Girl on Mars

by Jack McDonald Burnett

  The three of them looked at one another. Conn’s heart thumped. She had no idea if the pistol was loaded, or even real, but she felt sure Yongpo wouldn’t discharge it inside a pressurized spacecraft.

  The Aphelial looked menacing, but Conn sensed anxiety radiating from him.

  For her part, Conn tried to follow this scenario to its possible conclusions. They all seemed either implausible or bad for the her and her friend.

  “What do we do now?” she asked both of them.

  “I don’t know where you’re from,” the Aphelial said, “but I don’t want to go there. No offense.”

  Conn narrowed her eyes at him. “What were you sent to do to us? Kill us, rough us up?”

  The Aphelial looked like he stifled a spasm of laughter. “Something funny?” Yongpo asked.

  “I’m a navigator,” the alien said. “A couple of us were asked to go guard your vehicle and head you off if you went that way. Next thing I know, I’m in an open airlock in a moving spacecraft.”

  “So, what, you were just supposed to escort us back to the brig if you found us?”

  The Aphelial shrugged. “Pretty sure they were moving you to quarters.”

  “They were what?”

  The Aphelial sighed theatrically. “I don’t know anything, OK? Just what everybody knows about the aliens we intercepted. Nobody has any idea what to do with you. Captain supposedly contacted the Navy, who asked that you be detained. But what do we know about detaining anybody? We’re a cargo ship.”

  “You had others in the brig.”

  “The scientist is part of our cargo,” the Aphelial said. “He wanted to talk to you.”

  Conn and Yongpo looked at one another. “Well, um,” Conn said. “We’re not going back. . . .”

  The Aphelial looked panicked. “Honestly—I can’t go wherever you’re going. I’ve got a kid.”

  “What I was going to say,” Conn said, “is that we obviously have to go back and drop you off. But we’re not staying, quarters or no.”

  The relief was obvious, even on an alien face. “That’s fine with me. Thank you.”

  “Should we wait,” Yongpo said sidelong to Conn, “until the computer comes up with a route home?”

  Conn considered. “That’s probably a good idea. Sorry—I think you’re being detained.”

  “How long does it take you to come up with a route home?”

  It could take weeks. The computer calculated a route alongside fifth dimensional space in a few hours. But the route could be one that took six years or sixty years. Any length of time shorter than it would take light to make the journey. In this case, anything under eighty-three years. Conn and Yongpo would keep making the computer calculate new routes until they got one they could measure in months instead of years.

  Conn fudged. “A few days,” she said.

  “That’s ridiculous,” the Aphelial said.

  Conn stiffened. “That’s the way it is,” she said.

  “I mean—how far are you going?”

  “Eighty-three light years.”

  “It would take our systems about five seconds to calculate you a route home that would take twenty-five weeks or less.”

  The Aphelial showed his teeth, in what she was pretty sure was a grin. “Bring me back now, give me twenty minutes, and I’ll get you a good, short route home.”

  THREE

  Back Home

  April - September, 2037

  They had rationed their freeze-dried astronaut food on the inbound trip, scattering it among many, many tough, blockish military MREs. They decided a feast was in order as they departed: freeze dried pot roast, potatoes and pudding. And wine (not freeze dried). After five days of Aphelial food, which had been hard to digest and seemed to have almost no nutritional value for humans, the feast felt almost decadent. They celebrated mankind’s first interstellar journey, their escape, and a return trip in less than half the time.

  As they settled in for the long journey—only twenty and a half weeks, instead of the forty-nine they’d gone in the opposite direction—Conn wished there was a way to explore the fifth dimension and learn how three-dimensional spacecraft could travel alongside it. She wished for anything to do. She had learned, as had Yongpo, that there was a lot of hurrying up and waiting involved in traveling to the moon, although science kept them busy. The same downtime existed for interstellar travel. There was just more of it.

