West relented and called up the screens required. Earth Headquarters was having serious objections to his vivid names. Strange, since his last message could not have gotten to Earth, yet. Clearly somebody had seen the original list and was picking up on it.
He looked at the clock. Without realizing, it he had been awake for more than a Martian sol. It was only about forty minutes longer than an Earth day, but it could suddenly be a long time to stay awake. He put his elbow on the console and his head in his hand. When West finally woke up it was better than twenty minutes later and, if anything, he felt worse.
West looked at his wrist before he remembered he had not worn a watch since before launch. Weight limits really were that tight. And so, he realized, were the limits to his patience. He logged out and marched to his office. Before he could yell, he realized Green had already gone. Indoors all the time, it was easy to lose track of how much time was passing.
He unfolded his bed from the wall and easily jumped the four feet to land among the rumple of sheets he should have already changed. He was asleep almost instantly.
Awake took longer. There were images to explore and dreams to remember. He did not feel energized, so he guessed his dreams hadn’t presented him with a solution to anything. He got the local time from the computer. He’d slept for over nine hours. Despite his talk that everyone would crash eventually, it was his first breach in the months since the Buggy A disaster.
West breathed deeply. He didn’t know why they put an extra scrubber on his vented air, but he was grateful. It cut most of the smell of other human bodies. Buggy A would probably smell bad, but at least it would smell bad different. The smell there, though, wasn’t his main concern. Why were the estimations of how many it could hold so different? Somewhere between two and five people? A lot of rubber in those figures.
He jumped down and pushed the bunk up against the wall. It would be yet another week now before he could wash the sheet and pillow case. That would be Levinsol in the Martian week. Since he was supposed to have Levinsol, Zubrinsol and Clarksol off, he should have been happy, but he wouldn’t be getting the time off given current circumstances. West checked the tablet in his room while he had the chance. He’d collected a lot of pings. People were arguing who should get to transfer to Buggy A, most of the suggestions being extended versions of me.
Earth Headquarters was still objecting to the names West had sent for geographical features, and the tone of the messages was becoming angrier. West checked the select websites that were automatically sent to the buggy and noticed a lot of support had coalesced for the new names. The support had named itself the Spread Legs Gulch Convention after the gulch the United States Government still refused to mention on its maps. West decided the United States was a culture with too much time on its hands, largely because it had grown allergic to work.
“Damn.”
Green had done more work while he and Casey were scheduled for sleep. Following protocol, she had notified him. The core sample slides had been sequentially numbered. Green had taken the deposits and linked them up to get a three-dimensional image of the deposits as a whole.
Clearly this wasn’t happenstance. The deposits were tapered at either end and expanded in the middle. It wasn’t universal, but it was common enough to be the norm. What that meant, West couldn’t tell. Geology wasn’t his specialty.
The coding of sample slides and providing a three-dimensional image of them was such a standard procedure, even West knew about it. Why hadn’t Casey already done it?
Then he realized she almost certainly had. Protocol demanded it and these results could only advantage her case. Unless, of course, she had something so much stronger that sequencing seemed petty by comparison. But if she had killer evidence, why was she keeping it a secret? There were several reasons why Casey might want to keep her powder dry, and from West’s point of view, none of them were any good. The time had come to pay her a visit.
The tablet told him she was at the Cranberry dig site. Hack name. West did his own hack and checked the code. It was designed so the computer would assign the results to another site. So she didn’t want the data secret, just secret from him. That could mean she just wanted to be able to sell something once they got back to Earth. But that didn’t sound like Casey. Certainly she was greedy for recognition and to be proved right, but money had never been her priority. She was like a panther, hunting things down and toying with them, like the big cat she was.
So what was she playing at here?
If the computer wouldn’t tell him where the site was, there was one thing guaranteed to lead him to it.
“Lauer! Is the dig site on cable or beam?”
“We’re cabling over the lip of the crater, then we’re beaming to a site northeast of that.” He stared at West, waiting for an explanation.
