by Bob Lee
“We have our specimen, Spit,” the Master was saying. “Come here and help me extract the samples.” Spit dragged itself over using its sensopads. “Look here,” the Master said. “See that thing inside that is moving? That is its mouth. I believe it is trying to communicate. Let us see what it is saying.”
“Stop, stop,” Jeff yelled as he was pinned to a table. “Just let me go and I’ll do whatever you want!” He saw the creature lift its free tentacle and smash it down. Jeff instinctively closed his eyes, and heard the helmet faceplate shatter. Hundreds of tiny pieces peppered his face, and noxious fumes that smelled like swamp gas entered his lungs. As he choked on the air entering his suit, he shouted, “Stop, I’ll give you whatever you need.”
The Master leaned its head forward and spoke in English, “Yesss, hyoo-mahn. I will tayk the peesses I neeed.” The Master then turned to Spit and spoke in its own language. “The disgusting Earthlings are susceptible to many diseases that enter through their orifices. We will send them all to the home world to analyze and create a pathogen to exterminate them. Use your cutting implements and take that horrible thing sticking out of the front of its head that is called a nose. Then suck out the insides of one of its ears. And that horrible flapping thing they call a tongue. Cut that out too. When that is done, open its torso up and take out some lung tissue. That should suffice.”
Jeff heard rumbling and screeching noises coming from the creature, and then a new horror approached. It looked like someone had mashed together a dental machine with organic parts. He could see metal appendages with blades, and an eye on a stalk looking at him. A brain with green and purple veins and housed under plastic bubbled in the main part of the body. The new horror approached and with a swift motion, sliced off his nose.
Brother Jacobs could hear a howl of agony erupt from Jeff and yelled, “What is happening? Explain!”
He heard a shouted reply, “It cud off my noadz!” and then another howl of pain. “Ow, my ear!” Then “It gah my dung!” A scream rose in pitch to a crescendo, and then Brother Jacobs heard just bubbling sobbing and that horrible grunting and screeching noise.
To Spit, the Master said, “Gut it. The lung tissue is the final piece.” Turning to Jeff, the Masters said in English, “Very good, hyo-mahn. You haf ssserved meee well.”
“What should I do with the being when I am finished?” Spit asked.
“Toss it out onto the surface. We will have no further use for the vermin. Then prepare the cultures for transmission to the home planet.”
Jeff, in total agony but with his eyes still intact, watched in horror as the bio-mechanical creature cut through his suit and into his chest. With one final scream, he mercifully expired. Brother Jacobs could hear what sounded like a buzz saw and bones cracking before the transmissions were cut off. He turned off the monitor and sat in silence, pondering what had gone wrong.
# # #
Bonnie slept fitfully. A creature was pressing her down, its face uncomfortably close. She tried to move, but couldn’t. “Leave me alone; let me go!” she yelled at the creature. The thing shook her left and right, its scaly tongue probing at her cheek. She opened her eyes and screamed as she saw it looming over her.
“Bonnie, wake up,” Brother Jacobs said as he shook her arm with one hand and patted the side of her face with the other. “I have important news to convey.”
“Mom? What’s going on?” Jean said from the nearby bunk, groggily propping herself up on her elbow.
“Yes, all of you, awaken,” the leader said. “I have meditated long, and have come to a momentous decision.”
Bonnie rolled unsteadily out of bed and stood up. “What? What are you saying? How did you get in here?” she demanded.
“I, of course, used my financial wealth to ensure that this base is totally under my control. I can come and go where I please. I have the ability to command all of the equipment. That is why I am here. I saw it with my own eyes, and heard it with my own ears. An emissary of the Great Consciousness called to Jeff. He followed it in the rover. He was found unworthy. He is dead.”
“Mommy, did he say Daddy’s dead?” Julie, the younger daughter, whimpered, coming fully awake.
“Jeff, dead? No, that’s impossible,” Bonnie said aghast.
“Even now he lies broken on the surface of the planet, in front of the rover’s camera. He was impure, and rejected. He failed me, just as you failed me by not providing a newborn here on Mars. That is why I have come to you with my decision.”
