Colony Mars Ultimate Edition

by Gerald M. Kilby

  But as the first year passed, messages from mission control started to include phrases such as: budget constraints, political apathy, low priority. Fear grew in Jann’s mind that Earth was losing its appetite for Mars. It became clear to her that there was little desire, by any of the ISA member governments, to spend billions rescuing someone who could potentially devastate the entire population of the planet. So they had effectively abandoned her.

  At the start she was angry, but as the second year passed she began to accept it. She couldn’t blame them, really. By the third year, she had resigned herself to dying on Mars. The only problem was, like Nills, she was getting younger, not older. To die on Mars might take her a very, very long time. Unless it was by her own hand—and she began to realize it might come to that in the end.

  So day by day, slowly but surely, the colony had changed her and made Dr. Jann Malbec just another part of its enormous biological ecosystem. It needed a human to complete its collection of flora and fauna, so it entered deep into her psyche and sought out the essence of the animal that lay within. By now, she wore little clothing and went barefoot. Her food she hunted by spear and gathered by hand. She ate by the fire and slept in a tree. Her hair had become a long mass of matted dreadlocks. The colony had claimed her for itself—and it had done a good job.

  She had made herself a nest high up in the crown of the tallest coconut tree, and at night, looked out through the translucent dome roof at the vastness of the universe. What was she becoming? An exotic specimen in an equally exotic enclosure, to be peered at by the gods? Sometimes she would rise from her bed of straw and leaves and shake her fists at the heavens. She would rant and rage against her sense of insignificance and challenge the infinity of the void above her, like King Lear going mad on the mountain. “Screw you, space!” or words to that effect.

  Lifting the skewered fish from the fire, Jann set it down on a banana leaf to cool. She couldn’t hear the robot anymore, it must have moved off to tend to some other part of the biodome. While she waited for her meal to cool she lifted up the spear and examined the point. It had become blunt with use; she would set about sharpening it later. Jann had become quite adept with it. She had taken to setting up targets in and around the biodome and would run through as fast as she could firing off spears, one after the other as she flew by. By now, she seldom missed. Once she got so angry at the robot she threw one at it. She missed that time.

  Jann tested the fish; it was ready. She clamped the skewer between her teeth and scampered up the trunk of the tall coconut tree to her nest, where she could relax and eat her meal. From its height she had a commanding view over the whole biodome canopy. It felt safe. She had just finished the last of her meal and was wiping her face with the back of her hand when she heard the robot enter the biodome again. From the sound, it was moving at speed. It burst through the dense foliage out onto the central dais, stopped, scanned the area, and then tilted its head up at Jann.

  “GO AWAY!” she shouted at it.

  “Dr. Malbec, there is something important you need to know.”

  “I don’t want to know, now go away.” She picked up a coconut and flung it at the little robot. It didn’t dodge, it simply caught it in its metal hand. It had uncanny reflexes. Jann was always impressed at how it could do this. Sometimes she would sneak up behind it and fire off a spear. It nearly always caught it. The only time it didn’t was when it had calculated that whatever projectile Jann was throwing at it was going to miss. Jann had no idea how it could be so accurate and agile. But then again, it was a machine.

  It placed the coconut gently on the ground. “Jann, this is important. Do I have your attention?”

  Jann glared at it. “Oh, all right, what is it?”

  “Another Earthling has just entered the airlock.”

  Jann felt like she had been physically kicked in the gut. She had to sit down.

  “Jann, did you hear what I said?”

  She tried to get words out of her mouth but they just wouldn’t come.

  “Jann?”

  “That… that’s… not… possible.” She thought maybe the robot was playing a trick on her, getting its own back for her insensitivity and borderline cruelty to it. But it was a droid, it was straight and true, and in many respects, a better friend to her than many humans she had known.

  “Okay… I need to think… I need to…” her sentence trailed off.

