Mars Station Alpha

by Stephen Penner

  Petrov breathed deeply. "Yes, I'm sure there is," he said. "But I cannot say why. So we might as well go."

  "That's a hell of a pep talk, Petrov," said Gold. Then she started sideways down the pit. After a couple of steps, she looked up at her companions. "Come on, boys. Try to keep up."

  Chapter 53

  "After you, Captain," Petrov motioned toward Gold.

  Stanton shook his head behind his faceplate. "I don't think so, Aleksandr. I'm supposed to be watching you. I don't want you tempted to stay up there without us. Especially since you're our canary in the psychic coal mine."

  "I beg your pardon?" asked Petrov.

  "Canary in a coal mine," Stanton repeated. "Miners used to take canaries down into the coal mines with them because if poisonous gasses seeped into the mine they would overwhelm the canary first."

  "I understand the reference," Petrov answered. "There were mines in Russia as well. I was referring to using me as the one who dies first."

  "Oh, that," Stanton laughed. "I just meant that if there are any negative spirits or energies, you will feel them, whereas Gold and I probably won't."

  Petrov stared at him.

  "Come on, Petrov," Gold called out from halfway down the incline. "It's okay to be a canary, but don't be a chicken."

  Petrov looked at her with narrowed eyes. "I understand that reference as well," he said.

  "Oh, good," she answered. "I'd hate for you two to get to stall even more without following me down here. I can tell you one thing—and I know you'll believe me—if you guys don't come down and I see something really cool? I ain't telling you."

  "Well, I do believe that," Stanton said. Then he turned to Petrov. "Come on, Petrov, you go and I'll follow you down."

  Petrov still hesitated.

  Stanton sighed. "That's an order," he added finally.

  Petrov sighed as well, then shrugged and started down into the pit, sideways like Gold. Stanton followed right behind, wondering what awaited them.

  He didn't have to wait long.

  "Captain," called Gold standing by one of the carved stones. It was on its side, but was nearly a meter thick and extended more than two meters in length. "Come look at this one."

  Stanton stepped over to Gold and Petrov followed loosely behind, although while Stanton was looking directly at the stone, Petrov was looking up, down, and all around.

  "What is it?" Stanton asked Gold as he reached her.

  "Look at the scuff marks on the side here," said Gold. "And how sharp the edge is."

  Stanton examined the stone carefully. "You're right."

  Gold exhaled impatiently. "Of course I'm right," she said. "I'm not asking you to confirm my observations. I'm pointing them out because of what they suggest."

  "Right," said Stanton quickly. "I knew that."

  Gold waited a minute. "You don't know what they suggest, do you?"

  "I'm an astronaut," said Stanton, "not an archaeologist."

  "Well, that's kind of my point," answered Gold. "I'm not an archaeologist either, but I've taken a few related courses, and one of the real basic ideas is that things wear down over time. But these have sharp edges and still bear the chisel marks from whatever carved them."

  "So they're not a million years old?" Stanton deduced.

  "Not even ten thousand years old like Lin suggested," Gold answered.

  "Don't be so sure," Petrov warned. "The air here is very thin and there is almost no water, not even water vapor in the air. Water is one of the most powerful forces of wearing down. Things will not wear and age here like they do on water-rich Earth."

  Gold didn't respond right away, which let everyone know she thought Petrov had a point. "Well, it's something to consider," she insisted.

  Stanton offered his agreement and they spread out again to examine the exposed stones. Each was parallel to the others and in the same prone, extended position. After a few minutes, Stanton had worked his way to one side of them, Gold to the other, and Petrov was wandering around between the two middle stones.

  "I wish I knew what we were looking for," admitted Stanton over his comm link.

  "We'll know it when we see it," assured Gold.

  "Oh, I am seeing it," reported Petrov, "and I know it. Come see."

  Chapter 54

  "What is it?" Stanton called over the comm link as he hurried toward Petrov’s location. He couldn't move very fast in the bulky spacesuit. Gold made her way toward Petrov too, although she neither inquired nor hurried.

