Solaris Rising (32 page)

Appleton clapped his hands. “I assume you watched
Capricorn One
a lot.”

I could have groaned. Ten years on, if the Chinese land on Mars, since the USA mightn’t risk another failure, it would become clear that our bodies had vanished. But meanwhile…

“We have a clear and urgent duty,” announced Jim of a sudden, reviving, “not just to our grief-stricken spouses but to NASA and to our government and to the people. Yet here we are, cooling our heels in a bar.”

“Hey, did you forget about you and Becky separating?” asked Barbara.

A commotion and gunfire somewhere in the street drew most of the tourists outside. A buckboard clattered by, bearing a coffin, and the bartender called to the few remaining tourists, “Gentlemen and ladies, outlaw will hang soon for murder!”

Chuck was snoring noticeably. Astronaut selection procedures had eliminated noisy snorers, although purring was acceptable, as NASA used to joke. Juno had been quite a purrer. Spanish air and the beer had started Chuck rumbling.

“A duty,” said Appleton, “to alert everyone about
UFOs
? After all the previous official denials? Is that what this is all about, then – UFO revelations? That could be seen as bad taste, capitalising upon the deaths on Mars, even if you
do
resemble those brave guys quite closely. In fact, it can’t be coincidence that you’re spitting images of the Marsonauts. So this must have been cooked up months ago – as if knowing
in advance
that the lander wouldn’t be able to take off. That’s as good as saying that NASA is a party to this, and – yes! – they set this up ahead of time in case of any tragedy in order to minimise that. Maybe NASA never completely trusted the lander’s engines. I guess your spouses will be able to tell the difference, so they need to be sworn to secrecy. Hey, but you guys need to be available for a media tour around the world! So you need to know astronaut talk and be wise about Mars, same as the real crew. Unless the UFO revelation distracts everybody…”

Appleton’s brain was working overtime. Me, I was starting to feel unreal, as if I’d merely been hypnotised to imagine I’d been on Mars.

“So they’d set all this up in case of a national tragedy,” Appleton continued, “at the cost of endorsing flying saucers and aliens! Wow, that’s one giant step for the space agency, you might say. If you must tell a lie, tell it big.”

“We never saw any aliens. We only heard a voice.”

“In your heads?”

“On our radio.”

“We oughta phone,” repeated Jim.

“I’m serious about buying the suits. I’ll go to thirty-five K – K for Kubrick, hey? – for the set including your cameras. That’s cash. Euros’ll be more use to you, so let’s say forty K Euros. You come along to Almería with me so I can visit a bank. I’ll throw in overnight at a decent hotel. My hire car’ll hold three of you. Ma’am,” he addressed Rachel, “may I hire one of your vehicles and someone to drive it? For the other two guys and the suits.”

“I drive,” said Pablo, doubtless in expectation of money.

“I really don’t know,” said Rachel.

“Two hundred Euros for vehicle and driver, how’s that? Better than a taxi fare.”

“We don’t have authority to sell our suits,” Juno said, as though selling them was even a plausible proposition. The trouble was, we weren’t highly assertive, any of us. That’s how we got to Mars in harmony.

“Supposing,” said Appleton, “you’d come down in Amazonia or the Gobi Desert, you’d need to improvise to survive. Might have meant bartering your suits to Jivaros or Mongolians… Hey, see how I’m talking as if you really are astronauts! For this prank to work properly, those suits ought to disappear, leaving only the photos and video clips taken here uploaded and viral. The suits will vanish into a private collection.”

“You’re planning to sell them on!” Rachel accused Appleton. “You could easily ask a million each from rich obsessives. Or Russian billionaires.”

“Ma’am, you have the option any time soon to make a bid of your own. Except that you think this is a hustle and that I’m in cahoots with these good gentlemen and ladies.”

“You did choose a convenient time to visit Texas Hollywood.”

