Striking Mars (The Saving Mars Series-5)

by Cidney Swanson

  Once Mei Lo acknowledged the superior need of the citizens of New Tokyo, they had behaved with a stoicism that made Mei Lo proud to call herself Marsian. As the oxygen processors of habs began to fail, which was inevitable given the frequency of dust storms in New Tokyo this time of year, the city passed an ordinance requiring its inhabitants to move from private dwellings and into work spaces — kids, retired parents, and all.

  New Houston sent a pair of air-systems specialists to New Tokyo to help make certain the work enclosures would prove adequate for the increase in breathing and exhaling humans. New Tokyo had responded by donating hundreds of personal emergency water-filtration kits to those living in New Houston.

  It made Mei Lo’s heart beat proudly. It made her eyes threaten to waste water.

  She sighed as she stretched in her favorite chair, seated in her large executive hab.

  “Time to get back to work, eh, Rover?” she asked her canine best friend.

  Rover rose, stretched his front and back legs, and ambled to Mei Lo’s side, snuffling her outstretched hand before settling at her feet.

  On the wafer before her, an unexamined file awaited her perusal. It contained the latest in a series of publicly initiated, publicly posted recommendations designed to conserve resources and promote stability.

  From the first, Mei Lo had advocated for the “Reduce Consumption” ideas to be publicly visible, in the hopes that one person’s idea might spark something leading to another good idea, and so on. It had worked that way, more or less, although there were some very unconventional suggestions from some of the small mining settlements: “Hibernate” was the contribution from Ursa Station.

  She read through the other recommendations in the file. A few were smart: levy fines on the use of transports which don’t produce useful by-products when operated. Some were impractical: insist children not be allowed to run or play, as those activities consume high levels of breathable air.

  But only one of the suggestions elicited a gasp from Mei Lo as she perused the list.

  Eliminate the planetary dog.

  She cursed softly.

  Rover looked up.

  “Ridiculous,” she said aloud.

  Below the suggestion was a list of the amount of resources required to keep Rover alive on Mars. Mei Lo snorted in derision. How much air and water did one twelve-kilo dog consume? A very negligible amount.

  But the suggestion was followed by an analysis of the costs in resources of the dog’s almost daily birthday visits, the number of people needed to coordinate these visits, the energy consumed by those travelling to and from their child’s visit, and on and on and on. When you looked at the total costs associated with the planetary dog, they added up.

  The Secretary was not given to feeling sorry for herself. But after all she’d given, they wanted to take away her dog? For a moment, Mei Lo felt a wave of rage. She’d felt this way before the attacks on Mars, when public opinion had first begun to turn in Cavanaugh Kipling’s favor.

  Her palms were stinging. Looking down, she saw she’d fisted her hands so tightly that her nails were digging into her palms. She needed to calm down. She needed to eat more, and drink more, and most of all, she needed a good night’s sleep. But who had time?

  She couldn’t sleep yet. She had the remainder of the “Reduce Consumption” recommendations to get through.

  This late at night, thousands of citizens would have read the latest of the daily recommendations. Mei Lo was behind, which was becoming her new normal. She turned her thoughts back to the suggestions before her.

  Would the citizens of Mars, after reading the proposal to end Rover’s life, concur with the person who had suggested it? And really, what was the life of one dog worth on a planet struggling for basic survival?

  Something twisted in Mei Lo’s gut.

  Most of the resources consumed in association with the planetary dog could be traced to the birthday visits. Maybe she should suspend the visits. But Rover loved them so much.

  “Come here, boy,” Mei Lo whispered.

  Rover stood, and after a moment’s hesitation he jumped into Mei Lo’s favorite chair beside her.

  “Good boy,” she said softly, stroking his silky coat.

  His nose was drier than usual; small cracks had formed along one edge. Like his mistress, Rover was on reduced water rations. The Secretary General expected a report on her desk tomorrow morning as to whether Marsians could get by with seven percent less of the two wet rations a day they’d consumed since the world had first been colonized.

