“So I can spill my guts for your audience.” Lori knew she shouldn’t be hostile toward someone with influence over her standing in the competition. But after the rigged airlock and the personnel upheaval, and that weird conversation with Cecilia Block, Lori wasn’t feeling especially generous.
On the screen, Hannah rubbed her neck and blew out a sigh. “I get where you’re coming from. I do.” She paused. Lori couldn’t tell if Hannah was gearing up for another push at gaining her trust, or if she was about to share a very real secret. Instead, Hannah offered an exasperated chuckle.
“You know what?” Hannah said. “If I were you, I don’t think I’d have much faith in the show, either.”
Lori pressed back into the cushion of the chair. “That’s not what I expected you to say.”
“Yeah, well, we’re supposed to be grooming you guys. Get you to say or do this or that. Not put anyone in any truly bad situations, but just amp things up, make it more interesting to watch. Attract more sponsors. So, I don’t blame you. But I hope somewhere down the line you’ll come to see that I really am on your side.” Hannah glanced over her shoulder again. “Not like most of the people around here.”
Lori lifted her chin, determined not to let Hannah’s words affect her. She was being pulled in so many directions, and wasn’t this simply one more tug? “I appreciate your candor.”
“I’m turning the cameras back on now,” Hannah said. “Before they start to think I’m up to something.”
Lori frowned. When had Hannah turned the cameras off?
Hannah adopted the eager, superficial smile Lori had grown used to seeing from the production team. “So, Lori Ridgway, how are you feeling now that a full third of the candidates have decided to leave the program following the geology exercise and airlock challenge?”
“I’m . . .” Lori paused, stunned by Hannah’s transformation. Either the producer really was leveling with her, or she was an amazing actress. Still, Lori was uncertain what was safe to confess on camera. “I’m still getting my bearings. It’s quite a shock, obviously. We’re still only getting introduced to each other, really.”
Hannah nodded along with Lori’s words, an obvious visual prompt. When Lori didn’t elaborate, Hannah dove in with her next question. “Audiences across the globe were riveted by your performance in the challenge, Lori, the way you sacrificed yourself to save members of your team. What are your thoughts on your partner, Mark Lauren?”
Lori felt a bolt of electricity shoot through her body. Was everyone pushing her to pair up? Or was she just being paranoid? “You want me to tell you about Mark Lauren?”
“Yes, Dr. Mark Lauren.” Hannah’s smile was steady and expectant. “You worked impressively well together to save your teammates. You’re heroes!”
Hannah was pushing hard for a juicy soundbite that could be transmitted planet-wide. But what could Lori say about Mark? That the man had the musculature of some kind of god but an icy-hot temperament that turned Lori alternately eager and prickly?
Lori took a breath and forced her body to relax. “Well, I think the important thing to remember is that everyone inside the dome has worked especially hard to get to this level, and that includes Dr. Lauren.” She paused. “I feel very honored to have been selected to participate, and to be considered as one of Earth’s first interplanetary colonists. It’s refreshing and invigorating to be in the company of these generous and brilliant minds who share the same passion and ambition. It is my hope, truly, no matter what happens in the coming challenges, that my participation will help to further the dream of colonizing Mars, for everyone here in the Mars Ho Candidate Habitat and everyone across the planet. And if I’m particularly lucky, I might even make a few lifelong friends.”
Lori allowed her words to sink in. Hannah’s cheerful expression didn’t waver, but Lori could see a shift in her eyes. Hannah offered a subtle nod, and Lori responded with a small smile. Then she rose from her chair and left the confessional booth.
As soon as she opened the door, she was treated to the unmistakable sounds of vigorous copulation filtering down from the ceiling air vents. Who could even think of being randy at a time like this? Maybe the rowdy lovebirds were trying anything and everything to get ahead in the candidate rankings.
Amidst the muffled moaning and barely intelligible whispers of encouragement, Lori headed toward the kitchen, determined to grab some coffee and then catch up on more technical manuals.
