Space, Inc

by Julie E. Czerneda

  And yet, people did come to these obscure places in their millions after the fact. It had been a century and a half since the apparitions at Fatima, and that village still attracted five million pilgrims annually.

  Annually. I mean Earth annually, of course. Only the anal retentive worry about the piddling difference between a terrestrial day and a Martian sol, but the Martian year was twice as long as Earth’s. So, Fatima, I guess gets ten million visitors per Martian year….

  I felt cold as I looked at the landscape of rusty sand and towering rock faces. It was psychosomatic, I knew: my surface suit—indeed white, as Jurgen Emat had noted—provided perfect temperature control.

  The city square was really just an open area, defined by wind-sculpted sandstone mounds. Although in the earliest photos it had perhaps resembled a piazza, it didn’t look special from within. I walked a few dozen meters, then turned around, the lamp from my helmet piercing the darkness.

  My footprints stretched out behind me. There were no others. I was hardly the first to visit Cydonia, but, unlike on the Moon, dust storms on Mars made such marks transitory.

  I then looked up at the night sky. Earth was easy enough to spot—it was always on the ecliptic, of course, and right now was in … my goodness, isn’t that a coincidence!

  It was in Virgo, the constellation of the Virgin, a dazzling blue point, a sapphire outshining even mighty Spica.

  Of course, Virgo doesn’t depict the Mother of Our Lord; the constellation dates back to ancient times. Most likely, it represents the Assyrian fertility goddess, Ishtar, or the Greek harvest maiden, Persephone.

  I found myself smiling. Actually, it doesn’t depict anything at all. It’s just a random smattering of stars. To see a virgin in it was as much a folly as seeing the rums of an ancient Martian city in the rocks rising up around me. But I knew the … well, not the heavens, but the night sky … like the back of my hand. Once you’d learned to see the patterns, it was almost impossible not to see them.

  And, say, there was Cygnus, and—whaddaya know!— Phobos, and, yes, if I squinted, Deimos, too, just beneath it.

  But no. Surely the Holy Virgin had not revealed herself to Jurgen Emat. Peasant children, yes; the poor and sick, yes. But a televangelist? A rich broadcast preacher? No, that was ridiculous.

  It wasn’t explicitly in Cardinal Pirandello’s message, but I knew enough of Vatican politics to understand what was going on. As he’d said, Jurgen Emat had been at seminary with Viktorio Lazzari—the man who was now known as Leo XIV. Although both were Catholics, they’d ended up going down widely different paths—and they were anything but friends.

  I’d only met the Pontiff once, and then late in his life. It was almost impossible to imagine the poised, wise Bishop of Rome as a young man. But Jurgen had known him as such, and—my thoughts were my own; as long as I never gave them voice, I was entitled to think whatever I wished— and to know a person in his youth is to know him before he has developed the mask of guile. Jurgen Emat perhaps felt that Viktorio Lazzari had not deserved to ascend to the Holy See. And now, with this silly announcement of a Martian Marian vision, he was stealing Leo’s thunder as the Pope prepared to visit Fatima.

  Martian. Marian, Funny I’d never noticed how similar those words were before. The only difference …

  My God.

  The only difference is the lowercase t—the cross—in the middle of the word pertaining to Mars.

  No. No. I shook my head inside the suit’s helmet Ridiculous. A crazy notion. What had I been thinking about? Oh, yes: Emat trying to undermine the Pope. By the time I got back to Utopia Planitia, it would be late Saturday evening. I hadn’t thought of a sermon yet, but perhaps that could be the topic. In matters of faith, by definition, the Holy Father was infallible, and those who called themselves Catholics—even celebrities like Jurgen Emat—had to accept that, or leave the faith.

  It wouldn’t mean much to the … yes, I thought of them as my congregation, even sometimes my flock … but of course the group that only half-filled the pews at Saint Teresa’s each Sunday morn were hardly that. Just the bored, the lonely, those with nothing better to do. Ah, well. At least I wouldn’t be preaching to the converted….

  I looked around at the barren landscape, and took a drink of pure water through the tube in my helmet. The wind howled, plaintive, attenuated, barely audible inside the suit.

