The Unknown

by Angel Wedge

  The buggy that arrived was larger than most of the ones the camp had at their disposal. It ran on eight wheels, with giant balloon tyres and a deep tread. Between the two wheels on each axle, there was a bunch of chains that could have been a caterpillar track, but around sprockets too small for the tracks to touch the ground. Each wheel seemed to have independent suspension as well, moving up and down to follow the curve of the ground. They bobbed and adjusted without any obvious interaction between the left and right pairs. The unusual layout was probably useful in some way, but there were more important questions to ask today than mere engineering.

  A couple of the camp’s engineers were looking out of their windows, though. One or two were sketching guesses about how the internal mechanisms delivered power to all those wheels while allowing them to move so freely. None of them said anything about a small flag at the rear, blue stars in a red circle. All they cared about was theories, because there’s a certain kind of mind that can’t resist a puzzle, and they were exactly the kind of people who were likely to volunteer for a possibly one-way voyage across the solar system. If rumours and urban myths were to be believed, the group Wallace had put together to build his Mars probe had consisted entirely of that kind of person. Whether that was true was even more of a mystery, and one that Commander Lemuel was planning to investigate. Until recently, he hadn’t even considered that the mission might exist. Some of his crew suspected that he might have known more, and deliberately kept it secret, but in reality he was in the dark as much as any of them. All the more reason to find some answers, so he could at least give the impression of competence when the signal relay to Earth allowed the sponsors to demand a full report.

  When the transport stopped, a door slid open and four figures stepped out. It was hard to say anything more than that, while bulky environment suits covered their bodies. They were modelled after the same design as Boo’s, with no indication of rank, status, or allegiance.

  They stopped at the airlock, and bowed. One of them made a gesture that could only be a salute, one fist laid across his chest. Lemuel nodded to the nearest technician, who tapped the controls to open the door. The airlock was a little crowded with four fully-suited figures inside, but they all seemed content to wait while the Martian atmosphere was replaced be normal-pressure air compatible with human biology. Before the pressure was fully equalised, the visitors seemed to be content with the readings from whatever instruments they had, and started to unsuit.

  It seemed that their space suits were more utilitarian than those issued to the recently arrived colonists in a few ways, as each man could release his own helmet without help, and sizeable portions of the chest and back plates folded automatically to hang below the neck joint. These suits could be easily stored on any convenient hanger, or left freestanding without taking up as much space as the person wearing them, and seemed to take only seconds to get into or out of. They looked like the ones that Earth had used half a century before, but they’d obviously decided to add functions without changing the style. Lemuel immediately realised he hadn’t been there to see their first guest get out of her suit the day before, and that if he’d known, he would probably have asked for the suit’s designs before anything else.

  All four of the visitors were men, and once unsuited they had outfits that seemed to be composed of a tunic and tight trousers. No zippers or buttons, nothing that could snag or get caught. One of them was young, probably in his mid-twenties, and had the build that someone growing up with Earth media would associate with a football player. The other three were older, maybe old enough to have travelled on one of Wallace’s ships if the stories were as neat as their first interview with Boo had led them to believe. All four men had skin slightly darker than the surrounding rocks, in shades ranging from chocolate to caramel.

  “Welcome,” Lemuel bowed deeply, “I am Commander Lemuel, currently in charge of this camp, and this is Major Caldwell and Major Xiu. Can I ask if this is a formal welcoming committee from your leaders? As yet, we have been erecting our camp rather tentatively, worrying that we don’t know if we could be too close to what you consider your territory, or if you could suggest a better site. I’m sure that having two Martian colonies so close together will present both advantages and challenges.”

  “This is indeed a formal delegation,” a balding older man answered, “We wish to get to know our neighbours, and offer to share resources. And before we proceed with the introductions, I should allay any fears you might have about putting all our egos in one basket, if that is your worry. Our city is constructed underground to minimise the atmospheric disturbances, and we already have a system in place to drill new tunnels at high speed for emergency evacuation. Our exit tunnels appear all around the mountain, with the longest coming out three hundred kilometres from the city itself. We’re not the close neighbours you might have imagined, and the entrance you have so far seen was in fact constructed over two rota periods following your arrival, so that we could meet.”

  “That answers one of our questions, at least,” Xiu flashed a smile, and then resumed her meticulous study of the visitors and their clothes. “There have been more than a few theories floating around about how our groups could be so close together.”

  “In any case,” the younger man took initiative to prevent the conversation drifting off at a tangent, “I am Banner, head of the Kells Atmosphere Department. My colleagues are Metzner, Vice-Head of Energy and Networking; Pollowicz, Head of Geology and Infrastructure; and Jones, who is Head of Entertainment and Psychology.” Each of the men gave a half salute and a nod as he was introduced, except for the man who had previously spoken, Pollowicz, who responded with an enthusiastic wave instead.

  “Kells?” Lemuel asked, “That is your city, or your culture?”

