backstory ftw
This was supposed to be a drabble in response to this prompt:
Little by little, the face of a stranger
Looked out of my face -
Though my face remained changelessly there.
But it got waaay out of hand, so I'm posting it here.
thin air burning, bright streak over cold stone, asteroid not an asteroid another strange one, metal and knobs
crashcratercrashsoon
no
gentle gentle landing no crater just settling in the dust burning burning from the bottom slowly dim and down
carbon-dioxide-ice clouds parting, not asteroid parting opening something
footsteps, bounding lightly in the dust, noise noise sounds talking voices thick with static and awe
Hello.
*
Kneeling on the edge of Marineris, sunset blurring blue against the red, gloved fingers sliding, soft ruddy trails
”God, Houston. It’s beautiful.”
local aurora twisting above the mag deposit
preen
*
After the explorers, scientists. Eager fingers, stroking, asking. Soil samples, ice cores, atmospheric measurements. Water under the Olympus crater? Bacteria???
Curious, curious.
Strange monkeys with instruments and suits, hot little creatures, wet breath and wide eyes. Staring back and forth through clear helmets, wondering about each other.
*
Bigger ships, fleets flashing in the red sky, work crews and heavy materials, constructing domes, clusters of bubbles rising on the stone, for -
For the miners -
Shovels and dynamite and drills, pry pry pry take steal grab yank tear
FREEZE THEM STARVE THEM CHOKE THEM
Red dust in all their machines, fragile little rats need them, dust in the gears break them down
thin winds fastfastfast tear the suits tear tear back
blood tastes like iron
iron like him
*
More hard bubbles, bigger clear shells, triangles and hexes and dodecadomes, harder and braced, better tech, clever, learning, evolving. Can’t get to them just storm outside and too old and slow and cold to roar and quake they live here, live until they die ill and weak, interred in rock, low voices rocking, singing, never heard voices like that mourning voices, nasty work but work enough here to stay, tough and stubborn and that
That is a baby’s cry, loud and shrieking, a demand to live.
*
The bacteria dispersed fast over his icecaps, even hardier than the miners, blooming like mad, racing across the poles in a profusion of oxygen and rampant mutation, no ecosystem, no predators, no limits except the thin air and the cold. They pump more and more and more air, heavy and hot, a thick scarf rapped around him, greenhouse they say, have to make it a greenhouse.
He hates green.
Water with the air, slimy and wet, water and air and bacteria, changing his atmosphere, more organisms to burrow into his soil, change that too, make it suitable, make it suit.
And then the satellites reach inside him and wrench, he never knew this could happen, never knew anything could hurt all through him, crunching, he tries to contract and he can’t, he’s too solid, all iron and silicon, heavy heavy heavy and it pulls his wispy wraps of air tight tight to him, Olympus Mons is bare and scraping void, strangled in his own air, soaked with water and oxygen and weighing thick on his face.
The domed city opens.
Footsteps, again.
While he is wracked and choking, they walk steadily, and breathe.
*
He can tell them apart, now. He knows the rough brown tumble-names of Soviestan and the clear-eyed caution of Whitefall. He knows Arabic and Urdu and Spanish and Turkic and Russian and Malayalam and Portuguese and Afrikaans.
And he can tell the determined, devoted havenfolk, hands hard and ground-in red skin with slowly setting roots in his cold terrain from the others, fat and wet and soft when they come to take ores by the shipful, leaving small crates of all the food he can’t grow for them.
He tries to tell the weak ones that he knows what ribs are now, these pale curved bracings poking from his sides. He tries to say we are suffering, foolishly believing that if his tongue were not so thick in his mouth, that would be enough. Even after eons of existence, even after the agony of terraformation, he is young in the ways of the new conquistadores.
*
He is rising, buzzing mad, little craft swarming up as he shouts in all their voices, I am Mars I am free I am me. He is stone and ice and winds, sparse desert grasses, camels and lichens and sickly potatoes, he is stoic, he is everything that kills and everything that survives. He is red (blood) iron.
Look at me, Terra, look at me, bitch, I am real, I am human, I am free.
