How Deep the Cold, Red Sands
by Justin StanchfieldWe've known for ages it wasn't the only choice. Why should chlorophyl, with its complicated dependency on secondary reactions, triumph over other, more direct photosynthetic compounds? But nature, as always, seems determined to ignore the best of theories and continue unheeded with its own agenda. Just as well, perhaps, that the matter was settled billions of years before we arrived. I'm certain we would have made a mess of it. Probably formed a committee and debated the subject until there was no longer any point in answering the question. Old men are like that. We argue for the sake of argument, as if the ponderous weight of our opinion might sway the galaxy. Life is best left to the living, and the real work to the young.
"John?" Cali's voice drifted out of the habitats sleeping chamber. She sounded groggy, only half awake. "I'm cold. Are you coming to bed?"
"In a minute. I want to finish my notes." Through the round door between the inflatable modules I could just see her peeking out at me, short brown hair disheveled, shoulders scrunched deep inside our big blue sleeping bags. She didn't belong here. Not really. Mars is an old world, cold and dry, better suited to middle-aged professors of paleobotany than thirty-something pixies ripped away from the vibrancy and bustle of Earth. And not a day went by that I didn't thank fate she was there. She made the disappointments bearable.
"Come on, John. Turn off for the night, okay?" She wriggled out of the nylon cocoon and padded barefoot toward me then stood with her arms crossed over her small breasts for warmth.
"How come," I asked, still typing, "you're the only person in the solar system who calls me John, when everybody else calls me Dr. Palmero?"
"Because, Dr. Palmero, they don't know you like I do." She kissed me behind the ear. An invitation? Reluctantly, I closed my battered laptop. The pumps and heaters that kept the habitat livable through the long nights gurgled softly as I rose, stiff from sitting too long and thankful for the light gravity.
"Suppose I might as well go to bed. Not as if any of this matters."
"Would you stop being so hard on yourself? We'll find the proof. We have plenty of time left."
"Do we?" I pulled her closer, anxious to feel her strong, lithe body against mine. "I really thought we were onto something at this site, but every fossil I've looked at could have come straight from Earth."
"Maybe - " she hesitated. "You could hire someone to help with the drilling? I'm sure there's enough left in the budget for that."
"Ha!" I raised an eyebrow in mock consternation. "You're just hoping I might hire that new arrivee. What's his name, Max Studdly?"
"His name," she said with a playful punch to my arm, "as you well know, is Mark Stuckey, and he's just a boy."
"A boy? He's closer to your age than I am."
"Well, he's still just a boy. And a third person would speed up our work."
"I'll think about it."
"Good." She raised up on tiptoe, kissed me on the neck and ended it with a little nip. Definitely an invitation. "Come on, Professor Palmero. Let's go to bed. You can warm me up before we freeze to death out here in our skivvies."
I love the sunrises here, the difference between Earth and Mars never so apparent as at that first break of light. A salmon glow filled the narrow band between the jagged skyline and the blue-black dome of sky. It blazed first to orange, then to an almost platinum white as Sol burst over the canyon rim and sent long shadows racing across the valley floor. Unlike the Grand Canyon back home, which always draws the inevitable, misleading comparison, Valles Marineris is too broad to feel closed in as one might in that other great rift. Banded seams of rock, varied shades of rusted iron, line the distant walls, while closer at hand towers of eroded stone seem to sail past like a flotilla of tall-masted schooners across a russet sea. I stood a moment enjoying the view, then trudged down the gentle slope to my core drill.
"John?" Cali's sleepy voice buzzed in my helmet speakers. I smiled at the thought of her sitting cross-legged beside the observation window, the sleeping bag draped around her. Unlike myself, she was not a morning person.
"Go ahead."
"Remember, we have an interview at ten."
"I remember." I tried not to let my annoyance carry over the frequency. "I'll be back in time to meet the help."
"Okay. Camp out."
I should have let her conduct the interview by herself, but somehow couldn't relinquish that much authority. As project coordinator it was my duty to conduct the staff, even when the staff meant only Cali and myself.
And now, I thought sourly, Mark Stuckey.
The drill took a moment to warm, the steel so cold I could feel its bite through my heated gloves. Another proof, as if I needed any, that Mars was a hostile world, unforgiving of fools. Yet once it had teemed with life. Not, perhaps, the steaming swamps and jungles of Earth's paleohistory, but life nonetheless. I tried to imagine it. The sky would have been blue then, not pink, reflected back in a trillion sparkles of swift-flowing water. Dozens of shallow streams would have wound past this site, icy droplets tossed high in the gentle gravity until the morning danced with ever-shifting rainbows, the ground carpeted by a thin blanket of mossy vegetation.
And If I was right, it would have been a purple carpet, not green.
The drill began at last to spin. I felt the vibration through my boot soles more than I could actually hear the bit churning into the compacted gravel. Far away, a pale red nimbus chased along the canyon rim. A vehicle was coming.
"John?" Cali again.
"Go ahead," I said wearily.
"Mark just ETA'd five minutes out."
"All right." Already, I noticed, she was calling him Mark. Reluctantly, I left the drill and started back toward the squat, partially buried habitat. The vehicle I had seen speeding along the rim was waiting by the time I reached the airlock.
Cali helped me through the inner seal then took my helmet from my hands. "John, this is Mark Stuckey."
"A pleasure, Dr. Palmero." He extended his hand and held it awkwardly while I fumbled to drag off my heavy gauntlet. His grip was firm and dry, full of confidence. "My name's Mark Stuckey. We spoke on the net last week."
"Of course." As if I might have forgotten. "I'd ask you to sit down, but furniture is, I'm afraid, a bit lacking out here."
"That's all right." He grinned broadly. "I'm getting used to sitting on floors. Seems that's all I've done since we landed a month ago."
Cali excused herself and hustled off to the kitchen alcove, then returned with three steaming mugs. I noticed she had on her gray flightsuit instead of the baggy blue coveralls she usually wore during work hours. The single piece uniform accentuated her narrow waist and flared nicely around her hips. Smiling, she passed one of the mugs to me, another to Stuckey.