“Cut all comms. Just do it. My order.”
Laurer reached behind him, still staring at the Commander, and pressed a single function key.
“Any other melodramatic orders you want to give, Commander?”
But West was already out of Console. He raced back to his room and put on his underwear, boots, and gloves. Then he headed to the airlock and stood in a template in the antechamber waiting for it to suit him. He stepped to the second template to get a pack, then pulled his helmet out of his locker and fastened it on. And, for the first time, he took with him the one prerogative of Command, the one thing that set him apart from all other crew members: a gun.
He followed the cable and climbed into the Secchi Crater. As predicted, they were beaming energy, but not northeast. They were sending microwaves to a receiver in the northwest, up one of the fjords of the crater. He entered the fjord and saw a number of caves.
The receiving unit, which turned microwaves back into electricity, was easy to find. But the cables, well-buried, would take too long to follow. From here, he was on his own. He began checking the nearby caves. The first couple drew blanks, but even West could see the stripes of sedimentation in the walls and what looked very much like the fossils of some kind of polyp.
In the ancient past, Mars had had life. As the atmosphere leaked into space, atmospheric pressure dropped and water evaporated to fill the gap. As the seas dried up, life retreated to areas like this crater, the last places where Mars would have had ample liquid water. This is where the last complex life lived and where their remains would be found.
Polyps — if that’s what they were — had been cut away and were left on the floor. This was the worksite until they found something more compelling.
When West entered the next cave, chatter died. Radios echoed only breathing. West looked from mask to mask as if plastic, metal, and twin lenses could show regret or remorse. But there was none; they were just masks. Computer links identified who was in what armor.
On the floor of the cave were a host of complex animals — or at least their remains. They were clearly not from Earth. Apparently, they had retreated here to nest. Small holes dug into the cave floor housed families of creatures that seemed to have had no nostrils or fur. West was no biologist, but it looked like they respired through the mouth and skin. He peered into one of the small pits. It took him a while, but no one hurried him.
These things made nests and nurtured young that were — tadpoles.
“They were amphibians.”
No one disagreed. But the adult form wasn’t a frog. It was nothing like that. Their strong front legs ended in heavy claws for climbing. Their equally strong but shorter back legs had much smaller claws set in webbed feet.
It dawned on West that these creatures swam to get food and climbed to escape predators. The Secchi Crater was once a sea. Somewhere further down might be the fossils of those predators, but the odds were likely there would be relatively few of them and the sea would have preserved them less well than this cave.
West looked at all the small pits dug for breeding. Clearly, the soil was soft when there was water here. What surprised him was how close
the pits were. Then he saw the teethmarks and the tadpoles bitten in half. The wall had breached between two pits, and the two adults had torn each other apart, seemingly stepping on their own young in the process.
“This was an environment under pressure. We’re looking at their last sols.”
He’d used the Martian word by habit, but it felt right. Their last sols, the first sols of human habitation.
They were kind of like a barrel-chested bulldog but with a completely different face. They seemed to have brought fresh water to their young in a throat pouch. They brought food in, too, in the form of — head, clawed hands, tail — only a rough parallel, but the headline would stick. Mermaids. Small, like a sea-born Rhesus monkey.
Gradually, an even greater truth swept over West.
“These aren’t fossils.” The color was right but much else wasn’t. He should have realized sooner. “They’re mummies, aren’t they?”
“They were probably freeze dried, Commander.”
“Earth Command has to know. But when they do, they’ll invoke Protocol I: We’re here for good.” No one said anything. “We can mine the gold we found and sell it for supplies and immigrants. With a bit of luck we can mine, melt, cool, and send a shipment at the next launch window.”
“Will they let us do that?” asked Casey.
“If Earth Command doesn’t like it, we’ll declare ourselves the Indigenous Republic of Mars.” He looked at the mummies in the pits surrounding him. “Their extinction has given us a forever.”
