Striking Mars (The Saving Mars Series-5)

by Cidney Swanson

“Ugh,” said Jessamyn. “I don’t like thinking about how vulnerable she is now.”

  “She wasn’t safe before she made the vid, either.”

  “I know,” said Jess, sighing.

  “She’d do anything to secure Mars’s safety,” said Pavel.

  Jess frowned. “I know. And so would I.”

  “Yeah,” said Pavel. “I know. Me, too, actually. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, Jess, and with the visibility the vid is getting, well, it got me thinking.”

  “Thinking what?” Jessamyn sat up straighter.

  “Well, thinking that maybe I should, you know, make one too.”

  “Make a vid? That’s just stupid,” said Jess. “And irresponsible. And—”

  “And the most effective thing we can do to bring my aunt down. Remember why we’re doing this? Because of ships on their way to Mars?”

  “I know why we’re doing this,” snapped Jessamyn. “There’s not a single hour of the day when I’m not thinking about what we are doing and why we are doing it. How can you even suggest—”

  “Hey, hey, hey,” said Pavel, standing, and holding both hands up in a placating gesture. “I’m sorry. I know you get it. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “That’s right, you shouldn’t have.” Jessamyn fumed, her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

  “Listen, I’m tired. I can hardly think straight. But I want to help, Jess. It kills me, thinking of your Secretary, your parents, all of them — it kills me thinking they don’t even know what’s coming yet. I just want to do something to make a difference. I’m sorry I implied you felt any differently.”

  Jess sank back onto the couch. “I’ve thought about making one, too,” she said. “Only, who would care what I had to say about the Chancellor? No one on Earth knows me.”

  Pavel sat back on his haunches, directly in front of Jess.

  “You could tell them who you are — where you’re from.”

  Jess glared at him.

  “Okay, okay, I know,” said Pavel. He placed his hands on her knees and looked right in her eyes.

  A thrill ran through her at his touch, his glance. It wasn’t fair.

  “But they know me, Jess. I’ve got one of the most recognizable faces on the planet. Well, with a haircut and a decent suit, anyway.”

  “I can’t stop you from doing something stupid,” Jess said, her tone flat.

  “Sure you can,” said Pavel. “With you around, I have twice the brain power anytime I think about doing something I maybe shouldn’t.” Pavel grinned broadly, hugged her knees more tightly in his arms.

  Jessamyn looked away from his full lips, his beautiful face.

  “Talk to the others about it,” she said. “You big idiot.”

  For a moment, she wanted to push him away, but then she realized she wanted to do something else entirely. Gently, she wound her fingers in his long, thick hair. Slowly, she pulled him onto the couch, kissing him as though she hadn’t seen him for an annum.

  34

  Tranquility Base, the Terran Moon

  The following morning brought a new vid. And Earth was listening.

  “These numbers are stupid crazy,” said Pavel, shaking his head in disbelief. “I never, never would have predicted we could have a reach like this.”

  “Scandal sells, sir,” said Mr. Zussman, pouring a cup of recycled water for Jessamyn.

  “This scandal sells,” agreed Jess.

  “I believe Mr. Zussman’s statement is universally true,” said Ethan. “Consider for a moment the more outrageous claims made by Cavanaugh Kipling. Mei Lo believed that his influence was in large part due to the extreme opinions he offered with regard to his sister. Scandal sells.”

  “Well, that’s depressing,” muttered Jess. But she couldn’t argue against it. Kip’s brother had done an excellent job selling scandalous implications about Kipper.

  “Jess?” murmured Pavel at her side. He raised his eyebrows in a significant way.

  He wanted her permission to present his idea to the other members of their team. And she did not want to give her permission. She balled up her fists and shoved them under her arms.

  This was Pavel’s decision, though, not hers.

  “Tell them,” she said.

  Pavel cleared his throat, took a long swallow of his wet ration, and then proceeded to ask the others their opinion of his intention to make a vid.

