Only stars above her. That was the sensation she felt while staying in the observatory of Station Alpha.
It was used mostly as an entertainment area, given that nobody from the crew was an astronomer. Located on the upper floor of the building, in the south wing, the observatory was a large circular room rising three metres above the remainder of the roof. The ceiling was a dome of very resistant, insulating, anti-glare glass. The same material extended from the east, round through the south side to the west, occupying more than a half of the cylindrical wall. There were some positions for star observation in the middle, consisting of comfortable tilted seats combined with a telescope. Around them were some upholstered benches, three of which were located just in front of the transparent wall. They allowed watching the landscape from dawn to dusk, thanks to the partial dimming of the glass during daytime, which blocked ionising radiations.
But it was dark now. Small spotlights embedded under the benches threw a weak light down onto the dark floor, leaving the view of the sky undisturbed. And Anna, lying on a bench with her eyes blurred by tears, could barely distinguish a myriad bright spots.
A deep sense of discouragement had taken possession of her body, paralysing her. She couldn’t do anything but think, but that just increased her sadness and loneliness. She was lost. She knew she was sad for a long series of wrong reasons and had ended up, yet again, wondering what was wrong with her.
A click alerted her that the door was opening. She sat up by instinct, while hearing the same door closing. Some moments later Hassan’s face emerged from the darkness.
“What are you doing here?” Frightened by the intrusion, Anna moved her legs to the other side of the bench, as if she was preparing to escape at any moment. She wasn’t at all in the mood to bear his persecutions again. She had had enough of them for today.
“I was looking for you,” he said candidly. He didn’t look menacing or, rather, he looked less menacing than usual. But mostly tired. “If it were daytime, I would’ve found you in the greenhouse.” He cracked an almost benevolent smile. That was really something new. “But given that it’s night-time, you are here.”
He’d been checking on her, he knew her habits. The surprise made her lower her guard and, without reacting, she let him sit down on the bench, facing her.
“You’ve been crying,” Hassan observed. He looked away from her for a moment. It seemed as he was making a huge effort to behave adequately. “I’ve exaggerated.”
In his own way, was he maybe apologising?
As if replying to the incredulous expression from Anna, he let a quiet laugh escape. “I’m trying to be kind and, as you see, I’m having some difficulty.” He contemplated her with a half smile.
She kept a straight face for a little time, then she couldn’t contain herself. “Oh, cut it out and tell me what you want. Or go.” He was softening her up so that he could suddenly hit her with one of his venomous remarks. No, this time he wouldn’t succeed in scaring her.
“Listen, Anna. I’m talking seriously.” He was annoyed now. He stopped, as if holding back, again. When he resumed speaking, his tone was more conciliatory. “Let’s do five minutes of armistice, how about it?”
She emitted a disbelieving cry and relaxed. At once she felt overwhelmed by the events of the day and new tears surfaced, rolling down her cheeks.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the movement of Hassan’s hand reaching out to her, and she froze, drawing back her head. His hand stopped mid air. She stayed still, fixing it, as if it was something horrible, then raised her gaze to the face of its owner.
It was in that very moment that she saw him for the first time. Not the man reminding her of her father and her origins she despised, but her companion in that adventure on Mars, the person with whom she had shared her existence for over one thousand, three hundred days since they had left Earth, the astronaut and physician Hassan Qabbani. How was it possible?
She nodded almost without realising it and Hassan’s fingers reached her face, where they gently collected a tear.
“What will become of us?” she asked, whilst his hand lingered on her. It sounded more like a plea than a question.
“We’ll get on all right,” he reassured her, without the slightest hesitation. “Do you really find it so terrible to spend a thousand days more here? Or however many more there’ll be?”
‘Yes.’ But instead she shook her head. “I dunno, I no longer know anything.”
Torn between the search for consolation and the childhood conditionings that had guided her for such a long time, Anna let herself go and laid her head on his shoulder. After a moment of uncertainty, he placed his arms around her body.
They stayed this way, in a silent hug, for a time which seemed never-ending.
Venom. That was the word his mother had used more than once to define that kind of man. That simple memory made her feel a stab of guilt, as if she was breaking a tacit promise. At the same time, she was shaken by the sense of dread and suspicion that had been instilled deep in her soul. An unusual excitement, coming from the subtle fear of undergoing something forbidden, took control of her. She had already felt it and knew well where it would bring her. And once more, she didn’t care. In fact, it was all she longed for.
She raised her head to welcome his kiss.
Sometime later, when their naked bodies, wrapped in the faint glow of the spotlights, were lying joined on the carpeted floor, Anna turned her gaze to the glass dome. Now she could finally see the stars gathering like a myriad of diamonds on a velvet cloth.
“I knew you were beautiful,” Hassan whispered.
This time she was really feeling beautiful, without fear, nor rage, nor shame, nor hatred.
And all of a sudden, the stars became bigger, meeting her and dispersing with their light all the loneliness.
Hassan’s hand stroked her hair, as she rested her head on his chest, listening to the tranquil beat of his heart. The rhythmical movement recalled the unpleasant image of what she had seen in the gym, when he had brushed against Michelle’s hair. For a second she considered asking him what was between them, but then she let it go. She didn’t want to ruin that moment of serenity. She didn’t want to discuss.
“You really are an unfathomable mystery, little Anna.” Hassan broke the silence.
She raised her head to look at his face. She didn’t like being called that, most of all by him. It was as if he considered her an inferior being. But perhaps it was so. In the end, she was just a woman, wasn’t she?
She opened her mouth to protest, but then he smiled. “It’s me who doesn’t understand those like you.” Replying with a grave tone was surely better than complaining. She would not give in.
As usual, as if he had understood everything, Hassan laughed. “Again with this story?” He found it amusing. “Those like me? You mean, men?” He challenged her, but with a smile.
Anna shook her head, struggling to keep a serious expression. “What is the most politically correct word?” She looked to the side, pretending to think about it. “Middle-Eastern? Asian?”
“You mean, like you,” he teased her.
And she was taken in. “I’m Swedish!” The moment after she had spoken, she realised she’d walked into a trap.
“And I’m from Vancouver, which, for your information, is in Canada.”
Anna rolled her eyes.
“If I’m not mistaken,” Hassan added, as if he was pondering on it. “Canada is west of Sweden, isn’t it?”
“Oh, stop it.”
And he laughed again. Anna tried to pull back, but he held her. So she laid her head on his chest again and turned her gaze to the glass wall. It was pitch black outside; the external lamps were off. She felt vaguely angry, but all the same, she stayed on him as though nothing had happened. The truth was that she had no desire to do without that contact. She didn’t want to feel alone again, but she’d rather have been with someone who made an effort to understand her, instead of making fun of her.
“Maybe you don’t know.” Hassan resumed speaking with a serious tone. “But my mother has got blue eyes and a beautiful head of blonde hair.”
Surprised by the information, Anna snapped up her head and looked at his face to see if he was being serious.
“As you see, we are more similar than you think.”
Now she really felt little and stupid. She had looked at him, learnt his name, and had labelled him. Point. She hadn’t even considered that the reality might be different. But, in the end, what had changed? His mother was a western woman; he, instead, was one of them all the same. Her face contracted in dismay. He was right: she was one of them, too. No, there was a difference and it wasn’t the name.
