by Corey Ostman
The itch began. Next would be the blurred vision. He thought about sitting down and resting for the millionth time, when there was a tap on the door.
“They just left.”
Either that was Nutter’s voice or it was too late for a stabilizer. He was insane. Could be both.
He stepped over to the panel and pushed the button.
“Grace—is that you? Mazz?”
“We’re at Gusev. They just went out the airlock,” Nutter said. “They’ll be gone for a while. Archdale talked about getting a new tech while they were out.”
Quint grinned. “Let me out, then.”
The door slid open. Nutter stood on the threshold, looking more disheveled than usual. Mazz was nowhere in sight.
“Did you bring it?” Quint asked.
Nutter reached into his suit, pulling out a phasewave.
“Nice,” said Quint. “And did you scramble external communication?”
Nutter nodded. “Yep. Outgoing messages are now impossible.”
“Good,” Quint said. “Who’s left aboard?”
“Hobbs, Yvette, the doctor, the rescue, and the robot.”
“Two against five,” Quint said. “Not the best odds, but good enough.” He looked closely at Nutter. “We are two…right, Nutter?” Quint knew he must tighten the bond fast. “What’ve I been telling you, right? You and everybody on this rock are always two weeks away from starvation working for twofers, controlled by the same people who hoard the labor credits. And now what? Now you have a chance. Now Mars has a chance. Right?”
“Damn straight,” said Nutter.
“Just stay focused on the goal, ok?”
Quint saw Nutter’s gaze drop to the gun. “You’re not going to use that are you?”
“Heaven forbid!” Quint said, chuckling. “Just need to scare people if they get in our way. Where’s Hobbs?”
Nutter met Quint’s eyes again. “The bridge. Running diags. He’s still recovering.”
“And Mazz?”
“Engineering by now,” Nutter said. He grinned. “The tasker I attached to Mazz will keep it working there for hours.”
Quint stepped out of the locker. Free. He paused, letting himself stretch, savoring it. Then he walked over to the ladder and looked up the well. He stepped to one side so that anyone coming down would be facing away from him.
“Ok, signal Hobbs to come down,” Quint said.
Nutter hesitated. “What are you going to do?”
Quint grabbed Nutter’s wrist.
“What I have to. Now call him.”
Nutter fumbled with his ptenda.
“He—he wants to know why.”
“I don’t care why,” Quint said between clenched teeth. “Tell him you need help in the engine room or something.”
He raised the phasewave and aimed it up the ladder.
Nutter looked up from his ptenda.
“It’s set at lowest level,” Quint said. “Just a push. Get it together, Nutter.”
Feet on the deck above. They went silent.
The engineer’s voice boomed from the ladder well. “What’s wrong now, Nutter? Why aren’t you at the locker?”
Quint glared the other tech to silence. Do not speak. Do not speak, or I’ll use the phasewave on you instead.
“Nutter?” One foot appeared as it landed on a rung.
Quint grabbed the foot and pulled hard.
Hobbs sailed down to the deck, crashing onto his knees with an audible crack. The engineer’s scream was cut off when Quint struck the grip of the phasewave against his skull. He collapsed onto the deck, unconscious.
“Help me drag him to the locker,” Quint hissed.
Nutter stood transfixed.
“If this is too much for you, you can share the locker with him.” Quint shook his phasewave. “I’m not going down or risking capture again. Are we clear?”
Nutter leaned down and grabbed Hobbs’s other arm.
• • •
Anna looked much better after a night’s rest. She’d had a shower and was wearing a spare blue jumpsuit Raj had found in the ship’s stores—it fit much better than her old one. Yvette had brushed Anna’s short black hair until it shone, framing her small ears and youthful face. Rest and care had changed Anna’s expressions: she wasn’t as agitated or anxious. And Raj kept trying to get her to talk to him, so he could look into her dazzling black eyes. They shimmered like iridescent onyx. He remembered when he had first removed her helmet. Her eyes had been closed then. He wondered if he’d have mistaken her gender if her eyes had been open.