“Look, lady, the supposed flying saucer dumps them here because movies made here
pretend
to be made in America. Part of Spain pretending to be the Wild West. Me, I’m fascinated by movies about pretences, or which are pretences themselves. 9/11 conspiracy stuff, or those allegedly faked Moon landings. So of course this is a place I always wanted to visit – but I might just as easily have come here last week or last month and missed all this. My presence is pure luck! What’s going on here with these actor-astronauts is what you might call a meta-pretence because the genius is that
no movie even needs to be made
. The internet will make the movie spontaneously.”

Hadn’t it occurred to Appleton that Rachel and Pablo might be in cahoots with the five of us? That Rachel
the wardrobe mistress
might have kitted us out in our Kubrick suits, knowing that Mike Appleton was booked for a couple of days, and having cleverly hacked into his finances beforehand? Which would mean that they routinely did likewise with other tourists too, awaiting their chance… and now Rachel had upped the ante considerably with her accusation about Russian billionaire collectors…

“I’ve been trying,” said Juno, “to remember my home phone number. It’s in my mobile’s memory. But not in my brain.”

Nor could I remember mine clearly! Digits danced in my mind’s eye like on some slot machine in Vegas, with a very wide window, but no jackpot lined up. This wasn’t too amazing. Since when had I needed to recite my own phone number?

“So what’s it to be?” said Appleton. “Sell the suits, or is there a Plan B?” He chuckled. “You must have a Plan B from outer space. B for back-up. I mean, some colleague’s vehicle had to bring you here all suited up.” He still wasn’t suspecting Rachel!

“It was a
space
vehicle of unknown design,” I insisted.

“Sure, sure, piloted by aliens fond of movie sets.
How
would they know where this place is?”

“By Googling?” I suggested. “Obviously they’re familiar with Earth. They laid on German-style deli sandwiches for us.”

“Aha!” exclaimed Appleton. “Here’s the Nazi version! Hitler’s scientists go to Antarctica by submarine and build a base underground, or under the ice, to make flying saucers designed in the Reich. Decades later the base is still operating, the source of every UFO sighting since 1947. Plus there’s a big Aryan breeding programme. By now the Swastika flies inside the caverns of Phoebus, which explains how rescue was close at hand for you. Maybe the Nazi ufonauts are in cahoots with rightwing billionaires allied to the Illuminati or whoever, since why should NASA build big chemical rockets if antigravity is available to the US government? Look, you can’t have both versions at the same time – aliens
and
Nazis.”

“I never said
anything
about Nazis!” I protested.

“You mentioned sandwiches made in Deutschland.”

“I’m just telling you what happened.”

“Hmm, a Nazi sandwich… Symbolic none the less. Did your aliens buy sandwiches in Germany as disinformation? To throw people off the scent of aliens? This is more devious than I thought. Are there any other surprise details you’d like to add?”

“Yes! Why aren’t you wondering if Rachel and the management of Texas Hollywood set this up,
in league with us
supposing we’re actors, in order to con you out of forty K Euros? And whether
that’s
why Rachel accused
you
of setting this up to con
her
, so as to inoculate you against suspicion of a money sting!”

How could I have been drawn into such a weird way of thinking?

Appleton shrugged. “I know illegal things happen here all the time. Gypsies, drugs, property swindles. And this country’s awash with illegal immigrants. But that’s a bit imaginative.”

Rachel burst out laughing. “I ought to resent what you just said, Jack,” she told me. “But I can see where you’re coming from. I still think Mr Appleton plans to sell your suits on at a huge profit.”

Appleton looked momentarily disconcerted, but he rallied with the vigour of someone whose favourite ice cream might suddenly be snatched away.

“Great dialogue,” he told me. “You really are covering all the bases. So should I say your suits look worth a lot
more
, and then the price goes up; or that most likely they were ordered on the net from a fancy-dress factory in China? By the way, before I finally commit myself I need a closer look at those suits. How’s their air-conditioning?”

“We were heating up horribly in them!” insisted Juno. “Those were made for sub-zero Mars, not Spain.”

Rachel rose. “Be my guest,” she said to Appleton. “Let’s go and inspect the goods right now. Pablo,” she called, “ven conmigo! Will you come too?” she asked Jim. “They’re your suits, so you know the workings.”

