The Pedestal

by Daniel Wimberley

  It’s been two months, and for the first time since my arrival, I’m terrified for a very tangible reason.

  A moment ago, I stirred awake to a nearby hissing—a gentle but incessant serpent-song that initially only just penetrated my slumber. Then, just as it set me to the sniffling and tossing and turning of near-waking, I realized something was truly wrong and sat upright in bed. I don’t understand what I’m hearing now; instinctively, though, I know it’s something that shouldn’t be here. From the adjacent room—Winkley’s quarters—I hear a sudden shout, followed by the bump and crash of a person in distress. I’m on my feet in a flurry, bolting to the door in a mad dash of adrenaline. Surging into the darkened hallway, I nearly plow into Grogan, who rudely elbows by me without warning or apology.

  Emergency or not, the guy rubs me the wrong way sometimes.

  “What is it?” I whisper to no one in particular, not at all sure why I’m whispering. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re losing pressure,” says Fiona from the darkness. A moment later, her body catches up to her disembodied voice and floats by like a pale ghost. Winkley’s door swings inward and out he comes, boiling from his room as if on fire and running for dear life. “It’s broken through!” he wails, and his voice is so shrill, so haunted, that my own fear—which is as much a product of confusion as anything else—suddenly takes on a more formidable form.

  Silhouetted against the glow spilling from Winkley’s doorway, Grogan pokes his head inside and gasps. Stepping back, he blurts out a word I’ve never heard before, though from his derogatory tone and the slight twitch of Fiona’s mouth, I divine that it’s an otherworldly brand of cursing. To lighten the mood, I’m tempted to ask for a definition as he barrels past me down the corridor toward his quarters, but the look he gives me in passing stifles my curiosity, sending me scrambling in a stew back into my own room. Behind me, Fiona steps through my door and flicks on the overhead lights.

  I blink and swallow.

  Fiona looks good in here—like she belongs more than any fixture or piece of furniture; oh, for her to be here with me under any other circumstances! As usual, my unchecked hormones abound with no sense for timing. She registers the phantom hissing just as it is joined by a similar but distinctly separate instance of the intrusion. I look up to its source and puzzle over what I see there. A tiny dot—scarcely the size of a grain of sand—has appeared on my ceiling. It’s only discernible at all because the ceiling is white, and because its presence is loudly betrayed by the screeching escape of air pressure.

  “In here, too!” Fiona hollers.

  A moment later, Grogan squeezes past us. Wordlessly, he steps onto the foot of my bed and slides a small dual syringe from his pocket. He unlids it with his teeth and squeezes a dollop of clear epoxy into the hole, instantly quieting the squeal of airflow. The second hole proves more difficult to locate; following his ears, Grogan crawls under a built-in desk and contorts his body into an awkward Y—one foot cutting the air, the other drumming against the floor—to reach it. Seconds later, the hissing ceases.

  Winkley’s room is in much worse shape. There must be ten holes in there, two of which are large enough to put a finger through—if they weren’t already occupied by vinelike tendrils.

  “It’s the blood plants,” I say blankly, finally putting two and two together.

  Grogan looks at me irritably, releasing an exasperated sigh through his nostrils. “Nothing gets by you, Sherlock.”

  Later in the morning, following a quick breakfast—which is uncomfortably overshadowed by a mounting sense of anxiety—we venture outside to assess the damage. Under the dirty scrim of Martian dawn, a mighty wind abuses us with bits of rock and iron; they snap and pop against our suits like angry hailstones. As we round the perimeter of the b-hive, Winkley cries out and stops dead in his tracks. Timidly—fearfully, really—I approach my friend and peer over his shoulder; the view beyond doesn’t make any sense.

  Ten weeks ago, the blood plants were individually rooted specimens, spaced evenly apart near the complex. Today, they form a giant mass of purple leaves and overlay a network of long, probing fronds. The fronds have crawled up the b-hive walls like jungle vines, all but obscuring the structure underneath.

  “They’re out of control,” Winkley mutters. Nearby, Grogan engages Fiona pointedly in a long, intense glare, which she breaks off with a scowl. Even through the reflection of red rock on her facemask, her cheeks are visibly aglow.

