Lost on Mars Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

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  44

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  LOST ON MARS

  PAUL MAGRS

  For the Clarkes and the Lakes

  1

  Dawn was coming over the edges of the plain. It was so early that we could hardly see each other. We were half asleep, all except Da, who was always up early and worked the land every day. That day we joined him at earliest light. We had about a day’s work ahead of us, he said. The dust storm would hit that very night. And in just a few hours all the crops would be gone. They’d be laid waste, he said.

  So we were all out there. Ma, my little sister, my brother Al, Da and me. We took the beasts from their pen and rode out to the furthest edge of our land.

  Grandma was up early too. But she wouldn’t come with us. She stood on the veranda of our Homestead and yelled at us, hollering fit to burst, her nightgown all stained and greasy. It was hard to pick out what she was yammering about. Ma always said that Grandma was just an old lady, and we didn’t have to pay her any heed…

  Ma and Da explained to me when I was old enough to understand the truth. Grandma was not in her right mind. The trauma of her long life on Mars had sent her mind spinning in the wrong direction. She had been one of the first settlers on this world of ours. Grandma was an historical personage, is what Da used to say. No matter that she was baying like a hound on that porch. No matter that her cries would come chasing us across the desolate plains.

  Ma said it was a shame Grandma couldn’t be given a knife like the rest of us, but Da just shook his head. He didn’t want to be giving the old lady a knife. I could understand that. I understood more than they knew, of course. I was almost fifteen by Earth years, which was the calendar we were still using on Mars. I understood more than they wanted me to.

  The sun scraped higher up the sky and soon the long, cool shadows were the best places to walk. The scorching trails of heat were already too tiring to move in and we had to conserve our strength for the picking of the corn. Da had drilled us all in the technique, though I knew it already, having snuck out to help him before.

  The alien corn stood about three feet taller than me. It was green, with all these furling tongues and shoots. You had to seize and unwind them and pluck the corns out of the grooves in the narrow leaves. They were like springs that wanted to snap back and protect their precious growth. But we needed that corn. It was the reason we lived out here on the hot plains. Da had coaxed all of this green stuff out of the dry earth with such patience and care. It had taken him years to get it this rich.

  But all of this would be ruined by nightfall. According to the signs, storms were going hit us and strip the land completely bare. Ma made us rest after the first hour of picking rows of corn. We gathered round her and each took a plaggy bottle of milk she had kept cooling in her picnic bag. The milk was bluish in the morning light and I watched my younger sister drinking greedily. My heart twinged a bit when I saw Hannah drinking. She was only three, but she was out here with the rest of us. Her hands were streaked by the dark-green sap, same as ours.

  The burden beasts were panting nearby, and Ma slopped some precious water into their bowls. They bowed in deference, and sipped thirstily. On their backs were strapped the great wicker baskets containing our haul so far. It didn’t look like much. If that was all we had harvested in the first hour, I wondered how much we’d end up with by the time the storms came blowing through.

  I wondered if it would be enough.

  Da was being hearty and confident. He jollied everyone along, exclaiming over what a great start we had made that morning. He was so proud of his girls, he told us. And of his son too, he said, clapping Al on the back as he drank up his milk. He almost spluttered it out. Al was younger than I was by a year, and more delicate, even if he was a boy.

  My back was breaking, and my fingers were splitting and bleeding from teasing open the corn fronds. I shielded my eyes and looked back along the groves towards the Homestead. And I saw Toaster ambling his way up the green avenue towards where we worked.

  The old machine was bringing us water. A great big vat of it, hoisted over his shoulder. He was just in time, too, because we were running out, as the sun hit its height. I watched him labour up the dusty track on those shaky, hydraulic legs. Toaster was so old even then and he was just about in pieces. Da had to keep patching him and looking for spare parts whenever he went into town. Sometimes I’d heard Da mutter to Ma that, really, the best thing to do would be to deactivate the old thing. Toaster was just a sunbed. What did we need an old sunbed for on the roasting surface of Mars?

  Toaster came in the very first ship, with Grandma’s people. It had been a luxury ship, stocked with all kinds of devices, the likes of which we’d never seen, and were unlikely to see again, Da said. Many were destroyed early in the settling period, but Toaster had lasted as long as Grandma. She wouldn’t hear of his being deactivated, of course. Toaster reminded her of the days on Earth when ladies were pale and lived indoors, away from the sun’s harmful rays. When they lay within the glass innards of machines like Toaster and burned themselves slowly orange.

  In more recent years Toaster was determined to prove he was still useful. He stood on his hind legs and fetched and carried. He was slow though, and sometimes Da would get kind of exasperated waiting for him when he got the jitters. I sort of liked him though.

  ‘Well, now, look at this!’ Toaster gasped, as he struggled up to us, bowed down by the heavy water. ‘Look at all this you’ve been doing!’ He peered into the baskets at the corn we’d gathered. He was right, too. We’d put on a burst of speed as the morning advanced, and we’d done well.

