The Attempt (The Martian Manifesto Book 1) (11 page)

“Damn it!” Serge cursed, in English this time. “Did you see that? It bit me! Where did it go?”

Charles looked around. The head of the creature that had bit Sergey was snapping futilely in the sand with its body flopping a few feet away. Then he saw the other slithering life form that Sergey had swatted away with his shovel. It had recovered, and was coming back at them. “Brad,” he shouted through the radio. “That other one’s approaching. Can you scare it off with the laser?”

“I can’t,” Brad said back. “You and Serge are in the way. You’
ve got to move.”

Charles heard Grant through his radio. “I’ve opened the transport and am on my way with a patch kit for Serge. Hold on for a few more seconds.”

Charles decided that he could not wait for the commander’s arrival since the beast was closing and Sergey was helpless. He elected to meet the creature head on. He hopped down from the rover and started towards the beast with his pick axe. The thing in front of him stopped and reared its head, almost like a cobra. It then retreated backwards slowly. Charles stepped forward, brandishing his axe. The thing retreated once more.
“I’d really prefer to capture it, but how am I going to get at this thing without getting bit like Serge?”
he thought.

Charles took another step, and felt the sand
immediately give way! He threw up his arms, placing the axe in front of him to halt his fall, and came to rest waist deep in the sand. The creature chose that moment to attack. It struck, but Charles managed to deflect it with the axe. “Brad, help!” he yelled into his radio.

“Duck sideways
, now!” he heard Brad shout back.

Charles threw his head down
to the right, and saw a puff of smoke on the left side of the creature. It fell writhing to the ground. “Bingo!” he heard Brad exalt through the radio. “It was a lot easier to get a laser hit without the rover bouncing around and that thing standing up instead of moving through the sand.”

“I meant for you to distract it, not hit it!” Charles yelled.

“Well, that’s a bunch of thanks,” Brad said. A second later, Brad yelled, “Oops, there it goes! It’s still alive and trying to get away!”

The biologist saw the creature slithering away, but it had definitely been affected by the ChemCam laser.
It was traveling slowly and fairly ineffectively. Charles wriggled and used the pick end of his axe to pull himself out of the sand. He looked ahead, and saw that his adversary had stopped in a circle of rocks, next to some small tube, almost like it was protecting it, and once more took up its cobra stance.

“Wow, it’s
fairly intelligent,”
he thought.
“It almost looks like it’s protecting a baby. I’d best be careful.”
He slowly circled the creature, thrusting his pick axe forward to keep it at bay. The thing made a lunge at the axe and then returned to its upright stance. Its movements had slowed considerably. Charles made a feint. The thing made a half-hearted lunge, and as it was stretched out flat, Charles
raised the pick axe, and brought the point down mid-body, pinning the creature to the ground. It flailed, but was securely trapped.
“I’ve got it, but now how am I going to bag it?”
he thought.

# # #

Probe Spit had seen enough. The electro-biosynths had failed to eliminate the bipeds. Although the synths seemed to have wounded one of the aliens, the creatures had some sort of protective explosive shell as a last resort. This was most interesting. 

As the synths were about to be captured, the probe gave the self-destruct command to them. They had succeeded in diverting the aliens and were now expendable. The hopper monitoring the decoy crater was given the command to return as covertly as possible. The hopper tucked its legs and rolled down the far lip of the crater, and proceeded to hop around the outside of it, away from the eyes of the aliens.

Spit noticed that a third creature had emerged from the large transport a few moments ago, and had left a large gaping hole in its side. This was too good an opportunity to miss. The probe gave a command to the one of the two hoppers located at its crater. It was told to leave its post to approach and enter the transport if it was vacant. No doubt the creatures would be too busy in the decoy crater to notice the small hopper’s movements. The probe would decide what to do once it had gathered more intelligence from the hopper.

