Before Mars

by Emma Newman

  I send it in and get an instantaneous reply. Route change request denied. “What the fuck?” I mutter and type back, Why?

  Insufficient drone data. Unable to guarantee minimum safety requirements.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” I mutter and Petranek chuckles.

  “Told you the prince is a fussy sod. Look, why don’t we just carry on as planned and then you can argue with the prince when we get back?”

  “No, that’s a waste of our time. I’m not going to let some bloody AI dictate the way I do my job.”

  In my professional opinion, the areas on the new route have the same risk factors as the approved route. We can gather data as we travel.

  Route change request denied.

  You are impeding my ability to do my job, I type back.

  “Why don’t you just talk to hir?” Petranek asks, but I can’t maintain two arguments at once so I pretend I didn’t hear the question and carry on typing on my v-keyboard.

  I need to see new areas not previously recorded by mersives for two reasons: 1: To have original subject matter to paint and thereby increase the value of my art and thereby increase the profit margin for GaborCorp. If you continue to impede my ability to do the job that Mr. Stefan Gabor personally sent me here to do, I will contact his lawyers and have them override you. 2: Because I have had a diagnosis of early-stage immersion psychosis and I believe seeing nonrecorded areas will aid my recovery. I’m sure Dr. Arnolfi and Dr. Elvan would agree.

  Permission granted.

  I smirk. The need to increase corporate profits always trumps any concern for employee safety. No doubt Principia weighed it up with the primary goal for my trip and couldn’t find a strong enough reason to block this. Anything strong enough to withstand the lawyers, anyway.

  The route displayed on the windscreen changes and Petranek whistles. “Oh wow. Okay. I haven’t been in that direction before. None of us have. Isn’t it dangerous?”

  “No more dangerous than the original route.”

  “But why haven’t the drones recorded it?”

  “Because of your friend and mine: the cost-benefit analysis,” I reply. “The lab I used to work in requested it a couple of years ago, but the corp argued that the amount of resources required to send out the cam drones and keep them well maintained outweighed any benefits that hi-def renderings could provide. Water had already been found and the value of Mars discoveries had crashed on the information markets. No one cares about Mars when GaborCorp has exclusive rights to operate here.”

  I don’t say anything about my frustration with GaborCorp about this. There’s always the chance that what we say will be raised later if they’re looking for ways to boot us out of our contracts early. So I rant silently in my head about all the opportunities that GaborCorp is wasting by holding on to Mars and doing so little with it. I can remember my grandmother talking about the scientists before the collapse of democracy, the ones who had grand plans for colonizing Mars. All gone now. Doing something for the good of humankind, for the sheer ideological ambition of extending our footprint beyond Earth, simply isn’t profitable enough. Now GaborCorp makes its money from the show Banks stars in, piping bite-size science with a heavy dollop of sexed-up pioneer bullshit into the feeds for the people who barely leave their apartments to watch and pseudo-participate in. And I lapped it up like the rest of them.

  We haven’t changed course yet, though Petranek has slowed down. “Are you worried about this? Want to go back to base? I don’t mind dropping you off and carrying on without you.”

  Ze stops the rover. “No, it’s fine. Sorry. I just . . . I guess I’m more of a creature of habit than I realized. I’m just not used to striking out into new areas.”

  “Seriously, there’s nothing to worry about. I’m not going to take us somewhere dangerous, am I?” I twist in my seat to make eye contact and smile. “Trust me. I’m a geologist.”

  Petranek grins and turns the rover around, and we speed off as I close a new dialog box listing all of the risk factors that could endanger our safety on this new route.

  7

  THE THING ABOUT traveling millions of miles to another planet, one that is fundamentally unsuitable for human life, is that there are risks. There were points in the journey where the risk of my death was higher than most people would ever face during an entire lifetime, and one of those was just takeoff. I don’t have any patience for Principia’s nannying. This is frontier science, and art, come to think of it, as horribly pretentious as that sounds. Risk is inevitable.

