by Arthur C.
There were no surprises during the repair process. Johann replaced the pair of HY442s, as well as three other components that did not meet specifications, in slightly more than an hour. After Melvin, upon a signal from Valhalla, passed its entire system self-test, Johann dismantled the platform and returned it to its packing cases. Satoko and he, standing over by their tent a hundred meters away, then watched as Giovanni put Melvin through two trenching cycles to verify that the giant machine was again operational.
Inside the tent, Johann and Satoko played two quick games of gin rummy before settling down inside their padded sleeping bags. Johann had never mastered the art of sleeping in a spacesuit. After a few hours of sleep he awoke, feeling stiff, and decided to take a walk around. Outside, in the Martian night, it was pitch-black everywhere except over by Melvin, where Johann had left the powerful lights deployed, at Giovanni’s request, in case Valhalla wanted to do anything additional with Melvin before daylight.
Johann strolled over toward the ice harvester without any particular purpose. After examining the trench that Melvin had been digging in the ice, he decided to walk around to the other, dark side of Melvin. He switched on his flashlight so that he could see where he was walking on the ice.
Just before Johann reached the rear of the ice harvester and emerged again into a lit area, his flashlight picked up an unusual reflection from Melvin’s surface, about a meter above his head. Johann stopped and directed the beam back into the area where he had seen the reflection. What he saw sent a chill of terror through his body. A cloud of tiny sparkling particles, which had apparently been compressed and hidden underneath one of the slight overhangs in Melvin’s uneven surface, began to drift slowly outward toward Johann. As it approached him the bright cloud formed into a figure-eight pattern in the air.
Johann’s recognition was immediate. He knew absolutely that this was exactly the same phenomenon he had seen in the Tiergarten in Berlin twenty-one months before. He shone the flashlight beam directly into the pattern, which was about a meter long, and tried to quell the powerful fear that was telling him to flee. As before, the individual particles inside the formation were moving around freely inside the pattern, but the overall shape of the cloud remained fixed.
The response of Johann’s body to the burst of adrenaline triggered the monitoring systems inside his spacesuit. As he continued to stare at the sparkling figure eight a meter above his head, Johann heard a computer voice in his ear saying, “Your pulse rate is abnormally high. You should consider resting.”
Johann stood perfectly still and gazed at the cloud. He was determined to see what, if anything, the strange particles were going to do. After about fifteen seconds, the figure eight drifted down to his eye level. Johann followed its path with his flashlight. As the individual sparkling particles continued to dance around inside the pattern, the overall structure of the cloud turned on its side, so that each of the two bright circles in the figure eight were facing Johann’s eyes.
While he watched, the particles began to clump together. They formed into eleven white spheres each about a hundred times as large as the original particles. These eleven spheres, which did not sparkle and were marked with a single narrow, circular red band, next arranged themselves into a slow procession that moved in a line around the entire figure-eight structure.
Johann was both fascinated and frightened. Could this bizarre formation be alive? he asked himself, astonished at what he was seeing. He fought against another burst of fear and the urge to run away. Several seconds later the spheres stopped for a brief moment, and then reversed direction in their motion inside the figure eight. “Hello,” Johann said suddenly into his microphone, even surprising himself. “I am a human being… What are you?”
To his amazement, the moment he was finished speaking the eleven little white spheres and the figure-eight outline coalesced into one single large white sphere about the size of a baseball. This sphere hovered in the air in front of Johann’s eyes just long enough for him to see the great circular red band around it, and then darted quickly forward. Johann screamed involuntarily when it smashed into his faceplate. After his terror subsided, he realized that there had been a vivid burst of light just an instant before the sphere, the cloud, and the sparkling particles had all disappeared. All that was left from the encounter was an unmistakable imprint on his faceplate.
2
Johann finished packing and carried the suitcase into the living room of his small apartment. He set it on the floor next to the other two bags, one of which contained the faceplate from his spacesuit, before glancing at the clock. There was still plenty of time to eat a leisurely breakfast before his final meeting with Narong. The train would not leave Valhalla for another two hours.
Narong arrived a few minutes late. “Sorry, Johann,” he said with a worried look on his face. “I’ve been outside checking the supplies that came in with the train. Unfortunately, the manifest we received yesterday was accurate. We’re short in nearly every category, especially processor parts. I’ve already phoned Mutchville, but they say there’s nothing they can do.”
“What about the new HY442s?” Johann asked.
“They’re here,” Narong replied. “But only three, instead of the six that we ordered… Unless you find someone who can repair complex components, we’re never going to make our pumping quotas.”
“I know,” said Johann, forcing a smile. “Hiring a competent test-and-repair engineer is my second priority in Mutchville. My first, of course, is to find a software specialist who can replace you. You’re a year over term already—”
“Lucinda now knows all our critical software,” Narong interrupted. “She may be young, and not talk very much, but she’s quite talented. A good test-and-repair engineer is more important for the site. Besides, unless you can somehow get me a reservation back to Earth before my currently scheduled date, you’re stuck with me for another nine months at least.”
