VISUAL EFFECTS / CH. 19:DISEMBARKATION
10A.M. SUNSOL, 17TH AUG, 2270, MARS ORBIT
The Celestia had arrived at the orbital station about an hour earlier, just an hour after a full tourist-class ship which had left while they'd been en-route. Cecilia had decided there was not really much need to rush. There was going to be a long queue for passenger spaces on the shuttles, even though they were busing people and cargo down to the surface continually.
There were four hours before the next arriving ship, so as long as she didn't take that long, all rushing would do was get her was a longer wait in the orbital station. She could have rushed and been one of the first Celestia passengers to join the queue, but she'd decided to spend the time on her hairstyle instead. She'd wanted to try for one that peacocks would cry for.
“Good bye, Cecilia Thornthwaite,” Barry Braithwaite said, coming up behind her. “You've certainly livened up the trip. I'll miss you. Your hair looks amazing, by the way.”
She looked back at the older man she'd hoped to avoid. “You are just not going to give up, are you? If do we ever meet again, Barry, don't get your hopes up. You're not my type.”
“You can't blame a guy for trying.”
“Yes, I can. Especially when he doesn't take 'no, get lost and keep your eyes to yourself' for an answer.”
Barry shrugged. He'd heard it before, quite a lot of times actually. He'd been fairly sure that it was an act, that eventually she'd fall for his charms. Usually, on previous trips, he'd managed to get at least a kiss and a cuddle out of his target-passenger by the end of the journey. This time... he'd had her almost crying in his arms and had actually felt protective towards her, and then... he'd got nothing but hostility in reply. He'd thought... He snuffed out that clearly optimistic thought. Oh well, she obviously meant it when she said she didn't like him.
“Tell you what, Barry,” Cecilia offered, “I expect there's still a queue, so why don't I tattoo 'sleazeball' on your forehead? That way anyone who has got some doubts can see my assessment of you.”
“You really don't like me, do you?” he asked, “What did I do wrong?”
“Other than decide you'd try to court me, you mean?”
“Was that so wrong?”
She considered, weighing things up, and answered: “naah. I suppose there's maybe even a chance you might have got somewhere, in different circumstances. But the timing? Deciding to worm your way into my affections just when I find out I'm being forcibly separated from my boyfriend and all vulnerable? That really stinks to high heaven. That says you're a self-centred, manipulative, sleaze-ball.”
She pushed her way out of the airlock, as he digested that. He called something via the intercom as she was leaving the outer air-lock door, but she wasn't sure if it was “sorry” or “so long “.
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10.15 A.M. WAITING AREA, MARS ORBITAL STATION
“That's the most complicated hairstyle I think I've ever seen you in.”
Evangeline greeted her as Cecilia entered the waiting area. Everyone was back in magnetic boots. “You're planning on making an impression on someone?”
“Mostly it was because I could. I expect I'll not have this much time to waste for a long time. And, of course, zero-gee is great for setting impressive hairstyles.”
“Good job they're not going to insist on helmets,” Chris said.
“I'd probably refuse anyway,” Cecilia grinned, “you know me. At least until my ears start to pop, anyway.”
They chatted a bit more, and then Chris and Evangeline saw Cecilia turn pale and go rigid. “There's Ralph,” she whispered. The front of the waiting area had been partitioned off with transparent screens, and now it was being filled up with grumpy-looking prisoners and watchful guards. Most of the prisoners were looking around at the surroundings, presumably different to the cells from their trip. So far, it didn't look like Ralph had seen Cecilia.
“If I talk to him, I'm a crim, and an oath-breaker,” Cecilia said, transfixed.
“Maybe if you signal to him, too. Turn away, Cecilia, don't look,” Evangeline said quietly.
“I didn't expect him to be here. I didn't expect to ever see him again, but there he is.”
