The Ruins of Mars (The Ruins of Mars Trilogy Book 1)

by Dylan James Quarles

  “To infinity and beyond.”

  The reporters had exchanged quizzical looks as YiJay burst into a fit of nervous laughter.

  “It’s from an old movie I showed him some time ago,” she explained to the confused crowd. “It’s a story about inanimate objects—toys—with personalities. I felt it would help him to realize that he is a living soul despite being inorganic.”

  At that, polite laughter had broken out among the newsmen, then Braun had offered to take any questions they might have. For nearly two hours, reporters had shouted to be heard as the sentient AI calmly replied with mechanical honesty to every question put before him.

  Now, ten hours later, the ship was silent and calm. All of the reporters had departed, and the only people on board were the crew of Braun. Alone in his room, Harrison yawned deeply and stretched. Shivering unconsciously in the chilly air of the massive ship, he tapped the Tablet inlaid in his workstation, and the images of the ruins winked out.

  “Would you like me to adjust the temperature in your quarters?” spoke the disembodied voice of Braun.

  Jumping a little, Harrison stammered, “Um, yes please. Thanks.”

  “It’s no trouble, Harrison.”

  For some reason it bothered Harrison to hear Braun use his name so genially. His feelings towards the massive AI were somehow different than those he felt for Alexandria. Though similarly friendly, as all AIs were, Braun held his life in his hands. The very thought was unsettling to say the least.

  “Braun,” he said carefully.

  “Yes, Harrison?”

  “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t want you coming in here unless I call you. Is that alright?”

  There was a brief pause, during which time Harrison felt the temperature of his room rise several degrees. Then Braun spoke again.

  “I will do my best to respect your privacy, Harrison.”

  That’s not really what I asked, now is it, Harrison thought with a frown.

  “Thanks,” he finally said aloud. “And thanks for turning up the heat.”

  Pushing up from his chair, he felt the tension of the magnets in the back and buttocks of his suit break free. With the dizzying and almost uncomfortable feeling of zero gravity, he floated up a little ways, then pushed himself off the ceiling with a finger. Turning awkwardly in the air, he tried to remember his training.

  “When moving in zero G,” James Floyd had told them. “Every movement you make must be followed with a counter movement. There is no resistance from gravity, so your motions will at first seem over-exaggerated. Think ten times before moving a finger and twenty before moving an arm. That’s what Leonov said, and he was damn right!”

  Spinning in the air, Harrison pulled his knees up to his chest and bunched himself into something like a human ball. Bouncing gently off the walls and ceiling, he laughed to himself with childish delight. A soft tapping sound from the hatch interrupted his experimental playtime and he straightened out, reaching for the ceiling rail.

  “Just a second,” he called as he gripped the rail that ran the length of his room.

  Making his way to the hatch, he touched the tips of his toes to the ground and again marveled at how easy it was to send one’s self jetting off with the slightest push. Opening the round door, Harrison was met with the warmly glowing face of Xao-Xing Liu.

  “Oh,” he said with some surprise. “It’s you.”

  Looking quickly from side to side, Liu shrugged slightly.

  “Can I come in for a minute?”

  “Sure,” he replied dumbly.

  From the first time he had met her, sitting alone in that conference room in Kennedy Space Center, Harrison had harbored a secret crush for Liu. With the help of Copernicus, he had gained access to her personnel file and been more than impressed with what he saw. A physics graduate of Fudan University in Shanghai, Liu spoke seven languages including German, French, English and Russian. After university, she went on to join the CNSA, the China National Space Administration, where she worked hard and was quickly accepted into their aeronautics program. From there, she spent four months as a representative from the CNSA during a global effort to build a self-sustained space station in high Earth orbit. The mission was eventually scrapped, and the project was moved to the Moon—where it manifested itself into the Bessel Base program—but, by then, Liu had returned to Earth. Harrison remembered feeling his heart drop when he had read that Liu was married to a powerful Beijing real estate mogul. As much as he liked her, he had no desire to become entangled in a sordid affair with a married woman.

