The Martian Odyssey

I. “Through Thorns to the Stars”

The desert held a desolated kind of beauty. The red sand shifted and danced in the wind, the wind that sighed with the echoes of a thousand epochs lived and lost to dust. The sky breathed like a living beast; endless in depth and shades, it swelled with clouds with the waning and waxing of the day. Once, an ocean bathed the land in life and shimmering water. Now only its skeleton remained — pillars and cliffs of grey stone like ulnae and femurs, sloping hills like sternums and skulls. In the far distance loomed the crystallized form of Mt. Ogden, a blue and white jewel that glowed in the light of the sun. And yet even here, because of its desolation, humanity had staked its claim, transmuting the ruins of the desert into the dreams of another world.

The hills, which could ring with the cry of a bird miles away, now echoed with silence. Only the faintest crackle of footsteps could be heard, breaking into the soft ground of the desert.

Two solitary figures strode toward a slender obelisk, their plastic helmets flashing in the sun. They were a strange slash of color in the landscape, their burnt orange jumpsuits standing out against the bleak surroundings.

When the figures arrived at the obelisk, there was only a flickering pause before their voices crackled on the radio. “Rocket misfire confirmed. Replacing e-matches; standby.”

A rustling intake of breath swept through the spectators. Two dozen in all, dressed in the same canvas suits and black helmets, they watched and waited in a stifling silence.

Most tense of all were the men and women whose fingers still prickled with the bite of fiberglass. Those few whose eyes were bloody and dark from the late hours of the previous night. They had not breathed since they had pressed their hands to the smooth surface of their enemy and triumph; now they looked to the rocket and felt a thin blade of starved longing.

As the rocketeers returned from ground zero, voiceless prayers drifted up from the crowd. These were scientists, engineers, doctors — men and women dedicated to the pursuit of truth and life and remorseless certainties. And yet still, they prayed.

The countdown began.

10.

9.

8.

7.

6.

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

With the roar of a dragon, the rocket streaked into the air. In between blinks it blew through the atmosphere, trailing white smoke that spiraled and danced with the exuberant cheers below.

The rocket was a dark smudge; then a streak; then a thin black line. When the parachute flared into life, the billowing fabric swelled with the laughter and tears of those down below. Those few who could once more feel their hearts beat and their lungs fill with the crisp air of the desert.

II. “Lean into Problems & Find Empathy”

The canyon formed a jagged crescent in the heart of the desert. Long centuries of water and wind left the sand soft and the stones smooth, the smell of petrichor forever suspended between the towering walls. Mirages of water shimmered in the distance; torturous visions conjured by the sun that scorched the very air.

Through the clear visor of Arvind’s helmet, his parched lips cracked and flaked. Shadows flitted across his half-opened eyes; men and women taking his pulse, speaking to him, to each other, pointing to the distant jaws of the canyon.

Someone leaned close, her face a warm light of comfort. She grabbed his hand and squeezed.

“You’re going to be okay!”

The ground lurched away with an abruptness that made him gasp. His body rose into the air, cradled by the plastic shell of a stretcher. The sky see-sawed above him, the walls of the cliffs rising and falling like frozen waves.

He heard the crew breathing; heard them gasp and sweat and curse the sweltering sun and the uneven ground. Like the limbs of a great beast, they crawled forward step by step.

Snatches of conversation drifted towards him; another crew member lost in the heat of the desert, delirious and rambling. More had gone to save him, to bring this newest patient to the salvation Arvind was lurching towards.

Every now and then the stretcher would be lowered and the crew would cycle around its sides. Some touched his shoulder, smiled, quietly reassuring themselves as well as him. Others merely stared ahead, faces shining with sweat, shoulders tensed with determination. No matter what came, they would not abandon him.

As the distance dwindled, the towering cliffs fell down into cascading hills. Dunes of rock and sand swelled up where ancient waters once drained. The seesawing became disjointed, like the jerking movements of a limping animal still struggling to run. The toll of the sun had worn out the voices of even the toughest crew member. They now only gestured with their hands, causing fresh waves through the stretcher as their focus waned with exhaustion.

He was lowered to the ground. Even through touch alone he could feel the great distance that he had been carried; the smooth bed of sand had changed into an uneven floor of rocks that bit into the thin plastic beneath him.

