The Lion of Mars Read online

  “Tell me,” he asked with a probing look. “How are you feeling after this morning’s excitement? That must have been quite a shock.”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “You know, I don’t agree with Sai,” he told me.

  “Me neither! It was definitely an alien ship!”

  Phinneus shook his head. “Not about that. It was most likely a meteorite.”

  “Oh,” I said. That was disappointing.

  “I meant about the French settlement,” he explained. “We should have contacted them to make sure they were okay.”

  “But we’re not allowed. They’re the enemy. That’s what everyone says,” I said.

  “Just because everyone says something doesn’t mean it’s true,” he told me somberly.

  “What?” I asked.

  “On Earth, I had a large garden where I grew vegetables. Sometimes there would be weeds,” he said.

  “What’s a weed?”

  “It’s a plant that just starts growing. If you don’t pull the weeds out, they can take over a garden. They crowd out the vegetables—kill them—until there’s nothing but weeds.”

  Killer plants? Earth sounded creepy.

  “The point is: You have to take care of your garden. Make sure there are no weeds. Do you understand?”

  I shook my head; I didn’t understand.

  “Are there killer weeds on Mars?” I asked.

  “Oh, Bell,” he said, shaking his head. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “Let me have a cookie?”

  He sighed.

  DATE: 3.6.2091

  FROM: CDR Dexter

  TO: US Terrestrial Command

  MESSAGE: Situation Report

  An unidentified object struck the surface at approximately 06:00 hours this morning. No harm to the settlement is noted at this time.

  I have not inspected the crash site, as the location was determined to be in a foreign settlement. It is unclear if this was a meteorite or, possibly, an alien craft.

  Please advise.

  Sai Dexter, COMMANDER

  Expeditionary & Settlement Team

  United States Territory, Mars

  The tinkling sound of music bounced around our bedroom a few days later. Albie was working on a new song. He loved making music on his digi-board. This song was bright and warm, like the golden light of the fake illuminated window on the wall. The window looked like the sun beaming down on a pink Mars—a pretty illusion, since we had no windows underground.

  “What do you think?” he asked me when he finished.

  “It’s good,” I said.

  “It’s for Meems’s birthday.” He looked unsure. “Do you think she’ll like it?”

  “She’ll love it,” I said. Meems would like anything we gave her. After all, she’d told me the painted rocks I’d given her for the last two years were lovely.

  I didn’t know what I was going to do for her this year. It was a few months away, so I had some time to come up with something. But it was hard because I didn’t have a talent like everyone else.

  Flossy could sew, and Albie made music. Trey could make just about anything with the 3D modeler. And Vera, for all her snarkiness, could draw soulful kittens and sweet butterflies. But me? I wasn’t good at anything. I’d probably end up painting another rock.

  The lights in the room flickered and abruptly changed from day to night. The window was now black, with fake winking stars. The hallway outside our door was the cool blue of night.

  “Light timer must be broken again,” Albie said.

  The timer that controlled the lights in our wing had been on the fritz lately.

  I followed Albie into the corridor where our wing’s junction box was. He opened the panel and poked around.

  “The control button keeps falling off. Can you get some duct tape from Sai?”

  “Sure,” I said, and walked down the hall.

  As I passed the older kids’ room, I heard Trey and Vera talking excitedly through the door. I paused to listen, catching random words.

  Rover. Chores. Lunch.

  I didn’t know what it all meant, but I was jealous anyway.

  Because I used to be Trey’s person.

  We were famous—Trey and I. The story went that when he saw me, he immediately claimed me as his “Bell-Bell.” Trey would climb into my crib and entertain me with toys and books, even nap with me. We were inseparable.

  I was a late talker, which worried everyone until Meems realized Trey was my voice. Whenever I wanted something, he just got it for me. I didn’t need to speak, because I had Trey. Eventually, Meems had to tell Trey to stop doing that.

  When I got to Sai’s workshop, he was bent over the 3D modeler. I loved the smell in here: hot plastic and sharp metal and oil.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him.

  He leaned back and rubbed his neck.

  “Well, I’m trying to make a new part for the primary motor in the algae farm. But I’m not having much success.”

  I looked around the room: The walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling plastic shelving crammed with all sorts of things. Jars of screws and nails. Boxes of tools. Old engine parts and electrical cords. Glow sticks and glue and all kinds of springy bits. Everything was neat as a pin and organized. Back on Earth, Sai had been in charge of logistics for McMurdo Station, in Antarctica. He knew the importance of every piece of material in our settlement.

  “What can I do for you?” Sai asked me.

  “I need duct tape. The light timer in our wing is broken again,” I said.

  Sai sighed and pointed to a shelf. “Over there.”

  I picked up a roll.

  “And be sure to bring the rest of it back,” he added. Duct tape was the most prized supply item in the settlement.

  “Do you have any ideas about what I can make Meems for her birthday?” I asked him.

