The Hellas Find, page 4
part #9 of Fox Meridian Series
‘Main antenna is down,’ Bulle said. ‘I checked and we’ve got no comms outside the crater. We need to find Philips, he’s the comms guy. If we can get a signal from his implant, we can find him, even in the storm.’
‘Which is why we won’t find him,’ Monday said. ‘Not alive anyway. He can’t have “got turned around.” His implant would point him in the right direction no matter what.’
‘So, we stay in here,’ Rao said. ‘We’ve got food to last a couple of months. Someone in Isis will notice our comms are down and come get us before then. If we go out, we’re going to die!’
‘I’ll go,’ Bulle said. ‘I shouldn’t have let him go alone. I’ll go.’
‘So will I,’ Carter said. ‘We’ll be back soon enough. With Philips.’
The scene cut to an outside shot, dust whipping past the camera, or Carter’s eyes. There was a visor between dust and eyes now. A heads-up display indicated oxygen remaining, outside air pressure, wind speed, and gave a positional indicator for Bulle. The latter said ten metres ahead and was counting down.
‘Bulle?’ Carter’s voice. ‘Bulle, can you hear me?’
‘Sorry,’ Fox said, cutting into the air of tension in the room. ‘Did someone take a student’s first-year drama project, film it, and forget to cut it together properly?’ As though to punctuate her question, Bulle appeared out of the swirling dust, his faceplate smashed in and blood welling from his mouth. Kit’s avatar jumped. ‘Remind me to recommend some good horror films,’ Fox said to her assistant. ‘It’ll make obvious jump-scare scenes obvious and so less jumpy.’
On screen, Bulle was falling, dying in Carter’s arms. Bulle’s eyes were wide, and his mouth gaped as his lungs tried to pull oxygen from an atmosphere which had none. Carter looked back the way he had come, and something moved in the dust. A tall dark shape was there, and then it was gone.
‘Definitely humanoid,’ Kit said. ‘I would, however, estimate that it was significantly taller than the average human.’
‘The head looked kind of large,’ Helen commented. ‘Bulbous. I think I’d go with bulbous. Uh, but it’s hard to tell with the dust.’
‘I’d be really amazed if it doesn’t have rubber skin,’ Fox muttered.
‘It’s crazy! Impossible!’ The scene on the screen had changed again. Carter was looking at an attractive blonde woman tagged as Yasmin McLain, geologist. ‘There’s no way there was complex life on this rock back then, never mind intelligent life.’ They seemed to be alone in someone’s quarters. Was Carter trying to persuade McLain of what he had seen, or thought he had seen? ‘The idea that they could have somehow survived in suspended animation until now is… is ludicrous!’
‘Mars had an oxygenated atmosphere back then,’ Carter said. ‘Oxygen is a product of life. That was a billion or more years before Earth had respectable amounts of oxygen in its atmosphere. That’s a long time to make something as complex as us if they weren’t interrupted the way Earth’s evolution was.’
‘The very fact of where we are suggests otherwise, Jon. The Hellas Planitia dates to the early- to mid-Noachian period. They were getting pelted by rocks from space the entire time. The one that hit here would have caused an extinction-level event for sure.’
‘Not if they had sufficient technology to survive it. And this placement is perfect, don’t you see? For whatever reason, Mars lost its magnetic field and its atmosphere, but it would have clung onto that atmosphere longer this far below the average surface level. The pressure is still significantly higher here than at, say, Isis City. So, they settle here and start looking for a way to survive. Maybe they think conditions will change again. The survivors build some form of suspended animation system, go to sleep, and await their future. There could be others in other caves.’
‘I still say it’s crazy,’ McLain asserted.
‘And I say Philips is still missing, and something smashed Bulle’s faceplate.’
‘And we’re in the middle of a dust storm. Philips is lost. Bulle tripped and fell on a rock.’
‘Thacker believes me enough to lock the station down. He says he saw something on one of the cameras.’
‘Thacker’s as crazy as you are.’
‘She dies next,’ Fox said as the image cut over to what looked like security camera footage.
