by Emma Newman
Mercifully there are messages in my in-box to distract me. It looks like friends and colleagues have received the confirmation that I’ve landed safely, but there’s nothing new from Charlie or anyone else in my family. I skim through messages of relief and excitement, along with reminders to send pictures as soon as I can. My old boss asks me for first impressions. I open my virtual keyboard and start typing a reply.
Hi Drew,
So, Principia looks just like it does in the mersives, but it turns out that Banks is a total arsehole who hates me already, the psych gives me the creeps and someone has stolen my stuff and is trying to make me go mad. I’ve been here less than two hours. Brilliant. So my first impression of Mars is: this is the place in which I will finally go insane.
How are the kids?
Also I will never forgive you for making me host that dinner party. Fuck you very much.
Anna
I read it over. Then I delete it and close my mail. I’m in no state to reply to anything.
Did Banks take the ring and replace it with a fake? He would have had to find out the right size and then print it, and that seems like a lot of effort to go to. Did he paint that note that I found? Had he decided he hated me before I even left my medical exam, rifled through my stuff and pulled all that off, just to fuck with me? It seems too ridiculous to even be a possibility, but short of either Petranek or Arnolfi doing it instead, I can’t think of any sane explanation.
I knead my temples with my knuckles. I am not going mad. This is not immersion psychosis. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this.
At least I know I can trust Dr. Elvan. He was with me the times I wasn’t in my room, so he couldn’t have tampered with any of my belongings. But then the memory of the almost-kiss returns and I wince. Thinking of Charlie, I recall what he said about Mum being upset. I need to record her a message.
I put the fake wedding ring on—otherwise she’ll only notice it’s missing and then get worried about it. After several aborted starts and a cup of coffee I try again.
“Hi, Mum.” I wave at the cam. “So I’m here and this is my room and everything is fine.” Do I sound convincing enough? “I’m very not dead, as you can see. I’m a bit tired and adjusting to gravity again but the doctor here is really nice and . . .” Shit, don’t pause too long—she’ll suspect something! “Well, he said that I was in really good shape. Considering how long I was in zero g, I mean. Are you okay? How’s everything back home? Have you heard from Geena? I . . . I haven’t heard from her. I thought that maybe she would have seen something on a feed somewhere about me coming here and gotten in touch.”
I don’t ask the question that naturally follows. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about him either.
“So, send me a message when you can so I know you’re okay. Love you. Bye!”
I end the recording, wondering if she is awake now. I send it, knowing it will take more than twenty minutes to get there. She’ll cry for at least ten; then, even if she records right away, it will be at least an hour before I get the reply. JeeMuh, that’s an age.
With frequent breaks I unpack the crate, checking that all the paints and supplies are intact, before lying down again. Gabor insisted I bring them all with me, rather than printing here, along with the sketch pads and canvases. I can’t even begin to calculate how much it must have cost to do that. It’s absurd.
With a smirk, I realize that’s exactly what Charlie had said when I came home after the emergency meeting at the lab and told him Drew’s plan.
“Is this some sort of joke?” he asked, with Mia on one knee. She was still tiny then.
I sat down, dumping my bag at my feet, exhausted. “That’s exactly what I said. But Drew thinks it could work. Apparently Gabor has done this in the past.”
“What, the king visiting the peasants? Does he disguise himself before he walks among us, trying to find out what we really think of him?”
“You and I both know he doesn’t need to do that.”
Mia belched as loudly as a king after a feast and Charlie cheered. “Good girl!” he said, twisting her round to nestle against his chest. He rubbed her back gently, staring at me. “Do you want to hold her?” he eventually asked.
“I need to get changed first,” I said. “Look, if Drew manages to pull this off, would you be willing?”
“I don’t believe he’ll agree to a dinner party with the peasants. And anyway, even if he did, Drew should host it, not us. I’m not a chef. I’m . . . an enthusiastic amateur. Gabor eats in all the swanky places. Real meat. Real veg. I just . . . I can’t compete. And we can’t afford the ingredients.”
“Drew said she will help.”
“Oh, so she can find the money to fund this but not your job?”
“This is the whole reason she wants to do this! Drew doesn’t want to close the project, but if she can’t persuade Gabor that what we do has value, there’s nothing to be done.”
Charlie shook his head. “A fucking dinner party is not going to change anything.” He repositioned Mia until she was looking over his shoulder so she could see the city lights through the window.
“It has for other people. Everyone knows they nearly pulled the funding on Renata Ghali’s early bioprinting work until he was persuaded personally at a dinner party to continue funding it.”
“Who’s Renata Ghali?”
“The Pathfinder’s best friend. Remember?”
