One Way

8

[Press release from Xenosystems Operations to coincide with the second anniversary of the Mars Base contract, embargoed until 2/5/2037]

“We’re not ready,” said Frank.

“You don’t have a say.” Brack slapped his hands on the table. “Time’s up, Kittridge.”

It was just Frank and Brack, in a room, sitting opposite each other.

“Give me some credit for knowing how ready we are. We know a few things well. We know other things less well. Some things we know jack about. We’re undertrained. You can send us like that: you’re right, we don’t have much choice. But we know how good we are, and your,” Frank circled his finger towards the ceiling, “controllers have to know that too.”

“They don’t give a shit what you think. Your past six months has been so closely watched they know how much wind you’ve passed. If they think you bunch of fuck-ups are ready, then you salute the company flag and shout ‘yessir’ until your lungs bleed.”

Frank ran his tongue over his teeth and grimaced. “Like I said, none of us can stop this. We were yours—Panopticon’s, XO’s—from the moment we knew where we were headed. Doesn’t stop us from having an opinion.”

Brack leaned back so far in his seat that Frank thought he might fall out of it backwards. He was staring up at the ceiling, where the lights and the cameras and the microphones were. “You know, Kittridge. I don’t like any of you. You’re a mix of killers and perverts and the just-too-stupid-not-to-get-caught. No one is going to miss you here on Earth. That’s why you were chosen. You’re the things we forgot we had.”

“I get that.”

“Now, here’s the deal. You get to Mars. You know what you got to do, because you know if you don’t, you won’t survive longer than five minutes. But XO are getting edgy over whether you can keep it together up there: that the only reason you’re working together down here is because you want to avoid the Hole. You want to stay out the Hole, Kittridge?”

“I’m not a fan,” said Frank.

“Once you’re on Mars, there’s no Hole. No discipline. No one to keep you in line. You’ll fall apart, and with it, the project. You know how much Uncle Sam is ponying up for this?”

“I read about it somewhere.”

“Trillions. All that money’s been spent getting us to this point. And you, and your fine fellows, are now the only people standing between Mars Base One and an expensive failure. Which is why I’m going with you.”

After a while, he looked across the curve of his chest.

“You took that calmly enough.”

“I was expecting it. I can, after all, count as far as eight. So I’m guessing this decision was made a while back, and you’re not telling me anything I don’t know.”

“And perhaps, you’re just saying that.” Brack shifted his legs and swung back towards the table. “I’m going to level with you here, man to man. I’m going to be one lawgiver in a town of outlaws. That’s a tough beat to walk. Now, there’s you. Out of all of you, you’re the one I trust most. That’s not saying much, but there you are. And if this sheriff is going to keep order, he’s going to need a deputy.”

Frank steepled his fingers. “You treat me like something you trod in for months, and suddenly I’m good enough to be your right-hand man? That’s such a quick turnabout, I’m getting whiplash.”

“I’m not saying you got to dress up and act like some trusty. You’ll still be a lifer, still be one of them. But I got to sleep sometime, Kittridge. I need someone to watch my back, tell me of any loose talk. I need you to help keep me alive. Just in case.”

Brack stared at Frank, who stared coolly back. “You want me to be a snitch.”

“We can make it worth your while.”

“The last time someone made me an offer, I got sent to Mars. So this had better be good.”

“You know what’s supposed to happen. You go, you build a base, you stay until you finish your sentence, which is sometime in the twenty-second century, right?” Brack smirked at him, and how Frank hated that. And now he knew he was going to see it every day, just when he could have been rid of it for ever.

He wasn’t going to show how much he loathed the man. How much time he spent imagining ways in which he’d die. “You were talking about how you were going to make it worth my while.”

“I’m going with you. But you’ve got to understand that I’m not staying, because I’m not like you. I got me a ticket home. Not straight away. But when we’re done. You understand?”

Frank nodded slowly. “I get that.”

“So XO have hired me to keep you all in line. They want to know their investment is secure. When we’ve hosted that first NASA mission, and it’s gone well, it’ll be safe for me to hand over to someone else. I’ll take up their seat on the ship back to Earth, because for me this isn’t a sentence, it’s a job. You could be coming back with me.”

Frank scratched at his chin. Time seemed to be moving very slowly. He could hear the rasp of his fingertips on his stubble over the wash of the air con. “And what’s going to be waiting for me when I step out of the lander?”

