In the Shadow of Deimos, page 14
part #1 of Terraforming Mars Series
“You’re not suggesting that this historic news should have been kept from the public?” said the ICN journalist.
“Not at all,” replied the Russian. “Not at all. But we would have liked to have gathered more information. At the moment, we have one isolated test result. We need to return to the site to take additional samples and further testing needs to be conducted. Early analysis suggests DNA distinct from any microbes found on Earth, so we don’t think it can be contamination from any people or equipment we brought with us. But, as I say, these are early test results. We need to find out more. Until then, I’m afraid that I’m not going to be able to answer many of the questions that I’m sure you want to ask me.”
Julie flopped herself down in one of the armchairs. “Window, mute,” she said, and the sound from the ICN feed abruptly stopped.
Kareem sat down in the armchair beside her. “What do we do now?” he asked.
Julie raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “I don’t think we can get anything done today. Everyone’s going to be talking about life on Mars.”
“I meant, what are all of us going to do now? We came here thinking Mars is a dead world. Now that there could be native life here, that makes us invaders.”
She gave him a hard stare. “You’ve been listening to too much Reds propaganda.”
“I listen to all the arguments so I can come to an informed view,” said Kareem.
“We do what we always do: we continue to colonize the planet and we continue to terraform it until there are oceans and forests and humanity can survive on the surface without rad-suits. It doesn’t change the situation on Earth, it doesn’t mean that humans don’t need a new home, it doesn’t mean that we can’t take advantage of the resources here. The Martian microbes don’t need to build farms and cities and mining communities. We do.”
“You sound very certain.”
“We talked about it a lot here at UNMI before the formation of the Terraforming Committee. Just in case this sort of thing happened.”
“Even so, I feel different about what we’re doing here after that.” He nodded across to where ICN was still playing with images of an empty Noctis City construction site where all work had ceased.
“It’s understandable. But we can’t all get on a spaceship and go back to Earth tomorrow. The reasons why we left still exist: there’s not the room for us, nor the resources for us to eat and live. Humans are on Mars to stay and we have to make the most of it. Regardless of what microbes might lay beneath our feet.”
“I suppose all these arguments will be trotted out endlessly on ICN all day,” said Kareem.
“All week, I imagine.”
“I don’t know if I can just sit about watching it, but I don’t know if I can get on with anything else – do you know what I mean?”
Julie nodded. She knew exactly what he meant. “I wanted to set up another meeting with Mah Chynna about her financial records, but that’s not going to happen today.”
“Everyone’s too distracted.”
“We’ll have to wait a few days. This news has shocked everyone.”
“Indeed.”
Julie shifted uncomfortably on her chair. When she got up that morning, she had planned to come into the office and have a quiet word with Kareem. The auspicious news had derailed her plans somewhat, but as the conversation ran dry, her embarrassment at her actions at the restaurant came back to her.
“Kareem,” she said. “I wanted to apologize for intruding last night. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. I was so caught up with what I saw in those financial records, that I didn’t think about it being your private time.”
“It’s fine. Areesha was actually quite excited to meet you.”
“Excited?”
“You forget, for people who were back on Earth when UNMI started terraforming Mars, you were somewhat of a celebrity.”
“I really wasn’t.” She felt herself blush. “So… Areesha… is she the reason you shaved off your beard?”
Kareem self-consciously rubbed his bare chin. “No,” he said, defensively. “I fancied a change, that’s all.”
“Well, it looks good on you. Areesha’s very lucky.”
A hesitant knock caused Julie to look up. The office door opened slowly and Alejandro tentatively entered. “Sorry to disturb you,” he said. “ICN are outside asking for a comment about life on Mars. What shall I tell them?”
Julie sank further into her chair and groaned. She had hoped her days of giving statements to the media were behind her following the formation of the Terraforming Committee, but apparently not. “Tell them to go sit out on Syria Planum without a rad-suit!” she snapped.
Alejandro’s eyes widened in shock. “OK,” he said, and hurriedly backed out of her office, closing the door behind him.
“No, don’t actually tell them that!” she called out after him.
Kareem laughed.
Julie pulled herself from her seat and rushed to the door. By the time she opened it, Alejandro was almost at the stairs. “Alejandro! Tell them I’ll be down in a minute. Got that?”
“Got it.”
He disappeared down the stairs. The few people who had stopped watching ICN to look at her, went back to staring at the news feed.
Julie returned to her office and stood before Kareem while she smoothed down her sweat top and brushed back her hair with her fingers. “How do I look?”
“Like you’ve just come out of the gym.”
“Good,” she said. “I’ll use that as an excuse not to say anything profound.”
She turned and walked out of her office, composing a bland statement in her head as she went, in the hope of disguising her true feelings on the matter.
Chapter Twenty
Rovers raced towards the Noctis construction site, one leading with two flanking on either side, sending up clouds of Martian dust behind them. All the rovers on Mars looked the same, but there was something about the way they traveled in formation that felt ominous, like an army advancing on their position.
The news they were bringing traveled ahead of them. Life on Mars! was the chatter over the comms.