He shrugged. “Sounds like an urban myth to me. And anyway, that must have been . . . what, over thirty years ago! More than that. Drew is full of—” Another wet belch came from Mia and Charlie wrinkled his nose, twisting to look at his shoulder. “Shit. She just threw half of her feed up.” He stood. “Come on, monster. Let’s get us both cleaned up. And Mummy can get changed too,” he added in his singsong baby voice. “And then Mummy can hold you and Daddy can have a rest. Right, Mummy?”
“End immersion,” I say with a sigh.
“No immersion in progress.” My APA flashes up the same message as before and I jolt. I’ve relived that conversation too many times on the way over. I must have been dozing off, confusing the memory with the recording.
An incoming call notification makes the relevant icon pulse. I tap the air in front of me and see Arnolfi’s picture. Shit. I take a deep breath and tap it again.
“Dr. Kubrin, I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“Not at all.”
“I was wondering if you’d be amenable to coming to my office for a chat?”
A chat? How could such a small word hold so much dread?
“Of course. I’m on my way.”
I wash my face, run my fingers through my hair. It’s still too short to need a proper brush. Strange to think that the long locks they cut off for the trip are in a box on Earth. Hair that grew from my head is now on another planet. I roll my eyes at my reflection. Get over yourself, Anna.
The office is easy to find, thanks to the mersives, and knocking on the door makes me feel like I’m in one of the shows, about to be interviewed by Dr. Banks. I glance over my shoulder, feeling as though there should be a cam drone floating there, but there’s nothing behind me except the red Martian concrete.
“Come in.”
The office is just as Spartan as it is on the show. There are five large chairs, three of which have been pushed into the corner along with a low table. One of the walls displays a generic woodland. Arnolfi is standing in the center of the room next to one of the two chairs that have been positioned in front of each other. “Still getting used to all the screens?”
I look away from it, hating that she noticed. “I suppose so.”
She nods. “It’s a safety requirement. If there’s a problem with the connection between a chip and the prince, it means alerts and information can be broadcast throughout the base.”
“The pri
nce?”
She smiles. “The Mars Principia AI. Of course, you wouldn’t know.” She gestures to the chair opposite hers as she sits down. “It’s what we call the base AI. The show scripts don’t call it that.”
I hadn’t even realized the shows were scripted and immediately feel stupid for thinking that Banks could just effortlessly describe a particular project or aspect of life on Mars off the top of his head with perfect delivery.
“Now, how are you settling in? Do you have everything you need? Are you happy with your room?”
“Everything’s fine. Great!” I add with one of my fake smiles. “Everything’s great. Thanks. Thank you. Yes.”
I’m screwing this up and she’s looking at me like they all do. Trying to crack the nut. “I want to apologize for what happened earlier, with Banks.”
“Shouldn’t he be the one doing that?”
She nods. “He will. But I should have seen it coming and handled it better. If you have any more problems with him, let me know.”
I try to remember how she defended me, but sitting here in her office, with her looking at me that way that all therapists do, the distrust overpowers any positive opinion that might have flourished. “Thanks. I will,” I lie. She’s the last person I’ll go to. “So, was there anything else you needed to see me about?”
Arnolfi leans back in her chair. She looks tired. “I reviewed your file.”
The words hang between us. What am I supposed to say? “Okay . . .” I close my mouth, resisting the urge to say any more until I understand her angle. She’s using the age-old technique designed to implicitly pressure me into saying more. I can handle this silence, lady. I can handle silence better than most people.
“I know we’ve only just met, and that this is a very unusual situation, but I’d like to open a . . . candid dialog with you. There were several items of interest in your file that I’d like to discuss with you. They could have an impact on you here.”
“Items of interest?”
She crosses one leg over the other. The trousers she’s wearing look baggy on her. “You don’t like therapists, do you?”
I fold my arms; then I unfold them, so I don’t look like I’m being defensive. Now I don’t know what to do with them. Shit.
Trying so hard to appear friendly and approachable, she spreads her hands, open to me. “I’m a neurophysiologist and I’m a qualified psychiatrist but I don’t practice therapy here. It wouldn’t be appropriate, considering the way we live in close proximity.” What she doesn’t say is that none of the people here need therapy. They’re all perfect, having worked through their demons long before they were signed off to come to Mars. “My primary role is to study the long-term impact on the brain of living in a low-g environment and the interaction between the prince and the human team. My secondary role is to ensure that the inhabitants of this base are in peak mental health. That’s it.”
I raise an eyebrow. “But you’re the first point of contact should any problems be flagged up.”
“Along with Dr. Elvan, yes. But what I’m trying to say is that I’m not here to analyze you. I’m . . . a safety net. And there are items in your file which make me think you might need a little help while you’re here, that’s all.”
Mirroring her, I cross my legs too and only then do I notice my arms are folded once more. I want to tell her to piss off. That I hate the fact she’s read the parts of my file that I wouldn’t even show to my husband. But I can’t appear to be antagonistic. I have to try to make this work. She’s just doing her job. “Thanks. I’ll bear that in mind.”