  In the weeks and months following their initial meeting, an easy friendship had blossomed between the two, but, try as he might, Harrison could not shake his true desires for her. Worse yet was the almost obvious fact that she felt the same way he did.

  It was on their first day at Bessel base over two years ago that Harrison had noticed, much to his excited surprise, that Liu no longer wore her wedding ring. The environment at Bessel Base had not been without the opportunity for romance. Viviana and Elizabeth had eventually begun sharing a room, and there were even speculations that Captain Vodevski had an eye for the young pilot Joseph Aguilar. By happy accident, Harrison and Liu had been scheduled to spend a large amount of time together in training. Since Liu was the payload expert, and because Harrison knew next to nothing about the equipment he would be using during his mission, it became her responsibility to teach him how to safely work the automated excavating robots designed by the CNSA. Much of their training together had been done EVA: outside the dome of Bessel Base. There, on the vicious surface of the Moon, a special kind of trust had quickly formed between the two, something natural and unspoken. Space was a lethal environment, and even simple mistakes had dire consequences. Thus, a trustworthy partner meant the difference between a successful EVA and an instantaneous death.

  On Harrison’s first ever Moonwalk, Liu had taken him for a hike in the Mare Serenitatis, the Sea of Serenity. An area of sloping basalt ridges covered with fine lunar dust, the Mare was a peaceful and hauntingly beautiful landscape of sterile gray rock. With silent grace, their footfalls had sent puffs of shimmering Moon dust floating upwards like flakes of snow or ash carried away by a tumbling wind. During the walk, the two had crested the high ridge of an impact crater and stood together—staring up at the Earth. In stark and stunning contrast to the gray, pockmarked lunar surface, the brilliant blue Earth had looked as fertile and welcoming as the Garden of Eden. As they peered at their home world, Harrison remembered how Liu had taken his gloved hand in hers, squeezing it tightly. For nearly half an hour they had stayed like that in silence, watching the Earth turn slowly in the blackness of infinity.

  Moving past him in the narrow entryway, Liu squeezed into the small room, and Harrison picked up the faint scent of her hair. It reminded him of sweet wet flowers after a heavy rain.

  “Oh, it’s so much warmer in here than in my room!” she exclaimed with strained lightness.

  “You just have to ask Braun, and he’ll turn up the heat,” said Harrison, somewhat nervously.

  What is she doing here? he asked himself, stabs of hope and desire growing in the pit of his stomach.

  Looking about the cramped space, Liu’s large brown eyes lingered momentarily on Harrison, then shot down at the ground. Neither of them said anything for several moments as they stood an arm’s length apart.

  “So,” began Harrison, forcing his voice to stay low and even. “Long day, huh?”

  Liu brought her gaze up from her feet and met Harrison’s, then flicked it away to the corner of the room.

  “Yes, I liked vid chatting with your parents. They seem nice.”

  Holding the ceiling rail to keep himself from drifting, Harrison nodded.

  “Yeah, they’re pretty excited for me. Your parents are dead, right?”

  Liu looked quickly at him, then down at her feet again.

  Smooth, man. Really smooth, he screamed silently.

  “Th
ey died when I was at university,” she spoke softly. “My, um, husband couldn’t make the vid chat session because he was in a meeting I think.”

  “Oh,” said Harrison lamely.

  Again, Liu raised her eyes to meet his, and again they stood in tense silence.

  Feeling his cheeks begin to burn, Harrison decided to take the plunge.

  “Did you need something from me, Liu?”

  Eyes widening, Liu touched her lips absently, as she often did when thinking.

  “I don’t know.”

  Cocking an eyebrow, Harrison nodded slowly.

  “I think I know how you feel.”

