People of Mars (20 page)

“But we knew there was
water, just a few metres down. It was thermal water imprisoned
inside the rock. A proper underground lake, which remained in a
liquid state thanks to the high pressures generated by the vapour
and counterbalanced by the lithostatic pressure. If the water had
escaped, it would’ve solidified during the night, but in the
daytime, with the higher temperatures, it would’ve evaporated,
without giving us the chance to use it.”

“The ice cap prevented
that from happening,” I suggest.

“Just so. We saw the
opportunity in the situation. We could go on and on trying to
communicate with Earth or roll up our sleeves and take advantage of
it. And live. We opted for the second choice.” He adds a smile to
these last words. “After all, we couldn’t really believe that Kurt
had waited for us after all those weeks. It was a feeble hope
anyway.”

Of course, he can’t
know. “Siedel never returned to Earth.”

Jack’s eyes become
gloomy. He seems surprised rather than grieved, as if that
information disoriented him. “What happened to him?”

I shrug. “I have no
idea. I just know about the rumours circulating NASA during the
training. I was just a baby when it happened.”

His curious eyes watch
me, waiting.

“
I just know he refused to abandon you. He waited
many weeks and, when the launch window was about to close, he sent
a last message. Then nothing was heard from him anymore. They all
think he committed suicide. Certainly the
Hera
never left the MSS.”

I guess I can glimpse
a micro expression of sorrow in his face. It lasts just a moment.
It makes me feel ill at ease.

“You’ve built a
pressurised environment around the geyser.” I hasten to talk about
something else.

Once more, I look
around me, admiring as I observe all the work behind the creation
of such a structure. There’s the greenhouse with its plastic
covering, but they’ve added solid elements to it, to join it to the
rock. It’s unbelievable that four people, with the little means at
their disposal, could do so much.

“Where do the metal
sheets come from?” I ask, pointing up just over the warm pond.

“From the wreck of the
shuttle. We’ve disassembled it part by part, recycling all that
could be recycled. And we’ve built our small Garden of Eden.” He
laughs. His previous worry seems to have faded away.

I can’t help but do
the same, sharing his sense of enthusiasm.

Even though
Hera
had been conceived as a short-term mission, the habitats
sent to Mars had to be used for the future missions, therefore they
were equipped to last for many years. As far as power went, they
were fully independent. But in order to let people live there for
an indefinite time, without external re-supplies, one fundamental
thing was missing: an unlimited source of water.

Station Alpha can make use of a sophisticated
system able to extract this essential substance from the regolith,
where it is only available in quite low concentrations. But nothing
of that sort had been installed in the modules sent to the planets
over thirty years ago, not because the technology was lacking, but
because it wasn’t necessary for the kind of missions for which they
were intended. Actually, the
Hera
had brought with her more than enough hydrogen, which
together with the atmospheric carbon dioxide was used to produce
water for the various needs of the crew, plus plenty of methane,
employed as fuel for the rovers and the shuttles. The same series
of chemical reactions allowed the direct extraction of oxygen, used
both for the life support and as combustive agent, from carbon
dioxide. It was a less immediate system, but one which demanded
less power than the one used today.

But once the hydrogen
was over and the supplies of water and methane had been depleted,
the habitat’s self-sufficiency failed.

Having water again at
their disposal reactivated the process, allowing them to produce
oxygen and fuel again. This meant plants could be grown in the
experimental greenhouse from the seeds stored in the laboratory,
transforming it into a never-ending source of sustenance.

“Can you produce
enough food for …? I don’t even know how many you are.” Everything
is much clearer now, but I still need some details.

“We are twelve. And
yes, we produce enough of it. We also raise rabbits, pigs, and
chickens.”

I frown. Where did
they come from?

Jack smiles at my
reaction. “We had several frozen embryos in the laboratory inside
the building. They were intended for development experiments by
means of incubators. In theory, we shouldn’t have tried to produce
adult animals, at least not during our mission. But, since they
were there, we let them develop and breed.”

