The Journey Prize Stories 28 (18 page)

She took out a cigarette, lit it, and fumed at the mouth, while he stared down at his palms where the warts were coming in again and would put him out for a few more weeks. As they sat there in silence, in the oncoming darkness, their car windows were open. They could hear a family in their backyard, somewhere nearby, the sizzle on the barbecue, the sweet smell of steak on the grill, and the giggling. It was the kind of giggling they themselves did as kids. Now, that kind of giggle seemed foolish for them to do. It was like a far distant thing, a thing that happened only to other people. All they ever could do about it now was to be close to it and out of sight.

31.03.2070 station 1
/ If you come, bring bamboo.

Last night I slipped under the cover with James, and though he didn't say anything—hadn't been able to speak for days—a slight pressure when our arms touched answered he felt me there and was glad.

Then I thought of the bamboo sheets I once owned, their soft weight both warm and cool, their spring fern colour and faint wooden scent. I can't remember whether they ended up at the Salvation Army thrift store or in one of the boxes that went to the salvage area at the dump with all the other too-heavy luxuries we couldn't take with us. We who made this one-way journey stopped talking about things like that when we realized it was a kind of torture for each other, and those kinds of memories were best kept to ourselves.

James is dead. Sometime in the night two of us were breathing, then only one. That faint contact of skin when my arm nudged his as I lay down was the most we ever touched. I can only hope my presence in those last hours brought him some comfort.

Later I'll put him outside with the others, but for now he's lying where I left him, under the weightless silver sheet. Even after thirty years I still hate those flimsy covers, reminders of long ago over-baked potatoes. I refuse to call them blankets, whatever their little yellow labels might say. The product of some mind that thought the only purpose of blankets was to keep us warm.

The responsibility of reporting now rests with me. The complicated processes we once used to choose a successor each time a lead rapporteur died—usually culminating in acclamations, rarely a secret ballot required—all seem so quaint now. Our concern for fairness, avoiding unnecessary conflict and hurt feelings. How important those things seemed when there were more of us. By the time we were down to four we settled it with a crib tournament. James and I went with rock-paper-scissors.

No contest this time.

I'm writing in the garden, the only place I can stand to be now. The fibre-optic strands funnel in the scant sunlight, and the plants give off a slight humidity that makes breathing just a bit easier. They grow surprisingly well here, as I expect James documented in much more technical detail. Aside from the cold, the red planet is naturally kind to them, with plenty of subsurface water and minerals in the dust that, mixed with our compost, provide all the nourishment they need. About the garden: I should tell you a few things, in case James forgot to mention them, in case you come and no one's left. For example, it is important to blow on the carrot tops. In the still air they droop, weakened, until they touch the ground and
turn yellow. But a little breath, like the breezes from home, seems to give them the strength to grow sturdy and green.

I will do my best to remember anything else that you might not think of on your own and leave notes for you. Just in case.

I'm dreading moving James's body. For one thing, it means putting on my space suit. Also awkward and silver, like the sheets. It has always annoyed me that everything in space is silver. As though all the imagination got used up on the mechanics of things, with nothing left over for colours and textures. He's light enough after being sick all these months that I could probably carry him, but I'll use a cart anyway. It wouldn't do to throw my back out, being alone.

I'll need to be much more careful from now on.

I'm back in the garden, and it's done. James is outside with the others. The botanist has joined the two medical doctors and gaggle of engineers frozen naked and staring empty-eyed up into eternity.

And then there was only the psychologist.

The most useless and unskilled of the entire group, but someone at Headquarters must have thought it would be a good idea to include one. Five hundred years ago they would have sent a Jesuit along on an expedition like this, but in 2042 they wanted a PsyD. And now here I am. Who would have bet on this old girl to be the last?

About the arrangement of the bodies: Headquarters told us to preserve them for future research, but they didn't give specifics. I wonder what those hypothetical future researchers will make of our artistry. Maybe they'll think we invented some new religion, when the truth is it was only a mix of
aesthetic pleasure-seeking and boredom. We started out lining them up, but later someone—I think Sonny, the water engineer—had the idea we should arrange them in a circle, with toes touching. Back then the circle was only a little more than half formed. Now there's just one wedge left, for me, although I don't know how I'll get to it when the time comes.

I took my time getting ready to move James. The death-smells of emptied bowels and decomposing tissue, I'll be honest, made me retch, but I lingered anyway, knowing these would likely be the last human odours I would ever breathe, apart from my own. Outside, I jumped on his knees to break them so his legs would go straight like the others', and when they cracked under my feet I nearly threw up in my helmet. I should have positioned him when I first woke, when he was still a little warm and the rigour had not yet set in, instead of wasting time writing and crying in the garden. I would say I'll know better for next time, but there won't be a next time, will there?

It's occurred to me I may seem a little flippant about James's death, and I apologize if anyone's left who cared for him and is offended, as unlikely as that is. After all, those of us who came on this one-way trip were chosen partly for our lack of human ties to the blue-green planet. Enticed here by advertisements hinting at adventure and new beginnings, perhaps not unlike those that lured my third great-grandparents from England to their Saskatchewan homestead two centuries ago.