# # #

Commander Grant ran up to Sergey and opened the emergency medical kit. “I’m here, buddy. Just hold on for a bit more,” he said. The commander grabbed a spray can of synthetic skin and squirted it into the hole in Sergey’s suit. “There, that has anesthetic and should help,” he said. Grant then took out a patch and pulled the exposed tab to reveal the adhesive backing. He smoothed it over the hole and said, “Wait a minute for it to set, Serge, and then give your computer the command to test the suit.”

“Um, Grant? I could use a little help over here next,” Charles said through his radio. “This thing is squirming all around and I can’t let go of the axe to capture it. Watch out for the head of the other one, though. It’s lying on the ground somewhere
between us along with its body.”

“Okay, I’m coming over now,” Grant said.

“What? Oh no, the creature is melting away!” Charles yelled. “It’s happening just like that weird rock that I found before. There’s nothing but sand left! Quick, Grant, see what’s happening to the other one.”

Grant hopped off the rover, and walked over to where he could see something in the sand. “I see a coiled body, Chuck, but no head. I guess that’s gone.”

“Hurry! Put the body in a sample container. Hopefully it will keep by the time we get it back to the habitat lab,” Charles said. “I’ll grab the sandy remains of this thing, and whatever object it seemed to be protecting.”

Charles carefully scooped up some of the sand that was once the creature. He was then careful to use the pick end of the axe to pull towards him the small tube of material in the center of the circle
. “Fool me once, creature. You’re not getting me to walk blindly into another pit trap, that’s for sure,”
he thought.

Grant then spoke to him over the radio. “When you’re done with that thing, get back
here to the rover. I want all three of us to walk together to the transport. If something else attacks us, we’ll stand a better chance that way.”

Soon, all three astronauts made their way slowly across the sand. They were exhausted, and the open door of the transport beckoned.

“Emergency, Evacuate. Emergency, Evacuate,” a woman’s voice calmly repeated over and over.

Bonnie was in the main corridor
of the Cycler, along with everyone else, trying to get to the Pegasus. It was chaos. They were all bunched together, many screaming, and Bonnie could hardly move. The exit to the main hangar was jammed with bodies.

She frantically looked around. “Jean, Julie, where are you?” she yelled.
Behind her she heard Lucky barking, but she was stuck and couldn’t even turn around. “Help! My children are missing!” she shouted.

Up ahead, she saw arms reaching and pulling
members of the Called through the corridor exit and into the hangar. When the path was cleared, the Commander entered and shouted, “Back! Everyone back! The Pegasus has no fuel. You must use the asteroid exit. Go back and down the ladder!”

The human tidal wave surged. Bonnie would have fallen over backwards, but the press of bodies held her up. When she reached the ladder,
she grabbed on to it and called again. “Jean, Julie, we have to leave! Why aren’t you here?”

The Commander reached her, and shoved her down the ladder. “You need to evacuate
now,” he said as she tumbled to the lower floor.

Bonnie stood up. Her husband Jeff, Platinum Two George, Brother Jacobs, and Sam the pilot were standing there in spacesuits. Sam handed her a small mask attached to an oxygen bottle.

“I’m sorry Ma’am. This is the best I can do. You should have brought a spacesuit,” the pilot said.

As Bonnie donned the mask, Sam turned and pressed a large red button on the wall that read
Emergency Evac
. The door exploded away, and Bonnie was sucked violently into space. She tumbled end over end, the stars wheeling around her.

On the mask’s faceplate, she saw some words and numbers in red, and heard beeping. With each beep, the numbers changed and a calm woman’s voice read them off.

Beep.
“Oxygen – 3%,” the voice told her.
Beep.
“Oxygen – 2%,” it warned.

Bonnie
could feel the air hissing away out the sides of her mask and frantically looked around. As she whirled with her arms outstretched, she could periodically see Brother Jacobs and her husband Jeff. They were both floating nearby and looking at her. Jeff’s helmeted head slowly shook from side to side.

The annoying voice continued.
Beep.
“Oxygen – 1%.”
Beep.
“Oxygen – Depleted.”
Beep.
“Oxygen – Depleted.”

