Saving Mars

by Cidney Swanson

  The idea of further food (and she was fairly certain desserts meant food) made her feel ill. Better to remain outside, with Pavel and conversation to distract her from unwanted worry. “I’m fine here,” said Jessamyn. “I want to enjoy the night sky one last time.”

  Pavel sighed contentedly. “Me, too.”

  It was true, Jessamyn realized—she was exactly where she would choose to be, lying on her back, breathing out-of-door air, staring into the heavens.

  “That moon is amazing,” she said. “It’s like someone cut out a piece of mirror and hung it in the sky.”

  “I wish it were still legal to fly to the moon,” said Pavel. “If I were in my aunt’s shoes, that’s a law I’d bring before parliament.”

  “It must’ve been amazing, back in the day,” said Jess.

  “Can you imagine being Neil Armstrong? Or Roberta Zubrin-Trujillo? That was the golden age, Jess. I mean, I know there were wars and poverty and life was awful for so many people, but can you imagine being the first person to set foot on the Moon? Or Mars?”

  Jess smiled.

  “Tell you what. I’ll run for Head of Consciousness Transfer when I’m a threebody, then, once my political career takes off, I’ll see about re-opening the Terra-Luna shuttle runs. And you can be a shuttle pilot. Deal?”

  “Sounds great,” said Jess. “But what about you, don’t you want to pilot, too?”

  “Shuttles? Nah, where’s the fun in that? I’ll hold out for a flight to Mars.”

  Jess turned sharply to face Pavel, her brow furrowing.

  “Just kidding,” he said. “Anyway, it would be too sad. For me, at least.” He paused to brush sand off his chin.

  “You can see Mars over there,” he said, pointing. “It’s as close as it’s going to be for over a year, which makes it bright. I wonder how long the last survivors hung on for, anyway?”

  Jess held her breath. This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to fake her way through.

  “There’s Arcturus,” said Pavel. He pointed to a bright stellar cluster. “Did you know ancient peoples used that star for navigation? One group traveled all the way from Tahiti to Hawaii with only that single star in view to keep their course true. Can you imagine that? Weeks in a boat on the sea, guided by the heavens?”

  Jessamyn could imagine it in some detail, if you substituted “ship in space” for “boat on sea,” but she kept her thoughts to herself.

  Another bell sounded from inside the hall and Pavel sat up, checking a device which flashed a readout of the local time.

  “Almost midnight,” he said.

  Jess couldn’t remember what time her body—still accustomed to ship time—thought it was now. “Do we have to go back inside?” she asked. “For the kiss or whatever?”

  Pavel shook his head.

  “Good,” said Jessamyn, settling back into the sand.

  “Hey, Jessamyn, can I tell you something?”

  Jess looked at him. “Isn’t that what you’ve been doing all night?”

  Pavel’s eyes looked bright, animated. Jess waited but he didn’t speak.

  “What?” she asked, finally.

  Licking his lips once, he spoke. “So, I know it’s a load of shizer, what they say about the midnight kiss being good luck.” He paused and took a deep breath, then spoke very quickly. “But if I’d met you this year at school, well, I’m pretty sure my last kiss would have been a lot more recent than the one when I turned eight, assuming you’d said okay, because obviously I wouldn’t have just grabbed you in the halls, even though I would have wanted to very much.” He laughed and covered his eyes with one hand. “I cannot believe I said that out loud.”

  “You want us to kiss?” Now Jess laughed, too, shaking her head at Pavel, his face half hidden under his hand. Then, more quietly, she asked another way: “You want to kiss me?”

  “Pretty much since I saw you standing there in line, all dressed in black,” he said, looking at her through parted fingers. His hand dropped away from his face and he met her gaze.

  Her skin tingled like it had when the woman doused her with spray-shrink. She thought she liked the feeling, this time. She smiled at Pavel’s dark eyes, turned upon her. She fingered her sari, slippery against her skin.

  “I’m shallow,” groaned Pavel. “Go ahead. Hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you,” said Jess. She thought about New Orbit countdowns back home where Marsians kissed at midnight for good luck. As a child, Jess had always hidden behind Ethan, covering her eyes against the thousand kisses. Last New Orbit, she’d watched. It hadn’t looked all that bad.

