The First Poet Laureate of Mars

by T E Olivant

  “Thank you, that would be ideal.”

  “And do you have any other questions for me?”

  Hester’s hand tightened on her bag.

  “I suppose I was wondering… Well, what exactly does a poet laureate actually do?”

  The Martian blinked his milky eyes. “Ah. Well. I suppose I was rather hoping you might know.”

  Hester was not surprised to feel a tap on her shoulder as she left Professor Creighton’s office. The oily assistant had followed her out.

  “Welcome to Mars. I’m Cortez of the Omega Sector.”

  Hester stumbled through a greeting. Her research was coming back to her through her befuddled synapses. The tattoos marked Cortez out as not just a citizen of Omega Sector, but one of the first families of Mars.

  “You need the real deal on Mars, you just ask me,” Cortez said, pointing to his chest with a skinny finger.

  “To be honest, right now I just need a shower and a rest,” Hester said, holding her bag in front of her like a shield.

  “Course. I’ll walk you to your digs.”

  He hadn’t left her an easy way to refuse, but Hester would have preferred to walk on her own. Cortez looked at her like she was meat fresh from the kill. Did he know she was a fraud? No, that was just her paranoia. Maybe he was just the kind of guy that looked at all women like that. There were bound to be creeps on Mars like there were everywhere else. He was walking next to her just a little too close so that his arm brushed hers every few steps. Yep, definitely a creep.

  “Here we are,” he said after they had walked for several minutes in silence. “Just scan your datapad and it’ll let you in.”

  The entrance to the student halls was graffitied and rusty, but at least the scanner worked when she held up her pad. The corridor smelt a little of unwashed clothes but compared to Sat Three it was a bouquet of Earth blooms.

  “I’ll guess you’ll want to let the Merchants know you’ve arrived,” the voice said behind her. Hester froze on the doorway.

  “What did you say?”

  “The Merchants. What, did you think you can hide from your debts just because you took a little trip to Mars?” Cortez snorted. “They know exactly where you are. And they want you to know that they’ll be in touch really soon.”

  “Bastard.”

  Cortez smiled as if she had paid him a compliment. “Just doing my job. Like you are, Miss Poet Laureate. Welcome to Mars.”

  Chapter 3

  No problems, Tolly thought. Wasn’t that what the Captain had said? Well, they sure as hell had some problems now.

  “The third engine is totally screwed,” a whiny white guy with VR glasses fused to his face shouted across the room. Tolly winced. He never understood why some H-men felt the need to stick bits of metal to themselves in tribute to the Augments. As if the Augment high command would notice such an amoeba no matter how he mutilated his face.

  Tolly felt an urge to itch the back of his neck. It was illogical as a) his neck was augmented skin so there was no feeling in it anyway, and b) he was in a spacesuit so he couldn’t have itched if he tried. He upped his relaxin hormone a little just in case.

  “Can we have a more detailed breakdown than that,” the Captain barked over the radio. Tolly was impressed with Derouge. She hadn’t lost her cool when the first engine failed, and she had only shown the barest frustration when the second one went. Tolly had known Augments who had freaked out quicker than this young woman.

  Tolly glanced around to check no one was watching, then he bent down and ran his gloved hand through the Martian sand. As protocol dictated, when they went down to one engine Derouge had ordered them to land on the surface. They weren’t in any real danger – all survey ships could drift with only minimal engine power – but they would need to wait for repairs. Tolly noticed his heart rate had increased. He had to be careful not to show his pleasure on his face.

  “Hey, tourist!”

  Tolly turned around to see the almond-eyed Augment hater walking towards him.

  “Any chance you could get your friends upstairs to send out the rescue team?”

  Tolly stood with his legs apart. A dominant, but not aggressive pose. “The Captain has already called in our situation.”

  “Yeah, but if the powers that be hear that one of their own is down here, they might just speed things up a little.”

