Losing Mars

by Peter Cawdron

  I’m still staring at my wrist pad, but it now reads three hours and eighteen minutes! What to me was just seconds has been almost an hour and a half. Apparently, I’ve been exploring the alien base all this time. I’m not sure if I’m somehow slipping through time or I’m blacking out and only remembering selective portions. It’s alarming to realize I’m somewhere deep in the bowels of the structure, far from the crevasse. I hope I’ve left a trail of breadcrumbs. The thought of being lost down here, unable to find my point of entry, is more than a little disconcerting.

  I look around, allowing my spotlights to build up a picture of where I am. I’m on the raised walkway again, but instead of dinosaurs, there are corals—at least they look like corals to me, although they’re unlike anything I’ve ever seen on the Great Barrier Reef, in museums, or in textbooks. Hundreds of wafer thin layers sit stacked on top of each other like pancakes, only there’s a definite biological structure to them. These aren’t geological formations. They’ve got veins and are wafer thin. I get as close as I can, wanting to see them in as much detail as possible, knowing everything’s being recorded.

  There are a series of markings on the floor—what appear to be labels. The samples on either side start with the same sequence before divulging into what look like hieroglyphs. One large dot followed by four smaller dots then a muddle of illegible shapes. I didn’t look close enough when I stood in front of the dinosaurs, but I bet there were only three dots back there—they’re planets!

  “I think these samples are from Mars!”

  I stand, turning slowly, panning the camera, wanting to savor the moment.

  As I walk on, I pass structures that appear eerily similar to the stromatolites found on Earth—clonal colonies comprised of billions of single cell microbes, forming pillars ranging from a few feet in height to columns over ten feet tall. On Earth, stromatolites are found in the intertidal regions along the coast. If these came from Mars, what caused the tides? Or did they simply arise in shallow seas?

  “Wow. Wow. Wow.”

  A little repetitive, I know, but I’m at a loss for words. This is the single greatest discovery in the history of Homo sapiens. Not only have I found evidence for extraterrestrial intelligence, there’s at least a partial record of ancient life on both Earth and Mars, stemming from roughly a hundred million years ago! This is going to electrify the scientific community for decades to come, perhaps centuries. These aren’t fossils, though. Somehow, they’re frozen, but not in the literal sense. They’ve been preserved. Locked away in these samples are the secrets behind the evolution of life on at least two planets within our solar system, and potentially life from beyond. The implications for biology, physics, astronomy, chemistry, and even concepts such as sociology are profound, as we now have the opportunity to compare ourselves with another socially active, intelligent, curious, space-faring species.

  Just when I think I’m getting the hang of negotiating the narrow walkway, I’m back beneath the gaping hole, bathed in starlight. Two hours and three minutes. I’ve gone backwards, not to the exact time I landed on the dusty floor, but roughly five minutes later, which is the apparent time I spent examining the coral-like structures.

  I pull a screwdriver from my toolkit and scratch an arrow in the direction I’m moving, along with a crude timestamp so I know when as well as where I’ve been. There’s no point in delaying. Based on what I’ve already seen, I’m well aware I’ll spend at least a couple of hours down here, I might as well embrace this, so I begin edging my way down the darkened hallway.

  Just like out on the surface of Phobos, the softest of touches propels me on like an ice skater. If anything, I’m moving far faster than I’d like and I end up using my hands to guide my motion, bouncing softly off the walls and even the ceiling at one point. Phobos is just a hair’s breath away from weightlessness. I’d prefer to see where I’m going long before I get there, but it’s difficult to move slowly. The slightest motion pushes me on. I’m very aware it’s going to be easy to become disoriented in the darkness. Corners set on odd angles are confusing. Each one feels as though it turns through a right-angle even if it’s often only around thirty degrees. Every time I encounter a corner, I note the time and direction on my wrist pad.

  On at least five occasions, time skips forward by upwards of an hour, bouncing me back and forth as I move down various corridors. It’s crazy down here beneath Phobos. Because it’s insanely dark, the only reason I know I’ve been transported is because I’m suddenly closer to a wall than I was just seconds before. It’s as though I’m rebounding through time. Sometimes, I’m back by the rubble beneath the hole, then suddenly I’m surrounded by darkness again.