  Of course, I knew I was being unfairly cynical. I did believe with all my heart in Our Lady of the Rosary. I knew— knew, as I know my own soul!—that she had in the past shown herself to the faithful, and …

  And I was one of the faithful. Yes, pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall—but I was more faithful than Jurgen Emat. It was true that Buzz Aldrin had taken Holy Communion upon landing on the Moon, but I was bringing Jesus’ teachings farther than anyone else had, here, in humanity’s first baby step out toward the stars….

  So, Mary, where are you? If you’re here—if you’re with us here on Mars, then show yourself! My heart is pure, and I’d love to see you.

  Show yourself, Mother of Jesus! Show yourself, Blessed Virgin! Show yourself!

  Elizabeth Chen’s tone had the same mocking undercurrent as before. “Have a nice walk, Father?”

  I nodded.

  “See anything?”

  I handed her my helmet. “Mars is an interesting place,” I said. “There are always things to see.”

  She smiled, a self-satisfied smirk. “Don’t worry, Father,” she said, as she put the helmet away in the suit locker. “We’ll have you back to Bradbury in plenty of time for Sunday morning.”

  * * *

  I sat in my office, behind my desk, dressed in cassock and clerical collar, facing the camera eye. I took a deep breath, crossed myself, and told the camera to start recording.

  “Cardinal Pirandello,” I said, trying to keep my voice from quavering, “as requested, I visited Cydonia. The sands of Mars drifted about me, the invisible hand of the thin wind moving them. I looked and looked and looked. And men, blessed Cardinal, it happened.”

  I took another deep breath. “I saw her, Eminence. I saw the Holy Virgin. She appeared to float in front of me, a meter or more off the ground. And she was surrounded by spectral light, as if a rainbow had been bent to the contours of her venerable form. And she spoke to me, and I heard her voice three times over, and yet with each layer nonetheless clear and easily discernible: one in Aramaic, the language Our Lady spoke in life; a second in Latin, the tongue of our Church; and again in beautiful, cultured English. Her voice was like song, like liquid gold, like pure love, and she said unto me …”

  Simply sending a message to Cardinal Pirandello wouldn’t be enough. It might conveniently get lost. Even with the reforms of Vatican III, the Church of Rome was still a bureaucracy, and still protected itself.

  I took the recording wafer to the Communications Center myself, handing it to Loni Sinclair, the woman who had brought Pirandello’s original message to me.

  “How would you like this sent, Father?”

  “It is of some import,” I said. “What are my options?”

  “Well, I can send it now, although I’ll have to bill the … um, the …”

  “The parish, my child.”

  She nodded, then looked at the wafer. “And you want it to go to both of these addresses? The Vatican and CNN?”

  “Yes.”

  She pointed to an illuminated globe of the Earth, half embedded in the wall. “CNN headquarters is in Atlanta. I can send it to the Vatican right now, but the United States is currently on the far side of Earth. It’ll be hours before I can transmit it there.”

  Of course. “No,” I said. “No, then wait. There are times when both Italy and the U.S. simultaneously face Mars, right?”

  “Not all of the U.S.—but Georgia, yes. A brief period.”

  “Wait till then, and send the message to both places at the same time.”

  “Whatever you say, Father.”


  “God bless you, child.”

  Loni Sinclair couldn’t quite mask her amusement at my words. “You’re welcome,” she replied.

  Four years have passed. Leo XIV has passed on, and Benedict XVI is now pontiff. I have no idea if Jurgen Emat approves of him or not—nor do I care. Dwelling on Earthly matters is frowned upon here, after all.

  Five million people a year still come to Fatima. Millions visit Lourdes and Guadalupe and La’ Vang.

  And then they go home—some feeling they’ve been touched by the Holy Spirit, some saying they’ve been healed.

  Millions of faithful haven’t made it to Mars. Not yet; that will take time. But tens of thousands have come, and, unlike those who visited the other shrines, most of them stay. After traveling for years, the last thing they want to do is turn around and go home, especially since, by the time they’d arrived here, the propitious alignment of Earth and Mars that made then-journey out take only two years has changed; it would take much longer to get home if they left shortly after arriving.

  And so, they stay, and make their home here, and contribute to our community.

