The MHCH grow unit was a large, windowless storage room one level down from the living quarters and airlocks. Thirty three-meter-square plots had been laid out, but only nineteen would be used—giving Lori an idea of just how unprepared the producers had been for the mass exodus of candidates. Maybe Hannah had been telling the truth about that.
The task was deceptively simple: transplant an assortment of seedlings—tomatoes, beans, and kale—from compostable grow pots into sturdier garden pots, and transplant bamboo directly into the dirt. Then set up a controlled station of grow lights and an irrigation system.
Lori knelt and let the wet dirt soak into the knees of her orange jumpsuit. She massaged the amended soil with her gloved fingers and laughed at the “fresh manure smell” that had Cecilia, Leah, and even the quietly manly Trevor Azam making faces and openly gagging.
“Yum, poop salad,” Trent wheezed as he turned his head and breathed through his mouth.
But Lori wasn’t sure how to share her wisdom with the others—especially April, Mark, and Leah, working adjacent plots. She wasn’t worried about slowing her pace; rather, she didn’t want to come across as a know-it-all. Seema hadn’t set a particularly graceful example during the geology challenge, and now she was keeping her head down.
The air pressure was noticeably lower inside the grow unit, and Lori felt a little lightheaded as she went about her work transplanting the tiny kale and bean plants. She glanced at the small tanks of supplemental air that lined one wall, but she was determined to grit it out.
“Shouldn’t these pots be square?” April complained to Lori’s left.
Lori blinked. “What?”
“The pots would fit together more efficiently in these little plot grids, or whatever, if they were square and not round.” April sat back on her haunches. “Waste of space, this way.”
“Square pots would pack better for the trip to Mars, too.” Leah wedged one of her own round pots against the low boundary wall dividing her work area from Trent’s.
“Exactly!” April gestured a bit too enthusiastically with her steel-and-plastic gardening trowel and nearly hit Leah in the face with a glob of fertilized soil.
“Watch it, will you?” Leah grumbled, but then she quirked a smile at some mumbled comment from Trent.
Lori cursed when some soil slipped off her trowel and fell between a couple of pots she’d already wedged into place. She pulled out the pots and reclaimed the dirt with her hands, then sighed loudly when she worked the round pots back into her squared-off space. It was stupid to start with seedlings like this. The colonists would grow everything from seed—seeds shielded from the radiation on the 98-day journey from Earth to Mars. Baby tomato plants wouldn’t survive that trip. But watching people press tiny seeds into piles of human excrement was less fun for viewers at home.
She was irritated with the exercise and with the lack of happy conversation. She and her sister told each other stories when they worked in the garden. Here, there was a lot of silence punctuated by cursing and bitching. She glanced at the supplemental air canisters again. But when she rose to her feet, she walked passed them and went to the supply lockers instead. No one had expressly forbidden the candidates from availing themselves of what might be inside.
She found a spool of wire and went to work fabricating small cages for her tomato plants. She wasn’t sure how the one-third gravity on Mars would impact the tomato vines or how much support the fruit would need as it matured, but she wanted to be thorough. She also set up a sturdy layer of weed guard before she laid in her bamboo plants.
Lori ignored Oskar and Cecilia Block, on the other side of the grow unit, whispering and smiling to each other as they watched her work.
She made notes in her tablet about everything she was doing. She recorded her grow light settings and the distance from each seedling to the nearest light source. She jotted down details about how she’d set up the irrigation system for each type of plant, and what adjustments she would make to accommodate for conditions on Mars. She even mused about artificial growing seasons and the potential impact on plants and people alike.
Having to stop to take off her gloves every time she wanted to make notes was a pain, but she was still moving through the assignment much faster than any of the others. If the experts put any weight on patience and attention to detail, Lori aimed to be the star student.
But she was careful not to be obnoxious about it. Being a colonist meant striving for the good of the community. When Lori finished her work and saw Mark and April struggling, she moved over to help them.
April accepted her assistance with a grateful smile, which lightened Lori’s mood. She showed April how to set up a below-ground barrier to keep the bamboo from spreading beyond the confines of her plot and was pleased by how quickly April took to the task. Lori even started to forget about the cameras.
“The instructions don’t say anything about a bamboo barrier,” Mark grumbled as he transferred a tomato seedling into a pot.
“Well, they’re not going to tell us everything, obviously.” April dragged the back of her wrist across her brow and left a smudge of dirt on her skin.
Lori handed April another section of weed barrier from the supply lockers. “There’s something to be said for showing a little ingenuity.”
“The guidelines are there for a reason.” Mark got a bit rough with his next tomato plant, shoving it into a pot rather than exhibiting the care that young plants require—particularly the ones that will produce the food you need to survive.
Lori knew she’d hit a nerve. Just when she thought he might soften up and become someone she wouldn’t mind spending some time with on a barren planet, he got all uppity again. Plus, he was being too stingy with the fertilizer on the tomatoes and too generous with the irrigation on his bamboo. But he didn’t want her help. Was it some kind of male ego thing, or was he so intent on following every line of instruction to the letter that there was no room for constructive feedback?