  “Her birthday? I’m not sure. What did you give her last year?”

  “I painted a rock,” I said.

  “Do that again,” he told me, and turned back to his work.

  I should have known better than to ask Sai. Meems said he wasn’t good at human-ing.

  * * *

  I was on my way to lessons. The grown-ups took turns teaching us in a storage room that had been outfitted with a table and stools. Some of the lessons were digi-slate learning—mathematics and programming and writing—and some were practical. Meems taught us about medicine and first aid. Phinneus instructed us in botany. Darby taught us how to unclog a toilet (he said it was the most important life skill anyone could have).

  As I walked past the open door of Meems’s room, I heard her call, “Bell, can you come help me, please?”

  “Sure,” I said. “What do you need?”

  “I can’t open this,” she said, handing me a plastic medicine bottle. Meems had arthritis, and it was always worse in the mornings. “I’ve told Command not to send us any more childproof bottles, but they don’t listen.”

  I clicked it open, then handed it to her.

  “Thank you, Kitten,” she said, shaking out some pills. She called me that because when I was a toddler, I used to follow the cats around. One time, she found me curled up with them under a bed, fast asleep.

  Mementos from Earth were scattered around her room. A feather from a real bird. Something called a pine cone, which she said came from a tree. Glass marbles. And then there were the framed digi-pics. She had dozens of them arranged on a table. Most were of her in a place with snow. Meems had worked in a remote part of Alaska, and when Sai recruited her to come to Mars, she’d said yes right away. She was already used to cold and isolation.

  In one of the digi-pics, Meems was younger and was wearing a flight suit, her hair long and tied back in a po
nytail.

  “Why did you cut your hair, Meems?”

  She laughed, touching her wispy short hair. “Because you don’t have time to worry about your hairdo when you’re trying to survive on a new planet. Also, we had a terrible lice infestation.”

  “What’s lice?”

  “Lice are little bugs that live in your hair and make you itch,” she said, and put her hand to her head as if remembering. “They were our stowaways on the ship.”

  Another digi-pic caught my eye. It was of Meems when she was little. She was sitting on an Earth animal next to an older man with a funny mustache.

  “What’s this digi-pic about?” I asked her.

  “My seventh-birthday party. That’s my father.”

  “But why was there an animal at the party?”

  “It was sort of a tradition for children to ride a pony at their birthday party. Like balloons and cake.”

  “So you had a pony and balloons and cake?”

  She smiled. “Carrot cake. My favorite. My mother made it for me every year.”

  And that’s when I knew what I could give Meems for her birthday. I might not have been able to make a song or a drawing, but I could give her something even better.

  A sweet memory.

  * * *

  I asked Phinneus if he would help me grow some carrots.

  “Why carrots?” he asked.

  “I want to make Meems a carrot cake for her birthday. It’s her favorite kind of cake. Her mother used to make it for her.”

  Phinneus’s eyes softened. “You have such a big heart, dear boy. It takes about two months to grow carrots hydroponically, so we should put them in today. Come by after lessons, and we’ll do it together.”

  “Thanks,” I told him. “And don’t tell Meems about the cake. I want it to be a surprise.”

  “I won’t,” he promised.

  After lunch, I sat in my room and searched for carrot cake recipes on my digi-slate.

  Vera pushed her head in the door. “Psst, Bell!” she said. “Come over to our room!”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a secret.”

  A secret? Nobody could keep a secret on Mars.

  “I’m kind of busy,” I told her.

  “Come on,” she said, and grabbed my arm, tugging me across the hall. I was pretty sure she was the bossiest person on Mars.

  As I was pulled into the room, I looked around. I hadn’t been in it since Trey had moved. It was easier to just avoid it.

  Most of the room looked the same as mine. A plastic rack held Flossy’s handmade Earth outfits, and posters of Earth musicians were on the wall by Vera’s bed. In the middle of the room was the lumpy fabric chair, another of Flossy’s creations. She called it a beanbag, but there were no beans inside it, just chunks of soft rubber.

  Trey’s area was easy to spot: his bed wasn’t made (he never made it), and his dirty socks were piled on the floor. He hadn’t decorated; there wasn’t anything on the wall over his bed. It looked so…temporary.

  “Hey, Bell,” Trey said, glancing up from the game he was playing on his digi-slate. He looked almost happy to see me.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “So. We need your help,” Vera said.

  “My help?”

  “We want to go see the spaceship,” she said. “You’re the only one who saw it fall. You can show us where it is! Doesn’t that sound fun?”

  Fun? Were they kidding me?

  “It’s dangerous to go near the other settlements!” I said.

  One of our crew members, a woman named Lissa, had died near the French settlement. I was a little unclear on what had happened because none of the grown-ups liked to talk about it. She was buried in the cemetery with the cats.

