The Blue Light of Morning
A Sci-fi Story by Kevin Murray
This is the beginning of a story I’m developing. It’s still pretty rough and loose, but it’s a start… The work below is the property of Kevin Murray. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead is coincidental. Thanks for reading!
John Howser kicked a loose stone that was laying on the poorly marked path in front of him. The windrows of dust and scattered rock made it obvious that no one had been out this way in some time. But John Howser wasn’t of the mindset to have to share this hour of freedom with anyone. At least, no one on this planet. Even just for an hour, he was happy to escape the base and feel like the only person alive for a thousand kilometres.
“The Majesty. The Grandeur. The Experience!”
Whichever copywriter had put that in the job ad should be fired into the sun, he thought. The flashy ads on Earth sold working for the MarsX Corporation as this incredible time of life-changing adventure and intrigue. MarsX teamwork and cooperation were plastered across every ad on the NewsNet.
Six months into his tenure on Mars, he was discovering that the reality, was much, much different.
There were still little marvels, like the seemingly unnatural way in which the rock continued bouncing down the hill. His first experience of weightlessness and the four-month flight from Earth in the newest Starship Mk. 10a rocket was certainly memorable. And that liftoff that nearly rattled his teeth out of his head—that was the wildest ride he’d ever been on. But it was all a distant second to how surreal it was to be walking on a path on a totally different planet, 376 million kilometres from home.
But other things were extremely underwhelming. The food was… edible, which wasn’t saying much. There wasn’t anything in the way of decent liquor on the planet at all. The work could be extraordinarily difficult and taxing one day, and mundane and tedious the next. And like most other people that worked for MarsX, sleep was always something you could never seem to get enough of.
John continued down the path, his destination a bench on the side of the hill around the Syria Planum plateau, carved into being by one of the first human explorers in the area. Seeing the view in a promotional photo ade the foreign landscape seem almost idyllic. The picture in that ad had been what convinced his hungover mind to apply to MarsX in the first place. And now here he was. All the same, he welcomed the alone time away from the rest of the MarsX crew.
The glow in the East was transforming the sky. The inky blackness beset with a billion points of blazing starlight was slowly disappearing into the deep indigo that would erase the magnificence of the Milky Way within the hour. This would be the sixth year straight of catching the rising sun on this particular day, but this was the first here on Mars. With the difference in Earth’s and Mars’s calendars he was worried that he would miss it, but everything had synced up. He imagined his daughter, Jasmine, wouldn’t think missing it was that big of a deal, but sunrises had been their thing.
She loved seeing the sunrise in the morning. She loved when he would feign annoyance at being woken up by an excited six-, seven-, eight-year-old still enthralled by the colour and simple beauty that heralded the start of a new day. She giggled wildly when he eventually emerged from bed pretending to be an enraged bear chasing her out of the room, her squeals of manic delight echoing off the walls. A pillow thrown by his rudely-awakened wife would follow them out the door, setting off a new burst of laughter from them both as they raced downstairs to watch the sky change colours from the back porch.
John stopped and closed his eyes, inhaling deeply, the sound of his breath in the HabSuit helmet filling his ears. I need to be present in the moment and not live in the past, he reminded himself. He took another few breaths, forcing his heart to slow the hammering that always picked up in his chest when thinking of his daughter.
He was still learning to deal with these moments and his response to them, how they could easily drop him into a negative state. In the recent past, this would result in a feedback loop that would spiral John into some unknown hell hole that he wouldn’t emerge from for days, extremely hungover and stinking of whatever cheap whiskey he’d found while on a bender.
But not now. At the very least, it was hard to find a whiskey-soaked hole on Mars, never mind one that wouldn’t kill you two minutes after removing your helmet. And the quality of booze here wasn’t what you wanted to go on a bender with anyway.