April checked in with Lori about her grow lights, and Lori was glad to be of real help to somebody. But she swore Mark gave her the stink eye when he caught her watching him.
She was trying not to imagine being cooped up in a colony ship for three-and-a-half month with Mr. Stickler when her gaze fell again on the supplemental oxygen lined up against the wall.
“Um, Mark?”
“Mmm,” he grunted.
“Do you think maybe you might want some supplemental air?”
His hands stilled inside the hole he was digging for his bamboo.
“Maybe you need a little more oxygen, and then you wouldn’t be quite so . . . Testy?” Lori cringed as the words left her mouth.
Mark dropped his trowel in the dirt. “Testy?”
Lori backed away. She hadn’t meant to accuse him of anything, and now she felt the sting of oncoming tears. She’d been so careful not to be pushy. April had accepted her assistance easily enough. So what was Mark’s problem? If Lori were one of the judges, he’d be getting a big fat F in interpersonal skills right about now.
She tried to take a deep breath, and failed. She coughed. Her heart was pounding in her ears. She was getting emotional for no reason. Mark wasn’t the only one who needed more oxygen.
“Maybe I’m a little irritated.” Mark shrugged, but the edge in his voice remained. “I’ll try to loosen up.” He picked up his trowel and went back to planting the bamboo. “I don’t need extra air.”
“Okay, but I think I do.” Lori rose to her feet and wobbled. She accidentally stepped in April’s bamboo.
“Hey! What are you trying to do?” April smacked Lori on the shin with her trowel.
Lori lurched toward the wall and reached for an air canister, then blinked back her confusion when her hand closed around Trent’s arm instead. “I’m sorry, I was . . . I was just, uh . . .”
Trent fitted an oxygen mask to her face, and her eyes opened wide as she felt the cool air enter her lungs and clear her head. She grabbed her o
wn tank and two others for Mark and April.
Lori chastised herself for not recognizing the signs of hypoxia, for thinking unkind thoughts about Mark Lauren, and for being so smug. By the time she’d crossed the ten meters back to her plot, she was frantic to start double-checking her plants to make sure she hadn’t accidentally put tomato cages around the kale or set up her beans to be overwatered, and going over her notes to ensure she hadn’t just drawn a bunch of stick-figure cats.
But first she fitted April and Mark with oxygen masks. April didn’t even break her stride as she sat in the dirt and planted more bamboo, though she did take a few minutes to right the ones she’d planted sideways.
Mark fought the mask, cursing Lori and threatening her with his trowel. But when the oxygen hit his system, his body relaxed.
“Just trying to help.” Lori went back to her own plot and sorted through her work, looking for any mistakes. In her peripheral vision, she saw Mark glance her way, his lips tugging into a smile as he thrust his gloved hands back into the muck.
6
Lori tucked her damp hair behind her ears and got comfortable in the confessional booth. She had spent a long time in the shower, washing the stress and doubt down the drain while carving out a few moments alone. With the hot water massaging her scalp and cascading down the length of her body, she could feel almost normal again.
But then she’d had to turn off the water and return to her new reality of bland, high-tech towels and blue-gray walls. The Mars Ho producers would probably start enforcing water restrictions soon, to further simulate conditions on Mars.
She sat before the wide monitor and scanned the list of new messages, far fewer than she’d received before she set foot inside the MHCH. Nothing from her sister or mother.
They had lives of their own. Of course they wouldn’t respond immediately to Lori’s report of the gardening challenge or her snark about the jumpsuits and the food. Her family could see it all for themselves on television.
Mars Ho episodes started airing almost as soon as the candidates were inside the dome. The program wasn’t “live” but it was pretty close, with everything airing within 24 hours. So the airlock challenge and the big scrub out and even the nasty fish protein at last night’s dinner was old news by now. But what about Lori’s near hypoxia in the grow unit? Surely that was worthy of a message from her sister.
This is what it would be like once she made it to Mars. No more sharing secrets and snide remarks over coffee and cookies. Thanks to the communications delay—ranging between four and twenty-four minutes, depending on orbital positions—it would be all text or video mail.
All because Lori was determined to do something different, maybe even something important. Because Lori had dreamt of something bigger since she lay in the grass next to her father and looked up at the night sky. Because she still wanted to make him proud.
She scrolled through the messages and saw hardly anything personal. It was mostly mass emails from the Mars Ho producers to the candidates about meal prep rotations and notifications about which product manuals could be found where in the digital archives.
Lori opened a new window and started typing another update to her family. She’d gotten nearly to the end of her first sentence when a notification popped up: VIDEO MAIL FROM CHARLIE MYERS.
She felt a shock of excitement as she tapped the screen. Charlie’s face filled the monitor. He blinked a couple of times, staring into the camera, and then took a deep breath.
It had probably been mere minutes since he’d made the recording. Lori’s breath rose in her chest as she waited for him to speak. She hadn’t realized how much she missed him. The way that one lock of golden hair curled down over his left eye. The perpetual grin that brightened his face.
“Hey.” He unconsciously tensed and relaxed his shoulders as he did when he was getting his thoughts together, and she felt a jab of annoyance. Did she really miss Charlie, or was she simply longing for something familiar from outside the biodome?