"Sorry, but we don't have any creamer. John and I both take our coffee black."
"Black is fine." Stuckey took a brief sip, careful not to splash the hot liquid over the rim. You could always tell the arrivees by their blistered lips. After months in transit, drinking only from bulbs, it always took them a while to accommodate the weaker gravity here. I took a sip from my own mug, glad for the warmth.
"You have a degree in geology?" I asked, making conversation.
"Yes, sir. I graduated from The University of Montana, then did my post work at Buenos Aires."
"Really?" I took another sip of the strong, hot coffee. "How did you happen to study in Argentina?"
"They have a field station at Terra del Fuego. You get a lot more hands-on training there than if you applied to one of the Antarctic stations. Best training I could think of for off-planet work."
"So you always intended to come to Mars?"
"Mars, or the moon, I didn't care as long as I could find work in space. It's been a dream of mine since I was a kid."
I nearly snorted at that. To hear a twenty-five-year-old talk about being a "kid" always struck me odd. Maybe it hadn't when I was his age. If I had ever been his age.
"You've worked with portable drill rigs," Cali asked. Stuckey nodded.
"Yes. We did a lot of petroleum exploration in the cape islands." He paused. "I understand you're drilling for oil shales, here?"
"In a manner of speaking, though I doubt you would recognize the strata as such," I said. "We've never found a deposit more than a few centimeters thick."
"It's not commercially viable, then? The petroleum, I mean."
"No. Far easier to extract hydrocarbons from the atmosphere than the ground here, I'm afraid. The shale is only a marker for us. We're interested in the fossils that accompany the deposits."
"Oh?" His eyes widened, the expression leaving him, if at all possible, even more boyish. "I hope you don't mind my saying it, but this probably isn't the best location for fossil hunting. From everything I've studied, the richest fossil beds are beneath the lava flows around the Tharsis region."
"But those aren't the fossils we're looking for," Cali said over the rim of her mug. She glanced at me, her eyes bright as a schoolgirl's. "We're after the indigenous stuff."
"Indigenous?" Stuckey seemed genuinely confused. "I thought all fossils were indigenous?"
"Hardly." I placed my mug on a nearby crate. "You are, of course, familiar with the mass extinctions in the late Permian? It's hardly a coincidence that the Martian fossil record begins less than a million years afterward, almost as if it were cut ‘whole cloth' from ours. Every organism we've described can be traced back to a handful of terrestrial algae or diatoms prominent in the Late Permian. Obviously, the same comet that nearly destroyed life on our world launched enough material into space to colonize this one."
"But," Stuckey asked carefully, "you think life had already evolved here?"
"Yes."
He glanced back and forth between Cali and myself, his confusion plain. I found myself enjoying his bewilderment. Finally, he shrugged, a gesture of surrender. "I'm afraid I don't see the link. If the fossil record here begins with the arrival of spores from Earth, why do you think there was any native life?"
"Because there had to be." What do they teach students these days? "Look at it this way: The spores that arrived from Earth were complex, highly evolved life forms. They weren't some primitive bits of RNA. They were aerobic organisms. For them to prosper on Mars, there had to be an established biota to invade."
Stuckey nodded slowly as comprehension dawned. "And that's what you're looking for here?"
"Yes," Cali said a little more enthusiastically than I might have. "We hope that the silt deposits here have preserved some trace of the indigenous life."
"But," he said, spreading his hands, "how can you be certain when you find them.?"
"Simple," I explained. "The terrestrial invaders all share one common trait: Chlorophyl. Just like their ancestors on Earth, they used chlorophyl to convert sunlight and water into sugar. But it's a complicated process compared to organisms that feed directly off the sulphur compounds that would have been abundant here during that period. It only stands to reason that Martian life would have followed the simplest path it could to capture solar energy. Most likely, the preferred molecule would have been bacteriorhodopsin, not chlorophyl. A Martian springtime would have been a lush magenta, never green."
We chatted a while longer, but it was obvious that Stuckey was qualified. Despite my best efforts, I found myself liking the young man. He was quick, eager, and best of all open-minded, still too fresh to let preconceived concepts cloud his thinking. I stole a glance a Cali, and she nodded, the decision made. I finished my coffee then extended my arm.
"Well then, Mr. Stuckey, welcome to the project. How soon can you begin?"
"Today." He grinned as he shook my hand. "I brought all my gear with me. Guess I was feeling lucky, huh? Where do I bunk down at?"
The question caught me off guard. Until that moment, I truthfully hadn't given it a thought. Our habitat was small, designed to be portable and safe, but hardly roomy. The main room, the one we stood in, was already cluttered with supplies, gear and computers. Setting up a second hab was simply out of the question. That left only the little sleeping annex I shared with Cali. She shot me a wondering, pained look, no doubt reaching the same conclusion I already had. Reluctantly, I pointed at the low, round hatch that lead to the side chamber.
"You can put your sleeping bag in there. It might be a little crowded..."
"Crowded I can live with." He laughed, a genuine, real laugh, the kind so seldom heard out here. "For a chance like this, I'd sleep hanging upside down from the tent poles."
Cali returned his smile. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that, Mark."
Indeed.
It took a few days to establish a rhythm, a new equilibrium to fit the addition of a third member to our little group. Not that Stuckey was a difficult person to accommodate. Quite the contrary - he was constantly trying to fit in, so hard at times he reminded me of an awkward puppy. He and I would begin drilling early in the morning. Once the machinery was up and running he watched it, leaving me free to explore the area on foot or ATV, searching for the next core site. I hated to admit it, but we accomplished more in the first week after Stuckey joined us than I had in the previous two months. I mentioned that to Cali in one of our rare moments alone.
"See," she said, after sticking her tongue out at me. "I told you a third person was all we needed."
"I suppose. Still..." I let my eyes drift toward the sleeping annex. "It would be nice to have a little time together. Alone."
