Mother of Mars (Whispers of A Planet Book 1)

by Sean Clark

  “It’s all just a blur… grey and cloudy…” Cecil says, voice wavering.

  “Shit.” Agrippa exclaims. Cecil can hear him stomp heavily and move away from where he lay, mumbling under his breath. “They were right.”

  “Agrippa? What is going to happen to me?” Cecil whimpers. He shifts under the covers, the cold straps on his wrists digging into his skin. He bites at his lip, sending a dull pain through his face.

  “I don’t know.” The old man responds halfheartedly. Cecil can hear the sound of him pacing the room.

  “Don’t go.” Cecil pleads.

  “I’m not going anywhere. Do you need something?” Agrippa asks hopefully.

  “Who knows about this?”

  “About your injury? Not many I would suppose.” Agrippa replies.

  “Good. I need to write a letter… to tell someone. It’s important.”

  _____

  Dear Mother,

  I wish I could have had more chances to write. I feel as though all we do is work until exhaustion. Then we get just enough rest to keep on our feet. I’m afraid ‘fun’ is an alien concept here. I guess there’s only room enough for so-called serious business. What I wouldn’t give for a time out just to stop caring for a second.

  I sometimes wonder what my life would have been if I stayed on Earth. I could have had a family, a relaxing job, and a nice soft bed. I could have done all the things that other people take for granted; go to the movies, have fun at parties, or meet people. I know you always wished for grandchildren too. Unfortunately, I found a stronger calling outside of our world. I know what I’m doing here is for the good of everybody, not just myself, and I hope everything I do up here leads to that outcome. I remember before I left, you told me not to have any regrets. I’m happy to report that I still don’t.

  …

  With much love,

  Your Son

  -Cecil.

  “Is there anything else you would like to add?”

  “…No. Thank you, nurse.” Cecil says, clearing his throat. Dictating to her made his mouth feel dry and sandpapery.

  The chair creaks as the nurse stands. Her shoes clack against the metal floor as she leaves the room. Cecil hears the hiss of the automatic door opening. It hesitates before it whooshes back closed, followed by the sound of heavier footsteps.

  “Did you get out what you needed to?” The deep, gravelly voice returns to Cecil’s ears.

  “It’s better than nothing.” Cecil says, his voice cracking.

  Agrippa lets out a stifled chuckle. His footsteps draw closer to the bed. Cecil hears the pouring of water, and feels the waxy surface of a paper cup brush against his fingertips, and he moves his hand forwards to grasp it. Agrippa quickly undoes the wrist strap, and Cecil moves his hand free. Sitting up slightly, he touches the cup tenderly to his lips. The room temperature liquid trickles down his parched throat.

  “I couldn’t help but overhear. You were writing to your mother?” Agrippa sits back down.

  “I… don’t want to worry her, especially if news got to her that I had been injured.”

  “If my parents were still alive, I’m sure they would be worried about me being up here, just like yours.” Agrippa reassures him. “Your mother, what’s her name?”

  “Maria.” Cecil mumbles.

  “That’s a pretty name. I’m sure she misses you.” Agrippa pauses for a long moment, as if he is thinking. “Even if she got to hear about you getting injured, we would make sure that she knew you were in good hands. We take care of our own you know.”

  “Oh yeah, and what plans do you have for me, then?” Cecil says indignantly.

  “Cecil, that’s beyond my range of knowledge, or abilities. I’m just your liaison for the time being, but I-”

  “There’s nothing left for me here, is there? I know how it is around here. If I can’t work then I’m just a mouth to feed, someone to take up oxygen. I’m taking up space, time, and money for the project, too aren’t I? How long have I been here wasting away, Agrippa?” Cecil cries out, struggling against the wrist straps. The bed rattles, and he could feel the electrodes stuck to his skin pull against the wires attached to them. There is a sharp pain in his arm as the IV catheter shifts awkwardly.

  Agrippa swallows loudly. “Cecil, this isn’t the time for that kind of thinking.”

  “Tell me, Agrippa.” Cecil seethes.