“You are Muslim.” It was the last card, but he couldn’t question it.
“Ah, so yours isn’t racial intolerance, but a religious one.” He looked anything but convinced.
Any attempt by Anna to make a lucid reasoning was totally useless. She was too tired, and in all honesty there was little reasoning in her prejudices. She surely had nothing against the Islamic religion. What did she know about it? Perhaps the problem concerned the traditions or the outdated mentality often associated with certain religious groups. She looked at Hassan. What had he to do with all that? Probably nothing. Doubtless, he had nothing to do with the man who’d broken her mother’s heart over thirty years earlier. All the more now that they were hundreds of million kilometres from the origin of the mentality that made her feel ill at ease. But that sensation of suspicion was so rooted in her heart that, although she realised how it was void of any foundation, she wasn’t able to get free from it completely.
“Let me guess. You are Swedish, so Lutheran Christian?”
“Theoretically,” Anna replied, grateful that the question had pulled her out of her cogitations. “My mother was Lutheran, but I’m not suited for that stuff.”
“What d’you mean?”
“That stuff about faith. I don’t understand it.”
“You aren’t supposed to understand faith. Either you have it or you don’t. Anyway it’s never too late to embrace it.”
Anna sat up and addressed a hesitant look at him.
“May I say what I think?” he asked.
“May I stop you from doing so?”
Hassan laughed again and this time she followed suit. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him that way. Although their ways of thinking were light years apart and there were sides of his character she found horrific, to say the least, she was aware that fighting would take them nowhere. Sometimes the best thing to do was to let go.
“I think your father was a coward.” He sat up and leaned his back against the stuffed edge of the bench. “I can’t deny that his cultural background would somehow have been involved in his decisions. His family wanted him to marry a woman from his country, from his religion. It’s very common nowadays; imagine what it must have been like at that time. But he owned all the necessary tools to make the right decision. He lived in a country where he wasn’t actually subjected to any pressure, and he had perfectly adapted to that lifestyle. He was an adult and free to make his choices. In the end, the will of his family was just an easy excuse to justify the way he didn’t accept the responsibility of his relationship with your mother, way before she became pregnant. All that had nothing to do with the colour of his skin or the God he believed in.” He placed a hand on her arm, ran its length with the tip of his index finger, then he lingered on her wrist. “Despite what you may think, a man abandoning his pregnant partner and then never taking an interest in her for the rest of his life is anything but a good Muslim.”
Without realising it, Anna found herself gaping as she listened to him. That principled-man version of Hassan was totally new to her and clashed with most of what he had said and done since the first day she met him, so much so that for a second she wondered whether he was just acting.
She scrutinised him in silence, contemplating whether to believe him or not. He kept a straight face and started stroking her hand.
“And are you a good Muslim?” Had she really asked that? For a moment she hoped he hadn’t understood what she meant.
His well-known mocking smile appeared on his face. He had definitely understood.
“Well, if you are asking me whether I might behave like your father …” He made a theatrical pause and Anna found herself holding her breath, fearing what could now come out from that man’s mouth. She knew his moment of seriousness was over. “What should I say, Anna? We are confined in a desert planet, where the fuck am I supposed to go?!”
And he smiled, that bastard.
“Also because, if you try, I kill you,” she replied, staring back at him.
Hassan raised his hands in surrender. A moment later they were laughing.
Where the hell had they been hidden?
He had searched through all the cupboards in the infirmary, but without success. Only silly aspirins, antibiotics. All useless stuff.
His hands were shaking. Accompanied by a constant nausea, an acute pain radiated from his nape along his spinal column and down his limbs. Bathed in sweat, he had dragged himself into the box room where the medicine provisions were stored, but it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. There were at least fifty crates, neatly stacked, but they only bore incomprehensible abbreviations. Or perhaps he wasn’t able to give them a meaning right now. He’d had to climb on a ladder to reach the higher ones and had opened them, while trying to avoid leaving too many traces. A part of him would rather tear them all open, but somehow he managed to keep control, as if there was something in the bottom of his mind, projecting inside his brain and preventing him from exploding.
He went through the pots, one by one, until with great relief he came across the word ‘Oxycodone’. Agitated, he turned the lid open and swallowed two pills. Then, after a moments consideration, added a third one. With his eyes closed, his thought followed the drug down to his stomach. It would be a while before it took effect. It would’ve been better to crush it and then sniff it, but that would have caused too much noise. The awareness that he would soon feel well, however, sufficed to calm him down.
He nervously scratched the back of his neck. The itching sensation was worsening.
Still balanced on the ladder, he sized up the pot. At that rate, it wouldn’t last for long. There were ten more in the crate. Perhaps he might have found more, if he had checked the other crates, but he knew they would finish, sooner or later. No, he couldn’t think about it now. He would find a solution. The thing in the bottom of his mind seemed to agree with him. He placed two pots into his pockets and held a third in his hand. He needed the other hand to descend the ladder. But before doing so, he closed everything with care. This time, they wouldn’t catch him.
He heard a laugh. He thought he might have produced it himself. Maybe the oxy was already kicking in. The laugh repeated, but it was doubtless a woman’s voice. Anna.
With caution, he moved closer to the door and cracked it open. A silhouette passed before the chink and Robert drew back, afraid to be seen.
He breathed slowly and waited. Again, a laugh, but it was farther away now. In silence, he opened the door again, just enough to let him look out in the direction from which the sound was coming. At the other end of the corridor were Hassan and Anna. His arm was on her shoulders and she was stroking his back with her palm, then she let her hand slip onto his hip. They were speaking in a low voices, and from time to time, they chuckled, hushing each other as they did so.
Robert squeezed his fingers, closing his hands in a fist. He took a deep breath to keep calm and, when he exhaled, his muscles relaxed. He would’ve liked to follow them in secret, but the photoelectrical cells would’ve revealed his presence, turning on the lamps in the ceiling. So he did nothing but stare. The corridor continued straight up to reach the end of the station. In that area were the crew quarters.
The couple stopped by a door. Hassan whispered something, but it was impossible to hear what he was saying. Anna tilted her head to one side, as if she was pondering his words. Then her mouth moved and she nodded. He let the door unlock and they both disappeared through it. It was Hassan’s quarters.
When he was sure that nobody else was out there, Robert ventured into the corridor. He paused outside his room, but he couldn’t stop looking at Hassan’s door.
He had figured there was something between the two of them, but for too long he had preferred denying the evidence to avoid hurting himself. He felt his rage building. He wanted to break down the door and then … do what? He pushed the image away from his thoughts. Little by little, the physical pain was starting to lessen; the one in his mind would follow suit very soon.
He whirled about and walked back. He crossed the entire station. The sound of his light footsteps on the floor was the only perceptible one around him. The lights in front of him turned on and went off behind him. He had the sensation he was completely alone. A wonderful sensation.
As he entered the communications room and, after closing the door, took one of the seats, he was already grinning, in a daze. The data scrolled by on the large screen occupying the wall in front of him; they were detections from the various satellites to which the system was incessantly connected. No contact with Houston was expected until eight in the morning. The commander used to send a detailed report at the end of the day, at eight p.m., in which he summarised all the performed activities. Another one followed twelve hours later, with the purpose of informing mission control about the events programmed for the day that was just beginning.
