Saving Mars (6 page)

“Raider Mombasu—forgive me—
Harpreet
has conferred with me and agreed to reassume the role of negotiations specialist aboard the Red Galleon when it launches for Earth.”

The crowd stomped and clapped their approval upon the mention of Harpreet’s participation. The plan would surely succeed if Harpreet supported it.

But Jessamyn’s heart was already sinking with a terrible realization: her life-long dream of flying as a raider had just been obliterated. With the recent suspension on her record, MCAB would never recommend her for
this
raid. And in twenty orbits, her fair skin would look too reddened and wrinkled—she would have a characteristically
Marsian
appearance. Only those with skin healthy enough to pass for Terran were chosen for the journey to Earth. The risk of someone discovering that Mars was in violation of the No Contact Accord was too great—no one who
looked
Marsian could go to Earth.

Harpreet, old though she was, had been blessed with
melanin
, which offered her body natural protection from Mars’s high dosage of ultraviolet light. Harpreet’s warm chocolate visage was neither reddened nor wrinkled. She was the ideal raider, regardless of her age. But even if Jess’s record was spotless for the following twenty annums, Jess would never be selected for the next raid.

She missed the close of the Secretary’s speech. Dragging herself back through the tunnel, Jess waited for the Fountain to reopen, retrieved her walk-out suit, and went home with her heart cut in pieces like a handful of Mars-rock reduced to gravel.

Jessamyn’s family sat for evening rations that night, minus Ethan, who had been called to Mars Colonial headquarters. Jess at first assumed this was because the government wanted to blame him for the fire—the mechs were his invention.

“No,” sighed Lillian. “No one’s blaming him. Ethan told them how to prevent this and they didn’t listen. Now they all look like idiots.”

“They’re asking his advice on ancient Terran computer systems, if you can believe it,” said Jess’s father, separating two ration bars into four pieces.

He handed Jess a half-bar.

“What’s this?” she asked, pointing to her meal.

“We’re on half-rations,” her mother replied, lips tight and thin. “Weren’t you listening to the Secretary?”

Jessamyn stared mournfully at the reduced portion, not thinking it wise to admit she’d left the Secretary’s address early. “Won’t people starve?” she asked.

“The old and the sickly are at risk,” replied Jess’s mom. “The very young as well.”

Jessamyn felt her heart miss a beat: did her mother’s dry-lung qualify Lillian as
sickly
? “Planetary Ag respects you, Mom. You have to tell them.”

Jess’s mother stood abruptly and left the room.

Her father sighed, smoothing ration wrappers.

“Your mom’s upset. She spent the morning running experiments for Planetary Agriculture, and she’s worried about a test that calls into question the nutritional value of the emergency rations from New Tokyo,” said her father. “And she’s angry that her algae pot program wasn’t implemented last annum. As a supplement to ration bars, it would have helped.”

“We’d be eating that stuff?” asked Jess, staring at an algae pot. “What about health issues?” Everyone knew people got sick on Mars-raised food.

Jess’s father gave her half a smile. “Your mom will always have detractors, but even they agree the algae’s not going to kill anyone. All the data looks promising.”

A call from Mars Colonial Command interrupted the silence between Jess and her father. He took the call, making a series of nods, grunts, and assents before clicking off.

“Looks like your mom was right. Again.” He fixed his eyes on a small piece of copper wrapper, rolling it back and forth between his right thumb and forefinger.

“About what?” asked Jess. “Starvation? Algae pots?”

The wrapper made crinkling noises in the quiet room.

“They want to send Ethan on the upcoming raid.”

“
Hades
,” murmured Jess. “Ethan?”

Her father sighed heavily.

“He can’t go,” said Jess. “He wouldn’t make it.”

“I’d better talk to your mother,” said Jess’s father. But he remained at the table, crinkling the piece of wrapper between his fingers.

“I won’t let them stuff my brother in a deep space vessel,” said Jessamyn. “No way! In confined quarters like that, he’d be catatonic by the time he reached Earth.”

Jess’s father rose. “It’s not our decision to make,” he said. “Your brother’s an adult and he’s agreed.”

That night, Jessamyn waited in Ethan’s room for him to return. The book in her hands couldn’t keep her attention, and she gave up and watched the deadly Terran satellites roll past her brother’s clear ceiling.

