Classical: MARS: Book 3 of MARS

by Matthew Ellis

  Michael asked, “Who are they if they’re not part of Scout’s colony?”

  Elaine said, “I don’t care right now. I want to get out of this bed and put my clothes back on before I find out why we’re naked.”

  Andres, “It’s obvious why we’re naked. They don’t want us to be able to leave. Even if we get out of the beds, we’re not going to be able to leave. It’s getting dark, and the night on Mars is unbearably cold.”

  Michael said, “Well, let’s do one thing at a time. For now, just try to wiggle out of the restraints.”

  Andres said, “I see them coming back before we can escape. They’re going to kill us if we’re not where they left us.”

  Michael said, “I’m willing to take that chance if there’s a chance we can escape.”

  Elaine found a spring poking out of her bed. She moved the ropes around her arms to the spring and started using it as a tiny knife.

  Andres said, “Forgive me, Elaine, but you’re turning me on moving like that.”

  Elaine said, “I noticed. It’s hard to hide your arousal when you’re naked and restrained.”

  Michael said, “Andres, stop watching Elaine and try to find a way to free yourself.”

  Andres said, “I’ll try, but it won’t be easy. I’ve always liked Elaine, and this isn’t helping.”

  Elaine said, “I never knew you liked me. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  Andres replied, “Because we were roommates. It wouldn’t have been right.”

  Andres found a sharp piece of plastic protruding from the foot of his bed. He started rubbing the ropes around his legs against it.

  Elaine said, “That’s not going to make it easy for me to concentrate now that I know you like me.”

  Michael said, “Good, you’ve discovered that you like each other and want to hook up. But if we don’t get the hell out of here, you may never get that chance.”

  Elaine separated her hands from the ropes. Then she bent over and untied the ropes around her legs. She jumped out of the bed and ran to Andres.

  Andres said, “This has been a fantasy of mine forever. I just wish it could finish the way I imagined it.”

  Elaine said, “I think it might happen later if we get out of this. I’ve always had a crush on you, too.”

  She kissed Andres on the lips and untied his hands. Then she ran to Michael while Andres untied his legs.

  Michael said, “Now that you’re naked in front of me, I see why Andres likes you so much. You are beautiful. You too much maintenance for me, though.”

  Andres said, “Good, I said I liked her first.”

  Elaine said, “We don’t have time for any macho bullshit right now. We need to find our clothes and get the hell out of here.”

  They looked in the closets, but didn’t find any clothes. Then they looked in the lockers next to the beds. There were no clothes in them.

  Elaine asked, “What kind of people don’t have any clothes in their bedroom?”

  Michael said, “Maybe the kind who don’t wear clothes. When you walked in here, did you notice if the people you saw were wearing anything?”

  Elaine answered, “Actually, they were wearing environmental suits.”

  Michael said, “The Martian colonists wouldn’t still be wearing those suits. The planet’s nearly fully terraformed now.”

  Andres said, “That only leaves one possibility, but it’s utterly ridiculous.”

  Elaine asked, “What’s that?”

  Andres answered, “They must be the people who came here in the ‘30s.”

  Michael said, “There’s no way. That was 60 years ago. Those people are all long since dead.”

  Andres said, “Not necessarily. They could be descendants of the original colonists.”

  Michael said, “They weren’t supposed to have children, and no one’s heard from them for the last five decades. What makes you think they’re still here?”

  Andres said, “When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

  Elaine said, “You are not Sherlock, and why are you still hard?”

  Andres answered, “Because you’re still naked and beautiful.”

  Elaine said, “As much as I want to thank you for that and show you how much I like you too, we have more pressing concerns right now.”

  Michael said, “Where would they have hidden our clothes?”

  They walked out of the bedroom and into the living room. They found four people wearing their clothes and pointing guns at them.

  Michael asked, “Do you speak English?”

  The oldest female said, “Yes, we speak English, and Dutch, and Spanish, and Mandarin. Now that we’ve established that we speak the same language, I’ve got a few questions for the three of you.”

  Elaine started, “Why...”

  The female snapped, “I said I have some questions for you. I ask, you answer. Understood?”

  Elaine replied, “Yes.”

  The female asked, “Why the hell did you break into our home?”

  Michael answered, “We didn’t know anyone was here. We thought everyone from the former colony was dead.”

  The female said, “We’re not dead, but we’re not from the original colony. We’re descendants of those people. My name is Wendy; this is my husband, John, my brother, Kevin, and my two children, Kate and Hugo.”

  Michael asked, “Are you the last survivors?”

  Wendy snapped, “I ask the questions, but no, we are not the only people left. There is one other family with six people.”

  John asked, “So, why are you here?”

  Michael said, “We’re fleeing Earth. It’s become very bad.”

  John said, “We noticed. We had to take refuge in the caves during that war that happened recently. What the hell was that about?”

  Elaine said, “The Earth is run by corporations, and they’ve made it unbearable for the rest of us. There’s a group that left to form a new society without money, and they set up camp on the other side of the planet. The corporations didn’t like that, so they sent the military to try and bring them back to Earth as criminals.”