Since Dennis wasn’t able to perform this task, surely Hassan, the second in command, had sent the report a few hours earlier. Who knew how he had explained the absence of the commander? Perhaps he had already reported about his condition.
If that was the case, they were fucked.
But that fact made him laugh. The sense of well-being had become more intense; maybe it might even improve. He placed a hand into a pocket and took out a quite rudimentary cigarette and a lighter. He lit it and started inhaling avidly.
Oh, yeah, it was definitely better now.
With a rapid movement of his fingers, he activated an animated icon on the screen. Sweet classic music started spreading from the loudspeakers. Robert sank into the seat, raising his legs and placing his feet on the desk.
Another pull and the music became even more beautiful. Now it seemed to come from an undefined point on the top of his head and was flowing down, like liquid, along his face, his neck and the remainder of his body.
It was a complete pleasure.
The thing in the bottom of his mind started pulsing, following the tempo of the music like a metronome. Wrapped in iridescent colours, with each beat it became bigger, expanding in his thoughts.
Robert.
He snapped up his head and looked around. He was alone. He laughed and tasted the smoke again.
Robert.
He laughed out loud and let the notes lull him as he moved his left hand to the back of his neck. He bent his finger, scratching his skin. The loudspeakers quieted, but the music kept on playing in his head, as the screen was filling with a radio signal. He didn’t worry about it.
You know what you have to do, Robert.
He closed his eyes. He knew.
She’d let the water run down her body for at least ten minutes, before realising she was staring at the shower’s wall, without doing anything.
She had woken up in that foreign bed alone and that had been a relief. She’d thought to get dressed and go back to her quarters, but Hassan had exited the bathroom in that very moment, so she couldn’t find anything better than rushing in herself. Now she was still there, hesitant about how to behave. She would like to have stayed in the shower until he went out, to avoid facing him, but she knew he would wait for her. In fact, if she remained there too long, he would end up coming in and asking her if she was okay.
How could she conceal the sense of discomfort she was feeling? What had happened the previous evening was the result of a day bordering on folly, but most of all she had revealed too much about herself to the man, too much about her father. She feared that might be turned against her. The fact she had put aside her prejudices and diffidence for a night hadn’t really erased them. They were back again, more alive than ever, now that she had slept and cleared her mind.
If only she hadn’t accepted that last invitation of his, and had gone back to her own quarters. She had only done it to taste that moment of peace for as long as possible. She knew that it might have been broken in a second. She had desired him to ask her to stay and, when he had done so, she had been happy.
Now, instead, she just wanted to escape, resume the routine activities, as far as possible, regain her space.
But who was she kidding? Considering Dennis’s condition, from now on there wouldn’t be any routine anymore. The launch of the Isis 2 was surely evaporated, the commander was dying, their life in Station Alpha would change, leaving them with only uncertainty. And in the middle of all that she had thought to fraternise with one like Hassan, as if her head wasn’t already prey to the chaos.
She had to regain control, yes. In the meantime another five minutes had passed. She looked down at her hands; they’d become wrinkled from the excessive stay under water. She left the shower and wiped the condensation from the mirror with a towel. The bathroom was identical to hers, but Hassan’s personal belongings, scattered more or less everywhere in a jumble, revealed the difference.
She dried herself and dressed. She rubbed her hair, while she searched for the right determination to get out of there with any excuse; the faster the better.
Finally, she felt ready. She tossed the towel to the floor. Yes, she could make it; what was the problem? It was late and they both had many things to do. Confident, she opened the door that connected the bathroom to the remainder of the quarters.
She didn’t see him right away. The bed was empty, as she had left it. The wardrobe was closed. It seemed like he wasn’t there, then she heard a murmur and lowered her gaze. And she froze.
Hassan was kneeling on a rectangular carpet with his arms stretched forward and his face on it. He raised his upper body and, whilst continuing to look down, resumed murmuring an obscure prayer. He repeated a series of movements and words a few times, apparently unaware of her presence.
There was something fascinating in those gestures. Anna kept on staring at him during such a private moment. She could see a side of him that for some reason was abhorrent to her, because it was the symbol of everything she hated, but at the same time she couldn’t help but admire the harmony, the palpable devotion, the expression of a relationship with something intelligible that aroused her curiosity. And perhaps even some envy.
He rose onto his knees once more and a moment later his eyes turned in her direction.
Anna gave a start and moved back, feeling caught, afraid, in danger. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
Hassan’s face relaxed in a half smile. “You don’t disturb me at all.” He turned to the window, from which faint rays of sunlight filtered. “It’s been a while since I did it.” He looked at her again. “But today I woke up with the desire to get closer to God.”
She didn’t know what to reply to those words, nor if he expected her to do so. With a certain amount of surprise, she realised that her impelling desire to leave his quarters had become a little less urgent. It had all been a great deal worse in her mind than it actually was. She didn’t know whether such awareness was good. She feared she might be on the point of falling in a trap. Or perhaps she’d already fallen into it without realising.
“Come,” Hassan said, standing up and holding out his hand to her. “I want to show you something.”
An invitation she couldn’t refuse, not without a good reason.
Hesitating, she followed him again to the unmade bed, where he sat and started searching in the closet beside it. Eventually he took out an object, which captured Anna’s attention. She found herself seated beside him, watching what he was holding in his hands.
“Is that a … book? I mean, a real one, a paper book?” She hadn’t seen one for more than ten years and had almost forgotten the peculiar fascination that such an object, such a rare one, had always caused in her. But she had never seen one like that.
Hassan handed it to her and she took it, eager for such a contact. The cover was rigid, but the surface delicate to the touch.
“It’s a refined edition with a leather cover, published more than sixty years ago.”
Leather. That was the cause of that feeling. Anna let her fingertips run along the spine, and then, after laying the book on her legs, she examined the front, lingering on the golden letters of the title. It was then she realised what was written, and her hand, as if pushed by its own will, pulled away, as if it had got burnt.
The Holy Quran.
Surely, Hassan must have noticed her sudden gesture, but he didn’t react in any way. He reached out and opened the book in the middle. It was still on Anna’s legs, and with a certain amount of indecision, she took courage and helped him to keep it open. The feeling of the paper on her fingers was fantastic.
“My grandfather gave it to me when I was ten.”
“But it’s in English,” she replied. Only now had she noticed that.
“Well, my English has always been far better than my Arabic.” He paused for a moment and Anna heard him smile, even if she wasn’t looking at his face. “Fault of my mother, I suppose. And this was the first copy of the Quran in English that my grandfather bought, after moving to Canada. A purchase with a symbolic meaning, to unite his origins with that which would have become his new homeland.” He appeared to linger on that thought. “Many years later he gave it to me,” he concluded.
Now it was Anna’s turn to smile. She had imagined a little Hassan with the same shameless expression she had seen on him hundreds of time since when they first met.
While she was distractedly browsing the pages, something a little thicker slipped out from the bottom of the volume. She opened the book by that strange bookmark and found an e-photo. It animated at her touch, revealing the image of a young couple: he was no doubt Middle-Eastern; she had snowy skin, golden hair, and eyes the same colour as the sea. They were smiling, happy; beside them a sailing boat.
Anna turned to look at Hassan and thought she could glimpse a hint of both of them in him. “They’re your parents.”
He nodded. “A long time ago.” He was watching them with affection.
“Can I?” she asked, reaching out with a finger to the photograph.
