Old Mars

“I should turn it in, I guess, but I … I see stuff. Pretty stuff. Cheaper than the drugs.” He laughed that harsh laugh again. “Kind of holds your eye, doesn’t it?” He pushed his hand closer. “Pick it up. See what it does for you.”

Maartin reached for it and just before he touched it, the hum of the city around him intensified, rising instantly to a howl as his fingers brushed the smooth …

He let the flow of the crowd carry him along the wide boulevard, where conversation flowed like the sparkling waters of the canal in the distance. Happy, comfortable, belonging. All around him, slender residents of the city floated along the twisting spiderway … the name for it flashed in his mind. They were all heading toward the canal, and suddenly, the happy/comfortable feeling cracked, streaked through with ugly red anger. Anger. He looked ahead, where the spires twisted into the sky and the fragile bridges crossed the canal in soaring arches. And winced as he spied the empty, dry, ugly space where the miners were working. The anger was building, building, building … washing back across the plain, choking him, turning the sky and air the color of dead dust, blurring the lovely spires, blurring … All around him people stretched out long-fingered hands, reached death from the air, held death like silvery spears that shimmered and twisted, humming, humming, humming, death … He gasped for air, choking on anger-dust, struggling …“Maartin? He’s waking up.”

Dad’s voice.

Arms were holding him. Dad? He blinked, his eyelids gummy, sticky, forced them open.

He was in the infirmary. Everything was white, and a screen winked numbers and flickering graphs beside the bed. Dad leaned over him, his face blocking out the screen and the people strolling through and around his bed, fingers flickering in conversation. “You had some kind of seizure, son. Jorge here brought you in. He said it happened when he touched a Martian pearl.”

It wasn’t a pearl, what a silly name. A pearl was from the shell of a mollusk, a creature from Earth’s oceans, how dumb to think that this was from some kind of sea creature. The people standing around his bed waved their fingers in agreement, flicking laughter at him. Silly comparison, not-too-smart, not-worth-our-attention. They just don’t know. His fingers twitched on the white sheet covering him and he absently noticed the garbled sounds coming from his … from his mouth. It took him a moment to remember the right word.

“Maartin? What are you trying to say? Stay with us, son.”

He blinked, and the strolling people faded a little. He could see through them now, see Dad’s face again, more worried now, see Jorge standing at the foot of the bed.

“Maartin?”

“I … oh … kay. Dad.” He shaped the words carefully, closed his hands into fists as his fingers tried to move. Mouth. Focus. “Fain. Ted?”

“Hello, Maartin, how are you feeling?” Another face swam into focus, pushing Dad aside. Dr. Abram, the settlement’s health-tech person. Dr. Abram was smiling one of those too-wide smiles that meant stuff was wrong. “So what happened? Mr. Moreno here says that some of the boys were getting a little rough. Did you hit your head on something?”

He could feel the pressure of their attention, Dad and Jorge. His fingers twitched again, trying to explain. He clenched his fists more tightly, made his head rock forward and back. A nod. The word for the gesture came back to him. He nodded again. “On. Wall.” It was getting easier to find the words for the lie in the tumbled chaos inside his head.

“I told Al that the boys were bullying Maartin.” Dad’s voice rose as he faced Abram. “But no, he’s not gonna do anything but shake his finger at those punks. When did that ever do any good? And now this …”

“Easy, Paul.” Abram put his arm on Dad’s shoulder. “There’s no hemorrhaging, no pressure on the brain or areas of injury, according to the scans. Apparently the bump caused something like a short and sparked a lot of unusual brain activity, that’s all. The root cause is probably the earlier accident, the original brain trauma.” He was speaking very soothingly, and Dad looked away. He was trying not to cry.

Maartin looked at Jorge. He was frowning. Yeah. He knew that the doctor was wrong. Maartin waited for him to say so, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he gave Maartin a crooked smile. “Glad you’re feeling better, Maartin. Hey, you get better, okay?” He lifted a finger to his forehead in a kind of salute and left the room.

“I’m … I’m glad he came along.” Dad looked after him, his face tight. Nodded grudgingly. “Good to know a few of ’em are okay.” He turned back to Abram, anger in his eyes once more. “I’m going to go talk to Al. Right now. This is a matter for community intervention.”

“You heard what the boys had to say.” Abram shook his head.

“They’re lying.”

“He’s going to be fine, Paul. Kids are rough. They act like bullies once in a while. This scared ’em. They learned from it.”