by Ginger Booth
“Then CO2 scrubber,” Remi allowed sadly. “But Ben, they can’t stay here.”
“Understood. How long?”
Remi cast his eyes unhappily around the equipment banks. “They should leave years ago. But people, they are resilient. And they are not our responsibility.”
“No.” Ben gulped. Could he really abandon them to their fate? No. He hadn’t worked out yet exactly what being Commandant of the Colony Corps meant to him. But this was his motivation for starting the rego thing up again. To find the survivors of the Diaspora and help them succeed. He just hadn’t bargained on Mars being part of the club.
“A steel printer? Leave it behind with them?” he suggested. This was Mahina technology, but a fairly basic one. It wouldn’t enable the Martians to come knocking on Mahina’s door.
Remi shook his head slightly. “No skills. And their steel isn’t good enough for stock wire.” The various grades of steel were not created equal. “And this would leave us with no steel printer. I need that.”
Ben sighed. “Alright. For now, all I’m committing to is one airlock, one CO2 scrubber, and cleaning this damned water scrubber air filter thing.”
Remi snorted. “You’ll carry them all to Sagamore. Twelve thousand.”
“No. We just did that with Denali. We can’t do it for every sorry excuse of a colony we come across.”
Remi pursed his lips, unbelieving.
“I’m serious,” Ben insisted. “We might come back with new life support equipment.”
“They might be dead by then. And they have no future here. And you’re soft.”
Ben grimaced. “True. You really think Sagamore would take them?”
His own world, Mahina, was royally sick of Ben’s strays. The 70,000 refugees brought from Denali didn’t exactly blend in. Mahina’s whole population only came to a quarter million – including Denali and Sags. The Denali were pushy buggers, too.
“Yes,” Remi replied simply. “The Martians are not too many for Sagamore. They have skills we use, new tricks to share.”
“So you’re actually suggesting we do this?” Ben shot a glance to the door and lowered his own voice. “Another migrant project?”
“We ask permission first,” the engineer suggested. “On Sagamore. And the Martians. But it’s possible.” He pushed off his cabinet. “And it’s what you will do. Because you’re soft.”
Fair, Ben conceded. He sighed. When he agreed to this plan, he thought Mars was long abandoned, and Luna as well. Though it seemed inevitable they’d find survivors on Earth, in some low-tech and desperate residual existence. He hadn’t bargained on finding all three worlds as going concerns. And the Martians seemed friendly, or desperate at least.
Rover interrupted their conversation, carrying back the first of the cleaned screens. Ben held out his arms to accept it. The lieutenant gratefully accepted a few lung-full draws on their air can, administered by Remi, before returning to the washroom.
Ben held an arm full of screen with no clean vat yet to dump it in. Instead he studied its structure, now that he could see it. The overhead lights glinted on a tear in the metal mesh. He set the hoop on its edge to look closer.
A hole was only to be expected. Fine metal filaments corroded through over time, a few cross-hair squares grown larger. But that wasn’t what he was seeing. The break was a straight cut, severed metal shiny and fresh, with a continuing nick to the filter rim. “Remi.”
The engineer stepped over to look. “This metal is cut today. Maybe yesterday.”
“Self-sabotage?” Ben wondered. “Who would do that?” He searched the engineer’s expression, then answered his own question. “Someone desperate. Someone trying to force our hand.”
Remi guessed, “Or more afraid of someone else. Luna?”
Ben nodded slowly. “Don’t mention the CO2 scrubber. We hold that offer in reserve.” He didn’t like this, not at all. What were their hosts hoping to achieve? “Our primary mission is backup for Sass. We’re on Mars to kill time doing something useful. We do not get tied up in local dramas. Especially if we don’t trust them.”
“We could ask,” Remi suggested doubtfully. “Report the sabotage.”
“Invite Groot to lie to me some more. Sure.” In his frustration, this time Ben forgot the condition of his suit arm. He wiped his face with slime.
Remi wryly mopped the smear with a rag from his toolbelt and a bit of their drinking water. Then he took one look at his rag, dropped it to the floor, and kicked it beneath the brown filtration vat.
