People of Mars

by Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli

  She tilted her head to one side, intrigued, and then, forgetting all else, crawled toward the origin of such wonder.

  A light layer of red dust was covering the floor, inside it was a large azure stain, round and damp. It had to be the remains of the sample dropped by Robert. It had ended up in a hidden place, and been missed by the small vacuum cleaner. As she took a close look at it, she noticed other smaller stains scattered around the big one, some partly merging, all damp. The azure crystals, which had been evenly dispersed in the sand the day before, were now all gathered in the stains, giving them the same colouring.

  An intuition made its way into her thoughts; an incredulous smile escaped her. Then she stood up.

  Step by step he drew himself level with the roof end facing westward, near the towering shaft that supported the Aeolian turbine. Usually such a manoeuvre would’ve taken a few minutes, but today the wind was quite strong and it made his progress on the ladder slow and uncertain.

  The roof had a convex shape, to prevent the accumulation of dust on its surface, but a long footbridge ran along its top. It connected the anchoring points of the two shafts on the external wall of the station and allowed a person to walk from one to the other without difficulty.

  Once his head reached it, Robert grabbed the waiting hand. Hassan helped him to climb and fastened his safety rope to the handrail.

  Above him, the gigantic blades of the turbines were moving, slow and constant, propelled by the thin Martian air. Such a wind on Earth would’ve made them work at maximum speed, but Mars’s atmosphere was much more rarefied, and therefore produced less electricity. Actually, it was an experimental system, which only contributed a small amount of power to Station Alpha, mainly supplied by the photovoltaic panels dispersed on the building and on the area around it. Its purpose was mostly to evaluate the possible benefits of using such technology when compared to the efforts for its maintenance.

  “They appear to be moving at the same speed,” Hassan commented.

  Robert was consulting the readings related to both systems on the augmented reality. The west turbine was producing 30% less energy. There had to be a dispersion somewhere, which caused a voltage drop.

  “I’m going to check the connection panel, maybe some terminal got loosened or this damned microscopic dust has managed to get through, causing an increase in the resistance.” Even before waiting for a reply from his colleague, Robert headed towards the turbine, letting his snap-link run along the safety handrail.

  “Okay, meanwhile I’ll have a look at the other one.”

  Pushed by the wind, Robert reached the turbine shaft. Luckily, the gusts didn’t carry more dust. Perhaps they would turn out to be useful in facilitating the cleaning of the contacts. He took a power screwdriver from a pocket and removed the manual closing device, making sure to put aside each screw. Under that was another panel which, when under power, sealed the inside of the box hermetically. He noticed right away it didn’t appear to adhere to the edges, which showed some reddish lines due to the dust settled into the gap.

  “I knew that …” he told himself. “The dude who designed that stuff was really a genius.”

  He deactivated the hermetic seal, which, as was evident, had long since stopped working properly, and inserted the screwdriver tip into the gap to use it as a lever.

  All of a sudden his brain was flooded with a loud, high-pitched sound. By instinct, he drew back and dropped the screwdriver, which tumbled down the roof. He placed his hand on his helmet, as if he could cover his ears. He was feeling as if his head was about to explode and he started screaming, but that sound was so loud that he couldn’t hear his own voice. An unexpected gust of wind pushed him from behind, making him lose his balance. In an instant, his feet slipped on the footbridge and he found himself falling along the curve of the roof, until he stopped abruptly, held by the safety rope.

  “Hassan!” he shouted into his helmet microphone.

  The sound had ceased and it was replaced by a distant buzz. He thought he could make out a voice, but he wasn’t sure. His own breath rumbled inside his head and everything sounded muffled. His arms and his torso were stretched out on the roof, while his legs dangled down the wall, shaking panicked, in a useless attempt to find a foothold.

  “Hassan, can you hear me?”

  He played around with the controller on the left wrist of his suit to extend his transmission to the emergency channel of the station.

  “Anna, are you hearing me?”

  No reply.

