bright plants around her.
But she wasnt yet used to Mars. It took a beat before it struck her that these rows of plants were happily growing in the Martian air outside the pressurized dome. Oh, my, she said.
Alexei laughed.
They walked on through more inhabited areas. They passed what had to be a school, and Bisesa longed to walk in and discover what kind of curriculum was presented to these first young Martianswhat were they told of Earth?but she didnt have the nerve to ask Paula.
And they found a bar, called Skisapparently after Schiaparelli, inadvertent discoverer of the Lowellian canals. There was alcohol available, but only fruit wines and whiskeys. They tried an apple wine, but it tasted weak to Bisesa.
Low gravity, low pressure, Alexei said. Its easier to get drunk here.
The last dome they explored was the largest, and looked the most expensive. It was constructed of panels laid over immense struts of what Myra identified as lunar glass. The interior was mostly disused. Aside from a few corners used for stores and small workshops, there were only dusty partitions, cables, and ducts lying over an unfinished floor.
Its as if they dont quite know what to do with it, Bisesa said.
But it wasnt the Martians choice, Paula said. After the sunstorm there was a lot of sentiment about what happened to the Aurora crew, and a lot of money was put into getting the Mars settlement going properly. And this was one result. It was going to be a slice of Earth, here on Mars. She waved a hand. Those glass struts came from the sunstorm shield itself. So this is a sort of memorial, you see. There would have been blue sky, projected onto that big dome. They were going to call it Oxford Circus.
Youre kidding.
No, Alexei said. There was even going to be a zoo here. Farm animals. Maybe an elephant or two, Sol, I dont know. All shipped up as zygotes.
And weather, like Earths, inside the dome, Paula said. They even got that part of it working for a while, when I was little. The thunderstorm was quite scary. But it all broke down and nobody bothered to fix it. Why should we? Many of us have never seen Earth; we dont miss it. And we have our own weather. She smiled wider, her young face so like her mothers, her eyes blank.
That night, Bisesa settled down in a stern monkish cell that seemed designed to remind her that she wasnt a guest here, not welcome, that she was here on sufferance.
But there was a row of books above her bedreal paper books, or anyhow facsimiles. They were editions of classic novels of Mars as it had been dreamed of during the long years before spaceflight, from Wells through Weinbaum and Bradbury to Robinson and beyond. Flicking through the old books oddly pleased her; for the first time since she had arrived, she was reminded how many dreams had always been lodged on Mars.
She clambered into bed. She read a few chapters of Martian Dust by a writer called Martin Gibson. It was a colorful melodrama that, with the comforting gravity, soon lulled her to sleep.
PART 2 JOURNEYS 19: THE SANDS OF MARS
She was woken by Alexei, shaking her shoulder. We have to move.
She sat up, rubbing her eyes. I thought you said we have to wait for a rover.
Well, we changed our plans. They dont have too many assets on Mars, but they started to move during the night.
Who is they? Astropol. The Space Council. Look, Bisesa, well have time to discuss this. Please, right now you
need to shift your ass. She had trusted him, and Myra, this far. She shifted.
The rover, trundling to its docking port on the central dome, was visible through a small window. The rover had a number: it was the fourth of Lowells fleet of six such long-distance exploratory vehicles. But it also had a name, stamped in electric blue on its hull: Discovery. About the size of a school bus, painted bright green, its hull bristled with antennae and sensor pods, and a remote manipulator arm was folded up at its side. The rover dragged an equally massive trailer at its back, connected to the parent by a thick conduit. The main body and the trailer were mounted on big complicated-looking wheels on loosely sprung axles. The trailer contained stores, spares, life support gearand, unbelievably, a small nuclear power plant.
This rover was big enough to carry a crew of ten