“Could have been worse,” Jonno wheezed. He was sitting on a corner of the Viking. “Mars has dust storms all the time. We could have been hidden altogether, under a storm kilometers high.”
“She’s right, though,” Vikram said. “Even if they’re looking, they won’t have seen us. The bag isn’t going to get us through another night, is it?” And then there was the food. They had half a ration bar left each. He was already hungry. “We can’t just stand here waiting to be rescued. We’re going to have to do something.”
Jonno snorted, despairing. “Like what?”
Natalie said, “What about the Viking?”
Vikram stood back and looked at the yellowed old craft. “It’s just a relic.”
“But it’s also a big heavy chunk of engineering. There must be something we can do with it. The trouble is, I don’t know how it works, what all these bits on top of it do.” She looked up at the empty sky. “If only I could get online and do some searching!”
Jonno tapped at his wrist. “No need. Give me a minute.”
She frowned. “What’s that?”
“Wristmate,” Vikram said. “Multiple functions—including a wide database. He can look up the Viking in there.”
She stared. “You carry a database around on your wrist?”
“When Mars is as crowded as Earth and there’s a wireless node under every rock,” Vikram said acidly, “maybe we won’t need to.”
Jonno pointed at the equipment on the Viking’s upper surface. “This canister here is a mass spectrometer. This is a seismometer. These pillarlike things are cameras. Stereoscopic.”
To Vikram, everything looked big and clumsy and clunky. “I never saw cameras like that.”
“Maybe there’s something we can use. . . .” Jonno started to tap at his wristmate, muttering.
Natalie walked around the lander. “I suppose some of it is obvious. This arm, for instance, must be for taking samples from the soil. Maybe there’s some kind of lab inside.”
Vikram bent down to see. “Look, you can see the trench it dug.”
“After all these years?”
He shrugged. “The dust blows about, but Mars doesn’t change much. Look at this.” He found a faded painted flag, and the words UNITED STATES. “What’s this, the company that built it?”
“No. The nation that sent it. This is its flag.”
“I never heard of it.”
“America. You’ve heard of America. Of course America doesn’t exist anymore, not since the oil wars and the partition. . . . But here’s its flag, sitting on Mars. My grandfather said the Americans landed this thing to celebrate a hundred years of independence. Or maybe it was two hundred.”
Vikram laughed. “How can any part of Earth be independent of anywhere else? And anyhow, independence from what?”
She shrugged. “Canada, I think.”
Jonno coughed and staggered. He had to hang onto the Viking to avoid falling.
Vikram ran to him and helped him settled down in the dust. “What’s wrong, buddy?”
“It’s not working.”
“What isn’t?”
“Look, the lander’s got a comms system. Obviously. The big dish antenna is for speaking directly to Earth, and the little spoke thing over there is an ultra-high-frequency antenna for talking to an orbiter. I tried to interface my suit’s systems to the lander’s. But the electronics is shot to pieces by a hundred and fifty years of Martian winters. And, look at this—” He showed Vikram an image on his wristmate. “Transistors! They used transistors! They may as well have sent up a blanket and sent smoke signals with that robot arm.”
Natalie said, “So we can’t use its comms system to send a signal.”
“Not without a museum full of old electronic parts, no. . . . Oww.” He slumped over, clutching his chest.
Vikram lay Jonno down in the dust, by one of the Viking’s footpads. “It’s all right.”
Natalie hurried over with her decompression bag. “Here. I’ll blow this up a little way. We can use it as a sleeping bag, a pillow.”
“I’m not going to make it,” Jonno whispered.
“Just save your strength,” Vikram said.
“What for? I let you down, man. If I could have figured out some way of using the Viking to get us out of here—”
“I might still work something out.”
“You?” Jonno laughed, and something gurgled in his throat.
They pulled the bag around Jonno’s body. Wordless, Natalie pointed at Jonno’s neck, the inner seal of his suit. There was a line of red there. Blood. His suit was filling up with blood.
