This is a fan translation of Road to Mars (Дорога к Марсу) by fifteen Russian science fiction writers.

This chapter was written by Dmitry Kolodan.

I claim no rights to the contents herein.

Note: Footnotes can be found at the end of the chapter.


Chapter 23

In Red Light

The alarm wailed like a cat whose tail got stepped on. The lights faded for a fraction of a second, only to flare back up as crimson.

Anikeev straightened. The comet?! But they still had time… At that moment, the speaker crackled hysterically, and he heard Bull's voice.

"Commander! Explosion on board!"

Anikeev gulped.

"Explosion?! Where?!"

"Storage 2," Bull reported.

"Two?" Anikeev exhaled through gritted teeth. "The one that couldn't be jettisoned under any circumstances?"

Damned Americans! Whether they'd wanted to or not, but they definitely screwed them over in a big way.

"What's there? What blew up?"

"I don't know," Bull admitted.

"What do you mean you don't know?! Shit… This is your module, and you don't know what you're carrying?"

"Only Givens has the access codes," Bull replied guiltily. "There's probably some kind of first contact equipment there, just in case… But the module can't be opened without Edward."

Anikeev immediately went ship-wide.

"Edward!"

There was no reply, but a signal from Jeubin came a second later.

"Commander! Givens…"

"What?!"

"I think he hit his head on a bulkhead. He's alive but unconscious."

"Where did this happen?" Anikeev swore silently. Things were getting better and better.

Jeubin hesitated.

"Storage 2," he reported. "Looks like Given was trying to open it. There's a keypad here… And the screen says, 'Access denied'."


His consciousness was returning slowly. Edward was drowning in something viscous and sticky, like pink molasses. His eyes were covered in fog, and it took a lot of effort to open them. He had a terrible headache. It felt as if his head was about to explode. Reaching out, Givens touched his temple, almost certain his fingers were going to find a hole in his skull. But his head turned out to be fine, not even an abrasion.

"What… what's going on?.." Edward didn't hear his own words.

Th entire room was filled with an even red light. The wailing of the alarm was frozen on one note. That shouldn't be happening…

Edward grimaced, trying to figure out what had happened. Impact… He'd clearly heard the sound of an impact. Had something hit the Ares? The comet? That damned comet, and one that bore his name to boot! So they'd hit a part of that after all. Edward couldn't recall the last few seconds before the blow. He'd seen something that surprised him…

Givens turned quickly. And something broke inside him. The tiny screen of the keypad that unlocked the second storage module had a glowing text on it, "Access denied."

But he hadn't tried to open it! And he hadn't entered the codes… But then who?

"Damn!" Givens quickly switched on the intercom. "Commander!"

No answer.

"Commander! Slava!.."

No answer. As if the intercom was dead. Givens started to feverishly push the buttons.

"John! Jean-Pierre! Bruno! Andrei?!"

He fell silent, suddenly realizing that he wasn't going to get an answer. Not now… The even emergency lighting, the measured hum of the alarm — it couldn't be like this. The light wasn't blinking, the sound was frozen…

Givens shook his head. Maybe he still hadn't come to. He didn't believe that, though. Everything around him felt far too real for that, not at all like a dream or a hallucination. And the headache…

He raised his hands and looked at them. Edward remembered reading that it was the most reliable way to check if he was sleeping. Supposedly, it wouldn't work without special practice. The hands turned out to be where they were supposed to be; just in case, Edward also pinched himself. Everything pointed to him being awake. Then what was happening?

Gently pushing off the wall, Edward floated through the corridor in the direction of the cockpit. Since the comms weren't working, he was going to have to do it on his own… But before he even reached the end of the compartment, he stopped in his tracks, grabbing on to a brace. A lump the size of an apple was stuck in his throat, and a strange feeling, a sticky mix of surprise and fear, appeared in his chest.

