Martian Concerns
                            
                                                   By Mark Donnelly

  “Fredrick!”, shouted Freddy, his neck and face dark pink, beads of sweat  pooling

together and rolling down his long face.  “I’ve told the three of you a thousand

times not to call me Freddy.  We’ve gotten too intimate.  You’ve lost  respect for me. 

I’m the leader of this phase of the mission and now I’ll have to take steps.” 

  There was a moment of silence while Sam, Deirdre , and Fiona grinned sardonically. 

Freddy was sitting at the back wall of his sleeping compartment, his lanky frame folded

uncomfortably with his knees up and his wrists tied to his ankles. He was lucid enough to

see this and said, “ok, ok I‘m sorry-I’ve lost my mind, or  control of my thoughts.  It‘s just

visions of myself murdering you guys. 

Just comes over me-the urge is tremendous.  That’s why I volunteered to stay in here but

not tied up. And you drugged me.” 

  “Your face is scratched and your scraping the scabs on you head,’ Fiona offered.

“My nerves. We’ve been out here for  39 days  and we have been tortured,”
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Freddy’s voice became shrill, “the ghosts are torturing us and you know it!”

  The others left the small room.  “We’ll check in later, Fredrick” said Sam on the way

out. He locked the door with a makeshift hinge and socket wrench.

‘Sleep meds didn‘t eork on him..   Worked for me, a little,“ Sam said in

a tired, cracking voice,  “ I’m numb from head to toe.  Matter of fact I think

I’ll try taking a nap again,” and he tread lightly toward the lounge squinting even in the

soft light of the long corridor. He squared his stocky frame and readied for battle,  “I’m

used to the torments”

“We need to talk about what we‘re going to do with Freddy,” Deirdre said to the back of

his head in an annoyed tone.

“Later. Boil some water for coffee,”  he replied gruffly.

  Fiona and Deirdre watched him until he disappeared around the corner.  They didn’t like

speaking about it  but Fiona said, “Are you having problems?  Meds wearing off?”

“I slept a little- when I focus on them they go away. How about you?”

Fiona whispered, “ I’m sleeping in fits-can‘t get used to it.

He’s full of it’

“I know,” Deirdre said,  “Only 7 hours to go and

we’ll be on the surface”


    At first the crew agreed not to inform control.  They all thought they were

experiencing hallucinations from some toxic gas or other human made substance 

 but when Fredrick lost it they informed control that they thought Frederick was at the

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fourth stage of space fatigue. No one wanted to mention ghosts.

  Deirdre was second in command and was compelled to inform the company so

she said that the situation was being handled and that’s all the company wanted to hear.

That and that Phase II was on schedule. 

  Freddy would be treated at the Mars infirmary. If he didn’t get well, and quickly, he’d be

shipped back home.

  The company was a merger by Virgo Space and Space Explorer. Phase

1 had been on the surface for ten years consisting of geneticists, agriculturalists,

technicians,  construction workers, construction equipment, fully equipped  labs, and

living quarters all in several very large underground facilities.  Geodesic domes housed the

small farms and recreation areas. There was also an underground nuclear power plant

kilometers away.

  The decision to build the facility in a deep valley only a few kilometers from the Valles

Marineris was obvious.  Water was found deep in the canyon at 17.6 S 61.4W-a frozen

reservoir.  Millions of liters had been found, hundreds of thousands had been mined. The

recycling equipment kept it potable.  The location also helped to shield against the

wind and sandstorms.  It was also slightly warmer near the equator.

  Air was transported regularly from Earth onboard the

twelve huge ships built in Earth’s orbit. Canisters were taken down to the Martian surface

and recycled .  Mars’ low gravity made it feasible for the small nuclear powered transports

to off load all the equipment and supplies. 

