One Way To Mars Read online

  Space Brass were equally divided, but, in the end, and to some degree influenced in no small part, by the astronomical sums already spent so far on creating the GenMoPs, “and what the hell would we do with the little buggers if we didn't send them off into space?” GenMoPs won the day.

  'Oooh!' said Monkley.

  'Kinda neat, yeah?'

  'Oooh!'

  When Monkley was particularly fascinated by something, “Oooh!” was his usual reaction. The fantastic diversity of plant life in the base was staggering. Mostly tropical and subtropical plants, chosen for fast growth and their oxygen creating abilities; many fruit trees filled one complete side of the base. Foreman counted more than thirty different assorted fruit trees, mostly full of luscious fruit.

  'Knock yourself out, pal.'

  Monkley, free at last of space suit and undergarments, went into chimp overdrive and raced up the nearest tree. A banana tree. Making himself comfortable in the fork of a branch, Monkley helped himself.

  'Hey. How about one for me?' Monkely threw a banana skin down at him hitting him in the face. 'Thanks a bunch, pal.'

  Monkley laughed and whooped. Foreman gathered up a selection of fruit and sat on the bank of the reservoir of continuously circulating water. A man-made waterfall, contrived to look like the real thing, splashed continuously into the large deep pool. He knew it had been hotly debated about introducing some bird and aquatic life, but each answer only threw up a dozen more questions. Yes, one day, but lets think it through first, okay? Foreman pictured himself by the side of the pool, pole and line in hand, catching his dinner. Not on this trip.

  Separate from the main pool, was a much smaller pool. It too had a small waterfall. Completely surrounded by lush ferns and bushes, it was a perfect hideaway soak pool. 'Oh, yeah!'

  Stripping off his one piece undergarment, he tested the water with his big toe. Perfect. He jumped in, letting the purified water cover him. Coming up for air, he lay on his back and floated.

  'I really should phone home,' he told himself. 'Hey. Monkley. Get your stinky ass down here. You need a bath, too.' As he expected, it went suddenly quiet. 'Monkley. Unless you want to spend the night in the airlock, you get down here this minute.' A banana hitting him on his head was Monkley's response. 'You got five seconds to get down here, or I mean it. Airlock.'

  There was a rustling of the undergrowth and a serious faced Monkley poked his head out.

  'It's nice. Come on. It'll do you good.'

  'Water.'

  'Yeah. Bathwater. Look. Be thankful I'm too tired to go find soap. In. Now.'

  Monkley shuffled to the edge of the pool. Foreman reached out for his hand, but Monkley had other ideas, scooping up water and splashing him in the face. Howling with laughter, he jumped up and down, doing a back-flip for good measure.

  'Okay, pal. Come on.'

  Monkley eased himself into the pool, draping one wet hairy arm around Foreman.

  'See? Nice.'

  'Nice.'

  They lay together in the peaceful oasis, thankful to be alive.

  'I never did say thanks, Monkely. You saved my hide out there. Thanks pal.'

  'Happy now.'

  'You and me both, pal. Look. It's been one hell of a day. Time for bed. I gotta try and call home, so come on, let's get you dried off.'

  Hand in hand they went to the quarters at one end of the base. There were six compact single bed units, a bathroom, a kitchen, small communal sitting area, and the communications room. Foreman found a couple of towels and handed Monkley one.

  'Do you want your own room?'

  'Out,' said Monkley, pointing at the tiny jungle.

  'Yeah. Why the hell not? Go for it, pal.'

  Foreman watched his hairy friend run out into the trees. He knew there was nothing dangerous out there, apart from possible indigestion from over eating. Finding a clean singlet and briefs, he dressed and went into the radio room. With only the basic understanding of how it worked, he flicked switches and twiddled knobs. Things lit up and strange whistling noises screeched out of the speakers.

  'Hi. Hello? Hello? Anybody home?' Nothing. 'Hi. This is Andrew Foreman. If you can hear this, I have to tell you we had something of an incident. The ships gone and all but me and Monkley are...dead. Shit. Okay. I know it could take a few minutes to answer, so I'll just keep talking. No. I need to rest. I'll try again in the morning. Over.'