She smiled, then stood on tiptoe and kissed me, her mouth lingering on my lower lip as her hands wrapped around my waist. "Don't worry," she said as she broke the embrace. "We'll have all winter to make up for lost time. Speaking of which, the long term update came in this morning."
"And?"
"Looks like we might get a break." Cali reached into her pocket for her palm screen and passed it to me. "The Autumnal storms are going to be late this season."
I nodded, my attention fixed on the graphics running on the screen, not completely liking what I saw. While a delay to the yearly sandstorms was good for our project, all too often it could mean that when the storms did arrive they would be more intense, strong enough to rival the Vernal storms that often blanketed the entire planet. Before I could say anything though, the radio snapped on with a burst of static followed by Stuckey's voice.
"Dr. Palmero? I think you better come down to the drill site."
I frowned as I picked up the microphone. It was already late afternoon, and I dreaded the thought of suiting up again. "Is there a problem, Mark?"
"Problem? No." Even across the distance I detected a trace of excitement in his voice. "I'd like you to look at something the drill just brought up. I could be wrong, but I think we just found what you've been looking for."
I was suited and out the door within ten minutes, jump-jogging my way down the gentle slope to the drill. Stuckey sat on the fender of his ATV, waiting for me. Although his gold-tinted visor hid his face, I could tell from his posture alone he was practically bouncing with anticipation. In his gloved hand rested a neat stone cylinder ten centimeters in diameter and nearly as long as his forearm. He passed the core sample into my hand.
"Like I said," he began, his voice flattened by the radio. "I might be mistaken, but I think we've hit something."
My hand shook slightly as I raised the core to the sun and studied it. The upper third of the sample was typical red Martian sandstone, utterly nondescript. A thin black line no more than a millimeter in depth separated the strata, the carbon rich shale an unmistakable marker that life had flourished briefly here. But what caught my attention was the chalky strata beneath the dark layer.
"It looks like limestone."
"It is limestone," Stuckey said. "But not like any I've ever seen before. Way too much salt mixed with it. I'll bet my summer's wages that was laid down by some kind of weird-ass organism."
"You could be right." I turned the heavy sample in my hand, studying it. The inside of my visor had begun to fog, and I forced myself to calm down and breathe slower. "What's the depth?"
"Two hundred and thirty meters."
I turned and stared at him. Two-thirty was a magic number, the bottom limit of where any fossils had been discovered in this strata. To discover limestone beneath oil shale at this depth was the first indication that we had found the event horizon, the transition point where organisms from Earth had destroyed the native Martian life.
"We... we need to get this back to the hab," I stuttered, more to myself than Stuckey. "I want to get this sectioned and under the scope."
"Gotcha." Stuckey took the sample from me and gently packed it in a small padded case strapped to the back of his four-wheeled ATV. "Think this is the one?"
"I..." It was hard to curb my excitement. Years of struggle were tide up in this sample. Although I've never considered myself a superstitious person, I suddenly had an irrational need not to jinx myself. Finally, I nodded. "Yes. I think this could be the one."
Our equipment is good, but it is still only field equipment. Despite our best efforts, the magnified images on the monitor remained maddeningly obscure. Cali fiddled with the resolution on the scanning beam, trying to bring the sample into clearer focus. "What is this stuff?" she said under her breath.
"Calcium carbonate and sodium chloride for the most part," Stuckey said as he traced his index finger across the screen. Hundreds of irregular, tube-shaped structures, almost wormlike in appearance, lay in jumbled order with a conglomeration of sand and neatly defined salt crystals. "This would have been highly soluble in a wet environment. More like a sludge than solid rock. Most of it has probably leached away over the years. No wonder we've never found it before."
"Those look like viri to me." Cali ran her stylus over the screen and highlighted several of the odd, corrugated tubes.
"Yes, but we've seen that before," I said quietly. Both Cali and Stuckey glanced up. "The Martian meteorites found in the late 1990's contained structures just like these. No one was ever able to positively identify them as fossils."
"You think these were formed by a geologic process?" Stuckey frowned. "I'll admit there are ways something like this could happen outside of a life cycle."
"But," I cut him off. "Until we can get more precise imaging and run a full spectrum analysis of the trace compounds, we can't rule anything out. I want to be extremely cautious about this. Too much rests on it for us to announce prematurely, no matter how tantalizing the evidence."
Stuckey began to say something, then stopped. He scratched at the stubble that had sprouted on his chin, obviously frustrated at my guarded approach. "I don't know. I still say those are organisms of some kind."
"They're too small to be diatoms," I said, playing the devil's advocate. "If they are fossils, I don't know what they are fossils of."
"Those aren't organisms. They're excrement. Think about it. We've always thought whatever life we found here would be a lithophyte, just like some of the archaebacteria on Earth. If they did develop photosynthesis, odds are they relied on salt to transfer the energy. And that would leave a lot of carbon dioxide as a byproduct. My guess is it found a way to bind the gas with calcium into the structures we see here."
"You could be right." I stared at the screen, my excitement growing again. "I think you could be right."
"So what's next?" Stuckey asked.
"I need to get these back to Wells and run better tests. Probably should send some back to Earth for independent analysis. Accounting is going to go wild over the costs, but I think they're merited, don't you?" I straightened and rubbed the small of my back, the hours finally catching up with me. A quick glance at the clock confirmed what my body already knew - it was nearly three o'clock local time. "I'll leave first thing in the morning."
Cali's fingers slipped into mine. "Good. As long as you're running up the charges, pick up a bottle of Champagne when you come back, okay? After this, I think we deserve a little celebration."