Little by little, the face of a stranger
Looked out of my face -
Though my face remained changelessly there.
But it got waaay out of hand, so I'm posting it here.
thin air burning, bright streak over cold stone, asteroid not an asteroid another strange one, metal and knobs
crashcratercrashsoon
no
gentle gentle landing no crater just settling in the dust burning burning from the bottom slowly dim and down
carbon-dioxide-ice clouds parting, not asteroid parting opening something
footsteps, bounding lightly in the dust, noise noise sounds talking voices thick with static and awe
Hello.
*
Kneeling on the edge of Marineris, sunset blurring blue against the red, gloved fingers sliding, soft ruddy trails
”God, Houston. It’s beautiful.”
local aurora twisting above the mag deposit
preen
*
After the explorers, scientists. Eager fingers, stroking, asking. Soil samples, ice cores, atmospheric measurements. Water under the Olympus crater? Bacteria???
Curious, curious.
Strange monkeys with instruments and suits, hot little creatures, wet breath and wide eyes. Staring back and forth through clear helmets, wondering about each other.
*
Bigger ships, fleets flashing in the red sky, work crews and heavy materials, constructing domes, clusters of bubbles rising on the stone, for -
For the miners -
Shovels and dynamite and drills, pry pry pry take steal grab yank tear
FREEZE THEM STARVE THEM CHOKE THEM
Red dust in all their machines, fragile little rats need them, dust in the gears break them down
thin winds fastfastfast tear the suits tear tear back
blood tastes like iron
iron like him
*
More hard bubbles, bigger clear shells, triangles and hexes and dodecadomes, harder and braced, better tech, clever, learning, evolving. Can’t get to them just storm outside and too old and slow and cold to roar and quake they live here, live until they die ill and weak, interred in rock, low voices rocking, singing, never heard voices like that mourning voices, nasty work but work enough here to stay, tough and stubborn and that
That is a baby’s cry, loud and shrieking, a demand to live.
*
The bacteria dispersed fast over his icecaps, even hardier than the miners, blooming like mad, racing across the poles in a profusion of oxygen and rampant mutation, no ecosystem, no predators, no limits except the thin air and the cold. They pump more and more and more air, heavy and hot, a thick scarf rapped around him, greenhouse they say, have to make it a greenhouse.
He hates green.
Water with the air, slimy and wet, water and air and bacteria, changing his atmosphere, more organisms to burrow into his soil, change that too, make it suitable, make it suit.
And then the satellites reach inside him and wrench, he never knew this could happen, never knew anything could hurt all through him, crunching, he tries to contract and he can’t, he’s too solid, all iron and silicon, heavy heavy heavy and it pulls his wispy wraps of air tight tight to him, Olympus Mons is bare and scraping void, strangled in his own air, soaked with water and oxygen and weighing thick on his face.
The domed city opens.
Footsteps, again.
While he is wracked and choking, they walk steadily, and breathe.
*
He can tell them apart, now. He knows the rough brown tumble-names of Soviestan and the clear-eyed caution of Whitefall. He knows Arabic and Urdu and Spanish and Turkic and Russian and Malayalam and Portuguese and Afrikaans.
And he can tell the determined, devoted havenfolk, hands hard and ground-in red skin with slowly setting roots in his cold terrain from the others, fat and wet and soft when they come to take ores by the shipful, leaving small crates of all the food he can’t grow for them.
He tries to tell the weak ones that he knows what ribs are now, these pale curved bracings poking from his sides. He tries to say we are suffering, foolishly believing that if his tongue were not so thick in his mouth, that would be enough. Even after eons of existence, even after the agony of terraformation, he is young in the ways of the new conquistadores.
*
He is rising, buzzing mad, little craft swarming up as he shouts in all their voices, I am Mars I am free I am me. He is stone and ice and winds, sparse desert grasses, camels and lichens and sickly potatoes, he is stoic, he is everything that kills and everything that survives. He is red (blood) iron.
Look at me, Terra, look at me, bitch, I am real, I am human, I am free.