“Fine.”
“Wait,” Olga speaks for the first time. “Why are you against migration? There are no native inhabitants; you came here relatively recently, so you are also immigrants. What’s wrong with these people?”
Emily grins without answering, and Clark points at the window.
“The whole city has been built by people who for decades have lived on the brink of death from thirst, hunger, radiation, and lack of oxygen. As you know, they were strong representatives of the human race; the weaklings wept out along the road. Mars is a planet with a tough character; nothing comes for free except the sand and carbon dioxide. Everything has to literally be gnawed out by teeth. So it was for many years, and then a glacier was found.”
Emily cuts off a piece of roast beef and continues.
“Then life went uphill. The number of those who wished to come here increased, but the good old social Darwinism was no longer working as well as in previous years, and the quality of our population deteriorated. If you haven’t guessed yet, it is the migrants of the last two years that constitute the defeatist majority. They don’t want to fight for our land, which was created with such hard work, because there isn’t much of their own work here. We made a big mistake by giving them all citizenship. And we aren’t going to do it again. No more citizenship for everyone. No, from now on, we don’t need anyone, except military and specialists like you. But you could survive here, I have no doubt.”
“I don’t know if I want to live on any of the planets; I'm too used to stations and ships. But in any case, thanks for the suggestion.”
Breakfast finished, Clark rises from the table.
“So, it's time for us to go. I'm going to take our guest paragliding.”
“Take her to the water park first. If she's so used to space stations, then she'll definitely like that—the girl has probably never seen so much water in her life.”
***
"Let's go," Clark shouts and starts pushing the raft. A bright red plastic circle rushes along a twisting trench, whipping up a cloud of spray. A guy and a girl cling to the handrails, keeping their balance and not letting the raft roll over.
“The trampoline is ahead!”
The raft bounces on a canopy and jumps twenty meters above the water. Olga pushes away, makes a somersault, and enters the water upside down.
It's so peaceful to lie on your back in a quiet pool, looking into a glass vault with animated white clouds, feeling a warm spray of water. Behind the waterfall, the girls shout joyfully, and a breeze blows. No need to make any effort to stay on the surface—her body weight has fallen more than twice, and the surface tension of the water has remained the same, Olga feels that she could fall asleep on the surface of the water mirror.
“Hey, babe, let’s go to the next pool. We'll catch a wave!”
Having reached the wall, they enter a small lock chamber. On the second hatch, the following words are inscribed, “Wave Pool, wait for the signal!”
“Get ready, now it will shake!”
Above the hatch, a red light flashes. Clark throws the lid to the side as an elastic wave immediately hits them in the stomach.
“Go!” Clark dives right from the doorway into foaming water, and Olga jumps next. The water here is colder and, what is most interesting, salty; the taste can’t be distinguished from the sea, which Olga remembers from the simulator. Emerging on the surface, they are in the middle of a storm in the shallow sea. The waves are on the run, lightning flashes overhead, and warm rain is falling over them, through the veil of which she can see a small artificial island with tall palms.
“I've dreamed about this all my life! Listen, do they have sharks here for the sake of completeness?”
The ship's siren swept over the pool, and somewhere ahead, red lights flared.
“Now the tsunami will go; dive under the wave, or it will throw you on the wall!”
The main attraction begins—through the entire pool, an artificially created wave is running, about five meters high, no less.
“All hands on deck!” Olga shouts, gulps in air, and dives under the crest of a wave, passing through the tsunami above her head.
Then they jump from the tower, dive at a real coral reef, and much more, all of which bring Olga to rapture. For many years during the purification of water, the girl used to have water only for a small bath, and now her soul sings at the sight of pools and artificial lakes. As a result, Clark has to pull her out of the water and take her to dinner, after taking dozens of photos.
Next to the water park is another water-based commercial enterprise, which brings a much larger income—a fish farm, which sends its products to the Jolly Roger restaurant. There are fish and seafood in all possible forms—boiled and fried, smoked, in pickles, sushi, on skewers, and stuffed, with a wide variety of side dishes. Olga heroically tries to cope with this magnificence but, realizing the inevitability of defeat, capitulates and rises from the table, without trying half. Otherwise, she would risk dying from overeating, especially on freshly caught and cooked fish; she has only ever eaten canned fish.
“Let's ride a paraglider!”
“Not now!” Olga laughs. “Let's go to the park; our ship's doctor told me that there are some very interesting examples of altered flora and fauna.”
“Do you want to see a sequoia a quarter-mile high? Come on, I'll show you.”
The park is located outside the city, in the center of a kilometer-wide impact crater. Along the way, Clark tells her various details about the local life, little known on Earth. In response, he is interested in the biography of her past, because he knows little about the life of the High Orbits—behind his shoulders is his one and only space destination. However, when asking her, he doesn’t touch on certain topics. Apparently, Clark was instructed in this by Johnson. He speaks openly about himself, but unfortunately doesn’t recall much of his past life in New York, as if he has no past. Coliseum, flight, and now Clark Montague is classic Martian—everything else is in the past. But Olga knows so little about how people actually live on her own planet . . .