Silence falls between us. I ponder the information
I’ve received. Jack’s entire account seems perfect, almost too
perfect. They were lucky to crash near the lost, still working
module, not to mention a few paces from an enormous source of
liquid water. What
good
luck.

“Mars is a magnificent
place, if you learn to get to know it for real.” His cryptic
comment seems to have been said in response to my perplexity.

A faint noise behind
me, and Jack’s face appears to light up. I turn and I see them.
There’s a woman with long, white hair, arranged in a ponytail;
she’s a little taller than me, and has Mediterranean features.
Beside her is another couple in their sixties. The man has a
frizzy, grey-speckled head of hair, a dark complexion, black,
lively eyes. His companion has a proud posture, ice-coloured eyes,
a slender figure in spite of her age.

It’s them, the remainders of
Hera
’s crew. I stand up out of respect. I’m in front
of some living legends.

The first woman moves
closer to Jack, who rises to greet her as well. He links her arm.
“Anna Persson, meet my wife, Elena Sernese.” Then he points to the
others. “And they are Nestor Almeida and Irina Nowak.”

I had seen some
pictures of them from the time just before their mission, when I
had started working at ESA. They were much younger in those images,
but I’ve no doubt it’s them. I recognise them all. Like Jack, they
have grown old gracefully. They don’t appear to have gained weight
or become weak because of their age.

As absorbed as I am in
staring at them, I notice with the corner of my eye that more
people are coming. It looks like a carefully choreographed scene:
Nestor and Irina step aside, giving way to two more couples, much
closer to my age.

“You’ve already met
our grandchildren.” Jack resumes speaking. “These, instead, are our
children.”

Puzzled, I look at him
and Elena, then at the other elderly couple. Finally, I turn to the
newcomers. Who’s the child of whom?

As if he has perceived
my thoughts, Jack points out one of the men. “This is our son,
Julian, with his wife, Katja, daughter of Nestor and Irina.” Then
turning to the other young couple, he continues, “And these are our
daughter, Maria, and her husband, Thiago.”

“Son of Nestor and
Irina.” I finish his sentence.

“Exactly.”

I’m dazed by all those
names, but nonetheless I can’t help but notice again that redundant
perfection. The four crew members have formed two couples, in
apparent harmony; each one had a son and a daughter. And the latter
have created two more couples. Now that I think about it, even the
children were four: two boys and two girls.

It’s like a scheme
repeating. But it’s forced to stop now, because all the children
are siblings or first cousins. The little Martian community
would’ve come to the end of its cycle, doomed to extinction, if
nobody had found them.

If
I
hadn’t found
them.

“I’m glad you are
doing better,” Julian says, coming forward together with Katja.
Both smile at me. Actually, they are all smiling. I’m the focus of
attention and I don’t like that at all. Once more, I feel like I’m
the subject of a morbid, invasive curiosity, as has already
happened with the children. I know it’s normal. I’m the first
unknown human being they’ve seen in more than sixteen Martian
years, over thirty-three Earth years. Yet this surreal situation
distresses me. I wish I could distance myself from them, but I lack
the strength to move. I cannot stop staring at them with the same
inquisitive intent.

“It was us who found
you.” Katja’s voice is melodious; her words wake me up. How did
they find me? Another coincidence?

“Since we first heard
you, we tried everything to contact you,” Jack says. “We didn’t
know whether we had succeeded, but anyway we arranged to send at
least one couple to the Ophir Planum, during the daytime, hoping to
see some of you come.”

“You heard us?!” I can
barely speak.

“We’ve picked up some
radio transmissions two weeks ago. They were garbled, but it was
clear they were voices. You can imagine our excitement!” Whilst
speaking, he holds Elena closer to him and they both smile. Nestor
and Irina do the same identical thing. Rather than excited, they
seem prey to a blissful happiness. “We’ve tried to contact you,
with no result. So we’ve tried to send a standard distress signal,
short but with increasingly higher power, alternating various radio
frequencies and repeating it at different times of the day, every
day.”

