The Martians

‘Sitting out all night thinking. Sun half-born five miles to the east. Blood pulses through all this still air: The edge of a mountain, great distance away. Nothing moves but the sun, Blood to fire as it rises. How many, these dawns? How far, our home? Stars fade. Big rocks splinter The mind’s great fear: Peace here. Peace, here.’

It was a fine moment, Eileen thought, made so by what was specifically human in the landscape. She dressed with the rest of them, deliberately turning away from John Nobleton as she rooted around in her drawer of the waggon, and they fell to making dinner. For more than an hour after Olympus Mons blotted out the sun the sky stayed light; pink in the west, shading to brick-black in the east. They cooked and ate by this illumination. Their meal, planned by Roger, was a thick vegetable stew, seemingly fresh French bread, and coffee. Most of them kept off the common band during long stretches of the day, and now they discussed what they had seen, for they explored different side canyons as they went. The main canyon they were following was a dry outflow wash, formed by flash floods working down a small fault line in a large tilted plateau. It was relatively young, Roger said – meaning two billion years old, but younger than most of the water-carved canyons on Mars. Wind erosion and the marvellous erratics created by volcanic bombardment from Olympus Mons gave the expedition members a lot of features to discuss: beach terracing from long-lost lakes, meandering streambeds, lava bombs shaped like giant teardrops, or coloured in a way that implied certain gases in copious quantities in the Hesperian atmosphere … This last, plus the fact that these canyons had been carved by water, naturally provoked a lot of speculation about the possibilities of ancient Martian life. And the passing water, and the resiliencies of the rock, had created forms fantastical enough to seem the sculpture of some alien art. So they talked, with the enthusiasm and free speculation that only amateurs seem to bring to a subject: Sunday paper areologists, Eileen thought. There wasn’t a proper scientist among them; she was the closest thing to it, and the only thing she knew was the rudiments of areology. Yet she listened to the talk with interest.

Roger, on the other hand, never contributed to these free-ranging discussions, and didn’t even listen. At the moment he was engaged in setting up his cot and ‘bedroom’ wall. There were panels provided so that each sleeper, or couple, could block off an area around their cot; no one took advantage of them but Roger, the rest preferring to lie out under the stars together. Roger set two panels against the sloping side of the dome, leaving just enough room for his cot under the clear low roof. It was yet another way that he set himself apart, and watching him Eileen shook her head. Expedition guides were usually so amiable – how did he keep his job? Did he ever get repeat customers? She set out her cot, observing his particular preparations: he was one of the tall Martians, well over two metres (Lamarckism was back in vogue, as it appeared that the more generations of ancestors you had on Mars, the taller you grew; it was true for Eileen herself, who was fourth-generation, or yonsei): long-faced, long-nosed, homely as English royalty … long feet that were clumsy once out of their boots … He rejoined them, however, this evening, which was not always his custom, and they lit a lantern as the wine-dark sky turned black and filled with stars. Bedding arranged, they sat down on cots and the floor around the lantern’s dim light, and talked some more. Kevin and Doran began a chess game.

For the first time, they asked Eileen questions about her area of expertise. Was it true that the southern highlands now held the crust of both primeval hemispheres? Did the straight line of the three great Tharsis volcanoes indicate a hot spot in the mantle? Sunday paper areology again, but Eileen answered as best she could. Roger appeared to be listening.

‘Do you think there’ll ever be a marsquake we can actually feel?’ he asked with a grin.

The others laughed, and Eileen felt herself blush. It was a common jest; sure enough, he followed it up: ‘You sure you seismologists aren’t just inventing these marsquakes to keep yourself in employment?’

‘You’re out here enough,’ she replied. ‘One of these days a fault will open up and swallow you.’

‘She hopes,’ Ivan said. The sniping between them had of course not gone unnoticed.

‘So you think I might actually feel a quake some day,’ Roger said.

‘Sure. There’s thousands every day, you know.’

‘But that’s because your seismographs register every footstep on the planet. I mean, a big one?’

‘Of course. I can’t think of anyone who deserves a shaking more.’

‘Might even have to use the Richter scale, eh?’

Now that was unfair, because the Harrow scale was necessary to make finer distinctions between low-intensity quakes. But later in the same conversation, she got her own back. Cheryl and Mrs Mitsumu were asking Roger about where he had travelled before in his work, how many expeditions he had guided and the like. ‘I’m a canyon guide,’ he replied at one point.

