Trapped - Mars Born Book One (2 page)

  The living areas in HabRovs were one of my favorite places to be. With windows all around one could look out on Mars, and yet be simultaneously surrounded by life. It touched something deeply human in me, I didn’t understand it yet, but I knew it felt right.

  Rumer went to a chest by our collapsed beds and removed a folded bundle of clothes and handed them to Taavi, “Why don’t you go ahead and bathe first, while we begin the food. Do you have any dietary restrictions?”

  “Me? Nah, I eat everything!” he grinned, and I directed him to the wash closet.

  When I joined Rumer in the kitchenette she gave me a strained smile, and silently signed, “We’ll report in the morning, in the mean time we need to be careful.”

  From what I had seen the young man didn’t look like much of a threat, “I don’t think he’ll hurt us. He looks pretty innocent.”

  “I agree,” she responded, handing me a pot, “But, I don’t mean that. We can’t let him mess up the mission.”

  “You’re sooo dramatic. We have the data. The mission’s done,” my annoyance from earlier flared back to life, “We’re not that important.”

  “Why are you always so difficult?” she asked. 

  Me difficult? I gave her an exaggerated eye roll, “What happened to Rumer ‘the diplomat, uniter and connector of all the young Martians to build a truly great and just human civilization, blah blah blah?” I paused, “You know, I think maybe you are just jealous the mysterious stranger talked more to me than you.”

   “Jealous? He’s just a kid, Emory”

  “Don’t be rude!”

  “I am
really
not,” she said with words, and went to clear the Hab’s center table.

  Later, after we had all washed and dressed in clean clothing, Taavi in borrowed loose fitting grays, we sat together around the table and ate. We had brought fresh vegetables, tubers, and fish from Cradle, and ate them with cold water. He seemed confused when we filled his cup for him. I remembered seeing other guests throughout my childhood respond the same when we served them in Cradle. Our cups were large and round, almost bowl like, unlike the ones I had seen in other colonies meant to be held in just one hand. Rumer was kind enough to demonstrate but not comment.

  At first we were too hungry to speak, and ate eagerly.

  When we had finished most of the food, Taavi launched into the story of his day. He told us he had been traveling many hours, and described the changing land below as he flew, although he was clearly leaving details out, like why he was traveling to Noctis City in the first place. Every time we would ask, he would direct the conversation away. All the while his smile was getting bigger and bigger.

  I liked his smile; there was something goofy but genuine about it. It fit the rest of his appearance perfectly. Black curls, loose ones, not tight and crinkly like Rumer’s and mine, framed his face, and he shaved away what hair might have grown on it. I thought both of them were crazy for not just buzzing their hair off like I did. It made helmets so much easier, no worrying about it getting caught. But Rumer liked hers too much and would braid colored ribbons into it. It was a fashion common in our crater. I wondered if people did that where Taavi was from too.

  Night fell as we talked and the stars were visible above, twinkling through foliage, creating hundreds of soft reflections dancing on the leaves. I could see the pulsing glow of buttons from the comm center by the lab.

  Rumer took a deep sip of her water and nudged my shoulder, “Hey, Emory. Dim the lights for a moment.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “Just do it.”

  I did, and Rumer pointed up, “See that star?”

  “Which one? That one?”

  “Yeah, the blue one. Know what that is?”

  After a pause is was Taavi who answered, “It’s Earth.”

  “Yep. Who would have thought… Do you remember,” she asked me, “when we were children, and they showed us Earth for the first time? They dimmed all the lights in the dome and had us paddle out to the middle of the water. We laid there looking up. It looked like any other star, just a bit brighter, though nothing like Jupiter or anything. But, then they told us somebody was standing there on that distant planet, that distant world looking right back up at us. That all of humanity was looking up, waiting to see what world we were going to build.”

  The silence that followed several minutes was a comfortable one.

  “Well.. I am glad we’re here,” Taavi broke the quiet, signing as he spoke. My eyes had adjusted to the new lighting enough that I could see his relentless smile had not faded.

  “Me too,” I sighed, “I wish I could be out here on the land like this every night.” 

  “Why can’t you?”

  Rumer coughed, “It’s not like the HabRov belongs to just us. Everybody in the crater decides what it’s best use is.”

  “There is only one?” He asked curiously.

  “No, we have four. Some of the others from our cohort are on their own assignments right now. But, we always leave at least one for backup at Cradle.”

  A strange look crossed Taavi’s face, “So, you have cohorts too?”

  “Yes,” Rumer answered, “They are pretty much the norm throughout the Southern Hemisphere. Though, I heard there are a few settlements in the far north that do Earth families. But really, it just takes too long to grow a population that way.”

  “Hmmph, that’s true. There aren’t a lot of us. It can get boring,” Taavi shrugged.

 
Ugh, there she goes bringing politics in. How boring,
I thought, and tried to pull the conversation back to the planet, “So, you had never been this far North?