  The interior of the subterranean base is nondescript. Each wall is smooth. The ceiling is a continuous archway some thirty feet in height. Junctions and intersections are devoid of any kind of signage. I doubt this is by design because when I scratch the walls, thin layers are visible with tiny fibers just beneath the surface. At a guess, when powered, this place is full of color. For me, though, it’s a tomb in ancient Egypt.

  A thin coating of dust covers the floor, allowing me to see the path I’ve taken. Occasionally, there are side rooms. I inspect a few, but they’re empty. No shelving. No furniture. No flooring or wall hangings. Again, I doubt that’s intentional because the rooms must have served some purpose. It’s like the place has been ransacked. Gutted.

  Slowly, I’m getting use to this wacky alien time loop. I lie to myself. I tell myself there’s no reason to freak out. I just need to be consistent in my approach to exploring. Regardless of my shifting location and the change in time, so long as I’m methodical and continue to lay down breadcrumbs, there’ll be a continuous chain leading back to the opening. It may be etched out of order, but ultimately my marks every twenty to thirty feet will link up. I hope. I’m trusting in these tiny arrows scratched into the walls. Am I a vandal? Paranoid? Or justifiably cautious? Five astronauts have died. A few scratches to keep the sixth breathing seems reasonable to me.

  From what I can tell, apart from the vast storage vault, the base is empty. The corridors are dusty but otherwise clean. There must be more rooms off to the side. I can’t imagine a corridor this long is without purpose, but whatever these creatures used for doors has long since failed shut with not so much as a seam to show where they lie.

  At four hours and twenty six minutes, I come across a circular room at the far end of the main corridor. By my reckoning, I’ve been down here less than an hour, but my timepiece disagrees. In the darkness, I’m losing track of the various chronological jumps, and I’m alarmed to think I’ve spent several hours beneath the surface. Am I lost? Or am I simply engrossed by what I’m seeing. It’s a strange sensation to realize I don’t understand my own motivation at this point as I’m bouncing through spacetime like a pinball.

  I note the time on my wrist pad. A series of sunken levels form concentric circles on the floor of what looks like an amphitheater, slowly descending to the centre. There are bodies. No desks. No chairs. At least nothing I’d recognize as such, but the scattered, haphazard remains of living organisms is unmistakable. This is the aftermath of a massacre. I speak, not that anyone’s listening, not this far beneath the moon, but it’ll be picked up by my video recorder.

  “I was beginning to think the base had simply been abandoned, but this… this is heartbreaking. I make, maybe, fifty to a hundred bodies in here.”

  I crouch, but even that motion has me bouncing slightly and I have to be careful not to topple onto the remains in front of me.

  “This is a graveyard.”

  My caution isn’t simply because there’s a need to preserve the site, it’s out of respect. Life has ceased, and that’s always tragic.

  I point at what looks like a limb. “Their remains are desiccated. No atmosphere. Freezing temperatures. No time to decompose. They’ve mummified.”

  I kneel, panning slowly with my camera. My lights reflect off tens of thousands of froze
n ice particles clinging to the corpses, glistening softly with my motion, reflecting like polished silver.

  “They can’t have looked like this… not when alive... Ah, I can see skin, bones, so some kind of internal skeleton supporting their frame.”

  I shift around the fallen creature.

  “Six limbs. If they’re bipedal, then that’s four arms.”

  I reach out, touching what looks like cloth draped over the torso, but it crumbles beneath my glove.

  “No head as such. If there are eyes or some kind of nose or mouth, they’re not apparent after all this time.”

  I straighten, allowing my spotlights to reach across the floor.

  “They must have made some kind of last stand in here, but against what? There’s diversity. Different sizes. Some long. Some wide. Others quite small. Adults? Children?”

  I point. “Over there by the wall, I see a bunch of them. Huddling? Hiding? Trying to escape?”

