Lost in the Red Hills of Mars

by Jackie Hunter

  “Hey, earlier, when you made those animals calm—how’d you do it?” Alex called out as Celine marched ahead.

  “I didn’t do anything!” Celine called back, continuing ahead. “Oh, Dad,” she whimpered. “Where are you? Please give us some sign.”

  Celine and Alex continued their journey westward. When they reached their old campsite, Celine could see the remnants of heat signatures from Morg’s men.

  “They’ve been here,” she said.

  “What do you mean? Who’s been here?”

  “Morg’s crew.”

  “How do you know that? I don’t see anything.”

  Celine studied the area carefully to find something tangible that Alex could see. She saw a heel print that was made from a boot, larger than hers and Alex’s.

  “Do you see that huge heel print? There.” She pointed to the print next to Alex’s foot. “You’re almost standing on it.”

  Alex crouched down to study the number in the center of the heel print.

  “Size twelve. You’re right. This wasn’t here before.” Still crouching, Alex surveyed the area. “Where are they?”

  “They’re gone. Probably have been for hours,” she said as she pretended to examine the heel print for clues.

  “Well, let’s get out of here before they come back.” Alex said. “I want those coordinates. I need those coordinates. And I’m not letting Morg or his men get in my way.” He placed his right hand on the ray gun hanging from its clip.

  “You wouldn’t dare shoot them,” she scoffed.

  Alex looked down at his ray gun.

  Celine could see a muddy red hue, almost brown, surrounding his body. She quickly looked away. “Or maybe you would…”

  “Let’s go, Martian Girl,” Alex said as he took a few steps and looked back to see if Celine was following.

  “Right behind you, Water Boy. Watch where you’re walking. I wouldn’t want you to step on one of those furry critters. It might spit and burn a hole in your boots.”

  “That’s not funny.” He stopped to study the terrain.

  Celine caught up and walked past him. “Follow me, Water Boy.”

  “Gladly. Keep in mind I made the fat one screech,” he chuckled. “That’ll teach those Martian rats.”

  Celine changed the subject.

  “Look at that,” she said. She pointed to kilometers of rippled terrain.

  “That’s going to be difficult to navigate.”

  “I know. And my feet are already tied.”

  They hiked over rocky soil and stopped to rest next to boulders, keeping themselves out of sight from any perceived dangers. After taking a sip of water from the water bottle, they continued their trek toward the rugged terrain.

  “Hey, careful,” Alex called out. “It’s pretty uneven up here. You could easily twist an ankle. This whole area looks like it could have been underwater at one point.”

  “How can you tell?” Celine didn’t see anything unusual about the land.

  “Look at these grooves. See how they’re all carved in the same direction.”

  “Yes…” She tilted her head.

  “It’s like a dead river bed,” Alex said with authority.

  “Hey, look over there. The hills!” Celine waved her arms over her head as if she were doing a victory dance. She could see shadowy brown openings leading into the hills.

  “Do you see that?” she asked. She pointed toward the hills. “Those dark brown shadowy areas.”

  Alex took out his binoculars and looked in the direction Celine had pointed.

  “Might be caves,” she said.

  “I think you’re right,” he replied. “You can see that far away?”

  “Well, um…Lucky guess.”

  “Amazing.” Alex continued to study the area through his binoculars.

  “Do you see that crater?” he asked.

  Celine reached for Alex’s binoculars even though she didn’t need them.

  “It’s like Enisi said—red hills next to a crater. It’s enormous.”

  “We can either go around it to get to those hills, or we can cross it. It’s about ten kilometers across.”

  Celine listened patiently.

  “If we go around the crater,” Alex continued, “it will take us nearly two days to reach the hills, but probably seven hours if we cross it.”

  “Well, that settles it. Let’s go across the crater.”

  “Let me finish, Celine. If we were to go across the crater, we’d have to do some serious climbing. Are you ready for that?”

  “Sure, I can do it.”