“Go on.”
Anna let her index finger slip from right to left on the surface of the device, as thin as an open folio, but much smaller. The next image depicted Hassan, not very different from how he appeared now, with a couple. Another image of joy. The man was younger than he was, but they looked quite alike. She was shorter, with Asian features as well, wearing a beautiful ethnic dress, with a finely decorated veil covering her hair.
She was having conflicting feelings over the image. She could acknowledge its beauty, but she felt compassion for that young woman, forced to dress up in such an anachronistic, chauvinist way.
“My brother and my sister-in-law, on the day of their wedding, seven years ago. They have two children now.” The last bit of information sounded like a merit.
As she wanted to close the subject, Anna went on, and there she stopped again, to grasp the meaning of what she was seeing. They were no doubt Hassan’s parents again, only they seemed to be over fifty. His mother’s eyes shone with the same azure light, but her hair were hidden by a veil.
“Your mother is Muslim?” She couldn’t help saying that, even if it was a rhetorical question.
“She converted before marrying my father.”
“Ah …” That sarcastic cry escaped from her mouth a moment before she could repress it. She felt she had exaggerated, but also that she had every reason to. His mother had to convert to marry his father. Although the lack of her own faith couldn’t really allow her to comprehend its extent, she perceived in that deed the echo of an abuse.
“My grandparents were a bit old-fashioned and she decided to make them happy. It was her choice,” Hassan explained, replying to her unexpressed thought. “I guess she’s a good Muslim, unlike me.” An amused tone just emerged from his voice.
For a split second Anna had the feeling it was a kind of test and she was under examination, but her curiosity prevailed.
“And does she always wear a veil?”
“She wears it often in certain public situations. This photo was taken at my brother’s wedding, too.”
“Ah …” Again that unintentional cry. “Let me guess: oddly enough, all those with your grandparents.”
“My paternal grandparents are both dead.”
Anne remained speechless at her gaffe. He had mentioned them using the past, just a while earlier, but she wasn’t listening with due care. But, when she turned to look at him, Hassan appeared still to be having a lot of fun.
“I guess I must go,” she said.
“Do you guess so?”
“I need my …” What could she need? “Hairdryer,” she added, touching her wet hair.
Of course, there was an identical one in Hassan’s bathroom, but he avoided pointing that out.
Sitting on a stool, her elbows resting on the counter and her hands supporting her head, dejected, she looked at the images from the microscope on the screen, then at the results of the analyses on her folio, and tried to make sense of it, in vain. She felt that the answer was before her eyes, but her head was elsewhere, preventing her from seeing it. Or believing in it. She needed a fresh mind to analyse everything with tranquillity.
That was why she had sent the data to her French colleague, Aurélie Faty, asking for her opinion. They had been good friends during her brief stay in Paris; doubtless, she would treat them with the necessary confidentiality. Those at NASA wouldn’t appreciate Anna turning to a laboratory of ESA without informing them, but in all honesty, the Americans’ opinion was not of any interest at the moment. She wanted to keep busy. Conducting her research was the only way to succeed in such a purpose.
A faint noise behind her made her turn. Robert was at the laboratory’s entrance, hesitant. He smiled at her. “Hi, can I talk to you?” He offered her one of his grins. Only two days had passed, but she felt like she hadn’t seen him so calm for a century.
“Sure.” She smiled back to encourage him.
Robert moved close to her, with a slow pace, as if he was trying to prolong the time before having to speak. He placed a hand on the counter, looking away from her, then he sat on a stool as well.
“I guess I must apologise,” he started, finally being able to look her in the eye. “Sister.”
She made a sign with her head. He had caught her by surprise and she didn’t know how to interpret his visit. She wanted to know if he was okay. He seemed nervous, but not altered. That was already good news.
“I’m sorry. I was upset and I got annoyed with you. I … well, I’m sorry. I haven’t been myself the last two days.”
“Okay,” she murmured. He was too calm. If he was taking something stronger than some smoke, the fact that he was so tranquil could mean he was high. His dilated pupils confirmed her suspicion. “I’d like to help. You can’t go on like this.”
“I know.”
“I’d like to be able to count on you as mate in this mission, as friend.”
“It isn’t so simple.” Robert started rubbing his hands. A faint smile dawned on his mouth.
“Let yourself be helped to get rid of your addiction. We will help you.”
“We?” His expression turned grim for a split second, then he seemed to regain control.
“I,” Anna amended, and reached out to place a hand on his, which finally stopped moving.
“I’d be happy if you helped me.” He held her hand tight.
“Have you been for your check-up in the infirmary this morning?” It was better not to name Hassan. “When I went there, you hadn’t showed up yet.”
Robert nodded smiling. Changing the subject of the conversation had been a good idea. “Healthy as a horse. No strange masses.” He blinked at her.
“Good,” Anna commented. “So it is limited to Dennis.” She sighed. “In a way it’s good news, given that he was already ill. We just have to understand the origin of his decline.”
“I’ve checked the radiation level inside the rovers, in the warehouses, in the common premises, including the communications room.” He looked like the usual old Robert, focused on his job. “Everything within the normal ranges. No peaks. You can view the data from the server.”
“The same applies for the laboratories and the greenhouse, but anyway he didn’t frequent them that much. Actually, I can’t remember at all the last time he was here.”
“Hassan is now checking the quarters.” At least he had been the first one to say that name. “In my opinion, he won’t find anything.”
Anna emitted a cry of assent. She wasn’t really interested in the whole matter, considering she was fine. It was just a way for having a normal conversation. She was missing her chats with Robert. But there was something unnatural with that one. They were both on the alert, cautious not to say something wrong. It was exhausting.
“What are you doing?” he asked, pointing to the folio.
That was a perfect subject of conversation.
“I’ve repeated the analyses on the new samples collected yesterday. Do you remember our presumed fossil bacterium from the crack in the rock?” He nodded. “I’ve found the same thing in the new sample, which doesn’t surprise me. It’s the one on the left; the image comes from the scanning electron microscope.” She made a sign to the wall with her eyes. “Or rather, what you’re seeing is one of the many crystals creating those azure organelles within the rod-shaped formation visible with the optical microscope.”
The screen was split in two parts. On the left was a three-dimensional structure, apparently spherical, but which was actually polyhedral, made up of many tiny facets. The image was in black and white. It wasn’t, therefore, possible to see the azure colour.
“As you can see, they weren’t organelles, but piles of these nanocrystals. The analyses have confirmed the presence of high concentrations of beryllium and of the usual components from the Martian regolith. There is nothing organic, let alone biological. Some substances might come from the degradation of bacteria, but the contrary might also be true. In short, we don’t know any more than we did earlier.” She’d hoped the analyses on that sample would’ve offered different results, given that it was the reason she had gone down there again.
“On the right?” It wasn’t clear to what extent Robert understood what she was saying, but he looked interested.
“The image refers to the sample collected from the bottom of the core, therefore not exactly from the crack, but about one and a half metres away. As you can see, the crystalline structures are less ordered.” Instead of a polyhedron, only a few tiny, irregular fragments were visible. “Shifting the framing.” Anna let a finger scroll on her folio. “You can see more of them, but always very sparse. In general the concentration of beryllium is low and it becomes even lower in the samples which are farther from the crack or as you move toward the surface within the core. It’s like these crystals were available in the rock in deeper zones and they reached the outside only thanks to the seismic event that created the crack.”
