He didn’t look good. Ethan had folded his body together until he occupied only a small corner of the already small quarters. Knees pulled up in front of his chest, Ethan had wrapped his arms around his legs. His eyes stared into the darkness under his bunk, but Jess didn’t think he was seeing whatever was down there. He hummed a single deep note, pausing only for the briefest of periods when he required breath.
He didn’t move his eyes to look at his sister.
“Ethan, I’m here. I’m going to tell you the story about the girl who stole a kingdom.” Jess kept her voice low, in hopes he would quit humming so as to hear her better.
Only toward the end of the story did the humming cease. Though still lost in a place of anguish, Ethan had calmed enough to simply breathe, without the accompaniment of his monotone hum. It wasn’t as good as standing and walking, and it was a far cry from talking or working at a console, but it represented a start.
“We made it to Earth,” said Jessamyn. “And you’re going to make it, too, Ethan.”
She heard her brother whisper a single word: “Water.”
Her mind struggled for the connection. “Yeah, Eth. The water planet. We made it.”
“Water,” he repeated.
Her brother’s lips were cracked and swollen. Jess reached for an unopened water packet lying beside him and, fumbling with the closure, brought it to her brother’s mouth. He swallowed and nodded his head a mere fraction of a centimeter.
“Good,” he whispered.
“I know you feel stuck, Ethan, but there’s a whole world outside this ship. You want to see that, right?”
He nodded, barely.
“The colors here are crazy, I’m telling you. Everything’s blue and green. No yellow. No red. No brown.”
Ethan nodded.
It took another half-hour of murmuring to her brother about Earth’s wonders to get him to rise from his crouched fetal position. But Jess saw a light in his eyes replacing the dull glazed look they’d had when she’d entered his room.
“Okay, look, Eth, there’s clothes you’ve got to change into. And I’m not helping you with that, ‘cause … just …gross! You want Crusty to give you a hand?” she asked, indicating his jumpsuit.
“Send Crusty,” whispered Ethan.
She stepped out and called for the gruff mechanic.
“Ah, Jessamyn,” said Harpreet, who had changed into her Terran outfit of black pants and a black shirt. “The Captain would appreciate a word with the two of us.”
Jess followed Harpreet to the rations room.
“Status report on Communications Specialist Jaarda?” demanded the Captain.
Jess felt her face flushing with anger. “My brother’s not a machine with a re-set function.”
Kipper exhaled loudly and Harpreet stepped in. “Yes, but the Captain does need to know if your brother can do what he came here to do.”
“I can only say that when he’s been like this in the past, once we got him home, he recovered quickly. In a day or so,” replied Jess.
Kipper frowned.
“If I might make a suggestion,” said Harpreet, “Perhaps the best way to approach things would be to move forward as if he will make a full recovery. We have come a very long way to abandon our planet’s hope of a freer future.”
“Indeed,” said Kipper. “Very well. First Officer, you will do whatever is necessary to promote your brother’s recovery.”
As if I’d do anything else, thought Jessamyn. She felt a scowl forming but forced herself to maintain a neutral expression.
“Aye-aye, sir,” she replied.
There followed a hurried half-hour scramble to descend to the bowels of the ship where an amphibious Terran transport had been stored for the past eighteen annums. The crew piled aboard, a hatch was opened allowing them to drive out of the Red Galleon, and the five Mars Raiders rumbled out onto a field of what resembled blue-grey snow.
Kipper had directed Jessamyn to keep close to Ethan, who was humming again, and this meant Jess got out of driving and could look about her on the five ash-blanketed kilometers to Brian Wallace’s dwelling. Jess startled at something green peering up through the coat of grey.
“Grass,” she murmured. “There’s grass, Ethan!”
Her brother broke off mid-hum to look but gave no verbal acknowledgement.
“Still thirsty?” she asked him. He shook his head once to the right—the briefest of answers.
Jess frowned. His color looked off, but maybe that was because Earth had such odd light. The sky—the very air—was too blue.