“Want some food?” Yvette asked, breaking into his thoughts. “Poppy has fresh fruit in a locker in the mess. I’ve won this game, anyway.”
Raj looked at his cards, realized he’d forgotten to discard, and tossed them into a pile with Yvette’s.
“Good game,” Raj said.
“Absolutely. On both counts.” Anna put down her cards and swung her legs over the side of the bunk. She winced as she put her bare feet on the floor.
“Ooh! Cold! Could you hand me my boots, Doctor?”
“Raj, Anna. Call me Raj.”
He helped her put on her boots. She didn’t need the help.
“What do you want with the fruit? I can have Mazz make us anything we want. Even eggs and bacon pucks. That would make Grace happy, right?” Yvette strolled over to a comm panel and pressed the button. “Mazz? It’s Yvette. Can you meet us in the mess, please?”
“I cannot leave engineering, Miss Yvette.”
“Oh,” said Yvette. “Are you busy?”
“Yes.” A pause. “No. I cannot leave engineering.”
Yvette turned from the panel to Raj.
“Mazz is acting funny.”
“What do you mean by ‘funny,’ Yvette?” Raj said.
“It said yes and then no. For the same thing.”
“And it doesn’t do that often?” Raj asked.
“Mazz doesn’t do it ever. I should go see—”
She stopped as a crash followed by a bellow of pain echoed from hallway. Yvette turned to Raj, her eyes wide, her mouth still open.
“What was that?” Anna whispered.
Yvette bolted for Anna’s bunk. Raj went to the door and listened. No other sound. No call for help. He thought to comm Hobbs, and brushed the thought aside. He had grown tired of assuming the best and coming up short. He would assume this was trouble.
Raj opened the door, holding his hand up, lest Yvette think to run out with him. He tuned his aural sensor. Waited. And there they were: three patterns in the vicinity of the bridge ladder. High probability of stress.
“When I leave, seal this door,” he said, stepping into the hallway. Yvette and Anna nodded.
• • •
“I guess we closed the storage locker too soon, Nutter.” Quint said, pointing his phasewave at the doctor. “We have a roommate for Hobbs.”
“From all the racket, Hobbs probably does need to see me,” Chanho said, his voice oddly calm, “but you need help, too, Quint.”
Doctor Chanho took a tentative step forward in the direction of the storage locker. He seemed preoccupied more than panicked under the barrel of the phasewave. Quint was surprised. The doctor had to know that a blast at this short range would do more than just stun him. Then again, Chanho was riddled with implants. Maybe they’d caused brain damage.
“Doctor. The best thing for you is to get into that locker,” said Nutter.
Nutter moved restlessly, and the locker squeaked on its hinges. Chanho was frowning. He began to shuffle to the doorway, then turned back to Quint.
“Are the muscle spasms getting worse?” he asked.
“What?” Quint’s stomach clenched.
“How are you dealing with the paranoia? The night sweats?”
Quint answered with a quick, hard push, cramming Chanho into the locker. He closed and sealed the door, breathing heavily.
He knows. He knows I’m doing gene therapy.
Quint t
urned to Nutter, who was scrutinizing him. Dammit.
“Three down, two to go,” Quint said, feigning glee. “You said the robot was in engineering, spinning its wheels? It’s not a concern, right?”
“Just as you planned. Not a concern.” Nutter said.
“And that leaves…”
Quint looked down the hallway to the crews’ quarters. The door was shut. He rubbed his hands together and began to walk.
“Owner’s daughter, right?” Quint said.
“She’s just a kid, Quint.” Nutter danced alongside, clearly afraid to stop him.
“And that woman,” Quint said. “I’d like to thank her for all she’s done for me.”
When he got to the door, he wasn’t surprised to see the privacy indicator. Of course they would lock themselves in. Scared. Caged animals.
Quint smiled. He stowed the phasewave in his suit and clenched his hand, feeling the rush of power. He brought his fist down hard against the metal door.
Screams filtered through the door. It confirmed his confidence. More pounding brought more screaming. Quint laughed.
“Uh, Quint—” Nutter put a hand on his arm.
