Striking Mars (The Saving Mars Series-5)

by Cidney Swanson

  “Very well,” said the Ghost, rising to join her in the tunnel.

  “Alone,” said Jessamyn, gazing down the corridor.

  The Ghost frowned. The melancholy expression vanished, and his mouth formed a tight firm line. He tapped the door release and turned from her. A hatch slid into place, barring further conversation.

  Jessamyn turned and ran, calling her brother’s name. “Ethan, Ethan!”

  18

  Tranquility Base, the Terran Moon

  The Ghost felt too many competing emotions. He didn’t like the sensation. Jessamyn was his friend. But she was sister’s enemy. Sister was his sister. But she was Jessamyn’s enemy.

  He hadn’t been able to bring himself to contact Sister. He remembered what had happened the last time he had commed to tell her he had located family. She’d forced him do a very wrong thing.

  The Ghost didn’t like thinking about the wrong thing.

  Sister had made him do it. He had known what any child could puzzle out: that in many cases, to omit doing a good deed was equally as wrong as committing a bad deed.

  Sister had insisted the two weren’t the same at all. I’m only asking you to refrain from doing something you might like to do, she said. I put off doing what I like all the time, she added, to make him feel guilty.

  The Ghost had agreed to do her bidding, reluctantly, but he had never been able to convince himself that failing to save someone’s life was any different from willfully killing them.

  Of course, the deaths were on her head, and not his.

  So why didn’t it feel that way?

  The more he considered his actions of that day, the more they began to take on a new appearance. A darker appearance. Perhaps the deaths weren’t sister’s fault after all.

  Could one person force another to do something? Sister hadn’t been in the tiny rescue ship with him, hadn’t physically forced him to fly away from the two stranded in the New Terra Space Station. Sister didn’t force him to do anything. She had coerced, and he had yielded.

  Which meant he had been lying to himself for ten years; he alone was responsible for his choices that day. It was a dark realization, ugly and unsettling. But as he looked at what he had done and, at last, owned it as his own choice, he felt his chest expand.

  Sister had done things the Ghost did not like. Many things. But she had not been the one who flew away when a rescue would have been possible.

  And today, if he chose to turn his new friends over to her, Sister would not be the one responsible for their fates.

  And yet, he knew she was not without compassion. The exhausting life she lived, she lived for others. And, she had allowed him to leave Earth with its crowds and its gravity even though it meant she would not be able to see him.

  He should talk to her. He should find out why she was so angry with her former butler and her nephew and the other two. He was her brother, so he was, in a sense, Pavel’s uncle. Who better to smooth over family misunderstandings and differences?

  After all, whatever they had done to anger Sister, Zussman, Pavel, Ethan, and Jessamyn were his friends.

  19

  Tranquility Base, the Terran Moon

  Jessamyn’s noisy race down the corridor had drawn both Ethan and Zussman from the work station. In great haste, Jess spilled the news about Lucca’s relationship to the Ghost.

  “And has he notified her as to our whereabouts?” asked Mr. Zussman, his face visibly pale.

  Jessamyn shook her head, catching her breath. “But the message, Eth! You’ve got to set one up to get through! To warn Mars in case we don’t survive.”

  “I have already automated a message of warning to be sent to MCC,” Ethan told his sister. “The importance of this message I deemed too great to leave to chance. Any number of things might befall us before we are in comm range again.”

  “Such as Lucca showing up here with an army,” said Jessamyn, panting. Her side had a small stitch.

  “It is far from certain that will transpire,” said her brother. “But many other things might prevent us from sending the message. The air filters could malfunction, causing us to asphyxiate. A fire or a tunnel collapse could kill us. The emergency—”

  “Okay, okay,” said Jess. “I get it. We could die at any moment. So are you absolutely one hundred and ten percent sure the message will get through even if we’re dead?”

  “The percentage you suggest is not a real percentage. But I am confident my message will be delivered. I have set a rotating algorithm in play to disseminate three iterations per—”

  “Got it,” said Jess. “You took care of it.”

