Lost on Mars Read online

  Da tackled the door. It was stuck. The sand had been swept into a dune against the front of the Homestead. We all put our backs into it. It was only when Toaster put his hydraulic strength behind the door that we got it open.

  We stepped out into an alien landscape.

  Really, in the new morning, it looked nothing like it had the day before. My heart was hammering with excitement and shock.

  Someone had reached down from heaven, or wherever, and smoothed his great big palm over our world. The sand had blown over everything so deeply it had smothered the whole lot. We were worried about our crops being damaged, but they had completely disappeared. Even the shape of the horizon had shifted, at the far edges of our familiar prairie. It looked hillier now.

  Da looked grimly disgusted. He knew the storm was a bad one. He knew that chances were it would wipe the slate clean. But we checked on our storage hut and – amazingly – the building was still standing safe, and the crops we collected the previous day were all fine.

  ‘Praise the Lord,’ Da muttered, under his breath. I thought I even saw him wipe his eyes with relief.

  We did a circuit of the Homestead. Da said we had to be careful of the shifting sands; they could be treacherous.

  At the back of the Homestead we found our burden beasts. They were dead, of course. Their heads poked out of the new dune, and I stared at their closed eyes and their fringed lashes. I had names for our lizards. I called them Molly and George. Which was stupid and sentimental when they could die so easily.

  Da sighed as he started digging the dead beasts out. ‘We’ll have to train up another pair,’ he said. ‘We’ll be lucky to get two as good as these. Will you come to town with me, Lora? Al? There’s all sorts we need. Plus we have to check on the townsfolk. See that everything’s OK there.’

  Both Al and I nodded, holding back our excitement. We loved to go to town.

  ‘Come on. Back indoors,’ said Da, staring at our dead animals. ‘We’ll tell Ma she’s got her work cut out for her filleting and salting these beasts for storage. At least we know we won’t starve, eh?’ He tried to make light of it, and talked about us having a grand barbecue maybe, and inviting all our friends from town.

  But I didn’t want to think about eating Molly and George.

  See? I was sentimental in those days. I tried to focus my thoughts on our trip to see the townsfolk.

  And if I remember rightly, it was on this trip that we heard about the Disappearances. They had started up again.

  3

  The going was hard. Usually Molly and George would pull the hovercart all the way into town. With our beasts dead Da had to tinker with the complicated insides of the engine to make it hover again. The circuits of the instruction manual had long ago fizzled out. Like so many of the devices we’d inherited, we’d forgotten the original instructions and everything was a guessing game.

  Da was a kind of super genius and he battled away with his whole box-load of greasy tools and what do you know? Pretty soon that old hovercart was lifting off the sand upon a cushion of jellified air. It quivered like heat haze on the prairie.

  Al and I whooped, clambering aboard, and the cart wobbled underneath us. Da was busy kissing goodbye to Ma and Grandma and fussing over Hannah. He was always like that. He departed as if every trip was his last. He had seen too much calamity during his life on Mars. He had seen too many folk set off and never come back.

  But Al and I were impatient that day. I wanted to feel the air streaming past us, all cool and sharp on my face. We both wanted to experience that lurching excitement in the pits of our stomachs as the hovercart accelerated to what would seem like impossible velocities.

  As Da gunned the engines, Grandma stood alongside us in her old woollen dress and shawl and she had that crazy glint in her eye again.

  ‘You be careful in that town, do you hear?’ She narrowed her eyes at us. ‘You watch after these kiddies.’

  Da nodded, pretending he was paying heed to her madness. We could tell that he was as keen to be off as we were. He jumped up in the driver’s seat, let out a yell, and wrenched the rusted wheel around. The hovercart shivered and bucked, and then we were off. Riding across the newly smoothed dunes that the storm had created.

  We found town busy. People were out and about, using shovels to clear away sand drifts that had settled against the fronts of stores and houses. Folk were up ladders fixing windows and signs and tiles on rooftops. There was a cheery, businesslike atmosphere, as if the town was determined to carry on as usual. They wouldn’t let something like a storm get in the way of their everyday lives.