  “No, uh, did I say that?” He answered quickly, then asked, “What about you? Have you ever been out of Arygre?”

  “A few times, but we haven’t gotten to travel much. I was hoping to see more this trip. Especially some of the ancient lava flows. This site is right next to one. But, it’s too rugged to take the HabRov in.”

  “Why didn’t you just walk around then?”

  I bit my lip. Why indeed? Because Rumer wanted to impress our elders, and I didn’t want my sister to be disappointed? “Because we have been on a tight schedule,” I answered instead.

  “We could take a look in the morning. You could show me?” 

  My pulse leapt.

  Rumer thumped her cup on the table, and sat up perfectly straight, “Remember we aren’t supposed to go on EVAs until we get home,” then she added in a very quiet voice I could barely make out, “Plus there’s still work to be done on the data.”

  “Taavi’s suit has a radio. We have two now,” I protested, “so we’ll be fine.”

  She opened her mouth and then closed it again.

  “See! It’ll be fine.” I insisted.

  “We don’t have the right equipment,” she glared at me.

  I flicked my wrist, “We won’t go far, we’ll just look,” and then imitated Taavi’s grin, “it won’t even disrupt your schedule.”

  She gave me a sour look and I was pretty sure I had won. Unless she wanted to tattle and make us look like we were still five orbits old, there wasn’t much she could do. 

  Before getting up to clear the table Rumer signed the single word, “don’t”.

  After an uncomfortable pause, Taavi asked, “So, earlier, what did she mean about paddling on water?”

  “We have a lake in the center of our crater, for temperature regulation, and growing fish,” I answered, “it was one of the first things they built after the main dome went up.”

  “Neat! What else does your colony have?”

Chapter Two

S
leeping was difficult. Our fold-out beds were comfortable. As comfortable as any we had back in Cradle, but I kept checking the clock and of course finding that only half an hour had passed since I had checked before. When at last it was almost dawn I turned over and saw Taavi sitting straight up and cross-legged in his borrowed cot. His dark face barely visible, except for what was becoming an iconic smile. 

  I flashed a grin back at him and slipped out from under the woven covers to dress.

  The suit’s under piece felt particularly cold when I wriggled into it. It was designed with a network of tiny tubes, almost like blood vessels that channeled moisture away from the skin and regulated temperature. After a few minutes of wearing it, it was easy to forget they were there. But, in the first moments of putting it on, it was like wrapping yourself in tight strings, or spiderwebs.

  Rumer’s bed was right next to mine. So I had to be careful not to wake her. I tiptoed by, breath held. Silently I begged her not to wake up. It would be so much easier that way. I wouldn’t have to feel guilty. I didn’t want to argue again, and I didn’t want to see her look disappointed in me.

  When I reach the stairs to follow Taavi down I glanced back over my shoulder. She moved, and for a second I thought I saw her eyes open, but then she lay still and I was sure she slept.

  The cargo hatch clanked open to reveal the outside world. Only a few stars were left and to the east the sky was just beginning to show its hazy blue sunrise. The HabRov was positioned at the edge of a scarp, and beyond that the Nereidum Montes towered. They formed a U around the Arygre basin, and had been an ever present feature in Rumer and my lives.

  Only 600 meters from the Rover to the South an ancient lava flow crossed the land. Its undulating ripples frozen in place. Rumer and I had not spent any time in the lava field, as our samples had all been taken from escarpments north and west of the HabRov, so there were no tracks from our boots or the tire marks from the Rover. Sometime geologically recent, maybe when humans were first descending from trees, a nearby impact had spewed ejecta over the land, fragmenting the flow. Millennia of erosion and gravity’s ever present pull had dotted the land with boulders and gullies. The occasional gust of wind picked up dust that gave the air a rusty tint.

  Our site could get very windy, the first day we had arrived the gales picked up so much dust it was difficult to see more than a few meters. So I was quite relieved that that morning save for the occasional breeze, it was still.

  “Wow...” crackled over the radio from Taavi.

  We stepped out and the door closed behind us.

  Because of the thin atmosphere, shadows were deep, so deep that even in midday they could be hard to see into. I clicked my suit’s light off and carefully passed the ring of boot prints around the HabRov. We would have to move slowly to not trip, but I didn’t want artificial light spoiling the magic.

  Taavi followed me. We walked for a few hundred meters and climbed onto a low boulder. It wasn’t even a meter high, but standing on it felt satisfying somehow. After a few seconds of looking around I moved to climb down.

  Taavi grabbed my arm and signed, “Wait.”

  We stood for maybe a quarter of an hour, the sky’s color slowly shifting above us.

  “It’s so... red.”

  Wind carried orange dust around us, like morning fog on Cradle’s lake.

  I laughed, “Is Mars not red where you are from?”

  “No. Not like this at least.”

  “Oh, right. Aurora is at the pole.”