  Tolly’s augmented vision told him that this guy – Fudge, the others had called him for some inexplicable reason – that Fudge was in trouble. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated in a way that suggested he may have taken some sort of opiate before the mission. His movements were sluggish, like he was about to power down. Also, the pulse that throbbed in his neck was dangerously erratic.

  “Afraid not,” Tolly said, making sure his tone was friendly but neutral.

  Fudge’s shoulders gave an involuntary spasm. Tolly looked around for Derouge. There was a good chance this guy was going to freak out.

  “I mean, it’s not as if you have anything to worry about, down here in the dust. You guys are immortal, right? I saw a movie about it once.”

  “That’s just a story,” Tolly said.

  “Right, right. But you live forever, right?”

  “Not forever.”

  “Come on, man,” Fudge whined, “how old are you? A hundred? Two hundred?”

  “That’s not important.” The wrong answer, it only made the h-man more agitated. But Tolly didn’t feel like answering the guy’s questions. Not today.

  “Don’t you tell me what’s important, Auggie.”

  Definitely on the edge, Tolly thought, watching the whites of the man’s eyes as they flickered around inside his helmet.

  “Let’s just get back to the ship,” Tolly replied.

  “Don’t you tell me what to do!”

  “You need to stay calm,” Tolly said, making sure that he was broadcasting out to the other crew members. Fudge was close to the edge and he didn’t want to be alone when –

  The blow hit him on his shoulder, but it was enough to knock him to the ground. Tolly’s first emotion was surprise. He hadn’t thought the h-man was in any state to move that quickly. Turns out Fudge was faster and dumber than he had thought.

  Tolly struggled back to his feet. Fudge was smiling in a way that only drugs and a total inability to see the consequences of your actions could do.

  “Never touch me again,” Tolly said.

  “You’re on Mars now, Auggie,” Fudge replied, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “You and your jacked-out brain don’t mean shit here and the sooner you get that the better.”

  He aimed a pathetic kick towards Tolly, who had had enough. Tolly swung his right arm around, carefully giving it only half power. But he hadn’t realized that the man was moving towards him and the blow connected with a much-to-solid thunk. As Fudge fell he spun around and his head hit a rock. Really hard.

  “Shit,” Tolly said, and an adrenalin warning flashed across his brain. He ignored it. He reached down for Fudge. He flipped him over to see a nasty crack in his helmet.

  A scream echoed down the radio.

  “Mute Peterson,” Tolly said. He bent down and kneeled on the man’s chest. He put the palm of his gloved hand over the crack on the helmet, sealing the leak.

  “If you can hear me, Peterson, I am holding you still so I can repair your suit.”

  Either the guy couldn’t hear him or he didn’t believe him, because he was still thrashing all over the place. Tolly kneed him in the groin and even through the spacesuit it seemed to have enough force to calm him down.

  “Captain?” Tolly paged her through the radio.

  “I heard. I’m on my way.”

  He glanced over to see the Captain heading towards him, but she was still a couple of minutes away. Tolly hoped she would take her time. The rocks were treacherous and the last thing he needed was another casualty to stupidity.

  One-handed, Tolly reached into his emergency repair pocket. He’d never worn this
type of spacesuit before, but they were all the same. He pulled the tube of fast drying liquid rubber out.

  Tolly lifted his hand for just long enough to catch the sheer panic on Fudge’s face. He squirted the rubber all over the crack, and most of the front of the helmet just to make sure.

  “Is it resealed?” He asked through the radio, making sure to unmute the h-man.

  “You bastard!”

  “That’s a yes,” Tolly replied, flicking the mute back on. He stood up and checked his vitals. A little more oxytocin and he was back to optimum output levels. He checked his hormone log. Just a minor adrenalin blip. Nothing for his superiors to get concerned about when he sent back his report. Which they would check, that’s for sure.

  “What the hell happened here?”

  Tolly turned around to the Captain, wondering which lie he was going to tell this time.