  Al and I watched all of this as Da steered the hovercart down Main Street. He called out to a few men he knew and they answered him with gruff replies, or waved as they concentrated on their tasks. Da parked in a sandy lot behind the abandoned Post Office and gave us a handful of coins each, plus a list. He had the bigger list, detailing the heavier goods he would pick up at the Storehouse. Our list consisted of the no-less-important smaller items we could get from Mrs Adams’ store. Da always sent us there, so that we would have a vital task of our own to perform, he said. But Al and I knew it was also because Da couldn’t stand gossipy Mrs Adams holding court in her fancy goods emporium. I was surprised though, because that day he said, ‘Be sure to invite the Adamses to our barbecue. Don’t you forget, Lora.’

  We watched our Da lope off towards the Storehouse where he’d be meeting up with other farmers and men from town and they’d spend the remainder of the afternoon discussing the storm. They’d be jawing about the impact of the disaster and drinking the homebrew. Then they’d be congratulating each other on getting through the worst of another stormy season.

  But more had been blowing through town than hot wind and sand.

  There were rumours. Tales of something terrible. Everyone was talking about it, as Al and I found out in the cool interior of Mrs Adams’ store. There were hushed voices and a kind of electric nervousness in the air. Al and I joined the huddled group of ladies and we eavesdropped.

  I breathed in the hundred spicy scents of Adams’ Exotic Emporium. I examined beautifully arranged displays of dainty soaps and candles and dried flowers. Everything was scented with lemon verbena, cinnamon and white musk. I gazed at ribboned boxes of jellied fruits and sugar biscuits and all kinds of unguents in jars for prettifying and pampering yourself. All these things were lavishly displayed, even though none of the townsfolk could afford them.

  We went to Mrs Adams’ place to spend money on things such as flour and sugar, powdered milk and eggs. All them costly frou-frou things from the Earthly past were left to rot luxuriously on the shelves and in cabinets. Really, Ma would say, whoever had need of talcum powder from Paris?

  Tittle-tattle would tell you they were all thieved goods anyhow. The Adamses were profiteers from other folks’ misfortunes and everything in the Exotic Emporium had been filched from a shipwreck out in the desert.

  It was true that once upon a time it was thought a good idea to transport luxury items from Earth to Mars. This was back when they were expecting the rich to come here in great numbers and to find this a world full of hope. That seems like a fairytale now – to think that they sent their expensive goods ahead of themselves, as if pampering was the most important thing those Earthlings could imagine.

  As we stood among those clucking women, Al was twisting and pulling faces. We were so crushed between the starched pinnies and the wooden baskets we couldn’t even see Mrs Adams behind her glass counter. We knew, though, that she was weighing out goods on her silver scales and talking all animatedly.

  We caught the odd phrase echoed by the ladies around us. We heard the word ‘Disappearances’ several times and this made our ears prick up. I heard ‘just a baby’ and ‘one of her lovely twins’ and then a kind of ghoulish excitement rippled through the shop. A shrill voice piped up: ‘Like she foolishly left a window open … and during a storm! What did she expect to happen to her precious babies? Of course o
ne of them went flying out the window…’

  ‘Or it was snatched,’ snapped another, croakier voice. ‘Snatched from clear under her nose. Just like it used to happen before. They could always get at you and yours, no matter how secure you thought your Homestead was. Even when you were under lock and key and all your hatches were battened down they could still get at you!’

  This particular raspy voice rose above the others and I recognised it almost at once. It belonged to Grandma’s only friend, Ruby. Ruby was an engineer and a legend in Our Town. She was also Grandma’s only surviving contemporary. She had more memory and knowledge than anyone still alive on Mars. She was revered and respected and it was surprising for us to even find her here, wasting her time gossiping with all these old dames. If Ruby was here then it must be important, she was no idle chatterer.

  ‘Tell us, Ruby, tell us,’ urged Mrs Adams.