Bonnie sat down on the bed, her head slumped. She could think of nothing to say. In spite of all the difficulties in her marriage, she had still loved Jeff and hoped that their lives would improve.
“Tomorrow, I will marry Jean,” Brother Jacobs flatly stated.
“What?” Bonnie said, snapping her head up.
“No freakin’ way am I doing that,” Jean yelled in indignation.
“Yes, you will,” Brother Jacobs said, turning towards Jean. “You are in your prime, and it is my right as the leader of the Called. We will marry in the morning. You will bear me a son who is pure of mind and spirit, and worthy of the Great Consciousness. Thus will we be redeemed. My decision is final. Prepare yourself for the morrow.” The leader turned and walked out of the cabin, closing the door behind him.
“Mom, you’re not going to let him get away with this, are you?” Jean pleaded.
Bonnie’s thoughts were in a whirl. What could she do? She could not let Jean be railroaded into becoming Brother Jacobs’ bride. She was sure that Jeff would not have agreed with this either. The thought made her wonder if Brother Jacobs had told the truth. She turned towards Jean. “He said he saw Daddy in front of the rover camera. Do you think we could get it here on the screen?”
“Of course, why didn’t I think of that,” Jean said. “Just a minute and I’ll log into the system as Dad.”
“You can do that?” Bonnie asked.
“Please, Mom,” Jean said rolling her eyes. “What do you think?” Bonnie’s daughter went over to the console, turned on the power, and slid the keyboard out. At the prompt for the id, she typed ‘Platinum1’ and for the password typed ‘123456’ and pressed ‘Enter.’ In a moment, she had a menu of various options to select from. There were four external base cameras, the greenhouse camera, the water and air reclamation status options, the rover and bulldozer connection buttons, and a myriad of other options. She selected the rover, and then picked its video feed option.
Jean and Bonnie both gasped. Jeff lay facing the camera and only a few feet away. His faceplate was smashed; his eyes open and bugged out. There was blood where his nose used to be, and blood all around his mouth. The suit was split down the middle, and guts were hanging out onto the sand.
“Turn it off!” Bonnie said hysterically, and turned to her youngest daughter. “Julie, don’t come over here,” she ordered. “I don’t want you to look.”
Bonnie realized that she needed to do something immediately, and it came to her in a flash. The decision had obviously been building in her subconscious for a while.
“Stay here, and don’t move. I’ll be right back,” she ordered her girls as she rushed out of the cabin and down the hall.
She hastened to the door of her friend, and knocked urgently. “Sue, wake up,” she whispered. “Please, Sue, open the door,” she whispered a bit louder as she continued to rap on the door.
“Yeah, yeah, just a minute,” a muffled voice responded. Bonnie waited impatiently until the door opened, revealing a disheveled Sue wrapped in a pink robe. “What is it? What time is it?” Sue asked.
Bonnie rushed in and closed the door behind her. Her words came out in a torrent. “I don’t know what time it is, but I need your help right away. Jeff is dead. Brother Jacobs wants to marry Jean in the morning. I need to get my girls to safety immediately.”
“Whoa, slow down,” Sue said. “Jeff is dead? That can’t be. How do you know? And Brother Jacobs has never shown any interest in marriage. Are you su
re about that?”
“Come with me; I’ll show you poor Jeff and tell you what our leader said. Then, you have to help us get out of here.”
The two women rushed back to Bonnie’s cabin. “Jean, show Sue the rover images.” Sue opened her mouth in horror when she witnessed the live feed.
“Mom, there’s more,” Jean said. “I could access the last six hours of video from the rover. Here is what’s on it.” Jean typed in a few commands, and Bonnie and Sue watched in horror. Jeff was no longer there, but a hatch was opening in the sand. A grotesque eye on a stalk popped up and looked around. A couple of metallic appendages lifted up Jeff’s corpse and rolled it onto the Martian surface. The creature then descended back into the hole in the ground and the hatch closed. The remains of Jeff lay there facing the camera as they had previously seen.