  "I would prefer you see it yourselves and confirm or dispel my suspicions, Captain," Petrov answered, "rather than hazard a guess."

  When Stanton arrived, Petrov pointed to what he'd found. Gold stepped up behind and saw it too. It was a crack in the ground, between two flat stones they had previously overlooked. The crack wasn't all that interesting. What was interesting was what was visible through the crack.

  Nothing.

  Not sand or dirt or rocks, but a big, black, unlit nothing.

  "It looks like some sort of opening," Stanton opined.

  "To a cavity, perhaps," Gold added.

  "Or a chamber," Petrov suggested.

  They all three bent down and started sweeping away the sand and dirt. Soon they had exposed a large flat stone, one and a half meters wide and two meters long and about five centimeters thick. The gap they had first seen was visible over a portion of the front and one side, but otherwise it was flush against the sand.

  "It's certainly big enough to be an entryway into somewhere," Stanton observed. "Do you think we can move this stone aside?"

  "There's one way to find out," said Gold and she shoved her gloved fingers into the opening on the side. Stanton and Petrov followed suit and they all pushed the stone diagonally away from where they had amassed.

  It budged enough at the first shove to give them hope of moving it even as it settled back into place.

  "Try spinning it," suggested Gold, "like the lid of a jar."

  Stanton agreed and Petrov did as he was told. In a short minute they had managed to slide the stone enough to open up triangular openings at each corner.

  "Now we can lift it," said Gold.

  Stanton was thankful for the relative weakness of Martian gravity. Everything weighed considerably less than it would have on Earth. So although their muscles had weakened a bit after six months in zero gravity, it was a net gain in strength. They each reached under the large, thin slab and grabbed a hold of it.

  "On three," said Stanton. "We lift it and move it to the other side of the opening, toward the station."

  Gold and Petrov indicated their understanding and they all firmed their grips.

  "One ... two ... three!"

  The stone was lifted up and away, revealing not just an opening, but a chamber, with rudimentary, worn steps leading down into the blackness below.

  Stanton pressed a button on his helmet. "Lin?"

  It took a moment but the lieutenant answered, "Yes, Captain?"

  "We've found something," reported Stanton. "We're going in."

  "'In,' sir?"

  "Yes, Lieutenant, in." Stanton turned on the powerful flashlight attached to the side of his helmet. "We may lose the comm feed."

  "Uh, understood, sir," said Lin. Stanton could tell she wanted to ask for more information, but had decided against it.

  Gold and Petrov activated their own helmet lights and they began a careful descent into the darkened chamber.

  "I'll go first this time," Stanton said.

  "Your turn to be the canary, I think," said Petrov.

  "I'm not sure what we'll find, crew," he said, "but please alert me if you see or sense anything concerning."

  "We're walking into a pitch black Martian catacomb," Gold observed. "Do you mean something more concerning than that?"

  "Exactly," replied Stanton without missing a beat. "Use that as your baseline."

  They reached the bottom of the mottled stairs and surveyed the room. It was a sort of antechamber, w
ith a hallway extending away into the dark.

  "Those Martians must have been pretty short," Gold said as their helmets nearly brushed the low ceiling.

  "Or lazy," countered Stanton. "They didn't want to carve out more than they had to."

  "I do not think we should disparage them," Petrov warned.

  Stanton and Gold looked at each other and shrugged.

  "Doesn't that way lead directly under the station?" Gold asked, changing the topic. She pointed a gloved hand into the recessed blackness.

  "Exactly," replied Stanton. "About thirty meters and we'll be directly under the entry bay."

  "Where I first saw the ghost," recalled Petrov.

  Stanton decided not to argue with him. There was enough to worry about. He turned and shone his light on the wall to their left. It was the same dark red rock as the stones and chamber lid above. And like the stones, it was marked with the scratches and scrapes of a carving tool.