5
Mark filed into General Use Room 1 at the back of his new group of bunkmates. Ric Vargas was gone—no great loss—but so, too, were five other men Mark had only barely begun to know.
On the women’s side, Marisol and Oona from his geology team had also scrubbed out—according to Trent and Oskar and the Mars Ho grape vine. How many others were gone, too?
The first challenge had been a doozy, and Mark couldn’t really fault the candidates who decided that breathable air at home was more important than building a community from scratch on a new world. He just hoped Lori Ridgway wasn’t one of them. There was a tight knot in his chest when he thought about not seeing her again.
He found an empty seat on the far side of the room. The recently departed would want to return to their old lives, but even a few days of broadcast fame might make that difficult. Maybe one or two would hire on with the corporate sponsors—or worse, might become hosts of their own shows.
The contrived environment wasn’t an ideal means of selecting a capable team of colonists, though the Mars Ho money shored up huge gaps in international funding and ultimately made the Mars Colony Program possible.
As a result, Mark was swimming in sponsorships and logos on everything from his toothbrush and tablet computers to his shoelaces and underwear.
And that brought to mind Lori Ridgway in her lacy undergarments—an image that hadn’t been far from his thoughts, as much as he tried to focus on the biodome and the competition. Even the obnoxiously orange jumpsuit and the androgynous bulk of the pressure suit hadn’t been enough to make Mark forget what Lori looked like underneath.
Mark looked up at the sound of each new entry into the classroom, hoping to see Lori.
Trent shuffled past on his way to the lockers. Mark heard some rattling behind him, followed by a frustrated groan.
“They’re locked,” April called out as she took an open seat near Mark. “Automatically. When we’re not in an active challenge, we can’t get into them.”
Trent wandered back toward the tables. “How would you know something like that?”
“You don’t want to know,” Lori muttered as she sat down beside April.
Mark nearly laughed with relief. He tried to catch Lori’s eye, to offer her a smile and some friendly words, to let her know he was glad to see her. To encourage her to stay in case she was thinking about scrubbing out, too. But April monopolized Lori’s attention, engaging in conspiratorial conversation she apparently had no problem with Mark overhearing.
“We definitely lost a lot of the hot ones.” April tapped on her tablet, and Mark was astonished to spy on her screen a spreadsheet of candidate names with physical descriptions, personality ratings, and something called a “matability quotient.”
“Some of the hunky ones are still here.” April glanced Mark’s way and flashed him a quick smile before she leaned back toward Lori.
A sudden heat creeped across his face and down his neck. April Chennells was openly—and likely illegally—grading the men according to their suitability as romantic partners. As life partners.
Mark leaned back in his chair and pretended to be busy with his own tablet. He had to give April some credit: She was gathering information about her environment, tracking key data points, and organizing her findings into a format by which she could make critical decisions—and she was sharing her work with at least one of her peers. It was an ingenious application of the scientific method to their game show reality.
As the other candidates filed in and took their seats, M
ark lied to himself that he wasn’t curious about how he stacked up.
April’s shoulders sank. “Trent’s still here.”
“Trent?” Lori seemed distracted.
“The skinny, nerdy one,” April replied. “Well-qualified, I think, but . . .” She rested her tablet flat on the table. “It’s just kind of hard to get worked over a guy named Trent, you know?”
Mark stifled a chuckle as Trent took the empty chair on Mark’s other side.
Trent smiled and gave April and Lori a polite wave before he turned on his own tablet and pulled a stylus from his breast pocket. “Everyone ready for Round 2 of the Biodome Death Match?”
The screen at the front of the room flickered to life and three new experts looked out at the Mars Ho contestants from the comfort of the production studio inside The Ranch. Physically, the panel of white-coated scientists—plus Mars Ho’s Ken-doll host, Gary Nelson—were barely a kilometer away from where Mark and the rest of the candidates sat inside the biodome habitat. But apart from the real-time communications, they might as well have been an entire world away.