Natalie said, “I’ll go and take a look at the Viking. Can I use your watch? I mean your—”
“Wristmate?” Vikram said. “Sure.”
“Give her mine,” Jonno whispered. “No use to me now.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
Natalie took Jonno’s wristmate and backed away, poking at its screen to access its functions.
Jonno’s voice was a rasp now. “I’m just sorry I won’t meet the lovely Hiroe in person.”
“Shut up.”
“But let me tell you something. . . . Listen. . . .”
Natalie saw Vikram bending over his friend, listening to some snippet of private conversation. He had to touch faceplates to hear.
Natalie didn’t want to know what they were saying. And besides, it made no difference. Unless they figured out a way out of here, she and Vikram were likely to follow Jonno into some shallow Martian grave, taking any secrets with them.
But she wasn’t prepared to accept that. Not yet. Not with this Viking, sitting here on Chryse Plain like a gift from the gods. There had to be some way of using it to get out of here.
She suspected the Martian boys didn’t think the right way about the probe. Vikram lived on an inhabited Mars, a human Mars. But there had been nobody on Mars when the Viking arrived here. Nobody had brought the probe here in a truck and set it up. It was a robot that had sailed, unmanned, across the solar system and landed here by itself.
How had it landed? She checked the wristmate again. She learned that the Viking had come down from orbit using a combination of heat shield, parachute—and landing rockets. Rockets!
She got down on her hands and knees so she could see underneath the main body. She found rocket nozzles—a whole bunch of them, eighteen.
What if she started the rocket system up again?
She sat back on her heels and tried to think. She knew very little about liquid rockets, but she knew you needed a propellant, a fuel, something like liquid hydrogen, and an oxidizer, a chemical containing oxygen to make the fuel burn. And if there was fuel, there must be fuel tanks. She got to her feet and searched.
She quickly found one big spherical tank on one side of the lander. She rapped it and thought it felt like it still contained some liquid. But there had to be a second tank. . . .
She spent long minutes hunting for the other tank, feeling increasingly stupid. Then she looked up Viking on Jonno’s wristmate again. And she discovered that the rockets had been powered by a “monopropellant” called hydrazine. A bit more searching told her how that had worked.
It was a system you’d use if you needed extremely reliable engines, for instance on a robot spacecraft a hundred million kilometers away from the nearest engineer. Hydrazine was like fuel and propellant all in one chemical. It didn’t even need an ignition system, a spark. You just squirted it over a catalyst, a special kind of metal. That made the hydrazine break down into other chemicals, ammonia, nitrogen, and hydrogen. And it released a huge amount of heat too. Suddenly you had a bunch of hot, expanding gases—and if you fired the gases out of your nozzles, you had your rocket.
Her heart beat faster. There was some hydrazine left in the tank. All she had to do was figure out how the hydrazine got to its catalyst and to the nozzles.
She got down in the Martian dust and crawled under the lander, tracing pipes and valves.
�
��We need to move him away from the lander.”
Vikram, cradling Jonno, had forgotten Natalie was even here. “Huh? Why? We don’t know what this injury is. It’s probably best not to move him.”
“Trust me. Look, we’ll keep him wrapped in the bag. You take his legs and I’ll take his shoulders. We’ll be gentle.” She moved to Jonno’s head and got her hands under his shoulders.
Vikram didn’t see any option but to go along with it. “He’s kind of heavy.”
“I’ve got Earth muscles. On Mars, I’m superstrong.”
He snorted. “After months in microgravity? I don’t think so.”
But she was strong enough to lift Jonno. “Okay. We’ll take him behind that ridge, so he’s sheltered from the lander.”
Bemused, Vikram followed her instructions.
They soon got Jonno settled again. He didn’t regain consciousness. Then Vikram copied Natalie when she got down in the red dirt, sheltering behind the ridge, facing the lander. “I suppose this has all got some point.”
“Oh, yes.” She held up Jonno’s wristmate. “I hope I got this right. I found a valve under the lander, leading from the fuel tank. I fixed it up to a switch from a spare pump from my backpack. When I touch the wristmate, that switch should open the valve.”