  “I understand that this is an improbable event. But nonetheless, another Earthling has entered the airlock.”

  “How can this be?”

  “I possess insufficient data to offer any useful analysis. What do you want me to do?”

  Jann thought about this. “Can it get in?”

  “It is a he, and he is already in. However, he cannot move as he appears to be barely alive.”

  Jann’s shock was beginning to recede, enough for her to gain some control. “Okay, okay, I’m coming.” She clambered down the tree trunk, slowly, as she was still shaken by this news. Near the base she jumped down onto the dais, grabbed her spear and ran off towards the main airlock. “Come on, Gizmo, let’s see this Earthling.”

  Jann looked at the forlorn figure lying on the floor of the airlock with a sense of incredulity. “Where in God’s name did he come from?”

  “That is a very good question, Jann,” replied Gizmo.

  She inched closer, still holding the spear high, just in case. But it was clear this human was no threat. He had passed out and his life was ebbing away. She put down the spear and knelt beside him. His suit was battered and filthy. Patched up to maintain its integrity and mechanically hacked to make it function. It was more steampunk than space age. But she could still make out it was from the colony.

  “He’s a colonist, judging by the design of the suit. Quick, help me get him in to the medlab.”

  With that, Gizmo lifted the unconscious figure and brought him out of the airlock. They placed him on the table in the medlab, removed his suit and hooked up several IVs to get fluids into him as quickly as possible. His body had lost its ability to sweat and his core temperature was critically high.

  “He’s dangerously dehydrated; he could have a heart attack any minute.”

  After some time, Jann had managed to stabilize him. “Who the hell is he?”

  “We could do a retinal scan and see if we get a match from the medlab database,” offered Gizmo.

  “Okay, let’s do that. Then at least we might get some clues.” Jann tapped a few buttons on the operating table control panel and an arm extended from the wall, positioning itself over his head. A thin line of light scanned across his face as Jann deftly pushed back one of his eyelids. Data began to display on the main monitor. As it searched, images of colonists momentarily flashed on screen, then it stopped. It had found a match. Thomas Boateng. Colonist number 27.

  Jann read the data. “This can’t be right.”

  “It has a 99.9% accuracy probability,” said Gizmo.

  “Well this must be in the 0.1% range because it says this colonist died over seven years ago.”

  “Intriguing,” replied Gizmo. “I assume you mean Earth years?”

  “It says here that he died on sol 6,348, due to a severe brain aneurysm as the result of injuries sustained in a mining accident.” She looked back at the patient. “So this guy must be someone else.”

  “He cannot be someone else, the retinal scan is very accurate.”

  “Well he can’t be dead and alive at the same time.”

  “Indeed. That would be very unlikely.”

  The bio-monitor screeched an alarm as the colonist’s vitals went critical. “Dammit, he’s going into cardiac arrest. Quick, get the defibrillator.” Jann started ripping off the remaining clothes around the colonist’s chest as Gizmo handed her the pads. She rubbed them together to get an even coating of gel and positioned them on his upper ribcage. “Clear.” She hit the button and several hundred volts tore through his body. His back arched for a moment then he slump
ed back down. The alarm continued. “Shit, come on.” Jann waited for the charge to build and tried again, and again, and again.

  His skin was scorched and there was a distinct smell of burning flesh in the air. But no joy. Jann flicked the switch on the bio-monitor to silence the alarm. He was still. She stood back and looked at the colonist. “Well, he’s dead now, for sure. We may never know who he was.”

  “He is Thomas Boateng.”

  “He can’t be, Gizmo.” Jann was beginning to get angry at its infuriating rationality, so she distracted herself by scanning through the medical records of the dead colonist. They were extensive. “It says here he should have a benign mole just above the left shoulder blade.” She glanced over at Gizmo. “Let’s take a look.”

  They raised him up and peeled away the remains of his tattered vest. “Holy crap,” Jann was stunned.

  “It seems this really is Boateng.” Gizmo lowered the body down again.

