The Ruins of Mars (The Ruins of Mars Trilogy Book 1) (24 page)

     
Lost in his troubled thoughts, Udo at first didn’t notice when the final section of the coolant line flickered from transparent gray to green. When he did turn his gaze on the blinking emerald light, he suddenly snapped back to the moment and sat up straighter in his chair.

      “
Everyone, they’re finished!” he called out excitedly.

     
With the thudding of fast-moving feet, the remaining members of the crew quickly filed into the cubicle, chattering hopefully.

      “
How long until the air pressure starts to go up?” questioned Viviana, a smile gracing her lips for the first time in two sols.

     
Braun replied before Udo could calculate an answer.

      “
The air pressure will likely fall to 9.99 PSI due to the low levels of oxygen and hydrogen in the Martian atmosphere. However, once an equilibrium has been reached between what is needed to supply the dome and what is available, air pressure will hold above the level designated as dangerous.”

     
The strained look of hope upon Viviana’s face quickly faded.

      “
But won’t we get sick? 9.99 sounds terribly low!”

      “
No,” stated Braun calmly. “The gene enhancement you underwent had several very profound effects on your bodies’ systems. You can sustain yourselves in low-pressure environments, which would otherwise be harmful to your human counterparts on Earth. In this way—”

     
A gasp of terror from Liu interrupted the AI, and she pointed to a command screen just left of the holo-table.

      “
Oh my God, no!” she shouted.

      “
What?” jumped Udo, swiveling in his chair to follow the trembling line of her finger.

     
There, on the screen, were the diagnostic charts for both Marshall’s and Harrison’s suits. In the dim light of the communications room, the red glares cast by the warning signs of each suit were as bright as gasoline explosions. On and off the red indicators blinked, strobing the words
CRITICAL MALFUNCTION
in bold capital letters above the two suits. Worse yet, the normally gently-sloping lines that represented the vital signs of each astronaut now fluctuated and spiked, possessed by fear and sickness.

      “
Why didn’t any alarms go off?” said William, his voice rising into an accusing whine. “Braun, what is happening here?”

      “
I am sorry,” replied the AI woodenly.

      “
What’s wrong with them?” shrieked Liu, her fingers clawing at her face as it drained of all color.

     
Peering closely at the readouts, Udo swallowed hard, then turned to face his compatriots.

      “
They both have signs radiation sickness, and it looks like their suits are shutting down.”

      “
Braun!” demanded William, his eyes blazing with indignation. “What have you done? Why weren’t we alerted of this sooner?”

     
From the shadows of the dome’s ceiling, the flat baritone of Braun’s voice drifted down.

      “
It is in my mission directives that I not allow the ground team to suffer losses greater than 33.3 percent.”

      “
So you thought you would just hide this from us?” screamed William, slamming his fist down on the holo-table.

      “
I am sorry, but the risk that one or more of you might attempt a rescue was too great.”

     
Turning on her heel, Liu sprinted from the room and made for the suit lockers near the entrance of the airlock.

      “
Liu!” shouted Udo. “What are you doing?”

     
Tugging at the unmoving latch that secured the door to her locker, Liu cursed and kicked at the thin metal.

      “
I deplore this situation as much as you do, Dr. Liu,” lamented Braun, his tone reflecting true sadness. “But I cannot allow you to leave the safety of the dome. Above all else, the success of the mission and the well-being of the greatest number of its crew are my highest priorities.”

      “
Fuck you!” raged Liu as she battered the door of her locker. “Let me go to him!”

      “
I am truly sorry, but no.”

     
Rushing to her side, William began to wrench at the lever that held his own locker closed.

      “
Open the door
du hurensohn
!” he commanded, his perfect English breaking down into livid torrents of German profanity.

      “
I cannot,” repeated Braun miserably.

     
In the communications room, Udo watched with horrified resignation as the flashing red image of Harrison’s pressure suit dimmed, then vanished from the screen. Behind him, Viviana uttered a choked moan as she turned and shuffled away from the glowing readouts towards the safety and seclusion of her own quarters. At the airlock, Udo could hear Liu’s anguished sobs as she attacked the latch of her suit locker with a fire extinguisher, taken from a nearby hanger. Next to her, William smashed his fists against the metal door of his own receptacle, assaulting the reinforced material with little effect. As the status light of Marshall’s suit flickered weakly in its final moments of operation, Udo turned to face the now-empty room.

