Mission Mars (11 page)

You see, before the last med guy died, he informed me that I have a previously undiagnosed form of blood cancer—which is bad—but that somehow, it's fighting off the virus. Funny, right?

I'm the last one alive … which means, eventually, I'm going to die alone.

A life support pod landed near our settlement with room and renewable supply provisions for one person. Since I'm the only one left, I guess that's what the network expected. It still took a little work, but it wasn't too hard to get the little guy down below the main tunnel by myself.

The last transmission the producers sent claimed that my ratings were through the roof, which strangely still felt good, despite all that's happened. They also said that the show
would be rebroadcast, with a much larger and more diverse group. The new team would be landing somewhere I hadn't even heard of before, which means it will be nowhere near my location. The only visits I'll get for the next few months will be from a steady stream of supply pods.

At least they had the decency to make sure that the pod has a working camera on board. It's right above my living space and sees everything except when I have to suit up to unload a pod from outside. The red “On-Air” light is strangely comforting, but I'm still terrified about the possibility of dying alone.

I stopped getting transmissions a couple weeks ago, but I'm still being broadcasted.

Maybe the new group will send people looking for me after they've landed, but there's no way I'll make it until then. The blood cancer that was my savior, is now my killer.

Figures. Finally, I have the biggest stage in the world, but I won't ever get to hear the applause.

Lewis Kosmatka stepped out from the Conglom's chartered lander. He dropped to the flattened surface of the landing platform, a gentle fall in the lunar gravity. He reached up to smooth his hair, but bumped his fingers into the faceplate of his helmet instead. This was his first trip to the Moon, and if everything played out as he planned, it would be his only trip.

A taxiway, lined with small shelters, led toward the manmade structures in the distance, nearly a half kilometer away. The New Moonstruck dome swelled out of the wide Elysium crater, formerly Fra Mauro crater, but renamed by marketing years ago. Over the main entrance, magnetically confined plasmas gyrated, glowing like faint blue, purple, and yellow orchids. Eye catching as neon signs without the tubes. Further off was the only eighteen-hole golf course on the moon. More than one hundred hectares of luminescent
synthetic turf covered the lunar surface, dotted with gray sand traps along the fairway and motionless flags on each green. Tourists bounced along the fairways in gaudy plaid rental suits.

Beyond The New Moonstruck dome, past a low ridge, sat the large antennae of the science base. The dim utilitarian bubbles were laid out in an uninspired order. But, thought Lewis, no one came to the moon for a view of a bunch of scientists. People wanted an uncommon adventure away from the mundane world.

A mechanical porter, squat bulbous tires whirling beneath a flat bed, zipped toward the lander. It stopped next to Lewis. “Mr. Kosmatka. Paging Mr. Kosmatka,” the canned voice chimed over the open channel.

Lewis didn't bother answering the machine. He just dumped his sealed bag onto the porter and began the short walk to the main domes of the resort. He had barely taken two cautious steps when a person approached him from one of the small shacks by the taxiway.

“Excuse me, sir.” A woman, judging from the alto voice over the open channel.

Lewis turned his head, but only saw the inside of his Armani-Perelli helmet. Frustrated, he shifted his torso so he could face the woman shuffling toward him with the classic lunar stride, bent knees, and pedaling feet. She wore a homemade suit that appeared like quilted fabric dyed a tacky fluorescent orange. Chipped and dented re-gen tanks clung to her back from used military webbing.

A ‘Derb Towner', Lewis realized: parasites living off the lunar resort. He hadn't expected to meet one so soon and stepped back involuntarily.

She carried a statue in her three fingered gloves. The half-meter tall statue had wide feet and a long nose set in a bug-eyed face. The surface texture of the statue was pockmarked, as if intended to mimic lunar craters, but only looked like a severe case of acne. Two silvery antennae, made from coiled metal, bobbled slowly over its head.

She continued. “Sir, would you care for a genuine Little Green Moon Man lawn ornament? Less than twenty dollars return weight! Prove that you visited the Moon.”

“I work for the Resort,” Lewis replied.

“Oh.” Her pleasant tone changed to a disinterested grumble. She shuffled away, hefting the statue by its nose. “Since when do you resort employees ride the chartered lander?”

Lewis turned and continued down the taxiway. People in suits stepped out of the souvenir stands, box-like shelters no larger than a three-man airlock. Cobbled together from discarded containers and scrapped silicate pressboard, most looked incapable of being pressurized. Bright signs were stenciled across the sides of the shelters, bearing amateurish slogans, showing no more ingenuity than a child's lemonade stand. The people held out lunar handcrafts, paperweights, inscribed moon rock ashtrays, dolls wearing helmets.

“He's an employee. Don't bother,” called the first woman.

The throng of Derb Towners returned to their ramshackle stalls. Every pushy voice disappeared from the common channel, suddenly squelched into silence.

Suddenly, Lewis felt like a leper in a bazaar. As he wasn't a tourist, he ceased to exist for the hawkers. His ears grew hot, and his cooling unit turned on in response, blowing air across
his face to maintain his comfort. He reached to straighten his tie before remembering his suit, then he marched down the now deserted taxiway. He passed the gauntlet of tacky souvenir shops, finally stepping through the revolving airlocks of the main resort dome.

Lewis popped his helmet and handed it to the smiling, uniformed attendant. He took a deep breath, noting the fresh smell of cinnamon coffee and baking bread of the welcoming dome. Someone had paid attention to market research.

The attendant used a portable vacuum to remove the dust from his legs. The sharp lunar dust was supposedly carcinogenic, so they had to make a show of controlling it. She helped him step out of his pressure suit. “Did those people bother you on the way in, Mr. Kosmatka?”

