OLYMPUS - VERSION 0 © 2018 NEAL WILLIAMS
Started 10/21/2012 Finished 3/8/2018 (4,968 words)
“There’s a fundamental truth to our nature, Man must explore.”
—Dave Scott, Commander Apollo 15
The faceplate reflected the diffused Martian sunlight. If there was life within fifty miles, it might have noticed the flash. A “dammit” might have echoed, if not for a near airless world and space suit, but Mark Millennium was the singular instance of life currently climbing Mars’ highest mountain, Olympus Mons. Mark stopped and let his gaze take in the empty surroundings. Red dust saturated his suit and scattered the light shrouding him in a haze. His earpiece crackled but his support team remained quiet. He sipped water from the mouthpiece at his cheek. Noticing the grit, he thought he could taste the iron of Mars’ soil but realized he had bit his cheek after pinching his toe in a tight crevice.
A tug of the line above him returned him to his task. His bot assistant’s laser eye pulsed at him suggesting frustration.
“Settle down, I’m coming, what’s the rush? You’re acting like my father. You forget I have feet and toes crammed into these boots.” Flexing his ankle, the skin pinched at his heel. A blister would greet him at his next stop.
“Give me some extra line. Go on ahead. I’ll follow.” Mark’s jaw tightened as he saw his display blink. There were only a few hours of daylight left. He reached out but his hand and fingers balked as he sought out a ledge. Overconfident, he moved too quickly. His fingers sought solace only to suddenly slip. The added line he asked for became his noose. Pitching backward, his eyes closed, but his inner ear followed the tumble. The rock face slashed at his suit and his hands desperately tried to grab hold of anything. Alarms cried out into his headset, and his heart pounded against the suit.
“Mark? Come in, your suit gyros are off the charts. What’s going on?” The support crew voices blended into the alarms. With an open microphone from his support crew, he heard the chaos his fall caused, “Hey, Collins, get eyes on the scene. Where’s his bot, iThon? Hurry up.” Mark’s eyes wrenched open to a kaleidoscope of views all occurring in slow motion. First, the cliff rock face, then the red tinged sky, then the far away haze of a distant outcropping, and then his stomach leapt to his throat as the rope pulled snug behind him and smashed him into the wall. Groaning, he let the adrenaline wash through him and tasted bile in the back of his throat.
Sweat dripped down his face. His breath labored, and a pain lashed out in his side along with a dull ache from his knee. He heard no hiss coming from his suit, but was there damage that his sensors weren’t able to monitor? He opened his eyes, but the inside of his helmet was foggy. The hot air from his breath fought against the internal atmosphere control. His stomach lurched as his eyes could not confirm what his ears perceived and that was a slow twirling of his body like a spinning top. Flailing, he searched for a hand hold to stop the motion. The static mumbled in his ear. His rational mind questioned the primal core of the brain stem in asking what he was doing out here. Hanging there in his harness, the pain grinding into his awareness, his thoughts bounced him back to almost a month ago when he tried to explain himself to outsiders and his head of engineering.
#
They were calling his climb a stunt. It was just a long walk in Mars’ reduced gravity they claimed. The naysayers said the planned journey was contrived, hollow, and attention-grabbing. They said the same thing over three hundred years ago when Hillary decided to test his limits on Everest. That was what this was really about then, not stunts, but limits. He realized this as soon as the interviews started.
“Mr. Millennium? May I call you Mark?” The concept of a real live interview on Mars was impossible. Time lag between Sure Point, orbiting Earth, and Vulcan Station, his mining colony on Mars, was thirteen minutes each way. As he sat in his office, his eyes rolled at the interviewer’s questions provided in one long holovid. Taking a deep breath, relaxing his shoulders and putting on an award-winning smile he hit the record button and played back the questions.
“Mark is fine. That’s what my Dad named me at birth.”
“So, Mark, can you explain, why this very personal choice of climbing Olympus Mons is in the best interest of the Millennium Corporation and specifically its mining interest on Mars?”
