The Martian Viking (6 page)

"You know, you're a good guy," Alderdice said. "Letting me go on like this. But let's not sit here being gloomy all night."

"What choice do we have? I didn't bring a deck of cards."

"Well, what about the phone?" Alderdice jerked his head toward the corner.

"The phone?" Johnsmith looked at him blankly. "What about it?"

"Captain Vuh said that if we needed anything, we were to push the green button on that phone. Let's try it."

Johnsmith shrugged. "Okay, but what is it that we need?"

"Something to while away the time." Alderdice pushed his chair back with a scraping sound and raised his bulk lightly and easily. He went to the phone and unceremoniously pushed the green button.

Captain Vuh's face appeared on the screen. "How can I help you?" she asked pleasantly.

"Uh, we need something for . . ." Alderdice didn't quite know how to ask.

"For entertainment," Johnsmith said.

"I'll put you through to recreational services," Captain Vuh said. Electronic "ant races" zipped across the screen where her face had been a moment before. Another image appeared, obviously a computer animation—a comical, banana-nosed creature with a barrel torso.

"Hi," the cartoon character said. "I'm Jumpin' Johnny, and I'm here to make life a little easier. P-p-p-please let me help you."

"Thank you," Alderdice said. "What . . .diversions do you have available?"

"Everything you want from A to Z," Jumpin' Johnny sang. "All you can ask to make life carefree."

Johnsmith whistled. "These colony folks have got it made."

Jumpin' Johnny executed a cartwheel, grinned at them, and did another cartwheel. Every few seconds, he repeated these movements in an endless loop while they tried to decidé what to order from him.

"Do you think we can have alcohol?" Alderdice asked.

"Any kind you want," Jumpin' Johnny said, and then resumed his acrobatics.

"How about onees," Johnsmith said, noting the resultant terrified expression on Alderdice's face.

"But that's ille—"

"Onees are available to provide some mirth," Jumpin' Johnny interrupted, his clown face enlarging as he winked. "Long as you don't tell the folks back home on Earth."

"We wouldn't think of it," Johnsmith said. "Besides, we're going to Mars. We'll probably never get back home."

"Well, in that case, we'll have a delivery boy at your apt in just a few minutes."

Jumpin' Johnny somersaulted into a kaleidoscope and vanished.

"I'll be damned," Alderdice said.

"You already have been," Johnsmith reminded him. "And so have I. Maybe that's why they allow us to have onees."

"I don't know. Maybe it's some kind of mistake. Maybe we're going to be reported for requesting onees."

"So what are they going to do? We're already prisoners, Alderdice."

"They might send us to the moon, instead of Mars."

Johnsmith fell silent. He hadn't thought of that.

"What's all the commotion?" It was Felicia, aroused by their strident voices.

"Uh, sorry we woke you," Johnsmith said. "But there's a, uh, a delivery coming."

"A delivery?"

Alderdice giggled. "Not a baby, just some onees."

"Onees?" She lifted her head and looked from one to the other, her hair disheveled from sleep. "What are you talking about?"

"They're supplying us with some onees," Johnsmith said.

"Right." Felicia rolled over and attempted to get back to sleep.

A moment later, a buzzer sounded. Alderdice searched in wain for a way to open the door. "Come in," he said, hoping that their visitor would be able to obey.

The door slid open, and in scuttled a robot that looked like a fire extinguisher on crablegs.

"I've brought the onees you requested," it said in the tones of an interior decorator. "You neglected to specify how many you need when you phoned in your order, so I took the liberty of bringing a dozen. Will that be satisfactory?"

"A dozen?" Johnsmith could hardly contain himself. "Yes, I think that will be fine."

"Where would you like me to put them?" the robot asked.

Johnsmith looked around, and noticed that one table dipped in the middle. "Oh, right here will be fine," he said, tapping the table and smiling.

A thin tube emerged from the robot's cylindrical body, snaked up onto the table, and spat out twelve shining onees that rattled into the table's depression, one right after the other. The tube descended back into the robot.

"Do we have to . . .sign for this, or anything?" Johnsmith asked.

"It will be deducted from your wages," the robot said simply. "Will that be all, then?"