‘So when will you graduate to Marineris?’ Eileen asked.

‘Graduate?’

‘Sure, isn’t Marineris the ultimate goal of every canyon man?’

‘Well, to a certain extent –’

‘You’d better get assigned there in a hurry, hadn’t you – I hear it takes a whole lifetime to learn those canyons.’ Roger looked to be about forty.

‘Oh not for our Roger,’ Mrs Mitsumu said, joining in the ribbing.

‘No one ever learns Marineris,’ Roger protested. ‘It’s eight thousand kilometres long, with hundreds of side canyons –’

‘What about Gustafsen?’ Eileen said. I thought he and a couple others knew every inch of it.’

‘Well …’

‘Better start working on that transfer.’

‘Well, I’m a Tharsis fan myself,’ he explained, in a tone so apologetic that the whole group burst out laughing. Eileen smiled at him and went to get some tea started.

After the tea was distributed, John and Ivan turned the conversation to another favourite topic, the terraforming of the canyons. ‘This system would be as beautiful as Lazuli,’ John said. ‘Can you imagine water running down the drops we took today? Tundra grass everywhere, finches in the air, little horned toads down in the cracks … alpine flowers to give it some colour.’

‘Yes, it will be exquisite,’ Ivan agreed. With the same material that made their tent, several canyons and craters had been domed, and thin cold air pumped beneath, allowing arctic and alpine life to exist. Lazuli was the greatest of these terraria, but many more were springing up.

‘Unnh,’ Roger muttered.

‘You don’t agree?’ Ivan asked.

Roger shook his head. ‘The best you can do is make an imitation Earth. That’s not what Mars is for. Since we’re on Mars, we should adjust to what it is, and enjoy it for that.’

‘Oh but there will always be natural canyons and mountains,’ John said. ‘There’s as much land surface on Mars as on Earth, right?’

‘Just barely.’

‘So with all that land, it will take centuries for it all to be terraformed. In this gravity, maybe never. But centuries, at least.’

‘Yes, but that’s the direction it’s headed,’ Roger said. ‘If they start orbiting minors and blowing open volcanoes to provide gases, they’ll change the whole surface.’

‘But wouldn’t that be marvellous!’ Ivan said.

‘You don’t seriously object to making life on the open surface possible, do you?’ Mrs Mitsumu asked.

Roger shrugged. I like it the way it is.’

John and the rest continued to discuss the considerable problems of terraforming, and after a bit Roger got up and went to bed. An hour later Eileen got up to do the same, and the others followed her, brushing teeth, visiting the latrine, talking more … Long after the others had settled down, Eileen stood under one edge of the tent dome, looking up at the stars. There near Scorpio, as a high evening star, was the Earth, a distinctly bluish point, accompanied by its fainter companion, the moon. A double planet of resonant beauty in the host of constellations. Tonight it gave her an inexplicable yearning to see it, to stand on it.

Suddenly John appeared at her side, standing too close to her, shoulder to shoulder, his arm rising, as if with a life of its own, to circle her waist. ‘Hike’ll be over soon,’ he said. She didn’t respond. He was a very handsome man; aquiline features, jet black hair. He didn’t know how tired Eileen was of handsome men. She had been as impetuous in her affairs as a pigeon in a park, and it had brought her a lot of grief. Her last three lovers had all been quite good-looking, and the last of them, Eric, had been rich as well. His house in Burroughs was made of rare stones, as all the rich new houses were: a veritable castle of dark purple chert, inlaid with chalcedony and jade, rose quartz and jasper, its floors intricately flagged patterns of polished yellow slate, coral and bright turquoise. And the parties! Croquet picnics in the maze garden, dances in the ballroom, masques all about the extensive grounds … But Eric himself, brilliant talker though he was, had turned out to be rather superficial, and promiscuous as well, a discovery that Eileen had been slow to make. It had hurt her feelings. And since that had been the third intimate relationship to go awry in four years, she felt tired and unsure of herself, unhappy, and particularly sick of that easy mutual attraction of the attractive which had got her into such painful trouble, and which was what John was relying on at this very moment.

