Martians (Part 1 of 2)

The first time the little red people met a human was long before John Boone set foot on Mars. Almost a thousand years ago, a towering figure arrived with a faint cracking sound on the edge of Pavonis Mons' caldera. He scared the little red people something terrible and even though he could sense them scurrying around his feet, Merlin Ambrosius was unable to actually see them for some time. He spent weeks popping around Mars and saw the destruction left behind by the battle between Big Man and Paul Bunyan. Merlin liked order and decided he would try to clean up a bit. He started in the northern hemisphere and managed to clear much of the debris before a chorus of voices began shouting in his ear.

"What are you doing?" asked the chorus of tiny voices.

"I am cleaning up this mess," answered Merlin. "This planet is most untidy."

"But this is the way we like it," responded the chorus and Merlin abruptly dropped the debris he was clearing in a large ring around himself, which is where we really got the Great Escarpment from, and looked down.

"Who are all of you?" he asked in a kindly manner.

"We are the little red people," they said. "We've lived on Mars since Big Man and Paul Bunyan and his ox, Blue finished their fight."

"I see," lied Merlin.

Merlin and the little red people spent quite awhile sizing each other up. What the little ones lacked in height they made up for in mass. Merlin knew his eyes were lying to him about their power and sensed he should make friends of these creatures.

"You feel strange," said the chorus in a hushed tone.

"You feel big," said Merlin.

Billions of tiny laughs answered him and all of Mars seemed to titter at the irony.

"Why did you come here?" asked the little red people. It took Merlin a few minutes to think of a good response.

"I suppose I just needed to get away and see somewhere new. Do you understand?"

"No," responded the chorus.

"People always want something from me."

"What do they want from you?" asked the little red people.

"They want my knowledge. They want my magic. They want to be as powerful as I, but there is no one on Earth who I trust with any of it."

It was then that Merlin and the little red people shared an epiphany. He looked down at them and they stared back up at him before coming to a silent agreement.

Merlin was only able to transfer a infinitesimally small amount of his magic into one of the little red people, and only one at a time. It took several decades before each of the little red people were able to feel the magic swirling inside them. Their magic was weak, however. Each of them would have been hard pressed to levitate a feather. Together, though…

And together is how the little red people like to work.

Harry unlocked his helmet and pulled it off his walker's neck ring. Desmond, who was almost bouncing in the seat next to him, had done the same several minutes before.

"You're sure this is a good idea?"

"Ah, my friend, you worry far too much."

"All I'm saying is that someone may notice there's a rover missing. Not to mention two walkers."

"And Hiroko and Hermione have both assured you, multiple times, that they have taken care of things."

Harry sighed but nodded and the two of them went through the checklist to start-up the rover. It was a big, box-like thing with two meter high wheels. Inside were three small rooms: a kitchenette, a small toilet and a living room which also contained the fold-out bed that they would be sharing for the next few months. It was a scout rover, and only meant for two people at the most. The windows were small and thick, but clear. They would have no trouble seeing what was out there when it became light.

It would be the first time either of them had truly seen Mars. Hermione had been adamant that they stay hidden away as they approached the planet back on the Ares, and since they had landed they had been shuffled from hiding place to hiding place, always at night and always swiftly guided by Hermione or Hiroko or one of the farm crew. They'd been on Mars for a week already, but seen only the inside of a few of the spare trailer-like shelters that had been sent ahead of the colonists the year before.

It had been, Harry thought, one of the most boring but terrifying weeks of his life. He was reminded of the search for the horcruxes. Day after day of hiding in their small tent with only Hermione and Ron for company. Now it was Hermione and Desmond, sitting with him in small closets and stuffy, dusty shelters. The fines, small fragments of the rust colored dust that rose up every time a slight breeze brushed the ground, were able to get into everything. Ann Clayborne, the head of the geological survey team, had explained to Hermione who had explained to Harry and Desmond that fines were so small, around a micron in diameter, they could slip through seals that even CO2 couldn't penetrate. The first week the First Hundred had been on Mars had been a week of malfunctioning instruments and machine stoppages. Hermione had done her best to contain her frustration, but had exploded into bursts of hissed complaints when some of her delicate scientific instruments were devastated by fines. She was far from the only one having difficulties.

