by Paul Reaver
It took about forty-five minutes to go back to the base camp and explain the situation to the other crew members (who were all astounded that there were “real” Martians on Mars), load them up on the rover, and make their way back to the cave. Everyone had to go through the decontamination process, making John realize why the room for this process was so large; many people could go through at a time.
Everyone completed their introductions. Being a robot, Ben was able to give the rest of the crew a word-for-word repetition of the information that John and Max received. Now they were all equal in terms of who knew what.
Although the robot was essentially gender-neutral, John found that once he had given it the name “Ben”, he couldn’t help but think of Ben as being “he.”
“I will now awaken two of our people,” said Ben.
Ben walked over to a nearby console, and in a manner that was both amazing and efficient at the same time, he used all four arms at once to manipulate various controls on the panel.
“There,” he said, “they are on their way. Finding and retrieving any person in stasis is automated. They are designated both by the person’s name and their pod identification code. We have designed devices to find and fetch any stasis pod that we have. They are all organized and cataloged, of course. It will take a few minutes to bring the pods here.”
As they watched, two machines traversed the distance to the location of the pods they needed. The pods were at ground level in anticipation of accessing them first, which made shorter work of their retrieval. Soon the machines came straight toward them carrying the pods.
“Ben,” said John. “Don’t the pods lose power when you disconnect them like that?”
“Each pod has a self-contained power source, a battery if you will, for transporting pods and also in case of a power failure,” said Ben. “Each pod can last up to a week in Mars time, which we have based on a Mars day of 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35 seconds. I have always been somewhat amazed that an Earth day and a Mars day are so close in their elapsed time.”
As Ben finished speaking, the first pod arrived. John was beside himself with curiosity. As the pod pulled up beside them, John could see that the faceplate was transparent, giving him an immediate look at the Martian’s face. The first thing he noticed was that the head was elongated compared to a human’s, and the skin had a silver cast to it. “So much for little green men,” he thought to himself. The nose was somewhat flat, and the temple areas were slightly concave. Also, for lack of a better description, there were indentations on the front of the face around the eyes and nose areas that were similar to wrinkles but different – unique in John’s experience. For some reason, this did not give an impression of age; instead, it gave the Martian a look of wisdom. The eyes appeared to be roughly the same shape as human eyes, though it was hard to tell for sure with them closed. However, they were noticeably larger. Since the eyelids were closed, John could not see how this affected the overall look of the face. The ears were similar to that of humans, except that they were more rounded and protruded farther away from the head, on short tube-like extensions. The mouth, at least when the Martian was asleep, looked like a smooth horizontal slit, and had thin lips. It looked like Ben’s. Unlike humans, whose lips were thicker in the middle, the Martians’ were the same width all the way around. The other attribute that was immediately obvious was that the Martian’s head was completely hairless.
“This is Kirlin,” said Ben. “She was the leader of all of the Martians prior to the apocalypse, and is the oldest and wisest among all of the Martians. She is very friendly and outgoing, but she will expect that you treat her with respect as the leader of our people.”
“I understand,” said John. “We have the same sort of protocol on Earth.”
Ben said, “I will begin the awakening process now.” He touched some controls on a panel built into the side of the pod. John could hear a low hum, as well as pumping sounds inside the pod. The Martian stirred, moving her head slightly, and opening her eyes. Though her eyes looked like human eyes, her irises were bright gold. John was transfixed with the Martian’s face now that she had her eyes open. She looked back at him in return.
“I will open the pod now,” said Ben. He pressed a control which released a series of latches, and with a hissing sound, the entire top of the pod opened to one side on its hinges. John immediately noticed that Kirlin wore a lightly gold-colored garment that shimmered as though it was metallic, but it moved smoothly as the Martian began to sit up in preparation for getting out of the pod. The shoes appeared to be attached to the bottom of the legs of the pants, but they were made of a different material.
John caught his breath as Kirlin extended her hand to Ben for assistance in getting out of the pod. Like the robot, her hands had seven fingers and in the same configuration. There were five fingers across the palm instead of only four and two opposing thumbs. When John had seen the robot’s hands, he assumed that’s just the way it was made. Now he saw the robot’s hands were the same as the Martians’. He thought about how helpful this configuration would be when working on precise instruments, or building complex objects and machines.
Kirlin completed exiting the pod but sat down on its side, as if to rest. “Please take it easy,” said Ben. “It’s been some time since you have used your muscles.” After a few moments, Kirlin stood up, obviously with some effort, but she seemed more steady on her feet as the moments passed. John could not believe how tall she was – her height was at least seven and a half feet. He wondered whether her height was due to the low Martian gravity. Also, her movements were very graceful – “willowy” was the word that came to John’s mind. Her clothing was loose and flowing as John had noticed before; because of that, it was impossible to surmise the exact shape of her body, though she had only two arms and legs which were in approximate proportion to her height, similar to a human’s. So, her shape appeared to be more or less that of a human’s form; she was just much taller. Her golden eyes added to the overall impression of wisdom that she gave.
