by Jodi Taylor
‘Yes. Hang on.’
His flailing foot found a protruding rock and the next moment they were pulling him out of the hole. The three of them lay on their backs, panting.
‘Everyone check their suits,’ said Peterson. ‘We can’t afford any punctures and there are a lot of sharp rocks around. I’ve got the bicycle puncture kit should anyone have a problem.’
Maxwell awkwardly sat up and began to pat herself down. ‘No, everything seems ...’ and a huge crack appeared in the ground between her legs.
‘Look out,’ shouted Farenden. He made a grab. Peterson seized the nearest limb – her leg – and the next moment the ground gave way completely and she was hanging over an empty space.
Peterson’s gloved hands were clumsy. ‘I’m losing you, Max. I’m going to drop you.’
‘I’ve got her,’ grunted Farenden, ‘but not for long,’ All around them, sand and small stones were cascading into the hole. ‘Everything’s giving way. Max, reach up. Give me your arm.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You must.’ If you fall back down there we’ll never get you out again.’
‘No. I’m losing my recorder.’
‘Never mind your bloody recorder. The ground’s crumbling around us and we won’t get out so easily next time. Let it go.’
‘No. I can’t. It’s got the cave art.’
‘Max, let it go.’
‘No.’
‘Let it go or we’ll all fall.’
‘Tim ...’
‘Max, you must.’
‘I won’t leave it behind.’
‘Not the most important thing in the world right now.’
‘How can you say that? Of course it is. Duck.’
Something sailed past his ear and skidded along the ground, raising a small plume of red dust as it did so.
‘Don’t lose it whatever you do because I swear – if either of you do – then the world will not be big enough to hide you. I will hunt you down and ...’
‘Shut up,’ said Captain Farenden. ‘Give me your arm.’
Making a huge effort she swung her arm and Captain Farenden, hanging precariously out over the hole, grabbed it. With one of them clutching a leg and the other a wing, they hauled with all their might and up she came. The ground was giving way all around them and the three of them could go at any moment. Soil, grit and stones clattered into the rapidly expanding skylight.
‘Out,’ shouted Peterson. ‘Get away from here, both of you. Now.’
They rolled away. Farenden, hampered by his bad leg, struggled unsuccessfully to rise. Peterson grabbed one arm, Max grabbed the other, they hauled him to his feet and the three of them ran for the shelter of a small gully off to their left where they slithered down the slope in a hail of loose shale, small rocks and dust, finally coming to rest against a large rock, where they leaned, panting.
Behind them, a plume of dirty red dust rose into the air and hung threateningly.
‘Well,’ said Farenden cheerfully. ‘A self-cleaning planet. No need to worry too much about footprints.’
Maxwell had other priorities. ‘My recorder ... Where is it?’
Captain Farenden hesitated for a moment and then held it out.
‘Thanks, Charlie. I really didn’t want to have to go back down there to retrieve it.’
‘No chance of that. One or both of us would have knocked you on the head long before that could have happened.’
‘I know, but I had to have it. Especially now the tube’s caved in and the original has gone forever and it was so beautiful.’
‘Yes, it was,’ said Peterson gently. ‘But there might be other examples waiting to be found.’
She nodded and sniffed. ‘Sorry, but I’m just a bit ...’
‘For God’s sake, don’t cry, Max. You can’t blow your nose in a helmet and there’ll be snot everywhere. Have some consideration for your colleagues.’
She nodded and automatically raised a hand to wipe her face. All that happened was that she left a long red smear across her visor.
He sighed. ‘We really can’t take you anywhere, can we?’
‘Well, only to apologise afterwards,’ said Farenden. ‘So, to return to the point of this little expedition, where has our Mr Lewis got to, then?’
Pushing and pulling, they helped each out of the gully and stared around. Stubbornly, the landscape remained First Officer Lewis free.
‘Where is everyone?’ demanded Peterson, looking round. ‘There’s no one in sight anywhere. Are they still in the shelter? And if so, where’s Lewis? Perhaps we should spread out and look for him.’
