Old Mars Read online

  He sounded funny … as if he maybe didn’t think it was just imagination. Or the head injury, like Dad did. He shrugged, stared down at the patterns the dust made on the street.

  “I know why you hate us now. Celie in there, she made sure I knew. She’s got a tongue on her, that gal. I’m sorry, Maartin. I’m sorry that you got hurt, that your mom got killed. Yeah, you got some rogue companies, and man, you just don’t know what it does to guys, thinkin’ they got their hands on enough money to go back home, live like a prince. Most of us … we’re never gonna get home.” Shadows moved in his dark eyes. “Costs a fortune to pay transport and you never really get your ticket out here paid off, it’s too easy to spend what you get on beer, or booze, or chemicals so you can go home the easy way.” He laughed harshly. “Only way you’re gonna make more than your ticket back is to find a shoal. That … I guess that was what made those guys crazy. You hear about ’em. Pearls all over the place, the whole crew can go home in style, awake, no danger of cryodamage from steerage. Buy that palace when they get there. Take care of their families.”

  Maartin looked up. He sounded so … sad. “Why … people want … pearls?” The words were coming easier now, easier than with Dad even. “Why … so much?”

  “You never held one?” Jorge chuckled and reached into his pocket. “I guess they do different stuff to different people. Mostly, they make sex feel really really great.” He winked. “Kind of like you’re givin’ and takin’ at the same time. That sells really well back home, you better believe it. Up here, sometimes you can see weird stuff.” He held out his hand. “Pick it up.”

  Maartin looked at the small ovoid on Jorge’s palm. It was the color of dust, but veins of silver and gold swirled through it, and, as he stared at it, tiny starbursts of light seemed to flicker off and on, deep in its depths.

  “I should turn it in, I guess, but I … I see stuff. Pretty stuff. Cheaper than the drugs.” He laughed that harsh laugh again. “Kind of holds your eye, doesn’t it?” He pushed his hand closer. “Pick it up. See what it does for you.”

  Maartin reached for it and just before he touched it, the hum of the city around him intensified, rising instantly to a howl as his fingers brushed the smooth …

  He let the flow of the crowd carry him along the wide boulevard, where conversation flowed like the sparkling waters of the canal in the distance. Happy, comfortable, belonging. All around him, slender residents of the city floated along the twisting spiderway … the name for it flashed in his mind. They were all heading toward the canal, and suddenly, the happy/comfortable feeling cracked, streaked through with ugly red anger. Anger. He looked ahead, where the spires twisted into the sky and the fragile bridges crossed the canal in soaring arches. And winced as he spied the empty, dry, ugly space where the miners were working. The anger was building, building, building … washing back across the plain, choking him, turning the sky and air the color of dead dust, blurring the lovely spires, blurring … All around him people stretched out long-fingered hands, reached death from the air, held death like silvery spears that shimmered and twisted, humming, humming, humming, death … He gasped for air, choking on anger-dust, struggling …

  “Maartin? He’s waking up.”

  Dad’s voice.

  Arms were holding him. Dad? He blinked, his eyelids gummy, sticky, forced them open.

  He was in the infirmary. Everything was white, and a screen winked numbers and flickering graphs beside the bed. Dad leaned over him, his face blocking out the screen and the people strolling through and around his bed, fingers flickering in conversation. “You had some kind of seizure, son. Jorge here brought you in. He said it happened when he touched a Martian pearl.”

  It wasn’t a pearl, what a silly name. A pearl was from the shell of a mollusk, a creature from Earth’s oceans, how dumb to think that this was from some kind of sea creature. The people standing around his bed waved their fingers in agreement, flicking laughter at him. Silly comparison, not-too-smart, not-worth-our-attention. They just don’t know. His fingers twitched on the white sheet covering him and he absently noticed the garbled sounds coming from his … from his mouth. It took him a moment to remember the right word.

  “Maartin? What are you trying to say? Stay with us, son.”

  He blinked, and the strolling people faded a little. He could see through them now, see Dad’s face again, more worried now, see Jorge standing at the foot of the bed.

  “Maartin?”

