Killing Time On Mars

by Alec Taylor

  “Now I would like to talk to you about what we will do to address this most terrible event, the worst in the history of the colony,” said Karl. “We need to act quickly and decisively to prevent this from ever happening again. We must find the causes and eliminate them. We already know that an illegal substance was partly to blame, and we will work to remove its evil presence from our colony.”

  That was news to me. It sounded like extreme political policy created in the heat of the moment.

  “We also know that the man who committed these terrible crimes was psychologically unbalanced and, if we had better monitoring, we would have known and could have prevented this crime. So we will be introducing mandatory psychological assessments and monitoring for all colonists.”

  I started to wonder who this speech was for—was it being beamed back to JOSEV on Earth? Hundreds of colonists shuffled their feet and looked at each other uncomfortably. I was embarrassed to be standing beside Karl and involuntarily shifted a few small steps away from him.

  “Although we cannot replace our friends, we do have another cohort joining the colony in a few weeks, and we will fill the vacant positions through promotion and replacement. Finally, before we all relax in the reception following this service, I would like to ask everyone, all colonists, to redouble your efforts to expand and grow harvest production. We have been tested and all the eyes of Earth are watching us. We need to show them that we are strong and will continue. This is what Petr, Meiying, and John would have wanted.

  “Now, there will be a reception after this service and I encourage everyone to stay and celebrate the lives of those we have lost. Thank you.”

  The cooking crew spent the next hour gradually serving food and drinks. They brought out rarities including veggie burgers and ‘chicken’ noodle soup for the occasion, though it all just tasted like corn. The conversation gradually increased until there was a lot of noise and, eventually, laughter.

  Tony was standing on the far side of the room with Vivian and a few other colonists. On my way to join them, I had to navigate unwanted thanks and congratulations. Eventually, I managed to quietly sidle up beside Tony. When he noticed me, he said, “Well, if it isn’t my hero!”

  “Oh, shut up,” I said with a faint smile.

  “Somebody give this guy a medal!” he said. “Oh, no, wait a minute…”

  The conversation turned back to John Mason, who had had a dark sense of humour. As they were relating some of his practical jokes, I noticed June standing nearby. She was talking quietly to some colonists I didn’t recognise and, after a few seconds, she looked up at me. Our eyes locked and she smiled.

  Gradually, the room ran out of food and most of the colonists either went to the lounge or back to their rooms. I was left talking with Tony and Vivian, and as I watched them it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps they could be more than friends, and maybe I should leave them alone. I looked back toward June and saw her coming toward us.

  “Hello there,” she said. “You looked embarrassed. You shouldn’t be; you deserve our thanks. How are you feeling?”

  Tony and Vivian had turned away and were leaning toward each other, deep in their own conversation.

  “I’m okay,” I replied. June looked at me closely, and I wondered if she could tell that I had been visited by the memory of my dead brother.

  “I see his face all the time,” I said. “I keep reliving it. I’m trying to stay busy, trying to distract myself.”

  She nodded and seemed to understand completely. I almost asked her if she knew I wasn’t talking about Glen, but I caught myself and thought, How could she?

  After a moment, she said, “Well, how about I distract you on Saturday night? Fancy watching a movie with me?”

  “That would be great.”

  20. MOVIE NIGHT

  At the end of every week, a show screened in the dining room. It was a quaint old-fashioned tradition and, depending on the movie, the audience could sit enthralled or descend into loud, mocking commentary. On Saturday afternoon, I took a long shower and when I returned to my room I found Tony getting ready to leave.

  “So,” he said, “how long has it been since you went on a date?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I replied. “A long time. Maybe years.”

  “Wow. Okay. So, room one thirteen is unoccupied and has a heater. You just have to take a sleeping bag.”

  “It’s a first date, mate,” I said, implying that sex would not be on the agenda.

  “Yeah, well, things have a way of escalating quickly here,” he said with a smile.

  “Shut up and stop giving me dating advice.”

  “How long has it been since your last date?” he asked again.

  “Oh, shut up.”

  There was a quiet knock on the door. I opened it to find June standing outside, smiling.

  “Hello,” she said, stepping up onto her toes to kiss me on the cheek. “Ready for a James Bond reboot?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” I said.

  “Well, let’s go,” she said, then took my arm and led me down the passage.

  I looked over my shoulder at Tony and he winked. I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

  We went to the lounge for a few minutes before the show. I couldn’t help noticing the number of mushroom cookies being passed around. It seemed that everyone was eating them, including Tony, Vivian, and Liu. I told June not to worry if she wanted to eat them, but I was relieved when she said she would keep me company and not have them either.

  We wandered over to the dining room, which had been converted into a cinema for the night. The chairs and tables were stacked against the back wall and several additional projectors had been placed around the room. There was a discreet empty space where the serving table had stood. June steered us toward the far end of the room. We sat on the ground in front of a pillar. She leaned her head against my shoulder.

  At the end of the movie, we went back to the lounge and sat down with Tony and Vivian. They asked us about it, but we were light on details. I could remember the sensation of June’s head on my shoulder and the smell of her hair, a few shocking explosions and some funny lines, but it was generally a blur.