  “The city,” Jones answered, “We don’t have a name for our… nation, I guess would be the word on Earth. If we need to speak about the three cities as a whole, the demonym is normally ‘Martian’, though I acknowledge that label would apply equally well to you once you have got yourselves set up, and depending on our relations it may be necessary to coin a term to refer to the cities originally settled by our expeditions, or by yours.”

  Lemuel didn’t answer. He realised he’d been assuming that Wallace’s people, whoever they were, would be confined to a single location. Even with five ships, the camp now being built was expected to house the entire population. If there were multiple cities, then either they were smaller semi-autonomous groups, or the ships had come with an order of magnitude more people than his first guess.

  There wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, though. That was one thing that both groups seemed to be glad of. Any time there was silence, there was someone on one side or the other who had a new question to ask, something non-controversial. Once introductions were done they quickly moved to a meeting room, sitting around a round table where they could all sit in comfort. And once there, there were a lot of questions to ask. Nobody had a protocol for this kind of thing, but the conversation seemed to drift naturally into taking turns. Someone would ask a question about the other colonists’ political structure, or technology, or economy, and then once that was answered the other group would ask a question. And almost every question was answered, though sometimes for more technical questions the answer was that someone would get a technician to send over a more detailed report.

  Lemuel had a data tablet on the table in front of him, and scrawled notes as the conversation proceeded. He was sure that he’d missed some details, whether through asking the wrong questions or not being fast enough to interpret the Martians’ answers in terms of the different culture they were used to. But by the time the ambassadors started to get tired, he thought he had a fairly strong idea of the way their cities functioned.

  There were no corporations in Kells, and no business as an Earthling would recognise it. Instead, the senior officials worked for a ‘Department’ that seemed a great deal like a university faculty. Each department conducte
d scientific research in different fields, as well as having certain responsibilities towards the city as a whole. Some also had sub-departments, to deal with more specific issues. The Psychology Department was responsible for the mental health of everyone in Kells, which meant both ensuring there were specialist counsellors and therapists available when they were needed, and the production of electronically distributed books and movies to keep the city entertained. Geology and Infrastructure managed the buildings, while Atmosphere was responsible for the city’s life support.

  Within each department, promotion was theoretically based on merit. Anyone had a basic right to take an examination, testing their ability in whatever skills were appropriate for an open position, and the most qualified candidate was selected by their new superiors from the candidates who got the best exam scores, making nepotism impractical. The senior management within each subdepartment were elected by their subordinates, again subject to examination to prove competence before they could announce candidacy. Some social scientist a few decades ago had put an awful level of effort into engineering a society as close as possible to a true meritocracy. It was impressive, almost as impressive as the distributed, redundant power grids (which, of course, none of the leaders was a specialist in, so they would have a technician send over blueprints and further technical information at their earliest convenience).

  The debate was almost over, and in a spirit of complete cooperation, when Xiu decided to take a shot in the dark.

  “What aren’t you telling us?” she asked. “Jones and Metzner, you’re both jumpy. You look like you’re expecting us to ask something you don’t want to answer. And that girl, Boudica, had some gaps in her knowledge, questions she wouldn’t answer. I think she didn’t know the answers to things we were asking, and our people couldn’t work out why that knowledge would be kept secret. Your culture, or your city, or your department, has skeletons in the closet. If we’re going to work together, we need to be able to trust you.”

  “I assure you, we have no big secrets,” Jones glared, “And are you being entirely honest with us?”

  “No,” Lemuel answered, cutting off Caldwell’s outrage, “I’m afraid we’re not. But there’s things we can’t tell you until we know ourselves. There’s an elephant in the room, as it were. A big issue that hasn’t been discussed at all since we landed, even though it’s on a lot of minds. And finding out this planet is inhabited has made it an even bigger issue. I’d like to have the leverage to force this out into the open, but I don’t want hostility between the people in my camp, not when we’re short of labour to get everything ready. I assure you, I will be calling a meeting shortly. And if it leads to the mass debate I expect, you will be invited as ambassadors. Because this affects our relations with our neighbours as well.”

  He didn’t name the issue, but both the Majors knew what he was talking about. The issue of autonomy from Earth, on which the ship had an official position, but there were dozens of crew members who disagreed, many of them thinking they were the only one who had a better idea.

  Maybe Jones got it, too. He could read people pretty well, and it wasn’t a stretch of the imagination to think the people of Kells had gone through something similar thirty years before. He looked Xiu in the eyes, and then Caldwell, and smiled. “I think we might have a similar issue. Before we talk to others, we need to get our own house in order. But you can rest assured, we will.”

  “We understand each other, then,” Lemuel offered a handshake to each of the Kells representatives in turn, and the meeting broke up as peacefully as it had started. All the tension now was between the leaders of each colony.

  * * *

  While the administrators were making their first try at negotiation, Jasper and Elle were deep in a more productive conversation. They had ended up on the same exploration team again, checking for natural hazards or anything that could be helpful to the camp a couple of miles away. The rota assignments were theoretically random, but most people ended up requesting to be paired with their friends, so there was a better than average chance of the loners being put together.