  A look of amusement crossed Ethan’s features. “I did.”

  “So now what do we do? Pack up and leave? I think maybe we should pack up and leave.” Jessamyn dashed down the tunnel toward the bunk room, with plans to grab up her few possessions on Tranquility Base.

  “Jessamyn,” replied her brother, following in his chair, “we have nowhere to go. And I do not think leaving is the best course open to us at present. We ought, rather, to appeal to the Ghost’s sense of fair play. If he is made aware of the evils his sister has promoted, he will side with us rather than with her.”

  “Are you crazy?” asked Jess, throwing the light on inside the bunk room.

  “Is who crazy?” asked Pavel, blinking in the sudden brightness. “You guys are making a racket. What’s going on?”

  “The Ghost’s sister, the one he mentions so often, is Lucca Brezhnaya,” said Jessamyn.

  “Holy Moons of Mercury,” Pavel said softly.

  “Mercury has no moons,” said Ethan.

  “Did not know that,” said Pavel, with a small laugh.

  “This is not funny,” said Jessamyn. “Zussman, do you think this is funny?”

  “Indeed I do not, miss. However, I am inclined to be of Ethan’s persuasion. We ought, at the very least, to appeal to Yevgeny’s better nature prior to considering flight from our current, ah, home, as it were.”

  It took Jess a moment to remember the Ghost had an actual name: Yevgeny. It took her almost an hour to be persuaded they should remain on the station. But Zussman’s argument was unassailable.

  “If we abandon the station,” he reasoned, “we will be caught up in the necessities of escaping detection. I believe it is imperative that we direct our energies toward ending the attack on Mars.”

  Jessamyn conceded after that. “Fine. We stay.”

  “Most regrettably,” said Mr. Zussman, “every minute we spend talking is a minute the Ghost could be comming his sister.”

  “We’ve got to convince him not to,” said Pavel.

  “How?” asked Jess.

  “We might put to advantageous use the guilt he already feels for having re-bodied so many times,” said Ethan.

  “He’s re-bodied … more than the usual number of times?” asked Jessamyn.

  “So he confessed to me last week,” said Ethan. “I ought, properly, to have asked his permission prior to divulging his secret.”

  “No, Eth,” said Jessamyn. “This is good. So, he feels guilty about it?”

  “It all makes sense,” said Pavel. “If Lucca’s his sister.”

  “His own deep-seated desire to rescue others might perhaps have sprung from those feelings of guilt,” said Mr. Zussman thoughtfully.

  “Indeed,” agreed Ethan. “The Ghost is not so far removed from common sense as to be ignorant what must happen to other innocent persons in order that his life might be unnaturally prolonged.”

  “We have those reports from Harpreet,” said Pavel. “About the abuses my aunt has committed with the Re-body Program.”

  Jessamyn still wanted to jump in the Star Shark and fly away, but her gut told her the Ghost would be a powerful ally if he knew and believed the truth.

  “I guess we should stay, then,” she said. “We can broadcast to both Earth and Mars from here, which is more than we can do if we leave.”

  “I believe you should be the one to a
pproach the Ghost,” said Ethan to his sister.

  “Me? No. He slammed the door in my face an hour ago. He does not want to talk to me.”

  “He and I sometimes message one another,” said Ethan.

  “You do?” asked Pavel.

  “The Ghost does not sleep much. He is sometimes lonely when I am on shift, and we message one another at those times. I could make the attempt.”

  “Message him now,” said Jess. “Absolutely.”

  Ethan pulled up his hoverchair’s wafer and keyed in a greeting, asking the Ghost if he would like to converse.

  The Ghost’s answer came a moment later. You are dangerous criminals.

  Ethan looked to his sister.

  “Ask him if he wants to hear our side of the story,” suggested Jess.

  Ethan did so, and the response came a minute later.

  I would like to speak with Jessamyn. In person. Alone.

  Jess looked up in surprise from the message. “Oh, no,” she said aloud.

  “Go,” said Pavel.

  “He trusts you,” said Ethan. “Take the data we have from Harpreet for him to examine.” He placed the intel on a data stick.

