We probably don’t have enough reserves to reach the brown blur in the west. But maybe we’re on a drop line, a regular pattern of deliveries in theater, across the plain. A mystical pilgrim’s trail that will lead us to a few more days of life, and no asking God for more, that’s already too much.
HIKING ON MARS in the morning chill is a treat I’d sell to any starry-eyed explorer for a hot shower.
Decades ago, a bunch of them came to Mars and set up parking lots full of white hamster mazes, then dug deep networks of rabbit tunnels. They claimed Mars and called it home. We call them all Muskies after a visionary entrepreneur, Elon Musk. From what little I’ve read, he founded an online bank, made cars and spaceships, promoted a vegan lifestyle, and fought for years with Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos, Virgin’s Richard Branson, and a dozen other competitors around the world for launch facilities and orbital domination. Eventually, they pooled resources to fulfill the dream of putting people on Mars. But Musk had the name that stuck.
For almost twenty years, settlers kept crossing the vac and arriving on the Red, and then, abruptly, the migrations stopped—mostly because the best settlements maxed out and the others were starving or worse, like Jamestown in Virginia. But a few hundred stalwarts survived, and for a time Muskies were highly regarded, successful pioneers… Until people tired of spending money on the colonies, none of which ever made a return on investment.
So the investment stopped.
After the Gurus arrived and told us that Mars had maggots and we had to go out there and exterminate them before they grew into wasps, the Muskies became a liability. The brass decided we couldn’t defend them, or save them if they got in trouble, once the Battle of Mars began in earnest. I’ve never seen a Muskie, even at a distance. There may be a couple of thousand left alive, but Earth hasn’t done squat for them in years. As far as anyone knows, Antags don’t bother with them, either.
The original settlers paid between $10 million and $100 million each for their Mayflower moment. Our strategy prof at SBLM likened them to the guy who lit out in the 1930s for the Pacific Islands to get away from the hurly-burly and ended up on Guadalcanal.
EVERY SKYRINE IS SOMEBODY’S BASTARD
We march. Radio silence isn’t all that big a deal now, but we keep our talk to a minimum. The sky is still empty. Looks as if what’s going to be here is already here.
Walking on lowland hardpan with only a softening of dust, or low ripples cut through by devil tracks, is easy enough, not like sand or deep dust, and we weigh about one-quarter what we would on Earth, so we could conceivably jump along like John Carter or a moon astronaut, but that’s not recommended and not even all that much fun after the first few leaps, because you never know when your boot will come down on a stone big enough to turn your ankle. There are fucking rocks all over.
There’s a lot of confusion still about how Mars came to be what it is today. Parts of Mars are pure nightmare, from a geologist’s standpoint—so much evidence of big gushes and rivers and lakes and even oceans of past water, present water not so evident, but there all the same—so much difference between the southern highlands and the northern lowlands—plus the biggest visible impact basin in the solar system, Hellas Planitia, surrounded by peculiar terrain both older and younger than the impact… Smart people spend lifetimes trying to riddle it.
Mostly, I leave it to them. But I have my theories. I’m willing to believe all these little rocks fell out of some giant kid’s pockets. He walked around in dirty sneakers for hundreds of thousands of years, picking up rocks and stuffing them in his dungarees. Whenever his balls chafed and tugged his pants leg, he dribbled a stony trail. Johnny Rocker. That explains all these ankle-turners.
We could legitimately pray for a thin cloud of fine silt to blow over, but the sky is not cooperating. Martian dust is a major heat-grabber. Temperatures rise, batteries last longer. Insolation—solar energy—drops quite a bit, but we aren’t laying out solar panels and our skintights have little in the way of photovoltaic capacity.
DJ says he’s in sight of the next Russian tent. He’s quite an ace at finding tents. We knew roughly where it was, but he climbed the pedestal and located the tent box in an old gully. And then he reports it’s got warning colors.
“Germ needles,” he says.
The box is filled with shit that kills humans.
That leaves us with maybe two hours of breath.
BY DATE OF rank, I rule in this fragmented squad, but I don’t give orders because nobody cares until we get our recon and tactical becomes important. Besides, if I go all commando voice—Now, men! Listen up—they’re likely to ignore me and turn to Tak.
Which is fine by me.
I’d sure like to hear from Gamecock, our company commander—Lieutenant Colonel Harry Roost. I don’t much like Roost—he can be a by-the-book hardass—but I respect him. He would be strong and direct out here, if not reassuring. We don’t need a hand-holder. We need a lifesaver with a sense of purpose.
THINGS DO NOT get better. Before we reach the next tent box, Tak spots debris a few hundred meters off and we divert. As we get closer, all I see is a skipping series of strike marks, scorch and scatter—a few craters where chunks hit, while the rest went on and plowed long, shallow graves in the hardpan.
We gather around the edge of the strike zone and eyeball the extent. This was once an entire space frame, and it did not fall empty. It came down full of sticks and fasces. There are dead Skyrines everywhere. And a transport sled, split into pieces. Skell-Jeeps spill out of the shattered capsules like the bones of half-born babes. All useless. Even dangerous. Kazak warns us to stay clear of anything that looks like a reactor.
We gingerly poke around, looking for oxygen generators, tanks, packs of skintights, anything that could keep us going for a few more hours. Nobody talks. We don’t examine the bodies. They came down hard and they’re mostly just scattered rips of fabric, squashed helms… freeze-dried stain. They had probably just emerged from Cosmoline, woozy and sluggish, and were getting cleaned off, suiting up, attaching puff packs, prepping for the drop. The space frame must have just then been hit by ground-to-sky bolts or lasers, or sky-to-sky, no way of telling. When seen from a few dozen klicks, or from the ground: sparkly. Just as Michelin and Vee-Def said. Major sparkly to take down the company’s frames and all our sats and, since we have yet to find a fountain, maybe all those as well.
The trunk of the frame might contain extra cargo. We give it a quick search. Nothing here, either. Pure Skyrine waste, nothing to see. Move along.
We have about half an hour. We’ll be dead long before we reach the brown blur. Just keep marching toward the rough position of the next tent box. Kazak suggests we fan out, not to offer a compact target. We break into three groups.
“What’s that tower of haze out there, really, do you think?” Tak asks. He’s about ten meters away, skirting the pedestal’s rim.
“Something stupid,” DJ says, about thirty meters away. “Making itself obvious.”
“Or something strong that doesn’t give a fuck about being spotted,” Vee-Def suggests.
That’s possible, but I don’t want to hear it. If it’s strong and boastful, it doesn’t belong to us. Antags are winning today.
“Maybe it’s a secret sect of Muskies,” Neemie says, moving closer.
“Shut up,” I say. “And keep the spread.”
We go wide again. Fifteen minutes of oxygen, give or take. Soon our angels will warn us we’re down to last gasp and that will seal the deal. Maybe that’s why we call them angels. They could be the last thing you hear.