Bonnie couldn’t breathe. She was suffocating! Her head was swimming
and her abdomen was spasming. The stars spun around her. Bonnie’s last thoughts as her lungs ached from lack of oxygen were
, “Why oh why did I ever come on this trip and not bring a spacesuit? My poor baby will never be born now.”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Bonnie sat up, sucking in the sweet air in a giant gulp. Her heart was pounding. She was momentarily confused.

Beep. Beep. Beep,
went the alarm next to her bed. She slammed her hand on it to turn it off. Shaking, she looked around. Jean and Julie were sleeping in their pullout beds, with Lucky on the floor looking at her quizzically. Her husband Jeff was still asleep next to her and lightly snoring.

As she
forced herself to get up for her Monday breakfast shift, Bonnie thought
, “I’ve heard whispered rumors that others have been having weird floating and flying dreams, but what a horrible nightmare. I wonder if it is because I’m pregnant. I had strange dreams while having Jean and Julie, but never like this.”
She grabbed her toiletries and change of clothes, and went into the small private bathroom and washed her face. It took her longer than it normally did, since she was still a bit rattled from her dream.

She looked at herself in the mirror.
Her face looked puffy. Now that she thought about it, everyone’s face looked puffy these days.
“I guess it’s from the light gravity instead of from the pregnancy,”
she thought.
“At least my feet haven’t swelled up.”

After
opening the door quietly so as not to wake her husband and children, and going through the corridor to the central module, Bonnie saw that the rest of the Monday morning shift was already there. Every member of the Called needed to work five meal shifts a week. Bonnie had three morning shifts and two dinner shifts.

The four other members of her shift were already at their duties. Two were
getting the tables and chairs out of the recessed closets and arranging them, while the other two were setting the tables. They used gleaming metal plates and utensils that had been manufactured from ores extracted from the asteroid. Bonnie’s meal task today was dishwashing, and so a late start for her was acceptable. She would be the last to leave the shift after washing the final sets of dishes and putting them away.

As dishwasher, Bonnie’s other job
this morning was to heat the breakfast meals for the shift crew, since they would eat before the rest of the Called arrived. She checked the menu that was posted on the wall. She understood that the meals were designed with a shelf life of three to five years, and wondered how any of these would taste after all of that time. Today’s breakfast consisted of packaged scrambled eggs. Bonnie put out a small amount of fresh goat cheese and milk that the children had just produced during their morning and afternoon work shifts, along with a dish of nuts and a few packages of cookies for dessert.

She then
removed from the cabinet some of the plastic gusseted bags that NASA now used as meal containers. The gusset seams allowed the bags to expand upon heating in the microwave and eliminated the size and weight of the plastic trays needed to hold the food inside the bags. Bonnie injected water into the bags of dehydrated scrambled eggs, placed them in the microwave and set the timer.

For condiments, she
took out a few individual pouches of catsup and hot pepper sauce, along with the bottle of pepper suspended in oil and the bottle of salt dissolved in water, each of which could be dripped onto the eggs if desired. However, she preferred something else in order to settle her stomach after that dream, and so she pulled out a package of dried cereal that was packed already containing dry milk and sugar. All she needed to do was add water to it and shake the bag. She thought that perhaps she would also treat herself to a little of the fresh goat milk with the cereal to settle her stomach. She looked up and saw old Sue approaching, and was glad that her friend was also on this morning’s work detail.

“I hate to bother you, Bonnie, but we’re out of dishes
,” Sue said. “It looks like whoever was responsible for washing Sunday night’s plates didn’t finish them. Can you run some through the washer quickly before our brothers and sisters show up for breakfast?”

“Really? Again?” moaned Bonnie. “That happened to me last week too!” She stomped over to the work roster, and flipped the page
back to Sunday. “I should have known; it was George’s wife Celia shirking her duties again,” she said, pointing at the work detail list showing the Platinum Two’s spouse as last night’s dish washer.

“Bonnie, hush!” Sue whispered. “You know that Brother Jacobs doesn’t allow any dissension. You’ll be punished for complaining. Just do
it. I’ll help you figure out a response later.”