  Rover huffed noisily and burrowed his nose between the Secretary’s thigh and the edge of her chair.

  “How can anyone suggest Mars doesn’t need you?” she asked Rover.

  She looked again at the final lines of the suggestion — the ones detailing the cost of the planetary dog in energy, water, oxygen, and so on. Maybe she was being selfish. Who was she to say her companion needed those resources more than did the families crowded into tiny offices in New Tokyo?

  Rover wriggled to lick the underside of Mei Lo’s chin. His tongue was dry, too.

  She forced herself to read through the other suggestions, placing “approval recommended” ticks by several of them. And finally, she returned to the suggestion about Rover.

  Should she recommend such a step be considered by the committee in charge of relegating emergency resources? Unlike the list itself, her recommendations or lack thereof were private, seen only by committee members. No one would ever know if she’d refused to have the committee evaluate the idea.

  “Ugh,” she grunted aloud, rising. She wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight. She made a quick check to see who was awake and working over at MCC. Predictably, General Mendoza was still there.

  But she didn’t want to talk to Mendoza.

  She checked the New Houston Water Filtration building.

  Crusty was working.

  Ten minutes later Mei Lo had made her way to Crusty’s side.

  “What brings you down here this fine evening?” asked Crusty, without turning from his task.

  “It’s three-thirty in the morning,” she informed the gruff mechanic. “I take it you can’t sleep either?”

  Crusty grunted. “Nothin’ like a little mayhem and destruction to get your grey matter workin’ double-time.” He tapped his head as he spoke, then returned to making adjustments to a filtration unit.

  Yanking Crusty out of jail had been one of her first acts during the official State of Emergency into which Earth’s laser attacks had plunged Mars Colonial. Given the current situation, there had been no question of Crusty’s remaining behind bars. And Mei Lo planned to make certain he never re-entered incarceration, either.

  Fortunately, following the suicide of his nephew Cavanaugh, Archibald Kipling had suddenly come into possession of information regarding Cavanaugh’s attempts to steal the Red Galleon months earlier. Crusty had been vindicated.

  “Previously unknown information? My great-grandmother’s elastic knickers,” the Secretary had muttered at the hearing. However, Crusty’s freedom had been granted “due to new information regarding the disappearance of the Red Galleon.”

  Well, Crusty was free now, and he was making excellent use of his considerable talents in repairing, remodeling, reinventing, and just plain coaxing equipment that wasn’t working back into working order.

  “Don’t you fret, ma’am,” Crusty said, looking up from his latest miracle. “We’ll have this planet shipshape and Bristol fashion before you know it.”

  Mei Lo nodded. What shape exactly “Bristol fashion” might imply, she did not need to inquire. It was enough that Crusty was grinning.

  “I need advice,” said Mei Lo.

  “Ain’t you got a whole committee ‘specially set up to give you advice?”

  “This is personal. It’s been suggested I should give up something which I enjoy as Secretary General.”

  Crusty grunted again. “They want you out of that fancy hab of yours
, do they?”

  “My hab? Goodness, no. I offered to vacate as soon as the situation in New Tokyo became grave, but I was, and I quote, ‘refused because it would destroy morale to have the executive dwelling empty.’”

  The mechanic chortled.

  “Someone suggested we should put Rover down.”

  Crusty’s laughter stopped abruptly. “Yeah, I saw that on the daily list. Feller who suggested it meant well, no doubt, but the day Mars loses its planetary dog is the day I quit fixin’ stuff that’s broke.”

  “I feel the same way,” said Mei Lo. “I can’t imagine Mars without Rover. But am I being incredibly selfish?” She felt tears burning behind her eyes and blinked them away, a reflexive action.

  “It wouldn’t appear that way,” replied Crusty. “You seen the newsfeed from New Tokyo about the dog, right?”

  Mei Lo shook her head.

  “Protesters made such a ruckus they had to bring in the mayor just to reassure everyone the planetary dog wasn’t going anywheres.”

