Magnet Omnibus I (Lacuna)

by David Adams

  Minutes later, and one brief stay in the airlock, my suit was discarded and I made my way inside the Martian colony proper.

  “What the hell happened?”

  An Iranian man in the uniform of the Islamic Republic. Allies of the Australian Air/Space Force. I noted his rank, giving a crisp salute.

  “Minor technical issue with the flight system being on fire, sir. I think the bird’s a write-off.”

  “No kidding. We thought we’d be spending the next week scraping you off the surface. You actually disappeared off radar for a few seconds there, and we thought you were done. Must be a Christmas miracle.”

  “Something like that, yes. It just needed a swift kick, and it was flying again.”

  “What was the issue? Your mayday said your flight system was out.”

  “Internal explosion in the cargo hold, sir. Some of the batteries I was hauling had a short.”

  He stared at me in bewilderment. “Batteries? We were expecting a shipment of batteries?”

  “Uhh, no. Packages from the mail, sir.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Christmas presents, right?”

  I nodded. “That’s right.”

  The flight control officer gestured over his shoulder. “Right, well, you’re here in one piece, anyway. That’s the important thing. We’re going to want an incident report, but I imagine your nerves are a little shot at the moment, so you might as well make yourself at home. We have a spare set of quarters down the end of the hall.”

  I gave a lopsided smile. “Somewhat an odd question to ask a Muslim, sir, but have you got a bar instead, sir?”

  “Pilots. They should give you fins instead of wings.” The Iranian officer grinned, though. “The staff here are about thirty percent Australian scientists. I think I’d have a riot on my hands if I tried to deny your fellows a drink.”

  “Thank heavens for small mercies. May I be—”

  He nodded down the hall. “Go. Drink. I want your report on my desk in the morning.”

  Later

  When you live 225,000,000 kilometers away from Earth’s north pole (depending on the time of year) mail delivery was, apparently, something of a special treat.

  The Martian colony was home to nearly two hundred people, the majority of them Persian Muslims; the remainder were either from the People’s Republic of China or Australia, fairly non-religious nations. So I was surprised to find the underground supply room that served as the station’s bar packed to capacity.

  One of the radar operators from the flight control center had given me a Santa beard to wear. With the crate held under one arm, bustling through the crowd of laughing, eager faces, I made my way to the center of the room.

  “Hold on, aright, easy. One at a time, one a time.”

  A woman wearing a thick green headscarf placed a table in the middle of the room, an island amongst the chaos, and I made my way past the last few people toward it, dropping the crate up on top, then clambering up myself.

  “Okay.” I loudly cleared my throat, waiting for the murmuring and jostling to die down. “Ladies and gentlemen from all nations in the Task Force Resolution. There was a minor issue with getting the mail here—whoever had that helicopter, I’m afraid it’s toast—but most everything survived, more or less.” I gave a wide grin. “I’m not one for speeches, so here. Merry Christmas and have some mail. Sorry about the scorching.”

  I reached down and pulled off the lid of the crate, then snatched up the first of the packages. A manila yellow parcel, thin and flat.

  “Salma Tavana. Hope I pronounced that right. Letter from your husband. Ho ho ho.” She took the parcel, tearing open the yellow wrap and extracting the letter within, moving away through the crowd to read it.

  “James Munroe, from your Mum.” Ooos sprung up from around the room. “And something from your brother, too. Merry Christmas. Feels heavy, so it should be a good one.”

  I tossed the scorched and burned package to waiting hands, then reached in for another. And another, and another. The process went swiftly, with those in attendance soon opening their gifts, laughing like children at their new toys, crying happily over letters from family, or simply having a nice long drink.

  Then, finally, the very last package. The toy helicopter, scorched and broken, its melted parts fused to the packaging. I called out the name on the label.

  “Lucky last, the man who nearly splattered me into the dirt a few hours ago, Michael Hall.”