  Slowly, I get to my feet, pointing at the darkened doorway.

  “They have the ability to preserve those specimens out there for millions of years but they couldn’t save their own lives… Whatever happened here, it was violent. This isn’t the result of rapid decompression. Those against the wall had time to congregate. Someone killed them, but who? Why?

  “Was it fratricide? Like us, did brother turn against brother? Or was some other interstellar species involved?”

  For the first time, I’m worried I might not be alone down here. I assumed I was in a tomb, but this is a trap. Something else is in here. Something lured me into the depths. Something? No. Someone’s awake. Someone’s watching me, following me, manipulating time to disorient me.

  I feel overwhelmed with an irrational desire to look behind me. I turn but too quickly. In the low gravity, I slide on the floor, loosing my footing. Rather than falling, I have plenty of time to stab at the ground with my boots and catch myself, but I step on one of the bodies. Bones crumble beneath my rubber soles. Dust scatters across the floor. The sound of my own heavy breathing within my helmet is like a jet airplane winding up to take off.

  “Take it easy,” I say, mimicking what I imagine Jen would whisper in my ear to soothe my nerves.

  My eyes catch the time on my wrist pad—five hours and seven minutes.

  “What the?”

  I swear I never blinked, but suddenly the huddled corpses are on my right instead of my left. There are footsteps leading into the room from the far side. Dust has been disturbed at various points. Apparently, I’ve been stepping carefully around the room, examining the corpses, but I have no recollection of it because, for me, it hasn’t happened yet.

  There’s no path to where I’m standing. I turn. Footprints have disturbed the dust behind me. I guess I came in from another entrance, perhaps having circled around via the corridor outside. I’m confused. Am I coming or going? I’m not sure if I’m continuing to look for clues or if I’m backtracking, making my way to the opening. Perhaps during the intervening time I was on the walkway. Or is that yet to come? I’m losing track of time.

  From the elapsed time on my computer, I know it’s light outside. Phobos will have moved out of the shadow of Mars. Will I ever see the sun again? I’m counting on being able to find my way out of this alien labyrinth but anything could go wrong down here. I didn’t think it was possible, but my heart races a little faster as adrenalin surges yet again.

  I’m too busy looking at where I stood to notice an alien approaching on the edge of my vision. That there’s any motion at all should shock me into awareness, but the movement takes a second to register. I twist from the waist, facing the approaching creature. My spotlights reflect off a liquid, curved, mirrored surface. Whatever this is, it’s ethereal. Legs glide rather than walk, passing through the remains of the fallen aliens rather than stepping over them, not in any way interacting with them. It’s a projection, it has to be. Even though it’s not real, my heart is beating out of my chest.

  “W—Who are you?”

  I hold out my hand, wanting the apparition to keep its distance. The form is similar to the carcasses lying around me, but it has more bulk. The lanky body flickers. It’s a hologram. I’ve triggered some kind of automated system.

  Four arms, two legs and a distended torso. There’s some kind of clothing draped over the creature, loose cloth with folds like those of a Roman toga, which I find fascinating. Humans originally clothed themselves for warmth, and only later, much later, out of a sense of modesty. Eventually, clothing was used to make social statements. T-Shirts. Three-piece suits. Designer pants. Polished shoes. Clothing is an expression without words. Has some similar social phenomenon arisen within this alien race? What do these clothes signify? It seems they’ve personified their computer systems, wanting bits and bytes to represent them faithfully, something which seems all too human.

  “What do you want with us?”

  Is this what Hedy saw? Did the taikonauts encounter some other ghostly form? No. Hedy, at least, seemed to be drawn to a vision, just as I was within the Chinese craft. This, though—this is different.

  Although there’s the very real possibility I could end up like her, I feel no fear. It’s as though I can sense curiosity. For untold millennia, possibly spanning millions of years, this base has been idle. It’s astonishing anything still functions. This must be their equivalent of an artificial intelligence. From its perspective, I’m a radical departure from the norm. After the massacre, no one returned. No one came for them—the biological samples or the dead. The projection glistens, changing hues. It’s intrigued by my presence, my strange appearance, the archaic nature of my life-support system, the way I’m cocooned within my suit.

