They Dreamed of Poppies (a novelette) (3 page)

“What about provisions?” I ask, deflecting the conversation.

“Storage lockers are full, shelves stacked with durables — blankets and clothes, equipment — though everything’s taken over by plant growth. A few packages of food.
If
they packed up and left,” he says, glaring at Bryson, “they went light.”

“They might’ve been in a hurry,” Bry suggests.

“So, we’ll check the outpost,” I tell them. “Bry, tomorrow you take a couple people and drive over in the rover. Shouldn’t take more than six or seven hours round trip.”

“Why him?” Siobhan asks.

“Yeah, why me?”

“Would you rather I send Hallem? The animal pens must be getting pretty nasty about now. They’ll need cleaning.”

He shuts up.

“No? Dismissed.”

As the others file out of the briefing room, Bryson hangs back. “You don’t actually believe they’re at the outpost, do you?” he quietly asks.

“Doesn’t matter what I think. There’s a checklist. We need to follow protocol. You remember what that is, don’t you? Protocol?”

“Screw protocol.”

“Hey, this is your survival we’re talking about. You and the rest of the crew, not to mention the families, Clara, Gavin. And everyone else back at the station.” I wonder why I have to keep reminding them of that.

“They’re gone,” he asserts. “The colonists.”

“Dead? We don’t know—”

“I’m saying that if they aren’t dead, then they’re making it pretty damn obvious that they’re not interested in being found.”

“Not obvious to me.”

“Look around, Joe. It’s the freaking Garden of Eden out here. No predators to worry about, an entire planet to spread out in. If they left here, they did so not because they had to, but because they wanted to. Maybe they’re out there building their own little version of paradise. Can’t say as I wouldn’t do the same,” he adds, muttering under his breath.

“That’s a huge assumption. But let’s say you’re right. Why not just stay here and do it? It’s just as good a place as any. Better even. And more importantly, why leave the rest of us to wonder all these years?”

“Maybe because they felt like we betrayed them.”

“But we didn’t.”

He leans into the monitor until I can see how bloodshot his eyes are. “Didn’t we? There’s also the possibility that they cut off communication on purpose. Maybe they didn’t want us to come.”

“Again, why? You’re suggesting they’d willingly sentence us to death on that hunk of metal we’ve been living on for the past forty years?”

“If you had all this to yourself, would you want the rest of Humanity coming along and ruining it? Digging into her, extracting all the life out—”

“Mars was dead before we came. We brought life.”

“Did we?”

I shake my head. The guilt must be weighing especially heavily on him right now. “Four hundred people won’t ruin anything,” I say. “Not when there’s a whole planet to spread out on.”

“You know how it goes, Joe. Four hundred soon becomes four thousand. Then four million. Four billion. Too many people taking everything for granted, trashing everything. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

I purse my lips. It bothers me that he might be right. But I also hate the idea that any of us would think so selfishly, much less act that way.

“Don’t take it personally,” he advises, before reaching over and flipping off the com.

But I can’t help it. I do take it personally.

* * *

In order to clean the animal cages, they opt to move the small herd of eight head of cattle from the ship’s hold into a small pen they build outside in a patch of clover. At first the animals seem uncertain, lowing mournfully and blinking against the natural light, as if the generations of eating processed grain extract from an aluminum trough have erased their instinct to forage. They end up trampling the plants into the dirt instead, forcing the crew to move the pen to a new site.

Bryson returns from the GenAtmos outpost and reports that it’s empty. “Equipment’s in a terrible state. Generators are completely inoperable,” he adds, glancing resentfully in Hallem’s direction. “Damn plants have grown right up into the intake manifolds. The good news is that gas levels appear to be stable.”

He shows me the recordings from the post’s still-functioning monitors. They give us a history of the planet’s atmosphere stretching back nearly twenty years, since before we began to change it. I’ll want to study them later.

I’m not sure what else there is to do in regards to the missing colonists. I have twenty people who need to begin establishing some sort of permanent, self-sustaining settlement before their food stores are used up. I order the first two families to move out of the pod and into the barracks. Their first job is to reclaim the old buildings.

Shoveling out the piles of dirt is exhausting work in the thin air, so Hallem modifies a motorized handcart to help remove it all. It’s a smaller version of the device they use to clear the ground outside. All the dirt is piled into a massive mound just beyond the camp’s perimeter.

In the course of clearing the brush away from the buildings, they uncover the old paddock and chicken coop. They find more teeth there, but they’re clearly the molars of ruminants. Without bones, we can’t tell if the cows were slaughtered or died by some other means.

After they’ve scraped the area down to the bedrock, they move the animals in.

Siobhan tells me that the teeth they found the first day belong to a dog, a young one. “And also some very small bits and pieces of bone.”

“Any of them human?”

She shakes her head. “All puppy. I’m working on a chunk I think is part of a vertebra. None of it’s big enough to tell what the poor thing died of. I’d like to see if I can find the rest of the skeleton. It’s probably buried three feet deep in the dirt pile by now.

I shake my head and sigh. “It’s just a dog. There are more important things to work on.”

But she defies me and spends her spare time digging. I bite my tongue. If there’s anyone I should be pushing harder, it’s Bryson. He spends most of his spare time wandering about in the pod’s hold. Half the time he acts like he’s inebriated.

Siobhan reports that she’s isolated another dozen or so teeth. “Though I haven’t had time to identify them yet.” Secretly, I wonder if any of them are human. I almost don’t want her to find out. I can imagine what it would do to morale if it turns out they belong to the colonists.