  Yongpo spent part of the return trip writing down everything he could remember about the Aphelials’ “portal” technology. He confessed to Conn that he hadn’t been confident it would work, learning the underlying assumptions and mechanics, memorizing it, then using that information as a basis for a real-world application. He surprised himself by figuring out how to put together a working model. Theoretically. He grinned the rest of the way home.

  Conn and Yongpo had considered being together-together after they left for Mizar and Alcor, but quickly decided that close friendship felt right. Conn shared something with Yongpo she could never share with anybody else (that she wanted anything to do with): they had both walked on the moon. And now they’d visited another, alien solar system together. She was sure they’d remain close for the rest of their lives, by virtue of their shared experiences and genuine affection for one another. But they both knew they didn’t want anything physical.

  One hundred forty-five days after they departed, they appeared in high Earth orbit, back in three-dimensional space. They radioed the Dyna-Tech space station, known colloquially as Gasoline Alley. Since they were unexpected, there was no ready berth for them. But returning in the interstellar spacecraft got them what they needed shortly.

  The reception at Gasoline Alley itself was high-energy. They’d been gone long enough that people thought they hadn’t made it, and weren’t coming back. Everybody seemed surprised and happy to see them.

  Yongpo made a call to ask Dyna-Tech for a ride home in one of its SSEVs, or Space Station Egress Vehicles—lightweight, re-entry-proof fliers that represented the main way off the space station. He asked to speak to Hunter Valence, the Dyna-Tech CIO, a friend of Yongpo’s. Skylar Reece, the COO, came on the line instead.

  As Yongpo relayed the conversation to Conn later, Skylar said she was happy they had safely returned, but beyond that, it was obvious that she was furious they’d stolen the spacecraft and set their work on faster-than-light travel back months.

  “They weren’t working on faster-than-light when we left,” Conn said. “They weren’t doing anything.”

  “I know,” Yongpo said. “I think it’s just posturing. You know Skylar.” She knew Skylar. Conn had been the owner and chairman of Dyna-Tech, all too briefly.

  “Anyway, we can have an SSEV in about six hours.”

  They had waited five months before they could get home, but the prospect of six hours before they could leave the space station seemed much longer to her. She was so close to a shower and a bed.

  The SSEVs now carried payload from the space station to Earth as well as two passengers. The ubiquity of T-fields made the extra space possible. No more astronauts in pressure suits had to cram themselves into these vehicles.

  Packed as it was, she and Yongpo had to wriggle and squeeze themselves into the passenger seats. Once they were in position, it wasn’t uncomfortable, but it was a bit claustrophobic.

  There were no issues with reentry and landing at Seguin Field in Texas. They were safe, happy, and heavy at home. Conn would return to California—after she made a detour to Houston.

  # # #

  Conn expected the room to smell antiseptic, like the masking agent that hid the truth about most hospital rooms. It didn’t. Instead, there was the unmistakable odor of a sweaty, sick human body. Unlike the last time she had visited Grant, shortly after she saved his life, flower arrangements didn’t fill the room. Nothing competed with the smell of breath and sweat but stale, uncirculating air.

  She watched Grant for long moments, delicate beeps and boops the only sounds. S
he realized she was holding her breath. Something hissed and startled her: a blood pressure reading. She looked at Grant, and she could feel tears pooling.

  A too-thin version of the astronaut slept with a sheet and blanket tucked under his armpits. His head lolled to one side, and his breathing seemed labored. He’d been bald, with a superhero chin, broad shoulders, and a ready smile. Now his hair had grown in, or some of it had, a stringy, mousy tangle. He had lost a drastic amount of weight after the Aphelial almost mortally injured him out on Saturn’s moon, Tethys, but last time Conn had seen him, he’d started to put it back on. It was gone again, and his shoulders looked, from Conn’s angle, to be no wider than his head. She began to appreciate how Grant’s good looks had been enhanced by his vibrancy.

  She had trouble holding on to the idea that this spent, ailing man was Grant Loomis. She’d risked her life to bring back from Tethys someone with so much more life and energy. She’d saved Grant. What had happened to him after that?

