-Science Fiction/Fantasy-
Deborah Jackson
For the Love of Mars
Mars resembles Earth in many ways, except it’s dead and red.
But terraformed Mars is greening up. And life exists on the surface, below ground, and in a mysterious Robot Graveyard. (More on that later😉)
Lucas Wilson, an astronaut on Mars, and member of the Gilgamesh Movement, a terrorist organization, has been instructed to prepare the planet for imminent colonization and do away with his fellow astronauts after he sabotaged Earth’s climate. But even after killing hundreds of thousands on Earth, he is reluctant to take this final step.
The question is: how can he oppose the organization’s leader, Samson Teshda, a man who has devoted his entire existence to annexing the planet for his own people? This man has stridden over the boundaries of Earth’s laws and civil society. He’s even pushed the boundaries of evolution, creating genetic enhancements that provide extraordinary advantages, all for the love of Mars.
But for the love of Mars, how can he not? The man is psychotic, as much a threat to their survival as terrifying, terraformed Mars itself.
Deborah Jackson redefines science fiction in the age of rage.
Deborah Jackson is an Ottawa writer who transports readers off-planet. Enthralling page-turners, her multiple novels combine geology, biology and genetic engineering into a matrix worth exploring. A significant turn-of-the-millennium theme runs through her literary creations, which fall within the science fiction genre but, more specifically, within near-future speculation. Her literature conveys an evolving landscape for the reader to explore. To read Jackson is both a departure to outer space and a passage to our inner world.
eBook
Libraries
Five Stars!
"Ms. Jackson does a wonderful and skilled job at describing the setting for both very different plotlines. Initially, it can be somewhat difficult to follow the two story lines as they play out, but soon enough the reader begins to see how the past research and events on Earth relate to the adventurous Mars colonization research. Deep treachery and greed soon enter the equation and both stories take tremendous sweeps and turns, bringing the reader on an amazing journey that is so deep that one feels immersed in the story itself."
Part I: The Serpent Revealed
The poor girl, fated to perish, failed to see that a monstrous viper lurked in the long grass just over the river.
Orpheus and Eurydice, 458 - 459 Georgics, Virgil
Black mud closes them in, and the rotting sedge of Cocytus, with its sluggish disgusting fens, through which the Stygian water meanders in ninefold looping, cutting off any escape.
Yet even the lowest hell, the deepest circle of Hades, even the Furies with livid vipers entwined in their hair, gaped in surprise, even Cerberus silenced his triple-jawed barking, and Ixion’s wheel stood still as the wind drove it silent.
473 - 480 Georgics, Virgil
Seven stops. Seven subterranean potential sites for colonization. And seven exhausting rover treks across a planet undergoing upheaval and rebirth. At least the sites were all located at the level of the equator or in the northern hemisphere. Unfortunately, they were also situated near volcanoes, since lava flows were required to produce lava tubes. Lucas had determined that three were uninhabitable. The gigantic ancient volcano, Olympic Mons, was no longer extinct. Massive rumblings and belching of ash and lava from the volcano made even his approach to the prepared caves too risky. He’d surveyed them from a distance, and examined satellite video, to find the sites inundated with lava flows or new ash falls. He happily crossed them off his list. There was also a questionable cave, still quite close to lava flows but potentially within a safe zone, but the oxygen level was suboptimal and the plants less healthy.
After leaving the Tharsis Montes, where two sites were located, he’d traveled over fog-shrouded landscape and through the Lucus Planum until he entered Elysium Planitia. Skirting the three major volcanoes in this region, which still appeared dormant, he stopped at Hebrus Valles. Lucas struggled to find a clear path through the deep dips and folds in the terrain that led to the Robot Graveyard, one of the caves the ISA had long abandoned after the Great Robot Rebellion of ’49.
Originally NASA had initiated robotic exploration of the planet to spare the human cost of space travel and begin selecting sites for eventual human habitation. But with the advancement of AI, the robots were given far too much autonomy. Using 3D printers, rather than simply for repairs, the robots had commenced their own expansion of the program. They created an army of robots, and not a single one responded to directions from the ISA when it inherited the program. With the apparent loss of control of these bots, it was reasonable to assume that upon human arrival, they would not behave according to their programming. The ISA released an EM pulse to fry the robots’ circuits. So, when humans began exploring, they chose this site to dispose of the defunct robots, a site where the machines had focused their reproduction. Teshda, in consultation with Frederika Snyder and a geologist, Fradkov, had chosen this site for potential colonization because it was often avoided by their human counterparts.
It made sense. A secluded, relatively safe site to hide, if need be.