Bonnie walked over to the other room where the sink was, and sure enough there
lay a pile of dirty dishes. “Ugh, they’re not even soaking. I’ll have to scrub and scrub by hand to clean these,” she muttered. After about ten minutes of vigorous scraping, she had enough of them cleansed to run through the washer. She parsimoniously placed three drops of cleaning detergent in the dispenser, and turned on the steam cleaner. Although they had plenty of water from the asteroid, they had very limited cleaning materials, and so had to be careful in their usage. Because of that, any caked food had to be assiduously cleaned off by hand before placing the dishes and utensils into the washer.

While the dishes were being done, Bonnie went and sat with her shift mates. “Good morrow, Sister Bonnie,” wished one of the more traditional members of the Called.

“And good morrow to you, too,” Bonnie replied. “I trust you slept well?”

“Like a baby,” the woman replied
, chewing on her eggs. “I am not bothered by any of the dreams that others seem to have reported. No doubt it is because of my complete faith in Brother Jacobs and our cause. Why, do you know that I actually heard someone scream out in the middle of the other night? That person needs to be taught a lesson about faith! And how was your night?”

“Well, I did dream that we had an emergency and needed to evacuate to the Pegasus,” Bonnie replied.

“No doubt it is because we had that drill on Saturday,” one of the men sitting next to Bonnie said, “and your mind was probably rehearsing the proper techniques. I trust everything went orderly?”

Bonnie kept her head down, munching on her cereal, and thought about her reply. “Yes, it was perfectly orderly,” she finally answered. “We all marched in two rows to the Pegasus
as we practiced, took our seats, and sat quietly until the astronauts and the Platinums reported that it was safe to return to our rooms.”

“See, that is exactly what faith provides you,” the original woman said, nodding. “As Brother Jacobs told us at his last weekly sermon, ‘
Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘Where shall we shelter?’ for I and the Great Consciousness know that you need them all, and we will provide.’”

“
We will arrive and merge,” the man next to her said, invoking their new slogan.

“
We will arrive and merge,” they all responded.

“Excuse me,” Bonnie said quickly rising. She didn’t want the others to see how anxious she was
becoming again. “I have to check to see if the dishes are done.” She went into the other room and leaned her back against the dishwasher with her eyes closed.
“Why can’t I have the same faith as the others?”
she thought.
“Life would be so much easier.”

“Ahem,” she heard, and quickly opened her eyes. Old Sue was standing there next to her, looking at her strangely.

“My dear, your dream wasn’t quite as nice as you stated, was it?” Sue asked. “And, you know, your abdomen is sticking out when you lean back like that. Is there something you wish to tell me?”

“Um, whatever do you mean?” Bonnie replied, blushing.

“You might have the others fooled, but not me,” Sue whispered. “C’mon, tell the truth. You’re with child, right?”

Bonnie gave in; s
he had to tell someone. The pressure of this whole trip and the impending birth was too much for her to bear alone. “Alright, yes, I’m pregnant. And I’m very worried.” She turned and grabbed Sue by both arms. “Please, please don’t tell anyone. I’m not ready for that yet.”

“Your secret is safe with me, child,” Sue quietly replied. “But you won’t be able to keep the others from knowing much longer. It’s starting to become obvious.
When do you think you’ll deliver?”

“Probably a month after we land on Mars. I think I became pregnant a couple of months before we left.
It was about the same time that Brother Jacobs told us that we would be going upon a great voyage of discovery. That was also the time when Jeff suddenly became amorous, bothering me constantly for a few weeks.”

“Well my advice is to go tell Brother Jacobs before the others suspect. Then he will announce it to the Called. It will be received well that way. And if you ever need to get away from everyone, you can always come to my room to escape, dear.”

“Thank you, Sue,” Bonnie sighed with relief. “You are such a good friend. I don’t know what I would do without you here.”

The dishwasher next to them gave off a small chime. “Come,” Sue said. “
It looks like the dishes are done. Compose yourself, and let’s get this last batch set out. I see the others are already starting to arrive for breakfast.”