~~~
JASON COOPER was born in Fort Erie, Ontario, but grew up in Buffalo, New York. While in Buffalo, he attended a school for gifted youngsters when he was still a youngster, and gifted, and before the school closed. He went to Australia and got a Bachelor of Arts degree. He now lives in Perth with his daughter, Shadra, and his son, Darius. He has authored seven books, including the novel Slums of Paradise (Twilight Times http://www.twilighttimesbooks.com/SlumsParadise_ch1.html). He has wrestled professionally twice, but in an unrelated accident injured his knee, and the reconstruction didn’t work too well.
Endless Power, Inc, had prepared Angel Perez for the physical dangers of harnessing the newest source of unlimited energy. But no one thought to prepare him for how to cope once his tour was up.
Hunting The Mantis
by Adam Knight
The needle jabs into Stomper’s arm and he grits his teeth. Amphetamine solution squirts into his artery and his heart thuds in his throat. Sweat bursts onto his face and his legs twitch. His brown pupils dilate. Light and shadow tangle among the arches and spires of rock. Starlight streaks across the blackness.
Stomper stands on asteroid C13398, which hurtles end over end and shudders with the impact of debris. Yet Stomper remains securely attached to the rock in his magnetized boots and bulky, pressurized suit. A six-pack of neutralizing spray cans dangles from his belt. The amphetamine boost — standard operating procedure — leaves him wide-eyed and twitching, drenched in sweat as the drugs filter through his lanky frame. Within a minute he feels like pure electricity. So do the four other men on the scouring crew, as well as clusters of men on hundreds of similar asteroids in the Belt, all employed by Endless Power, Inc.
“Clear it out!” shouts Splash, the squad leader. All five men scream in their helmets, charging headlong into the caverns of C13398. Zappy and Clown shine beams of light from the phosphorescent lamps mounted under their EP-19 blasters, scanning the surface of the porous rock. The rifle-style blasters fire non-lethal pulses of energy, the only projectiles of any use in the constantly spinning, shifting Asteroid Belt. Stomper and Custer prowl behind them in combat stances, wielding their J-4s. Those long, light, titanium-graphite blades do the killing. The five men move like fleas across the asteroid surface, turning their magnetized boots on and off, propelling into space and crashing to the surface. Space dust and distant stars whip across their vision.
“Report,” commands Queen Bee in the headset. He is in a distant, orbiting command station.
“Negative for Wasps and Spitters,” Splash replies.
“Nucleite?”
“Negative.”
“Damn,” says Queen Bee. “Keep looking. Activate scanners.”
Splash aims a beam of blue light at a distant patch of rock, which glitters.
“Bingo,” he says.
“Wasps ahead!” shouts Clown. The swarming Wasps are as big as labradors and camouflaged to the rock, with stingers like steak knives. Clown and Zappy lift their EP-19s. Two electric blue orbs smash into the Wasps, knocking them back. Stomper’s heart and brain buzz like live wires. He and Custer hold their J-4s in attack position and activate their boots. From a dozen meters up they crash toward the surface. Stomper’s empty stomach climbs into his throat. Like lightning bolts, they slam onto the Wasps, and the J-4s puncture the alien exoskeletons. Iridescent fluid sprays out and the bodies thrash. All around, dozens of hidden Wasps flutter. More EP blasts smash into the pests, and Custer and Stomper charge from one to the next, jabbing the blades into the armor, cracking the shells apart. Minutes later, inert Wasp bodies hover above the surface.
“Good work,” Queen Bee says. “If there are Wasps, there’s nucleite.”
Nucleite. The word has been so embedded into the men’s minds that hearing it spoken is like hearing one’s heart beat, or hearing one’s own breath. With their every sensor scanning and every eye probing the twisted lattices of rock, the scouring team careens over the asteroid’s surface, moving and thinking as one.