But that didn’t erase the reality of the cave. Upon descent, instead of barren rock and powdery black sand the broad beam of Lucas’s helmet light illuminated stacks of collapsed titanium shells, wheels and cracked cameras, shattered sensors and piles of circuit boards. Glaring robot eyes, equipped with cameras, reflected the light from the beam, as if berating him for invading their space. As he waded through the refuse, snaps and crunches leaped from his feet and echoed in the vast hollow tube like a series of firecrackers. Lucas zigzagged through the maze of defunct bots and eventually found the prepared cavern beyond. He breathed a sigh of relief, gusting air into his mask. After checking the ambient oxygen levels, he hastily removed it, happy to be free of its encumbrance. Without further delay, he began the familiar process of engaging the power system and taking inventory of essential equipment. It was darker in this cavern—he had to keep his flashlight on—and the plants were spindly, wilted, their growth less vigorous. He assumed that was due to dust covering the windows, the reason the light was also feeble. He’d have to clear the glass when he returned to the surface. No creatures inhabited this cave, either, like the hummingbirds in the two previous caves. Perhaps these plants were genetically designed to self-pollinate, as they were in his home cave. But he missed the happy drone and buzz, the reminder of life. It was too eerie here. Nothing stirred.
Except.
He heard a faint noise. A distant whirring, clicking sound.
He brushed it off. Probably the power kicking in to generate more heat. The cave was also rather cold, a mere five degrees Celsius despite its location closer to the equator.
Lucas aimed his flashlight at the long stretch of supplies in an alcove to the north. To reach them, he’d have to skirt a gymnasium-sized pond recharged by the melting ice near the rock wall, but it certainly wasn’t as challenging a hike as the one around the grand lake in the Arsia cave. A few seconds later, he reached the shelves and quickly checked for the presence of oxygen tanks. There were merely four, so he’d have to supplement the stock with those he’d procured at the Tharsis ISPP. No fuel factory existed here, since the ISA would rather forget about this cave.
He’d have to transport the tanks he’d lowered down upon arrival. That meant traveling back and forth through the graveyard.
Not a pleasant thought.
He checked the other supplies: food, tools, habitation tents, 3D printers to create additional rovers, among other things. Some electronic items would need replacement integrated circuit boards. Plenty of printers occupied a shelving unit at the forefront of the storage area, since the robots had been quite industrious. What were they planning? They were initially programmed to enable human habitation, but they’d long ignored or even forgotten about their directive. It was hard to imagine how artificially intelligent beings really thought and how they developed independent plans.
Two hours later he finished the inventory and began the long trek back to the mouth of the cave and the oxygen tanks.
As his feet crunched through the debris, he heard that sound again. A whirring and a metallic clicking.
He stopped.
The sound stopped.
He looked around, scanning the heaps and stacks of assorted robot parts, many of which had been stripped of useful wheels or optical sensors and laser range finders. Nothing moved.
Was he going crazy? Was this mausoleum-like junkyard giving him auditory hallucinations?
He placed his feet as quietly as possible on the gritty surface and heard no further sounds. But when he began to pick up the pace, ejecting crisp snaps and crunches from his boots, the whirring began again. And increased in volume.
One more step and he swung around, probing the path with his light. The whirring stopped, but his stalker couldn’t escape the light quick enough. The harsh beam reflected off a compact roving robot with large, protruding, almost human-like eyes. Those eyes were, of course, linked to a camera which was connected to software that could interpret the image in front of it. It quickly whirred sideways, behind the remnants of a massive mining robot complete with claws and scoops.
Are you dangerous? Lucas wondered.
But it would be far more dangerous to simply proceed with his work without finding out.
“Hello,” he said. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Hello,” came the digital voice, although the mechanical creature kept the dead robot between them.
“Are you all alone here?” he asked.
“Alone. Yes, alone, but not alone. No one moves, though. No one talks. So, alone, I suppose. Are you alone?”
Lucas wondered if it was wise to respond, but the robot had crept out a few inches, its smooth rectangular face peering around the crumpled shell. He decided to, regardless. After all, they’d never established that the robots were a threat. Only that they might be.
“I’m alone, for now. I could use your help. Soon there will be others. And you won’t be alone, either.”
The robot rolled out into full view. “Not here for parts?” it said. Obviously, it had been watching human activity for some time.
“No,” said Lucas. “Here to bring parts.”
The robot rolled right up to him.
“And you will stay?” it asked, the sonic note in its last word entirely too wistful for an artificial being.
“No,” he said. “Not now. But . . . maybe you can come with me. If you’re willing to help.”
The robot paused, as if considering, then nodded. “Yes. I will come with you. I will help. I can scan rocks. Collect soil samples. I am very good at finding things.”
“Excellent,” said Lucas, wondering if he was insane to suggest this. But what else could he do? He needed to take the true measure of this being, for the colony’s safety, and he wasn’t inclined to switch it off, if that was even possible. After all, it had survived an EM pulse.
Logically, that was why he rescued it from the graveyard.
At least, that’s what he told himself.
But as he walked toward the cave mouth, he wondered how much logic was involved in any of his decisions lately.
