UnEarthly

UnEarthly

Rebecca Bloomer

Copyright 2012 Rebecca Bloomer

Smashwords Edition

Discover other Smashwords titles by Rebecca Bloomer

Table Of Contents

Red Sky At Morning

Red Carpet

Red Rover Cross Over

Red Under The Bed

Red Face Black Heart

Red Cents

Red Rag To A Bull

Roses Are Red

Red Tape

Seeing Red

Paint The Town Red

Red Letter Day

Red Riding Hood

Red Sky At Night

The End

The Bit After The End

Other Books By Rebecca Bloomer

Red Sky At Morning

Jodi wanted, so badly, to kick Astrid’s ass. There was a point at which outward calm became straight-out obnoxious and Astrid passed that point about thirty seconds ago. How can you be so calm? You know we’re dead meat now, right?

Astrid snorted. Unlikely. Who’s going to kill us? Him? I think not.

Your mum just told him he wasn’t the best choice to meet the noobs because he didn’t have an impressive enough profile. Like we do! What do we do except bumble around playing Martian? You think a scientist like Dr DeGroot won’t take offense to that? Him and every other well qualified person on the planet. I can’t believe she did that in public. I can’t believe you knew she was going to do it and you didn’t warn me. Mars is too small of a place to be a pariah. I’m unprepared! She paced behind Astrid while she ranted.

Astrid shrugged and kept about the business of running soil through her fingers. I think he’s a toothless tiger. Even if he’s upset, what is he going to do? He’s passed his use-by date and he knows it. Truth is, I think he was relieved not to have to meet the noobs because he’d have to think of something to say to them, and let’s face it, a fossil of his type would struggle to find common ground with the noobs.

Jodi sighed. ‘Fossil’ is a bit cruel and this is just the type of attitude that will see me cast out and left to die on the surface. People think of us as a unit, you know. We’re tarred with the same brush even when I don’t agree with you…or your mother. A little consideration wouldn’t go astray. Besides, I think one of the noobs is working with him so they definitely have stuff to discuss. Gods, is it too late to colonise another planet?

Overreacting much?

Jodi rolled her eyes. Your mum basically denounced him in the feeds when she announced we would be the new Migration Liaisons, she gulped, "before she told him. That was a bit of a slap in the face. Really rude, actually. It’s like hearing through the grapevine that you’ve broken up with your boyfriend before he bothers to tell you. Even you know that’s not right."

Full lips thinned. True, there were better ways to do it, but you know my father is the diplomat, not my mother.

Now she’s fed us to the lions.

Astrid smiled. Noobs are not lions and you’ve no reason to be afraid of meeting them.

Jodi opened her mouth to protest but without even looking, Astrid cut her off with a raised hand. Please don’t protest. We both know you dislike meeting new people. It’s understandable, yet also antisocial, which might be why we got the job. It’s probably some kind of bizarre therapy Mother dreamed up for you. Besides, you can’t hide out behind my dazzling aura forever, you know that don’t you?

An ass-kicking was looking better and better. Not just because it would make her feel good, but also because the way she was positioned on the ground —head down, ass up—Astrid presented a great target, and some things just had to be done. Jodi smiled at the thought.

Don’t even think about it. Black-lashed, hazel eyes looked back over a nano-suited shoulder. Astrid Forbes, unofficial queen of Anphobos, knelt in the red soil of Mars where all the ruddy footpaths criss-crossed the first Anphobosite habitation and garden domes. She pressed her palms into the dust, closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

Now, if you just press your forehead to the ground, you’ll be at prayer. Beg for some humility while you’re there. Jodi didn’t like that snarky was her instinctive reaction to weirdness, but all her nails were chewed up and the inside of her lip couldn’t take any more, snarky was the next best bet. Doesn’t this place feel a bit claustrophobic to you?

Truth be told it was claustrophobic and unnerving. What began as the first civilization on Mars now housed resting places for the dead. Tombstones and memorials lay scattered in amongst the trees, the gardens and the few remaining habitation shacks. What hadn't been salvaged and reused, was old and decrepit. The whole place reminded her of ancient Earthen relics, where jungles now claimed the things humans once considered conquered. The idea of the same thing happening on Mars, gave her a serious case of the heebie-jeebies.

Astrid didn’t look at the biodome around them, but her eyelids flickered. Doesn’t it strike you as amazing, Scar? Recently, Astrid had begun calling her by her old, online handle.

