An Android Awoke (on Moon!) Chapter Three

Episode Three – Hello & G’bye

In chapter two: Selina & Kafa visit an old friend in the newly-constructed bio conservatory in the base. Something’s off about the way he, the lead botanist on Mars, answers their questions…

In this chapter: Neer is not to be found anywhere in the Cradle of Mars. Selina starts her return trip to Earth, leaving both Kafa and Hielsa concerned about Neer’s mysterious project on Mars.

It was Selina’s second day on Mars. She joined Kafa in the main food bay after signing off on her supply ship’s prep for the return journey to Earth, via mid-earth, the large modular laboratory in solar orbit about halfway – hence the name – between Earth and Martian orbits. It provided a nice, albeit brief, break in the long – and usually solitary – supply haul between Earth and Mars. All its occupants were techies, almost self-sustained in isolation and very content to be alone.

“I’m going to miss Frabjous Week,” she bemoaned to Kafa, as they ate their efficient nutrients.

Days repeat in sixes: Firday (pronounced fur-day), Twoday (tyu-day), Thirday (thur-day), Fourday (for-day), Fifday (feef-day), and Sicday (seek-day). Every forty-second week was a full six-day celebration on Earth, Moon, and Mars – and all people really, really looked forward to it.

He sympathized, “Tough luck, girl. I wouldn’t like spending it in stasis either. Y’know, you didn’t have to schedule your turnaround launch so soon.” 

“Yeah, like anyone would ever want to schedule their first ship-commanding solo trip to Mars like this. Neer better tell me what is so important about this batch of greens that he’s so afraid of.”

Kafa laughed, which was difficult to manage subtly with food in his mouth. They got up and washed their plates in the cleaner, then retraced the path they had taken through the labyrinth of interconnected corridors in the base to the bio conservatory. Neer wasn’t there, though.

The rest of the bio techies weren’t aware of his whereabouts, either. Even they knew that he usually remained holed up in his lab most of the time and rarely, if ever, emerged, but it was empty and they had no idea since when – such was the legendary status of Neer’s self-isolation.

“Oh well, a trip to Personnel it is, then, I guess,” Kafa said, and Selina sighed. The relatively bureaucratic process of the team that kept tabs on every human on Mars was legendary, too.

They were in for another surprise when they reached the Personnel office. There was just one officer there, with her feet up on the table, swigging big gulps from what was quite obviously not a mug of water. The science that had gotten her to Mars had helped her create a heady brew.

“Look who it is, rocket princess herself!” came the jovial greeting and a friendly raise of the mug.

Selina smiled and sat down while Kafa sauntered around the empty office space. They were slightly taken aback by this unexpected sight – usually, the Personnel office was full of stoic staff. 

Not today.

The sozzled officer lifted her feet off the table when both of them declined her offer to partake.

“Alright, alright, I’ll bite – why the long faces?” she said with a dramatic sigh.

Kafa said, “We’re looking for Neer, and he’s not in his lab – or the bunk within.”

“Gone for a walk, hasn’t he? Pretty, pretty, pretty bright and early, and with two Earthers, too.”

Selina leaned forward on her hands, trying to gauge if the drunk lady was joking, but it was apparent the Personnel lady was not out of her wits, having become used to the effects of her tipple while simultaneously keeping track of people during their stays on Mars. She smirked and took another hearty, lazy swig from her mug. Then she leaned back and considered their faces.

“Any idea where they went, and when they’ll be back?” asked Selina to cut the sound of silence.

The lady did not show much interest: “Nope, you’re welcome to wait and find out for yourself.”

Selina and Kafa knew they were stonewalled. They left the Personnel lady to her drink and walked to a nearby culture bay, discussing what Neer could have been working on that he could not tell even them, the closest people he had who could be called his friends – or well-wishers.

The day passed slowly for Selina once Kafa rotated in for his usual data streaming shift in the comm lab. She chatted with her ship’s loaders and hung around to watch them secure the final bits and pieces returning to Earth. They were a very jolly lot on the whole; time passed easily. 

At lunch, she thought of her home on Moon while staring out at the brown desolation of Mars. Beyond the outline of the emergency storm shutters that enveloped the crater of the Cradle, the craggy horizon was still hostile to life. Little pinpoints of light radiated from the boundary of the base, and if she tilted her head at the right angle, the solar arrays glinted in the feeble sunlight.

The whole day passed in torpor. Late that night, Kafa strolled in to give her the news that the trio of Neer and the two Earthers would not be returning till the next day from the School, the largely techie-inhabited tech lab for developing Martian tech, which had been built deeper in the crater.

Morning came, and Selina found herself back in her ship and counting down to launch towards Earth. She flicked her eyes at her console and commanded. “Send Hielsa an open-time invite, accept whatever time and place she suggests. Low priority reply. Wake me up when trip ends.”

After a final systems check, she settled into her stasis bay for the long, comfortable hibernation.

In the next chapters: Selina lands in Australia on Earth and meets her fellow Mooninite friend and Neer’s person of affection, Hielsa, who can’t understand what has happened to Neer in the nine months since Selina took off from Mars to return to Earth. LEX escapes the android dump.