Colony Two Mars: A SciFi Thriller (Colony Mars Book 2) Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  1: The Animal Within

  2: More Than One

  3: In Search Of Answers

  4: Colony Two

  5: Incarceration

  6: Biology

  7: Homo Aries

  8: The Council

  9: Intrigue

  10: Hydro

  11: Recycling

  12: The Tank

  13: Colony One

  14: The Purge

  15: A New Old Friend

  16: Memories

  17: Decision Time

  18: Ready to Leave

  19: Weapons

  20: Return

  21: Revolution

  22: The MAV

  23: Pale Blue Light

  24: Search

  25: Dust Devil

  26: Schism

  27: Xenon

  28: A New Sol

  COLONY TWO MARS

  by Gerald. M. Kilby

  2016

  There is no law on mars but your own

  Edition: 1.1

  Published by GMK, 2016 Copyright © 2016 by Gerald M. Kilby All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed, or electronic form without express written permission. Please do not participate in, or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorised editions. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies or events is entirely coincidental.

  This book is written, produced and edited in UK English,

  where some spelling, grammar and word usage will vary from US English.

  If you’d like to receive my newsletter for specials and updates on upcoming books in the series, please join my Readers Group or sign up on my website: www.geraldmkilby.com

  CHAPTER 1: The Animal Within

  Dr. Jann Malbec stood a little over knee-deep at the edge of the pond in the bio-dome of Colony One. She was still and quiet, her face to the sun so as not to cast a shadow over its surface and frighten the fish, she held a spear high above her shoulder and waited. After a while the fish would start to swim around her legs, sometimes even touching her. Jann held fast until the right moment and then loosed the spear. It knifed through the water, bending in the refracted light.

  “Damn, only one.” She thought as she pulled it out. Her record was still only two in one throw, three was exponentially more difficult to achieve. The fish flapped and squirmed on the stick as she stepped out and brought it over to the camp fire she had set up on the central dais. Grabbing the fish by the tail, she slid it off the spear and whacked its head off the hard floor to kill it and stop it flapping around. From a small mound of dry kindling Jann grabbed a handful of straw, placed it on the dying embers and blew gently to get it going again. Soon it was burning steady. It crackled and sparked as she threw more kindling on.

  Sitting down cross-legged, she started to gut the fish with a sharp knife that she kept on a belt around her waist. The area surrounding her was covered in the scattered remains of similar meals she had eaten in this place. As soon as the fish was clean she skewered it and set it on the fire to cook. Then sat back and waited, turning it around every so often to prevent the flesh from blackening.

  Through the dense foliage all around her, she could hear the robot going about its business; harvesting, maintaining, monitoring. She didn’t speak to it much these days. It didn’t seem to mind, it was a robot after all. In the beginning it was different, she had had long conversations with it. But after a while grew tired of the rhetorical analysis of its dialogue. The robot simply took in what she said, analysed it and regurgitated it back in a reorganised form. It was like talking to a distorted mirror. Sometimes she even got angry at it, and banished it from her space. Then, after a while, oddly, she would feel guilty and would seek it out again. How strange is the human mind to feel empathy for a machine. Now though, she left it to its work. It managed the colony and there really wasn’t much Jann had to do. The colony didn’t need her input, it just needed the robot.

  After the cataclysmic events of the ill-fated ISA Mars mission Dr. Jann Malbec ended up being the only survivor. Nonetheless, since the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) was still intact, she had a possible way home. Mission control had sent her details on how to fabricate new fuel tanks after the originals had been destroyed when she had immolated Annis Romanov in a fiery ball of rocket fuel. Jann and the robot had set about building these, but when they were ready, she had a new problem. As far as the ISA was concerned, she was still a potential bio-hazard, a typhoid Mary, so to speak. They would not let her return unless she could prove she was not a contaminate.

  So Jann worked to gain some understanding of the bacteria that had so devastated the ISA mission, and Commander Decker in particular. But try as she might she simply did not possess the equipment to gain any further understanding. In the end she simply gave up. And with it, any hope of using the MAV to return to Earth. Instead she had no option but to wait it out until the next ISA mission. The colony was self-sustaining and well resourced, so she was in no real danger.

  But as the first year passed, messages from mission control started to include phrases such as: budget constraints, political apathy, low priority. Fear grew in Jann’s mind that Earth was losing its appetite for Mars. It became clear to her that there was little desire, by any of the ISA member governments, to spend billions rescuing someone who could potentially devastate the entire population of the planet. So they had effectively abandoned her.

  At the start she was angry, but as the second year passed she began to accept it. She couldn’t blame them really. By the third year, she had resigned herself to die on Mars. The only problem was, like Nills, she was getting younger, not older. To die on Mars may take her a very, very long time. Unless it was by her own hand — and she began to realise it may come to that in the end.

