Meridien K - Chapter 32: The Day They Would Be Judged (Again)

Everyone came off the Lander with an oxygen mask hugging most of their face and a tank strapped to their back. The light hit them hard after months in the cozy darkness of deep space, and it gave them a hard squint and grimace like they didn't want to be there, that kid reflex of I Wanna Go Home.

             

No words between Us and Them. Sizing them up, them gawking at us, truer Martians than any science-fiction comic, comfortable in the dust and heat, no need for excess O₂, as acclimated as we'd get before we choked the atmosphere some more. All of us in different clothes, some in freshly-retrieved and -washed business suits, like we were trying to impress them. Instead it came off like a bizarre pageant. The old joke that in ancient sci-fi movies everyone wore uniforms because it was like we were all on the same team. Over the years on Red, nothing could be less true. We were even more divided than on Blue, where, there, it was liberal and conservative, theist and atheist that split us most; Mars was civilian and military, and, among the former, sticking to your own branch of science if you were a whitecoat; god help you if you were one of the no-use civilians who tagged along for the ride; and, among the mil shop, there were the enlisted and the officers; even sharp divides between privates and pfcs, pfcs and specs, specs and corporals and all those million different variants of sergeanthood.

             

But they didn't know it as intimate as we did. Maybe they saw it in our eyes, like we somehow radiated this We Don't Want You vibe. No one was openly glad to see anyone except Intihar, whose brother came off the transparent jetway with a leashed dog in its own doggie-molded surface suit, and if the ice, then, soon didn't break, guns might've gone off as we killed them all and stole their food and hooted and hollered and threw rocks at the Lander. Ben and I stuck close to a cluster of natives, not eager to introduce ourselves as the crazy Mountainmen. Those stories would come later, hopefully after Ben got his damn rocket, because I was getting pretty close to guessing what he wanted it for.

             

The civilians came out, the men and women, no children despite the rumors, and Intihar's brother and their dog. The Soviets immediately swarmed them, broken English to Intihar and Intihar 2, cooing Russian at the dog, a permanent affection for space dogs; space-dog Laika has shrines in the motherland, is a national hero, somehow odd for a name that translates to "Barker."

             

The rest all filed around the side of the ship, where a panel of the gargantuan Lander lifted up and sort of spit out their whole living quarters, which seemed to have been taken from M3, hidden up there above the butterscotch. It seemed like a straight-up Fuck You to some of us, a We Don't Want To Live Where You Live tell-off, already before introductions or anything, but shit, none of us knew them, and Ben and I would be back up on the half-mountain soon enough, letting all the rest of the mils and civs and neo-zombies and lifers do the socializing for us, spread the rumors, collect them, cycle them back through our covert channels. With M3 boosting the civilian population past the mostly-military M2, we figured being on The Civilian Side would be important. No doubt Ben would suddenly pivot and get all buddy-buddy with Elliott The Civilian, playing his own marked Meridien cards, always scrounging for the angles, for a cache of favors.

             

The requisite mil attaché trotted out, led by a surf-suited two-star general that Colonel Tibbits immediately intercepted, offered his crispest salute, a bone-crushing handshake, and then he whisked the general away for the fifty-cent tour.

             

The rest of the procession was a twilight zone of logic, an LSD hallucination I never had. Offloading: Horses and their handlers, more dogs, some American, some Soviet, dogs don't speak languages, do they? Cats in cages, birds in cages. The Lander turning into a clown car as bigger and bigger vehicles came off, more Rovers, jeeps, then a backhoe and a goddamn full-sized bulldozer, not the mini one we used to clear the road to the caves. Then a steamroller, then - I shit you not - a cement mixer. The gear kept coming and it didn't get any less weird. Then came all the furnishings you'd expect for a small-town town square: Park benches, a stone fountain in four sections, a statue of, for whatever reason, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Soviets had two, one of Lenin, one of Stalin. Then in three sections, giant, embossed blocks pulled out by a tractor, first "NEW," then "MARS," then "COLONY" in English and Cyrillic, none of them pussy European languages for them countries too chickenshit to fly.

             

"New Mars Colony… whatever happened to the Old?" I said.

             

"Jesus fucking christ. If this was on the Lander, what the fuck is up on M3? The rest of a city?"

             

"Looks like it," I said.

             

Intihar finally came over after the Soviets joined their comrades and stopped hogging the Intihars' dog. Our man was accompanied by a new arrival, suited up, the spitting image of Intihar passed through a lens that aged him about five years.

             

"Hey guys, this is Mike and Frank," said Intihar.

             

"Which is which?" asked Ben.

             

"Oh, ha ha, right, yeah, Mike is my brother, Frank is the dog. Mike, this is Ben Meridien and John Kraid. Guys, Mike Intihar."

             

Handshakes all around, genuine politeness given our friendship with Intihar was more real than political, and by default that courtesy would extend to his brother. And their dog.

             

"Meridien and Kraid. Like Meridienkraid, that planet, right?" asked Mike.

             

"The fuck you know?" Ben demanded.

             

"Sorry about that," said Intihar. "I told Mike."

             

"But just me, I swear," said Mike Intihar.

             

"You told Brian?" I asked Ben.

             

"We were having a few drinks one night and--"

             

"And I wasn't invited?" I asked.