Of course he knew nothing of all this, as his arm hugged her waist (he certainly didn’t have Eric’s way with words), but she wasn’t inclined to excuse his ignorance. She mulled over methods of diplomatically slipping out of his grasp and back to a comfortable distance. This was certainly the most he had made so far in the way of a move. She decided on one of her feints – leaning into him to peck his cheek, then pulling away when his guard was down – and had started the manoeuvre, when with a bump one of Roger’s panels was knocked aside and Roger stumbled out, in his shorts, bleary-eyed. ‘Oh?’ he said sleepily, as he noticed them; then saw who they were, and their position – ‘Ah,’ he said, and stumped away toward the latrine.

Eileen took advantage of the disturbance to slip away from John and go to bed, which was no-trespass territory, as John well knew. She lay down in some agitation. That smile – that ‘Ah’ – the whole incident irritated her so much that she had trouble falling asleep. And the double star, one blue, one white, returned her stare all the while.

The next day it was Eileen and Roger’s turn to pull the waggon. This was the first time they had pulled together, and while the rest ranged ahead or to the sides, they solved the many small problems presented by the task of getting the waggon down the canyon. An occasional drop-off was tall enough to require winch, block and tackle – sometimes even one or two of the other travellers – but mostly it was a matter of guiding the flexible little cart down the centre of the wash. They agreed on band 33 for their private communication, but aside from the business at hand, they conversed very little. ‘Look out for that rock.’ ‘How nice, that triangle of shards.’ To Eileen it seemed clear that Roger had very little interest in her or her observations. Or else, it occurred to her, he thought the same of her.

At one point she asked, ‘What if we let the waggon slip right now?’ It was poised over the edge of a six- or seven-metre drop, and they were winching it down.

‘It would fall,’ his voice replied solemnly in her ear, and through his faceplate she could see him smiling.

She kicked pebbles at him. ‘Come on, would it break? Are we in danger of our lives most every minute?’

‘No way. These things are practically indestructible. Otherwise it would be too dangerous to use them. They’ve dropped them off four-hundred-metre cliffs – not sheer you understand, but steep – and it doesn’t even dent them.’

‘I see. So when you saved the waggon from slipping down that slope yesterday, you weren’t actually saving our lives.’

‘Oh no. Did you think that? I just didn’t want to climb down that hill and recover it.’

‘Ah.’ She let the waggon thump down, and they descended to it. After that there were no exchanges between them for a long time. Eileen contemplated the fact that she would be back in Burroughs in three or four days, with nothing in her life resolved, nothing different about it.

Still, it would be good to get back to the open air, the illusion of open air. Running water. Plants.

Roger clicked his tongue in distress.

‘What?’ Eileen asked.

‘Sandstorm coming.’ He switched to the common band, which Eileen could now hear. ‘Everyone get back to the main canyon, please, there’s a sandstorm on the way.’

There were groans over the common band. No one was actually in sight. Roger bounced down the canyon with impeccable balance, bounced back up. ‘No good campsites around,’ he complained. Eileen watched him; he noticed and pointed at the western horizon. ‘See that feathering in the sky?’

All Eileen could see was a patch where the sky’s pink was perhaps a bit yellow, but she said ‘Yes?’

‘Duststorm. Coming our way, too. I think I feel the wind already.’ He put a hand up. Eileen thought that feeling the wind through a suit when the atmospheric pressure was thirty millibars was strictly a myth, a guide’s boast, but she stuck her hand up as well, and thought that there might be a faint fluctuating pressure on it.

Ivan, Kevin and the Mitsumus appeared far down the canyon. ‘Any campsites down there?’ Roger asked.

‘No, the canyon gets even narrower.’

Then the sandstorm was upon them, sudden as a flash flood. Eileen could see fifty metres at the most; they were in a shifting dome of flying sand, it seemed, and it was as dark as their long twilights, or darker.

Over band 33, in her left ear, Eileen heard a long sigh. Then in her right ear, over the common band, Roger’s voice: ‘You all down the canyon there, stick together and come on up to us. Doran, Cheryl, John, let’s hear from you – where are you?’

‘Roger?’ It was Cheryl on the common band, sounding frightened.

‘Yes, Cheryl, where are you?’

A sharp thunder roll of static: ‘We’re in a sandstorm, Roger! I can just barely hear you.’

‘Are you with Doran and John?’

‘I’m with Doran, and he’s just over this ridge, I can hear him, but he says he can’t hear you.’

‘Get together with him and start back for the main canyon. What about John?’

