“But how could you have known it was down here?”
“The Martian people told us. Long ago — Before the war.”
Borman’s mouth falls open in shock. He hardly knows which question to ask first. But she tells him everything, freely admitting the Ryl were the aggressors. “Mars paid a heavy price for its resistance.”
“Did any of them survive?”
“There are pockets of them still living underground, in chambers such as this, so it is said. Though I’ve never seen them, and I can’t imagine how they could survive here. For their benefit, we have devoted many years on Mars searching for ways to restart the planet’s magnetic field. But it’s like that part of Mars is dead and cannot be resurrected. This was the reason we finally shut down the mine. We decided we no longer had the right to trespass upon the Martian surface.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
She moves closer toward him and gently touches his face. “This is just a shell of a world. But there is another Mars. A paradise the Martians created for themselves. Not here, but in another place, across a dimensional divide. It’s a place I would desire you to visit, though if you do so, it must be alone.”
“What are you suggesting — sending me back in time?”
“Not through time, but through space. From one universe to another.”
“Another…? Holy moly. And you won’t come with me?”
“There is a portal. You may enter, but I cannot. Mars has not forgotten what the Ryl have done, no matter how much we may wish to make amends.”
“I’d be your messenger, is that it?”
She smiles at him. “There is a message I would ask you to deliver. But there is something else I would ask of you most. That your memories of me be kept hidden. To ensure you are received as a visitor from Earth and not a Ryl emissary.”
“They hate you that much?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
Borman doesn’t like the sound of this at all. “What if I refuse to go?”
Ningal’s eyes widen. Tears begin to fall down her face. “There is so much I can teach you, Frank Borman. But if you say no, you and I will never be permitted to see one another again.”
He swallows hard. He resists the urge to take her in his arms. She’s playing him; he knows it. Yet at the same time, the thought of never seeing her again tears him in half. “What are you doing to me? Why do I feel like this?”
“We created you to feel like this,” she says. “To serve us, to adore us. A fault in your design, as it turns out.”
“How so?”
“Your passionate need to serve a god is both your greatest strength and your weakness. It gives you a moral compass, but it’s also what eventually turned you against us.”
“Is that why you don’t live on Earth anymore?”
“Even thousands of years ago, humans were breeding quickly. Within a few hundred years, we were vastly outnumbered. Little by little, there were more of you who dared to question our authority. Eventually, you would have killed us all, as you seek to kill all things you don’t understand.”
“I wonder who we got that from?” Borman asks her.
37
Borman wakes before dawn, and finds Menzel on the terrace staring out at the Martian forest, much as Borman himself had done when he first arrived. It’s still dark enough to see the Milky Way painted across the heavens. As he always does when he looks up, he makes mental note of the planets as distinct from the stars. The brightest must certainly be Jupiter. There are two others. These are most likely Saturn and Earth, but he can’t tell which is which. Yet what is most incredible is that apart from the relative positioning of the planets, the sky itself looks the same as it does from Earth.
“I think that one’s Earth,” says Menzel, pointing, perhaps doing some mind-reading of his own.
Below them, Holtz and Skioth are taking an early morning swim. Their movements are hypnotic, like some sort of water ballet.
“I think we need to find you a name,” says Borman. “A new one. I can’t keep calling you Donald. It’s not who you are.”
“Any suggestions?”
“How about Jiminy, or Jim for short?”
“After Jiminy Cricket or Jim Lovell?”
Borman chuckles. “By my reckoning, you’re a man of two worlds. You’re like a twin. When I thought about that, I remembered Gemini is the star sign for twins.”
“And the NASA program before Apollo.”
“Jim Lovell and I spent two weeks in orbit together on Gemini VII. In a space smaller than the front seat of a Volkswagen beetle. By the end of that flight, we were sharing a toothbrush. We got out on the deck of the carrier after splashdown and the first thing Lovell says to everyone is, ‘We wanna announce our engagement!’” Borman grins at the memory. “It’s in memory of Lovell, but also, sort of, short for Gemini. A Jim is someone I’d trust with my life. I brought you to life, so I think I oughta be the one to give you a name.”
“OK Frank. Just don’t expect me to call you dad.”
“You got a deal,” says Borman, smiling. On Earth, Donald Menzel is old enough to be his father.
The Martian dawn is a mélange of purple that turns gradually to pink and orange as the sun begins to poke its head above the tree line. The sight fills them both with a sense of wonder. There is a melodic humming from down below. Holtz and Skioth are embraced in the water now, staring into each other’s eyes. Their heads disappear below the surface.
Borman points at the water. “Those two OK?”
“It’s their ritual of reunion. The bond between them was severed when you arrived, to ensure there was no chance that you sensed their connection. They had to work independently of one another to determine the nature of the risk posed by your arrival. In Martian terms, that’s like a divorce. It’s been difficult for them both.”
Borman takes in a deep breath. “Let’s hope we can all put the past behind us. My God, this place is magnificent.”
Jim asks, “Does it feel this good to be alive on Earth?”
“It’s different. Back there I’m at home. Here, it’s like every moment is a wonder, every sight and smell is brand new.”
“That’s how I feel here too,” says Jim. “But I also have a sense of familiarity — and that’s the Martian part of me, remembering.”
“I can’t think of the last time I felt like this watching the sunrise back home. It reminds me more of when we were orbiting the Moon, that moment we watched the Earth rise above the lunar horizon. It’s the wonder of seeing something no other human being has seen before.”
Holtz joins them on the terrace, even though Borman hadn’t even been aware of her leaving the water. Together they stare in fascination as the changing sky brings light to the forest, as if the trees themselves are giving off that light.
Borman asks, “Will your husband be joining us?”
“He is preparing for our journey,” says Holtz.
“Is it a long way to travel?”
She nods. Jim says, “I’m looking forward to the journey.”
“It will not take us long,” says Holtz, “but I believe you both will find the trip a pleasurable one.”
Borman takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with pristine wooded air, taking note of the moment and hoping he will always remember it. He says, “The Mars we know on Earth is a barren rock. I’m glad you found a way to survive.”
“The Befalyn had a hand in that too. They helped develop the knowledge that brought us to this dimension.”
“They helped you?”
“We helped each other, though we never really trusted them. A mistake on our part, I believe — though Skioth will certainly disagree with me on that.”
“I didn’t think Martians were allowed to disagree on anything?”