They Dreamed of Poppies (a novelette) (2 page)

But poppies definitely weren’t on that list.

“So where did they come from?” Siobhan asks.

“Probably hitched a ride on someone’s bagel,” Bryson offers. “Eensy weensy teeny tiny little seeds.” He stops and laughs. “God, what I wouldn’t do for a fresh baked bagel right now, soft and chewy. Some smoked salmon and cream cheese spread.”

He groans in self-torment and turns to face the small group. Nobody else gets the joke. They’ve never heard of salmon before; they don’t know what they’re missing.

“Collect a sample,” I tell them. “Do a quick check of the camp perimeter. Then I want you all back on the pod ASAP.”

Bryson groans. “You’re no fun.”

“Doppler’s tracking a fast-moving storm on your heading.”

“Don’t you think we should make the call?” he asks. “We’re the ones down here.”

I ignore him. “Siobhan? You there?”

She nods suddenly, lurching to reach for her pack, as if startled out of a deep thought.

The chicken flaps in its cage and squawks.

“Make sure everyone gets back in the next half hour. And Bry? Show me the camp.”

The screen blurs again, then stabilizes on the panoramic view of the valley. In the distance, maybe a half click away, I can just make out the boxy shapes of the storage bunkers. The sunlight reflects weakly off, sharpening some edges despite the haze. “What is that?” I murmur. It looks like smoke. Or dust. “Insects?”

The team trudges along, their footfalls muffled by the leafy mat beneath the rigid treads of their boots. The air clears only slightly as they draw nearer, but there are no signs of bugs. No bees or butterflies flittering around in the air. Among the animals the colonists brought were insects to act as pollinators and detritivores. The latter included flies and cockroaches.

Siobhan takes an air sample by waving a plastic bottle around her head. She seals it and stuffs it into her pack.

The chicken has finally gotten used to being jounced along in its cage and has quieted. Or maybe it just tired itself out. In any case, it doesn’t appear to be in any distress.

When they arrive at the edge of the encampment, Bryson reaches down into the dense growth with his hand and blindly swishes it around until he comes up with a fist-sized stone. “Hallooo!” he cries out. Then he bangs it against the side of the metal bunker. The stone makes a dull pinging sound that falls flat in the thin air.

Siobhan smacks him. “Cut the crap,” she says, reminding him unnecessarily that the external speakers on their suits are incapable of projecting very far. “Nobody can hear you screeching.”

“Geez. Why so touchy?”

“Because you startled me.”

He waggles the fingers of both hands at her and says, “Wooooo
 . . . . Guess who’s afraid of ghosts?”

“Focus, you two,” I scold. “Once around the camp, then I want you back on ship.”

Bryson bangs the metal one more time, then drops the stone. It hits the ground with a dull thud. I can hear him chuckling softly to himself.

Nobody answers his call. Nobody emerges. The camp appears to be deserted.

* * *

The rain began to fall shortly after they returned.

Siobhan is talking to me from her tiny analytical lab on the pod, but I haven’t been listening. I’m straining to catch the patter of the drops on the hull. I can’t hear them, of course. The walls are too thick and her mic isn’t sensitive enough.

I can’t get over how clear it is, the rain, as it runs down the glass behind her. It’s not muddy or dusty red at all, like the native Martian dirt. And the fact that it’s even raining still comes as a surprise to me. I’d read about it in the colonists’ status reports. But reading about it and seeing it with my own eyes are two entirely different things.

Another memory comes back to me, wispy as smoke: my bedroom window at the old house, flashes of lightning, counting the seconds, and the silvery rivulets of water snaking their way down the glass like worms of mercury.

I hear my name. There’s a sharpness to her voice, impatience. I refocus my eyes on the screen, on her face. She’s peeved.

“I’m sorry,” I apologize. “I was . . . . Never mind.”

She’s one of the younger folks, so I wouldn’t expect her to understand the reason for my distraction. To her, the rain is just one more unfamiliar experience to process. There are so many of them right now that she’s filtered them all out for the time being. Eventually, she’ll process them, one by one, when the more pressing matters of survival have been attended to.

“I said I did a microscopic analysis of the air samples collected here and around the camp.”

“Dust?”

She shakes her head. “It’s organic. Pollen.”

Of course, I should’ve guessed. “Okay to breathe?”

She shrugs. “Sure, unless you’ve got hay fever. But . . . yeah, I guess.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I want to run some sequence analysis, begin cataloguing species, make sure we’re not dealing with any unknowns. It’ll also allow me to map mutation frequencies by comparing against the sequences we have in the database. There’s a lot of unfiltered ultraviolet radiation out there.”

“Should’ve packed more sunscreen.”

“Excuse me?”

“Forget it.”

“I’ll set the experiments up tonight. It’ll only take a few hours.”

“No. The samples will keep,” I tell her. “Get some rest. I need you fresh for tomorrow.”

But still she resists. “The analysis is necessary. We need to know what’s edible. Our stores are—”

“Finite. I know.” I shake my head. “We won’t starve.”

“
You
won’t,” she corrects. I think I detect a note of resentment.

“I said no lab work tonight. I want a thorough search of the buildings in the compound first thing tomorrow. We’ll discuss it more after everyone’s had a chance to get some sleep. Make sure everyone’s there, please.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And, Siobhan? A lot of people are counting on us.
All
of us. Remember that.”

I switch off the screen, and darkness floods into the chamber. Then I reconsider and turn it back on to one of the external cams on the pod. I sit and watch the clear Martian rain run down the outside. I turn up the speaker so I can hear the soft patter as it hits the flowers all around. And I realize how thirsty it makes me feel. How much it tempts me to go down there and step out into it.