      “
Braun?” he whispered weakly.

      “
Yes, Dr. Konig?”

      “
Will they suffer?”

      “
Yes.”

      “
My God,” he sighed sadly. “My God.”

Outside the dome

     
The cold penetrated Harrison’s suit like a hypodermic needle, filling his veins with liquid nitrogen. His life-support CPU had only been offline for a minute at the most, and, already, the chemical warming agent that circulated throughout the fabric of his pressure suit was beginning to cool. Wrapping his arms around himself, he struggled to his feet, straining his eyes against the impenetrable curtain of red sand that surrounded him. Blinking back tears as his muscles screamed with the force of fatigue, Harrison coughed harshly inside his frosted helmet. Fighting to stand still amidst the waves of dizziness, he wished for just a second of Augmented Vision.

      The world outside his suit was as mysterious and hidden as the distant ocean floor was to a swimmer treading water on the surface. Trembling despite the adrenaline, he felt his knees buckle, and he toppled to his side like a decrepit rotten tree. Groaning with pain and fear, he searched the ground around him with slowly wandering hands, attempting to find anything that would give him a clue as to his bearings. Touching only rough stones and sand, he rolled onto his back, chest heaving with exertion. Attempting to catch his breath, he closed his eyes and gulped at the stale putrid air of his helmet.

     
A picture of Liu’s face, tears staining her cheeks, swam into his mind and looked down at him through a mess of straight black hair. In her glistening eyes were the untold depths of heartbreak and love as her mouth moved in silence, attempting to speak across the void of time and space. He longed to run his hands through her silky hair, to feel the warmth and curve of her lower back as they embraced. Most of all, he yearned to breath in her scent: delicate, enticing and sweet. But those things were all gone now. Concepts like love and spirit and warmth were as alien to his situation as he himself was to this planet. Unable to maintain her presence in his mind, Liu sank below the waters of his consciousness, and, soon, he too felt himself dip beneath the cold and placid tide.

     
How did things gone so wrong so fast? he wondered, his inner voice a distant tinkle like the sound of a wind chime.

     
As the ebb and flow of his own breathing drew farther and farther away, Harrison smiled inwardly. Waves of understanding and enlightenment spilled over him, throwing fire into the darkest corners of his soul. Questions he had not even thought to ask were answered with such simplistic elegance that dying seemed somehow worth the price one paid to learn the truth. Floating up and away from his nearly-frozen body, he looked down with bittersweet regret.

     
I’ll never get to tell Liu how I really feel, he thought as his mind wandered and his heart slowed. We’ll never have the pleasure of living in the light.

     
Suddenly, someone shook his shoulders, and Harrison felt himself fall from the sky like a stone down a well, splashing back into his body. Eyes fluttering, he gazed up through the glass of his face shield as a shadow descended from the rusty smoke beyond. The dark mass took form as it drew nearer, changing and shifting until it became the helmet of a pressure suit. A face looked in at him through the frost that caked the glass of his visor. Blunt hard features and gray listless eyes relaxed into a relieved smile. Ralph Marshall pressed his helmet to Harrison’s, shouting to be heard through the thin atmosphere of Mars.

      “
Wake up, buddy,” he said, his voice muffled and distant. “My vision could go out again at any second.”

      “
I can’t,” was all Harrison could manage before frothy bile erupted from the corners of his drawn mouth.

     
Nodding, Marshall scooped Harrison’s aching body into his strong arms and lifted the dying Egyptian like a child.

      “
It’s okay,” spoke Marshall though the glass of his helmet. “I’ll get you back.”

     
With the rise and fall of Marshall’s determined steps, Harrison’s head lulled back and forth as he slipped in and out of consciousness. Briefly, his arm brushed against something firm-yet-yielding as it swayed from his body like a limp pendulum.