"Uh, yeah, that'll be all," Johnsmith said.

The robot went out.

Johnsmith and Alderdice stared at the gleaming onees, marveling. The way the dim light collected and shone from them, they were almost hallucinatory even without being touched. After a few seconds, Johnsmith realized that Felicia had not gone back to sleep, and was staring at them in angry disbelief.

"What the hell is going on around here?" she demanded.

"We told you before," Alderdice said. "We've ordered some onees from . . ."

"From recreational services," Johnsmith finished for him. "Like ordering a pizza."

"Those are just ball bearings," she said. "They wouldn't give you real onees."

Her attitude began to annoy Johnsmith. "Want to touch one, then?" he said. "Prove that you're right?"

She had no answer for him.

"I guess they gave them to us because they're legal offworld," Alderdice speculated. "Though I must admit I've never heard about it before."

"It makes sense," Johnsmith said. "They wouldn't want people on Earth to know about it, sure, but how else can you alleviate the boredom on Luna or Mars? Drinking and drugs are physiologically harmful, shortening the time a person can work. It's expensive to bring people up from Earth, so the government wants to get the maximum amount of work from each one of us."

"They can't do that if we're onee-crazed all the time," Alderdice argued.

"But we won't be. It doesn't take long for the effect of an onee to wear off. A nanosecond, maybe. And you're not physically drained after using one. All our superiors will have to do is make sure we don't use them during working hours, and that we get proper nutrition and rest. We could all live to be a hundred years old, and still be oneed-out every night for the rest of our lives."

"Are you sure it doesn't have some long-term effect?" Alderdice said.

"I'm not sure of anything," Johnsmith said, looking down at the onees. He stretched his hand out toward them.

"They
want
you to take those things," Felicia said. "It's the opiate of the masses."

"No, that's religion," Johnsmith said, remembering one of the more interesting videos he'd seen in college,
Karl Marx vs. Jesus
.

"If they want you to take them, then you shouldn't do it," said Felicia. "That's one of the tenets of the revolution, and you should take it to heart."

"How do you know what we should do?" Alderdice said. His training had made him run away from the onees on Earth, but if Johnsmith was correct, he would not be breaking the law just by touching an onee here in space.

"Go ahead," Johnsmith urged him, without any of the malice he had shown the first time, in the effapt back on Earth. "Give it a try."

"You first," Alderdice said, but he knew now, for the first time, that he would do it.

"All right." Johnsmith reached out and scooped up one of the glittering little spheres. He fell back in his chair, eyes wide open, mouth agape with an audible gasp.

"Just like that," Alderdice marveled. "He's gone."

"Sure," Felicia said angrily, "the quicker they short circuit your brain, the quicker they can turn you into their slave."

"I'm already their slave," Alderdice said with a ferocity he had never realized was in him. He went for the onees.

"No, wait," Felicia shouted, "Don't do it."

"Why not? Afraid of what we might do? Look at Johnsmith. Do you find him threatening?"

"No, I just . . .don't want to be left alone."

"There are ten more onees here," Alderdice said, and picked up the eleventh, "You're certainly welcome to—"

By the time Felicia opened her mouth to protest, Alderdice was no longer able to hold even the most rudimentary of conversations.

"WHAT A MESS." Ronindella shook her head. The effapt looked as if it hadn't been cleaned since Johnsmith moved in six weeks ago. It would take hours, days, to sort through all this junk and find what was worth saving.

Smitty II didn't mind, though. He was burrowing through the debris as if it were his own personal playpen. His unabashed joy in the simple things reminded her of his father. She sighed in exasperation.

"Smitty, you'll have to help me carry some things up to the flyby, as soon as Ryan gets here," she said.

Smitty kept playing, ignoring her.

"Did you hear what I said?" she demanded in a threatening tone.

Smitty stopped and glanced apprehensively over his shoulder at her. "Yes, Mom."

"Good. Now come over here and help me clean this stuff up, like a good boy."

"Okay," Smitty replied mournfully. He almost wished that he was in school, instead of hanging around here, picking things up and carrying them out into the hall. He did most of the work, too, as it turned out, with his mother supervising.