“Why certainly Ms. Jennings. For the viewers of Earth Today!, many who have written me personally, personal human endeavors are part of our DNA. Man’s ambition is to go higher, faster, farther than anyone before.” Mark puffed up his chest and crossed his arms for the holovid. His shirt tightened over his biceps. Continuing, his voice projected an air of agitation, “Exploration of the unknown and reaching out to places we’ve never been have been passed down through our history from the likes of Columbus, Armstrong, and Zhan.” He stared into the recording device with a devious smile as if he knew something that his audience didn’t. This climb was a chance to cement himself in the annals of history along with his father.
“Your fingerprints are all over Millennium’s successes. Some say you’ve surpassed your father’s accomplishments but the ore your miners send back to Earth is invaluable and should be your priority. What then would you say to your detractors as well as your shareholders about this stunt?”
He turned off the recording. There was that word again, as well as bringing his damn Father into the conversation. Staring at the camera lenses, his arms and legs were heavy as if shackled to the chair and imprisoned in this tiny world he created. His ambition neutered. He wondered why so many people couldn’t accept basic human nature. At the core of human DNA was the need to move, seek out new things, and roam beyond their tiny villages.
“You shouldn’t let them get to you, Mark.”
Looking up, he saw her in the large windows that overlooked his mining empire. Molly’s long brown hair, wrapped in a braid on top of her head, held a pencil. Appropriate for an engineer, he thought. Thirty years his junior, she was his next in line, if she wanted the headache. Standing at two meters with stretched limbs, her off-Earth build was something his Earth-centric perspective never got used to once he left gravity.
“Did you hear these interview questions?” Turning the chair, his eyes bore into her like a mining drill on Ceres. “Why do I need to explain myself or my company? For that matter, what does my Dad have to do with any of this?” His hands pointed to the holovid. “I’ve always reached for that next step. Who cares if I go climb a mountain?”
Molly plopped down across from him and his desk. He noted her eyes were bright, rapt with attention with a slight smirk on her lips. She laid a tablet on the desk. “Vulcan status reports. That new vein is producing thirteen percent more ore than the previous area. We should blow by our estimates.”
“Exactly! Why do I need to even be here anymore? Since you’ve arrived from the Moon, you’ve more than held your own.” Needing a successor, he saw in her, a certain hunger that he recognized. Never having children of his own, he was too busy and too selfish with his own affairs. Also, growing up with a missing father of his own, he chose not to saddle his progeny with that emotional baggage.
He looked up and caught her looking at him. The gaze reminded him of the way he used to look at his father, but she looked away, her hand smoothing a wrinkle on her jumpsuit.
Spinning in his chair, he looked out over his mining operations. The Ops Center stood watch over Vulcan Station monitoring the entire robot operation. Twenty humans ran the Station and cleaned up red dust that settled over everything. The fine dust coated the six-wheeled excavators and camouflaged the square, flat buildings. Stacked together in blocks, the equipment processed the ore coming up through the drilled mines scattered over the base of Olympus Mons.
“I’ll make sure their raw material ships. Your detractors are just trying to put you in the corner. Clip your wings, so to speak.” Her voice rang out with authority. She had picked up his own mannerisms after all these years.
“Let those fat cats believe I care what they think.” Standing, he went over to the 3D model of Olympus. A thin line traced a path to the top. Looking over to her, he saw a worried glance that caused him to pause. “What’s the matter? You want me stay?”
“I can see your agitation. You’ve been shackled here too long.” Molly winked at him, the worried lines melting away, and a sly grin appearing on her face. “Get out of here. I understand you more than you know.”
Mark turned back around. The base of Olympus Mons stared at him. From Vulcan Station, it required imagination to understand the enormous mountain. At 26,400 meters, the summit topped out at over fifteen miles above the Martian surface. Everest was an anthill in comparison. Not a long walk, but a journey stretching 200 miles from the start point on the East Side of the former volcano to the final summit. “Guess you’re counting the days to get me out of here?” Mark smiled at Molly.
“You have no idea.” She was the closest thing to a daughter for him. Her voice quivered, “Go on then, I know you are going to do what you want anyway.” He saw her eyes search for sign that he might give her more, but his thoughts returned to the mountain. She should know the answer he thought.