  “I think if I talk about Lucca’s involvement with counter-terrorism, and how she faked inciter attacks, well, I think people might be willing to listen to me, now that they’ve heard a few other things. Harpreet and all the other vids have warmed up the audience, in a manner of speaking.” Pavel grinned.

  “It would make you a target of your aunt’s wrath,” said Ethan, his face sober.

  “No more than I am already,” quipped Pavel.

  “I beg pardon, sir,” said Mr. Zussman, “but I cannot agree with your assessment. At present, though your aunt may harbor ill feelings toward you, she is not actively seeking your life because she believes you to be deceased.”

  Pavel shrugged.

  “From observations Yevgeny and I have made of spacer gossip,” said Ethan, “as well as from your firsthand experience with the spacer who nearly captured you, Jessamyn, it seems the Chancellor is very much seeking those of us who were aboard the Space Station. She is not accurately informed as to the identities of all who were aboard, but she is very much aware of two of the persons who fled and escaped.”

  “Me and you,” said Jessamyn. “Thanks to our buddy Cavanaugh Kipling.”

  “That is correct,” replied Ethan.

  “Well, if she’s already after us,” said Pavel, “I don’t see that making a vid will make things any worse.”

  “You don’t see it?” demanded Jess. “Really? Because I, for one, think it would be worse for us to have Lucca’s attention focused on us again.”

  “Unfortunately, based on the bounty hunter’s statements,” said Ethan, “She suspects we are still in space.”

  Mr. Zussman cleared his throat softly. “Her efforts this morning are directed to Budapest, the Australian continent, and the Bering Strait.”

  Everyone in the room turned to stare at Zussman.

  “Last week she was persuaded you were in one of the Baltic States,” said the butler. “Or so my sources inform me.”

  “Dude, you never cease to amaze,” said Pavel.

  “It still doesn’t mean that it’s safe for her nephew to broadcast from the Moon,” insisted Jessamyn, refusing to meet Pavel’s eyes.

  “No one suspects the broadcasts originate from here,” said the Ghost, who had been very quiet until now. “Thanks to Ethan’s encryptions.”

  Jessamyn sighed in irritation.

  “It is not possible to trace the origin of the broadcasts to our present location,” said Ethan. “In the most true sense, they do not originate from the moon. The information sent from here is not in a form remotely resembling the vids that are proliferating on Earth.”

  “Really?” asked Jessamyn.

  “Would you expect anything less from me, Jessamyn?” asked her brother.

  The question made her want to laugh, which she thought he would misunderstand, so she just shook her head.

  “In addition to keeping our presence hidden,” said Ethan, “I have considered it paramount that we prevent Lucca from suspecting her brother is no longer well disposed toward her.”

  “Thank you,” murmured the Ghost.

  “You are welcome,” replied Ethan.

  Jess shook her head. She didn’t know what to do in a world where her brother said you’re welcome or where Pavel was more eager to risk his life for Mars than she was.

  “Do whatever you think is best,” she said to the contemplative group surrounding the rations table. “I don’t know what’s right anymore.”

  Pavel stretched his hand out, beckoning for hers. “This is right,” he said. “I know it.”

  She stared at his hand, and th
en, slowly, took it in her own. “It had better be,” she said. “If this turns out to be the thing that leads your aunt to capture you again, you won’t have to worry about her killing you. I’ll do it myself.”

  Pavel laughed and squeezed her hand. “That’s the Jessamyn I know and love.”

  “Your aunt attempted to regulate your access to materials indicating the extent of your popularity, Master Pavel,” said Zussman, “but I can assure you, it has not waned since you vanished from the public view.”

  “They will listen to you because the accusations will sound scandalous,” said Ethan.

  “They’ll believe you,” said the Ghost. “Because you’re her nephew. You would know things, after all.”

  Jess shivered. She told herself it was the cold.

  35

  The South Pole, Mars

  From inside their planet hopper, Lillian and her husband stared at the water trickling over a tiny, rectangular patch of ground on Mars’s southern pole.

  “Let’s go have a look,” said Geoffrey. “Come on.”

  Lillian shook her head. “We observe protocol. And that means evaluating potential danger first.”

