Sarah Pauly hadn’t seen food wasted since leaving Earth. She crouched over an ear of corn, toasted black in its smouldering husk. ‘Why don’t they pop?’ she wondered aloud.
‘What?’ asked Varda, the dean stood nearby, surveying the damage.
Sarah pointed to the scorched cob. ‘Like popcorn. Why don’t they all go off like popcorn?’
‘You fucking idiot,’ Varda said as Sarah picked up the corn. ‘You must be coming down from adrenaline.’
‘Put it down,’ the UN Marshal called. ‘This is a crime scene – don’t eat the evidence. You shouldn’t be in here anyway. Get out.’
‘You will stay where I can see you,’ Major Ajido snapped. The major stood a few meters away in the wasteland of Greenhouse CC412. She and the UN Marshal inspected the blackened spherical shell of a gas capsule with the UN Marshal. From her debriefing, Sarah had known the marshal to be argumentative, almost arrogant in his perceived authority. But Major Ajido’s tone, her venomous expression and her right hand’s proximity to her sidearm persuaded the marshal not to argue, he scowled but backed down. The greenhouse was also a leisure space. It had a single ground floor and a roof high enough to accommodate humans standing upright. Most other greenhouses were multi-storied, each deck only allowing for crawling harvester drones. Sarah found a bench untouched by the fire. Without its solar lamps, the greenhouse was freezing. Robert had wrapped a space blanket around her shoulders and watched now as the two Redbourn majors, Ajido and Hameed bickered over security. Robert had joined the argument now. The voices combined made a blurred mix thicker her exhaled fog patches.
‘Someone slipped right past her security and came into my site – bringing a weapon,’ she heard Varda say. ‘The only reason the Deputy Director is still alive is because his drinking buddy happened to be nearby. Are you okay?’
Sarah ignored the dean and left the greenhouse for the sickbay. Ajido hissed an order and two of her guardsmen followed. Markus was still awake. The gigantic face of Dr Chadha, Cydonia’s Medical Director filled the wall display next to Markus’ bed. The doctor spoke to the Redbourn medic but stopped when Sarah entered. He eyed her, told the medic that he would check in later, and ended the feed. The face vanished leaving an empty wall.
‘The Medical Director himself,’ said Sarah. ‘You must be an important patient.’
‘He needs to rest.’ The First Battalion medic tried to head Sarah off as she approached the bed but he backed away when he saw the two Second Battalion guardsmen flanking her.
Markus sat up and looked at the drip bag that hovered above him. ‘The doctor said this will keep me hydrated and help me sleep. I don’t think I want to sleep.’
‘Robert is more concerned about whose fault this was,’ said Sarah. ‘I don’t think he thanked you yet.’
‘Is that why you’re here, to thank me?’
Sarah nodded. ‘Again.’
‘Don’t thank me,’ said Markus. ‘I’ve watched the video. He’s alive because of your judgement.’
‘Still, that poisoned knife was meant for him. So thank you.’’
Markus leaned forward, ignoring the medic’s protest. ‘You want to thank me? Go back to the City. He’ll stay there if you do. This isn’t about the war, someone wants him dead.’
Sarah couldn’t answer. 'Get out, all of you,’ the medic said. ‘Now.’ One of the guardsmen ushered her out of the sick bay.
Markus lay back. ‘Take the first flight to the City, and then stay there.’
Cydonia City, Cydonia Mensae
The trees pushed through the garden’s turf, drinking light from the solar lamps and irrigated water from the synthetic soil. Grace Mitchell assured Sarah that these trees would, in their lifetime, consume more cash than the first human voyage. Sarah heard birdsong and the lazy hum of vespid drones that fussed over the flowerbeds.
‘Why don’t you shut it down?’ Sarah asked. ‘We don’t have any more filthy-rich tourists anymore.’
Cydonia Corporation’s Director General, the first living human to walk Mars, reached for a willow next to her, patting its trunk like an old friend. ‘We planted these in the first greenhouses, while you were still in grade school. They’re part of the Cydonia family and you don’t forsake family, whatever they cost you.’ The garden was Cydonia One’s show piece; it demonstrated ingenuity and wealth. It lured tourists and boasted to investors. Now, like the Cygnus airship, it seemed a gaudy waste.
‘It’s good to have you back,’ the Director General said as they passed the stream that bisected the circular garden. ‘After what you’ve been through, you must be glad to be home and safe.’
‘Safe for now,’ Sarah said. ‘Do you know anything about the killer?’
Mitchell shook her head. ‘The marshal has the body. We’ll know soon enough.’
‘He’s a ghost,’ said Sarah, ‘they won’t find anything. They remove their fingerprints, they aren’t registered at birth. They spend their lives off the grid, training to kill until someone hires them.’
‘We know who hired this one,’ said Mitchell.
‘You think it was iMicor,’ said Sarah.
‘I know it was iMicor.’ They walked on until they reached the garden’s edge. The garden had its own dome inside Cydonia One’s greater dome. It was a biome within a biome. Like the rest of the city, one didn’t need to walk far before finding a wall. ‘Will you stay in the city? You know it isn’t safe out there.’
‘Stay in the city and do what?’ asked Sarah.