  Chapter 4

  It took Hester five minutes to unpack and twenty minutes to stop feeling pissed off. She wasn’t even mad at the man with the green tattoos. She was mad at herself. Why the hell had she thought that moving planet would be enough to get the Merchants off her back?

  She needed someone to talk to. The viewscreen – twice the size of the one back on Sat Three – showed Cat’s face, same as ever.

  “Hester! Oh my god!”

  “Nice to see you too,” she smiled.

  “I thought you’d forgotten all about me.”

  “Why? It’s only been…” She smacked her forehead.

  “Yeah, two years. You look good on it!”

  “You look the exact same.”

  Cat laughed. “Wait until I show you this. Viewscreen, pan out.”

  The view on the screen widened. It had to, otherwise it would never have managed to fit in Cat’s massive pregnant belly.

  “What the hell! How did that happen?”

  Cat cackled back at her. “How do you think? Come on, I know you Sat Three’s don’t get out much but even you must have…”

  “Ok, I don’t mean the gory details,” Hester said, holding up her hands. “I didn’t even know you were signing up for a baby?”

  “Damon and I have been together for three years now. We didn’t want to wait. And we didn’t sign up. This is Sat Five, remember. She’s all natural!”

  Yet another privilege that was denied any citizen of the near-Earth satellites. On Sat Three fetuses were allocated based on genetic diversity. The idea of a woman having a baby from her own eggs was… kind of disturbing.

  “Congratulations!”

  “And to you. You actually did it. You’re on Mars.”

  “Yep. Red and dusty. At least, that’s what it looked like when we landed. I’m a couple of miles underground now.”

  “How’s the poetry going?”

  “I don’t think I’m meant to just crank them out straight away.”

  Cat’s giant belly shook with her laughter. “Right. I look forward to reading them.”

  “Tell me more about the baby,” Hester said and then let Cat’s excitement wash over her like a soothing flood. A baby. Well, if her friend was happy…

  “I’ve had a message from the Merchant’s,” Hester blurted in after twenty minutes of baby chatter.

  “What?”

  One look at Cat’s face told her she shouldn’t have said anything. Hester kicked herself. It would have been better to listen to more tales of her friend’s cervix.

  “Just a little reminder from some guy that I’m still on their radar.”

  Cat crossed her arms. “The Merchants are hounding you on Mars? Why would they care? Hang on, you said you just had a bit of a run-in with them.”

  “Well… maybe it was a little more than that.”

  “Shit.” Cat moved so close to the camera that Hester could see the pores on her nose. “You told me you had given up all that smuggling crap.”

  “I did. Only…”

  “No. I don’t want to hear it. The Merchants are like Gods over here on Sat Five, you do realize that don’t you. I probably shouldn’t even be talking to you.”

  “Cat!”

  She looked nervous. “You’ve missed a lot in the last two years, Hester. They’ve stepped up the Communications control. Even Mars now is crawling with Merchants devices. Just watch your back, ok?”

  “I will. I just hope they call their dogs off soon.”

  “Why would they, if you owe them money. You do, don’t you?”

  More than you can imagine, Hester thought. “Not much.”

  “Right. Look, Damon works in production. The Merchants have been piling money into these adventure movies. Using Augment technology for true VR. You know that they’ve got the next series of the tenth planet epic coming up. They need all the money they can get.”

  Hester rubbed her temples. She still needed that sleep. “Why would they go into VR? They don’t want to piss off the Augments?”

  “Who the hell knows what they’re up to. Hey, you could always sell them the Script.”

  Hester looked away. “Give me a break, Cat.”

  “You know what a genuinely new story is worth?”

  “I know.”

  Hester pulled the final book from her bag. It was handwritten on recycled paper. The Script. Written in the old-fashioned way so that none of the big entertainment companies could steal it from her computer like they did with so many people these days.

  “Ok,” Cat said, rubbing her belly. “I won’t go on about it. Look, I’ve got to go. Go write some poetry about gravity or solar flares or some other crap.”