That small touch set off something inside. He lurched and collapsed to the floor as a series of muscle spasms rocked him. In his jaw. Cruising across his chest. He squirmed in his sweat.
Nutter took a step backward.
Quint closed his eyes and tried to think of anything besides the pain. He concentrated on the last sunrise he’d seen. Brown and orange and yellow; thin whorls of cloud. His breathing slowed, and slowly his body came back under control.
Quint opened his eyes and saw Nutter watching him. He didn’t even offer a hand up. Idiot.
Quint stood and regarded the metal door, giving it a gentle pat.
“You two wait there for me. I’ll be back in a little while.” He grinned at the door. “And when I mean ‘wait,’ I mean don’t get creative. I’ll airlock you both if you annoy me.”
Quint turned to Nutter. The tech looked like he might start screaming or crying, with his wide eyes and quivering mouth. Quint gripped the crewman by the shoulder.
“Let’s go check in on the tin man!” Quint said cheerily.
Chapter 16
The Gusev mover looked like a bubble. It had four seats, each with a small viewscreen. Familiar music jingled all about. The artist was playing music written during the Cloister Rebellion. Grace was amazed and pleased. Mars embraced mechflesh and artificial intelligence, yet still clung to ancient songs. She wondered if someday, Mars would have its own cloisters, too. Sooner rather than later, she mused, if the twofer malfunction was permanent.
Captain Wragg sat in the front; Richard sat in the back. Grace decided to sit by Wragg. She tapped the viewscreen as she sat down, popping up a map of Gusev Base. A small blue dot showed the location of their mover, near the entrance of a two-kilometer tunnel that led to the outer perimeter of the settlement.
“Looks smaller than Elysium Planitia,” Grace noted.
“Yes—and simpler,” Wragg said. “Unlike the rim port at Elysium, the Scout doesn’t sit inside a dome of air. Instead, we dock on the outside and hail a mover into base. There’s no big habitation dome, either.”
“What does Gusev use to keep the air in?” Grace asked.
“Same material,” said Wragg. But they’re inside a canyon, so they don’t need to dome it up.”
The mover left the hangar with a jolt, rust-red walls flying by. Grace fiddled with the map. It looked like Gusev was the last spot of civilization before the Ma’adim Vallis. Settlement dots were much smaller and infrequent after that. The basic Gusev infodoc emphasized Gusev’s place as the last line of civilization—a haven of creature comforts before the wilderness.
“Do you like Gusev?” Grace asked, scrolling through advertisements for kosovorotka and puck blini.
“I haven’t been inside in years,” Wragg said. “Last time I was here I made a bit of a fuss. They suggested, politely, that I not return until I grew some manners.”
Grace grinned. “What happened?”
“Vodka.”
The mover jolted again. Red walls were replaced with green ones.
“The mover will stop in a few minutes,” Richard said. “Once we arrive, I’ll see if I can find a new hire. Wragg, you make provisions for Brown’s ouster. Grace—”
“I’m scouting out lunch,” said Grace. It wasn’t all she was doing, but it was all they needed to know for now.
“A very important task.” Wragg smirked.
Grace raised an eyebrow. “I wanted to explore the city. It’s less chaotic than Elysium. And apparently all you can suggest is vodka, so yes. Lunch.” Grace tapped her ptenda. “In fact, I need the mover to stop soon. Junction twenty-three.”
As soon as the mover stopped, Grace hopped out without a backward glance at the men. She started down a dimly lit pedestrian tunnel, the whir of the mover’s electric motor fading behind her.
Grace felt annoyed. At first she wasn’t sure why. Richard and Wragg had bought her lunch explanation, more or less. But that disdain in Wragg’s voice. The smirk. She remembered her academy days, when recruits and officers, mostly male, would sneer at something she’d wanted or done. She doubted Wragg was more than jesting, but the memories were there all the same. She walked briskly to work them out of her head.
The tunnel terminated in an intersection with a large, white J23 painted at eye level. There was wind from somewhere, stirring her hair. She fingered her ptenda, pulling up the query she’d input on the Scout.