* * *

The next morning, I find the crew assembled for breakfast— all except Bryson. I’m disappointed by his absence, but not exactly surprised. Siobhan has this look on her face that tells me to tread carefully.

I assign Hallem Decker, the ship’s mechanic, to the lead instead. He’s still very young, but given the breadth of his knowledge, he has seniority over the rest of the present crew members.

First thing he does is argue against wearing the protective suits. He claims they’re more restricting than the meager oxygen if they go without.

I hesitate. The air quality tests have come back satisfactory. No red flags. I ask Siobhan about the chicken.

“No ill effects from yesterday’s outing.”

I decide to make masks optional. Not surprisingly, most of the team members choose not to wear them. Only Siobhan suits up.

Hallem had opted to stay behind in the pod yesterday, so this will be the first time in his life he’s ever set foot on any surface that isn’t flat metal plating. When he stumbles and does a face-plant into a tangle of lavender, he blames the soft ground.

The others razz him good-naturedly. The mood is considerably less tense without Bryson in their midst.

They follow the same trail through the flowers, reluctant to stray and trample anymore plants than was caused by yesterday’s foray. There’s something both humbling and disquieting about the pristine abundance that makes us feel as though we’re not welcome, like it might resent our intrusion.

When they disappear over the ridge, I switch the feed over to Decker’s shoulder cam, then call up Bryson’s quarters on my handheld to find out what happened to him.

The screen chimes and he steps into view. His hair is disheveled and there are circles under his eyes. I ask him if he’s feeling alright.

“Peachy,” he grumbles, then sighs. “Gavin kept me up all night with his thrashing about. Didn’t get a wink of sleep.”

I notice his words are slurring. “He’s just a kid. Probably just excited about finally being here. We all are.”

“Anyway, the kid’s finally out, thank God.”

I watched as he scrapes some gunk off his bottom front teeth with his thumbnail and inspects it. Then he smacks his dry lips.

On the table behind him is an empty whiskey bottle. I’m pretty sure it it’s the same one he’d saved up to celebrate the arrival. The bottle itself is an artifact from a lost time and place — aged Kentucky bourbon — but its most recent liquid contents would have been generated in a still on the station. Some blame the cause of the biolab’s failure on Bryson’s appropriation of equipment and materials for his “hobby.” I know the truth isn’t quite so cut and dry. If it weren’t for his efforts, the lab would’ve failed years ago.

There’s a giant red bloom sticking out of the bottle now. The delicate petals droop over the sides. I frown at the breach in quarantine, but decide that I can’t really make an issue out of it, since the scouting party is out there cavorting on the surface without masks anyway.

“You missed breakfast.”

He doesn’t answer.

“The waffles were especially delightful, light and fluffy. Fresh maple syrup and strawberries. No bagels, though.”

He accommodates my jibes with an appropriate sneer.

“I sent the others on ahead.”

“Figured as much.”

“Is there something else, Bry? Something bothering you?”

He clears his throat, shakes his head, but he won’t look me in the eye. “No.”

The silence grows, becomes uncomfortable. “Decker’s pinging me,” I finally say. “I need to get back.”

“You put Hallem in charge? Patch me in.”

“No deal. You get some sleep. I’ll buzz you when they return.”

He winces at my word choice.

I disconnect and turn back toward my monitor. I can see that the group has started to descend the small rise surrounding the encampment. Everyone’s behind Decker— or so I assume, since the view of the valley is unobstructed.

“Straight in this time,” I instruct them. “See if you can find the command post.”

“What about the living quarters?”

“Command post first,” I repeat. “Siobhan, let me know if you locate the scilab. Leave everything as-is until the survey is complete and we’ve had a chance to analyze the recordings.”

Decker passes the bunker, then hesitates before stepping forward again. There’s a jolt and the image careens out of focus. He lets out a pained cry.

“Hallem?”

He’s cursing beneath his breath. The others are laughing, so I know it’s nothing serious.

“Sorry, cap.” He gets back to his feet. “The ground here is—”

“Too soft?” Siobhan offers.

“It’s uneven. I’m not used to it is all.”

The mound he tripped over is little more than a hump of dirt no larger than his boot. He kicks at it and it crumbles easily. The exposed soil is dark and loamy, and once again I’m amazed at how successful the soilification process was.

Using a small spade, Siobhan takes a thick sample from the center of the mound.

“Any earthworms?” I ask.

“Marsworms,” she whispers, as she sifts the dirt through her gloved fingers. She shakes her head, then stops.

“What is it?”

She holds something tiny and white up to the light. “A tooth.”

“Human?”

“Can’t tell.”

She finds several more. When she’s finished, the team plunges on into the encampment. They’re considerably more subdued.

* * *

“Plants everywhere,” Hallem Decker reports, after their return. “They’re even growing inside the buildings. Piles of dirt scattered randomly about, blown in through the open doors and windows, no doubt. Everything’s covered.”

“And no sign of the colonists?”

He shakes his head. “We’ve got a lot of cleaning to do.”

I sigh and think for a moment. “Closest atmospheric generator is about sixty clicks northeast of here. There’s supposed to be a small equipment pod there, but it would support habitation in a pinch. If for some reason the team was forced to leave the encampment, that’s probably where they’d go.”

“
If
they’re alive,” Hallem points out. “You forget they haven’t reached out to us yet.”

“He hasn’t forgotten anything,” Bryson says. There’s a moment of tense silence, filled only by static.

“I didn’t mean to imply—”

“And you’re also assuming they have a functional radio,” Bry adds.

“Hey! You didn’t see what I did,” Hallem counters. “The radio in the command post — heck,
all
of the equipment in there — it’s completely overgrown. No idea if any of it works.”