Coming here always served as a reminder that, no matter how close we were, Tamara and I really came from two totally different worlds.
As my mom’s sedan rolled up the driveway, Tamara came dashing out, the hood of her jacket pulled tightly over her head. Mom had opted to sit in the back, next to Celeste in her carseat, which left the front for me and Tamara. “Thanks for the ride, Professor Garcia,” Tamara said, slamming the passenger door.
“Hi, Tamara!” Celeste shouted, grinning her gap-toothed grin. “We’re going to watch Isaak and Dr. Erick dig up rocks for science.”
“Oh, do I not count?” Tamara teased.
“No! You count most of all. I was going to say you. How many rocks are you going to dig today?”
“At least a thousand.” Tamara looked at me. “Where’s Henry?”
“He’s coming later. He had to go in to the Academy. Apparently, he got busted for more graffiti, so he’s got Saturday detention.”
She groaned and slapped her palm to her forehead. “I should have known. What are we going to do with him?”
“Don’t ask me. I’m not his boss.”
She rolled her eyes and looked out the window at the rain.
With the shorter travel time thanks to the car, we wound up getting to the site almost an hour before everyone else was scheduled to show up. It looked like Erick hadn’t been there for long himself. He and Dr. Luna were still unloading equipment from the backs of their pickups as our car pulled up to the site. A light drizzle was falling, leaving tiny droplets on their rain slickers, but it was nowhere near the storm we’d had back in Tierra Nueva.
“Now, this is a pleasant surprise,” Erick said, opening the passenger door for Mom. She leaned over to start to unhook Celeste from her carseat, but my sister had already unbuckled the seatbelt and was shoving the lap bar off herself. Erick laughed as she scrambled out of the car and leapt into his arms.
“Well, I’m not on any deadlines right now, and it’s such a lovely day for an outing,” my mom teased. She gave him a quick peck on the lips.
It’s not like they were full-on making out or anything, but my stomach still knotted at the sight of it. The easy affection between the two of them, the way my sister clung to Erick like a beloved relative. I felt like an outsider in my own family.
There was a gentle squeeze on my arm. Tamara smiled reassuringly up at me. Warmth spread from the spot her fingers had touched. I grinned back at her.
Erick put Celeste down, but she was still holding onto his hand as he turned to address me and Tamara. “Well, gang, there’s still another hour before the shuttle gets here, but I don’t know how long this weather is going to hold out. Do you want to start working early? Clara and I are working over in Trench 9. You’re welcome to keep us company.”
Tamara’s elbow jabbed into my ribs. I nodded, a barely perceptible movement. Trench 9 was the pit that the arch was in. We hadn’t been back to it since starting at the survey. This might be our chance. It was too bad Erick, Dr. Luna, and my mom and Celeste had to be in on it as well—it would be harder to move toward the arch unseen.
As we slipped and slid our way down the muddy slope, I noticed the drone that had caught my first investigation of the arch was still buzzing around Trench 9.
“You keep that thing on even when you’re working, Erick?” I asked.
“Oh, that one’s not ours,” Erick replied. “It’s GSAF’s. They have a few security cameras set up on some of the high-priority trenches at the site.” When I looked at the drone again, I could see the words Global Space and Astronautics Federation painted on the side of its body.
Tamara perked up. “What makes Trench 9 a high-priority area, Dr. Gomez?”
He grinned at her. “Well, not the arch, even though I know the two of you love it. It’s because of some other stuff we’ve found in this area. Every once in awhile we’ll uncover fragments from old satellites or probes, mostly from NASA and the Soviet space program and such. Those are GSAF property, so we have to turn any we find over to them.”
“GSAF is that interested in retrieving broken pieces of junk from abandoned missions?” I asked doubtfully.
Erick shrugged. “This is their land, Isaak. This whole mission is on their terms. If they want broken pieces of junk, that’s what I’ll give them.” As he spoke, he fiddled with something on his palmtop. The laser grids in Trench 9 flickered, then powered on. “All right, if the two of you could work on this quadrant, please.”