“An open door. There’ll be some restrictions on your movement. You’ll be tagged. But you’ll be free.” Brack smiled at him. “Look at you. You didn’t expect this, did you? I love this bit, watching your little brain turn somersaults, trying to process it all.”

“And the only thing I have to do is make sure that you stay alive?”

“Wouldn’t be much point in it otherwise. You scratch my back, XO will scratch yours. Leave the other deadbeats up there and come home. How does that sound, Kittridge? Hell, we’ve got all your psych scores: we know you’re going to say yes.”

“The others aren’t going to be happy with the arrangement. They’re going to be pissed. Really pissed.”

“They’re never going to know. And if they find out, the deal is off. Finito. Finished. Total secrecy is the only way this goes down.”

“And,” asked Frank, “what happens when you and me get to skip off into the sunset together? They’ll probably realize something’s going down at that point.”

“Leave them to me. I just need you to tell me I have your co-operation.” Brack leaned across the table. “You want to go home, right? Everybody does. Fuck that shit about being pioneers and colonists and stuff. That’s for the hardcore nerds. You and me, we want to do a job, finish it up and go home. Kick back in the La-Z-Boy. Have a beer or two. Watch the game. Without the air outside trying to kill us.”

And to be free. Free to find his son again. It was a hell of a long way round to go. Prison. Mars. Back.

So what about the others? What about their hopes and fears for the future? Leave them to me, Brack had said. Just how was he going to handle that? Did Frank care, if the prize at the end of it all was worth it? Oh, that was cold. But it wasn’t like he hadn’t had to make that kind of calculation before and live with the consequences.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Hell, boy. You can ask. Doesn’t mean I’ll give you an answer worth jack.”

Frank leaned over the tabletop on his forearms. “What are they saying about us, outside?”

“You think you’re all some kind of big damn heroes because you’re going to Mars? Let me disabuse you of that straight away. To the outside, you’re just Prisoners A through G.”

“They don’t even know our names?”

“XO didn’t want all your victims’ relatives kicking up a stink. It’s got public relations disaster written all over it.” Brack waved his hand at Frank. “Like you fuck-ups actually matter.”

Nothing was going the way Frank had planned it. He’d assumed—he’d hoped—that his son would be proud of him just for going to Mars. That wasn’t going to happen now, until XO dropped the embargo on their names, or ever. What should he do now? What else could he do, but agree to this last chance of creating something good out of the void that was his existence?

“OK,” said Frank. “I’ll do it.”

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“I’ll have to keep up appearances. Make sure that everyone thinks I still hate your guts.”

Brack gave his silly little grin. “You’ll put on a good show, Kittridge. But you’ll remember, won’t you?”

“I’ll remember,” said Frank, and wondered if Brack knew that sometimes words had two different, opposite meanings.

“Go and get your things. Transport leaves in half an hour.”

Frank went back to his room. It was bigger than his old cell, and technically en suite, which meant there was a door between the bathroom and the bed. It had never felt different, though. He knew he’d swapped one cage for another, and had simply shifted his brown cardboard box between prisons.

Sure, he was leaner, fitter, more purposeful. He didn’t resent any of that. He had a use, rather than just rotting away out of sight. That was good. But it was all he’d thought he’d ever have. Now… he rested his forehead against the cool of the wall.

Totally unexpected. Yes, he’d always known they’d send a supervisor with them, but Brack? Goddammit. Did they deserve that? Not that they weren’t terrible people: they were. But despite everything, despite their natural instincts to go to the extremes, or blame others for mistakes they’d made, or a lack of any kind of internal warning voice, they’d sort of made up a team. They were all qualified to be there, and as long as they all did their jobs and as long as they didn’t deliberately push each other’s buttons, they got on well enough. The base would be large enough when it was finished that they could have their own space. Bumping along like that was no different from being on a cell-block landing.

Whether they could do it indefinitely was another matter, but there were going to be people coming and going, and the base was supposed to expand as time went on. They’d be diluted, and eventually become just the crew—which wasn’t too bad, all things considered.