There’s a long pause as she looks at me. She’s trying to work out another way in. She probably thought that if she mentioned these “items of interest,” I’d bring one up voluntarily. I do all I can to appear calm.
“I understand there were some logistical issues which meant you had to travel alone,” Arnolfi says.
“Mr. Gabor was very keen that I come as soon as possible. He didn’t want to wait for the next crew exchange, even though it meant the trip took longer.”
“I understand there were some complaints lodged by the Noropean gov-corp?”
“I think I became a bit of a political football for a couple of days, that’s all. I’m an employee of GaborCorp and my contract supersedes that of my residency in England. Gabor’s lawyers reminded them of that soon enough.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have recommended it. That was a long time to be alone and it’s perfectly natural that you depended on mersives to get you through it. And because of the extraordinary amount of time spent in full immersion, you may experience some side effects. You’re at high risk of immersion psychosis too. Don’t be afraid to come to me if you have any problems.”
“What are the symptoms?” I don’t want her to think I know them already.
“Early signs are dissociation, loss of concentration and questioning whether you are still immersed. Of course, you’ve never been here before, so it’s less likely to manifest as severely as it could if you’d been immersed in recordings made in your current environment, but you must have trained with mersives of this place?” At my nod, she continues. “The sense of familiarity with the base may well complicate your adjustment period. You may well experience lots of déjà vu and moments of confusion about having done something here before, but that’s perfectly natural. It might be a good idea to keep track of them with your APA so we can review them together if you have any concerns.”
Don’t trust Arnolfi. The note hasn’t been far from my thoughts since I saw the damn thing, but now I can’t stop thinking about it. “Good idea,” I say. “Thanks for looking out for me. I’m sure I’ll be fine. I’m keen to get out there and start work, so I’m going to go to the gym now and get my baseline fitness measured.”
She holds up a hand. “There’s no rush, Dr. Kubrin. May I call you Anna?”
I nod, sinking back in my chair.
“There are numerous risk factors that I’m sure you’re aware of, regarding your stay here. The circumstances are . . . very unusual. Integrating you with the team is a top priority, so we can avoid a repeat of that outburst from Banks earlier. Would you be amenable to sharing some of your art and discussing your plans with the team over dinner? We try to eat one meal a day together communally. I think it would be a good opportunity.”
“Yes, all right. I can do that.” Right now, I’ll agree to anything. I want to end this conversation before she—
“And with regards to your father . . .”
Fuck. Too late. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
“But—”
“I don’t see how it’s relevant. And this isn’t a therapy session. Why dredge up—” I stop myself to draw in a deep breath. “Am I obligated to discuss it with you?”
That stare again. I want to put her through that screen. “No,” she says finally. “One last thing, before you go. I review all of the MyPhys data for the team on a daily basis as part of my work, and any alerts are flagged up to me. Your stress indicators spiked earlier, when you were in your room.”
“That was Banks.”
“No, the one after you calmed down from that. And there have been a couple of others since your arrival. Is there anything you want to discuss?”
I fix the fake smile back in place. “No, thank you. Nothing at all.”
“Well, I’m here if you need me,” she says, voice light, ending on an up note, no doubt to make me feel happy to come back.
I won’t.
4
THE BASELINE FITNESS test is easier than I thought. It seems that trying not to look at the professional conducting the test is a really good motivator. Elvan and I haven’t made eye contact since that weird moment. Perhaps we never will again.
That’s probably for the best.
I have enough time to clean myself up and get changed and then it’s time for d
inner. There’s no kitchen in the base, just food and drink printers in various rooms, and no dining room either. However, the large central-hub room has enough space for everyone to sit around one of the tables that’s been cleared for dinner. While I’m nervous about Banks, I’m actually looking forward to this. It’s been months since I ate in company. Simply seeing everyone gathering around the table with their trays of food makes me feel like I really have arrived.
I watch them as my meal is printed. They’re all so comfortable with one another. There are two conversations running in parallel. One is between Banks and Petranek, talking about the maintenance trip they went on earlier to check on one of the nearby weather stations. The other, between Elvan and Arnolfi, is harder to hear; they’re sitting close together, voices lowered. I worry that they are talking about me, seeing as both of them have been more involved in my arrival, but then I quash that narcissistic impulse. They probably have dozens of things to discuss.
A chair has been set aside for me and everyone breaks their conversations as I arrive.
“What are you having?” Petranek asks, peering at my tray. “Is that some kind of curry?”
“Beef bourguignon,” I reply.
“With rice?” Banks raises an eyebrow.
With a shrug, I take my place between Petranek and Arnolfi. “I prefer it with rice.”
“Soaks up the sauce.” Petranek nods, grinning. “Though top tip for you: use the printer outside the gym to print meals with a high meat content. It reproduces it better than the one in here.”