Moving Mars (2 page)

The train pushed a plug of air along the platform as it passed through the seals and curtains. Icons flashed above the platformstation ID, train designator, destinationsand a mature womans voice told us, with all the politeness in the world and no discernible emotion, Sous Dorsa to Bosporus, Nereidum, Argyre, Noachis, with transfers to Meridiani and Hellas, now arriving, gate four.

I muttered, Shit shit shit under my breath. Before I knew what I had decided, before I could paralyze myself with more thought, my legs took me around the corner and up to a blank white service bay: dead end. The only exit was a low steel door covered with chipped white enamel. It had been left open just a crack. I bent down, opened the door wide, glanced behind me, and stepped through.

It took me several minutes of fast walking to catch up with Diane. I passed ten or fifteen students in a dark arbeiter service tunnel and found her. Where are we going? I asked in a whisper.

Are you with us?

I am now.

She winked and shook my hand with a bold and happy swing. Someone has a key and knows the way to the old pioneer domes.

Muffling laughter and clapping each other on the back, full of enthusiasm and impressed by our courage, we passed one by one through an ancient steel hatch and crept along narrow, stuffy old tunnels lined with crumbling foamed rock. As the last of us left the UMS environs, stepping over a dimly lighted boundary marker into a wider and even older tunnel, we clasped hands on shoulders and half-marched, half-danced in lockstep.

Someone at the end of the line harshly whispered for us to be quiet. We stopped, hardly daring to breathe. Seconds of silence, then from behind came low voices and the mechanical hum of service arbeiters, a heavy, solid clank and a painful twinge in our ears. Someone had sealed the tunnel hatch behind us.

Do they know were in here? I asked Diane.

I doubt it, she said. That was a pressure crew.

They had closed the door and sealed it. No turning back.

The tunnels took us five kilometers beyond the university borders, through a decades-old maze unused since before my birth, threaded unerringly by whoever led the group.

Were in old times now, Diane said, looking back at me. Forty orbits agoover seventy-five Terrestrial yearsthese tunnels had connected several small pioneer stations. We filed past warrens once used by the earliest families, dark and bitterly cold, kept pressurized in reserve only for dire emergency

Our few torches and tunnel service lamps illuminated scraps of old furniture, pieces of outdated electronics, stacked drums of emergency reserve rations and vacuum survival gear.

Hours before, we had eaten our last university meal and had a warm vapor shower in the dorms. That was all behind us. Up ahead, we faced Spartan conditions.

I felt wonderful. I was doing something significant, and without my familys approval.

I thought I was finally growing up.

The ninety students gathered in a dark hollow at the end of the tunnel, a pioneer trench dome. All soundsnervous and excited laughter, questioning voices, scraping of feet on the cold floor, scattered outbreaks of songblunted against the black poly interior. Diane broke Martian reserve and hugged me. Then a few voices rose above the dull murmurs. Several students started taking down names and BM affiliations. The mass began to take shape.

Two students from third-form engineeringa conservative and hard-dug departmentstood before us and announced their names: Sean Dickinson, Gretyl Laughton. Within the day, after forming groups and appointing captains, we confirmed Sean and Gretyl as our leaders, expressed our solidarity and zeal, and learned we had something like a plan.

I found Sean Dickinson extremely handsome: of middle height, slight build, wispy brown hair above a prominent forehead, brows elegantly slim and animated. Though less attractive, Gretyl had been struck from the same mold: a slim young woman with large, accusing blue eyes and straw hair pulled into a tight bun.

Sean stood on an old crate and gazed down upon us, establishing us as real people with a real mission. We all know why were here, he said. Expression stern, eyes liquid and compassionate, he raised his hands, long and callused fingers reaching for the poly dome above, and said, The old betray us. Experience breeds corruption. Its time to bring a moral balance to Mars, and show them what an individual stands for, and what our rights really mean. Theyve forgotten us, friends. Theyve forgotten their contractual obligations. True Martians dont forget such things, any more than theyd forget to breathe or plug a leak. So what are we going to do? What can we do? What must we do?

Remind them! many of us shouted. Some said, Kill them, and I said, Tell them what we But I was not given a chance to finish, my voice lost in the roar.

