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We’re at our breaking point, myself and Taylor—even the Captain sounds hang-dogged and defeated. “Just a little further,” he keeps saying into his mic, as if repeating the lie will somehow make it true, “We’re almost there. Feel that moisture in the air? That’s the Acidalia Canal and the next Oasis. Just stay sharp. Oh, and Taylor? Quit blowing debris into the fucking pools. Nothing pisses a settler off worse than arriving to a dirty pool.”
I laugh aloud at that, knowing Taylor is doing the same. As if. We haven’t seen a transport or a settler in weeks. Has immigration to the Formerly Red Planet slowed? We don’t know.
I look at the houses, so pristine and white, so uniform, their black windows glinting, resolving to ask the next settler I see (and to hell with the no-contact edict). But then something rustles amidst the stalks (so, too, is there a vibration in the air) and I move: having learned, since my arrival at Utopia Planitia, to never linger long in uncut grass; nor to dwell on what happened to the trimmers before me.
“And there she is,” comes the Captain again, “As promised. One Oasis with medical rocket, right next to the Acidalia Canal. What do you have to say now, Decker? Something cute, I imagine. Go right ahead.”
But the truth is, because of the whir of my light-trimmer’s blades, I am not even sure if I’ve heard him correctly, and so ask him to repeat it, which he does. Then I pause, looking over my shoulder at Taylor (who has caught up to me in spite of his exhaustion), and we just stand there, he with his blower and I with my trimmer, until he shakes his head, slowly, and I key my headset: “So is it the end of the sector, or what? Do you see a bridge?”
His answer is garbled, indecipherable—a favorite trick of the Captain’s when he doesn’t want to speak. At length we hear: “ ...responsible for your asses. I’m going to go in and check for—” And we lose him in a hail of static.
I look at Taylor, our eyes locked, our faces bathed in sweat. “Checking for gnomes, he says. Well? What do you think? Is he telling the truth?”
He looks at me for what seems a long time. “All I know is ... I’m done. I’m just ... done with all this. I’m sorry.”
It takes me a minute to process what he’s saying. “Jesus, Taylor. You don’t mean—”
“Done—if there’s a bridge,” he says, finally, even as it becomes clear to me he has already thought this out, already looked at it from every angle, committed to it completely. “Total forfeit of bonus, I know. But—I’m taking that medical rocket. I’m going home.”
At last I say, “You won’t have enough money to migrate, you know that. And they’ll never hire you again once you forfeit—you know that too?”
He shakes his head slowly. “It doesn’t matter. Besides, I wouldn’t be so sure. They’ve created a monster here—and they know it.” He scans the green horizon—balefully, it seems. “It’s never going to stop, you know. It’s just going to keep growing, faster and faster, until ...”
I slap him a little, wondering if he’s succumbing to the Daze. “Until what? Until what, Taylor?”
“Until they’ll even hire back a forfeiter,” he says, appearing to come out of it, and laughs.
I clasp his shoulder, give it a hearty shake. “There won’t be a bridge. After twenty sectors? No way. They’re greedy—not stupid.” I look to the houses still ahead of us and at the overgrown grass; at the flowerbeds chocked with red-weed and the walkways overrun with Bryum moss. “Either way, we’ve still got this sector to clear. Unless, of course, you want to forfeit everything?”
“No way, man,” he says, and seems to buck up.
And then we are moving, frustrating whatever gnomes have been moving in on us and triggering our nuclear-powered tools, our lips longing for water, our bellies grumbling, our hearts longing— knowing, praying, the Oasis is near.
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I cannot decide what is the more horrific sight: the steel bridge leading to the next (and 21st) sector—or Taylor’s face as he looks at it, which appears pale as the dead even though it has been deeply darkened by the sun. Worse, the Captain has yet to exit the rocket—which suggests he may have found something (i.e., the kind of trouble only gnomes can bring). So, too, is his bright red Big Trak still running (as if he saw something and had to leap off it quickly). At this point only one thing is certain—none of it bodes well for Taylor’s intended departure.