A few days later, about a week after our arrival, one of the chickens becomes sick. First thing I ask is which one. I dread the answer, and my heart skips when Siobhan confirms that it’s the same one they took out the first day.

“Any idea what’s wrong with it?”

“How should I know?” she snaps, uncharacteristically. “I’m not an ornithologist! All I know is it just sits there with its eyes closed, like it’s in some sort of Zen-like state, its head lolling to the side.”

“What have you guys been feeding it?”

“Nothing,” she replies. “It stopped eating days ago. Stopped eating, stopped moving. I noticed some moss growing on its feet, and there are a few sores.”

“An infection? Sure it’s not fungus?”

“It’s moss.”

“Corrosive? Parasitic?”

“I said I don’t know!”

I admittedly don’t know very much about chickens, so I intend to ask Bryson after I’m finished with Siobhan. He’s more of an animal person than either of us is. That’s assuming I can catch him sober.

“And the samples?” I ask her. “The sequencing? How’s the testing going?”

“Some of the samples appear to have been cross-contaminated. We’re rerunning them.”

“Contaminated with what?”

“The sequence I’ve isolated cross-references to honey bee. I’m having the computer reanalyze everything.”

The information surprises me. I knew the colonists had reported that their attempts to introduce insect pollinators — ants and honey bees, in particular — appeared to be going well, but so far no one has reported sighting anything living that isn’t a plant. No insects at all. Not even in the soil. I would’ve expected worms at the very least, given how rich it is.”

“We didn’t bring any bees with us, did we?” I ask. I already know the answer. I just need to hear it from her.

“No.”

Before letting her go, I ask how she’s feeling.

“Fine, Joe,” she says, maybe a bit too quickly. She can’t hide the look on her face.”The others, too. We’re all fine. I already asked around.
Some
of us are a little
happier
than the rest,” she adds. I can’t tell if she means me or Bryson.

I wonder if she’s now regretting giving up on the protective suit a few days ago. “Sure?” I ask.

“Yes.

The circles under her eyes tell me she’s lying. I don’t remember them ever being so pronounced.

I tell her to get back to me ASAP with the results from the plant sequencing.

After the monitor goes dark, I begin pacing again. A week alone a hundred miles above the surface and I’m getting restless. It’s taken a lot longer than I’d expected to determine if it’s safe for me to go back to the station with good news. And I want to go down to the surface so badly I can almost taste it.

I’m almost tempted to say screw it.

I ping Bryson, but before I can ask about the chickens he starts talking about Gavin, and the subject slips my mind. “I’m worried,” he says. “The boy sleeps sixteen hours a day. It might be natural for a teenager, but not a four-year-old. And when he’s awake, he complains that his body aches.”

“Might be gravity sickness.”

“There’s something else. He thrashes about and we can’t seem to wake him. In the morning, when we ask if he’s dreaming, he gets angry.”

“Because he can’t remember them?”

“Just the opposite. He says he remembers everything. But it’s always the same thing: ‘We dream about the poppies.’ I ask him to explain, but that’s all he’ll say.”

“We?”

Bryson shrugs, but there’s something in his eyes, something begging me to keep pushing.

“Spill it,” I tell him.

“Clara and I have been having dreams, too.”

“About poppies?” I ask, amused.

“About
 . . . .” He pauses, and his face twists. “I dream about the flowers, but it’s like they’re smothering me, burying me alive.”

I let out a laugh before I can catch myself. “I’d be worried if you weren’t having those types of dreams.” Knowing his family’s history, he probably inherited a touch of the miner’s taphopobia. “Cripes, remember after we first went up to the space station? I dreamt the walls were falling in and crushing me. Don’t tell me you didn’t have similar dreams.”

“We were just kids then.”

“That’s my point. So’s Gavin. He’s especially sensitive.”

This seems to cheer my old friend up a bit, even though the argument is full of holes.

He asks, “When are you coming out of your box to join the rest of us?”

“Soon,” I lie. “You miss me?”

He shakes his head. “Naw, just that you’re missing out on the bounty.” He reaches over and tips a bowl on the table behind him so I can see inside it. “We scored some raspberries,” he says, taking a handful and shoving them into his mouth. “I might make me some pancakes.”

“Of course you will.”

I notice the lone poppy bloom is gone, though the whiskey bottle is still there. It’s now half refilled with a golden liquid and corked. I don’t want to know what it is.

“Want some?” he smiles mischievously and holding out the bowl. “Oh, right. You can’t.”

My mouth waters. And once again I curse having been chosen for this position and the constraints it places on me. “Siobhan didn’t tell me she cleared the local crops for consumption.”

“Must’ve slipped her mind.”

“Yeah,” I say doubtfully. “That must be it.”

* * *

I realize it’s probably a losing battle, and a moot point at this juncture, restricting the consumption of locally grown plant material. That bridge has been crossed and then burned.

My greatest fear is that someone will consume something toxic. We’re just not set up to address those kinds of medical emergencies yet. So I push Siobhan to put together two lists of genetically-confirmed edible plants, one for the people and one for the animals. I request that folks avoid eating anything that’s not listed. “For the time being, anyway.” To my relief, they all seem willing to abide by those rules.

The next morning, she wakes me to report that the chicken died during the night. I immediately order a necropsy and a full biochemical workup be performed. I want to know how it died and whether we should be concerned.

“It’s in the freezer. It’ll take a few hours to thaw it out.”

“You froze it already?”

“You said you wanted us to focus on the genetic analyses.”

I grind my teeth impatiently. “What about the honey bee contamination? Did you figure out where it came from?”