“And then what?”
“You’ll see. Do you space boys still have countdowns?”
“What’s a countdown?”
“Three, two, one.” She touched the wristmate.
Dust gushed out from under the lander, billowing clouds that raced away, falling back in the thin air. And then the lander lifted off, wobbling, shaking away a hundred and fifty years of accumulated Martian dirt.
Vikram was astonished. He yelled, “Wow!” He grabbed Natalie’s shoulders. “What a stunt!”
“Thanks.” Natalie waited patiently until, embarrassed, he let her go.
The Viking was still rising, wobbling and spinning under the unequal thrust from dust-clogged nozzles.
Natalie said, “I’m hoping that a rocket launch will attract a bit of attention, even on a low-tech planet like this one. I was worried that the whole thing would just blow up, which was why I thought we should get some cover. But even that would have made a splash.”
“You’re a genius.” He watched the Viking. “It’s still rising. But I think the fuel has run out already. When it comes down it’s going to be wrecked.”
“Oops. I hope the park authorities will forgive me. And the ghosts of the engineers who built the thing.” Suddenly she sounded doubtful. “You think this will work, then.”
“I think you’ve saved my life. I hope they come in time for Jonno too.” He said awkwardly, “Thank you. Look, we got off on the wrong foot.”
“Well, you did crash into me.”
“You crashed into us—never mind. When this is all over, why don’t you stay on Mars a bit? I, I mean we, could show you the sights. Hellas, the poles, the Mariner valley. Even some of the domed towns aren’t bad. You could bring Benedicte.”
“And I could meet Hiroe.”
He felt his cheeks burn. “I’m trying to be nice here.”
“I’ll stay on one condition.”
“What?”
“Tell me what Jonno whispered before he lost consciousness.”
“That was private. They could be his last words.”
“Spill it, dust-digger.”
“He said if I didn’t want Hiroe, I could always marry a girl from outside the Martian gene pool altogether. That would be legal.”
“Such as?”
“A girl from Earth.”
“Shut up.”
“You asked.”
“Shut up!”
“With pleasure.”
In silence, they lay in the dirt and watched as the Viking reached the top of its trajectory, and, almost gracefully, fell back through the light of the Martian morning, heading for its second, and final, landing on Mars.
And, minutes later, a contrail arced across the sky, banking as the rescuers searched Chryse Plain.
STEPHEN BAXTER is the author of more than forty books and over one hundred short stories. His most recent books are the near-future disaster duology Flood and Ark. Upcoming is a new novel, Stone Spring, first of a new alternate prehistory saga, and a major omnibus of his acclaimed Xeelee novels.
His Web site is www.stephen-baxter.com.
AUTHOR’SNOTE
I liked the idea that Mars is already a human world. The robot spacecraft we sent are sitting up there; there are already trackmarks and scoop scars. When humans get there, these will play a role as the first human monuments—and maybe more.
FIRST PRINCIPLE
Nancy Kress
He was even bigger than I expected. All three of them were. Barb and I watched on the link screen as they waited for the transport bay to pressurize, as they climbed out of the rover. Dr. Langley, in his rotation as council leader, made a welcome speech. The parents managed exhausted smiles, but the boy scowled.
“He’s so ugly,” Barb said. “And look at him—he hates us already.”
“He’s scared,” I said. “Wouldn’t you be, if you got taken away to Earth?”
Barb made a vomiting sound and folded her small arms across her chest. “Don’t be so good all the time, Gina. It’s wearying.”
I didn’t answer her. I’m not “good,” just reasonable. If Mom had ever dragged me to Earth from Mars, I’d be just as scared as this boy looked. Not that anyone would be so insane as to leave Mars for Earth.
Barb said, “They should stay where they belong. Hell, Gina, that reco we saw just last night!”
“We don’t know that this kid watches that sort of reco.”
“We don’t know that he doesn’t.”