  If he were here, Charlie would lecture me now about managed risk. That insurmountable distance between us doesn’t seem so bad all of a sudden.

  I lean back and let the scenery scroll by as “memories” of shooting aliens flicker in and out of my consciousness at the sight of familiar rock formations used by the game. We’re skirting the southern edge of the Elysium Planitia region and I can’t help but try to imagine what this volcanic area was like when it was still active. There are fully rendered mersives that I worked on with the education and outreach team back home, designed to take curious children on tours of Mars set millions and millions of years ago. Giant volcanoes dwarfing anything on Earth, seas and rivers . . . all based on what we’ve pieced together so far with a minimal amount of speculation. Having found no evidence for it to date, the mersive was devoid of life. And that’s what people kept asking about, as if they expected there to be dinosaurs or something. “But if there was water, couldn’t there have been life on Mars?” That’s always the inevitable question. Was there life then, before the atmosphere thinned and it turned into this barren place? Was there anything living in those seas? What happened to all the water? Loss into space due to the atmosphere doesn’t account for all of it to anyone’s satisfaction. I personally think a lot of it is still here, just frozen, and there have been extensive deposits of ice found, but still not enough to make the calculations work.

  The jury is still out on whether there was microbial life on ancient Mars. I’ve worked on samples that could be interpreted as compelling evidence but I haven’t been able to rule out geological causes for the characteristics that we’ve observed. I need to be out there, drilling, looking for silica and chert and clay mineral deposits, liaising with the scientists on Earth who still care about the thrill of knowing for the sake of knowing. What if that evidence is right beneath our feet now? What if Mars is more a cautionary tale than we want to believe? I don’t for a moment think there was a civilization here—as much as the child in me wants there to have been one, with such a fierce intensity—but there could have been microbial life.

  The Pathfinder said she was convinced there would be life on the planet they were aiming to reach. Did they make it there? They were using such advanced technology that the risk factors would have sent Principia into free fall. I hope they reached that planet and that they found life more advanced than bacteria. And I wish they could send back word of it, instantly, like in the silly sci-fi mersives, and shut up the religious extremists who haven’t stopped bleating on about the Pathfinder’s heresy for decades. I would love to see the looks on their faces if Earth wasn’t the only place gifted with life by the god they try to ram down everyone’s throats. They could do with a dose of humility on an interstellar scale. Finding evidence of life closer to home would be better.

  “It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it?” Petranek says and I give a noncommittal grunt. “Are you missing your family?”

  I am missing something, but I’m not yearning to be with my family the way ze assumes I should be. “Yes,” I say, because that’s what is expected. Surely I must be, somewhere deep down. I think about them a lot. But then I realize I haven’t actually thought about Mia today and that old guilt surges up and bursts into life with the gassy intensity of a Strombolian eruption. I should say more—Petranek is trying to make conversation—but I might not seem genuine. And I can’t tell the truth, that
I was actually relieved when I left the flat with my case for the last time before the flight. That when I got in the taxi I felt lighter than I had for weeks. Oh God, I am such an awful person.

  “Do you have family back home?” I ask, hoping that flipping the conversational pressure away from me will do the trick.

  Petranek nods. “Father, two brothers and a couple of nieces. We’re not that close. No immediate family. I was married, like, ten thousand years ago, back when I was trying out the whole femme thing. Shit, what a disaster that was.”

  I want to know more, but I can’t ask. It’s too personal, too soon.

  “My ex was basically a caveman,” ze volunteers. “I was totally fucked up about . . . everything.” A short, nervous laugh bursts out, filling the rover. “I think I tried to make it work with him because I was trapped in the whole binary lie, you know? My mum died when I was really small, my dad is . . . very traditional and my brothers are men’s men, you know? Every time I tried to express myself, it was held up against them. When I cut up my dresses and cut off my hair, they said I was trying to be like them. When I swung the other way and went hyperfemme, it was to ‘assert my separate identity,’ for fuck’s sake.”

