Eclipse 4: New Science Fiction and Fantasy

by Jonathan Strahan

  Elan had explained that if they had been taking on or dropping off cargo, the scoop would have hooked onto an anchor at the base landing dock. But docking took too much time; it was not stopping just for passengers. Martians caught their rides by hopping a moving scoop.

  They passed through the airlock and Elan took his breather off. The air pressure in the passenger compartment was only 200 millibars, too low for Mariska, so she was stuck in the EV suit. There were two other passengers. One acknowledged them with a nod. The other was asleep under a sun lamp, her photoreceptors erect and reaching toward the light like hungry snakes. Mariska tried not to disturb them as she flitted from window to window, taking in the view. The scoop was quickly reeling line in to gain altitude. Behind them was Natividad base. She could see the squat chocolate chip shape of the Madre and the jumble of service mods around it. Ahead of them was the southwest wall of Escalante Crater and, two hundred and sixty kilometers beyond that, Tarragona.

  Elan’s home.

  This wasn’t a trip Mariska had been looking forward to, and the only reason she was making it was because Elan had begged her to come along. His own relationship with his parents was strained and he thought they would have to behave if he brought a guest home. She owed him; after all, hadn’t he helped Mariska with her mother? She could have resisted this argument, but what she couldn’t resist was that he needed her support. Had anyone ever really needed her? Maybe Jak, her first and only boyfriend, but that had ended badly. Was Elan her boyfriend? They had certainly spent a lot of time together in the past few weeks. No, that was ridiculous—he was a Martian, and a spacer, and he would be out of her life before too much longer. But he was her only friend on the base, if you weren’t counting Shengyi—and she wasn’t. What Mariska didn’t understand was how she could be his only friend. Despite all the kidding he got, the rest of the crew seemed to like him. Brady and Bhatnagar especially made an effort to include him, but he kept pushing them away.

  The whirring of the tie-line reel got even louder as they cleared the Escalante. The ground fell away as the scoop hauled itself up towards

  its balloon. Ahead of them loomed the peak of a mountain.

  “Like the view?” Elan came up behind her.

  “That’s a big one ahead.” She knew that the EV helmet muffled her voice, but Martians had keen hearing.

  “Mt. Letosa. Two thousand meters of up between here and there. We’ll make it.”

  “I’m not worried.” She placed her glove flat against the window. “This is fun.”

  “This part, yeah. Later, maybe not.”

  She patted his back. “We’ll survive.”

  =I really appreciate this.= His feed was practically melting with gratitude.

  Elan had guessed that it would take at least four hours to get to Tarragona, depending on how many rolling stops they had to make. The pilot tacked north after crossing over Mt. Letosa and worked her way around its western slope to pick up two miners and drop off the Martian who had been snoozing. A couple of hours later, she swooped low over a seemingly empty plain. Mariska peered, but couldn’t see anyone. The scoop slowed down but not nearly enough. Nobody, not even a Martian, could run that fast. Then she spotted the trail of dust peeling behind the glint of metal: a motobike was hurtling toward them. She wanted to call Elan to come see but there was no time. The bike’s front wheel came off the ground as it closed the last few meters. Even with her face pressed to the window, Mariska couldn’t see the entry, although she could hear the squeal of rubber on metal in the cabin behind them. She expected a crash but none came. Then the scoop lurched forward to catch up to the balloon and began to climb its tie-line. A few moments later, the cyclist burst through the airlock. She tore her helmet off and stomped up to Elan.

  “She can’t even breathe the air,” she said, wisps of Marsdust puffing from her grimy jumpsuit.

  Mariska glanced at Elan. When she saw him shrinking back in his seat, she sat upright. Was this person talking about her?

  “Why are you here?” Elan sounded as miserable as he looked.

  “Why?” The cyclist turned to the other passengers. “He wants to know why I’m here?”

  “So do we,” called one of the miners. “Tell us. We’re bored.”

  “It’s been a long trip.” The other was laughing a staccato laugh.

  =Elan, who is she?= Mariska offered, but his head was slammed shut.