When Jess was very young, Ethan’s room had been customized to suit his alter-abilities. She had no memories of the changes that had come over Ethan as a result of his new environment. But she believed him when he said it had improved his life profoundly.

Jess knew only too well what it was like to be with Ethan in any sort of confining room or vehicle. She’d helped him through countless trips. “
Eyebrows
,” she’d murmur, reminding him to touch his bushy brows. He said they felt like the fur of the planetary dog. Or sometimes she would whisper, “
Counting
.” Numbers soothed Ethan, and repeating them in patterns took him away from present discomforts. When things got really, really bad, Ethan closed his eyes and asked Jessamyn to tell him stories. She could always find one that would transport him from panic’s biting edge. Jess knew it wasn’t the tales alone. One long journey, when she’d told him particularly lame stories, she’d realized it was the sound of her voice, her presence, which restored him.

Jess heard his loud footfall as he came through the front airlock. Although Ethan was sensitive to sound that originated apart from himself, he rarely remembered to modulate his own voice or keep his boots from clomping.

Jess sighed. Her task tonight—that of talking Ethan out of traveling to Earth—would not be an easy one. Ethan was more stubborn than a stain from Mars’s red soil.

“Hey big brother,” said Jess.

“Jess,” said Ethan. It was his standard way of greeting anyone, a compromise between saying,
Hello, how are you,
which his parents preferred, and saying nothing at all, which he preferred.

“I hear they want you to go to Earth,” said Jess.

“I depart in six weeks’ time,” he replied.

“Ethan, I don’t know how to say this to you nicely, so I’m just going to say it … not-nice. Your brain will be mush by the time you get to Earth. I don’t know what they think they need you to do, but it can be done by someone else, whatever it is. You know I’m right.” She paused. “Right?”

Ethan stood gazing at Mars’s larger moon, Phobos. “Which statement would you like me to respond to? You made six distinct points.”

Jessamyn groaned.

“I was attempting humor,” said Ethan. “I assume you would like me to assess your statement that the task given to me can be performed by another.”

In actuality, Jessamyn had been hoping to go straight to the “brain as mush” part of her speech. She appealed to his rational sense. “Logically,” she began, “If your mental state is compromised, you will be in no position to perform critical tasks.”

“I will not allow that to happen,” said Ethan.

“Eth—” Jess broke off. She’d fought tooth and nail for others to treat Ethan as alter-abled and not dis-abled by his differences. And now she was going to tell him what he could and could not do? She sighed and flopped on his bed.

“Phobos is bright tonight,” said Ethan.

Jess opened her eyes and looked up. “Yup,” she said. “The big moon’s close to us this week, that’s for sure.”

“When Earth draws near to Mars, I must be ready to travel on the raiding ship,” said Ethan.

“Why does it have to be you?”

“I am not permitted to tell you the nature of my assignment.”

“It’s got something to do with your hacking-genius, I figure,” said Jess. “Tell them to send Yokomatsu. He’s got mad hacker-skills. You said so yourself.”

“Yokomatsu has not studied ancient Terran—” Ethan broke off. “Yokomatsu is not my equal. Also, Yokomatsu’s Marsian appearance might cause Terrans to surmise they were the subjects of an invasion. Mars is not in a position to wage war.”

“So make them find someone
else
to take your place,” said Jess, still determined to keep her brother safe.

“Goodnight, Jessamyn,” said Ethan.

Jess twisted her head and raised an eyebrow at him. His polite use of “goodnight” was almost unprecedented. She knew he hadn’t become suddenly interested in politeness and what he called “wasted language.” No, if he used the phrase, it was because he wanted her to leave
now
.

“All right, all right. I’m going.” She stood, resisting her urge to hug her brother, which he would hate. He had enough to distress him as it was.

“Jessamyn?”

She turned.

“I am sorry it will be me going and not you.”

Jess shifted her gaze to Phobos, racing for the horizon. “Goodnight, Eth.”

She lay awake for hours, her mind running through problems she couldn’t solve. Mass starvation. Her broken dreams. Her brother stuck in a tin can for weeks. At last she reached for one of Ethan’s favorite stories,
The Snows of Kilimanjaro
. It was the only piece of fiction she knew him to have read on his own, after she’d told him the story on a trip to New Tokyo. And it was sufficiently depressing to suit her mood. She read until her eyes drifted, and when she slept, she dreamt of blue skies, golden plains, and tall, snow-covered peaks.