  “Near the pole, yes,” he paused, and I followed his gaze to the east. The sun had just crested a peak, “This time of year everything is dark. We never get such fast, changing sunrises. It’s…
stunning
. I worry if I blink I’ll miss something!”

  What timing! As he spoke a blanket of sunlight washed over the peaks, illuminating the far slopes of the Nereidums and some of the tallest of the nearby boulders. My breath caught.

  “Look!” he pointed at a jagged one in the middle of the hardened lava river. The light had reached just its tip, making it look like a flame, like a giant candle, surrounded by shadow, “Come on!”

  Taavi jumped off the rock, looked back up and me and grinned, then turned to run.

  No way was I going to let him beat me! I bounded from the rock and crunched after him. Wow, did it feel good. Alive! I hadn’t felt a rush like that since I was child.

  Taavi was fast. But so was I. I caught up to him in just a few seconds, but couldn’t push past. We ran next to each other for a moment. I could feel the sand and rubble under my boots, and then nothing.

  I grasped for something, anything to hold on to, but all I found was Taavi as we both dropped into a pit of darkness.

  Ares!

  Was that Taavi’s leg I had landed on? He pushed me off of him, and I heard him curse under his breath, then, “A-are you okay, Emory?”

  “I don’t know,” it was completely black except for a dusty crack of light above us. I clicked my light on and checked the pressure gauges on my suit, “Get up! Let me check your suit,” I ordered. The realization of what had just happened released a swarm of insects in my gut.

  Taavi started to, then winced, “Shit! My ankle!”

  Oh, no, oh, no... What are we going to do if he can’t walk?
My hands shook.

  “Get up anyway. I have to check your suit! You have to check mine!” my voice sounded shrill.

  “Uuuugh!” he groaned, but obeyed and let me examine his suit while he shined his own light on mine.

  We could find no serious damage or leaks on either of our suits, thankfully. If we had well… I didn’t want to think about the consequences of losing suit pressure, or running out of air to breathe. When we finished he collapsed back to the pit’s floor.

  “I’m sorry... but this hurts,” it was barely more than a whimper.

  He suddenly looked very young, the excitement and wonder from earlier replaced with pain and fright. His face looked empty without the smile I had become accustomed to.

  We were going to have to get back to the HabRov somehow. But how? We were in a small crevice. It looked like it had once been part of a lava tube, but the sides were collapsed in. The walls didn’t look scalable, not without training and climbing gloves at least. But maybe I could jump and reach the edge of the opening.

  On Earth it would have been an impossible jump, but in Mars’ gravity there was a chance.

  There wasn’t space for a running jump, only a few steps. I took them anyway.
Here goes nothing,
I thought, and launched myself towards the ledge. For one beautiful, hopeful second I thought I had it, but then my body slammed into pit’s wall.

  Taavi was watching. How embarrassing. At least he was polite enough not to say anything. Then again, maybe his ankle hurt too much.

   “How far was I?”

  “I don’t know,” he grunted, “half a meter?”

  Ares! That wasn’t good enough.

  I had to try again. This time I fell back down and landed on my butt. I had to be careful not to fall on my air tank, or rip the suit. Our suits weren’t built to take much damage. Unprotected by a suit, the martian atmosphere could kill you in a multitude of unpleasant ways, to put it mildly.

  Okay, think Emory!

  I looked at the far wall and wondered if I could jump off it then across and up. No. There was no way that could work. But if I could use my legs to help me climb, find some sort of foot hold, maybe, just maybe I could reach the ledge. I knew that as long as I could get a good hold I could pull myself up. Assuming the hold was sturdy.

  Third time is a charm, right? My heart was pumping so hard I could feel my pulse against the suit’s under piece. We had to get out. I stepped back. Three big breaths and I bounded at the wall.

  My right foot hit the wall and it pushed me higher. But instead of towards the ledge it propelled me away and my arms swung at empty air. I crashed back down to the pit’s floor.

  I was panting.
Don’t panic, Emory,
I told myself and sat down, then rested my faceplate on my knees.

  Taavi clicked his radio on, “Hello? Rumer? Anybody? S.O.S.”

  There was silence.

  “There’s no line of sight. That probably won’t work.”

  “Maybe someone else heard us?” He didn’t sound like he believed himself either.

  “Maybe,” I answered, I didn’t want to scare him. But, who would have heard us? The closest settlement was Cradle and that was several hundred kilometers off. Maybe Rumer would come, but even if she had heard our call, how would she find us?

  “How much oxygen do you have left?” I asked. Dread began gnawing at my stomach.

  “I don’t... this suit says 60%. How much is that?”

  “You’re joking? You don’t know how much your own suit uses?!” it wasn’t the nicest way to respond, but my patience was all but spent. Only an idiot didn’t learn the basics of their own suit before trusting their life to it.

  “Look, it wasn’t mine. It’s not my fault,” he threw his hands in front of him and looked away.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He didn’t answer. Maybe he didn’t hear. But somehow I doubted that.