  Robert forced himself to calm down and glanced at the ground. Just three metres separated him from it, a little less than ten feet. A dangerous fall on Earth, but not that much on a planet with a little more than one third of its gravity. He could unhook from the rope and let himself slip downwards.

  He wasn’t even able to finish formulating that thought when he felt himself fall again. He seized the ledge with his hands while the safety rope, dragged by the unhooked snap-link, fell past him to swing in the air as it hung from his suit.

  “Pressure leak inside suit, return immediately to the station.” The voice of the helmet unit resounded in his ears.

  There wasn’t much time left. He had to jump and hope for the best.

  While he attempted to position his legs to cushion his fall, he noticed he couldn’t move the left one very well. It seemed stuck. With some difficulty, he tried and looked down. A hem of his suit had slipped deep into a gap between two adjacent panels that insulated the wall against radiations. Perhaps while sliding against a sharpened edge, a microscopic cut had been created. From the values he could read on the augmented reality, the pressure drop was minimal and the life support was able to compensate. But, actually, the situation prevented him from jumping. If he tried it, at best he would get trapped mid air with his suit stuck in the gap. At worst, it would tear completely.

  Robert was assailed by a sudden terror.

  “Christ, Hassan, where the fuck are you?!”

  How could the snap-link have unhooked? Hassan had secured it. Why wasn’t he coming to help him? Was it possible he didn’t realise that something was happening? Was he really unable to hear him?

  His heart was beating like crazy. An emergency icon was blinking insistently in the helmet’s augmented reality, warning that he was in a condition of extreme cardiovascular stress. His right hand fingers hurt, while he could barely feel those on the left one. It was almost impossible to hold on with those clumsy gloves. He sensed himself slipping down. Sweat was dripping on his brow, blurring his sight.

  Then he lost his grip.

  But at the very last moment he felt his arm being grabbed.

  “Pressure equalised,” the inexpressive voice of the AI enunciated inside the airlock.

  His hands still trembling, Robert tried to unfasten the safety lock of his helmet, but his fingers kept on slipping on the mechanism. Hassan, who had already removed his own, reached out towards him.

  “Don’t you fucking touch me!” Robert said, pushing him away.

  “Hey, calm down. I just want to help you.”

  “You’ve already done enough for today.” His voice was broken by adrenaline, which still flowed in his body. Finally, a click was heard and the helmet’s base detached from its seat.

  “You are in shock. Sit down for a moment and breathe.”

  “Where the fuck have you gotten to?!”

  Hassan looked at him, puzzled.

  “I’ve been calling you for at least five minutes!” Robert continued. Now he was trying to take off the remainder of his suit, but he didn’t appear to be making any progress.

  “I didn’t hear you. Are you sure you haven’t turned off your transceiver?”

  As he heard the calmness of the other man’s voice, Robert lost his temper and lunged at him, grabbing his neck. “Fuck you, you tried to kill me!”

  But Hassan didn’t seem at all perturbed by the accusation. His gaze expressed a composure barely tinged by annoyance.

 
; “Rob, get your hands off me.” He articulated those words one by one. “I have no intention of hurting you, now. But if you don’t back off, I will be forced to.”

  Robert stared straight at his eyes for some moments. Hassan was bigger and stronger than he was. With a tug, he pushed his colleague against the wall and took a step back.

  “You unhooked my safety rope.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement.

  “I beg your pardon?” There was an air of superiority in Hassan’s tone. How it got on Robert’s nerves when he used it.

  “Don’t pretend you don’t understand!”

  “I was twenty metres away.”

  “No.” Robert shook his head. That wasn’t what he meant. He felt confused. “I mean … you didn’t fasten it as you should have on purpose.”

  Hassan let a chuckle escape. “You’re out of your mind. I bet you smoked a joint before breakfast … or worse. Lately I’ve noticed some inconsistencies in the medicine inventory …” He stopped abruptly and tilted his head. “What’s on your neck?” And he tried to get closer to him. “It looks like a big bruise.”