Chris noticed the prisoners noticing Cecilia's flamboyant hair and nudging one another to point her out. He used his rugby-player bulk to block the view between her and Ralph. “Best if he doesn't see you, Cecilia, isn't it?” She nodded, and finally turned her back.
Evangeline had a bright idea, and dialed 222. She hadn't been sure who'd pick it up, but recognised Barry's concerned voice. “Barry, just the man. Someone's trying to get Cecilia in trouble. A bunch of crims have just been put on the other side of a transparent partition. Guess who's among them.”
“How's she reacting?”
“No problems so far.”
“I'll make some calls. I don't know if I can do much, though.”
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10.30AM
The partition was mostly sound-proofed, but it was pretty clear that the angry shouts coming from the prisoner's side were Ralph first demanding Cecilia look at him, and then threatening and screaming abuse at her. There was a thud as he threw himself at the barrier. The crack of a stunner came through much clearer than his voice had, and Cecilia couldn't hold back the tears any more “He's a nasty person, but still...”
“You love him?” Evangeline asked.
“No,” Cecilia said, “Not really. I don't want to be near him. In some ways, he terrifies me, now. What he did to my thinking. But it still felt like I ought to be obeying him, you know? Turning round, looking at him, talking to him?”
“Well, I think he's just made sure you're not going to see him again.”
Cecilia gasped, “What do you mean?”
“Trying to break out of the prisoner's area? He's going to be in maximum security.”
“Oh. I thought you meant...”
“No, they're not going to execute him for screaming at you.”
“I guess...” Cecilia shook her head, then winced as doing that that pulled on her hair. “Silly thought, and silly hairstyle.”
“What was the thought?”
“It's good to know I don't obey him any more.”
“Why's that a silly thought?”
“I didn't need to see him to know that. Changing the subject, where's Alice?”
“She and Simon got ushered into some meeting. No idea what about.”
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10.30 A.M. MARS CORP OFFICE, MARS ORBITAL STATION.
After a fifteen minute wait for the manager to arrive, the junior MarsCorp representative said “Mr and Mrs Findhorn-Bunting, I'm sorry the manager has been detained on other business. He's just asked me to talk to you in his place.”
“Well, it's a shame he wasn't able to ask that earlier.”
“We've been informed about your cargo, you're planning to experiment with hydroponics, and use it to kick-start your heap. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Simon said.
“You're going to stir up trouble and resentment in the domes if you do, and that, certainly bragging about it, would be an act very detrimental to the good of the society in which you'll be living. That's not something we'd like to see, we'll ask you, insist actually, that you not to carry out your experiments until you're in your own personal space.”
“This is a Mars Corp policy, then?” Alice asked.
“Yes.”
“Do many people try doing it?”
“Not many. Just a few a season.”
“I'm surprised I've not heard of it then.”
He shrugged. “If you could please sign this form?” he said, passing over a data crystal, “It just acknowledges that you accept this restriction on your residency. Then, once it's signed, you can proceed to the embarkation area.”
Alice and Simon started read the form, which was full of dense legalise.
“You just need to sign at the bottom,” the official said.
“I think we need to read it first,” Alice said, “For instance it says that I agree not to publicise the results of my experiments.”
“Yes, Mrs Findhorn-Bunting, sorry, I should have mentioned that.”
“You should have indeed,” Alice agreed. She was very tempted to listen to his thoughts, to see if his regret was genuine, but she resisted that temptation.
“Perhaps, while we're reading this agreement you'd like to confirm on your database that my wife has the status of an accredited journalist?” Simon suggested, “and also confirm that MarsCorp has agreed that it will not, in any way, attempt to restrict her journalistic freedoms.”
The man paled and checked, immediately understanding that his form was doing just that.
“How long have MarsCorp known that kick-starting heaps could be done using hydroponics?” Alice asked.
“I'm sorry, I can't answer that.”
“Well, thank you for the interesting read,” Simon said, “But I don't think we'll be signing it with that clause in it.”
