The Long Mars

‘Mao’s eyebrows!’ That, astonishingly, was Lieutenant Wu Yue-Sai. She turned to Maggie and blushed. ‘I must apologize, Captain.’

‘The hell you must. What do you see?’

Wu pointed. ‘There. No, there! In the trees – it is long, muscular, like a snake. A huge one. But—’

But this ‘snake’ hurled itself through the air, from tree to tree. No, it did more than that, Maggie saw; it was streamlined, kind of like a flexible helicopter blade, and it was wriggling as it moved through the air. It was purposefully gliding – even flying, if you wanted to stretch a point.

Gerry Hemingway whistled. ‘A twelve-foot-long flying snake. Now I’ve seen everything. No, wait – not yet I haven’t.’

For the ‘snake’ had hurled itself on one of the disc creatures, a little one, an outlier. There was a hiss of steam, the disc wriggled and thrashed, but Maggie saw the snake sink inside the disc, and once within, it began to twist and tear its way back out again.

‘Eating its victim from the inside out,’ Mac said. ‘Having burned its way in with some kind of acidic secretion. Charming. Everywhere you go, herbivores and carnivores, the dance of predator and prey.’

Maggie forced a laugh, to try to lighten the mood. ‘Maybe, but I bet you never thought you’d see it quite like this, did you?’

Cutler was standing rather stiffly beside Maggie. He never was one for social occasions. He said now, ‘I suppose we need to find somewhere rather more isolated for a safe landing for our shore parties, Captain? The crews could use some R&R; we’ve been cooped up a long time . . .’

The group fell silent at this. Maggie felt embarrassed for the man.

Mac had no such compunctions, however. ‘Captain, are you suggesting we actually send crew down there?’

‘I don’t see why not. We’ve landed on exotic Earths before.’

‘Sir, do you ever pay attention to the science briefings from your officers?’

Maggie murmured warningly, ‘Mac . . .’

‘Not if I can help it,’ Cutler said defiantly.

Mac looked around. ‘Gerry, do you have what’s left of that first drone we sent out, so we can show it to the Captain here? The damage to its hull – no? . . . Never mind, I’ve a better idea.’ He made his way to the wall of the observation gallery, where a series of lock-boxes had been fixed to allow the collection of atmospheric samples. He do

‘No free oxygen, I know that much. Water vapour?’

‘Good guess. But not just water. Highly acidic water. Captain Cutler, that’s the story of this world. The oceans are more like dilute sulphuric acid. So are the rivers. So’s the rain. And so is the blood of these creatures down below, the couple we managed to snag with drones. Why, you just saw it in action, as that snake thing must have concentrated its bodily fluids to burn its way into that protoplasmic beast—’

‘Ed,’ Maggie said quickly, hoping to defuse the situation, ‘the science boys think that on this world, in this band of worlds, water, I mean neutrally acidic water, isn’t what life uses as – what’s the term, Gerry?’

‘A solvent. Which means, in this context, something to provide a liquid environment within which the chemistry of life can happen. On Datum Earth, we use water. Here—’

Cutler asked, ‘Acid?’

‘That’s the idea,’ Mac said. ‘There’s a whole biosphere based on that simple fact, that difference. But we’ve barely started to scratch the surface.’

Hemingway said, ‘We have here a suite of life that’s made up of the same basic molecules as us, Captain Cutler, but with an entirely different chemical basis. Perhaps the plants absorb carbon monoxide and secrete hydrogen sulphide. In any event it would be extremely hazardous, to say the least, for a human to venture down there without very heavy protection.’

Maggie said, ‘But the ships are sound. The hull, the envelopes can withstand the dilute acidity of the rain. Obviously we’re keeping our internal air supply sealed off. I’m sure you’d have been briefed by your XO if she’d perceived any problems, Ed.’

Cutler was quite unperturbed, Maggie saw. He was a man whose mind was thoroughly compartmentalized, and he liked it that way. The nature of these exotic worlds, unless his ship was directly endangered, was something he didn’t need to hear about, and he’d no doubt instructed his crew in that regard. Still, he seemed to show a flicker of curiosity as he asked now, ‘So what went wrong?’

Hemingway stared at him. ‘Pardon me, sir?’

‘I mean, how did these worlds get this way, instead of producing regular oxygen-breather types like us?’

Hemingway said cautiously, ‘Well, we can only guess, sir. We’ve only spent a couple of days with a whole new kind of biosphere.’

Maggie smiled. ‘Guess away, Gerry, you’re all we’ve got.’

‘We think that these worlds, for whatever cause, must have gone through a phase of extreme heat when they were younger. Maybe they were like Venus, for a time, with thick atmospheres, ferocious heat at the surface. The thing about Venus, though, is that we’ve always suspected life was possible up in the clouds, where it’s cool enough for life, if you pick the right altitude. There could be some kind of bug tapping solar ultraviolet, and using whatever chemical resources it can find to live on up there. Notably droplets of sulphuric acid – because the acid, you see, has a higher boiling point than water, and is available as a solvent where liquid water isn’t . . . The point is, maybe this Earth was like Venus, our Venus, when it was young.’

‘OK. But this world isn’t like Venus now.’

‘No, sir. But maybe it – recovered. Cooled down again, rather than suffer the full catastrophic heating of our Venus. It became more – well, Earthlike. But that acid-based life, once it got a foothold, stayed in control. And the result is the acid biosphere you see below.’

‘Hmm. Sounds kind of pat to me. And I— What the— Back!’ To Maggie’s blank astonishment, Cutler pulled his handgun, crouched down, and pointed it two-handed at the hull wall.

Then she turned and saw the snake.

It came twisting and turning, riding the yellowish air – yes, it was undoubtedly flying, purposefully. And it was heading straight for the ship, for this observation gallery, and what must look like fresh meat to a flying, acid-blooded, snake-like predator . . .

‘Keep calm,’ snapped Nathan Boss. ‘It can’t do us any harm. The hull, the windows, are resistant to—’

The beast slammed into the hull, its whole body sprawled across the window. Maggie got a nightmarish glimpse of the animal’s underside, an array of suckers and ribbed flesh and things like tiny lips that mouthed the window surface. She even saw some kind of liquid come squirting out, fizzing. She remembered the fate of the jellyfish down on the ground, and her skin crawled at the imagined touch of acid.

And Ed Cutler ran for the wall, towards the snake, gun in hand. ‘I got this,’ he said.

Maggie grabbed for him, missed. ‘Ed! No! Let that thing off in here and you’ll either crack the hull and kill us all, or the ricochets—’

‘I’m not a fool, Captain.’ He jammed the weapon into one of the air-sample lock-boxes. ‘These things will self-seal, right? Same design on the Cernan. Eat this, acid boy.’

And he fired the gun. The noise was enormous in the enclosed space. Maggie saw the projectile pass through the snake’s body and splash away into the air, leaving a ragged hole. The animal thrashed and squalled, and lost its grip and began to fall away.

‘Let me finish him off,’ Cutler said, changing his stance, repositioning the gun.

‘For Christ’s sake stop him!’ Maggie yelled.