  Leaving the radio on, he shuffled off to find the nearest bed.

  Chapter 5

  It was the smell of the coffee that woke Foreman up.

  'Hello,' said Monkley, passing him the mug.

  'Hey! You, pal, are a real gentleman. Thanks.' He sipped the coffee. 'Perfect. How are you this morning?'

  'Happy.'

  When it came to words, Monkley was a one size fits all kinda chap.

  'We're alive, which is the main thing. We should do something, you know, about our buddies. Mark their passing, somehow. I'll think of something.'

  He went to the bathroom and ran the shower. He knew all the water would be filtered and sterilised. It was the same for any waste water. Solids would end up being used as fertiliser for the plants. Nothing was ever wasted in a facility like the base. Drying himself off, he found a coverall that fitted. The kitchen had a storeroom filled with enough vacuum packed food to feed four people for a year. Maybe not the finest dining experience, but nutritious and sustaining. Finding some tomato filled dough based thing, he zapped it in the microwave and sat at the table to eat. The meal was okay. Adequate. It would keep him alive. Another coffee hit the spot.

  He left the kitchen after washing up his coffee mug, and went out to try the radio again. With his mind rested, he figured he stood a better chance of making contact. After half an hour of nothing but static, he gave it up.

  'Hey, Monkley. Where the hell are you?'

  There was a rustling as Monkley bounded athletically from branch to branch, landing perfectly by his side.

  'Are you going to dress today?'

  Monkley shook his head. 'Happy.'

  'Fair enough. I tried calling Earth. I didn't get very far. You and I still have a job to do, you know? We gotta check out the systems, make sure it's all in good order. You need to stick by me, learn a bit. We have to go to the control room. Come on.'

  The nerve centre of the base was at the far end of the accommodation units. A light came on as they stepped inside.

  'Ah! This isn't good, pal.' He knew he had left the radio on. Now, however, it wasn't lit up. 'Probably a loose connection.'

  Monkley jumped up onto the bench and watched Foreman at work. Checking the cables and power supply, he determined the problem, if there was one, was with the radio itself. 'Maybe its on some sort of timer. Yeah. Makes sense. Conserving power.'

  He flicked every switch, turned every knob, poked all the buttons. Nothing. 'Gotta be some kinda manual for the damn thing.'

  Monkley was holding a thick instruction manual in his hairy hands, turning the pages. This would have been impressive, had it not been upside down.

  'You ain't fooling nobody, pal. Hand it over.' Monkley passed it to him. 'Shit! This is ridiculous,' he said feeling the weight. 'You make yourself useful and make me a coffee while I get my head around this.'

  Monkley jumped down and ran out of the room as Foreman made himself comfortable in a chair, his feet up on the bench. Five minutes later, Monkley returned with the coffee in one hand and a banana in the other. Jumping back up on the bench, he ate the banana as Foreman studied the manual. 'I got to page ninety seven and it still ain't told me how to turn the damn thing on. What is it with geeks? They got this peculiar way about them, using a thousand incomprehensible words when one simple word would do.'

  He tossed the manual on the bench and stared at the radio. Despite the technical ramblings of the manual, it looked quite basic in design. It served two purposes, he knew. Internal base communication including with anyone outside performing missions, and communication with either Earth, or any
one on their way from Earth. That was it. It would of course, ordinarily be operated by an expert, but the expert was Science Officer Elizabeth Mauler. She'd have had the thing fired up and dancing the bossanova in seconds. Mauler being dead was a huge obstacle in her being able to do that, however.

  'I need a crap,' said Foreman.

  On his way to the bathroom, he marvelled at the base. He was impressed with its simplicity. One huge Luxotral construction, self supporting with no internal pillars, capable of withstanding small meteor collisions. Not that that was likely. Mars had two distinct areas, one a heavily pockmarked battered side, ravished by time and meteor bombardment, and the rest of it, smooth and relatively unblemished. Nobody really knew why that was. The base site had been chosen using the Olympus Mons mountain as a marker. Near the equator, surrounded by a vast crater, the extinct volcano measured an impressive eighteen miles in height. The bordering plateau was where the bore for the water had been drilled. Impervious pipes made of Luxotral were used to get the water to the base under natural pressure. The people building all this would have tossed the geek instruction manuals into the trash and just got on with the job.

