2016 Young Explorer's Adventure Guide

by Maggie Allen

  “Goodbye, lizard sticks,” Leafheart whispered. “And thank you.”

  Minoo nodded approval. “You listened to the plants,” she said. “You have good ears, as I told you. Come to my tukul when you like, and I’ll teach you all about the plants of our world.”

  “Really?” Leafheart desperately wanted to learn from Minoo. She barely dared to look at Mama.

  “She may go see you when her daily chores are done, Minoo,” said Mama. Leafheart was still surprised by those words when Mama amazed her: “But she won’t be your pupil forever. Our Harra wants to go to the city and study to be a proper plant scientist.”

  Leafheart threw her arms around her. “Oh, Mama!”

  Mama handed her a twig. “Keep this, so you always remember what a brave girl you were today.” Taking Leafheart’s chin in her hand, she said, “Your papa would be very proud.”

  Leafheart examined the stick. Just a dried branch from a combretum shrub. They grew all around the village. Her village, which she had helped to save. She clutched the twig tightly and smiled. Something so ordinary had never looked so wonderful.

  The Beach

  Mike Barretta

  Mike Barretta is a retired U.S. Naval Aviator who works for a defense contractor as a pilot. He holds a master’s degree in strategic planning and international negotiation from the Naval Post-Graduate School and a master’s in English from the University of West Florida. His wife, Mary, to whom he has been married to for 23 years, is living proof that he is not such a bad guy once you get to know him. His stories have appeared in Baen’s Universe, Redstone, New Scientist, Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show and various anthologies.

  Nobody likes Mars. The place is killing cold and so water hungry that it will suck an unprotected person dry in a day or two. The dunes, rocky plains, canyons and craters are littered with the desiccated dead. In some places, the mummies are so common they are used for windbreaks and cooking fuel. People died to get here hoping for some terra-formed promised land. They died trying to stay and now they die in retreat.

  Even with the pre-breather mask, Martin’s sinuses ached with cold air that smelled of blood and rust. He shivered. His parka’s heating elements would not protect him once the sun set. He scrambled to the top of the dune and parted a struggling clump of a brittle grass nested among bone fragments. Human long bones mingled with the crystal puzzle pieces of Martian gimbal joints. A frigid wind ruffled loose hair from his hood and water vapor from his ill-fitting pre-breather mask curled around his face. He brought the binoculars up to his eyes and glassed the far dunes.

  The sun, a brittle-cold orb, sank into a soft yellow glow behind the shattered stump of a destroyed terra-forming tower.

  He saw them.

  The Martian Dire lizards, the largest native life form left on the planet, shuffled their feet in the sand, stomping out the struggling alien grass imported from Earth. Silver glass muscles rippled under the creature’s translucent skin. Three massive hearts pulsed and pink lungs drew in the thin Martian air in panting gulps. The lead lizard let out an ear-splitting shriek, revealing milky teeth as long as a man’s forearm. Its jaws snapped shut with an audible clack. The lizards, as dangerous as they could be, were the least of his problems. They were fearsome animals, but they held no malice, just perfectly reasonable hunger.

  The riders were trouble. The crystal-eyed Martian warriors sat high in their saddles with razor-sharp spears at the ready. They scanned the horizon, looking for human stragglers.

  In the far distance, the dust plume from the evacuation convoy rose in hazy billows. Cut off by the Martians, Martin couldn’t make it back in time. The Dire lizards, snouts upraised, scented the air. The riders shifted in their saddles and adjusted their long spears so they wouldn’t drag in the sand. The lead lizard lowered her head, inflated her lungs, and screamed. Her huge body shook with rage. Spittle and venom sprayed the air, and the other lizards joined in the fearsome chorus. The riders stood in the saddle, searching for whatever agitated their lizards. The lizards settled on a direction and charged.

  Martin pushed himself from the crest, turned and slid down the face of the dune, struggling to stay upright. Rippling cascades of sand slid around him. He reached firmer ground at the bottom of the dune and ran. Ice cold air stabbed his lungs. He risked a glance over his shoulder. The Martians crested the dune.