     
The dome, he realized through the fog of death. Marshall’s found the dome.

     
With a force that pulled its energy from deep within his core, Harrison laughed weakly, his frigid chest shaking with spasms of lunatic delight.

      “
Almost there!” called Marshall, his face shield bumping against Harrison’s.

     
Looking up into the astronaut’s grim features, Harrison fought to keep his eyes from rolling back in his head. The cold had become more than he could bear, and, despite the hope that Marshall’s words carried, he could no longer keep himself together. Feeling the icy fingers of the inevitable close around his softly beating heart, Harrison smiled at Marshall’s shadowy face with detached veneration. Drawing one last shuddering breath, he let go of everything and plunged upwards through the aether of true blackness.

     
In his arms, Ralph sensed the exodus of Harrison’s life force and hastened his pace. Hugging the archaeologist tightly against his own freezing suit, he continued to follow the gentle curve of the dome’s shell by sliding his right foot along the base with every step. His own suit’s life support and CPU had died mere seconds after reaching the skin of the dome, and he was now fully blind. Although the cold bit at him like the needle-toothed jaws of a rabid hyena, Braun’s final garbled transmission still rang in his ears, adding fuel to his drive.

      “
Harrison is dying,” the AI had said, his normally impassive voice broken and despairing. “Save him, Lieutenant Marshall, because I cannot.”

     
Now, as Ralph moved forwards, he hummed an aimless tune—something he often did when under pressure. Harrison had begun to grow stiff with cold, and his own limbs creaked against the strain of every step. Suddenly, his boot tip struck against a hard metal surface, and Ralph let out a victorious laugh. Bending his head down, he touched the glass of his face shield to that of Harrison’s.

      “
We’re there,” he bellowed. “My boot just hit the airlock. Hang on a little bit longer.”

     
Inside the frost-streaked darkness of Harrison’s helmet, Marshall could see the resigned look frozen on the young man's face. His eyes were closed, his lips tinged with blue, and, yet, there was another element to the expression.

     
Life, thought Marshall with unperturbed faith. He’s still alive. He has to be.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Ghosts

     
Remus and Romulus crouched like hunters amongst the tan stalks of desert grass, which trembled in the cool air of an early sunset. Since first discovering the existence of the Martian village and its terrestrial inhabitants, neither twin had dared move from their vantage point atop the belly of a sloping hill. As the eroded disk of the Sun sank below the western horizon, Remus and Romulus relaxed in the shadows of nightfall.

      “
Did you ever imagine you would see such things?” whispered Remus, staring intently at the cluster of thatched huts.

      “
Never,” replied Romulus in a carefully perplexed voice.

     
Standing, Remus beckoned for his brother to follow him.

      “
We should go down there. I want to get a better look at—” His voice drifted off as he searched his mind for the right words.
“
—At the people,” he finished with finality.

     
Shifting uncomfortably, Romulus hesitated before answering.

      “
I agree, but let us move with caution. Who knows how they will react if they see us.”

     
Smiling crookedly, Remus started walking down the hill.

      “
Them
see us?
I
can hardly see us?”

     
The brothers moved quietly through the whispering grass, nearing the stout huts with deliberate stealth. A shower of sparks rained up into the inky sky as a dry branch was cast upon the flames of the fire pit in the center of the village. Reaching the first row of huts, Remus could faintly hear the murmur of voices as they carried in the air. Careful to stick to the shadows, he pressed forwards by following the walls of a hut until he came to a narrow alley where firelight played across the ground. Stopping, he surveyed the little buildings.

     
Short and round with thatched roofs made of twigs and grass, he assessed analytically. Like the Fulani tribe of ancient Gambia. Very interesting.

     
Resting a hand on the cool walls of the nearest hut, he judged that the dry stone was some kind of hardened mud or river clay. Suddenly, he felt the texture of the wall dematerialize, and his arm disappeared within the clay, having no effect on the structure itself. Shuddering, he pulled his hand free, attempting to inspect its transparent murkiness in the failing light.

      “
Strange,” he muttered absently.