"I'd help you, Smitty," she said a couple of times, "but you know I have a bad back."

Smitty kept working, wondering how old he would have to be to develop a back problem so he could get out of this kind of slave labor. He'd been working for about a quarter of an hour, when he saw something down behind a cardboard box that interested him. He waited for his mother to go to the bathroom before he took a closer look.

On the floor, between the old, beat-up rug and the baseboards, was a shiny thing. At first, Smitty thought it might have been a marble, but as soon as he got a closer look, he knew better. It was smaller, and silvery, like a BB. Smitty pushed the box away, reached down, and—

—he was swimming in salty water. Smitty had never been swimming before, and he certainly hadn't expected to end up swimming today, but here he was. He knew his Mom wouldn't want him doing this while he was supposed to be working. But he couldn't remember what he was supposed to be doing, anyhow. Who cared? This was great!

The color of the water changed, went through all the tints of the rainbow, but it was still water. It was nice and clean and cool and wet, and he felt so wonderful that he wished it would never end. Every once in a while, he would see a dark shape through the colorful murk, but if those things were alive, they didn't bother him.

He finally had to come up for air. He hesitated for a moment. Which way was it to the surface? If he waited much longer, his lungs would burst, but he didn't know which way to swim. There should have been light coming from above, but he couldn't see anything except the colors. He panicked, arms and legs flailing. This didn't get him anyplace, and his heart hammered in his chest from fear. He was going to drown.

He thought of his father. His father taking him on a bus ride to the harbor. His father bemoaning the fact that there was no place for a kid to swim. His father pointing out things in the water. Showing him the buoy. The buoy.

In imitation of the buoy, Smitty calmed himself. With his arms by his sides and his legs straight, he stopped moving. For a moment, he tumbled slowly. His body came to a stop and then righted. He began, almost imperceptibly at first, to rise. He gradually gained speed as he ascended.

Now that he knew which way to go, Smitty began to stroke in that direction, kicking his legs like a frog. He couldn't hold his breath for much longer, but he was determined to make it. In the murky green, blue, violet, pink, red, orange, yellow water, he thought he saw a twinkling star overhead. The color stabilized, becoming blue-green. He kicked harder, and saw more dappled light dancing enticingly just out of reach.

He bobbed to the surface, inhaling greedily at the delicious air. Gasping, he tried to keep his head above water. He swallowed some of the salty stuff once and coughed, but he did better after that.

He was treading water now, watching the swell of the surf, allowing himself to be lifted and gently set back down in a fluid trough, only to rise again. It could have gone on forever, it seemed to Smitty. Soon he was wishing for something to happen.

It did.

A monster with a long, sinuous neck and dripping jaws rose out of the surf. It was sort of like a dinosaur, only it had coiling things growing out of its head, which was too big to be on its body in the first place. The creature was an ugly, unnatural looking thing. And it was looking right at him.

Smitty wanted to get away, but he couldn't move. He just kept treading water as the monster glided nearer and nearer. In seconds, it loomed over him. Smitty could smell it, an awful, rotten stench. The behemoth raised one limb. Smitty was amazed to see that this wasn't a flipper, but was jointed like an enormous, webbed human hand. The monster was going to pluck him out of the surf and eat him!

Shutting his eyes, Smitty waited for the giant claw to descend. He knew that it was going to hurt a lot, so he said the prayers his Mom had taught him.

Suddenly the insides of his eyelids glowed crimson. An explosive roar followed. Involuntarily, he opened his eyes.

The monster was rearing back, a large chunk on the right side of its head missing, the flesh smoking and sizzling. It howled and bellowed deafeningly as it shook its ungainly head toward another dragon-shape emerging from the fog.

A crimson bolt shot from the thing swimming toward them, sweeping across the undulating back of the monster, burning the glistening flesh as it went.

The monster dove, creating a wave that swamped Smitty, making him swallow salt water. He struggled to stay afloat, unable to see or breathe for a moment. He gagged and coughed, rubbing the stinging salt water from his eyes. The sea around him was becalmed, revealing that the monster was gone. But the dragon whose fiery breath had driven it away was headed straight for him.