When at last the Captain emerges he is holding an apple in one hand and his knife in the other, shaking his head. “Yuh, it’s what I thought. They got the console. Startled ‘em real good, but, well, the damage was done.” He smiles cockeyed, polishing the apple on his shirt, then plops down in the hatchway and begins cutting the fruit. “It’s not all bad, though. I saved the provisions.”
I look at Taylor, who also appears skeptical. “They ruined the console but left the provisions? Why would they do that?” he asks.
“Like I said, I scared them off. As for the console, you know they like to strip the wires and use the copper,” He bends down suddenly and picks up one of their tiny spears, touches it near the tip. “See that? It’s remarkable, really. Holds the Folsom point just as snug as a virgin. What the hell are you getting at, anyway?”
“It just seems weird that—”
“What he’s ‘getting at’ is that he’s tired,” I say, “And that we got at least one more sector to clear before we can get out of here. So let’s bivouac and get going, before they discover our real ticket home—the rocket at the end of the quadrant. Yeah?”
Cap just shrugs, eating his apple. “You’ll get no argument from me.” But something is troubling him, because he keeps eyeing Taylor suspiciously as he cuts the fruit into wedges, looking the man up and down, taking the measure of him. After a while he says, “What I can’t figure is, why all this concern over a medical rocket?”
“Forget it,” I say. “Let’s just eat.”
“‘Forget it,’ he says. ‘Let’s just eat’ ... No, no, I think we should talk about it. See, if someone goes home—that’ll break up the crew. And that’s something I need to know about.” He pauses, the knife glinting in his hand. “How about it, Taylor? You sick? Thinking about going home?”
I glance at my friend—whose face has become red as Cap’s apple from heat and frustration.
“If I was, I wouldn’t need your perm—”
“Look, forget it,” I say, even as the Captain stands, slowly—dropping the apple—so that we are suddenly nose to nose. I add: “No one’s breaking up the crew. You’ll get your bonus, don’t worry. We all will.”
“Not if this crew fragments, I won’t,” he says, coldly, flatly—still holding the knife. “That’s the difference between you and me. The difference between all of us. Unless, of course, you think you’d be better—”
“Just forget it,” I say, stepping back, standing down. “No one’s questioning your authority. And no one’s going anywhere. Isn’t that right, Taylor?”
“Hmph,” says Taylor. “I’m not going to be told whether I’m sick or not by no white company’s white man—”
“—isn’t that right, Taylor? We got work to do.”
At length he relents. “Yeah, sure, that’s right.” He steps up to the hatch, which is being blocked by the Cap—then shrugs, splaying his hands. “Y’mind? Nigger’s got to eat.”
At last the Captain steps aside, mumbling, “Forget it. Sure, why not. Another whole sector. Fine. Take five. Take twenty. Whatever. I’m going to get started on the other side.”
And then he’s gone, firing up the Big Trak and rattling away, as we just look at each other, wondering if he’s getting the Daze, and wondering, too, just how the hell we’re going to make it—how we’re going to clear another entire sector—as the sun beats down and we head into the afternoon. As the white houses look on, their dark windows glinting, and the temperatures climb, soon to be soaring, and the freshly cut grass begins to regrow at our feet.
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I am pilfering a drink from the hose of one of the settlers’ homes (something we are expressly forbidden to do) when the yellowjacket attacks: its legs dangling insidiously and its wings vibrating dizzyingly so that I find myself snatching up my trimmer in a panic and swinging it like a bludgeon (instead of just turning it on rationally and targeting the wasp carefully); the result being that while the fist-sized insect is vanquished a nearby window is shattered—which of course brings Taylor running (though fortunately not the Captain).
“Jesus, man! What are you—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, watch it,” I say, quickly. “There’s a wasp on the ground—somewhere. There, by the spigot.”
A moment later he pauses to examine it, notably breathless from the run. “Holy shit—look at that.” He prods it with the end of his blower, making sure its dead. “Bastard’s are getting bigger, you notice that? Ever since they sprayed the M-4.”