  Robert instinctively touched the spot pointed by the other guy and, as he did so, it hurt a bit. But he didn’t want to offer him an opportunity to change the subject.

  “It’s very strange. Let me have a look at it.”

  “I said don’t touch me!” His voice exited his throat with a higher tonality than the one he’d have wanted. “You fastened my safety rope. I trusted you!” Robert pointed his finger at him.

  “I’ve fastened it perfectly. You were there, too.” Hassan picked up the snap-link and started examining it. “Here it is, I knew it, look, it’s bent. The latch doesn’t match completely and the rope passed through it, while you were struggling.”

  “You bent it!” Robert realised he was sounding like a broken record, but he couldn’t stop.

  “Oh, yes, now I can bend steel with the power of my thoughts,” Hassan mocked. “It’s your responsibility to check all your equipment before any external activity.” His tone became grave. “Don’t get mad at me because you’ve become inattentive and you’re sloppy when doing your tasks. They should’ve never selected you for this mission.”

  “You’d have liked that, wouldn’t you?”

  Why didn’t Michelle answer?

  She had sent her the data and pictures more than half an hour earlier. She needed to talk with her. The more time went on, the more frequently she swung between the sensations of great discovery and great blunder. But no, it couldn’t be a simple artefact. She felt it was important.

  The sudden and abrupt opening of the door, as she was immersed in her thoughts, made her start.

  “What the … Robert!”

  He had stormed into the laboratory in a flash. But why was he still wearing the external activity suit?

  “I don’t wanna be caught in the middle.” He was speaking and shaking his head. He looked upset.

  “What happened?” She was worried. She had never seen him like that.

  But he ignored her question. “Hassan is your fucking obsession. I don’t wanna be caught in your crossfire. Enough. I’m outta here.” He moved his arms as a sign of surrender.

  “Tell me, what happened?” She got closer to him, taking his face in her hands. It was soaked and cold.

  He didn’t stop her, but remained rigid. He appeared to be out of his senses. “He tried to kill me out there,” he shouted, pointing to an undefined spot on his right. He almost whined.

  “Rob, Rob,” Anna called him, forcing him to look her in the eye. “You’re safe now. Breathe. Tell me everything.”

  “He sabotaged my equipment.” He was panting.

  “Think, why would he do that? It’s absurd.”

  Robert appeared to calm down. He watched her in silence for a moment. “You tell me why.” His voice’s tone was quiet now, sharp.

  Anna held her breath. What was he talking about? How could he know?

  “Do you think I’m completely blind? Or just stupid?”

  “You’re fucking paranoid, Green,” Hassan started off, while he entered the room. Unlike Robert, he wasn’t wearing his suit anymore.

  The latter pushed back Anna’s hands brutally and hurled himself at him. But Hassan blocked his arms.

  “If I wanted to kill you …” he hissed. “We wouldn’t be having this conversation, because you’d already be dead.”

  Robert tried to free himself, pointlessly.

  “And anyway I do know more creative and reliable ways to succeed, without having to rely upon your ineptitude.”

  Unable to utter a word, she watched them terrified. She had never seen so much hatred and verbal violence since the beginning of the mission. She was afraid that, whatever she did, she might make the situation worse.

  Then Hassan let him go.

  “Fuck you,” Robert inveighed against him and, without losing eye contact with the other man, backed off with an awkward pace towards the door. And he went out as quickly as he had entered.

  “You are a bastard.” Anna regretted the words the very moment Hassan turned to her, fixing his furious gaze on her.

  “If I’m a bastard, what are you?”

  She felt as if she had been stabbed by that unexpected statement, by the maliciousness with which it had been expressed; she was unable to answer back even when he walked on and stopped in front of her. Then, as if to react to an imminent threat, she raised her hand to slap him.

  But he blocked it mid air. “Let me understand. I’ve really become the subject of all your outbursts, haven’t I?”

