10

The Mars Shuttle Malacandra sat twelve, excluding the two pilots and the steward. If destiny were writing a novel about Mars, then the Malacandra saw six interactive characters coming together: Drs. Renée Niemann, Blaise Lewis, and Jay Kubacki; CO Walsh and Eversauff; and Gavin Atilano.

Renée sat with Blaise; she was relieved to do so, because he had done this trip many times already. Across the aisle Atilano sat with Dr. Kubacki. Walsh sat with the steward, behind Renée and Blaise, followed by the remaining six seats, all but one empty. In the sole occupied rear seat sat Eversauff, who fumed at the back of the fuselage. He had never met Atilano or Kubacki, but he knew they were Chronarchy types. Pretentious assholes, he thought.

“Why am I back here all by myself?” he finally asked the steward as he fingered his boarding pass that had his seat assignment. His tone was resentful and obvious.

“Balance,” the steward replied.

“Bullshit!” Eversauff said sharply, followed by some unsuccessfully stifled chuckling from the fore cabin. “We’re in space!”

“Sir,” the steward said, very pertly but officially, “this is true. But in 53 minutes we will be entering Mars G and then the atmosphere. You’d have to move at that time and I just thought I’d save you the trouble of moving twice.”

“The guy’s a gnat,” Blaise whispered. “Balance? They need him for balance?”

Renée shrugged her shoulders. A moment later, Eversauff got up and grip-walked over to the steward and began tapping him on his shoulder.

“That’s my seat,” he told him. The steward stood and being one who chose his battles carefully, grasped the armrests to make his way back to Eversauff’s former seat while Eversauff used the armrests to weightlessly but ostensibly aim himself into the seat next to Walsh, yet another asinine statement in his endless series of such.

“Excellent, well done,” Walsh whispered to him, jabbing his thumb back toward the steward. “You can judge a man’s position in this life by how long his string of enemies is.” They both glanced back, grinning, at the piqued steward who simply stared coldly ahead at nothing.

Renée felt Walsh’s attention directed at her from behind, and probably his sight, breath, and libido as well. At initial seating, he had hardly given her a look of recognition, but who could tell with those sunglasses. Such a guise, she realized, was not merely a pose, but a game such men played. But it was there: his fixation, or so Renée felt. Her discomfort grew to the point where she arose and travelled the aisle to join the steward. Next, Blaise arose to join them in the back, prompting a conspiracy suspicion from Eversauff. They’re gonna put me by myself again, he fumed silently, until the captain turned around and forbad any more moves.

“Balance,” he explained.

For the better part of the next hour, all seemed quiet and static. There was certainly no sensation of movement as the shuttle continued its orbit to align with its descent window. Renée had a window seat and saw the orange and blue colors of the terraformed Mars in much greater detail than she had from her sofa on Lagrange 1.

She saw the great Hellas Sea that sat like a blue marble on an orange playground. And from there she tried to track East North-East to where she knew the colony sat. Unfortunately, that area was masked by wispy clouds.

“What’s it like?” she asked Blaise.

“Pretty comfortable,” he replied. “They got the terraforming down pretty good.”

“No, I mean existentially…to be on another planet.”

“I didn’t know I needed a philosophical background.”

“C’mon, you know what I mean. To stand on another world. I know I said goodbye to Earth nearly four months ago, but landing there,” she pointed out of the window, “walking steps on it; it’s like cutting the final tether, being unfaithful to a spouse, saying a goodbye to someone who never saw it coming. That’s what I mean. What’s it like? That moment it dawns on you that you’re on another planet of the universe? Like what Adam and Eve must’ve felt when they were shoved out of the garden.”

Blaise sat and thought for a moment, then turned to her. “It’s like being a foster child; like going to live with an aunt even though you weren’t sent to her because you were beaten or anything like that. Not like you were taken away from your family. You miss your family, but you know you can rejoin them again. Yet, there’s the excitement of anticipation. What will the new family be like? How will it be living with them? With trying to get up to speed with their inside jokes and their quirks.” He paused and reconsidered. “Like leaving home and hitchhiking into the great unknown, but filled with anticipation.”