  Not one ounce of material had been wasted. There was nothing used in the project that didn't need to be there, and considering it was a joint effort between many nations, it all went amazingly well. The toilet was a self cleaning, self flushing design, recycling waste material for the compost for the plants. All the packaging for the food was a biodegradable material, organic based, that broke down into compost. Having finished his ablutions, Foreman returned to the control room, to find an excited Monkley talking into the lit up radio.

  '...Space Federation communications centre. I repeat. This is Cadet Nathan Farley, of the International Space Federation at the communications centre. Can you hear me?'

  'Happy. Monkley happy.'

  'Holy crap.' Foreman stared at the GenMop in amazement. 'Cadet Farley. This is Andrew Foreman. Can you hear me?'

  Farley wouldn't hear that for a few minutes, so continued introducing himself. After a long pause Foreman got his reply.

  'Yeah. I got some nut-job on before, going on how happy he is.'

  Allowing for the pauses, the dialogue continued. 'That's Monkley. The GenMop. You say you're just a cadet?'

  'Yeah. I can hear you. We're in the middle of an evacuation. Big shit going down.'

  'Evacuation? What the hell is going on down there?'

  'Terrorist strike. Bad shit going down all over the damn place.'

  'But I...everything was peachy when we left. How come...?'

  'I can't stay long, sir. I was just passing the communications centre when I happened to hear the transmission.'

  'Farley. Listen carefully. The ship went down. Me and the GenMop are the only survivors. We are in the base and...'

  'Glad you made it, sir. Look. I gotta go.' There was the sound of an explosion. 'Shit. Good luck, sir.' There was another explosion and the radio went dead.

  'Farley? Farley?'

  Foreman stared at the radio. 'Damn. Turn my back for five damn minutes and it all goes to pieces.'

  Chapter 6

  Foreman sat by the small pool, his feet dangling in the cool water. Monkley offered him a banana, which was declined.

  'Right now, is when most self respecting human would get totally hammered. That's one thing the brass thought not to send here. Booze. Not a priority. Boy. They got that bit wrong.'

  'Andy not happy.'

  'Hmm. You got that right, pal.' He sighed. 'What the hell is going on down there? The communications centre is usually manned twenty four seven by teams of eight. We get a cadet, desperate to get out of the damn place. Shit. I hope the kid made it. You know something? For once in my life, I'm in the right place at the right time. We got all we need to live out our lives right here. No rent to pay, no boss on our backs giving us grief. Heck. We don't even have to worry about the damn weather.' He stood up. 'From now on, pal, this our little world. Come on. Lets go exploring. See what the hell we got to work with.'

  Together they explored the section of fruit trees. There were three types of apple, two banana trees, three types of citrus, lime, orange and lemon. Two peach trees, and one pineapple. Some of them had produced self setting offspring on the rich soil. Foreman knew as much about horticulture as he did radios. He was pretty sure some thinning would be needed to ensure all maturing trees had sufficient nutrients. In the well stocked food storage area, there was a huge variety of processed foods, all sealed in the biodegradable packaging. By his estimation, enough to last him and Monkley for years.

  Clothing would last him forever, but some thought had to be given to laundry chores. Even he had limits on how bad he would allow himself to smell. Toiletries were well stocked. With the toilet serving as a bidet and drier in one, toilet tissue wasn't an issue.

  Medical supplies were adequate, and enough in the right hands to deal with most emergencies. He had a terrible vision of Monkley with a scalpel in one hand and a manual in another, with himself writhing in agony with an appendix about to explode. Motto to live by and note to self. Stay healthy.

  The base control centre with the controls for the entire base was at least simple to read. Each gauge was clearly identified and as far as he could tell, everything read normal. What the hell he would do if something suddenly wasn't reading normal, he managed to put out of his head. Bridges to cross when they needed crossing. He would try to figure things out before anything went pear shaped, though.

  'Now, this could be fun, pal.'

