorry to hear about your grandmother. I hope you’re…”

  “I’m fine,” he nodded, cutting in. “She had a good long life.”

  The director smiled weakly before climbing into her vehicle, the gull-wing door swinging down. Rikit waved and watched her drive off before returning to the clinic.

  ■ ■ ■

  Finally… finally! He thought they’d never all leave.

  Long before it was a clinic, the building had been something much different. Something dark - it had a dangerous and sordid past. Maybe the raiders coming for drugs was a measure of its past coming back to haunt it. Then again, Rikit had the distinct impression they were there for something else; that the raid was quite possibly an elaborate masquerade to cover up the real reason for their visit. Though he had absolutely no clue as to what that might be.