Looking more polished and expertly chiseled than any human had a right to, Gary hit his mark in front of the camera and delivered a few vague, over-the-top remarks about the results of the airlock challenge, the valiance and composure of the candidates under pressure, how the experience underscored the dangerous realities of a Mars colonial mission, and similar pablum.
Mark wasn’t really listening. Instead, he was keenly aware of Lori Ridgway just two seats away. He kept trying, and failing, not to glance her way every few seconds.
“Terraforming Mars—if the United Nations and the Mars Colony Program decide to go that route—would take hundreds of years.” On the screen, a dark-skinned woman with glasses read from a script, her eyes subtly tracking an off-camera teleprompter.
But Mark was mentally rehearsing the sincere, non-creepy ways he might express his admiration for how Lori handled herself in the airlock challenge, through her teamwork and sacrifice without hesitation. He wondered how best to tell her that he was impressed by how she was hanging tough in the aftermath. He wanted to ask if she was doing all right, and reassure her if she might be having second thoughts.
A blond man picked up where the woman with the glasses left off. “Mars’s thin atmosphere would need time and attention to be transformed into an oxygen-rich atmosphere capable of sustaining life outside a habitation or greenhouse structure.” His voice was slightly more animated and he at least tried to smile while he was talking, but Mark thought it made him look like a car salesman.
“That process would involve essentially ‘seeding’ Martian soil with lichens, microbes, and other oxygen-producing organisms,” the expert continued. “Which would then require several centuries to produce enough nitrogen and oxygen to create an atmosphere suitable for living, breathing, and growing.”
Mark also wanted to tell Lori that he really liked the way a stray strand of her dark hair curled around her face to frame her soft mouth.
The lecture proceeded, and April kept her eyes on her tablet, holding the device close. Mark wasn’t sure if she was updating her candidate matability spreadsheet or perusing one of the technical manuals that were constantly being pushed to their devices.
Mark tried again to catch Lori’s eye, but her attention was on the big screen. She rested slender fingers on her full lips, her eyes bright and keen with determination. No nonsense. Mark felt his face break into a goofy smile, so he forced himself to frown and look away.
Still, something in him made him crack a stupid joke. “You think they’ll cut out the info dump before airing this episode, or will the audience be just as bored as we are?”
April responded with a shrug and a vague grunt. But Lori gave Mark a sharp look of disapproval. Then her eyes were back on the screen.
Mark leaned back in his chair, irritated with himself for his lame behavior. Distracting his fellow contestants while they learned about the next challenge and the life-changing mission they all aspired to? Not his smoothest move. And he was missing the lecture, too.
A third expert was speaking now, a short bearded man delivering a bland monotone that had Trent fake-snoring under his breath.
“Plus, you’ve got solar winds to contend with, leaving the developing Martian atmosphere vulnerable because of the lack of magnetosphere,” the man droned on. “Even with that problem solved, there’s the fact that the winters get pretty darn cold—minus-207 degrees Fahrenheit—and there’s only so much that introducing greenhouse gases can fix.”
Then it was the woman’s turn to jump back in. Someone behind the scenes had decided the bearded guy was too boring.
“To gauge your squeamishness, we’re using the same fertilizer in this exercise as we’d be using for your crops on Mars: your own excrement.” The woman sounded positively delighted about the candidates gardening in their own poop. The groans of disgust from the classroom indicated that the candidates felt otherwise.
“You won’t be working with regolith from Mars, obviously—not here, and probably not on Mars, either, though those of you chosen for a colony mission will conduct a series of experiments on amending Martian surface material for use in agriculture. Mars mission teams will receive additional instruction in hydroponics.”