  “Real men don’t need to say I told you so,” she admonishes, and departs the group. Grogan moves to follow, but falters after only a few steps. I guess real men don’t need to say they’re sorry, either.

  Winkley chuckles, but it’s a nervous tic rather than an expression of amusement. With his back to us now, Grogan’s face is hidden; still, as he stomps off through the Martian gales, I’m pretty sure he isn’t smiling.

  Winkley and I are having quite a time uprooting the BP7s. There’s no point in hacking them down; like all hearty weeds, they’ll simply grow back with more determination. We’re resigned to prying the vines from the building—one at a time—and then digging up each plant at its root. It’s more difficult than it sounds; the fronds aren’t merely growing atop the metal—they’ve actually penetrated it. Even the superficial vines are stiffly adhered to the paint by tiny clawlike roots. With every shaking of the plants, however gentle, a thin cloud of dust scatters into the wind, adhering to our statically charged suits like a misting of red paint.

  When we’re done, the BP7 corpses lie in a single violet mound piled nearly ten feet high. On cue, Grogan joins us and unceremoniously douses the vegetation with something that might be lye. I’m sure we’d all prefer to see it torched, but fire doesn’t work on this forsaken planet. I suppose we could drag them into the waste incinerator inside the b-hive.

  Yeah, right.

  I can’t see her, but I know Fiona’s watching from somewhere nearby, slumped before a foggy portal, perhaps, with tear-filled eyes. I feel sorry for her, realizing that these plants—however bizarre, in my estimation—represent three long, cold years of effort for her. Even as her specimens are abandoned to the chemical appetites of Grogan’s mysterious white powder, I know Fiona’s contemplating what went wrong, and what she might tweak a bit for round eight.

  I’m the first to flee the scene, my sore back and guilty conscience leading me to the airlock, where I hastily shed my dusty suit.

  Back in the dorms, I take an extra-long shower, well aware that I’ll endure a butt-chewing for this discourtesy. I truly don’t care. At the moment, the scream of my fatigued muscles overpowers the voice of reason. For all my effort, I feel like I can’t get clean; it’s as if the Martian dirt has come to life and burrowed into my pores to escape the steaming spray. My skin is beet-red when I finally give up the cause.

  Pressure-dried and dressed, I lie down on my bed, hoping to doze off my unease. But it’s no use; I’m just too freaked out.

  When I walk into the cafeteria for lunch, I’m the first to arrive. For a moment, I’m elated: my frequent tardiness has kept me from first pickings since the day I arrived. But then, as I look around, I realize something’s not right. For starters, there’s no food. Combined with the absence of people, I’m forced to acknowledge that something is definitely amiss.

  I work my way back through the corridors toward Winkley’s room, hoping he might provide a reasonable explanation for the state of things—he is our unofficial cook, after all—but his room is empty. The complex is unnaturally quiet, I realize. Save for the occasional creaking of structure bending against harsh winds, there are no audible signs of life or machine.

  Growing anxious, I head toward Grogan’s room, and then Fiona’s. When I’m satisfied that the dorms are in fact empty, I move on to the labs.

  They’re empty, too.

  There’s only one place left to search; I’m beginning to wish I’d remained in that shower, for I know that whatever awaits me can’t be good.

&nbs
p; As soon as I approach the infirmary, I realize that things are worse than I could’ve suspected. Inside, Grogan and Fiona are suited up, which doesn’t make any sense—until I see Winkley. My heart lurches at the sight of him; he’s out cold on a cot, skin ashen and lifeless, chest rising and falling with ragged irregularity. Fiona is examining him frantically, taking readings with instruments that are vaguely similar to ones I’ve seen on Earth, only smaller and sort of abbreviated. Her expression loops fluidly from grim to desperate to stricken to grim; her hands flutter like boughs in a spastic breeze.

  From the depths of my genome, a primitive need to protect this beautiful woman is ballooning in my cells; I step toward the door, drawn to her as a moth is to flame. Grogan spots me from the corner of his eye and turns to face me, shaking his head before I even reach the door. “Get outta here, Wilson.” His voice is muffled through the glass, but quite intelligible.

  “But what happened—?”