“I shot him full of rehydrant,” murmured Crusty. “He’ll pull through fine.”
Jess smiled at the mechanic, grateful.
Glancing outside once more, she startled as a dozen faces turned toward their passing vehicle. “What on Ares are those?”
Ethan spoke. “Amend your phrasing.”
Jess looked to her brother.
Crusty chuckled. “Bet he means, you should ask, ‘What on Earth?‘”
Harpreet turned from her position in the front, beside Kipper. “The answer to either question is that they are hybridized goats designed to survive in this climate,” she said. “The Wallace family keeps a large herd as their cover, claiming to be farmers.”
Several dozen golden eyes, rimmed in black, stared at the passing vehicle. Then the heads turned back to crop grass, and the creatures, colored the same blue-grey as their surrounding, seemed to vanish.
“I wonder what their fur would feel like, huh, Eth?” Jess now wished she’d thought to ask about walking the five kilometers to Brian Wallace’s cottage. They drove over a low rise. On the opposite side was an entire field of green sloping down to meet the ash-grey field before Brian Wallace’s tiny dwelling.
Jessamyn blinked, uncertain her eyes truly saw what she thought she saw. “Oh, stop!” she cried. The field of green was so unexpected, so lovely. She felt certain she could bring her brother back inside his own skin if he would only step outside.
Alarmed, Kipper applied a braking system that caused everyone to lurch.
Crusty’s head and shoulders fell forward. As he lifted himself, he muttered, “Bells of Hades, we’re heavy on Earth.”
“What is it, First Officer?” asked Kipper.
In answer, Jessamyn opened her door and escaped out into the fresh air of Earth. “Ohhh,” she cried. “It’s so … wet!” Laughter burbled up from deep inside and she giggled like a child.
“Jaarda, return to the vehicle at once,” called Kipper.
Jessamyn heard the order, but only barely. Even sound carried differently through Terran air. She felt the tremendous tug of gravity calling her earthward and yielded, sinking to her knees so that she could touch the blades of green growth blanketing the hillside. Oh, she sighed again, this time to herself. She ran her fingers across the tips of grass. Bent one strand over between forefinger and thumb. A drop of moisture clung to the backside. Oh, oh, oh.
“Officer Jaarda, I order you to return at once!” called Kipper.
Jessamyn looked back to the transport and saw her brother, his brows furrowed.
Ignoring her commanding officer, Jess asked Ethan, “Do you want to get out?”
Harpreet murmured quietly to Kipper, and Jess heard her brother’s name.
Jess told her body to stand, but was surprised at the effort the simple motion required. Moving back to the transport, she offered Ethan her hand, but he shook his head.
“Ethan, it’s … unreal,” whispered Jess as she returned to his side in the vehicle. “Like a dream.”
“A good dream,” replied her brother, his voice rough-sounding from lack of use.
Jess closed the door and the vehicle advanced once more.
Straining to look as far away as she could see, Jess searched for the horizon line.
“The sky is blue here,” she said. “That’s so weird.”
Harpreet’s light laughter filled the transport. “Your eyes must grow accustomed to a myr
iad of differences. The horizon will feel too far … the colors strange … so many adjustments …” Harpreet fell silent, her mouth curving slightly upward as she remembered her last visit, perhaps.
As they drew close to Brian Wallace’s dwelling, a black-and-white blur rushed toward them. The front door of the building opened and Brian Wallace himself whistled. The blur—a dog, Jessamyn was sure of it—returned to the house, disappearing inside with its owner.
“That dog’s gait is shortened by Earth’s gravitational pull,” said Ethan.
Jess grinned at her brother’s lengthy observation. Interest in the world outside was an excellent sign. Of course, he was still humming off and on. He’ll be fine, she told herself, longing to grab her brother’s hand and squeeze it. But he would hate it, so she didn’t.
They parked beside the tiny whitewashed cottage of Brian Wallace. Jess looked nervously at her brother after she exited, waiting to see if he would follow.