  Wendy said, “So you’re not part of that military group?”

  Elaine said, “Hell no. We’re trying to escape from them.”

  Andres said, “Don’t tell them anything! This could be a DeNoPE trap!”

  John asked, “What the hell is DeNoPE?”

  Elaine said, “It’s the Developed Nations of Planet Earth. They’re the military alliance the corporations use to maintain power.”

  John said, “We’re nothing to do with that.”

  John dropped his weapon, and the fugitives relaxed.

  Elaine asked, “Can we please have some clothes?”

  Wendy said, “I guess there’s no harm now that we know you’re not here to hurt us.”

  John went into the bathroom and fetched some clothes for their guests. He emerged with three environmental suits and handed them to Elaine, Michael, and Andres. They got dressed and were finally able to relax.

  Michael asked, “So, are you willing to help us?”

  Wendy said, “We didn’t like those soldiers invading our space, and if they’re looking for you they’ll come here.”

  Michael said, “If we go to the colony’s cities, they’ll have to turn us in.”

  John asked, “So why did you come here?”

  Elaine answered, “Because we need a place to hide from the military-industrial complex of DeNoPE.”

  Wendy said, “Maybe we can help each other. We want to keep our land to ourselves. We don’t want to be absorbed by the new colonies, and we don’t like the military of Earth, either. “

  Michael asked, “How do you propose we help each other?”

  John said, “I propose that you go to the people in the cities and tell them what’s happening to you. We’ll go with you and keep you safe on the journey. Once we get to the city, we’ll present our case to them. Since you know what kin
d of people they are, you can help us present our case to them.”

  Andres said, “If we do that, they’ll ship us back to Earth in a prison ship.”

  John said, “If they’re as reasonable as you think they are, they won’t do that.”

  Elaine said, “You don’t understand. They have a treaty with DeNoPE that requires them to return any criminals who come here seeking refuge.”

  Wendy raised her weapon and pointed it at Elaine.

  Wendy said, “You never said you were criminals.”

  Elaine said, “It’s really easy to be a criminal on Earth just by being a working person.”

  Wendy lowered her weapon.

  Wendy said, “Sounds like Earth is a terrible place to live.”

  Elaine said, “It is.”

  John said, “If you agree to help us and they send you back, we have a way to bring you back here.”

  Elaine said, “But they’ll just come back again and recapture us.”

  John said, “You underestimate the 11 of us in this colony. We have the means to fight if the need arises. The war was actually beneficial to us. The military people left a lot of weapons here and a bunch of spare parts for our ships.”

  Michael asked, “So you have a small army here?”

  Wendy said, “We don’t like to fight, but it’s important to be able to defend yourself if the need arises.”

  Andres said, “I don’t like this idea. It puts us in a very vulnerable position.”

  John said, “We can get you out of any situation that arises. I guarantee it.”

  Michael said, “I think we can trust them. This is a good deal. Let’s vote.”

  Elaine said, “I vote yes. That’s two thirds, so it passes.”

  Andres said, “The guarantee makes me feel better, so it’s unanimous.”

  John said, “You can use the bedroom you were in earlier, and I promise you can keep your clothes on. We won’t tie you to them, either.”

  They went outside to retrieve their equipment and brought everything to the bedroom. Elaine summoned Andres to her.

  She said, “I’ll send Michael out of the room for a while, and we can make that fantasy a reality.”

  Andres hurried to get the equipment in its place. Michael decided to give them some privacy.

  Chapter Six

  Stability

  The Earth has a stable tilt on its axis. It is constantly very near 23.5° with a slight wobble. Mars, however, lacks this stability. The Earth’s moon is directly responsible for its tilt stability. This is because the moon’s gravitational pull on the Earth creates perfect conditions for maintaining stability. Mars’ two small moons, Phobos and Deimos, are too far away and far too small to have much of a gravitational effect on Mars’ tilt or anything else. As a result, Mars’ tilt varies from 20° to 90°. This is not the best situation for people trying to maintain a human colony on the surface of the planet.

  Scout sent a scientific team to measure the degree of wobble from space. They were to go up in a ship and take measurements and photographs of the planet. This data would be combined with satellite information sent to the colony’s computers. The data would then be compared to previous data to see how much the planet wobbled on its axis.

  Scout stood in front of the science team and said, “I know you don’t think this is necessary, but I don’t want computers to replace human intelligence on this planet like they have on Earth. They never will so long as I’m around. I want the three of you to take measurements, even if only to please me.”

  Jordan said, “Even if I thought computers could do the work, we would still want the opportunity to learn how this planet works.”

  John said, “We all want to contribute as much as we can to this society, now that we have the opportunity. There’s no way I’m going to let this opportunity to pass me by.”

  Jane said, “My brother’s right. There’s no way any of us was going to let this pass.”

  Scout said, “I’m glad to see you’re all so eager to contribute to the colony’s success. It’s especially important, as the treaty doesn’t allow anyone from Earth to come to our aid. However, that also means that if something goes wrong, it’s up to us to fix it.”