The area he’d marked off for us was further down the dried streambed, just about as far from the arch as we could get while still working in the same trench. I looked at the rock formation longingly.
There was nothing we could do about it, though. We’d have to wait for Erick to get distracted before we could move closer. I slid on my goggles, pulled out my spade and started digging.
Two seconds later, Celeste was standing over my shoulder. “Zak, can I help you be a arky-ologist?”
I sighed. Had it really been necessary to bring her along? “I don’t think so, twerp. This isn’t a game. We have to be really careful.”
“I can be careful!”
“Yeah, right. You can’t even play with your Barbies without one of them winding up decapitated.”
“That’s not true!” She didn’t even know what the word decapitated meant, but obviously my tone had gotten through, because her face was red with indignation now.
“You can help me, Celeste,” interrupted Tamara. Celeste beamed and raced over to her like a puppy. “Here, can you hold my kit for me? Okay, so when I dig, I need to put the dirt from my shovel into this box. See? Then we bring it over there”—she pointed to a pile on the side of the trench—“for Dr. Erick to go through later. That’s called backdirt. We have to go through it again, in case I missed anything when I was digging here. It’s really important, so I need you to be careful when you carry this, okay?”
“Okay!” Though the bin was nowhere near full, Celeste eagerly picked it up and rushed over to the backdirt pile to dump it. She poured the soil in as delicately as if it were a pile of diamonds.
“You have a way with animals,” I said.
“She’s just a little girl, Isaak. You don’t need to be so hard on her.”
My face reddened, but I scoffed. “You’re not the one who has to live with her. It gets old real fast.”
The ground was soft and slick from the light rain. My spade cut through it like a knife through butter. I worked methodically, waiting for Erick to turn his back or move away or something, but he and Dr. Luna stood talking to Mom smack in the middle of the trench, blocking Tamara and me from the arch. There was no way either of us could move without him noticing.
About twenty minutes into digging, my tool struck something hard. A rock, or maybe another cephalopod fossil. I dutifully switched from shovel to brush, so as not to damage the object. It was a bit muckier than usual, with the ground being wet from the rain, but the ochre soil cleared relatively easily.
It wasn’t a rock. It was something metallic. I gingerly pulled it from the ground and looked at it in bewilderment. The object almost looked like an earpod, but I didn’t recognize the model. And it was old—really old. The metal had turned a sick, seafoam green, and the edges were rough and worn. The part that fit into the ear looked like it was made of some sort of synthetic material, which started crumbling into my gloved hand the longer I held it.
“Hey, Erick,” I started to call, when an unfamiliar voice interrupted me.
“Well, son, what do you have there?”
I looked up. On the walkway above the trench, a middle-aged man in a black suit with a peacock-patterned cravat was peering down at me. Despite the gray day, he was wearing mirrored sunglasses.
“I’m not sure. It looks like an earpod. Erick?”
Erick lifted his head and saw the man in the suit standing over us. “Joseph, what are you doing here? I didn’t think GSAF had an inspection scheduled for a few weeks yet.”
The man cautiously made his way down the slope. “I had the morning free and thought I’d drop by and see how things were going.” He took off the mirrored sunglasses and shot a glance in my direction. His eyes were a very pale blue, almost like ice, and they pierced right through me. I shifted uneasily. Something about this guy made me feel almost guilty, even though I hadn’t done anything. It was like he could read my mind, and knew I was up to something, somehow.
He turned crisply back to Erick. “It’s a good thing I did, too. Looks like one of your diggers there found something of interest.”
Erick moved over to me. I held the object in my gloved hand, but I was careful not to move; the location of the find still needed to be recorded. Erick looked down and frowned. “Yeah, I see that. All right, Isaak, we’re going to have to turn the site over to Mr. Condor and his men now.”
“What? Why?”
“It’s GSAF property. Our contract agreement states that any non-natural finds that turn up have to be excavated by GSAF officials.”