  “He does seem to have an unusual affinity for your person,” added Mr. Zussman.

  Jessamyn hesitated. He’d slammed a door in her face. But they had to at least try to convince the Ghost of his sister’s wrongdoings. And to convince him to remain silent about their presence. She owed it to Mars to try.

  “Okay,” she said.

  She took the data stick from her brother. She straightened her shirt and pulled her hair behind her ears.

  “Here’s hoping he’s in a listening mood,” she said. And then she rose and left the bunk room.

  The corridor leading to his room seemed much longer than it had when she’d fled him an hour ago. Her feet felt heavy and she could hear her pulse pounding in her ears even though she wasn’t running this time.

  “Ghost?” she called as she approached his room at the far end of the endless tunnel.

  “What do you want?” came the reply.

  Jess frowned. “You wanted to talk to me, I thought.”

  There was an extended pause. The Ghost appeared in the doorway, which was open once more.

  “I did,” said the Ghost, allowing her to enter the room. “I haven’t commed Sister yet. I wanted to speak with you first.”

  Jessamyn nodded. “That’s great. I want to speak with you, too. I’m sorry I ran away earlier. It was rude of me.”

  “I am well versed in ‘rude,’ or so Jumble has told me,” said the Ghost.

  She took in the look of despondence in the Ghost’s eyes. Something in her heart pinched. He was miserable, and she was going to make it worse when she told him about his sister’s crimes against humanity. She felt a surge of compassion as she thought of her own bond with her brother.

  And then she saw her way forward in the conversation.

  “I think,” she said, “your sister must love you very, very much.”

  The Ghost looked up at her, a hint of curiosity in his gaze.

  “She’s kept you alive for a long time, hasn’t she?” asked Jessamyn.

  “You are smarter than you appear.”

  Jess felt a tiny smile pushing the corners of her mouth.

  “How did you deduce my age?” asked the Ghost. “Oh. Your brother. I told him, didn’t I?”

  Jessamyn answered the question with a small shrug — a non-answer — and continued along the path she had chosen. “I think your sister’s love for you has led her to do terrible things.” Jess took a shallow breath and kept going. “I think it has led her to take the lives of others so that you could live beyond the lifespan of normal Terrans.”

  The Ghost raised his head sharply and stared into Jessamyn’s eyes for a solid minute. She met his gaze, not saying anything more.

  “You are much smarter than I thought you were,” said the Ghost. He shifted so that Jess could only barely his face from the side. “Sister says the same thing every time: Just this once more, then never again. She has a conscience, you know.”

  “Oh, Ghost,” sighed Jessamyn. Then she continued. “She must have had a conscience, once. You certainly do. She must have wanted to help people. Once. A long time ago. But somewhere along the way, she decided that she ought to choose who lives and who dies. She decided that she had the right to take any life she wanted.”

  “Oh, no, no,” said the Ghost. “She’s not as terrible as that.”

  Jessamyn continued. “You aren’t the only one she’s made a special exception for, Ghost.”

  “I am the only one. Sister has assured me.”

  “Here,” said Jessamyn, passing him the data stick filled with Harpreet’s discoveries. “These stories are from people who worked for your sister. They all say the same thing: that for over a hundred years, Lucca has abused the Re-body Program for personal and political gain.”

  After several seconds of hesitation, the Ghost accepted the data stick.

  “Oh, and as for her falling out with Pavel, her nephew?” added Jessamyn. “It began when she asked him to take charge of her illicit work in the Re-body Program.”

  “And he refused,” said the Ghost.

  “He did,” replied Jessamyn.

  “Sister would not have liked his refusal.” The Ghost dropped his gaze to the floor and Jessamyn felt her heart twinge again.

  “I’m sorry to cause you pain. I know this is a lot to take in.”

  The Ghost examined the data stick in the flat of his palm as if it were a deadly poison.

  “I’ll let you look that over in peace,” Jessamyn said at last. “But I’m here if you need someone to talk to.”