‘I don’t know, I haven’t seen him in over an hour.’

‘All right. Stay with Doran –’

‘Roger?’

‘Yes?’

‘Doran’s here now.’

‘I can hear you again,’ Doran’s voice said. He sounded more scared than Cheryl. ‘Over that ridge there was too much interference.’

‘Yeah, that’s what’s happening with John I expect,’ Roger said.

Eileen watched the dim form of their guide move up the canyon’s side-slope in the wavering amber dusk of the storm. The ‘sand’ in the thin air was mostly dust, or fines even smaller than dust particles, like smoke; but occasional larger grains made a light tik tik tik against her faceplate.

‘Roger, we can’t seem to find the main canyon,’ Doran declared, scratchy in the interference.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, we’ve gone up the canyon we descended, but we must have taken a different fork, because we’ve run into a box canyon.’

Eileen shivered in her warm suit. Each canyon system lay like a lightning bolt on the tilted land, a pattern of ever-branching forks and tributaries; in the storm’s gloom it would be very easy to get lost; and they still hadn’t heard from John.

‘Well, drop back to the last fork and try the next one to the south. As I recall, you’re over in the next canyon north of us.’

‘Right,’ Doran said. ‘We’ll try that.’

The four who had been farther down the main canyon appeared now like ghosts in mist. ‘Here we are,’ Ivan said with satisfaction.

‘Nobleton! John! Do you read me?’

No answer.

‘He must be off a ways,’ Roger said. He approached the waggon. ‘Help me pull this up the slope.’

‘Why?’ Dr Mitsumu asked.

‘We’re setting the tent up there. Sleep on an angle tonight, you bet.’

‘But why up there?’ Dr Mitsumu persisted. ‘Couldn’t we set up the tent here in the wash?’

‘It’s the old arroyo problem,’ Roger replied absently. ‘If the storm keeps up the canyon could start spilling sand as if it were water. We don’t want to be buried.’

They pulled it up the slope with little difficulty, and secured it with chock rocks under the wheels. Roger set up the tent mostly by himself, working too quickly for the others to help.

‘Okay, you four get inside and get everything going. Eileen –’

‘Roger?’ It was Doran.

‘Yes.’

‘We’re still having trouble finding the main canyon.’

‘We thought we were in it,’ Cheryl said, ‘but when we descended we came to a big drop-off!’

‘Okay. Hold on a minute where you are. Eileen, I want you to come up the main canyon with me and serve as a radio relay. You’ll stay right in the wash, so you’ll be able to walk right back down to the tent if we get separated.’

‘Sure,’ Eileen said. The others were carefully rolling the waggon into the lock. Roger paused to oversee that operation, and then he gestured at Eileen through the tawny murk and took off upcanyon. Eileen followed.

They made rapid time. On band 33 Eileen heard the guide say, in an unworried conversational tone, ‘I hate it when this happens.’ It was as if he were referring to a shoelace breaking.

‘I bet you do!’ Eileen replied. ‘How are we going to find John?’

‘Go high. Always go high when lost. I believe I told John that with the rest of you.’

‘Yes.’ Eileen had forgotten, however, and she wondered if John had too.

‘Even if he’s forgotten,’ Roger said, ‘when we get high enough, the radios will be less obstructed and we’ll be able to talk to him. Or at the worst, we can bounce our signals off a satellite and back down. But I doubt we’ll have to do that. Hey Doran!’ he said over the common band.

‘Yeah?’ Doran sounded very worried.

‘What can you see now?’

‘Um – we’re on a spine – it’s all we can see. The canyon to the right –’

‘South?’

‘Yeah, the south, is the one we were in. We thought the one here to the north would be the main one, but it’s too little, and there’s a drop-off in it.’

‘Okay, well, my APS has you still north of us, so cross back to the opposite spine and we’ll talk from there. Can you do that?’

‘Sure,’ Doran said, affronted. ‘It’ll take a while, maybe.’

‘That’s all right, take your time.’ The lack of concern in Roger’s voice was almost catching, but Eileen felt that John was in danger; the suits would keep one alive for forty-eight hours at least, but these sandstorms often lasted a week, or more.

‘Let’s keep moving up,’ Roger said on band 33. ‘I don’t think we have to worry about those two.’