  "Do you think this room is carved from solid rock?" Gold asked. "That would have taken forever with hand tools."

  Stanton inspected the wall more closely. "The only other explanation would be some sort of paneling to make it look that way. "Maybe if we look for a seam..."

  But his thoughts were interrupted by the haunting, frightened voice of Petrov. "They're here."

  "Who?" asked Stanton. "Who's here?"

  "The spirits," answered Petrov. "I can feel them. They're here. The same ones I felt inside the station."

  Gold looked to Stanton, who looked back blankly, uncertain what to say.

  So Gold tried, "Are they saying anything?"

  "It is not exactly speaking," Petrov answered. "It is more like a feeling they are trying to communicate."

  Gold sighed. "Okay, well, what's the feeling? What are they telling us?"

  Petrov turned to his compatriots with red rimmed, haunted eyes.

  "Flee."

  Chapter 55

  "Flee?" repeated Gold incredulously.

  "That is what I feel," answered Petrov.

  "Tell them, 'Not yet,' Petrov," instructed Stanton. "We need to check this place out first."

  He pointed his suitlight down the hallway, but it was swallowed by the blackness.

  "Tell them we're not afraid of them, too," added Gold.

  "Speak for yourself," replied Petrov. "But in any event I do not feel malice from them just now. Simply a warning that we should flee this place."

  "This place?" asked Gold. "You mean this chamber, or the whole damn planet?"

  Petrov shrugged in the darkness. "Take your pick."

  "Come along, you two," said Stanton, who was already several meters ahead. "There's more to see here."

  Once they had caught up with him, Stanton flashed his light on the walls surrounding them. "We've reached an intersection of sorts," he advised. "To the left is an even smaller passageway, to our right is this hole."

  Gold and Petrov looked to where the captain was pointing and sure enough there was a small irregularly shaped hole, less than half a meter in diameter, in the wall at about eye level.

  "What's through the hole?" Gold asked.

  "I can't tell," Stanton answered. "My light doesn't line up quite right. I'll shine my light through the hole and you look in, okay?"

  Gold hesitated. "Why don't we have our canary stick his easily broken, glass-plated face against the hole?" she asked, only half joking.

  "I am a canary," Petrov answered, "not a guinea pig."

  "Fine," answered Gold. "But this better be worth it."

  She placed her gloved hands against the wall and leaned forward, leaving enough space for Stanton to twist his body and shine his light through. She peered inside.

  "It looks like a crawl space," she reported. "I see one of the station's steel support beams and a small cavity with nothing but dirt and dust."

  "The station must be directly above us," Stanton concluded.

  "Were the support beams not driven into the ground by remotely controlled construction robots?" asked Petrov. "Before even the first colonists arrived?"

  "Exactly," answered Stanton. "That support beam must have passed through an air pocket and cracked the wall to this vault."

  "Thereby awakening the ancient Martian spirits who want to kill us," observed Gold dryly. "Great. Can we go now?"

  "What about this other passageway?" Stanton asked.

  Gold examined it critically. "We can't fit down there," she said. "Not without getting on our hands and knees."

  Stanton had to agree with her. It was only half the height of the small hallway they were already in. Still, they had come this far.

  "What do you think, Petrov?" he asked.

  Petrov stared into the small passageway. "I think you have talked me into coming this far," he answered, "but you will not talk me into going down that passageway. Whatever I feel, I feel it most strongly from in there."

  Stanton weighed his options. He wasn't about to ask one of the others to crawl down some unknown, haunted Martian catacomb. That left him two options: do it himself, or never find out what lay beyond. As bad as the first option seemed, the second was unacceptable.

  You'll never be a true pioneer, Junior, he remembered Ferguson saying once, if you're afraid of being the first to die.

  "Okay, then." Stanton bent onto hands and knees. "I'll go."

  "Are you sure this is a good idea?" Gold asked. "The suits weren't designed for wear and tear on the knee joints from crawling like a baby."

  "No," Stanton answered, "but I'm doing it anyway."