  Silence from the few still paying attention. The joy of the moment evaporated instantly, as though I’d said something dreadfully inappropriate.

  The woman I’d handed the crate to spoke up. “Lieutenant Hall’s dead. Sorry, Santa.”

  An awkward faux pas. I could imagine their feelings; they knew I couldn’t possibly have known, but that didn’t make things any less awkward.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, “they didn’t tell me that.” I thought of Gutterball and her upcoming funeral, and suddenly this whole thing didn’t seem so fun anymore.

  “Here,” said the woman, “I’ll take that for you, if you want.”

  I passed over the ruined helicopter. She, seeing its contents, immediately turned and pushed her way out of the crowded, bustling room.

  Later

  The party dragged on but, despite the festivities, I didn’t see the woman with the green headscarf reappear. Curiosity got the better of me and, after a pint or two with the other pilots, I went looking for her. It was an easy search; the Martian colony was completely underground except for the landing strip, and the facility wasn’t that large. She was crouched near one of the carbon dioxide sinks, silently crying her eyes out, the destroyed package pressed close to her chest.

  A part of me told me to just walk away and let her have some privacy, but my time in space had told me that sometimes you wanted to be left alone, and sometimes you wanted someone to talk to you. A CO2 sink wasn’t exactly the most private place someone could go.

  “Hey.”

  She looked up, surprised, but offered me a smile. “Hey. Sorry about everything just now.”

  I sat opposite her, crouching down on the bare metal floor. “I think that’s my line. I didn’t know.”

  “Course you didn’t. Don’t worry about it.”

  I extended my hand, leaning forward. “Lieutenant Mike Williams.”

  She took it, squeezing firmly. “Navsarvan Layla Reza.”

  “Nav-sar-van? That’s the equivalent of a full lieutenant, right?”

  She nodded. “More or less, yes.”

  I straightened my posture slightly. “My apologies. I’m a little rusty with my Iranian ranks, ma’am.”

  She shook her head and looked away, gripping the package tighter, her fingernails digging into the manila cover. “No, none of that. No ranks, not right now. Just call me Layla.”

  International cooperation between three nations not traditionally seen as allies, even today, was an important dance of mutual respect. I didn’t press the point. “Fair enough.” I gestured towards the package. “You knew him, huh?”

  Layla gave a whimsical smile. “It’s a bit more complicated than that. We were dating, somewhat against regs, but I think everyone knew.”

  I blinked. “Michael was a Muslim?”

  “No,” said Layla, “but he was thinking of converting. He was curious about the faith, but…” Her smile wavered, trying to stay strong. “…I don’t think he wanted to give up Christmas.”

  I winced slightly. “I can understand that. Australians, by and large, are very secular for a Western nation. Only something like three percent of us regularly go to church, and we’ve had a string of atheist Prime Minsters, but we love Christmas. More as an excuse to get terribly drunk than anything else.”

  A soft, sad laugh. “Michael basically told me the same thing. Muslims honor Jesus as a prophet, but we don’t recognize him as the son of God.”

  “I see.” I gave a crooked smile. “Then I guess we have at least one thing we agree on. I’m an at
heist, thank God.”

  She snorted out a little, playful laugh and nodded. “Right.”

  I wished I could help her, but I felt as though sitting on the cold, bare metal of a planet so close and yet so far away from Earth anything I said wouldn’t be of any use. Instead, we merely enjoyed a fairly pronounced but comfortable silence, letting what we’d said sink in. It felt odd to be sitting here, talking with someone I’d barely met in a public corridor, but I also felt strangely comfortable with it all.”

  “I lost someone recently, too. I was actually on the way to her funeral when I was asked to do a mail run. Jane Rubens another part of the flight crew, like me. Her call sign was Gutterball.”

  Layla’s eyebrow raised in recognition. “Rubens? She was Israeli?”

  “Yeah. Combat Systems Officer on one of the Sydney’s Broadswords. They’re all Israelis.”

  “What happened?”

