Plot 1597

Copyright © Peter MacDougall, all rights reserved

Details

Plot 1597 is a 2200 word hard science fiction story. It crosses from narrative drama into myth and back again. I was pleasantly surprised when it won the Novacon 1992 Science Fiction Convention Writing Contest.

Part 1

"How goes your work, Gregary?" the Flight Commander asked over her shoulder. Her voice was muffled through the screens and millepore filters of her face mask. She was staring out over the terrain from atop the ridge. She searched the sky for the bright speck that was Earth.

"As always, as always, Alana," came the Mission Specialist's voice through the thin atmosphere. He was an older man, eastern European, a biologist.

They had taken to walking together in the lurid landscape shortly after the mission had landed. It was a chance to get out of the lander and a chance talk freely about the mission.

"I heard you got some news from home."

"Yes." She fingered the Gaelic wedding symbol that she had secured to her left cuff.

They were silent for a moment. Gregary knew well enough from her tone not to press her on it.

Alana shook her head. "You know, Gregary, I remember the pictures from the Viking probes, and Mars was anything but this." Half her face was covered by the gill-like machinery, but her expressive eyes clearly demonstrated her consternation.

Around the two of them stretched kilometres and kilometres of black and blood-red plants. Lichens mottled what little exposed rock there was available. Broad-leafed succulents brooded over depressions in the undulating plains. Cacti of one sort or another, almost unrecognizable, dotted the counterpane scene. Where the plants covered, the land was dark. Where the rock ruled hard, the red burned through.

"It's quite amazing, isn't it, and in such a short time, geologically speaking." His voice was also muted by his face mask, and the dust. He took a breath in, "Alana, I have to ...."

Alana tugged on Gregary's sleeve, then stepped out on the dry vegetation, walking easily in the light gravity.

Gregary stepped after her and caught up in one stride. Plumes of dust rose idly from their treads: a ruddy dust of un-earthly microbes, spores, and yeasts.

"I still find it hard to believe that this is all from contamination from the Viking landers themselves," she said.

"Hmm.... Oh, well, I don't believe it. You shouldn't believe everything they tell you."

"What do you mean, Gregary?"

"Oh, don't you know the story then?" She saw his eyebrows, like grey, iron brushes, rise quizzically through the only clear part of the face-mask.

The Flight Commander took in a deep breath, drawn out by the slowness of the protective gills. Despite the vegetation, all she could smell in the air was the tang of oxygen and the sterility of the filters. "I thought I did."

Gregary pointed up to a bright spot in the dome of the sky. "Well, the story as I understand it, the real story, starts with a man named Smith, from Manitoba."