On a well-settled Mars, the five major city Council regimes
struggle to meld into a stable, working government. Embracing an official
Unified Faith In Humanity, the Councils are teetering on the verge of pogrom
directed against Christians, Molesters, Jews, Rapists, Buddhists, Murderers,
Muslims, Thieves, Hindu, Embezzlers and Artificial Humans – anyone who
threatens the official Faith and the consolidating power of the Councils. It
makes good sense, right – get rid of religion and Human divisiveness on a
societal level will disappear? An instrument of such a pogrom might just be a
Roman holiday...To see the rest of the chapters, go to SCIENCE FICTION: Martian Holiday on
the right and scroll to the bottom for the first story. If you’d like to read
it from beginning to end (70,000+ words as of now), drop me a line and I’ll
send you the unedited version.
Stepan said, “First I’m going to grow a garden, help in
any way that I can – and I was a paramedic in the Free Martian Combined Forces,
so I can run a clinic. I’ll share my food,” he looked pointedly down at Quinn,
“And I’ll work to guide those who want to learn skills they can use to build a
freer, stronger Mars.”
“You’d do that? When do you talk
about your God?” QuinnAH asked.
Stepan shrugged and looked down the stairwell,
“When the time is right. First I serve people, then I share with them.”
“So you trick people into wanting to
know about your god?”
Stepan spun around, suddenly
reminded of himself questioning Dad’s philosophy. Remembering Dad’s hand
flashing out at his impertinent son. Stepan grimaced and nodded, “I suppose
that’s one way to look at it.”
Quinn spread both arms wide, “What
other way is there to look at it?”
Stepan started down the staircase,
looked over his shoulder and said, “I think of it as earning the privilege to
be heard.” He kept on down. Quinn ran across the roof, presumably to grab the
gMod disk, and followed Stepan down a short time later. Quinn didn’t stop to
examine the space-suited skeleton. He had better things to do. He stopped. What
was the skeleton in the spacesuit? Clearly not one of the delphinoid alien who
belonged to the other spacesuit. But was it Human by default? Why did he – and the
others – assume that just because the suit was bipedal and bilaterally symmetrical
that it had to be a Human suit?
He stopped and went back up the
stairs to the landing and knelt down, looking at the suit in the dim light. He
pulled out his recorder and lit the scene. In the stark light, the suit
certainly looked like it had been worn by a Human. It was “face down”. After
recording it by stepping around it, he knelt down, narrating, “I’m going to flip
the suit over.” He reached underneath, wondering if there were any microscopic
life forms that still survived on the surface of the suit.
Stiff with age, it didn’t manipulate
like it was made of material. It turned like a huge, person-shaped pancake. The
helmet remained globular. It flopped over, raising a cloud of dust when it
fell. Stepan held his breath as it settled. Using the light again, he saw
instantly that there were no attached identification patches, at least that
still remained, though there were not circular or rectangular markings that
might indicated they’d been attached. Enough Humans on Mars went around without
patches, though it was not only socially gauche, it was also illegal in some
Dome jurisdictions. But, Burroughs wasn’t one of them – at worst, it was
considered bad manners.
The bad-mannered Human, so old it
was only bones in a bag. He pursed his lips, considered, then reached out and
popped the seals on the helmet.
There were no seals left. Metal
grated and easily released. He set it aside. He could stand up, grab the feet
and shake out the bones. He could also treat the dead with respect. He slowly
reached in, not particularly excited about touching the bones of a dead person.
He was startled when he touched a
large, smooth bone – though it wasn’t shaped like an bone he’d ever seen on a
Human. He gently grabbed it and pulled it out. He flashed the light again to
reveal an obvious beak, probably the upper half if the dull curve on the tip
was an indication.
“What the hell are you doing up
there?” QuinnAH shouted from the foot of the stairs.
Stepan almost dropped the remains. “I
found something,” he shouted down.
Quinn charged up the stairs like any
other teenager confronted by mystery. “What…” he began, then froze, one foot
still in the air. His mouth worked, but no sound came out.
Stepan said softly, “I think we’ve
found ourselves another alien.”
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