  And come to my Masses. Not out of boredom. Not out of loneliness. But out of belief. Belief that miracles do still occur, and can happen as easily off Earth as on it.

  I am fulfilled, and Mars, I honestly believe, is now a better place. This is a congregation, a flock. I beam out at its members from the pulpit, feeling their warmth, their love.

  Now I only have one problem left. To lie to Cardinal Pirandello had been a violation of my oath, of the teachings of my faith. But given that I’m the only priest on all of Mars, to whom will I confess my sin?

  * * *

  Dubbed “the dean of Canadian science fiction” by The Ottawa Citizen, Toronto’s Robert J. Sawyer is the author of the Hugo Award finalists Starplex, Frameshift, Factoring Humanity, and Calculating God, and the Nebula Award winner The Terminal Experiment. His story from the DAW anthology Sherlock Holmes in Orbit won France’s top SF award, Le Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, and his story from the DAW anthology Dinosaur Fantastic won Canada’s top SF award, the Aurora. Rob’s latest novel is Hominids, the first volume in his “Neanderthal Parallax” trilogy. His Web site at www.sfwriter.com has been called “the largest genre writer’s home page in existence” by Interzone.

  RIGGERS

  by Michael E. Picray

  SOLAR SAIL RIGGERS, APPRENTICES SOUGHT

  The factory ship Inner Space is offering apprenticeships to qualified candidates interested in working toward their certification as Master Riggers. The first portion of the program will take place on Earth, followed by extensive, hands-on training aboard ship. Transport to and from Earth will be provided.

  A commitment to four years working as a rigger for the Company is required. We pay top wages, offer a complete benefits and bonus package, and provide the highest standards in safety. Apply at your local employment office or contact Human Resources, ExtraTerra Corp.

  THE Solar Sail Factory Ship Inner Space cruised ten million miles above the plane of the ecliptic. If a rocket were launched nearly straight up from the North geographic pole of the Earth, it would have hit the Inner Space right in the center of its wheel spokes, where the main zero G factory works were located. Radiating outward from this center body was the structure that supported the solar sails. The ship’s wheeled shape seemed to be rolling through space as it spun to maintain the stability of the structure, and to keep tension on the fabric of the sails.

  On the far side of the sun from the Inner Space, a sunspot formed. The opposing magnetic fields formed a loop between them that ran across the neutral line, thus achieving stability. As the sunspot rotated toward the Earth, the magnetic environment changed and the loop twisted, creating a shear that pointed along the neutral dividing line. The change in the magnetic field caused a filament suspended above the surface of the sun to collapse. Seconds later a solar flare, formed by a tremendous explosion of gases and solar material, and heated to one million degrees Celsius, leaped into the lower heliosphere at nearly 1800 kilometers per second, toward the area commonly known as inner space. At this temperature, electrons were stripped from component atoms and sent spaceward as ionized particles, accompanied by gamma rays and X-rays. A shock wave from this explosion raced across the intervening space.

  On Earth, the solar weather forecasters sent out a general warning that a Coronal Mass Ejection, a CME, had occurred and applied their formulas to project the exact path of the Solar Particle Storm. The Solar Sail Factory Ship Inner Space was centered in that path in four dimensions. A specific warning was sent.

  But aboard the Inner Space a small resistor in the electronic tracking system of the Main Radio Antenna Array, after working faithfully for nearly fifteen years, failed. Since the highly directional array still functioned within defined parameters, the redundant systems did not kick on-line and take over tracking. At a distance of ten million miles it doesn’t take much variance to miss a target. The highly-directional antenna array still functioned, but it was no longer pointed at the Earth.

  Master Rigger John “Cap” Hardesty, senior rigger aboard the Inner Space, released the stay-brake. Centrifugal force began to act on the bright silver two-seat creeper’s boxy shape, and slowly began pushing it out Radial Arm Three’s guide wire toward the rim of the sail. At the same time, an automated weight began its journey out Radial Arm Eleven, providing the balance so necessary to the stability of the structure. The grabber-gears attached to the undercarriage of the creeper were crawling along the radial with agonizing slowness, metering its speed, keeping it from flying out to the rim and being flung into space. The seat next to Cap’s held Apprentice Rigger Bob “Ace” Harley.