There was nothing to see. Humanoid shadows, bits of limbs out of focus or with the image corrupted, and nothing really clear. They were all external camera shots, and the only one which seemed to be in focus just showed a massive rock being thrown from out of frame into a window which cracked violently and then exploded outward.
The picture shifted to Carter’s viewpoint again. He was running down a corridor. There were alert sirens blaring in the background and flashing red lights overhead. ‘What happened?’ he yelled as Thacker came into view.
‘Breach,’ Thacker shouted back. ‘McLain’s quarters. Computer says she’s got Monday in there with her.’
‘Nothing new.’
Thacker’s face stilled. ‘Vital signs are gone.’
‘How the Hell did we get a breach in there?’
‘No idea. I’m going to check the cameras. Maybe they recorded something.’
‘Killed having sex,’ Fox said. ‘Classic. For double points, they should’ve been in the shower when it happened.’
‘You’re not taking this very seriously,’ Helen said, though the corners of her mouth were twitching.
‘It’s a hoax. If they’re actually missing, then it’s an elaborate hoax. Still a hoax.’ Fox looked at Jackson. ‘Do we ever actually see these Martians?’
Jackson paused the playback, which had begun showing security camera clips again. ‘No. A hand with three long fingers and a thumb. The shadow of a bulbous-looking head. None of the clips show an entire figure.’
‘We do know Carter was the last survivor,’ Mariel said. ‘Assuming, of course, that any of them are really dead.’
Jackson tapped a couple of keys and they finally found themselves looking at Jonathan Carter. He was looking into a mirror, presumably so that he could address whoever had found his recording. The light was dim and he was speaking quietly. ‘Everyone else is dead. They got in through McLain’s room. Somehow. We didn’t have time to figure out… Everyone’s dead and it’s my fault. We should never have disturbed them. If we’re lucky, they’ll return to their pods. If we’re not…’ Light flared behind him, silhouetting a dark figure in the doorway revealed in the mirror. It was tall, entirely in shadow, and it had a large head, kind of bulbous. Carter’s eyes widened. ‘Oh God!’ Then the screen went to snow, and Fox burst into a fit of laughter, bending double and braying.
After several seconds she straightened up. ‘Oh… If I had to breathe, I’d be on the floor dying of oxygen starvation.’
‘Unfortunately,’ Mariel said, ‘the administration feels it cannot leave this without proper investigation. There is also the point that MarTech Group funds that operation, so those are our employees who are missing. If there is, by some small chance, a group of ancient Martians wandering around out there, and they’re hostile, we need to know about it.’
Fox’s face straightened instantly. ‘Seriously?’ She sagged. ‘Oh, you want me to go out there. You want to transmit me to Mars to investigate a hoax so obvious a five-year-old could spot it? Really?’
‘Sorry, but the administration is being rather pushy on the matter. When Palladium took on the policing contract for Isis City, we landed the job of doing things like this. Or rather, the administration says it falls under policing.’
‘When I come back, can I go on a rampage with a minigun through the corridors of the Capitol?’
‘No.’
‘My life sucks.’
~~~
‘I’m going to have to postpone our trip to Sheela Na Gig tomorrow,’ Fox said as she settled onto the sofa in Naomi’s quarters. The room was a peculiar juxtaposition of soft elegance approaching decadence and the austerity of a nunnery. The furnishing was soft and cream, and Fox still thought it must be murder to keep clean. The walls were painted an off-white colour and the only decoration came in the form of craft made by the Sisters. Then again, there was a beautifully painted nude of Naomi among the pictures – nude aside from her wimple anyway – and you would not expect that in a nunnery.
‘Oh?’ Naomi replied, looking interested, not unhappy. ‘Work?’
‘Yes. I can’t tell you much about it. It’s classified. Not “commercially sensitive.” Genuinely classed as a secret by the government. I can say that my excuse for not being with you tomorrow night will be that I’ll be busy being transmitted to Mars.’
Naomi raised a sharply defined eyebrow. ‘As excuses go, “I’m standing you up because I’ll be a stream of radio waves in deep space” is a good one. I’d imagine you’ll be out there for a while. When are you leaving? If leaving is the right word.’