  Then Tony asked me how we were planning to crack down on mushroom consumption.

  “Karl’s speech was the first I heard of it,” I admitted. “Clearly, JOSEV is spooked by the dining room incident and particularly the mushrooms. It seems like they’re going to try to make them illegal and stamp them out completely.”

  “I’m not sure that’s going to work,” said Tony with a grin.

  “You might be right,” I replied. “Although, theoretically, it should be easier in this small community with limited space and so few resources for production. I’ve done this kind of thing before, you know. I helped take down a meth lab when I was on the force back in Melbourne.”

  “That’s quite a coincidence,” said Vivian. “You don’t think that’s why they chose you to come here, do you?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe,” I replied. “There were rumours back on Earth, but I don’t know if they really knew how big the problem is here.”

  “What happened with the meth lab?” asked Tony.

  “Well, my partner and I picked up a couple of guys lying in the gutter outside a bar. We brought them in and the detective on duty let me interview them. I was just a junior constable at the time. Anyway, I managed to get a name from the guy and we matched it to a known identity in our database. We were supposed to hand the case over to the Feds the next day, but I was a bit paranoid and thought the suspect might catch wind and run, so I tracked him down that night.”

  “Supercop-style?” said Tony with a smile.

  “Yeah, I don’t know what got into me,” I said. “I got away with it, too, although the station sergeant did tell me off. She said ‘well done, good work, and if you do it again you’re fired’. She was just angry because if I’d been hurt it would have made her look bad.”

  “How
did you find the guy and his lab?” asked June.

  “I went back to the same bar and sat outside in my car until he eventually came out. Then I followed him to a house nearby. But here's the good part—or maybe the lucky part, because while I was sitting in my car outside his house, I noticed another car pulling out from the back lane, and I had an instinct to follow it. Turns out he was just using the first place to switch cars. Anyway, he didn’t notice me and I got his real address. I took it to the detective and the station sergeant early the next morning. They told me off for going alone, but they were happy to have the information. We had enough for a search warrant by then, so we broke down the door later that day and found a nice little meth lab.”

  “And you got the credit?” asked Tony.

  “Nah, they gave me credit for getting the initial lead but left the rest of my sleuthing out of the official report,” I replied with a grin. “But I got a promotion a few months later and I think it helped me get the job at ASIO.”

  “ASIO?” asked Vivian.

  “The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. It’s a bit like the CIA, but for Australia,” I said. “They were looking for people with police experience and I fit the profile.”

  “What did you do at ASIO?” asked Vivian.

  “Monitored JOSEV,” I replied.

  “You’re kidding,” said Tony.

  “No,” I said, “and I can’t really talk about it.”

  “Would you have to kill us?” asked June, smiling.

  “Absolutely,” I said with a smile, “with my super-spy skills. I can tell you that what you hear in the media is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot of conflict inside JOSEV between the investor nations. The only thing that unites them is wanting more Helium.”

  “And now the mushrooms are threatening the harvest,” said Vivian.

  “That’s how it sounded in Karl’s speech,” said Tony.

  “The thing is,” said Vivian, “if it’s not the mushrooms, it’ll be something else. Cracking down will just push production underground. Humanity has been getting high forever. We have a kind of biological need to enhance reality.”

  I guessed that, as the new General Manager of Organic Manufacturing, Vivian was aware of the production process for the mushrooms. It was officially ignored and almost sanctioned by management—one of those dirty little secrets that everyone knows.

  “Okay,” said Tony, “but we’re talking about illegal drugs.”

  “What’s legal or not is a cultural distinction,” I said. “Chinese people smoked cannabis for thousands of years, ancient Egyptians ate pyschoactive blue lotus flowers, and the Romans consumed a whole range of drugs, including opium. None of them were illegal.”

  “Maybe they should have been,” said June. “Maybe we know more than the Romans. Drugs can ruin lives. My little sister had a problem at uni; she was addicted, and it nearly killed her. She’s beaten it and has been clean for years now, but I think it’s always with her. It’s a little voice in her head, calling her all the time. I understand the line between legal and illegal is drawn in different places in different countries, but it’s usually based on how harmful each drug can be. High-impact drugs are usually illegal, less-addictive drugs are legal.”

  “Actually, all of them are bad for you, even in moderation,” I volunteered.

  “So what’s the answer?” asked Tony. “Ban them all and lock up anyone who takes anything?”

  “That could be where we’re heading,” said Vivian, “although surely we won’t be locking people up? It does feel like JOSEV is changing the rules and we’re being accused of a crime we didn’t commit.”

  “What’s the alternative, though?” asked June, “We obviously need a better understanding of the drugs in the colony, but if we regulate them, might that encourage people to take more? Then we’ll need to introduce laws for limits, and we’ll be back at square one.”

  “Well, I’m glad of one thing,” I said. “At least we’re making a conscious decision, instead of just ignoring the problem and hoping it doesn’t get worse. Whether the mushrooms are legalised or criminalised, at least we’re trying to improve the situation.”