“And the fossil bacterium?”
“The presumed fossil bacterium.” Now it was her playing the devil’s advocate in the absence of Michelle. “It isn’t here. It was missing even in the cores you’d done.”
“It’s as if the ordered crystalline structure was determined by the presence of beryllium, given that it is a bacterium,” he hypothesised, with the air of an expert.
Anna gaped at him for a moment. “It’s exactly what I think. I believe that behind this order is a biological process. The fossilisation then froze this condition. I cannot prove this theory, but it could make sense.”
“Yes, it makes sense even to me!” Robert exclaimed and then laughed, infecting her with his hilarity.
She had the impression she was looking at the old Robert and that made her feel good. Then she remembered she hadn’t finished with her explanation.
“The only problem is there’s something wrong.”
He cast a puzzled glance at her.
“In a sample taken the other time, I’d found fragments of degraded RNA, which is a substance similar to DNA and is involved in the protein synthesis. I mean a sample from the corer. You had destroyed the other one.”
“Oops!” he commented, ironic, making her smile.
“Now I had the chance to repeat the analysis on the new ones, both from the cores and from the crack.”
“And …?” He appeared anxious to learn the answer. “Come on, Sister, don’t keep me guessing.”
“The nucleobases, I mean, the RNA fragments,” she specified for the benefit of her interlocutor, who wasn’t very expert on that stuff. “I’ve found them again only in one sample, the core collected near the crack, again in the deepest layer. There are also possible traces of some amino acids, but the analysis is non-conclusive to this end, just like the other time, so I hadn’t considered them. The concentrations were too low.” She shook her head, putting aside the subject of the possible amino acids. “Anyway … I’d hoped that this difference along the core was somehow related to the amount of beryllium.” While speaking, she had replaced the images from the microscopes on the screen with the results of the analyses. “Save that there isn’t the slightest trace of biological molecules in the sample from the crack!”
“Where beryllium shows the maximum concentration,” he promptly commented.
“Exactly!” she said, exasperated. “I’m really starting to believe it’s an artefact repeating. But I don’t understand how it is possible. I’ve personally cleaned and sterilised again all probing pipes. I know I’ve made no mistakes. Unless the steriliser is faulty, and that would be a mess, because it might have compromised the results of more analyses.”
“If you want, I’ll have a look at it.”
“Yes, thank you.” She had really missed the technician version of Robert, but the truth was that they had a desperate need for new equipment and now, who knew when it would arrive?
“Do you know how is Dennis doing?”
The sudden change of subject caught her unprepared. Taken up with her researches, for some minutes she had forgotten about the dramatic situation they were living.
“I guess he is worsening …” Anna said, and resumed staring at the screen with sad eyes. No, she wanted to think again about her sample. It made her feel safer. She was accustomed to keeping the negative thoughts out of her life and was determined to do so even in that circumstance.
“Don’t rack your brain about it, Sister.” Robert dared to give her a pat on her back. “How is Moln?”
She looked at him, puzzled. Now he was asking her about the rabbit?
“Let’s go for a stroll in the greenhouse, to catch some fresh air,” he insisted with a jovial tone.
“I have a lot to do, Robert,” she tried to be courteous, but firm at the same time. She had the feeling he was trying to dissuade her from her work for some reason and she didn’t like that. “If there’s something you have to tell me, do it. Don’t go looking for Dennis or the rabbit.” She bit her lip right after. Perhaps she had been too rude.
Robert removed his hand from her shoulder and resumed a serious expression.
“Sorry, I didn’t want to disturb you.”
He rose and walked away without saying another word.
She stared for some seconds at the door, bewildered, wondering what he was hiding from her. It was evident he wanted to talk about something, but had given up. Perhaps it was about Hassan.
Anna shook her head. What situation had she put herself in? Who knew what Hassan was expecting from her now? Or maybe she was expecting something from him. When, some hours earlier, she had gone to the infirmary to do the check-up, she had kept herself to herself and he had behaved professionally. She was a little sorry about that now.
She placed her hands on her head and resumed looking at the folio. Then the screen. And then the folio again.
It would’ve been interesting to hear Hassan’s opinion about the data. He seemed to be clear-headed just about everything.
Again, who was she kidding? She was just looking for an excuse to see him again.
Five minutes later, she was standing in the corridor beside the meeting room and looking through the transparent wall, astonished by what was happening inside. Michelle and Hassan were so taken by their discussion that they didn’t realise they had an audience.
Anna couldn’t hear their words very well. She just perceived their tone, but could see their gesturing, the dark expression on their faces. Michelle was touching his arm and talking to him. She looked submissive; from time to time, she forced herself to smile. He replied. He appeared annoyed, but it was like he was trying to stop himself.
Then he shook his head, removed her hand and turned his back on her. Michelle became imploring. She was ready to cry. She kept on speaking. She stopped for a moment, then she said something. Hassan turned round, perplexed. Now he was the submissive one and she was shaking her head.
All of a sudden, she had a surge of anger. “I thought I could count on you!” So loudly shouted, her words made their way through the Plexiglas barrier.
Anna gave a start as she heard them. She felt guilty, wrong, staying there and spying on them, but she needed to know. There was something going on between Michelle and Hassan; she was sure.
He kept on speaking, as if he was trying to calm her, but she was restless. She walked back and forth. She stopped and said something to him, rage mixed with desperation. She waited for a reply, which for her, however, was too late in arriving.
So she turned to the door. But then Hassan moved forward and embraced her from behind.
Even Michelle looked so little beside Hassan. It wasn’t a matter of height.
Michelle didn’t oppose that hug; she let him go on holding her and give her a sweet kiss on her hair.
A stab of jealousy hit Anna. In that very moment she would’ve liked to disappear. In the end, it would’ve been better to know a great deal less.
Michelle’s hands reached Hassan’s and held them. They stayed this way for a while without saying or doing anything, then she removed his arms and came out through the door.
As she walked past her, Anna froze, but the other woman ignored her, disappearing down the corridor.
A moment later and Hassan was stood in front of her. He wasn’t wearing the same defiant expression she had seen on him the other day in the gym, nor did he appear displeased or surprised that she was there and had witnessed that conversation. He appeared devoid of any strength.
That was the right occasion to ask for explanations, to know once and for all what was between him and Michelle. She opened her mouth to speak.
“I’m hungry. Let’s go eat something?” He spoke first, leaving her speechless. And he concluded with an exhausted smile.
The moment was gone, all her determination too.
With an almost imperceptible motion of his eyes, Hassan looked around, as if to check if someone else was there, then he took Anna’s hand and headed for the kitchen.
Perhaps it wasn’t jealousy, but only her wounded pride, yet Anna was tense.
They all were in the kitchen, save Dennis, obviously. Robert was searching the fridge and the cupboards; from time to time, he took out something, which he ate on the spot, still standing. Michelle was keeping herself to one side, ignoring the others she patiently waited for her herb tea to cool down.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll download the data onto my folio, so I can have a better look at them tomorrow,” Hassan said to Anna, after finishing his dinner. He placed a hand on her knee, with ease, under the table out of the sight of the others, but at the same time, he kept his eyes on his device, as it performed the file transfer.