  They were exploring a rocky outcrop today, a pimple on the level desert floor. There was a fissure in the ground, though the dust had filled it enough that it was hard to tell how deep the crack in the rocks went, and beside it a wedge of rock that jutted a hundred metres into the air. This kind of thing was one of the features of the Martian landscape that still wasn’t completely understood, so the explorers had come to take rock and dust samples they could test for useful minerals. Actually understanding how and why this crag had risen here, in the middle of an otherwise flat landscape, was a mission for geologists of the future.

  “Areologists,” Jasper insisted, shaking his head.

  “Oh, come on. The geology team has seven geologists, seven, including one who calls himself a planetologist, and one areologist. Can’t we just use the accepted term? Majority decision, right?”

  “It doesn’t make sense, though,” Jasper repeated, for probably the hundredth time since the landing. “The word ‘geology’ is literally Greek for ‘Earth science’. This isn’t Earth. We need a new word.”

  “Even when most of the people doing the job call it ‘geology’?” It was a conversation they’d had a few times before, and one which the few who liked new words had frequently, with virtually everyone else. He probably knew now he wasn’t going to persuade her, but a little familiar debate at least let them be sure they were still on the same channel and the radio was still functional. “If you’re going to stick to Greek meanings, a sycophant is someone who talks about figs. Words change, you know, and a geologist is a geologist whether they’re looking at rocks on Earth or Mars.”

  “Maybe,” he shrugged, “I’d like to use the right words, though. We’re on a new planet, we need to find words that work here. It’s like sunrise being half an hour later every day, we need to stop worrying about what people on Earth say.”

  “I’ll agree that’s a mess, but only if you insist on analogue clocks. We’ve had a year to get used to the time difference, your body adapts easily enough to a new sleep cycle, it’s not a big deal. Half the camp’s already using Mackey’s system, counting the hours since dawn.”

  “I still say it would make more sense to have a Martian hour. You must’ve seen the proposal, something like fifty-eight minutes an hour, twenty-five hours in a day. And we’ve already got four day assignment cycles, so a Martian hour would make them a hundred hours. Metric. So that–”

  “Some people have cycles,” an unexpected woman’s voice interrupted, causing Jasper to twitch in surprise. “Some biologist years back came up with this theory that a human body naturally keeps a twenty-six hour day, without the sunlight to reset your body clock at dawn. If we’re adapting to Mars time anyway, might as well get used to keeping a longer cycle. Every eight solar days is seven cycles, so if you’re living in cycles everyone gets used to working by day and by night, so you don’t end up with people making mistakes if they have to work conditions they’re not used to.”

  “Who is that?” Jasper called out. He glanced back towards the Camp, but there was no sign of another vehicle coming towards them. In fact, he couldn’t see any of the explorer teams at all on this side of the settlement; possibly because something important was happening back at base, and the loners hadn’t been invited. Was someone just surfing radio channels, and found they happened to have a good enough signal to join the chatter?

  “I know that voice,” Elle paused for a second, “Boudica? You’re…”

  “Hey!” she stepped out from the shadow of the rock and waved, “I got bored with house arrest. You know our leaders are going to talk to your leaders right now? Guess they thought once there’s been an official meeting, there’s no need to stop us hooking up. The whole city’s kind of on edge lately, trying not to scare the Earth expedition, and I’ve not been allowed to go out again because they weren’t happy with my report. Said I didn’t ask the things I was suppose
d to. But now I’m free.”

  “And you’ve got compatible comms now?”

  “Yeah, I grabbed a portable unit when I was visiting last time. Hope nobody minds. Spent a couple of cycles taking it apart and programming my suit to talk the same protocol. I clamoured the code, so you’ll probably hear messages from a few others when you come in range.”

  “Clamoured?” Elle didn’t want to think about whether there were any security implications of two colonies being able to listen in on each other’s radio, or anything like that. She picked simple things, that could maybe give an insight into the Martian culture and mindset.

  “Computer network. A lot of the higher ups like trying to monitor what we’ve been talking about, so someone came up with clamour, a store-and-forward thing. If you want to be anonymous you can build a single-use transmitter, send something to whoever’s listening, and put the parts back in reuse hopper. Whoever gets the message keeps a copy, reads it if they want to, and their system passes it on to anyone else who comes online for a while.”

  “Ingenious. So there’s some rebellion against authority in your colony?”

  “Only on the little things,” Boo shrugged, “Most of us just do stuff because we can. For the challenge, you know?”

  “I know that kind of thought,” Jasper admitted, “Like when there’s a college dorm where all the electrical engineers live, there’s nearly always one machine in the laundromat that runs without paying. Just to prove you can, it’s…” and then he realised this Boudica girl was looking at him in some confusion, as far as he could tell through her reflective visor. He cut the anecdote short: “It’s an Earth thing, something I came across in college. There’s probably lots of different examples. If you put enough smart people in one place, there’s bound to be at least one who doesn’t do things in the way they’re supposed to, because they see a problem and immediately start thinking of solutions.”