While they had still been en-route to Mars, Desmond once asked her what exactly she was hoping to work on once they arrived on Mars. Her response had not been very detailed.

"I plan to work with materials and magical research," she'd said as the three of them huddled together in her room in Torus B.

"What kind of materials?" asked Desmond.

"I don't really know, exactly. Not yet," said Hermione. "With this group, anything is possible. There could be unthought of advancements in materials science within months of our arrival."

"And magical research?"

"We know so little about how magic works. Most witches and wizards just use it. Harry and I learned the same lessons that Harry's great-great-great grandparents learned. And probably their great-great-great grandparents, as well," explained Hermione. Harry had rolled his eyes and nodded in agreement. He'd constantly been frustrated with the lack of any meaningful progress in magical education as his children began to attend Hogwarts and learned the same lessons he had fifteen years earlier.

"Are you worried that your magic may not work on Mars?" asked Desmond, who had had the same discussion with Harry. Hermione gave him the same answer, though it was a bit more informative than the 'No' Harry had given.

"Not really. Not anymore, at least. Before we left Earth, I had some concerns but when Harry arrived on the Ares, and then when I did, we've been able to feel our magic. It's been almost four months now, and we're about halfway to Mars. If we were going to lose our magic, I think we would have lost it by now," Hermione had said.

He was shaken from his memories by Desmond speaking to him from the driver's seat of the rover. "You want to pull up that map, man?"

Harry nodded and brought their proposed route up onto the main screen of the rover's control panel. He'd grown much more comfortable and skilled with computers since meeting Desmond, who had forced him to not only use his AI to search for useful information they would need on Mars, but also to play games. Desmond delighted in beating Harry at various computer games as much as Ron had with chess.

After several minutes the two of them had finished the checklist to start the rover and were sitting in their seats, waiting on a message from Hermione, who would tell them when it was safe for them to depart. As long as no one saw them, she had said, the rover would not even be known to be missing. They would need only twenty minutes or so to drive out far enough to be under the horizon and out of the sight of Underhill, the newly official name of the colony . Then the entire planet would be their playground, or so Desmond had exclaimed excitedly. Their plan was to drive east until sunrise and then stop the rover and shut everything off. At that point, Harry would finally be able to unshrink his bag and retrieve his wand. The thought was making his magic as jumpy as a puppy that had been locked in a cage all night, and it was ready to get out and play. The tension and anticipation Harry was feeling was palpable, and Desmond continued to glance at him as they waited for Hermione's signal. Harry realized he was nearly vibrating as both his hands and feet tapped and twitched in a rapid-fire rhythm.

Hermione's voice, small sounding from the intercom speaker and scratchy from lack of sleep and too much canned air, finally set them into motion. Desmond eased the rover forward and the huge tires quickly found the grooves of previous rovers that they planned to mimic until they passed the recently located nuclear reactor. It had been named Chernobyl by Arkady Bogdanov, who was still in orbit with the Phobos crew. They were constructing an orbital space station out of the moon, which would be handling most traffic in and out of the Mars system.

Desmond's thoughts were apparently mirroring Harry's as they passed the power station.

"That thing is a terrible idea," said Desmond, shaking his head.

"What? Chernobyl?" asked Harry.

"Indeed," confirmed Desmond. "Though I must give credit to Bogdanov for the name. Of all the possibilities for power generation, they send up that Rickover beast. It will produce enough electricity to power a hundred Underhills! It can produce enough radiation to kill us all, as well. They could have more easily sent us the equipment for wind farms. There are at least three members of the First Hundred who are experienced in geothermal design. Bah! The thought processes of corporations are often impossible to decipher."

"How much more expensive is the Rickover?" asked Harry.

"I have no idea. I've never been one for counting money." Desmond turned his crooked grin on Harry, who rolled his eyes.

"They have to send us uranium to fuel it, right?"

"Very good, but not quite," responded Desmond. Basic physics had been one of the subjects Desmond had been attempting to teach Harry over the past ten months.