“How is Dennis?” Robert asked Michelle, right before giving a loud bite on a carrot.
“Not good,” she murmured with bitterness, turning his gaze to Hassan, who, however, insisted on pretending not to hear her.
A disgusted expression appeared on Robert’s face. At first, it wasn’t clear whether it was because of the carrot or the tone in Michelle’s voice, but then he winked at Anna.
There was something surreal in the entire situation. What made Anna most curious wasn’t whatever was between that woman and Hassan, but what the hell they had said earlier. It was as if she was accusing him of something. Perhaps was it about the treatment he had given her husband?
Then Michelle stood up and left the room, without uttering a word.
“And your herb tea?” Robert asked, but too late. “Uh, and I’m supposed to be the one out of his mind.” He gulped the last piece of carrot and finally closed the fridge. “Well, guys, I’m withdrawing to my quarters.”
“’Night, Rob,” Anna said. Hassan, instead, didn’t move.
Before leaving, Robert turned one last time by the kitchen door. “Anyway, stop partying so hard. Some people wanna sleep here!” And he laughed at his own joke, which gained him a nasty look from Hassan and a half laugh from Anna. The usual clown.
“Do you fancy talking about it?” she asked, once they were alone.
He pulled back his hand to close his folio and returned hers to Anna. “Actually, no,” he replied, serious.
“Ah.”
She stood up, put the dishes in the washing unit, and headed for the door. If he didn’t fancy talking, perhaps it was wiser to have a change of scene, and she wanted to be the one to decide. She already felt too humiliated.
Once in the corridor, she heard his footsteps behind hers, but forced herself not to look back at him. She would go to her quarters, take a nice shower and watch one of the films coming from Earth. Among the benefits of being the pioneers of a Martian colonisation was that they could watch all the new films in advance and, for someone living in the middle of nowhere, it wasn’t a little thing.
Placing a hand on the controls, she unlocked the door and, as the panel opened, she felt pushed inside.
“Hey!”
As she turned round, she found Hassan in front of her. How dare he? She was furious.
“If you don’t fancy talking to me, you can go,” she hissed.
He clenched his fists. She could see he was undecided. But what for? That was the problem. Anna had spent such a long time hating him for the most disparate of reasons that she hadn’t ever understood with whom she was really dealing. It wasn’t that she couldn’t understand those like him, as she had told him the previous evening. Truth was, she didn’t understand him. And that frightened her now.
She wanted him to leave, but he didn’t seem inclined to do so. He stood between her and the door, and stared at her. If only she could distract him and run away.
Then Hassan moved closer. Anna backed off, finding herself with her back against the wall. He grabbed her shoulders and kissed her. She perceived a sort of desperation in the gesture and couldn’t help but go along with him, but right after he drew himself back. He let her go and left, closing the door.
“Fuck off!” Anna shouted at him, but he was already gone.
That man enjoyed frightening her and she had enough of it. She rushed out of her quarters, with the firm intention of stopping him and forcing him to talk to her. But, when she reached the corridor, she realised it was empty. Panting, she looked at one side and then at the other one.
Nobody.
To hell with him! She headed for the laboratory, taking large paces. She had to find a way to go back to Earth and she wouldn’t surely do that while watching a silly film. She walked through the station in silence. It almost felt like being in a cemetery. Death didn’t just hover on the crew members’ faces, but also the walls seemed soaked with it.
The light of the laboratory turned on as she entered. She grabbed a white coat.
“There’s a message from Aurélie Faty,” the AI’s voice announced.
The frozen image of a video had appeared on the screen.
“Play it.”
Aurélie’s grin lit up on the display. “Anna! What a pleasure to receive your message!” Her enthusiasm looked genuine. She was exactly the same as Anna remembered her, with her large white smile standing out on her dark complexion. Her hair was arranged in thin, little braids, the only ones able to tame it. “How’s life down there? Have you already discovered the little green men?” And she laughed out loud. She was bursting with cheerfulness.
Anna smiled back, whilst feeling a stab of nostalgia. She longed so much to be in the same room with people other than those of the crew. She would’ve never believed that she’d miss the crowds so much, the queues of traffic, even those odious children who escaped their parents and went romping about in a supermarket.
Green men? It was she who felt like an alien in that desert world. Just seeing a different face through a video changed her slant toward all the anxieties gripping her.
“The data you sent me are really extravagant.” Aurélie’s voice lowered into a conspiratorial tone. “Don’t worry, I’ll maintain maximum secrecy, I wouldn’t like those at NASA to fire you. Where would you find another job on Mars then?”
Anna burst into laughter in unison with the recorded image of the French woman.
“Joking aside. I think you are fixating on the wrong things. My opinion? There must be a reason why those intact crystals ended up inside the bacteria in the cultures you have prepared. Have you tried doing some cultures with the sample taken far from the crack, the one with degraded RNA?”
No, she hadn’t yet. Maybe it was a good idea to prepare it right away and put it under incubation to see its results on the following day.
“I bet that you won’t find more crystal fragments inside the bacteria than those outside them. Actually, I think they won’t be absorbed at all.”
She started sensing where her colleague was driving at.
“I don’t want to speculate, not yet.” She winked at Anna. “If I were you, however, I would try to observe the samples with the transmission electron microscope. You might be able to see some things eluding the three-dimensional vision of the scanning one, and moreover you’d have a higher resolution, which may open you to new … horizons.”
How come hadn’t she thought about that?
“Let me know how it goes. I must close now. I cannot transmit for too long without someone learning about it. They’re watching every step we make here. Give my regards to the Martians and be good.” The video stopped.
With renewed enthusiasm, Anna went and took the sample collected from the crack. She prepared it with extreme calmness, inside the sterile unit, and placed it into the transmission electron microscope.
It would take some time before the instrument was ready to play the images. So she sat down on a stool and laid both arms on the counter. Suddenly she felt tired. Her conviction of five minutes earlier was lessening. She was looking for a phantom, something nonexistent, the result of a weird phenomenon, which was making fun of her. It was the easiest answer and almost always that was the right one. She laid her head on her arm. She would close her eyes just for five minutes, until she heard the buzz from the microscope.
She fluttered her eyes open with difficulty. A repeating humming echoed in her ears. A dim light filtered from outside through the semi-transparent wall separating the laboratory from the greenhouse, and spread throughout the room, casting long shadows. The sunlight.
Anna raised her head, still dazed. She must have slept for hours. Shifting her gaze, it stopped on the screen. Uncertain, she rubbed her face with her hand, but the image didn’t change. A sound hammered inside her brain, but her whole attention was focused on what she was looking at: a circle with two layers; the external dark one was almost perfect and the other one was lighter and irregular, while inside it a thin, filamentous structure, wrapped in itself, stood out on a whitish background.
Her mouth opened for surprise. Aurélie was right. The adrenaline discharge finally woke her up and it was then that she heard it. It wasn’t the buzzer from the microscope. That had surely turned on for a few seconds, some hours earlier, while she was sleeping.
It was a general alarm.
She hadn’t heard one for months, not since their latest drill. As far as she could recall, there was none expected for that day.
She snapped to her feet, overturning a flask, which shattered on the floor, tossing splinters in every direction. A slight vertigo caught her. The alarm had woken her up, not the light. Something was happening. The control panel of the safety system indicated with a red spot the area from which the alarm had been activated. A sudden sense of anguish almost took her breath away, as she rushed out of the laboratory and along the corridor.