  “It will be dangerous. Looks like a thousand-meter vertical drop.”

  Celine swallowed. “Have you ever done a descent that deep?” she asked.

  “A few times. But this is Mars, and Mars is full of surprises.”

  “Well, I trust you, Alex. We can do it…together.”

  “OK. Let’s rock and roll.”

  “Huh?”

  The teens continued their trek. They walked over hard rocks and around boulders, moving upward to the edge of the crater. When they arrived, Alex slipped off his backpack. Celine eased toward the edge and looked down. Then she looked across to the other side of the crater, where she and Alex needed to go.

  “Magnificent. It’s really beautiful, but scary.”

  “Now is not the time to be scared.” Alex had already taken out his harness and was stepping into it.

  “It seems so different than the hills we practiced on.”

  “Yep. Take off your backpack and get out your gear.”

  Celine bit her lip, then took a deep breath. “You’re right. No time to be scared now.”

  Celine eased off her backpack, took out her harness, and stepped into it.

  “Make sure it’s tight. Wouldn’t want you to—” Alex stopped himself.

  “Wouldn’t want you to fall through. I know.” Celine finished his sentence for him. Once they were both secured in their harnesses, Celine sat on the ridge while Alex hammered in an anchor.

  “There are no ledges.”

  “That won’t be a problem. We’ll just lean back on the rope when we need a rest. I doubt if we will need to rest.”

  He attached the anchored cord to his and her belaying plates, along with a shock absorber, in case one of them fell.

  Celine looked up to the coral-colored sky and began to pray:

  Wakan Tanka, Great Mystery,

  teach me how to trust

  my heart,

  my mind,

  my intuition,

  my inner knowing,

  the senses of my body,

  the blessings of my spirit.

  Teach me to trust these things

  so that I may enter my Sacred Space

  and love beyond my fear,

  and thus Walk in Balance

  with the passing of each glorious Sun.

  This was a prayer her Enisi had taught her to calm her spirit. After her prayer, Celine thought about the training Alex had given her at the Compound. She remembered how Alex would press his feet into the side of a hill and lean back to test his weight against the anchor’s support before pushing off. He would take small hops back to a ledge and then wait for her. But she did not see any ledges, not even a plant—only the rippled rocky sides of the cliff’s wall.

  Alex had been waiting quietly for Celine as she prayed. “Celine, are you ready?”

  “Yes.” Although her lips trembled as she spoke, she held her chin up.

  “I’ll go down first. I’ll descend about seven meters, and you’ll follow. We’ll do it just like we practiced. You can rest on the crater’s wall by pressing your feet against it and leaning back on the harness. Got it?”

  “OK. Let’s do it.”

  Celine watched Alex as he hopped backward over the cliff. After descending about seven meters down, he waved to her to start her descent. She was nervous; her heart pounded loudly. Wall climbing was one of her favorite sports, and Alex had taught her to mountain cli
mb. This vertical drop, however, was nothing like what she had practiced on at the Compound. Not to mention that if things went wrong at the Compound, she merely had to say: “End program.”

  She eased over the wall and took her first jump backward. As the rope tensed, she steadied herself and pressed her feet against the wall. OK, one down and hundreds to go. Over and over, she pushed off and hopped back until she was dangling next to Alex.

  Each time she joined him, he would hammer another anchor into the wall of the crater. It seemed as though he was always ready to push off and descend another seven meters the moment she stationed herself.

  Everything was going swimmingly. They were ten meters from the bottom when Celine jumped from the belaying station. She felt her rope twist and tangle around her boot. She heard a loud pop and saw her anchor fling past her. She was jerked hard and began falling, slamming several times into the crater wall. For a moment she felt like gravity had no hold on her. She felt like she was floating instead of falling, but the fact of the matter was that she was free-falling, and all she could see was the bottom of the crater coming toward her unbelievably fast.

