Meridien K - Chapter 24: The Intergalactic Warrior

Up top, Ben kept half an eye on myself and Elliott rappelling onto a ridge below the lip of Valles Marineris. While most of the survivors were enjoying the creature-comforts of M2 like beds and showers and painkillers, Ben settled on a seemingly never-ending supply of fruit. And up top he worked his way through a tangerine, no attention at all to the rope tied to the Rover and I held onto the hemp fibers and tried not to look down until my feet touched firm ground.

             

Elliott, above, looked at the rope, at me, at the bottomless pit.

             

"Is it, uh, all right to proceed, Dr. Kraid?"

             

"Yes, Elliott, it's fine," I said, having already answered over a dozen obvious questions.

            

 He spidered down along the canyon wall.

             

"Two hands on the rope, Elliott! Two hands!" I yelled.

             

"Oh, sorry, sir, I mean, uh, doctor."

             

"Don't apologize! Just keep two hands on the rope!"

            

The twenty-six-year-old Elliott took twice as long as me, and I was nearly two decades older than him. His gig was propulsion, so neither of us had any business crawling down into the deepest valley in all of existence. But we were explorers. We were exploring.

             

Ben threw the useless husk of his fruit into the pit. I watched it disappear.

             

"Ben! The fuck?"

             

"I don't see a No Littering sign," from his perch. "Besides, it's natural, right?"

             

"On earth, buddy."

             

"Mr., I mean, Dr. Kraid? Am I doing this right?"

             

"Fine, Elliott, just fine," and then back at Ben, "You think it's going to decompose down there?"

             

"No way I'm going down there," yelled Ben, hands up in innocence.

             

Elliott slipped the last few feet and landed on top of me. I fell and, while the dropoff into the chasm was a good twenty feet out, my palms immediately covered themselves in sweat.

             

"Oh my god, I mean gosh, uh, Dr. Kraid. I'm so sorry and--"

             

"It's okay, Elliott," and I stood and brushed myself off for the ten-thousandth time since landing.

             

No donkey rides down to the bottom but the erosion formed footpaths down into that gape. I started walking and Elliott followed five feet behind. For once I wish it was Ben alongside, his attitude rotten and warped most of the time but at least he wasn't eggshell-walking around me. And no matter how many times I told Elliott to call me John, it never stuck. He was like one of my students. And we had picked him for the team anyway - Your Team, Ben would say, not Mine - and after all the M2 excitement I thought it best to spend more time with the other M1 survivors.

             

A long time walking down into a growing dark, the sun unable to penetrate the steep angle, headlamps on like coal miners groping through a cave-in.

            

"What exactly are we, um, doing? I mean, looking for?"

             

"What we are doing, Elliott," I said, "is, if nothing else, admiring one of the largest natural features of the Solar System."

             

"Oh. I didn't know that."

            

If I were Ben it'd be time for a Lesson, but I didn't know much about fusion reactors and quantum states and electron tunneling and everything that Elliott found as natural as bipedalism. But in an oblique way, Elliott was right. Walking down there like it was a scenic hike but really a journey to nowhere, the valley's wall shrinking to the periphery of our headlamps. Probably some lingering paternalism that caused Ben and me to adopt Intihar and Elliott as our mascots, our surrogate nephews.

             

A bad step, a tumble forward, a hard object slammed against my head or viceversa.

             

"Dr. Kraid!"

             

I felt the rock next to me and it was slick. A dusty hand up to my hairline and brought into the bluish headlamp light and there was my mortal blood.

             

"Dr. Kraid, are you… hurt?"

             

"I'll live to tell the tale," as my brain floated in its vat and righted itself.

             

"Dr. Kraid?"

             

About to shout an incensed "What?!" at his endlessness, but I followed his eyeline down to what had caught my foot. There was the big rock and, wedged in its shadow, a rectangular form covered in loose gravel. Our four hands unearthed it. It looked like a toy dumptruck until we brushed it off to find the PV panels, a claw-arm, and--

             

"No fuckin' way…" said Elliott.

            

 --the blue circle and red ribbon-slash of the old NASA logo. Stamped beneath: INITIATIVE.

             

"Jesus," I said as I stood and took a quick step back, like I had found a forgotten skeleton. "That thing was launched… back when… back when I can't even remember."

             

Elliott yanked the front end out from under the debris and set it on a clear tract.

             

"Huh."

             

"Hmm."

             

It reminded me of all the hopes as a kid that a comet would crash in my backyard, and from the crater would emerge a friendly robot probe, both of us staring curiously at the other, Contact made between an earthling and an alien robot.

             

Initiative was in good shape despite looking like it had been left in a closet for years. I brushed the panels clear; they weren't broken or cracked, not even scratched.

             

Our two headlamps all over the thing until an electric groan sounded in its innards.

             

"Is it going to blow up? What if it--!"

             

"No, it's not going to blow up," I said to Elliott, though I had no idea.

             

And in the space of mere seconds the right-side-up Initiative's wheels spun furiously and it curved around the rock. It took a wide arc and hit the edge above the depths, went up on two wheels and churned on its side, rotating like a spinning top.