  What had they done to him?

  She stood tense for two more blood pressure readings, then tiptoed toward the bed. As she did, it was almost as though she tripped a wire. Grant opened his eyes and swiveled his head towards her. She wished she hadn't, but she jumped. Grant’s face scrunched into what Conn took to be a smile.

  “Hey,” she squeaked.

  His voice was gravel. “You’re back,” he managed.

  “I am,” she said, trying to be bright and cheerful but just sounding manic, to her own ears. She wasn’t back on her bipolar medicine yet, and wasn’t sure how she sounded to him. She felt her face redden. “You! You’re—um, how are you?”

  Grant stared at her. It was a dumb question. “The important thing,” he rasped, “is that you’re home safe.”

  “When you told me you’d be right here when I got back, I didn’t think you meant it literally.”

  Grant chuckled. “I went home a few weeks after you left. Not one hundred percent, but good enough not to have to endure hospital food anymore.” He coughed. It took him a moment before he could speak again. “Then I came down with acute myeloid leukemia.”

  “Oh, no . . .”

  “You’ve got to figure that passing through the Van Allen belts and then traveling all the way to Saturn exposed me to enough radiation for something to happen. I just wish it had given me superpowers, instead.”

  She laughed; she worried it sounded like a sob.

  “They took good care of me, and it went into full remission. Until about a month ago.”

  “Grant, I’m so, so sorry.”

  “But you, you probably had a more exciting time than I did.”

  “You’d be surprised. Do you want to hear about it?”

  He did, so Conn talked to him about the interminable journey to Mizar and Alcor, their days in the brig, their harrowing escape, and shorter return trip.

  “Is there anything I can get you? Do you need water or anything?” Conn fidgeted, wanting to do anything she could to help, and in equal measure, to try to make the room less stifling.

  Grant said no and then caught her up on some the news of the world since she'd left. Mickey Lanihan had defeated incumbent Chelsea Clinton in the November presidential election on a campaign to dial back the war on the Pelorians. In March, he had pardoned Conn and everyone else accused of “pro-Pelorian activities,” and had announced the end of incarceration without formal charge. “You should be in good shape,” Grant said. Conn hoped so.

  The war officially continued, but the occasional ineffectual bombing of the far side of the moon had not provoked the Pelorians into retaliating.

  “Good thing,” Conn said. She knew that the Pelorians’ technology so outclassed humans’ that a real war wouldn’t last three days.

  Russia and China remained at war, though a stalemate existed and hostilities had ceased. The two great nations had exchanged nuclear bombs while Conn was away, so the road to an uneasy peace had been long and fraught with obstacles. China’s secret recipe for turning ordinary nitrogen into electric power, granted to them by the Pelorians in exchange for, the theory went, invading Russia, was the talk of the world. Every other nation wanted to figure it out, or steal the secret. China had saved enough money on power infrastructure that even while at war its economy was a powerhouse.

  Grant seemed to enjoy Conn’s reactions to hearing all this news for the first time. He became more animated as they talked.

  For her part, Conn laughed and twittered, again trying to sound bright and unconcerned but failing. On top of the devastating news that Grant had leukemia, she needed badly to get back on her medication. In her manic state, the feeling that she couldn’t spend another minute in that stifling room grew and grew.

  Grant helped her out by saying he was tired. “This is more talking than I usually do,” he said.

  Seeing and hearing him like that broke her heart. He had always been so energetic and positive. She couldn’t comprehend how ravaged his body must have been to wear him down so.

  She told him to rest and that she’d be back. As she left, the thought struck her that Grant might not still be there when she returned.

  FOUR

  The Saleswoman

  September, 2037

  Conn and Yongpo thought they were sitting on a gold mine with what they hoped and expected was working teleportation technology. Dyna-Tech disagreed. Its position was that it owned the tech.

