A non-Trek story, inspired greatly by "2001: A Space Odyssey" at least as far as setting is concerned. Enjoy!
* * * *
The sight of the barren, inhospitable surface of the planet would make anyone wonder why people wanted to live there. But he supposed it compared in no way with the repulsiveness of space, yet in spite of it being but a dark, cold, dead vacuum, it filled the soul with imagination, dreams, and hope. Nothing like the red, unlivable world below them.
Through the view port, he gazed up at the sky. Somehow, space always seemed so much more beautiful from underneath. Those bright lights that sparkle high above brought about a certain sensation, knowing, or at the very least, hoping, that somewhere, out there, there were other men reaching out for those stars, longing to find that they are not alone in the universe. But when looking at the stars out there, they always seemed less fantastic, somehow. He'd never noticed it, until his father had said so. He had explained, his father, that when being among the stars, they were a normal part of life, but when looked at from afar, from the surface of a planet, the stars were a dream. That they were so far away meant that one could dream to find anything among them, but of course there was nothing there but emptiness. The emptiness that sometimes depressed him, that made him look forward to the weekly ritual of entering Mars' atmosphere and being able to see the stars as they were always supposed to be seen: from below, from where they weren't real, from where they were the brightest.
The ship gently touched down upon the platform which almost immediately set in motion, descending into the underground facility of Heinlein Mars Base. The reddish hue that dominated the interior echoed the color of the planet itself; at the other side of the bay was an elevation platform similar to the one their ship occupied, but that one wasn't in use: it probably wasn't a very busy day. He didn't bother to observe the sight through the view port, for it was all too familiar to him. The hugeness of the bay no longer impressed him, having seen it for week after week, year after year. He could see that most of the passengers shared his sentiment, fixing their attentions onto whatever they were reading or watching instead, but there were a few who seemed excited about the view; maybe they were new colonists, or just visiting friends or relatives—either way, they obviously hadn't been to Mars before.
The mild shock that came with the platform coming to a halt came at nearly the exact same moment he had expected it, and he amused himself with the thought of pointing out the two-second delay to his father. He was glad the three-day journey had finally came to an end; normally, he'd be in the cockpit with his father for most of the trip, but because an IBM observer had came on to inspect the modifications father had made to the propellant control and navigation systems, he'd been confined to lower decks, thus spending most of the time in the passenger lounge because besides the cockpit it was the only room with view ports. At least Jill was nice, and whenever she wasn't busy servicing passengers they'd play chess or chat, or else he'd just watch her doing her work. He didn't care much for Helen, and fortunately she had the night shift which meant he didn't have to see her much. It also meant that the passengers didn't see her much, which, he supposed, was the reason father had assigned her the night shift in the first place: Helen wasn't much to look at, and tended to become extremely petulant about minor setbacks and inconveniences. He wondered why she'd became a flight attendant at all; actually he wondered even more how she'd been able to pass Pan Am's notoriously strict requirements for cabin personnel. Then again, the company wasn't considering the Mars service a great priority; it was doing much better business on the Earth-Luna route. Helen wouldn't have a chance to be assigned on board one of the newer ships operating the Lunar service, especially now that Aeroflot had announced they'd be providing nonstop service to the Moon. The Soviets already dominated passenger travel to Mars; Pan Am was doing everything it could to keep their customers on the Lunar service from shifting to Aeroflot, but the airline's greatest competitor offered far less expansive tickets, against what Pan Am criticized to be far less comfort and safety. But so far, none of their new ships had known to have experienced mechanical failures and it seemed like Pan Am's business would soon be reduced to shipping cargo.