  Spotted.

  The Dire lizards leapt down the face of the dune. Their riders leaned far back to prevent getting pitched forward. At the bottom, on firmer ground, they took long galloping strides after him, pounding the sand and rock with their broad flat feet, eating up the distance.

  Martin ducked into the first dome at the outer edge of the colony. He slammed the door closed, locked it, and reinforced it with a makeshift barricade of furniture. It wouldn’t hold a determined Martian, but it might slow one down.

  He returned to a functioning computer, booted it, and pulled up a catacomb map.

  Martin traced his finger across the map, committing a route to memory. He smashed the computer screen with his gloved fist. Martians were not as technically savvy as they were a thousand years ago, but they weren’t stupid. They still understood the concept of a map.

  He got down on his hands and knees and pushed aside broken flat panels and the flexible glass sheets used for paper. He found the recessed ring and opened the hatch in the floor. Cold dead air puffed out of the hatch. Martin descended the ladder into a gloomy gray abyss.

  Most Human colonies were built on top of ancient Martian cities to take advantage of the fabulous underground Martian infrastructure. The broad underground avenues and galleries were far better than cramped colony domes. This station, however, was in the proverbial boondocks. Whatever Martian village used to be here was gone, and all that was left was the catacombs, a network of tunnels that housed Martian dead. Martin reached the bottom and let his eyes adjust to the gloom. Ancient glowstones, relics of a more advanced Martian age, provided dim light.

  Martin stopped in front of a burial niche and pried a ceremonial spear from the grasp of an ancient Martian elder. The glass-like bones shattered. Ceremonial armor clattered to the tunnel floor. Desecrating archaeological artifacts was a punishable offence, but he thought that circumstances warranted it. He hefted the spear, testing its weight.

  A Martian war cry echoed down the tunnels. They were inside.

  His confidence in his sense of direction waned. The deeper into the maze he ran, the more confused he became. The glowstones grew farther apart until he needed to feel his way down the stone corridors. The lizards ululating calls echoed, coming from every direction at once. He turned a corner following dust motes suspended in dim Martian daylight. The air freshened and the tunnel angled towards the surface. He ran faster. The light brightened.

  “Almost there,” he said to himself. Maybe the colony had noticed he was unaccounted for and returned in force with weapons that would make short work of the Martians. Maybe his father waited for him with a stern but relieved look.

  A Dire lizard’s horrendous scream stopped him in his tracks. The big animal blocked his path to the surface. It opened its mouth wide, revealing razor-sharp teeth glistening with venom.

  Martin turned back to seek another way out, but a Martian blocked hi retreat. Its gill slits pulsed red with fury. It spread its arms wide and grinned with teeth that were just a bit smaller than its mount’s.

  The Martian charged and the Dire lizard screamed in rage, trying to get into the catacombs and claim a bit of human meat for itself.

  Martin hefted the spear looted from the grave and ran to the Martian. He threw the spear, driving it hard with muscular strength born of Earth. The diamond-hard tip punched through the Martian’s armor. He threw himself sideways into a blocking tackle, crashing into the Martian’s slender legs. Human bulk shattered the crystal Martian bones and the alien crumbled to the ground. Martin tumbled away, rolling over and past the Martian. The creature flailed its limbs. Martin scr
ambled to his feet, gripped the protruding spear, and drove it deeper into the howling Martian until it was still. The Martian’s mount, still blocking the entrance to the catacombs, howled with grief.

  Relieved to be alive, Martin stepped away from the twitching Martian.. He heard a whistling shriek, and something hit him hard in the chest knocking him off balance. Something warm and wet sprayed across his face. He looked down.

  A Martian razor disk protruded halfway from his chest. He sucked air and could not get enough. He leaned against the wall and slid to the ground next to the Martian he had killed.

