Stop! His mind screamed.
Suddenly he was still. He staggered to his feet, frantically wiping the filth from his eyes. His tongue burned as saliva boiled in the almost-zero-pressure.
Fifteen seconds!
Zeke knew that was how long he had before the oxygen-starved blood flooded his brain and he lost consciousness. Death would follow within two minutes at most.
Desperately he scanned the vista of rocks and dust clouds for his air mask. And where was Pin-mei? There was no sign of her! With one long scream of rage, Zeke lifted his head to the sky. And there, as his eyesight dimmed, reaching towards him, was an angel.
Chapter Thirty-Five
A Martian Heaven?
Everything was blurred. An out-of-focus face, bathed in a soft glow, grinned at Zeke from above. Zeke attempted to speak, but his words failed. A fire burned through his torso. He stirred and pain leapt to his bones. He cried out. A hand stroked his forehead.
“Is this…Heaven?” he asked, through a throat as coarse as sandpaper.
The angel burst into peals of laughter.
“Heck no, boy. Although I guess we’re high enough!”
Zeke recognised that deep southern accent immediately.
“Justice!” he gasped, sat up, winced, and fell back again.
“Don’t you fret none, young Ezekiel. Just lie back and let the nanomeds do their job.”
“But where am I, what happened…and…Pin!”
Zeke grabbed the teenager’s arm and hoisted himself up, only for an atomic bomb to detonate inside his head. He collapsed again. Justice leaned down, till his big brown eyes and tombstone-teeth were in focus.
“Pin-mei’s as fine as a fiddle. Rescued her myself. Mind you, it was touch and go, but I did it.”
“And Scuff?”
“Made a perfect touchdown, could have sworn he had an invisible parachute if I didn’t know better. Goddamit, wish I was one of you mariners. That psycho-kee-nesis is a marvellous gift.”
“Justice, I don’t understand, what happened?”
“All you need to know boy, is you’re in the Perspicillum and your whole party had a happy landing. Now rest up, you hear? I’ll look in on ya later.”
Justice retreated into the shadows and a curtain of sleep swept over Zeke.
~~~
Chords. Guitar chords.
Zeke was awake in the darkness. Music was coming from somewhere, the slow twangy refrains of the popular Country and Martian hit, I’m All Washed Up in the Lonesome Crater.
Zeke shifted his weight. The fire in his chest had faded to a dull ache. His throat was sore, but no worse than a bad cold.
“Those nanomacs sure know their job,” he muttered and climbed out of bed. The air was icy and Zeke pulled the duvet over his shoulders with a shiver. Outside the tiny bedroom a narrow corridor led to a gravity-pedestal. Zeke stepped on and elevated, up into a scene he would remember for a long time. He was in a circular room, like the inside of a drum. The room seemed to be an odd mix of laboratory and living quarters. One half was crammed with computers and screens, the other with a sofa, a kitchenette and a pool table. The spiky-haired, freckle-faced figure of Justice sat beside a dining table, strumming away. Pin-mei kneeled at his feet, eyes brimming with adoration. Scuff was on the sofa devouring a burger oozing with fat.
They all cheered at the sight of Zeke.
“Isn’t Justice clever!” Pin-mei said, beaming. “He can play the guitar, cook Mexican, wrestle crocodiles, and, and—”
“Shucks, little muchacha, don’t go giving me an ego the size of Jupiter.”
“No, he’s got that already,” Zeke said without thinking. Everyone gawped at him.
“Just joking,” he went on, wondering why that sentence had popped out of his mouth.
“Come and sit down boy, and I’ll fix you some nourishment. Y’all can catch up at the same time.”
Zeke, still wrapped in the duvet, slumped into a chair.
“So, what is this place?”
“The Perspicillum,” Justice replied, busily opening food cans. “Officially the All Mars Observatory. The Governor of Mars had it commissioned twenty years ago. Up here on top of Ascraeus, you see, we’re above the airline. Like being in outer space with our feet on the ground. One of the best spots for astronomy you’ll find on the Big Pumpkin.”
“So why call it the…”
“Perspicillum?” Justice chuckled. “Ask Professor Jacob, he christened it that. An old fashioned name for an observatory.”
