Marsquake! Read online

  MARS HAS A MILLION DIFFERENT WAYS TO KILL YOU….

  Follow the adventures of teens living on Mars in the MARS YEARONE TRILOGY

  #1 Marooned!

  #2 Missing!

  #3 Marsquake!

  MARS YEAR ONE Marsquake!

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 2005 by Brad Strickland and the Estate of Thomas E. Fuller

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Designed by Felicity Erwin

  The text of this book was set in Simoncini Garamond.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Aladdin Paperbacks edition February 2005

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  Library of Congress Control Number 2004105884

  ISBN-13: 978-0-689-86402-5

  ISBN-10: 0-689-86402-7

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4391-1380-6

  E. B. White famously wrote, “It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.” Thomas E. Fuller was both, and this book is warmly dedicated to his memory.

  CHAPTER 1

  Lying in his bunk, his arms crossed behind his head, Sean Doe stared moodily at the gray ceiling of his room. Another four hours of isolation, he thought bitterly. The rest of them were out exploring, and he was stuck here like a prisoner. Well, it wouldn’t last much longer.

  Sean had started by counting the days. Days had become weeks, and weeks had turned into months. Soon now, he thought, soon.

  Mars was a hostile world. One that, he had often been told, had a million ways to kill him. However, he had never expected that he might be bored to death. After Sean had broken the rules of Marsport, the human colony on the red planet, he had lost the privilege of working on the surface. When the rest of the twenty Asimov Project kids were outside, Sean was confined to his quarters—a small, small room, smaller than a standard prison cell back on Earth. Though he had his computer and access to the entertainment database of the colony, he still chafed under the exclusion.

  It wasn’t fair. True, he had violated the rules, but then he had saved lives. It had taken place when a surface crew had become lost during a terrific Martian storm. When the colony’s administrators hesitated before risking the lives of a rescue party, Sean and two of his friends had gone out on their own. They had found the lost team and had saved their lives.

  Still, a tribunal had taken Sean’s pressure suit from him and had forbidden him from going out onto the surface for six whole months. The other kids had tried to make it easier on him. Jenny Laslo never talked about what they did out on the surface, and if Roger Smith or Alex Benford—two of his friends who tended to get excited when they talked—began to discuss areology or meteorology or astronomy, they would suddenly stop and change the subject.

  Sean turned over onto his side grumpily. He didn’twant to be protected. He wanted to hear about the outside. More than anything else, he wanted to get back his blue pressure suit and go outside. Well, in a few more days, just a few …

  He noticed the time and touched the remote, switching on the TV feed. Dina Brandis, who was an AI technician in her “real” life, had become the colony’s newscaster. She did a fifteen-minute news summary every day, and that, at least, gave Sean some idea of what was going on.

  She did not look happy. The colonists of Marsport had been isolated from Earth for well over an Earth year, and the strain of trying to become independent was wearing on them all. Like many of the colonists, Dina had begun her stay with a military haircut. Long hair demanded water for washing, and in low gravity it could be a nuisance. She had let hers grow a little, though, and now she had a short bob, dark and attractive. Her face had a strange elfin cast, with almond-shaped green eyes and sharply slanted black eyebrows. Now her expression was pinched and weary.

  “Good afternoon, everyone,” she said, speaking directly into the camera. “First, the good news: Water supply is steady at one hundred ten percent of requirements. Lake Ares reached full pool this morning, and biologists say the fish in it are doing well. The colony’s emergency reservoirs are being filled and currently are at forty percent capacity. When they reach fifty percent, the council will approve extended shower rations.”

  Sean smiled. He could imagine the cheering that would bring from the crowd in Town Hall, the big meeting dome. A constant complaint was that everyone in the colony felt dirty and smelly. Water was scarce on Mars, but the new pipelines seemed to be doing the job.

  Dina went over more reports. Outside the domes and corridors of Marsport, the Southern-Hemisphere Martian summer was ending. The long autumn would come on in a stretch of unsettled weather, dust storms, and twisters that could destroy unprotected installations. Exploration teams had discovered new lava tunnels leading back into the bulk of Olympus Mons, north of the colony, and plans were being made to venture into these natural passages to see if they could be used or adapted for expansion.

  And then, after a pause, Dina sighed and said, “On the darker side of the news, the last transmissions from Luna have created arguments and dissensions among us. Executive Director Amanda Simak has this statement to make.”

  Sean sat up in bed, intent on the screen. Dr. Amanda Simak had been one of the driving forces in persuading the governments and corporations of Earth to create Marsport as an experiment in human colonization of different worlds. More important to Sean, she was his legal guardian. Her face looked older to Sean, more careworn these days.

  “My fellow colonists,” Amanda said in an even voice, “I want to remind you of something and ask something of you. First, I want to remind you that in losing contact with Earth, we lost contact with old wounds, old habits of thinking, and old prejudices. In a classic work of science fiction by Ray Bradbury, humans living on Mars discover that they have become Martians. That is what has happened to us. We are all Martians now, because we have no means of returning to Earth. This is home.

  “My request is this: cease your animosities and your accusations. We now know that the collapse of order on Earth resulted not from the political acts of one faction or another, but from a combination of causes. The Yellowstone supervolcano erupted without much warning, and it destroyed much of Earth’s communications network and much of its agricultural capacity. A biological war between China and India unleashed a plague that took billions of lives. Most governments of Earth have collapsed, and until the fighting factions can make peace among themselves, the planet has no hope of recovery.