  In the spacious galley, Deirdre and Fiona sat staring at the  floor to ceiling interactive
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 mural of  Mars that covered one wall.  In the center there was a live feed camera focused

on Mars. They watched it as the ship  got steadily closer and they sipped  freeze dried

coffee with powdered cream. Fiona’s red hair was disheveled and frizzy.  Her eyes  were

puffy, skin pale. Deirdre looked the same though she kept her head shaved.

“I can‘t stand these rotten people, “ Fiona whispered.

“I know, I know  but stay calm,’ Deirdre answered her voice shaking slightly.

She put her cup down and rubbed her darkly circled eyes.

  Sam had lain lay down in the lounge on a oversized, comfortable couch.  “Dim lights”, he

said and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and sighed.  He dreaded being jolted

awake when he was almost asleep.  He knew the mission had gone terribly wrong but he

was determined not to crack like Freddy. He had upped his dosage of sleep medication

and it had been working but only for a few hours at a time. 

  The unseen torments started when they were about 48 hours away from Earth.

They  were seeing glimpses of people.  Different looking, like old

drawings or paintings. Then the sleep disorders started. Loud noises near their ears or

down the halls. Even pinching and shocking sensations.  It went on for a week before

they started taking sleep meds. Some days were worst than others but then Fredrick

cracked. He started screaming and running down the corridors clutching his chest.  At

one point he calmed down and they sedated him.

  Sam dozed off.  Awhile later a full bodied dark woman dressed in a long tight dress with

aqua, beige, red, and green stripes walked in the lounge   The attractive woman slowly laid


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on top of Sam who happened to roll on his side.  She lay there a moment looking at him. 

With the red painted nail of her forefinger she played with a stray follicle that was sticking

out of his nose.

He started twitching it and after a couple minutes  woke up.  At first the extra

weight on him didn’t register but then he opened his eyes and looked directly into the

woman’s  burning coals.

  As he jumped up in terror she disappeared and it took all of his wits to keep from

screaming and tearing up and down  like Freddy.

  Sam stalked into the galley his long black hair flying, face flushed, eyes hollow and wild.

He said, “I’ve had it.  I’m getting the transport ready. As soon as we’re in orbit I going

down.  The ground crew can come up for cargo-I don’t care about a wasted trip,”  he

explained what had  happened, and Deirdre said, “Just awhile longer-let’s keep each other

awake.”

“What do they want? What did we do to them?”  Fiona asked for the umpteenth time

looking at both of them with a hint of suspicion.

Sam shrugged his shoulders and turned away.  Deirdre shook her head.



  Fredrick was half asleep.  He was visualizing one of the summer vacations he and his

family had taken at Lake George. They had brought their boat.   They motored out to an

island camp ground and spent a few days in warm August weather.  The boys were

young, seven and nine.

  He could see the camp site in between a few tall oaks and surrounded by high
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pachysandra bushes. The boys hopping around playing some made up game.  His wife,

Nadia, standing nearby in the scattered sunlight slightly tanned, her buttery hair glowing. 

She was so happy.  Her green eyes gleamed  but with a hint of anxiety.  She worried

about the boys  with all that water around.  He began to weep and said out loud, “A

Vision…” “Beautiful children too.”  Torn from his reverie Freddy popped his eyes open.

Standing with his back against the door was an older man in rumpled clothing. He had a

full head of gray hair and O shaped eyeglasses on a face that was hard to describe except

to say it was in folds from under his eyes to his double chin.  Oddly Freddy wasn’t the

least bit frightened. He was half expecting to talk to one of the ghosts.

“Couldn’t resist the cute redhead?”

“How did you know that? Where have we met?,” Freddy asked then he caught himself and

said, “wait, you’re an hallucination.  I’ve lost my mind and I’m amazingly calm about it.”

“Your not hallucinating.  We’ve met many times.  You don’t remember because your body

was asleep.  You know, you’ve woken up in the morning half dreaming. Your ending a

conversation with someone then when your fully awake you can’t remember what was

said.  As time goes by what was discussed and planned comes to fruition-more about that

later-right now I’d like to get to the point in case I lose you.