~~~
Angel Perez stands shirtless on the volleyball court, laughing, a can of beer in one hand. He and his friends, all young men in their early twenties, play without strain, letting the ball drop often. In two weeks they will report to the Endless Power training facility before deploying to the Asteroid Belt. In seven months, Angel, who will then be called Stomper, will stand on C13398. Now, charcoal heats on nearby grills. Local kids run and yell through the city park, drawing the scorn of many, but not the six men. The heat and beer make them sloppy and cheerful.
“C’mon, serve,” says Darren, flipping the ball to Angel, his best friend. As Queen Bee, Darren will coordinate attacks from the distant command station because a heart murmur exempts him from scouring duty. The ball bounces off Angel’s thin chest. He curses, but he’s laughing. Not letting go of the beer can, he stoops and picks up the ball with his free hand, tosses it in the air, and smacks it into play.
The park and surrounding cityscape have changed a lot in a decade. Because of the Energy Wars, the men did not play there as boys. Strict energy quotas meant most civilians spent very little time indoors and milled about the city from dawn until dusk. Mobs with short tempers collected in open areas, such as parks. While civilians wandered the cities, soldiers and mercenaries fought over the remaining drops of oil and gas in remote corners of the world. Angel’s father had died defending a derrick in Alaska. Chinese mercenaries overran his platoon and claimed the oil, which ran dry in a week. Angel had been too young to know him, but imagined his father as a valiant crusader in a hopeless crusade.
Escalating violence had not ended the Energy Wars; the discovery of nucleite had.
“Scared?” Darren throws the question out to no one in particular. Scoffs and macho denials pepper the air.
The man who will later be called Splash swigs his beer and taps the ball over the net. “No more scared than I get weeding the garden or setting mousetraps.”
“It’s gonna be dangerous.” Some of the men feel a tweak of resentment when Darren says this.
“I’m not scared. You scared, babe?” Angel calls to Lisa, who sits in the shade, reading. She lays her book in the grass and strolls to the court. Her long black legs move smoothly in denim shorts, and Angel is proud when his buddies sneak glances at her.
“Hmm?” she purrs, putting her arms around Angel’s waist.
“You scared for me?”
Her four-second pause is answer enough. “Well … I�
�ve heard about the Belt. Accidents. Debris. Oxygen. Wasps, Spitters and who knows what else. I mean, one pinhole in those suits and—”
Darren chuckles. “Chicks,” he says. Lisa glares over the rims of her sunglasses.
The ball rolls to Angel’s feet. Lisa elbows him and he scoops up the ball and hurls it at Darren, beer can still firmly in hand.
“What about the amph solutions?” Lisa asks. “I hear it’s hard to stop. I hear you hallucinate and your heart can burst.”
“Don’t worry, babe,” Angel says. “Endless Power sets it all up. After active duty, they terrace down our dosage until we’re clean. All safe. It’s all there in the manual.”
The 388-page manual from Endless Power is titled A Guide for Tomorrow’s Pioneers. The cover shows a firm-jawed young man and woman, superimposed over stars and nebulae, staring into the distance. Angel has only read the first three paragraphs:
You are a young person with courage. With character. With a hunger for adventure. We know this because you have signed with Endless Power, Inc. Your contract opens not a world but a galaxy of opportunity. You will tread ground untouched before by any human. Your excitement and fear are the same feelings shared by other explorers: Christopher Columbus, Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark, the crews of the Apollo missions.
Wood. Oil. Water. Coal. The sun. The atom. Of the many energy sources to fuel mankind’s progress, none has changed us the way nucleite has. Since its accidental discovery by the space probe Providence, our newest element has astounded physicists. Held in the hand, a nucleite crystal is no more harmful than quartz, can be split and transported with ease, and is capable of rapid self-replication. And yet a single, pencil-sized crystal of nucleite can produce a cold-fusion reaction powerful enough to power the city of New York for several hours or propel a five-man spacecraft to Pluto. While traditional cold-fusion reactions require large inputs of energy to overcome the Coulomb Barrier, nucleite seems almost eager to react for us. When the Energy Wars reached a crisis point, science pointed us to nucleite.
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