John slowly took one more breath in, held it, and let it out, opening his eyes. His spot was just ahead. Stepping around one last boulder, John sat down lightly on the crude rock bench. In the growing light, he gazed across the ancient plateau. While the ad copywriting had flat out lied about the quality of the work—and the quality of the people—on Mars, there was no denying that this view of the Red Planet from this vantage point put the pictures to shame. There was also no spot on Earth that could match the eery, alien beauty of this landscape. It held a lifeless solitude that most thought was isolating and lonely, but John found it strangely comforting.
The wind kicked up the dust on the plateau and thin wispy threads of cloud hung placidly in the air as the sun began to hoist itself over the Martian horizon. Jasmine would have loved this. The sunrise’s here are so much more raw than they ever are back home, John thought. The pre-dawn landscape was now lit with an azure tinge, soon to stand in contrast with the oxidized rust red that would dominate the rest of the day.
Jasmine would never get to see the sun rising above the crater rim. She’d never get to set foot on the planet that had so thoroughly captured her imagination or see the colours of the sunrise on Mars that were brighter and more brilliant than on Earth. She’d never experience any of it, thanks to the cancer that stole her from her parents, this day six years ago.
His gloved hand went to his chest, mindfully stroking the spot where her memorial diamond rested as close to his heart as possible. The small weight of the carbon rock made from her ashes felt like an anchor at times but gazing out across the empty desolation of the plateau, in this moment, it felt warm and light. He felt as close to her as he ever had in the last six years.
The familiar sting of tears began in John’s eyes, the wetness on his cheeks went noticed, but ignored. He let them flow. He gives water to the dead, he thought bitterly, recalling a line from an old book he’d read once. He’d given a lot of tears, an ocean’s worth—enough to fill this whole damn planet.
Letting the grief flow through him, John sat in a stilled silence as the sun lazily rose above the horizon, the new day gradually engulfing the plateau. Remember to breathe, she’d said to him once after the doctors told them there was nothing more they could do.
She’d heard his sobs and found him on the floor of his office. She’d had so little energy then but had come running to comfort him, hearing the pain in her father’s anguished cries. “Remember to breathe, daddy,” she’d said, holding him, “it’s how we keep going.” The simple wisdom of her 11-year-old mind echoed through time and space to John as he sat on the bench.
The contrast of that moment with the beauty of this one uncomfortably reminded John of his journey in the last six years. He had a lot to make amends for. Time hadn’t healed his wounds, hadn’t taken away much of the pain that came after. It wouldn’t correct the wrongs he’d committed after Jasmine’s death, but in coming to this place, so far from home, maybe distance and space could. And in this moment, he found a little peace.
“Yeah, baby girl, you’d have loved every second of this. I’m happy I got to be here for you,” John whispered.
John did his best to wipe his face against the pads lining his helmet, making himself somewhat presentable. He knew that this day would be hard, it always was. But the absolute strangeness of being on Mars for this day—and that gorgeous sunrise!—helped ease a little of the pain that always accompanied this sad anniversary. John rubbed at the diamond next to his chest again and took one last deep, shuddering breath. The sun had cleared the horizon, the plateau now blasted with the solar radiation that made the desolate planet hazardous to all life. It was time to get back to the base, to the safety that the underground facility provided its inhabitants.
A soft haptic buzz from the Chrono on his left forearm let him know that Onia, his AI assistant, had a message waiting for him. Onia knew the significance of the day and had silenced itself while John took his time to grieve. The personalized AI had been with him a long time, and while it couldn’t feel emotions, it understood enough about its human companion to respect this time.
John took one last lingering look at the expanse in front of him. Maybe, just maybe, he could leave his grief here to lie at rest before he left for Earth in 20 months. Healing was a slow process. But there’d been healing today, however small it was.
Bowing his head and saying a small prayer of thanks to his daughter, he turned to retrace the footsteps he’d left in the Martian regolith, heading back along the path that would lead him to the rover and whatever banal task that MarsX had cooked up for him today.