             

I don't know why an impulse fired that sent me diving toward it. Elliott scrambled after and grabbed my leg just as my fingers brushed Initiative, just before the heavy end tipped over the side and fell and fell and fell and didn't make a noise when it reached the bottom.

             

Up and brushing off the perpetually-dirty clothes I wore when I knew I'd get dirty.

             

"Shit."

             

"I'm so sorry, I shouldn't've grabbed you," said Elliott, slowly backing away like I'd lunge at him and toss him down into the pit in retaliation.

             

"No," I said, "I'm pissed because we now owe NASA like a billion dollars."

             

Elliott didn't get the non-joke until I flashed a smile.

             

A great shriek like a bird of prey and a silver load-bearing dropship came low over Valles, heading in the direction of my hut.

             

Ben, invisible but inside echoing earshot, yelled, "Hey kiddos! Hurry up 'cause I think we've got a visitor!"

             

No reason to keep going nor to immediately leave. The latter became the priority once I realized Ben wouldn't hesitate to take the Rover and strand us. So I started off quick to the rope and Elliott followed and caught up and walked beside me.

             

"We should do this again. It was fun," said Elliott.

             

My mental catalog noted it as the first time anyone described Mars life as "fun."

             

Back at the rope, Elliott and I barely got a solid grip before Ben backed up the Rover so it sort of dragged us up.

             

"Where's the fire?" as I surfaced and didn't bother with the dust.

             

Ben pointed. I looked and saw the heavy drop hovering around our place two miles out.

             

"That idiot is going to blow the damned thing over."

             

"Can I, uh, get a ride?"

             

"Get in, kid," Ben snapped at Elliott as I slid into the passenger seat and Elliott onto the cargo webbing on the back. Ben peeled out and redlined the Rover, creating a wake that wouldn't settle for days.

             

"I don't want to be fuckin' homeless because of some asshole," Ben said, unprompted.

             

We got there in a handful of minutes. Elliott went to drop off the Rover to Intihar down by M2.

            

 The meaty dropship hovered too long and started to kick up big stones that banged against the metal side of our shelter. We waved them off and they didn't get the signal. It touched down but kept running. Some guy in a digicamo surface suit got off and the drop finally shut off. I looked at Ben and he was shaking off his red dust-stained clothes to no avail. I looked similarly Martian.

             

"This ain't earth. He does realize he's not camouflage, right?" Ben said.

             

The man came forward, and there they were, right there, black eagles on his surf-suit faux-collar.

             

"Gents," he said, coming forward, his voice all fucked up through the external speaker, "allow me to introduce myself. Colonel Tibbits."

             

Firm gloved handshakes and a well-rehearsed smile. That close up, the resemblance to the old colonel, his corpse somewhere down in the maw of M1, was unsettling. Like they cloned them on an assembly line at Officer Candidate School.

             

"Hello. John Kraid," I said.

             

"Dr. Meridien," said Ben.

             

The colonel cleared his throat. He was expecting something. We were clueless.

             

"The proper response is, 'Fine to meet you, sir.'"

             

Ben and I just stared. I'm sure our expression was exaggerated, coated in rust and rusty clothes and hacking it on a rock without terrestrial contact for over a year. If nothing else, we wouldn't have applicable pop-culture references for smalltalk.

             

"Excuse me?" asked Ben.

             

"'Excuse me, sir,'" the colonel corrected.

             

More blank stares all around, bordering on awkward.

             

"The men didn't tell you?" the colonel asked. "This is a military operation now. Even civilians are under my direct authority."

             

Ben laughed, scoffed, snickered, chortled, ran the gauntlet because, seriously…

             

"Whatever. Thanks for the meet," said Ben, and he doubled back to the shelter.

             

A big vein appeared in the colonel's forehead, and all the muscles swelled in the right places on his skintight surf suit.

            

"Don't turn your back on me, civilian! You know what a court-martial is?"

             

Ben turned back to face Tibbits, couldn't help himself.

             

"Jesus fuck, will you space jockeys ever shut the fuck up about your precious rank?"

             

I stood there but kept out of it. Didn't move a micron. Didn't blink. Breath held. Waiting for the two outlaws to quickdraw their six-shooters.

             

"I don't want things to get unpleasant, doctor."

             

From Ben's throat rose this painted, built-up growl, like a dog getting a whiff of a new mailman and, "So just leave us alone, chief! You brought the whole goddamn academy up here with proper supplies. What's wrong with two lone guys sneaking into the supply tent once a month and stealing too few things to get in trouble?"

             

"You think you're some tough guy, huh?"

             

"No. Just the only guy who can do my job."

             

"And that is?"

             

"Take off that silly-ass helmet and you take a wild guess. As for the rest, I think the description is above your pay grade."

             

"My what?!"

             

It was Ben's turn for incredulity, to explain his paramount importance, to belittle the colonel while I just stood there. Ben headed to the shelter and still couldn't help himself, kept turning to add another piece, and while better judgment would have me intervene, it was nice to see Ben go off on some guy trying to pull a really dumb shake-up instead of Ben blowing up about spilled morning coffee.

