Red Desert - Point of No Return

by Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli

  Discouraged, I slipped down to the floor. I was near and so far at the same time.

  The noise of a door and some footsteps made me flinch.

  I didn’t know what to do. If I’d stood up, the person who had just come in would’ve found my behaviour suspicious. Perhaps, if I stayed still, they wouldn’t realise I was there and would go straight to their room.

  What if it was someone from the staff?

  The footsteps stopped. I could almost picture the person in front of the desk. Then there was a ting of a bell. Whoever was there, was a guest. For a second I weighed the possibility of appearing from behind the counter and pretending to be someone from the hotel, but I discarded it right away. My German was terrible and the chance that person was a foreigner was small. But if he had looked over the desk, he would have seen me.

  I sensed him moving, uncertain of what to do. Finally, he resumed walking. I heard him going to the stairs. Overwhelmed by curiosity, I peeped out to watch him from behind. He wasn’t really tall, but a robust, grey-haired man.

  “Omar!” a woman’s voice called from the other side of the lobby. I hadn’t heard her come in.

  I felt paralysed. I should pull back into my hiding place, but I had to see the face of that man. He turned a moment later, to reply to the woman. He was speaking a language I didn’t understand. When I saw his face my heart skipped a beat.

  The woman said something else, and then she seemed to go back to where she came from, because I couldn’t hear her anymore. Omar resumed walking up the stairs. I waited until he passed the first flight and then followed him. I was moving like a cat, trying to make the sound of his steps cover mine. He was walking along the corridor. I looked round the corner to see to which room he was going into. He stopped before a door and inserted his key. I caught that movement and hid myself, breathless, hoping he hadn’t seen me. After a brief hesitation, I heard the door opening, his steps as he entered the room and, at last, the door closing.

  I breathed in silence for some minutes, looking to find the courage for my next move. The woman who was with him, maybe his wife, could come back at any moment. I couldn’t postpone it. I closed my eyes, opened them again, and then stalked towards the door. Once in front of it I hesitated again, holding my hand in mid-air. I could turn back and go away. In a week I was going to leave for the most important journey of my life and I couldn’t believe I was wasting my last days on Earth this way.

  Almost out of my control, my hand knocked on the door. It was late to change my mind now.

  “Leila?” Omar’s voice said from inside.

  I didn’t answer, but the door opened straight away. When he saw me, his smile vanished and he just looked at me with curiosity.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  It hadn’t been easy, but in the end I had felt collected, capable of making decisions about my life and my identity. Then I found myself in the same team as Hassan, who had replaced the surgeon selected for the mission at the last minute, and I knew he would be one of the four people with whom I had to live on another planet. And that shattered my certainties.

  There was the hope that at some point in the future others would join us. And they talked about the possibility, in ten years or so, of a return to Earth, for those of us who desired it. But Dennis’s cancer had given rise to the feeling that the expectations on radiation exposure, during the travel and the stay, had been too optimistic, and that had drastically reduced the odds of a new expedition anytime soon. During the thirty years since the previous Mars mission, which had proved to be a complete failure, no great strides had been made concerning this matter. It had been believed that the problem was solved, without considering that the previous astronauts hadn’t lived long enough to demonstrate it.

  Nothing mattered now.

  When the sun set, during the first day of my journey, and the darkness fell on the planum, I stopped my rover, leaving just the life support on. Travelling in the dark was nonsense. I lay in the back of the vehicle and started watching the stars through the transparent roof. The constellations weren’t different from those on Earth, but their position in the sky was. There was no light pollution here, or big clouds. The atmosphere had a pressure lower than 1% of the terrestrial one. The result was a breathtaking sight. An impressive number of stars was before my eyes, with the Milky Way that cut the sky clean in two like a river.

  I let my imagination fly, which brought me back to Earth, when as a girl I watched the night firmament with the same wonder. In all those years it had never stopped having that effect on me.

  That thought sweetly accompanied me to sleep. It was one of the most peaceful slumbers since my arrival on the Red Planet, maybe because I felt I had achieved all that I always wanted and didn’t demand anything else other than becoming one with those stars.

  “Can you see it?” Robert said, while pointing at a very big star out of a window in the rear module of the Isis. In just a few days Earth had turned from a blue, little ball to a bright point. We would see it like that from now onwards.

  We were hit by a sudden melancholy.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “I already miss it,” Robert commented.

  “I don’t.” There was nothing more for me down there.

  “I have something to show you.” He displayed a conspiratorial look. “But you must promise you won’t tell anybody.”

  Intrigued, I smiled and nodded.

  “Come with me.”

  We went to the middle module, where an artificial gravity, similar to the one of Mars, had been recreated. This assisted our movements and at the same time allowed us to get accustomed to the life and working conditions we’d have to face for the rest of our days. Our quarters were there too. Robert led me to his.

  “What’s on your mind?” I asked, suspicious.

  “Come on, sister, I don’t want to jump you!” He laughed about my attitude, as usual. “Get in.”

  Amused by the situation, I decided to obey. He closed the door behind us.

