Colony Two Mars: A SciFi Thriller (Colony Mars Book 2)

by Gerald M. Kilby

  “Certainly, Jann. How would you like it?”

  “Just take it all off, leave about a centimetre.”

  Gizmo moved closer, selected a suitable tool from its collection and went to work. It took only a few minutes for Jann’s matted hair to form a large mound on the floor of the dais. When Gizmo finished she examined the robot’s handiwork in the mirror. She rubbed her hand over her scalp and felt the tight crop. It was like a velvet mat. “Oh, that feels so much better. My head must be a few kilos lighter.”

  “My pleasure, I am here to assist.”

  “Okay then, let’s go do this. Let’s see if there really are two Thomas Boatengs’.”

  The mausoleum was fashioned from an old lander module and isolated from the main Colony One structure. It had no power or life support. There was no need for that, in a place for the dead. Jann cracked the handle on the makeshift crypt and swung the door open. She stepped inside and scanned the racks. Paolio, Lu, Kevin, they were all here, the entire crew of the doomed ISA mission. It even housed what was left of Annis. A blackened husk was all the remained after Jann had incinerated her.

  This module had been used by the original colonists as a place to temporarily store the dead before they were buried. But as time passed, they realised that in the rarefied atmosphere of Mars, bodies do not decompose. So they simply left them interred in here. As more dead were added it became the de-facto mausoleum for Colony One.

  The walls were lined with horizontal metal racks, floor to ceiling. On these lay the corpses of the departed. In the centre was a raised circular table. On which were placed artefacts of faith and no faith, as well as totems of remembrance. Jann considered, that in some distant time, it may become a hallowed place. Venerated by the future citizens of Mars as a direct link to their foundation history.

  She moved over to where the body of Thomas Boateng should be resting. It was still there lying on a long metal shelf, a thin layer of dust had accumulated all over it, it had been there a long time. She looked at the desiccated face. It was hard to be sure, but there was a vague resemblance to the recently deceased visitor. She judged this simply by a visual inspection of body height and facial structure rather than from anything scientific. Jann then considered looking for the mole on his shoulder but now that she was face-to-face, she couldn’t bring herself to disturb the dead. “Leave him in peace,” she thought.

  “Satisfied?” Gizmo’s voice resonated in her helmet, as it buzzed in beside her.

  “Yes, and no. If this guy died seven years ago, then who is the person on the operating table in the Medlab?”

  “It is another Thomas Boateng.”

  “I find that very hard to comprehend.” She sighed, “come on, let’s go. There’s nothing more we can do here.” They moved outside and Jann swung the door closed. Hopefully she would not have to visit this place again anytime soon.

  In the early days of her life in Colony One, Jann had always considered the mine as an area for more detailed investigation. A place where she may find some answers. But it was considerably further than Nills had originally suggested. It was over thirty kilometres away on the other side of the Jezero crater. Much too far to EVA, as the dead colonist, that Gizmo was now moving into the mausoleum, had found out to his cost. So she had given the mine no further thought. Now, though, it seemed that it was not as dead as Nills had led her to believe, something was going on over there. Yet, even if she could not EVA to it, she could at least start to look into the Colony One archives and get a better understanding of its formation, and perhaps even, its true purpose. So it was a re-invigorated Jann that set to work in the Operations Room in Colony One.

  Much of what was contained in the archives was vague and sparse. Most of what Jann had learnt had come from Nills. She knew that the early colonists had discovered a mineral rich cave system on the other side of the crater rim. This much was common knowledge. She also knew that, at some point, it had been sealed up and a pressurised atmosphere created inside. This allowed it to be used not just as a mine but also as a secondary colony — Colony Two.

  Food production had been established inside and, over time, many of the original colonists had moved over there permanently. Nills intimated that this had been as a direct response to the increasing invasiveness of the reality TV model that had funded the initial colony. But what was of most interest to Jann was the fact that the geneticists had also relocated there, shortly before everything went to rat-shit in Colony One.

  She stood up from the workstation terminal and stretched her shoulders. She had been studying the archives for over three hours straight but had not learnt anything she didn’t know already. She rubbed her head again, it was becoming a habit, she liked the feel of her finely cropped skull and the lightness it gave her. She moved over to the newly repaired holo-table. The original had been damaged when the insane Commander Decker threw Paolio at it. Every time Jann used it she couldn’t help but shed a tear for her dear friend. Her feeling for Decker was not quite the same. But, in reality, he was just as much a victim as any of the others of the unfortunate ISA crew.

  She brought up a map of the crater and zoomed out to get a broad view. It rendered itself in 3D so she could get a sense of the scale of the vast crater. Jann rotated it and found the location of the mining outpost. It was at least thirty-five kilometres away. “That’s a hell of a walk to undertake in a battered EVA suit,” she thought. She zoomed in on the site and a wire-frame image of the structure began to render as it dialled in closer. It was big. Maybe twenty times the volume of Colony One, and that could accommodate a hundred people. But the wire-frame was sketchy, there was very little detail in it.