  I really wanted to open up to her about it, to open up to anyone about it, as the events were still fresh in my mind and I knew it was something I needed to see someone about, but I kept my mouth shut. Jane had died on a classified operation. The official story was that it was a training exercise gone wrong, but I didn’t want to lie to the person I’d just met. “I can’t talk about it, sorry.”

  Layla nodded understandingly. “It’s quite all right. I know how it is.”

  I pointed to the package. “I know it’s kind of stuffed and the surprise is ruined, but you technically haven’t opened that yet.”

  “I - I don’t know if I can. And besides, it’s addressed to Michael.”

  “Mail takes a while to get here. I won’t be surprised if more of his things show up.” I smiled comfortingly. “Let’s open it together, shall we?”

  She hesitated for a moment—we had only just met, after all—then extended the package toward me. I held one side while she ripped open the top, fishing inside and gingerly withdrawing the remains of the helicopter. With a creak she opened the transparent packaging, her hands trembling slightly.

  Nestled around the helicopter’s tail rotor was a beautiful silver ring inlaid with diamonds. The band was engraved with two dolphins dancing around each other, their noses meeting at the top. I hadn’t noticed it before.

  “Sorry.”

  Layla, stronger than I had given her credit for, merely slipped the box back into its yellow packaging.

  “Thanks,” she offered, although I felt as though I hadn’t helped a great deal. Another silence, this one a little more awkward, and then Layla spoke again.

  “You didn’t get anything.”

  I shrugged. “Santa doesn’t get presents. Besides, what I got you wasn’t exactly a rousing success.”

  “It’s okay.” Layla turned the package over in her hands. “I know what this is now. Back home, my father is a helicopter pilot civilian. He does flights over the desert, for tourists, you know? I’ve always loved the thump of rotors, and the feeling of flying, but Michael hated it. He hates being off the ground. So this was Michael’s way of showing that he was willing to change. Willing to be whatever it took to be with me.”

  I admired the sentiment. “That’s extremely sweet. What will you do with it?”

  “I’ll keep it. It’s a memory, and you know what? You don’t lose those. They don’t fade, tarnish—they’re all we really get to keep, really, until we get old.” She smiled again. “And if I forget, I’ll just look at this and be reminded.”

  “Good plan.”

  “And regarding that other thing—I think Santa at least gets milk and cookies.”

  “I don’t think you stock that kind of thing at this place.”

  Layla smirked. “No, we don’t, but you Australians treat booze as a kind of currency. Guess you can have what I’ve been saving for a little emergency, just if I needed something.” She unzipped a chest pocket on her uniform, pulling out two tiny bottles of a golden rum, the wildly overpriced kind that are found in mini-bar fridges. They clinked together as she handed them over. “Here. Merry Christmas.”

  “Um, thanks. And Merry Christmas to you, too. Again, I’m sorry for all of this.” I stood, extending a hand to help her up. “Feeling better?”

  “A bit, yeah.” Layla took my hand, pulling herself up to her feet. “And it’s not your fault. You’ve been very helpful. Talking helps with these things.”

  I wanted to say that I agreed, but that would make me quite the hypocrite. What she said was true, though. I went for the noncommittal approach. “Mmm.”

  Still holding the package close to her chest, she wandered off into the underground maze of the Martian colony.

  Early the next morning

  The Broadsword that the blockade had sent for me touched down on the landing strip in a billowing cloud of red dust, the landing lights casting a pallid radiance over the entire area as the dust slowly settled in the thin atmosphere. Adjusting my brand-new flight suit, I pushed the button to open the airlock, stepping clumsily out onto the gloomy pre-dawn surface of Mars and beginning my slow, awkward walk toward the ship.