  “Remember, you promised.”

  “Okay.” I pronounced that word in a singsong voice.

  Robert’s mouth widened into a big smile, he seemed satisfied by my answer. Then, with a circumspect manner, which was totally unnecessary since we were alone, he opened a compartment and took out a seed storage box. What would an aerospace engineer do with such a thing?

  “I’ve brought something which might prove very useful, once planted in the greenhouse on Mars.”

  I glanced at him, puzzled, but avoided commenting.

  He winked, and then with extreme calm he lifted the lid to reveal the interior. There were very peculiar seeds in it. Even if I weren’t a biologist, I would have recognised them with no great effort.

  “You want me to plant marijuana in our greenhouse?!” I was indignant.

  “Don’t shout!” he replied in a low voice, stressing the concept with a hand gesture. “Are you nuts? If Dennis hears you, he will get rid of it.”

  “You’re out of your mind.”

  “Oh God, Anna, don’t play the puritan with me. We have to spend the rest of our lives on a desert planet without hard liquors, basketball matches, and discos. We’ll need some action, won’t we?”

  I shook my head in disapproval.

  “Not to mention the medical uses.”

  What an excuse.

  “Do me this favour, please.” With a theatrical gesture he joined his hands as if begging me.

  As I get closer to the canyon, the details of its configuration become increasingly clear. Its naked beauty, devoid of the grace given by life, fascinates me, leaving me open-mouthed.

  Proceeding at maximum speed, my rover jerks as it hits a boulder. The terrain has become more rugged. I must slow down.

  I move forward with caution, bringing the vehicle close to the cliff. But I avoid reaching its edge. I don’t know about the quality of the rock at that point and I have no idea if it will bear the weight. I stop, while keeping the engine on, to contem
plate the wonder of the natural show that lies before my eyes. Even if it’s thought that water flowed on Mars in the past, which was demonstrated by the presence of dried up river beds scattered across its surface, this canyon system seems to have had a different origin. The fractures, created by seismic phenomena, have been modelled over millions of years by carbon dioxide escaping from underground at high speed, thus eroding them, just like the perpetual motion of water would do.

  I pull out my camera and start taking some pictures. But since I’m fixed in this position, I soon run out of all possible framings. I’m tempted to put the suit on, get out and take a stroll. Then I realise that, since my departure, I haven’t checked my air time yet.

  I switch off the engine. I don’t want to waste energy, other than the necessary one for life support and instrumentation. I free myself from the seatbelt and go to the back of the rover. The suit indicator is at 80% which means I don’t have ten hours, but only eight. It could be worse. If I get out for five minutes to take some pictures, it won’t make much difference.

  Without wasting any more time I prepare, depressurise the vehicle, and step out to take a little stroll.

  The view from my helmet isn’t actually much better than the one from the windshield. A weak wind lifts some dust with each step I take. I’ve already touched that thin sand more than once inside Station Alpha, but now I wonder how it would feel to lay on it under the sun. I check the temperature with the augmented reality with which the helmet is fitted. It projects a set of useful information before my eyes, as if they are part of the surrounding environment. It reads a little more than five degrees Celsius. It’s cold, but not so cold.

  If only the atmosphere wasn’t so rarefied.

  I give up my reveries. They are stealing precious seconds that I should use in a more rational way. Holding my camera, I walk toward the edge of the canyon, capturing many different images.

  I hope the photographs are coming out well. It’s difficult to say from the small display on the back of the device. I’ve never been a great photographer. I can waste even the easiest snapshot. But the light is perfect now that the sun is high. The various layers of rock seem to shine by themselves. It’s almost incredible that so much beauty could be accidental.

  I’m still bewitched by such a view when my foot slips on the terrain. Before I can counteract the loss of balance, I find myself supine; my back hits the breathing device and my head is thrown backwards, bending my neck. My helmet bumps into a stone and the rebounding effect runs all over my body, dazing me. The light becomes more and more intense, forcing me to close my eyes, and I have the impression of hearing remote music, rocking me softly.

  My eyes snap open; I’m breathing heavily. I’m still lying on the ground. The sun is directly over me. I lift my right arm with caution, to check my suit indicators. Everything seems alright. There’s no pressure drop, but I have been reckless. I could have damaged it, and died in excruciating pain.

  I think about Michelle for a moment. She tried to leave the station without her suit. Her body swelled up in the airlock, until her more superficial tissues exploded and spread themselves over the doorway. Her corpse blocked it. We had to use the exit on the other side of the station to move away what had remained of her, which had frozen in the meantime. We tried to clean, but her thickened blood had seeped in everywhere.

  I still cannot believe she decided to kill herself that way. The thought that someone may have pushed her in there and activated the door to kill her hasn’t allowed me to have a decent sleep for many a long night. The fact I’m here now is in most part due to that doubt.

  I try to breathe deeply and calm down. I must have lost consciousness, but only for a couple of minutes. I sit up with caution. My camera is tied to my suit with a lanyard. It seems undamaged. I pick myself up from the ground and head back to the rover.

  No more strolling, for a while.