He stands, shaking his head, still catching his breath. “It’s like I said, they’ve created a monster here. I’m starting to wonder if I even want to migrate, to tell the truth. Earth might be wasted but at least there’s no bees the size of ...” He trails off, looking at the window. “Well, shit,” he says, and scratches his head. “That’s bad. Now what?”
I look at it too, thinking, There’s no bees on Earth at all. That’s the problem. “I don’t know,” I say, exhaling, “but something tells me I just spent my bonus—all of it.”
“Jesus, you smell that?”
“Yeah—like rotting grass. Only ...” I look around, not recalling seeing any piles of clippings or other yard debris. “I don’t see anything. There’s nothing here that would account for it. What are you doing?”
“Following my nose,” he says, leaning into the window, sniffing inside the house. “It’s coming from in here; from—” He falls silent abruptly, his whole body freezing, tensing up. “Holy Mother of ...”
“What is it? What do you see?”
But he is no longer at the window, having instead placed his hands on his knees and begun vomiting into the bushes, his entire body heaving, trembling like an epileptic, and his blower falling to the ground, where it lolls onto its side and continues to sputter and hum.
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We have tied our bandannas over our mouths and begun to explore the house, which has been overrun with crabgrass and vines of Creeping Charlie; with Canada Thistle and Purslane, with sprouts of Shepard’s Purse, even as flies the size of silver dollars buzz about the body and the Captain tries to raise us—fruitlessly, of course. For it is his turn to dine on static.
But it is the body that compels me and causes me to keep returning to it (having checked the kitchen and dining area, as well as what appears to be a meditation chamber, and found nothing), batting away the flies, scattering them like dandelion seeds. It’s funny, because if it weren’t for the red-weed growing from its mouth and the mushroom stools in its eyes and nostrils, not to mention its green flesh, I would simply take it to be a settler who had fallen asleep on his couch—a victim, perhaps (based on his tranquil expression at death) of what we call the Daze.
As it is, I am forced only to accept it as a great mystery, one not apt to be solved by a pair of grass grunts poking around in the dark—whether we find more like it or not—at least that’s what I’m thinking as I look out the gigantic window at the deck and see the large white telescope angled on its tripod. As I ignore my radio and hear Taylor shouting somewhere above, somewhere on the second landing, saying, “We got four more up here, brother from another mother! And they’re all D.O.A., just like the first.”
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I do not know what first goads me into looking through the telescope—which is pointed directly at the Earth—perhaps I miss our brown planet more than I dare admit. Regardless, it is not so much a matter of ‘why’ but ‘what’—for what I see through it is a world as green and fertile as any Earth of the past; a world as lush and emerald as the Red Planet herself—now terraformed to resemble the Earth of old—and whose dark side and light side are both visible (thanks to its position to Mars). And yet a world, too, that must ultimately not exist—for it occupies the same part of the sky where the brown Earth must of necessity be. A world, then, I suddenly realize, which is not like the Earth—but is the Earth. The Earth reborn. Impossibly, breathtakingly.
Beautifully, I think, feeling as though I might touch it, for here is our home as it once was, as it was meant to be: the clean, open fields, the mountains and hills, the seas and rivers—but also the cities and illuminated byways like glowing circuit boards. Also the—
I squint, adjusting the scope’s aperture, compensating for glare. I want to see the lights, the intricate web of glitter—like back-lit dew on a leaf—the sparkle of sentience. The proof that Earth is a thinking thing, a dreaming thing, a thing perhaps without precedent.
But there is no proof, no intricate web of glitter, no illuminated byways like glowing circuits. There is only the planet’s dark side and a perfect half-sphere of black—only one void against another and two impossible extremes—only the green of endless plant life and the unfathomable chasm of night.
In the end, only an Earth devoid of all human activity—as though we never even existed—and overrun by grass and vegetation. Overrun, I am now convinced, by the company’s own super accelerant, M-4.