“What’s hitchhiking?” she asked.

“Getting on the road and signaling a ride from another car going your way.”

“From a stranger?” she asked surprised. “No one does that.”

“I didn’t mean the danger, I meant the freedom to enjoy an impulsive rush.”

“And hoping your new family loves you and cares for you as much as your first family did?”

“Yes,” Blaise answered. “A lot like that.”

“You were a foster child, weren’t you?” Renée asked, enjoying what she thought was a Eureka! moment.

“Hell, no,” Blaise answered.

“Oh,” said Renée.

All had experienced re-entry before except for first-timer, Renée. The pilot adjusted the attitude just so, and the float of the shuttle perched squarely on the air top of Mars, their buoy turning subtly to initially float them to descent, but then progressing to racing fireball. It was very loud, prompting ear protectors, but next, added to the noise, was the shaking—the very bone-rattling shaking.

After three of the longest minutes the roar turned into a whistling and the rattling turned into a gentle humming vibration. Outside of the windows, black had turned into incendiary red, followed by the purplish-blue of the Martian skies. The engines were off. There were in a mere glider now. Renée loosened her death grip on the armrests and flipped off her earmuffs. They descended for six minutes, after which the nose tipped down to a 30º angle.

Then Renée saw it.

The Mars Colony Project, surrounded by the ṺberCollider which held it like a corral. Blaise identified the hydrodome for Renée, which from that height was only a glistening bump, like a lost contact lens on the floor. Soon all could see the web-like connectors of the colony buildings and roads.

The engines fired up once more, and the craft jostled for the perfect position to meet the runway. There must have been a last-second crosswind, for the left side made initial contact, followed by a sudden exaggerated corrective slamming of the right side, followed by a sudden full-down tip of the nose.

It was too rough. A degree in aerospace engineering wasn’t needed to know that the engines, firing up in reverse, were being overtaxed to save the landing. Renée re-engaged her death grip. When she saw the steward cross himself, she closed her eyes and invoked a strong re-identification with her Catholicism.

The steward noticed her reaction to his signing himself. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I always do that.”

A moment later, all was well, and the pilot turned around, as if nothing were unusual. “Welcome to Mars,” he said cheerfully, “always an adventure.”

“Glad we were balanced,” Eversauff announced to everyone resentfully. When they all stood to disembark, Blaise noticed that Walsh held his hands together in front of his crotch. He had wet himself.

Prestigious, he thought. Eyeing Walsh’s lapel pin, he asked, “What the ‘P’ for?” then glanced back down to his crotch to make the joke click. It went no further than that, although Walsh studied Blaise and put him on some sort of list he was always documenting for some future come-uppance.

The passengers paraded out, thanking the primary and secondary pilots.

“Thank you,” “Thank you,” “Thank you,” “Thank you,” were followed by four returns of “You’re welcome.”

“Well done,” Walsh said, then chuckled.”

“Yes,” agreed Eversauff, “very balanced indeed.”

At the special, single, receiving gate, Walsh and Eversauff were met by a Colonel Leeper. Atilano and Dr. Kubacki were met by a slim, silly-looking servicebot that lit up a travelling arrow on its head after logging in the face recognition. Their names appeared on its screen face. They followed the servicebot when it began rolling in the direction of its lighted arrow.

Renée turned to Blaise. “How are we getting transport?”

“There,” he said, pointing to a couple and a child who waved at him. “Dr. Niemann, allow me to introduce Dr. Evan Mickal and his wife, Dr. Deniz Mickal. Their daughter, Mare.”

The young blond girl ran to Blaise and jumped into his arms. She looked about seven or eight Earth years and was a little waif of a thing who couldn’t have weighted more than 25 Mars kilos. She wore medium-thick eyeglasses that were set in a neonite frame of rotating colors. Her princess outfit, tiara included, seemed out of place on a girl her age.