  Once inside, I get rid of my equipment and I lie back in my seat. I start downloading the photographs, which are immediately displayed on the dashboard screen, and I activate the satellite connection. As I start the upload, a notification appears.

  “Incoming message,” the cold voice of the computer recites.

  At first I think Hassan is trying to contact me again, by using the satellite transmission, but then I read on the windshield augmented reality that it comes from Houston and was recorded five hours earlier. It’s mission control, attempting to persuade me to go back. I’m really curious to hear what they have thought up.

  I turn on the video playback and the virtual screen is filled with a person’s face.

  “Anna … hi. To tell the truth I’m not convinced that asking me to talk to you has been a clever idea. But I’m here now so I must try.”

  In disbelief, I put a hand on my face. “Jan,” I whisper, while watching the image of the only man I have ever loved in all my life.

  I was walking as fast as my high heels and the paving of the old town allowed. I couldn’t believe I was about to be late to one of the most important appointments of my life. To avoid any reliance on public transport and the risk of being stuck in morning traffic, I had taken a hotel close by to be sure I could reach the Grand Place on foot without any hurry.

  A woman, Maggie Moore, who had introduced herself as assistant to Deputy Director Francis from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, had approached me at the end of an exobiology conference organised by ESA in Paris. She asked me, almost casually, if I would like to put my scientific knowledge into practice in the field. “On Mars, for instance,” she had said.

  When I heard the Red Planet mentioned my eyes must’ve sparkled, because without me saying a word that woman had smiled and handed me her business card. On the back she had written a date, a time, and La Chaloupe D’Or, the name of a restaurant that overlooks the Grand Place in Brussels.

  I was making my way through hordes of tourists, trying to ignore my stomach, which reacted with violence every time the scent of hot waffles reached my nostrils. Normally I would eat as soon as I woke, but I’d left my bed too late. Now I was counting on that working breakfast to avoid fainting from hunger, provided that I got there in one piece.

  I felt my coat’s left sleeve hook into something moving in the opposite direction, forcing me to spin round. During that clumsy movement my bag slipped from my shoulder, scattering most of its contents on the ground.

  “Shit!” Dispirited, I looked at the disaster. There was no doubt I would be late now. I bent down to collect the myriad objects, while people continued to move around me without even slowing down.

  “Excuse-moi, mademoiselle, je suis désolé,” a man’s voice said. Its owner squatted down to help me.

  “Don’t bother,” I replied in a huff, while retrieving my compact, which had opened as a consequence of its fall, spreading its powder everywhere. The mirror was broken. “Great, that’s really made my day lucky.”

  “Allow me to help you out,” the man insisted.

  He was speaking English with a weird accent. Even though he had addressed me in French a moment earlier, that didn’t seem to be his mother tongue. His voice intrigued me so much that I raised my head to look at him and was almost blinded. His hair was red and his eyes green. His face, covered by a few days’ growth of beard, was sprinkled with freckles. He wasn’t the most gorgeous man I had ever seen, he didn’t even get anywhere near my aesthetic ideal, yet there was something penetrating in his stare. He emanated a magnetic charm. He was crouched at half a metre from me and, despite the cold and the heavy coat he was wearing, I could swear I picked up the scent of his skin.

  “I do apologise,” I said, while putting the remaining objects into my handbag. “I didn’t want to be rude.” I stood up, embarrassed, and he did the same, then he smiled, amused. I couldn’t help but reciprocate the smile.

  “No worries.” He kept on staring at me. “I was in a hurry, it was my fault.”

  At that moment I realised that I had almost forgotten about my app
ointment.

  “Blast it! I really must go.” There was urgency in my words, but for some reason I wasn’t able to move.

  “So do I,” the man said, indicating with his hand a direction that was opposite to mine.

  I looked at him for some instants more, hoping something would happen to prolong the encounter. I would have liked to ask him to come with me. I didn’t care about NASA or Mars anymore. He opened his mouth and for a moment I thought he was about to speak, but he didn’t.

  “Sorry again,” was all I could say. I waved him goodbye, before turning and walking off.

  Five minutes later I was seated at a table inside the restaurant, alone. I checked my watch nervously. The place was right, and the time was too. The table had been booked on behalf of Moore, but when I’d arrived she wasn’t there. I took the opportunity to pull myself together and rearrange my bag. I had thrown everything into it in a jumble without paying much attention, and now I had a constant feeling that something was missing.

  “Doctor Anna Persson,” I heard someone calling me. A man in his forties came closer to the table and held his hand out to me. “I’m Dennis Francis.”

  I had been expecting to meet Ms Moore; but standing in front of me was the deputy director of one of the most important departments in NASA. He was younger than I thought he would be and now that I saw him I realised his face wasn’t unknown to me. I would have expected that the deputy director would be just a functionary, but that was a real astronaut. He had become famous a decade earlier as the spokesman of the mission for the installation of a permanent base on the edges of Shackleton Crater, at the Moon’s South Pole; the only area of our satellite that remains almost always lit by the sun, without being subjected to extreme thermal excursions.