The base concentrated its effort on a few layers of rock from a time when oceans had flowed here. Thick bands of dark red-brown ran around the edge of the crater, broken by landslides and cliffs.
As John stood back, he could suddenly see that the layer he’d been working on was actually two similar coloured bands separated by a third thin layer of pale rock in the middle.
Why hasn’t anyone spotted this before? he wondered. He followed the broken, pencil-thin line. It was faint, but he could see it. Another type of sediment, different to what was above and below it. A few million years of unexplored time.
He grasped a loose rock from the pale band, edged it out of the crater wall and tapped it lightly. As it fell easily into two flat plates, John stared at it, unable to believe what he was seeing.
On the inside edge of one of the pieces, a long, snaking line made its way in loops through the rock. It looked like a tiny trail tunnelled into soft mud before the rock set hard.
‘Dad…’ he whispered. Then he shouted, ‘Mum, Dad, over here!’ His parents looked up, and lumbered over in their clumsy suits.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ Dad’s radio hissed in his ear, ‘at least not here.’
‘Is it – ’ started John.
Dad interrupted him. ‘It’s not a good idea to start guessing about what it is and what it isn’t,’ he said, but his eyes were huge. ‘We’ll take it home. There’ll be some people with opinions there, no doubt.’
It was funny how Dad always called Earth ‘home’, despite not having lived there for fifteen years. As he looked down at the stone with its mysterious looping tunnel, it occurred to John that he was probably the only person who didn’t call Earth home, and that was probably what it was like being the first Martian.
John pushed hard with both legs and levered the iron weight into the air. He held it for a count of five, let it fall back, and pushed again, just as he’d been taught. This exercise was hard work, but it got him away from everyone else, and that was where he wanted to be right now. Too much going round in his head.
Besides, with a journey of six months in an enforced coma ahead of him, his muscles would have to be in top shape for him to have a chance of even being able to stand when he got to Earth. And John was absolutely determined that when the hatch opened, he would walk out of it, not be ferried out on a stretcher as everyone assumed he’d be.
John was well aware that on Earth he was quite a celebrity. And there was no way he was going to disappoint his fans. First impressions were important. And when you were starting a new school on an alien planet, he imagined they were vital. He clenched his teeth and pushed his legs out. The iron weight creaked upwards. He counted slowly to five, watched by the skull’s great, empty eye, and then relaxed.
To John, the skull was the only object in the base that seemed genuinely natural. Its huge eye sockets were sculpted into complex but perfect curves. Its teeth were detailed with tiny serrations, every tooth different from every other. Each part of the skull had its own purpose, unique and yet fitting exactly with every other part, built and shaped by an impossibly intricate and brutal form of evolution. The skull, unlike anything else around him, could never have been invented. There were no standard-sized bricks here.
It sat in the centre of the dome, raised on an iron plinth. Its presence was symbolic: it was a mascot, a trademark and a connection to the Earth and its history. It felt to John as out of place on Mars as he would be on Earth. It was such an impossible, impractical object to ship to Mars. John thought that was probably why Dad had done it.
As he stared up into its enormous jaws, he was suddenly struck by how fragile it was. How alone.
That was when he heard the sound. It was a noise like cracking ice and he knew instantly what it was. It was the sound that everyone on the base feared and to which everyone was trained to react. The outer dome was breaking.
The hardened glass was arranged as a tough network of hexagonal pieces, but occasionally a rock whipped up by the fierce Mars winds could break one of the pieces and cause the dome to de-pressurise.
John looked up. One hexagonal piece was marked with a thin line, and the fracture was splitting out across the surface in a widening star. Instantly, sensors detected the danger and there was a metallic clang as all doors into the rest of the complex were locked down.
John was trapped.
Any second, the glass would shatter and all the air, followed by everything that wasn’t fixed to the ground, would be sucked out through the hexagonal hole. He frantically looked around.
He had one chance. He leapt towards the outside door. His suit stood where he’d left it, like a robotic sentry. He could hear the crack in the glass widening as he hauled himself inside and started to fasten the catches around his legs and arms.
The cracking sound turned into the roar of escaping air. John felt himself being pulled upwards. The suit was magnetised and anchored itself to the floor, but only one of the catches was fully fastened around his leg and he could feel himself being wrenched upwards and out of the suit. Using all his strength, he dragged his arms down and grabbed the other catch, forcing it closed.
As he hauled first one arm, then the other into the suit, plants were being uprooted all around him and were flying up towards the ceiling. His exercise machine was shaking from side to side, the weights detaching themselves one by one and hurling themselves upwards.
As he fought with the final catch which would seal the suit around his head, John could feel the air being sucked out of his lungs. Everything in the room was spinning around him, and the blood rushing around his skull made his head swim. Fighting against blacking out, he finally managed to close the last catch.
The sound from outside was cut off, and there was a gentle hiss as air was fed into the bubble around his head.
Outside, the dome was a silent vortex of swirling plants and iron and ceramic blocks. Everything spun around and upwards, like a bath emptying through a plughole.