She looked down at John and said, “Welcome to our planet.” Her voice had a musical, lilting quality to it, yet it exhibited a firmness that conveyed that she was definitely in charge and in control of the situation. John found it to be an odd combination, although he found the quality of her speech pleasing. There was not a trace of an accent. After she finished speaking, her mouth formed an oval shape with the lips partly open. John realized that this was the Martian version of a smile.
“Thank you,” said John. “It is an honor to meet you. I must say, we were quite surprised by the existence of the remaining members of your race. Your robot, which we have colloquially named ‘Ben,’ has explained that you went into stasis while waiting on communications from your probes”.
“It is an honor to meet you as well,” said Kirlin. “I am sure that our robot has explained to you that one of the duties of the active robots was to continue to monitor Earth while we were in stasis. We have monitored Earth for many centuries. Even as we began to go into stasis due to our situation, we expected that one day your species would visit ours. But we needed to make sure you were advanced enough to travel to our planet and locate our facility. These two accomplishments let us know that we could allow you to see our technology and probably look to you for assistance with our dilemma. We are significantly more sophisticated in our scientific knowledge, but only in certain areas, and you have demonstrated a level of knowledge in other areas that we think will enable you to be helpful to us. Please do not be offended when I say we are more scientifically sophisticated. It is a simple statement of fact. We want to work together with you to make Mars the thriving planet it once was; having developed along your own unique scientific path, we assume that you have capabilities and knowledge that we don’t have. Since we have been in stasis for almost a millennium, we are going to be unfamiliar at first with your current state of technology, although our robots that have been monitoring Earth all along will know much a
bout it. We are aware that you keep certain aspects of your technology hidden. We are looking forward to combining our knowledge with your advanced hidden technology to achieve our goal. We suspect our knowledge will be more advanced in biology, medicine, atmosphere, weather, space travel, and astrophysics, while your accomplishments in advanced science have probably been in other areas.”
“By all means,” said John. “We have made some major scientific breakthroughs in the very recent past that I think may accomplish just what you need. In fact, it was due to these breakthroughs that we were able to make the journey from Earth to Mars.”
He wondered how she would know that Earth and Mars had developed advanced scientific knowledge in different areas. He also wondered how she would know that Earth kept certain areas of science covert. Ben would know this, having continued to monitor Earth. But Kirlin had been in stasis.
“Kirlin said, “I think Ben mentioned to you that we would awaken another of our people who is in stasis in addition to myself. We are in the process of doing that now.”
As she finished speaking, she walked over to the other stasis pod brought to the area where they stood. She manipulated some controls on the pod’s control panel, and again there was a series of sounds as the cover opened.
Kirlin continued, “Our government and society are quite different than they are in your country; in fact, they are quite different from any country on Earth,” said Kirlin. “The closest explanation I can give is that my position would most nearly resemble your president. Jenore, who is about to awaken, would essentially fulfill the position of vice president. We will get into a discussion about my people’s government at a later, more appropriate time, as portions of it are quite complex.”
Jenore had climbed out of the pod, and as Kirlin had first done, he was sitting on the edge of the pod while he woke up, and his systems normalized. John noted that his irises were also gold. He wondered if only the leaders of the Martians had gold irises, whether they all did, or if it was just one of many colors that a Martian could have.
Jenore and Kirlin had been holding each other’s gaze for several minutes. Jenore looked away and climbed down from the edge of the pod. He also had to gain his balance for a few moments but recovered quickly. John noticed that Jenore was even taller than Kirlin; he appeared to be at least 9 feet tall! He also seemed to be very graceful in his movements, though he did not have the “willowy” look that Kirlin exhibited. His actions were deliberate but smooth. His clothing was also flowing and loose-fitting. The garment was somewhat different than what Kirlin wore, yet seemed to be of a similar style. Not only was he taller, the rest of his body, including his head, but were also proportionately larger.
He walked over to John and said, “Welcome to Mars. Kirlin said that it only took you one day to find us once you had landed on the planet.” He noticed John’s puzzled look and said, “Forgive me. We Martians are telepathic, and using that ability, she has brought me up to date on what has transpired, just as our robot brought her up to date on your advanced science, among other things. You may have noticed Kirlin and I concentrating on one another. We were communicating telepathically. But do not fear. Though I could read your mind if I so desired, that is not something that we do without first getting permission from the person with whom we would be communicating. And even if I did read your mind, you would be aware of it; you would ‘feel’ it.
“I also understand that you have a unique way of greeting someone whom you’ve met.”
He extended his seven-fingered hand toward John in an apparent desire to shake hands. John reciprocated, and the handshake commenced. Jenore’s grip was quite firm, almost uncomfortably so. The skin of his hand had a strange texture. It felt extraordinarily smooth, but John also noticed what seemed to be an electrical impulse or flow of energy between them. The handshake was odd in that Jenore’s hand also had seven fingers, of course – it felt strange.