Jill politely requested all passengers to remain in their seats until the craft had completed docking which would take only a few minutes now that the airlock shaft already began to extend from the base structure. But three days of sitting and doing nothing at zero gravity had left them in want of using their legs again, and no matter how comfortable the chairs were, there was little Jill could do from some getting up and setting about to recover their hand luggage, hoping that they would be the first to disembark the ship and feel solid grounds beneath their feet again. It was the same ritual every time: passengers preparing themselves to get out as quickly as possible, oblivious to the fact that they would have to spend some ten more minutes inside while the airlock shaft connected with the ship and father cleared docking procedures with the control tower—thus those ten minutes seemed to last perpetually to them, particularly to the "new ones", as they called them, who were anxious to set foot on Mars. The more seasoned travelers had quite accustomed to the long duration of the journey and didn't mind waiting just a few minutes more. He supposed he shouldn't blame the ones who did, too much, for they were simply not used to space travel. They had probably saved for months or even years to pay for their one-way trip, hoping that Mars would allow them the opportunity to make a better living for themselves, and their families. And it did. The Martian colonies seemed always more than willing to welcome new citizens, and nearly all prospered. Quite unlike their counterparts on the Moon; of course most of the bases there had been originally established to facilitate scientific research, with no real intent to house thousands of people. The settlements on Mars had been able to profit from the lessons learned and provide more adequate living and workplace accommodations for the colonists. That the majority of those facilities were placed underground further allowed greater comfort, with underground or surface-based pneumatic tubes rather than atmospheric busses facilitating transportation between the different bases.
Another gentle shock followed by a low, sighing sound indicated that the airlock shaft had connected with the craft. Spending so much time in space, it always took him a little while to adjust to the increased gravity, and he preferred to stay on board for some more minutes upon docking before setting foot in the base where they were able to maintain almost perfect artificial gravity—he'd be nauseous if he didn't.
As the passengers were beginning to make for the exit under Jill's instructions, obviously relieved to find themselves under more familiar gravitational conditions, he remained seated in one of the large, comfortable chairs and pulled his legs up to fold his arms around them. Jill assisted the passengers who were yet foreign to proceedings at the base, explaining, he presumed, about the artificial gravity—the new ones always wanted to know about that—and giving directions as they held maps in front of her. Most, however, simply took their hand luggage and made for the arrivals hall to await the rest of their belongings, thus allowing Jill to clear the room within mere minutes upon which she noticed the sole occupant of the lounge sitting as if protecting his body from not-present cold and absorbed in intense contemplation of the interior hull padding. She wasn't quite sure whether she should try and interrupt his pondering, and moved awkwardly about so not to make too much noise which could disturb him but asking herself if maybe he wanted to be disturbed, for he seemed overcame with sorrow and his eyes spoke a sadness which she had observed before at times he'd sought solace.
The room was filled in a menacing reddish hue cast into it by the red lightning of the docking bay. But it didn't make him feel threatened; perhaps it was the many years of seeing Mars which had made him come to associate red with comfort, with safety. The color reassured him when they'd landed that they were no longer exposed to the perils of outer space, and he'd come to think of red as representing a sense of invulnerability; a haven in the dangerous panoply of the cosmos. To the ignorant spectator, Mars may have seemed just another facet in that wide range of hazards; indeed, the planet was hazardous and inhospitable and unpredictable in many ways, but she wasn't unwelcoming. Those who had came to know her understood that she had erected those hostile features because she'd learned to distrust outsiders. And she had all reason to distrust the unknown, for it had often betrayed her and repeatedly broken her innocence until she'd been barren and stripped of her grace. What a cruel punishment she had had endured to see her sister planet prosper and blossom all the while her own good faith had been repaid with nothing but suffering.
What had begun as but an innocent fantasy to amuse himself now, as the personification of Mars had reached its conclusion, inevitably depressed him. Planets didn't have feelings, he knew that. Perhaps it wasn't so much the fate of the planet that saddened him; rather the fate of the subject of his imagination whom he had unwittingly portrayed as female—would he ever quit thinking of fatality as a woman? Could he? Father told him he had to "let go", yet he questioned whether father could himself. And if so, he wondered how.