Sean laid out his plan. We listened avidly; he fed our anger and our indignation. I had never been so excited. We who had kept the freshness of youth, and would not stand for corruption, intended to storm UMS overland and assert our contractual rights. We were righteous, and our cause was just.

Sean ordered that we all be covered with skinseal, pumped from big plastic drums. We danced in the skinseal showers naked, laughing, pointing, shrieking at the sudden cold, embarrassed but greatly enjoying ourselves. We put our clothes back on over the flexible tight-fitting nanomer. Skinseal was designed for emergency pressure problems and not for comfort. Going to the bathroom became an elaborate ritual; in skinseal, a female took about four minutes to pee, a male two minutes, and shitting was particularly tricky.

We dusted our skinseal with red ochre to hide us should we decide to worm out during daylight. We all looked like cartoon devils.

By the end of the third day, we were tired and hungry and dirty and impatient. We huddled in the pressurized poly dome, ninety in a space meant for thirty, our rusty water tapped from an old well, having eaten little or no food, exercising to ward off the cold.

I brushed past a pale thoughtful fellow a few times on the way to the food line or the lav. Lean and hawk-nosed and dark-haired, with wide, puzzled eyes, a wry smile and a hesitant, nervously joking manner, he seemed less angry and less sure than the rest of us. Just looking at him irritated me. I stalked him, watching his mannerisms, tracking his growing list of inadequacies. I was not in the best temper and needed to vent a little frustration. I took it upon myself to educate him.

At first, if he noticed my attention at all, he seemed to try to avoid me, moving through little groups of people under the gloomy old poly, making small talk. Everybody was testy; his attempts at conversation fizzled. Finally he stood in line near an antique electric wall heater, waiting his turn to bask in the currents of warm dry air.

I stood behind him. He glanced at me, smiled politely, and hunkered down with his back against the wall. I sat beside him. He clamped his hands on his knees, set his lips primly, and avoided eye contact; obviously, he had had enough of trying to make conversation and failing.

Having second thoughts? I asked after a decent interval.

What? he asked, confused.

You look sour. Is your heart in this?

He flashed the same irritating smile and lifted his hands, placating. Im here, he said.

Then show a little enthusiasm, dammit.

Some other students shook their heads and shuffled away, too tired to get involved in a private fracas. Diane joined us at the rear of the line.

I dont know your name, he said.

Shes Casseia Majumdar, said Diane.

Oh, he said. I was angry that he recognized the name. Of all things, I didnt want to be known for my currently useless family connections.

Her third uncle founded Majumdar BM, Diane continued. I shot her a look and she puckered her lips, eyes dancing. She was enjoying a little relief from the earnest preparations and boredom.

You have to be with us in heart and mind, I lectured him.

Sorry. Im just tired. My name is Charles Franklin. He offered a hand.

I thought that was incredibly insensitive and gauche, considering the circumstance. We had made it to the heater, but I turned away as if I didnt care and walked toward the stacks of masks and cyclers being tested by our student leader.

Neither a Statist nor a Goback, Sean Dickinson seemed to me the epitome of what our impromptu organization stood for. Son of a track engineer, Sean had earned his scholarship by sheer brainwork. In the UMS engineering department, he had moved up quickly, only to be diverted into attempts to organize trans-BM unions. That had earned him the displeasure of Connor and Dauble.

Sean worked with an expression of complete concentration, hair disheveled, spidery, strong fingers pulling at mask poly. His mouth twitched with each newfound leak. He hardly knew I existed. Had he known, he probably would have shunned me for my name. That didnt stop me from being impressed.

Charles followed me and stood beside the growing pile of rejects. Please dont misunderstand, he said. Im really behind all this.

Glad to hear it, I said. I observed the preparations and shivered. Nobody likes the thought of vacuum rose. None of us had been trained in insurrection. We would be up against campus security, augmented by the governors own thugs and maybe some of our former classmates, and I had no idea how far theyor the situationwould go.

We watched news vids intently on our slates. Sean had posted on the ex nets that students had gone on strike to protest Connors illegal voiding. But he hadnt told about our dramatic plans, for obvious reasons. The citizens of the Triplethe linked economies of Earth, Mars, and Moon hadnt turned toward us. Even the LitVids on Mars seemed uninterested.