  For some reason I couldn’t quite fathom, the death of a man I’d never met weighed heavily on me. Although Gutterball’s death had been something that had affected me, I had not considered, to any significant extent, the effect it would have on the other people in her life. I felt a stab of guilt. Gutterball had shown me a picture of her family, once, both hardy-looking folk. Long retired now, her dad had been a chef, while her mum had served as some kind of hardware engineer for the military. In my mind’s eye I could see Gutterball’s parents, grey and weeping, receive a folded Israeli flag as their daughter’s body was lowered into the ground to the sound of rifle fire and solemn music.

  And then what?

  Gutterball was gone, but the struggle humanity faced continued. In the overall, broader scheme of things her death was, by and large, fairly insignificant. She was just one life in amongst billions of lives, all struggling day by day to make it. Someone died every single second and nobody cared at all, for the most part, except those left behind.

  People like Gutterball’s parents. People like me.

  I reached the ship, and the loading ramp slowly lowered, meeting the ground with a dull thump. My booted footsteps went from a shuffle to a clank as I climbed aboard and the ship began to lift off. I turned around and watched the surface of Mars disappear behind the lip of the ramp, then finally it sealed with a hiss.

  Air began to fill the loading bay. Gutterball had a husband, but they’d split a few months before her death. For some reason she had shaved her head completely bald when it had happened and had kept the style until she was killed.

  That man still existed. Still lived. Did he hurt for Gutterball? Or did he just shrug it off? Treat it just like the deaths that happened every single day to complete strangers? Did he have a nice glass of champagne and sing Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead?

  I popped off my helmet and stepped toward the hatchway that led to the rest of the craft, my legs feeling heavy from the liftoff velocity as the ship rocketed into the dark Martian sky, and I felt a sudden compulsion to do something.

  Not to anyone in particular, but just something. Something about my trip to Mars had resonated with me. Perhaps it was Layla’s quiet strength in the face of terrible loss, perhaps it was the glimpse into the lives of our allies and the generosity and understanding with which they’d treated me, but I feel that my karma ledger had red in it. I had to do something kind for someone and, at this particular junction I didn’t care about who it was.

  I walked through the cramped interior of the ship toward the cockpit, pulling open the sealed hatchway.

  “Morning, gents.”

  The pilot and co-pilot, standard configuration for a strike Broadsword, twisted in their seats to regard me. They were both Chinese, so I figured this craft had been dispatched from the Cerberus blockade. I figured they were wondering what I was doing in the cockpit.

  “Sir?”

  The accent confirmed it. I fis
hed through my pockets, sheepishly looking for something. Anything. My hands closed around the two bottles of drink.

  “Here,” I offered, handing them one each. “Just a little something from Santa.”

  “Damn, it’s a Christmas miracle. Thank you!”

  Both of their faces lit up, and I gave the pilot a clap on the shoulder. “No worries, mate. Have yourselves a good one.”

  “Merry Christmas,” the pilot said, and I nodded in agreement, then gently closed the hatch and sealed it.

  The craft hummed as it broke atmosphere, and the light of the sun—dimmer and whiter than it was on Earth but still beautiful—lit up the dark ball below me. The light mixed with the artificial light of the cabin, basking the whole ship in a kind of fuzzy, warm radiance. I knew that, from the surface, the ship was a bright flash of light, a shooting star climbing up through the heavens and reflecting the sun’s light, soon to disappear from view.

  Christmas morning. Days, the measure of the rotations of the Earth, were less important now that humans were a space-faring species. The days on Mars were 24 hours long, 39 minutes, and a year was just under 686 days, so use of Earth days was occasionally relevant but the years were not, and the fact that it was coincidentally dawn on this part of Mars didn’t matter since the facility was underground. Everyone used Earth time. That meant that no matter where in the universe you were, there was one Christmas morning per 8,765 hours or so.

  The Broadsword drifted away from Mars and toward the blockade, leaving me alone with thoughts of Gutterball, of the brilliant dawn on Mars happening right outside the tiny porthole that was my glimpse into outside space, and of how something so simple as a present, given freely, could make all the difference in the world.

  As long as it was labelled “batteries sold separately.”

  MAGNET: MARAUDER