“I know you know how it feels, too,” Mark stood up, the invisible chains tumbling down around him. “Trapped in the world you’ve created.”
“Where you gunna go?” She glanced down to her own tablet and started tapping. He caught her looking away, a hand reaching for her cheek. He realized and understood that this wasn’t the first time he left her.
#
The climb seemed simpler when he talked to Molly in his office almost a month ago. With his suit’s climate system adjusting, the face plate cleared, and he found himself starring into a red abyss. Harness straps dug in his shoulders, his breath coming shallow as a pain in his side radiated from a rib. The suit was claustrophobic, and his eyes darted at the parameter screen wondering if oxygen was pumping into his helmet. His hands flailed at the helmet clasp with an urge to remove his helmet.
“Mark?” Molly’s voice rang out inside his helmet. “Your heart rate is skyrocketing. Take a deep breath, you’re fine. Everything is okay.” He grounded his teeth and his nostrils flared.
“Don’t give me the ‘I’m fine’ mantra. I don’t have the time to debate with you about my predicament. I will talk with you later.” Embarrassed with his own mistake, his eyes roamed the head’s up display and he blinked at the communications link which severed his connection to Vulcan.
With darkness looming, he spun around and reached for the cliff wall. “iThon? Pull up the slack.”
Crying out, the bruised ribs strummed against the tightening straps. His arms grasped the rock face, and he found himself upright once again. Breaths coming in quick secession, he straddled the wall while he rested his faceplate against the rock. He wasn’t going to give Mars the satisfaction. Clinching, ignoring the pain, he started up the face. “Come on, iThon, pull up on the rope dammit.”
Holding to the sunlit side, he tried to move quickly knowing his climb would be easier if he topped out before the sun set. Ignoring the pain, he let his natural endorphins pick up the slack dulling his nerve receptors. Tomorrow be damned, he thought as he scrambled up the cliff. With his bot pulling and a determination percolating inside his brain, he pushed on forcing his howling muscles to take him to the top of the cliff.
Once there, he collapsed onto the soil. Looking up, the sun winked out behind him. Every muscle begged for oxygen as he tried to control his breathing. Focusing, he saw the emergency band flashing. Vulcan Station wanted to speak to him. He disabled the silence and drew a deep breath.
“Mark? God dammit, you son of a bitch. You do that again to me and you’re going to have to find a new engineer. You understand?”
He held back not wanting to spar with Molly. Shutting off communications and ignoring Vulcan Station was inconsiderate. They deserved better.
“You going to answer? If not, then just go throw yourself off that damn cliff and save us all a lot of trouble.”
“I’m sorry, I screwed up, okay?” He gritted his teeth with the admission. It was not in his nature to admit any failing.
“Yeah, whatever. It isn’t the first time and won’t be the last. Are you okay? Did you break anything? Your vitals are off the charts and you’ve got a few thousand feet to get to the next waystation.”
“I’m fine. Let me catch my breath and I will brief you when I get settled at the station.”
“Yeah, you do that. iThon has the coordinates.” Static returned, and he laid there in silence. The stars shone upon him, quieting his nerves. The constellations reminded him of his time back on Earth. Glancing to his left, an old favorite greeted him. Orion’s Belt glittered in the stellar aura, taking him back to his childhood.
#
“Dad? What constellation is that?” he’d asked, pointing up through the trees. The smell of whiskey mingled with the swaying pine trees. His dad rarely made time for him and when he did, Mark understood the night usually ended with an empty bottle, choice insults, and obnoxious snoring.
“Well, hold on, let me see where you are pointing,” His Dad’s breath was warm against his cheek as he tilted to view where the finger pointed. “Ah yes, one of my favorites. The sky’s pre-eminent hunter, Orion. Those three middle stars form his belt and that reddish star is his shoulder.”
The cold night air surrounded Mark again as his dad shifted back to his bottle. “Why is it a favorite?”