“We won't be able to allocate you space in a big dome until you do, sir, maam. I'm not sure what to do about the no-publicity clause, I think we'll have to ask head office. Perhaps you could stay at the University like other journalists?”
“Well, I didn't actually know there were any,” Alice said, “so it might be interesting to have a chat to them. How many of them are there?”
“There will be four this season, five including yourself, Maam.”
“You keep talking about big domes,” Simon said, “are you assuming we'll be staying in one of them?”
“You're going to be in the University accommodation, then? It's a slightly different arrangement there, but Mars Corp does provide the field dome there too, so we'll need you to sign, still, actually. I'd forgotten that.”
“Actually,” Alice said, “we're going to be staying in a private complex. So head-office might say I shouldn't have been shown this contract at all, sorry. But it certainly has been interesting reading, thank you for letting me see it.”
“Urm.” the man said, in a slightly strangled voice, “I think I really need my supervisor in here.”
“Don't worry, I won't mention you in my write-up,” Alice said, “I've also agreed not to publish articles intending to bring Mars Corp into disrepute, so as long as the corporation does not lie about it, I'm not planning to publish anything about this matter. What I will be doing is contacting Mr Maugh of your legal department, asking if he feels that people who've been forced to sign these gagging contracts in the past could be released from them, in order that I can interview them.”
“Mr Maugh?”
“Mr William Maugh, senior manager of Mars Corp's legal department.” Alice supplied.
Another MarsCorp employee walked in before the junior representative could reply, and asked, “all signed and dusted?”
“Not exactly,” Alice replied with a smile, “I was just explaining to the young man here that I'll be contacting William Maugh about getting people released from these gagging contracts.”
“Mrs Findhorn-Bunting is an accredited journalist, sir. But, urm, with a unique contract.”
“And we're not planning on living in the big domes anyway,” Simon added, as he led Alice out of the office past the stunned manager.
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12.45, MARS SPACEPORT ARRIVALS AREA.
“So, Eva love, which queue do we join?” Chris asked Evangeline. There was a sign pointing left for tourists and journalists, right for new settlers, and a small door straight ahead labeled 'flight crew only.'
“Let's be 'new settlers,' that'll be the way to the claim registry. It doesn't change much but we're here anyway, we might as well register your claim.”
“Does that go for us too?” Simon asked. The five of them had all landed in the same shuttle.
“Yes, I'd assume so.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
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As they passed through the portal, an automatic turnstile issued them with a bag containing a screamer, a tent and an explanatory leaflet and map. It wouldn't allow Evangeline to exit without her taking it.
“Jit machine” she said, trying to replace the bag before going through the turnstile.
“Please take the bag and keep moving, Ms.” a security guard said.
“I'm born-Martian,” she said, “I've got my tent 'n' screamer.”
“Take the new one too, please. We'll work out how to solve that later on, OK?”
“Fine. Just as long as it won't charge me.”
“I'm sure we can deal with it if it does, Eva,” Chris said.
Grumbling, Evangeline took the bag, and they joined the next queue, which wasn't very long at all. It was another automatic machine, which proudly proclaimed itself to issue land rights. Evangeline had a bad feeling. She wandered back to the security guard, while the rest of their party waited.
“That machine's going to want my new arrival pass, isn't it?” she asked the security guard. They'd been issued to everyone except Evangeline. She'd also had to talk quite firmly to Barry about there not being any requirement to record anyone's family tree on them either, like it asked for. It was one place where Mars Corp filled their database from.
“Yes, Ms.” he said, “Oh. You won't have one will you?”
“No.”
“Urm. I'll just call for help, if that's OK.”
“Fine by me.”