  “That almost sounds like it doesn’t matter which we choose,” said Tony.

  “We’ll probably expend as much time and energy whether they’re legal or illegal,” I replied. “I do suspect, though, that my job will be harder and I’ll be less popular if I have to arrest people for growing or consuming mushrooms.”

  “I’m having trouble imagining it,” said Tony. “I know we’re all self-disciplined, but the idea of having nothing to help you relax in this environment—well, it seems ridiculous.”

  “Maybe we could replace recreational drugs with something less harmful,” I suggested with a smile. “Some ancient cultures had euphoric dancing or ritualistic trials.”

  “We could leap off Olympus Mons,” said Tony, naming the largest volcano in the solar system.

  “Anyway,” said Vivian, ignoring Tony, “It seems likely that there will always be some kind of drug in the colony—it’s a practical reality that we probably have to accept. And if that’s right, shouldn’t we legalise the one we already have, to ensure that production is safe and limited? Otherwise something else will come along, and it might be worse.”

  “Maybe,” I replied, “but I’ll enforce whatever the state decides and, right now, the state is JOSEV. Maybe you were right, Vivian, and they chose me for the situation we’re in now.”

  “I wonder where you’re gonna put all these criminals once you’ve arrested them,” Tony said to me with a smile.

  “I don’t really understand why we can’t have some input into how we approach the problem,” said June, lifting her shoulders.

  “We were all chosen because we have high self-discipline,” I replied. “We all have a lot of self-control and we’re all fairly compliant. I expect that if JOSEV introduced new rules—and I mean rules, because there’s no actual law here…If we did ban the ’shrooms then everyone would probably comply. We’d end up with a lot of grumpy people at the end of the week, though.”

  “Ultimately we’d all be healthier,” said Vivian, “and maybe even happier in the long run.”

  “I still can’t get my head around that,” said June. “Having no laws.”

  “I’m not even sure that the laws of the United Nations apply here,” I said. “I think JOSEV considered what the colony would look like after ten years and probably guessed that we’d eventually have some fundamental issues with freedom and control. They sent me and Pete to keep everyone in check, and if things really get out of hand, I imagine they’ll send troops.”

  “No way. You’re joking!” said June.

  “I think the only reason we’re not already a military colony,” I replied, “is that the joint venture partners don’t trust each other and don’t want to risk one party taking over, or some kind of civil war.”

  “Thank goodness for their paranoia,” said June and then, after a moment, added, “Imani knew the alternative. Our own local government.”

  “She was right and wrong, though,” said Vivian. “We do need a say in our own future. The ’shrooms are just an example. There are any number of decisions that we should have a say in. In fact, I don’t feel like I’m a citizen of my home country anymore; I’m a citizen of this colony. But we can’t just take it from JOSEV, can we? I mean, they chose us all. They’ve invested so much; of course they want to control it. And of course they should, shouldn’t they?”

  “Maybe,” said Tony. “Except we should also have a say in what we eat or drink, or where we live and where we go.”

  “That’s it, though,” said June. “We’re just talking about having a say, not taking over everything.”

  “I guess they’re worried that, if we have a taste of autonomy, we’ll eventually want to control everything,” I said, although it sounded silly as I said it.

  “You mean,” said Tony, “that if they give us a cheesburger, it
’ll go to our heads and we’ll want to take over the solar system?”

  “Ha!” said Vivian.

  “Yeah, okay,” I said. “But what I’m saying is, JOSEV knows that colonies usually end up deciding that they need independence and they usually get there in the end. They want to stop anything like that before it begins.”

  “That’s depressing,” said Tony.

  That silenced the group for a moment. None of us had any idea what was coming. Our conjecture about criminalisation of the ’shrooms was just the start.

  “I think it’s time to leave you in my dust,” said Tony, making a driving motion with his hands.

  “I’m on a date, mate,” I said.

  “If you’re talking about virtual buggy racing,” said Vivian, “then I’m in.” She was perfect for him.

  “Why don’t you walk me back to the dorms?” said June, and I could see desire in her eyes.

  She led me back toward the dorms and we stopped outside her room.

  “Wait here,” she said and disappeared inside. She emerged a moment later holding a rolled-up sleeping bag.

  I said, “Room…” and tried to remember the number that Tony had told me.

  She said, “Follow me.”

  She led me to an unoccupied room. It had a couple of bunks and a homemade heater in the corner, which instantly started pumping warm air into the room. After a few minutes, it was probably the warmest place on the planet.

  I leaned down and kissed her, running my hands over her body through her undersuit. I started to grapple with the fastenings.

  June pulled back from me, smiled, and said, “Here, let me.”

  She slowly undressed in front of me and then removed my clothes as well. We entwined and I picked her up, my feet nearly leaving the ground. She was as light as a feather in the low gravity. I was ravenous and she seemed just as eager. We had no inhibitions and, at that moment, there was nothing but the connection between us. We eventually climbed into the sleeping bag and lay together all night.

  We lay peacefully with no idea what was coming. JOSEV’s response to the dining room deaths was much worse than anyone had imagined.