  We had an agreement.  Galactic Industries could begin colonizing our home, Mars, with

one major stipulation  Do you remember what that was?”

“No, I don’t remember being privy to any etheric contracts,” he answered sarcastically.

  The old man fashioned a grim grin on his face then said, “the man you met, the one who

said he represented extremely wealthy people, those who paid your sons’ tuitions to
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Oxford and Harvard, and your wife getting the mortgage paid on her house. And all that

other cash. The man who wanted you to do a little experimenting.”
 
  Freddy’s head shrunk into his shoulders.  There were a few moments of silence.

“He gave you cash for Sam and Deirdre, large sums, and between the three of you forging

reports and switching containers you were able to smuggle the samples.  And what were

those samples, Fred?  You were going to come to my home and experiment with dna to

create what Fred?”

Freddy was stunned.  “I still can’t believe that this is happening but for the sake of

argument,” he paused,  “we need to find a more suitable, sturdy physical frames for

people to exist in space environments”

“As you say on Earth Fred, that’s bullshit. Let me try and jog your memory. When a

person enters the Intelligence profession he or she must go through certain types of

training to understand not only the obvious daily grind of collecting data etc. but how the

chess game is played. What are the goals of the major players. 

How to help understand what’s really going on, what’s real and what’s contrived. It’s

ultimately a power struggle by one gang or another to see who will be on top.  An

intuition alignment.  You know all this.

  You’ve had night school on my planet mostly to mingle with the intel people you’d

be working with. You were in on the deal.”

Fred cocked his head, “ Night school? How-”

“ You fall asleep and as prearranged your at Mars in an instant in your dream body. I

don’t have an heavy physical body so I can use the tubes to Earth.  My point is most of 
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Earth’s intel officer’s and agents come through Mars and end up watching each other’s


governments. This is how it’s been for ages especially in the last two hundred and fifty

years or so.  This is our agreement.  A place for all the agency’s to go to get acquainted

and try and prevent world wide conflagration.  And now it’s time to move out into space

but we have a serious problem.”

  Freddy sat up, gasping slightly from the stiffness in his back and said, “OK, what exactly

are you driving at?” still surprising himself that he was talking to an apparition although

he was having slight flashes of memory alluding to what the man was talking about.

“Giving Freddy an icy stare he said, “I’m talking about me and my folks re-incarnating. 

You know what I’m talking about.”

“Did I really know there would be Martians ready to

reincarnate into test tube babies?”

“ And your missing something,”  the old man went silent then continued, “obviously

a small detail to you.  Those who bribed you want you to create a class structure  their

future families  could control. An elite class of modern humans with

enhanced dna to handle the rigors of space and a grunt class.  What’s this class of grunts

Freddy?”

Freddy looked away but couldn’t help betraying a nervous grin.

In a gruff tone the old man said, “Do I look I want to be a Neanderthal?”

“Like I said, in this waking state, according to you, I don’t remember anything about

reincarnation,” retorted Freddy

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Not hearing the old man said, “ What about ethics?  The preliminary tests with

Neanderthal dna looked promising, to you, but now you need tests and you know there

will be many birth defects until you get it right.  Deirdre has offered to bring one to full

term.  If you don’t like the results you’ll kill the newborn monstrosity and start again?”

Freddy wriggled a bit.   His own kids came to mind he and softened.  Then he steeled

himself and thought about all the problems in the world and how it was due to human

emotions. 

  A class of intellectuals  makes the rules and this  would ultimately

make for a more peaceful society especially if some of the emotive reactionary brain

functions could be curtailed for the masses..  His mind was made up on that.

  “It wouldn’t take long in test tubes to see if an embryo can make it to full term.  All great

achievements are marred by failed attempts.  And Neanderthal dna tests are just

experiments“.

“Ah-yes.”
 
Then old man went silent and just looked at Freddy. His eyes were a light blue green but

for a split second Freddy caught a glimpse of something very dark pass behind them.