The three of them were across the road for a while, during which we heard applause, doubtless due to the hangman doing his job and the outlaw pretending to perish in a non-tightening noose. Although mightn’t that cause him whiplash? Maybe the outlaw trained his neck muscles. I was wasting my time even thinking about the matter, yet my brain seemed fixed on trivia. I had to snap out of this.

Our suits were
goods
. It was as if Rachel herself was selling them on our behalf. Somehow we had to empower ourselves, but I felt dozy.

I actually nodded off, recovering to hear Appleton say, “… classy enough to fool me if they’re fakes…”

“So they’ll fool the billionaires too?” Rachel and Appleton now sounded to be in conspiracy.

“Alternatively, NASA sent genuine spares over here just in case, ahead of the take-off from Mars. Or five rejects.”

The pair of them, and Jim, resumed their seats.

“I want to go home,” said Juno.

“That’s unwise, supposing you’re telling the truth. Think
Capricorn One
. How can you trust a government, or rogue secret agencies, that just might – I say
might
– have destroyed the Twin Towers, killing three thousand Americans – and some foreigners too – so as to authenticate the threat of Al Qaeda and Osama as the Santa Claus of Evil, and thus validate invading Iraq for oil motives, and then Afghanistan for consistency, huh?” Appleton held up his hand to avoid being interrupted. “Look, the CIA created and armed the Taliban in the first place to take on the Russians during the Cold War. Saddam wasn’t a nice guy at all, but he sure kept the lid on Islamic militants, not to mention advancing the cause of women, so why rip the lid off Pandora’s box? Who pulls the strings? Some powerful group stands to gain. Unless recent history is sheer stupidity. You five could be innocent patsies in all of this.”

What a jolt back to wakefulness, which was nevertheless still dreamy, or pre-dreamy – I felt I’d been about to dream.

“All of
what
?” I protested. “You’re making my head ache. This is paranoia.”

“I’m merely mentioning possible aspects. I don’t necessarily endorse any. Look, I own a company. I won’t say what we do, but we have interests in several nations in Africa. You’d be better off in Africa, the five of you. I could fix you up with jobs, identities. You’d be safe. You can let some time roll by.”

“That,” said Rachel, “seems a much more substantial offer than forty K Euros.”

“It’s do-able. I’ve been costing things in my head. And maybe this’ll all work better with rumours that the dead astronauts are alive and well somewhere or otherin great big Africa. I can hear rumours spreading already. You, Rachel, you’ll be able to say:
The weirdest thing happened at work the other day
… And Pancho here – ”

“My name is Pablo,” said the cowboy.

Appleton grinned. “Almost got it right, didn’t I? My mother was a bit psychic. Pablo will gossip too, in Spanish, almost the second language of the USA. At last I shall actually have
assisted
in a conspiracy theory. That’ll make me a happy man.”

Juno yawned. “I’m so tired. It’s so heavy here.”

Chuck seemed to have fallen asleep again.

“A phone call,” muttered Jim.

“You don’t make major decisions when you’re worn out. Let’s get you all to a hotel in Almería. Sleep on it.”

“I suppose,” allowed Juno, “that couldn’t do any
harm.
We’d be able to watch CNN. See how America is reacting.”

“If the pics and vids go viral,” opined Appleton, “there’ll likely be patriotic outcries to shut any sites hosting the pics unless those pics are all taken down right away, on account of them being in bad taste. That’s excellent for conspiracy pics. So Uncle Sam heeds a grief-stricken nation because nobody knows the flying saucer angle –
not as yet
. Thereafter, how can NASA plausibly deny its denials, even if investigators head out here in secret? And as regards investigative journalists, boy, just roll out that UFO…”

A black helicopter landed in the street outside, billowing dust. Masked special forces leapt out, snubby weapons pointing at the swing doors of the Saloon. I was nodding off again in micro-sleeps.

“Pablo,” I heard Appleton say, “is there somewhere on the way we can buy them proper clothes easily?”