I thought I could help, Charles said, pointing to the masks and drums. Ive done this before

Gone Up? I asked.

My hobby is hunting fossils. I asked to be on the equipment committee, but they said they didnt need me.

Hobby? I asked.

Fossils. Outside. During the summer, of course.

Here was my chance to be helpful to Sean, and maybe apologize to Charles for showing my nerves. I squatted beside the pile and said, Sean, Charles here says hes worked outside.

Good, Sean said. He tossed a ripped mask to Gretyl. I wondered innocently if she and Sean were lovers. Gretyl scowled at the maska safety-box surplus antiqueand dropped it on the reject pile, which threatened to spill out around our feet.

I can fix those, Charles said. There are tubes of quick poly in the safety boxes. It works.

I wont send anybody outside in a ripped mask, Sean said. Excuse me, but I have to focus here.

Sorry, Charles said. He shrugged at me.

We may not have enough masks, I said, looking at the diminishing stacks of good equipment.

Sean glared over his shoulder, pressed for time and very unhappy. Your advice is not necessary, Gretyl told me sharply.

Its nothing, Charles said, tugging my arm. Let them work.

I shrugged his fingers loose and backed away, face flushed with embarrassment. Charles returned with me to the heater, but we had lost our places there.

The lights had been cut to half. The air became thicker and colder each day. I thought of my warren rooms at home, a thousand kilometers away, of how worried my folks might be, and of how they would take it if I died out in the thin air, or if some Statist thug pierced my young frame with a flechette God, what a scandal that would make! It seemed almost worth it.

I fantasized Dauble and Connor dragged away under arrest, glorious and magnificent disgrace, perhaps worth my death but probably not.

Im a physics major, Charles said, joining me at the end of the line.

Good for you, I said.

Youre in govmanagement?

Thats why Im here.

Im here because my parents voted against the Statists. Thats all I can figure. They were in Klein BM. Kleins holding out to the last, you know.

I nodded without making eye contact, wanting him to go away.

The Statists are suicidal, Charles said mildly. Theyll bring themselves down even if we dont accelerate the process.

We cant afford to wait, I said. The skinseal wouldnt last much longer. The nakedness and embarrassment had bonded us. We knew each other; we thought we had no secrets. But we itched and stank and our indignation might soon give way to general disgruntlement. I felt sure Sean and the other leaders were aware of this.

I was trying to get a scholarship for Earth study and a grant for thinker time, he said. Now Im off the list, Im behind on my research He paused, eyes downcast, as if embarrassed at babbling. You know, he said, weve got to do something in the next twenty hours. The skinseal will rot.

Right. I looked at him more closely. He was not homely. His voice was mellow and pleasant, and what I had first judged as lack of enthusiasm now looked more like calm, which I was certainly not.

Sean had finished weeding out the bad helmets. He stood and Gretyl called shrilly for our attention. Listen, Sean said, shaking out his stiff arms and shoulders. Weve had a response from Connors office. They refuse to meet with us, and they demand to know where we are. I think even Connor will figure out where we are in a few more days. So its now or never. We have twenty-six good outfits and eight or ten problem pieces. I can salvage two from those. The rest are junk.

I could fix some of them if hed let me, Charles said under his breath.

Gretyl and I will wear the problem pieces, Sean said. My heart pumped faster at his selfless courage. But that means most of us will have to stay here. Well draw sticks to see who crosses the plain.

What if theyre armed? asked a nervous young woman.

Sean smiled. Red rabbits down, cause up like a rocket, he said. That was clear enough. Martians shoot Martians, and glory to us all, the Statists would fall. He was right, of course. News would cross the Triple by days end, probably even reach the planetoid communities.

Sean sounded as if he thought martyrdom might be useful. I looked at the young faces around me, eight, nine, or tenmy agealmost nineteen Terrestrial yearsand then at Seans face, seemingly old and experienced at twelve. Quietly, as a group, we raised our hands with fingers spread widethe old Lunar Independence Symbol for the free expression of human abilities and ideas, tolerance against oppression, handshake instead of fist.