An owl hooted nearby with crickets providing the forest with a bass track. Mark pulled his blanket around him. A chill permeated through him. “Dad?” he whispered.
“Myth has it that he was a great hunter, once briefly blinded, and when his eyesight returned a scorpion bit him and as he laid dying Zeus immortalized him by putting him in the sky.”
“Zeus?” His forehead wrinkled questioning his father’s story. Was his dad just making this stuff up?
“He was the thunder god in Greek mythology, sitting on high on Mount Olympus commanding the world.” His dad chuckled.
“Why do you laugh?” Mark stopped looking at the stars and looked over to his father. His face aging, lined like the many plumes the rockets left in the sky when he’d ridden them into space. His hair gray at the edges. Although drunk, his eyes still sparkled looking up at the sky. Mark knew their trip meant that his dad would soon be leaving.
“You don’t understand but one day you will. Don’t stop and let them get you. Keep hunting Mark, keep hunting.” He watched his dad stand up and wobble over to edge of their campsite. “I know we planned on a few more days but I need to leave tomorrow.”
Turning away, Mark saw the giant sparkling star that was Sure Point. The anchor for the space elevator his Dad’s company was constructing. The final phase was to start soon.
“Go on then, I know you are going to do what you want anyway.” Mark whispered to himself.
In the periphery, Mark heard the splatter of his father’s processed alcohol on the matted forest floor. The warm blanket cradled him and he fell asleep.
The next morning, he woke to the humming of his dad’s assistant. It would be years until he saw his father again.
The pain in his side returned him to the present. The stars above shimmered with the blurring of his tears. He now understood what he missed all those years ago. In every decision he made, his father’s words tugged at him. He was that scorpion in his dad’s eyes.
#
Wrapped in a blanket, staring out the tiny porthole of his way station, the grit of Mars on his skin and in the folds of his clothing. Blisters throbbed and muscles, unknown to him, screamed to be noticed. The mountain was breaking him.
Wishing for a cup of coffee but greeted by stale water and fruity-tasting nutritional paste, his fingers drummed the table and his shoulders tensed. The sterile surroundings didn’t help his mood. The way stations were carbon fiber shipping crates used to move supplies from Earth to Mars. Their ubiquity created a niche that his engineering team transformed into temporary living quarters. A sealed door and two oxygen tanks made a place where his suit could be removed. It wasn’t much but the gray walls, the single LED light, and foam mattress was the Four Seasons on Olympus Mons.
“Tell me something good Vulcan Station.” Mark needed an anchor this morning to combat the emotions sinking him.
“Our fearless leader speaks.” Molly’s sarcasm reached all the way from Vulcan Station through the communication link. It slapped him, and he realized she was still angry with him. Damn her, who did she think she was, his daughter? Did she know that the mountain was kicking his ass?
“Remember it’s me who signs your checks. How did the suit check go last night?” Instinct, from years of wearing a space suit, nagged at him during his final climb to the way station last night. He continued to look at the suit scans, but besides his rib and knee all other suit systems functioned. The only thing failing was his body.
Mark heard a slight click. “I’ve got you on a private channel,” Molly told him. “No banter, I promise. Be straight with me Mark, are you doing okay?”
The two of them bickered like a single dad and teenage daughter. Both strong willed, it was time for him to go someplace else. This journey was a way to separate.
“Look, everything hurts, my body is failing me, and frankly I don’t want to leave the confines of this station and stare at the miles of red soil for another minute.” He crossed his arms, thankful to share his thoughts.
“I saw your scans. You must be in pain.” Molly’s cautiousness betrayed her. He was ready to explode if prodded.
“Look, I’ll get back out there.” His voice quivered. His confidence, always on display, was missing out here on the dusty plains of Mars, on the private channel.
“You still committed?” she implored. “You could call it quits. I can come get you. Try again next season?”
“I won’t quit. Certainly not against this damn mountain.” Who was he trying to convince? A vision of his father leapt into his mind.
“I know you. I’ve seen you fight back. Take care of yourself.” Damn her, she didn’t engage. His anger, simmered beneath the surface, and an urge to break something. “Be safe,” Molly replied. Mark heard her voice crack.