  “I … oh … kay. Dad.” He shaped the words carefully, closed his hands into fists as his fingers tried to move. Mouth. Focus. “Fain. Ted?”

  “Hello, Maartin, how are you feeling?” Another face swam into focus, pushing Dad aside. Dr. Abram, the settlement’s health-tech person. Dr. Abram was smiling one of those too-wide smiles that meant stuff was wrong. “So what happened? Mr. Moreno here says that some of the boys were getting a little rough. Did you hit your head on something?”

  He could feel the pressure of their attention, Dad and Jorge. His fingers twitched again, trying to explain. He clenched his fists more tightly, made his head rock forward and back. A nod. The word for the gesture came back to him. He nodded again. “On. Wall.” It was getting easier to find the words for the lie in the tumbled chaos inside his head.

  “I told Al that the boys were bullying Maartin.” Dad’s voice rose as he faced Abram. “But no, he’s not gonna do anything but shake his finger at those punks. When did that ever do any good? And now this …”

  “Easy, Paul.” Abram put his arm on Dad’s shoulder. “There’s no hemorrhaging, no pressure on the brain or areas of injury, according to the scans. Apparently the bump caused something like a short and sparked a lot of unusual brain activity, that’s all. The root cause is probably the earlier accident, the original brain trauma.” He was speaking very soothingly, and Dad looked away. He was trying not to cry.

  Maartin looked at Jorge. He was frowning. Yeah. He knew that the doctor was wrong. Maartin waited for him to say so, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he gave Maartin a crooked smile. “Glad you’re feeling better, Maartin. Hey, you get better, okay?” He lifted a finger to his forehead in a kind of salute and left the room.

  “I’m … I’m glad he came along.” Dad looked after him, his face tight. Nodded grudgingly. “Good to know a few of ’em are okay.” He turned back to Abram, anger in his eyes once more. “I’m going to go talk to Al. Right now. This is a matter for community intervention.”

  “You heard what the boys had to say.” Abram shook his head.

  “They’re lying.”

  “He’s going to be fine, Paul. Kids are rough. They act like bullies once in a while. This scared ’em. They learned from it.”

  “Maartin, I’ll be back in a little while.” Dad was talking to him like the mayor talked to him. Too loud and too slow. Maartin swallowed sadness. Nodded.

  “You’re going to be fine, Maartin.” Abram wasn’t looking at him, was looking at the screen with all the numbers and graphs. “But we’re going to keep you here a little while longer.” He gave that too-wide smile again, but he still wasn’t looking at Maartin. “You were unconscious for over three days.”

  Three days? Maartin nodded, but the doctor wasn’t looking at him and didn’t notice. He lay back on the pillow and let the crowd in the plaza come back into focus. It had thinned now. People walked away, through the walls as if they weren’t there at all, and he could see the buildings, the road, the spiderways arching overhead. The curved wall of a building crossed through the room, right through the end of the bed. He watched Abram walk through it and right through a trio of people fluttering an intense conversation as they strolled into its wide, arched doorway. He shoved a foot out, tried to feel something as his foot pushed into the building’s wall. Nothing. One of the people rippled her fingers in a smile and said something that didn’t quite make sense, but almost. About his foot. And the building.

  “What are you seeing?”

  He startled a
nd red flashed on the screen. Jorge stepped forward quickly and touched it. The red went away and he glanced furtively at the door. “Man, they’ve got the alarms set way high. I guess the doc is afraid you’re gonna seize again.” He perched awkwardly on the foot of the bed, oblivious to the two people who hurried through him. “So what do you see?” His dark eyes were intent on Maartin’s face.

  “I … the city. Spiderways. People.” He let his fingers talk, too. It helped the words come. Jorge stared at them.

  “With long fingers and they wave ’em all the time, right? Silvery hair? Skinny? Kind of weird.”

  “… Beautiful. Like … spires.”

  “Yeah.” Jorge sighed. The sound was tired. Old.

  Maartin squinted at his face, at the shadows in his eyes.

  “So it’s not just me.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “I couldn’t figure out how I came up with this stuff. What are they, Maartin? Do you know?”

  “… people.”

  “Martians?”

  Maartin shrugged. Silly question.