What?
They’ve found life on Mars!
What are you talking about?
Martian microbes. In the aquifer.
Here? Not here! Are you sure?
More voices crowded onto the team comms channel until it was just noise buzzing in Luka’s helmet.
Luka secured the prongs of the forklift-type loading machine he had been working on and turned to see the other migrants had also abandoned their work and were standing to watch the approaching rovers.
They pulled up near to where Luka had parked his own rover and a rad-suited figure stepped out of the lead vehicle. Through the bubble of his helmet, Luka could see the man’s serious green eyes. He held up his hand with the palm facing forwards, like a police officer halting traffic, and waited for the comms chatter to subside into an expectant silence.
“My name is John Wilson.” His strong, confident voice boomed out of the speaker in Luka’s helmet. “I have an important announcement. You may have already heard the news that a significant scientific discovery has been made in this part of Noctis Labyrinthus. It is so significant that we cannot allow any more work to be carried out on this development. I have, therefore, been authorized to close down this construction site by order of the Terraforming Committee.”
What?
No!
You can’t do that!
Others came out of the lead vehicle. Then more suited figures emerged from the two flanking rovers until there were twelve people standing before the construction workers. The show of strength was not lost on Luka, nor on the workers around him whose voices over the comms became increasingly confused, worried and angry.
“I understand…” John’s commanding tone somehow projected itself over the noise and urged the workers to listen. “I understand this is all very sudden, but the terms of corporate engagement on Mars are clear: this important scientific discovery must be protected. Construction at Noctis Labyrinthus must cease until such time that the Terraforming Committee decrees that work can recommence.”
A rad-suited figure weaved their way through the standing crowd of workers and walked directly up to confront John Wilson. Luka could tell by the way he walked, and by the way the others stepped aside to let him through, that it was Al Vertanen. Luka couldn’t see his face because it was hidden by his helmet, but he imagined Al’s moustache was bristling with rage.
“This is unacceptable!” came Al’s voice over the comms.
“I understand you’re upset,” replied John, in a conciliatory tone.
“Upset? Upset doesn’t cover it! Do you see all these people here?” Al held out his hand to indicate the onlooking workers. “All these people were brought from Earth to construct this city. You can’t just throw them out of work!”
The idea, which must have occurred to at least some of them, came as a shock to others. Concerned murmurs whispered in Luka’s helmet.
“You tell him, Al!” shouted one brave, or perhaps scared, worker.
“No one’s being put out of work,” John insisted. He turned to the crowd. “I’m sorry that this announcement has come as a surprise to you – as it has to all of us – and I understand that you might be worried, but there really is nothing to be done. I suggest you leave quickly and quietly so the scientists can do their work.”
“What if we don’t?” said Al.
If John had sensed the threat in Al’s voice then it made no dent in his resolve. Indeed, he seemed to stand taller and more defiant in front of ThorGate’s workforce supervisor. “We could remain here and face each other for the next few hours while we wait for our air to run out and the power in our suits to fail, but what would that achieve?”
John’s question remained unanswered as the people in front of him undoubtedly considered the consequences of a standoff. In Luka’s peripheral vision, he could see the sharp metal prongs of the loading machine primed and ready to be brought into action. They could do a lot of damage to a person if used as a weapon. Behind him, there was other powerful and robust machinery for drilling, digging, and carrying which, in the hands of an angry workforce, would be an effective substitute for tanks and guns. And, if the thought had occurred to Luka, it had probably occurred to some of the others around him.
Al took a conciliatory step back and pointed an accusing finger at John. “I shall be taking this up with your superiors.”
“Please do,” said John. If he was trying to hide the sound of relief in his voice, then he had failed. “I only have the authority to carry out the closure order, I don’t have the authority to change it.”
Al turned to the workers. “Everyone! I want you to go back to the habitat.” He gestured with his arms to wave them away from the canyon.
“Al, come on!” shouted someone who Luka couldn’t see. “You can’t be serious.”
“Deadly serious. Leave whatever you were working on and get back in the bus. All of you. Now!”
Reluctantly, but inevitably, people began to move away from the canyon. Luka stopped to make sure the loading machine was secure and joined the melee. Although, in his case, he walked back to his rover rather than the construction bus.
Life on Mars, he thought to himself as he walked. Here, under my feet.
He touched the control on the outside of his rover and, as the hatchway opened, he looked out across Sinai Planum. The dust kicked up by the fleet of vehicles had settled back onto the carpet of red dirt which stretched out to the horizon. It seemed such an immense, desolate place that it was hard to imagine what the planet might have looked like in its ancient past when it was a warmer world with a thicker atmosphere and where liquid water could exist on the surface. Many had speculated that, back then, conditions had been ripe for the spark of life to be ignited.