“We shouldn’t have waited so long to apply for your return.”
“It’s not your fault,” Narong said. “I heard rumors about the wait lists over six months ago. I just didn’t want to schedule my departure until I was certain Lucinda could take over. It never occurred to me that the demand for returns might be so great that I would be forced to wait a year.”
“Maybe you won’t,” Johann said. “When I take the faceplate by the ISA office, I’ll see if they can obtain a higher priority for you. It’s the least I can do after all the outstanding work you have done here in Valhalla.”
Narong glanced at Johann’s bags on the floor of the apartment. “So you are going to take your faceplate to the ISA? I thought you decided last night not to make an official report.”
“I’m not going to tell them all the details of the incident,” Johann said. “At least not yet… I just want them to send the faceplate to the chemistry laboratory for an analysis.”
“But they won’t do that unless you fill out a report … you know how the ISA works.”
“Maybe I can have it done unofficially,” Johann said. “I was thinking of visiting the laboratory myself and talking to the chief chemist.”
“Based on what happened to that woman at the Carr Outpost,” Narong said, “that’s a much better idea. Otherwise, even if you’re not laughed at or put on psychological leave, you’re bound to become bogged down in the ISA bureaucracy.”
The two men looked at each other for several seconds. “You believe my story, don’t you, Narong?”
“I think so,” Narong said hesitantly, “but only because I’ve heard the story of what happened in that park in Berlin several times before.” He smiled. “Johann, I would be lying to you if I didn’t say that it’s a huge stretch for me to believe your tale. Everything about it is incredible. As soon as my analytical mind kicks in with its questions, my doubt begins to grow… I only accept your story because you’ve always told me the truth about everything else. However, I must warn you, someone who doesn’t know you will think
—”
“I’m a kook, or suffering from Martian syndrome, or worse.”
“Exactly,” said Narong.
Johann sighed and shook his head. “I feel the same way now that I did in Berlin two years ago. Half of me wants to ignore what happened and continue with my normal life, while the other half tells me I must pursue this thing somehow… It could well be the most important event of my life.”
“Have you ever followed up on your meeting with that Spanish guy in Berlin?” asked Narong.
“No,” Johann said. “The interview was less than a week before I left Earth. And both he and his assistant seemed peculiar to me. I felt uncomfortable in their presence, especially after they started telling me stories.”
Narong looked at his watch. “Well, it’s your decision, one way or the other. Meanwhile I have a facility to run in your absence. Which reminds me, that inter-Asian science group that left last week did not check in again last night. Should I be concerned? Or should I just assume they’re typical scientists who are too busy working to be concerned about our safety procedures?”
“They didn’t act too impressed by our protocols before they left,” Johann said. “So I wouldn’t worry yet… By the way, are we still following their navigation beacons?”
“Yes,” answered Narong. “They have been in the same spot for four days now. They are about five hundred and twenty kilometers almost due north from Valhalla, not too far from where that Ukrainian team took the controversial ice core last year. I called their campsite this morning, but there was no answer. They were probably already working out on the ice.”
“If they don’t check in tonight,” Johann said, hoisting the bags onto his shoulder and opening the apartment door, “wake them while they’re sleeping. They’ll be unhappy, but they need to be reminded of our safety procedures.”
The train raced southward across Mars all afternoon before making its first stop at sunset. Johann slept most of the way. Giovanni woke him when they reached BioTech City.
“Goodness,” said the startled Johann. “Are we there already?”
“Yes,” said Giovanni. “Right on time for a change… They announced five minutes ago that all disembarking passengers should come to the forward car. Unless you’ve changed your mind, and would like to spend Christmas here with my sister and me, this is good-bye.”
Johann stood up and shook Giovanni’s hand. “We’ll miss you at Valhalla, Giovanni,” he said. “Both your skill and your sense of humor… Good luck wherever you go."
“Thanks, Johann,” he replied. “I’ve enjoyed my term, and the friendships, but I must admit that I’ve really been homesick the last six months. It’s a great feeling to know I’ll be skiing at Cortina before the winter is over."
Giovanni picked up his bags and headed for the front of the car. Johann sat back down in his seat feeling strangely disoriented. He stared out the window of the train. The edge of the bubble surrounding BioTech City was about fifty meters from where the train had stopped. A wide concrete sidewalk across the reddish Martian soil led from the train path to a door in the bubble. As Johann watched, the first of the passengers moved along the sidewalk toward the door.
Giovanni stopped in the middle of the walk and waved in Johann’s direction. Johann had recognized his gait immediately, even though Giovanni was too far away for him to see any specific features behind the faceplate. As he waved back Johann conjured up a picture of Giovanni in ski clothes, preparing for a day of skiing in the Italian Alps. Johann was temporarily envious. Maybe, he thought, I am becoming homesick too.