I remember my last
sortie with Robert. It was the first time we’d been so far south.
Perhaps they heard us, as we talked to each other by radio. And
then, when I went back there with Hassan, I received their message,
but I hadn’t realised it was an SOS.

“Since then, we’ve
planned shifts to go to the planum with the rovers. We didn’t know
from where you would arrive, or how far you were, but it was worth
trying anyway.”

“So you’ve got
rovers?”

“Well, nothing special
compared to yours!” Julian exclaims. “That’s hot stuff.” His eyes
are shining.

“But, how did you
climb up the two thousand metres?” It seems I’m giving them the
third degree, but they don’t give the impression that they’re
annoyed by it.

“There’s a slightly
long path leading up, which can be driven by a rover, but you need
to go about ten kilometres eastward.” Jack speaks with a much
calmer tone than his son does. “Ours are small, they are equipped
with just one combustion engine and small volume tanks. They don’t
go that far, but they can get us to the upland plain.”

“Once there, we did a
good deal of strolling,” Julian steps in. He yearns to be the one
to hold the stage. “Constantly checking the horizon with the
binoculars in search of something moving. And earlier today, just
when we were about to leave, we saw a strange light, an abnormal
glare of the sun. Imagine our surprise when we realised that it was
a rover!”

I can’t help but smile
at him. His enthusiasm is contagious.

“But, when we got
there, there was nobody. It was empty. We looked down the precipice
and we saw you.” His restless gesturing makes his account livelier.
“We had to hurry, the sun was setting. And we couldn’t call you to
find out if you were well. With the suits, it was a waste of
effort. We tried various radio channels, but we weren’t sure you
received us. So I descended with a rope. You had passed out, but
were breathing. I put you into a harness and Katja took us up,
pulling with your rover.” He gets closer to me. “It was really
tough. It was starting to get quite cold.” Then, something I hadn’t
expected at all, he hugs me. “I’m really happy you are alive.”

“Oh, me too.” I
laugh.

He releases me, and a
moment after I find myself in Katja’s arms. “Welcome to Ophir!”

One by one, they come
to me, to embrace me, patting my shoulders, kissing my cheeks,
holding my hand. It’s as if the ice has melted and I’m flooded by a
tide of affection. I let myself go with that wonderful
sensation.

For the first time I
realise that those before me aren’t simple persons. I had deluded
myself about entering history books as one of the first human
beings to come to Mars, being one of the first colonisers. Instead,
they have dwelt here almost from before my birth. If you count the
children, most of them were born and have always lived here. This
is their planet, not Earth. These men and women are real people of
Mars.

10

“Sir, we have the
images from the orbiter,” Sasaki said, drawing back Nichols’s
attention.

In spite of
innumerable coffees, Jan was struggling to stay awake. With the
different time zone and the isolation of the control room, he had
completely lost sense of time. He didn’t even know how long had
passed since the last time he had eaten. For sure, he wasn’t hungry
now. His stomach was closed by his tension, and the sudden
agitation of the staff caused him a painful cramp. He pushed away
the cup with the hot beverage and sipped some water from a
bottle.

The screen turned
black. The mission director looked daggers at the deputy flight
engineer, who didn’t get perturbed.

“I’m sorry, Sir,
unfortunately the sun has already set in that area. You can’t see a
thing.” He didn’t really look sorry; actually he didn’t betray any
particular emotion. He didn’t even look tired.

Nichols let a growl
escape.

“And what do we do
now?” Jan asked, worried.

“We can’t do
anything.” The mission director was shaking his head, showing his
disappointment. “The good thing is that, including both rover and
suit, Anna still has many hours of air left. We can only wait for
the dawn and hope to see something. Or that she gets in touch.”