  So day-by-day, slowly but surely, the colony had changed her and made Dr. Jann Malbec just another part of its enormous biological eco-system. It needed a human to complete its collection of flora and fauna, so it entered deep into her psyche and sought out the essence of the animal that lay within. By now, she wore little clothing and went bare foot. Her food she hunted by spear and gathered by hand. She ate by the fire and slept in a tree. Her hair had become a long mass of matted dreadlocks. The colony had claimed her for itself — and it had done a good job.

  She had made herself a nest high up on the crown of the tallest coconut tree and, at night, looked out through the translucent dome roof at the vastness of the universe. What was she becoming? An exotic specimen in an equally exotic enclosure, to be peered at by the gods? Sometimes she would rise from her bed of straw and leaves and shake her fists at the heavens. She would rile and rage against her sense of insignificance and challenge the infinity of the void above her, like King Lear going mad on the mountain. “Fuck you, space, fuck you!” or words to that effect.

  Lifting the skewered fish from the fire, Jann set it down on a banana leaf to cool. She couldn’t hear the robot anymore, it must have moved off to tend to some other part of the bio-dome. While she waited for her meal to be ready she lifted up the spear and examined the point, it had become blunt with use, she would set about sharpening it later. Jann had become quite adept with it. She had taken to setting up targets in and around the bio-dome and would run through as fast as she could firing off spears, one after the other as she flew by. By now, she seldom missed. Once
she got so angry at the robot she threw one at it. She missed that time.

  Jann tested the fish, it was ready. She clamped the skewer between her teeth and scampered up the trunk of the tall coconut tree to her nest, where she could relax and eat her meal. From its height she had a commanding view over the whole bio-dome canopy, it felt safe. She had just finished the last of her meal, and was wiping her face with the back of her hand, when she heard the robot enter the bio-dome again. From the sound, it was moving with speed. It burst through the dense foliage out onto the central dais, stopped, scanned the area, and then tilted its head up at Jann.

  “GO AWAY!” She shouted at it.

  “Dr. Malbec, there is something important you need to know.”

  “I don’t want to know, now go away.” She picked up a coconut and flung it at the little robot. It didn’t dodge, it simply caught it in its metal hand. It had uncanny reflexes. Jann was always impressed at how it could do this. Sometimes she would sneak up behind it and fire off a spear. It nearly always caught it. The only time it didn’t was when it had calculated, that whatever projectile Jann was throwing at it, was going to miss. Jann had no idea how it could be so calculating and agile as needed. But then again, it was a machine.

  It placed the coconut gently on the ground. “Jann, this is important. Do I have your attention?”

  Jann glared at it. “Oh, all right, what is it?”

  “Another earthling has just entered the air-lock.”

  Jann felt like she had been physically kicked in the gut. She had to sit down.

  “Jann, did you hear what I said?”

  She tried to get words out of her mouth but they just wouldn’t come.

  “Jann?”

  “That… that’s… not… possible.” She thought maybe the robot was playing a trick on her, getting its own back for her insensitivity and borderline cruelty to it. But it was a droid, it was straight and true, and in many respects, a better friend to her than many humans she had known.

  “Okay… I need to think… I need to…” her sentence trailed off.

  “I understand that this is an improbable event. But nonetheless, another earthling has entered the airlock.”

  “How can this be?”

  “I possess insufficient data to offer any useful analysis. What do you want me to do?”

  Jann thought about this. “Can it get in?”

  “It, is a he, and he is already in. However, he cannot move as he appears to be barely alive.”

  Jann’s shock was beginning to recede, enough for her to gain some control. “Okay, okay, I’m coming.” She clambered down the tree trunk, slowly, as she was still shaken by this news. Near the base she jumped down onto the dais, grabbed her spear and ran off towards the main airlock. “Come on Gizmo, let’s see this earthling.”

  Jann looked at the forlorn figure lying on the floor of the airlock with a sense of incredulity. “Where, in god’s name, did he come from?”

  “That is a very good question, Jann,” replied Gizmo.

  She inched closer, still holding the spear high, just in case. But it was clear this human was no threat. He had passed out and his life was ebbing away. She put down the spear and knelt beside him. His suit was battered and filthy. Patched up to maintain its integrity and mechanically hacked to make it function. It was more steam-punk than space-age. But she could still make out it was from the colony.

  “He’s a colonist, judging by the design of the suit. Quick, help me get him in to the Medlab."

  With that Gizmo lifted the unconscious figure and brought him out of the airlock. They placed him on the table in the Medlab, removed his suit and hooked up several IV’s to get fluids into him as quickly as possible. His body had lost its ability to sweat and his core temperature was critically high.

  “He’s dangerously dehydrated; he could have a heart attack any minute.”

  After some time, Jann had managed to stabilise him. “Who the hell is he?”

  “We could do a retinal scan and see if we get a match from the Medlab database.” Offered Gizmo.