  Da opened up the vat and Toaster helped him fill up our bottles. ‘Thanks,’ Dad told the Servo, and Toaster looked gratified by this, his metal face wincing as Da clapped his shoulder.

  While we were all drinking our chilled water, and Al coaxed my sister out from under the cornstalks where she’d been dozing in the shade, Ma took Toaster aside. ‘Has the old lady settled down?’

  Toaster lowered his voice tactfully. ‘She was shouting for quite a long time, madam, I am afraid to say. She is convinced that you will be caught out in the dust storm. She fully believes that you will all die today out here, and that she will be left to starve, alone in the Homestead.’

  Ma nodded. She was fretting, I could see. Ma hated anyone to be upset, even Grandma. ‘I wonder if I should go back,’ Ma said to Da. ‘And check that she’s OK.’

  Da shook his head. ‘I need all of you here. You too, Toaster. I reckon that we’ve got about four hours’ work left.’ Da stared into the boiling soup of the red skies. ‘See that?’ He nodded to the far horizons, where a peppery darkness was building up like a swarm on its way. ‘That’s what’s heading here.’ He sighed, gazing at the swaying green of the cornstalks. I looked round and saw how little
we had actually tackled. Only a tiny portion of the precious crop would be saved and I could feel the terrible weight of Da’s sadness. All that work of his would be ruined within minutes of the dust storm touching down.

  And so we worked with renewed concentration and vigour. I was amazed at Toaster’s speed. He tore into the cornrows, both hydraulic arms lashing out with mechanical precision. Dry chaff and waste flew in all directions as he worked.

  It wasn’t too much later when Da stopped us all. ‘I was too generous in my estimation,’ he said. ‘I think we’d better go home now.’

  It was barely three hours into the afternoon and a dry, nasty wind was rippling through the corn. It lashed at us like hot tongues saying bad things at our backs. Ma and Da and Al and Toaster worked busily packing up all the equipment, and covering up the panniers of fresh-cut corn.

  Staring into the storm as it lowered on down through the heaving clouds, I imagined a whole desertful of sand up there, flying about. About to slice right through us. Everything living would be torn to shreds. Wild grit was flying through the air and landing in our hair, stinging our exposed skin. Ma tucked Hannah into her arms.

  ‘How long have we got?’ she shouted at Da. ‘Do we have time to get home?’

  Da looked like he knew he’d cut it fine. He’d kept us out till the very last minute. He frowned and shook his head. ‘Of course we’ve got time. If we go now, and we don’t stop.’

  He kicked the beasts into action. They were lazy, slouchy lizards but with the weather coming up even they were keen to get going. I’d never seen them so swift.

  So we hastened home with the storm behind us and as much of our crops as we could carry in our baskets.

  Al came walking alongside me. ‘Sometimes I could really hate Grandma,’ he said, softly, so that no one else could hear. ‘Not for all that she’s crazy and she shouts at us and does weird stuff. I mean, I could hate her for coming here in the first place. She had a good life on Earth. They were rich, weren’t they? And yet they had to come to Mars. Our lives could have been so different on Earth…’

  Of course I’d heard Al going on like this before. He would start imagining what his life could have been like. On Earth, he would have been like a prince, maybe. He would have worn a cape of gold and gone walking in the rain. He would have had a yacht and gone sailing their oceans. He often came out with these dreams. That was just Al, though. He was my little brother. He was OK.

  2

  We only just made it.

  The dust storm came roaring across the plain even earlier than we thought. We were loading the baskets into the store shed. First we knew, my brother Al gave a squawking shout of fear. We turned about and there they were: the worst storm clouds we’d ever seen. They rushed billowing out of the skies and they were in the fields of crops now. Destroying everything as they came.

  Da spurred us on to unload the baskets and quickly secured the barn. I saw him look worriedly at the building. He was hoping it would stand up to the dust. If it didn’t, then we’d been wasting our time. And what about the Homestead? Would that stand up to the storm? But it had to. There was nowhere else to go.

  We got home in time. Just as the eerie howling of the wind and dust could be heard like a threat rolling up the valley towards us. Ma hugged Hannah to her chest as she flung open the door of our home and we all toppled into our small house, finding it dark and still inside. I had never been so relieved in all my life.

  Da was tethering the lizards into their pen at the back of the house. The creatures would have to take their chances in the storm.

  Inside the Homestead, we found stuff ruined, flung down, torn into bits. Some of Ma’s good rugs and wall coverings had been rent apart. Pots and dishes had been smashed on the tiled floor of the kitchen. There was a strange, nasty smell.

  None of us had to wonder who had messed the place up while we were out. It was always Grandma who did bad stuff like this as soon as our backs were turned. Although we were used to her strange goings-on, the wreckage was worse today. Da said it was likely the old lady had been super disturbed by the scary noises of the rising storm. I saw Ma break down in tears in her kitchen when she thought no one was looking.

  Al and me went round upstairs, finding more damage, looking for Grandma in her favourite hiding places. Toaster was busying about already, putting things to rights and cleaning up the mess she’d made. ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ we heard him say in his singsong voice. ‘Someone has had a busy day. Oh dear!’