"Come on now, dear, we must get going." He could hear how hesitatingly Jill faked an impatient tone, which he recognized as a sign of her being worried about him, but she was right: they had to allow the cleaning crew to do their jobs, the apparent needlessness of which no longer bothered Jill. The odds of bacteria finding their way on board and afflicting the entire ship complement with disease may have been one against ten-thousand, ever since she'd seen a private ship filled with terribly ill passengers and crew dock she thanked Pan Am for their rigorous cleaning measures.
He quickly rose to his feet, not wanting to make her know he'd picked up on her timidness. It occurred to him that she was always quite confident in dealing with people—indeed, an acid wit and resolute posture were informal basic requirements for flight attendants. He wondered why she always seemed to experience such difficulty in relating to him. Perhaps to assure him she wasn't, she had gently grabbed his hand and thus they walked off through the airlock toward the entry foyer. This one in particular seemed designed to inspire the visitor with awe and esteem for the great underground base, reflecting the great human achievement which the Martian colonies as a whole represented. The colorless set of doors had sprang open upon their approach with but a soft chime, revealing a hall at least forty feet in height that stretched out more than twice that in length before them, extending into a wide corridor which ran far beyond his eyesight reached. Further corridors to the sides connected the foyer with the rest of the complex, but their destination was in the center of the room. There, Jill walked up to a circular desk, which was serviced by two young women who seemed pretty happy about their jobs and lit solely by lights mounted within the desk, transcending their glow through the MAT glass, granting a futuristic appearance to its otherwise dull aesthetics. Greeting one of the girls with a kind nod, Jill handed her a card of some kind without saying a word, yet was met with an enthusiastic "Thank you," upon which the girl injected the card into her terminal and quickly and seemingly efficiently processed the necessary procedures.
He took advantage of the time apparently required to divert Jill's attention to him. "When are we going to see father again?" he asked, trying hard not to make her think he was whining, even though he was a child which, he supposed, entitled him to a certain level of childishness, but he had hardly seen his father for three days. He had told himself that waiting but a few more minutes now didn't matter, but his impatience proved to be stronger.
"Just a minute now, darling," replied Jill with a sincere smile that was meant to calm his childish manner, upon which she fixed her gaze upon the girl behind the desk once more who was now done and handed her the card back, which Jill accepted with a thin "Thank you." The girl told them to have a nice day while Jill put the card in her purse, answering with merely a quick smile, which he thought was rather in-polite, before taking his hand again and making for one of the sitting areas which lined the walls of the foyer. There she placed him in a large chair, which was a good choice of seating, for he could observe the ongoings in the docking bay through the large window to his left from there, telling him to stay there and wait while she'd get his father. With that, she went off toward the airlock and he followed her movements until she went out of sight. Then, he shifted his stare to observe the entry foyer instead; the docking bay he'd often seen, but he'd never taken the time to really study the features of the entrance halls which lined it. They were all similar in layout and appearance, with thin round pillars mounted against the walls which exhaled a soft illumination and several transparent lifts discretely placed between them, identical in appearance to the pillars, save for the interruption of the line of light by the lift car, making for a perfectly balanced harmony that symbolizing, in a way, the delicate precision with which the entire base had been devised. Heinlein Base was the largest settlement in Promethei Terra; the adjoining Weinbaum and Huxley Bases were but half its size. Of course, the crater had been the most suitable to support a facility of its kind this side of Hellas, with great layers of underground ice situated in its vicinity. Yet that was also the greatest downside to its location, or at least as far as he was concerned, for its proximity to the south pole made the Heinlein Crater a cold and gloomy site which made him wonder who had though "Promethei" an appropriate name for this place—though he knew that farther north, the region was more hot and glaring; more coruscating indeed, for it was there, at the equator, east to the planitia of the same name, where Elysium had been established, the only settlement on Mars large enough to be referred to as "city". Yet from the metropolitan looks of the hall he was in now, one could easily come to think of Heinlein as a city too, in spite of there living only a few thousand colonist in it.
