He couldn’t quite tell what he was looking at until he shifted angles.In the middle of the clearing it appeared the natives had built several tall, narrow mounds of refuse. But as he moved sideways the constructions became clear: eight or nine giant hands rising out of these fields of destruction.
Tom and Franklin approached as closely as they dared. It was obvious that whatever held these sculptures together was nothing more than a complex interlocking and placement of parts. They were meant to be temporary, and might dissolve at any moment into the rubble field they’d come from.
“Look at the way the palms are curved,” Tom said. “There’s no tension in them – no matter how tightly they were put together, those palms are relaxed, ready to accept whatever might fall into them. These aren’t the desperate hands of someone needing rescue, or begging. They’re just hands that have been raised, hands that are showing themselves.”
“Do they make you feel guilty?” Franklin asked nervously. “These hands make me feel guilty. Not so much for surviving – these people survived. But for missing the worst of it. I don’t know what to do about that.”
Tom nodded. “I think you just do your work, continue to piece things back together. Sometimes the best thing is just doing the only thing that’s left.”
Franklin was silent for quite some time, then said, “They told me Audrey had lived a very long time. They said that most of the ones who come here to explore what’s been left of us were at the very end of those long lives. They won’t be seeing their homes again, Tom. They’re spending their final days with us.”
The companion had not taken him out to the St. Louis fields in several weeks. Tom was glad to be able to catch up on his research, his endless cataloging, but he was worried.
The companion had been standing beside himfor days, as if unable to leave his side. Had he moved at all?When he could detect even the slightest of movements he would return to his labor, satisfied. There was increased transparency in the leaves, the filaments, even the mechanical threads, even in that chandelier-looking device whose function Tom had never determined. The companion had remained silent. Even a “cannot translate” would have been welcomed.
The transparent tips of the leaves were frayed, and their ragged failure seemed like movement, but Tom doubted it really was. They looked like jewelry in the hazy bright light of the lab.
Tom propped the blue doorup against the lab wall to get a good view of it. The companion would be able to see it also, if the companion was seeing anything now. Then Tom began to speak, adding to the hundreds of hours of testimony he’d already made.
“My father believed every human being deserved two things – meaningful work and a home to live in or come back to when the world felt unsafe. My mother tended to agree but her practical nature told her that not everyone got what they deserved, and when survival was at stake self-fulfillment was a luxury.
“The fact that they never managed to own their own home caused my father great shame. He was a smart man but not formally educated. He read in libraries and watched educational shows and devoured the newspaper.
“He worked a lot of jobs and some were more interesting than others but he never found one that brought him joy. Mother always said his standards were too high and there wasn’t a job invented that would make him happy.
“But he was determined that one day we would have a house of our own and toward that end he found what he thought was the perfect front door. On a demolition job he discovered this thick door with carved panels and an elaborate brass doorknob. He took it home to our little rented duplex, leaned it against the wall and announced to the family that we were going to have a great house someday and that this would be the front door.
“The next morning he replaced the door to the duplex with this new one. It didn’t quite fit and he had to trim it and make some adjustments to the frame. He had an extra key made and gave it to the owner because, of course, it was actually his house. The owner wasn’t very happy but my dad could be pretty charming.
“From then on, wherever we moved my father carried that door. Sometimes he had to cut it to fit a smaller opening and sometimes he had to add lumber to one end to widen it or make it taller. After a few years with all those alterations it didn’t look so elegant, but it was still strong, and it was our door. I’m sure we were evicted more than once because of it, but he was stubborn. I think the uglier it became, the more he liked it.
“Dad used to tell me stories about early civilizations, about the night watch, and how people would lock themselves in at night behind a good door to protect themselves from wild animals and thieves. I think those stories are one reason I became a history teacher. He said the world wasn’t like that anymore, that you didn’t have to be so afraid. But by the time I was an adult it was obvious those times of the nightly lock in had come again.