SEARCH: Essex.
Her ptenda flashed. ESSEX SYMBIOTIC COMPANY, GUSEV.
“Walk down J23,” said her dermal director. She turned down the shaft, thinking the synthesized voice sounded like her old friend, Flora, back at Red Fox Academy. A comforting sound to hear in an old Martian tunnel.
Grace walked, the sound of her footsteps echoing. Presumably this area would have been busy, with normal traffic between the domes. She wondered how claustrophobic it would have felt. The breeze was nice, but the absence of windows bothered her.
Movement along the wall of the tunnel caught her eye. Grace stopped. No movement. It looked like a leaf, she thought. Did they have trees at Gusev? She thought a leaf would make a fine souvenir for Yvette. When she saw the movement again, she leaned closer to snatch it.
It was a rat.
Grace stood back, watching as the creature dashed toward a grate, wriggling its brown body between two slots and disappearing.
Why did somebody bring a rat to Mars? Or was it unintentional, like the ships of old? Grace supposed the pucks they ate here were no worse than ship’s biscuit.
Her attention shifted from the rodent to the sound of water. The grate? No—farther down the tunnel. She quickened her pace.
The passage opened into a small courtyard, with tunnel exits on every side. In the center was a small fountain with a moss-covered cupid, water trickling from the top of its head.
She knelt next to the fountain and let her fingers dip into the water. Grace saw a flash of orange and marveled at the tiny goldfish living in the cool water. The surface of the water shimmered blue—bright blue. She looked up and saw the courtyard had a domed ceiling, but it did not show the Martian sky. It was painted a brilliant blue. A hidden machine animated white, billowing clouds along its surface.
Somebody’s homesick, she thought. Earthsick.
Down the next tunnel, another courtyard. This one had a flat, black ceiling decorated with painted stars and a small circular bench. The ground looked well-worn: surely she was out of the transitional tunnels by now. Where was everyone?
She sat and fingered her ptenda, looking for fact agents. A few had recent information, mostly about the chaos in other settlements. Apparently, many Gusev citizens were at Gusev Spire, a government complex in the center of the city. Without twofers, most services had ground to a halt. If citizens needed anything, they had to go to the settlement’s Authority.
/> Grace flicked the fact agents away from her screen and resumed the map. ESSEX SYMBIOTIC COMPANY was just ahead, along J23. She rose and continued forward, an occasional peep from the Flora-voice correcting her direction.
She finally saw people at the next intersection, which was much larger than the ones before. It was some hundred meters per side, its ceiling twenty meters above. There was a busy café in one corner, and three office buildings opposite, apparently occupied. The architecture wasn’t like that in Elysium Planitia. The buildings hugged the walls, with squared-off facades of brick or unadorned adobe. Grace smiled. They reminded her of cloister buildings—nothing wasted.
Grace walked along the row of businesses. The first building was some sort of club. A poster announced that Lunar Lenny would be performing with his guitar that evening, but the lightshow was cancelled due to twofer exodus. The second was a market with a feeble selection of hydroponic fruits and vegetables. A customer was arguing with the owner about prices.
The next building had a worn copper sign: ESSEX SYMBIOTIC COMPANY. Ah, there’s what I’m looking for, she thought, crossing to the door. She put her hand on the access panel.
Nothing.
Strange. She pushed on the door.
“Hey!” came a shout from a café on the other side, “You ain’t gonna find no twofers in there! Been closed for years!” There was general laughter from other patrons at the eatery.
Grace ignored the taunt and broadcast her credentials at the door. Nothing, though the laughter at the café suddenly stopped. She walked along the perimeter of the building. In the rear, she heard a rattling sound from above. A louvered panel vibrated a few meters above her head.
Hmm. A big enough door. If she could get up there.
The building’s exterior was made of orange brick. She tested the side of her boot on one of the grooves between the courses. No crumbling, so it was solid enough.
She paused to program her mimic fabric. The hood vanished and the sleeves extended down her arms, covering her hands in gloves with grip-surface fingertips.