  Neither Conn nor Yongpo had been Dyna-Tech employees when Yongpo had spent time with his Aphelial scientist-friend—the company had fired Yongpo after the two had made off with the Pelorian spacecraft. But they had used stolen Dyna-Tech property to gather their intelligence. It would be unfair to allow the two to hijack Dyna-Tech’s property, use it to obtain tech, and then keep the tech for themselves, the company argued. Whatever the merits of the argument, Skylar Reece insisted the two sign waivers acknowledging that whatever tech they had discovered belonged to Dyna-Tech, in exchange for not pressing charges for the theft of the spacecraft.

  It was a given that the company would litigate this point if it had to. Conn couldn’t afford litigation, any more than Yongpo could, so she tried another tack: she was in the news again, so she would give interviews on the feeds. She would make the world see that the tech belonged to her, and that would make Dyna-Tech’s position harder to maintain, at least from a public relations standpoint.

  Though she tried to outmaneuver it and keep it away from taking her portal tech, Conn missed Dyna-Tech. She had worked for the company since her sophomore year in college, and she’d even owned and run it after her hero and mentor, former owner and chairman Peo Haskell, died. Conn had signed everything over to Peo’s estranged daughter Laura Haskell-Lefebvre in order to get company assets unfrozen, so the employees could get paid and so no astronauts would be stuck at the space station with no way home. It had been the right thing to do, but that didn’t make her any less bitter about it, or regret it less.

  The portal tech, assuming Yongpo could make it work, would be worth billions to Dyna-Tech, or EMSpace, or any other company—or government. Spacefaring companies could eliminate rocket launch costs. A multinational corporation could eliminate its travel expenses. Governments could move soldiers from one hotspot on the globe to another, instantly. It could change everything—for the highest bidder.

  Anyone could go to the moon, with a T-field, a breathing bubble and O2, and a portal. Other planets could be visited and studied. The Dyna-Tech Conn knew wouldn’t allow that tech to be sold to anyone else, and it would pay almost anything to get its hands on it exclusively.

  Conn told interviewer after interviewer about the potential windfall of benefits that could result from her portal tech. She had obtained T-field technology from the Pelorians and had distributed it to the world at large. Dyna-Tech had benefited because the easier it was to work in space, the more customers it had. Plus, the technology saved lives. In addition to astronauts, divers used it, firefighters used it. Conn’s hometown was passing ou
t T-fields to elderly and poor citizens to help them survive extreme Chicago weather.

  Portals were going to be different, Conn said. They weren’t for everybody. She wanted to make sure the right people got hold of the tech, the ones that would use it most responsibly. Every interviewer took her word for it.

  Conn wanted to sell the tech as soon as possible. She knew the US military wanted it, and wanted to be sure the wrong government didn’t get it instead. And she got the familiar feeling that she was being watched. She may have been pardoned, but she was sure her activities were still of interest to the government.

  Conn had been discredited on the Pelorian issue before she left, and the government didn’t consider her a threat to the war status quo anymore. That didn’t mean she was out of the woods, despite Grant’s opinion, since she had escaped from prison, which was a felony. But now back from humankind’s farthest journey, she was a celebrity again, as she had been when she became the first woman to walk on the moon. Another arrest related to her pro-Pelorian detention would be the highest of high-profile. But she didn’t want to take any chances, so she wanted the tech sold, and herself back under the radar, sooner than later.

  She met with two Dyna-Tech rivals, pointedly before giving Dyna-Tech a chance to make a pitch. She talked to three Fortune 500 companies not involved in aerospace. An entrepreneur tried to convince her to partner up in a new venture that would establish a network of toll “gates.” The governments of the United Kingdom and Russia contacted her, and she politely heard each one out. Some of the numbers the companies (at least) were throwing around as possible sale prices impressed her. She made it clear that the tech was untested and work would need to be done to apply it practically, but that didn’t seem to dull anybody’s enthusiasm.

  The military still didn’t get in line and make a formal pitch. This made Conn suspicious, but she worked out that if she sold it to a company with a US presence, the military would probably just take it away from them. Well, by then that wouldn’t be her problem.