“Oh my God,” Sue said. “That’s…just…horrible.”
“Brother Jacobs said that Jeff wasn’t pure enough for the Great Consciousness. He said he needed a baby that was pure to redeem us, and since I didn’t provide one, then Jean will. That’s why he wants to marry her. He wants to hand that monstrosity a baby!”
“The scum!” Sue violently sputtered. “You’re right. You can’t stay here. There are enough members who will still support Brother Jacobs in any twisted decision he makes. That Celia will side with him for certain. Do you have a plan for getting out? Where can you go? Are you thinking of the NASA base?”
“Yes. Jean told me earlier that she was sorry to see Sam leave for the NASA base, since she had done such a good job of training her to become a pilot. However, Sam told Jean that she could always find her again. All of the NASA bases have radar beacons that can be homed in on. There are two spacesuits left. The girls can get in them and take the bulldozer. The bulldozer will home in on the other base.”
“Mom, Julie’s too small to use one those large suits,” Jean said. “And I’m not leaving without you.”
“She’s right,” Sue said emphatically. “You need to go too.”
“But with Jeff gone, there are only two spacesuits left.”
“Mom, I have an idea,” Jean said. “The suits are really large. You take one suit, and I’ll carry Julie on my shoulders in the other. She can look through the helmet and be my eyes, and I’ll be her legs. This way we can all leave together.”
“What an ingenious idea, Sweetie,” Sue said. “You all get dressed, while I go out to the main central module and lead interference. You need to go right away before everyone wakes up. It’s probably almost morning.” Sue rushed out the door, the two ends of the belt on her pink robe trailing behind her.
# # #
Old Sue walked over to the kitchen area, planning to innocently make a pot of coffee, and looked around. No sooner had she started the pot, when a voice shrilled behind her, “What are you doing here so early? It’s not your breakfast shift.”
Sue turned around, and saw Celia staring at her suspiciously. Sue frowned back and said, “Is it now a crime to make a cup of coffee? I couldn’t sleep.”
“We are supposed to follow the rules,” Celia said haughtily. “What if everyone decided to get up whenever they pleased to make something to eat? If it was my morning shift, like it is now, I would come out to find a stack of dirty dishes and pots and need to clean them all. I am not putting up with that. Go back to your room and come back when you’re supposed to.” She stood there, glaring at Sue with her arms akimbo.
Sue walked over to the shift schedule, crossed Celia’s name off the list and inserted her own. “There. You’re off the hook. Now get lost!” she snarled.
“You can’t do that without authorization. It’s not allowed!” Celia stuttered.
“Well, I just did. Now get your fat patootie back to bed and come back later.”
“You haven’t heard the last of this!” Celia spat back in indignation. The woman turned and stomped away into the other residence module.
Sue walked over to the tunnel that led back towards her and Bonnie’s hallway. “Psst, Bonnie. Are you there? The coast is clear. Hurry!” she whispered into its length. A few seconds later, Bonnie’s head emerged, followed by her two daughters. Sue lifted the hatch in the floor, and the four of them proceeded down the ladder. At the bottom, next to the exit airlock, were two large spacesuits. “Get into them quickly,” Sue said. “I left Celia in a huff. Knowing her, she won’t take it lightly. We may have trouble soon.”
Bonnie took one of the suits, now knowing how to don it from her earlier experience burying her poor dead infant. Sue helped Jean get into the bottom of the other suit. As Julie climbed onto her sister’s shoulders, Sue helped put the top part of the spacesuit over them, and then affixed the helmet. Little Julie stared back at her wide-eyed through the faceplate. The suit had multiple folds at the legs and arms since it was much too large even for the two of them.
A deep voice boomed behind them. “What do you think you’re doing?”
With a squawk, Sue turned around. There stood Celia’s husband, George Biggs. “That’s my spacesuit you’ve got there,” he said, frowning at them.
“Please, George, Bonnie’s husband is dead. She needs to go.”
“Jeff is dead?” George said in puzzlement. “How could that happen? That makes no sense.”