‘It’s going to be days, maybe weeks. That depends on what I find when I get there. We’re starting the processes at two a.m. tonight. It should take about twenty-two hours which means, according to the techs, that I should be waking up in Isis City somewhere around the middle of the Martian day.’
‘Surely you don’t need to be unconscious for twenty-two hours?’
‘Technically not, but it makes things simpler if I’m not generating new memories once they start transmitting. Besides, this is the first time they’ve tried this between planets and they want to make sure of everything. I don’t think it’ll be much different to going to the Moon, but they say it has “unique technical challenges.” I think they’re just hedging, personally.’
Naomi nodded slowly, accepting the reasoning. ‘In that case, unless you have something to do before you go, I have you until about one a.m.’
Fox smiled. ‘I have no objections.’
‘Good. I intend to see to it that you have a good send-off. We’ll both be going to midnight prayers. I know you don’t believe, but it will make me feel better to have you there when I ask God to keep you safe.’
‘I’ll be safe, Naomi. Really. Even if something goes horribly wrong, they just have to restart me from the backup here on Earth. I won’t even know anything happened.’
Naomi smiled back. ‘That is not the point. I’ve put you in my prayers every night for a while, Fox. Adding a little extra when you’re about to become the first human in history to be radioed to another planet just seems appropriate. No matter what we may think, our prayers are not really for those we pray for. They are a comfort to those who pray.’
Fox nodded. ‘I guess I can’t deny you that. And, hey, I probably need all the help I can get to not come out a little scrambled.’
Isis City, Isidis Planitia, Mars, Sol 77, Year 3.
Fox became aware of existing. That was kind of how it felt. She did not really wake up: she became aware that she was thinking, that she had a body, and that the world around her existed. This time, the interesting part would be to find out where she was.
‘The transfer was successful,’ Kit said. ‘All checksums verified. You are now operating on your Mars-based Mielikki cyberframe.’
‘That’s a good start,’ Fox replied, and then she opened her eyes.
She had known she was supported in a maintenance frame, just from the pressure pattern on her skin. What she found upon looking was that she was also in some sort of office-cum-lounge. The entire place was an institutional sort of grey, but there was a desk visible along with a couple of sofas. V-tags made themselves apparent to indicate that she could add virtual decoration and also use a virtual entertainment screen. Looking as far as possible to the right revealed a large window, but the view was obscured by a metal shield over the outside of it.
And there was also a man, standing with his hips propped against one of the sofas. He was big. Tall certainly, but also broad-shouldered and powerfully built. His ethnicity was a little open to question: his skin was dark, but not very dark, and so not giving much away. He had full lips and a broad nose, but there was something Polynesian about his eyes and the lines of his cheeks and jaws. Black hair fell straight from a centre parting, not quite reaching his shoulders, and his eyes were almost black. Most noticeably, there was a curl of paler dots under his right eye, and twin lines of paler skin which dropped from his hairline to his left eye, continuing below it and curling away beneath his left cheekbone. Fox was not sure whether the marks were some form of tattoo or deliberate scarring. He was dressed in a white jumpsuit with blue piping, and fairly heavy, blue boots which came up to cover his knees. It was the designated uniform for Palladium security personnel in hostile environments. This was Justin Holt, the man in charge of Palladium’s Mars operations.
A thought passed the instruction to clear the clamps and Fox stepped out of the maintenance frame, reaching to the back of her neck to unplug the data cable from the port there. She was naked. Justin was not exactly hiding the fact that he was looking. A faint smile hovered around the corners of his mouth.
‘Morning, Justin,’ Fox said. ‘Clothes?’
‘Barely morning,’ he replied. He had a dark sort of voice which went nicely with the volume of his chest. ‘There’s a wardrobe on your left. They sent a bunch of your favourite patterns up when they set this place up.’ He waved a hand at the room. ‘We fabricated a bunch of them and put them in the wardrobe.’
‘Right. Thanks.’ Turning, she headed for a sliding door in the wall. There was a second door beside it and she paused to check inside: bathroom. The wardrobe had various things on hangers and three drawers on top of each other which had shoes on the shelf above them. It seemed like someone had thought of everything.