I was taken aback. I knew he said that any objects like this we found had to be given to GSAF, but I thought we would still be the ones to do the excavating. “We just… leave?” I sputtered. “I mean, how do you know they’re not going to do anything to damage the site while we’re gone?”
The man in the suit turned those freaky blue eyes back to me. His graying hair was thin and cut close to his scalp. “I’m sorry. I should have introduced myself properly. I’m Joseph Condor, GSAF Director of Land Use for Aeolis Province.” He held his hand out for me to shake it. I stared at him, unsure how to respond; I still held the earpod-like object in my filthy, gloved right hand. Eventually Condor frowned and put his hand back in his pocket. “This land is unincorporated, and as such is GSAF property. That makes it our responsibility to administer. In a way, we could be asking, ‘How do we know you won’t do any damage to our site?’” He smiled, his lips thin. “But our partnership with Kimbal University is built on trust, er…”
He trailed off and looked at me expectantly. I replied, “Isaak.”
“Yes, Isaak. So you see, it’s important for all parties involved to cooperate.”
I glanced over at Tamara, who still knelt in the mud a few meters away. Celeste stood behind her, holding Tamara’s backdirt bin and looking nervous. It had to be bad news when even Celeste was put off by the guy.
“Okay. I understand,” I said.
Erick turned to Dr. Luna. “Clara, put in a call to the other students that today’s dig is canceled. Joseph, I’ll have everyone else out of here in ten minutes.”
Condor nodded amiably, his narrow lips still twisted up into a smile. I started gathering my tools and then stood up, trying to wipe the dirt off my knees but just smearing mud everywhere instead.
“I’m glad you’re cooperating, Isaak,” Condor said in a low voice, not turning to face me. “After what happened the first time you were here, GSAF was a little concerned about your continued presence on site.”
I froze. This guy knew about what I’d done on the field trip? I suddenly remembered that Erick had said the security drone was manned by GSAF, not Kimbal. Had they been watching me, this whole time?
Maybe Condor showing up on site today hadn’t been a coincidence after all.
He turned to clap a hand on my shoulder. “But if you continue to work with GSAF, I don’t foresee a problem.”
Then he strode away, following Erick and the others out of the trench. I realized that I was alone now, just meters from the arch; but the security drone still buzzed, watching my every movement with its unblinking camera.
I tossed my tools back into my digger’s kit and left Trench 9 behind.
“This whole thing stinks worse than Paharganj on a Tuesday morning,” Henry announced, propping his feet up on the velvet ottoman in front of him. “I mean, we’re supposed to buy that they shut down the entire site for a broken piece of seventy-five-year-old junk?”
The two of us were in our custom guild hall on Speculus, our favorite hangout. Henry had designed it himself. Some of the decor was loot we’d picked up from the various games we’d played over the years, but most of it was hand-coded by Henry. Programming was second-nature to him—that was how he’d gotten his scholarship to the Academy, and why they kept him around despite his somewhat checkered disciplinary record. There wasn’t a better coder on Mars than Henry, and everyone knew it. Our guild hall was a work of art. What with the VR headsets and our figuscan avatars, it was basically like being there in real life.
Well, except that Henry was wearing chainmail. Not that he wouldn’t dress like that in real life given the opportunity, but I doubted his mom would let him out of the house if he tried.
I said, “Erick claims that it’s because the pieces are the property of whatever Earth government launched the original satellite.”
“Yeah, but who would want it? Space junk is a dime a dozen. Not to mention the fact that half the governments that sent probes and satellites to Mars don’t exist anymore. So why is this stuff so sensitive that they have to kick all the trained excavators off-site to dig it out?”
I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. The whole thing was completely bizarre. And the way that Joseph Condor just popped out of nowhere like a torquing spider weed or something...” I still felt anxious, remembering the way those piercing blue eyes had stared right through me. And had he really been watching me from the security camera? Or was I just jumping to conclusions?
“I’m telling you, Zak, they’re up to something out there. The way those drones go over every two minutes? I never see that many drones in Tierra Nueva. Do you seriously think they’d be paying that much attention to some college teacher’s boring little science project? GSAF is covering something up.”