  Then she felt an abrupt jerk and found herself dangling and sweating profusely, her heart racing faster than ever before. She could hear Alex calling down to her, asking if she was OK. She couldn’t say a word. She wanted to scream but was too exhausted to even whimper.

  Alex was next to her in a matter of minutes. “How are you, Martian Girl?”

  “OK,” she whispered. “You won’t cut me loose. Will you?”

  “Shut up!”

  She took notice of her body. “I think I scraped my knee, and my feet hurt, but everything else is OK. I’ll be fine. I’ll put some cream on it tonight.” She remembered the small container of stem cream she had placed in her backpack before the fire at the Compound.

  “From here on down, I’ll need you to descend first. Do you think you can do that?”

  “I guess I have to,” she said.

  “I am going to hold your dead rope and ease you down slowly. You can use your hands and your feet to push away from the wall—but no hopping. Can you do it?” he asked firmly.

  “Yes, I can do it.”

  Alex retied her cord into a figure eight through her belaying plate. He rechecked her harness by pulling on it. “Ready?” he asked.

  “Yes, I’m ready,” she confirmed with a surprising burst of energy. Though she had no idea where this energy was coming from, she was grateful.

  “I need you to lean back and start taking small steps backward. No hops.

  You’re going to walk this baby down. Got it? Don’t look back. Keep your eyes on me. That ought to be easy enough.” He smiled, but his eyes could not hide his concern.

  Celine looked at him as she slowly walked backward. He had never looked more handsome. He began feeding her more of the rope.

  After what felt like an eternity, Alex said, “Look back, Celine.”

  She didn’t want to look back, but she turned her head to find she was a mere two meters from the bottom of the crater. She continued her slow descent until her feet touched the ground.

  She slid down into a seated position and leaned back against the crater wall.

  Alex started his descent. Within a few moments, he was standing beside her.

  “You’re sure you’re OK? No broken bones?”

  “No, I just banged my knee. I’ll look at it tonight once we’ve camped.”

  “Get up. Let me see you walk,” he commanded.

  Celine got up, took a few steps, and began running toward the other side of the crater. She had fallen from the side of a cliff and survived. She was exhilarated.

  Alex ran after her. “You Martian fool!” he shouted jokingly. “Wait for me.”

  Hours later they arrived on the other side of the crater’s floor. The other side of the canyon was almost level: smooth like an asteroid had slid across its landscape, leaving sloping ridges for a manageable climb.

  “It looks like an easy climb, but I don’t think we could reach the top before nightfall,” said Alex.

  “And my knee really hurts.” Celine limped. All of sudden, she whipped her head back toward a humming noise.

  “The drone!” they said in unison.

  “How did it find us?” Alex said, perplexed.

  “My armband!” Celine shouted. She patted her arm for her band. It was twisted and nearly wrapped around her elbow. She fumbled with the arm of her suit and finally eased the band up her arm and over her forearm, successfully covering her signature chip. But the drone continued to hover above them. It relayed their coordinates back to the Compound where Stan manned the search computer. He sent the coordinates to Morg, hastily deleted them, and continued his interrupted exercise program.

  Alex unzipped his backpack and began searching for his ray gun.

  “It’s in the side pocket!” Celine shouted.

  Alex reached into the side pocket of his pack, pulled out his ray gun, and began firing at the drone. He hit one of its wings, and it dove to the ground and landed.

  “It’s too late. They know where we are.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Inflamed Clouds

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  “Can’t we set camp on the other side of the canyon?” Celine rubbed her gloved hands together.

  “Celine, we won’t have enough time to find a new campsite. It’s not like we can set this tent anywhere.” Alex scanned the area.

  “I know that, but Morg has our coordinates now.”

  “We need flat level land, or the tent won’t seal properly…Here.” Alex pointed to the level land next to the sloping wall. “Next to this wall is perfect. Besides, look at those clouds.”

  Celine looked over her shoulder at the darkening red sky and inflamed clouds that surrounded glowing balls of light.