  “This is his tourist,” said the angry cyclist. “For her, he leaves me. Me, three times his wife.”

  Grrr. In the thin air, Elan’s gasp sounded like a growl. “We were never together, Nelow.”

  Mariska didn’t like anything about this woman, but especially not her claim to be married to Elan. “I’m Mariska Volochkova.”She stood. “And you are?”

  “Yes, we know all about you.” The look she gave Mariska could have crushed stone. “The twenty billion yuan girl.”

  Mariska colored.

  Elan stood beside her. “Why are you here?”

  “I am invited by Gamir and Zak. The grandparents of our child.”

  “There is no child.”

  Mariska bumped up against him. “What is going on here, Elan?”

  “He doesn’t tell you? Wake up, sleeper.” She snapped her fingers in front of Mariska’s face. “You two talk now. I need to sit with real Martians.” She turned, stalked to the two miners, and pushed in between them. “Talk!” she ordered Elan and Mariska, then leaned back and slung arms around each of the miners’ shoulders.

  They talked. When Nelow and Elan had been two Martian years old—not quite four standard—their parents had agreed to a term marriage contract for their children, who had never met. Nelow lived in the city of Schiaparelli and Elan lived eight hundred kilometers away in remote Tarragona. This was first of all a civic and business relationship. The marriage earned both families government stipends under the Repopulation Act, passed at the end of the Abandonment. However, while the institution of child marriage was most popular among the poorest Martians, money was not their only motivation. Pledging that their children would marry and reproduce was seen by parents as a patriotic duty to their decimated society. Mars needed Martians. Their original contract had been for three Martian years; renewal for another term doubled the stipend and created a greater expectation that the marriage would someday be made permanent. At the time of the third renewal, the couple was required to bank eggs and sperm as insurance against radiation damage. Levels on Mars could be fifty times those on Earth. Most of those who agreed to three-term contracts went on to permanent marriage. Those who chose not to renew a contract were required to pay the stipends back.

  “I almost went permanent,” whispered Elan. “I liked her well enough.”

  He kept checking on Nelow. “Or thought I did.” She had appeared to have fallen asleep; her head rested against one of the miners. “But the Natividad. No Martian has ever crewed a starship. It’s past time.”

  Mariska offered a feed again but his head was still closed. “She was mad at you,” she said, hiding her disappointment.

  “Do you blame her?” Grrr. “We lived together when I went to school in Schiaparelli.” He ground his foot into the deck, as if to squash the memory. “I don’t love her. And she’ll never leave Mars.”

  “So you got married for Mars?”

  “For Mars? Yes, but not my choice.”

  “And you’re leaving for Mars.” She poked him in the ribs. “Time that a Martian went to the stars,” she said in an announcer’s voice.

  He gave her a sour look. “Not much of a reason is it? He considered. “Nobody I know wants me to leave. Maybe not even me.”

  She waited to hear more.

  “My parents are proud. But I’ll be gone for good.” He nodded at Nelow. “She hates the Natividad. And the crew doesn’t want me. Not really. I’m just good public relations. Like you.”

  “And now you don’t want to go?”

  “I thought I did. I need to do something. I’m twelve
years old.”

  She nudged him with her elbow. “Twenty-two standard.”

  “Tourist years.” Grrr. “I can’t believe she called you that.”

  “I think she’s awake.” Mariska nuzzled his neck, just to tease Nelow. “And peeking this way.” At least, that was what she thought she was doing. “I think she’s burning up inside at the sight of us together.”

  “Maybe.” He sounded doubtful.

  “I can’t believe your parents invited her.”

  “I can,” said Elan.

  Mariska paused at the entrance to the greenhouse. It was so bright that she wished she was wearing her EV suit so that she could enable its sun visor. Zak and Gamir had increased the air pressure in their burrow to 360 millibars so that Mariska could wear plain clothes. But the air was still so thin that it gave her a headache; this near-blinding light only made it worse. She had grown up on the Moon where the standard pressure was 500 millibars, which was the equivalent of living at an altitude of 6000 meters. But touring Elan’s parents’ burrow felt like a forced march around the summit of Mount Everest.

