Red Mars (Mars Trilogy, #1) - Kim Stanley Robinson Page 0,106

in his ear, as if from a helmet intercom: “Come with me,” a man’s voice said.

Michel jerked back and bumped into the wall. He stared up at a black silhouetted figure.

“We need your help,” the figure whispered. A hand gripped his arm as he pressed back into the wall. “And you need ours.” A suggestion of a smile in the voice, which Michel did not recognize.

Fear thrust him into a new world. Suddenly he could see much better, as if the touch of his visitor had sprung his pupils open like camera apertures. A thin dark-skinned man. A stranger. Astonishment launched through his fear, and he got up and moved through the dark light with dreamlike precision, stepping into slippers, and then at the stranger’s urging following him out into the hallway, feeling the lightness of Martian g for the first time in years. The hallway seemed bursting with gray light, though he could tell that only the night strips in the floor were on. It was enough to see well by if you were scared. His companion had short black dreadlocks, which made his head appear spiked. He was short, thin, narrow-faced. A stranger, no doubt about it. An intruder from one of the new colonies in the southern hemisphere, Michel thought. But the man was leading him through Underhill with an expert touch, moving in utter silence. Indeed the whole of Underhill was soundless, as if it were a silent black-and-white film. He glanced at his wristpad; it was blank. The timeslip. He wanted to say, “Who are you?” but the silence was so blanketing that he couldn’t bring himself to speak. He mouthed the words and the man turned and looked over his shoulder at him, the whites of his eyes visible and luminous all the way around the irises, the nostrils wide black holes. “I’m the stowaway,” he mouthed, and grinned. His eyeteeth were discolored; they were made of stone, Michel suddenly saw that. Martian stone teeth in his head. He took Michel by the arm. They were heading to the farm lock. “We need helmets out there,” Michel whispered, balking.

“Not tonight.” The man opened the lock door, and no air rushed into it even though it was open on the other side. They went in and walked between the black rows of packed foliage, and the air was sweet. Hiroko will be angry, Michel thought.

His guide was gone. Ahead Michel saw movement, and heard a tinkly little laugh. It sounded like a child. Suddenly it occurred to Michel that the absence of children accounted for the colony’s pervasive feeling of sterility, that they could build buildings and grow plants and yet without children this sterile feeling would still permeate every part of their lives. Extremely frightened, he continued to walk toward the center of the farm. It was warm and humid, and the air stank of wet dirt and fertilizer and foliage. Light glinted from thousands of leaf surfaces, as if the stars had fallen through the clear roof and clustered around him. Rows of corn rustled, and the air was going to his head like brandy. Little feet were scurrying behind the narrow rice paddies: even in the darkness the rice was an intense blackish green, and there among the paddies were small faces, grinning knee-high and disappearing when he turned to face them. Hot blood flooded his face and hands, his blood turned to fire, and he retreated three steps, then stopped and spun. Two naked little girls were walking down the lane toward him, black-haired, dark-skinned, about three years old. Their oriental eyes were bright in the gloom, their expressions solemn. They took him by the hands and turned him around; he allowed them to lead him down the lane, looking down at first one head and then the other. Someone had decided to take action against their sterility. As they walked along other naked toddlers appeared out of the shrubbery and crowded around them, boys and girls both, some a bit darker or lighter than the first two, most the same color, all the same age. Nine or ten of them escorted Michel to the center of the farm, weaving around him in a quick trot. And there at the center of the maze was a small clearing, currently occupied by about a dozen adults, all naked, seated in a rough circle. The children ran to the adults, gave them hugs and sat at their knees. Michel’s pupils opened further in