He has seen nothing in the way of technology. No cars, no telephonic devices, radios nor television. Holtz has built her home from the very rock beneath her feet and molded it to her will.
“There is nothing we require that we don’t already possess,” she tells him, reading his thoughts again. “The only thing missing is the inconceivable.”
He doesn’t know what that means. He’s still trying to frame his lack of understanding into a meaningful question, when she stops to indicate they have arrived at their destination. He sees nothing but more forest in every direction.
Holtz reaches out her hand and appears to mime grabbing a hold of something, though he can see nothing there for her to grasp. But as she pulls her arm back, a black rectangle appears. It’s as if they are standing on a giant set, and this is the doorway to exit the sound stage. She steps into the darkness, trailing an arm behind that beckons him to follow. He takes a breath and steps through the hole in the world.
The door closes behind him, and for a moment everything is completely black. “You there?”
She grabs his arm reassuringly. “I’m right here.”
“Where are we?” There are walls close by; he senses them before he sees them. As he focuses his mind on the space around them, the walls start to emit a strange dull light of their own, just enough to illuminate a path ahead.
They are in a tunnel that continues in a line for about a hundred yards or so, to a ramp that descends steeply into what he assumes to be some sort of underground bunker. Holtz leads him down the ramp, which spirals, leaves him feeling utterly disconnected from the forest they just left behind. After they descend for several minutes, the ramp brings them to a chamber about the size of a double garage. It has a prison-like feel to it.
A Martian stands facing them at the furthest end of the chamber. He is neither pleased nor angry, apparently unsurprised by their arrival. Borman figures he has Holtz to thank for that. He tries to swallow the suspicion that she has just delivered him into captivity. She gently places her hand on his back and nudges him forward, saying nothing. Meaning, he supposes, he needs to find out for himself.
“My name is Frank Borman. I have come…”
“It is good to finally meet you, Colonel Borman. I know why you are here,” he says. “My name is Skioth.” He turns and starts to walk. “Please,” he urges, “come this way.”
Borman follows him through another doorway behind him, even though his instincts scream at him to run in the other direction. Through the next doorway, he finds a square room devoid of furniture and adornment, with another door in the opposite corner. He arrives in time to see the Martian disappearing through that door. Again he follows, down a short corridor that leads to a larger square antechamber with two doors facing one another on opposite walls of the room. The Martian takes the door on the right, which brings them to a third chamber, identical to the one they have just left, but with three doors — one in every wall. If he ever finds his way back to this room, it might prove impossible to know the way out again. The Martian says, “From here, you must walk alone.”
Which is when Borman realizes Holtz has not accompanied them this far. He looks into the eyes of the Martian, trying to get a read on him. “What did you say your name was?”
“Does that matter?”
“To me it does,” says Borman. “I think it might matter to you too.”
He smiles. “My name is Skioth,” he repeats and Borman tries his hardest to commit it to memory. “Now Colonel Borman, you must choose which of these doors you will enter. If you choose wisely, you will find your friend and you will both leave here as free men. You have my word on this. But first, you must choose.”
Which way?
Skioth turns and exits back through the door they entered. Before Borman even has time to raise an objection, the wall shimmers. As if the stone has turned liquid, it snaps together and closes the exit. The air in the chamber vibrates with the force of it. He steps up to the wall and puts his hand up to it. No sign of heat. He touches it — it’s as cold as concrete, and just as hard. He slaps it. No echo. It’s thick and solid.
No other choice but to choose one of the other three doors. He thinks about it for a while, recalling the rooms through which they passed to get here. Had there been clues along the way that might inform his choice? If so, he’s missed them.
For no good reason, he picks the door on the right. It leads him down a much longer, darkening corridor that eventually opens out to an atrium, its ceiling stretching three stories high. In the wall facing him, there is a single line of prison cells cut into the wall. The atrium itself, totally enclosed and roofed in girders of steel, seems to serve no purpose other than to illustrate the fact they are deep underground. From where Borman is standing, it’s as if the cells are under the boot of Mars herself. Feeling a rush of air at his feet, he turns to see the door through which he has just passed is gone. The wall behind him is solid. Once more, there is no going back.
The cells immediately in front of him are empty.
“Donald? Can you hear me?” There’s no answer from Menzel, but two other men step forward from the shadows to show their faces behind the bars of their cells. They mutter in what sounds suspiciously like Russian.
One of them points at him. “Colonel Borman.”
“That’s right. Do we know one another?”
The Russians seem pleased and relieved to see another human face. “Will you tell them to set us free? That we mean them no harm?”
“I don’t know your names.”
The fellow speaking looks over at his comrade, who says, “We are part of the mission. I am Georgy Dobrovolsky and this is my co-pilot, Viktor Patsayev.”
Cosmonauts. He recognizes their names, although he has no memory of them. “Have we met before?”
“What do you remember, Frank Borman?”
“Nothing. What about you two? I guess we flew here together, eh?”
He answers indirectly. “It has long been the Russian goal to come to Mars. To go one step beyond the American space program. The Moon was but a stepping stone for us.”
“It’s easy to say that when you haven’t been there yet.”
Dobrovolsky smiles. “Is that what you think?”
Borman steps back. “Are you trying to tell me you’ve made it to the Moon and we don’t know about it?”
The Russian laughs. “That would be funny, no? If only it were true. Our greatest triumphs were already behind us when Bermuda came to us seeking cooperation. The Russian government had lost appetite for spending such money on space and we had already decided not to fly to the Moon. But when Bermuda suggests flying to Mars… Who could say no to this?”
Patsayev says, “Russian technology always superior to American. This we know already.” The way he says it, the truth of it is undeniable. Borman is reluctantly forced to admit that the reality of all three of them standing here seems to lend weight to his assessment.
Even so, he bristles at the suggestion and is about to open his mouth to speak against it, but finally thinks better of it. If they’re to make it out of here alive, they’ll need to work together. Despite the fact that Bermuda will surely have sent him here to maximize the possibility of belaying Russia’s claim on Martian soil. But none of them will be doing any claiming here. They have nothing to offer the Martians other than disruption.