Ben reflected it was a good thing he brought his second-best engineer with him. His husband would have laughed at him instead of being so nice. Besides, Cope was into advanced R&D these days. Remi was honestly better at routine life support like this mess. Though Ben had rather hoped they’d outlived the stage where daddy Cope insisted on staying home with the kids. Oops, another kid. And the company needed its CEO.
“This research, Ben,” Remi noted, focusing him back to present circumstances. “What we come here to find. It didn’t help them any.”
“Good point.”
12
The citizens, companies, then nations of Earth went bankrupt. Economies collapsed like dominoes.
Sass sighed in satisfaction at a good meal, and the absolutely gorgeous view on her galley wall. Clay proved right about the Bay of Fundy, or at least this corner of it. Cap d’Or stood at the narrow mouth of the highest-tide lobe of Fundy, where currents met in a rip-tide cauldron, once guarded by lighthouse and foghorn. Both measures were irrelevant a century before Sass was born, supplanted by satellite navigation on any boat large enough to brave these waters.
The facilities were also drowned, shattered and gone under the pummeling of rising seas. Yet high cliffs remained at her back as the dining room display gazed down on the in-rushing tide below, gleaming in fractured moonlight beneath scudding clouds.
Her crew seemed rather alarmed by the harsh scenery. Time to get back to work. She thumbed her comms. “Clay? Ready to debrief?” He took a turn on the bridge now, though Corky brought him supper.
“Go,” the first mate agreed. “I have a report to start.”
“Oh.” Sass sat erect in her seat. “What’s up?”
“Before the submarine. Something yanked a specimen jar out of my hand. I dropped it in surprise. I didn’t notice anything, but I reviewed my helmet footage. Sorry it’s blurry.” He sent a video, which Sass tossed onto the big screen. Though she kept her gorgeous silvery coastal scene, smaller, to the right.
And she promptly forgot all about it, leaning forward to frown at the video clip. Its quality was dreadful. Clay was thrashing through the sargasso weed at the time. It was dark, and his helmet light and camera swung through an arc.
“There,” Eli said. Sass halted playback as he rose to approach the screen. He backed up to what he’d spotted. “Fish Guy.”
Sass tilted her head one way and another. All she saw was a blurry mess of seaweed floats and twigs, on black. “I don’t see it.”
Eli traced a tilted oval on the screen, a glowing magenta line following his finger over a dark section of the image. “Eyes. Mouth.” Only when he added those dots did Sass recognize the face, almost upside-down to the viewer. He then lightened the image, over-exposing the seaweed to bring out the dark face, a quick flash of headlamp reflecting off eyeballs and the planes of his cheekbones.
“Wow. Definitely not an avatar. Clay, did you see his hands?”
“No. This is all I got. Next clip I have is the submarine lights.”
Those had been powerful enough to beam through the mat. Sass could see why Clay scrammed. Unfortunately, neither this clip, nor the next of the turret, gave much hint as to how large the vessel was. It never crested all the way, and Sass and Clay had been too busy for a close look.
Sass sat back in her seat. “Thanks, Clay. So this really is a fish person. Who talked to Big Nose. Fidget, can you check video satellite comms for me? To see whether they’re all nonhuman.”
&nb
sp; She’d caught Fidget napping. Mink and captain gazed at each other in dismay. Fidget blinked a few times, looking down at the floor where she lay. “I don’t know how to do that.”
Fortunately Eli had spent more time understanding his instrumentation for this trip. “Fidget, select the first one hundred video conversations you can intercept. No, sample a thousand, then choose a hundred, with preference for clear facial images from different locations. And place those hundred faces on screen.”
This request, the work of microseconds for Fidget’s illustrious ‘great-grandfather’ AI Loki, took the poor robo-toy a few minutes. Faces the size of playing cards slowly appeared on the screen. After she was done, the mink slumped back to the floor, and began to snore.
“Good job, Fidget,” Sass murmured.
Most of the crew rose at some point in their study, to peer closer. Sass stuck to her comm tab to grant the science team elbow room at the big display. Fish-folk were popular, along with an alarming variety of altered eyes and mouths, some with fangs, and a few with extreme ears. Yet around half the faces ran the gamut of normal human. They seemed to age, although as Clay pointed out, none appeared older than 60, all in their robust active years.