* * * *
The sight of the barren, inhospitable surface of the planet would make anyone wonder why people wanted to live there. But he supposed it compared in no way with the repulsiveness of space, yet in spite of it being but a dark, cold, dead vacuum, it filled the soul with imagination, dreams, and hope. Nothing like the red, unlivable world below them.
Through the view port, he gazed up at the sky. Somehow, space always seemed so much more beautiful from underneath. Those bright lights that sparkle high above brought about a certain sensation, knowing, or at the very least, hoping, that somewhere, out there, there were other men reaching out for those stars, longing to find that they are not alone in the universe. But when looking at the stars out there, they always seemed less fantastic, somehow. He'd never noticed it, until his father had said so. He had explained, his father, that when being among the stars, they were a normal part of life, but when looked at from afar, from the surface of a planet, the stars were a dream. That they were so far away meant that one could dream to find anything among them, but of course there was nothing there but emptiness. The emptiness that sometimes depressed him, that made him look forward to the weekly ritual of entering Mars' atmosphere and being able to see the stars as they were always supposed to be seen: from below, from where they weren't real, from where they were the brightest.
The ship gently touched down upon the platform which almost immediately set in motion, descending into the underground facility of Heinlein Mars Base. The reddish hue that dominated the interior echoed the color of the planet itself; at the other side of the bay was an elevation platform similar to the one their ship occupied, but that one wasn't in use: it probably wasn't a very busy day. He didn't bother to observe the sight through the view port, for it was all too familiar to him. The hugeness of the bay no longer impressed him, having seen it for week after week, year after year. He could see that most of the passengers shared his sentiment, fixing their attentions onto whatever they were reading or watching instead, but there were a few who seemed excited about the view; maybe they were new colonists, or just visiting friends or relatives—either way, they obviously hadn't been to Mars before.
The mild shock that came with the platform coming to a halt came at nearly the exact same moment he had expected it, and he amused himself with the thought of pointing out the two-second delay to his father. He was glad the three-day journey had finally came to an end; normally, he'd be in the cockpit with his father for most of the trip, but because an IBM observer had came on to inspect the modifications father had made to the propellant control and navigation systems, he'd been confined to lower decks, thus spending most of the time in the passenger lounge because besides the cockpit it was the only room with view ports. At least Jill was nice, and whenever she wasn't busy servicing passengers they'd play chess or chat, or else he'd just watch her doing her work. He didn't care much for Helen, and fortunately she had the night shift which meant he didn't have to see her much. It also meant that the passengers didn't see her much, which, he supposed, was the reason father had assigned her the night shift in the first place: Helen wasn't much to look at, and tended to become extremely petulant about minor setbacks and inconveniences. He wondered why she'd became a flight attendant at all; actually he wondered even more how she'd been able to pass Pan Am's notoriously strict requirements for cabin personnel. Then again, the company wasn't considering the Mars service a great priority; it was doing much better business on the Earth-Luna route. Helen wouldn't have a chance to be assigned on board one of the newer ships operating the Lunar service, especially now that Aeroflot had announced they'd be providing nonstop service to the Moon. The Soviets already dominated passenger travel to Mars; Pan Am was doing everything it could to keep their customers on the Lunar service from shifting to Aeroflot, but the airline's greatest competitor offered far less expansive tickets, against what Pan Am criticized to be far less comfort and safety. But so far, none of their new ships had known to have experienced mechanical failures and it seemed like Pan Am's business would soon be reduced to shipping cargo.