The next morning wasn’t a school day, and Jessamyn’s mom insisted Jess should be allowed to sleep as late as possible.

“Sleep burns fewer calories than being awake,” Lillian murmured from where she sat calculating starvation scenarios at her wafer-computer.

But a call from Harpreet put Jessamyn’s sleep to an end.

“Jessie?” Her father, entering her room, spoke gently. “Jess, Harpreet Mombasu wants to speak with you. Are you awake enough?”

Jess rolled over. She felt refreshed for a brief moment, but then the weight of her planet’s calamity and her own flightless future pressed upon her, heavy as heartbreak.

“I’m awake,” she said, her voice dull. She held out her hand for the comm. “Hello?”

“Good morning, daughter,” said Harpreet’s voice. “I am wondering if you would be so good as to meet me at the Secretary General’s office in half an hour?”

“Um, sure, yeah,” said Jess, sitting up and running a hand through her night-matted hair.

“Excellent,” said Harpreet. “Goodbye.”

Jess felt a warm glow spark inside of her.
Hope
, her heart whispered. After donning her cleanest Academy whites, she raced through morning rations.

“What’s the meeting about?” asked her mother.

Jess shrugged, feeling the hopeful spark zooming around her insides. “I talked to her yesterday, right before the Secretary’s announcement. Maybe she’s found a way to get me back in the air.”

On the outside, Jessamyn appeared calm as she drove to the New Houston headquarters of Mars Colonial. Inside, a veritable galaxy of small bright sparks had big-banged to life. She knew she should care more about the fate of Mars and less about her fate as a pilot. She knew it, but she couldn’t make it so.

Glancing down at the chrono-tattoo on her wrist, Jess saw she would arrive early. Her brother, knowing his sister’s propensity for behaviors culminating in late arrivals, had created the glowing tattoo for her eighth birthday. They each had one. Ethan had worked in a sort of compass as well: if it told time in red, the siblings were close to one another. The cooler the color, the farther apart they were. Jess’s rebellious streak had been the inspiration for several of Ethan’s earliest inventions—answers to their mother’s frustrated cries of, “Now where’s that child run off to?” An orange glow on the skin of Jessamyn’s wrist informed her of two things: she was near her brother
and
she still had three minutes to spare. She allowed herself a tiny smile entering MCC.

“Ah,” said Harpreet, as Jessamyn stepped into the stark office. “Here is the young woman I told you about.” Harpreet, taking Jess’s hand, placed it in the hand of Mei Lo, Secretary General and CEO of Mars Colonial.

Jess hoped she had an impressive handshake. Her mother had said that a firm and brief grasp told people that you were someone who meant business.

“Pleased to meet you, Pilot-in-training Jaarda,” said the leader of Mars Colonial.

“Likewise,” Jess replied, her heart beating faster. Was she still a pilot-in-training?

“It’s going to be a very long day,” said Mei Lo, “So I’ll get to the point: I need a chauffeur. My full-time pilot and both of my back-ups are busy flying redistribution runs of emergency rations. Even if MC Command would let me, I don’t know how to fly anything but a planet-hopper. I have several weeks of travel coming up, and I’d like to interview you for the job.”

Chauffeur
? Jessamyn hesitated. No self-respecting Academy graduate would apply for the position.
You can always chauff the CEO
was a pass-phrase for what a trainee who failed final exams could do with a pilot rating, second-class.

Jess wanted to fall through a hole in the floor.

Harpreet added, “I’ve already spoken with the Academy dean. He’s agreed to grant you immediate second-class licensing in light of our current emergency.”

Jess felt her face redden.

“I spoke with him as well,” said the Secretary. “He told me you could pass an exam for a first-class license with your eyes closed.”

“Probably,” she agreed, shifting her weight uncomfortably. She wanted to cry out that she would give up a week’s water to fly ration redistribution runs instead, but the Secretary continued.

“He also told me you’ve been grounded for disobeying a direct order,” she said.

“I saved a planet-hopper, Ma’am,” said Jess. “I prevented the loss of a valuable Marsian resource.”

“Jessamyn,” said the Secretary, her voice softening to a murmur. “Our children are Mars’s most precious resource. You risked your life, and I appreciate the courage that took, but I need to ask you: will you obey orders if I accept you as my personal pilot?”