Lost on Mars (10 page)

‘No,' I said aloud, and she turned those big purple eyes on me.

‘You needn't tell them about me,' she said. ‘They hate us, don't they?'

‘They're scared,' I said, trying hard to speak the words inside my head. The hardest part was making them come out in a line, because my skull was swarming with thoughts that were all jumbled up.

We weren't flying tonight. We were just walking into the wilderness and the parched scrubland. It was further than I'd ever been on foot. I was fascinated by the strange columns of stone and the weird trees.

‘They are right to be scared of us.' She sighed heavily. ‘You know, don't you? You understand what we do?'

I told her that I knew about the Disappearances. I said about Grandma and how we had found her leg and her eye.

‘How I wish my people wouldn't do it,' she said. ‘I've tried to explain to them. I've tried to tell them that you are just people like we are.'

‘Of course we are!' I burst out.

‘And you have your own feelings, too. You look after each other and care and you even … love each other.'

‘And what do they say?'

Her shoulders slumped. ‘I'm the youngest in our whole tribe. Of course they won't listen to me. They scoff when I say humans have feelings.'

‘But we're human!' I cried out. ‘We … we
invented
feelings!'

Sook looked at me, frowning. ‘No, you didn't. How could you?'

I didn't know what to say to her. Then it came out in a rush, ‘But we invented everything! We've got, like, civilisation and rockets that brought us here. We've got Dickens and Michelangelo and … and…'

Sook smiled. ‘I hardly know what you're talking about. But I like that you care enough to get cross, Lora.'

We walked through blue sand. The sky was creamy, starting to glow at the edges where the dawn light was coming.

‘Has there ever been a friendship like this before?'

‘Oh yes,' Sook said. ‘All this time that humans have been on Mars. There must have been friendships before, don't you think?'

‘I don't know,' I thought, inside my head. ‘We don't really know anything about you.'

‘You will,' promised Sook. Then she noticed the time and took hold of my hand, running down the steep dune we had just climbed. We were taking off again, into the sun.

It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever experienced. Flying through the dawn light. Sook kept tight hold of my wrist in her dry, wrinkled hand.

We touched down a few hundred yards from my home. No lights were burning yet. The prairie was one dark, sullen mass. The beasts were snoring. Sook smiled and left. I would slip into bed and pretend I'd been sleeping. All day I would be yawning again. Maybe I could sleep for an hour now and that would be enough.

I was almost at the door when something jumped out at me. I nearly peed. It was Al. He grabbed hold of my wrist, just where Sook had held me, except he wasn't so gentle.

‘I saw you,' he said. ‘I know what you were doing. I saw that … thing.'

I shook him off roughly. ‘You don't know anything.'

‘It was a Martian.' His face looked spiteful.

‘Ssssh!' I drew him into the shadows of the porch. ‘You can't tell anyone, Al.'

‘What are you doing?' he squealed. ‘They took Grandma! They're taking everyone! '

‘I'm learning about them. I'm friends with her. I don't know how yet. But I know it's really important.'

Al was staring at me something dreadful. ‘How are you ever going to tell Ma and Da about this?'

‘I'm not in danger,' I told him, but he didn't look like he even cared about that.

He went, ‘You're a betrayer, Lora. That's what you are.'

I couldn't make him see sense, whatever I said. All that day and for a week or so, Al kept out of my way. He kept playing with the lizard bird he had brought to our Homestead from Ruby's house. He was training it to understand him and do tricks.

I was helping Da with the burden beasts, cleaning up their feet and scales and stuff one day, when he said, ‘You and Al had a falling out?'

‘He's a boy,' I shrugged. ‘They get funny sometimes. He's at a funny age.'

This made Da laugh out loud. It was always a good feeling, making Da laugh. Then he looked at me. ‘Still, there is something different about you lately, Lore. I'm gonna be relying on you a lot in the next few weeks. When it comes time to be moving on I'll be needing you to help and be strong.'

‘I know that.' I stood up, to look taller and more sure about what was expected of me.

But, what if we went hundreds or even thousands of miles away? Would Sook still know where to find me?

Maybe when we went I wouldn't be able to tell Sook about it. Maybe that would mean an end to our friendship.

It was like a clock had started ticking in my head and my heart.

16

I went out to work with Da in the fields. There was stuff to salvage before we abandoned the prairie. Da and I patrolled the perimeter and it hit me that the land had never really been ours. It had just been on loan to us for a little while.

Da said, ‘We got some good use out of this dry old soil. It kept us alive for these good years.'

It was like we were doing it honour by going round the edges and taking down Da's electric fences. We were setting the land free, to turn back into wilderness again.

We worked quickly, plodding alongside Molly and George, collecting up any grain or shoots we found: precious scraps of life we could hope to transplant elsewhere. Some days when we went further afield we took the hovercart. It was old and kronky and the innards had corroded from the sand whistling through it.

That day we parked at the furthest perimeter. There we were, surveying the reaches of the cornrows, which had become visible again now that winter winds had stripped away the dunes. Da decided he wanted to take some pictures. He never said much, just used Al's camera phone to take some snaps of empty ground.

When we walked back to the hovercart in the late afternoon, it was plain to see it was listing. The skirt had busted and there was no way it was gonna hover again without serious repairs.

Da sighed and muttered something about it giving up the ghost when we were so far from home. Next thing he was crawling underneath the hovercart and starting to tinker with the insides. He was getting me to pass his bag of tools. I was proud because I knew all the names for those implements, and what they did.