“My father desperately wanted to make his mark but didn’t know how. He said we should leave behind more than a few scattered bones in a field, that we all deserved better. He thought you should feel that your limited time here mattered. That you had opened doors.
“For me the worst thing about those last few years of my old life was that mattering didn’t seem possible anymore. It appeared to be too late to make a difference. Has that changed? Can you tell me that?”
For a long time Tom waited there by that beautiful, unknowable alien thing. The answer finally came, faintly, as if across some vast distance.
Cannot translate.
HOW WE CAME BACK FROM MARS(A STORY THAT CANNOT BE TOLD)
IAN WATSON
Ian Watson has more than 40 published books to his credit, the most recent being The Beloved of My Beloved, transgressively funny stories in collaboration with Italian surrealist Roberto Quaglia, one tale from which won the BSFA Award for short fiction in 2010, and the erotic satire Orgasmachine, finally published in English after almost 40 years; both from NewCon Press. His Whores of Babylon was a Clarke Award finalist ages ago; its recent reissue led to Russian, Latvian, and Spanish editions. Ian is perhaps best known for writing the screen story for Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence, based on almost a year’s work with Stanley Kubrick.
Our ascent engine had failed, marooning the five of us on Mars. In ten years’ time the Chinese might land on the red planet near our Birdie and diagnose what went wrong.
Neither our own efforts nor suggestions from Earth made any difference. We were stuck. Enough air, food and water with us for ten more days, our safety margin in case something unexpected such as a dust storm delayed our departure. Up in orbit were the bulk of the consumables we’d need for the long journey home.
At no point did we panic. Us Mars astronauts were chosen for our equanimity. Three married men and two married women confined in close proximity for a total mission profile of almost two years needed to have mild personalities. In actuality, for assorted reasons, all five of us were planning to leave our spouses some time after we returned to Earth, but for public relations reasons it was important that us five spacefarers should all be seen as contentedly wedded to spouses back home. A requirement for the mission. Likewise, that we had no children yet, which had narrowed the field of hopefuls. We’d all gone through the ritual of storing sperm or ova.
We could have spun out the food and water, but not the air. So our final day came. We sent our last messages to supposedly loved ones, then the ‘heroic statement’ for public release. This was not scripted by NASA – we really worked on that, together.
Then static disrupted our radio contact. Consequently we couldn’t report that a craft, several times the size of our own lander, floated down beside us. I refuse to use the term ‘flying saucer’ even though that’s appropriate for a fat grey disc without any visible windows or nozzle exits.
Distorted and unnatural sounding, an English-speaking voice broke through the static. I couldn’t say if we were hearing the synthesized speech of a machine intelligence, a program translating the language of some alien, or a human voice di
sguised electronically.
We were invited on board. We’d be returned to Earth alive. This was being done to honour our bravery. A hatch opened from the lower part of the disc, becoming a ribbed ramp. We should board right now, or else our window of opportunity would close. So we had no time to record any message for delayed transmission when the disruption cleared.
In our Mars suits we transferred, our cameras and datapads zipped in the pockets.
The suits bore a close resemblance to those in Kubrick’s 2001 because that was such a good design. A NASA specialist had advised on those.
After mounting the ramp, we found ourselves in an oval chamber, softly lit and windowless, which swiftly pressurised. We took off our helmets and breathed clean warm air.
Five padded couches were around the walls. Evidently belts or harnesses were unnecessary. A toilet opened up, then a shower cubicle, and finally a cupboard containing plastic bottles of water and sandwiches wrapped in clingfilm. Sandwiches!
I opened one and devoured most of it: cheese and ham in a Kaiser roll with some sauerkraut and German-tasting mustard. A bit of the roll I kept, to wrap in the clingfilm and put in a pocket for, well, later analysis by NASA. Where on Earth did ET go shopping for sandwiches?
“We have left Mars,” the voice told us very soon, though we’d felt nothing unusual. “We shall land on Earth in three hours.”
