Colony One Mars: A SciFi Thriller (Colony Mars Book 1)
Page 17
Its number one priority had always been to ensure the safety of Nills Langthorp, but he was now dead, blown out through the hole in the Research Lab wall. It also assessed that no other human was alive on the surface of Mars, save for ISA crew member Dr. Jann Malbec, whose life was fading fast. But, it was precedence that tipped the balance for Gizmo. Nills had saved her life before, back when the demented commander tried to kill her in the Medlab. So this must have been a priority for Nills and therefore, by extension, for Gizmo. The final decider was its analysis that it had a 54.8% probability of saving her life. All this, its silicon mind calculated, in a fraction of a microsecond.
Gizmo made its way to a functioning airlock and exited out onto the planet surface. Its tracked wheels enabled it to race across the dusty terrain at great speed. By the time it found her and lifted her up she was just losing consciousness. Gizmo finally got her back through the airlock just as the EVA suit shutdown.
It took the little robot several attempts to resuscitate her on the Medlab operating table, but on the fourth attempt Jann’s body responded and she sucked in a long gulp of air. She was still unconscious while Gizmo tended to her broken bones, and it was several hours later before she opened her eyes, looked around, and spoke.
“Gizmo, how did I get here?”
“I brought you here.”
“I thought I died.”
“Well, technically you did, I rebooted you.”
She looked at the quirky machine for a moment. “Thank you Gizmo.”
“Don’t mention it, the pleasure is all mine.”
But that was a long time ago now and many months had passed. The colony’s systems now hummed and sung with optimal perfection and the bio-dome had regained much of its lush verdant abundance. Yet, it was different. A new wildness had taken over. More tropical forest than kitchen garden. Gizmo whizzed through the connecting tunnel and into the bio-dome. It zipped along the racks of hydroponics until it came to the edge of the forest area near the centre of the vast dome. It slowed down so as not to cause damage to the velvety carpet that was the forest floor, a thick matting of mosses and grasses. It was a product of diligent bio-engineering, hard graft and time. It moved through the worn gap in the tall overgrown vegetation and out onto the central dais. The pond shimmered and the splash from the tall rock waterfall prismed the morning light into a myriad of twinkling colours.
Standing at the base of the waterfall, Dr. Jann Malbec held her head back as she washed her hair in the gently falling cascade. Gizmo watched from the edge of the pond and waited patiently. She stepped out, shook the excess water from her hair and waded across the pond, carp scattering as she went. She spotted Gizmo.
“Ah… good morning.”
“Good morning Jann, I trust you had a good sleep.”
“I did, Gizmo, thank you.”
“I have brought you some breakfast, it’s the last of the coffee I’m afraid.”
“Not to worry, I think there is some still left in the HAB. Next time we’re outside we can bring back the remaining supplies.” She bit into some toast and sipped her coffee -- she was naked. Over the last few months Jann had found herself with little reason to get dressed. With no humans for more than 140 million miles there are a lot of things that don’t seem so important anymore. Putting on clothes was one of them.
It took only four weeks for her bones to heal enough for her to use her arm again. A remarkably speedy recovery. During that time she had learnt as much as she could from Gizmo on the state of the colony after the Research Lab explosion. Between them, they nursed it back to health and sustainability. It was another few weeks more before she finally ventured out on the surface again and made her way to the HAB. She found the COM communications unit and realised the extent of the first officer’s deceit. They brought it back to Colony One, along with the satellite unit, and Gizmo reconfigured it to function for ISA transmission protocols. So, it was over two months before Jann sent a long report back to mission control.
It had been assumed on Earth that the colony was destroyed and all crew lost. With no communication all they had to go on was the satellite data. It showed images of the destruction at the colony and also the catastrophic loss of the fuel plant. The MAV was still intact, but with no fuel to power it, it was useless. Jann was stuck on Mars, there was no way to return to Earth, unless a new fuel manufacturing plant could be built and new canisters fashioned. Mission control sent her detailed plans on how to do this with materials available in the colony, but she was not great at engineering and, in truth, she was in no hurry to return. The next launch window was not for another one and a half years. She was also beginning to fall under the same spell that Nills had talked about, and as the weeks went by she became more and more at one — with Colony One.
