Four friends sat on couches facing a wall screen, watching tall, exotic-looking women and men strut down a catwalk, each dressed in fashions inspired by Martian clothing, and wearing silver bands across their foreheads. Celeste entered with a pitcher and glasses.
“Marjitos?”
Debra reached out as Celeste handed her a drink, “You just missed the fashion show. It was gorgeous.”
Celeste distributed the remaining glasses. “My birthday is coming and I've already found the outfit I want. It has a tight waist and those curved shoulder things I just love!”
Chelsea agreed, “Those are so beautiful.”
Celeste stood, facing her friends, and raised her glass. “Everybody ready? Got your drinks?”
They chimed back in chorus. “Blast-off!”
“Blasted, is more like it. Here we go... Red Planet.”
The screen filled with undulating red lighting against a row of ancient stone columns. Through a darkened doorway in the center strode a tall, muscular, golden-skinned man with copper eyes. He wore a knee-length shirt and flowing pants. He walked directly toward the camera, staring fiercely out from the screen at the five women sipping cocktails, transfixed.
“I am Armon. And I bring you The Red Planet.”
As if out of a mist behind Armon came a swirling collage of characters embracing, fighting, writhing in ecstasy, gazing knowingly from the screen. For the next hour, hardly a word was said between the five, so engrossed were they in World Media's liberally-embellished depiction of the Martian civilization.
When The Red Planet rolled its final credit, the screen cut to a duo of strikingly-fit, freshly scrubbed hosts who began to summarize the story with salacious side notes and intimations. After they had teased the next episode, they tossed to a lifestyles reporter holding a cocktail glass, standing in a Moroccan-tiled room with rich carpets and heavy wooden doors.
“Screen up! Screen up!” she chirped. “Come on, everybody. Pick up those tablets.”
Celeste and her guests reflexively reached for theirs.
“Next, we’re going to Armon’s palace. No, not on Mars. It’s in a warm clime, surrounded by freshwater swimming pools, and oh… it’s above ground! Pictures coming your way, everyone.”
Celeste and her friends gasped with excitement as video of opulent North African architecture streamed onto their tablet screens.
“Look wonderful? Look familiar? That’s because it IS Armon’s palace. It’s where we shoot the interiors. And all of you can come stay here.” The reporter was breathless with excitement. “But if you come here, you’ll have to dress for the occasion.” She swept her arm in an arc and across everyone’s tablets strutted a parade of stunning models wearing flowing clothes of cotton and silk. They walked from the tablets onto the wall screen in the Woodley’s family room, where they posed behind the lifestyles host. “You’ll want to be dressed in proper Martian royal rags, because all of this is a fantasy getaway to The Red Planet! Four days and three nights of fantasy role-playing fun. Flick your tablet if you’re interested. Go ahead. Flick me now!”
Celeste looked wide-eyed at her friends and swept her finger across her tablet. “I’m in! Wouldn’t that be fun? You guys should go.”
...
Z adjusted the camera and looked straight into it. “Hi Pat. If there is anyone around you when you play this video, I need you pause this and shoo them off. I need you to mark this as a personal communication. You can’t share this with anyone. Pretend it’s just you and me walking on the Strand. Okay?” She tilted her head down, lifted an eyebrow and looked deep into the camera lens as if expecting his response.
Patrick paused the video, walked to his office door and shut it. Then he reclined in his desk chair and restarted the video.
“They can’t train you for things like this,” she began. “We are trained to work together, to support each other. Everyone on the crew has supported me, one hundred percent, as far as they can go. But ever since I discovered the headpieces and the ghosts, I’ve had to go places they can’t go.” Patrick watched Z closely. She turned her head to the side as if she were looking off at one of those places. Then she turned back to the camera. “I can describe to them what I’m seeing, but I can’t let them know what I’m feeling or thinking.” She shook her head. “First of all, it’s too bizarre an experience. Second, I’m their commander. I can’t be seen as losing myself to this world.”
Z paused and again looked away before turning her intense gaze back to the camera. “But I’m being drawn in, Pat. The Elder, whatever it is, appears right at the moment when my understanding has stalled. Then it points me to some new clue. It happened again, just today. I wonder if it’s running me through a program. It directed me to an unexplored area where I entered a virtual reality timelapse of the City dying. It’s in a report I sent to Dixxon. You might have received it by the time you see this.” Z paused.
“Z, what’s tumbling around in your head?” Patrick asked of the recording.
Z looked down at her clasped hands and considered her next words. “There are things I didn’t put in the report. This last time, I wasn’t watching a looped recording. And I wasn’t watching ghosted people. They seemed very real, and I could feel their emotions and understand what they were thinking—kind of like I was mind reading. That is a big change from anything I’ve felt before. The headpiece is taking me deeper into their reality, Pat. I can’t help but feel that it has more to teach me; but here I am, loading-up to leave in two sols.
“You were worried about the headpiece messing up my brain; I don’t think it has, but it’s more powerful than I thought. I think it’s extending its reach. I’ve always trusted you and I need you to keep an eye on me. If I start acting strange during transit, play this recording to Dixxon and pull the plug on me. Okay?”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The video ended on a freeze of Z’s urgent expression and Patrick lingered on the beseeching eyes expressing that adventurous soul. Part of him hurt to see Z going through this inner trial, but on the other hand, this message to him was proof, in and of itself, that Z was still in control. ‘Pull the plug on me,’ she had said, knowing that only he knew her well enough to watch her, judge her, and stop her if she went beyond normal.