“Even if they are, though, what are we supposed to do about it?” I asked. “It’s their land. Why is it any of our business what they’re doing with it?” It was a stretch, but I needed to be sensible. The last thing I wanted was to end up like Henry, constantly looking over my shoulder or, worse, posting rambling manifestos on the internet.
“Because GSAF is supposed to represent us! Do you not listen to anything I’ve been saying all these years?” He stood up and started pacing, his chainmail clinking with each step. “Everyone on Earth is all patting themselves on the back for making such an egalitarian new world, where everyone’s supposed to be equal, blah blah blah. Look at how pretty and diverse it is, people coming from all over Earth to live and work together. But who’s in charge? That’s right. White Europeans and Americans, as torquing always. Do we have any say in who our governors are, or what the laws are, or anything? No. All the decisions come wrapped in a nice little bow from GSAF headquarters on Earth, with a built-in police state to enforce it. Has Mars ever had an election? No. Are there any native-born Martians in the GSAF government? No. We don’t even have a voice on the Council. If that’s not the textbook definition of imperialism—”
“Henry, calm down!” I said. “We haven’t even been here that long. It’s not like torquing Columbus sailing in to enslave and pillage the Native Americans or something. Everybody who’s here now came from Earth. GSAF represents all Earth nations equally. We’re all in this together.”
Henry whirled on me. “You know what, Isaak? I am so tired of you making excuses for them. Every time I try to talk to you about this, you always laugh at me or try to shut me up. Even now, when you and I both know something huge is going on out at that dig site. Or did you forget about that coin and your Little Green Men?”
My face colored. I hadn’t forgotten it, exactly, but I’d gotten so wrapped up in the day-to-day dig activities. I guess I was having so much fun playing archaeologist, I stopped thinking about what we were supposed to be looking for in the first place. But no way was I going to admit that.
“Of course I didn’t forget,” I said. “Tamara and I were going to try to look at the arch earlier, before Condor showed up. I just—”
“If someth
ing on the level of precolonial life on Mars is going on at that dig site, we have a right to know about it,” he interrupted. “This is our planet! What makes GSAF think that they have a right to access that information, but actual Martian scientists like Erick don’t? Why are we okay with leaving it up to them and their Top Men to cover everything up and keep us in the dark? Not to mention that if they’re doing that, what else are they up to that we don’t know about?”
“Henry, you’re being paranoid.”
He balled his fists. “Why are you so eager to kiss GSAF’s butts, anyway? What have they ever done for you? Apart from completely deprive you of your rights as a citizen?”
Joseph Condor’s creepy eyes stared me down in my mind’s eye. “I’m glad you’re cooperating,” he’d said. “GSAF was a little concerned about your continued presence on site. If you continue to work with GSAF, I don’t foresee a problem.”
What has GSAF ever done for you?
“Um, well, for one thing, they employ my mother,” I said, only half in response to Henry.
“I knew it.” Henry jammed his hands into his pockets, but since the figuscan’s chainmail design didn’t include pockets, his hands just sort of disappeared at his sides. “You get a handout from them, so everything is hunky-dory. Typical.”
“It’s not a handout!” I jumped to my feet in protest, thoughts of Joseph Condor forgotten. “My mom is working her fingers to the bone to ensure that the people on Mars can even live here to begin with! Or do you not like eating? Because I’m pretty sure if you’re eating, you’ve got my mom to thank for it.”
“You know what, Zak?” Henry snapped. “I don’t know why I’m even talking to you. Obviously you like living with your head buried in the sand. Or maybe you think that, since your mom works for GSAF, you’re in a different boat than the rest of us. That it doesn’t matter if GSAF keeps trampling all over us. But I have news for you. Guys like Joseph Condor don’t care where your mom works, or the fact that she was born in California and not in some slum in Mexico City. You’re just as brown as the rest of us, Isaak, and even if you lick their boots, it’s not going to make you one of them.”
Fourth World Page 6
