A short story by Pet Rock;
Mars Woman
Martian Concerns
By Mark Donnelly
“Fredrick!”, shouted Freddy, his neck and face a dark pink, beads of sweat pooling
together and rolling down his long face. “I’ve told the three of you a thousand
times not to call me Freddy. We’ve gotten too intimate. You’ve lost respect for me.
I’m the leader of this phase of the mission and now I’ll have to take steps.”
There was a moment of silence while Sam, Deirdre , and Fiona grinned sardonically.
Freddy was sitting at the back wall of his sleeping compartment, his lanky frame folded
uncomfortably with his knees up and his wrists tied to his ankles. He was lucid enough to
see this and said, “ok, ok I‘m sorry-I’ve lost my mind, or control of my thoughts. It‘s
just visions of myself murdering you guys.
Just comes over me-the urge is tremendous. That’s why I volunteered to stay in here but
not tied up. And you drugged me.”
“Your face is scratched and your scraping the scabs on you head,’ Fiona offered.
“My nerves. We’ve been out here for 39 days and we have been tortured,”
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Freddy’s voice became shrill, “the ghosts are torturing us and you know it!”
The others left the small room. “We’ll check in later, Fredrick” said Sam on the way
out. He locked the door with a makeshift hinge and socket wrench.
‘Sleep meds didn‘t eork on him.. Worked for me, a little,“ Sam said in
a tired, cracking voice, “ I’m numb from head to toe. Matter of fact I think
I’ll try taking a nap again,” and he tread lightly toward the lounge squinting even in the
soft light of the long corridor. He squared his stocky frame and readied for battle, “I’m
used to the torments” .
“We need to talk about what we‘re going to do with Freddy,” Deirdre said to the back of
his head in an annoyed tone.
“Later. Boil some water for that freeze dried crap coffee,” he replied gruffly.
Fiona and Deirdre watched him until he disappeared around the corner. They didn’t
like speaking about it but Fiona said, “Are you having problems? Meds wearing off?”
“I slept a little- when I focus on them they go away. How about you?”
Fiona whispered, “ I’m sleeping in fits-can‘t get used to it.
He’s full of it’
“I know,” Deirdre said, “Only 7 hours to go and
we’ll be on the surface”
At first the crew agreed not to inform control. They all thought they were
experiencing hallucinations from some toxic gas or other human made substance
but when Fredrick lost it they informed control that they thought Frederick was at the
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fourth stage of space fatigue. No one wanted to mention ghosts.
Deirdre was second in command and was compelled to inform the company so
she said that the situation was being handled and that’s all the company wanted to hear.
That and that Phase II was on schedule.
Freddy would be treated at the Mars infirmary. If he didn’t get well, and quickly, he’d be
shipped back home.
The company was a merger by Virgo Space and Space Explorer. Phase
1 had been on the surface for ten years consisting of geneticists, agriculturalists,
technicians, construction workers, construction equipment, fully equipped labs, and
living quarters all in several very large underground facilities. Geodesic domes housed the
small farms and recreation areas. There was also an underground nuclear power plant
two kilometers away.
The decision to build the facility in a deep valley only a few kilometers from the Valles
Marineris was obvious. Water was found deep in the canyon at 17.6 S 61.4W-a frozen
reservoir. Millions of liters had been found, hundreds of thousands had been mined.
The recycling equipment kept it potable. The location also helped to shield against the
wind and sandstorms. It was also slightly warmer near the equator.
Air was transported regularly from Earth onboard the
twelve huge ships built in Earth’s orbit. Canisters were taken down to the Martian
surface and recycled . Mars’ low gravity made it feasible for the small nuclear powered
transports to off load all the equipment and supplies.
In the spacious galley, Deirdre and Fiona sat staring at the floor to ceiling interactive
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mural of Mars that covered one wall. In the center there was a live feed camera focused
on Mars. They watched it as the ship got steadily closer and they sipped freeze dried
coffee with powdered cream. Fiona’s red hair was disheveled and frizzy. Her eyes were
puffy, skin pale. Deirdre looked the same though she kept her head shaved.
“I can‘t stand these rotten people, “ Fiona whispered.
“I know, I know but stay calm,’ Deirdre answered her voice shaking slightly.
She put her cup down and rubbed her darkly circled eyes.
Sam had lain lay down in the lounge on a oversized, comfortable couch. “Dim lights”, he
said and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and sighed. He dreaded being jolted
awake when he was almost asleep. He knew the mission had gone terribly wrong but he
was determined not to crack like Freddy. He had upped his dosage of sleep medication
and it had been working but only for a few hours at a time.
The unseen torments started when they were about 48 hours away from Earth.