Not even weeks, but hours! How this mocked our seven-month journey to the Red Planet. The technology involved couldn’t be human.
“Who are you?” Juno asked.
“What are you?” asked Chuck.
“That is not for you to know,” was the answer. And it never was for us to know; it never was.
We gladly used the facilities. No sense of motion accompanied our journey, yet after a while I began to feel heavier. So did we all. Our weight was increasing from Martian towards terrestrial, to adapt us somewhat. From time to time we tried to engage our invisible rescuer in conversation.
That is not for you to know.
Finally the voice said, “Put on your helmets again to contain any contamination.”
I’d almost forgotten about the ten days of mandatory isolation scheduled for us after our return to Earth. We rose, feeling heavy. Obediently we refitted our helmets. Why did the voice remind us about the quarantine aspect? Ah, this implied we’d be landing somewhere close to a NASA facility; and also ensured that we’d look fully like proper astronauts, newly returned…
Presently the ramp opened in the wall and sunlight flooded in brightly. For a few dazzled moments the scenery looked like Mars, except that hereabouts sparse vegetation was growing in the dirty-looking desert. And the sun was bigger. Were we in Arizona? Nevada? New Mexico? Texas?
“You will leave now.”
“Thank you so much for saving us,” said Juno. “God bless you.” The rest of us chorused our gratitude.
Rutted hills of dirt. The height of the sun suggested early to mid morning – unless the time was mid to late afternoon, but an instinct said morning. We all had about two hours of EVA air left in our suits.
I completely understood that a ‘flying saucer’ mightn’t wish to land in full view at Houston or Vandenberg. So: choose a deserted area nearby. From which presumably we could now walk to a nearby highway where someone must drive by soon enough even if no one was paying attention to our suit radio frequency. I presumed the flying saucer had used some sort of stealth.
How would most people react to our heroic last words on Mars being followed a few hours later by us ‘miraculously’ turning up in New Mexico or Arizona? “We were brought back by a flying saucer.” “Oh really?” I was very conscious of this.
We climbed a shallow rise. Some way downhill in the distance were wooden buildings exactly like those of a town in the old Wild West.
Over the suit radio I said, “So we’ve been brought home alive – but to the past? We’ve been saved, yet everybody in our own time will still believe we died on Mars?”
“The past?” echoed Juno, doubtfully.
“If that’s so,” said Jim, “maybe we ought to bury our cameras and datapads deep, so we don’t disturb history. Heck, our suits too.”
“Using what to dig?” asked Chuck. “Our helmets?”
“Then we walk into town out of the blue in our underwear?” queried Juno. “Hey guys, Indians robbed us. Buddy, can you spare us some blankets? We can’t start a new life that way. I’m not dancing in a saloon. Black Beauty, the Belle of Bonanza, Nevada. What’ll you do for a living, Jim? Shovel horseshit?” The situation was making Juno a bit outspoken, but I saw her point. And to prevent what kind of contamination were we still wearing our helmets, when obviously we would need to take them off fairly soon?
Evidently we’d been spotted, because a cowboy on horseback was heading our way, galloping up the slope.
Boots, white trousers, baggy white shirt, leather vest unbuttoned, red neckerchief. Hanging from his belt, a six-gun in a holster. A pocked moon of a face, long greasy-looking black hair. He reined in, gaping at us. Then he addressed us in throaty Spanish, which I understood -ish. Immediately I snapped back from the Wild West to the present day, and opened my visor. Quarantine could go hang. Hot air wafted in.
I told the others: “He just asked Who we with? He doesn’t know of a Sci-Fi commercial shooting. Do you speak English?” I asked the presumed Mexican.
“I speak, Señor. Classes. Yeah.”
“To become a citizen?”
He looked blank, then said, “I am Pablo.”
“Where are we, Pablo?”
“Lost in desierto? Hey, you seem how those guys on Mars! Great costume!”