Lewis shook his head and finally straightened his tie. Those people were the problem he was here to address. His career-making or breaking gamble would play out today.

Ed Ramirez, director of the Conglom's resort division, had an office suite located in the observation tower of the New Moonstruck dome. Lewis supposed the only reason the director could afford the view was that no high rollers wanted it any longer. Beyond, the wrap-around quartz windows displayed the broad panorama of the surrounding moonscape. In an uninterrupted view, Lewis could see the science base in the distance to his right and the landing field to his left. Sprouting between the buildings, the low, lumpy dwellings of Derb Town.

Further out, past the manmade structures, Lewis looked into the bleak desolation of the cratered surface—dirty white rock and black shadows with unwavering stars in a sky of permanent night loomed before him. The same emptiness of the Great Plains winters he had desperately fled, throwing himself into the bustling work of Hotel and Resort Management.

Instead of tropical islands or luxurious, elegant casinos, Lewis found himself back in a wasteland. Ironically, he had fought to get this temporary assignment on the Moon, playing on his recent success in northern Manitoba for the Conglom. If Ramirez didn't buy his strategy, Lewis might be demoted and get assigned here permanently.

Ramirez swiveled around in his high-backed chair. “Impressive, don't you think?”

Lewis tried to read the director's expression. The task was impossible in the dimmed room. “Static, I'd say. If you've seen it once, it isn't worth it to see it again.”

“Not static, Mr. Kosmatka,” Ramirez said. “Derb Town keeps growing. More little piles of dirt, swelling like warts right next to our property. What do you propose to do about that?”

Lewis began to pace before Ramirez's desk. “How can we pull this resort out of the red? That's the real question.”

“If we get rid of Derb Town, our old clientele will return.”

Lewis raised his finger. “Derb Town is a problem, I agree, but do we want our old clientele back? Who makes up Derb Town?”

“Human refuse—”

Lewis held up his hand. “Former guests who bet their
return ticket in the casinos. Even though it wasn't allowed.”

“Some of them, yes,” Ramirez said defensively. “But some have dropped out of the Science Base, and the rest are jettisons from Derb Town's own cut-rate tourist traffic.”

“But who were the original Derb Towners? Our guests.” And fired employees, thought Lewis, who refused to forfeit their severance pay to cover their passage home.

“Basically, Mr. Ramirez, they were people with more money than sense. We did this to ourselves. They lost their fortunes and stayed on the lunar surface too long. They didn't bother with the medical treatments, because they couldn't afford it. Eventually they were stuck here with weak bones and shrunken hearts.”

“We know all this!” Ramirez twitched out of his chair like a beetle. He slapped his open palms on the polished obsidian desktop. “You give me some solutions. That's what you're paid for.”

“Okay. We've tried to cut them off from Earthside supplies, but they make do with salvage and garbage.”

“Like cockroaches. Then they undermine our business with their cheap domebrew vodka and make enough money to buy their own landers.” Ramirez had turned to kneejerk reactions. The man, a legend in the industry, had climbed to his position because of the New Moonstruck Dome. He wasn't thinking creatively because this was his baby. And Lewis was threatening his baby.

Lewis needed to steer the conversation away from the touchy point of Derb Town. Cautiously, he began, “And that's the point. We need to show a profit. All they have to do is survive. Besides, the root of our problem isn't the Derb Towners. They've already done the damage. Their cut-rate
holiday packages have changed the whole concept of vacationing off planet. The Moon is passé.” Lewis paused until Ramirez was about to say something and then interrupted. “The science base is the key to our dilemma.”

Incredulous, Ramirez frowned. “Are you joking? They don't make enough to afford our prices. Hell, they've been on the Towners' side from the start. All they do is complain about golf balls whacking into their antennae, and the pollution of their so-called lunar atmosphere. Their protests kept us from deporting those Towners. And of all things, they have the gall to call them colonists!”

“It's time to move away from tactics and start looking at an overall strategy. We've got to target a different consumer. Money alone isn't sufficient criteria to be our guests. You see what's resulted from being indiscriminate. No, we need to get the glitterati. The Hollywood dynasties, old computer money, established aristocracy. Exclusivity is our solution.”

“But the Moon is passé,” Ramirez said dropping into his chair. He narrowed his eyes at Lewis. “You've made that abundantly clear.”

“Correct. So, we learn from our mistakes. Move further out where Derb Town won't follow.” Lewis waited. He wanted Ramirez to ask where they could move. Finally, when Ramirez turned up his hands in question, Lewis said. “Mars.” Then before his boss could respond or protest, he launched into his sales pitch. “Multi-year vacations. Champagne cruises on luxury liners. Terraformed habitations. None of this casino and health spa pretension. No. What we focus on is a trip so exclusive, that only the rich—and, most importantly—the powerful make our
select invitation list. Exclusivity breeds desire among the glitterati!”

“How can we—”

Lewis waved off Ramirez question before he could continue. “A science base has been established on the Martian surface for ten years now. Quarterly cargo shipments are launched from here, and we can lease shipping containers from them. It's ours for the taking. If we start work on the liner and at the same time send a team to Mars to establish this Ultimate Resort, we can show profits in three years.”

“Three years?”

“Do you see enough profit here?” Lewis waited for any reaction from the director.

After a moment, Ramirez grunted. “I'll give you the go-ahead.”

“Excellent. Now I have a list of candidates to head up the operation.”

“No,” Ramirez said emphatically, “you'll be directly accountable to the stockholders.” Ramirez emphasized the word “stockholders” with the same dread tone as if he had mentioned the Tong or the Ukrainian mafia. “You will spearhead this mission.”