Kaylee arrived at home that evening, worn to the bone but with a weary smile on her face. Her husband, Alan, greeted her at the door with a hug despite her being caked with crud from the day’s work.
“How’d it go? Are we breathing life into Mars yet?” Alan asked. He wore his sweater and tie like a uniform along with a sappy, optimistic smile that went with everything. He hadn’t changed since getting back from school that afternoon, where he taught history and sociology.
Kaylee hung from his neck for support. “Finally. You know, I said I wanted to come to Mars to make a difference, work with my hands, get out of my cushy climate projection job and away from computer terminals.”
“Reconsidering? I can have our bags packed inside the hour,” Alan joked.
Kaylee stretched and headed for the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of locally produced orange juice. “Not on your life. Today I got to see a jet of supersonic gas inject our atmosphere with the first breathable air made by Martians.”
“Are we calling ourselves Martians now?” Alan asked as he set out a pair of champagne glasses for Kaylee to fill.
Kaylee scrunched her face into a thoughtful scowl. “I suppose I did call it ‘our’ atmosphere, didn’t I? Well, it’s mine, at least. I helped make it, even if I didn’t build or install any of the machinery. It was my sign-off that allowed Ned to flip the switch and turn it on.”
“Like a priestess blessing her new flock,” Alan said with a smirk. He lifted his orange juice in a toast.
Kaylee clinked her glass against Alan’s. “To being Martians.”
They drank their toast, refilled their glasses, and sat down with auto-cooked fettuccine alfredo in front of the video screen. Alan flipped on the news feeds.
It was a daily ritual. The Solarwide brought Earth in story-item doses that vaccinated them against homesickness. Much as she might claim to have embraced her new Martian home, Kaylee still clung to that ball of ocean-drenched rock where she’d been born.
“In sporting news, the—”
Alan tapped the remote, switching from the London feed to Philadelphia-2.
“…and elsewhere in the solar system, the Mars—”
Tap.
“Wait,” Kaylee said, grabbing Alan by the wrist and knocking her fork to the floor with a clatter. “Go back. That was our atmosphere generator.”
Normally, the last thing they were looking for on the news feeds was Earth’s take on Martian current events, but this was an exception. Alan flicked back and resumed Philadelphia-2’s coverage, backing it up to the point they’d left off.
“The Mars Terraforming Initiative activated its first homegrown atmosphere generator, a new design that promises to create a breathable biome by 3225.”
“Technically,” Kaylee said as an aside to the broadcast. “The plants will do most of the work. We’re nudging the system toward a critical mass of self-sufficiency.”
Alan pointed at the screen. “Hey, isn’t that your boss?”
Kaylee nodded, scowling at the sight of Ned giving an interview in the shadow of the generator. He had his breather off. Portable spigots, tapped off the main line, were washing an area around Ned and the reporter with breathable air.
Showoff.
“I know this is a proud day for Mars,” Ned said from the screen. By the waning daylight, the interview must have been recorded less than an hour ago. “This baby and all its subsystems run on a single Truman-Effect reactor. They’ve got another ready for us at Site-2. This was just the first of many atmo generators. Still have plenty of work to do. But we’re Martians. We’ll roll up our sleeves and get this done our way, without any help from Earth.”
Alan and Kaylee shared a glance. Where would Ned’s team have been without Kaylee overseeing the quality of the installation? And what planet did they think they’d gotten her from? Venus?
“Why is it so important that this effort was entirely human-run?” the reporter asked. “Terraforming Committee estimates show that this project could have been completed in 3215 with a robotic workforce.”
“I tell you what, Kent,” Ned said. “If those robots had wanted Mars habitable, they damn well could have done it centuries ago. They had their chance, and sure, maybe they could’ve done it quicker. But Martians—hell, all humans—need to look after themselves and not wait for committee handouts to do everything for them. That’s why this is so important. This is the beginning of a free, self-sufficient Mars.”
Alan blinked. “Did he just say that over the Solarwide?”
“He did,” Kaylee confirmed, hardly believing it herself.
It was one thing talking politics in the cafeteria of a small, close-knit project team. Plenty of Martians grumbled about being second-class citizens on their own planet. But to publicly come out against robots?
“How can you work for someone so backward-thinking?” Alan asked. “I don’t know if I could put up with it.”
The news feed continued on. “Elsewhere on Mars, protesters disrupted an Agriculture Committee tour of the Curiosity orchards—”
Tap.
“It’s getting worse by the day,” Alan said softly. “I mean, it’s still a minority. It’s still just rabble-rousers. But I hear the stuff kids are picking up at home, the ideas their parents leave lying around like charged blasters. I hope I get through to them, but I worry how many internalize those messages.”
Kaylee looked at him askew. “Why haven’t you said anything? You always seem so upbeat when you get home.”
“When you get home,” Alan countered. “By then I’ve had time to unwind. And don’t get me wrong; the kids are great. It’s just that… once in a while…”
“Speaking of kids,” Kaylee said. “Wonder if ours are still awake.”
Alan performed a quick swipe on the remote control, and the video screen displayed dual clocks for the cities of Curiosity and Oxford. “It’s 10:15 there. They’ll have been in bed a while by now.”
“But…” Kaylee started to object. Then her shoulders fell. “I hate that forty minutes we gain here every day. Or lose. However you want to look at it. It’s like Athena and Stephen are drifting away in time as well as orbital space.”
“Hey. It’s Emancipation Day tomorrow,” Alan said in a weak effort to cheer her up. “In four or five years, it’ll be Athena’s turn. Another couple for Stephen. Maybe they’ll decide to come live on Mars.”
Kaylee’s gaze strayed to the darkened window of their apartment. The domed city of Curiosity lay beyond the opaque smartglass. Their first few weeks on Mars, they’d kept it clear, soaking in the novelty. Now, they rarely let the outside view in with them. “I’m not sure whether I’ll want them here five years from now. Not the way things are heading.”