  “That’s just not possible.”

  “It is not probable. But as you so rightly pointed out to me many years ago, it would seem it is, indeed, possible. Here lies the evidence.” Gizmo extended a mechanical arm towards the dead man with all the theater of a stage artist.

  “There’s one way to find out for sure and that’s do a dental x-ray.” Jann tapped a few buttons on the operating table control panel and a large doughnut-shaped ring started to advance along the table. It moved across the face of the dead colonist and the resultant scan rendered on the main screen. Jann now tapped the historical image from the dental records and the two images were presented together. “That’s weird.”

  “What is?” said Gizmo.

  “Well I’m no expert at dental forensics but the shape and layout of the teeth and jaw are identical. Except this guy hasn’t had any dental work, not even a filling.”

  “Is that strange?”

  “Yes, very. If I were to hazard a guess I would say this is a younger version of the same person.”

  “Like Nills?”

  “Yes and no. Nills was getting younger, that’s correct. But this guy would seem to have come back from the dead.” She went silent for a moment. “The other big question is where did he come from?”

  “The only possible place is the mining outpost, on the far side of the crater.”

  “That’s a hell of a long walk.”

  “Indeed. Probably why he died in the attempt.”

  “But Nills said no one in the mine survived.”

  “It would seem Nills was wrong.”

  “Holy shit, maybe there are more people out there?”

  “It is a distinct possibility.”

  Jann turned and rubbed her head. “I need time to think, this is all too much. For someone to show up like that after all this time is one thing. But the fact that this person already died seven years ago is… I don’t know… mind blowing.”

  “There is something we could do to shed some light on the mystery.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Pay a visit to the mausoleum.”

  “You mean see if the original body of Boateng is still there?”

  “Exactly.”

  “If it is, then what?”

  “Then that means there are two Thomas Boatengs, impossible as that may be.”

  Jann switched off the main screen and stopped short as she caught her reflection in the blank monitor. She stared at herself in shock. Instead of Dr. Jann Malbec, Science Officer of the ISA Mars mission, what returned her gaze was a semi-naked, feral animal. Was this what she had become? “Christ, is that actually me?” She looked away. Maybe I truly have gone mad. Then a thought shook her to her very core. “How would I really know?”

  She walked out of the medlab, making sure to lock the door. It was done out of paranoia, from the memories of what had happened there before. Then she did something she hadn’t done in a very long time. She went and had a shower.

  2

  More Than One

  Jann sat in her wicker chair in the central dais wearing a crisp clean Colony One jumpsuit, which itched. She examined her thick matted hair in a small mirror as Gizmo waited silently beside her. “If I’m going to EVA out to the mausoleum my head is not going to fit in a helmet with all this hair. Will you cut it for me, Gizmo?”

  “Certainly, Jann. How would you like it?”

  “Just take it all off. Leave about a centimeter.”

  Gizmo moved closer, selected a suitable tool from its collection and went to work. It took only a few minutes for Jann’s matted hair to form a large mound on the floor of the dais. When Gizmo finished she examined the robot’s handiwork in the mirror. She rubbed her hand over her scalp and felt the tight crop. It was like a velvet mat. “Oh, that feels so much better. My head must be a few kilos lighter.”

  “My pleasure, I am here to assist.”

  “Okay then, let’s go do this. Let’s see if there really are two Thomas Boatengs.”

  The mausoleum was fashioned from an old lander module and isolated from the main Colony One structure. It had no power or life support. There was no need for that in a place for the dead. Jann cracked the handle on the makeshift crypt and swung the door open. She stepped inside and scanned the racks. Paolio, Lu, Kevin… they were all here, the entire crew of the doomed ISA mission. It even housed what was left of Annis. A blackened husk was all that remained after Jann had incinerated her.

