Sophia McDougall - Mars Evacuees

But eventually it started to get dark. We were all very cold and wet, despite the fact that our suits and boots were supposed to be waterproof, and we were also a little bit oxygen-deprived, which might have been why we got slightly lost on the way back to Beagle Base. It didn’t last all that long but it was enough to spook us, and even when we did see the domes rise over the horizon at last, the relief felt unsatisfactory and achy because we weren’t really home, everything was sort of a mess, and we didn’t actually know what would be going on inside.

I looked up at the communications tower. Josephine couldn’t really be planning to spend the night up there, could she? I decided I’d look for a decent spot on a crash mat somewhere in ‘Carltopia’ and get something to eat and then try to find her, though I really didn’t fancy climbing the mast in the dark.

The sliding doors opened for us the same as ever and we got a nice head-clearing rush of oxygen and warmth.

Then we smelled the smoke.

In the middle of the sports field, Carltopia was a wreck – all torn apart and scattered, and to make a point someone had set fire to one of the crash mats, which was pouring awful-smelling smoke everywhere.

Carl gave a yell of indignation and rushed straight for his ruined kingdom, and at that a lot of unfriendly-looking kids appeared, namely Gavin and Lilly and plenty of others, all of whom seemed remarkably much bigger than us, though that might have been the effect of the chair legs – and the limbs of dismembered garden robots – that they were carrying as weapons.

‘Hey, idiots,’ said Gavin. ‘New rules. None of you lot gets to come in the dome any more.’

‘Yeah, that’s totally something you get to decide,’ scoffed Carl. But he sounded uncertain.

‘Leon made a list; you’re not on it,’ said Gavin.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ I said, and they all sniggered. ‘Lilly – Lilly, let’s just go and talk, OK?’

But she looked at me as if she didn’t know who I was, as if something awful had got inside her and eaten away the person I’d thought so normal-looking the first day we arrived on Mars. She didn’t look normal any more, none of them did. They all had an expression I’d never seen before, but it was a little like the look on Christa’s and Leon’s faces when they were hitting that little robot until they broke it – flushed and breathless like that, but much wilder and more desperate, and I wasn’t sure they could stop now even if they wanted to.

‘Lilly,’ I tried again, backing away as the gang advanced.

‘Wait, not yet,’ said Lilly to Gavin, and for a moment I thought it might be all right. But then she said, ‘Get their tablets and stuff off them first.’

The next part wasn’t pleasant. By the time it was finished I was missing my tablet along with a clump of my hair, and my shin was bleeding where Lilly had hit me with a robot’s leg. I would have thought Carl would stay and fight like anything, but when at last Lilly shoved me back and the gang laughed and withdrew, Carl and Noel had already vanished. Mei and the rest were scattering too.

I limped after them at first. But then we passed the communications tower and I broke off and called, ‘Josephine!’ up at it.

It came out sounding feeble. The wind was picking up again and I didn’t think she’d have heard. I climbed a few experimental steps up the frame but my leg hurt such a lot and I couldn’t even see the top of the tower. I mostly thought Josephine probably wasn’t up there anyway. So I came back down.

Mei and everyone else had disappeared into the dark by this time. I supposed the sensible thing would be to camp in the wheat dome or the soya dome and hope things looked better in the morning. Some kids were sleeping there already and I knew it was all right, if kind of scratchy. Or maybe someone had managed to get into the grown-ups’ block and then we could really be comfortable, at least until Leon and Christa kicked us out of there too. But had they really taken over the whole centre of the base – the ring with its segments, as well as the dome? And what about the kitchen and the food storage buildings?

I was getting extremely hungry, apart from anything else.

What I decided I’d do was creep around the external doors and see how things looked, and if I could get in without being seen and find any food.

And I did still have the idea that if it came to it, everyone else might start being sensible if I could just be sensible enough at them. I could find Kayleigh, I thought, or maybe Chinenye. Kayleigh wasn’t necessarily that sensible all the time but she was older and probably on my side and she had a lot of friends, and she had managed to get Gavin and Lilly to back down when we were all on the Mélisande . The scarier kids wouldn’t have things nearly so easy if all the reasonably nice people stuck together and looked after each other. Maybe the scarier kids would see that and they’d settle down and be vaguely normal.

Although, if they didn’t, that did sound a bit like two rival gangs poised for something close to the civil war Josephine had predicted…

I went back to the door Josephine had dragged me out through hours before, and after peering warily through the windows I put my hand on the sensor panel and went inside.

No one was about. It felt so wonderfully warm after being outside. Finding a bathroom was equally welcome. Then I ran on tiptoe through Beagle Base, peeking round corners and through doors as I went.

There was some kind of noisy fight going on in the garden dome, and while I hadn’t run into anyone unpleasant, I wasn’t finding the confident crew of nice people I’d been hoping for, either.

In a classroom on Sarabhai Corridor, a group of girls were sitting on desks and chatting, but none of them was Kayleigh or Chinenye and I thought I’d seen at least a couple of them hanging out with Christa, so I didn’t talk to them. And though I did find nice, safe-looking hideaways in dorm rooms and laundry blocks, I kept thinking I didn’t fancy it on my own and that if anyone did find me there I’d be trapped.

That made me think of the simulation deck, which I was pretty sure had a door of its own to the outside. I crept down the dark corridor, expecting the deck would probably be locked, but when I got close enough I saw someone had jammed the door open with a fire extinguisher. Without moving it, I poked my head through the gap and looked inside.

I had the immediate impression of furtive whispers going quiet, so I called, ‘Um, hello? It’s just Alice.’

Somebody shrieked, and Kayleigh scrambled out from behind a bank of seating. She looked dirty and red-eyed even before she hugged me and burst into tears.

‘I thought you were Christa or someone,’ she said. She started back to look at my injuries. ‘Oh my God, you poor thing. Are they looking for you?’

‘Shhh!’ hissed someone else from behind the seats.

‘Shhh!’ repeated Kayleigh to me unnecessarily, looking around with exaggerated caution, and we crept behind the seating, where Kayleigh and Chinenye and four others had made a kind of camp. It wasn’t a very good camp, just a pile of blankets and a few empty food wrappers, and the dim glow of a tablet for light, and a dismal unwashed smell in the air. Kayleigh looked pale and flinchy and Chinenye was curled in an exhausted ball with one of the Russian boys mechanically patting her hair.

‘I was looking for you,’ I said.

‘Oh, wow,’ said Kayleigh, dragging her hands through her hair. ‘That’s nice. But you’re sure they don’t know where you are? We really can’t take any more trouble. Not after today.’

I stared at her, feeling all my bruises start aching again. ‘Do you want me to go, then?’