Mark looked around the room and did a mental headcount. Nineteen of thirty-two left. He tried to guess at how they’d divide up for the next exercise—four teams again, or maybe pairs and triplets? At some point the experts would want feedback from the candidates about their fellows, to gauge compatibility, leadership strengths, and the like.
If they got to choose their own partners, he’d have to act fast to get to Lori first before April or someone else did. He rationalized that he was motivated solely by the desire to demonstrate how well he and Lori work together.
The woman on the screen was still speaking, having taken over the presentation while her colleagues stood mutely on either side and stared blankly into the camera.
“The dome greenhouse is at a lower pressure than the rest of the Mars Ho Candidate Habitat—as will be the growing unit on Mars,” she said. “Higher air pressure isn’t necessary for agriculture, and the diverted air supply has a better use—namely, keeping you all alive and breathing.”
Lori was scrolling through something on her tablet screen and looked to be making notes. Mark wondered if he ought to be doing the same. It wasn’t like him to be preoccupied. And over a girl? What was this, high school?
“Supplemental oxygen is available to those who need it,” the lady in the lab coat continued. “If you do need it, please use it. The use of supplemental oxygen will not be counted against you.”
The reminder that they were being graded snapped Mark back to attention. Yes, it was like high school—with lectures and labs and special activities and tests, and the girls sitting beside him providing maddening distraction.
But this was a means to an end. His wilderness experience and his love for the outdoors made him an odd candidate for a lifetime inside a pressurized can. He had deep respect for the realities of the wild, and how ignorance can and will kill you. On Mars, it would be no different.
Mark was a walking contradiction—longing for something wild while operating within the rules. He needed adventure. He craved exploration and intellectual challenge and even danger—but danger that could, conceivably, be controlled and outwitted. What was a bigger conquest than Mars?
“Whether you like it or not, I’m afraid those of you going to Mars will be functional vegetarians for a good while.” The woman laughed. “Supply shipments from Earth might contain limited meat products, but you should get used to vegetable protein.” She shifted forward and lowered her voice. “Though I hear the food printers they’re sending along can so some amazing things.”
Mark’s stomach churned. The powdered eggs at breakfast had been bad enough. He had a feeling there was much worse to come.
A gardening challenge!
> Lori couldn’t help the smile on her face as the experts rattled off details about the Marian atmosphere and the need for colonists to grow their own food. The tension and fatigue drained out of her body, and she leaned back in her chair feeling more confident than she had since entering the dome.
Did she have an unfair advantage? Her history had been laid out in her application. She didn’t have professional botanical experience, but Lori’s family had maintained a large, organic garden all during her childhood and up until a couple of years after her father died.
The family grew vegetables in their own soil and had enough left over for the neighborhood co-op. Lori had spent summers and autumns delivering tomatoes, zucchini, and corn to neighbors and collecting fresh eggs, honey, and goat cheese in return.
The on-screen presentation concluded with instructions for the coming challenge. The candidates would prove themselves by growing plants indoors without the benefit of natural sunlight. They’d work as individuals, not in teams.
The Mars Ho producers would have found out about Uncle Barney and Aunt Jo’s pot farm, too. It wasn’t any big secret. Their farm was one of only six international sources for Serpent Tamer, the cannabis strain they’d developed for migraine patients. Lori didn’t have as much experience with marijuana as she did carrots and broccoli, but she knew about grow lights and closed irrigation systems.
And she’d read ahead about how colonists might adapt terrestrial farming methods for the lower gravity on Mars. The plants would hold water longer, which meant less irrigation—a blessing in an environment where every vital resource would have to be manufactured and recycled.
Lori smiled, her mind busy with showing the experts just how prepared she was not just for this exercise, but for Mars. But a nagging voice at the back of her head warned her not to get too cocky. The geology exercise had seemed simple enough until the airlock broke. For all she knew, the producers would suck all the air out of the room while the candidates tried to train bean plants up a plastic lattice.
Mars Ho! (Mars Adventure Romance Series Book 1) Page 7