He’d prepared himself for all of that. Prepared himself for being a remote role model, an example of how a man could do something awful, and turn himself around. Now the twin revelations that no one outside knew his name, and that this might not be the end after all meant…

The son he knew he had and thought of all the time wouldn’t have to spend all his days wondering what had become of his father. They could sit out in the yard together and watch that small red dot appear over the horizon, and maybe the grandkids would want to hear of the time Gramps went to Mars. He just had to stay strong, and survive, and make sure nothing happened to Brack. A year traveling. A year or two or three working. A year on the way back. That wasn’t such a bad exchange for something passing for freedom.

He lifted the lid of the box and went through all the things he knew were there. His few books. His few letters from his ex-wife. He sat on the edge of his bed and read through all the letters he could, starting at the beginning, when there was consternation and confusion, and working his way through, watching it slowly drain away, until there was nothing but cool, defensive detachment.

She’d divorced him. Of course she had. He’d told her unequivocally that she should, and she’d agreed faster than he thought she might. But he’d betrayed her, by not telling her what he’d been planning. And if he’d loved her more, he might not have done it.

Rereading the letters gave him comfort, though. He had been loved. He had had the capacity to love. He might even love again, at some point. He had known once upon a time how to do that and what it had felt like.

“Report to Building Two. Acknowledge.”

“Acknowledged.” It might be the last time he heard that voice in his ear. “It’s been real.”

He picked up his box and headed down towards Building Two, where there was a line of minivans waiting. The evening air was cool, and coming off the desert, so it tasted of salt.

The others were there, congregating at the steps up into the medical center, each of them was holding a California Department of Corrections cardboard box. Marcy’s was tied up with string. There were also suits, but they were waiting on the other side of the road. Apart from their earpieces, the cons were alone.

Zeus, sitting on the steps of the Blood Bank, moved across to give Frank some room. “Good?”

“Good enough.”

“I have a bad feeling about this.” Zeus’s thick fingers dug into the board of his box, perched across his knees. “This is too quick.”

“I’ve registered my objections already. It made no difference. We just have to suck it up, big man.” The wind tugged at Frank’s ankles. “We’re on our way. We’ve been on our way since we left the pen, but someone, somewhere, had one of those big clocks and it’s counted down.”

“That’s always bugged me. The countdown business. If everything’s ready, why not just press a button and launch?”

“I guess it’s more complicated than that,” said Frank. “You wouldn’t turn on a pump until it had liquid inside it, so people have to know the order in which to do stuff.”

“I suppose so. If there was someone we could have asked, that would have been cool, you know? It’s like we’re being kept in the dark on purpose.” Zeus glanced behind him at Building Two. “Do you know how they’re going to do this?”

“We get in the cars and they take us to wherever, where they do whatever it is they do to us. Then we wake up on Mars.” Frank saw he had an audience. “That’s what they’re going to do.”

Alice jerked her head at one of the vans. “Go and take a look in the back.”

“Which one?”

“Any one.”

Frank put his box down and walked slowly over. He shielded his eyes against the reflections around him and peered in through the tinted side windows. He frowned, and hunkered down for another, better look.

Inside was like the back of an ambulance. There were machines and straps and wires and tanks, and things he couldn’t even recognize.

“They’re going to put us under here,” she called. “We won’t even get to see the rocket. We’re the cargo. We’re not important.”

Frank realized that he should have expected this. That every time his jailers had the opportunity to behave like decent human beings, they disappointed him. They were determined to let him down at every turn. All he’d wanted to do was step up to the rocket like a regular astronaut, so that he felt as if he was actually going on a journey. Brack had said “transport”, but they were just going to freight them all as frozen corpses. It would explain why they were waiting outside the Blood Bank.

“Well,” he said. “Goddamn.” He walked back to the steps, picked up his box again and cradled it against his chest.

The door to Building Two swung open, and the suits shifted their stances, in exactly the same way that prison guards did when they thought something was about to kick off. Rather than a message over the earpiece, it was one of the medics, holding a tablet, calling them inside.

Frank looked around at the others. Did any of them seem more agitated than usual? Were they going to make a futile run for it? There was nowhere to go, and no one going to help them. Demetrius was almost shaking with fear, and Marcy put her hand between his shoulders. She whispered something to him, and the boy nodded hesitantly.

“We’re not quitters,” said Zeus. He got to his feet and started up the steps. “We might be a lot of things, but not that.”

Then he started to sing.

“Oh mourner, let’s go down, let’s go down, let’s go down. Oh mourner, let’s go down, down in the valley to pray.”