Even after the passengers from BioTech City had come onboard, there were still only three other people in the car with Johann, and the nearest was several rows in front of him. The train quickly left the BioTech City bubble far behind. Out the window the Martian landscape again looked harsh and inhospitable.
Will we ever really tame this place? Johann thought. He recalled how as a boy he had been thrilled by the grandiose plans for terra-forming Mars advanced by the scientists of the ISA. But the engineers knew better, Johann said to himself. They tripled the time estimates and raised the predicted costs by an order of magnitude.
It was a moot point now. Terra-forming planning and research had been one of the many casualties of the Great Chaos. There were even some people who thought human beings should withdraw altogether from Mars, ending a continuous presence that had already lasted over a hundred years.
Johann put the tiny headphones on his ears and activated the entertainment system in the arm of his seat. He scanned through the menus that appeared on the monitor. Johann briefly watched the local Martian news from the previous day, which was mostly about the continued high emigration of the Martian residents. He then switched over to the European news video. The feature story was about Christmas preparations in Germany. Despite the continuing depression, the commentator said, nothing could stop the Germans from planning for their favorite holiday.
Johann leaned back in his seat and listened to a group of freshly scrubbed German children singing “Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht.” As he remembered the wonderful Christmases of his childhood, Johann felt a profound loneliness. The happy memories of waiting in his room for his mother’s call, and then bounding down the stairs to see what surprises were under the Christmas tree, were accompanied by a deep heartache that brought a rare tear to Johann’s eye. For a moment he wished he had accepted Giovanni’s invitation to spend the holidays in BioTech City. Giovanni had praised his younger sister’s cooking, as well as her intelligence, and had even suggested that she might be a good match for Johann.
Johann switched off the video, removed his earphones, and retrieved the small bag from the rack above his head. He rummaged in the bag until he found a small videocube in a plastic wrapper. He inserted the cube into the proper spot in the arm of his seat. A moment later his mother’s face appeared on the screen.
“Hello, Johann,” Frau Eberhardt said. She was sharply dressed in a black silk blouse and looked as if she had just visited a beauty salon. “Your father and I send our greetings. And our love.” His mother smiled. “Since these transmissions have become so expensive, this will be our last video before Christmas… We will miss you during the holidays, of course. This will be only the second Christmas since your birth that we have not all been together.”
Johann’s mother gave him the news from Potsdam, mostly about people that he could only vaguely remember, and then his father appeared briefly on the screen. Herr Eberhardt spent most of his time extolling the virtues of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, which he had seen at the Berlin Opera House the previous week.
In the last part of the video Johann’s mother reported that the book made from Helga Weber’s journals was still selling well, even though it was no longer on the national best-seller list. “Of course your father and I appreciate what you and Uncle Hermann have done for us,” she said, “but we are disturbed at times by what some people, even our friends, say about the book… There is a lot of talk these days about the Nazis and the Second World War. It seems that every week or two there is a commemoration of some terrible event that happened two hundred years ago.
“That American Jew activist, Rabbi Goldberg, has been in Germany again recently. In one of his speeches he insisted that all Germans should still feel guilty for what our ancestors did during the Third Reich, and he cited passages from Helga’s book as an indication of how the ordinary Germans supported Hitler and the other Nazis. Neither your father nor I ever say anything when asked by the reporters, but I know Max is very angry with what the media have done with Helga’s book. He told me last week that he wished the journals had never been published, even though without the money…”
Johann had watched the video quickly just minutes after it had been received at Valhalla two weeks earlier. At the time there had been a major crisis at the facility and he had been very busy. He had not had much time to think about his parents then. Now, however, sitting on a train during a long jour
ney across Mars, he was listening carefully to everything that his parents were saying.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Frau Eberhardt said on the video after she finished discussing Helga Weber’s journals, “you’ll never guess who I saw in the supermarket only two weeks ago. Your old girlfriend Eva Haase… She was quite plump and was carrying a baby girl of ten weeks wrapped up in some kind of contraption. Would you believe it, she now lives in Potsdam. Anyway, Eva asked about you and was delighted to hear that things are going so well.”
Johann did not hear his mother’s good-bye. The image of Eva in a supermarket, carrying a new baby against her chest, had set off another sequence of memories. Again he was aware of a powerful loneliness. He switched off the monitor when he realized that the video had finished.
He tried unsuccessfully to fall asleep again. After half an hour Johann reactivated the video system and raced through the available selections. Smiling to himself, he selected a performance of Wagner’s Siegfried to watch. It was the same production he had seen in his family home in Potsdam a month or so before he had left for Mars.
At New Dallas a long line of passengers boarded the train. Johann watched them file out of the city bubble and walk across the sidewalk in their spacesuits. When the train was moving again, the door to Johann’s car opened and five people, all wearing the blue robes of the Order of St. Michael, entered. They were following a tall, pretty, copper-skinned woman who was obviously their leader.