They climbed up the canyon floor, which rose at an average angle of about thirty degrees. Eileen noticed all the dust sliding loosely downhill, sand grains rolling, dust wafting down; sometimes she couldn’t see her feet, or make out the ground, so that she had to step by feeling.

‘How are you doing back in camp?’ Roger asked on the common band.

‘Just fine,’ Dr Mitsumu answered. ‘It’s on too much of a tilt to stand, so we’re just sitting around and listening to the developments up there.’

‘Still in your suits?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. One of you stay suited for sure.’

‘Whatever you say.’

Roger stopped where the main canyon was joined by two large tributary canyons, branching in each direction. ‘Watch out, I’m going to turn up the volume on the radio,’ he warned Eileen and the others. She adjusted the controls on her wrist.

‘JOHN! Hey, John! Oh, Jo-uhnnn! Come in, John! Respond on common band. Please.’

The radio’s static sounded like the hiss of flying sand grains. Nothing within it but crackling.

‘Hmm,’ Roger said in Eileen’s left ear.

‘Hey Roger!’

‘Cheryl! How are you doing?’

‘Well, we’re in what we think is the main canyon, but … ’

Doran continued, embarrassed: ‘We really can’t be sure, now. Everything looks the same.’

‘You’re telling me,’ Roger replied. Eileen watched him bend over and, apparently, inspect his feet. He moved around some in this jack-knifed position. ‘Try going to the wash at the lowest point in the canyon you’re in.’

‘We’re there.’

‘Okay, lean down and see if you find any bootprints. Make sure they aren’t yours. They’ll be faint by now, but Eileen and I just went upcanyon, so there should still be –’

‘Hey! Here’s some,’ Cheryl said.

‘Where?’ said Doran.

‘Over here, look.’

Radio hiss.

‘Yeah, Roger, we’ve found some going upcanyon and down.’

‘Good. Now start downcanyon. Dr M., are you still in your suit?’

‘Just as you said, Roger.’

‘Good. Why don’t you get out of the tent and go down to the wash. Keep your bearing, count your steps and all. Wait for Cheryl and Doran. That way they’ll be able to find the tent as they come down.’

‘Sounds good.’

After some chatter: ‘You all down there switch to band 5 to talk on, and just listen to common. We need to hear up here.’ Then on band 33: ‘Let’s go up some more. I believe I remember a gendarme on the ridge up here with a good vantage.’

‘Fine. Where do you think he could be?’

‘You got me.’

When Roger located the outcropping he had in mind, they called again, and again got no response. Eileen then installed herself on top of the rocky knob on the ridge: an eerie place with nothing to see but the fine sand whipped about her, in a ghost wind barely felt on her back, like the lightest puff of an air-conditioner, despite the visual resemblance to some awful typhoon. She called for John from time to time. Roger ranged to north and south over difficult terrain, always staying within radio distance of Eileen, although once he had a hard time relocating her.

Three hours passed this way, and Roger’s easygoing tone changed; not to worry, Eileen judged, but rather to boredom, and annoyance with John. Eileen herself was extremely concerned. If John had mistaken north for south, or fallen …

‘I suppose we should go higher,’ Roger sighed. ‘Although I thought I saw him back when we brought the waggon down here, and I doubt he’d go back up.’

Suddenly Eileen’s earphones crackled. ‘Psss ftunk bdzz,’ and it was clear again. ‘Ckk ssssger, lo! ckk.’

‘Sounds like he may have indeed gone high,’ Roger said with satisfaction, and, Eileen noticed, just a touch of relief. ‘Hey, John! Nobleton! Do you read us?’

‘Ckk ssssssss … yeah, hey … sssss kuk sssss.’

‘We read you badly, John! Keep moving, keep talking! Are you all –’

‘Roger! ckk. Hey, Roger!’

‘John! We read you, are you all right?’

‘… sssss … not exactly sure where I am.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes! Just lost.’

‘Well not any more, we hope. Tell us what you see.’

‘Nothing!’

So began the long process of locating him and bringing him back. Eileen ranged left and right on her own, helping to get a fix on John, who had been instructed to stay still and keep talking.

‘You won’t believe it.’ John’s voice was entirely free of fear; in fact, he sounded elated. ‘You won’t believe it, Eileen, Roger, crk! Just before the storm hit I was way off down a tributary to the south, and I found …’

‘Found what?’

‘Well … I’ve found some things I’m sure must be fossils. I swear! A whole rock formation of them!’