Then he said, “I’ll be back in awhile” and as Freddy blinked his eyes the old man was

gone.

 “I’m taking only what I need for now.  I want to sleep and then come back in twenty

four hours,” Sam said gathering some clothes and toiletries.

“ What do we do with Freddy?  We can’t leave him tied up,” Fiona said, fumbling with

one of her frizzy strawberry curls.
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“Let’s check. If he seems ok we’ll untie him but leave him locked in.  Whoever

handles security can come back and get him.” They left their things in the first transport

and went to Freddy.

 
Sam removed the socket wrench from the makeshift padlock and opened the door

slowly ,  “Freddy-uh- Fredrick how are you feeling?”

“Believe it or not I’m feeling good.  I can’t-actually I won’t- explain why but with some

proper rest I’ll be fine”

Not paying much attention Sam said, “ We’ve decided to stick to the story that

you volunteered to stay sedated for the last 48 hours because of anxiety issues.  We

won’t tell anyone you were tied up.  We’ll go down first and send people back so you’ll

need to act as groggy as you can and they will medi -vac you out.  OK?”

“You don’t trust me?”

“We don’t want problems with nerves if we have a tough entry going down”

“You know the atmosphere is a third of Earth-”

Sam almost shouted, “let’s discuss this in a couple days.”

Deirdre came in and untied Freddy while Sam readied himself to pounce.

Fiona waited outside, teary eyed.

“Really Sam”, Freddy said noticing Sam‘s posture, “it was only crazy thoughts and I know

now where they came from. Their gone now. Let’s celebrate.  We’re in Mars’s orbit!”

“Let’s celebrate later Freddy.  Let’s stick to the plan, ok?,” Deirdre said.

He acquiesced and a few minutes later Freddy could hear the first transport disengage

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from the ship. He thought a slight vibration reverberated through the enormous 482M

hull.

  They had left the door unlocked.  He sat for a few minutes and thought of how

humiliating it would be to be taken out on a gurney.  He decided he’d take


the other transport.  He did feel fine.  Something about the old man reassured him that he

hadn’t become a schizophrenic.

  Before going to the transport Freddy decided to have a look at Mars.  He went to

the bridge and accessed the exterior camera and turned on the large screen. He had to

maneuver the camera a little to get a view of the fantastic complex and was completely

astounded by Valles Marinares. Two hundred kilometers wide and seven kilometers deep.

He couldn’t wait to get down to the surface.

  Freddy hurried into the transport, secured the hatch, and was about to radio in that he

was coming down when the old man appeared.

“In a hurry to get down to start experimenting?”

Freddy, at first startled, chuckled and said, “I’ll see if I can stall or falsify reports to show

that the dna in question would not do well in you light gravity,”

The old man knew he was being placated, “I want to show you something,” he said.

Freddy was busy trying to figure out why the comm wasn’t working but hesitantly looked

up, “What is it?”

“Look at the monitor.”

Freddy looked up and  at first the monitor was blank then suddenly there was a man’s

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figure standing in the bridge near the control console. 

He was dressed in skin tight black spandex material covering his entire body including his

Head and ankle high boots.  On closer inspection Freddy realized the figure had no facial

Features- only eyes in lidless sockets. They looked like glass or plastic.

“What is that?,” he gasped

“ I call him Set,”  the old man replied and then Set moved to the control panel.

After typing Set pushed the enter tab then turned his body toward the camera

his eyes moving a tad slower. Freddy heard a metallic clicking at the cabin door.

“What’s he doing?,” and he nervously fiddled with the controls to launch the transport. 

There was no reply.  “What the hell is this?” he yelled at the old man.

Freddy ran to the cabin door.  It wouldn’t open.  He turned toward the old man.

“What are you up to.  What is that thing?’