“Don’t worry.”
“That’s my job. Talk with you soon.” He heard the click and communications returned to the general Station channel. Her voice crawled in under his skin, festered. It slowly dawned on Mark that she saw him as more than just her boss.
“Mark? We’ve got good news for you on your suit. The rebreather is functioning normally. We believe a faulty sensor might be the cause of the oxygen fluctuations you were seeing.”
“That’s good news,” His voice trailed off.
Heading into the airlock to put on the suit for one final time, he groaned as he pulled the skin-tight inner layer of the suit over his swollen knee.
#
Stepping out onto the surface, the reddish orange soil surrounded him for miles. The sun, high in the sky, created a faint shadow on the sandy soil surrounding him. He saw his footsteps from yesterday stretching back from where he came. Up ahead, a slight slope beckoned him.
“We have you moving,” Molly announced.
“Hoping my dot is a lot closer to the top.”
By the navigation system, he was about ten miles from the summit. Today might be the day. With the long day yesterday, his trusty bot’s battery was dead, and Mark didn’t want to wait for it to charge.
After an hour, the oxygen readings started to fluctuate on his readouts. He signaled Vulcan, “Hey, are you seeing these numbers?”
“We are, but your oxygen levels are within range. Engineering says there is no cause for alarm.”
“By my reckoning, I am passing the point of no return.”
“The team says you are still go,” he heard Molly’s voice hesitate. He understood that she did not want him to continue.
“Alright then just understand if I don’t make it, there will be hell to pay.”
“Don’t we know it,” Molly whispered.
#
The headache was his first warning sign. Faulty sensors were not the issue. Reduced oxygen levels caused dizziness and impaired judgement.
Lunchtime came and went but he pushed on. Damn the sensor and the rebreather, he thought. At times, he stopped to catch his breath. At other times, he needed to get his bearings. If he was to look back at his footsteps he would realize his mistake with pushing forward. The path he treaded weaved back and forth. The constant buzz in his head made him wonder if he was simply fatigued from the previous day stress.
Molly kept pinging him. Annoyed by her continued harassment, he finally opened up the link.
“What is it? This had better be worth my time,” His words bit.
“We have been going over scenarios and it doesn’t look good,” replied Molly. “I know you’ve been in tight situations, but if you stop now, we can have a lander out to you.”
“Absolutely not, I am going to continue, there is no argument.” He cut communications. So close to the top, he would not be denied.
With the sun setting, he stumbled through the wind-shaped soil ripples on the surface failing to heed the shining red light in his face mask indicating power to his suit was critical. He also failed to notice the disappearance of the constant static in his ear. Unaware, he disappeared from the scanners back at Vulcan Station. With night, his head lamp shrank his vision to a few feet in front of him. His feet continued moving, his mind adrift, unable to concentrate on the suit computer messages telling him he was off track.
His consciousness sprung free and he perceived he was a stranger in his own body. His imagination saw himself as a weaving Bedouin. Desert sands shifting and streaming with the winds gentle caress. Up ahead, he saw a light. Striding forward with renewed strength, he wondered if he was home. The light willed him forward until finally he collapsed onto the surface.
Jolted as his helmet crashed into the surface, a moment of clarity settled into his thoughts. The head’s up display became fuzzy.
“Vulcan come in, can you hear me?” He tried to communicate but got no response. Speaking out loud, his voice echoed in his helmet.
“Molly? Why do I have this suit on?”
“You are on Mars, hiking up Olympus Mons.”
“I think I might just take this helmet off, Okay? There should be oxygen outside, right?”
“No Mark, there is no oxygen, this isn’t Earth”
“My legs, I’m dizzy. Just going to just sit here for a moment and catch my breath. I followed the light to this oasis. It is welcoming.”
“Keep hunting, son”
“Father, is that you? Where are you? I can’t see you, are you going to go on without me? Come on, let me do this for once. This was my mountain to conquer.” At his feet, he saw a scorpion scamper across the sand. Its claws pushed out like a balancing tight rope walker, but its tail held high cocked for the unexpected. It moved with purpose, redirecting when opposed, but always moving forward with innate purpose.
