Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING
ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more
speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective
eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..."
Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then
a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture,
fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I
only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them.
“Blue Mars, Blue
Plague”
Aicha Hoxha stood
in the lateral exposed lava tube at the bottom of the narrow canyon branch of Valles
Marineris. “This is it. I can feel it.”
Tareq Berzins
still stood at the tube’s entrance. “All you can feel is the fabric of your skintight
under the surface suit.”
Aicha sniffed.
While she very much liked Tareq’s analytical mind usually, he could be such a
bore when it came to exploration. “You have no imagination, TB.” She grinned.
He hated the initials because of their implication of disease. He was a former geologist,
now a budding aeresologist.
“Imagination is a
highly overrated faculty. It wasn’t imagination that got us to Mars…” He cut
himself off, realzing the absurdity of his statement.
Aicha decided to
let it go – but made sure she muttered a note to her personal notepad for later
taunting use. She grinned and said, “Let’s go in deeper.”
“Why? We can see
it’s a cave.”
“Part of our
survey mandate is to check out future sites for the colony.”
“We’ve mapped
thousands of caves. What’s so interesting about this one?”
Aicha gestured and
continued deeper. “It’s fairly straight in and the floor is more or less
stone-free. It also rises a bit. Could be good for the colony once we re-establish
a real weather system.”
Tarq snorted. “We’ll
be less than dust by then.”
She shrugged,
knowing he couldn’t see it because of the bulky surface suit. She stopped suddenly,
said, “That’s weird.”
“What now,” his
voice clearly implied that his patience was wearing thin.
“There’s something
blue on the wall.”
“What do you mean ‘something
blue on the wall’?”
“Just what I mean.
There’s something I can’t identify that is blue and on the wall. You have the
bioscanner programming, come here.”
“Really? I haven’t
booted it up in months. There’s nothing alive on Mars.”
She leaned closer,
suddenly remembering a scene from a horror movie that had scared her spitless
when she was back on Earth in Minnesota and thirteen years old. She leaned back
and stopped herself from touching the blue patch. With an exasperated sigh, Tareq
muttered something uncomplimentary and stood next to her several moments later. She said, “See?”
This time, he didn’t
say anything. His fingers thudded over the keypad on his sleeve. A moment
later, he held up the palm of his hand. A bright light emanated from the
fingertips.
The blue stuff
moved, as if avoiding the bright light. Both of them uttered a mild expletive
and Tareq shifted to longer wavelengths, stopping short of infrared. “What is
it?”
“I’m running
through the biologs. As far as I can tell, it’s never been catalogued.”
“It’s new!”
Exclaimed Tareq. “We’ve discovered the first real evidence of life on another
world!” The blue patch was oozing toward the ceiling, using a sort of
slime-mold motion. “Obviously it’s a plant!”
“What do you know
about life? I’m the specialist,” she said, leaning closer. “We have to get a
sample.” She reached to her hip pack where she carried sample vials. After the
first six months of finding nothing but sand, rocks, and frozen carbon dioxide,
the vials had been pushed farther and farther back on all of their suits,
replaced in some cases by rock sample kits. The aresologists had moved front
and center. She worked the pack open and grabbed several sample containers,
vials as well as relsealable plastic bags. She extended a spatulate tip of her
index finger and reach out to scoop. The entire patch of blue recoiled. “The
hell?”
“It’s avoiding
you!”
“Don’t project feelings
onto something you’ve just discovered,” she said, adding, “You’re specialty is
rocks. Mine is life. Keep your comments to yourself.”
For once, he shut up.
Tareq didn’t so much as hum. She reached again, steadily this time rather than
moving fast. The spatula touched the blue…slime. It began to ooze up the collector.
Then suddenly it was all on the back of her glove. “Weird…” she muttered. Then
it began to disappear. “Almost like it’s penetrating the glove…”
Names: ♀ Algeria,
Albania; ♂ Libya, Latvia
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