Alluvium (23 page)

After an expedited walk through the flattened valley, Autumn radioed back. “I’m centered," she said, and she looked around the designated area sensing her unforeseen disappointment. She did not know what she had expected to see at the bottom; The entirety of Mars was desert, excluding its polar ice caps, but nevertheless, she expected more in the valley. It looked the same as everywhere else. Hollis realized her thoughts as he watched her video slowly pan the valley’s floor.

“I promise you this place is different. It can support life, and it’s the best chance we have for making this work," Hollis assured.

“I know," Autumn said unconvinced.

“Do you know how it was created?” Hollis asked. “The valley?”

“Plate tectonics?” Autumn questioned.

“Yes, this is part of it. But there’s was something else too. Something more powerful.”

“What’s that?”

“Water,” Hollis said. “Ancient Mars had water and lots of it, rushing through the surface, breaking apart the dirt and rock. After eons and eons, the running water formed this massive valley. Isn’t it a beautiful idea how something as simple as water created something as great as this? All it took was time.”

Autumn smiled at the thought. “I trust you, Hollis. I really do."

“Don’t trust me, trust Mars,” he said, and they got to work with a newfound confidence. “Before we start, directly at the point you’re standing on, you’ll need to mark it with the green flag in the pack. Good, make sure it’s in deep in the ground since you’ll need it for orientating yourself later on. Now, I need you to visualize a four-armed web extending outwards from your position at the flag, like a large
X
imprinted in the soil. There’s a canister of yellow spray paint that’s also in the pack and with it I need you to branch one of the four arm’s outwards into the left-corner of the highlighted perimeter of zone one."

Autumn checked her position on the electronic mapping system and began spraying the line. She completed the task without a mistake. She looked upon the yellow arm she painted, stretching three and a half meters in length."

“Great, now keeping in mind symmetry, do the same for the other three arms, following the same curvature and distance, each ending at the other three corners of the highlighted area. Remember, it should look like an
X
."

Again, Autumn followed the instructions in their exactness.

“That’s perfect, you should have considered a career as an artist. Now that that part’s done, you’ll need to go back into the work-pack and find the augmented cutter, about the size of a normal gardening trowel. It’s electrified, keep in mind, so make sure you don’t touch the conducting end or it’ll give you a little jolt. Once it's activated, it’ll effortless break apart the dried topsoil without much work on your part, but you need to guide it along the ground in the precise series of lines we mapped out, like tracing a picture. Before you use it, take it out, that’s it, keep hold of the handle, and turn the switch at its end, and remember be careful with its end. Lower the blade into the dirt and sink it in until it alerts you, there stop. Okay, now it will stabilize itself. All you need to do now is guide it along the path you drew with the paint as close as you can by keeping it straight. At the end of an arm follow it back the way you came to the center with the flag. Do this until you carved the four arms into the soil."

Autumn found it quite easy to push the cutter through the hardened ground of Mars. The displaced dirt piled on the sides and formed mini-ridges as it traced along the outline of the design. She cut through the dirt up one of the arms, to the boundary of the area, and then back again to the center with the flag to begin the second. She then moved on to the third arm, and then the fourth. In less than ten minutes, the design was completed, and her signature was tattooed onto the rock before her. 

“That’s it, Autumn. We’re at the last step. Take out the seedling bag and drain the protective mucus from its main compartment by lifting the latch. Do this away from the site to not contaminate it and be careful not to get the mucus onto your suit. Now, you’ll see inside that each of the hundred seedlings are contained within their own plastic packet filled with a brown liquid. This is essentially their womb, which until they sprout, will be their life support holding all the nutrients they’ll need. This part’s important, so listen closely. Place each baggie into the tracing you made in the dirt starting from the arms end, each at about five feet apart, until you reach the center. Each arm should have seven seedling pouches in it, with twenty-eight in the total area. Do you read?"

“I read you."

“Once you do this, spread the displaced soil back over the seedlings and their baggie."

“Okay, starting now."

In a state of hard concentration, Autumn aligned the seedlings just as the botanist asked of her. As the site slowly filled with seeds, she could not help but feel a sense of significance finishing the job. She was doing something to save the colony instead of merely hiding in it; She was doing something worthy of her long lost promise to her species. Something told her she had made the right choice trusting in Hollis and that there would be good results following the day's actions. The ambiguity of her recent decisions had been difficult for her to bear, but now a strong certainty came over her. She believed in what they were doing. She believed in the magic of the tree. She was no longer ashamed to admit it.