  “Go! We’ll talk later, okay? Not now.”

  I hesitate; I’m reluctant to leave Fiona or Winkley in their respective states of need, and honestly, I simply don’t know where else to go. I can’t bear to sit in my room alone, not now; I need to do something.

  A rustle of movement startles me from behind, causing me to lurch in place. Turning my head, I see that it’s Cutterly. He’s a bit of a creeper, that one; I wonder if he’s been here all along, or if he just walked in. I’m just about to ask him this when Rogers abruptly rounds the corner. I can’t help but notice that these two look remarkably better than they have in weeks—well rested, vibrant skin color, all that.

  I wish I could say the same for Winkley.

  Grogan taps on the window and shouts for us all to clear out. His eyes linger on me, smoldering, as if he somehow blames me for this.

  We file into the cafeteria with Cutterly leading the charge in a limping shuffle; all I can think about is Winkley—his slackened face, the deathly grayness of his skin; it’s Arthur all over again. We sit without speaking, each lost in his own chaotic thoughts. It’s well past lunchtime, but I don’t suppose any of us feels up to eating.

  Forty minutes later, Fiona and Grogan quietly join us; even before they reach their seats, their expressions betray poor tidings.

  “He’s not getting enough oxygen,” Fiona explains weakly, dropping with defeat into an empty chair; her eyes are pink at the corners, swollen with gathering emotion.

  Cutterly voices my exact thought before I can get it together. “What do you mean, like asthma?”

  “I don’t think so; his esophagus doesn’t appear to be swollen. I’m hardly an expert, though.”

  “What happened, exactly?” Rogers wants to know. “He seemed fine this morning.”

  Grogan takes the baton. “We don’t really know, guys. At this point, we don’t have much to go on. I found him unconscious in the airlock, and we’ve been working on him ever since.”

  Cutterly: “When?”

  “Maybe ninety minutes ago, give or take.” That would put the discovery with me stepping into the shower on a timeline, I realize. I don’t know why this detail should bother me, but it does; I feel terrible guilt wrap around my neck and make itself at home with a squeeze.

  “He was the last one in,” Grogan adds, heading off the next logical question.

  “Think he might’ve taken off his helmet before the lock was fully pressurized?” asks Rogers.

  Grogan shakes his head. “At first, that’s exactly what I thought. But if that was the case, he’d have come to in a matter of minutes. He’s been out for quite a while now, and—” He looks at the floor, his head swaying in a weary arc. He steals a glance at Fiona, and I notice his eyes have taken on a glassy sheen. I feel bad for him.

  “And what, Grog?” Rogers probes.

  Fiona picks up where Grogan left off. “He appears to be in a coma. If so, there’s no guarantee he’ll come out of it. Even if he does, we’re likely to see some brain damage. We’re really not equipped to deal with something like this.”

  Cutterly is breathing heavily through his nose, bouncing a nervous knee with such vigor that it quakes the entire table with every upswing. “So, what then?” he demands. “We can’t just cross our fingers that he’ll get better on his own; we need to get him some help.”

  Grogan seems to have regained his composure, regarding Cutterly with what might be frustration or irritable agreement. “Our thoughts exactly,” he says. “But the question is, where do we take him?”

  “Back to Earth, of course!” Cutterly exclaims.

  “Can’t do that,” whispers Fiona. “The USS would never allow it.”

  “What does that mean?” I hear myself chime in. “Surely they’ll want to help.” Then again, they didn’t exactly fall over themselves to help me out, did they?

  “Keep up or stay out of it, Wilson,” snaps Grogan. “Or better yet, why don’t you let the adults talk for a while?” I feel myself bend under the jibe; on Earth, I was someone worthy of marginal respect—at least, that’s the way I remember it. Here? I’m the lowest man on a sinking totem pole. And, for reasons that escape me, Grogan has made me his personal whipping boy. I’m prepared to lash back—I have plenty to say, believe me—but I choose to bite my tongue. Sooner or later, we’re gonna have to put this business to bed—Grogan and me—but Winkley is the obvious priority right now.

  “Ease up, Grog,” snaps Rogers. “He isn’t the only one who’s not getting it.”