  “I guess it could be radiation causing the melt-off,” admitted her husband. “But our walk-out suits are rated for pretty nasty solar flares.”

  “The ship offers better protection than our suits can.”

  “So what do you suggest?”

  “I want to make sure my eyes aren’t playing tricks on me,” said Lillian.

  “Great!” said her husband, reaching for the hatch release.

  Lillian placed a hand over his, preventing him. “But first we check the Geiger counter,” she insisted. “You know this, Dr. Jaarda.”

  “Yes, indeed, Dr. Jaarda. I’m on it.”

  Lillian looked out the ship’s front window and then adjusted her view screen to pan on all sides. In several spots, she saw small but definite signs of water.

  “It’s not radioactivity,” said Geoffrey, from behind her.

  “Holy Ares,” muttered Lillian. “What is going on here?”

  “Let’s go find out.”

  The two sent a hasty vid-comm to the Secretary General and completed safety checks on their suits before stepping out onto Mars’s frigid southern pole. Only, it wasn’t as frigid as it should be.

  “This is crazy,” said Geoffrey. “There’s localized warmth. Just like the readings indicated. Why would it be warm here, of all places? Everyone knows the South Pole is miserable.”

  “I don’t understand. This is the strangest thing I have ever seen,” Lillian splashed her walk-out boot into a tiny puddle, giggling at the sound her helmet sent back to her.

  It was minutes later that she made an important discovery using the suit wafer on her sleeve. “Geoffrey, look at this. Come here! Look at this!”

  The excitement in her voice was audible, even to her.

  “You got something?”

  “We are not the only living things on the South Pole!”

  Through his helmet, Lillian could see her husband’s eyes narrow.

  “As in, Mei Lo sent someone else?”

  “No, Geoff. Cyanobacteria. A thriving colony just under the ice. An entire ecosystem in miniature!”

  “Here? Hundreds of kilometers from the nearest settlements?”

  Lillian nodded, examining her wafer. “Look at the rectangular outline of the melt off area. There’s something underground. Something human-made.”

  “I thought Plan Ag said cyanobacteria were a dead end,” said her husband. “I mean, didn’t Mars lose the equipment for DNA synthesis when the Terrans bombed Greenhouse Mars?”

  “I have no explanation. But I sure as Hades know a rationally designed microbial consortium when I see one.”

  “So, this … consortium is responsible for the snow melt?”

  “Not just that. This pole ought to have a higher concentration of carbon ice than the northern one. It always has. But right here, this is H2O. H2O, Geoff! Not carbon ice: water!”

  “Yeah, I see that. You want to give me a little refresher on how bacteria make liquid water? It’s all a little hazy from when I took ecopoiesis in school.”

  “I spoke in haste. It’s not just cyanobacteria. There must be several microbials working together to produce what we’re seeing. In theory, with cyanobacteria functioning as nitrogen fixers, you can pull nitrogen to make ammonia for fertilizers. But they also produce hydrogen gas as a by-product. Now if someone were trying to get a methanogenesis plant going, they would have a ready need for the hydrogen gas….”

  “Um, refresher on ‘methanogenesis,’ too?”

  “This is all just me thinking off the top of my head, Geoffrey, so don’t take it as gospel. But microbials called methanogens can, under the right circumstances, use carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas to produce methane and some heat. And of course if you could do that, you could either release the methane as a greenhouse gas or burn it to make steam. With a little oxygen.”

  “And the increase in temperature would make streams of liquid water,” said Geoffrey, his tone hushed with awe.

  Lillian nodded enthusiastically. “We’ve talked about this process for annums, but no one has been able to get it going except in a very controlled small-scale laboratory setting.” She frowned. “Anytime someone tried to go bigger, there were those ‘setbacks.’”

  “Thanks to Meigs.”

  The two stared in wonder at the rivulets wandering past them, tiny but real.

  “This changes everything,” said Geoff.

  Lillian gave a brief nod and squatted, tilting one side of her head to the ground. “Stop talking for a sec and give this a listen. Turn your helmet volume up.”

