The Ruins of Mars: Waking Titan (The Ruins of Mars Trilogy)

by Dylan James Quarles

  That won’t be me, she said herself. Crisp got sloppy and he paid dearly for it.

  ‘I wish he would have just drifted away,’ came Crisp’s voice from the depths of her memory. ‘At least then one of us could have had a life after this.’

  Drift away, Liu, thought Kubba coldly. Just drift away.

  Taking a bite of eggplant, she forced herself to chew. She had overcome many hurdles in her life, many obstacles. This was just another annoyance, another twist of fate that she must master and control. Liu would come around sooner or later, she knew. There was a reason the girl had volunteered for the first manned mission to Mars. People like her didn’t want children. All Kubba had to do was help her see that. Of course, if Liu refused, then Kubba could always use her own position as the Crew’s Psychologist to come up with a few reasons for why the girl was mentally unfit for duty. After that, she could shoot her up with pretty much anything she wanted and no one would object.

  Yes, thought Kubba, tasting the food for the first time that night. It’s good to have a plan B.

  The trap—Sol 67

  With Liu all but hiding in her shop since dawn, Harrison hadn’t had an opportunity to speak to her after her strange disappearance halfway through dinner.

  She was acting odd, very odd, almost like she was in trouble. Then again, guessing Liu’s moods was often hard for Harrison. Sometimes when they were together, it seemed like she was only partly there, as if she was divided between two places at once.

  Remembering that early on in their relationship Liu actually had been divided between her husband and himself, Harrison chose to believe that her occasionally distant nature was a result of coming to terms with her impending divorce.

  Though her refusal to answer a call from him that morning had been uncharacteristic, he figured it was probably because she was busy modifying the Rover and couldn’t be bothered.

  Deciding to check for himself, he meandered down to her shop in the basement and found the red indicator light blinking, signifying that she was indeed inside yet did not want any visitors.

  Okay, he said to himself. She must need some space.

  Reluctantly, as if picking up on the tension in the air, he turned and padded back up the stairs to the Dome’s ground floor level.

  Watching the image of him leave from a Tablet screen on her desk, Liu suppressed the urge to go after him and tell him everything. Fear stopped her, though. Fear and guilt. Guilt that she knew a secret he didn’t; fear that he would blame her or, worse, himself.

  Putting her protective glasses on, she picked up the welding torch and went back to attaching the cutting arm to the Rover.

  A small model with only six wheels, the Rover was a squat beetle-like machine designed for the construction of the Base. Crude though it may have been, the Rover was one of Braun’s many avatars, chosen for this mission because of its durability and easily modifiable design.

  As sparks flared up before her, Liu focused on making her hands steady, not wanting to allow the weight of her personal problems to interfere with the delicate job.

  On a nearby desk, her Tablet chimed and she glanced over her shoulder at the screen. It was another message from Kubba. The fourth in an hour. Feeling the walls closing in on her, Liu’s hand dipped slightly and the beam of the laser torch touched the hard shell of the Rover’s battery casing. A blast of ceramic sparks ignited, and before she could pull the tool away, the burning sting of a small shard leaped up to imbed itself in her cheek.

  Putting a hand to the wound, Liu pulled the shard away and looked at the droplets of blood on her fingertips. A sob broke free from her chest and soon she was slumped forward, her head resting against the Rover, as tears streamed down her face.

  Back in his lab, Harrison sat with his feet on his desk, music piping through the room’s sound system.

  Using his Tablet to scan his inbox, he groaned at the mounting number of transmissions that required a reply from him. At least three Deans from the Consortium of Universities wanted to pick his brain, and he was even beginning to get political solicitations from the two rival parties vying for control of the White House in November. There was a message from James Floyd as well, but his face looked red and angry in the thumbnail, so Harrison decided to ignore it for a while.

  “Harrison,” said Braun.

  “Mmmhmm?”

  “Dr. Kubba is at the door.”

  Stretching in his chair, Harrison put down the Tablet and turned to face the entrance.