Desmond continued, keeping his eyes on the somewhat darker stretch of regolith in front of the rover which indicated the packed down and rock cleared paths of previous rovers. "Uranium exists on Mars. We haven't found any large concentrations of it yet, but it's only been a week and Clayborne is the only one who has been out further than Chernobyl. The thing we can't make at the moment is the fuel rods, among other things. Even if we find a huge bloody chunk of it sitting around a couple of kilometers away, there's no way we would be able to manufacture what we need for the Rickover."

Harry nodded, consciously not snickering at Desmond' use of the word 'bloody', a Britishism he seemed to enjoy.

"So the UN, even if they can't come up and get us, can still turn off the lights?" asked Harry.

"And the air-miners and life-support," said Desmond. "Basically, regardless of what Roko says, we're still working for the UN and whoever is truly paying the bills."

Silence followed Desmond's statement and the two stowaways left each other to their own thoughts. The plume of steam from Chernobyl rose above the Rickover power plant, visible only as an outline of inky black in the otherwise star-filled sky. There were almost as many stars visible from the surface of the planet as from the Ares, and they were sharper and clearer than seen from Earth. The atmosphere was not thick enough to make them twinkle.

Harry eventually dozed off in his chair and was awakened by Desmond softly shaking his shoulder and muttering his name.

"What's going on?" asked Harry, rubbing the bleariness from his eyes and running a hand through his hair.

"Sunrise is in thirty minutes," said Desmond. "Do you want to go outside?"

Harry nodded and the two of them reattached their gloves and boots. They were still wearing most of the suits, which took too much time and effort to take off and put back on for the length of their early morning drive. Harry clicked his helmet into place and stepped into the airlock. He switched on his suits heating system and felt the diamond pattern burn into his skin. The suits they used were not the easily recognizable suits used for normal spaceflight, but specially designed for use on Mars. The idea of the colonists, many of whom were not trained or lacked experience in construction, trying to build a colony on a new planet while using the bulky rigs that had been in use for the past sixty years was ludicrous. John Boone and the other astronauts from the first mission to Mars had tested them out several times and found them extremely helpful. Instead of containing the entire body inside an airtight envelope of breathable atmosphere, the walkers used by the colonists only provided air to a person's head. Below the neck, the body was covered in a diamond patterned suit which helped to compress the wearer's body so that the lack of pressure from the Martian atmosphere wouldn't cause any explosive decompressions. If the suit was damaged, and part of the wearer's body was exposed to the Martian atmosphere, only the exposed skin would bruise. It could lead to severe injuries, but the chances of death were reduced exponentially.

The air cycled out and Harry opened the outer door of the airlock. He could feel the chill instantly as the diamond patterned heating elements of his suit battled with the frigid temperatures of the Martian night. Alternating heat and coldness on his skin gave Harry a strange feeling of duality while his attention was focused on his feet crunching through the crystallized frozen ground. He felt more than saw cracks radiate outward as his feet impacted the ice-like layer of fines and sand with each step.

"What are you doing?" came Desmond's voice into Harry's ears. The intercom gave their conversation an unsettling intimacy with the other's voice in their ear as if they were being whispered to. Harry paused. He'd been walking slowly, concentrating on each step as if it would make it more real to him that he was standing on another planet. It was the first time he'd truly felt that he wasn't experiencing some strange adventure back on Earth. Apparently, even the different gravity hadn't been enough to convince his subconscious he was standing on another planet.

Looking up, he saw the sky was starting to lighten. There were still hundreds of stars, but the pitch-black night sky was starting to fade to an opaque purple dawn. It was not a color natural to Earth's sky and Harry's retinas stung and his eyes watered as he gazed unblinkingly upwards. Neither of them spoke as the eastern edge of the sky, the direction in which they were heading, started to brighten noticeably. The purplish hue began to sharpen into a beige gray, not that different from a sunrise on a cloudy day back in Britain. Harry took a moment to glance at the landscape surrounding him, lowering his eyes to the seemingly endless plane of rocks scattered so uniformly to seem almost unnatural. They sat like shadows on the surface, the morning light still hiding under the shortened horizon. He could see the sky lightening where soon the sun, much smaller than it looked from Earth, would appear and warm the planet to several degrees below the freezing point of water.

"Hey!" shouted Desmond, startling Harry out of his observations.

"What?" asked Harry, wishing he could rub his abused ears through his helmet.