  “That’s what your dad said?”

  “No, the quack he brought in to evaluate me. It was really shit.”

  “But you got out.”

  “Yeah,” ze sighs. “Straight from one testosterone hellscape to another. But, to cut a long and pretty awful story short, I met some awesome people who gave me a language that finally made everything make sense. I think I’d be dead now, if it wasn’t for them. Those are the people I miss. Every day. But we message and . . .” Ze falls silent for a while. “It’s not the same as real-time comms though, is it?”

  “No,” I say. I want to mention how many times I’ve felt alienated by my own biology, how those hours and hours of breastfeeding felt like a punishment when everyone kept telling me that it was natural and “best for baby” and a “really special time.” But it wouldn’t be right. Ze isn’t obligated to help me navigate my own confusion. “I wanted to say how much I admire your work. I read up on it all on the way over. The water- and air-filtration systems are really impressive. And the solution you came up with to deal with the dust on the solar panels is just so clever.”

  Petranek laughs. “Damn, girl, you are just all the fun, aren’t you?”

  I feel my cheeks redden. Sensing that the comment has stung, Petranek reaches over and rests a gloved hand over my own. “Sorry. Banks says I can be a bit brutal sometimes. If it helps, I’m just massively overcompensating. Coming outside makes me think too much, so I try to keep things light. Obviously telling you about my awful family and struggles with self-identity is just small talk, right?” Ze laughs again. “I don’t need to make any jokes. My conversational skills are a joke—let’s face it.”

  “It’s been a while since you’ve worked with someone new, hasn’t it?”

  From the sharp turn of hir head, I know I’m right. “Yeah, it has. I’ve known the others forever. We came through on the same cohort, even though Banks has been here the longest. We all went through basic training together and we worked together for a few years before that. We’re a good team.”

  I look back out the window, feeling like a fifth wheel. I feel a stab of homesickness, but not for the flat; for the lab. We were a good team there.

  “Oh shit, that came out wrong,” Petranek says.

  “It didn’t,” I say. “You were just telling the truth. This is weird for all of us.”

  The silence is uncomfortable so I focus on the scenery, trying to remind myself that this is actually happening, to my mind and body right now, in real time, and that I am not in a mersive. It’s harder without Petranek’s awkward conversation. I think about Mia, or rather, try to. She’s happy and safe and will be fine without me. She depends upon Charlie anyway. He’s the one she goes to when she hurts herself and the one she calls for in the night if she wakes. I’m an addendum, probably barely missed.

  “So, what’s it like being a mother?”

  The stock replies come to mind instantly, but I don’t immediately give them. “Honestly?” I finally say.

  “Yeah, obviously. Unless it’s something you don’t want to talk about?”

  “Honestly, it’s mostly shit.”

  “I can imagine,” Petranek says. “I’ve never bought the hype about it.”

  “You know, all my life I was sold the idea that having a child would make everything suddenly make sense.” I look at Petranek. “Spoiler: it doesn’t.” Ze chuckles and I smile too. “And that whole thing about how painful periods would be like a distant memory after I had a child—that is also a load of arse.”

  “Yeah, that never seemed like a comforting thing to say to a young woman in pain!” Petranek says. “Like, if I was her, I’d be thinking, oh great, so I need to grow another human being inside me and expel it and then take care of it and totally change everything about my life just so this crap doesn’t hurt anymore?”

  “There’s a new upgrade to MyPhys that’s really good for them,” I say. “Took them long enough to figure it out. I’m still waiting for the one that deals with existential angst.”

  “I thought having a baby sorted that out too,” Petranek says with a wry grin.

  “No. And that instalove thing people talk about, that magic moment when you see your baby for the first time? That’s bullshit too.”

  Petranek glances at me, confused. “Really? I got a few friends who had kids and they said . . .” Ze trails off and I turn away, regretting what I said. “Everyone’s different, I guess,” ze adds.