He set one foot and then the other upon the wet surface of Earth. His face calmed, the furrow between his brows smoothed. Jess realized with a pang that Ethan had acquired his First Wrinkle during his lonely ordeal.
He stood outside the vehicle, then took a step and smiled softly.
“I like Earth,” he said.
Jess closed her eyes in a moment’s gratitude.
Chapter Twelve
WHAT IT FELT LIKE
It was an anxious moment for four out of five crew members—Harpreet alone had encountered a Terran before.
The front door swung open and their contact emerged into the alcove before his dwelling. The dog was nowhere to be seen.
The first words of Brian Wallace, representative of the Clan Wallace, struck Jessamyn as extremely odd. “Ye’ll want to be leaving yer great boots just here.” He pointed to one of two built-in benches on either side of the door. Both benches—colored white like his home—had a series of shoe prints painted in black upon the stone floor of the alcove. The shoe prints were grouped in pairs of two: left and right.
Harpreet, smiling pleasantly, removed one shoe and placed it carefully upon the painted image. Raising an eyebrow significantly to the rest of the crew, she indicated that they should do the same. Only once all five Marsians had removed their footwear did Wallace move to allow them inside.
His front door, instead of sliding into the wall to admit them, swung into the room. No need for airlocks, thought Jessamyn. An odd smell greeted her nostrils. After a moment, she recognized it as the smell of damp rock, like one of her mother’s labs in New Houston where they grew experimental algae in hypertufa. She looked about her for the origin of the odor. Instead of hypertufa containers, Jess noticed shiny pots—ceramic, she thought—containing plant life.
Crusty was already bent in examination of an exotic bloom.
“Is this what you eat?” asked Jessamyn, approaching the white-and-magenta flower on its tall green stalk.
“Don’t touch!” cried Wallace, crossing the room to prevent Jess from fingering the plant. “Orchids, ye know. Very fussy. Fragile in this climate.”
Placing himself firmly in front of the flower, he attempted a smile. It looked very much like a worried frown.
“Not for eating, though, no,” said Wallace. “Ornamental.”
“Imagine that,” she murmured. It was difficult to conceive of a world where water existed in such abundance that it could be wasted upon plants merely decorative.
Hearing a noise from outside, Jessamyn glanced up. In Wallace’s home, the windows were single-paned and sound traveled right through. Jess noted a dust storm picking up speed—it would be a bad storm, she thought, hearing the first small pebbles kicking up and hitting the windows. Then, experiencing a momentary disorientation, she realized that on Earth, that sound wouldn’t come from a dust storm. So what was it?
Jessamyn crossed to the closest window and beheld her first rainfall. Like tiny bits of glass falling from the sky, drops of rain pelted down. She gazed at the angled descent of the water, enchanted, and turned for the door so that she could feel the rain.
“Ask first,” grunted Crusty beside her.
Jess’s fists clenched, but she followed his advice. “Permission to exit the building with Ethan and observe rainfall, Captain?” she asked politely.
Harpreet stood beside Kipper, murmuring.
“Oh, very well,” said the Captain. “But I want you two back in ten minutes.”
Jess raced outside, shoved her feet back inside her Earth-style footgear, and dashed into the falling rain. Her brother followed suit. Their Terran garments offered protection from the deluge, but drops struck the backs of their hands and scalps. Instinctively fearful of any cold sensation out of doors, Jess felt a brief panic, drawing her hands back inside her sleeves. On Mars, such exposure would have meant frostbite, at the least. Of course, this was Earth.
Laughing at herself, she turned to her brother. “Nothing’s cold here, Eth!” It wasn’t exactly true. The rain did feel cold as it struck her, but unfathomably, wondrously, it couldn’t harm her.
“Remember the day I touched the pump?” she asked her brother.
Ethan gave a brief nod in response.
Their mother had sent her and Ethan outside on a rare, warm day when the temperature hovered a handful of degrees below freezing. Jess had waited until Ethan got interested in something besides his little sister, and then she’d slipped off one of her outer gloves and pressed a minimally-protected forefinger to the pump handle.