“We are those guys,” said Jim. “We’ve been brought back.”
“Where are we exactly?” I asked again.
“Here is Texas Hollywood.”
“Hollywood isn’t in Texas,” protested Juno.
“Texas Hollywood Spain,” said Pablo to our black co-astronaut. “Is near Almería.”
That rang a bell. “Where they made the spaghetti westerns?”
“Many commercials now. Here and Mini Hollywood and Fort Bravo. Amigos, you need drink. You tell,” with a boisterous laugh, “why you look Mars!”
This was all bad news. The spacecraft had put us down right by a movie set. Capricorn One, anyone? This could not be a coincidence.
In that movie, instead of blasting off for Mars three astronauts are suddenly whisked away to a desert base where their journey and their explorations will be simulated. That’s because at the last moment the life-support system on their ship is found to be faulty. For reasons of national prestige, the mission must still be seen to go ahead. Two years later, the returning empty re-entry module – supposedly with the astronauts on board – burns up in Earth’s atmosphere, posing a big problem. What’s to be done with the astronauts who are actually alive in that desert base?
We weren’t in America, where our return could perhaps be hushed up – along with new identities for us similar to the witness protection program, so that we could disappear to avoid major national embarrassment. But also where we couldn’t be snuffed out and buried in unmarked graves. Had our alien rescuer been aware of that aspect? Did his ‘people’ watch Sci-Fi movies? Maybe, if they bought German deli-style sandwiches.
As Pablo led us down the gritty slope, I said quietly, “Guys, we’d better be careful what we tell people.”
We entered the Wild West town by way of its picket-fenced cemetery, low wooden crosses askew. Nearby on a raised platform stood a gallows, a stool waiting underneath a dangling noose. Several Hispanic cowboys who were feeding horses stared as Pablo led us along the sandy main street. We passed a bank built of adobe, then the red brick and barred windows of a Sheriff’s Office. Opposite, a clapboard-sided barber’s and an undertaker’s, so said the weathered signs.
Just then the undertaker’s door opened and out stepped a tubby man sporting a Stetson and sunglasses, camera slung round his neck, accompanied by
a tubby woman in a long pink-striped dress and baseball cap. The man promptly began taking photos of us while the woman called back inside, “May, will you come and see this!” A moment later May appeared, cameraphone in hand, visibly the woman’s sister.
The undertaker’s must be a mini-hotel where tourists could stay Western-style, authentically as it were. Other buildings along the street might be likewise.
Led by Pablo, we tramped through batwing doors into a big saloon in our Kubricky spacesuits. What looked like an unkempt outlaw in a long duster coat lounged against the bar, cradling a rifle, his blond hair long and tangled. Beside a stage a quartet of young women dressed as cancan dancers were chatting and giggling. The outlaw glared at us menacingly, acting in character I supposed. The cancan girls advanced on us, as though they were the local talent bent on relieving Jim, Chuck and me of our hard-earned silver dollars. Stairs led up to a balcony running around three sides of the saloon. Could it be, when the saloon got into full swing, that a cancan girl might take a guest up to a private room? No: two kids kitted out as junior cowboys came romping downstairs, firing blanks at each other, before gawping at us. Family entertainment here.
We took off our helmets and placed those in a row on the bar as if we were bikers, almost.
“You want drinks?” asked the thin-faced barman in English, an unlit cheroot in his mouth, silver armbands on his shirt sleeves like a croupier.
“I’m sorry,” said Juno, “but we don’t have any money.”
Pablo laughed. “They not take dollars to Mars. Drinks for them obsequio de la casa. On the house.”
“We’d better have Coca Colas,” Juno said.
“Me, I’m for a beer,” Chuck said.
“Count me in,” agreed Jim.
“But it’s only morning,” I pointed out, as mission commander. “And it’ll be your first alcohol in over a year. Surely it’s wiser to stick to Coke or juice.”
Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction Page 22