Feeling her skin going cold, the aide looked from the ambassador to the bottle at his elbow and, despite all that had been learned about the effects of alcohol over the past century, she had a horrible insight into why its popularity had never diminished.
21
"DOYOU REALLY THINK THIS IS A GOOD IDEA?"
Hawkes and Martel stood inside one of the thick-pour containment bunkers leading to the outer surface of Mars. The ambassador had changed from his formal attire back into the clothes he had worn when he had first left the Earth. His aide had changed as well, accepting his judgment that rougher clothing might be more appropriate for exploring the outside of the planet than their duty suits.
Standing in front of the hatch to the decompression chamber that led to the smallest of the outer domes, the two stared forward, not quite certain exactly what to do next. Glancing over at the ambassador, Martel followed up her question, asking, "I mean—really? No one is supposed to be up here. No one is supposed to enter the domes."
"But why?" responded Hawkes, still staring at the door. Turning toward his aide, he repeated, "Why not? We both read the same research. These domes have been standing for decades. What's wrong with them that no one is living in them? Why don't people visit them?"
Reaching his hand out toward the control box, the ambassador depressed the heavy yellow button that opened the inside of the decompression chamber. A loud click snapped the quiet, and then the large, thick metal hatch began to roll slowly sideways. As the interior of the air lock was exposed, Hawkes took a tentative step forward, telling Martel, "This is what we need to know. When we reconvene the talks tomorrow, if things start going around in the same familiar circles, we need something to shake things up. If we've got some facts—any facts—something that proves people can live on the surface, or that they can't . . . it might force one faction or the other to give in a little."
"I have to admit," said the woman, "at this point, even 'a little' would be something."
"Well, then, my dear," answered the ambassador, bowing to allow Martel access to the decompression chamber, "let's go see if we can find some."
The woman picked up the pack bag next to her by its twin handles and then stepped inside. Depressing the black button on the inner door panel as she passed it, she moved next to Hawkes as the heavy door slowly rolled back into place. The two diplomats waited patiently, both of them scanning the meager contents of the chamber while they waited for the hatchway to seal itself again.
Whoever had erected the dome had not left much behind to impress later visitors. A trio of old compression suits hung off to the side, with a few power attachments and oxygen packs scattered at their base. Nothing else. No messages scrawled on the walls, no papers, no clues of any kind to identify the men and women who had worked on that site. Hawkes studied the silent suits, their black faceplates reflecting back his probing eyes.
As he stared, he remembered the severity of Mars's recycling programs. Suddenly he was not wondering why there were not more signs of the past in the chamber, but how even the few there had survived. The ambassador spent the next few moments checking the outer levels, making certain the dome beyond contained a breathable atmosphere. And then the hatchway behind him and Martel finally clicked closed, signaling that they could proceed.
"Well," he said, feeling a strange dread curling through his system, "ready?"
"I guess so," she answered, sensing his apprehension, and sharing it.
"Then," he began, pausing for a second as his hand reached out for the control button to the last door, "let's go take one of those giant steps for mankind."
His finger pushed against the heavy control button. The outer door ground with protest, snapping the hold of inertia. Slowly it rolled back, sliding away into the wall of the bunker. At first glance, all that lay beyond was the ribbed plastic of the extension tunnel leading out to the dome.
At first . . .
"My dear God . . ."
The words came out of Hawkes in one breath. He and Martel moved into the runnel slowly—not out of any lingering trepidation, but from wonder. It was their first view of the Martian surface, and they were as stunned as any other person who had ever seen it.
The first thing that caught their attention, of course, was the sallow cast of the sky. They could not take their eyes off it, craning their heads upward and in every direction.
Yellow, thought Hawkes. Yellow.
He remembered a pair of sunglasses he had been given that had been fitted with yellow-tinted lenses. At first he had been fascinated. They had made everything seem clearer, more sharply in focus. But after a short while, he had begun to realize something else.
The yellow glass leached more than just pinks from the visible spectrum, it took away everything warm—everything human. All around him, everything appeared cold and autumnal, as if the blood had been drained from everything in preparation for a winter that would end all of existence. Even looking at his own hand through those lenses had unnerved him. He knew it was his hand, but still it had appeared foreign—alien—to him.
And now he found himself on a yellow world, an entire world designed by the cosmos to drain everything warm from a scene, to leave things stark, devoid of all humanity . . . foreign . . . alien.
Well, thought Hawkes with a shudder, it's not like this isn't exactly what you expected.
The pair continued to walk through the long, plastic-bag tunnel. They began to pick up their pace after the first few minutes, slowly becoming