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The solution turned out to be that Evangeline needed to type the booking reference for her flight onto a keyboard, which was hidden under a panel that the security guard could unlock. Since she'd purged most of the messages from her wrist unit, she wasn't sure she'd got it, but fortunately she did. The guard also found out what she was supposed to do with the new screamer and tent: keep them as a spare or sell them. Alice took notes; it might make an interesting article. After all that, it just opened the door. Chris, as expected, got issued with his hundred hectares. Cecilia was next. With some trepidation, she gave the machine her new arrivals pass. It gave her a welcome message, returned her pass and gave her a certificate which stated she had the right to claim seventy five hectares. She let out a whoop, and called back to the rest of the queue “Population's still under that magic million, boys and girls!”
The security guard grinned at her joy, but corrected “Actually, people, today's going to be the last for the seventy five. Citizen one million was almost certainly born just after dawn this morning.”
“Almost certainly?” someone asked.
He shrugged, “I heard it on the news. End of yesterday the population had lots of nines in it. A few old folk died, no ships docked, and based on birth rates they reckoned he or she was born about half-past dawn, plus or minus. Apparently lots of pregnant mums are going on bumpy journeys and so on to see if they can encourage their little one to arrive today rather than tomorrow.”
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The next stage for the arrivals was a large hall, where they could use one of the terminals to register a claim or claims, if they wanted, collect their cabin baggage, and register for a place in one of the domes. Then, once they'd done that, they could leave the space-port. Hold luggage would be delivered once they'd specified an exact destination. There was also a little side room, that most people were ignoring. Evangeline spotted it, and pointed it out to the others from the Celestia. “Alias office, that way.”
Cecilia grinned her thanks and made a beeline for it.
“Isn't it risky to put your claim down under alias when you've got nowhere to hide stuff?” someone asked Evangeline.
“It's not ideal,” she replied, “and you don't need to do it now. You could walk out of the spaceport with just your certificate and no land claimed, after all. Cecilia has definite plans, I believe, and doesn't want anyone else to claim the patch of planet she's got her eyes on.”
“Oh, right.”
“Me likewise,” Chris said.
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13.30, MARS SPACEPORT TRANSPORT HUB
Just as they were saying farewell to Cecilia, there was a shout of
“Eva! Welcome home!” It was Seth, her second eldest brother.
“Hi Seth!” she said, giving him a hug. “You're the welcoming party?”
“You've got to be joking. I'm just the one that spotted you first. Hello, Chris, welcome.” he shook Chris's hand and added “Come on, Eva, bring your friends. Mum's brought lunch. You must be Simon, Alice I recognise, so I'm guessing you're Cecilia? You're welcome too.”
“I was just leaving...” Cecilia protested.
“What, to find your solitary bunk, ruin your impressive hair-do with a construction helmet and enjoy your first meal of gloop?” Seth challenged.
“Yeah.”
“Come along, Cecilia,” Evangeline challenged, “rebel against the inevitable!”
“I can't really refuse, can I?”
“Not if you've got brains, no,” Seth said.
“So, Seth, what's on the menu?” Evangeline asked.
“Proper welcome-home picnic, of course.”
“I can't wait. Freeze-dried food made with thrice-reprocessed yuck-water might hold off starvation but...”
“But?” Seth asked.
“Gloop probably tastes good by comparison,” Evangeline said.
“So are we ruining everything for Cecilia,” Alice asked “feeding her proper food before she's tasted the delights of gloop?”
“No, just giving me a taste of my future as a successful Martian.”
“Well said,” Seth agreed.
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Ben had been busy with his experiments over the past few weeks, so he hadn't paid very much attention to meal-time talk about who Eva had been making friends with on the ship. It just hadn't seemed that relevant. Seeing the girl that was coming towards them with Eva, Chris, Simon and Alice, Ben decided he ought to have been paying more attention. Maybe it had been relevant. A very pretty girl with a spectacular hairstyle. It must be her that had been talked about a lot. Did he remember hearing that she had become a Christian, or that she was close? What was her name? Oh well. She'd probably be introduced.
“Let's put Ben to the test,” Seth said, as they arrived. “Ben, this is Eva's friend we've been praying for at meal-times, who's been listening to people talk about God. Enquiring minds want to know if you bothered to listen to her name.”