  “I’ve never kissed a boy,” she whispered. “Not when I was eight. Not ever.”

  A tiny smile broke upon Pavel’s face. “I don’t think that one counted for me.”

  “Come closer,” said Jessamyn. As she shifted toward Pavel, burnt-orange silk cascaded from over her shoulder making a sh-sh-sh sound.

  Pavel gathered a handful of the silk where it had settled between them. The sari whispered susurrations once more as Pavel tried to arrange it correctly over Jess’s shoulder. “It’s as soft as parachute-silk,” he said, voice quiet with wonder.

  “It is silk,” said Jess. “At least that’s what they told me.”

  They were very close now and Jess detected on Pavel’s breath things he’d eaten at the banquet. Nice things, she noted. A shout went up from inside the Banquet Hall.

  “The countdown,” murmured Pavel.

  Jessamyn scented the moisture humming between them. Remember this, she told herself. Pavel, the moon, the moisture-laden air. Hundreds of voices chanted five-four-three—

  “I probably suck at this,” Pavel whispered.

  Distantly, from inside the hall, a clamor rose.

  “Hush,” said Jessamyn. As she shifted to meet his mouth, her dress whispered shhh.

  Jess’s heart beat faster than it should have for so small an effort, the pressing of her lips against Pavel’s. This is what sweet tastes like, she thought. And then she stopped thinking and simply felt the kiss: silk-soft, honey-sweet, Earth-moist.

  They pulled apart, eyes flickering down. Then, in turn, their two pairs of eyes darted back to take in the other before them—lips warmed red, cheeks flushed, eyes shining. Pavel laughed first, and then Jessamyn did, and they passed happy echoes back and forth until both sighed and laid their heads back upon the sand. Overhead the stars wheeled in an ancient dance.

  “Do you know any constellations?” Jess asked Pavel, running her fingers in a sweeping motion across the sky. She wondered if they would be called by the same names as back home.

  “Sure,” Pavel said. “But the moon’s so bright that most of the constellations are hard to see. Can you find Mars?”

  “I hope so.” Jess couldn’t help herself—she giggled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Keep going. Mars.”

  The side of Pavel’s mouth quirked and he showed her how to draw an imaginary line from where Mars sat over to a bright star in the Milky way. From there, he began outlining constellations: Bootes, Cygnus, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. “Mom used to tell me this story about that bright star in Cygnus. Well, she told me lots of stories, but I asked for this one often because she would only tell it outside. Which meant prolonging the time before I had to go to bed.” He chuckled at the memory.

  “Tell it to me, already,” said Jess, smiling.

  “Okay. It’s a Chinese story about two lovers—Niulong and Zhinü. Niulong was a herder of cattle, and mortal, while Zhinü was the daughter of the goddess of heaven. They fell in love and married secretly, having two children. For years, they lived happily together on Earth, but when the girl’s goddess-mother found out, she punished them by placing the two on opposite sides of the Milky Way.”

  “That’s a sad story,” murmured Jessamyn, her eyes on Pavel’s lips. She wondered if Zhinü found Niulong’s kisses sweet and soft.

  “Wait, that’s not the end,” said Pavel
. “The goddess of heaven felt sorry for them after awhile. Or maybe popular opinion was against her. Either way, she made it so that, once a year, the pair could reunite. Magical magpies flock to the heavens and create a bridge for the lovers across the Milky Way.”

  Jess thought how much she would enjoy telling the improbable story to her brother.

  “See the bright star at Cygnus’s tail? That’s Deneb. The Chinese say that’s where the bridge can be found. And down there and there,” here Pavel pointed out two bright stars astride the Milky Way, “You can see Zhinü and Niulong.”

  Jessamyn frowned, thinking about Zhinü’s mother. “What’s it like, living with a powerful woman as your guardian?”

  Pavel shook his head. “I couldn’t possibly do your question justice in the next couple of hours.”

  “How much time do we have left?” She felt a rope-tug of sadness with Pavel on the other end of it.