  “Oh,” said the Secretary. She felt suddenly foolish. She’d interrupted Crusty for nothing. “I’ll let you get back to work,” she said. “Good luck with … that.”

  Crusty chuckled. “Oh, this filter knows who’s boss.”

  The morning brought the Secretary confirmation of everything Crusty had said. Outside the headquarters of MCC, dozens of protestors had gathered, signs in hand, to state that Mars would not be Mars without a planetary dog, and to protest the loss of so great and inspiring an addition to Marsian culture.

  She waved to the picketers, indicating her support with a gloved double thumbs-up. At her desk, she found two thousand, two hundred and forty-one letters protesting the elimination of the planetary dog, all stating in various ways that Mars needed Rover more than ever at a time like this.

  And this time, when Mei Lo tried to keep back her tears, she was less than successful.

  5

  New Houston, Mars

  Lillian Jaarda folded her arms, examining her bedroom closet. Should she give it one final scrub? She unfolded her arms, her fingers flexing, reaching for the cleanse panel. Three annums was a long time for peroxides and other ever-present particulates to do their damage once the hab was shut down. Ares and Aphrodite, but she was going to miss having a bedroom. She folded her arms again, sighing heavily, listening to the whir of the clean cycle.

  “Lillian?”

  She’d left Geoffrey to do the other rooms. The rations room. The clean stall room. And, most of all, the kids’ rooms.

  “In here,” she replied.

  Lillian heard the sure tread of her husband of almost eleven annums.

  “Hey,” he said, placing an arm around her shoulder. “What do you think? You ready?”

  It was the last words that undid her. Ready? To leave their home? To leave behind the last remnant she had of her children: her memories of all of them together in the hab? A single tear slid down her cheek.

  Quickly, she swiped at it with her forefinger. But in a small act of rebellion, she didn’t bring it to her mouth to swallow. She’d taught Jessamyn in this very room, in the swivel chair by the window: Crying wastes water. But if you must shed a tear, catch it and swallow it. Ethan had never needed the lesson. Conserve water. It was the most basic of rules on the desert planet. And it was doubly important now that the New Houston Water Treatment Facility was down.

  Lillian glared at the tear on her forefinger and then wiped it hastily on her sleeve.

  “Rebel,” murmured Geoffrey. He pulled her closer. “Come on. I need your opinion on the family room.”

  There it was again: the word family. A reminder of all she no longer had.

  Lillian unfolded her arms, taking Geoff’s hand. “I’m sorry for making you do … everything.” She sighed and looked at the ceiling, willing the tears back.

  “I know. It’s fine.”

  “Yes,” she said, adopting a clipped professional tone. She had to put sentimentality behind her now. Literally. The Jaardas had been early volunteers when the New Houston City Council recommended those who were able to should move out of their habs and live in their work space to help conserve resources.

  It was worse in New Tokyo. The citizens there hadn’t been given the choice. Lillian had heard stories of families of eight living in an office no larger than her own. Ethan would’ve hated that. Small mercies, she said to herself, remembering her mother’s words: When times are hard, it’s the small mercies that count.

  With her husband, Lillian stepped into the round hallway from which the rooms branched off. She hesitated a moment, staring in the direction of first Jessamyn’s and then Ethan’s room.

  “I want one last look,” she said.

  Geoffrey examined his shoes. Scratched his head. Turned to look at his wife.

  “You sure?”

  Instead of answering, she walked through the door only one over from their bedroom door.

  Jessie’s room.

  The shades were drawn and the room dark. Lillian touched her fingers to the panel beside the door jamb, opening the shutters like she had on a thousand school mornings. In her mind, she could hear Jessamyn’s groan. Lillian’s eyes shot to the now-empty bed, the linens carefully folded in one corner, waiting for someone who wasn’t coming back.

  “She’ll return, someday,” said Geoffrey. “She’s too stubborn not to. She’s like her mom.”

  Lillian felt a laugh forming in her chest, but by the time it made it to her mouth, it was only a stunted sigh.