“Seth, don't be cruel!” Eve said, “You know Ben's no good at names. Welcome, Cecilia, I'm Eve. And welcome home little sister.” Eve embraced Evangeline.
“Thanks. So Ben, you're the distracted chemist?”
“Yes,” Ben said, still blushing.
“Eva says you're trying to solve the perchlorate problem and give us more oxygen to breath all in one go?”
“Oh, that bit's fairly easy. I'm really trying to actually make it pay too.”
“You mean get the cost to below what MarsCorp charge?”
“Urm, sort of,” Ben said.
“Right, yeah, you've got to get it so you can undercut MarsCorp, repair breakages, scale up, pay workers' wages, and eat too, haven't you? Must be a challenge.”
“It is.” Ben was entering a kind of shock. No one this pretty had ever shown this much interest in his experiments. He realised that she'd also just pointed out that he could actually charge people to deal with their regolith. It made the equations turn out a bit differently than the basis he'd been working on. It wasn't the grand goal of course — that was to make the processing pay for itself entirely, so he could process any regolith and make a profit.
“And you're a student?” Cecilia asked.
“First year of my PhD. I do some lecturing too.”
“Oooh. Maybe you'll end up teaching me then.”
“You're going to study chemistry?”
“I'm thinking of it. The other option is business studies. Unless I can really do both.”
“You probably can. I probably should have.”
“Chemistry's too much fun?”
He nodded.
“You're older than Eva, yes?”
“Yes. Eighteen months.”
“I've been meaning to ask. How come she's just finishing her masters at twenty one? Isn't that, like, a bit early?”
“Yeah well, my little sister's a genius, isn't she? She started her degree early and they put her straight into the second year, so she finished it in two years. I had a year out working on my experiments helping Adam on his farm. You're eighteen?”
“Nineteen. I had a year out being in prison. Well, eighteen months in prison, but the first six of them I was taking my exams.”
“Can I ask... what was that for?”
“Knowingly taking part in an armed robbery. I was supposed to be the get-away driver. My boyfriend's car, he did the robbery. Turned out he'd stolen the car a few months earlier, but I didn't know that. He came back covered in blood, so I made him hide in the back and drove him to the police instead.”
“I thought you couldn't drive on Earth until you were older than that.”
“Oh, I didn't have a license. Still don't actually.”
“Well, that makes two of us. Of course you don't need one here.”
“You don't?”
“Not as such. The assumption is that if you're trusted with a vehicle on your own, you're probably safe enough to drive it. If you're clearly not safe, you'll be banned until you can prove you are.”
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Having greeted their daughter and new son-in-law, and also their friends Alice and Simon, Anna and Tom Durrel realised that Benjamin the reclusive chemist was still deep in conversation with Cecilia.
“Does that happen often, these days?” Evangeline asked, following their gaze.
“Ben talking to girls? No!”
“She got good marks in chemistry.”
“It looks like another sort of chemistry might be starting to happen there,” Anna observed.
“She's had a rough life, but she's smart, and close to faith,” Alice said.
“And Mars is her new start in life?”
“Yes. More so than she expected. She thought she was either a social case or a low-risk deportee, but she's a state-sponsored full colonist on probation, got to avoid any crims, one in particular. Nasty shock at first, but she's mostly over him now,” Evangeline said.
“You're sure?” Anna asked.
“Thanks to a stupid mix-up, he saw her in the waiting area for the shuttle. He shouted at her and then screamed blasphemies at her and she didn't turn round.”
“So, do you think she's really interested in Ben, or is he just a safe port?” Tom asked.
“No idea,” Evangeline said, wondering exactly the same thing.
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Ben realised that he'd been talking to Cecilia for almost half an hour. That was a first, and he decided he must like her. He was surprised to hear her decide she'd have to tell him she liked him too. He stopped mid-sentence, and looked at her in surprise. He quickly decided she couldn't have heard him think that, and staggered his way on to finish what he'd been saying.