  His chest filled with ice. A Martian emerged from the dark. It stood over him and plunged a short sword into his chest, piercing his heart. The pain was exquisite, but only for a moment.

  “Game over,” said Martin. The Martian that killed him dimmed and the lizard’s wail faded into infinity. Bright light filled the space and Martin fell into the real world.

  Martin dragged the artificial reality set from his head. He blinked to focus his eyes. His father, Thomas Thorne, stood in front of him.

  “I finished my homework,” said Martin.

  “I know,” said his dad. “Where were you?”

  “Mars. Why are you looking at me like I’m in trouble?”

  “You’re not in trouble, son. I’m just here to give you something.” He held out a nondescript solid state media case with the old NASA logo on it.

  “What is it?”

  “Mars. The real Mars,” his dad answered and sat down next to him. “Go ahead and install it. I’m curious. One of my client’s owned it. He knew about my father and figured I would be interested.”

  “Are you?”

  He smiled at his son. “Let’s change the subject, Martin. You spend a lot of time in pretend Mars.”

  “The game is called Burroughs,” said Martin. “It’s fun.”

  “Yea, okay, I just thought you might want to see the real thing.”

  Martin took the case and connected it to his computer. The NASA logo bloomed. He worked his way through the registration screens and in less than ten minutes, he was registered as the new leaseholder to the last surviving Mars humaniform explorer. He waited fifteen minutes for the archaic NASA server to buffer the dataflow to his home’s server. The NASA logo spun on the screen and then stopped.

  Glitched, he thought, but then Mars bloomed across his wall screen — pastel rock and yellow sky. The rasp of sand and the low moan of the wind echoed through the house’s sound system. He leaned back in his desk chair and for a few moments, he watched curling dust devils dance.

  “Awesome,” said Martin.

  “It is, isn’t it,” his dad said. “Another world. That’s what he saw. That’s where he is. It doesn’t look like much, does it?”

  “No, I’m sure there are other places,” said Martin. Martin held out the artificial reality set. “Do you want to try?”

  “No, I’ve seen enough. I’ll leave you to it.”

  Martin plugged in his artificial reality set, and the green ready light illuminated. He closed his eyes and placed it on his head. The machine squeezed gently, almost like a living thing and then… Martin stood on a virtual Mars.

  The interface intercepted the high definition digital signal, built a hard protected reality, and pumped it directly into his brain. Martin saw with the explorer’s eyes and heard through the explorer’s ears. He shivered in the simulated cold. The hard part of the reality meant that he could do anything the actual machine could do, but nothing more.

  He looked at his skeletal chrome arm and that single action took almost twenty-eight minutes of real time, but an ingenious system of buffered data and re-clocking signals from the interface tricked his brain into thinking the action was instantaneous. He gazed across the empty rock strewn plain.

  He needed a mission, something to accomplish, just plodding across a Martian desert would get boring fast.

  “Where did you get all this stuff?”

  “The attic,” said Martin. He watched his father peer over his glasses and trace the embossed contour lines on the Mars wall map. His father squinted at the faded pencil-written notes and the crosshatched ellipsis that defined the area of probability of his own father’s final resting place.

  “Are you okay?” asked Martin.

  His dad turned, looking surprised and embarrassed. “Yea, it just brought back some memories. That’s all.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I knew that even if I found him, I couldn’t do anything, but still… it would have been nice to point to a place and say there he is.”

  “Why did you stop looking?”

  “Life happened to me. I got married. You were born. The practice took off and then your mom died. Time is a zero-sum game. Every moment I spent looking for my father was a moment spent… away. I couldn’t stay angry forever, could I?” His father wiped his eyes. They were liquid bright.

  “I’m sorry,” said Martin. Seeing his father sad was a bit terrifying.

  His father left. Martin sifted through the reports and newspaper clippings his father had stored away. He found the official NASA photograph of his grandfather in his blue flight suit. He had never met the man, but somewhere on a dry faraway planet, Martin Louis Thorne, his namesake and the commander of the first and only mission to Mars, rested.

