Old Mars

He looked back, and the dust devils veered, so that he could see through the thinning dust. They weren’t chasing him—but they couldn’t catch him if they did. He could outrun any of the grown-ups in the settlement. Adaptation, Dad had called it when Maartin started winning their races, back when he was ten. “The planet is shaping you.”

They weren’t going to catch him. His breather was working hard and he slowed, kind of pushing himself off with his toes, letting his body do the work, like the Martians moved, like their bodies could sort of float. He could see them again now—they weren’t dust devils anymore—pushing along beside him with the same floating gait, but lighter than he could do it. Rose drifted beside him and anger hummed in the air, making his back teeth ache.

It would never be there again. The canal. The barges and the towers. He’d only see red rock if he came this way again. His stomach cramped up and he skidded to a stop. There was another collapse a klick farther on. He walked now, trudging along the smooth floor of the canal. The vague shapes of barges drifted above him on the surface of the water that used to be. The floor was like glass but not as slick. Dad said he’d looked at it … or one just like it … from Earth, when he was a boy and wanted to come here.

Long time ago.

Maartin stopped. The Rim came right down to the canal, as if the rock spires were ready to step into the water that used to flow here. He found the small fall of rock that let him climb the smooth face of stone to the foot of the Rim. Above him, two spires twisted skyward like dancers, upraised hands joined. A soft whisper tickled his mind.

Grief. Anger. Maartin leaned back against the stone. Maybe it was dead for them, too, the canal, the water, the barges and players? A slow, depthless sadness filled him, their sadness. He blurred his eyes and looked out at the canal. Here, water still sparkled in it and on the far side, glittering crystal spiderways arched and twisted, crisscrossed and vanished into the distance. The people floated along the strands, long fingers waving at each other. Vines twined around the base of the spiderways here, thick with red, purple, and orange leaves. Their leaves were shaped a little like the tomato plants in Kurt Vishnu’s plot, even if the leaves weren’t green. Other plants that looked like spiny melons dotted the ground. That kind moved, too. He watched as one tall one stretched its branches, bruise-purple leaves quivering.

A Martian drifted up and over the canal on one of the tall, looping arches that crossed it, coming quite close to where Maartin was standing. He, Maartin thought. The Martian stepped off the web strand where it ran past the Rim and looked at him. Really looked.

Only Rose and sometimes Shane had looked at him, up until now. He shivered, couldn’t look away, and that dark sadness filled him, streaked with fiery veins of anger. He couldn’t look away. It was as if he were diving into red dust, dry, suffocating. He gasped. Jerked back. The long fingers curled, just so.

A smile?

He curled his fingers, felt … amusement. Approval.

Another blast rocked the ground.

The web and the water and the Martian all shimmered and …

… were gone.

Maartin slumped back against the rock tower, his gut hollow.

He could see the towering plume of dust, couldn’t see which spire they had blown apart this time. How much more had died? He pushed himself to his feet, broke into a trot, measuring his breathing. Time to get home before Dad got back with the cyan crew and found him gone.

To his left, all he saw was the empty red dust and scattered rocks on the canal floor. He slowed to a walk as the rows of low, inflated greenhouses came into view. Bad to show up panting. No reason to hurry. Their plot was at the far end, closest to the vestibule. He entered, sealed the door, and opened the inner door. The rush of warm, humid air soothed his dry lips, and he pulled off his breather for a moment, so that he could smell the rich green-and-dirt-scented air. Too bad you had to use a breather in here, but the air from the settlement filters was heavy in carbon dioxide, very low in oxygen. He’d passed out once, and Dad had had a fit. He pulled the door closed behind him. Seaul Ku was working in her plot, just across from theirs. “Were you lost?” Her narrow dark eyes, nested in smile-wrinkles, fixed on his face. “I saw you out there, following the dust devils. You looked lost.” She shook a blue-gloved finger at him. “You should not follow the dust devils. They can knock you down. Break your breather. Then what would you do?”