  Yes. Everyone is different, and I happened to be one of the people who didn’t get to experience the mythical love that could be gained only by holding one’s own child for the first time. That was a love, I was told by so many exhausted, harried mothers, unlike any other. More powerful, deeper, more selfless, than anything I could imagine before holding my child in my arms. They said it was like a drug, like a sledgehammer, something monumental and life changing.

  Well, my life changed but I didn’t get that drug part.

  I sink lower in my seat, staring out of the window, thinking of those women I grew to hate. Was that the bullshit they lulled themselves to sleep with every night? Their lives were over, so they had to invent some sort of consolation prize, presumably. One that, somehow, I didn’t receive. That’s how it felt in that tiny apartment, stinking of the paraphernalia of newborn chaos, that I didn’t get the one thing I’d been universally promised. No instant love to cushion me against the boredom and terror of being responsible for a new life.

  And it wasn’t just an absence of that fictional prize; it was an absence of my sense of self. My body felt like it was one of those tiny towns obliterated by a tornado overnight, left wrecked and unfamiliar, broken pieces scattered beyond all recognition. My concentration destroyed, all joy sucked out of me like air from an open lock. The only thing moving me from one task to the next being the sure knowledge that if I didn’t move, a tiny person could die.

  “It sounds like it sucks,” Petranek says.

  I can feel the way ze is trying to move us back to that point earlier in the conversation where I was opening up. “It really does,” I say, more cautious now. “I do love my daughter. I’m not a total monster. I’m just . . . it just . . . I’ve never said any of that to anyone before.”

  “Obviously a day for firsts,” Petranek replies. “But seriously, I’m glad you did say it. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that hiding behind a mask all the time is really fucking tiring.”

  We slip into a comfortable silence. I look up at the sun, expecting to see it rising and getting larger and brighter as the minutes go by, then look away again. With a thrill, I realize I don’t recognize the area we’re driving into.

  I sit up again, drinking it in. Somethin
g unfamiliar at last! We’re not far from the destination point, but I want to run out there now, thrust my hands into the dust and—

  With a sigh, I correct that thinking. I can’t do what I did as a child every time we went somewhere new. I was always first out of the car to take a deep lungful of the air and then find something to pick up or shove my hands into, just to feel like . . .

  Like I had arrived.

  I close my eyes, feeling like I’m trapped in this twilight state, not really here, not really awake. I want to pull the helmet off and smell Mars; I want to grab fistfuls of dust and let it play through my fingers out here, instead of in a lab. I want to brush my fingertips over the rocks and feel the texture, read its history, not just look at it all. Fuck! I’m trapped in this suit, in this rover, on this planet, and I just want some fresh air!

  “You okay?” Petranek asks as MyPhys flashes up a dialog box reporting an elevation in hormonal stress markers and heart rate.

  “Yeah,” I say, forcing myself to calm down.

  “Sometimes it can hit you out of the blue,” ze says. “It gets easier. I promise. You just get used to it. I nearly lost my shit when I saw how far away the sun was when I came out on my first trip. I don’t think we realized how much our brains are hardwired for Earth, you know?”

  I nod. “Do you ever just want to go outside for some fresh air?”

  “Oh yes. We all get that. Mersives help, as long as you don’t overdo it.”

  Only Arnolfi and Elvan know about my struggle. At least the way I feel is normal, for a change. I stay quiet for the rest of the drive, and when we reach the end of the route I release the cam drones, requesting that they gather data in a onekilometer radius. Each one is about the size of a watermelon, much larger than the equivalent models on Earth, as here they need tiny thruster jets fueled by methane to be able to fly in such a thin atmosphere. That’s the argument for not using them to get a high-def rendering of the entire planet; methane production not earmarked for the return trips to Earth has to be justified by some solid financial benefits. Now that the information market isn’t interested in real 3-D maps of Mars, there’s no point as far as GaborCorp is concerned.