Most people assume Wells is named for H.G. Wells and his famous tale of a dying Mars. It's a nice myth, but sadly untrue. The settlement, the third largest on the planet, is so-called because of the deep wells an early expedition punched into the bedrock to tap subterranean reservoirs of water. Several of the old derricks are still visible if you approach the town from the south. Coming from the west, as I did that morning, all one sees are a group of low mounds nestled against a crater wall that forms a shallow bowl around the habitats and machine sheds. Like most Martian "towns," Wells is primarily underground, thick layers of soil piled over everything to shield the people and computers from the constant barrage of cosmic rays that penetrate the thin atmosphere. Nothing in the least graceful or cultivated about the sight, but, after four hours in a jarring, unpressurized rover it was a welcome sight indeed.
Inside, Wells is like most off-Earth colonies, a confusing maze of narrow tunnels connecting one habitat to the next until the layout resembles more a tangled knot of rhizomes than a traditional city. To reach any given destination you might pass through a dozen different buildings fabricating shops, laboratories, even communal homes before you finally arrive. Privacy, to say the least, is at a premium.
I dropped the samples off at the University Foundation's chem lab, after giving the harried technician, a tall, thin woman with unappealing brown hair, a lengthy list of tests I wanted preformed. The woman raised an eyebrow at some of the procedures, but dutifully printed out a release form, waited for me to sign it, then took the padded case and vanished into the labyrinth of equipment that filled the long, domed structure. As much as I would have liked to go with her, I knew better than to ask. Release form in hand, I threaded my way back out of the lab and started for the more modern sections of town.
Thick, tinted skylights gave the narrow tunnels a bluish cast, islands of brighter light spaced at intervals where fluorescent lighting supplemented the filtered sunlight from above. I should have gone to the cramped apartment Cali and I kept near the ESA dormitories, but somehow couldn't face the thought of being there alone. Likewise, I didn't have the heart to look up the various friends and colleagues, any of whom would have been delighted to see me after our four months' absence. Maybe it was my nervousness at what the tests might show, but I simply wasn't in the mood for socializing. At odds, I finally wandered into one of the newer bistros that had sprung up in the South Quarter.
"What can I get you, sir?" a pleasant, round-faced man asked as he set a bowl of fresh jalapeÑos in front of me. Most of the other patrons in the low-ceilinged tavern were well-dressed, youngish couples laughing and chatting at the scattered tables, but if the bartender objected to my rumpled coveralls and scuffed boots, he gave no sign of it.
"Liebfraumilch," I said. He returned a few moments later with a glass of pale, yellowish wine and a chipreader. I passed my wrist over the payslot, then sat back and took a slow sip from the glass. The wine was sweet, a bit too chilled for my tastes, but altogether satisfactory, especially after the forced abstinence of field camp. Wells, in addition to some of the best geo chem labs to be found off Earth, keeps a rather extensive vineyard carefully tended at its hydroponic center. Wine and brandy had actually become the settlement's chief export, some of the vintages rivaling their Terran counterparts.
"Get you anything else, sir?"
I shook my head, and he wandered down to the other end of the bar. I knew I should have ordered something to eat, but had no appetite. Instead, I bit one of the mild peppers off at the stem, then took a longer drink to wash it down. Despite the rising warmth from the alcohol, I couldn't shake the chill I had picked up on the long trip from Valles Marineris. A Mylar mirror was stretched on the gently curved wall behind the bar. The face that stared back at me seemed a stranger, a bedraggled vagabond blown in by the harsh Martian wind. My hair was too long, too thin on top, and shot full of gray. My beard, which I always let grow out in the field, was uneven and nearly white, but at least it drew attention from the loose flesh around my neck.
"Gad, I look like a zombie," I muttered.
"Sir?" The bartender perked up and walked down the bar. "Did you need another?"
I glanced at the wine glass, and to my surprise found it empty. Odd, I hadn't recalled finishing it. I nodded. He returned quickly with a fresh glass, then left me once more to my thoughts. I stared at the tiny droplets that clung to the outside of the glass, watching them pick up the light and break it into rainbow dots like dew on morning grass. How long had it been since I had touched grass? How long since I had breathed fresh air? The long trip up from camp had given me time to think. More time perhaps than was healthy. Time to think about where my life was going, and whether Cali would be going there with me.
A girl laughed at one of the tables. I could see she and the boy with her in the mirror, holding hands, oblivious to anything but each other. Had I ever been that young?
I wondered what Cali and Stuckey were doing, then scolded myself for even imagining the idea of them together. But the harder I tried to put the thought from my mind, the harder it pushed back.
"You're becoming an old fool," I said under my breath, then tossed off the rest of my wine and rose from the spindly barstool. The bartender smiled pleasantly as I left. The girl at the table didn't even look up as I passed by. Angry at myself, and angrier still at such a cold universe, I made my way to our empty apartment to wait for news about the core sample.
I spent a fitful night, tossing and turning, bothered by the unending symphony of noise outside the thin walls, but still awoke feeling much better than I had the night before. Though I had showered upon reaching our apartment, I took the luxury of another that morning, reveling in the hot spray against my skin. Afterward, I stood under the heat lamp, scissors in hand and trimmed my hair and beard. A quick glance at the steam-fogged mirror reassured me that while still no Adonis, at least the zombie from the night before had been banished.
The computer flashed as I strolled past the console. Cali had sent a flash shot while I was in the shower. I logged on, but she didn't answer - nothing for my efforts but the webcam view looking eastward into the broad rift. Stuckey's ATV remained in the open ended shed, but I could see no trace of either he or Cali outside. I tried again to link through with no better results. I left a message then stepped into the corridor outside the apartment.
Hungry, I bought a croissant and a cup of strong black coffee from a window vender and wandered to a nearby bench to eat. Dwarf orange trees lined the octagonal plaza, the floor done in faux flagstones. A central screen hung from the ceiling, a soccer game beamed in from Earth displayed, the sound muted. I had no idea who either of the teams were. Bored, I took my palmer out and checked my mail. Still nothing about the samples. Out of habit, I punched in Cali's addy again, but had no response from her either.