  “Yes, yes, it’s so dangerous, blah-blah-blah,” Vera said, rolling her eyes. “Look, how bad can it be? The grown-ups used to work with the other countries. How do you think the rail tunnel got built? It was an international thing.”

  I shook my head, my stomach churning. “No way. We’ll get in so much trouble.”

  “Remember all the times we talked about alien ships?” Trey asked me.

  I nodded. Of course I remembered.

  “Now’s our chance to actually see one in real life!” Trey said, his voice urgent. “We’ll take the rover and go after lunch tomorrow. Be back by supper. No one will even know we’ve gone.”

  “But—” I said.

  “It’ll be fun,” Trey promised. “An adventure.”

  And for a moment, he seemed like the old Trey: the one I shared a room with, the one who knew everything about me. My best friend.

  “Come on,” he said.

  Aw, dust it. I never stood a chance.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Flossy burst through the door, a smile on her face.

  “So are you coming with us to see the alien ship tomorrow?” she asked me. “I still haven’t decided what I’m going to wear.”

  “Flossy!” Vera said.

  Like I said, it was impossible to keep a secret on Mars.

  DATE: 3.11.2091

  FROM: CDR Dexter

  TO: US Terrestrial Command

  MESSAGE: Situation Report

  More than one-third of our storage batteries have failed and cannot hold a charge. This could have significant consequences in the event of a power emergency.

  Please advise.

  Sai Dexter, COMMANDER

  Expeditionary & Settlement Team

  United States Territory, Mars

  My hands shook as I tugged on my bulky environmental suit. I could barely pull up the zipper; I was too anxious.

  Because I couldn’t believe we were actually doing this.

  Sure, we’d done some dumb things in the past (well, mostly Vera had), but never anything this bad. This was going against every single rule we’d ever learned.

  No one else seemed scared, though. Flossy and Vera and Trey looked excited as they stepped into their suits. When they rushed through the air lock to the garage, I hung back.

  Did I really want to do this? Aside from getting in trouble with the grown-ups, this was dangerous. Those digi-reels with aliens always ended badly—usually with someone getting eaten. What if the alien had tentacles? I didn’t want to be around one of those guys.

  Trey stuck his head through the door.

  “Aren’t you coming?” he asked.

  I swallowed hard.

  “Uh, yeah. Just getting zipped up,” I said, and followed him to the garage, where Flossy and Vera were arguing next to the Enterprise.

  The Enterprise was the smaller of our two rovers. The bigger rover was called the Yellow Submarine and was actually painted yellow. Sometimes I didn’t get the odd names the grown-ups gave things.

  “I have more hours in the rover than you do,” Flossy said.

  “Well, it was my idea in the first place,” Vera insisted, and pushed past Flossy to get into the driver’s seat. “So I’m driving.”

  I should have known it was Vera’s idea.

  Trey and I got into the back seats and strapped on our four-point safety harnesses.

  Then the garage door slid open, and we were moving.

  Everyone was quiet as we drove through the settlement, passing the small, sad graveyard where Lissa and the cats were buried. It was like we were all holding our breath, just waiting to get caught. But nothing happened. No one stopped us.

  When we passed the flag that marked the edge of our territory, Vera hooted.

  “Here we go!” she shouted as she steered over the bumpy Mars terrain.

  But all I could think of was how many rules we were breaking. Correction: how many rules we had already broken. So far, they were:

  Rovers are off-li
mits for children.

  Do not go beyond the flag.

  “Are we going the right way, Bell?” Flossy asked me.

  I tried to remember the way the ship had raced across the sky to the west. This seemed right. “Yes.”

  It wasn’t too long before we saw a blue-and-white flag.

  “There’s Finland,” Trey said.

  It was the closest settlement to ours, and I had never seen the inside of it.

  “I’m pretty sure we’re going to pass right by the French settlement,” Vera said.

  “I watched a French digi-reel. All the girls look so stylish. They wear these scarves around their necks,” Flossy said.

  Trey looked at me, and even through his helmet, I could see him rolling his eyes.

  I stared at the landscape. I never got tired of looking at it. There were gently sloping sand dunes and deep canyons. Mountains, craters, and towering hills with jagged outcrops.

  Right now, we were driving across a plain studded with rocks. The sky was yellowish brown, a color Eliana called butterscotch, after an Earth candy.

  As the rover bounced along, my stomach churned. I had a bad taste in my mouth and felt queasy.

  Aw, dust it.

  I was rover-sick.

  “Are we almost there?” I asked.

  “That’s what the kids always say in the Earth digi-reels, Bell!” Flossy said, amused.

  Did Earth kids barf in car vehicles? Because I felt like I was going to do just that any minute now.

  “I feel sick,” I said.

  “Sick how?” Flossy asked.

  “Rover-sick,” I admitted.

  “Oh, that’s just great,” Vera said, and sighed.

  * * *

  Finally, after what seemed like forever, Flossy pointed excitedly.

  “I see it!” she said. “That’s the French flag.”