Maxwell peered around a rock. ‘No time – shit – they’re coming out.’ And indeed, over in the distance at the radiation shelter, a hatch was being raised.
Peterson grabbed their arms and they were back in the gully again. ‘They’ll launch drones to look for him. We need to get back to the pod. We can’t do any more here. This way.’
‘We need to be careful,’ whispered Maxwell, although why she whispered was a bit of a mystery. ‘Remember they are actually looking for someone. It would be a bit of a disaster if they found us by mistake.’
‘It’s out of our hands now,’ said Peterson. ‘And it’s definitely time to go home.’
‘And so,’ said Director Pinkerton to Commander Hay some time later, as they enjoyed a glass of something in her office, ‘everything went off without a hitch and here we are, safe and sound.’
‘You took your time reporting back to me.’
‘That’s because I’m not reporting back to you – I’m returning your member of staff. As requested.’ She looked around. ‘He’s not here?’
‘He has made his report but I think he’s feeling a little under the weather and gone off to look for an aspirin.’ She fixed Director Pinkerton with a glare. ‘He hasn’t picked up some ghastly virus and brought it back, has he?’
‘Do you mean from Mars or St Mary’s?’
‘Either.’
She was indignant. ‘Of course not. Our decontamination procedures were rigorous and then he spent days in quarantine, along with the rest of us. He’s just a little ... tired and emotional.’
Commander Hay glared accusingly. ‘He wasn’t in that condition when I handed him over.’
‘Oh no – he was the very model of a proper Time Police officer when we took delivery of him, but there’s been a certain amount of improvement since then. I have to say he had a lovely time at the post-Mars party. He’s a talented boy, you know. You should get him to show you the trick with the lampshade and the Marmite sometime. It’s hilarious.’
‘I was expecting you back before this.’ Commander Hay paused, inviting comment.
‘Were you?’ said Director Pinkerton, politely, staring out of the window at the view. ‘There was no need to worry. Did you think we’d become stranded?’
‘It had crossed my mind,’ said Commander Hay, grimly. ‘Half of me was recoiling from the subsequent explanations that would have to be made and the other half was rejoicing in the knowledge that so many causes of such major grief would be safely marooned on Mars.’
‘I’m not quite sure how to respond to that.’
‘Then don’t.’
‘You’re very snippy today, Commander. I can assure you, everything went off without a hitch.’
‘Other than losing Mr Lewis, making the most ground-breaking discovery in the history of ground-breaking discoveries, and nearly losing the lives of three members of your team in a cave-in, of course.’
‘Yes, that’s what I said – without a hitch.’
It began to dawn on the commander that, like so many members of St Mary’s, Director Pinkerton heard only what she wanted to. She stared, again experiencing a moment of disquiet. An intangible something that danced just ahead of her ...
‘May I enquire as to the current location of Doctors Peterson and Maxwell?’
‘Still our guests. Until they recover from the post-Mars party as well. I suspect Dr Bairstow
would have something to say if I returned his people in less than pristine condition.’
‘Actually, my concern was more for the whereabouts of Dr Maxwell’s recorder.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Director Pinkerton softly. ‘The true reason for your anxiety over our return. You’re going to try to force us to destroy the recording, aren’t you?’
‘I’m going to request you to do so, certainly.’
‘And why would I do that?’
‘You cannot release your findings without explaining how you came by them in the first place and I believe we’ve already covered the damage that would do to space exploration in particular and the world as a whole.’
‘Very well. In a spirit of cooperation, we’ll simply file it in the St Mary’s archive – which is where it should be anyway – and wait for the right moment to release it.’
‘Which will never come. None of this can ever be made public.’
‘I doubt you’ll get Maxwell or Peterson or anyone from St Mary’s to agree to that.’
‘Which is why I think the instruction will be better coming from you than from me, Director.’
‘You’re asking me to have it destroyed? I won’t do it.’