This was no easy fix. The hovercart had gone very wrong. Da was under barely ten minutes before the anti-grav packed in completely.

The front end of the vehicle smashed down on his legs just as he was repositioning himself.

I stood there, frozen. Holding a tool. A tool I knew the name and purpose of. I stared at Da. He was rigid. Screaming till he was all screamed out. His voice was bubbling somehow. It sounded like blood in his throat.

I staggered over to him. What could I do? Could I get him out?

His face was coated in dark, sticky blood. He was in a fever sweat, panting like he was scorching hot. He spat words out past the bubbles of blood. He took a few seconds to fix his focus. Wild white eyes stared at me. Then he started to tell me what to do.

His jaw juddered. He was trying to keep calm for my sake.

‘T-Toaster,' he said. It took every bit of his strength to get these words out. ‘Toaster can g-get me out of here. F-fetch him n-now, Lore.'

I couldn't think of anything else to say but, ‘Yes, Da.' Then I turned and I didn't hesitate for a second. I ran faster than a mad Jack Rabbit over the dunes. I let my heels fly and my lungs burn as I pelted downhill.

I could save him, I knew I could. It was unthinkable that he was going to die today. I had to run faster across the prairie than I ever had before.

All the while I was shouting inside my head, ‘Sook! Come and help! You've got to help me, Sook!'

But there was no reply. The heat was still beating down. Sook would never come until it was dark.

Da was lying back there with no water. With his legs mangled and crushed and blood in his mouth, drowning him.

‘Sook! Will you come and help us?'

I don't know how long it took me to get home. It felt like it was several days, with the sun scorching through my winter dress all the way. Sweat streaming down my arms and legs. It was a shock to find the Homestead so peaceful, with everyone carrying on their afternoon tasks. Ruby was with Hannah at the well scrubbing out linens, and Ma was in the kitchen with Al. I could hear them clattering around, and their high, contented voices.

I went straight to Toaster, who was out back, feeding grain to the chickens. He saw at once that something was dreadfully wrong.

‘We will go at once,' he said, dropping the bucket of feed. The hens went crazy over the spilled grain as we rounded the outbuildings. That's when Ma caught us.

‘Lora, what's going on?' she began, and then she must have seen something awful in my face, for she went very still all at once. She said, ‘It's your Da, isn't it? What's happened? Where is he?' She had hold of both my arms and was squeezing them tight.

Toaster laid a cold mechanical hand on her. He made her stop shaking me. My teeth were rattling in my head. He said in a very steady voice, ‘I must go to him at once. Lora will come with me.'

Ma let go immediately. It was like Toaster had been the boss of our family all along and we were programmed to do his bidding.

Ma stood quite still, hugging herself, her rough woollen dress billowing in the breeze. She stood outside the Homestead watching us go.

Toaster and I ran through the sand, past the low dunes. It was all uphill. Toaster ran smoothly. My lungs were heaving and I could taste my own blood, as if the harsh sand in the air was cutting me up inside.

I shouted out directions and tried to explain. Toaster locked onto his target. I followed in his wake and we ran and ran. I could hear broken glass valves and fizzing circuitry crashing about inside his chest cavity. We didn't slow for a second.

At last we came to the rise in the cornrow where the hovercart could be seen quite plainly. Just as I had left it, wonky and lopsided on the rocks. Its silver skin glistening in the diminishing sunlight.

Toaster pulled ahead, surging towards his objective. He was at the top of the hill several moments before I was.

I came crashing to a halt beside our robot. I stared uncomprehendingly at the disturbed sand and the vehicle lying there and the gap by its skirt where my da had been. I stared and stared at the drying streaks of blood but it was no use. There was no avoiding the plain truth of it.

Da had Disappeared.

17

Hannah didn't fully understand what was going on, of course. None of us could really grasp the full meaning. Life – our lives – without Da in them didn't make any sense at all.

Ma hit me. Hard across the face. I think everyone else present was more shocked than I was. I fell over and they helped me back onto my feet.

Men from the town were there, in our Homestead. Stomping about in their desert shoes, loading up their weapons. They organised a short, futile search. When Ma hit me they dragged her away to calm down.

Those stinging slaps gave me something to focus on. I felt I deserved them. I had let Da down. I should never have left him alone out there on the prairie. He was pinned to the rocks, helpless as a beetle on its back. He was under the hideous weight of that metal machine. Even if I hadn't directly caused his death, I was still a jinx. A Jonah, like they used to have on old spaceships, like in the old tales of discovery and disaster in the void.

The very worst had happened. We had lost Da.

Aunt Ruby took Ma away and put her to bed and made her swallow the strongest pills she had. Old pills from supplies Ma had tucked away in her cabinet. Things they gave to folk freaking out during deep space voyages. Ma went into a comatose state to ride through the days of grief. She floated above while the truth slowly sank in for the rest of us.

Al and me, we looked after Hannah, who remained her bright and cheery self. This seemed kind of wrong, but as Ruby said, she wasn't to understand.

The town's men gave up their search for the body.

Night time, morning, afternoon, evening, night time again. The same again, and the same again. The days wheeled round and no Da came banging open our front door, stomping the sand off his boots. He didn't whip off his hat and laugh at our stricken faces. ‘You thought I was missing? You thought I was dead? How could you think I'd ever leave you?'

He never came in and kissed Ma and the baby and ruffled Al's hair and mine. He just never turned up. It was like he had forgotten us in an instant, and turned his back.

Those first few nights were so weird. I put the electronic seal on the outer doors of our Homestead. By doing that I was admitting that he was out there forever and never coming back.