  “Oh, you have another asparagus crop coming.” Nelow knelt by the raised bed and brushed her hand along the row of spears poking through the rockwool.

  “Third this year.” Zak beamed; he treated her as if she was his child and Elan was the guest.

  Mariska could have sworn that Nelow stopped for a personality transplant on the trip from the scoop drop-off to the burrow. She had complimented Gamir on the narcissus scent she had chosen in Mariska’s honor, although Mariska thought it smelled like an oil spill. She was affectionate with Zak and polite to Mariska and claimed to be following stories about Elan in her favorite newsfeed. And now she was cooing at asparagus. Who was she trying to impress?

  “And what do you grow in your greenhouse?” Gamir asked Mariska.

  Hydroponics had been Mariska’s worst subject in school on the Moon and asteroid buckets like the Shining Legend didn’t have greenhouses. “I like flowers,” she said.

  “So do we,” said Zak. “I always say, vegetables sustain the body, flowers lift the spirit.”

  “What about fruit?” said Elan. “Grain? Goat?”

  “Ssshh,” Gamir said. “Don’t be mocking your father.”

  “Zak has a wonderful rose collection,” said Nelow. “And peonies. Some amazing orchids.”

  =Help, Elan. What kind of flowers do I like?= Something strange happened then. Although Elan’s head was still closed to her, both Gamir and Zak gave her looks. For a moment she thought they had intercepted the feed she had offered to their son. But that couldn’t be—she hadn’t misdirected an offer since she was a little kid.

  “I like flowers that smell nice,” she said.

  “As do we all, dear,” said Gamir. “As do we all.”

  Zak waved the little group forward. “Did you want to see the goats?”

  She fidgeted through dinner. The lighting was still a punishment. While the four Martians sat at table, their nodules stretched out and up. Watching four clumps of snaky photoreceptors wriggle whenever anyone got the least bit excited made Mariska lose her appetite. Which was a problem, because Zak had served her an overly generous helping of a stew—mostly vegetables although there were a few chewy chunks of what may once have been goat in the mix. She was surprised at how little Martians ate, but then some of their energy would be coming from the lights.

  Gamir and Zak’s burrow was in a tiny unnamed crater at the edge of the much larger Tarragona Crater. Tarragona, just over four kilometers in diameter, had been the site of a domed town before the Abandonment. Four thousand standards had lived there. Most had died there as well in the chaos following the collapse of the Martian Authority. The dome had failed in the intervening years and some sections had collapsed onto the town, but other than dust infiltration, the town was preserved as it had been in the last terrible days of the Martian holocaust. Elan’s parents were its unofficial custodians, something he had neglected to tell Mariska.

  “Elan can give you the tour tomorrow,” said his father, “but only if you insist. It’s Martian history.”

  “It’s everybody’s history. Earth just won’t own it.”

  “Gamir,” teased Nelow, “politics is bad for digestion.”

  She sniffed.

  “Toddy?” Zak came around the table, pouring from a kettle. “Chicory roasted from our own roots, ethanol from our still.”

  “So,” Gamir said to Elan, “you’re probably wondering why we asked Nelow over.”

  “It wasn’t my idea.” Nelow clasped hands behind her neck, as if she were under arrest. “They want to talk about the baby.”

  “Mom, do we have to discuss this now?”

  “We have to discuss this sometime. You’re leaving us, Elan. Leaving Mars, leaving everything.”

  “If this is family business, I can go.” When Mariska scraped her chair back, Elan shot her a look of panic. Was this why he brought her here? “Or I can stay if you like,” she said, settling back down. None of the others paid attention to her.

  “You won’t be here, Elan,”said Gamir, “but you should know what the decision is. And you have a say.” She turned to Nelow. So, Nelow?”

  She drank from her cup, set it down, and seemed to brace herself. “I’m thinking I don’t want to carry Elan’s baby, under the circumstances. I love you two.” When she reached toward Zakand Gamir, her nodules shivered. “But that’s the way I feel. I’m sorry.”

  “We understand,” said Gamir. “We love you, too.”