Right in front of him floated a dreamcatcher, the talisman he'd personally woven as a kid in a Boy Scout camp. The circle was made from a willow branch, and inside was a poorly-made web of thin strings adorned with colorful beads and an owl feather. "Owls are not what they seem," he remembered his counselor saying. "Remember that, Ed, when you find yourself in the red room." Why was he here? He was supposed to be in his cabin!

But it wasn't the amulet's appearance that was making Givens's heart pound so hard that he felt his ribs might break.

It just so happened that Edward had a huge fear of spiders. The reasons for the fear were easy to discover. Givens had grown up in places where it wasn't uncommon for one to run into a black widow spider in the attic, basement, or garage of every home. He was probably told scary stories as a kid, and childhood fears were the most lasting. Fortunately, arachnophobia never got in the way of his work. What were the chances of him running into a spider in space? None, really…

As it turned out, he'd been mistaken.

A huge spider the size of a bowl was sitting in the center of the dreamcatcher, on the web woven by Edward. Eyes on stalks were staring at Givens. Thick furry jaws were moving methodically, and, as like some weird flag, the owl feather was moving in them.

Edward screamed.


The sky to the southeast had been veiled in thick purple clouds that looked like the bumpy tubers of some fantastic plants for three days now. They were churning and rolling, quickly growing and then falling right away. The sky under them was dark gray, suggesting a downpour.

Kartashov knew there was going to be a thunderstorm. Of the sort he couldn't even imagine. In comparison, the monstrous thunderstorms of the African great plains, when the entire sky was white from the flashes of lightning, would seem like the babbling of a toddler. He was expecting it. For three days now, but the clouds remained on the horizon. As if they knew perfectly well that their prey was going nowhere and were simply waiting for the right moment to fall upon him with their entire might. Sharp gusts of wind were pushing shaggy patches of clouds across the sky. The air was now thick and viscous like sour cream.

Leaning over the side, Andrei was looking lazily into the water. Tiny waves were licking at the boat, rocking it like a crib. The gentle motion was lulling him to sleep, and at the same time Kartashov couldn't give in. A strange "suspended" feeling of timelessness. Not even any thoughts…

At night, he would look at the torn sky and more and more often at the distant blue star. Home… Was it home, though? His memories of Earth were veiled in fog, and that wall was growing thicker day by day. As if he hadn't existed at all until the moment he stepped aboard the Ares. At some point, Kartashov realized he couldn't recall Yana. Their meeting, dating, marriage were all facts. But he couldn't feel anything beyond them, except for oppressive emptiness, a black hole that was growing bigger and bigger. And her face… Damn! No matter how much Andrei tried, he couldn't remember her face. Each time he attempted to think of her, someone else ended up in his wife's place: school girlfriends, the math professor Nina Auerbach, and even Nina from TsUP… Anyone but Yana.

The banks were so muddy that docking and spending even a single night on solid ground wasn't possible. He could only keep paddling in hope of the river taking him to actual dry land sooner or later. What would happen after that Kartashov tried not to guess. He simply knew that someone would be waiting there for him. Maybe it would be his friends peacefully sleeping on the bank again… Or maybe someone else.

Cupping the cold water, Kartashov splashed it in his face. He grimaced from the salty, ferrous taste. What he wouldn't give for a sip of that tasteless liquid he'd been forced to drink aboard the Ares. Back then, he'd thought it couldn't get any worse. A crustacean-mollusk was moving along the muddy bottom, quickly moving its jointed legs. Stripes of cream mantle were swaying gently. It was strange how traits of two very distinct phyla could be combined in one being. Kartashov chuckled, picturing the wide eyes of Professor Grozdev, who'd taught the course on the zoology of invertebrates, if he saw such a creature. The Professor wouldn't have been as surprised at seeing a pig fly.

Under the gusts of wind, the blades of the red reeds were bending to the water and rustling loudly, as if someone was making their way through them. Someone who was really trying to remain unnoticed.

"Hey!" Kartashov rose slightly. After being silent for so long, his voice came out hoarse and dry. "Come out! Enough with all this hiding. I know…"

Andrei had a coughing fit. Damn… At this rate, he'd lose the ability to speak pretty soon. Then how would he establish contact? Assuming it even happened.