“That’s a robot.  Flesh and blood robot.  A soulless construct of pure thought.  He was

created out of thin air by a Master Magician from the higher realms specifically for jobs

like this. He can fearlessly traverse the third and fourth dimensions. He’s a martial arts and

weapons expert. He can be mentally programmed to one person’s commands verbally or

telepathically. He sees with his inner eye. He’s almost emotionless and will carry out

orders to the letter.  He’s mentally limited.”  The old man smiled tauntingly.

  Visibly shaken Freddy said, “How did you get the code?”

“Set  just popped back from Earth.  He stole it.  He spied on an official with

top secret clearance-stole his password to the security files.  Everybody is locked out of

controlling the ship except Set.”
                                                                                                        Donnelly/Concerns/13

   Freddy was now visibly shaking.  The old man continued, “You thought , in the back of

your brilliant mind, that you were having an hallucinogenic response to space travel and

stress and that by going down on the surface, you would, in a few days be back to

yourself.  I’m not an hallucination. Set isn’t. All the people you’ve seen on this ship are

real.  Being away from Earth and all those people holding on to the 3D illusion make it

harder to see through the veil.  But out in space your perception changes. But this is talk

for the after life, Freddy.” Set fired up the huge plasma rockets.

Freddy started to panic when the ship began to

move.  One of the monitors switched on and he had the cameras’ view of Mars. In the

other monitor Set stood at the bridges’ console his head cocked askew at the view of the

base on the giant screen.

  Freddy ran at the old man and grabbed him by the shoulders which stunned him.  His eyes popped.

“I told I’m real,”  the old man said and reacting to the wild look in Freddy’s eyes he disappeared before

Freddy could throttle him.

“Freddy,” a voice through the intercom said, “I know you’ve had your heart set on taking tours of my

planet.  So Let’s go”

The old man was standing next to Set looking directly into the lens.  Freddy’s draw dropped.  His heart

was pounding with fear.

  The ship was picking up speed. “Try to enjoy it.  Take a deep breath, hold it, then let it out

slowly to ease the pounding.  Watch the monitor.”

Standing hunched at the console monitor looking at barely recognizable ruins, pyramids,

the astounding Olympus Mons with visible ten kilometer high cliffs

and a two hundred mile wide caldera but all Freddy really saw was his own death.

“Set set the coordinates for 17.6 S 61.4W.” 
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  The ship was hurtling through the thin atmosphere.  There was no sonic boom. They were about 8

kilometers high and Freddy estimated the ship was clocking over 56,000 kilometers per hour. By now the

surface was a blur in the monitor.  “Your going to crash into the facility.  It took ten years to build and

cost trillions,” Freddy paused then said, “ OK , I give you my word that I will dispose of the Neanderthal

samples”

  “It’s too late Fred.  And I don’t trust you.  We don’t trust your pay masters.  The funny thing is that at

least a dozen of them will be destitute, or close to it.  They put all their families’ money into this venture.

People will be coming here to live in the planet, mostly, and people need resources.  The value of having

the mineral, water rights, owning real estate  over the next fifty years could be worth hundreds of trillions. 

  Oh well, the company will have to try again.  May take another ten years or more and this time they

better be more careful.  They’ll start receiving the last transmission in a about a minute. I’ll see you on the

other-I mean-on this side a little later.”

  And after having circumnavigated Mars in less than ten minutes Set adjusted the bow trim and aimed for

the complex.

  Freddy watched as the ship raced toward the complex. It was truly a marvel of engineering.

He let out a primal scream from the depths of his spirit, “NOOOOO….”

And just before headlong impact the old man and Set disappeared.

  Minutes later in a small office located on the same property as The Very

Large Array  a techie received the transmission from the bridge camera of Freddy

talking to no none.  Immediately everyone up the chain of command was alerted.

 The company president in charge of the Mars Colony Project watched Freddy on the vid.  After

he heard the Neanderthal comment he mumbled, “Guess I should call my wife and say goodbye”

And then he sat back and pictured stock markets around the globe crashing.

The End