After the last seedling was covered by the soil and the evidence of their work disappeared like a hidden hieroglyph, Autumn proudly radioed back. “The seeds are in the ground," she said. “I repeat, the seeds are in the ground."

“I take it back, you shouldn’t have been an artist, you should have been a botanist," Hollis laughed into the cracking speaker. “We’ve got to do this two more times in the other two zones, but it gets much quicker after the first one is done, and we’ve got ourselves plenty of time left. Follow your nav-unit and head to zone two, about a hundred meters from your position, and we’ll get you back before you know it."

“Copy that, Commander," Autumn joked, and she began to move away from the burial site.

It was within two steps that she knew something was horribly wrong. A pounding, like a hammer to a stone, began thudding within her stomach. It was well beyond anything she had ever felt from the common harmless kicks or fetal movements of pregnancy. Her instincts told her that this was no natural side-effect of childbearing, and with that primitive knowing, the fight or flight response triggered in her nervous system. Her body prepared itself for the worst as blood rushed to her muscles and her stance tightened awaiting a collision. Before Autumn could make any further preparations to see to the well-being of her body and her child, what felt like a rush of cold air gusted behind her eyes, and it impacted the back of her head.

“I’m not right," she mumbled, and she suddenly lost her balance and stumbled forward into the cracked dirt, losing herself in the cloud of kicked-up dust.

Hollis saw all of this from Autumn’s perspective, through the grainy camera on her helmet's visor. But he noticed something she did not. Seconds before she hit the ground and dirt and static overtook the streaming video, a figure in the backdrop made itself visible from behind a mound of rocks. It was no man from Earth, but Hollis recognized it still, for he had seen the man from Mars twice before.

Do not be afraid…

The surrounding air felt like a hot liquid as Autumn breathed it in. It was thicker, somehow, and she could follow its distinctive consistency as it traversed through the pores of her lungs and intermixed into her bloodstream.

...it will be painless...

Painless would not be the word she would use to describe the experience, but it was not completely unpleasant also. For some unknown reason to her, she trusted the whispering voice in her head and let go of any fear she had. The odd sensation dissipated and dissolved as she faded in and out of awareness, and as much as she attempted, she could never quite understand the characteristics of her new environment, but she was certain it was not the valley. It was almost as if the signals from her visual system were not registering with her conscious mind, and as a result, she could only make out a few of the complex shapes and brilliant colors around her. Although she was overtaken by dizziness and vertigo, Autumn continually found herself focusing on one object, in particular, to maintain a sense of spatial balance, and it was suspended right there in front of her the entire time: a big red sphere.

...your children will thrive…

She heard kids laughter around her. The warm liquid began to redirect and concentrate in her lower abdomen, pooling together in the deeper structures of her humanly body.

...I will make it so...

She tried to move, but she could not, so she did not, and she remained still as the sensation came to its end in a bright flash.

...together they will lead your people to the next stage...to the Beyond...

Everything changed.

“You’ve got to talk to me. Please. I need you to say something," a voice lamented.

There was sharpness beneath her.

“Where are you?" it came to her again.

There was a wailing wind above her.

“Autumn! Where are you!?" the radio crackled.

The valley suddenly folded back open around her, like a pop-up book, and her surroundings made sense again. She was curled on the rocky floor of the basin, a few meters away from the seedling burial site where she originally fell, and she staring upwards at the looming cliff walls. The sky had aged since she last saw it and now featured a darker red hue. Heavy wind gusts lifted the thin skin of the desert into the air, curling sandy tails around her lifeless body.

“You’ve got to speak, dammit!" said the speaker into her ear.

Autumn pushed herself upwards into a sitting position and felt around the shell of her helmet to check for any ruptures. Static rattled her head as she did so.

“Your video just came back on! I can see what you see! You’re moving! Thank God, you're moving!"

Her suit diagnostics were next. She checked every portion of her body, especially her stomach, for any noticeable damages. Everything appeared to be fine, especially the parts that mattered, thankfully being protected as she had fallen on her back. Surprisingly, her suit was not dirtied at all.