John fought to calm his breath, and as he looked into the centre of the vortex, he suddenly saw the skull. It was moving. The creature’s head was rocking back and forth on its mountings. The great eyes stared straight at him, but the jaw was tipping back, gaping wider and wider as the rushing air tore at it.
It was stone, but it was brittle. If it came loose, it would be smashed to pieces. John looked across the dome. Where he stood, he was safe, shielded by the outside doorway. If he stepped into the centre of the room, his suit could be hit by any of the flying debris, dislodged from the floor, or punctured. But if he didn’t move, the skull would be destroyed.
Somehow, he couldn’t be its executioner.
He stepped forward into the vortex. An iron table flew at his head and he ducked. It bounced into the side of the dome and rolled upwards. He took another step and almost lost his footing in the clumsy suit.
Centimetre by centimetre he edged forward. The skull was rocking alarmingly now. Three of the four bolts holding it down had rattled free, and it was pitching loosely from side to side. John could see the final bolt beginning to tear from its mounting.
Suddenly, it gave way. The skull toppled forward, its gaping mouth lurching toward him. He took a huge step forward and raised both hands, grabbing the jaw and the top of the eye socket. The suit’s motors ground, adding just enough to his own strength to hold the stone structure steady.
He locked the hands of the suit in place and held on while the vortex around him slowly calmed. He was still in the same position when his parents and the rest of the crew finally sealed the dome and rescued him.
When the shuttle was loaded for the journey back to Earth, it had an extra passenger. The beds in which John and his parents were due to spend the voyage had to be hastily re-positioned further from the cargo doors, and the shuttle’s computer was instructed to re-calculate its weight, speed and fuel estimates to take into account the additional mass of a fossilised megalosaurus skull. With the leisure dome damaged, the
museum that had loaned the skull to the Martian base quickly came to the conclusion that they wanted it safely back on Earth.
John was the first to be fitted into his cocoonlike bed for launch. Mum and Dad were standing over him, checking the various instruments and making sure everything was perfect for the journey. It was supposed to be a relaxing experience, and the computer was piping soft music through the ship. However, instead of enjoying the gently reassuring atmosphere, the three of them were having a massive row.
‘Just don’t ever do anything like that ever again!’ yelled Mum. She wasn’t at all happy that he’d taken the risk of trying to save the skull.
‘When am I going to have the opportunity to do it again?’ protested John.
‘He’s got a point,’ chuckled Dad, trying to defuse the situation.
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about,’ snapped Mum, ‘and he only did it because of you!’
‘Why because of me?’ cried Dad. He turned back to John. ‘Your mother’s right, you know. We just want you to be safe. It was very irresponsible.’
Mum was still glaring at Dad. ‘He knows how much that fossil means to you!’ she shouted.
Dad shrugged in frustration.
John tried to sit up. ‘I can make my own decisions, you know. I’m better at driving a suit than you give me credit for,’ he started, as Mum pushed him back down into the bed.
‘We have to get you fixed for the flight,’ she said dismissively. ‘Hold still.’
Mum and Dad did the rest of the pre-flight checks in silence, then said a short, ‘Goodnight,’ to John before going to their own beds and strapping themselves in. John looked up at the ceiling. It was a shiny metal angled plate that reflected the far end of the cargo bay. The skull, the last item to board the ship, was being winched into place. It stared back at him as though the creature was standing over his bed.
‘How long is the journey exactly?’ he whispered to the ship’s computer.
Its voice was neutral. ‘I don’t know,’ it said. ‘A better question would be: “how long is the journey approximately?”’
John sighed. ‘OK. How long is the journey approximately?’
‘Four thousand, five hundred and forty hours,’ it said. ‘We could travel faster, but that would cause unnecessary risks.’
‘What kind of risks?’
‘A new wormhole accelerator is running just outside of the Earth’s orbit. We must avoid crossing its acceleration vectors at critical points during the preliminary experimental phases.’
‘What?’ said John, feeling confused. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the computer. ‘The results of running a wormhole accelerator are unpredictable. That is why the experiments are taking place outside of the Earth’s orbit.’
John had heard of the proposed wormhole accelerator experiments. They had something to do with finding out about the origins of the universe, but he had no idea what. In any case, it sounded as though they had best keep well away from them.
‘You don’t know much, do you?’ John said.
The shortage of computer chips on Mars meant that new computers tended to be built out of older machines. They were made of a patchwork of recycled materials, just like everything else. If an error or bug couldn’t be fixed, the scientists found ways to work around the error instead. This had resulted in some very eccentric machines. They didn’t always work in the way you expected, but they got there in the end. Usually.
‘Claiming certainty where there is none is not useful,’ said the computer enigmatically. ‘We will reduce potential risks by travelling more slowly.’
The shuttle computer’s lack of certainty wasn’t very reassuring. John was about to ask more, but the computer abruptly announced, ‘I will now fire the engines.’
‘We’re launching right now?’ John suddenly felt nervous.
‘I hope so,’ said the computer. John didn’t like the word ‘hope’. The machine could have been programmed to at least sound confident.
‘Don’t you have to put us to sleep first?’ he enquired, a hint of anxiety in his voice.
‘No,’ said the computer brightly. ‘You need to be awake until we are in orbit in case something goes wrong.’