‘I think the basic idea is that you can work out of here whenever you’re on the planet,’ Justin went on. ‘This is nicer than my quarters, believe me.’
‘I will.’ Frowning, she pulled out one of the hangers which had an outfit in glistening purple on it. She had never seen the design before, and there were a couple of other designs in there she did not know. ‘What’s this?’
‘Oh. Uh, there’s a local guy, Casey Hampson. He’s actually a programmer, but he designs clothes as a sideline. He’s got something of a following here, but he figured that if he could get you to wear some of his designs and you liked them, then maybe he could get known on Earth, and… Anyway, you don’t have to wear them, but I figured it didn’t hurt to show you them, and now you’ve got some genuine Martian designs to pick from.’ There was a slight reddening over Justin’s cheeks which was kind of cute in such a big man.
Fox looked back at the shimmering cloth. It was some sort of dress with extra bits, and there seemed to be matching shoes of a really weird design too. ‘Not right now,’ she said. ‘I think I’d like to get used to the gravity before I try heels. Or whatever those are. If I’m here long enough, I’ll give it a shot.’ She opened a drawer and found, as expected, a number of her favoured design of teddy waiting for her.
‘I know he’d be grateful.’
Fox shrugged part way through pulling on her suit. ‘Even if I don’t like them, I think Marie might.’
‘Marie?’
‘Marie Shaftsbury, she’s the star of–’
‘M.J. Yeah, I know. You know her?’
‘Her boyfriend owns the house I live in. Actually, she was my girlfriend before she became famous. She’s fond of bright colours. This Hampson guy might just pique her interest. Anyway, anything new on the case? I’ve been unconscious for twenty-two and a half hours.’
‘Nada. We’ve been holding on you getting here, though I’m not sure we really have a clue about how to proceed anyway.’
‘Fair enough. I’m not sure I do either. I’ll want to talk to the team who went to Hellas Planitia, and I’ll probably want to go there myself.’
‘That’s not recommended right now. The storm’s died down, but there’s still a lot of atmospheric dust. It’s causing issues with communications and visibility is… It sucks. Visibility sucks.’
‘We’ll see how it goes. What’s your take on this, Justin? Do you think any of it’s real?’
He grimaced. ‘It has to be a hoax, right? I mean, Martians in cryo for four billion years? It’s insane.’
‘But?’
‘When you do see Hellas Science Station, you might find yourself believing in little green men too.’
Fox selected a basic, black pantsuit from the wardrobe. ‘From what I saw, they were tall green men with big heads, and I still don’t believe in them.’
~~~
Isis City was not much of a city. It had an official population of two thousand and nineteen, the numbers swollen a little by visitors from on- and off-world. It was not even the largest ‘city’ on Mars. That title belonged to Hóng Běijīng over in Acidalia Planitia which had a population of around thirty-five hundred.
Most of Isis City was subsurface. There was little to recommend the surface of Mars, but one of its least attractive features was the high incidence of radiation thanks to the barely-there atmosphere and no geomagnetic field. If you spent all your time on the surface, you would be exposed to approximately one sievert over the course of every one thousand days. Approximately. That was about a millisievert per day, which was the official maximum dose allowed for members of the public on Earth. Except that limit was per year. Back when NASA had been the be-all and end-all of space exploration, one sievert had been the limit for the entire career of an astronaut. Hence, stuffing a lot of Martian soil on top of your habitat to screen out as much of the radiation as possible was deemed to be a good idea.
So, the city had been constructed downward and into the side of an unnamed crater in the middle of the remarkably flat Isidis Planitia. Flat, yes, but not unmarked; the place was littered with impact craters because it was one of the oldest features on the planet. Some of the craters were pretty deep and ‘Isis Crater’ – not an officially recognised name, but it was what the locals called it – presented those with the status to swing a crater-side apartment with something of a view. Okay, so it was a view of red-brown rocks, but there was some texture. Up on the surface, things were flat. Very, very flat. Fox’s office/apartment had a window and was, apparently, quite near the surface, but right now the visibility outside made it a little pointless opening the shield to take a look.