  “Lightning,” she said, woefully.

  A ball of light was discharged and followed by a sound reminiscent of something scratching the surface of a supersize balloon—but amplified a hundred times.

  “Well, that settles it. We will have to stay put. We’ll leave at sunrise…if the storm is gone.”

  Celine was not going to argue with that. Even on Mars, lightning was something to take seriously.

  “Sunrise it is,” she said. She unfastened her backpack.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  That night, Celine watched the balls of light discharged in the distance. How can Alex sleep through this noise?

  She took her flute from her backpack. Thank goodness it wasn’t damaged. She pressed it to her lips and began playing. She missed Uji peering over her shoulder and swaying to the music. And she missed her mom and wondered if she and Hannah were OK.

  “What are you playing? It’s beautiful.” Alex rolled over to face her and listen to the music.

  Celine continued to play. The storm moved further away, and she could hear a little scratching in the distance. She doubted Alex could hear it at all.

  “My father taught me. I don’t know what it’s called. Maybe his father taught him.”

  “He means a lot to you…your father?”

  “He’s my world.” Celine became silent. “He’s the smartest person I know.”

  “My father wants me to run the family’s business.” Alex smirked.

  “You say it like there’s something wrong with that.”

  “I like what I do. I have the most popular show in the world. I’m a natural at acting.”

  “So I’ve noticed. Can’t you do both?”

  “Not to his standards.” Alex shifted his position and looked out at the star-filled sky. “The stars appear larger here, even larger than on Earth’s mountains on a cloudless night.”

  Sensing that Alex didn’t want to talk about his relationship with his dad, Celine continued the conversation about the Martian sky. “This is the only sky I know, and I don’t know it very well.”

  Screech! Suddenly, a ball of fire streaked across the sky. Celine jumped. Alex reached for he
r flute. Celine clutched it. “Careful. That’s priceless.”

  “I don’t know why you brought it.” Alex said. He removed his hand from the flute and shook his head. “I don’t understand you, Martian Girl.”

  Celine ignored him and carefully wrapped her flute in its cloth and placed it in the center of her pack. “I brought it out during the fire.” I don’t understand myself. Celine looked up at the quiet sky. “I think the storm’s moved on. I hope it bypasses the Compound.”

  Alex studied the night sky. His knees were bent and cramped.

  “Do you like Mars now?” Celine asked.

  “I haven’t decided. It’s too unpredictable.”

  “Yes, it can be that way, sometimes. So is life.”

  “What could you possibly know about life? You’ve spent your entire life living in a can on Mars.”

  Celine wanted to say, “Don’t talk about my home like that.” She didn’t because she was tired of sparring with Alex.

  “I call it the way I see it.”

  “That’s enough! The problem is you don’t see it. I’ve had a wonderful life, a happy one, until my dad went missing. I want my old life back.”

  Alex’s eyes widened. “Well, if it’s what you want, I hope you get it.”

  Celine smiled. She lay on her back next to Alex. “Thank you,” she said softly.

  Alex continued to observe the night sky. “You’ve got to see Earth.”

  “And Lunar,” Celine said cheerfully to change the solemn mood.

  “You can bypass that. It’s just a step up from Mars.” Alex smiled. “But Earth. There’re hundreds of worlds on Earth. There are the ocean dwellers. And the desert dwellers that live in enclosed cool cities. There’re…” Alex swallowed. “Now you’ve got me homesick.”

  “Tell me more.” Celine clapped her hands together.

  “It’s getting late. I’ll tell you more when we are in the safety of the Compound. We need rest. I’ve got a nagging feeling we’re going to be glad we’ve gotten some.” Alex rolled over on his side. “Good night.”

  “Good night, Alex. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

  “Sleep.”

  Celine turned on to her side to get as comfortable as possible. That night she dreamed of her grandmother. “Listen to your inner voice,” her grandmother said.