“Autumn do you read?" Hollis’ voice demanded.

Autumn cleared her dry throat. “I read. I read you. What happened?"

She could hear joyous laughter coming from the other end of the radio.

“Thank God. You fell right after you finished burying the seeds, and your video feed and radio went dead. I thought- I thought the worst-" Hollis burst forth.

The dizziness was leaving her. “How long was I out?" she asked.

There was a short pause. “Three and a half hours. Almost four," he replied.

“No," she mumbled. Saul and the others will be back to the colony in just under two hours. She would not make it back in time.

“Autumn, we’ll worry about the others later. Right now, I need you to give me a diagnostics check," Hollis interrupted. “Oxygen."

She read the gages. “Oxygen’s at seventy percent, sixteen hours.”

“How in the-" Hollis started. “You didn’t deplete any of your oxygen. How is that-"

Autumn had no answers, and her memory of the other place was fading like a dream.

“Never mind that," Hollis said. “How’s the baby. Do you feel alright?"

“I think I’m fine, at least, I feel much better than I did before the pain started. I don’t know what happened, but something tells me our baby is safe now," she said as if they were not her own words being spoken.

“Whether you feel better or not, we need to get you out of there. I’m realizing now there's something about that valley and fainting, so let's get you back to the safety of the Hub," Hollis urged. “And regardless of what Saul will say for you leaving, he’ll be able to take better care of you than I can. Your health and our baby’s health are what matters the most. Leave the heavy gear behind and head back to the Crawler."

“But the seeds-"

“Leave them. They can be recovered, but you can’t. Our child can’t. You did a great job today, but we need to abort the mission for now."

“He won’t let me come back."

“Autumn, that's not my concern right now. I need you out of there."

There was no use in arguing. He was right. She did the most she could do for him and needed to admit her limitations.

“Okay, Hollis. I’ll return to the Crawler. I’m sorry."

“Don’t be sorry. Don’t ever be sorry. You matter far more to me than some fucking

seeds," he firmly returned. “I’m the one who should be sorry, bringing you out there when you’re like this."

Autumn started to move, and astonishingly, she felt stronger than she had in

many months.

As she began her trek back up Hollis spoke, hesitantly. “Did you, happen to see anything, just before you hit the ground?”

Autumn once again tried to follow the traces of her memory, but the dream was nearly

gone now, and only a weak visual scent of it was left.

“I don’t know. I can’t remember. It’s all just fuzzy."

“Forget about it," Hollis corrected himself. “Let's just get you two home."

The door would not budge, as she expected, but still she tried anyway. It was day eight of her detention in her sleeping quarters under the strict orders of her captor, Saul Lind. The claustrophobia was starting to set in. Her seven meter by four meter room was not designed to be lived in twenty-four-seven, and Autumn was wishing she could trade prison cells with Hollis who clearly had the better end of the deal.

“At least I’m not alone," she whispered to her child as she tried to hold back the tears of defeat that swelled her eyes.

Would this be her new life? Had she become nothing more than a hostage of Saul? No. The seeds were in the ground, and they may have already begun sprouting tree saplings in the valley. Everything could change, in a matter of weeks. But Autumn could not know, just as Hollis could not know, for both of them were trapped in their prisons. The only thing she did know for certain was that if the forest came, and the other saw it, then there would be no more prisons on the planet. Everyone would be free to go where they wanted, to the outside, where there existed a whole world to explore. It would only be a matter of time before the others saw what she and Hollis had been dreaming for, but until then, all Autumn could do was wait, hidden away deep below the surface of the desert, under lock and key.

One thing that troubled Autumn the most was a prevailing instinct that she had to keep the seedlings in the valley a secret from the others, especially Saul, until they were ready to be seen. Instinct told her that none of the other colonists could know of what she did in the valley until the trees were fully grown, and multiplied by the dozens, so that there were too many to be torn down by brute hands. It was an unrealistic precaution, but they were too far now to make any errors. She had lied to Saul, telling him she only went to see Hollis in the garden as a friend concerned of the well-being of another friend, and that she saw no saving him. In lying, Autumn hoped that Hollis’ punishment would be reduced and his research would be kept safe from harm, but she could only hope. Since she was kept in the dark, Autumn was clueless of what punishment would fall on Hollis. What would Saul do to him?