“George, you have to trust me. Brother Jacobs sent Jeff out to his death. Now he insists that Jean is going to marry him. He’s become unhinged. Bonnie and the girls need to get to safety right away. This isn’t the Middle Ages; they’re not serfs to be handed over to the king to do with as he pleases. You have to help us, George. Anyway, what are you doing down here so early?”
“Celia came in bitching and moaning about you and woke me up. Since I was now awake, I figured I would get an early start on finishing the greenhouse. Imagine my surprise to see you down here. Now you’d better get out of those suits so that I can get to work.”
“George, please let us go,” Bonnie begged. “You’ve always been nice to us. It’s our decision to make. With Jeff gone, I have nothing to hold me here.”
“If she stays, Brother Jacobs would just make them prisoners,” Sue said.
“Well, hmm, there’s certainly that,” George said, pondering his next step. “Alright, you can go. No one should be held against their will. With Jeff gone, that makes me Platinum One. You realize that, given my responsibilities, I’ll need to tell Brother Jacobs, don’t you?”
Bonnie stretched up and gave George a peck on the cheek. “Bless you, George. I won’t forget this.” She plunked the helmet onto her head and told Sue to latch it on. At once, she turned to the airlock and pressed the button to open it. “Let’s go, girls,” she said.
# # #
A few minutes later, Bonnie and her daughters reached the bulldozer which was sitting next to the greenhouse. Bonnie could just barely see in the dim light of the rising sun, which was sitting on the horizon. She had to assist Jean and Julie, because Jean could not see where she was walking. Only Julie’s head was in the helmet and, since Julie was only six years old, Jean was finding her directions very difficult to interpret. They tripped multiple times before Bonnie got them safely seated on the bulldozer.
Once settled, Bonnie spoke over the suit radio. “Jean, what do I do now?”
Jean could hear her mother’s voice drift down to her from the helmet above. Jean shouted to make sure she could be heard, and Bonnie heard her muffled voice say, “There should be a panel. Touch it to activate it, and then look for any words like start or run or engine. Then touch it to start it.”
Bonnie did as Jean indicated, and saw a dizzying array of options. One of the words finally popped out at her. She pressed ‘Drive.’ There were only two options that resulted: forward and reverse. Bonnie selected ‘Forward’ and the bulldozer lurched ahead. She clutched at the steering lever and held it steady. “Okay, we’re moving. What now?” she asked.
“If you’re not at the main menu, press ‘Return’ and then look for anything like radar or navigatio
n,” Julie’s muffled voice responded. “We should be able to find Sam’s base that way.”
Sure enough, Bonnie found a ‘Navigation’ option, and then a ‘Radar’ selection. When she picked that, a number of circles appeared on the monitor. Each circle had a name under it. One selection that was off to the right of the screen said ‘NASA Base.’
“I see it, Jean. It’s at around where an hour hand would point if it was three o’clock.”
“Turn to the right until it’s at the top of the display, and then keep it there. That should send us directly to it,” Jean replied.
Bonnie turned the bulldozer, and felt better as the blip on the screen moved to the top. “See, Julie,” she said as she tapped the circle, “that’s where we’re going. We’ll get to see Pilot Sam and Commander Roy again. Think of this like a little vacation.”
“Will we be gone a long time, Mommy?” her daughter asked.
“Yes, dear, a very long time,” Bonnie said. She then focused on steering around the small rocks and boulders in their path, always returning the bulldozer to place the indicated blip at the top of the display.
# # #
Brother Jacobs woke up and stretched. He had his wall monitor set to a camera that gave a view outside to the west, and he could see the sun coming up. “Ah,” he mumbled. “A glorious day is at hand. Soon I will rise and check on my betrothed, and then announce the nuptials to our members. They will be informed that Jeff’s last wish was to grant his daughter’s hand in marriage to me. No one will dare to gainsay me.”
A quiet knock sounded on his door. “Brother Jacobs, are you awake? It’s George.”
“Enter, my friend, enter.”
George opened the door and came into the cabin. He saw Brother Jacobs roll out of bed and stand. He was wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. The leader rushed over to him and vigorously shook his hand.