“Listen, you don’t regret leaving Earth, do you?”
“Sometimes,” Clark honestly confesses. “But less every day. If I stayed, what would I be waiting for? Father didn’t have money for a private school. I had to study in municipal school, after which it’s impossible to continue education. And next? My father worked as a lift repairman, and I couldn’t dream of a qualified job. A stripper in a nightclub was the limit of my abilities. And not only for me; in New York and the suburbs, there are about twenty million unemployed young people. You are worthless, and the bosses want only one thing from you—your quick death, without forcing the situation, so they are ready to supply drugs almost for free. And then suddenly I was elected to the Coliseum. Can you guess what I experienced when I found out about that?”
Olga pauses before answering and then carefully chooses her words.
“You weren’t upset to learn that you were chosen. On the contrary, you were happy about it: for the first time in your life, you had a real chance to change something. Most likely, other participants decided that too. Right?”
“Exactly. What does a space girl think about this?”
“This space girl thinks she understands you. She had to defend her future by using violence—nothing special in our day. But in any case, your efforts weren’t in vain—you ended up with a huge prize and a ticket to Mars.”
“I learned about the tickets after the finale. By the way, tickets can be sold, and a plot of land, too. I was showered with offers in the hospital. I didn’t know much about Mars, but I decided that it couldn’t be worse, and I was right. On Mars, I got much more than I left on Earth. Like this water park, for example: waves, an imitation of the ocean, clean water—I first experienced all this only here; at home, clean water is very expensive. And trying to swim in the ocean, on a beach that isn’t protected by filters, is a sure way to pick up some infection and end up skinless. Or sequoias:
on Earth, there aren’t a lot of forests left, and everything is under private ownership, so you can’t get there. But here, you can see them. Look!”
Clark stops the car, pointing to the right. Olga has to stand over the seat to better see the glass top rising above the crater crest.
“Did the builders block the whole crater with the dome?”
“Yes, the diameter matched perfectly. There, on the right side, you see?”
The contact lenses in Olga's eyes become a little darker to cope with the sunbeams, and then she sees the crown of the tree, propping up transparent plates.
“Wow. How many meters to the bottom?”
“You'll find out now."
The road leads to a tunnel cut through the ringed ridge. They pay entrance fees and change into training suits for visitors.
“Most parts of the park can be walked alone, but in certain areas, the presence of guides is compulsory.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Olga doesn’t listen anymore, instead peering at the pines behind the glass walls. “Let's go!”
The forest meets them with a pleasant silence; only the wind rustles in the tops of the trees, and the stream murmurs somewhere. After passing the last lock chamber, they stand for a couple of minutes at the edge of the forest and then slowly walk along the trampled path, winding between gigantic pines. Low gravity causes wonders, allowing trees to climb twice, three times the usual height and adding a reasonable amount in the girth. Clark and Olga couldn’t hug these forest giants even while holding hands. It’s cool here, not more than five degrees Celsius, the air pressure is half the Earth's, and there is practically zero humidity. Powerful roots pierce through a dense red soil, but there are no grasses, bushes, or other plants that would normally be present in the pine forest—only giants and some quite small pines. Olga asks about it.
“I didn’t delve into the subtleties, but I heard that it is impossible to reproduce an absolutely identical terrestrial biosphere here; a different composition of soil and atmosphere, plus increased radioactivity, lead to inevitable differences. The pines exist primarily due to the fact that they tolerate local conditions better than other terrestrial trees, require less fertilizer, and give more oxygen. Other plants are grown on separate sites, so that later, when they fully get used to Mars, they will all combine into a real forest.”
“Now it is clear why there are no animals here. And what's that?”
On the right, a low-barrier fenced area begins, in which the pine trees grow exceptionally close together. All the lower branches are cut, and three-digit numbers are visible on the trunks.
“This is a business, a timber enterprise. This park is an expensive institution, so it is necessary to cover expenses and do business. That's why they grow and sell wood here—on Mars, this material goes into the luxury category. Genetically modified pines grow to a marketable condition in eight years, then the trees are chopped and planted anew. Come on, I'll show you.” Clark leans over the barrier, and Olga looks at him cautiously.
“Can I?”
“You see the numbers from 423 to 435?” Clark indulgently pats the nearest pine. “These are my trees. I bought them as soon as I arrived: the cost was a third less than it is now. So this is my personal garden bed.”
Olga can’t tear herself away from the massive trunk for a long time; she is so fascinated by this sensation—not metal, not plastic, not ceramics, but wood, a real living tree. Live material, live money. Terrific.
“We'll do the autograph right now.” Clark pulls out a knife.
“‘Olga + Clark’, a blatant lack of culture. You could have invented something more original,” Olga laughs, then she takes the knife and paints a heart pierced with an arrow. “That's much better—a classic example of primitivism. Let's go on and see the sequoias.”
The Martian sequoias are the largest trees in the solar system, the height of a hundred-story skyscraper and wide like an oil reservoir. The greenhouses are filled with lawn and shrubs. Giant ferns in the department of ancient plants are interspersed with slender bamboo groves. And there are many more plants, growing on the bottom of a giant thicket, covered with a transparent dome. So many interesting things to see, but Clark stubbornly pulls her forward to a group of greenhouses in the center of the crater.