“Huh,” Sass said, after giving everyone a chance to satisfy their curiosity. “Science team. Opinions. Are they all human?”
Zelda and Porter shrugged.
But their boss the botanist said, “Almost certainly. I’d love a tissue sample. But I’m betting this isn’t genetic. At least not for reproduction. Liam?”
The paddy medic looked appalled. “How else?”
Eli resumed his seat and looked something up on his tab. “I think they called it…yes. A chimera, or genetic mosaic. The basic person has normal human genetics. But some parts of them express another genetic code. Like a tree graft. The roots and trunk might be chosen for rugged growth. Then graft on a bough of a different apple variety, or even a pear bough on an apple trunk.” He looked up at Sass with an apologetic shrug. “Just a guess.”
“Do we have records of that being done?” Sass inquired. “On Earth, or…?”
“Not to humans,” Eli allowed, plying his handheld again. “We have grafted tomatoes in the engine room. Mahina Actual experimented with mice and less evolved animals. The goal was to see if humans could be adapted. Meet the terraforming halfway. There were ethics concerns.”
“I should hope so!” Liam blurted.
“Let’s not judge,” Sass soothed. “I know it’s hard when looking at someone…repulsive. But we don’t know enough.”
Clay proclaimed, “ ‘God Himself, sir, does not propose to judge a man until he’s dead. Why should we?’ ”
“It’s a quote,” Sass clarified. “From ancient history. Point is, Liam, try to keep an open mind. If someone turned himself into a fish, trust he had a reason. He needs to breathe underwater.”
Born to a dome-bound moon, never a candidate for terraforming, the Sagamore Liam did not appear mollified. Sass doubted he’d ever taken a bath, let alone aspired to swim.
“That’s clever,” Zelda allowed. “Still pretty gross.” She nodded sympathy to Liam, who appeared comforted.
Sass regarded the mink, now twisted in the middle and stretched to her full extent. One raised stumpy foot trembled now and then. The poor critter was out cold, not available for further analysis.
“Moving on,” she said decisively. “What did we learn today on Bermuda? Let’s start with why the ocean melted my mink.”
“High carbonic acid levels.” The young agronomist Porter seemed to be handling all matters water-related. “Though Eli was right. The Sargasso micro-biome seems to support more life. Less acidic water, better oxygenation. The seaweed are primary producers, of course, but other plankton in plenty as well. We didn’t see any fish.”
“You were rushed,” Sass allowed. “The area’s popularity seems to suggest there’s something to eat. And the air?”
Eli nodded. “The Sargasso doesn’t account for the oxygen level by itself, but it proves some of the ocean is supporting life. Just a guess, but maybe these floating cities along the coast maintain similar conditions. And forests and marshy bits.”
Zelda volunteered, “Low oxygen isn’t the only problem. Radiation levels and other atmospheric poisons are high. Carbon dioxide very high, enough to seriously impair judgment and cognition. Weather patterns significantly altered from the twentieth century baseline. Desertification advanced. Forests degraded. Lively cyclone formation. The tropics aren’t livable. But it was already that way at the time of the Diaspora, wasn’t it?”
“Getting there,” Sass agreed. “There were still quite a few people in the tropics.”
“Well, if they’re still there, the weather is not their friend,” Zelda concluded.
“More on the health threat?” Sass prompted Liam.
“We need air to function,” he replied. “Most of us would lose consciousness in minutes without a face mask. You seem to have taken no harm.”
“I’m fine,” Sass murmured. “As expected. But my knees gave out. I couldn’t carry out normal activities.”
“No. The air will damage the rest of us, but not I think beyond the ability of Yang-Yang nanites to repair.” He brooded, as one of the two members of the crew with neither Sass and Clay’s death-defying experimental nanites, nor the top-of-the-line Yang-Yangs. “The skin is a major gas-exchange organ. I should wear a protective suit and full face mask, and take anti-radiation medication. The Yang-Yang crew should be safe with full face plate and normal clothing. Though we’d all be more comfortable in something like a Sanctuary uniform.”