The other stowaway scampered over to where Harry was standing, dancing over small cracks and fissures in the frozen ground and darting around rocks and boulders with an animal-like grace. He seemed almost at home in the Martian gravity, and for some reason Harry's magic began surging and throbbing once again, as if jealous.

Desmond reached him and pointed toward the horizon where the sun would soon be. "You see that star right there? It's just above that hill. Or crater? I have no earthly idea what it is, but it's a rise, yeah?"

Harry followed his finger and spotted the rise Desmond was pointing to, then looked above it. "There are a few stars there. Which one?"

"The blue one!"

"What?" asked Harry reflexively even as he spotted the faint blue star. It seemed to be the only one in the entire sky that was twinkling.

"Is that Earth?" asked Harry.

Desmond cackled his mad laugh and then howled, though Harry was prepared this time and lowered the volume on his suit radio.

"It must be!" exclaimed Desmond who was hopping from foot to foot with the joy of discovery.

Harry was too stunned to move, as if he were under a full-body bind. He didn't know how long he stared at the twinkling blue star, but eventually the sun rose over the shortened horizon and Earth winked out of existence. Ripping his eyes away from the smaller, but still fantastically bright sun, Harry took in his surroundings. The sky was now a light peach color, though it was almost red to the still darkened west. The rust colored ground which covered a majority of the planet's surface stretched to the edge of Harry's vision in every direction with thousands of uniquely shaped and colored rocks that were generally a bit darker than the surface. The range of colors they could see ranged from an almost blinding white surrounding the sun to burgundy and black boulders shaped by millennia of ceaseless wind and sand erosion. Shades of red dominated everything else.

"This is amazing," Harry nearly whispered. The only answer was a grunting agreement from Desmond as the two slowly rotated; trying to see everything they had been missing for the past week.

"You ready?" asked Harry.

Desmond started and spoke without turning. "I suppose. You're certain this will work?"

"Hermione said it got pretty cold but we'll have enough air for ten minutes. If I can't finish the spell by then, I'll just try again later."

"That was not a very reassuring answer."

"Now you're worrying too much. Yes, I'm certain. We'll be fine. I feel like my magic is jumping around inside me," said Harry, who had explained the feeling of magic to Desmond while still on the Ares.

"Has anyone ever told you that you are absolutely terrible at reassuring people?"

"Thanks. Why don't you go shut off the rover so I can start?"

Desmond was muttering to himself as he reentered the rover, though Harry couldn't understand any of it. A few minutes later, Desmond manually opened the airlock and almost skipped back to Harry, a grin of anticipation easily visible through his faceplate.

"Everything is powered down. Do your thing."

Harry nodded and recited the incantation in his mind several times as he pulled his wand from a pocket in the leg of his walker.

"Okay. I'm going to cast the spell. Turn off your AI and walker, now."

Desmond and Harry both shut off their AIs and walkers. The constant hum of static from the radios and the whoosh of oxygen from their air tanks vanished. Harry felt more physically alone than he could have ever imagined. He gulped a breath of already stale air and focused on the spell.

Harry didn't notice Desmond watching him with great interest. He didn't think about the barrier between his wand and his skin or the strangely colored sky. Barely speaking the incantation, Harry felt the magic in his arm and fingers more strongly than any time since he first purchased it with Hagrid in Diagon Ally on his eleventh birthday. The tingling warmth spread from his wand hand up to his shoulder. Harry felt a surge of strange energy focus in his chest and with the next beat of his heart, the energy shot down his arm and exploded from his wand in a tightly focused, red beam of light. Desmond's eyes widened as he watched Harry seem to glow momentarily and he let out an involuntary yelp of surprise when the beam of red light shot from Harry's wand. A bubble of energy, visually appearing as almost a red film, expanded rapidly from the rover. It grew larger and larger until it towered over them, and Desmond frantically wondered if the others could see it at Underhill. Just as he was beginning to panic, the bubble formed cracks so numerous they would be impossible to count before it seemed to shatter and dissolve in the light Martian wind. Getting over his initial shock, Desmond was so busy trying to see if there had been any physical effect on the rover that it took him most of a minute to realize Harry was crumpled lifelessly on the ground.