George Martin - Old Mars

Dad’s voice.

Arms were holding him. Dad? He blinked, his eyelids gummy, sticky, forced them open.

He was in the infirmary. Everything was white, and a screen winked numbers and flickering graphs beside the bed. Dad leaned over him, his face blocking out the screen and the people strolling through and around his bed, fingers flickering in conversation. “You had some kind of seizure, son. Jorge here brought you in. He said it happened when he touched a Martian pearl.”

It wasn’t a pearl, what a silly name. A pearl was from the shell of a mollusk, a creature from Earth’s oceans, how dumb to think that this was from some kind of sea creature. The people standing around his bed waved their fingers in agreement, flicking laughter at him. Silly comparison, not-too-smart, not-worth-our-attention. They just don’t know . His fingers twitched on the white sheet covering him and he absently noticed the garbled sounds coming from his … from his mouth. It took him a moment to remember the right word.

“Maartin? What are you trying to say? Stay with us, son.”

He blinked, and the strolling people faded a little. He could see through them now, see Dad’s face again, more worried now, see Jorge standing at the foot of the bed.

“Maartin?”

“I … oh … kay. Dad.” He shaped the words carefully, closed his hands into fists as his fingers tried to move. Mouth. Focus. “Fain. Ted?”

“Hello, Maartin, how are you feeling?” Another face swam into focus, pushing Dad aside. Dr. Abram, the settlement’s health-tech person. Dr. Abram was smiling one of those too-wide smiles that meant stuff was wrong. “So what happened? Mr. Moreno here says that some of the boys were getting a little rough. Did you hit your head on something?”

He could feel the pressure of their attention, Dad and Jorge. His fingers twitched again, trying to explain. He clenched his fists more tightly, made his head rock forward and back. A nod. The word for the gesture came back to him. He nodded again. “On. Wall.” It was getting easier to find the words for the lie in the tumbled chaos inside his head.

“I told Al that the boys were bullying Maartin.” Dad’s voice rose as he faced Abram. “But no, he’s not gonna do anything but shake his finger at those punks. When did that ever do any good? And now this …”

“Easy, Paul.” Abram put his arm on Dad’s shoulder. “There’s no hemorrhaging, no pressure on the brain or areas of injury, according to the scans. Apparently the bump caused something like a short and sparked a lot of unusual brain activity, that’s all. The root cause is probably the earlier accident, the original brain trauma.” He was speaking very soothingly, and Dad looked away. He was trying not to cry.

Maartin looked at Jorge. He was frowning. Yeah. He knew that the doctor was wrong. Maartin waited for him to say so, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he gave Maartin a crooked smile. “Glad you’re feeling better, Maartin. Hey, you get better, okay?” He lifted a finger to his forehead in a kind of salute and left the room.

“I’m … I’m glad he came along.” Dad looked after him, his face tight. Nodded grudgingly. “Good to know a few of ’em are okay.” He turned back to Abram, anger in his eyes once more. “I’m going to go talk to Al. Right now. This is a matter for community intervention.”

“You heard what the boys had to say.” Abram shook his head.

“They’re lying.”

“He’s going to be fine, Paul. Kids are rough. They act like bullies once in a while. This scared ’em. They learned from it.”

“Maartin, I’ll be back in a little while.” Dad was talking to him like the mayor talked to him. Too loud and too slow. Maartin swallowed sadness. Nodded.

“You’re going to be fine, Maartin.” Abram wasn’t looking at him, was looking at the screen with all the numbers and graphs. “But we’re going to keep you here a little while longer.” He gave that too-wide smile again, but he still wasn’t looking at Maartin. “You were unconscious for over three days.”

Three days? Maartin nodded, but the doctor wasn’t looking at him and didn’t notice. He lay back on the pillow and let the crowd in the plaza come back into focus. It had thinned now. People walked away, through the walls as if they weren’t there at all, and he could see the buildings, the road, the spiderways arching overhead. The curved wall of a building crossed through the room, right through the end of the bed. He watched Abram walk through it and right through a trio of people fluttering an intense conversation as they strolled into its wide, arched doorway. He shoved a foot out, tried to feel something as his foot pushed into the building’s wall. Nothing. One of the people rippled her fingers in a smile and said something that didn’t quite make sense, but almost. About his foot. And the building.

“What are you seeing?”

He startled and red flashed on the screen. Jorge stepped forward quickly and touched it. The red went away and he glanced furtively at the door. “Man, they’ve got the alarms set way high. I guess the doc is afraid you’re gonna seize again.” He perched awkwardly on the foot of the bed, oblivious to the two people who hurried through him. “So what do you see?” His dark eyes were intent on Maartin’s face.

“I … the city. Spiderways. People.” He let his fingers talk, too. It helped the words come. Jorge stared at them.

“With long fingers and they wave ’em all the time, right? Silvery hair? Skinny? Kind of weird.”

“… Beautiful. Like … spires.”

“Yeah.” Jorge sighed. The sound was tired. Old.

Maartin squinted at his face, at the shadows in his eyes.

“So it’s not just me.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “I couldn’t figure out how I came up with this stuff. What are they, Maartin? Do you know?”

“… people.”

“Martians?”

Maartin shrugged. Silly question.

“Ghosts?”

Maartin frowned. Shook his head slowly. “Ghosts … dead people.”

Jorge groaned and buried his face in his hands. “I’ve been asking around. For a long time. Yeah, the guys who handle pearls see stuff, but nobody keeps a pearl very long. Well, me. But I wanted to figure out what I was seeing. I figured they were ghosts.” He raised his head and fixed his eyes on Maartin. “I did some checking. Found the old news post about your … about the accident. You and your mom got caught in a debris slide from a blast. It took out a small dome.”

They’d been visiting Teresa, Mom’s friend. She’d laughed a lot and taught him to play poker. Maartin closed his eyes as once again, the dome above them buckled, split, and red dust and rock flowed in like water. Screaming split his ears, then silence, darkness, and …

… people.

“I’m so sorry.”

Maartin opened his eyes as something brushed his face. Jorge was wiping tears from his cheeks.

“That was the richest shoal of pearls ever found. People … people went crazy. So, what are they?” Jorge was whispering now. “The pearls. Do you know?”

Maartin thought about it. He did know. He wasn’t sure he had the words, wove a faltering explanation in the air with his fingers, biting his lip, waiting for the breath-words to come. They didn’t.

“What does that mean? What you’re doing with your fingers?”

Maartin shook his head. “I … I think they … like …” He drew a deep breath. “… a soul. No.” He shook his head. “… projector? From long ago?”

“So they are ghosts.”

He sounded so relieved. Maartin shook his head. “… not dead. Alive.” He struggled to find words that would explain, as his fingers quivered. “Dif … different way … of being.” He raised his head, stared into Jorge’s dark eyes. “They live forever. But … when … when you take … pearls away … they … die. Everything. City. Spires. Spiderways.”