Jill politely requested all passengers to remain in their seats until the craft had completed docking which would take only a few minutes now that the airlock shaft already began to extend from the base structure. But three days of sitting and doing nothing at zero gravity had left them in want of using their legs again, and no matter how comfortable the chairs were, there was little Jill could do from some getting up and setting about to recover their hand luggage, hoping that they would be the first to disembark the ship and feel solid grounds beneath their feet again. It was the same ritual every time: passengers preparing themselves to get out as quickly as possible, oblivious to the fact that they would have to spend some ten more minutes inside while the airlock shaft connected with the ship and father cleared docking procedures with the control tower—thus those ten minutes seemed to last perpetually to them, particularly to the "new ones", as they called them, who were anxious to set foot on Mars. The more seasoned travelers had quite accustomed to the long duration of the journey and didn't mind waiting just a few minutes more. He supposed he shouldn't blame the ones who did, too much, for they were simply not used to space travel. They had probably saved for months or even years to pay for their one-way trip, hoping that Mars would allow them the opportunity to make a better living for themselves, and their families. And it did. The Martian colonies seemed always more than willing to welcome new citizens, and nearly all prospered. Quite unlike their counterparts on the Moon; of course most of the bases there had been originally established to facilitate scientific research, with no real intent to house thousands of people. The settlements on Mars had been able to profit from the lessons learned and provide more adequate living and workplace accommodations for the colonists. That the majority of those facilities were placed underground further allowed greater comfort, with underground or surface-based pneumatic tubes rather than atmospheric busses facilitating transportation between the different bases.
Another gentle shock followed by a low, sighing sound indicated that the airlock shaft had connected with the craft. Spending so much time in space, it always took him a little while to adjust to the increased gravity, and he preferred to stay on board for some more minutes upon docking before setting foot in the base where they were able to maintain almost perfect artificial gravity—he'd be nauseous if he didn't.
As the passengers were beginning to make for the exit under Jill's instructions, obviously relieved to find themselves under more familiar gravitational conditions, he remained seated in one of the large, comfortable chairs and pulled his legs up to fold his arms around them. Jill assisted the passengers who were yet foreign to proceedings at the base, explaining, he presumed, about the artificial gravity—the new ones always wanted to know about that—and giving directions as they held maps in front of her. Most, however, simply took their hand luggage and made for the arrivals hall to await the rest of their belongings, thus allowing Jill to clear the room within mere minutes upon which she noticed the sole occupant of the lounge sitting as if protecting his body from not-present cold and absorbed in intense contemplation of the interior hull padding. She wasn't quite sure whether she should try and interrupt his pondering, and moved awkwardly about so not to make too much noise which could disturb him but asking herself if maybe he wanted to be disturbed, for he seemed overcame with sorrow and his eyes spoke a sadness which she had observed before at times he'd sought solace.
The room was filled in a menacing reddish hue cast into it by the red lightning of the docking bay. But it didn't make him feel threatened; perhaps it was the many years of seeing Mars which had made him come to associate red with comfort, with safety. The color reassured him when they'd landed that they were no longer exposed to the perils of outer space, and he'd come to think of red as representing a sense of invulnerability; a haven in the dangerous panoply of the cosmos. To the ignorant spectator, Mars may have seemed just another facet in that wide range of hazards; indeed, the planet was hazardous and inhospitable and unpredictable in many ways, but she wasn't unwelcoming. Those who had came to know her understood that she had erected those hostile features because she'd learned to distrust outsiders. And she had all reason to distrust the unknown, for it had often betrayed her and repeatedly broken her innocence until she'd been barren and stripped of her grace. What a cruel punishment she had had endured to see her sister planet prosper and blossom all the while her own good faith had been repaid with nothing but suffering.
What had begun as but an innocent fantasy to amuse himself now, as the personification of Mars had reached its conclusion, inevitably depressed him. Planets didn't have feelings, he knew that. Perhaps it wasn't so much the fate of the planet that saddened him; rather the fate of the subject of his imagination whom he had unwittingly portrayed as female—would he ever quit thinking of fatality as a woman? Could he? Father told him he had to "let go", yet he questioned whether father could himself. And if so, he wondered how.