‘Great,’ said John, as he swallowed hard and lay back.
The engines roared, and the image of the skull, reflected above his head, started to vibrate. His hands gripped into fists as he felt the rocket starting to lift and the gravitational force pushing him down into his bed.
It felt as though a heavy weight was pressing down on his chest as they gathered speed. His fists uncurled of their own accord and his hands flattened to the bed. He felt his face pulled backwards. Even his eyeballs felt heavy, sinking back into his skull. The rocket juddered through the clouds, shaking him left and right.
Suddenly, the buffeting was gone. That must mean that they had cleared the atmosphere. Slowly the pressure eased off too. They were no longer accelerating.
‘We are safely in orbit,’ the computer announced. ‘I am now attempting to prepare the correct mixture of drugs in order to induce a coma, from which I later hope to recover you without brain damage.’
‘Terrific,’ whispered John.
‘This prevents me from having to feed and entertain you during the journey,’ explained the computer.
John didn’t like this situation one bit. ‘Wake me as early as possible,’ he said.
‘Please stand by.’
John stared up at the jaws of the skull above him. Its teeth were magnified by the curved mirror. As the barbiturates flooded into his system, John felt the engines suddenly kick in again, jerking the craft away from Mars so quickly it felt as though he left a part of himself there. He lost consciousness wondering vaguely what real meat tasted like.
Chapter 13
John Marchant: 2201
The stegosaur tasted rotten, but John knew he was lucky to have it. It could be his last meal for months. He sank his teeth deep into the pallid, long-dead flesh, forcing himself to swallow.
Incubating eggs meant staying close to the nest to protect them, and this had reduced the greatest hunter in the valley to becoming no more than a petty scavenger.
The closer to hatching the eggs came, the hungrier he had become. And now they were very close. His hunger made him weak and thin, and the desperation to relieve his starvation fought with the instinct to protect his eggs, each and every time he caught the smell of blood on the wind.
The scent of a fresh carcass was like a whisper on the air, calling all scavengers to feed. But the stench of this one was not a whisper. It was a scream that echoed through the trees. He’d followed it from the nest to the lakeside, and found the bloated body washed up on the shore.
Whatever had killed the stegosaur had done so some days ago somewhere upriver, and the lake’s inhabitants had already taken what they wanted of the meat. The remains were waterlogged and rancid. Nevertheless, he hungrily tore off a chunk and lifted his head high to swallow it down. The maggots inside wriggled in his throat. At least they’re fresh meat, he thought. If he could just stay alive for just a few more days, the eggs would hatch, and he could start to hunt again.
There was a loud squawk. He turned his huge head down to see a small dinosaur standing on the carcass in front of him, defiantly waving its thin claws. Its feathers were brightly coloured and bristling. He snapped at it, and it darted back just out of reach. It screeched again and swiped with its claw, grazing the end of his nose.
He took a step forward, and it jumped back. Suddenly, he felt a sharp scratch at his ankle. He swung his head around. Another of the little dinosaurs had nipped his leg, breaking the thick skin. He bellowed and launched himself after it.
Before he’d taken two steps it had disappeared into the jungle, and when he turned back, three more of its kind were standing on the carcass biting chunks out of it.
He ran at them, but they deftly leapt out of reach, circling around him, squawking raucously. Each
time he made a grab for one, another would dart in behind him with a bite or scratch, only to skip nimbly back out of harm’s way before he could bring his crushing jaws down on its back.
Each time he tried to return to feeding, the little dinosaurs would rush in to attack his legs. One even leapt up to grab a chunk of meat out of his jaws before he could gulp it down.
If he wasn’t already weak and slow with hunger, he would have easily seen off the little scavengers. Right now, however, they were faster than him, and they had him outnumbered. If he didn’t retreat the tiny bites and scratches in his legs would get worse. With the skin already torn, a lucky bite or slash could cut tendons or damage muscles, and a hunter with a wounded leg would not survive for long.
But if he didn’t feed now, he’d be dead before the eggs hatched anyway. He tilted his head and eyed his attackers carefully as they stood in a row taunting him. Although he was nowhere near as strong as he once had been, his instincts were every bit as sharp. They stood between him and the kill, ankle deep in the water.
Suddenly, he gave a great roar and lunged at the scavenger on the left. It jumped out of the way, pushing its companions to the side. They scattered, slowed by the water around their feet. The one on the far right, furthest from the megalosaurus’s snapping jaws, was struck hard in the side by the tail of its companion and fell, winded, into the water. Within seconds it was back on its feet and blindly pelting for the trees. John swung his massive head to the right and clamped his jaws shut with a spine-snapping crunch, hefting the dinosaur high into the air. At least this meat would be fresh.
Limping, carried his kill a little further down the lakeside to devour it in peace. It was small and bony, with precious little flesh to be picked from its bones, but it would do, for now.
By the time he’d finished, night was falling. He lowered his huge head down to the water to drink. It was still, and his reflection was thin and dull. His eyes were sunk so deep into the sharp rings of their sockets he could hardly distinguish them. His face was a skull reflected back at him.
The Skull Page 12