  “Ghosts?”

  Maartin frowned. Shook his head slowly. “Ghosts … dead people.”

  Jorge groaned and buried his face in his hands. “I’ve been asking around. For a long time. Yeah, the guys who handle pearls see stuff, but nobody keeps a pearl very long. Well, me. But I wanted to figure out what I was seeing. I figured they were ghosts.” He raised his head and fixed his eyes on Maartin. “I did some checking. Found the old news post about your … about the accident. You and your mom got caught in a debris slide from a blast. It took out a small dome.”

  They’d been visiting Teresa, Mom’s friend. She’d laughed a lot and taught him to play poker. Maartin closed his eyes as once again, the dome above them buckled, split, and red dust and rock flowed in like water. Screaming split his ears, then silence, darkness, and …

  … people.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Maartin opened his eyes as something brushed his face. Jorge was wiping tears from his cheeks.

  “That was the richest shoal of pearls ever found. People … people went crazy. So, what are they?” Jorge was whispering now. “The pearls. Do you know?”

  Maartin thought about it. He did know. He wasn’t sure he had the words, wove a faltering explanation in the air with his fingers, biting his lip, waiting for the breath-words to come. They didn’t.

  “What does that mean? What you’re doing with your fingers?”

  Maartin shook his head. “I … I think they … like …” He drew a deep breath. “… a soul. No.” He shook his head. “… projector? From long ago?”

  “So they are ghosts.”

  He sounded so relieved. Maartin shook his head. “… not dead. Alive.” He struggled to find words that would explain, as his fingers quivered. “Dif … different way … of being.” He raised his head, stared into Jorge’s dark eyes. “They live forever. But … when … when you take … pearls away … they … die. Everything. City. Spires. Spiderways.”

  “No.” Jorge spun to his feet, heading for the door. “Kid, you’re dreaming. They’re not alive, they’re just visions. Yeah, they seem real, but that’s all they are. Ghosts. Visions.”

  “No.” Maartin clenched his fingers into fists. “… alive. You kill them.”

  Jorge left.

  Maartin listened to his footsteps fade. Around him, the city hummed with life. People slid across the spiderways and a trio of musicians shook bouquets of delicate silver wands that gave off a shimmering, crystal music that rose and fell, filling the air with curtains of rose and golden light. A city. He strained his eyes so that the dome faded away and all he saw were the streets, the free-form plazas paved here with opalescent tiles, the silvery arches of the spiderways overhead, the delicate walkways that connected the tall buildings’ soaring spires.

  Full of people.

  Full of life.

  A shoal.

  Dad took him home the next day, treating him as if he were made of delicate glass and might break. He had rented a mover, as if Maartin had a broken leg. Maartin felt silly, perched in the seat next to Dad as they hummed past people walking to their gardens or shopping or doing whatever. They all looked at him as soon as they could. He didn’t have to turn around, he felt the stares like prodding fingers on his back. But he found he could let the Martian city come into focus and didn’t have to feel them. But even that wasn’t comfortable. The feel of the city was changing and that anger-hum threaded through everything. Everything. South, toward the canal, the empty red space where the spiderways ended and the canal gaped barren and dry nagged like a missing tooth. When they got back to their rooms, Maartin told Dad that he didn’t feel good and Dad gave him one of the pills Dr. Abram had given him. The pills made him sleep and he didn’t even dream about the city. Dad was relieved when he took the pill. Now he could go return the mover and didn’t have to worry.

  The city got in his way. He had to concentrate in order to keep the dome in focus. If he forgot, if he lost focus, the city buildings and the people and the spiderways tangled up with the corridor walls and the dome and he stopped when he didn’t need to or ran into people. Or walls. Everybody was really nice about that, they’d all heard about the “seizure.” They just walked him back home, even if that wasn’t where he wanted to go, saying soothing things in too-loud, too-simple voices. Their kids slunk away whenever they saw him.

  But the anger-hum was fading. Dad took him to Canny’s one night and he heard people talking about how the miners had quit blasting, that they weren’t finding any pearls, that they were doing some test digs, but if nothing turned up, they’d move on.

  He hadn’t seen Jorge since he’d walked out of the infirmary.