I put the little device back in my pocket then took another sip of my slowly cooling coffee. An automated street sweeper rumbled past, sniffing the floor like a mechanical bloodhound, and vanished down one of the side passages. I finished the croissant, brushed the crumbs off my shirt onto the newly vacuumed flagstones, then started once again toward the lab. At least there, I decided, I could find an unused computer and work on the mountain of paperwork that had been growing since we left four months earlier. At ten o'clock I tried to call Cali again, but still no answer. I closed the connection and discovered a new message flashing on the screen. The preliminary tests on the core samples were done. My legs felt numb as I rose and walked briskly toward the far end of the building.
The same technician met me, disc in hand.
"And?" I asked, unable to hide my nervousness.
"I'd like to say I have something definite for you, but..." Her lips twisted in a half-smile as she passed the disc to me. "Right now the best I can tell you is you've found something very interesting. It could be fossils, or it might not. There's no way I can tell you definitively from the electron scan. We'll need to run the full analysis for that. I assume that was the reason for the traces you marked?"
I nodded.
"That's what I figured," she said. "We don't get a lot of requests to test for bacteriorhodopsin."
"How long do you think it will take?"
"Ten days at the earliest, maybe two weeks before I can get at it. We're a little backed up right now."
"I see." I knew better than to ask her to expedite the tests. My research, no matter how important it might prove one day, took a distinct backseat to more commercial interests. The woman's smile deepened sympathetically.
"I can put in a request to timeshare with the big mainframes on Phobos, if you'd like? That should speed up the processing once we start the tests. I'll need your signature on that, though."
"Sure. Thanks." I tried to put on a brave face. Two weeks. I took the stylus and pad she offered and signed the requisition forms. "Just charge the tests against the Biology Department. I'll make sure accounting knows they're coming."
"Okay." She took the pad from me, started back into the lab, then paused. "For what it's worth, Dr. Palmero, I think you have found an undescribed organism. Good luck."
With that, she left. I turned to go, not sure what to do next. The tunnels seemed to close in on me, the noise and clamor of Wells suddenly overwhelming. The prospect of waiting here was out of the question. No matter how badly I might wish otherwise, I would have to leave as ignorant as when I arrived.
I stopped off at the apartment to change clothes and take care of some more paperwork before leaving, then tried one more time to call Cali. As before, I only reached the automated screen.
"Where in the hell are you?" Frustrated, I punched in the access code, hoping to turn on the cam inside the habitat, but the idiot computer at camp refused to let me in. A cold, heavy weight settled in my stomach. Why would Cali lock me out? Frowning, I glanced at the screen and realized I had used the wrong password. Angry at myself for even thinking the woman I had lived with for more than three years might be deliberately hiding something from me, I tried again. This time, the system dutifully let me in. The interior view was painfully slow to load, the grainy, distorted view of the habitat's main room enlarging one strip at a time. My fingers drummed against the desk as I waited for the full image to arrive.
The habitat's main room was empty. Cali and Stuckey must have been outside, a clear breach of the safety protocols we had established, leaving both of them vulnerable should there have been an accident. I cursed under my breath, angry that she wouldn't answer my send. Thoughts of her in some unexpected trouble flashed through my mind, the unremitting list of things that could go wrong in a place as remote as our camp a litany of disaster. Was she injured? Had something happened to Stuckey?
Until one of them answered, I had no way of knowing. Angrier than I cared to admit, I started to shut down the link when I noticed something I had missed at first glance.
The hatch between the main room and the sleeping annex was sealed, the view of what might be happening inside blocked.
The sky had browned, faint sepia-tinted streamers fingering out of the west, a harbinger of an approaching dust storm. I pushed the rover faster than I should have toward the field camp. Thick, gritty clouds splayed out behind me as I careened around boulders that stretched seemingly forever in front of me. By the time I finally reached the brim of Valles Marineris, I was dangerously low on battery, the fuel cell unable to keep up with my demand for speed. I skidded to a stop and sat a while, staring downward at the monotonous rusted terrain.
Out of habit, I reached for the transmit switch on the steering column, but caught myself and stopped. The last thing I wanted at that moment was to warn Cali that I was coming. Instead, I sat in the small, open-framed vehicle, no company but my own dark thoughts.
As soon as the power gauge climbed back into the green, I was once more under way. The geardrives whined as I picked up speed, the trail sloping steeply down into the broad canyon. Then my left front tire struck a rock no larger than my fist but large enough to upset the machine, and before I could correct, the rover tilted sharply to the right, curved into the slope and came to rest on its side.
Stunned, I freed myself from the shoulder harness and dropped with an undignified thud to the rocky soil. I scrambled to my feet and clawed my way uphill, away from the toppled machine, certain a fireball would erupt around me. Suddenly, I began to laugh at my own folly, my Earthbound reflexes having overrun my Martian sensibilities. Even had the fuel cell ruptured, without an oxygen rich atmosphere there could be no fire. At worst, I might have torn my excursion suit and risked a frost or chemical burn on my exposed skin. Unbruised save for my ego, I tipped the rover back on its feet and inspected it for damage.
The frame was bent, but not to the point that I couldn't drive it. One headlight and the radio antenna dangled by their wiring harnesses, the mounting brackets snapped off. Given the speed I was traveling at, it could have been much worse. Carefully, I settled into the little seat and engaged the engine.
"No fool like an old fool," I grumbled, more shaken by the accident than I cared to admit. By the time I reached the valley floor, though I was feeling much better. Nothing like a brush with the Reaper to put life in finer perspective.
A silver dot reflected in the distance, camp at last in view. A dust devil whirled past the equipment shed as I rounded the final bend. Glad to arrive, I shut the rover down, then crawled stiffly out of the seat. A dark stain ran in a jagged line along my right shin. Apparently I had punctured my suit after all, leaving the transfer fluid to leach out into the thin air. My knee hurt as well, more proof that I hadn't been quite as lucky as I initially thought. Limping slightly, I walked the short path to the airlock at the front of the hab.