  “Three months. You’ve been in a coma for a little under three months.”

  “God… damn it.” Cecil sobs, hitting his head against the back of the bed.

  “You’re still weak and probably groggy as well. I’m sure once you regain your strength we’ll be able to take our next steps with you.” Agrippa says, trying to mask his emotion.

  “I read about this somewhere, but… you know you don’t dream when you’re in a coma. It’s similar to cryosleep when we come over here, do you remember? There’s no REM sleep. It’s different. Comatose dreams are not composed of images and stories. It’s more like feelings. Feelings of horror, uncertainty. I’m not even sure how to describe it.” Cecil’s body shudders. “At the end, it just feels like a nightmare. Even now that I’m awake, I’m not sure it’s any different.”

  Agrippa pauses for a brief moment. “In our line of work, what we had was as close to a nightmare as you can get.”

  “That’s just it, Agrippa. It’s hard to trust my memory now. I don’t remember what happened down there. It’s all just fuzzy to me. I want to know how I ended up like this.”

  “You must remember the caves, the magma chamber, right? You lead us off into some deep part of the tunnels where there was some sort of pool. There was… a reaction when we made contact with it, like a quake. Your helmet cracked open. From what it seems, the quick drop in temperature stressed out the polycarbonate enough to fail. You fell in the pool, and as we tried to pull you out, your mask filled with liquid. You probably inhaled a good bit of it before we could get you to the surface. We had to take off your helmet to get you breathing again, somehow. Performing CPR in an environment with no air is a feat in itself. Your helmet was unsalvageable, so we had to carry you out with just the mask on. We rushed you out of the cave as fast as we could, but the heat was worse than we thought. I remember… seeing blisters form and pop open on your face.” Agrippa takes a deep, strained breath and continues. “We brought you back as fast as we could, and the people here at med bay took it from there.”

  Cecil’s mind flashes back to the last things he remembers. He was jostled around, people yelling. The smell of burnt flesh was in the air, rancid, encompassing him. He could feel himself getting strapped onto a stretcher, getting jabbed with needles. He knew the feeling of wanting to scream as they debrided his flesh. Returning himself to reality, he rattles his head back and forth. The paper cup lay crushed in his fist.

  Cecil takes a deep breath, releasing his vice grip on the cup. “What then?” He says flatly.

  “After that, they induced coma, saying you would heal better, and that it would probably be more comfortable for you as well. Luckily the treatment seems to have worked well enough. You know… you had third degree burns on a large region of your face. Your corneas also… well, you can take a guess.” Agrippa’s voice sounds hollow as he continues.

  Cecil suddenly becomes aware of the tightness in his face. He can feel the skin constrict around his cheekbones and muscles as he grimaces. There is a strange dark cloudiness encompassing his world. He feels Agrippa’s presence come close, as the old man starts to fiddle with the remaining restraint around Cecil’s wrist, each tiny sound in the room becoming more pronounced to make up for the vision he no longer had.

  “I don’t think you need those anymore… just a precaution, you know. Just… don’t try and itch your face, doctor’s orders.” Agrippa explains. Cecil rubs his wrists. The chair by his bed squeaks, and Agrippa continues. “It’s kind of a miracle you’re in the state you are. I mean, we have some fine people here, but there’s a limit to our resources. We di
d the best we could with what we had.” His voice becomes very quiet.

  “I can remember the feeling now.” Cecil picks up, almost in a whisper. “I remember the bristles of a wire brush grating against my skin, each nerve ending screaming out. A greased-up tube being slid through my mouth and down into my chest. IV’s being jabbed into my arms. I wanted to thrash, gag, scream, but couldn’t move.” His voice slowly starts to rise. “It was a literal nightmare that I couldn’t awake from. Now that I am awake, I’m not really any better off, am I? How can I work like this Agrippa? What can I offer now that I’m blind?”

  The loud beep of the heart rate monitor slowly fades to a regular rhythm. The time between pulses seems to drag out in the awkward silence. The chair in the room creaks slightly as Agrippa shifts uncomfortably.

  “I don’t know what plans they have, like I said-.”