The road coming down out of the hills that overlooked the facility was well travelled. The same road from the base to the lookout continued above the hills that surrounded the plateau, stretching nearly 300 kilometres to the Pavonis Mons facility. The part of the road above the plateau was mostly smooth and debris free, the dust-blasted rock creating a driving surface that would make it easy to fall asleep while the rover operated on autopilot, if one could keep from staring at the magnificent, looming presence of Pavonis Mons ahead and Arsia Mons to the southeast.
But the road coming down out of the hills to the Syria Planum base could be unstable and loose, depending on how the winds drifted the dust and rock. The base engineers only ran the remote graders along the road every other week. From John’s vantage point in the rover’s cab, it looked like they were due to run them any day now. That is, if they weren’t already a week late. John had been up this way only a few times, a passenger on field sample collections, and he remembered those trips being very smooth and enjoyable. Now, in the light of day, the road looked decidedly worse than it had on the drive up in the dark.
Proceeding cautiously down the first set of switchbacks, John eased back on the rover’s throttle so as not to give too much power to the uphill wheels. Too much and he’d start the downhill turn early, and that would make for a very short but disastrous ride down through the rocky hillside. After making a snail’s pace through the steep section at the top, he could open the throttle up to the electric rover’s top speed of 32 km/h on the gentle run out to the plateau’s floor.
“Easy. Eeeaasssssyyy,” murmured John, gently making the last turn. As he straightened the wheels, ready to punch the accelerator forward, a grinding from the front left wheel shuddered throughout the rover, bringing the vehicle to a stop. An alarm klaxon screamed in the cab while the rover’s status screen lit up red, the front left wheel blinking rapidly. The rover’s wheel had power but was not mobile. John eased the throttle back to zero to keep the other wheel motors from pivoting the rover around the stopped wheel. The last thing he needed was to call for a retrieval pickup from the already overtaxed and understaffed maintenance crew because of a bent strut. God knew how long it would take to get a crew out. Or what it the Corp would bill him on the repair.
John tried to see if he could spot the problem from the cab. Looking through the bubble canopy’s windscreen, John looked down and slightly behind, trying to see if the wheel had gotten hung up on a rock or wallowed in a patch of deep, loose dust. The wire mesh wheels were remarkably resilient and could handle an incredible amount of torque, but they had their limits in Mars’s harsh environment. Especially when you factored in “operator error.”
Not able to see much, John reversed the accelerator, attempting to back out of any hole or off any larger piece of Martian rock that the wheels couldn’t get over. The grinding noise kicked up again, and the shuddering rover threw him against his five-point harness. The status screen pulsed red faster and beeped at him, advising him to STOP IT IMMEDIATELY. John set the throttle back to zero.
“Well shit,” he sighed, shutting the wheel motors down. Leaving the main power on, John spun the operator’s seat around to face into the rover, grabbing his helmet off a utility hook after pressurizing and air-cycling the rover’s interior.
Locking his helmet and confirming a good seal, John depressurized the rover. The whole thing was just an airlock on wheels with tools attached, he reminded himself. It wasn’t the worst setup for Mars, but it sure made for a poor RV trip if you had to get in and out repeatedly. Lowering the back hatch, John stepped down to the firm ground and turned to get around to the rover’s front. He could see the problem right away. Part of the wire mesh wheel had become unhooked from the hub and the wheel’s rigidity had been compromised. He essentially had a flat tire. Not the end of the world, and thankfully a field repair he could do himself. Still, not something he’d prepared himself to have to handle today.
“Great job, John. Wreck mom and dad’s car just after getting your license. I’m sure they’ll be happy to let you take it out again, no problem,” he said sarcastically. He’d only qualified to operate the rover solo two weeks before and this was his first trip alone. Shaking his head, he got to work fixing his first wheel on Mars.