  “I will. Listen, Cat,” Hester rubbed at her face, “keep in touch, ok? I feel like I’ve lost two years. I don’t want to lose my best friend too.”

  “Only friend, don’t you mean? Don’t worry, you won’t get rid of me just by moving planet.” Cat’s tone was light but just as she clicked off the screen Hester saw something in her friend’s eyes that she didn’t like. It looked a lot like fear.

  Chapter 5

  It only took an hour for an Augment emergency vessel to get the engines back running. Turns out the quickest way to get help is to have someone nearly die from oxygen depletion.

  Tolly ate his dinner in peace. Fudge had been taken away by the medical team and the rest of the crew seemed to blame their Augment cartographer for his injuries. They were still talking about him, but he had turned off his augmented hearing and was enjoying the quiet.

  He’d had ten years of quiet before his cruiser had arrived back on Mars and taken him to the Council of the Augments. Alcedine Tower had been the home of the Augments for the last two hundred years. He’d been away for thirty years by that point and it hadn’t changed a bit. It still smelt of bleach and hot electronics.

  “When can I expect your report?” Captain Derouge was at his side looking a lot less friendly than she had been earlier.

  “It’ll be done before the sleep cycle.”

  “Will be waiting for a replacement crew member?” Tolly asked.

  “No. I’ve been told to continue on schedule.”

  Tolly raised his head to meet the Captain’s eyes. “That is not the usual protocol.”

  “Direct orders from Base One.” In other words, the Augment rulers of the Martian colony. Her bosses and his. Still, it was unusual, and Tolly didn’t like it when the protocols changed. That was when mistakes happened and people died. Not always in that order.

  The Captain looked like she wanted to say something else, but in the end she just walked back over to her crew. Tolly’s heart rate went back to optimum levels. He didn’t owe the Captain an explanation for Peterson’s injuries, but he would have given it if she’d asked. Still, he was glad not to have to explain himself. Ever since his quiet decade, as he thought of it, he’d found talking to h-men exhausting. Hell, even talking to fellow Augments left him cold. He was glad to return his map of the dead terrain of Mars. You knew where you were with space rocks. Rocks never answered back or tried to knock you out.

  His pad vibrated with a
call. His supervisor. Tolly took a second to check his vitals. All normal. He walked quickly into the corridor. It wouldn’t do his stats any good to rush, but if he didn’t manage to answer the call within ten seconds it would be noted on his file.

  Nine seconds later he pressed answer.

  “Calling for status report.”

  The Augment on the other end of the line was probably female, judging from the eyes and the brow ridge. The rest of her face was so altered it was hard to recognize as once having been human. As ever, Tolly had to resist the urge to touch his face which he knew was just as altered. If not more so. Maybe one of these days he would get used to it. Next century perhaps.

  “Sending over the record.”

  The other Augment – Copper, that was her name according to the screen – glanced down then looked back at him.

  “Adrenalin spike?”

  Tolly nodded. “Accounted for in the notes.”

  There was a brief pause and Tolly pumped a little of the calm juice into his brain just in case he betrayed any anxiety. If he did, he would be straight back to the adjustment center, you could bet on that.

  “That appears to be in order.”

  Tolly stared at the collection of scars just above the woman’s right temple. Some talented doctor had erased almost all trace of the hole they bore into the skull to begin the augmentation process. But Tolly could see them. And he knew from the pattern of scars that this Augment had barely passed her first century. Another flare of irritation threatened to break his carefully engineered calm. His superiors had asked a child to check up on him.

  “The mapping is only two-thirds complete?”

  Tolly felt the urge to sigh, something he’d barely done during his quiet decade. “Because of the previously noted delay. I will make up the missing portion tomorrow.”

  A brief flicker passed the woman’s face and Tolly wondered if she was being checked just as she was. He fought the urge to laugh. Of course she was.

  “Acceptable. And the secondary task?”