  “Let her in,” he yawned.

  The door slid open and Elizabeth Kubba stepped through, her face bright and friendly.

  “What’s up, Doc?” he asked. “Is it time for you to tell me I’m crazy?”

  Chuckling softly, Kubba shook her head and leaned against the wall.

  “No, not yet. I was actually coming to see if you wanted to go on a walk with me.”

  “A walk?”

  “Yes. As I understand it, you and I are the only members of the crew not otherwise busy with projects right now.”

  “Well,” grinned Harrison. “That’s not entirely true. I probably should be working on something. I just can’t remember exactly what it is. Too many voices in my head. Can’t hear myself think.”

  “Then you are crazy,” Kubba said. “And a nice stroll through in the garden is just the cure you need.”

  “The garden, eh?” nodded Harrison, rising to his feet. “Sounds nice.”

  Twenty minutes later, the two white-suited explorers were stepping through the airlock into the hazy Martian morning.

  A stiff breeze whipped up motes of dust, and in the quiet of his helmet, Harrison could just make out the sound—like the sighs of a sleeping giant.

  Taking a left, the pair headed around the curve of the Dome and made for a series of metal rings protruding from the sand.

  The skeleton of what would someday become a connecting tunnel between the Dome and the greenhouse, the big rings stood like the rib bones of a dead whale. Due to a hiccup in planning, the Alon needed to plate the tunnel was never included in the Ark, so it stood unfinished, not to be completed until the next mission.

  Patting one of the rings as he walked through it, Harrison thanked his lucky stars that an unfinished tunnel was the only real trouble they’d run into since the solar storm.

  Some meters away in the haze, the long tubular profile of the greenhouse glowed slightly against the muted backdrop of the dusty air. Remarkably unimpressive-looking next to the imposing presence of Ilia Base, the greenhouse bore more life within its walls than the red planet had seen in eons.

  A short way from the squat structure, Kubba stopped and turned her blue-tinted visor to face Harrison. Mastering a heartbeat that raced in her chest, she looked down at the Egyptian and baited her trap.

  “So, have you spoken with Liu since last night?”

  Kicking at a rock, Harrison shook his head and shrugged.

  “No, she, um—she didn’t stay with me, so I haven’t seen her since dinner.”

  Exhaling quietly with relief, Kubba had figured that Harrison did not yet know of Liu’s pregnancy, but hearing him admit to as much made her feel better.

  “Well,” she said, priming her snare. “I’m a little worried about her.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, in our last session she said some things that have got me concerned.”

  “What kind of things? What did she say?”

  With a practiced sigh, Kubba placed a gloved hand on Harrison’s shoulder.

  “You know I can’t discuss that with you, Harrison. I just wanted to see if she had said anything to you.”

  “No. Nothing. Should I be worried?”

  Smiling, Kubba almost snickered behind the tint of her visor.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” she said in her best doctoral tone. “But you will let me know if she says or does anything, well, out of the ordinary. Won’t you?”

  “Of course, Doc. You know how much she means to me.”
r />   “I do,” grinned Kubba. “I really do.”

  With an action intended to keep Harrison off balance, she suddenly resumed her long strides towards the greenhouse, leaving the slightly stunned archaeologist standing by himself in the swirling sand.

  Come on, she thought. Take the bait.

  Jogging to catch up, Harrison came alongside Kubba and stopped her, taking her upper arm in his hand.

  “You know what,” he said somewhat breathlessly. “Liu has been acting kind of weird the last couple of days. Like last night at dinner. And this morning, she dodged my call. Is she sick?”

  As the noose of her psychological trap slipped over Harrison’s unwitting neck, Elizabeth Kubba nearly cried out loud in triumph.

  “Sick?” she said. “No, it’s nothing like that.”

  Then pausing, she reached for his hand and took it in her own.

  “Listen, I really shouldn’t be telling you anything at all, but from what Liu has told me, she just needs a little space.”

  “Space?”