  “I didn’t ask what you know. I’m asking what you think.” Cecil says, coldly.

  “There… there’s a ship that has been in the hangar bay, under inspection. That, I know. We’re almost in place, for the orbits that is. That means if they plan to have a launch, it’s long been scheduled. I’d guess in the next week or so, no later. My sector has been packaging samples for such a thing, actually. However, there’s a good chance it would take on passengers too. They may mean to send you home, Cecil.”

  “I don’t want that.” Cecil says after a brief pause.

  “You may not… probably few people do. In your position, though, don’t you think it may be better? And in the case they force your hand, what would you plan to do against it?”

  “They need me here, Agrippa… and I need this place.” Cecil growls.

  “Are you listening to yourself right now? You don’t need this place, you need a break. You need to allow yourself to be rehabilitated. You think this place needs you specifically? This place will never stop consuming people to get where we’re trying to go.” Agrippa explains, sounding agitated.

  “Don’t tell me that.” Cecil rebuts.

  “I just did.”

  The chair squeaks against the floor as Agrippa slides it backwards to stand. Cecil grits his teeth silently. He remains lying on his back, faced upwards. The most he can sense was the dim pale glow from the lights above. He feels a hand pat him on the leg lightly. The automatic door hisses open and the light disappears from the room. The door hisses closed again.

  __

  Cecil awakes to a pounding headache. His fingers and toes tingle, as if they had fallen asleep. Painfully, he props himself up, his back screaming out in pain. The throbbing of his temples continues. The cold air runs up the slit in his gown, sending a shiver up his back that is clammy and covered in sweat. His head spins and he suddenly becomes aware of the queasiness rising up in his chest. The acrid taste of stomach acid appears in the back of his throat. He tries to swallow, choking on his saliva.

  He buckles over, holding his abdomen as the fit of coughing turns into dry heaving. He can feel his throat twisting itself inside out. His knotted stomach is completely vacant and has nothing to give. The retching feels as if it is coming from the deepest parts of himself. Warm mucus and bile sputter out past his lips to land with a sickening plop in his lap. His head pounds even harder. He fumbles desperately for something solid to hold on to, grasping to find the rail on either side of the hospital bed. His hands find the railing beside him, cold metal which he can lean on. Poorly attached, it pops loudly and slides down with a jolt. His arm wrestles against the tubes that are attached to him as he begins to take the plunge. He feels the IV tear out of his vein and rip a neat line up his bicep, pain shooting through the muscle.

  Losing traction, Cecil slides out of the hospital bed to the ground with an ungraceful thump. He can feel the sticky lead to the heart monitor separate from its spot on his chest. The machine by the bed cries out a siren of distress, just as the familiar hiss of the door comes from beside him on the floor. Cecil hears indistinct calls for help. A pair of strong hands grab him below his arms, attempting to lift him. Another sound begins to work its way into his ears, blocking out the commotion.

  It is a faint buzzing, the frequency familiar. He feels it reaching into his core, sending a prickly feeling all over his body. The dissonant tone makes him flinch, presenting a feeling of distress. Instinctively he searches the blackness around him for the source. Slowly his will fades along with his consciousness, followed by the sound.

  Blank

  A few silent days had passed. Cecil resigned himself to lying in bed and reacquainting himself with his limbs that had become stiff and numb over the course of several months. Occasionally he imagined hearing the same buzzing sound, but anytime he tried to focus on it, the sound seemed to disappear into the calm silence of the medical bay. Between napping and daydreaming Cecil found it hard to keep track of time.

  A voice speaks to him, shaking him out of his daze. “You have visitors.” The pleasant voice of the nurse wafts in his ears. The sound of someone clearing their throat echoes slightly from the foot of his bed.

  “Agrippa?”

  “Yeah.” The old man announces slowly. “I brought your best friend too.”

  Markus releases a loud snort. “Agrippa had told me you had woken up… man… I still can’t get over… well, let’s be honest. You look like hell.” He says, letting out a small, uncharacteristic laugh.