  Searching her face, he saw that she was nervous—almost shaking. Putting a hand out, he touched her cheek. She quickly took his hand in hers and pressed it against her lips, kissing the backs of his fingers. A tear broke the corner of her eye, and she blinked. The little droplet of water turned into a perfect sphere of translucent light and drifted away from her face.

  Letting go of Harrison’s hand, she wiped at her eyes and sniffed.

  “I’m sorry. I should go. I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”

  As Liu made to move past him towards the hatch, Harrison took her by the arm and drew her in. She started to protest meekly, but he kissed her on the mouth. With a sudden passionate move, she broke his grasp, then threw both arms around his neck. Snaking his hands through her silky black hair, he let go of his inhibitions as the kiss grew more intense. Her lips were wet and warm, and together they floated a little ways off the floor—locked in an embrace that said more of how they felt for each other than either could hope to articulate in words. Quickly stripping out of their jumpsuits, the two broke apart, then rushed together again with unbridled longing. Wrapping her legs around him, Liu squeezed Harrison’s body to hers, and he braced his back against the bulkhead.

  Outside the hull of Braun, there was death. The freezing vacuum sterilized the space between stars and planets, but within the belly of the great whale, two souls found life and warmth in the naked embrace of love. Their sex was a protest to the lethality of their situation and to all of the feelings they had denied themselves over the last two-and-a-half years. Now that the dam had finally broken, desire built up to near-frenzied levels drove the hungry lovers as they explored one another. The quiet moans of their lovemaking echoed in the confines of the small room, and the heat from their bodies warmed the cold metal of the walls. Hungrily, they bound themselves to each other like the elements had done eons ago when the stars had fused and the heavens were born. With a shudder and a gasp, they fell silent, yet refused to part. Neither spoke as gradually their breathing slowed, and the perspiration on their naked bodies dried. When finally they did split away from each other, they donned their jumpsuits in timid silence. Liu turned for the hatch to leave, but Harrison called for her.

  “Wait,” he said, hand outstretched. “Stay.”

  Facing him, a mixed smile of relief, shame and gratitude swept across Liu’s face, and she took his hand. He pulled her body to his, and she slid her arms around his waist, resting a head on his chest.

  “Stay,” he repeated softly.

  Orbital arrival—April 2048

  Joseph Aguilar awoke with an instant alertness bred into him by his years in the US Air Force. Within seconds of opening his eyes, he was keenly aware of a nearly imperceptible feeling of weight. Perplexed, he let his arms float up and noted that they were still as light as dandelion tufts. Bringing a hand down, he fished two black pills from a velcroed breast pocket on his jumpsuit and reluctantly popped them into his mouth. Grimacing he waited for the now-unavoidable nausea that was bound to follow, thinking, I hate these fucking cancer inhibitors.

  Sitting up and pushing out of bed, he floated a little ways, then grabbed the handrail that ran the length of his ceiling.

  Still pretty much zero G, he said to himself, and yet I do feel something.

  Moving quickly across the room, he opened the hatch and slid out into the hallway. Everything looked the same as it always did. The round hatches of the crew quarters still dotted the sides of the tunneled corridor, and the walls were still colored with their fading shades of blue, creating the sensation that you were swimming in a placid sea. Yet something was definitely different, and Aguilar furrowed his brow while his mind raced to put a finger on it. He closed and locked his hatch, then shoved off hard towards the bridge deck. With the precision of a true pilot, he shot from his room, down almost seven meters of hallway and through the open bridge hatch with ease. The moment he entered the great room, he understood what his bones were trying to tell him. The deck glowed with faint brown and red washes of light, and at the far end of the room he could see the dusty surface of Mars turning outside the oval window.

  We’re in orbit! he thought excitedly. That’s what I’m feeling, the gravitational force of orbit! Jesus, after four months of empty space I can actually feel the force of orbit!