Someone came out of the gym and she bumped into him.
“Robert!”
“What the hell is happening?” he asked, agitated.
He was wearing a tracksuit and his shirt was soaked. The stink of his sweat ran over Anna.
“It’s coming from the area adjacent to airlock one.”
They exchanged concerned looks, then started running toward the origin of the emergency. When they reached it, they stopped abruptly.
Hassan was there, motionless. He was staring at the closed door of the airlock. The expression on his face was apathetic. He appeared to be in shock. As she saw him, Anna felt a sense of relief. Beside that annoying sound, it seemed nothing serious had happened, not to him at least.
“Why have you activated the alarm?” she asked him, as pace by pace she moved closer.
She wasn’t sure he’d realised they were there, and feared that, if frightened, he would react in a violent manner. His face was pale. Only now, did she notice that his gaze was blank, as if he could see beyond that door.
With caution, she placed a hand on his right arm. “Hassan,” she gently murmured.
His eyes turned to her. A glow of realisation lit them up. “I …” he babbled.
“What’s happened?” she pressed him.
“Christ!” Robert’s scared cry behind her made her start. She turned round. Now he was upset as well, looking at that door and backing off.
What was behind that door? What was in there?
Anna’s sight focused on a tiny stain, which broke the even surface of the little window on the door. She released Hassan’s arm and walked forward with some trepidation. Her gaze was drawn to the control panel of the airlock. The alarm lamp was blinking. The message ‘EXTERNAL DOOR OPEN’ cried out in very large letters.
The tiny stain.
She looked at it again. Now that she was just a few steps from it, she could see it better. It was red. Like blood. She rushed to the door and looked through the window.
And started screaming with all her breath.
“Oh God, no! Michelle!” she shouted in despair, hitting the panel. Then she drew back, aghast. She turned to Hassan, and met his gaze.
A horrible thought crossed her mind. Michelle, unlike Dennis, was indispensable. She had to be replaced.
“What have you done to her?” At first, it was just a whispered question.
Hassan’s face scowled, as if he hadn’t understood. Then he shook his head, looking incredulous. “I …” That babbling again.
“You!” She pointed a finger at him, menacing.
“She committed suicide,” he murmured.
“What?” Anna was beside herself by now. “Why would she have done that?”
“Dennis is dead.”
As she heard that word, she lost her ardour. “Dead …?”
“I … think Michelle killed him …”
Killed?
“She euthanised him.” Hassan’s professional tone came out. It sounded like something foreign, aseptic, among the whirlwind of emotions invading Anna’s head.
“No!” She jumped on him, punching him on his chest. “You killed her! Just like you said, she was indispensable to the mission.” She was hysterical. “Damned bastard!” Her words were broken by the tears blurring her sight. Pain was all she was feeling.
His hands grabbed her wrists. “Anna, calm down! Anna!”
But she kept on struggling. “Murderer …” she whined.
Hassan extended his arms to hug her, but she reacted with violence to his attempt.
“Keep off,” she exclaimed, escaping his grip.
“He’s right.” Robert had spoken.
Upset, she turned to him. What was he talking about? Robert was typing something on the airlock control panel. Finally the alarm quieted.
“According to the log, Michelle locked this control panel and activated the emergency forced opening from the inside. She committed suicide.” He added the last words, while casting an incredulous gaze in her direction.
Anna was trembling. It was nonsense. Michelle would never have killed herself. She was a strong woman; she knew her. A dreadful sensation of cold ran along her spine. She backed off, so that she could see the other two in front of her clearly.
“You did it together …”
“Sister, you’re upset, calm down.”
“Anna, don’t talk rubbish.”
Why were they so controlled?
“You did it so that they would confirm the launch with a new crew.” It was such a horrible thing, but it made sense. “If I were dead, it would’ve been difficult to explain, but she … her husband dies and she kills herself. Very convenient.”
Now she was alone with them in a desert planet, alone with no place to escape. It was a fucking nightmare. Her breath was failing.
They moved a step towards her. What would they do to her now that she had understood?
She started moving back and then running, as fast as she could.
“Anna, stop!” Hassan’s voice echoed behind her.
They would reach her; they were faster. She felt her lungs burning, her heart going crazy as it tried to support her, and she pushed even harder. She just had to take cover, in a place where they wouldn’t be able to enter.
They were close.
With a last effort, she reached the entrance of her quarters and placed a hand on the opening control. As the door opened, she rushed inside, closing it just a moment before they arrived.
She could hear hands hitting the door.
“Open this door, Anna!” Hassan’s tone was imperious, but his order was also completely useless. Once she’d locked it from the inside, nobody could enter her room.
“Go away!” she shouted loudly so they could hear.
“You’re the only person accountable for this.” She heard Robert’s provoking tone through the door. “None of that would’ve happened if you’d avoided screwing all women in the crew.”
There was the dull sound of a bump. A punch? Then a rebound. Had someone fallen?
“You’re just a fucking junkie, Green.”
“You’re a dead man, Qabbani.”
A laugh from Hassan. Then some footsteps. And silence.
A sudden bump on the door made her start.
“Anna.” Hassan! He wouldn’t be able to break down the door, no. Oh God. “Please, Anna.” He kept on repeating her name. He was calm again. “Let me to talk to you.”
She crouched on the floor, with her shoulders against the wall and her eyes fixed on the door. She was trying to avoid making the slightest noise, even to avoid breathing.
“Please …”
He had to go sooner or later.
Silence, then some footsteps moving away.
It was hours before she found the courage to get out of there. While moving with caution through the station to find something to eat, it occurred to her that Hassan and Robert did not appear to be anywhere. She guessed where they were and, for some reason, she wanted to see, too.
She donned her suit and went out through airlock two. She walked around the building, until she reached the other entrance and there she stopped.
Robert’s helmet turned a bit toward her. She couldn’t say whether he had seen her.
“Anna …” Hassan’s hesitant voice instead called her in the earphones.
But she remained at least five paces away from them, while they opened completely the external door of airlock one, thus releasing Michelle’s body.
When she had looked at her corpse through the little window on the door, that morning, she could have recognised her only by her blonde hair. Her face was a shapeless, bloody mass. Her body wrapped by her clothes had swollen in an abnormal way. Watching her now, so rigid, frozen, she looked like a puppet in an old funhouse, not really the woman she recalled.
Yet it was her.
They lifted and laid her down inside the airlock, then they unlocked the door.
“I suppose you don’t fancy getting in with us,” Robert said.
Her reply was a step back. She got the impression there was a trace of irony in his voice, but she wasn’t sure.
Hassan turned a last time toward her. It was impossible to see the expression on his face because of the distance and the glares.
“Let her alone, Brother.” Robert patted him on a shoulder. “She’ll come to terms with it, sooner or later.” Then, with a click, he activated the closing mechanism of the door.
Anna started running to reach the other entrance right away. The thought that they could lock her outside, to get rid of her, crossed her mind for a second. There were moments when she thought she might be exaggerating, and that maybe Michelle really had committed suicide; she hoped so. There were other moments when she told herself it was nonsense; her friend would have never done that. But neither could she believe that one of guys had killed her, or even both of them.
