Image Credit: NASA.GOV
The orange dust flowed away from my boot as I stepped forward. Damn that orange color, so much like rust, stark, bleary, never ending.
My gaze left the ground, and the orange, to peer up at the horizon, the blackness of space making me draw a deep breath as it always did. You never got used to the idea of space, literal SPACE right on the other side of your pressure suit.
I turned, ponderously, back toward the pressure capsule and airlock that marked the entrance to the colony. Although the walls were thin, and a well placed meteor could cause instant chaos, the perceived safety of the colony was more tempting than the pass ahead.
But there had been the call. The radio had buzzed with sharp excitement, calling me to the rocks which Sam and Jessica had been exploring. We all knew there was something strange about those rocks, looking almost man-made. Assuming, of course, that it had been man made thousands of years ago and aged accordingly.
Turning unenthusiastically away from the colony, I climbed aboard the rover. Eric was already there, waiting in the driver’s seat. He always wants to drive, and fair enough, the man gets car sick if he’s a passenger, and there’s nothing worse than vomiting in your suit.
Soon enough I’m in the rover, Eric hits the gas and we “speed” off across the bleak landscape. Traveling at a brisk fifteen miles per hour is considered high speed here on Mars. We rode in relative silence, the habit of conserving Oxygen well ingrained, despite the fact that additional supply is stored at the excavation site.
“Alpha 2, what is your status?” Sam’s voice still contained the excitement of whatever it is he’s discovered, but there is also a tinge of impatience at the time it has taken us to get to him.
“Five minutes out Bravo 3” Eric returned in a bored voice through his suit com. “Keep your britches on.”
Eric’s suit vibrated with the movement of his body as he chuckled, but he turned the mic off, so no sound escaped. The visual of someone laughing next to you and not being able to hear it is another one of those oddities of Space that takes some getting used to.
The rover finally slowed to a stop, a black hole craters its way downward from the base of the rock formation. The pillar above us could easily be the wall of a building, or, as is more likely, simply a large, thin rock wall, formed naturally, and with no alien assistance.
We stepped off the rover and to the dark opening. “Bravo 3, two coming down.” Eric murmured into his mic.
“Roger that Alpha 2” came the response. “Lighting the way.” Moments later a string of lights comes on, showing the opening in the ground to contain rough hewn stairs leading into the ground. We entered carefully, one behind the other, working our way carefully into the excavated cavern.
As we reached the bottom step and turned the corner, we both stopped short. “This is new!” I exclaimed forgetting to turn on my suit mic, and ultimately talking to myself.
“Well Damn, this is new.” Eric intoned over the com, echoing my own thoughts as we looked down the newly carved additional set of stairs. Apparently Alpha 2 had been busy. We headed down the new stairs, and entered a small opening dominated by one of our mobile airlocks. It took eight minutes for both of us to get through, Eric went first. By the time I came through after the second cycle, his helmet had been removed. Brilliant white teeth exposed by a broad smile breaking his ebony skin. “What do you think got into them Frank?” he asked once I had my own helmet removed.
“No Idea.” I murmured as I looked around the new cavern that had been opened by Alpha 2’s digging. “But something tells me we’re about to find out.” I chuckled as I moved forward, a well lit hallway showing the way to the spot that would assumedly contain our co-workers and whatever it is they had discovered.
A short walk took us into another opening, one end of which was closed off by the plain white plastic of our doming material, marking the end of the climate controlled space. Sam and Jessica stood at the plexi-glass window looking out at something that had them transfixed.
Jessica finally turned as the sound of our footfalls approached. “Ya’ll are not gonna believe this!” she nearly squealed waving us to the window. She and Sam stepped aside as Eric and I approached. We looked out through the window to the carefully cut stone on the other side.
Dual gasps escaped us as we looked out the window and at the unmistakable features of two humanoid faces, locked together, as if for a final kiss. A piece of red fabric, perhaps the remnants of a bandage, or a scarf, lay stretched from what one would assume was the female face to lay on the forehead of the male. As if even their clothes were trying to keep them together.
“Boys, let me introduce you to Adam and Eve. They’d like to welcome you to their home.” Jessica spoke the words solemnly, but the smile on her face gave truth to her excitement.
“Microbes my ass! Just wait till they hear about this shit back home!” The girl seemed about to blow up as she lost her composure and jumped, or hopped in the low gravity, with excitement.
As we continued to stare at the figures locked in their final, eternal embrace, Sam turned to the little stereo we had hooked up at the excavation site. We examined the not quite human figures endlessly as Sam hit play and David Bowie’s unmistakable voice filled the cavern:
Oh man, wonder if he’ll ever know
He’s in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?...