Now Dr. Langley and the “immigrants”—such a strange word, we haven’t had immigration to Mars in decades and never to Mangala—walked through the rover bay and into Level 1. More people to greet them, more speeches. I tugged on Barb’s hand, and we moved to the boy to do our part. “It would be nice if someone his own age were there to greet David Hansen,” my mother had said, in the tone that meant You’re elected. I’d made Barb go with me. Now that didn’t seem like such a good idea. She radiated contempt.
Maybe David Hansen felt it. Or maybe he was just stupid. This was our world; he was the outsider, and he didn’t even try to fake good manners. After the adult introductions, while the officials chatted warily, stumbling over each other’s strange accents, David and Barb and I stared at each other, silent. But the message in his eyes was clear. You’re ugly, you’re deformed, you’re monsters, you’re not even human. Last night’s reco lay on my mind.
Does he have any idea how he looks to us?
“Hello,” I said finally. “I’m Gina Mellit and this is Barb Fu. I understand you play chess.”
He wasn’t stupid. He had manners when he chose to use them, although even then a sneer underlay the polite phrases. He was a better chess player than I am, and I’d been Valles Marineris junior champion. He hated Mars, and I hated him.
But not at first. “He’s scared,” I said to Barb and Hai-Yan and Andre and Ezra until I was tired of saying it and they were tired of hearing it. David wasn’t scared, he was a sick, supercilious son-of-a-bitch. But at first he was just plain sick. They took his family down to Level 2 and gave them a room on the terrace—which Mom and I wouldn’t get until our rotation came up next year—and specially designated a bot to take care of him while his parents, who weren’t sick, went to work in the labs. And then they urged me to play chess with him.
“Why can’t he play against the computer?” I said.
“He can,” Mom said. “He does. But I’m sure he needs human company, Gina. Wouldn’t you, in his place?”
I didn’t say, I’m not in his place. I didn’t say, I wouldn’t ever be in his place. I didn’t say, His place made those recos about us. All those things were true, but you didn’t say them to Mom, who was a Spiritual Guide when she was
n’t a geneticist. The First Principle was even stronger in our family than in my friends’, especially since my father was killed a year ago in an accident on the surface. So I didn’t say any of it. I went to play chess with David Hansen.
The bot let me in. I nodded to it and said, “Gina Mellit to visit David Hansen. Chessboard, please.”
From his bed David said, “Why are so polite to it? It’s just a machine.”
“Why not be polite?” I said.
He did something with his tongue that I knew from the recos meant extreme contempt. And because that kind of reco was the only Earth feed where I’d ever seen that tongue thing, I knew then that he watched them.
The bot handed me an old-fashioned chess set, carved of some heavy Terran wood. I put it on the table beside David’s bed, he sat up shakily, and I held out my closed fists. “Right one,” he said. It held the white pawn. He opened with the Sicilian, I responded, and we played in a thick, ugly silence. He was a romantic player, making bold attacks and sacrifices, and I should have been able to counter that style of play. But somehow the advantage eluded me. Two pawns down, I lifted my eyes from the board to rest them on Mars.
The terrace rooms on Level 2 have a wonderful view. Mangala, a fairly new settlement although I’ve lived in it my whole life, is built against a south-facing cliff. The cliff face is terraced in four levels, each set back from the one below, with steps on the outside that mean you don’t have to wait for the elevators if you don’t want to. Pots on the terraces hold genemod flowers designed by my mother, and at the bottom is the park, full of the genemod plants and trees that the wizards are always improving. The clear plastic of the shield slants down from the top of the cliff, Level 1, to the ground, and then beyond that is the shallow dome of the farm. From David’s bed he could see the green of the park and the farm, and beyond them the red landscape and glorious pink sky.
David followed my gaze. “It’s so ugly.”
“Ugly?” My and Mom’s current quarters were in the worst part of our rotation, at the back of Level 4 where the sound of the excavation bots droned, night and day, even through the stone.
Life on Mars Page 11