  The suits also weren't designed to have someone bend over and then tip his head back up to look forward. As a result, when the captain raised his face to look ahead, part of his view was blocked by the top of the helmet. In addition, the helmet light was in a fixed position, so it shone straight down. Stanton would have to rely on the light reflecting off the stone to illuminate whatever was ahead of him.

  "Here goes," he said and started into the claustrophobic passageway.

  The floor and walls were simple dirt this far back, not the stone from the main passageway. He imagined the room smelled dank, like a wine cellar, but his helmet of course prevented any air from reaching his nostrils to confirm his suspicions. He found himself wondering absently whether the dank smell of Earthly caverns didn't originate from the dense moisture in the soil, and whether that would result in there being an entirely different, or even lack of, smell in a Martian cavern.

  These thoughts distracted him enough that he almost overlooked the carving on the wall next to him as he got a few meters inside.

  It was difficult to make out in the reflected helmet light, but it was definitely not just tool scrapes. It was an X. And above the X was what looked rather remarkably like a horse, or some similar four legged beast.

  Stanton stared at it in wonderment and damned himself for not having activated his digital image recorder before crawling into the confined space. He couldn't reach the controls on the back side of his spacesuit belt. Maybe if he backed out again, he thought.

  And that's when he noticed it, again barely lit in the dim reflected light from the downward facing helmet light. He crawled a few more steps until he was literally on top of it, his light shining directly on it and his face directly above it.

  It was a figurine, just like the one Mtumbe had found inside the station.

  Stanton picked it up in his gloved hand and quickly, but carefully backed out of the passageway. He knew there was more to explore, including what looked like small, dark openings in the far wall, but he wanted to show the others what he had found, and he wanted to turn on his camera.

  "What is it?" Gold asked as he suddenly crawled backwards out of the passageway. "Is everything okay?"

  Stanton stood up and displayed the figurine for them.

  "I found this."

  Gold looked at it and shrugged. "What is it?"

  But Petrov didn't ask what it was. He started backing away from it.

  "It's okay, Pe
trov," Stanton said, but the Russian paid him no heed. Instead, he backed farther way, then turned and started running back toward the surface.

  "Aw, shit," said Stanton and he ran after him, although a bit slower and considerably safer. The suits weren’t meant for racing. Gold hurried behind and they caught up to Petrov just outside the entrance, where he was sliding in the loose Martian sand as he tried to climb up out of the depression that had uncovered the catacomb.

  "Petrov, wait!" Stanton yelled over the comm link.

  Then Lin broke in over the comm feed. "Captain, is that you?"

  "Lin?" he responded.

  "Captain, you have to come back inside right away." She sounded panicked. Lin never panicked.

  "What it is?" Stanton asked

  He looked at Gold, but she could only shrug in return.

  "It's Daniel, Captain." Lin's voice cracked. "I think he's dying."

  Chapter 56

  Stanton rushed through the airlock and down the hall toward the crew's cabins. Gold hurried herself equally but turned toward the ship. Petrov just dropped into a corner and curled into a ball, not even bothering to disconnect his helmet.

  Rusakova had operated the airlock, but followed Stanton to Mtumbe's room, leaving Petrov alone.

  Lin was standing at Mtumbe's head. His forehead was covered in a clammy sweat, his lips were dry and cracked, and his mouth hung open with only the shallowest of breathing.

  The smell that was emanating from his leg was almost overpowering. If it hadn't been for the fact that Mtumbe was a friend and colleague, Stanton almost wouldn't have been able to stomach it.

  "How are you doing, Daniel?" Stanton asked, but Mtumbe didn't respond.

  "I think he can hear you," Lin said, "but he hasn't been responsive for the last thirty minutes or so."

  "Hang on, Daniel," Stanton said. "You can beat this."

  Just then Gold rushed in. It was noteworthy for two reasons. First, Gold rarely rushed anywhere; it wasn't her style. Second, she was carrying an injector.