Mitchell led the way along the garden’s perimeter. ‘You find this city dull,’ she said, ‘or you don’t feel part of it. I’ve never understood why. Even in a world without spectacle, someone of worth will find their place. You’re standing in a technological masterpiece. Everything here from the waste digester to the fusion reactor is a marvel.’
‘I’m happier out there,’ said Sarah.
‘I understand,’ said Mitchell.
They walked on, following the perimeter’s curve where the freshly cut grass pressed through Sarah's soft shoes. She was a creature halved without her Polyskin, her footsteps slight and of no consequence. Sarah watched the distorted figures from the city’s busy walkways that cast shades through the curving wall. ‘The city has never been so populated,’ Mitchell said. ‘We’ve had to evacuate the disputed sites. Like I said, it isn’t safe out there.’ A holographic podium stood on its own in front of a bamboo thicket. The hologram sparkled to life as Mitchell approached. It showed a perfectly rendered Martian crater. Thumb-sized airships drifted through the air above the crater like captive tropical fish, unable to leave their 3D space. Sarah studied the image and recognised the miniature technological wonder of Cydonia One, the Old Town next to it. A small distance away, almost reaching the crater wall, stood another dome, bigger by far than the combined area of its companions. ‘Cydonia Two, Mitchell announced. ‘Work starts next year.’
Sarah tasted bile, and steadied herself on the podium’s edge. Without her Polyskin and its forceful, loving crush, she was overcome by a hollow and sickening frail sensation.
‘You're assuming there's going to be a next year,’ she managed to say.
‘Molecule B is our business,’ said Mitchell. ‘We mine samples and we sell them to Earth. The samples mutate eventually, so we sell more pure samples. It’s only a matter of time before someone figures out how to synthesise pure samples on Earth – and then we don’t have a business. The same way our technologies gutted the oil industry supermajors. We have to look to the future. Cydonia Two is about the future.’
‘What, is there another molecule?’ Sarah asked, still entranced by the petite airships that slid through the hologram sky.
‘Not that we know of.’ said Mitchell. She made a gesture and the scene transformed into a scaled Martian sphere. False light from a false sun covered half of the rotating globe in daylight. Shadows stretched from Tharsis Peaks in the morning, shrunk to nothing and lengthened again in the afternoon. The image morphed into a red wire scaffold of a planet. A single green pipe started at the crust and burrowed through mantle and core until it reached the centre, its length the same as the planet’s radius. The image zoomed in to the tunnel and showed thousands of skeletal insects extracting material from the core and hauling it to the surface.
‘Planet-sized termites,’ said Mitchell.
‘We’re going to mine the core?’
‘The core is worthless. We’re going to reach the core and then we’re going to build the system’s largest fusion reactor apart from the sun.’ Something flickered in the planet’s centre. It started as a spark then grew to a blaze. Animated arrows showed convection flows around new, blazing core. The image zoomed back Mars’ surface and more arrows showing magnetic field lines between the poles. The planet changed from rust to green. Trees crowded the valleys and water seeped through the crust to fill craters.
Sarah stared now at a living planet with an inner sun to match the outer. ‘You’re going to terraform.’
‘We’re going to terraform,’ Michell corrected her.
Sarah found her breath and stood straight. ‘Ambitious,’ she said.
‘This isn’t just ambition, this is legacy,’ said Mitchell. ‘I won’t live to see this happen, but you might. Right now you’re thinking this plan is insane. You probably think I am insane. People thought your grandfather was insane when he said he wanted humans on Mars. This is possible; the tech is proven. Cydonia Two is where we start. Next year will be the beginning of humanity’s greatest accomplishment and I want you to be part of it.’
Sarah swiped at the globe. Her hand cut a meandering channel through verdant plains. ‘We might not be here next year,’ she said. ‘Did you forget about the war? Did you make a hologram for how that plays out?’
‘iMicor is desperate, they know they need to win before the end summer and that's not long. They don’t have enough to take this city. We might temporarily lose some of the towns, but I guarantee you we will be here long after iMicor’s board faces the UN Criminal Court.’
‘iMicor outnumbers us three-to-one. They have a professional standing army. Do you think your Redbourn mercenaries are going to beat them? They’re dysfunctional. Their officers are bullies, not leaders, and their men are confused – they don’t know who is in charge. They can’t even keep out one assassin, how are they going to keep an army out? Robert would be dead now if his drinking buddy hadn’t been around.’
Mitchell straightened. ‘Neither of you should have been out there in the first place. Now I need you both here. After what you’ve been through, I hope you will both make the right decision. I’ll be direct. If you stay in the City, Robert will have no reason to do otherwise.’
Sarah swatted at the holographic Martian world, spinning it on its tilted axis until the polar caps turned white and the water froze in the yawning craters. She had already made her decision. ‘I’m sure it’s safe – after all, we have Redbourn protecting us, right? I’m eligible to apply for a full pilot’s license,’ she said. ‘I leave tomorrow for Izu Oshima to finish my training. Then I’m going to volunteer as a pilot.’ ‘Oh,’ Mitchell said narrowing her eyes. She dismissed the hologram with a single gesture. ‘You are. The swan takes flight. Does Robert know about your latest move?’
‘He does.’
‘And what does he think?’
‘That’s none of your damn business – aunt.’ Sarah traced her steps back to the garden’s doorway.
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