They were seeing glimpses of people. Different looking, like old
drawings or paintings. Then the sleep disorders started. Loud noises near their ears or
down the halls. Even pinching and shocking sensations. It went on for a week before
they started taking sleep meds. Some days were worst than others but then Fredrick
cracked. He started screaming and running down the corridors clutching his chest. At
one point he calmed down and they sedated him.
Sam dozed off. Awhile later a full bodied dark woman dressed in a long tight dress with
aqua, beige, red, and green stripes walked in the lounge The attractive woman slowly laid
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on top of Sam who happened to roll on his side. She lay there a moment looking at him.
With the red painted nail of her forefinger she played with a stray follicle that was sticking
out of his nose.
He started twitching it and after a couple minutes woke up. At first the extra
weight on him didn’t register but then he opened his eyes and looked directly into the
woman’s burning coals.
As he jumped up in terror she disappeared and it took all of his wits to keep from
screaming and tearing up and down like Freddy.
Sam stalked into the galley his long black hair flying, face flushed, eyes hollow and wild.
He said, “I’ve had it. I’m getting the transport ready. As soon as we’re in orbit I going
down. The ground crew can come up for cargo-I don’t care about a wasted trip,” he
explained what had happened, and Deirdre said, “Just awhile longer-let’s keep each other
awake.”
“What do they want? What did we do to them?” Fiona asked for the umpteenth time
looking at both of them with a hint of suspicion.
Sam shrugged his shoulders and turned away. Deirdre shook her head.
Fredrick was half asleep. He was visualizing one of the summer vacations he and his
family had taken at Lake George. They had brought their boat. They motored out to an
island camp ground and spent a few days in warm August weather. The boys were
young, seven and nine.
He could see the camp site in between a few tall oaks and surrounded by high
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pachysandra bushes. The boys hopping around playing some made up game. His wife,
Nadia, standing nearby in the scattered sunlight slightly tanned, her buttery hair glowing.
She was so happy. Her eyes gleamed but with a hint of anxiety. She worried
about the boys with all that water around. He began to weep and said out loud, “A
Vision…” “Beautiful children too.” a voice said, Torn from his reverie Freddy popped his eyes open.
Standing with his back against the door was an older man in rumpled clothing. He had a
full head of gray hair and O shaped eyeglasses on a face that was hard to describe except
to say it was in folds from under his eyes to his double chin. Oddly Freddy wasn’t the
least bit frightened. He was half expecting to talk to one of the ghosts lately anyway.
“Couldn’t resist the cute redhead?”
“How did you know that? Where have we met?,” Freddy asked then he caught himself and
said, “wait, you’re an hallucination. I’ve lost my mind and I’m amazingly calm about it.”
“Your not hallucinating. We’ve met many times. You don’t remember because your body
was asleep. You know, you’ve woken up in the morning half dreaming. Your ending a
conversation with someone then when your fully awake you can’t remember what was
said. As time goes by what was discussed and planned comes to fruition-more about that
later-right now I’d like to get to the point in case I lose you.
We had an agreement. Galactic Industries could begin colonizing our home, Mars, with
one major stipulation Do you remember what that was?”
“No, I don’t remember being privy to any etheric contracts,” he answered sarcastically.
The old man fashioned a grim grin on his face then said, “the man you met, the one who
said he represented extremely wealthy people, those who paid your sons’ tuitions to
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Oxford and Harvard, and your wife getting the mortgage paid on her house. And all that
other cash. The man who wanted you to do a little experimenting.”
Freddy’s head shrunk into his shoulders. There were a few moments of silence.
“He gave you cash for Sam and Deirdre, large sums, and between the three of you forging
reports and switching containers you were able to smuggle the samples. And what were
those samples, Fred? You were going to come to my home and experiment with dna to
create what Fred?”
Freddy was stunned. “I still can’t believe that this is happening but for the sake of
argument,” he paused, “we need to find a more suitable, sturdy physical frames for
people to exist in space environments”
“As you say on Earth Fred, that’s bullshit. Let me try and jog your memory. When a
person enters the Intelligence profession he or she must go through certain types of
training to understand not only the obvious daily grind of collecting data etc. but how the
chess game is played. What are the goals of the major players.
How to help understand what’s really going on, what’s real and what’s contrived. It’s
ultimately a power struggle by one gang or another to see who will be on top. An
intuition alignment. You know all this.
You’ve had night school on my planet mostly to mingle with the intel people you’d
be working with. You were in on the deal.”
Fred cocked his head, “ Night school? How-”
“ You fall asleep and as prearranged you' re at Mars in an instant in your dream body. I
don’t have an heavy physical body so I can use the tubes to Earth. My point is most of
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Earth’s intel officer’s and agents come through Mars and end up watching each other’s
governments. This is how it’s been for ages especially in the last two hundred and fifty
years or so. This is our agreement. A place for all the agency’s to go to get acquainted
and try and prevent world wide conflagration. And now it’s time to move out into space
but we have a serious problem.”