Checking to ensure that the rover was on stable enough ground on the slope, John went to the rear control panel and set the rover to stabilize and auto-level itself. The struts at the back lowered until the rover was level, the green light on the status screen confirming that everything was now within tolerance. John activated the onboard jack for the front left wheel and that corner slowly rose until the wheel was off the ground. It never ceased to amaze him how well these things had been designed and built. The engineer in him was impressed. The operator in him was decidedly less so. His pre-trip inspection hadn’t turned up any issues with the wheel, but clearly something had gone wrong. While he was impressed with the design, there was a lot to be said about the maintenance program.
“Rover 4B to base, come in. Over,” said John formally, keying his radio.
“Go ahead 4B,” came the lazy reply.
“I’ve got a wheel unhooked on the lower section of the rim wall. Over.”
“4B, do you need a crew to come get you?”
“No. I should be able to take care of this, base. Over.”
“Good to hear 4B, because roadside assistance is a hell of an expensive call out right now. Would be a shame to have that on your record on your first trip, hey? Plus, there’s no one available for the next couple hours.” To no one’s surprise, thought John.
“Roger that, base. I’ll let you know if I have any trouble. Over.”
“Roger 4B. Out.” And now the whole base will know I broke a rover. This just gets better and better.
Grabbing the wheel hook repair device from the outer maintenance compartment, John went back to the unhooked wheel. Securing the device to the hub was no problem. Getting the retention hooks onto the mesh proved to be a lot harder. The Mk. 4 HabSuit gloves, while allowing for better dexterity than previous versions, were still akin to snow mitts, and not well suited to the fine detail work this repair required. After five minutes of very careful fiddling and verbal encouragement, he was able to get the last retention hook attached and threw the switch on the hub-mounted control box. Stepping back, he watched as the device hooked the wire mesh to the wheel spokes, the wheel getting more rigid as every hook slid back into place. After two minutes, the whole operation was complete, and John got the rover ready to roll again. Raising the jack, he was happy to see that the repair seemed to hold, and the wheel took the weight.
Quickly climbing back in and sealing the hatch, he ran the pressurizing cycle and moved to the operator’s seat. Reaching his hand to free his helmet he undid the sealing latch and was surprised when he heard hissing air escaping his helmet. The rover should have been at the same pressure as his suit, but it hadn’t fully sealed. John held his breath and quickly relatched his helmet seal.
“Shit shit shit!” John turned the chair to check the status screen. He let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. It confirmed that the rover hadn’t pressurized fully.
Yet.
A few seconds later the panel turned green, indicating that it was safe to remove his helmet. He’d jumped the gun in his hurry to get back underway. “Six months into this, and you’re still acting like a greenhorn. Excellent.” He undid the sealing latch, removed his helmet, and slowly placed it back on the hook. Buckling in, John grabbed the controls with shaking hands and started to maneuver the rover down the rest of the slope, accelerating slowly to be sure the wheel was fine.
“4B, this is base, come in.”
“Base, this is Rover 4B, go ahead. Over.”
“We have you moving, we’re assuming everything went alright?”
“Yes, base, just had a little trouble getting the retention hooks to grab the mesh, but everything seems to be in order. Over.”
A new voice cut in on the radio. “Great, because I’m waiting on you to get your ass back here, Howser. I was booked in next on 4B and you’re cutting into my time.” Despite the slight static in the radio, the nasally, high-pitched voice of Zenon Maise was easy to identify.
“Base, this is 4B. As I just said, things are in order and I’m making time to get back now,” John coolly replied. He let off the throttle just a little. Zenon Maise was an asshole of the highest order. He was a little man who thought he wielded big power, and John couldn’t stand him.
“Listen to me, you black son of a bit—” came the hissing reply. John abruptly cut off the comm. This wasn’t the first time Zenon had made a point of letting his racism out for fresh air, and despite John’s past reports to HR, Maise had barely been reprimanded. If anything, it emboldened him to keep it up.
380 million kilometres from Earth, and still dealing with this shit. Colour me shocked, thought John angrily. He slowed down a bit more. He’d be sure to file yet another report with HR so at least it would be documented. But he knew it wasn’t going to amount to much. John smirked. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t still make the asshole wait just a little while longer.
(to be continued…)