Page 67

It’s undeniable.

It’s Marek. It always has been.

Marek, who made all of this happen.

“How?”

How is all this here? The greens of trees and bushes and the brilliant white snow against the stark red dirt of the planet. It’s a Christmas postcard unlike any other.

“Eleven years ago, a team mined into the planet’s core with fissionable materials and nuclear reactors. It was an impossible mission… but it worked. The core melted, volcanic activity restarted, and Mars got its magnetic field back. From there we relied on simple science in an accelerated form, with engineered algae heating up water and breathing in CO2... .”

He sounds so proud and excited and in awe. I’m sure he could talk about the process forever if he didn’t have other things to do. I’ve read about the science that made this possible, but it’s one thing to parse through technical jargon and another thing entirely to see the man who made it all happen talking about his vision. I smile at the expression of wonder on his face, and I can’t help but let my fingers brush against his with a gentle squeeze. Surely no one is paying attention to our hands as they follow us out of the ship and face the reality of a terraformed Mars.

A few more steps away from the ship and I notice how everything feels lighter.

The ship was pressurized to Earth’s gravity.

Mars… isn’t.

I was so focused on the landscape I didn’t notice how giant my strides were. There’s a buoyancy in my step, a sense of physical lightness I’ve never experienced. It’s heady. Exhilarating.

We walk a few more feet, snow crunching under our shoes, and I breathe in the cold air and laugh, then on impulse I jump.

Oh. My. God.

I jump so freaking high.

I laugh again and jump again and Marek joins me. He jumps higher than me, because of course he does, but we could both be olympic pole vaulters and we wouldn’t even need the pole. I feel the best parts of being a child again, carefree and excited to move and run and breathe deeply. Excited to face a new day full of new wonders.

The air is crisp and fresh, even if it’s really goddamn cold. The sun casts long pale-gold shadows across the trees. I wonder what time of day it is; it felt like night just an hour ago while we had a celebratory ball, then we crashed and suddenly there’s daylight. I get a flutter in my stomach when I realize this is the same sun I have always seen. A bit further away, but the same. That thought brings me some comfort, and helps me believe this new world can actually feel like home someday.

The exhilaration of it all settles and after a few more jumps and some more laughing, we slow down, and take our time looking around.

We are out here for a reason, and it breaks my heart that one of the first things we have to do on our new world is bury a young woman who didn’t have nearly enough years of life.

Thinking of Nicolette pushes away all of the euphoria I was feeling, and I look up at Marek, my eyes getting teary again. “Is this where we are settling for good? Or are we just going to bury her and leave?”

I don’t love the idea of leaving her here. It feels so… lonely. I cross my arms over my chest and shiver.

“We will be staying near the ship for a while. At least until we scout the area and establish a development plan. Probably longer.”

I nod. “Okay. While we’re thinking about where to build and plant, we also need to decide where to bury.”

Nicolette might be the first death, but she won’t be the last. In this new world where nothing can be counted on anymore, not even taxes, death is still a sure thing. It comes for all of us eventually.

Marek pulls out a mini tablet from his pocket and brushes his thumb over the screen. A map appears on the display. “This is the nearby topography, including weather readings and air quality conditions. It’s a live feed from the satellites surrounding the planet.”

Useful. I study it, using my fingers to zoom in to our location. I compare the data on the screen to the fully dimensional life around me, trying to get a visceral sense for where we are and what’s around us.

I start moving around the outside of the ship, looking at the tablet’s map as I go. “There’s a coast line just to the west of us. What if… what if we did burials at sea?”

Marek stays a step behind me while the rest of the off-boarding passengers hover at the doorway. It’s a big ship, and takes a lot of walking to get around. I realize as my lungs struggle to get enough air that 1: I should have hit the gym more on the trip over here and 2: this air is thin. Way thinner than my lungs are used to.

I’m out of breath and huffing oh so attractively when we finally reach the other side.

Then we see it.

The coastline.