But Mars was too small to hold onto its heat and was never able to maintain an environment to allow life to evolve and flourish like it had on Earth. The molten core of Mars cooled and hardened, its magnetic field faded and the blanket of air which once surrounded the globe was slowly eroded by radiation and the solar wind. Conditions on Mars became so harsh that any life which might have existed almost certainly died out. For three centuries, scientists hoped that some primitive microbes might have clung on beneath the surface where, despite the darkness, there might have been enough moisture and warmth for them to survive. But the scientists had found nothing. Not even the fossilized remains of a single celled organism. The only conclusion they could come to was that Mars had never given birth to life of its own. It was, and always had been, a dead world.
To discover that those assumptions were wrong was extraordinary. It was revolutionary. It was also unsettling. As Luka journeyed back to Thor Town, allowing the navigation systems on the rover do most of the driving, he wondered what it all meant for the future. Not only for the future of the migrants who had spent half a year traveling to Mars to work on a project which had been suddenly and unceremoniously closed down, but also for the rest of humanity living and working on the red planet.
Chapter Twenty-One
The whole of ThorGate’s operations on Mars were in turmoil after the shutdown of the Noctis site. The corporation still had a lot of projects running, but the atmosphere in Thor Town was tense. Luka tried to distance himself from the fear, speculation and anxiety and spent much of his evenings going through Gianni’s diary. He repeatedly watched the videos to understand how he had become the frightened and suspicious man who Luka had seen in his last diary entry.
Watching him talk about Anita across the six months of their relationship was like watching a movie in which the slow decline of a man is compressed into a few hours. At the beginning, the love he had for her was real and deep and the joy of the early entries seemed to spill out of the window. What started as a crush and a tentative first date became more intimate and intense. Then, as time moved on, Gianni got more and more frustrated. He kept talking about something bothering her, about Anita refusing to talk to him about it and how it was souring their relationship.
There was one entry which seemed to be key. It was from a week before Gianni died and was recorded late at night. As Luka watched it again, he not only listened to the words, he paid attention to Gianni’s body language. He came across as nervous and distracted, speaking to the camera in an urgent whisper, often averting his eyes from its probing lens, as he recounted the events of that evening and tried to make sense of them.
“I was looking for Anita,” he said. “I wasn’t stalking her or spying on her. I actually wanted to spend the evening with her. I’d just received a small bottle of Barbera del Monferraato Superiore which my parents had sent in the recent shipment from Earth – I can’t imagine how much it cost them – and I could think of no one that I would rather share it with than Anita.
“I wanted to surprise her,” Gianni continued. “But she wasn’t at her apartment. I went to her office, but it was all locked up. That’s when I realized she hadn’t picked up my messages. I called her again, but there was no response and her WristTab was out of range. That meant she wasn’t in Thor Town and that’s when I got worried. If she hadn’t been so secretive over these past few weeks, I might have assumed she had business at Tharsis City and forgot to tell me. So, I checked the computer systems.”
Gianni shot a guilty look at the camera. “I suppose you could call it an abuse of power, but I’m in charge of the systems, so I can cover my tracks. Which is more than Anita had done. Records showed the last known location of her WristTab in Thor Town was at the rover depot. She had taken out a rover and, according to the time noted on the log, it was already getting dark out on the surface when she did so. No one takes a rover out at night unless it’s an emergency. Satellite navigation works just the same and the rover’s headlights are enough to illuminate the ground ahead to avoid any big rocks, but visibility is still reduced. Not to mention the cold. She knows that temperatures can drop to minus seventy out there and keeping the inside of the rover warm takes a lot of power. So, I went down to check it out. Like I said, I was worried.
“I found one maintenance guy who confirmed that a rover was missing. He pulled up more detail on the log and found Anita’s authorization code, but it wasn’t linked to a planned route. Safety protocols insist people log a route when taking out a rover – for heaven’s sake, she shouldn’t have been able to take it out at night at all! But she’d got round the rules somehow. I suppose, the Head of Martian Projects can do what the hell she likes.
“I tried calling her on the radio, but there was no response. The maintenance guy was nervous about being blamed and asked if we should alert someone and send out a search party, or commandeer the satellite network to trace her. But I knew she had deliberately left Thor Town under the cover of darkness and not told anyone where she was going, so I said it wasn’t anything to be concerned about. That it wasn’t his fault. She had the authority, although I’m not sure that’s the truth. He didn’t believe me – he must have seen I was worried – but he didn’t question it when I said I would wait until she came back. He said he had responsibilities at home he couldn’t ignore, and that no one would be in until morning. I didn’t mind if he left me alone at the end of his shift.
“I sat there for…” Gianni paused as he thought back. “It must have been a couple of hours before the airlock warning alarm sounded and the automatic systems sealed off the bay to allow Anita’s rover to return. When it repressurized, I went back inside and watched as the hatchway opened and waited for Anita to appear. She looked shocked to see me, but it wasn’t her expression that made me realize she had been doing something secret out on the surface. It was her clothes. They were covered in red, rusty Mars dust. The stuff gets everywhere when you step out onto the planet. You try to be careful when you take off your rad-suit, but it still seems to find its way into your hair, on your skin and all over everything you’re wearing. The more contact you’ve had with the dust, the more it seems to want to go home with you. A lot of it had attached itself to Anita tonight.