  Jann looked up as Gizmo entered the Operations Room. “Gizmo. Have a look at this.” She pointed to the location of Colony Two on the holo-table. “How come there’s such little detail on the internal structure of the mine?”

  Gizmo moved closer and examined it. “It does seem very incomplete.”

  “From my analysis there should be areas for food production, accommodation, operation, processing and a whole bunch of other stuff. But this is minimal.”

  “They obviously were not too interested in updating the data.”

  “Or they were trying to hide its true nature.” She sighed and looked at Gizmo.

  “Did you move the body?”

  “Yes, he is now lying beside himself in the mausoleum.”

  “You’re assuming that they are the same person, Gizmo.”

  “I never assume, Jann.”

  “Well, if you are correct, and let’s face it, you always are. Then that would mean only one thing. That this guy must be a clone.”

  “A genetically identical human?” said Gizmo.

  “Yes.”

  “Interesting.”

  “What’s even more interesting, Gizmo, is there are probably a lot more.”

  CHAPTER 3: In Search Of Answers

  Jann sat in a battered armchair in the Common Room of Colony One. It was the first time she had done so in over a year. The table before her was laid out with dishes and utensils, as well as an ample array of food, all extracted from deep-freeze storage. She had not eaten like this in a very long time, having given up on such formal niceties. But, like a ship’s captain of old on the far side of the world, taking tea from a fine china tea-set, she felt she needed to reconnect with civilised behaviour, lest she forget forever.

  Yet, it brought with it painful memories of friends long dead, of Paolio, Nills, Lu and Kevin. She raised her cup of colony cider, “Here’s to you all.” She said, in the memory of all those that she had lost.

  Gizmo entered. “Is the food to your liking, Jann?”

  “It feels weird, eating off a plate.”

  “Sorry, but I would not know.”

  Jann smiled at the quirky robot. “The food’s fine, Gizmo. But it would be nice to share it with some friends.”

  “Well, if it is any consolation, I do enjoy your company.”

  She laughed. “Tha
nk you, Gizmo. I know I can be difficult. It hasn’t been easy for me… this last while.”

  “That is okay, you are only human after all.”

  Jann cocked an eyebrow at it. “Coming from a robot I’m not sure how to take that.”

  “Consider it a compliment.”

  “All right. I will.” She raised her glass to it and nodded, then sat back. “Tell me, Gizmo, what are my chances of returning to Earth?” It was the same question she had asked of it a hundred times before. Whenever any new message came in from mission control, or when she gained some new insight into the operation of the bacteria, she asked this very same question of Gizmo, hoping that this new snippet of data would prompt a different response. It never did. Its reply was always the same. ‘None’, it would say. She understood, that in Gizmo's lexicon, this meant anything with less than a 0.01% probability. However, this time its response was different.

  “Slim. Approximate probability of 2.7%.”

  Jann nearly choked on her drink. “Slim? How come? What’s changed?”

  “Quite a lot, Jann. Consider this — you can return to Earth anytime you want, your launch craft is still functioning and the new fuel tanks are ready. The only thing that is preventing you is the need to convince the ISA that you are no longer a bio-hazard. And, the only way you can do that is to find a way to kill it.”

  “Well, since the Research Lab is destroyed I have no way to do that. The Medlab equipment is not up to the mark for that kind of analysis. Anyway, you know all this, Gizmo.”

  “True, but what is different is you may find something in Colony Two. It would seem from our visitor that this is still viable for human life support. And judging by his genetic makeup it would be reasonable to suggest that they have, or had, significant research facilities there.”

  “I don’t know, Gizmo. Even if I was willing to take the risk of exploring it I have no way to get there and back again. An EVA suit just doesn’t have the resources.”

  “You could take the exploration rover.”

  Jann sat back in her seat and rubbed a hand across her skull. “The rover, I had completely forgotten about that.”

  Towards the end of the first year of Jann’s isolation in Colony One she was running out of projects to keep her mind focused. The tanks had been built and her efforts at gaining further insight into the malignant bacteria were growing ever more frustrating. Hampered, as she was, by the lack of adequate equipment. This, coupled with the increasingly vague communication from Earth as to a date for the next mission, had prompted Jann to finally explore the derelict sectors of the great colony. It was, after all, the initial mission brief. So since she was going to be stuck here for a while, she might as well get on with it. She also considered that she may find something useful, another lab, or some scientific equipment that she could use.

  It was during one of these excursions that she came across the old Colony One exploration rover. It was parked up inside a small derelict workshop dome on the western side of the facility, accessible only by EVA. It was one of two such vehicles, the other, it was assumed, was over in the mining outpost. The rover was non-operational, and had been for five or more years. Jann thought about trying to get it working again, but as time moved on, and her sense of abandonment and isolation increased, her excursions outside became less and less. By the early part of her second year she had given up on EVA altogether. So, as the colony tightened its grip on her psyche, she retreated into the bio-dome and spent more and more of her time with the garden; researching it, tending it, becoming one with it. By the close of the second year, not only did she not EVA, she seldom even left the bio-dome.

  "But it's not operational, hasn't been for a very long time, Gizmo."

  "It could be made to function again."