  “She’ll be back,” said Geoffrey, “and she’ll ask me why I didn’t do a better scrub on her room and why does it smell like that and how’s she supposed to sleep in here now, Dad?”

  This time Lillian did laugh. “She got her complaining streak from me, too.”

  Geoff hugged both arms around her waist. “I wouldn’t want you any other way. Now tell me what I missed in here.”

  Lillian opened a few drawers, checked the recorded contaminant level from her husband’s scrub. “It looks fine. Let’s double-check Ethan’s room.” She felt stronger now, a scientist looking for outcomes, whether expected or unusual.

  But as the pair entered Ethan’s room, Lillian felt the drag in her pulse, as though her heart had forgotten how to do its job.

  “You sure you want to do this?” Geoff asked for the second time.

  Lillian nodded and entered the room. She didn’t have to key back the window coverings in here. The ceiling admitted daylight, a large window onto the sky. They’d never found anyone willing to fit it with shutters, which Ethan wouldn’t have wanted in any case. The ceiling wasn’t as clear as Lillian remembered it. Ethan had enjoyed the frequent trips outside to keep his ceiling-window as clean as possible.

  To one side of the bed, on the floor, lay the sleep mat Jessamyn had dragged to her brother’s room hundreds of times, claiming she couldn’t sleep in her room. A sad half-smile formed on Lillian’s countenance. Jess just liked watching the night sky. Something else they shared in common.

  “I want a ceiling like this installed in our room. The sky is so beautiful now that the satellites are gone,” said Lillian. “I mean, if we ever move back.”

  “Of course we’ll move back.”

  “Three annums could turn into five. We’ll be old by then. We might not want a big hab like this.”

  Geoffrey turned to catch her eyes. “Number one, these are New Houstonians we’re talking about. They’re just like you and me. If you tell us it will take three annums, we’ll get her done in two. Number two, we’re not old. At least, you’re not.” He winked at her. “In another forty annums, you have my permission to refer to yourself as old.”

  If Mars makes it that long, Lillian thought. She kept the sentiment to herself.

  Her eyes wandered through Ethan’s room. With her daughter’s room, it was easy to tell Jess no longer lived there: there weren’t messy piles of clothes, books scattered everywhere, including on her bed, and dust on all the surfaces. J
essamyn couldn’t ever be bothered to clean. Not when there were ships to fly and stories to devour. But Ethan’s room looked exactly as it had when he’d lived in it. Everything in its place, as though the occupant had simply stepped out to scrub the solars or deliver the schematics for his latest invention into the eager hands of engineers at MCAB.

  “I miss them, too, Lillian,” said her husband.

  “Let’s go,” she said, turning quickly. She’d wasted enough water today.

  But leaving meant passing through the main living space, skirting the rations table with its four chairs for two inhabitants.

  “What do you think on the family room?” asked Geoffrey. “Just a quick scrub?”

  Lillian frowned. Honestly, everything looked fine. She crossed to check the levels of particulate matter in the room. The reading was within acceptable parameters.

  “I’ll run a deep flush,” said Geoff, evidently mistaking her hesitation for concern.

  “No,” replied Lillian. “I think just a regular scrub will be fine.”

  Neither of them had spent much time in the room in the last several months. It was a family room, for the love of fuzzy slippers, and their kids were a hundred million kilometers away. There was no family anymore.

  No, Lillian told herself. They were still as much a family as they’d ever been. “I guess they would have moved out, anyway,” said Lillian, sinking into “her” chair in the family room.

  Geoffrey nodded from the clean panel. “Before the Raid, I seem to recall a certain wife of mine making noises about her eldest finding his own place.”

  “I wasn’t thinking he’d pick a different planet,” said Lillian, crossing her arms.

  “They’ll come back.”

  Lillian unfolded her arms, sighed, and stared at her nails. Scrub day was when she usually trimmed them, the tiny parings whooshing away with the dust.

  “I always hoped Ethan would find someone to start a family with,” said Lillian. “Mars could’ve used a few more minds like his.”

  “Don’t think about them in the past tense, Lil. They’ll be back.”