  “I’ve been aboard for two months,” Harley was saying, “and this is the first time I get to go out on the sails.”

  Cap responded, “When I first came aboard, I lived to come out here.” He reached a hand forward and tweaked the tension adjustment on the Alpha set of clamps. They had a tendency to expand and drag as the friction heated them. Then he leaned back in the driver’s seat. “I got over it.”

  Cap’s adjustment of the clamps required Harley to lean into his own control panel and loosen the forward set of grabbers so that they operated smoothly and didn’t bind on the cable. Cap watched him fuss and fidget with them, first turning the knob the wrong way and tightening, then nearly losing the wire as he loosened them too much. Although Cap saw everything, he said nothing. The kid had to learn, and hands-on experience was still the best teacher.

  “Why don’t you like going out anymore?” Harley asked.

  Cap continued to look out the port, listening to the muted ticking sound as the grabber-gears meshed with the radial track. Eventually he spoke. “What do they tell you kids these days when you come up here? What do they tell you about the dangers?”

  “Well, they tell us that radiation can kill us, but everybody knows that.” Harley thought back to his orientation training. “They tell us that working here is safer than being a farmer on Earth, that we’ll get less radiation than the farmer will. Oh, and they tell us to listen to you when you tell us how to do things so we don’t get hurt.”

  Cap nodded his head. “That’s about what I figured.”

  Harley looked startled. “Did they lie to us?”

  Cap’s face acquired a grim smirk. “No. They didn’t lie. They just left out a few things. Like they probably used the words ‘on average’ when they told you that bit about the farmers and the radiation, didn’t they? What they told you is absolute truth, as far as it goes. Those radiation risk estimates they told you about are based on increased rates of cancer. But if you get zapped out here and die quickly, you’ll never have a chance to get cancer. You won’t even be a statistic.

  “How do you think you got your job? Did you think we were building an addition to the factory and needed extra riggers?” Cap’s voice sneered, and then became hard and flat. “You are here because the guy you replaced isn
’t, and I’m here to tell you that he didn’t get old and retire. I’ve been up here on rotation with Beta-partners for five years and I’m the senior rigger. What does that tell you? It should tell you that up here we live until we die, and that’s all we expect.” He paused. “They told you about Beta-partners, didn’t they?”

  Harley looked confident. “Yes, sir. A Beta-partner is your opposite number so that you can rotate back to the Earth to rebuild muscle tone and bone mass, and therefore not become debilitated by working for extended periods in space. The Company can employ you longer that way and it spends less in training costs, allowing them to pay us more. I haven’t met my Beta-partner yet.”

  Cap nodded his head. “You probably never will. You’re up, he’s down, with no overlap. You’re a smart kid. You know about redundancy in space systems? Your Beta is also your spare, your replacement if something happens to you. There is one advantage to the system for you, though. It allows you to get out of the radiation up here for a while.”

  Harley nodded in understanding. Then he got a concerned look on his face. “Cap? What do we do if the gears slip?”

  Cap could see all of Harley’s gauges from his own seat and had noticed the progress indicator showing zero progress some time ago. He had been wondering how long it would take the kid to notice. The kid was quicker than some, slower than others. Cap leaned over and looked at the indicator, then straightened up and looked out his porthole. “Sometimes not much,” he said and pointed out Harley’s port.

  Harley looked outside and saw that their progress continued. Then he looked back at the indicator, which still said that the creeper wasn’t moving, and got a puzzled look on his face.

  Cap reached under the control panel’s bottom lip and took a large screwdriver from a homemade rack. He gave the progress indicator gauge a hard whack with the handle. The gauge immediately jumped from zero to their earlier indicated speed. “Sometimes ya gotta do a field calibration with a technical tool,” he explained. “I used to keep a little tack hammer under there, but the brass figured out what I did with it and took it away from me. When they still didn’t replace the indicator, I ‘found’ that screwdriver in one of the shops and nobody’s the wiser.” Harley smiled, nodding. Cap went on to explain, “I think the indicator locking up like that has something to do with the centrifugal force out here near the rim. At C 20, we will weigh an apparent 1.5 times our Earth normal. Then, too,” he grinned as he put the screwdriver back, “some things just act differently out here.”