  The six wheeled all terrain explorer could seat six people, suited, because it was uncovered. Battery powered and solar charged, it had a top speed of thirty miles per hour and a range of two hundred miles on a full charge. Six huge independently suspended wheels were made of Luxotral, like ninety percent of the vehicle. It was housed in its own bay next to the main airlock. The controls were basic enough that an average eight year old could drive it with minimal instruction.

  The hydroponics section was unused, the nutrient dosed water in continuous circulation to keep it fresh. All it needed were the seeds to be added and cultivated. A storage box next to the unit had a huge variety of seeds, hermetically sealed and well labelled. Starting that off would be high on the list. Stay healthy. No Monkley with scalpels.

  Basic gardening tools were stored in a small shed. The prolific growth of the trees and bushes meant a large part of his work would involve maintenance to keep some kind of control over it. Already, the perimeters of the “jungle” were overgrown to the extent where it was impossible to move through without a machete to hack with. Just to try out his skills, he picked up the machete and began hacking away. To do a proper job of it, he would have to hack and thin out, collect everything up and pile it on one of the four composting sites. The one creature brought in from Earth was the humble worm. The lushness of the jungle was in no small part to their vigilance. Without predatory bird life, the compost heaps positively heaved with activity.

  Clearing a path through to one corner, Foreman stopped in mid hacking. Before him was a site so unexpected, he dropped the machete.

  'You beauties.'

  Thriving well in a small patch, hidden behind several larger trees, was a miniature plantation of Marijuana plants. Most plants were taller than he was.

  'Monkley. I just died and woke up in heaven. I'm guessing this isn't authorised by the I S F, pal.' He caressed one of the spiky five pronged leaves. 'I'm thinking some forward planning wag brought along a few seeds and when nobody was looking, accidentally dropped a few. Remind me to build a small shrine in his honour, pal.'

  'Andy Happy.'

  'I'll be more than happy, pal. Now. It's a popular misconception that the plants are grown for the leaves. This is what we need. These buds, see?'

  'Buds.'

  'Right. These are ready for harvesting. A sort of reddish brown. Don't ask how I know about this, by the way. Let's just say I knew some useful people back in my student days. I'l
l just grab a few of these. Come on, pal.'

  Foreman went to his sleeping quarters. 'All I need to do is leave this in here,' he said, opening a small cupboard, 'Say for a day or two, until it's dried right out. Strictly speaking, and for the purists, it should then be cured, which could take a couple of weeks. That improves things, but it isn't essential. Time for that later. This is about stress release, so tomorrow night, I'll be relieving my stress, big time. I now think I have a reasonable chance of hanging on to my sanity. Hungry?'

  'Monkley hungry.'

  'Okay, pal. You go and eat and I'll grab a snack.'

  Monkley ran off to help himself from the jungle, and Foreman raided the food store. Choosing a package of some synthetic protein base, he nuked it in the microwave and ate it with little enthusiasm. All he could think about was the radio call. Explosions in the I S F complex meant big time trouble. And whatever had been going down had stranded him on Mars for the foreseeable future, if not indefinitely. He was pretty sure he could live with that. Although a reasonably personable individual, he was happier when he was on his own, keeping busy, learning and discovering. People he could take or leave. Animals he preferred for company, and Monkely filled that job description. Hell. He could even hold a rudimentary conversation. The limits of the GenMop's ability to learn and reason had never been satisfactorily pushed as much as they should have, he was beginning to suspect. Damn it, Monkley had managed to turn the radio on, when he'd drawn a blank. Perhaps in this new environment, Monkley could learn heaps more stuff.

  He'd finished the meal without even realising he had been eating it. His mind was all over the place. There was one thing that as a human being, he just had to do.

  Chapter 7

  Foreman cleared a section of the jungle, on the side of the main pool, away from most of the other trees. With the spade, he dug a shallow grave. From a locker, he had found a spare space suit, one of a dozen. He lay the suit in the grave, a helmet representing the head. Then he covered it up with the soil. To mark the grave, he planted a small seedling, an apple, he thought, where the headstone would be. Monkley watched from a distance, as Foreman laboured away. Words were needed.