Though James and I were alone for over a year, I still feel I hardly knew him, and for that I'm sorry. He was a soft-spoken man. He had a wife and child once, I think, killed in a car
accident on a Florida holiday in the 20s. He liked spinach and backgammon. I will miss him.

About the bamboo: I don't expect you to bring all the machinery and materials to make sheets or even to know where to begin with that whole process. We'll find other uses, food to start, though I admit I like the idea that one day, even after I'm gone, bamboo sheets will exist on the red planet. I can't say what insights and lucky coincidences and inventions will be required between now and then. I just have faith the mere imagining that something's possible can be enough to set it on the trajectory to being. Like Da Vinci's helicopter sketches. They waited four and a half centuries on paper, but the day came when they flew.

Anyone reading this should be aware there won't be many more messages, maybe none. The solar cells that power the transmitter are failing. James noticed and warned me about this a few months back. At least the water and air systems are holding, even though all the parts were supposed to have been replaced years ago by later missions. The ones that never came, let me remind you.

“Delayed” was the official word. “Budget cuts” the truth, revealed in one final unsigned message, right before Headquarters shut everything down. After some discussion, we agreed to keep that last transmission a secret to avoid getting anyone else in trouble. However, after revisiting the issue with the surviving red planet settlers, i.e., myself, I've decided after all this time to spill it.

Whichever board or committee made the decision to cut us off knew it was our death sentence. Of course, they also
knew they could get away with it. Who would have bothered to organize protests and petitions? Who would have cared, given our lack of human ties to the blue-green planet?

All I want is some shred of accountability. I don't expect you to do anything about it now, but it makes me feel better to know you know I know. If you're even reading this.

That's all for now. The carrots need my breath. / cmb

08.04.2070 station 1
/ I saw what you did.

I'm not even sure where to start this report now. From the beginning, I guess.

The latest dust storm ended overnight, and today I was able to get out to complete all the routine checks and maintenance. The winds were especially fierce, and the cleanup took much more time than usual. First, I climbed the outside of the dome over the garden to sweep off the solar panels. The station's layout from that perspective reminds me of a medieval cathedral, one that endured extensive additions and renovations every hundred and fifty years. A few saints and gargoyles would fit nicely. My dusting job worked: the lights have stopped flickering now.

Next I went down to the main roof to inspect for the beginnings of fractures or other damage. Nothing to report. The robots who assembled the station before our arrival clearly took pride in their craftsmanship. They've all long since been pillaged for their parts, donating their vital organs to keep water pumps and climate control systems operating. To keep us humans alive. I know they weren't sentient (I haven't gone crazy, if that's what you were thinking), but it seems unfair to me how they ended up despite all their diligence and industriousness.

After the roof, I walked the building perimeter. No damage to the walls either. They are smooth and the same silver as my suit, designed to be easily visible from approaching vessels—the ones you never sent. They glow reddish orange in the faint sunlight.

Last, I visited each of the solar panels arrayed around the station. Again, no damage, just in need of cleaning. All the storage cells are in good shape, except for those connected to
the transmitter. Very little charge left—this may well be the last time you hear from me. If anyone's left to hear. After what you did.

By the time I finished my spit and polishing, sunset was near and both moons had risen. I checked on my fellow settlers, also dusty, but otherwise as I last left them. The summer breezes will blow them clean again.

Eight women and eleven men, a mandala for the stars to gaze down upon. The oldest ones, from twenty years ago, are desiccated but otherwise intact. They will start to thaw in a few weeks, but in these anaerobic conditions they don't decompose, and most nights they will refreeze anyway. No wild animals to feast on them and scatter their bones. No worms to eat them from the inside out. They will be here like this until our swollen red sun swallows the solar system, then explodes everything into stardust to start it all over.

I have a childhood memory of a brief stop on a long road trip at a graveyard somewhere between the Qu'Appelle and Assiniboine rivers, near the Manitoba border. Weathered tombstones, some sinking into the soggy ground, others toppled over on their faces and lying under two inches of water. Wind snaking through the flooded grasses and shaking the tops of the cottonwoods. Somewhere beneath the watery surface, the blind, muddy bones of ancestors born on the other side of the Atlantic, who once must have found solace standing or kneeling in that quiet patch of earth on the outskirts of their village. As we who came here found solace in our mandala.

I still had nearly an hour of oxygen left. I lay down in my wedge as I sometimes do and nudged my frozen neighbours in greeting. The twenty of us all together again. The mandala
complete. Jupiter rising between the two moons, and the shimmer of the terrifyingly near asteroid belt between us and our giant neighbour.

Spring is here and the days are lengthening. About –10 degrees now, quite bearable compared to the typical –103 winter's day. If only I could take my suit off.

Spring. Olfactory memory is the strongest and the most easily recovered. I conjured up the smells of late April on the blue-green planet. Fresh grass in wet peat. Melting dog shit. Half-decomposed leaves. Thirty years, with no idea what spring smells like here. If I ever do find out it will be with my last breath. Death by hypercapnia, which I imagine to be quick and painless although I don't know for sure, since none of us went that way.