  The two stood in what should have been the silence of the red planet’s frigid southern pole and heard the hissing and burbling of the dozens of criss-crossing rivulets. They listened for five minutes before Lillian signaled her husband to readjust his audio intake volume.

  “Amazing,” said Geoffrey.

  “Gomez,” said Lillian, awe in her tone.

  “Gomez? Quiet guy you offered early retirement to?”

  Lillian nodded. “I’ll bet you anything he’s not visiting his ailing abuelita when he takes those two-day leaves. This is what he’s been up to.”

  “What makes you so sure it’s him?”

  Lillian’s eyes rolled upward. “He’s obsessed with cyanobacteria.”

  “And you know this how? The man never opens his mouth.”

  “True. I might have, possibly … well, I kind of spied on him. On what he’s been pulling from Plan Ag’s repository of papers.”

  “Dr. Jaarda, I am shocked.”

  “Dr. Jaarda, you’d have done the same thing in my shoes. I was going to fire him, but I thought I’d do a little checking up on him first. I even wondered if he might’ve been in on the sabotage with Meigs.”

  Geoff chuckled. “Okay, so say it’s him and he’s made the greatest advance in planetary ecopoiesis in over sixty annums. Why not tell someone?”

  Lillian turned to her husband, placing her hands on her hips. “Given what happened to my Household Algae Pot Program under Meigs’s watch, would you have told anyone?”

  Geoffrey shrugged, as much as was possible in the constricting suit. “I see your point. Still, I’d tell you.”

  “Exactly!” said Lillian. “You can bet I’ll get this out of him if it’s the last thing I do. Come on. Let’s get back to Plan Ag. Gomez and I are going to have one very long conversation.”

  36

  Budapest, Earth

  “This is outrageous,” declared the Terran Chancellor.

  His Eminence the Viceroy of Earth shook his head softly. “It’s politics, my dear Madam Chancellor. Merely politics. Surely the expense of the place alone will make you glad to see the end of it.”

  Lucca opened her mouth to snap that it did no such thing. That she couldn’t survive without New Timbuktu. That the Viceroy himself could hardly have main
tained his position without Lucca’s well-timed use of a threat regarding her personal prison.

  But she couldn’t say these things to the Viceroy.

  She spun on her very high heel, closing her mouth. It was, of course, illegal (not to mention disrespectful) to show the Viceroy one’s backside. Lucca knew this and she didn’t care. She was fuming inside.

  The Viceroy sighed softly and resumed his quiet pacing across the polished marble floor of his office. “A clever woman such as you will find a way around this little setback.”

  Lucca folded her arms over her chest, still turned away from the only person on Earth with a rank superior to her own. Oh, she would find a way around the setback. But New Timbuktu had been so perfect. It had been one simple thing she never had to think about, running smooth as clockwork. Rather like her former butler: something else she’d never thought about until it was too late.

  “Very well,” she said aloud. She did not turn to face the Viceroy.

  “I have your word you’ll commence shut down and that the former, er, occupants will be free to pursue whatever path seems best to them?” asked the Viceroy.

  Lucca scowled. “New Timbuktu will be closed within the week. You can grant interviews to the survivors yourself.”

  “Survivors?” asked the Viceroy.

  “A slip of the tongue. I meant to say residents, of course.”

  “There can be no … little accidents, Chancellor. If the prison’s full complement is not released into civilian life, polling suggests your position in office might be jeopardized.”

  The Chancellor brought her forefinger and thumb to her forehead, massaging a throbbing vein for a few seconds. And then she turned, all smiles and politeness, and told the Viceroy what he wanted to hear.

  “There will be no accidents.”

  The Viceroy lifted his hand for her to take, an indication their little tête-à-tête was concluded.

  Lucca took his hand, hovered her lips a few centimeters over his ring of office, and departed, her heels striking angrily at the marble as she left.

  The Viceroy would pay for this little exercise in humiliation. They would all pay.

  Lucca was extremely good at extracting payment from debtors.