Freddy sat up, gasping slightly from the stiffness in his back and said, “OK, what exactly
are you driving at?” still surprising himself that he was talking to an apparition although
he was having slight flashes of memory alluding to what the man was talking about.
“Giving Freddy an icy stare he said, “I’m talking about me and my folks re-incarnating.
You know what I’m talking about.”
“Did I really know there would be Martians ready to
reincarnate into test tube babies?”
“ And your missing something,” the old man went silent then continued, “obviously
a small detail to you. Those who bribed you want you to create a class structure their
future families could control. An elite class of modern humans with
enhanced dna to handle the rigors of space and a grunt class. What’s this class of grunts
Freddy?”
Freddy looked away but couldn’t help betraying a nervous grin.
In a gruff tone the old man said, “Do you think I want to be a Neanderthal?”
“Like I said, in this waking state, according to you, I don’t remember anything about
reincarnation,” retorted Freddy
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Not hearing the old man said, “ What about ethics? The preliminary tests with
Neanderthal dna looked promising, to you, but now you need tests and you know there
will be many birth defects until you get it right. Deirdre has offered to bring one to full
term. If you don’t like the results you’ll kill the newborn monstrosity and start again?”
Freddy wriggled a bit. His own kids came to mind he and softened. Then he steeled
himself and thought about all the problems in the world and how it was due to human
emotions.
A class of elite intellectuals make the rules and this would ultimately
make for a more peaceful society especially if some of the emotive reactionary brain
functions could be curtailed for the masses.. His mind was made up on that.
“It wouldn’t take long in test tubes to see if an embryo can make it to full term. All great
achievements are marred by failed attempts. And Neanderthal dna tests are just
experiments“.
“Ah-yes.”
Then old man went silent and just looked at Freddy. His eyes were a light blue green but
for a split second Freddy caught a glimpse of something very dark pass behind them.
Then he said, “I’ll be back in awhile” and as Freddy blinked his eyes the old man was
gone.
“I’m taking only what I need for now. I want to sleep and then come back in twenty
four hours,” Sam said gathering some clothes and toiletries.
“ What do we do with Freddy? We can’t leave him tied up,” Fiona said, fumbling with
one of her frizzy strawberry curls.
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“Let’s check. If he seems ok we’ll untie him but leave him locked in. Whoever
handles security can come back and get him.” They left their things in the first transport
and went to Freddy.
Sam removed the socket wrench from the makeshift padlock and opened the door
slowly , “Freddy-uh- Fredrick how are you feeling?”
“Believe it or not I’m feeling good. I can’t-actually I won’t- explain why but with some
proper rest I’ll be fine”
Not paying much attention Sam said, “ We’ve decided to stick to the story that
you volunteered to stay sedated for the last 48 hours because of anxiety issues. We
won’t tell anyone you were tied up. We’ll go down first and send people back so you’ll
need to act as groggy as you can and they will medi -vac you out. OK?”
“You don’t trust me?”
“We don’t want problems with nerves if we have a tough entry going down”
“You know the atmosphere is a third of Earth-”
Sam almost shouted, “let’s discuss this in a couple days.”
Deirdre came in and untied Freddy while Sam readied himself to pounce.
Fiona waited outside, teary eyed.
“Really Sam”, Freddy said noticing Sam‘s posture, “it was only crazy thoughts and I know
now where they came from. Their gone now. Let’s celebrate. We’re in Mars’s orbit!”
“Let’s celebrate later Freddy. Let’s stick to the plan, ok?,” Deirdre said.
He acquiesced and a few minutes later Freddy could hear the first transport disengage
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from the ship. He thought a slight vibration reverberated through the enormous 482M
long hull.
They had left the door unlocked. He sat for a few minutes and thought of how
humiliating it would be to be taken out on a gurney. He decided he’d take
the other transport. He did feel fine. Something about the old man reassured him that he
hadn’t become a schizophrenic.
Before going to the transport Freddy decided to have a look at Mars. He went to
the bridge and accessed the exterior camera and turned on the large screen. He had to
maneuver the camera a little to get a view of the fantastic complex and was completely
astounded by Valles Marinares. Two hundred kilometers wide and seven kilometers deep.
He couldn’t wait to get down to the surface.
Freddy hurried into the transport, secured the hatch, and was about to radio in that he
was coming down when the old man appeared.
“In a hurry to get down to start experimenting?”
Freddy, at first startled, chuckled and said, “I’ll see if I can stall or falsify reports to show
that the dna in question would not do well in your light gravity,”
The old man knew he was being placated, “I want to show you something,” he said.