Wavering between convictions, she entered the station again, got rid of the suit and headed for the other airlock, this time from inside. Only Robert was there when she arrived. Equipped with a cleaning device, he was trying to remove the remains of tissues and coagulated blood from the walls. There was no trace of Michelle’s body, nor of Hassan.
“He took her to the morgue,” he murmured. She couldn’t detect any irony in him now.
She hesitated for a moment. Unlike earlier, she didn’t feel menaced at all, but only oppressed by a huge sense of sadness. She took the other cleaning device and started working.
Robert stole a glance at her, but she said nothing.
Half an hour later, footsteps resounded from a distance. She wasn’t ready to confront him. He was still the one she feared the most. She wouldn’t have felt safe caged in such a narrow space with both of them.
She dropped the appliance and left the room, moving away in a hurry. She just caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye.
Some days passed, who knew how many? The perception of time had become something abstract. She would sleep at night, shut up in her quarters. She lazily worked in the greenhouse during daytime, keeping the door locked. There she obtained vegetable, fruits, and eggs for her nutrition. At most, she slipped into a warehouse in search for freeze-dried or canned food, something that was sealed and couldn’t be tampered with.
She knew she was paranoid, she knew she was suffering a serious form of depression, but wasn’t able to fight against those sensations. Thinking about feeding herself was already exhausting.
She tried to avoid any contact with the others, but they were keeping at a distance from her, too. She sensed it was so. One day in the greenhouse, she saw some shadows on the roof, near an Aeolian turbine. They were repairing it, just like Dennis had demanded. Save for the sorties, which were suspended, it seemed as if everything in the station was back to normal, at least where maintenance was concerned.
Once, she had secretly observed Hassan and Robert in the meeting room watching a video message from Houston and talking about the agenda, as though nothing had ever happened; save Hassan appeared perfectly at ease with the role of new commander, while Robert looked edgy. Some days later she had heard them discussing loudly, inveighing against each other, insulting each other. Since then, increasingly often she could hear classic music coming from Robert’s quarters, for hours and hours. She could figure out how he was spending his time.
That evening she was in her bed, slumbering, still dressed, when she heard knocking at her door. A sudden terror seized her. She curled up and remained silent.
“Anna, I know you are in there.” It was Hassan. “I haven’t seen you for days. I’d like to know how you are.” Again, that aseptic physician-like tone.
She breathed slowly and waited.
“Anna …” His voice softened. “I’m worried about you. Please, talk to me. I’m not saying open the door, but at least say something.”
“I’m fine, go away.” Maybe he would go now.
“I need to talk to you.” He was still there. “But not like that. I don’t want to shout.”
No, she wouldn’t open the door for no reason whatsoever.
“There’s something you have to see.”
Really.
“If you want to show me something, send me a file.”
“I’d rather let you see it with your own eyes. It concerns the autopsies of Dennis and Michelle.”
Anna shivered. He was trying to draw her out, taking advantage of her curiosity. She wouldn’t allow him.
“Go, please,” she replied dryly.
Then it was silence. She waited with her heart in her throat to hear him walk away. She got out of bed and moved closer to the door, placed her hands on it.
“Anna.”
She gave a start. He was just behind the thin panel, a few inches from her.
“Why do you behave like this? You know I would never hurt you …”
‘No, I don’t know at all.’ She felt a tear rolling down her cheek to her chin. How she did want to believe him. For a moment, she considered opening the door, pretending to believe his words, whatever the truth was, despite the consequences. All to stop the agony.
But she couldn’t. Something inside her insisted on telling her to resist and, to do so, she had to hate him.
She let herself slip to the floor, her head leaning against the door.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw from the digital clock that it was eleven p.m. She had fallen asleep again for about two hours. The tears on her face had dried, but her anguish was still there, on the alert.
She stood up in silence and turned on the screen of the door control panel. The camera returned the image of an empty corridor.
He was gone.
She felt relieved, but again awfully alone. She unlocked the door and looked out. Nobody was there. The light was on, but she knew it had been activated by the camera. She took a deep breath and stepped out.
Without producing the slightest sound, she went to the communications room and locked herself inside. The screen was reporting the usual routine information.
She reviewed all messages coming from Houston from the last few days. She wanted to get a sense of the situation. They were vague messages. They talked about the mythical confirmation of the launch date. She couldn’t understand whether they would send a new crew or just a return spacecraft to take them home. She had the feeling they were procrastinating due to the usual political disputes.
The worst thing was that they referred to Dennis’s and Michelle’s deaths as tragic events, without portraying the slightest doubt about what was mentioned in the reports.
It occurred to her that she had no idea what those reports contained. She didn’t even know how Hassan had justified her absence in the videos sent from Mars, and then Robert’s, who was also locked up in his isolation. She wanted to know more. She started searching those videos, but then a thought distracted her. Maybe those in Houston would like to hear her opinion. How could they realise what was happening, if they only received the version reconstructed by a single person?
Driven by the desire to clarify the issue, she recorded a message and sent it. A moment after doing so, she regretted it. They would believe her to be crazy. But maybe it wasn’t so bad, maybe it would be enough to let her come back.
Or maybe it would worsen the situation.
She woke up with a start. How long had passed? It was one twenty a.m. The incoming message icon was blinking. She activated the playback.
The smiling face of the mission director, Jamal Nichols, appeared on the screen. His cautious words, his accommodating tone.
She had no reason to worry. Of course, the launch would occur. It was just a matter of weeks. Yeah, sure.
No mention of her suspicions, only a prudent ‘let’s not jump to hasty conclusions’. It was evident he thought she was the one having issues. The message closed with new empty reassurances.
It had been a mistake. Perhaps Hassan was right, perhaps she was exaggerating. But she couldn’t find peace. Her mind was in turmoil. No, she wasn’t crazy. Or maybe was she? No! In any case, considering the time preceding the launch and that of the interplanetary journey, the arrival of the new crew would take at least three hundreds sols. Would she survive long enough before going insane?
A slight disturbance crossed the screen. A crackle reached her ears. Anna turned round. There was nobody. The crackle repeated and then faded away.
The radio transmission LED lit up, steady.
Even before trying to comprehend the reason, she started recording. It was happening again. The other time, in the rover, it all had occurred so fast that in the end she had believed she’d dreamt it. But now it was happening for real.
The screen turned black, and was then flooded with the diagram of a high frequency audio signal, at first chaotic, then more and more regular. A peak matched each time the LED lit up.
The LED turned on for a moment, then off, on again, off again, then on and off once more. It came on again and remained fixed, then it went off. It did that twice more. Then it repeated the previous sequence, and finally it turned off for good.
The screen went black again. A second after, the normal data resumed scrolling.
Anna kept on staring at them. She couldn’t believe it. She played the recording again. The sequence of peaks repeated on the screen: three short, three long, and again three short signals. That was Morse Code.
SOS.
It couldn’t be the outcome of the solar wind. It would’ve been an enormous coincidence. And surely, no Chinese automated probe would ever send a distress signal.
So, as she had done in the rover, she connected to the MPS system to track down the signal. And once more she obtained the same result: Valles Marineris.
An insane thought appeared in her mind. It spread more and more, becoming convincing, real, plausible, transforming into the only possible choice. Exciting.
She transferred all data to her folio and deleted them from the server. She could make use of a few hours of sleep before sunrise. She had to hurry.