What, that you insist on calling me a name that gives me the jitters? Yes frankly, I’m amazed. I thought you were my friend.

Astrid smiled without showing her teeth. Eyes still closed, she drew a deep breath. I am your friend. That’s why I’m surprised this doesn’t fascinate you. People lived here, Scar. Really lived. Every day they felt the dome around them, saw the surface just outside. They actually walked on Martian soil and were buried in it. For all we carry on about being Martian, everything in Anphobos is modified; none of it is honestly Mars. It’s all us, planted on top of Mars. We’ve stamped ourselves on top of it and shaped it to suit us. If there were native Martians, they wouldn’t recognize Anphobos as part of their world.

Jodi tapped her foot. Yeah, well I quite like mod-cons. Mars is just a tad bit intense, y’know? Not at all like its inhabitants or anything. She rolled her eyes and waited. All the Anphobosites she’d met lately had a thing for wonderment and awe. Worse still, they had the vocabulary to support their attitudes. Despite generally being scientists or other such specialists, Anphobosites were great big techno-hippies minus the flowers. Scratch the surface of any hardcore brainiac Mars-dweller, and there was a peace-loving, mung-bean eating, treehugging do-gooder, just dying to understand the mysteries of the universe. That’s why they were all sitting on Mars. Well, that or an obscene love for sanitized spaces.

Astrid stood and dusted her hands on her unkicked butt. Jodi figured the skin-tight nanotech suit would probably eat any surface grime, so she didn’t offer to flick soil off her friend’s backside. Besides, a little dirt wouldn’t hurt Astrid’s veneer.

Okay Scar, let’s go check out primitive accommodations.

They were supposed to be examining early housing in the first domes, in an effort to figure out what noobs — new arrivals on Anphobos — would find either disconcerting or reassuring about their Anphobosite lodgings. Like they couldn’t have done that from inside their own dome.

Jodi was pretty sure Astrid had arranged this field trip just so she, Jodi Scarfield, complete interplanetary agnostic, might learn some Martian pride. Sure, she may have been instrumental in the Martian trade revolution, but that was a matter of principle. Personally, she had no particular attachment to her adopted planet. Astrid knew that and it was a constant source of irritation to her uber-Martian nature.

You know this isn’t really history, right? she checked with Astrid as they walked.

It’s our history. If we want to build a great future, we should always be referencing the past.

That’s a very ‘Jules’ statement. Jules, her attempted murderer, had once explained to Jodi the need Anphobosites had to name things after ancient gods and mythological creatures.

According to him, the further people moved from their roots, the tighter they clung to those early beginnings. So, as people shot into space they named their ships, their satellites and their settlements after ancient myths and legends.

As an explanation, it made sense at the time. Then again, everything Jules said had made sense at the time. From what she could gather, making nutso statements seem sensible was what talented psychopaths did. The fact that nothing Jules said had been true meant, even now, Jodi had some serious trust issues.

He wasn’t wrong about everything, you know, Astrid scanned the horizon rather than meeting her eyes. Eighteen months after ‘the incident’, she was the only person who would even talk about Jules with Jodi. Everyone else liked to pretend it had never happened. He thought keeping these domes alive was important. They’re massively important to the oxygen supply, now. We siphon air back and forth between here and the main dome. It was his idea. Otherwise, they might just have closed off the domes, recycled the materials for something else, and we’d be minus some lungs as well as our history.

So he was right about everything until he went rogue and tried to kill me. Jodi nearly choked on the snark in her voice. She heard it and she knew it was poor form; she just couldn’t seem to stop it.

Nobody’s right about everything, Scar. He just wasn’t wrong about everything.

Jodi punched her in the arm. "If you don’t stop calling me that, I swear I’ll go rogue and kill you."

Astrid didn’t rub her shoulder. She barely even blinked. Instead she turned her head and blew a small kiss in Jodi’s direction. It’ll take more than a love tap to kill me Scar, so you’d better keep training. She turned her back on Jodi, to eye off their destination.

The buildings, the original Anphobosite lodges, were basically shacks. Little boxes with windows and doors that made them look like familiar Earthen shanties. These ones, however, were built entirely of solar collecting fabrics. The buildings were their own generators. Transformers and storage cells stood at the end of the row of houses.

Jodi wrinkled her nose, First thing’s first, our bubble shaped houses are way better looking.