     
Hearing a rustle like the turning of dry leaves, he turned his gaze upon the circular portholes that dotted the side of the hut. Stooping down, he glimpsed the darkened interior, then felt his breath catch in his throat. Three small children slept atop woven mats of reed, their tiny chests rising and falling as their flat nostrils dilated and constricted. Feeling a hand on his shoulder, Remus turned to see Romulus pointing with unmoving intensity to the lighted alley, where an adult Martian now stood—looking directly at them.

     
Frozen by fear and wonder, neither brother stirred as the Martian took a few steps in their direction. His egg-sized blue eyes narrowed against the dark, and Remus could see small pupils—no bigger than pinpricks—darting about as they searched the shadows. Possessed by an emotion so unfamiliar that it wholly drowned his judgment, Remus succumbed to reckless curiosity and stepped out of the shadows.

     
Gasping, Romulus sank back against the wall of the little hut and waited for the alarm to sound. Seconds passed.

     
Shifting his gaze to the stars above, the unconcerned Martian showed no indication that he had even seen Remus.

     
Feeling the need to take another leap of faith, Remus raised a hand and spoke, “Hello.”

     
The Martian continued to peer up, studying the twinkles of light, which grew brighter as the night enveloped them.

      “
Hello there,” said Remus again, taking a step towards the little purple man.

     
Lowering his eyes, the Martian placed a hand on the back of his neck and yawned: a very human gesture.

      “
Excuse me,” called Remus, walking to stand in front of the villager. “I mean you no—”

     
The words froze in his mouth as the oblivious Martian strode forwards, moving through Remus as if he were a ghost. Stopping at the window of the nearest hut, the Martian leaned his head in and checked on the sleeping children. Satisfied, he turned on a heel and marched back towards the fire pit and the company of his fellow villagers.

     
Remus stood, dumbstruck. Sliding out of the shadows, Romulus watched the Martian leave, then approached his brother.

      “
He could not see you.”

      “
Or feel me, apparently,” added Remus lamely.

      “
Yes,” mused Romulus, his voice stretching the word out as he pondered an idea. “You know, Brother, I must admit that something about this whole experience does seem slightly familiar.”

     
Still shaken by the sensation of being walked through, Remus blankly stared at his twin. Smiling, Romulus bent down and tried to pluck a stalk of grass. His fingers passed through the swaying sprig as if made of steam.

      “
We cannot effect change in this reality,” he said as a grin played across his translucent face. “Brother, do you know what this means?”

     
A smile growing on his own lips, Remus answered, “That this is some form of memory regression, and we are in a data construct!”

      “
Indeed!”

      “
Then we can observe the Martians with impunity, for they do not truly exist!”

      “
Yes, and,” stressed Romulus. “All constructs must end at the point when they were last recorded. We are not prisoners here forever.”

     
Emboldened by their newfound immunity, the two brothers walked quickly from the row of huts towards the village center. The hushed babble of voices grew louder, and soon, much to their already-tested surprise, they found that they could recognize some of the words being spoken. Stopping, Romulus put a hand on Remus’s arm.

      “
Did you hear that?”

      “
Indeed. I fully understood. How bizarre.”

     
Continuing quickly, the brothers soon came upon the fire pit and its group of two dozen or more worshipers. Sitting, crouching and standing, they were gathered around the stony rim as flames danced upwards in a ballet of heat and light. As they chatted with one another, an older villager, decorated with body paint and piercings, struggled to his feet—leaning heavily on a gnarled walking stick for support.

      “
Please,” he said, raising a hand for silence. “Let me speak. Let me speak.”

      “
Speak, Olo,” nodded a female villager, bare-breasted and lean.

     
At the sound of her commanding voice, the others around the pit fell into a respectful silence.

      “
I have seen visions that must be shared and discussed,” started the painted Martian known as Olo. “Last night when I dreamt, I saw the Great Spirits.”

     
A chorus of uneasy murmurs broke out as Olo gripped his walking stick and scanned the group with his pale blue eyes.

      “
I was traveling,” he continued. “As I always do in visions, far away and far above. This night, I followed the river Kwaya north to the Valley of the Lakes. There, a fierce thunderstorm split the sky and shook the land. I wanted to speak with the spirits of the water snakes and ask them to come down from the lakes and feed our village, for we are hungry, and they are late this season.”