             

"Look. Here's a pro tip. I don't trust anyone still dressed up for the dance. I don't trust a single fucker down there still in a bubble. Taste the goddamn air like the rest of us and see how you like it. Ask the guys from the M1 crash. And call on the radio next time you're coming up in a drop. We have sensitive optics around that this little organization called NASA wouldn't want ruined. Wouldn't want all this dust to fuck it up. I'm on channel one on the freq. One, like this," and a too-easy middle finger, necessary gesture anyhow, and, "Dismissed, Tibs."

             

Ben usually skirted the fine line between annoying someone and royally pissing them off, and this time he decided to go with the latter. I followed Ben and I could see the colonel working up a retort, but he wisely opted to cut his losses and went back to his drop. The drop hovered low and quiet on its stealth preset as it slinked away, slow enough to police up its own wake. Then it took off over the hill and went down to the Settlement and the in-progress Base not far from M2, sort of connected to it, like those trailers that have fold-out awnings for an insta-patio underneath.

             

Back inside our hot tin can, neither of us said anything about the encounter. Ben found it impossible to wipe off all the kicked-up grit, so he, fully clothed, stepped into the gravity shower outside and ran the cold water. In the gap between the drain and the bottom of the shower curtain, I saw all that red flushed down into a pipe that ran into a ditch a hundred yards east, where lukewarm, silty water trickled out onto the deadscape. Mars' first lake: runoff sewage.

             

Without prompt, Ben, over the relative roar of the shower, shouted, "You think some full-bird colonel is going to give a fuck about extrasolar terraformation? Might've only shot myself in the foot if I wanted to get in touch with M2's chemist and get some rockets prepped for remote TF. But good idea getting all buddy-buddy with Elliott. He could definitely do some favors for us."

             

"That wasn't the intention," I shouted back. "Besides, you think they're going to spare any rockets for something like this? Do they even have rockets?"

             

"You think M2 is going the be the last of the supplies? Sure, maybe a few people will leave, but then M3 will come, then M4 and 5, all the way up to a hundred as far as I know. Mars is our only New World left. Give it a century and the atmosphere will be strong enough that we can safely land ships and stand outside without burning up or freezing or feeling like both nostrils are taped shut. Maybe even those MIT whizkids will figure a way to reignite the dead core to make a magnetosphere proper. Whatever. I don't care anymore. Used to it, really. Makes lifting heavy objects a lot easier than it used to be."

             

Ben came out soaking wet and stood under the skylight and waited for the sun's magnified beams to dry him raw.

             

"And don't forget, JK, this job is as much me as it is you. Some people might assume because I drive the Rover and loudly make decisions that I'm in charge. We're both in this. Shit, you have more raw brainpower than anyone I know. Except maybe your son. No offense."

             

Which one? as an aborted question and I mumbled, "None taken."

             

We went outside to the ridge once Ben dried. I lifted up the pocket binocs I had swiped during the chaos of offloading M2. I put them up, looked down, saw the Settlement same as usual, albeit a bit deserted. There always seemed to be a few people dragging their feet as they walked to the M2 site, where heavy machinery cleared the mars (on earth we call dirt earth, so why not?) and put up concrete barriers to serve as the outer layers of something or other. These people went over to the tent marked with a fat red cross. They went inside and disappeared, but I knew what went on. Most of the M2 guys swore by their surface suits. Wore them day and night. Some quack doctor or medic or scientist on M2 insisted that the breathing conditions were horrid, like Industrial-Revolution horrid. He wanted everyone from M1 to take an hour of the day to breathe pure oxygen. I did it once. Quite a rush going from the low O₂ levels of Red. But I didn't like it. Felt like a drug. Post-oxy dizziness far worse than any centrifuge. And, down there, it looked like junkies at a needle exchange or lining up for testers of the day's fresh batch of H. If some people got hooked - on the O₂, that is - and kept coming back, they lost all that resistance, and a lot of them got sick, and I think I heard a few passed out coming down, were dragged into M2's sick bay where they seemed to stay forever.

             

Those sort of things happened. We didn't keep close contact with the Settlement anymore other than juicy rumblings from Intihar, like when he scammed the landing date of M2 off an emergency pouch he looted from M1's jaws and, for whatever reason, only told it to us and his three mil brothers-in-arms.

             

Ben watched the parade below with arms crossed. He spat on the ground.

             

"Initiative is dead," he said, certainly not intending the double-meaning since he didn't even know what Elliott and I found. And Ben stood there, looking down at everything happening in the valley, the valley that was once rocky and inhospitable but now Under Construction, Under New Management. We knew once the housing was completed, the tents would go down. They'd fix the hole in the airstrip. Besides Ben and myself and Elliott and Intihar and all the meek-voiced survivors, it was like M1 never happened, or that nothing had ever gone wrong. But Ben and I would be gone by then.

(Chapter 25 coming Wednesday, January 11, 2012.)