  Dad took him back to Dr. Abram again and asked the doctor to do another brain scan.

  “Yes, there has been an increase in random activity in the temporal lobes.” Abram didn’t bother to lower his voice even though the door was open between his office and the exam room where Maartin was sitting. “It’s a significant increase since the scan I ran after the initial accident.” The doctor reached across his keyboard to put a hand on Dad’s arm. “Speech, hearing, visual processing … it all comes from that area. Think of an old-fashioned Earthly thunderstorm. The lightning made the lights flicker, caused static on the radio, interfered with old-fashioned cable TV. That’s what’s going on in Maartin’s brain.” He sounded almost cheerful now. He loved lecturing, Maartin thought. He’d logged in to some of Dr. Abram’s video lectures on health issues and they were pretty good.

  Not this one.

  Dad’s sadness dimmed the city plaza that overlay the office. One of the people strolling by flickered sympathy to him and he rippled a weak appreciation. “Is there any way to fix the problem?”

  Abram shook his head. Such a crude gesture when the slightest curve of his third finger could have conveyed so much more. Maartin watched Dad’s shoulders slump. “The drugs quiet the activity, but since they sedate him …” Abram shrugged. “And a lower dose doesn’t seem to do any good.”

  Well, it dimmed the city some, but that was all.

  “What about his hands … they twitch and spasm all the time.”

  “I don’t know what’s causing that.” Abram frowned.

  Thunderstorms. Maartin frowned. Dad was feeling pretty bleak and Dr. Abram was patting him again. A shoal, Jorge had said. Lots of pearls in that avalanche of dust and rock when the miners blasted the escarpment above Teresa’s settlement? And he’d been buried in them for a whole day. That’s what Dad told him after, anyway. It had taken that long for someone to dig him out. Sleeping in the pearls, touching them? Thunderstorm?

  Two people carrying purple flowers paused as they crossed the plaza and flickered a negative at him. Not quite right. The taller one fluttered rapid fingers, waved emphatically. Rippled a smile.

  We fixed you.

  You are whole now. You were broken. Imperfect unit. They rippled smiles, comfort, and approval and str
olled on their way, their arched feet barely brushing the polished tiles.

  Wait! He waved both hands. They paused, looked back. Fix the miners! Fix them! His fingers snapped together with urgency and both of them curled disapproval at his tone, but softened their fingers into a long arc of understanding. Imperfect unit, still. They rippled a shrug and went on. Maartin flinched as his father’s hands closed over his.

  “Easy, son.” His eyes were full of pain. “Try clasping them together when they want to do that.”

  You don’t understand. His fingers writhed in his father’s grasp.

  “They …” He forced out the crude huff of air. “Don’t.” His fingers twitched, stifled in his father’s grip. “Care.”

  “Who doesn’t care?” The smile looked artificial. “The miners, Maartin? These aren’t the bad men who … who hurt you.”

  I want them to make you whole, too. His fingers struggled. I want you to see. We’re not alone here. She share. We just don’t see.

  He started going to the garden domes every day, weeding all the beds. They’d built the beds on a pretty plaza, a graceful, free-form space tiled with pale blue and soft green octagons that sparkled with crystal dust. Two fountains played watery music and soft blue and pink mists spread from the slender black tubes that rose from the tumbling water. Sometimes one of the people stopped to speak to him. He recognized them by feel; Soft-sweet-happy, or Firm-thoughtful—he had had word names for them once, but he couldn’t remember those. Then there was Sharp-edge-alert. Sharp-edge-alert didn’t speak often. He thought about the miners a lot, Maartin could tell. He sometimes felt Maartin. Well, felt wasn’t quite the right word, ’cause they couldn’t really touch each other, like you’d touch a plant or dirt or a stone. But he would sometimes put a hand on Maartin and it would … sink into him.

  Maartin didn’t like the feeling much. It didn’t hurt, but it felt … wrong. Like something was stuck in his flesh and shouldn’t be there. When the others “touched” him, their hands brushed his skin the way any human hand would do, but he didn’t feel anything. If he tried to touch them, he found, they shied away if he let his hand slide into them. So he didn’t.