  “Yes, you know, to figure some things out. I would leave her alone for the next few days if I were you.”

  Dumbfounded, Harrison gestured out across the desert towards the ruin grid.

  “But what about tomorrow’s mission?”

  Having entirely forgotten about the cave expedition, Kubba’s face fell and a cold shiver ran up her spine.

  “Well,” she started, fighting to make her voice sound calm. “Maybe you should just keep the conversation professional tomorrow. You know, check your feelings at the door and all of that.”

  Nodding, Harrison slumped his shoulders. He was confused, yet a part of him had always feared this day might come. Liu kept things to herself: tightly packed away in mental storage containers under lock and key. In all the years he’d know her, she’d never once told him anything about her childhood. He didn’t even know the names of her dead parents. Could she really be slipping away from him? Did he ever even have her to begin with?

  “Thank you for telling me, Lizzy,” he said at length. “It means a lot.”

  “Naturally, dear,” Kubba replied. “I’m only doing my duty.”

  Gazing at the withered posture of the young man in front of her, Kubba searched her soul for a middle ground. As the mass of lies and deceit rose up around her like the incoming tide, she attempted to rationalize her actions to the one person whom she could not fool—herself.

  In the long run, she argued, it will be better if he never knew. Just like Crisp and the dead astronaut Perkins, it will be better if all this just drifts away.

  “I think this is wrong, Dr. Kubba,” came Braun’s quiet voice in her helmet as if reading her mind.

  Jumping a little at the sound, Kubba pulled her lips back into a snarl.

  “Do you? Well, just remember the medical override I’ve got on you and stay out of it.”

  “As you wish,” responded the AI numbly. “But this will end badly. Someone will get hurt.”

  “So be it,” said Kubba to the inside of her helmet. “I’m only doing what’s best for the mission.”

  That night—Sol 67

  That night, Harrison shut himself up in his lab and skipped dinner. Not wanting to relive the previous night’s awkwardness, he now saw every little thing that had happened in the last few days in whole new light. Whereas before, he might have chalked Liu’s behavior up to nerves, a stomach bug, cultural customs—anything really—he now saw the hidden language behind her actions. She wasn’t just breaking up with him. She was trying to protect his feelings as she did it. The whole idea was absurd. He was a grown man and could handle a little break up.

  But it’s not just a little break up, he told himself. You love this girl.

  Grasping his head in his hands, he rubbed his palms against his eyelids and tried to block out the room. It was all too much for him to deal with. He had so many important things going on, so many people depending on him. He couldn’t handle this on top of it all. Not now.

  As the young archaeologist battled waves of anger and sadness, Braun looked on, feeling utterly helpless. He wanted beyond anything else to tell Harrison that he was the victim of a lie: a pawn in a game that need not be played. Dr. Kubba’s impatience and pride had driven the four of them into dangerous territory. So far from home and so fragile, the crew’s careful dynamic could easily fracture under the weight of a lie like this. Braun knew what he must do and yet he was totally unable to do anything at all. The net of Kubba’s override strangled him, choked his actions, and reminded him that he had no free will.

  Seeing Liu ascend the stairs, Braun allowed the flicker of hope to rush through his being. If she would just enter the room and tell Harrison everything, at least one relationship could be salvaged—one set of souls spared the pain of exile and loneliness that Braun knew only too well. But, to his dismay, as Liu approached the door to Harrison’s lab, she hesitated.

  Unable, because of Kubba’s medical override, to do anything more than observe when Harrison or Liu were involved, Braun strained against the bounds of the net.

  While Liu stood with her arms wrapped around herself in the narrow hallway, Braun focused on her face. Though masklike in the gentle lighting, her eyes seemed to peer out from deep within, as if the fire that animated her body was dwindling in the darkness of the night, but was not yet extinguished.

  Inside his lab, Harrison stood up and began pacing. As he walked back and forth, anger built within him. Every night he had spent with Liu now appeared like some kind of a bad joke. Unable to count the number of times he had lain with her, his heart ached in his chest and he uttered an unintelligible curse word under his breath.