  “It’s an infection, isn’t it?” Cutterly quietly interjects. “Some sort of lung infection?”

  Fiona nods with a noncommittal shrug, adding: “Could be. The USS won’t risk introducing an unknown infection into their facility; we’re on our own, boys.”

  Rogers and I breathe a mutual, “Oh.”

  For most of the next morning, I camp outside of the infirmary, gazing impotently through the window upon the inanimate form of my friend. I feel like I should cry—my eyes seem hard at work trying—but I’m dried up, as if my soul has shriveled into a husk. There’s a stifling tightness in my chest, too, as if it’s piled with bricks. I can’t even remember what life was like before death left its slimy fingerprints all over me.

  It seems the Abby curse remains in full effect, even on Mars.

  “How are you doing?”

  The voice catches me off guard—I didn’t even hear her come into the room—yet my reflexes are silent, numbed in the pickling elixir of shock. I tell Fiona that I’m fine, lying with uncharacteristic ease. I figure it’s what she wants to hear, anyway; she has enough on her plate as it is.

  “Listen, Wil, I need to ask you about this morning. Did anything—happen out there? Anything out of the ordinary?”

  I glance at her, my cheeks heating at her affectionate shortening of my name—what can I say? Love has no regard for things like timing. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know,” she admits. “I suppose I’m grasping at straws.”

  “Well, for what it’s worth,” I say with what I hope is a charming smile, “I think you’re doing a great job. Under the circumstances, I mean.”

  She looks at me blankly, like I’m miswired—and frankly, I’m beginning to wonder if I am; Asperger’s can set in at any age, right? “Sorry,” I cringe. “I just meant—” Suddenly my thoughts flicker and I feel my cheeks burn all the more. “Wait a second.”

  Fiona’s face seems to unfold, eyes brightening with newfound hope. “You remember something?”

  “I think so. There was a lot of dust,” I say.

  She nods encouragingly. “What else?”

  “That’s it,” I say. “I mean, it wasn’t like normal dust, you know? It was a lot stickier. And I’m pretty sure it was coming off the plants.”

  “Off the plants? What do you mean, like spores?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Fiona’s gaze loses focus as she ponders this. “This is incredible,” she mutters after a moment. I wait for some further explanation, and she suddenly laugh
s. “Don’t you get it? The BPs are supposed to be apogamous!”

  If we had crickets on Mars, this would be their cue to accentuate the dumb silence. “Sorry, Doc,” I offer in their stead. “You’re way over my head.” I catch a faint waft of her scent—a subtle blend of wildflowers and something rich like coffee, only not—and sigh. Funny, I don’t smell much these days; I suppose that only makes her smell all the sweeter. Of course, it’s possible that I’m imagining she has a smell at all. As Fiona has explained more than once, pheromones don’t necessarily require a discernably pleasant aroma, though the two often share company.

  “Okay, Wil, time for some Botany 101.” If it was anyone other than Fiona talking, I’d be fumbling for an excuse to get out of here right now. But the truth is, I’d endure a lot worse than a mind-numbing lecture for the tradeoff of her company. And it certainly beats the heck out of watching Winkley die.

  “Your rapt pupil awaits, my dear.”

  Fiona smiles, eyes twinkling with scientific zeal. My heart skips a beat.

  “Okay, so most plants are agamospermous—meaning they reproduce sexually—you know, flowers, pollen—birds and the bees and all that? The blood plants are genetically modeled from fern DNA; specifically, a species that naturally reproduces apomixously—that is, without traditional fertilization. On Earth, this was an evolutionary adaptation to harsh, dry environments, since normal reproduction in ferns requires enough moisture for sperm to literally swim to the egg for fertilization.”

  “Whoa, that’s weird.”

  She shrugs with a mild frown. “Not really; on Earth, farmers replaced agamospermous crops with genetically engineered apoximous varieties more than seventy-five years ago. Since then, regions once considered unfertile are consistently yielding substantial harvests. It was sort of an agricultural revolution; I’m surprised you’re not familiar with it.”

  Translation: Third graders know this stuff; why don’t you? I shrug and bow my head in shame. Fiona sighs, slides her bangs behind her ears, then clears her throat.