“I, uh, just wanted to send you a quick message. Again.” He looked away from the camera and then back again. “I promise I’m not stalking you or anything. I mean, how could I be, right?”
His characteristic mix of charm and uncertainty was on full display as he pulled at the sleeve of his fleece cardigan and revealed the blue kanji characters on his forearm that were supposed to translate as “transience” but instead meant “suffering idiot.” That Charlie loved telling the story of how he’d been duped by the tattoo artist still impressed her.
Charlie chuckled onscreen, and Lori smiled at his easygoing awkwardness.
“I don’t want to be a pest. I don’t want to bother you when you’ve got so much going on. I just wanted to reach out to, you know, let you know I’ve been thinking about you.” He paused and looked down. Was he nervous? Lori felt her breath catch in her throat when he lifted his eyes to the camera.
“I don’t know how else to say it, Lori. I miss you. I love you. I love you, Lori. I never should have let you go.”
Lori pressed back into the chair. “Oh, Charlie.” She sniffed hard, determined not to cry. But she watched the message over again as fat tears rolled down her cheeks.
April was right: candidates would have to pair up to succeed as colonists. And Cecilia Block was probably right, too: couples in pre-existing relationships might have a better chance of being chosen for Mars.
If Lori was going to spend the rest of her days building a new settlement on another planet, and if being mated was a requirement of that undertaking, didn’t it make sense for her to choose her own partner instead of having a narrow selection of mates forced on her by the program?
Other than Mark Lauren, she wasn’t especially impressed by the men in the MHCH. It wasn’t a matter of physical attractiveness but of attitude and engagement. Trent Jennings was hyper. Trevor Azam was polite but purposefully distant. Guillermo Costa was practically apoplectic whenever a woman looked his way. Yoshiko Eguchi was cool but cranky. Govind Nara thought a little too highly of himself, and Lewis Muldoon kept waggling his eyebrows at every woman who came anywhere near him. And there was no way she was even thinking about Oskar Block.
What was she supposed to do when she got paired up with Mark Lauren and then discovered they couldn’t stand each other after six months, or six years? Maybe the couples were supposed to break apart and reform in new configurations. After a few rounds, wouldn’t she just end up with Mark Lauren again?
Sitting in the dark with only Charlie’s recording for company, Lori felt the weight of the program pushing down on her. How could she have thought she could make a life this way?
She still wanted Mars. She wouldn’t give that up for any man. But she’d already proven herself inside the MHCH. Hannah herself had called Lori a hero after the airlock challenge and, apart from the supplemental oxygen hiccup, she’d probably aced the exercise in the grow unit. She might not be a shoo-in for a colony spot, but she had to be a strong contender.
Would she be an even stronger candidate with an already-committed partner at her side?
Lori played Charlie’s message again.
“You want to do what?!” April’s voice reflected the incredulity on her face. “Are you nuts?”
Lori folded her spare jumpsuits and tried to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach that told her she might be making a huge mistake. Instead, she paid attention to the nervous jitters sparking across her skin. That was excitement and daring, she told herself. That was courage and enterprise. She stuffed the folded suits into her Mars Ho duffel and reached for her Frelix hair brush and Soothe slippers.
April grabbed Lori’s arm and sent the slippers sliding to the floor.
“Lori, think about this.” April tugged at her, trying to get her to sit on the edge of the bed, but Lori kept her feet. “You can’t do this. Please don’t do this.”
Lori felt a genuine pang to see April’s green eyes rimmed with tears. She wanted to smooth down April’s curled hair, b
ut she was afraid the gesture would worsen her friend’s distress.
“I’ve made up my mind.” Lori was bolstered by how calm and certain her voice sounded, even as she pretended she didn’t feel any regret. She picked up the slippers and tucked them into her bag. She wondered about stripping the high-tech linens off her bed and collecting her towels from the bathroom. She wanted to be a good guest, particularly since she intended to be back inside the MHCH within the next year or two.
But next time, she’d have Charlie with her.
Mars Ho had splashed its message of inclusivity across every media channel when the digital doors first opened to candidate applications. They wanted people from all walks of life, and all educational and professional backgrounds. Artists had just as much right to Mars as did engineers and architects, they said.
Charlie’s music was his art, even if he didn’t care about whether or not anyone would ever hear it. There were better songwriters and more talented guitarists, but Charlie could be the poet laureate of Mars! With Lori at his side to believe in him and encourage him, who knew what he might accomplish?
What they might accomplish together.
“I thought you said he didn’t even want to apply.” April looked at the floor, resigned to Lori’s departure. “And that you barely knew him at all.”
“He didn’t think he would be accepted.” But that’s not what Charlie had told her on their first date just a couple of months earlier. He didn’t want to go. He was content to stay where he was and not chase after somebody else’s dream.
“He just needs a little push.” Lori zipped up her bag. “I’ll tell him what’s it’s like inside, and about the program and training. The first and second, and maybe the third colony teams will already be on Mars and they’ll be looking to expand the colony’s skill sets, to bring in the teachers and the writers.”
Mars Ho! (Mars Adventure Romance Series Book 1) Page 8