The old, knotted feeling struck harder as I opened the outer seal. Did I really want to interrupt the scene my imagination had replayed in various twisted versions for the last six hours? Too late now, I knew, my only other option to stay outside and slowly die of asphyxiation. I took a deep breath to calm myself, sealed the outer door, then pressurized the chamber.
The inner door slid aside. I ducked under the hatch frame, resealed the lock, then popped my helmet off. The air within was warm, a bit musty, and filled with the cloying scent of cooking, hot electronics, and the unmistakable aroma of human beings living in too small a space. The main room was empty, the hatch into the sleeping annex still closed. Quietly, I set my helmet on the table, took off my thick gauntlets, then approached the fabric hatch. My jaw hurt; I realized I was grinding my teeth in anticipation. Before I lost my nerve, I grabbed the stiff flap and pulled it aside.
Velcro ripped open. I dropped to my knees and peered inside the sleeping annex. It was empty, the sleeping bags flat. Behind me, I heard a soft hiss, and startled, spun around.
Two figures in excursion suits stood in the airlock, faces hidden behind gold anodized visors. The smaller of the pair ducked inside, popped its helmet, then dropped down beside me.
"Thank goodness you're back! The weather sats are picking up a major sandstorm headed this way." Cali threw her arms around me and gave me a fierce hug. "I've been trying to reach you for an hour, but couldn't get a signal out."
I smiled, chagrined as I recalled the broken antenna on the rover. "I had a little accident." Cali's eyes went wide, but I shook my head. "Don't worry. Just a fender bender, but it snapped off the antenna. Where were you, by the way? I tried all morning to reach you before I left Wells."
"That was my fault, Dr, Palmero." Stuckey pulled his helmet off and set it beside mine. "I got the core drill stuck and needed a hand freeing the bit up. I know it was against the safety regs, and I apologize, but I really wanted to dig a little deeper into the bedrock." A shy grin spread across his face as he brought out another core sample from within the padded case swinging at his side. He handed the cylinder to me. One end of the core was the same chalky gray as the sample I had taken to Wells. The other end was typical Martian sandstone. "I think I've hit the lower end of the strata."
I turned the sample over in my hand, rolled it across my palm, letting the cold stone brush across my skin as if I needed to prove it was real. Now, we had both an upper and lower limit to the deposit, and, with luck, a clear progression of the ancient seasons forever locked in the frigid bit of stone. A thousand emotions burst inside me, guilt and relief and overwhelming joy at what we had discovered. "Thank you," is all I said.
The wind rose throughout the afternoon, and just at dusk the first of the true sandstorm arrived, a soft, undulating hiss as the tiny grains of dust struck the habitat. The shelter had been designed to withstand the worst Mars might throw at it, but it still was a disconcerting sensation to watch the walls ripple as the wild gusts swirled past our camp. The wind was fierce, though at the ambient pressures it carried relatively little force. Still, visibility and communications would be compromised, probably to the point we wouldn't dare go outside until the worst of it had passed.
Exhausted, I went to bed early. Cali curled up beside me, our sleeping bags zipped together, and within a few minutes was snoring softly. Stuckey was asleep as well, his own snores loud enough to rival the wind's howl. I envied them. Tired as I was, I couldn't sleep. Now that I was safely back to camp, the dark thoughts had returned.
My arm slipped over Cali, and she snuggled deeper against me, her back spooned against my stomach. I should have been enjoying the sensation of her body, so warm beside mine, but instead found myself reluctant to touch her. Over and over, thoughts of what she and Stuckey might have done during my absence rolled through my imagination. I felt dirty for thinking them, but that did nothing to lesson my suspicions.
The sandstorm raged for three days. By the end of the second, all of the paperwork I had let slide was finished, the normal chores and routines utterly disrupted by the weather. By the third morning, we were all showing the strain of being cooped up inside the inflatable dome.
"How long can this last?" Stuckey asked for at least the fourth time in an hour.
"Months," Cali said sourly from where she sat crosslegged on the floor. She pushed a loose strand of hair off her forehead, but didn't look up from the novel she had loaded that morning. I glanced over her shoulder at the text, but she hunched closer over the reader to block my view. Annoyed at her peevishness, I wandered to the computer and tried to check the latest meteorology reports. It a compulsive action, this need to fathom what the oracles at the weather bureau might say, but I forgave myself. It was a common affliction, an almost universal neurosis spread across the red planet.
"Any change?" Stuckey asked.
I shrugged. "Might be a break tomorrow. Depends on the pressure gradients west of here."
Bored, I skimmed the net, but found nothing to hold my interest. Almost against my will, I pulled up the history logs and scanned the sites Cali and Stuckey had visited in my absence. Nothing out of the normal, but instead of relieving my suspicions, it only fueled my growing unease. I stole a glance over my shoulder to see if either were watching, then turned back to the computer and furtively punched in Cali's personal login.
My finger trembled slightly as I hit enter. I had no idea if Cali suspected I had hacked her password, and out of habit I leaned closer to the screen to block her view just as she had blocked mine moments earlier. Feeling bolder, I ran the pointer down the list of sites she had recently visited.
Most were unimportant. An alumni newsletter. A woman's health chat. Nothing out of her normal patterns. Suddenly, near the middle of the list, I noticed Stuckey's name. She had been visiting his personal website. The coldness seeped back into my body. Just as I had thought, she had done an extensive search on our young Mr. Stuckey. Again, I wondered what she was reading on her viewer. I moved the pointer over the download link and clicked, but received only an error message, the signal disrupted by the storm. Annoyed, I closed the browser and went directly to Cali's personal files.
"What are you reading, John?"
Her voice startled me so badly I nearly tipped the chair over. I closed the program and spun around. She still sat on the floor, but her attention was on the monitor behind me. Had she seen what I was reading? I didn't think so, but had no way of knowing.
"Just surfing," I lied, trying to sound innocent. I stood up and stretched as if I had just awoken from a long, peaceful nap. "Anybody want coffee?"
"None for me," Stuckey said. "I've already got the shakes."