Cecilia decided she'd have to hide her thoughts if he was going to hear her decisions, but she didn't want to for the moment, or she'd miss what he was thinking. He decided he didn't want to hide his thoughts either for the same reason. Simultaneously, they burst into laughter.
Eve wandered over from where she'd been talking to Alice, “What's the joke?”
“Very hard to explain,” Cecilia said.
“No, it's not,” Ben corrected, “we just almost said the same thing at exactly the same time, and it struck us both as funny.”
“I see,” Eve said looking at the pair of them, “well I don't know about your and our guest, Ben, but I am getting hungry.”
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“This is so good,” Cecilia said, “thank you so much for inviting me.”
“You're very welcome, Cecilia,” Anna said.
“I very much hope you're not planning on spending all your time building domes for Mars Corp,” Evangeline said, “so hopefully you're going to come and visit us.”
“I'd like that,” she shot a glance at Benjamin, who decided he'd like that to happen too, “I'd like that a lot.”
Anna saw that glance and Cecilia heard her decide that yes, Cecilia had decided to chase after her son. And she wondered why and how long ago she'd reached that decision.
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“Your mum thinks I'm chasing your brother,” Cecilia told Evangeline after the meal.
“I didn't notice you running from him.”
“No, I'm not doing that. He's interested and it's flattering. But this,” she indicated her hairstyle, “wasn't aimed at him any more than it was aimed at Ralph. I think she might think it was.”
“You're saying it's just that you're hitting it off well together, not that you decided to snare him.”
“Yeah. You know I hear thoughts, don't you?”
“You've not said, but I suspected.”
“I heard you suspecting. Sometime... let Ben know you know, OK? He's been making all sorts of flattering decisions about me.”
“You want me to warn him off?”
Cecilia shrugged, “just let him know. I won't object to you letting your mum know, either. I've heard suspicion from her.”
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8PM, DURRELL COMPLEX
“Mum, Ben can I have a private word?” Evangeline asked that evening.
“I hope you're not going to ask me for something in the back cupboard!” Ben joked. He'd made sure it was entirely empty before constructing his apparatus in that corner.
“When I was on Earth, I learned some things,” Evangeline started to say.
“Shocking!” Ben interrupted, “It might have been worth the money after all.”
“Stop it, Ben,” Anna commanded.
“Things that aren't normally talked about anywhere as far as I know. One is that there's a really rare ability some people have of hearing other people's decisions that affect them. Just a strange trick of genetics, I'm reliably informed by a Christian I trust. Cecilia told me she'd heard me deciding she has it, and wanted you both to know. So, Ben, I guess you ought to make your flattering decisions about her further away unless you want her to know them, and Mum, no she didn't decide to do her hair up to catch Ben, that's just her expressing a bit of her personality.”
“And she asked you to tell us like this?” Ben asked.
“She didn't say how, just to let you know I know, Ben, and she wasn't worried about mum hearing too.”
“She's a very brave girl,” he said, and then grinned “and I expect she heard me decide she was really pretty too.”
“How do you know it's genetic, not some trick of the devil?” Anna asked.
“I trust the person who told me mum. A very solid Christian.”
“People can be deceived, Eva.”
“I don't think I've been tricked mum,” Ben said, “and genetics is what I've heard too, from a family member.”
“What are you saying, Ben?”
“Cecilia and I have more in common than liking Chemistry, Mum. I knew she heard thoughts, Eva. I guess she wanted to let me know I could tell you I can too.”
Anna sat down. “You're saying I've got a brother or sister who can do this too?”
“I'm not saying more, mum. It's not something to tell about someone else.”
“But when you ran to me saying that Seth was going to lock you outside, after you spilt paint on his homework....” Seth had been nine back then, Benjamin four or five.
“I'd heard him decide to, yes, Mum.”
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11PM, DOME 57, AISLE 32, ROOM 27C.