  Propelling himself off the back of a workstation by the door, he skimmed across the room like a dragonfly—arms outstretched. Nearing the window, he did a flip and put his feet out to stop himself as he arrived. Grasping the window’s handrail, he brought his nose up to the large portal and peered down at the alien world. The vivid detail and the intimidating size of the red planet contrasted with the months of empty blackness, shaking Aguilar down to his core. After their long travel through space, he had grown accustomed to the mostly bleak view from the main window.

  Now, as he gaped down, the hard lines and deep shadows of the ochre-colored desert almost overwhelmed him. The Hellas Impact Basin slid into view like the cycloptic eye of Mars, fixing him with a cavernous glare nearly 2,200 kilometers in diameter. The crater yawned up at Aguilar as Braun drifted like boat on the rim of a whirlpool. Something metallic drew his attention away from the planet, and he saw the Arc orbiting many kilometers away. Small in the distance, he had to squint to make out the faint flashes of rocket boosters firing from the rear of the cylindrical cargo vessel, altering its orbit and lining it up with the ship.

  Braun’s bringing her in, he smiled to himself. I’m finally going to get to fly! Hallelujah, I’m finally going to fly again!

  “Good morning, Joey,” came a silky deep voice from behind him.

  Suppressing the urge to jump, he turned and was met with the sadly smiling brown-skinned face of Elizabeth Kubba.

  “Hey, Liz,” he said with a grin. “Check it out: Mars!”

  Kubba drew her tall gazelle-like frame up to the window, breathing in sharply at the sight below.

  “Oh, wow.”

  The two stood in reverent silence for a moment, then Kubba spoke softly.

  “This means they’re leaving us, Joey.”

  “What?” he asked, slightly confused.

  “The ground crew. Now that we’re here, they’re going to leave us.”

  Kubba was one of the crew not slated to go to the surface until the permanent base was finished. Unless there was a real emergency, she would carry out her duties from orbit, using trimensional projection and electronic scanning to assist the ground team with any minor medical issues that might arise. Out of necessity, the entire crew had been fully trained in first aid and basic trauma care, but Elizabeth Kubba was the only actual physician, and thus, she was too valuable to risk on the unpredictable surface of the planet without the safety of the permanent base close at hand.

  “It’s easy for the rest,” she continued morosely. “Liu and Harrison get to go together, and you have the captain here with you.”

  “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” barked Aguilar, his cheeks reddening.

  Chuckling, Kubba turned from the window to face him.

  “Oh, come on, Joey,” she said quietly, a smile snaking its way across her broad face. “Everyone already knows about you two.”

  Not taking his eyes off the rough surface of the planet below, Aguilar replied, “Tisk tisk, you giant Amazon. You shouldn’t spread rumors.”

  Kubba
threw her head back and laughed loudly, her tight braids whipping about as she clutched her sides.

  “Okay. Whatever you say, Joey! Whatever you say.”

  “Hey, you two!” called Ralph Marshall as he drifted across the open bridge. “Tell me we’re there! Tell me I can finally get behind the stick!”

  Kubba turned back to the window with a sour look on her face. Grinning broadly, Aguilar high-fived Marshall, then pulled him up to the handrail.

  “We’re there, man. Did you feel it too? The second I woke up, I knew something was different.”

  “For real, Brother!” agreed Marshall, nodding vigorously. “I’m so Goddamn happy to be here! I can’t wait to get off this boat and plant my feet on the ground!”

  “Aren’t you lucky,” mumbled Kubba absently, refusing to look away from the view.

  Giving Aguilar a questioning look, Marshall tipped his head in the direction of the tall black doctor and shrugged. Aguilar rolled his eyes and made a half-smile.

  “Don’t feel bad, Lizzy,” joked Marshall. “I’ll write you every day until you get there.”

  “No thanks,” grumbled Kubba. “And don’t call me Lizzy.”

  Again, Marshall looked confused and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. Kubba gave him an icy sidelong glance, which he missed as he turned his focus on the scene outside the window.

  Sensing the uncomfortable tension, Aguilar pointed to a glint of white in the starry sky.

  “Look, Marshall. The Arc.”