             

"I thought you quit drinking!" said Ben.

             

"I did! But you could've invited me!"

             

"Hey guys, how about you leave it on the mountain, hey? Anyhow," and a Intihar gave a hand flourish like models showing off prizes on game shows and, "welcome to Mars, Mike. We call it Red most of the time," said Intihar. "Mars just sounds too impossibly futuristic or something. And Roman God of War, et cetera. Bad vibes. And we call the other place Blue."

             

"You mean earth?"

             

Earth as E-word already, the same sting, the clenched-teeth reaction whenever someone says - apologies in advance - nigger or cunt.

             

"Um… yeah," said Intihar.

             

Mike to Ben with, "So you're the man who wants to talk to one of our techs. Something about a rocket."

             

I was falling fast out of the loop, quickly recovered when Ben turned and gave one of those I'll Tell You Everything Later looks.

             

Smalltalk from Intihar to Mike, "How was the flight?"

             

"I don't even know, man. They just thawed us out like two hours ago."

             

"No shit?"

             

"I feel fine, though. And Frank looks good, hey, Frank?"

             

Mike pet Frank's surface suit. Frank stared up at us, marginally colorblind but still sensing something not right, probably the sanest of all us mammals.

             

"Get him out of that suit. He'll be fine. Let dogs be dogs," said Ben.

             

Mike gave Intihar a Look, and Intihar gave Ben a Look. One of those Rules: You never fuck a friend's ex-girlfriend, you never play another man's guitar without his permission, and you never give advice concerning someone else's dog.

             

But it seemed Mike considered the suggestion. And, given Ben, he'd push Mike over the edge.

             

"Come on, man. Look at me. Look at your brother. If you don't believe us, take off your mask right now. You look like a cancer patient with it on."

             

Intihar was never one to back down from a dare and it seemed his brother followed the mold. Without hesitation Mike took off his fishbowl. He had that First Breath that always scares the hell out of you, trying to fill your lungs with something taken for granted, something that isn't around, like going up to the Rocky Mountains for vacation and taking a ten-mile hike the first day, wasted just walking up the sloped parking lot to the trailhead.

             

"Just breathe, Mike. You'll be lightheaded a bit but you'll turn out fine," said Intihar, leaving out the caveat of you'll be fine… in a few months.

            

 Mike bent at the waist and stood and he was all right.

             

"Christ. It's like when I'd panic and smoke to calm down the day before a marathon. And then I'd get my ass kicked in the marathon."

             

"You ran marathons and smoked?" Ben asked.

             

"You've got three daughters and a wife and you're on Mars?" Mike shot back with a grin, crossing a barrier he, honestly, didn't have much business crossing.

             

I waited to see if Ben had a knife stashed somewhere, since that moment, more than any other time, would be the perfect opportunity for the first shanking on Red. But for whatever reason, Ben went with it, laughed a ha-ha ha-ha, like he could shrug off the fact that his family roster somehow became public knowledge. If it was anyone else who made the crack, Tibbits or that two-star, Ben would've put a death-grip on their throat until their face went purple and their heart gave and they involuntarily shit themselves.

             

"Now take the dog out of the damn suit," said Ben.

             

Mike and Intihar both worked at it, unzipping panels that had more zippers underneath, locked seals to rotate, Frank squirming all the way through, and then he was out, out in the open, already panting from the heat, first a noise like he was going to throw up, then a hoarse breathing rhythm, rough but alive, finally visible, a brown mutt with a black pirate's patch over one eye and he immediately smelled the ground and sniffed deep and sneezed and shook and was fine.

             

Ben bent down and talked in a voice I never heard before. It was like a six-year-old version of himself waking up on Christmas morning.

             

"Yeah! Good puppy!"

             

"He's six," said Mike.

             

"All dogs are puppies," Ben said.

             

Ben rubbed Frank behind the ears and Frank's tail moved so fast you could barely see it.

             

"Sit. Lay down."

             

Frank complied.

             

"Yeeeeeaaaaah!"

             

Ben looked like he was attacking him. Frank rolled over and Ben vigorously rubbed his belly. Frank then got up and sat patiently, tail still erect, wagging, waiting to play dominant-submissive with Ben some more.

             

The sound of some sniffles and it was right at my ear. I turned and Intihar's eyes were red and puffy like how eyes normally looked below the dustline, but he was wiping away tears.

             

"Oh my god," he said, voice shaking like a burning leaf and, "god, I'm so embarrassed. I… I don't know. I just don't know," and he crouched and pet Frank the dog.

             

Fur flew off, like Frank was blowing four excess coats, probably a byproduct of the deep freeze. But the hairs settled on the dust and blended in with the hard-packed rocky soil underneath and, besides, who'd get on our case to police anything up like that?

             

Ben kneeled again and put his face an inch from the dog's. It was like we all disappeared, and it was just Ben and the dog on Mars.

             

"You'll be fine, boy," Ben said to Frank. "Just you wait. You'll be all right."

             

A universal emptiness to that phrase, You'll Be All Right and Everything's Fine said to too many cancer patients and housefire survivors. But Ben, somehow, said it with an assuring empathy. Nevermind that Frank didn't have to worry about all this bothersome Consciousness.

             

I was waiting for--

(Chapter 33 coming Monday, January 30, 2012.)