  Pavel checked and smiled. “Enough time for a few life-with-Aunt-Lucca stories. They won’t start calling for us until nine in the morning.”

  Jess yawned. “It’s a stupid idea, making everyone stay up late the night before such an important exam.”

  “The food at the banquet is enhanced to increase concentration,” said Pavel. “Didn’t you catch that in the brochure?”

  “No,” said Jess. That would account for the gluttony, she thought. Eat more so you can score higher. She yawned again. She should have eaten more, obviously.

  “Okay, let me think,” said Pavel, chuckling. “So, when it comes to Aunt Lucca, the biggest difference I’m aware of between me and my peers is that I have a lot more unsupervised time. Lucca’s a busy woman. We don’t sleep on the same continent, most nights when she’s campaigning. You know how in that story Zhinü gets away with being married and having a couple of kids and her mom doesn’t catch on for years?”

  “Yeah, that was completely unrealistic.”

  “No,” replied Pavel. “I totally get that. If I’d been inclined to, I could’ve gotten away with all kinds of stuff.”

  “Oh,” said Jess. “I see. And you never once took advantage of that?”

  Pavel’s mouth curved upward. “Well, I didn’t say that, did I? Flying’s a good example. You’ve probably heard how Lucca wants to pass legislation that restricts first-bodies from flying anything that goes faster than the speed of sound.”

  “Boring,” murmured Jess.

  “I know.” Pavel laughed. “So, when I got my first license, Lucca gave me a motor pool pass and forgot to place restrictions on it. It’s a classic example of her parenting style.”

  “Oh,” said Jess, laughing. “So she’s giving speeches about—”

  “First-body safety,” Pavel said, completing Jess’s thought. “And I’m listening while I fly sub-orbitals.”

  “How very wayward of you.”

  Pavel shrugged. “Yeah, I know. But all the statistics about first-body crashes are based on a group who haven’t had the kind of training I’ve had.”

  “Does your aunt know you’ve been licensed—” Jess paused to make sure she said it the way Pavel had. “Licensed up to 300 kilometers in space?”

  “She never asked,” said Pavel. “But she paid the bills for the tuition.”

  “Or her administrative assistant paid them.”

  “Probably,” grunted Pavel.

  “Does she … do you think she cares about your safety?” Then, more quietly, “Does she love you?”

  Pavel sat up. “In her way.” He brushed sand off his fingers. “In the space of a year, I lost both my parents and then the uncle who cared for me. Lucca took me in even though she’d just been elected Chancellor. She did little things to help make my new life with her easier, like finding out what kinds of books and games I liked, fixing up my room exactly like my parents had it, giving me flying lessons when I asked. She did other things, too. My parents’ bodies were unrecoverable, but in the case of my uncle, Lucca made sure the re-body went to someone in her cabinet, so that I’d still be able to see him from time to time. Not everyone would have gone the extra mile like that.”

  Jess shuddered. The last thing she’d want if her loved ones died was to see someone else walking around inside their bodies. She scrambled for a change of subject. “What was it like—your first flight where you broke the sound barrier?”

  Pavel shook his head. “Scary as anything. But don’t let that stop you from trying it someday. That first time up, I caught seven sunrises before the refuel alert forced me back down.”

  Jessamyn smiled. Catching serial sunrises was one of her favorite pastimes back home. “What’s the best place you’ve ever flown?”

  “The great southwestern desert in North America. It’s beautiful. Have you seen it?”

  “No,” murmured Jess. “Never been.”

  “My parents used to take me every year. I think I was six the first time. I remember watching the sun rising on the flat horizon. It had no color and Mom said how that was because the air lacked contaminants. That was the thing about the desert. How clean it felt. And how it smelled: pure. Fresh. Like every breath I took cleaned out my lungs.

  “I had figured a desert would have no color. All washed out like the sky at sunrise. But the desert has so much color, Jessamyn. Every shade of tan and brown and pink that you can imagine, all there in the dirt. Close-up, at your feet, it only looks sand-colored. But when you look out, there are these little hills and they look like someone’s been trying different paints, figuring out what color would look best.”

