VirileMail/11

Mars Chronicle
Finally, the ship entered into orbital insertion at Mars. I used the computer to look at the surface of Mars during the descent. The entire journey to that point had been accomplished at a nearly constant Earth gravity acceleration. The ship dropped into a large crater and drifted laterally through a sliding door in the rim of the crater: during this landing sequence there were several dramatic acceleration changes, but I experienced no painfully extreme forces. After landing, I could feel a slight vibration and then just the low gravity of Mars.

Suddenly the image feed from the surface of the ship died. After about thirty seconds, the door of the office opened and a short, slim woman entered the office. She said, "Joe, welcome to Mars! I am O. Kresly." She raised her hand in the traditional Martian greeting, just as described in the books I had read.

I matched the hand greeting, bringing my hand briefly in contact with hers. Her English was archaic; she was clearly not a native speaker of the language, but I could understand her well enough. I recognized the "O." as the abbreviation for "Observer", probably the most important occupation among the Martians. I said, "Thank you for the welcome, Observer Kresly."

She asked, "Do you have any personal belongings? No? Then follow me." The office door now opened to a stark metal chamber. After I stepped into he chamber, Kresly activated a switch and a solid metal plate slid into place across the door of the office. She triggered another wall switch and the chamber began to flood with a slightly purple fluid. We shed our clothing as the fluid washed around our legs. "Just try to relax. This is our mandatory decontamination procedure. Do you swim?"

I replied, "Yes, I know how to swim."

She was stuffing our clothing into a mesh sack that hung on the wall while instructing me, "Don't try to swim. Just relax. When the fluid reaches your face just keep breathing normally. The fluid will not hurt your lungs."

Her head went under first as the room continued to fill. I had read about this and went down on my knees while trying to take a normal breath. My lungs felt heavy and sluggish and I coughed a few times, but otherwise I did fine. Soon the bubble of air at the top of the room was gone and a door in the floor slid open. Kresly grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the hole in the floor. The fluid had very low density, so we easily stepped to the hole and sank down into the chamber below. Kresly went to a cabinet and retrieved a small syringe. She quickly injected a small volume of fluid from the syringe into my arm then returned the syringe to the cabinet.

So far my 'welcome' was as described in "Welcome to Mars". Kresly slid open another door and stepped into what looked like a small closet. She waved at me, indicating I should follow. I stepped into the small space with her then the door slid shut behind me. The closet quickly drained of fluid and we coughed the fluid out of our lungs. The wall behind Kresly slid open and we stepped through into a wind tunnel. She led the way up the tunnel into the wind. She reached a switch that stopped the air flow.

Kresly pulled open another cabinet and pulled out two robes. We put on the robes and used their thick fabric as towels to dry the last of the decontamination fluid from our skin. I was still coughing some. She asked, "Are you okay? Are you breathing deeply?"

I replied, "I think I'm okay."

She explained, "Your lungs will quickly absorb the rest of the fluid. Some people are just more sensitive to the irritation of liquid breathing. This room's air is 65% oxygen, so do not fear that you are not getting enough in your lungs"

A panel in the ceiling opened and someone called down, "Ready to come up?" A fabric ladder rolled down through the hole from above.

Kresly called up, "He's doing quite a bit of coughing. I want to wait until that goes away. Toss me down my computer." A small box-like device fell through the hole and Kresly caught it. She pulled a corner off the box and pressed it to her ear. I could see it was a compact earphone and microphone. She flipped open the box, and a paper-thin display screen popped out. "Okay, Joe, we can start the ingress interview here. If you feel short of breath, don't try to talk. Do you know anyone on Mars? Family, friends?"

It seemed possible that someone I had known or I was related to might be on Mars. My Uncle Dominic has mysteriously disappeared back sometime in the 1980's. Still, it seemed unlikely. From what i had read, very few Earthlings ever made the trip to Mars and the entire population of the Mars base had never been more than 20,000. "Not that I know of."