  Caught by surprise, she didn’t dare reply.

  “This entire situation is your fault, you know?”

  What the hell was he talking about?

  “You play the bosom buddy with him, for years. All that cuddling and massaging … but you won’t put out. And then he loses his head.” He grinned, sarcastic. He seemed pleased by the sound of his own voice.

  “Who says you’re the only subject of my outbursts?” Why the hell didn’t she shut up? She was alone with him, he was blocking her, holding her arm, and she continued to provoke him. She was really asking for it.

  Hassan appeared to consider her statement for some long seconds, maybe undecided on the best way to punish her. Then all of a sudden he started laughing out loud.

  All useless. He hadn’t believed her.

  “You and brother Rob?” And he laughed again, but without releasing his grip on her. “Sometimes you can be really witty, little Anna.”

  She tried to take advantage of his hilarity to free herself, but with no result.

  “You’re hurting me.”

  Hassan stopped laughing and resumed studying her with his dark, inscrutable eyes. His fingers relaxed so that she wouldn’t feel any pain, but not enough to let her go.

  “There’s one thing you should know well. Among all of you there’s only one person I would never intentionally hurt … you.”

  Anna stopped struggling and decided to look at him again. Every part of him expressed a sense of menace. But not his eyes. They seemed sincere.

  “Anna, here I am, are you still there?” Michelle’s voice resounded from the loudspeakers.

  “I have to answer.” She said that, indicating her wrist, which was still imprisoned in Hassan’s grip, with her eyes.

  Finally he opened his fingers.

  Removing her gaze from his, Anna went back to the counter and activated the main screen in the laboratory, where Michelle’s face appeared. She was on the passenger’s seat inside the rover. From the picture, it was evident that the vehicle was moving. The woman smiled.

  “We’re just finished loading the equipment and we are returning to the station. I’m so looking forward to telling you everything.”

  “So, what do you think?” Anna interrupted her, without a big preamble, and turned on the microscope’s screen. She wasn’t interested at all about the outcome of the sortie.

  “What’s this?” Hassan
stepped in, behind her.

  Michelle’s puzzled gaze turned to him. “Ah, you’re there, too …” She wasn’t smiling anymore now. In fact, she looked annoyed.

  Anna turned to him, but he seemed not to notice her gesture and kept on watching the same screen, with a worried expression. Therefore she placed a finger on her folio, still in operation on the counter, and in doing so a pointer appeared on the picture.

  “This is a colony of environmental bacteria. There are so many of them on the laboratory floor, they come from the greenhouse.” With a circular movement of the pointer she highlighted an azure stain. “I’ve found several of them.”

  “And why are we looking at some banal environmental bacteria?” Hassan had now come closer to the microscope, just beside her.

  “Yesterday Robert broke a vial containing a sample of regolith, which we’d collected during our latest sortie.”

  He let an ironic snort escape. “That’s why I had to put three stitches in his hand. What an idiot.”

  Unwittingly, Anna found herself almost smiling at that comment, but she tried not to let it show and resumed talking. “I believed I’d cleaned everything from the floor, but some of it was still down there.” She pointed to an imprecise spot near the counter. “Along with some blood drops, which the bacteria appreciated.”

  “Interesting.” It was evident from the tone of his voice that he thought the exact opposite.

  “Wait,” she cut in, irritated, while searching for something in her folio. Anna had now put aside any personal competitions and identified again with her scientific role, and she wouldn’t accept anyone not taking her seriously. Eventually she found what she was looking for and expressed it with a pleased smile, while placing the previous image, reddish with solid azure stains, side by side with a new picture of the vial containing the intact rocky sample. The latter looked like ordinary regolith, but, as light hit that from different direction, it caused weird azure reflections.

  Hassan’s gaze lit up, but before he could say anything Anna enlarged the first image, showing that the phenomenon was in fact due to the presence of many tiny, azure spots randomly arranged within each single stain on the surface of the Martian substrate.