  “Okay, let’s do that, then at least we might get some clues.” Jann tapped a few buttons on the operating table control panel and an arm extended from the wall, positioning itself over his head. A thin line of light scanned across his face as Jann deftly pushed back one of his eyelids. Data began to display on the main monitor. It searched. Images of colonists momentarily flashed on screen, then it stopped. It had found a match. Thomas Boateng. Colonist number 27.

  Jann read the data. “This can’t be right.”

  “It has a 99.9% accuracy probability,” said Gizmo.

  “Well this must be in the 0.1% range because it says this colonist died over seven years ago.”

  “Intriguing,” replied Gizmo. “I assume you mean Earth years?”

  “It says here that he died on sol 6,348, due to a severe brain aneurysm as the result of injuries sustained in a mining accident.” She looked back at the patient. “So this guy must be someone else.”

  “He cannot be someone else, the retinal scan is very accurate.”

  “Well he can’t be dead and alive at the same time.”

  “Indeed. That would be very unlikely.”

  With that, the bio-monitor screeched an alarm as the colonist’s vitals went critical. “Dammit, he’s going into cardiac arrest. Quick, get the defibrillator.” Jann started ripping off the remaining clothes around the colonist's chest as Gizmo handed her the pads. She rubbed them together to get an even coating of gel and positioned them on his upper ribcage. “Clear.” She hit the button and several hundred volts tore through his body. His back arched for a moment then he slumped back down. The alarm continued. “Shit, come on.” Jann waited for the charge to build and tried again, and again, and again.

  His skin was scorched and there was a distinct smell of burning flesh in the air. But no joy. Jann flicked the switch on the bio-monitor to silence the alarm. He was still. She stood back and looked at the colonist. “Well, he’s dead now, for sure. We may never know who he was.”

  “He is Thomas Boateng.”

  “He can’t be, Gizmo.” Jann was beginning to get angry at its infuriating rationality, so distracted herself by scanning through the medical records of the dead colonist. They were extensive. “It says here he should have a benign mole just above the left shoulder blade.” She glanced over at Gizmo. “Let’s take a look.”

  They raised him up and peeled away the remains of his tattered vest. “Holy crap.”

  “It seems this really is Boateng.” Gizmo lowered the body down again.

  “That’s just not possible.”

  “It is not probable. But as you so rightly pointed out to me many years ago, it would seem it is, indeed, possible. Here lies the evidence.” Gizmo extended a mechanical arm towards the dead man with all the theatre of a stage artist.

  “There’s one way to find out for sure and that’s do a dental x-ray.” Jann tapped a few buttons on the operating table control panel and a large doughnut shaped ring started to advance along the table. It moved across the face of the dead colonist and the resultant scan rendered on the main screen. Jann now tapped the historical image from the dental records and the two images were presented together. “That’s weird.”

  “What is?” said Gizmo.

  “Well I’m no expert at dental forensics but the shape and layout of the teeth and jaw are identical. Except this guy has had no dental work, not even a filling.”

  “Is that strange?”

  “Yes, very. If I were to hazard a guess I would say this is a younger version of the same person.”

  “Like Nills?”

  “Yes and no. Nills was getting younger, that’s correct. But this guy would seem to have come back from the dead.” She went silent for a moment. “The other big question is where did he come from?”

  “The only possible place is the mining outpost, on the far side of the crater.”

  “That’s a hell of a long walk.”
<
br />   “Indeed. Probably why he died in the attempt.”

  “But Nills said no one in the mine survived.”

  “It would seem Nills was wrong.”

  “Holy shit, maybe there are more people out there?”

  “It is a distinct possibility.”

  Jann turned and rubbed her head. “I need time to think, this is all too much. For someone to show up like that after all this time is one thing. But the fact that this person already died seven years ago is… I don’t know… mind blowing.”

  “There is something we could do to shed some light on the mystery.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Pay a visit to the mausoleum.”

  “You mean see if the original body of Boateng is still there?”

  “Exactly.”

  “If it is, then what?”

  “Then that means there are two Thomas Boatengs’, impossible as that may be.”

  Jann switched off the main screen and stopped short as she caught her reflection in the blank monitor. She stared at herself in shock. Instead of Dr. Jann Malbec, Science Officer of the ISA Mars mission, what returned her gaze was a semi-naked, feral animal. Was this what she had become? “Christ, is that actually me?” She looked away. Maybe I truly have gone mad. Then a thought shook her to her very core. “How would I really know?”

  She walked out of the Medlab, making sure to lock the door. It was done out of paranoia, out of the memories of what had happened here before. Then she did something she hadn’t done in a very long time. She went and had a shower.

  CHAPTER 2: More Than One

  Jann sat in her wicker chair in the central dais, wearing a crisp clean Colony One jumpsuit, which itched. She examined her thick matted hair in a small mirror, as Gizmo waited silently beside her. “If I’m going to EVA out to the mausoleum then my head is not going to fit in a helmet with all this hair. Will you cut it for me, Gizmo?”