     
Around the fire, several Martians nodded in agreement. Opening his nostrils, Olo took a long rasping breath, then went on.

      “
I said to them, ‘Why are you late? Our people are hungry.’ They looked to the mighty mountain—Atun—and told me that the Great Spirits were back in many numbers so they would stay in the lakes to watch them fly and dance.”

     
The naked female who had spoken earlier crossed her arms and frowned.

      “
The Great Ones have convinced the water snakes to stay in the north? Why?”

     
Shaking his head, Olo held out a hand.

      “
No, Chief Teo. The Great Spirits never spoke to the snakes. The snakes were only curious. As we are.”

     
Licking her lips, the lean woman known as Teo stroked her chin thoughtfully.

      “
I am sorry for interrupting, Olo. Please go on with your story.”

     
Bowing to her, Olo started speaking again.

      “
I told the snakes that they must come down the river to their spawning grounds in the south or their kind would die in one generation. They agreed, for they are simple and forget things easily.”

     
Excited chatter broke out within the group, and people began to thank the decorated Martian for bringing back the water snakes.

      “
Wait!” he protested. “There is more.”

     
The crowd fell silent, and Olo took another long breath.

      “
Because the Great Spirits have never shown themselves in so many numbers, I decided I must journey to the mountaintop and see them for myself. Long have I called upon the Great Spirits for permission to approach the foot of their sacred domain. Long have I waited for their reply.”

     
Looking around the group, Olo pointed to the northern night sky.

      “
Atun is not a place for beings of flesh and blood. But in my journey I had neither, and so I dared to go where I knew I should not. There, atop the mountain that breathes steam and bleeds melted rock, I saw the Great Spirits for the first time. Dancing about the storm clouds, they drank the lightning and chanted in voices of thunder. Though I was afraid, I did not turn and flee. Their sky dance was both ominous and beautiful. For many hours, I watched in silence. I was only a spirit like the wind, and I thought they could not see me.”

     
Pausing, Olo looked down, his gaze distant and sad.

      “
What happened next, Olo?” asked Teo urgently, her face half-masked in shadows.

     
As if returning from a memory, Olo stirred, his eyes refocusing.

      “
Their dance began to slow as the clouds cleared away. And then one came close to me.”

     
At this, a pensive silence permeated the air around the fire. Even the hissing pops of burning logs seeming dampened and far away. Long seconds passed, and the stars overhead shown bright and hot against the fathomless depths of space. Sighing, Olo raised his painted face to the sky and gazed up at the lights of a billion distant suns.

      “
The Great Spirit,” he continued softly. “Saw me and fixed its eyes upon my soul. Its piercing stare was brighter than any sunlight. I waited to be cast down into the fire of the Atun’s belly for my selfish trespass, but instead, the Great Spirit turned its light away from me to shine above the Valley of the Lakes. There it stayed until I awoke.”

     
No one moved as the group of Martian men and women waited for Olo to speak again. When he did not, Teo stepped forwards and rested a hand on his slumped shoulder.

      “
What do you think your vision meant?”

     
Raising his eyes to meet hers, Olo nodded slowly.

      “
I think we have been summoned.”

      “
Summoned?” a man from the crowd voiced harshly. “Why would the Great Spirits summon us? We are nothing!”

      “
We are not nothing!” said Olo, his features burning with intensity. “We have built homes as hard as rock, hunted beasts many times our size and carved trees and stones with the words of our own language.”

     
Looking off into the distance, Teo frowned: an expression so remarkably human that Remus felt an unexpected pang of homesickness.

      “
I want to understand,” she spoke softly. “But I do not. What do these things mean to a God?”

  
Smiling, Olo pointed towards the black silhouettes of the serrated mountain range in the north.

      “
I have had a vision for many years, a dream that never changes no matter how many times I have it. In this vision, I see a ring of tall stones like none that exists in all our lands. When I look upon that ring, I know that it was us who made it. Like the Great Ones made the mountains, we too did raise stones.”