  ‘What’s to tell?’ said Ruby, smoothing down her tangled white hair. She glowered at everyone in turn. ‘It’s the Disappearances. Seems like they’ve started up once again.’

  A horrible pause followed this pronouncement, as everyone struggled to take in what she meant. It was something we’d heard the older people saying. The Disappearances. The very word made the colour drain out of the ladies’ faces.

  Then Mrs Adams saw Al and me standing there with our wooden baskets and our list and our handfuls of coins. She decided we ought to be protected from all this gloomy adult talk, so she brightened her voice. ‘Why, it’s the Robinson children. Thank the Lord that you’re safe, my dears. I take it you all came through the storm in one piece and that your family is well?’

  I nodded firmly and the ladies sighed with relief. They knew that we faced the brunt of the storm on the prairie. Here in town they’d have been hunkered in their shelters underground. I admit that Al and I basked in their admiration as we went up to the counter with our empty baskets.

  I gave Mrs Adams our list and watched her frowning at Ma’s handwriting and then set about filling our order. I felt Al’s hand reach out to take mine and I knew straight away how he felt about what we’d heard.

  Da had heard similar things from the men. In the great wooden Storehouse, where they traded and loaded up their wagons with heavy sacks of grain and barrels of oil, the men gossiped just as much as the ladies did. They just swore and spat more, is all. He always said that we weren’t the same as town folk. We lived on the Martian prairie and we were made of tougher stuff. Yes, we traded with them and we were still related to them, and all of us sure depended on one another for survival, but Da insisted that we were crucially different. They were used to their huddling together with their softer, sheltered living and their fancier things. They had time on their hands and idle tongues to match.

  That day, though, it seemed that the gossip reached out and snared Da’s attention too.

  ‘Old Man Horace. He’s gone,’ Da told us tersely, as we loaded the hovercart with new provisions. Da didn’t believe in sugar-coating the truth, even for kids. He thought it was best we knew the worst from the very start.

  Old Man Horace had been the town vagrant. Going back way before I was born, he had been racketing about the town. He may have been a filthy tramp, but he belonged to us, and every single Homestead had taken him in at Christmas time or Martian Thanksgiving. I could remember the Christmas I was eight and he came out to stay in the Homestead with us; he’d carved wooden animals for Al and me.

  Now, according to the men in the Storehouse today, after the storm came rampaging through town, and left the whole place smothered in dust and all topsy-turvy, there was not a single sign of Old Man Horace. No one could remember who had volunteered to give him shelter. It was assumed that the storm had simply borne him away like an old rag swept out of the road.

  ‘They’re taking it to be an omen,’ Da told us, as we strapped the last of the sacks into the hovercart. ‘Damn fools. They’re talking like that dirty old guy was our mascot or something.’

  Al looked as if he was longing to tell him about the baby that flew out of the window. But I jabbed my brother with my bony elbow. I didn’t want him troubling Da right now. This was unsubstantiated tittle-tattle and Da surely wasn’t in the mood for it. I distracted them both by asking about our replacements for Molly and George.

  ‘They’ll be ready in two weeks,’ said Da. ‘They’re still too young to leave their mother. They’re having chips implanted too. But before the month’s out we’ll be able to take them home with us.’

  I wished I’d gone to the livestock pens with him, just so I could have seen the young burden beasts.

  On the way home Da chatted brightly about the feast that we’d be having the following evening. He’d invited everyone he’d seen and now word would go round the whole town. Everyone was welcome at the Homestead barbecue. We could celebrate the fact we were all still alive and the summer storm was, hopefully, at an end.

  And nothing more was said for the rest of the day about Disappearances.

  4

  Molly and George turned out to be delicious. Ma cooked them up right. Great hunks of meat marinated in sauces all the afternoon before our party. I helped hoist them out onto the makeshift cooking range outdoors, but most of the work was Ma’s. She was brilliant at this stuff. Obviously it was easier when supplies were more plentiful, but Da always said that Ma excelled at any time – feast or famine. She could keep us going on the most meagre rations.