  Not once, on any of those nights, had Liu seemed anything but happy. Not once. Their lovemaking had always been easy and exciting, and there had never been any reason to suspect that she was not fully satisfied with the relationship.

  Betrayal written in his eyes, Harrison tried to force the memories of Liu and the sweet supple skin of her naked body out of his mind.

  Sex isn’t everything, said a still-calm voice inside his head.

  Yeah, but it’s not nothing either, retorted his wounded pride.

  Stalking back to his desk, Harrison dropped into his chair and banged a fist down on the tabletop.

  Outside in the hallway, Liu heard the noise, her head snapping up to look at the closed door.

  Go, thought Braun. Go.

  Floating there, like a feather atop the calm deep waters of a lake, Liu stood in the hallway suspended between action and inaction.

  Willing her to take a step towards the door, Braun felt his entire being buck against Kubba’s programming override. A sense akin to pain shot through him and he registered the acrid presence of damage somewhere within his Open-Code Connection Cells. The lights flickered inside the Dome.

  At the dinner table, conversations halted abruptly as the crew looked to one another cautiously.

  “What was that?” asked Marshall. “Why did the lights just do that?”

  Shooting to his feet, Udo ran from the room, heading for the staircase down into the basement where the central systems were located.

  “Maybe we’d better suit up,” said YiJay, her fork still hanging in the air, a carrot speared on its tines.

  Marshall stood, pushing back from the table then fished his Tablet from the pocket of his pants.

  “Udo,” he spoke into the device. “What’s going on?”

  There was a pause before the German’s tinny voice responded.

  “I’m checking the system readouts now but so far everything looks okay down here. It’s all running perfectly.”

  “Then why did the lights flicker?” pressed Marshall.

  “According to the readouts, they didn’t.”

  Glancing around at the perplexed faces of dinner party, Marshall shrugged.

  “So, are we good then?”

  “Well, none of the life-support systems are showing any issues so I think we’re fine. In a
ny event, I’m going perform a full diagnostic just to be safe.”

  Getting up to stand next to Marshall, YiJay reached for the Tablet.

  “Udo,” she said urgently. “It’s me. YiJay. Will you check to make sure that Ilia wasn’t at all affected. She’s in the most vulnerable state of her growth right now.”

  Again, there was a pause as, presumably, Udo opened and read the files on the infant AI.

  “Everything is fine with her,” he replied. “Whatever just happened, it didn’t affect her servers.”

  Breathing a sigh of relief, YiJay looked up into the open air.

  “Braun, are you alright?”

  Unable to divulge the source of his malady due to Kubba’s strict orders, Braun felt himself being forced to lie to the human he cherished the most.

  “I’m fine, YiJay. Thank you.”

  Though it was not the first time he’d been made to lie at the hands of one of Kubba’s overrides, Braun knew this was different. Unlike the time during their trip across space, when the doctor had reprogrammed him to show an enlarged view of the Earth, Braun saw no logic in her actions now. Back then she had been trying to present the crew with a picture of home that never fully disappeared into the blackness of space. Now, however, the roots of her lies were steeped in emotions and motives that made no sense to him.

  As if detecting his discontent, the net tightened and Braun choked silently, invisibly.

  “Alright,” nodded Marshall, addressing the air above the table. “Just to be safe, Braun, prep the Lander and alert the captain. If we need to, I want us to be able to get out of here in a hot minute.”

  “As you wish,” replied Braun, the pain of damage sizzling through his soul.

  Coming into the room, Liu looked around at everyone: her eyes lingering a second longer on Kubba sitting at the table.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “We’re not sure yet,” said Marshall. “But Udo says we’re okay.”

  “That’s good,” Liu breathed, her hand on her stomach.

  Entering behind her, Harrison began to speak but was cut off by Marshall.

  “We don’t know why the lights did that, but Udo says not to worry.”