  “But if you want to raise our baby,” she continued. “I have no objections.”

  “It’s your mother who really wants this,” Zak said to Elan. “Me, not that much.” He wrapped his hands around his cup and stared into it bleakly. “Maybe I’m too old for that kind of nonsense.”

  “You’re not, and it’s not nonsense.” Gamir’s voice was filled with confidence. “It’s for Mars.”

  “For Mars?” Zak grumbled. “Who is Mars these days?”

  “Politics.” Gamir tapped at the table to turn the conversation back on topic. “We could bring an artificial womb right here into the burrow. There’s nothing wrong with that. Is there?”

  Mariska chose that moment to take her first ever sip of a hot toddy. The fumes of the alcohol stabbed up her nose like a knife and the hot liquid scorched down her throat. She bent over coughing and could not stop. Elan handed her his napkin. When she got control of herself, everyone was staring. She had to say something. “I was….” She cleared her throat and started over. “I was born in an artificial womb.”

  The silence was unnerving. She found herself chattering to fill it. “I’m a clone of my mother. Natalya Volochkova. She went off on the Gorshkov. My mother. I had a contract father though. A very nice man.” Mariska had no idea how to stop talking.

  Elan came to her rescue. “Dad, I think it’s a good idea,” he said. “If that’s what everybody wants. You and Mom made all your mistakes on me.” He laughed. “So what could go wrong?”

  Gamir invited Mariska to help with the washing up. She didn’t know exactly what this meant, but she thought it best to agree. It turned out that these Martians did not push their dinnerware into a recycler, since it wasn’t disposable. The plates and cups were permanent. They had been specially made of some Martian clay; Gamir was quite proud of the design. But they needed to be cleaned by getting dipped in the hot, soapy, disgusting water that filled one side of a double sink. Mariska felt like she was some kind of historical re-enactor. She was certain that she would throw up if she had to plunge her hands through those greasy bubbles. Luckily Gamir assigned her to rinse and dry.

  “Nelow is a lovely girl.” She handed Mariska a sudsy plate.

  “I’m sure she is.”

  “You should get to know her better.” Gamir pointed to a nozzle set into the second sink. “Pull that out and spray. You’ve never washed dishes before, have you?”

  Mariska shook her head.

&nb
sp; “Do I understand that you are staying on Mars?”

  “I’m not sure.” Mariska reached for the nozzle with her free hand and found that it was attached to a hose.

  “But you’re not going off on that starship?”

  “That wasn’t my plan, no.”

  “What is your plan?”

  “I don’t know.” She stretched the hose, aimed the nozzle at the plate and pressed the button. The jet of water shot over the top of the plate into the sink. “I had an accident a couple of months ago.” She rinsed the plate and set it in the drying rack. “I’m still in rehab.”

  “Yes, yes, we know all about that. Everybody does. We’re away from things out here but we’re not ignorant.”

  “I didn’t mean….” She took another plate from Gamir. “I’m still getting used to the idea that everybody knows my story. I’m not sure I know my story.”

  Next Gamir passed her a cup. “My son likes you.”

  “I like him.”

  “But you’re not going with him through that wormhole.”

  She filled the cup with rinse water and dumped it out. She filled it again. “No.”

  “Maybe you want him to stay behind? Leave the crew?”

  “It’s his decision.”

  “It is.”Gamir reached into the wash water and pulled out the stopper. “But sometimes you have to talk a man into doing what he wants.” Water began to slurp down the drain.

  The next morning Gamir asked for Nelow’s help with the flash steam generator. Elan was insulted that he hadn’t been asked and he insisted on coming with them. Mariska tagged along. Gamir had tapped into one of Tarragona’s geothermal production wells and was using the heated water to generate electricity. She explained that their turbine’s rotor blades were showing premature fatigue. Nelow’s diagnosis was bad harmonics; Elan argued that it was material failure. Mariska understood none of it.

  Later, she went with Elan when he walked Nelow up the crater to her motobike; she was headed back to the drop-off and from there to Schiaparelli. Mariska had been expecting her to revert to her angry self. Instead, she was almost wistful.