  The aromas swirled and drifted all the way into town, enticing folk out of their boltholes, attracting many more than we knew we’d have to feed. Their carriages and hovercarts came pulling up in our yard and some of these faces we didn’t even recognise. They were cousins and friends of townsfolk. All were welcome, Da announced.

  Some folk brought kegs of foul-tasting homebrew. Noxious drink was passed around in plaggy beakers and as the sun went down, fizzing golden into the dunes, the party was getting rowdy. With the landscape so changed about, I wondered whether everyone would find their way home after darkness fell.

  Grandma enlisted help from Al and Da to drag her heavy old armchair into the yard and there she sat, looking like the queen of our world. She wore a silver frock that she must have unearthed from the very bottom of her trunk. It shone glamorously in the moonlight and she was very proud of herself. She watched the revels going on with a strange expression on her face. I guess it was the kind of face you’d wear if you’d seen everything and done everything the world had to offer and now you were watching all the young people doing it all again.

  There was music. Old discs that had been handed down from the first settlers. Later, when everyone was tired of those ghostly, over-complicated songs from Earth, we made our own music. Da fetched out his guitar and someone beat time on the empty kegs. Mr Adams played a shrill penny whistle and there were jigs and reels. I hung back when the dancing started, keeping a watchful eye on the proceedings. The grown-ups were drunk and enjoying themselves, but there was no way I was making a fool of myself.

  The only dancing I’d ever done was away from anyone watching, with Hannah, when she was a baby, moving softly round as I held her in my arms and tried to get her to sleep. In all of the raucous music that memory came back to me and it caught my breath sharply. I looked for Hannah and saw her in the dress she’d had for her birthday. Ma had cleaned and pressed it and Hannah looked a peach. She was clapping and trying to join in, though she was too small for most people to notice. I kept a careful eye out in case my sister strayed too close to those stamping feet.

  One cracked voice cut across everyone else and started to sing an old song. It was a story song: about the voyages that the settlers had made from Earth to come here. It was a song no one had heard in a long time.

  By now it was properly dark. The stars were out, but we all felt safe because we were together. The whole town was here. We listened in respectful silence as Grandma rocked back and forth in her armchair. Her voice was like old creaking water pipes or ungreased engine parts
. It told a tale come from the distant past and it was our duty to harken to it. Paying our respects to the sacrifices of those who had gone before us.

  Her song went on forever, it seemed like. It was truly horrible. Even worse than the last time she’d inflicted it upon us. In the end, Toaster stepped forward to pat her on the shoulder and whisper in her ear. Her dirge-like singing faded out and she submitted to his hydraulic embrace, allowing herself to be manhandled indoors to her bed. It was too late for old ladies to be squawking at the tops of their voices in the cooling desert air.

  The music and the party were over, and everyone became conscious of being out of doors in the dark. All of a sudden it was time to leave. In all the milling about – that was when the gossip started. People were tired and jumpy and whispers were going around – insidious and shivery – spoiling the party mood. People were talking about the Disappearances. It was as if our light and warmth and noise couldn’t keep the dark thoughts at bay forever. The shadows were creeping in to claim us.

  Clearing stuff away, Ma caught those whispers and went straight up to Da. She was shaking with anger and fear. ‘You never told me about this. You never said what you’d heard in town.’

  He froze. He was aware others had stopped to listen. They had caught the tension in Ma’s voice. ‘It’s only a rumour,’ he told her. ‘Old Man Horace just wandered off, probably. He was a drunk old man, weak in the head after years of being ill. It’s sad, but one day they’ll find his body in a dune out of town.’

  ‘And the Simcox child?’ Ma asked. Her voice was getting shrill and others were murmuring. The Simcox family were absent from our shindig that evening, most unlike them. It added credence to the rumour they had lost one of their babies. It had flown right out of its cot and through its nursery window into the eye of the descending storm.

  ‘So you don’t believe it?’ Ma asked Da. ‘You don’t believe that it’s happening again?’