“Everyone said it would freeze you so fast you wouldn’t even feel it,” she said. “And then they’d have to cut your finger off.”
“Why did Jessamyn do it?” asked her brother.
Another complete sentence, thought Jess. And sometime in the last minute, Ethan had stopped humming.
“I wanted to know what it felt like,” she said, shrugging. She recalled the burning sensation, how it had almost felt nice.
“I told you to replace your glove,” said Ethan. “That was the first time you defied me.”
“But not the last, eh, brother of mine?” She giggled. “Mom,” she said, imitating her brother, “Make Jessie put her gloves back on.”
“You should have complied,” Ethan said.
Jess, examining the sense-dead spot on her finger, had to agree.
They continued walking through the rainfall as it grew heavier.
The sensation of being rained upon was entirely novel. It reminded Jess a bit of being tickled. When a gust of wind swished past, she had the impression that the temperature dropped suddenly. But just as quickly, it passed. Of course she had read that wind passing over moisture created the feeling of temperature change, but actually experiencing it was wondrous.
Peeling off her jacket, Jess turned into the storm and ran, laughing as drops struck her face and arms and soaked through her shirt. She paused atop a small hill, her heart pounding with the effort of climbing. Below, her brother had stopped, clearly weakened by his last few days. She bounded back down to where he stood gazing at something upon the ground.
He pointed to the object as she drew close. It was a marvel of tiny fibers, stretching outward in spokes from a central circle.
“The web of an arachnid,” said her brother.
Jess watched it quiver as a gust of wind passed by them. Tiny beads of water clung to the conjunctions of one thread where it met another. It looked to her as if the weight of the water or the pressure of the wind ought to dissolve the slight strands. Jessamyn had never seen anything at once so delicate and strong.
“Beautiful,” she murmured.
They stood for a minute, admiring the spider’s handiwork until Ethan pointed to his wrist tattoo.
“It has been nine minutes and five seconds,” said her brother.
“I wish I’d brought a wafer to take pictures,” said Jess, gazing with regret at the web.
“Store the image in your mind,” said Ethan.
She smiled and together they tromped back through the
muck of wetted ash and grass. Shedding their footwear once again, the siblings prepared to reenter Brian Wallace’s dwelling.
But something was wrong with Ethan. He stood before the door, making no attempt to enter.
Jessamyn moved to where she could observe her brother’s face, expressionless as usual, but there was something beyond his normal bland visage; his gaze, where it rested on the door, seemed troubled. Jess heard the humming resume, starting as a low rumble and building to the sustained single note that said Ethan suffered distress.
He doesn’t want to go back inside, thought Jess. “Eyebrows,” she said softly.
Ethan brought a hand to his forehead, located a brow, and ran his fingers over and over the short hairs.
“Good, Eth,” said Jessamyn. “Now I want you to count down from ninety-eight to zero by sevens. When you reach zero, we’ll open the door and go inside.”
The humming came to a stop. “Ninety-eight,” said Ethan, “Ninety-one. Eighty-four. Seventy. No. That was incorrect.”
The mistake struck Jessamyn’s ears like shattering glass. Her brother never made mistakes with numbers.
Ethan exhaled slowly, his chin dropping to his chest. Then he raised his head and began over. “Ninety-eight. Ninety-one. Eighty-four. Seventy-seven.”
Jessamyn realized at “seventy” that her lungs were aching—she’d held her breath too long. Inhaling deeply of Earth’s moist air, she listened as her brother finished the count correctly.
Upon reaching zero, Ethan grasped the door handle. But he didn’t open the door. Jess felt a dozen small muscles around her mouth and forehead as they tightened.
“Eth? It’s time to go back inside.”
Very quietly Ethan began to hum once more.
No, thought Jessamyn, racking her brain for another idea. The dog.
“Ethan, Brian Wallace has a dog.” She watched her brother carefully. His hand tightened upon the doorknob. “Would you like to see it?”
Ethan answered by pushing the door open and stepping inside. Jess sighed in relief as she followed him.
Saving Mars Page 11