And then Arvind once more found himself being lifted. Strong hands and arms carrying him, guiding him, leading him to the cool interior of the pressurized rover. The blessed shade overwhelmed him after the long hours underneath the unyielding light of the sun. Blinking, he felt moisture fill his eyes even as he once again felt that familiar hand on his shoulder.

“Let’s get you home.”

III. “Be Grateful”

She pulled her knees close to her chest, watching the raven slowly creep forward towards the unguarded food.

Though she sat with her back to the sun, none of its warmth made it through to her skin. She had long grown accustomed to the near-permanent shivering that came with the mornings, the wind that whined and gnawed at any exposed flesh. If she flexed her fingers, icepicks of pain would stab through the joints. Instead, she tucked them under her arms, a futile attempt to trap what little heat remained.

The only fire that remained was the fury that she barely kept leashed behind closed lips. It thrived in the cold, burning dark thoughts behind her eyes. Four days and four nights in the desert, it festered within her. She knew that she was the person most responsible for stoking its flames. Though she despised its presence, she had grown to depend on it, interweaving its dark glow into her thoughts and dreams.

But now, watching the raven and its little dance back and forth, she found herself nauseous at the thought of the cold fire within.

All around her, her fellow crew members laughed and talked. Most of them were ordinary people; someone’s friend, someone’s husband, someone’s half-formed acquaintance. That is not to say there was not something beautiful innate in that. On the contrary, it afforded them a special joy. They laughed and loved and enjoyed the adventure, something she struggled to do.

But there were those few, those she loved most of all, who were more than what they seemed. Those whose eyes danced with a different kind of firelight, who toiled under the cold sun and never smoldered with the same anger that even now she kept caged.

Even now, one such person joined in with the raven’s dance, hopping from one foot to the other. The raven paused at the movement, its head tilting in bewilderment. His human companion did the same, a mischievous grin brightening his features.

The raven hopped back; the man did the same. The raven squawked and ruffled its wings. The man stretched his arms, cawing with an accuracy that startled the raven even more.

With a final croak of confusion, the raven took wing, sailing towards the distant mountain.

Laughing, the man dropped his arms. He watched the raven fade into a distant speck before wandering back to join the others, the warmth of his smile inviting their own warm reception.

The moment thus ended, she sat up and stretched. Bones popped and muscles complained, and yet she found herself warmed by a smile of her own.

The cold fire within her flickered, sputtered and died in a plume of smoke.

IV. “Remember the Pale Blue Dot”

The bones were little more than petrified shreds of white rock. You could pick up a handful every day for a thousand years and never drain the endless supply of floe. They were the lingering shards of dinosaurs. Tiny fragments of the creatures that once came to the shores of an ocean long since drained. Fragments that had survived lightning bolts, floods, and winds. That now lay in the palm of a hand, cool to the touch, rich with the smell of another era.

Wandering through the heart of the desert, the power of nature was laid bare as scraggly flowers peered out from the cracks of dried lake beds. Over the vast eons, as humanity crawled from caves into castles, from castles into the sky itself, the desert blossomed with a life of its own.

Unending wars rose and fell, fought between the lichen craving a fresh piece of rock to call home and the minerals that invaded from the heart of the earth. Mud reclaimed boulders the size of houses, breaking open rocks that howled with the mournful cry of the wind. Pebbles collected in the wastelands of former rivers, stony roses, dragon’s teeth, petrified leaves, lying just out of sight like the abandoned jewels of kings.

In the mornings, the sky dawned with the faint blue of eggshells. Within minutes, it could be filled with the brooding fortresses of clouds or swell with the deep azure of an unyielding day. Snow could fall as late as the first weeks of summer, blanketing the crimson ground with sheets of white frost. At sunset, the clouds glowed with the fire of the sun. The symphony of colors was more beautiful and complex than an orchestra in concert, all the more breathtaking because it was inevitably so fleeting. And then night would come and the velvet black of the sky exploded with a tapestry of starlight. Constellations wheeled overhead, cut through by shooting stars and the curving arm of the Milky Way. Even as the sun’s heat drained into the air, it was impossible not to linger, a vain and irresistible attempt to soak in the infinite wonder of the cosmos. It was this same wonder that called to the humans below, the wonder that had driven them to leave the comfort and warmth of home behind in exchange for the harshness and cruelty of the desert.

And here they stood on the edge of a a cliff, looking out at the unending valleys and pinnacles. In their hands, they clutched the bones of the dinosaurs that had once claimed this land. A few held stones, turning them over in their hands, as if to try and wind back the long years of their lives.