"Come on now, dear, we must get going." He could hear how hesitatingly Jill faked an impatient tone, which he recognized as a sign of her being worried about him, but she was right: they had to allow the cleaning crew to do their jobs, the apparent needlessness of which no longer bothered Jill. The odds of bacteria finding their way on board and afflicting the entire ship complement with disease may have been one against ten-thousand, ever since she'd seen a private ship filled with terribly ill passengers and crew dock she thanked Pan Am for their rigorous cleaning measures.
He quickly rose to his feet, not wanting to make her know he'd picked up on her timidness. It occurred to him that she was always quite confident in dealing with people—indeed, an acid wit and resolute posture were informal basic requirements for flight attendants. He wondered why she always seemed to experience such difficulty in relating to him. Perhaps to assure him she wasn't, she had gently grabbed his hand and thus they walked off through the airlock toward the entry foyer. This one in particular seemed designed to inspire the visitor with awe and esteem for the great underground base, reflecting the great human achievement which the Martian colonies as a whole represented. The colorless set of doors had sprang open upon their approach with but a soft chime, revealing a hall at least forty feet in height that stretched out more than twice that in length before them, extending into a wide corridor which ran far beyond his eyesight reached. Further corridors to the sides connected the foyer with the rest of the complex, but their destination was in the center of the room. There, Jill walked up to a circular desk, which was serviced by two young women who seemed pretty happy about their jobs and lit solely by lights mounted within the desk, transcending their glow through the MAT glass, granting a futuristic appearance to its otherwise dull aesthetics. Greeting one of the girls with a kind nod, Jill handed her a card of some kind without saying a word, yet was met with an enthusiastic "Thank you," upon which the girl injected the card into her terminal and quickly and seemingly efficiently processed the necessary procedures.
He took advantage of the time apparently required to divert Jill's attention to him. "When are we going to see father again?" he asked, trying hard not to make her think he was whining, even though he was a child which, he supposed, entitled him to a certain level of childishness, but he had hardly seen his father for three days. He had told himself that waiting but a few more minutes now didn't matter, but his impatience proved to be stronger.
"Just a minute now, darling," replied Jill with a sincere smile that was meant to calm his childish manner, upon which she fixed her gaze upon the girl behind the desk once more who was now done and handed her the card back, which Jill accepted with a thin "Thank you." The girl told them to have a nice day while Jill put the card in her purse, answering with merely a quick smile, which he thought was rather in-polite, before taking his hand again and making for one of the sitting areas which lined the walls of the foyer. There she placed him in a large chair, which was a good choice of seating, for he could observe the ongoings in the docking bay through the large window to his left from there, telling him to stay there and wait while she'd get his father. With that, she went off toward the airlock and he followed her movements until she went out of sight. Then, he shifted his stare to observe the entry foyer instead; the docking bay he'd often seen, but he'd never taken the time to really study the features of the entrance halls which lined it. They were all similar in layout and appearance, with thin round pillars mounted against the walls which exhaled a soft illumination and several transparent lifts discretely placed between them, identical in appearance to the pillars, save for the interruption of the line of light by the lift car, making for a perfectly balanced harmony that symbolizing, in a way, the delicate precision with which the entire base had been devised. Heinlein Base was the largest settlement in Promethei Terra; the adjoining Weinbaum and Huxley Bases were but half its size. Of course, the crater had been the most suitable to support a facility of its kind this side of Hellas, with great layers of underground ice situated in its vicinity. Yet that was also the greatest downside to its location, or at least as far as he was concerned, for its proximity to the south pole made the Heinlein Crater a cold and gloomy site which made him wonder who had though "Promethei" an appropriate name for this place—though he knew that farther north, the region was more hot and glaring; more coruscating indeed, for it was there, at the equator, east to the planitia of the same name, where Elysium had been established, the only settlement on Mars large enough to be referred to as "city". Yet from the metropolitan looks of the hall he was in now, one could easily come to think of Heinlein as a city too, in spite of there living only a few thousand colonist in it.