"Do you know why you are here?" I had read about this question and how it usually baffled new arrival. I was unusual in that I already had a good understanding of what was going on: I knew something about the aliens, their nanobots, and the importance of the human colony on Mars. I had read a discussion of what constituted sensible answers to this question and believed I knew a good way to reply.

I said, "I'm resistant to nanobot control."

My answer seemed to satisfy Kresly. "Are you nanobot-free or still infected?"

I wondered if I could really know the answer to that question. Maybe I had been tricked into thinking I was free of the nanobots. "As far as I know, I am no longer infected."

She flipped the computer and the display was sucked away from view. Kresly put the computer in a pocket of her robe. and stepped to the ladder. Okay, all that checks out. If you are feeling ready we can head up. No dizziness? No pain in your lungs?"

My coughing had stopped and I felt fine. "I'm ready" She gestured to the ladder and held it as I climbed. A man grabbed my arm as I emerged into the room above. Kresly came up right behind me. The man handed me a sealed plastic pouch containing my watch and cell phone.

Kresly pressed a switch and a wall panel glowed, flashed and cleared to show a map of what the Martians called Central City, the core region of the underground Mars base. I had already become familiar with the major features of the base by reading the books on the ship. Kresly pointed to the part of the map showing the district known as Prosco, the most recently constructed part of the underground city, having been built out during the past six hundred years. "The Varna software team has their headquarters here." There was a flashing dot on the map showing the exact location. "I thought you might might like to meet the team that made the software you have been working with." Unfortunately, the Prosco district is trendy and there are no available homes. Maldi and Vedi are two districts with plenty of vacancies, if you would first like to find a place to live." She pointed to the locations of those two districts on the map.

I had been doing a lot of thinking about what I needed to do on Mars. "I do want to visit the software team eventually." I'd not previously heard that the team was called "Varna", but that was just a trivial detail. "I'm not in a hurry to get settled in to a new home. I want to follow up on something I heard on Earth, that the Varna team's software is part of a larger on-going project. I want to track down anyone who knows about that larger project."

Kresly said, "You must mean the genetic engineering stage of the project. That's the Vavilov team, their lab is also located in Prosco district, here." Again she marked the exact location on the map.

I said, "How do I get there?"

Kresly pointed at the far edge of the map, "We are here at the spaceport, at the edge of what's often called 'Old Town', but formally known in English as the Tamia district. As you can see, Prosco district is clear across town. I could give you a nice tour by surface trolley or we could travel quicker by tube."

I pulled my watch out of the pouch. "What is the local time?"

Kresly said, "Your Earth watch will just be an annoyance for you. We use local Mars time here. It will be best if I contact the Vavilov project and make an appointment for you to visit their lab tomorrow.. We also need to arrange for a Russian translator. My suggestion is that we cross town by trolley. We can stop at the Central Market and get you a new watch and some other essentials. We can end up in Maldi district and probably find you a nice flat. How does that sound?"

"That will be fine."

Some humans came to visit me. I noticed that the underground ambient was the same as inside an Earth's building. The same quantity of oxygen but a better temperature, more akin to my body. They greeted me with their hands but we could not understand each other because they talked that unknown language. They carried several weapons which looked like science fiction to me. After walking for some minutes we could get to a big computer screen. Janek greeted me. Now he had a human face.

“Hi there. I see you are surprised to see me this way. It is more 'user friendly' as you say on Earth.”

“Hi. Yes, I am surprised.”

“OK. Now I will be your translator. Just talk and I will translate what you say to them. They have earphones and can hear my speaking. They will give you another for you to hear me, too.”

“Cool.”

They gave me the earphones and we started talking.

Epilogue
THE END.

There are a few parallel versions of the epilogue happening in parallel universes to this story. Some of them are very short though.


 * WNANT/9-2
 * WNANT/9-3
 * WNANT/9-4

Story created and written by JWSchmidt. With some additions in chapters 6 to 8 by Davichito. The parallel endings are all his invention (until now).