“Come on, my friend is on duty now; she’ll let us in. You can’t miss this opportunity!”
It is a rare opportunity to be able to visit the rosary. An elderly Chinese woman, having exchanged a few words with Clark, lets them into the greenhouse, strictly warning them not to touch anything. There are huge ruby red and charcoal black roses, with a strong, exceptionally persistent smell. Olga has heard about these flowers, a rare and expensive breed, well sold in the colonies, because they are extremely tenacious—the cut stem, when placed in a nutritious mixture, won’t fade for decades. How difficult it is to resist and not cut some of the beautiful flowers; they would look so good in her cabin . . .
An alarm sounds in her head, and her left foot burns with fire—the first-aid kit shoots a dose of a powerful antidote. Olga, unsteadily staggering, wanders to the exit.
“Clark, let's go outside, quickly!”
“What wrong with her?”
“Your girlfriend is allergic to all this beauty. Get the girl out of here, the floriculture is definitely not for her!”
Clark gets Olga to a stream, where she takes a long time washing with running water and then looks at Clark with evil reddened eyes.
“Young man, next time give a warning before leading your girl into the gas chamber! I have never seen real flowers before and couldn’t know that I'm allergic to this rare breed. I could have gone into anaphylactic shock!”
“Well, it would be a very romantic death in the midst of blossoming roses, just like in The Wizard of Oz. They would have buried you right here, under the roses. That's great, isn’t it?”
“I've dreamed about that all my life.” Olga throws water on Clark and then rises to her feet.
“Let's go to the sky; I need fresh wind.”
* * *
“Don’t pull the slings so much; it’s not a rocket engine. Don’t forget it's an atmospheric flight. Look!”
For a moment, zero gravity sets in; Clark makes a turn, then again passes the loops to Olga.
“Now I’ll briefly start the engine. We’ll rise a kilometer and you’ll try again.”
A light motor on his back starts. The paraglider is slowly gaining altitude, and Olga is gradually mastering it with control. She has practiced a lot in virtual flights on hang gliders and paragliding, and when they climbed to the top of the canyon to the launch pad, the girl was eager to rise to the sky independently. Clark had to work hard to persuade her to first try it in tandem, and now she is grateful to him: just a minute's flight was enough to realize that flights in the Martian atmosphere were strikingly different from those on Earth, especially those reproduced in the simulator. On the one hand, it’s easier to take off due to the lesser gravity, but on the other hand, the rarefied atmosphere creates many difficulties, along with unpredictable gusts of wind. But if you use a motor and make some adaptations, then it will go well.
“So, try to catch the ascending flow and rise higher, turn right, slower . . . ”
Olga tries to visually detect the changes in the atmosphere where Clark indicates, but she is unsuccessful. She will have to act blindly according to his instructions.
“Don’t worry; experience is profitable. Feel it!”
“Wow!”
Indeed, by sending the paraglider to where Clark pointed, Olga is gaining altitude without a motor on a mighty gust of wind.
“Well, how do you like this stallion? Don’t kick anymore?”
“He tries to show some character, but I'll go around him. How much easier it is to fly in space—there is no wind, no heat flows, and no turbulence.”
Clarke snaps on the top of her helmet.
“But you have no romance there, only blackness and emptiness. And here, l
ook, have you seen anything like this before?”
Olga decides not to argue. She doesn’t want to talk. They just hover over the city with a gradual decline. On the left hand, the wall of the canyon rises, and far below the city outskirts, the sun is going down. What extraordinary tranquility can be found here, hovering high above the ground, swaying on the slings under the lightweight fabric wing.
“And I saw a new land . . . ”
* * *
“Let there be light!”
The fuse touches the fuel-soaked pyramid of stones, and the stones flare up like coal. At first, Olga looks at the blazing bonfire with mistrust—like every cosmonaut, the girl doesn’t like an open flame, which never foretold anything good in her profession. But now this isn’t a destructive fire in orbit, just a small but hot fire, kindled on the top of the canyon. Only a human can build a flame on Mars—Clark collected small stones and spilled hydrogen fuel on them, which is capable of burning in the local atmosphere. And now they are sitting on the edge, admiring the bluish flame. They can feel the heat even through the heat-resistant overalls, and a crackling is heard, as if a resinous log is burning in the fireplace.
It's completely dark around the fire. The sun went down ten minutes ago; the night came instantly, as there is no twilight on Mars, only the edge of the sky brightens in the west along with the city lights below. They are much smaller than they were a few days ago; Antonina has already introduced a blackout. The wind briefly subsides; the temperature is negative fifty-six degrees and continues to fall.
“So, Miss Olga, your attention is invited to a local delicacy—roast, from my recipe.”
Clark holds out a large silver tube, taking it off the brazier.
“The first colonists prepared their standard rations simply by sending containers to the fire. Their descendants and immigrants like me repeat this trick when we want to remember the pioneers.”
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