“All right, God.” Cecilia prayed. “You win. There's no way I want to go to hell, there's no way I want to obey Ralph. And I do want to stay on good terms with Ben, he's really nice. Make me new, please, God. You be in charge, not me, not Ralph, not even Ben.” She remembered the little file that Alice had given her, and prayed the prayer at the end of that too.
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11.50PM, SECURE DOME 3, NEW ARRIVALS TUNNEL 2.
The sirens wailed and airlocks slammed shut as a pressure breach occurred.
It was... not unexpected. New crims didn't always listen to the warnings, didn't really believe that there was no way they'd get to safety. Didn't believe that the emergency breathers that were in each cell would really vent their oxygen if they were taken off the prison compound. Making a prison entirely escape-proof had been regularly shown to be impossible on Earth, where high quality reinforced concrete was easily available. On Mars, the authorities had plastic and fibreglass available. It wasn't ever going to be too hard to break out, you just ended up dead. But not all the prisoners believed that. Too much depended on the will of prisoners to stay alive, serve their time, and start a new life. So the new arrivals tunnels, long tubes with prison cells on either side and a central passage, had been designed. Each cell had an airtight door, the radiation shielding was made so that it could be repaired quickly, the airtight walls were reinforced at the edges of the cell, so that a tear would not spread. If a crim was determined to escape, they could. It was simply a case of making it so that if a crim was determined to kill themselves, they wouldn't cause too much risk to others. This particular prisoner had used a plastic spoon, apparently sharpened at regular intervals with his teeth, to make an X-shaped score in the inner plastic layer of his cell wall. He'd then given it a good kick and been rewarded by being sucked out by the low pressure outside. He'd had the presence of thought to bring both the emergency breathers from his cell with him, as he ran (in totally the wrong direction). However, he didn't turn back when they both started to vent oxygen as he passed the electronic barrier that marked the edge of the compound. The rate of venting was designed so that, had he turned round, he could have walked sedately back and reached safety. The breach alarm turned on a some big illuminated signs which pointed to air supplies. The prisoner kept running towards a light on the horizon — an automatic outer beacon for the spaceport, just a metal pole with no building or air supply at all.
In very low air pressure, such as the Mars atmosphere at the altitude the high security prison was at, the human body not only uses oxygen, it also loses it through the lungs, as it boils out of the blood. All the time the heart keeps beating, the mechanism that normally moves oxygen from the air to the rest of the cells in the body then works backwards and actively removes oxygen from these tissues. Unconsciousness and death are the inevitable result, significantly faster than from mere suffocation.
As was their duty, the two prison guards on duty in that wing first saw to the safety of their other charges. First all were confirmed safe, and then the prisoners in cells adjoining the breached one were moved further away.
Hearing that the prisoners were safe and there was no need for any medical care for the sensible, the perimeter guard finished donning his Mars-suit, and jumped into the prison vehicle to go and meet the prison doctor from the airlock near the medical centre.
They then followed the radio beacon to the emergency breathers that the prisoner had thrown away. His corpse was just a few meters away. He'd collapsed one minute after the breach, just over forty-five seconds after he'd sprinted across the boundary out of the prison compound. In contrast, it had taken the guard and the doctor about a minute to put on their Mars suits and make sure the pressure seals were air-tight, and fifteen seconds to get out of their respective airlocks, and into the vehicle.
After an ultimately useless (but morally necessary) attempt at resuscitating the prisoner, the corpse of Ralph Edgars, aged 27, was loaded onto the prison vehicle. He had been convicted in his lifespan of: one count of actual bodily harm (as a minor); two counts of armed robbery (one as a minor), one count attempted murder, three counts of vehicle theft, and one count of corrupting a minor. The cause of death was recorded as 'suicide (self-inflicted oxygen starvation in the course of prison escape)'. Less formally, the guards described what happened to him to the other prisoners as 'dying from being a complete and utter jit'.