“No," Autumn said to her locked door.

No. No more waiting for the trees. No more unknowing of Hollis’ fate. No more being the victim. She was weak with the baby coming within two weeks, but she needed to do something. Whatever she could. Anything at all.

So she started to scream.

She screamed as loud as she could, rattling the walls of her room and the vocal cords in her throat. A shooting pain crawled along her neck and demanded her to stop, but she persisted until she could make out the sound of running bodies coming down the hall.

“We need to open the door," came Jackie’s familiar voice from the hallway.

“But Saul-" followed Oscar Albertson with his distinctive southern American drawl.

“Clearly this is an exception. Unlock the door," Jackie said.

The sound of a lever turning and metal shifting reverberated through the door. Autumn quieted herself and took a step back, uncertain of what exactly she was trying to accomplish or what she intended to do. The door lifted and Oscar and Jackie fearfully peered in.

“What’s wrong?" Jackie nervously directed into the room without crossing the threshold. “Are you in pain? Please tell me the baby is okay."

That was her only source of power. “No, I think I might-" Autumn began for dramatic effect and time to think. “Yes, there might be a problem with the baby." She directed herself to Oscar, quickly forming a plan. “Listen to me, Oscar, I need you to get me antibiotics from the medical unit. I don’t have time to explain."

“But-"

“Please hurry," Autumn frantically interrupted. “The baby."

Oscar hesitantly nodded and jogged down the hall, leaving Autumn alone with Jackie.

“Oh God, I don’t know what I should do. Are you bleeding? Do you think you might be in labor?" asked Jackie fearfully. “Maybe you should lay down and I’ll get Saul."

“Wait," Autumn responded rapidly, changing her tone and straightening her face. “You can’t get Saul."

“Why?"

“I need your help, Jackie."

Jackie sensed the situation she found herself in. “No, I think- I’ll go get Saul," she said, turning to leave the room.

“He won’t understand. Please, just wait."

Jackie reluctantly did and shuffled back into the room. “So everything’s fine?"

“For now, yes, but not in the way you think," started Autumn. “I need to talk to someone I can trust. Are you that person? Can I trust you to keep this between us?"

“Of course, you’re my friend."

“You’re my friend too, and friends help each other out in times of need. So you’ll do something for me without question? Without telling the others?"

Jackie became worried. “What?" 

“I need you to promise me."

“I can’t do that, Autumn. I can’t break the rules."

“The rules? What rules are you talking about?"

Jackie looked back into the hallway. “We’re not supposed to listen to you, even talk

to you for that matter, at least until the baby is born. You did a bad thing, you know. Going to see Hollis."

“Forget about the rules, what's important is the baby, right? And if I’m asking you to break the rules to help my baby then you would do it, wouldn’t you?"

“I suppose-"

“Then promise me."

“I promise."

Autumn turned and produced a piece of paper from her desk. She began frantically writing on it, aware that her time was running out before Oscar returned with the unneeded medicine. Once finished she folded the paper twice for good measure and placed it in Jackie’s palm.

“I need you to get this to Hollis."

Jackie began shaking her head.

“Listen. I need you to get this to Hollis without question, okay? You promised me. The garden is right near the construction site, just take a quick detour next time you’re out in that direction. It’s very important you get this safely to him, for me and the health of my baby- the colony’s baby."

“I can’t. I’m sorry," Jackie said.

“Yes, you can. It’s easy. Harmless. Please."

Her head shaking had not stopped. “No. He’ll find out. He always does."

“What are you talking about?"

The sound of heavy footfalls echoed down the hall, almost mechanical in their even rhythm. Calm, measured, and purposeful, they continued to grow closer. They slowed nearly to a stop just before Autumn’s open doorway, and then, almost as if on cue, Saul appeared between the narrow frame.

Jackie was startled but at the same time unsurprised. “I was just checking up on her!" she nearly pleaded. “She was screaming and I-"

“It’s fine, Jackie," Saul returned steadily. “You can leave us and go back to drawing up the plans for the urban hydration system."

“Okay, I’m very sorry," she said, quickly retreating the scene.

“But before you go, let me see that note you’re hiding in your left hand," Saul said to her just before she exited.