Freddy was busy trying to figure out why the comm wasn’t working but hesitantly looked
up, “What is it?”
“Look at the monitor.”
Freddy looked up and at first the monitor was blank then suddenly there was a man’s
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figure standing in the bridge near the control console.
He was dressed in skin tight black spandex material covering his entire body including his
head and ankle high boots. On closer inspection Freddy realized the figure had no facial
Features- only eyes in lidless sockets. They looked like glass or plastic.
“What is that?,” he gasped
“ I call him Set,” the old man replied and then Set moved to the control panel.
After typing Set pushed the enter tab then turned his body toward the camera
his eyes moving a tick slower. Freddy heard a metallic clicking at the cabin door.
“What’s he doing?,” and he nervously fiddled with the controls to launch the transport.
There was no reply. “What the hell is this?” he yelled at the old man.
Freddy ran to the cabin door. It wouldn’t open. He turned toward the old man.
“What are you up to. What is that thing?’
“That’s a robot. Flesh and blood robot. A soulless construct of pure thought. He was
created out of thin air by a Master Magician from the higher realms specifically for jobs
like this. He can fearlessly traverse the third and fourth dimensions, he can be mentally
programmed to one person’s commands verbally or telepathically. He sees with his inner
eye. He’s almost emotionless and will carry out orders to the letter. He’s mentally
limited.” The old man smiled tauntingly.
Visibly shaken Freddy said, “How did you get the code?”
“Set stole it. He just popped back from Earth. He stole it. He spied on an official with top
secret clearance, stole his password to the security files. Everybody is locked out of
controlling the ship except Set.”
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Freddy was now visibly shaking. The old man continued, “You thought , in the back of
your brilliant mind, that you were having an hallucinogenic response to space travel and
stress and that by going down on the surface, you would, in a few days be back to
yourself. I’m not an hallucination. Set isn’t. All the people you’ve seen on this ship are
real. Being away from Earth and all those people holding on to the 3D illusion make it
harder to see through the veil. But out in space your perception changes. But this is talk
for the after life, Freddy.” Set fired up the huge plasma rockets.
Freddy started to panic when the ship began to
move. One of the monitors switched on and he had the cameras’ view of Mars. In the
other monitor Set stood at the bridges’ console his head cocked askew at the view of the
Mars base on the giant screen.
Freddy ran at the old man and grabbed him by the shoulders and stunned himself. His eyes popped again.
“I told you I’m real,” the old man said and reacting to the wild look in Freddy’s eyes he disappeared before
Freddy could throttle him.
“Freddy,” a voice through the intercom said, “I know you’ve had your heart set on taking tours of my
planet. So Let’s go”
The old man was standing next to Set looking directly into the lens. Freddy’s draw dropped. His heart
was pounding with fear.
The ship was picking up speed. “Try to enjoy it. Take a deep breath, hold it, then let it out
slowly to ease the heart pounding. Watch the monitor.”
Standing hunched at the console monitor looking at barely recognizable ruins, pyramids,
the astounding Olympus Mons with visible ten kilometer high cliffs
and a two hundred mile wide caldera but all Freddy could see was his own death.
“Set set the coordinates for 17.6 S 61.4W.”
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The ship was hurtling through the thin atmosphere. There was no sonic boom. They were about
8 kilometers high and Freddy estimated the ship was clocking over 56,000 kilometers per hour. By now the
surface was a blur in the monitor. “Your going to crash into the facility. It took ten years to build
and cost trillions,” Freddy paused then said, “ OK , I give you my word that I will dispose of the
Neanderthal samples”
“It’s too late Fred. And I don’t trust you. We don’t trust your pay masters. The funny thing is that at
least a dozen of them will be destitute, or close to it. They put all their families’ money into this venture.
People will be coming here to live in the planet, mostly, and people need resources. The value of having
the mineral, water rights, owning real estate over the next fifty years could be worth tens of trillions.
Oh well, the company will have to try again. May take another ten years or more and this time they
better be more careful. They’ll start receiving the last transmission in a about a minute. I’ll see you on the
other-I mean-on this side a little later.”
And after having circumnavigated Mars in less than ten minutes Set adjusted the bow trim and aimed for
the complex.
Freddy watched as the ship raced toward the complex. It was truly a marvel of engineering.
He screamed.
And just before headlong impact the old man and Set disappeared.
Minutes later in a small office located on the same property as The Very
Large Array a techie received the transmission from the bridge camera of Freddy
talking to no one. Immediately everyone up the chain of command was alerted.
The company president in charge of the Mars Colony Project watched Freddy on the vid. After
he heard the Neanderthal comment he mumbled, “Guess I should call my wife and say goodbye”
A failure this big would cost him his life.
And then he sat back and pictured stock markets around the globe crashing.
The End
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