Far below them, the wind stirred up dust devils that danced and whirled across the ground. They rose and fell, bowing to the great alpine peaks behind them, twisting and lifting up only to crash back towards the ground when they reached their zenith.

The rolling warning of distant thunder drummed through the hills, heralds to the purple and gray clouds gathering in the south. As if to mock the coming rain, the sun shined all the brighter, its ghostly hint of warmth filling the air with the promise of summer.

This crew, who dreamed of the Moon and of Mars and of planets not yet touched by man or his creations, watched in growing awe at the beauty all around them. Only here, on this planet, could such a moment exist. And somehow that made it all the more wonderful.

V. “Just Keep Doing What You’re Doing”

The whir of the spacesuit’s fan drowned out all noise save for the echo of Hannah’s breath, chest heaving in the heavy gear. She leaned forward, trying to make out Sarah’s words through the thick plastic of the helmets and the dark void of night.

But no sooner had she caught sight of Sarah’s face then they were being shoved into the airlock, the world going dark as the door slammed shut behind them. The four women jostled each other in the darkness. Even without the fierce urgency that now propelled them into action, the bulky spacesuits were impossible to navigate. In the midst of the confusion, Hannah caught a single sentence shouted in her ear: get to the payload!

The door to the habitat opened and white smoke billowed into the airlock. Stumbling into the room, the four women spread out, each fumbling after their specific goal.

The room was drenched in smoke, with only a red strobe interrupting the darkness. Disoriented, Hannah half ran, half fell to one side, nearly knocking over Sarah in the process. Before she could apologize, Sarah vanished, moving to help another woman with the fire.

Forcing herself to keep moving, Hannah ran ahead, only to trip over the legs of someone on the ground. Though she could not communicate on the radio, her cry must have drawn the other women’s attention, because suddenly they were all around her.

Together, they lifted the stranger - a semi-conscious man who sagged in their arms like a puppet with its strings cut - and hauled him towards the airlock.

Sarah gestured to Hannah, reminding her of her mission. After making sure the man wouldn’t keel over, she ran back into the darkness.

Strange shadows chased her in her search, leaping and fading as she ran from corner to corner. The hum of her spacesuit drowned out the beating of her heart, but she could still feel it hammering more and more heavily, as if trying to leap from her chest.

A yellow tube loomed out of the darkness; the payload, glowing like a beacon in the night.

Hannah quickly tucked it under one arm and ran back to join the others in the airlock, barely slowing down enough to avoid slamming the man’s helmet with her own.

By the time the door swung shut, the four women were laughing. They had made it in and out of the Hab in less than five minutes. Now, with the adrenaline still howling through their veins, they shook the airlock with their victory.

When she was at last free of the spacesuit once more and drinking in the cold night air, Hannah shook her head like a dog trying to clear its ears of water. She caught Sarah watching her, laughing, and smiled sheepishly.

“I couldn’t hear a damn thing!”

VI. “Sometimes You Have to Give Up — and That’s Okay”

The warmth of his chest stuck with me the most. Even as I pressed up and down, counting each beat under my breath, all I could focus on was the heat beneath my fingers.

The deafening silence of a large crowd remaining quiet and unmoving ratcheted the tension in the air to the breaking point.

I sat back on my heels, allowing someone else to take over. Even as I moved away, I continued to count along in my head, my thumb rubbing the palm of the opposite hand. Thomas’s vitals hovered nearby on a screen, but I barely looked at them. They hadn’t changed since we first stepped into the Hab.

The medical officer shifted, his eyes raising from Thomas to the gathered crew for the first time.

“Okay. That’s enough.”

Protests rippled through the gathered crew.

“It’s only been twenty minutes!”

“We’ve done everything that we could.” There was a finality in his tone that made it echo in the small space.

Someone brought over a sheet. With the medical officer’s help, they pulled it over Thomas’s body.

“Mission control wants a report.”

If the abrupt interruption startled the medical officer, he gave no sign. His gaze was steady as he spoke to the camera.

“This is CMO Josh Havassy. While conducting an inspection of one of the rovers, Vehicle Lead Thomas O’Connor received an electric shock. Though he received CPR and defibrillator treatment upon arrival at the Hab, we have not been able to reestablish any signs of vitals. It is thus my responsibility to report that Thomas O’Connor has passed away at 12:40, on March 24th.”

Though Josh only spoke the facts, there was something to his words. A reality, a dark comfort, an unspoken truth. In that moment, there was no one else who could have said so little and so much at the same time.