  Jann rubbed her hand across the top of her skull again, slowly this time. "I don't know."

  “What do you not know?

  Jann sighed. “Even if we do get it working, I’m not sure I want to risk venturing out there. It’s been a long time… for me.”

  “Yes, it would be an uncertain venture with a high probability of death.”

  “Thanks, Gizmo, That’s very comforting.”

  “My pleasure, I am here to assist.”

  “The other big question is, what would I find when, and if, I get there?”

  “Unfortunately I do not have access to sufficient data to give you any useful analysis. However, if Thomas Boateng made it here that would suggest there is life support. So there is a high probability of other life within its confines.”

  “But if there is, then why have we not heard from them before now?”

  “I would suggest a few obvious scenarios — they had no way to communicate or exit the mine. In essence they were trapped.”

  “Maybe, but if there are survivors over there the next question is, are they friendly?”

  “One would assume that they would be glad of rescue.”

  “You really think so?”

  “It is merely one of many possibilities. They may equally have descended into a barbarous cohort of violent animals — who eat their young.”

  Jann sighed. “So what you are saying, Gizmo, is you really don’t know.”

  “Too many possible outcomes to predict with any accuracy. The only way you will know for sure, is to go there and see. In the meantime I suggest your best course of action would be to revitalise the exploration rover so you have fitting transport should you decide to investigate Colony Two.”

  Jann thought for a moment, then stood up. “Okay, I suppose there would be no harm in taking a look at this rover again.”

  “Very little.”

  “All right, let’s check it out it and see if it can be salvaged. Then we can decide.”

  The garage workshop, where it was housed, was on the far side of the Colony One site. There was no internal route to it, as the derelict areas had been sealed off a long time ago. Venturing into any of these sectors could be dangerous, they were structurally unsound. So the safest way to get there was to EVA. Jann checked her suit for power and resources as Gizmo waited patiently in the airlock. Being a robot it had no need for life-support, it could go anywhere, limited only by the range of its power-cell. Jann donned her helmet. It felt strange, now that she had very short hair. It had a roomier feel to it, more like wearing a dome than a helmet. She locked it in place and pressurised the suit. All bio-metric readings were clear, ready to go.

  They worked their way around the perimeter of the facility until they finally came to the location of the workshop. It was a small domed structure, with its roof still intact. Along the exterior wall a large airlock protruded, big enough to fit a small truck. They brought a small remote power pack with them and Gizmo set about fiddling with the door’s control panel. After a few minutes it had reduced it to a gaping hole of sprouting wires. “Okay, here goes,” it said as the door slowly rose up from the ground and slid into the roof. Jann was taken by how much it looked and worked like a standard garage door. Then again, it was probably a very good design to begin with. The airlock was empty, save for another door at the far end. They moved inside and a short while later Gizmo got it open. They finally entered into the large workshop, and parked in the middle of the space was a six-wheeled, pressurised exploration rover. Jann rubbed her gloved hand along its side. “Well, looks like it’s still here.”

  Over the course of the next few weeks Jann and Gizmo worked to restore power and life support to the maintenance workshop. But Jann still had to EVA to get access to it. They simply did not have the resources to rebuild the damaged structures linking it through to the main facility. However, all this activity was building up a new routine in Jann’s life and imbuing it with a new sense of purpose, and as the sols passed, she felt herself becoming more and more reconnected with reality.

  The rover itself was powered by a methane internal combustion engine, the same fuel used for the MAV. It was old-school, but made a lot of sense as it could be manufactured easily
on Mars. This also gave the machine a great deal of power. It was built to be a tough exploration vehicle with a range of over two hundred kilometres and a fully loaded top speed of sixty-five kilometres per hour. It could also accommodate six crew for a full thirty hours.

  It took them another few weeks to get it to a point where they were ready to try and start it up. Jann sat in the driver’s seat and surveyed the controls. It had a pretty basic joystick mechanism. The instrument panel was well laid out and clearly defined. It had obviously been designed so that even an idiot could drive it. That suited her just fine. She hit the power on switch. The instrument panel flickered into life, alerts flashed and data started to scroll down the main screen. Gizmo examined it. “Okay, looks like the main systems are operational. Time to see if it will start.”

  Jann pushed the start button and the rover engine burst into life. She looked over at Gizmo and gave the little droid the thumbs up. She let it run for a minute or two before killing the engine. Gizmo scanned the data readouts on the main screen. “You have fuel for approximately one hundred and eighty kilometres and oxygen for eight hours, twenty-seven minutes.” It tilted its head to Jann. “I would say you are good to go, although I would advocate taking it for a test drive first.”

  Jann sat back in the driver’s seat. “So now I have a decision to make.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Okay, let’s get back. Nothing more we can do here this-sol. I need to think.”

  It took Jann just one night of sleeping in her tree, staring at the stars, to finally make up her mind. To remain in Colony One was a route to insanity, of that she was certain. She was not Nills, she was not that mentally tough. The three years Jann had spent so far had already eroded her sense of reality. She had only been brought back from the brink by this new sense of purpose. So she needed to go, not simply because she may find some answers, but that she would find none by staying here.