  “I’ll find you,” he said to the picture.

  Martin placed the AR headset on his head and closed his eyes. He had researched official reports and even the outrageous speculations as to what happened to the mission. He concluded that the area of probability that his father had drawn on the map so long ago was his best option.

  The AR booted up in his head. He fully expected to see the pale yellow Martian sky, but instead, he opened his eyes to a tropical beach. He looked down the shoreline and heard the sound of gentle waves and the distant call of seagulls. A thatched hut sheltered under palm trees two hundred yards down the beach

  The safety icons indicated he could back out anytime; nevertheless, he set the safety routines to autonomous. Black realities could subject their victims to terrifying depravities. Should something dangerous or unpleasant occur, his computer would sever the connection, and the worst that would happen was that he would open his eyes in his own room with a mild headache.

  He walked barefoot towards the hut at the edge of the water. The sensation of the millions of grains of sand, smooth pebbles, and sharp shells beneath his feet, as well as the roll of the waves was exquisitely rendered. The air smelled moist and tropical. Darts of light flecked the waves.

  This reality was indistinguishable from the real world, and that scared him. All artificial realities he had experienced required some suspension of disbelief to feel real. This one did not. For the moment, it seemed safe, but it was not where he wanted or expected to be.

  He reached the thatched hut and paused for a moment. He screwed his courage and opened the door. A man sat at a desk behind a floating glass laser monitor.

  “Martin, please come in,” said the man.

  The man was dressed in faded blue jeans and a white button down shirt. His hairline was fashionably receding. “Who are you?” asked Martin. “And where am I?”

  “Good questions, all, but not the central question, is it, Martin?” asked the man.

  “What do you want?”

  “Exactly. The heart of the matter,” said the man. “I am Dr. Damian Player. This is my reality and as to what I want, well, I want the same thing you do, to find your grandfather.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was the one that sent him there,” said Dr. Player.

  The rough wood floor liquefied and turned to slick glass. The thatched walls faded, and Martin found himself standing on an invisible plane in space. Dr. Player stood, and his desk and monitor vanished. Stars appeared and the red orb of Mars filled the space behind Dr. Player.

  Martin checked his icons, which indicated he was alone. Whoever Dr. Player was, he did not register.
In artificial realities, appearances by definition were deceiving, and Martin came by his suspicions honestly. His father’s legal work with artificial reality-based criminality had exposed him to the depraved side of AR.

  “Ah, Martin please step aside.”

  Martin turned in time to see a dot in the far off spacescape grow rapidly into the bulk of a massive gray and white spacecraft. He took two steps to the right, and the ship filled his vision, roaring past him. Powerful vibrations thrummed in his chest.

  Attitude thrusters exploded, and the ship, composed of symmetrically arranged cylinders and spheres, rolled. Three conical landers hung like seedpods from the open truss work superstructure. Martin ducked under solar panels. The ship passed and Martin shielded his eyes from the bright glare emanating from the engine bells.

  Dr. Player clapped his hands and laughed. “Did you feel it? The power! That ship has been virtually built and rebuilt and modified a hundred times in the past twenty-five years. Every nut, bolt, and circuit is absolutely perfect and absolutely possible. All we —, the collective we — need, is a reason to build it and that, Martin, is where you come in,” said Dr. Player. “I know you are looking for your grandfather with the humaniform explorer and I want you to find him.”

  “All I have is an area of probability,” Marin said. “I could spend years looking.”

  “I know exactly where the lander is,” said Dr. Player.

  “No one knows,” Martin said, . “I’ve read all the reports.”

  “They didn’t die in the crash, Martin. It was an accident. We only had one ship. All of the astronauts knew it would be a one way trip if something went wrong. We gambled and lost, but it is time we went back.”

  “Why?” asked Martin.

  “Because we need to see what is out there. This is a very small world, and it is a very big universe. That ship you just saw can be real. It should be real. Finding out what happened to your grandfather could be the key to a new era.”