  John said, “I think we’re more than capable of fixing our own problems.”

  Scout said, “I like the confidence I’m hearing. That’s the spirit I want in this society. “

  Jordan ordered, “Okay, team, let’s go up and start taking pictures. There’s no time to waste. We need to see what we’re up against.”

  The science team boarded the ship and left the surface of Mars. They took up orbit around the planet and started collecting data. As they snapped photographs, they sent the files back to the computers on the surface.

  They had a lot of down time between photographs, so they played games. Their favorite was looking for things that looked like faces on Mars.

  Jordan said, “This is what people did when the first pictures of Mars came back to Earth. “

  John said, “Okay, this one looks like a small ship.”

  Jordan said, “That might actually be a small ship. It’s in the place where DeNoPE set up camp during the war. They might’ve left a ship there.”

  Jane looked through the camera lens and noticed that the object was moving.

  She said, “Hey, take a look at this!”

  Jordan grabbed the lens. He saw the same thing and was immediately alarmed.

  He said, “If that’s a DeNoPE ship, it’s a clear violation of the treaty. Nothing should be alive on that side of the planet.”

  Jane asked, “Should we report this to Scout?”

  Jordan answered, “We don’t have a choice. Our cities might be at risk.”

  Jane called Scout and told him what the team saw.

  Scout said, “I’ll send a team to check it out.”

  Jane said, “Okay, thank you. We’ll keep you apprised of anything we see from up here.”

  They stayed in orbit for a month, taking pictures every hour and making notes on the ship near the DeNoPE campsite the entire time. They also took measurements of the planet’s axis. As the pictures and measurements came back to the team on the ground, Lane noticed a pattern.

  Lane told Scout, “It seems that the planet wobbles very slowly. At the rate that it is wobbling right now, it will remain between 20° and 25° for another four years. But we do not know how fast the planet will wobble once the planet gets past 25°.”

  Scout replied, “We can’t assume anything, although it would be convenient if it destabilized just as slowly. That would give us the time we need to formulate and execute a solution. What have you noticed about that ship on the far side of the planet?”

  Lane replied, “It just goes from this campsite to a set of caves about three kilometers away and returns to the campsite.”

  Scout said, “We should find out what’s in those caves.”

  Lane said, “The team is getting there as quickly as they can, but the terrain is a little rough.”

  Scout said, “We need to build a road or railroad to that site. It seems to come up a lot.”

  Lane said, “We’ll work on that when we have the people and resources. Everyone’s working on something important right now.”

  Scout said, “I didn’t mean right now, but it’s going to need to get built.”

  Lane asked, “Should we call the team back to the surface yet?”

  Scout replied, “I think we’ve gathered enough data about the planet to call them back for now.”

  Lane asked, “Do we still need them to send us information about the campsite?”

  Scout answered, “No, the ground team will be there soon enough.”

  Lane talked into a microphone, “Orbit team, this is Lane at ground control.”

  Jordan said, “Go ahead, Lane.”

  Lane said, “Come home. We’ve got enough to formulate a plan.”

  Jordan said, “We’ll be down soon.”

  Jordan told the John and Ja
ne that they were to return to the surface. They would continue to work on the problems from there. John took the controls and began the descent to Mars’ surface.

  Chapter Seven

  The Plan

  Scout called the colony’s leadership into the conference room in Freedom’s city hall. All national leaders were present, along with Mayor Jackson of Freedom and Mayor Vasquez of Progress. Scout stood up and opened the meeting.

  He said, “I’ve called together the best and brightest of this world’s people in order to solve the most pressing problem facing our society today.”

  Mayor Jackson asked, “Is there a new threat from Earth?”

  Scout replied, “Well, there might be, but we’ll deal with that when we have more information. This is a natural problem we knew would arise eventually. We needed to solve the external threat first, so we’d be free to completely change this planet to support human habitation.”

  Kathy asked, “Why don’t you just tell them what the problem is? Why do you always feel the need to unnecessarily build up the drama?”

  Scout looked slightly embarrassed as he replied, “Sorry, babe. I’ll just get to the point. This planet has always had a problem keeping its tilt stable. This is a direct result of the moons being too far away and far too small to influence the gravity of Mars.”

  Mayor Vasquez asked, “So what do we do about it?”

  Scout answered, “That’s why we are all here. I want to hear your ideas, and then we’ll decide on a course of action. So, let’s hear some ideas.”

  The room became deathly silent. One could have heard a flea bite an ant if either of those organisms existed on Mars. No one shared any ideas, although some people had ideas they believed were too ridiculous to work.

  Scout admonished them, “Now, I don’t care if the only idea that you have seems stupid or impossible. I want to hear what we come up with.”

  Jordan stood up and said, “What if we bring a moon here from somewhere else?”

  Everyone in the room looked bewildered. No one believed what Jordan was suggesting.

  Kathy said, “You mean, steal a moon from another planet?”