“Professor—?”
“Professor Jacob Van Hiss. That’s Jacob with a J, but pronounced Yacob. He’s the crew of one up here. Best dang cosmologist in this neck of the solar system. Bona fidee genius, I reckon. Been researching up here for yonks.”
“So how come we’re all alive?” Zeke asked.
Justice placed the food in a small micro-ray oven.
“Ol’ Bobbi caught your ve-hee-cul on his radar. When it broke up he gave me the red alert. I suited up, jumped into the jetpack, and zoomed down the side of the volcano. To be frank, hombres, without the emergency medical kit, y’all would be twanging Martian harps about now. I just had time to slip an oxy-helmet over Zeke’s head. Pin-mei was okay, hadn’t lost her air mask, but you can only go so long out there without a pressure suit.”
Pin-mei leaned forward.
“I was wondering about that, Mr Justice Sir. Shouldn’t we have exploded? Or our eyeballs popped?”
Justice ruffled her shiny bob of hair.
“Shucks little lady, you’ve been watching too many of them Holo-Wood movies. In a vacuum your skin and your blood pressure and the whole damn caboodle keep doing their job. Plus vacuums make pretty effective insulation, so you don’t go freezing into instant icicles, either. Nope, the biggest immediate danger is the solar radiation. Which is why I gave you all a course of decon’ therapy. Remind me to swipe you with the Geiger counter later, to be safe.”
“Decontamination,” Scuff said to Zeke who was looking puzzled.
The oven pinged and Justice served up a steaming plate of enchiladas. The smell of chilli and tomatoes seemed the best smell in the known universe. Zeke fell upon them with the hunger of a ravenous shark.
Scuff wriggled forward on his cushion. “Bro, we’ve brought Justice up to speed with our, um, mission.”
Justice cackled. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, y’all can’t keep out of trouble.”
Zeke paused between mouthfuls of refried beans. “So, what are you doing here anyway?”
Justice lost his broad, toothy grin.
“If you recall, young Ezekiel, I defied Ptolemy Cusp over you. After you and Scuffo here flew off into the wild blue yonder, I was in a whole heap of horse dung. Ol’ Ptolemy wanted my head on a platter, with a side order of fries and a shake! It was time to make myself scarce. I kicked around the boondocks for a few weeks, saw Doctor J was advertising for an assistant, and wound up on the top of Mars.”
“You’re so brave!” Pin-mei said, her eyes twinkling.
Zeke pouted. His name was Zeke, not Ezekiel. But now was not the time to complain. The grinding of the gravity pedestal disturbed them.
“Let me introduce y’all to Bobbi, the Prof’s robotoid,” Justice announced.
Pin-mei squealed as a metallic face emerged from the shaft. The robot rose into full view, revealing a cylindrical machine as big as a man. It was sleek and monochrome, with two red bulbs for eyes, a grill for a mouth, two rubberised arms with steel grabbers and hover coils on the base.
“Welcome, small visitors,” it chimed in a voice similar to Albie’s, but deeper.
“Never seen that model of mac before,” Scuff sniffed.
“Sheesh Scuff, you got your ears full of Martian dust? I said quite plainly he’s a robotoid.”
Scuff sat bolt upright. “No!”
“So what’s a robotoid when he’s at home?” Zeke inquired, a little confused.
Scuff sent him his best ‘are-you-du
mb-or-what’ look.
“Bro, this is more than a humble automac. A mac is just a robot, well, a robot with a low IQ. But a robotoid! That’s a machine with the ability to make up its own mind. It isn’t limited by its programming. It’s almost alive. Hundreds of scientists have tried to make one, but they all failed. Robotoids are impossible.”
“Well, they were!” Justice said with a wink. “Like I said, Professor Jacob is a plain ol’ honest-to-goodness genius.”
Bobbi’s head swivelled, as if it was turning to look Zeke in the eye. The mouth-grill flashed.
“Professor Jacob invented me, small visitor. To help him with complex and laborious study. I am surveying both the volcano and the cosmos. My name is Bobbi: biometrically operated bionic binary-encoded intelligence.”