Astrid arched an eyebrow, And easier to manufacture using our new solar polymers.

Jodi shrugged, Whatever. When I got here, I just liked that they felt like ‘space’. Like I’d lived through that godawful trip to arrive somewhere that was actually kinda cool. I was really excited by our house and my room. We shouldn’t change that. No word of a lie: The bubble-shaped houses, with their talking rooms and programmable lifestyle, had kicked Jodi’s angst about moving house straight out of sight. Her anger at her father for moving them had been replaced by the thrill of controlling her new world, and the relaxed attitude Anphobosites had about school hadn’t hurt. Of course then everything went to hell, but what could you expect from a planet named Mars? Hades and Mars did like to stick together and visit mayhem on the humans…and mayhem it had been.

Jodi sighed, Next point; we should never, ever, set the houses so close to the wall of the dome. What kind of a freaky view out the window is that?

Really? Astrid’s gaze took on that faraway look as she stared through the dome wall, past the wind turbines and into distant space. She had what some post-war doctors and fashion photographers, called a ‘thousand yard stare’. Unlike most supermodels, when Astrid wore that look it meant some serious processing was taking place in her uber-brain. I like the view. It’s kind of comforting. She grinned over at her friend, Then again, I’ve never known anything different.

Jodi snorted, Yeah well, all the noobs will be used to a different landscape, so you’d better get your head around the fact that most Eartheners find that surface out there, really, truly threatening. It may be crazy, but there’s something about the subzero temperatures, freaky windstorms and lack of oxygen. It just does our heads in.

As Jodi waved her hand toward the dome wall and the planet beyond, something flickered past the dome. She saw it flash in her peripheral vision and spun to look for it. Did you see that?

What?

They were both looking when it happened again. Holy Lacerta. What was that? Astrid was trying out new god names instead of cussing. As Jodi opened her mouth to snark, another tiny white thing flittered and splattered with an audible ‘thwup’ against the biosphere.

They walked in unison, mesmerised by the white thing stuck to the outside wall of the dome.

Jodi raised her hand and pressed a finger to the dome wall where the white thing stuck. It looks like…

Mucus, Astrid offered.

That’s your scientific assessment of its appearance? It’s space snot?

Snot monsters? Astrid’s eyes were serious but her mouth wobbled. That was the ironic thing about Astrid. Nobody knew about the funny, friendly, quirky side of her until they were already her friend and having fun. It had occurred to Jodi on more than one occasion that Astrid would have been a lot less intimidating if she let her fun-self out more often. Then again, being that there were a hundred and fifty odd kids actually living on Mars, with only fifty within their age group, there was hardly a popularity contest going on. Besides, Astrid didn’t really need to care what anyone thought of her. What she lacked in immediate likeability, she made up for with sheer impressiveness.

Snot monsters, Jodi didn’t bother hiding her idiot grin. There was just something about the word ‘snot’ coming from a super-brain that made her feel like a naughty kid. Seriously, there’s nothing out there, right? Nobody’s ever been out there except the rovers? There’s nothing… She faced Astrid so she could watch her friend’s expression when she spoke.

Astrid frowned, serious despite the snot. They’re mining under the next dome over, the new one, to make tunnels for services and stuff. But they’re underground and the machines are self-contained units. It might be some kind of mineral or something, kicked up by the miners.

Are you kidding? They’re goopy! It’s leaving a snail trail behind. Look at the surface, then look at that muck. Exactly what could they be mining to create something slimy? Jodi jumped up and down while she pointed and flailed her free hand. Sometimes when dealing with a super-calm personality type, it was necessary to emphasise a point, most often with mime and gesticulation.

Mmmn... Astrid curled her lip and continued to eye the space snot as it slowly slid down the dome wall. We should go back to the Obs Deck, check with someone who knows. Since mining had begun in earnest on Anphobos, a rotating staff of shift-workers manned the observation deck.

Thanking your gods, let’s go. She jogged behind Astrid, back to their rover transporter. Its sleek little body shone silver where it sat on the red soil, just past the series of doors and airlocks that separated the dome from the raging Martian atmosphere. Just so you know, I’m inordinately happy there’s something you don’t know about, even if it is space snot.

The rover transporters always made Jodi smile. They reminded her of Mini’s or VW beetles if you gave them chunky dune-buggy tyres and shiny, shiny paint jobs. She patted the roof of the transporter, frowned at her