No one answered to his shouting, not that Kartashov had been expecting a reply. Reaching out, he grabbed the closest reed blade. It crunched as if made of glass, spraying tiny beads of drew on his hand. With a detached look, Andrei examined it. At least the plants here looked almost like on Earth… Kartashov tensed, trying to remember something from his botany class. At least he was exercising his brain. Plus, as a biologist, he simply had to describe the plants, even if he couldn't document that.

All right… A solid triangular blade, cover leaves with parallel venation, a lush panicle at the end, and brown spikes the size of a pinky phalange. Not only was it an angiosperm, but it was also a monocot! He seemed to recall that monocots had appeared later than other plants. Andrei frowned. No species could appear out of nowhere. Evolution was redundant. It wasn't a straight line, more like an expanding cone. The farther you got from the starting point, the larger the biodiversity had to be. A world with only one species was dying.

Kartashov shivered… What had happened here, damn it? Was that what he was supposed to learn and understand while traveling this land of rivers?

He glanced at the plant he was holding again. The closest analog that came to mind was papyrus. Except this strange river looked nothing like the Nile Delta. Andrei tossed the blade into the water. The tiny waves immediately pushed it against the side of the boat. Feeling a sudden rush of anger, Kartashov grabbed the blade and was about to throw it as far away as possible, when he froze. Two huge empty eyes were staring at him from the dark water.

Before Kartashov realized what was happening, the current had carried the boat away. Coming to his senses, Andrei grabbed the paddle and started to row feverishly. The boat's sharp nose got stuck in the reeds. Swearing profusely, Kartashov dropped the paddle and jumped into the ice-cold water.

He momentarily caught his breath. Andrei yelped but then immediately got ahold of himself. What was cold water compared to what had happened to him on the Ares? Besides, the channel turned out to be not deep at all, only up to his waist. Dragging the boat with one hand, he waded back, still unable to believe in the reality of what he'd seen. Things like that didn't happen… Simply because they couldn't. But was this really the place where he ought to be surprised at anything?

The bottom of the river turned out to be viscous, his legs were ankle-deep in silt. Walkin through it while also dragging the boat turned out to be not so simple. But, eventually, Kartashov managed to get back.

It was lying right where he'd seen it. A statue… Actually, it was a woman's head carved from stone, something like dark-pink marble. A thin face with sharp cheekbones and slanted eyes… A tiny crustacean-mollusk was sitting right above the bridge of the nose. When Kartashov bent down to pull the stone head out of the water, it didn't even try to swim or crawl away.

Andrei carefully placed the stone head on the bow of the boat and climbed inside, peering into the empty eyes. The woman's thin lips were curved in a strange smile full of unexpressed sorrow. It was the smile of someone coming to terms with approaching death. Kartashov shivered, and not because he was wet and cold. The woman looked familiar, even though Andrei didn't remember where he'd seen her right away. Kartashov tugged at his beard, a silly habit he hadn't remembered picking up. The lady didn't look like any women he knew. Then who?

The realization came suddenly, as if a firework had exploded in his head. Kartashov jerked… Of course! He should've guessed right away! He'd seen this person, more than once, on a picture in either a history book or an encyclopedia. It was Nefertiti!

Andrei swore. So then, curiouser and curiouser, huh? But there has to be a limit! How could this statue have appeared here, on ancient Mars? Nefertiti! He seemed to recall that the name meant something like "beautiful arrival." Very cute… At this point, Andrei wouldn't have been surprised if the stone head talked to him.

"Well, hello." Kartashov chuckled. "Dejah Thoris…" [Footnote 1]

At that moment, the boat was rocked by a blow so heavy that Kartashov was thrown overboard, and he submerged into the ice-cold water.


Footnotes

1) Dejah Thoris is the titular character from Edgar Rice Burroughs's novel A Princess of Mars.