“Uncle Blaise!” she said excitedly. She kissed his cheek and pulled away to ask, “What did you bring me?” Blaise noted the royal costuming and darted a look at Deniz, who shrugged.

“Wow, another tooth,” he commented on her gapped smile. He reached into his jacket and retrieved a small electronic device. “Your Highness, I brought you…this!” he announced with a flourish. Mare shrieked.

“Yes! Oh, thank you! Version 5?”

“Version 6,” he reported proudly, then to Evan and Deniz, “the audio analyzer/player she wanted.”

“Blaise, really,” objected Deniz; but Mare’s disapproving frown substituted adequately for talk of over-indulgence and child spoiling. “Well, I guess she’s been wanting one since Christmas, and they haven’t gotten them here yet.”

“Still not yet,” Blaise informed them. “I got this before I left Lagrange 1 on the shuttle.” He turned to Mare. “Got a clip of the whole re-entry on it,” he said.

“Very ax,” she said.

“Acceptable,” Deniz translated.

“Ever the xenolinguist,” Evan said. And then to Mare, “Our own little private alien.”

“Nothing xeno about it,” Deniz argued, “just shuckin’ and jivin’ with the lingo. Mind your generation gap, please.”

In an aside, Blaise whispered to Deniz, “I was right? Her Highness again?”

Deniz shrugged her shoulders again and whispered back. “Yea, we thought we were finished with that phase.”

“When she was five?”

“Yes. Her doctor thinks it’s just a defense when her issues rear their ugly little heads in her. Sovereign immunity—makes her supreme and invulnerable.”

“Someone needs to get into that wonderful little head and clean out those issues.”

“Her psychiatrist has been trying, believe me.” Regarding Renée, Deniz abruptly sounded off in a normal tone again. “Well.”

“Yes, well,” Evan said, turning to Renée, “honored to meet you.”

“Thank you,” she said, and then turned to Deniz. “Denice?”

“More like ‘day-NEEZ,’” Deniz explained.

“Very nice to meet you, Deniz,” Renée said warmly. She next addressed their daughter. “And who is this beautiful princess?”

“Our daughter, Mare,” Evan answered.

“And while we’re at it,” Deniz added, “Mare is M-A-R-E, not M-A-R-Y, although it’s pronounced the same.

“Princess Mare,” Mare corrected her. “Princess of Mars,” then curtsied.

“It’s an honor to meet Martian royalty,” Renée said.

“Thank you,” Mare giggled.

“Should we all go to the VSD to show you around?” Evan offered.

“Evan!” Deniz scolded. “Let her get settled. She’ll see it soon. And often. She’s still out of a suitcase, for goodness’ sake.”

“Sorry, Dr. Niemann.”

“Renée. Please, call me Renée.”

“As I said, Renée, sorry. And me, Evan.”

“Absolutely no problem. I’m happy I’ve met my other colleague who seems to be as energetic as I had hoped. I think the three of us are going to do great things. But I think I really would like to see my living quarters, get settled. But maybe in a couple of hours we could swing by the VSD?”

“Of course,” Evan replied. “Look, let’s all go home and unwind. We’ll take tomorrow off—”

“Tomorrow is Sunday,” Deniz reminded him.

“Right,” he said.

“Better idea,” Blaise interrupted. “Barbecue. Let’s have a barbecue tomorrow.”

“Can we?” Mare asked excitedly.

“Yes,” Deniz said. “Our place.”

“Thank God,” Blaise said.

“Yea,” Deniz agreed, “Blaise’s bachelor barbecues don’t get past hot dogs. Our place for sure. Eleven?”

“That sounds wonderful, “Renée said with a single clap of her hands. I’ll get unpacked then call y’all when I’m settled. Tour of VSD in a couple of hours, though, right? I really am anxious to see the place.”