‘You cannot show it to the world.’
‘I can and will. It’s the only proof that there might, a very long time ago, have been life on Mars.’
‘And how will you explain what you were doing on Mars in the first place?’
‘Commander, no matter how hard you try, you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.’
‘No, but I can make sure the cork isn’t removed from the bottle until the time is right.’
Director Pinkerton shook her head. ‘I think we’re past that now, Commander. Surely you must see that in the light of this discovery your reasons for suppressing my research no longer apply. I know I said we can’t put the genie back in the bottle but I think the moment has arrived when the genie breaks the bottle and escapes for good. I don’t want to toot my own trumpet, but this is possibly the most important find in all of recorded history.’
Commander Hay shook her head. ‘This – none of this – will be made public.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘Are you insane?’
‘Not according to my last medical.’
‘Do you know what people would do with this knowledge?’
‘Visit the stars? Colonise the planets? All without the need for massive power sources or taking three generations to get there or depleting the planet’s already scarce resources. Or they can take up the search for extraterrestrial life with renewed enthusiasm? Our findings will enable us to take a giant leap into the future. In ten years, we could be ...’
‘If you make this technology public then it won’t just be used for space travel. In ten years, people will be popping up in supposedly secure locations, killing and kidnapping and jumping away again in the blink of an eye. Entire armies will be transported across continents in seconds. Nowhere and no one will be safe. Thanks to you.’
‘All I did was work out how to do it. I’m not responsible for what people do with that knowledge.’
‘So said the people who invented guns, split the atom ...’
‘Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.’
‘But if some idiot had never invented the gun in the first place ...’
‘Then people would still be killing people, but with knives. Or sticks. Or rocks. Anything can be turned into a weapon. You might as well try to halt all scientific development now. People will always kill people. It’s the one thing we do really well.’
Commander Hay re-seated herself and took a deep breath. ‘You will surrender all information relating to this project to me. At once, please.’
‘But the lives that can be saved in the meantime ...’
‘Will that number be greater or lesser than the lives lost? Look, I know you equate the Time Police with book-burners, or Luddites or some narrow-minded, knowledge-suppressing religion, but we’re not. We’re truly not. It doesn’t happen in your time, but I can tell you that the public discovery of time travel nearly killed us all. Old wars were refought all over again – we had a very interesting six months dismantling the Confederate States of America and restoring the Union. Thousands of people tried to kill Hitler. They still do. We’ve had to set up a department whose sole purpose is to protect him. Hitler, of all people. We had to throw a total exclusion zone around Jerusalem. And Bethlehem. And any number of people wanted Guy Fawkes to succeed.’
She paused and took a breath. ‘So yes, you’re right. Yours is a wonderful achievement. No one can ever take that away from you. You and your team will always be the first people to have journeyed to Mars. You will always be the first people to have seen the cave art. I’m sorry if you wanted fame and fortune ...’
‘I didn’t. I don’t. I want to make this knowledge available to the world so we can have cheap, easy and safe travel to the stars. What’s wrong with that?’
‘Perhaps one day. But not today.’ She held out her hand. ‘Please.’
‘Or what?’
Commander Hay said nothing, but not in a good way.
‘It’s a valid question, Commander. Or what? What will you do? What can you do?’
Commander Hay stood up and looked out of the window at the darkening day. ‘I don’t want to, but I’ll hold you here. Forever. Under the powers vested in the Time Police, I’ll despatch a task force to St Mary’s and shut it down. I’ll remove and destroy every single piece of equipment and imprison your entire unit. Every one of your people will spend the rest of their life in isolation with no human contact of any kind. They will be utterly alone. Those from the other St Mary’s who accompanied you, Maxwell, Peterson, probably even Dr Bairstow himself, will sustain unfortunate but unsuspicious fatal accidents. Anyone with any knowledge of events concerning Mars will disappear forever. I will lock everything down tighter than ... well, anything you could imagine. And so, Director, I’m asking ... no, I’m not, I’m imploring you, I’m beseeching you, please surrender any and all material to me.’