The handshake lasted a little longer than usual, probably due to Jenore’s inexperience with the gesture.
He said, “You may have felt an unusual sensation when you touched my hand. We Martians have what amounts to an organic force field surrounding our bodies. It is not without limits, but it’s very effective for protecting us from harm. We can control the strength of the field as we would control a muscle. We can completely negate it if we desire. However, when our bodies sense danger, the force field will automatically be activated with as much strength as needed to protect us – up to its limit, of course. It is strong enough to protect us from harm, such as when we experience a fall, and it can even stop a projectile such as a bullet depending on its size, weight, and kinetic force. When I shook your hand, my body automatically activated my force field. Knowing you were not a threat, the strength of the force was extremely low. Now, let’s shake hands again, and I will make sure I negate the field.”
Once again, John shook hands with Jenore. And once again, his hand felt very smooth, and odd because of the extra two fingers. But this time Jenore did not squeeze as hard, so there was no discomfort. And John wondered if it had been the force field that exerted the extra pressure during the first handshake – perhaps it had as a protective reaction.
Handshake completed, they stepped back from each other a bit. John realized that Jenore’s voice was also very melodic. It was like Kirlin’s, but it had a different quality and timbre. He surmised that this might have been due to the difference in Martian male and female voices. He was curious about it and asked Jenore.
Jenore said, “Yes, you are exactly right. Just as, in general, the females of your species have voices with higher overall tones than the males, so too are our male and female voices different. Bear in mind that there is not an exact correlation between our ‘genders’ and the male and female designations that your species has. But it is similar enough.”
Meanwhile, John’s team had witnessed all that had transpired and wore various expressions: surprise, shock, approval, and more. One by one, John introduced each of them to Kirlin and Jenore. He explained each person’s specialty and how each one had contributed to the Mars mission.
“I think we should arrange a meeting between your people and the two of us along with our appropriate scientists,” said Kirlin. “It would be best if we could reconvene tomorrow so that Jenore and I can have some time to recuperate from our long periods of time in stasis and also have time to awaken our scientists and give them time to recuperate as well. Why don’t we meet again here in twenty-four of your hours?”
“That sounds good,” said John. “For what it’s worth, we have recalibrated several of our watches to use Mars time. It is advantageous for us to work in Mars time so that we know how long the nights are, how much daylight we have left on a given day, and so forth. Similarly, we need to track our time according to Earth as well, so we can coordinate our activities and communications with the people back there. However, to reconvene in 24 of our hours will work just fine.”
“Thank you,” said Kirlin. “We look forward to meeting with you tomorrow.”
Once the team was back at the rover, it seemed everyone was talking at once. There was so much disbelief, wonder, and curiosity among the group.
John said, “Please, everyone. Settle down for a moment.”
The group got quiet, and John continued, “I know that we all have many questions and to have found living Martians is almost beyond belief. Let’s get back to the base and have a meeting about what we have found here.”
Everyone murmured their assent and climbed aboard the rover. It was made to carry them all, but it seemed like a snug fit with everyone so close to each other. In what seemed like short order, they arrived back at the base. They entered the ship and sat down at their table. Everyone looked at John.
John said, “To repeat my earlier statement, the discovery of living Martians on Mars is almost beyond belief. We knew there had been signs of possible life here, but we never expected anything like this. I know you all have many questions, but i
t would be better to wait until we can ask the Martians themselves for answers rather than to idly speculate. However, we need to be careful not to bombard them. What I’d like to bring to the table right now is a question that I see is of paramount importance – how can we help the Martians fix their planet? I see a way to start, but I’d like to get each team member’s opinion on how to proceed from there.”
John continued, “My idea for how to start would be to build domes into which we could draw oxygen, nitrogen, and the other elements required to construct a proper Mars atmosphere. We can draw hydrogen directly from the air on Earth; we should be able to apply the same principle to bring the elements necessary for a Mars atmosphere into a dome. The dome would also need to have an abundant and diverse mixture of plant life, primarily with dark foliage. And theoretically, the plants would not only produce oxygen, but they would also create an area that would attract a more significant percentage of the Sun’s heat. By the way, when I say “dome,” I mean a square or rectangular dome with a fixed height and a flat top, not the typical hemispherical one. This would allow us to build new domes directly adjacent to the existing ones, and to remove the wall between the domes when we are sure the new one is ready so that together they will comprise a single dome. We can start initial domes in different areas and use this method to expand them as we go along. I also propose that we strive to replace the initial solid dome material with force fields. Force fields will be much more flexible. The question of what additional things that such a domed habitat would require only the Martians can answer. But ultimately, the entire planet could be terraformed. Let’s go around the table. Mark, what are your thoughts?”
Mark said, “I agree with you about pulling the necessary atmospheric elements into a dome to give the Martians a place to start. Even though we are only pulling hydrogen from the atmosphere on Earth, and oxygen from the atmosphere here on Mars, we can now pull any atmospheric element that we want.”