Scuff leapt from the sofa and began dancing up and down with excitement.
“So Bobbi, answer me a question. A boy has a butterfly collection, no, there’s a tortoise in the desert, um, definitely not. I know! Two people are drowning. It’s an old man who you can probably save and a little girl but she’s further away. There’s less chance of saving the girl. Who do you try to save first?”
The robotoid’s chest console flickered and whirred.
“I cannot answer your question, small rotund visitor.”
Scuff’s jaw dropped. “Why not?”
“It is a horrible question.”
Scuff’s jaw dropped further. Justice cackled.
“Put that in a cheroot and smoke it! Ol’ Bobbi gave an emotional response.”
“He did that,” Scuff gasped and collapsed back into the sofa.
“Well, I have another question for you Bobbi,” Zeke interrupted, pushing the empty plate away. The robotoid bleeped. “Do you know the landscape here well?”
“I have catalogued ninety percent of Ascraeus Mons, blue-haired visitor.”
“I see,” Zeke went on, rubbing his hands. “I’m looking for a particular rock, shaped like a dog and a bit larger than me. There’s sinkhole beside it. About three foot wide.”
Bobbi’s head spun two rotations.
“I will scan my databanks for such a feature. It may take some time.”
The robotoid’s dome-shaped skull withdrew into its body and its hover coils cooled. It sank to the floor, humming in a deep electronic meditation.
Justice clapped his hands and waved in the direction of the gravity pedestal.
“Well, while Bobbi buzzes away, why don’t y’all pop up and meet Professor Jacob?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
The Observatory
It was as though the three friends had arrived at the heart of the galaxy. The Milky Way poured across the universe like a river of light. Countless stars blazed against the inky night; giants, dwarfs and everything in between. It took Zeke a moment to gather his senses.
They were standing underneath a large clear dome. A great bronze machine, a monstrosity of pipes and pulleys, dominated the deck. A hefty barrel protruded from a nest of giant cogs, through an airtight egress, into the vacuum outside.
Pin-mei slipped her fingers into Zeke’s.
“Cool!”
“Damn right,” Scuff remarked, swaggering over to the side of the dome and tapping it loudly. “Super-polymer plastic. Unscratchable and practically invisible.”
“Hello,” came a tiny voice.
A head popped up on the other side of the telescope.
“L-let me introduce myself,” the man said after a long pause, and hurried over. He was tall, black, with wild grizzled hair and a stoop.
“Professor Jacob Van Hiss?” Scuff ventured.
“Ja, ja,” he said, stretching out his hand.
Pin-mei’s face wrinkled. The man’s hand was dripping with gunk.
“Starbursts and moonshine!” he cried. “Lens oil. Do be forgiving me!”
He hastily wiped his hand on his white smock, then gave each of them in turn a weak handshake.
“So, we are having the Amerikaan, the Engelsman, and…a Japanner?”
Pin-mei giggled politely.
“Actually I’m Chinese. From Shanghai.”
She curtsied.
“Ach, how stupid of me!” Hiss replied, a picture of embarrassment.
“Don’t sweat, she gets that all the time,” Scuff said, patting the man on the back.
“On the subject of introductions, I’m guessing you’re Dutch?”
“Ja, ja. So, I am welcoming you to the biggest telescope on Mars. It is not often we are having the visitors. Please to be coming this way.”
He led them over to a small cylinder jutting out from the machinery.
“The eyepiece,” he explained. “I am focussing on such a treat for you, kinderen.”
Scuff peered into the rubber-ringed lens.
“Oh,” he remarked, in a rather disappointed tone.
Pin-mei took his place.
“Oh I see, Saturn. It’s very hazy Professor. My diginoculars get better resolution than this.”
The Professor gave a nervous smile.
“Let me see,” Zeke said and pushed his eye against the glass.
Inside the viewfinder he saw a yellowy sphere orbited by sparkling rings. The image was indeed fuzzy. Nevertheless, Zeke studied the lateral bands of gas that made up the atmosphere. He began to frown.
“Hey! This isn’t Saturn!”
Hiss clapped excitedly.
“Fomalhaut B. An extra-solar planet twenty-five light years away,” he explained in his soft voice.