"Me either." Cali stared at me, her eyes neutral, betraying nothing. Still trying to act nonchalant, I went though the motions of making coffee, but drank none of it once it was finished brewing. Like the others, caffeine was the last thing I needed, my mind spinning ever closer to the only conclusion I could imagine. Cali and Stuckey were involved and I was simply another blustering old bull soon to be put out to pasture.
I woke up at midnight and crept back to the main room only to discover Cali had changed her password.
The fourth day dawned without relief. The wind rocked the habitat until it seemed we might break free, but miraculously the storm seemed to abate shortly after midday. Stuckey rolled open one of the small, shuttered windows and peered out.
"Is it over," he asked hopefully.
"Just a lull," Cali replied without looking up from her reader. Since the night before she had been moody and on edge. She knew I suspected her. The only question that remained how far would she go to hide the truth.
"What does the weather report say?" Stuckey asked, sickeningly cheerful.
"Nothing. The link is still down." I said, barely paying attention.
"Maybe," he offered, "the dish is out of alignment?"
"Don't you think I know enough to check that first?" I snapped. Immediately, I regretted the outburst. I was spoiling for a fight, but didn't dare accuse either of them until I had the proof I needed. Stuckey recoiled as if I had slapped him.
"I didn't mean anything by asking."
I grunted something unintelligible, embarrassed by my own reaction. Cali closed her reader and stared at me, her thin, fine eyebrows drawn together. "What the hell is eating you?" she asked without preamble.
"Nothing," I said. "As if you'd give a damn anyhow."
Stuckey looked back and forth between us, his face red, embarrassed at seeing us fight. He edged past Cali and started toward the equipment locker beside the airlock. "I... I think I'll suit up and check the co-ax connections on the dish. Maybe the wind jiggled it loose."
"No." I brushed him aside. "I'll do it."
"By yourself?" Cali asked, a challenge in her tone.
"Don't you think I'm capable?" I glared at her. "I think I can check a cable without help."
"You've lost your mind." Ice lay thick in her words. "I don't know what you think I've done, but I'm sick and tired of your innuendo."
"And I'm sick and tired of being cuckolded!"
Stuckey's face lost all color, but Cali said nothing, simply stood glaring at me, the little muscles along her jaw clenching in and out. I found myself suddenly struck dumb, all the quick rejoinders I had envisioned gone. Angry with myself, I stomped to the locker, drew out my excursion suit. Five minutes later, I stepped into the lock and sealed the inner door. Neither Cali nor Stuckey said a single word the entire time.
A red, hellish light spilled into the airlock as the outer door slid aside. The air, though temporarily quiet, was hazy, the dust still so thick it nearly blocked the sun. Tiny drifts, like sand left by lapping waves, had piled up in the lee of the habitat, the entire world it seemed covered in a thin patina of rust. My boots left thin footprints as I tromped up the low incline to where the satellite dish stood. Stuckey had been right. The coax was indeed dangling from the socket. The idea that he had been correct only fueled my resentment.
"Wonderful," I muttered as I examined the loose connection. At least the ends were still intact. I pushed the stiff length of coax back into the socket, screwed the nut tight, then turned back toward the habitat.
Already, the storm showed signs of returning. A towering, russet-streaked cloud rolled out of the west. I stood and watched it, mesmerized by the sheer immensity. Within seconds it tore through camp and continued across the broad valley floor before it spent itself on the columns of lava that stood in the distance. I should have taken it as a warning and made a fast retreat to the safety of the hab, but couldn't face the thought of returning. Not yet. Not until I had a chance to get my thoughts in order. I needed to confront Cali on my terms, not hers. With no particular goal in mind, I started down the slope toward the core drill.
Before I reached the site, my right leg began to ache. I put it off as tension, the same way I attributed my headache to the rush of adrenaline slowly washing from my bloodstream. As I topped the last ridge though, the pain intensified, a burning point along my shin surrounded by a dull throb that seemed to reach into the bone. By the time I reached the core drill, I could scarcely walk. Confused, I leaned against the spindly derrick and glanced down at my leg. My heart sank. I had repaired the small punctures I had received in the rollover the day before, but hadn't bothered to test them under pressure. Now, I saw that one of the circular rubber patches had separated along the edge, allowing the fluid within to escape.
"Lovely," I muttered.
A dark stain covered my leg, escaped coolant from my suit's heat-exchanger mixed with dust and now frozen to the stiff fabric. I pressed my hand against the puncture to block the hole, but if there was any pressure left in the system it was too low to register as a visible leak. Already, the cold had spread to my other leg. It wouldn't be long until I had no heat at all left in my suit. At an ambient temperature of 20 centigrade, this was no minor inconvenience; it was life threatening. The argument with Cali all but forgotten, I started back toward camp, the habitat nearly a kilometer away. Ten minutes, I estimated, perhaps a bit longer if the throbbing cold hampered my stride. I can do this, I urged myself as I trudged up the rock-strewn hill.
Out of the west another dust cloud approached, a wall of tobacco brown grit so broad it stretched across the entire horizon. When it hit, it struck like a hammer blow.
"Cali?" I struggled to keep my voice calm as I thumbed the transmit switch fastened to the forearm of my excursion suit, but heard no reply. Furious that she was ignoring me, I tried again. "Damn it Cali, respond."
Nothing. Quickly, I switched the microphone from manual to automatic, but still received no response. A chill that had nothing to do with my ruptured suit raced down my neck. Dreading what I might find, I strained to touch the back of my helmet. My fingers confirmed what my mind already knew. The radio antenna was gone, no doubt lost in the same rollover that had punctured my suit.
"Damn it." I took a long draw of the neoprene-flavored air, then spoke slowly, my words measured to enhance whatever signal if any I was able to produce. "Cali, this is John. I am transmitting in the blind, unsure if my radio is working. My suit is punctured and I am running out of heat. I am at the core drill and returning to the habitat."