“No singing,” said his ear.

Not this time. Frank couldn’t sing. Couldn’t so much as hold a note from one word to the next. He’d never really tried out of childhood. But damned if he wasn’t going to try now. The words weren’t familiar to him. He was more West Coast than he was gospel, and maybe he’d heard the tune once before, with different lyrics.

“Go on, Zeus. Sing it for us.”

Zeus glanced behind him, and gained strength from what he saw. “As I went down in the valley to pray, studying about that good old way.” His voice was high and clear and clean. For a big man, he sounded more like a choirboy. “When you shall wear the starry crown, good Lord, show me the way.”

The medic wordlessly stood aside for the line of them, Zeus in front, Marcy propelling Demetrius ahead of her at the rear. When it came to the chorus, Frank joined in, hesitantly and very inexpertly.

“Oh sinner, let’s go down, let’s go down, let’s go down. Oh sinner, let’s go down, down in the valley and pray.”

“No singing,” said his ear again. Presumably in Zeus’s too, but he wasn’t going to be put off either. Not this time.

“I think I hear the sinner say, come, let’s go in the valley to pray. You shall wear the starry crown, good Lord, show me the way.”

They were walking down the corridor, down to the very far end, where Frank had never gone before.

“Oh mourner, let’s go down, let’s go down, let’s go down. Oh mourner, let’s go down, down in the valley and pray.” Was it everyone now? It was difficult to tell without stopping to check. It sounded like most of them. Perhaps not Alice, but then again, why not? If an ex-white supremacist could sing a spiritual, then there was no good reason for a doctor guilty of murdering her patients not to do so.

It was an act of defiance, for certain. There was nothing that their jailers could do to them. Not now. It was also an act of contrition. Zeus was singing the songs of the people he’d tattooed his hate for across his body.

The double doors at the far end of the corridor opened up, revealing a bright, white space beyond, and Zeus strode into it, carrying the rest of them along in his wake.

Seven tables. Seven coffins. Screens between them. Two medics in each bay.

Zeus’s voice faltered, just for a beat, before he resumed. “I think I hear the mourner say, come, let’s go in the valley to pray. You shall wear the starry crown, good Lord, show me the way.”

One of each pair of medics came forward to claim their victim, and led them to their separate areas, where it was just them, the three of them together.

“Get undressed,” Frank was told, and he got undressed, like he had done a hundred times. He put his box on the floor in front of his white, plastic coffin, and purposefully took his clothes off, trying to record for posterity what it felt like.

“Oh sinner, let’s go down, let’s go down, let’s go down.”

The roughness of the fabric, the weight of it as it fell away. The cold, antiseptic air giving him gooseflesh. This might be the last thing he ever remembered. The slickness of the rubberized floor. The strange envelope of the stretchy one-piece he had to put on, that went right over his head and left only his face exposed.

“Oh sinner, let’s go down, down in the valley and pray.”

Rockets blew up sometimes. Even those carrying people. And if they were going to Mars, sometimes they didn’t get there. Or if they did, they plowed into the ground and left a new crater.

“I think I hear the sinner say, come, let’s go in the valley to pray.”

He used the steps to climb up into the coffin. It was even colder inside. Water-cooled cold. There were pipes going in and out of the shell.

“You shall wear the starry crown, good Lord, show me the way.”

He laid himself down. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. They were going to be in the same position for a year, so he ought to be told whether to put them by his sides, or cross them at his waist, or fold them against his chest.

“Oh mourner, let’s go down, let’s go down, let’s go down.”

His teeth were starting to chatter. He was utterly at their mercy, and he always had been. He might not be going to Mars at all. He could wake up anywhere. He might not wake up at all, and be used for spare parts. That was stupid. Why all the training, otherwise?

“Oh mourner, let’s go down, down in the valley and pray.”

One by one, their voices were being stopped up. He couldn’t see what was being done to them, but his own team of medics was holding out a mask over his face. He could hear the hiss of gas, and caught a whiff of magic marker pens.

“I think I hear the mourner say, Come, let’s go in the valley to pray.”

The mask came down, and he needed to breathe the gas in, and didn’t want to breathe it in at the same time. Keep singing. Keep singing. He was the only one left.

“You shall wear the starry crown, good Lord, show me the way.”