  “You’re not alive. You’re some kind of machine, right? You’re following a routine, a program.”

  I’m speaking even though it’s pointless. Not only would this seemingly sentient automaton not understand me, sound won’t carry beyond the thin glass on my helmet. At best, an alien computer might detect the motion of my lips, but would it recognize that as an attempt at communication?

  I move slowly, gesturing with my arms.

  “My friend. What happened to her?”

  I point at the ceiling, gesturing toward the surface.

  “Please. My friend. She was wearing a suit like this one.”

  I point at the US flag on my shoulder.

  Suddenly, an astronaut floats in the darkness before me, but I’m no longer in the circular room. I’m out on the walkway. As much as I want to focus on the distinctly human shape in front of me, I’ve got to keep track of where and when I am, or I’m in danger of becoming lost. Six hours and seventeen minutes. Time checks are my only point of sanity.

  The projection is gone. I look around, wanting to be sure, wondering if I’m still being watched, realizing the machine responded to my plea. The darkness around me is eternal, seemingly without end. My spotlights are woefully inadequate.

  The astronaut’s spacesuit is unmistakeable. American. Pristine white cloth lies crumpled around the joints. Heavy stitching. Precision machined aluminum fittings. Star-Spangled Banner on the left shoulder, neatly embroidered and full of color. There’s a blue NASA logo on the right, set over the heart.

  “Hedy.”

  That one word has barely left my lips when suddenly I’m back in the circular room, facing the ghostly projection again.

  “No. No. No,” I yell, clutching at the vacuum as though I could somehow claw my way back to her. “Send me back. I’ve got to help her. She’s alive. Don’t you understand? Your people are dead, but she’s not. I know she’s not!”

  The vision of this alien creature vanishes.

  Brilliant white sunlight reflects off a boulder inches away from me. I’m outside, standing on the crater floor. The dust around me is covered in bootprints. This is later. Much later. I’ve returned to the surface. I have a taikonaut draped over my shoulder, weighing almost nothing. Our helmets bump against each other. His suit is thicker than
mine and covered in red dirt. He’s not conscious. Is he even alive? His body is loose, relaxed—like a puppet with the strings cut.

  “What’s happening?”

  I glance at my wrist pad. Eight hours and fourteen minutes. A metric readout on the screen tells me the consumables are waning. I’ve been burning through oxygen at a crazy rate, producing too much CO2. I have less than an hour of useable oxygen. The voltage is flickering as the battery fades. I need to get back to the Redstone.

  I’ve barely had enough time to absorb being back on the surface when I’m shrouded in darkness yet again. No taikonaut.

  Hedy floats several feet above a circular disc, but on Phobos, there’s a constant gravitational pull. She should be grounded. The only light source within the cavern is from my helmet. I pan up, expecting her to move, but she’s frozen mid-stride. One leg’s straight while the other’s bent. It’s as though she’s climbing a ladder. Her arms are raised, but not beyond chest height, while her gloved hands are open. For all I know, she’s about to catch a basketball. There’s a serene look on her face, almost a smile, but her eyes have rolled into the back of her head, leaving only the whites visible.

  “Oh, Hedy.”

  I reach for her, and she’s gone, disappearing like a dream. I look for her, but there’s nothing around me beyond the darkness. I sink to my knees in the dust and bow my head, staring at the timer. Five hours and forty two minutes. As of this particular moment, I haven’t found her… yet. She lies somewhere ahead of me.

  “I’m sorry.” It’s all I can do not to cry. I feel helpless, defeated, unable to control my motion through spacetime. “I’m so sorry.”

  “For what?” a soft voice says in reply, startling me.

  It takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the brilliance of the sunlight coming in low over the horizon, sparkling between the leaves of the trees, dancing across my eyelids. Thin clouds sit high in the stratosphere, catching the last rays of the sun, lighting up in pinks and reds against the deep blue sky.