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We hump for the next Oasis, double-timing it to beat the Captain—who we are now convinced has the Daze. (Why else would he not have told us? For surely he has known, receiving as he does updates from Mother, and thus Earth, regularly). The plan, meanwhile, such as it is, is simple: we will blast off in the medical rocket and rendezvous with Mother before hitching a ride back to Moon Plaza and applying for asylum—a long shot, to be sure, but more than we could hope for if the Captain finds out we entered one of the houses illegally. With luck, Crazy Cap will be mowing as he goes and so arrive well after us.
“If he’s not there already,” shouts Taylor as we run through the knee-high grass—referring to the medical rocket, playing Devil’s Advocate. “And if the gnomes haven’t gotten to it. They’re getting bold, you know.” He adds, looking at me: “Why the hell you packing that, anyway? Ain’t no grass where we’re going ...”
But I don’t know why I’m packing ‘that,’ it—my light-trimmer—only that it feels necessary somehow, feels important, like it’s the right thing to do, although I have no idea why.
And then we run, opting to save our breath, praying we get there before Cap, wondering what has become of our loved ones—hoping Moon Plaza will take us in.
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The medical rocket is wasted—its consoles smashed, its stores emptied—to the extent that we have collapsed outside its open hatch in total exhaustion and despair. Worse, the air is filled with the roar of machinery—a roar with a bandsaw edge—one we know all too well for it is the sound of Cap’s Big Track coming closer every second.
And then he has arrived, riding his tractor like a chariot, goading it forward into the clearing, motoring directly toward us until Taylor jumps up in a panic and sprints for the next bridge—his dark skin shining, his heels kicking up sod—as the Captain veers toward him suddenly and seems to gun the engine.
And then I am running, shouting at him to stop, as Taylor vanishes beneath the blades and the Big Track jounces, once, twice, the Captain laughing and throwing back his head, the iron tracks seeming to catch—until blood begins spewing like grass clippings from the mulch-vents and all I can hear is my friend screaming—gargling—dying beneath the Cap’s iron beast.
That’s when I realize it is rotating, swivelling, committing a zero-point turn so that the Oasis is sprinkled with entrails and the machine is pointed at me; at the center of the clearing—where I am wide open and vulnerable and will be mowed down no different than Taylor if I don’t act and act quickly.
Then he accelerates and there is no time for anything—but to run. This I do, unhooking a plutonium sphere as I scuttle and dropping it into his path before diving suddenly to one side and rolling. Nor is it lost upon me that had I not retained the trimmer and fuel bandolier after the house I would surely be meeting the same fate as Taylor.
Instead there is a flash of light and a mighty explosion, and I am blasted no less than twenty feet—even as the Captain and his Big Trak are utterly obliterated.
And then I just watch: as the burning debris twirls down and the Oasis goes up in flames. As the medical rocket keels—and collapses into the fire.
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I trim, heading due west, toward the next and perhaps final Oasis. Toward the next and perhaps final return rocket. As for why I do—I do not know, for the world of Man recedes further with each step—further, it seems, with each breath, and so, too, with each house left edged and ready for the mower.
All I know for certain is that this is what I do— what I have always done; and that, as a man, I was good at it. That I could channel my energy deftly and efficiently through the instrument so as to perform my duty smartly and surefootedly. And yet, that begs a question: What am I now, if no longer a man?
I’ll tell you what I think. And that is that I have succumbed to the Daze, in no less a fashion than did the Captain or even Taylor when he ran for the bridge. Indeed, I cannot say beyond a certainty that any of this has even happened; or if it is rather, all of it, a kind of daydream, something experienced, perhaps exclusively, by those who toil long amongst the grass.
I trim—the blade of my instrument whirring pink and smooth through the stems—but grow weary; the foliage reaching higher the farther I push, my skin and hair and vision turning green, my thoughts turning outward—to the world, to the Formerly Red Planet, to Earth, and everything in them, every rock, every insect, every blade of grass.