  Upstairs, through the thin roof covering, the sounds of the approaching dust storm were louder. Closer. More ominous. Al looked pale as he lit the lamps. He knew that the natural daylight coming through our windows would vanish, all of a sudden, very soon. None of us wanted to be sitting in the dark when the dust came.

  ‘Grandma, are you in there?’ Al asked, sounding such a scaredy-cat now, I wanted to push him aside and yell at her myself. I didn’t feel like she was venerable or historical. I felt like she was a dumbass old woman who was making our lives hell. She was giving Ma way more work and heartache than she needed to have.

  ‘You better get out of there, Grandma,’ I said, pounding on her door. ‘Come on. Open up. Da says it’s best if we’re all together, downstairs. He wants us all gathered together.’

  ‘Go away,’ came the old lady’s voice. Now she sounded weak. But I knew she was just weaseling. She was scared we’d be mad about the mess she’d made. Now she was turning back into being the sad old lady who wouldn’t do nothing wrong.

  ‘Please, Grandma,’ said Al, in his most winning voice. He knew that Grandma had a special soft spot reserved for him. He knew he was the best at getting her to behave. Apparently he was just like her brother at that same age. Her lost brother, the fantastic hero, Thomas. Sometimes when Grandma was crazy confused, not even knowing what year she was in, it was like she thought her Thomas was still with her. Al didn’t mind.

  The door opened and she stood there, in her nightgown smeared with ashes. She had eyes only for Al.

  ‘Dust storm’s coming, Grandma,’ Al said, though it was kind of pointing out the obvious. By now the noise was pounding through the whole house. The windows had gone dim already. When I looked at the landing window there was a grainy fuzziness out there, like the haze on a broken monitor.

  Grandma’s expression went clear like she briefly stopped being mad. She said, ‘Did you rescue the crops?’

  Al nodded. ‘Yes! Yes, we did it. Well, we got some of them. Enough, Da thinks.’

  Grandma looked down at her hands. ‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘I wish…’

  ‘Come and sit with us,’ said Al. ‘Ma’s making some broth and some soda bread.’

  As he led her away, Grandma said, ‘I wish I could have helped you all.’

  ‘Hush, now,’ Al said, taking her towards the wooden stairs. I followed on behind, listening to the skittering and tapping noise on the tarp roof of the house. I was feeling bad, I guess, because I couldn’t feel sorry for Grandma. I felt kind of cold inside about her. I just didn’t care as much as Al did anymore and I thought that probably made me bad.

  Downstairs Da had gathered everyone around the table where we ate our meals and prayed together each day. ‘Lora,’ he told me. ‘Come and sit down with us. Look, we’re all here. You sit with us now. Remember – nothing bad can happen to us. Not when we’re all together.’

  That time, at least, this was true. Nothing bad happened to us that night. None of our family was hurt or killed by the storms that raged till the next dawn light came.

  I don’t think any of us slept except Hannah and Grandma. We stayed together in our kitchen as the walls were battered. It was as if wild creatures were out there, trying to come inside to get us.

  I think we sang every song we knew that night. When it seemed we had run out of singalong songs, Ma played her harp. It was a miniature harp, all gold, and she kept it wrapped in cloth underneath her and Da’s bed. It always made me feel drowsy, and half-awake, the liq
uid strings sent me dreaming of the rivers and seas of Earth. I had heard the grown-ups talk of such things, and I had even seen pictures. And I dreamed about them on music nights.

  The storms raged and howled in the darkness outside and we did our best to ignore them. Then, when we were almost too tired to move or think, Da started telling us the old stories again. He told tales about Earth and our family and who they had all been in that other life. And then he told the story of Grandma and Grandpa’s generation, and how they had given up almost everything to create a new life for us.

  We heard once more about the first landings and the first wave of settlers. The early disasters and the fights that broke out between folk when they tried to make homes for themselves. The constant struggle each day to bring subsistence out of the hopeless soil. They had it so much harder than we do, he said. We must be so grateful for the sacrifices of the previous generation. We were second and third generation settlers and we had an obligation to create a better life for those who came after us: that’s how it all worked. Each generation made it easier for the next, and they did it all out of love.

  I guess I slept for a while that night in my chair, with thoughts like those going round in my head. When I woke up I thought I’d gone deaf. The roaring and the howling had stopped.

  It sounded like a great big emptiness. I cleared my throat, just to make sure I could still hear anything at all. Then the whole kitchen started coming to life. Ma clattered about, cleaning our crocks with sand. I could hear Da stomping, carrying Grandma upstairs to her bed. There was the mechanical whirring of Toaster’s ancient joints as he began work again.

  We had survived!

  I felt like jumping up out of my chair, running outdoors and doing a lap of honour around our Homestead. Al grinned at me like he felt just the same way. Da came downstairs and he started to take down the wooden boards that covered the windows and doors. He got us kids to help him and we were so excited, we felt like we hadn’t been outside for several weeks. Martian sunlight felt so good on your face when you’d been shut inside like that. It felt slow and old. It warmed you right down to your toes.