Scuff shoved his friend aside and looked again.
“Wowee! That’s incredible magnification. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything outside our solar system so up close and personal.”
Hiss grinned radiantly.
“Ja, she is a beauty no, this telescope?”
He patted the side of the great machine gently.
“And I am having more for you!”
Hiss eagerly turned the wheels of the controls. First, the entire floor clanked and rotated, causing the three friends to jump. Next the domed roof moved, changing the telescope’s angle.
“Ja, so!”
The professor gestured to the eyepiece. Zeke leaned over and gasped. The bubble of glass had framed a smudge of brown and blue. A rocky planet with oceans.
“Where is it?” Zeke asked, astonished.
“This is Branson Six. An Earth-class planet fifty-six light years away.”
“I’ve heard of that,” Zeke went on. “It’s a popular destination for colonists.”
Hiss nodded.
“Ja, the first party translocated to Branson fifty-four years ago.”
Zeke whistled.
“Then in another couple of years…”
“Exactly. The sunlight that bounced off that planet the year humans landed will be arriving here. Therefore, we will be seeing their artificial lights, as they build new towns and roads. That is, if they survived.”
“And is that what you’re doing here? Proving the colonists are alive?” Zeke asked with a sudden sharpness.
“My kind, I am living on the top of Mars for twenty years. Not for spying on our mislaid colonists, but for important research. However, the UNACC is giving me some meagre funding to, how shall we say, keep the eyes out for them.”
If only I knew where my father went, Zeke thought. Maybe this gizmo could see him.
“What’s the research for then, Prof?” Scuff asked, lifting his head from the eyepiece.
A serious expression clouded the Professor’s face.
“Ach, that is top secret I am fearing. All I can tell you is that I am scouring the universe for the Genesis particle.”
“Never heard of it, and I know my quantum particles, believe me,” Scuff said.
The scientist fished in his pocket and pulled out a bottle of bubble-mix. The three friends looked at each other in surprise. Hiss stirred the mix with the plastic stick, which he then held aloft.
“What do you see, kinderen?”
“Ap
art from a film of soapy water, nothing,” Pin-mei answered with a baffled frown.
“Ja, exactly.”
Hiss pursed his lips and blew into the circle of plastic. A bubbled emerged and floated idly away.
“But now we have something, ja? From nothing came something. Like the Big Bang, something came from nothing. And how many sides does this bubble universe have?”
“Obviously one,” Scuff remarked, a little irked. “A sphere always has one side.”
“No, that is not so.”
“How many sides can a bubble have?” Scuff asked, rolling his eyes at Zeke.
“It has two sides, an outside and inside,” Hiss said.
Scuff groaned. “Well, obviously!”
Hiss smiled.
“Our universe is the same. Once it existed it had an inside and outside. Everything in the cosmos, everything we can see, is on the inside.”
A very cold shiver wriggled down Zeke’s spine.
“But there’s an outside to the universe?” he asked.
“Exactly so, and theory suggests it is made of all the genesis particles leftover from the Big Bang. If I can find a trail of them, this might lead to a crack, a fracture between this universe and those beyond.”
Zeke felt the strength draining from his body. He understood, and perhaps he was the only human alive who did, the grave danger of such an idea.
The bubble popped. Hiss laughed like a small child.
“I am crazy, no? Please be forgetting what I said. Now you, young Zeke, are you an astronomer too?”
Zeke flushed.
“Yes, it’s my hobby. When I lived on Earth I visited the London Galactarium every Saturday.”
“Ach, ja. I was going there myself once, it is the good memory for me.”
“A damn unpleasant one for us,” Scuff said, exchanging a knowing look with Pin-mei. Hiss paid no attention and continued beaming at Zeke.
“So, you and I are brothers of the stars! You must be staying for longer, we can be observing the stellar phenomena together.”
“I’d love to!” Zeke replied.
“It is getting so lonely up here,” Hiss added in a quiet voice. “Now I am having Mr Justice for company. He is such a lively gentleman, with his music and non-stop chattering. But one day he will be leaving. In any case I am thinking you and I are having fun, ja? Two astronomers with the super telescope.”
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