  This module had been used by the original colonists as a place to temporarily store the dead before they were buried. But as time passed, they realized that in the rarefied atmosphere of Mars, bodies do not decompose. So they simply left them interred in here. As more dead were added it became the de facto mausoleum for Colony One.

  The walls were lined with horizontal metal racks, floor to ceiling. On these lay the corpses of the departed. In the center was a raised circular table, holding artifacts of faith and no faith, as well as totems of remembrance. Jann considered that in some distant time, it might become a hallowed place. Venerated by the future citizens of Mars as a direct link to their foundation history.

  She moved over to where the body of Thomas Boateng should be resting. It was still there, lying on a long metal shelf. A thin layer of dust had accumulated over it; it had been there a long time. She looked at the desiccated face. It was hard to be sure, but there was a vague resemblance to the recently deceased visitor. She judged this simply by a visual inspection of body height and facial structure rather than from anything scientific. Jann then considered looking for the mole on his shoulder but now that she was face to face, she couldn’t bring herself to disturb the dead.

  “Satisfied?” Gizmo’s voice resonated in her helmet as the robot buzzed in beside her.

  “Yes and no. If this guy died seven years ago, then who is the person on the operating table in the medlab?”

  “It is another Thomas Boateng.”

  “I find that very hard to comprehend.” She sighed. “Come on, let’s go. There’s nothing more we can do here.” They moved outside and Jann swung the door closed. Hopefully she would not have to visit this place again anytime soon.

  In the early days of her life in Colony One, Jann had always considered the mine as an area needing more detailed investigation. A place where she might find some answers. But it was considerably farther than Nills had originally suggested—over thirty kilometers away on the other side of the Jezero crater. Much too far to EVA, as the dead colonist had found out to his detriment. So she had given the mine no further thought. Now, though, it seemed that it was not as dead as Nills had led her to believe—something was going on over there. Yet, even if she could not EVA to it, she could at least start to look in the Colony One archives and get a better understanding of its formation, and perhaps even its true purpose. So it was a reinvigorated Jann that set to work in the operations room in Colony One.

  Much of what was contained in the archives was vague and sparse. Most of what Jann had learned had come from Nills. She knew that the early colonists had disc
overed a mineral rich cave system on the other side of the crater rim. This much was common knowledge. She also knew that at some point, it had been sealed up and a pressurized atmosphere created inside. This allowed it to be used not just as a mine but also as a secondary colony—Colony Two.

  Food production had been established inside and, over time, many of the original colonists had moved over there permanently. Nills intimated that this had been as a direct response to the increasing invasiveness of the reality TV model that had funded the initial colony. But what was of most interest to Jann was the fact that the geneticists had also relocated there, shortly before everything went to rat shit in Colony One.

  She stood up from the workstation terminal and stretched her shoulders. She had been studying the archives for over three hours straight but had not learned anything she didn’t know already. She rubbed her head again; it was becoming a habit. She liked the feel of her closely cropped skull and the lightness it gave her. She moved over to the newly repaired holo-table. The original had been damaged when the insane Commander Decker threw Paolio at it. Every time Jann used it she couldn’t help but shed a tear for her dear friend. Her feelings for Decker were not quite the same. But in reality, he was just as much a victim as any of the others of the unfortunate ISA crew.

  She brought up a map of the crater and zoomed out to get a broad view. It rendered itself in 3D so she could get a sense of the scale of the vast crater. Jann rotated it and found the location of the mining outpost. It was at least thirty-five kilometers away. That’s a hell of a walk to undertake in a battered EVA suit, she thought. She zoomed in on the site and a wire-frame image of the structure began to render as it dialed in closer. It was big. Maybe twenty times the volume of Colony One, and that could accommodate a hundred people. But the wire-frame was sketchy, there was very little detail in it.

  Jann looked up as Gizmo entered the operations room. “Gizmo. Have a look at this.” She pointed to the location of Colony Two on the holo-table. “How come there’s so little detail on the internal structure of the mine?”