There was a very, very long silence.
‘Director. Please.’
Still silence.
‘Director, I have an enormous respect for Dr Bairstow. And a great deal of regard for Maxwell and her accessories, before, during and after the fact, but your non-cooperation today will force me to despatch every clean-up squad I can muster. I won’t like doing it. It will cause me a great deal of pain. I may never have a proper night’s sleep again, but I am Marietta Hay and I command the Time Police, and our function is to safeguard the timeline by whatever means are necessary. So – please. Let the exploration of space proceed along the path allocated to it. Long, painful, hard-earned and because of that, valued as it should be.’
Director Pinkerton’s face was in shadow. ‘The discoveries we have made on Mars will fundamentally change the way mankind sees itself and its place in the universe.’
‘You are perfectly correct, but how will you explain this discovery? What were you doing on Mars? Can you not see how this overshadows the actual landing itself? Think of the questions that it throws up. Not least, is Mars ours to colonise? You spoke of the importance of ensuring the exploration of Mars continues, Director. I assure you, this discovery of yours could well stop it in its tracks. And, as you yourself have already said, there are plenty of people out there who will seize on any excuse to ensure it goes no further. As with the exploration of space, let the exploration of Mars take its true course. For the sake of everyone. Not least, of everyone at St Mary’s.’
More lights came on across London and the night bus sailed silently past.
‘And it must come from you, Director. You alone have the authority to set this in hand.’
Director Pinkerton’s mouth twisted bitterly. ‘I thought the Time Police were equal to anything.’
‘We are, but I prefer this to be settled quickly, quietly, and without bloodshed. St Mary’s defying
the Time Police is its default state, but not this time, Director. This is too important and I think you know that.’
The silence was a tangible thing, dragging on and on. Neither moved. Neither spoke. Commander Hay was just a dark shape against the window.
Eventually Director Pinkerton stirred and sighed. ‘Very well – you win. There was nothing in the lava tube. There never was anything in the lava tube. And we were never there to see there was nothing in the lava tube.’
‘And you’ll order your people to remain silent?’
Director Pinkerton sat back in her seat and regarded the commander sardonically. ‘What a good job you reminded me. My people are always racing off to the pub to regale everyone with tales of what they’ve been up to during their working day. I’m forever having to reprimand them about it.’
‘I’ve offended you. Please accept my apologies.’
Director Pinkerton held out her glass again. ‘Not the worst thing that’s happened to me today.’ She glanced thoughtfully at Commander Hay. ‘Of course, all of this is quite unimportant beside the real issue of the day.’
Commander Hay, just beginning to relax, stiffened in her chair. ‘Which is?’
‘Well, those not in the know will speculate endlessly on how First Officer Lewis survived the solar flare. How he was found, unconscious but alive, some twenty yards from the shelter. As if he’d tried to get back before the flare hit but had failed. His oxygen should have run out. And yet he’s still alive. That’s going to keep the conspiracy theorists going for years, whereas the actual mystery is ...’ She paused and raised her eyebrows.
‘You mean – how did he get out of the lava tube by himself.’
Director Pinkerton grinned at her. ‘Well, obviously, he wasn’t by himself, was he?’
‘You’re saying he had help.’
‘He must have, mustn’t he? Something wanted him out of that tube. Something wanted us all out of that tube. And then made it impossible for anyone ever to return.’
She held out her glass for another refill.
‘You seem remarkably ... unworried by this, Director.’
‘Well, obviously there was no hostile intent, was there? It would have been easy enough to bring the roof down on all of them and that would have been the end of everything and no one would ever have known. Lewis would have been presumed to have wandered off, got lost and died. Just an unfortunate accident. And no one would ever have known we were there at all. But the roof didn’t collapse until Maxwell, Farenden and Peterson were clear. Yes, they had a few nasty moments – just enough to get them harmlessly out of the way and make sure they never went back in, don’t you think?’
