S Morden - No Way

“There’s a brush.” Frank went over to the drawer where the smaller tools were kept. His hand hovered for a moment, then lifted out what looked like a miniature shaving brush. “I wash it after I’ve used it, because I don’t actually know whether it matters if I transfer the pollen from strawberries to peppers to zucchini. Whether I’d end up with some weird half-chili, half-melon, or something like that: I really don’t have much idea of what I’m doing, outside of the list of instructions XO gave me. I didn’t starve to death, so I guess I got something right.”

That was the longest speech he’d made in months, and he felt almost giddy. He’d remembered how to speak, and not bite someone’s head off.

“I guess robots aren’t good for everything,” she said, inadvertently reminding Frank of why he was there. Did she see him wince? “You said you’d stored grain?”

“Sure. Not in here, though. Too damp. I didn’t want it sprouting at me.”

“Can I take a look?”

“If you want to.”

They cycled the greenhouse airlock together. The last time Frank had done that had been when he and Declan were going outside to try and flush Brack out. They’d both got shot shortly afterwards, Declan fatally, straight through the faceplate. Those flashbacks weren’t getting any less, were they? The situation he was in was completely different, and he had to clench his fingernails into the palms of his hands to stop himself from clawing his way out of the door.

If Isla was noticing anything wrong, she wasn’t mentioning it.

They stepped out into the cross-hab, and Frank immediately climbed down into the area underneath it. It had seemed as good a place as any for food storage, cool and dry and dark, and away from either the medical equipment or the water reclamation system. The containers he was using weren’t airtight, but since he’d pretty much made them himself out of cargo-cylinder parts, he was pleased with them.

There was more room down there than there was in the airlock, but her proximity still made him nervous and he moved right to the back to let her examine the drums, which had shiny words scratched into the still-extant paintwork. There hadn’t been any paper on the base, and nothing to make labels with.

“Oats, wheat, rye, soy, groundnuts, corn,” she said as she traced the letters. Some of them were, to be fair, hard to make out. She picked up a drum, frowned at its unexpected weight, and carefully opened the lid. “Mercy.”

“What?”

“There’s so much of it.”

The containers, more or less regular sizes, were stacked several deep.

“I got… bored. I suppose. Did I tell you I don’t eat the fish? So I changed my diet a bit, and yeah. That. We still seem to have plenty of the ABC nutrients, and there’s all the organic waste, just sitting there. I haven’t touched that yet. If you want to just take over the greenhouse, that’s fine. Like I said, I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

She looked over her shoulder at him, her plait turning with delayed slow-motion.

“You’ve done pretty well for someone who says that. XO chose you for a reason. We could make bread. Flat bread, at least. For now. I’ve got some dried yeast, but we have to keep it under wraps until we know it won’t damage the base.”

“I don’t have anything to mill flour with. I could have made something, I guess, but—”

“I’ll look into it. See what equipment we have.”

“You know a lot about milling?”

She shrugged. “I’m a farm girl. An astronaut farm girl. You?”

Frank’s own biography—construction worker, murderer, con—didn’t quite fit the expected trajectory for getting onto Mars. The bare-bones of Brack’s background—Frank had been told to keep it deliberately vague to avoid close questioning—didn’t fit Frank.

“Career military,” he said.

“Sure. Which branch?”

“That’s, that’s classified.” It was poor, and he knew it. He didn’t even have to fake embarrassment. “Sorry. Orders.”

“That’s fine. I’m not going to pry. Thank you for showing me this: I think you’ve done something extraordinary here, and I’ve no wish to push you out of the greenhouse. It’s not like I don’t have a whole bunch of experiments to run, and only fifteen months in which to run them, on top of making sure people get fed. If you want, you can just carry on doing what you’ve been doing, as much or as little as you want.” She put the lid back on the container, and eased it back on to its shelf. “It means I get more time to do science. I don’t want to make work for you, but if you’re happy with that, then deal?”

“That sounds fair. As long as we make sure we don’t not do something because we think the other guy’s doing it. OK. Deal.” He held out his hand for a dap. It was instinctive, habitual, and she just stared at it quizzically. He pulled back and headed for the ladder.

There were so many ways he could betray himself, not even with his words, just his actions, just himself. He went to push some buttons, passing some of the others on the way—Leland and Yun—and they all seemed so impossibly perfect. Fit, healthy, engaged, enthusiastic: physically, emotionally and psychologically in balance.

Whereas he, and his crew of cons, were anything but. Disposable chimps who needed only to last as long as the job. Waking up, being sick, hungry, thirsty, argumentative, exploited and abused.

This was how it should have been. It was how it could have been, with a little more care. Goddammit, XO.

He pulled the cubicle curtain closed behind him, and pushed his overalls down to his knees. He rested his elbows on his legs and his face in his hands. Day one of fifteen months. He’d waited so long for this. So long, and now it was here, he didn’t know if he wanted it any more.

“Lance?” It was Leland, just outside.

“Just give me five, OK?” Goddamn it. Declan was always—had always been—doing that: ambushing people in the can, and no one had liked it then.

There was silence, then: “It gets better. That’s all. It gets better.”

Frank heard his footsteps retreat back up the corridor. That was, indeed, all.

Was it? Was it really going to get better? Or was the accumulated weight of everything he’d seen and done and had happen to him going to break him? No: he was, by any measure, pretty much broken as it stood. All it had taken was the presence of people who wanted him for his skills and experience, wanted to be friends with him, who were willing to show him patience and kindness, who didn’t want to kill him, to reveal him as a wreck.

These gods, descended from the heavens, were so far above him, and he didn’t know what to do.

Not cry. Definitely not cry. Deep breaths. Blink away the tears.

He pushed the buttons, and washed his hands and zipped. He was going to do the only thing he could do. Carry on, and hope, like Leland said, that it would get better.

[Message file #139697 2/15/2049 1708 MBO Mission Control to MBO Rahe Crater]

The team here are going through all the NASA comms, checking that they don’t suspect you, or the base, and so far, so good! Just remember, you can always choose to hide behind the “commercially sensitive” excuse if you need. The astronauts know the score, and if anyone presses you, you need to take it up with Commander Davison, or tell me, and I will.

I’ve been told that we’ve not seen any activity from M2 in the last week. No movement, no tracks. Still no messages. It looks like they didn’t make it. So you probably don’t need to worry about them any longer. While it’s sad, I’m still angry that we both weren’t told earlier.

You’re doing great, Frank. The pictures and video footage that come from the base with you in it are digitally altered or edited almost in real-time: you don’t need to duck out quite so enthusiastically! I get the raw feed, and I enjoy watching what you’re getting up to and see how you’re doing. It makes me feel connected with you.