O Those Martians by N. Barry Carver (red scrolls of magic .txt) 📖

©

2011 NBC


T

he lectrice, shapely even in her Curie-suit and respirator, swiveled her perfect dimensions back to the diminutive crowd.



She’d been examining what could have been an amazing discovery: Two of her charges had called her to something they’d found just off the usual path. Their claims were that they’d found a “dinosaur bone”. The structure would remind the untrained eye of, perhaps, a hip-ball and femur fragment of some giant sea-serpent but, at the slightest touch, it fell to powder.

Many such hoaxes had been created in odd places by the first miners and settlers. Wishful thinking or calculated ruse was anyone’s guess. Not wanting to get into this particular controversy (and impossibility), she dusted her gloves and wiped the moment from her mind. Let’s stick to reality, shall we?

– She wanted to say, but brushed her comment aside too.

“Over there, if you look carefully, you can make out the arc of Orion’s Belt as it emerges from the sparkling cloud that was once Earth.”

“Where did Earth come from, Proctor?” asked young Edisoni, ever one to spark the class on to the next lesson.

“Much as our home did, Earth was made of material left over when Sol coalesced. It was destroyed 89 years ago, and while the cause isn’t yet known it was, most likely, an accident. Can anyone tell me what 89 years would be in ‘Earth Years’?”

“One hundred and sixty-seven and one-third Earth years” was the nearly instant answer, but it came so fast she couldn’t tell which of the Guttenburgol twins said it first.

“You’ve been a good class today, so I’ll give you ten minutes to enjoy gazing at the sky. Then you can go in and prepare to go home.” Ms. Voss then headed back into the building, doffed her exo-suit and made her secret way down to the thermal baths.

They hadn’t been particularly good or bad; she was just still aching from her workout this morning and wanted to soak her tight, sore butt in as much hot, mineral water as she could. Afterhours at the elementary school was the one place she could relax without being in a crowd.

She slipped off the rest of her clothes and wondered how the red dust got into the little places that had been so thoroughly covered. She straddled the sanitizer, which was the last hurdle before she could melt into that life-rejuvenating pool. As she came out the far door of the old shower room and the airlock whispered shut behind her, she was finally alone.

It took a minute to get used to the smell of sulfur and copper that came up from the natural bath, as if anything here could be considered natural. This had been a sort of daily spa for the Japanese and Malaysian workers in the original camps. She’d read how, on Earth, every town and, in some cases, better homes, had these small pools of hot water in which to soak. What a joy that must have been here! To come home from a hard day in one of those antique “space-suits”, covered in clinging dust and relax in fluids just below body temperature. It was really the high point of any day when she could sneak into this oddly never mentioned retreat. Today all she’d done was talk to four-year-olds and stand outside in the “rain” for a while. Strange, she thought, that the rain should be so oppressive and the bath so liberating. Rain was a part of daily life here and it must’ve replenished this place after countless ages of lying dry and empty, waiting for water to return – which without humanity’s interference – would never have happened.

The atmospheric generators create a condition that means rain everyday... all day. She’d seen a simulation that it’d been different on Earth. Rain fell from the convergence of competing pressure variations, actually out of clouds. Here, fine droplets condensed in the thin atmosphere and fell straight down out of a normally tan sky. In recent months that sky was starting to take on a blue tint, which administrators assured, was the designed color.

Down in the echoing cavern of a forgotten workmen’s treat, the very desirable Ms. Voss could bask in solitude and consider all that had been lost, and gained, by moving one planet further from the sun.

Smoothing her hands over her skin, she watched the loosened bubbles parade to the surface, daring not to linger on the more luscious, intricate or responsive parts. Pausing too long would make this a more energetic endeavor than she’d come here to enjoy. Even a quick brush against her eagerly excitable regions brought a quick physical response and, along with it, deeper ideas that were more soul-nurturing than sensually satisfying.

A thought crossed her mind as her hands returned to the surface: Would it be possible, some day, that the oils from her skin and the natural fluids, like the light perspiration that trickled over her lips, might combine with the exotic mixture she floated in and generate some truly Martian life? Her face broadened into a light smile as she told herself, a fair hand at scientific theory, how silly the idea was. Not even bacteria had ever been found on the surface of this rock. The only lifeforms here came from a planet that would never send anything again – and that was that. She returned to her buoyant daydreaming.

Some of the ideas of the "old world" seemed so crude and obsolete now, at the only surviving outpost of her species, but at the same time a bit romantic. Imagine a culture so primitive that the quality of your medical care was doled out in proportion to the amount your employer was willing to pay you! You’d live, suffer or die based chiefly on your ability to pay for medicines or procedures. It’s barbaric! Not to mention housing, clothing and food were all similarly tied. On the other side, you were mated, often for life, with but a single other person. Your children may have suffered from your lack of income but, at least, they were your

children.

That last thought reminded her that she’d soon need to report to the medic for another harvesting. As she hovered there, soaring in the pale water that continued to slightly arouse her skin, she reassured herself that humankind was better off than they’d ever been before. Technology and evolution make this situation the best one it has ever had – and yet there was still some wish that the Earth was out there – as a frame of reference or as a possible alternate choice.

Some day, she lazily dreamt, humans will again walk on green lawns and pick fruit from trees. In the meantime, for the million here on Mars, it is still a satisfying life. And with that thought she began to doze.

A bubbling hiss interrupted here reverie, Was that the door?

She wondered.

No, no one there. Must’ve been a gas bubble.

Funny how a little thing like a compressor’s whoosh or a little splash can snap one back to reality. Now, with all her speculations burst like a tiny bubble slipping up from under her small but perfect breasts, the structure around her became the crystal clear focus of her thoughts.

The egg-shaped cavern was quite a piece of natural art, beautifully arched and interrupted only by a manufactured ledge three-fourths of the way around, with an airlock door in the middle. The airlock led, through the showers, to an elevator and up into the building where an unmarked door kept this secret.

The underside of this egg, somewhere far below, touched some small bit of the planetary core. A brush with the ancient and elemental planes of Mars herself. Although it made the place smell, it's what made the hot, limitless water of this place so enticing.

Why it had been abandoned she couldn’t guess. She was just happy to have it all to herself. Maybe that was the reason those who knew about it never told anyone, to keep it all to themsel–





I’m afraid, dear reader, the narrative stops there. I could go on with just descriptions, but they get quite graphic, and I’d rather spare you that. Suffice it to say the young teacher found out, ironically right at that moment, why the place had been abandoned.

Those who enjoyed it before hadn’t kept it secret. They were not consumed with greed... they were simply consumed. You see, water tends to revive things in deserted places; some of those things you’d never guess were there until, well, until too late.

People are like that too. Give them enough room, love and encouragement and they’ll grow into something you could have never predicted. You give your kindest intentions and a good example and trust that all will work out for the best.

However, you may want to consider not making yourself too appealing... Just in case.

Publication Date: 10-17-2011

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