She replaced the hammock that Nills had used with a low futon and curled up on it at night, looking out through the dome at the infinite universe. During these nights she began to gain a deeper understanding of what it meant to be human. It was a kind of feral reawakening. A sense of wild abandon bubbled up inside her and she began to understand how Nills must have felt. And, like him, she realised the critical importance of Gizmo for maintaining her sanity. The human mind was a fragile thing kept in balance only by the company of others. We are social animals, we feel safe in the herd, and desire its acceptance. Alone, the human mind wanders with no clear purpose, nothing to keep it in balance.
“Will you be requiring clothing today, Jann?”
Jann thought about this a moment. Clothing did have one big advantage in the colony — pockets. Her daily dressing considerations had effectively been reduced to whether pockets would be useful in performing whatever tasks she had assigned for herself that day.
“Or would you prefer more time to think about it?”
“Yes, there’s no rush, we can decide later.” She sipped her coffee and sat down on a low chair to dry her hair.
“Tell me Gizmo, do you miss Nills?”
“Alas, poor Nills, I knew him well. A man of infinite jest.”
“That sounds like Shakespeare.”
“That’s because it is. From Hamlet.”
Jann laughed and sipped her coffee. “You have no concept of death Gizmo, do you?”
“I understand it is reality for living entities. I understand that Nills no longer exists.”
Jann put the towel down and lay back on the recliner like she was sunning herself by the pool. “That’s not strictly speaking true.”
“You mean he’s still alive?”
“In a sense.”
“Explain, I hate to admit it, but I’m confused.”
“Remember when we checked the MAV and we found one of the analogues from the bio-rack in the Research Lab. Annis was trying to return to Earth with it.”
“I do, curious that.”
“Well here’s the thing, I finally managed to cross reference it with data I had gleaned from the lab IT systems before it was destroyed, and guess what?”
“It’s Nills.”
“Correct. So in a sense, part of him still exists. Even if it is just a facsimile.”
“The plot thickens.”
“Indeed it does, Gizmo. For one, why did COM want Annis to bring this back to Earth? And second, what was it about Nills that was so special?”
“Again, I have to admit I have no answer.”
Jann sat up on the recliner and looked directly at Gizmo. “Did you ever notice any physiological changes in Nills over the time you were together?”
“Sure. Beard, no beard. Clothed, naked. Clean, not clean. There were many.”
“No, I mean more subtle than that.”
“Now that you mention it, I did notice that my recognition algorithm was losing accuracy by approximately 12.34% per year. This I attributed to ageing and compensated for it accordingly.”
“Well, as always Gizmo, you are correct. But he was not getting older. No, he was getting younger.”
“My understanding is that is not
possible.”
“It’s not probable. But, in this instance it would seem that it is indeed possible.”
“Holy cow.”
Jann laughed at the little robot and stood up.
“So what happens now, Jann?”
“What do you think?”
The little robot paused for a beat and then replied. “They will come for it. If they wanted it that badly, they will return here to get it.”
“My thinking exactly. But that can’t be for at least another year and a half.”
“So we have some time.”
“We do. And time that I need to find out exactly what was going on here. My guess is that COM were on the cusp of some major genetic breakthrough. They may have even achieved it. But all was lost when the sandstorm hit and the infection broke out. I intend to find out what it was that they were doing.”
“Is that possible with the Research Lab destroyed?”
“Doubtful. That’s why I think we will need to investigate the mine at some point. I would really like to know what was going on over there.”
“When do we start?”
“Oh… there’s no rush, Gizmo. Time enough for that.” She looked around at the vast bio-dome. “Anyway, I don’t really want to leave. I’m beginning to like it here too much.”
THE END
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