“The hills look a long way off in that direction.”
She appears to understand. “Which way feels right?”
He turns right and starts following the river downstream. “I may live to regret this.”
The ground along the riverbank is easy going, but the river takes two sharp bends and then reaches a waterfall. The ground ahead falls away sharply down a rocky hillside, where the river continues about 200 feet below. The terrain is loose and treacherous. He could easily lose his footing, to say nothing of tearing his feet apart on the rocks. But there is a path across the river via the rocks that are placed like paving stones across the top of the waterfall. Without a second thought, he leads the way across the stone, slipping once on a slimy rock, but quickly regaining his balance.
On the other side of the river, he starts to move away from the rushing water where the land begins its gradual rise into the foothills of the mountains. Those peaks seem a whole lot closer now than they had a few minutes earlier. He picks his way up the slope until they reach a small plateau on the edge of a sheer rock face. The plateau leads either right or left into the forest. The trees here seem older, yet perhaps more sculpted. Each in balance with the one beside it. Almost like a life-size version of a Japanese bonsai garden. The land beneath the trees is perfect, covered in moss and short grass, so verdant and lush as to beg the observer to lie down and rest.
“Which way?” she asks.
To the left, the trees reveal the hillside, sweeping gradually higher through ground that looks manageable to traverse.
To the right, the plateau disappears around the rock face. This could be a dead end, except something tells him it isn’t. There’s only one way to find out.
A short distance around the end of the rock face, he stops dead in his tracks. The plateau ends in a rocky staircase carved into the mountainside itself. He runs up the stairs like a kid who’s just won a prize. At their top is an incredible amphitheater curve in the mountainside, a sculpted architectural marvel at one with the forest itself, like it has somehow been shaped by very powerful forces of nature. It is a vast and beautiful home that is both organic and simple.
Holtz steps up beside him. “You found it.” He looks at her in disbelief. “This is my home,” she says.
“I don’t understand…”
“Sometimes no matter which way you go, your destination is certain.”
Now it is Holtz who leads the way. The house is beautiful. To Borman, it is like a work of art. It has multiple terraces built into the hillside. Though somehow crafted intentionally, they remain a part of the forest. Interspersed through the trees are boulders of varying sizes that have been carved into geometric works of art, covered in ivy and small epiphytes.
She sees the look of wonder on his face and smiles. “I admire beauty in nature and I sought to emulate it in my home,” she explains.
“You built this place?”
“For us, this is not so hard.”
They move up through two more terraced levels to a little water course that is flowing through center of the house itself — a small tributary feeding the river that cascades down the mountainside into a rocky grotto alongside her house. On either side of the water, stairs rise to a terrace across from which three small trees grow. Seemingly ancient and perfectly shaped, none are more than eight feet tall. Behind them, an open-plan house like a cave has been carved into the mountainside.
The light blue water in the grotto is incredibly inviting. She says, “Please, swim.”
He pulls off his LCG and his shirt, and dives into the water. It is crystal clear. He gulps down the water thirstily — somehow knowing it is fine to drink — and it is the most glorious water he has ever tasted… Cool, sweet and bursting with a life force of its own.
She joins him in the water and they swim together for a long time, splashing one another like children. Holtz swims like a fish and appears to have the ability to remain under water for as long as she likes. Her big feet are like a pair of flippers, moving her through the water with speed and grace. She is so obviously in her element, he wonders if Martians might be amphibious.
The rock pool is shallow near its perimeter, but disappears rapidly into the black depths. Lower down, he sees dozens of fish of various sizes clinging to the shadows, although they appear untroubled by Holtz when she swims close. The water is clear. While he sees a long way down, the bottom is lost in inky blackness. He manages to freak himself out when he sees Holtz peering back up at him from the depths like the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
He heads for the comfort of the shallows. Swimming to the edge of the pool, he pulls himself into a chair-shaped cleft hewn into the edge of the rock pool. From here, the water is a glowing aqua and the sight is so glorious he feels more than a little foolish for being so easily startled, until he reminds himself where he is.
Holtz’s home has the feel of an Acapulco resort. She breaks the surface and swims toward him. He asks, “Does everyone on Mars live like this?”
“There are not so many of us,” she says. “We have more than enough of everything to live in abundance.”
“Do you live alone?”
She shrugs. “In this place, I am free to be the version of myself I want to be. A free thinker. Among my people, I’m what’s called an Outlier.”
“That suggests thinking freely isn’t possible when others are around.”
She answers like she’s speaking to a child. “It is for the betterment of all concerned I am alone now.”
“Why?”
“Because I am as I am.”
“A free thinker?”
“And a female.”
“There’s no women’s lib on Mars?”
She stares at him for a while before shrugging her shoulders.
He says, “I guess you’re not familiar with that term.”
“No, I understand. And I see you. It’s you who doesn’t regard women as your equal.”
Borman shakes his head. “No, that’s not true. My wife Susan…”
“Stayed home to look after your sons. She is a good spouse and mother. Allowing you to be away from home… to fly in space.”
“How do you know that?”
“Some thoughts are like words. They are easily heard by those who know how to listen.”
“You’re listening to my thoughts now?” She doesn’t deny it. Nor does she appear in the least part concerned that it bothers the heck out of him. She climbs out of the rock pool, half suspecting the water itself is aiding her in the process.
“Water and air are elements. They are not to be feared.” She steps out of the water and immediately appears to be dry. “Nor am I.”
He steps away from her toward the edge, where the grotto’s water cascades over the lower terraces of her abode. It’s a struggle to get his head around the concept. This feels like an invasion of his privacy, especially since he can’t read her mind in return. But this world of hers is truly a thing of beauty. The air here is pristine. As far as he can tell, it’s devoid of any pollutant. They are either deep inside virgin forest, or Martian technology has surpassed the need to burn fuel for energy.
But there’s more to it than that. The life in the air seems to carry joy. It certainly has that effect on him; he’s never experienced anything like it. A vitality that fills his lungs with every breath. On Earth, he has always felt like an interloper in the wilderness, knowing it to be a place in which he could never feel completely comfortable, nor totally at ease.
In the early days of his astronaut training, they were abandoned to extremity in the wilds of the desert around Stead Air Force Base in Nevada. They had to build improvised shelter and make clothes out of parachutes, to prepare for the possibility of landing off target. That experience had reinforced a feeling that had been with him since the earliest days of his childhood. Despite the loving attention of his father, who used to take him fishing and camping, Borman had come to see the deep forest as a place to be endured. To survive and not to thrive. Maybe his own illness as a kid had undermined his confidence in that regard, but the feeling of his own insignificance in the landscape never abated.