“What have you done, son?” His father’s voice wavered.
“You never came back.” Mark stammered, and his eyes grew heavy. “I chased after you, but you died.”
A foot came down and smashed the scorpion. “Go on, get along now.”
The tears streamed down. He crawled watching the soil collapse around his hands. He needed to keep moving. He needed to prove to his father that he too was worthy, but his strength left him. A red light strobed inside his helmet indicating oxygen levels were dangerously low. Standing, he made one final push. Light was beginning to reveal the scene around him. Searching the horizon, he looked out before him and saw what he imagined was always there. A gigantic cauldron, similar to the photos he remembered. Falling to his knees, he raised a defiant arm and shouted, “Ha, damn you Zeus. You took my father but,” Mark stammered, visions of his father and Molly dancing before him. “No, that can’t be right, she just work for me.”
Falling to his knees, he saw Molly one last time and understood. “Damn that scorpion,” his breath failed, and he crumbled to the surface.
#
The dust obscured her view as the lander settled on the slope of Olympus. Latching and then locking her suit helmet, she surveyed the empty ridge. Born a Belter and growing up on the Moon, she questioned her desire to wish that the ridge was alive with plants and whether this reaction was real or imagined. Here, though, it was barren.
“I’m heading out onto the surface. I caught a reflection that I want to check out.”
“Ten-Four, we have your signal. Keep us posted.”
Mark’s last known location was one mile to the East. She understood his suit betrayed him. A power failure the culprit. That was one day ago. She held out hope. He was an ornery old bastard and maybe...
Stop, don’t do this Molly, she thought to herself. She cycled through the airlock and stared at the red manicured soil the ship’s exhaust created. Her steps onto the surface were filled with trepidation as her mind was unwilling to accept the most probable likelihood. Moving in the direction of what she saw, the soil collapsed around her boots with each step. Her thighs burned from the effort of pulling them up and out to the next step. Mark never mentioned the effort nor complained about the day to day effort of walking on the surface. She knew he welcomed the challenge.
“Do you have a location lock on me, Vulcan?”
“Yes, Ma’am. You are approximately half a mile from Mr. Millennium’s last location.”
She saw the track on her helmet display. Mark veered off. Stopping, she looked off to the west. Somewhere up there, even though there was no signpost, no placard lay the summit. Her hand brushed her helmet, an autonomic response to the tears that streamed down her cheek. Why didn’t you turn back, Mark? Turning, she resumed her trek. The sky, if you were to call it that, was almost non-existent. If not for the gravity, she would practically be spacewalking as the pressure up here near the summit was almost null.
Up ahead a metallic lump shimmered in the mid-morning sun. Her pace quickened as the soil around her exploded with each step. Glancing around, she saw no footsteps, Mars already erasing his presence.
“Vulcan? I’ve found something.” She refused to say she found him. The silver suit laid face down into the surface. The wind created a wall on the leeward side with the suit in the hollow. It lay crumpled, unmoving. Exhaling, her breath exploded, and her heart raced. Reaching down she placed a hand on the heel of the boot. “Mark?”
The suit remained motionless. Standing up, she turned away. Tears streaming down her face and a knot forming in her throat. In the blur of her vision, she saw their location. He was but a ridge away. So close, but for a misstep. Swallowing, she reached down and grabbed the boot and pulled. The now inanimate object seemed empty. The suit resisted but soon gave way and she found herself dragging her boss - no something more, she thought - up the ridge. Not looking back, nor understanding what it was that she was doing, she plowed through the surface with one goal in mind.
Straining, her legs screaming, she reached the top. Dropping the boot, she let out a scream. “Men and their damn mountains.” Looking out, she saw the ancient cauldron and realized she was the first person to commune at this height.
From her vantage point, foreboding steep rock walls dropped into the volcanic cauldron abyss. Uninviting, she could barely make out the far side. Alone, with no further tears to shed, she looked down at the suit, kicked it, and whispered, “Are you happy now?”