At least, I hoped I was returning. As the wind rose, it shoved me off course, the visibility down to a few meters. Undulating snakes of red sand swirled past my boots. By the time I had gone a hundred meters, the snakes had coalesced into a carpet, the ground hidden beneath a roiling, ankle-deep cloud of grit. I had no way of knowing if I was on the path that led homeward or not.
Sand rustled against my visor. I leaned into the wind and forced myself up the low incline, blinded by the storm. Sweat poured between my shoulder blades and down my forehead even as my feet began to freeze. Without the thick fluid to wick the heat from my body to my extremities I had little protection from the frigid temperature.
My fingers began to ache as violently as my toes.
People who have never experienced true cold imagine one's hands and feet go numb as the ice settles over them. Nothing could be further from the truth. The pain is constant, a pounding, unrelenting throb that ripples beneath burning skin. Soon the slightest pressure becomes an agony. Waves of nausea gripped me, driven by the headache that now accompanied the stiffness in my limbs. It took all my resolve not to vomit inside my helmet.
A fierce gust broke around me, the air dark with drifting sand. I lost my balance and toppled slowly to my side behind a waist high boulder. The wind wasn't so bad here, the worst of it blocked by the weathered stone. I leaned against it and closed my eyes. I'll rest a moment, I told myself. Just a moment to catch my breath.
I bolted upright, startled that I could have such a self-destructive thought. Time was against me. Even if I didn't freeze to death, my oxygen supply was limited. Again, I realized what a fool I had been when I left the habitat. I hadn't so much as checked my watch and now had no idea how long I had been outside. I tried to read the air level on the LEDs spread along the base of my visor, but my eyes wouldn't focus. For all I knew, I was already running low on O2.
"Up," I told myself, using the boulder for support. The wind nearly pushed me off my feet as I once again leaned into its onslaught.
Weaving, my legs so stiff my knees no longer flexed, I struggled to make headway, but it was no use. Defeated, I sank behind another boulder to wait out the end. "Cali," I said with as much strength as I could muster, still hoping she might hear my transmission. "I'm sorry. I truly am."
Time lost meaning, the passage of seconds as ill-defined as the swirling clouds of brown dust. My breath grew sour, my throat parched. Darkness settled around me, but whether with nightfall or simply more sand, I had no idea. Over and over I chided myself for my carelessness, as if I had made a mistake on a requisition form. I could imagine people shaking their heads and clucking to themselves as they wondered how I could have let myself die this way. Somehow, I had always expected death to be more profound.
A vague brightness spread around me. Was I hallucinating? Rapidly, the light shrank to a point and stopped less than a meter from my face. Before I understood what was happening, strong arms wrapped around shoulders and hauled me from behind the sheltering boulder onto the back of Stuckey's ATV. One arm against my chest to keep me from sliding off, he spun the little machine around and took us back to camp.
I awoke inside my sleeping bag. The room was dark, but I knew from the silence I was alone. Chilled, I sat up. My head ached, but not as badly as it had earlier. Outside, in the main room, I heard voices. Cali and Stuckey were talking, but I couldn't make out their words over the wind against the hab. My stirring must have alerted them I was awake, because a few moments later the door flap lifted aside.
Cali peered in at me, but made no move to crawl inside. "Are you all right?" she asked.
"I think so."
"Good." Her voice was flat, void of expression. In her left hand she held a reader. She tossed it to me and it lit face down on the thick floor padding. "Before the storm hit again, I was able to download our email. You had a message from the lab."
I picked up the little screen and turned it on. A long list of messages scrolled across it. I found the one Cali had mentioned and opened it.
"Congratulations," Cali said, her voice still flat. "Looks like you were right all along."
She dropped the flap back in place and left me alone once more. Not really caring, I read the text. Dr. Palmero. Good news. I was able to get at your sample sooner than I expected. Have found traces of bacteriorhodopsin in all samples.
I stared at the reader. Years of work were tied up in that simple message, my theories confirmed. I let the reader fall from my hand, then crawled back inside my sleeping bag. Somehow, it didn't seem to matter anymore.
The next few days passed in an uncomfortable blur. When we talked, Cali, Stuckey and I, we kept to neutral topics, the argument unmentioned. Most of the time we didn't talk at all. Slowly, the storm began to fade and we began packing for the trip back to Wells.
Cali unzipped her sleeping bag from mine, but made no mention of why. She didn't have to. I had no idea if she and Stuckey were involved. It didn't really matter. If not him, it would be someone else. Without protest, I accepted that things were over between us. I continued to work on my notes, refining my theories to match the data we had uncovered. It was harder to accept the thought that my field career was at its end as well. Next summer, other researchers would come here to drill, ready to bolster or destroy what we had found while I sat on my laurels in some comfortable office a million lifetimes away from where I truly wanted to be. It is, I knew, the way of things.
In a way, I realized, I had become like my adopted planet. Stuckey had not meant to hurt me any more than the invading organisms from Earth meant to conquer the indigenous life forms here. He didn't need to. Like those ancient spores, he was young, vigorous, adaptable, while I had let myself become mud-bound. What chance did I ever really have? I smiled at the irony. How long had it taken chlorophyl to replace bacteriorhodopsin? A century? A millennium? How long for the green to sweep away the purple?
How long indeed.
For the first time in my life, I felt old. Not feeble, but simply resigned. My day had passed, and like the sad little organisms that had once ruled Mars, the best I could hope for was to leave a good trace.
"We're ready with the first load," Cali said softly over the radio. "We can start back to Wells as soon as you're set."
"I'll be out in a few minutes," I said, then closed the connection. Quietly, I shut down the remaining computers then pulled on my excursion suit. Stuckey had done a good job repairing it, I noticed. That was good. Another task I had been spared. I took a final look around the habitat, then sealed my visor and stepped into the airlock. Time to go home.
©Justin Stanchfield
Justin Stanchfield's work has appeared in various magazines and anthologies including Cicada, OnSpec and Black Gate. He lives with his wife and kids on a Montana cattle ranch, a stone's throw from the Continental Divide.