  With that, she stepped back into the corridor that took her away, leaving the Ghost alone to discover what, exactly, Sister had been up to the past several re-bodies.

  20

  Tranquility Base, the Terran Moon

  For six agonizing hours, no one heard anything from the Ghost.

  Every half hour or so, Jess would ask Pavel or Ethan or Zussman the same question: “Do you think he’s told her about us?”

  “Come on, Jess,” said Pavel, at last. “Let’s go outside. You need to burn off that excess … whatever it is.”

  The two suited up and exited Tranquility Base. It felt good to be in a space suit again, wandering out of doors. Jessamyn dragged one foot through the dust gathered beside the base. In the Moon’s airless confines, the dust didn’t poof up the way it would have on Mars; it simply fanned ahead of her, clinging to the lunar surface.

  “Is this like home?” asked Pavel.

  Jess shrugged. “If home were grey instead of red. If Mars had no atmo at all. If there was a menacing blue planet always over the horizon.”

  Pavel chuckled. “So, not really.”

  “No,” said Jess. “Not so much.”

  But Pavel wasn’t completely off base, either. The loneliness of the Moon was compelling in the same way Mars could be, if you got out from the settlements. It was a haunting sort of beauty. And even Earth, hovering over the horizon, was hypnotically beautiful seen from the lunar surface.

  Ahead of her, Pavel bounded, higher and higher, as if trying to touch the blue planet.

  “Come on,” he said, turning to her. “It’s fun.”

  “That’s not how to have fun in a low-g world,” said Jessamyn. Pressing her weight onto one leg behind her, she leapt forward, sailing in a graceful arc past Pavel. She landed on the other foot and pushed off again. It felt so good, so familiar. Her brain told her she would feel heavier back home, but after the weeks in micro-gravity, this felt almost right, almost normal, almost Marsian.

  Pavel tried to match her leaps, but on his first attempt, he stumbled and dove into the ground, hands stretched out in front. “That didn’t work so well,” he said.

  “You’re trying too hard. Think about how we used to move through the water, in the volcanic pools back at Madeira. Try shifting your weight more l
ike you would’ve done there. You don’t need much thrust.”

  Pavel tried again. His leap had more height and less length than Jessamyn’s, but at least he didn’t fall this time.

  The two bounced, raced, and leapt for the better part of an hour before Ethan’s voice in their ear pieces called them back inside.

  Her belly clenching, Jess turned and aimed for the airlock.

  “Think positive thoughts,” said Pavel.

  “I think it’s too late for that now,” replied Jess. “Whatever he’s going to do, he’s already decided.”

  Pavel and Jess joined the others in the rations room. The Ghost sat, looking more than usually morose.

  “Please,” he said. “Eat.”

  It was, in fact, past time for one of their shared meals. The plates had been laid by the ever-diligent Mr. Zussman. Did the Ghost mean for them to share one final meal? The four fugitives ate in silence, or, in Jessamyn’s case, poked her ration from one side of her plate to the other in silence.

  The Ghost spoke at last. “She lied to me. Year after year, body after body. She lied.”

  “You’re not the only one she lied to, if it’s any consolation,” said Pavel.

  “I considered ending my miserable existence,” the Ghost said, continuing. “But I changed my mind. Someone lost their chance at eighteen years of life so that I could have this body. I’m not throwing those years away.”

  Zussman nodded. “Indeed, sir. I should think not, sir.”

  “I can’t believe she lied to me,” said the Ghost. “I’m the one person she ought to have been honest with.”

  “Hey, man, I felt the same way,” said Pavel. “But then, when she was honest, I didn’t like that so much either.”

  After a pause of several seconds, the Ghost spoke again. “The world needs to know.”

  Jessamyn stared, her eyes wide with surprise.

  “I considered writing Sister a long letter and asking her to change, but I am unfortunately familiar with Sister’s responses to my suggestions.” The Ghost paused and stared gloomily at the rations table. “She’s got to be stopped, but the truth is, a comm from me won’t stop her. Even a visit from me would not stop her. I know her. She will continue to do whatever she likes best.”