  Agrippa grunts. “Shut up Markus, no need to make him feel bad.”

  “You know he’s too positive for that.” Markus sneers.

  Cecil lets out a sigh, followed by a weak laugh. He doesn’t feel like laughing, but it slips out anyways.

  “You know, this guy saved your life.” explains Agrippa, making a slapping sound on Markus’s back.

  “I did what I had to do.” Markus admits. “I didn’t have time to think about it.”

  “He pulled ya’ out of there, and pretty much dragged you all the way out on his own. We drove like crazy to get you back here. After we turned you over to the medical staff, damn fool almost collapsed himself.”

  Cecil tries to conjure up some words of gratitude, rolling his head side to side on the pillow. “You could have just left me down there. Then I wouldn’t have ended up like this…”

  “You asshole.” Markus raises his voice. He stops short, holding his tongue. “Look, I made you go down there first, I just thought…”

  “Whatever. It wasn’t your fault.” Cecil starts quietly, his voice still slightly hoarse. “I just acted on some impulse, and I felt drawn to it… the pool. I don’t know how to explain it. It was my fault in the end… I just lost balance and fell.” He pauses. “I’ve been trying to remember exactly how I felt then… trying to reconstruct it based on what you’ve told me Agrippa. My mind feels cloudy, but somewhere in there I feel like I can remember what happened, if just a little. It’s terrifying.”

  “Then don’t think about it, you imbecile.” Markus interjects.

  “No, you don’t understand.” Cecil continues. “If I was in the middle of the chain instead of the front, I could have dragged both of you in after me. Who knows what would have happened then? They send a search party, and they find three astronauts floating face down in some cave. Hell, chances are they wouldn’t have found us at all.”

  “Damn it Cecil! How can you talk like that?! You should be grateful to be alive. After all we did, too.” Markus yells, his voice echoing in the room. “Agrippa, why did you bring me here if he was going to be like this?”

  “He deserves to know, don’t you think?” Agrippa explains. “What we found down there, all three of us, matters to the station now, it matters to humanity. It’s our duty to tell ‘im what we’ve started.”

  “What are you talking about?” Cecil asks quizzically.

  “Well, we went back of course.” Markus explains irritably. “We had to explain to station control and Cassius how you got hurt, with the pool and all. Of course, they were excited about the geothermal activity we found, but the prospects of a basin of w
ater like that was equally interesting, if not more.”

  “Indeed. Think about it.” Agrippa’s excitement picks up as he explains. “It’s fresh water, and with it the possibility of organic life, microscopic organisms here on another planet.” Agrippa rants, picking up before Markus could finish his thought.

  “And what have you found, exactly?” Cecil questions.

  “Our evaluations are still ongoing.” Agrippa continues, tapping his foot as he rambles. “We’re doing a series of tests while we can, but we still don’t know a lot about the basin or the makeup of the water. We’ve also planned to send a sample back to Earth so they can try methods we haven’t been able to. That, or wait for the proper equipment. We don’t really have a proper centrifuge or…”

  “We get it, Agrippa.” Markus stops him. “There’s so much more though, some things that might interest you.”

  “That’s right. I think you’ll be surprised at how much we’ve done while you’ve been asleep.” Agrippa explains. “After we logged the coordinates, several teams got sent out there to survey the tunnels. They eventually set up a temporary base down there. It wasn’t long before they got to work fitting life support systems too.”

  “The plan was to set up geothermal generators, right?” Cecil guesses. “My team had worked on some turbines and generators before, but they had no place to go… until now that is.”

  “Right.” Agrippa admits. “They wanted everything to be built down there in those caves. So… they started blasting for space, sending materials down the hole, and building a whole system of rooms down there where people could get to work. We now have about a quarter of the workers down there, excavating, boring holes, running lines, the works. I haven’t been over there much myself, though. The basin is still of interest, but until we can spare the manpower to assess it, we can’t do much. We haven’t been able to replicate what happened when we went down there either, so for the moment we think it was just a fluke. Personally, I’m not sure it’s safe down there, but I would like to study it some more if should have the chance.”