The planet Sanctuary, where the original Colony Corps regrouped after carrying colonists in the Diaspora, supported a similar non-breathable atmosphere, but adequate air pressure. The Sanks wore slightly stiff uniforms at all times, though they rarely left their dome.
“We have the uniforms,” Sass allowed. “By full face plate, you mean covering the eyes and ears, as on Denali?”
“Not strictly necessary,” Liam agreed, “but the rain is caustic. We’ll suffer red skin irritation around the edges of the face plate. And then there’s the microbiology. Whatever pathogens are in the air, you’d prefer they don’t touch your eyes or enter your ears.”
“Fungus leprosy,” Sass muttered, the microbial bogeyman of the tent city existence. Like most skin fungal infections, the stuff was damnably difficult to dislodge, and ate away the sufferer’s features, like lips, nose, ears, and toes.
Liam nodded. “I read up on Yang-Yang capability against microbes. They are essentially helpless against Denali bakkra, some use against viruses. Fungus aren’t mentioned. Though I have Sagamore topical treatments for them. Such ailments are common in the rice paddies. But if I understand correctly, some of these Earth diseases were weaponized.”
“Yes,” Sass bit out.
“I’d keep my ears covered,” Liam concluded.
Sass’s eyes drifted back to the mink. “And Fidget?”
Darren volunteered, “I tested her new fur. It’s not as soft and sensitive. But it’s proof against the rain samples we’ve seen so far, and a bit of ocean spray won’t hurt her. She’ll be an outdoor pet again. Poor little thing.”
Sass nodded slowly. “So we cannot survive the air and water here without protection. In domes, we wouldn’t need air, but germs are even more dangerous.”
“Yes!” Liam underscored.
“Gut check,” Sass concluded. “I say we proceed. Anyone want to bail? Or remain in the ship.” She looked sympathetically to Kaol, her Denali security. Like Liam, his culture valued natural aging.
He gulped. “I’ll do it. Liam, please give me the nanite injections.”
Ben vetoed Sass carrying in the equipment to cater Yang-Yangs to a person’s genetics. But instead they brought pre-customized injections for Liam and Kaol to apply at will.
Sass nodded respect to him. “Many space-going Denali take the plunge.” Including his ex-lover on Ben’s cre
w. She suspected for many, like Tikki, their reservations were more financial than a matter of principle. But Thrive Spaceways offered Yang-Yangs to everyone on their crews as part of their compensation. And unlike Mahina, Spaceways didn’t impose an age limit.
Liam folded his hands before him and frowned at them. “I believe Yang-Yangs are effective after the fact. I’ll wait. And continue to participate in EVA.”
Eli said, “Sass, no one wants to leave. We haven’t made contact yet. We’ve learned nothing about their advances to take home with us.”
Zelda and Porter nodded emphatically. Porter added, “Including the Fish Guy technology. That could make Sylvan habitable.”
This was a sore spot with Sass, that their attempt to colonize the Garden-of-Eden planet Sylvan proved beyond their reach. “Semi-human,” she murmured.
Eli shrugged. “If that’s the technology I think it is, they’re fully human. They’re just ugly.”
Clay quipped, “Though perfectly attractive to each other.”
“If they’re still human, they’re repulsive to each other,” Sass growled. “OK, I think we’re safe for the night. Kaol, after your injection, please nap with Clay on the bridge tonight. Let’s get some rest, and visit an Upstate forest in the morning.” She rapped the table in finality.
“Are you going to consult with Ben?” Clay asked.
Sass held her breath a moment, then blew out. “Not his decision. We will send our data and observations to date. Keep him apprised. But we are a go.”
13
The early 21st century collapse in America was called the Calm, after legislation aimed at keeping citizens calm by lying to them. Truth was an early casualty.
Sass slipped into her seat in Thrive’s compact office with a bad attitude. They now hovered below the treetops over a marshy bit in the drizzling woods of Upstate. She was so proud of her flying this morning, sneaking along water routes from Nova Scotia. She imagined the French voyageurs of centuries past canoeing the same highways to feed Europe’s fur markets.