And then, suddenly, Thomas sat up. We all blinked and stared and a few people nervously laughed.

It had just been a simulation.

VII. “Nihilism”

Music filled the air, a chorus of tragedy and doom, of a prophecy long promised coming to pass.

All across the desert, bodies were scattered like discarded toys. Some wandered in circles, babbling to each other and to the air. Others lay in a crumpled heap, senseless to the world.

The roar of engines cut through the air. A few heads turned in the direction of the sound, in time to see plumes of dust billowing up from the distance.

They did not have long to wonder: soon the rovers bellowed into sight, driving backwards across the dirt road.

Even before the vehicles stopped, their occupants leapt out, wielding ropes and hammers and duct tape.

They descended upon on the scattered humans like specters of death, herding them together closer and closer until they were all surrounded on the top of the hill.

Only the fallen remained behind, their twisted bodies merely obstacles for the new arrivals to leap over.

The music reached its crescendo, heralding the triumph of the herders, even as their helmets gleamed white in the afternoon sun.

They raised their ropes and hammers, ready to descend in for the final battle.

And then, all at once, the mirage dissolved.

Laughter filled the desert as corpses sprang up, miraculously cured. The limping sprang forth with fresh steps; the staggering straightened and shook each other’s hands.

One of the invaders snapped open his helmet, revealing a handsome face beaming with laughter.

“You guys call that a mass casualty incident? That was easy!”

A former patient pointed accusingly. “You were just going to tie me up and leave me for dead!”

“You were expectant!”

Fresh laughter rocked through the crowd.

Far above them, the sun sank deeper towards the horizon, bathing the desert floor in a sea of colors.

VIII. “Go Confidently in the Direction of Your Dreams & Live the Life You’ve Always Imagined”

Water sloshed across the metal floor, creating eddies of red mud. She shoved the mop through the mess, enjoying the squelch of liquid as the mop greedily soaked up the moisture.

It was the first truly warm day of the entire week. The crew had all stripped down to T-shirts and pants, a luxury that made even the daunting task of cleaning the entire station seem pleasant.

Outside, the rest of the crew were ripping out the iron stakes used to hold down the Thunder Dome, dissembling the massive gathering place where they had sat through lessons and briefings. Each stake was half as tall as a person and required two people to yank it out. But even from the inside of the Hab, she could hear their laughter.

Slowly, she eroded away the grime, working her way from one airlock to the other. She passed by the rows of spacesuits, the empty shells with their fishbowl domed helmets, and the whiteboards which still bore the traces of former briefings. Her foot nudged the stretcher under the staircase, stepped over the rocket waiting to be loaded up and taken back across the mountains.

As she worked, she pictured herself actually working in a habitat on the surface of the red planet. The door would not be propped open to let in the fresh breeze; she would not easily step from one tile to the next. The mop would be almost like a feather in her hand. Water would be as precious as air; she doubted she would use a mop to clean the floor, but rather a vacuum or a broom.

Maybe the winds of Mars would howl with a dust storm; maybe the ground outside would groan and crackle under the trundling treads of the rovers. Maybe she would look outside and see the light glinting off the side of a spacecraft, one that could travel for years and never falter.

She set the mop back in its bucket and looked around at her work. After a week of living, working, eating, and sleeping with the others, this was one of the few moments she had truly felt alone. She found herself looking at the tiny box that held her helmet and her radio. Though she had not realized it at the time, she had built a tiny ritual with that box. Every EVA, she would take them out, put the radio on, then the helmet. And upon returning, it was the reverse; helmet off, then radio. There was nothing special about the ritual; it was what was simplest, what had occurred naturally to her that first day when her heart first began to hammer with adrenaline and excitement.

But she knew she would miss that ritual. She would miss the crackle and hiss of the radio, the weight of the helmet as she turned to look up at the oncoming clouds.

Some places are beautiful because they are so fleeting. They are there for a few moments, or, if you’re lucky, for a whole week. But she would never again have that ritual.

It was time to go home.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the twenty-seven people who came out to the desert, bore the brunt of the rambling madness that is my personality, and decided to be kind to me anyways.

Thank you to Brian, Matt, Ben, Mike, Allie, Joel, Ariane, and Brandon whose words inspired the title of each page of this story.

And thank you to my chauffeur, best friend, and inspiration, who didn’t know I stole his favorite beanie until after it came back from Mars.