Patrick turned on his recorder. “Hi Z. You’re right to send this to me. No one ever thought that you might need someone to talk to in confidence. I’m glad you decided that person was me. So, look around you. The day is bright and sunny and sandy, here on the Strand. Look, dolphins surfing. See? I remember.” He smiled into the camera knowing that Z would be smiling back. “I think you’re right about there being a purpose to his visits. This Elder guy is a highly intelligent… something. It might be running you through a program. It might be simply running itself through a program that was given to it, long ago. It seems to appear to you, drop a nugget, then disappear for no real reason. It comes in the avatar of the Elder you found, but my guess is that, while it’s intelligent, it isn’t live intelligence. A living being would engage more.”
He smiled supportively. “Don’t worry, Z. I’ll keep an eye on you. I only wish I could be there with you.” Then he shook his head. “No, I don’t. I couldn’t make it through the training. The weightlessness? I’d get sick. Maybe I’m better off not being with you.” Then he cast aside his attempt at cheering her up. “But I’ll be here when you get home, Z. Count on me. Keep talking to me.”
Z turned off the video and whispered to herself, “Home.”
...
The transport rolled-up to the Mars Ascent Vehicle, its trailer loaded with storage cases of artifacts. In the navigation pod was a body bag wrapped in radiation shielding. Z and Noriko lowered the body from the cab onto a cart and Dunlap rolled it toward the ship.
Z watched him go. “The last time I spent with him, I think he was showing me the places he loved. I can’t help but feel like this is too soon for me to leave.”
Noriko watched the sadness on her commander’s face and realized, for the first time, how different Z’s experience had been from that of the rest of the crew. While they had been engaged with scanning and mapping and cataloging artifacts, she had borne the extra responsibility of deciphering a lost culture—a challenge invisible to them.
“You did everything you could, and more. We found the site for the colony. We found proof of intelligent life.” Noriko threw her hands in the air, “We’re bringing back enough artifacts and data to keep academics busy for a decade. You brought it home, Z. You did what every commander aspires to do.”
Z smiled at Noriko. “Thanks. Actually, when I get to Earth, then I can say I achieved every commander's aspiration.”
“Hmm?”
Z laughed. “Dear God, please don't let me fuck-up.”
Tanaka laughed too.
“Just one thing before we wrap things up. It’s been on my mind for a while.” Z reached into a pocket of her EVA suit and took out a silver locket. She knelt down and scraped the open locket across the ground, filling it with deep rust-colored Martian soil. “I feel like no matter where I go in life, part of me will always be on Mars. In a way, I don't feel like I can ever be wholly Earthling again. I'm destined to be part Martian for the rest of my life.” She showed the locket to Tanaka. “This is important… for me.”
Although Noriko understood why Z would feel that way, she also knew that NASA liked to keep everything official—nothing that might look like personal favoritism. “I don't think NASA will agree with you,” she said.
Z looked at her in surprise. “You don't think they'd stop me from taking a memento.”
“No, they'll present you with a rock sample of their choosing at the time they see fit. But the way NASA looks at it, that sample you just took belongs to the American taxpayers. I'll bet you'll have to turn that in.”
“Well, we'll see.” Z pocketed her locket and walked to the MAV.
After she had de-dusted and removed her suit, she climbed up the ladder to the command deck. Ellis sat at the controls, going through his checklist.
Z stood next to him, locket hanging from around her neck. “Ready?”
“Just doing one last check. I want to be sure that the propellant is ready to feed into the tanks tomorrow morning. This is the craziest part of the mission, for me. A year without firing. New, home brew propellant. I figure it will be a fun ride tomorrow; I just need to be sure it happens.”
Z patted his shoulder. “No roadside assistance, here.”
“Nope. I don't want to become a Martian.”
While Ellis continued down his checklist, Z looked out the window at the dimming light of Martian sunset—their last on the planet. Although they had been underground most of the time, seeing this sunset was symbolic; it marked the end of a chapter of her life. And while she had looked forward with anticipation to landing on Mars, she now felt uncertain about what she would encounter, leaving it. Even though they had been subject to a chain of command, their lives, moment to moment, were their own. Thank God for the communications delay, Z thought, it not only had given them extra time to consider the situation, it had given them autonomy. Oversight that would have been exerted in the instantaneous communications of LEO simply had to be abandoned for the Mars missions. As a result, they had broken the bonds of Earth.
She would have been content to spend even longer on Mars, but she also knew that some of the others, who had family waiting, looked forward to the flight back. As for herself, she knew that when she returned, she would lose control of her life. She would be given a daily schedule and marched through it, with less tolerance for improvisation on Earth than on Mars.
Z gazed out the window; the sun dropped low, just hovering above the slope of Arsia Mons. Ellis broke her train of thought. “I'm done here, Z. I'm turning in.”
“We're up at 0400. See you at breakfast.”
He climbed down the ladder while Z returned her gaze to the sunset. It was her last moment alone with Mars. Who knew if she would ever be here again? She fingered the locket around her neck. “One place they cannot control me.” She opened the locket, lifted it to her mouth and poured the thimbleful of soil under her tongue. It tasted a little metallic but was easy to swallow. “Always part of me.”
That night, Z zipped-up her mod, stripped naked and slid into the soft, cool cover of her bed. After a moment, lying on her back, Z felt a strange guilt wash over her. She had answers, but even more questions. Maybe, she thought, archaeologists get used to partial understanding, enduring mysteries. They close down the dig at the end of a season and leave for their lab, telling themselves they think they know what these ruins were or who this mummy was. For her, the idea of incomplete understanding was unsettling.
She wanted to know more of the Martians’ story, master the headpiece, restart the City. She wanted to drive a Martian transport through the lava tubes to a distant outpost.
...
It stretched out its sensors and found only emptiness. The City was deserted and they had driven away. “They are leaving,” it thought. “They are packing. They are taking treasures. They are readying their ship. All the signs are there. Why is she taking them back? So much yet to re-learn.”