The distant rumble caught my attention before I noticed the faint vibrations. It was just a minor tremor. Most of the activity of Olympus Mons amounted to small mars-quakes with little damage done and even less notice by the locals. The unpredictable eruptions from the reactivated volcano rarely produced more than another belch of water vapour, sulphur, and carbon dioxide into the planet’s maturing atmosphere. An occasional pyroclastic flow would cascade down the flanks of the massive mountain, but any of the communities that once lay in the path of such things had long since relocated. From where I stood, the uneasy volcano seemed to be little more than a smoking mound along the horizon, with only the irregular shaking of the ground a reminder of its distant, blessed fury.
Only a decade before, it had lain extinct, a poignant memorial to what this planet had once been. That was until the mythical Mother of Mars miraculously sent a spaceship crashing into the mountain. Even this long after the event, the most brilliant minds had yet to unravel how the miracle had been accomplished. None were privy as I was to the details of the technology long declared a state secret.
So Mons and a hundred other volcanoes now belched their pillowy plumes of gas, and the planet became more habitable with each passing day. The still toxic atmosphere was now thick enough that I no longer required a pressure suit to venture outside. I glanced down at the pebble-strewn ground under my boots to see the hardy, newly introduced plant life had not suffered beneath the treads of our vehicle.
“They’re everywhere,” I muttered to myself.
“What did you say?” Dylan’s voice in my headset roused me from my thoughts.
“Lichens are all over the place. Nothing was here six months ago.”
His footsteps crunched as he rounded our transport. He stopped and surveyed me. With his silly grin partly obstructed by his breathing mask, his handsome features were unmistakable. He had not aged a day over the last decade.
“Now you’re a botanist?”
“Don’t be an ass. I was just noting how fast things have changed since our last visit.”
“What doesn’t change is the demand for your services, Mel. They are squawking over the comm, wondering where you are. People are lined up out the door.”
“The clinic is overbooked again?”
“What did you expect? You’re the only doctor they see on a regular basis.”
“I’m the only doctor they ever see. Nobody else wants to leave their cozy life on Olympia. I’m fighting a losing battle down here, Dylan.”
“You’re doing what is necessary.”
“What’s necessary is for the fucking government to care. They need to supply the med-tech these people require. I’m restricted to twentieth century medicine down here. I’m one step beyond being a witch doctor.”
He stood in silence, staring at me. The part of his face I could see behind his mask showed he was struggling to contain something he thought funny.
“And don’t you dare say anything about me being a witch already, asshole.”
“I would never dream of saying that.”
His forced seriousness collapsed, and we both shared a laugh at my expense.
Regaining his composure, he said, “In all seriousness, we need to get a move on or we’ll fall further behind schedule. We are two days late because of that damned broken tread. This machine is getting past its best-before date.” He rested a hand on the hull of the transport that served as our mobile home.
“I’m entitled to grouse occasionally.”
He grasped my shoulders and pointed me toward the airlock of the domed settlement we were camped before.
“Complain while you walk. Your patients are waiting, and I need to get parts for the vehicle.”
We trudged along in silence for ten metres or so.
“It isn’t right,” I said. “Mars is basically terraforming itself. The government should free up money to entice more physicians to work in these settlements. Even to set up permanent practices.”
“Our illustrious dictator has other ambitions. None of his puppet administration gives a shit about anyone poor or stupid enough to live on the surface. To them we’re all a bunch of dirty terraformers who are no longer necessary.”
“His dislike for the planet hasn’t stopped him from building his brand new capital. The rumour is that it will have city-wide gravity generators. The pampered elite are not going to expose themselves to any of the health problems of living under Martian gravity.”
“Melanie Destin, you sound like one of the rebels. You need to be careful.”
I rolled my eyes. “I only spout my subversive thoughts to you. To everyone else I am ‘Doctor Corrine Ross: Have stethoscope, will travel.’” I emphasized my comment with air quotes.
“That’s more like it. Mundi may think we’re dead, but I don’t want to risk doing anything that would lead him to believe otherwise.”
We stopped at the massive airlock door and signalled our arrival.
“Just once I want to stand in the central plaza of one of these settlements and shout at the top of my lungs, ‘I am the Mother of Mars, come to liberate you from your oppression.’”
“What will that accomplish?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Maybe push people to act.”
“Talus Varr’s rebellion has nothing to show for the past seven years except the ruins of the communities that joined him. Nobody else wants to expose themselves to Mundi’s retaliation.” He grasped me by my shoulders. “Melanie Destin died when that ship crashed into the planet ten years ago. Let’s keep it that way, okay?”
I disengaged from his grasp as the door began to open. “Don’t worry. I don’t intend to paint a fucking target on my back. Boring old Corrine Ross will go work in the clinic and perform medieval medicine like she always does.”