  Jess’s eyes drifted shut and she imagined Mars at sunrise, looking just like Pavel described the North American desert.

  “Am I boring you?” asked Pavel.

  Jess’s eyes flew open. “No,” she said. “I’ve seen pictures of that desert, but it looked like everything was brown.”

  “They do that to discourage tourism, I think,” said Pavel, laughing.

  “Keep going,” said Jess. “I’m closing my eyes so I can imagine it.”

  Pavel sighed and continued. “So, yeah, a million shades of tans and golds, like the colors at the heart of Budapest.”

  “Mmm,” Jess murmured.

  “I saw cactus for the first time on that trip. I had no idea what it was. It looked like a cluster of pipes sticking out of the ground. I asked my Dad what it could be and he said what he always said.” Pavel laughed softly. “‘Let’s go find out.’ So we took off and when we got close, something very weird happened: I swear I could smell the moisture collected deep inside.”

  Pavel looked over at Jess. “I am boring you to death.”

  “No,” mumbled Jess, her eyes closed. “The desert sounds beautiful the way you describe it.”

  “Yeah. It’s so pure. The worst part was always coming home and trying to sleep—it was like there were too many smells at home. I would grab one of my shirts from camping and sleep with it pressed into my face every night until finally it would lose that clean desert smell.”

  Pavel looked over at Jessamyn. Her mouth had parted slightly and she looked like she was sleeping. Stretching out on the sand beside her, he placed himself so he could see the next time the New Terra Space Station passed by.

  Jess slept, dreaming of home: the deserts of frozen sand and soil in a thousand shades of orange-y brown, until, just before dawn, her brother’s voice, terror-filled, awakened her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  THE YOU I MET LAST NIGHT

  Inside her ear-implant, Jessamyn recognized her brother’s voice. “Orbitals down! Orbitals down!”

  As he uttered the code phrase selected to indicate mission failure, Jess heard the fear in her brother’s voice.

  “Follow your tattoo!” Ethan whispered. “Now!” He cut the connection.

  Jessamyn found she was already sitting upright beside a sleeping Pavel. To the east, the sky remained dark, but the stars had nearly all vanished. Morning was near. Her tattoo glowed a deep purple and she tapped it to get directions. Ethan was over eight k
ilometers away. She needed to find transport, now. Remembering the row of hover-bikes for rent, Jess rose, shedding her sari.

  As the fabric slipped into a pile of burnt-orange, a few grains of sand spilled across Pavel. His hands twitched and he opened his eyes.

  “Hey,” he said, a lazy smile upon his face.

  “My brother’s in trouble,” said Jessamyn. “I need to go.”

  “Go where? Testing starts in five hours.”

  “Yeah,” said Jess, walking briskly toward the front of the building. Left hand family, right hand escape, she repeated to herself.

  “Jessamyn. Wait up, Jessamyn!” Pavel jogged alongside her.

  It irked her to see how much more quickly he could run. The Terran gravity felt as if it were trying to draw her down inside the Earth’s core.

  “Did you hear me? Five hours, Jessamyn. If you no-show, you get a manual labor sentence. In, like, Antarctica!”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Jess was so done pretending she was here for an exam.

  “You’re telling me you don’t care if you spend the next eighteen years of your life swinging an ice pick in an arthritis-ridden body?”

  “Exactly,” she said. “Goodbye, Pavel.”

  She stared at the row of rental bikes, looking for anything that resembled a place to scan her wrist-chip.

  “Jessamyn, don’t be crazy. Message your parents. Let them deal with it.”

  Hades, thought Jessamyn. Ethan hadn’t said anything about the rest of the crew. Were they all in danger?

  Pavel placed himself before a box with writing on it, and Jess glimpsed the rental instructions she’d been looking for.

  “Message your parents.”

  “I can’t. Move out of my way.”

  Pavel stood his ground, arms crossed.

  “I said, move!” Jess thrust her arms at his chest with a force that would have toppled most Marsians. On Mars, at least.

  “Why can’t you let someone else deal with your brother?” asked Pavel, laughing at her clumsy attempt.

  “I can’t tell you,” said Jess, swiping her left wrist.