  “We are, literally, cut off from all this. And yet fights have broken out here on Mars. Please, please, remember that no one here is responsible for our losses. We knew going in that our survival would be chancy and that we had no guarantees. We have succeeded so far by cooperation. I honestly believe that our only hope of surviving into the future is to maintain that cooperation. Hold on, hold together, and we will make it. Thank you.”

  Dina
came back on with more news of preparations for the coming season and then signed off. Sean swung out of bed, switched off the TV, and left his room. Technically, he supposed, he was in violation of his “sentence,” but no one was paying much attention to that, not after five months and three weeks.

  Sean passed many colonists he knew as he threaded his way through the corridors, opening the heavy green-bordered doors and passing from the dormitory wing to the common wing, through the education wing, and to the administration section.

  Amanda was in conference, he discovered. He waited, tapping his foot with nervous energy for three-quarters of an hour, and then Amanda, Dr. Harold Ellman, and Lieutenant Tim Mpondo came out of her office, still talking. Ellman looked angry, but then he always did—his face wore a perpetual scowl. Sean had learned early on that the short, powerfully built man disapproved of the whole Asimov Project, which had transported twenty orphaned children to Mars to learn how young people could adapt. Worse, Ellman seemed to disapprove especially of Sean. Ellman had been the one to decree that Sean had to lose his surface privileges.

  But now Ellman didn’t seem to notice him, and even Tim Mpondo, usually genial and smiling, left without saying hello. “Well, Sean,” Amanda said, crossing her arms. “How are you feeling?”

  Sean knew that was a loaded question. Sean had … well, not instincts, but a knack, anyway, of foreseeing trouble ahead. It wasn’t anything magical, no spooky ESP, no crystal gazing or consulting the spirits. It was more a habit of noticing trends and developments without conscious effort, and of his subconscious making educated guesses. The guesses were more often right than wrong, but Sean could put no name to them but feelings. He had felt that Earth was on the verge of crisis, for example, just before he had left for Mars. Now he said, “I really came to see how you were feeling. You looked tired on TV.”

  “I am tired. Yesterday a half dozen Asians accused four Euros of being Levelers, and the Euros defended themselves. It got nasty. They almost started fighting. The council’s putting together a tribunal to mediate, but”—she shrugged—“rationing, isolation, hard work … It’s rubbing all our nerves raw.”

  “But we’re in good shape,” Sean objected. “The pipelines are working; we’ve stored enough food to see us through the winter; we haven’t lost a colonist in four months or more. We’re doing well.”

  “We’re surviving,” Amanda said. “And, yes, that is doing well, considering where we are and what we have to work with. But we’re balanced on the edge of a razor, Sean. No wonder some of us are bleeding.”

  She looked so weary that Sean impulsively hugged her. She chuckled. “I missed you while you were on Earth and I was out here,” she said. “Sometimes I wish that I’d married when I was young and had children. I’ve loved being your mother, and I’m glad that you’re finally becoming a hugger!” She pushed away from him. “Your time’s almost up, isn’t it?”

  “Next week,” Sean said. “Wednesday.”

  Amanda nodded. “Well, I think you’ll feel better once you can get out again. I’d like to ask you to help us if you can. Get with the kids of the Asimov Project, Sean. See if you young people can think of ways to get us through the winter. Think of ways to pull us all together again. We can’t afford to fall apart now.”

  “I’ll try,” Sean promised.

  School was still hard. Ellman was a demanding teacher, and his temper wasn’t improved when one of his students fell behind or made the smallest error in calculation or in memory. Sean dreaded Tuesdays and Thursdays, when the classes were computers, science, and social studies. He was good at history and psychology, but he really struggled with the math in computer science and physics. Fortunately Jenny Laslo was good in math but bad in history, so they had formed a study team for mutual support.

  On Tuesday, after an all but incomprehensible lesson in subatomic physics, Sean took a break with Jenny and Elizabeth Ling, a dark-haired, dark-eyed Asian girl who was almost exactly Sean’s age. They had turned sixteen within four days of each other.

  Elizabeth was pale and serious. Serious? No, she was solemn. Sean had almost never seen her laugh, and her smiles were rare enough. Sean had learned that part of her mood sprang from her memories of her father and mother, who had been murdered by a Leveler gang when she was twelve. In Sean’s opinion, the Levelers were terrorists. They were an international movement dedicated to taking away all the advantages held by the industrial nations of the world. Their goal was an Earth with a medieval level of technology and no government at all—chaos, in other words.

  The three friends went up to the observation dome atop the education module. A scattering of chairs let little groups of students work together or just sit and chat. Sean, Jenny, and Elizabeth sat near the windows looking north, toward the vast, pale bulk of Olympus Mons, a volcano so enormous that it looked as if the horizon in that direction were unnaturally warped. On most days the top of the mountain was invisible, lost in the haze of distance. Today it could just be glimpsed, a pale purple dome. The craters at the top could not be seen from the surface, but Sean had seen them from the air and knew that the largest of them could swallow the entire state of New Jersey with room to spare.

  He thought idly that he was getting used to Mars. At one time he could not help staring at Olympus in fascination. Now it had become just part of the landscape.

  “I needed a break,” Elizabeth said with a long sigh.

  “What are you studying today?” he asked her. “Quarks?”

  “Antiparticles,” Elizabeth replied.

  Sean made a face. “You’re nine chapters ahead of me!” he groaned in mock anguish. “That’s not fair!”

  “I work hard,” Elizabeth said firmly. “You could too, if you wanted.”

  Jenny, whose blond hair was a strong contrast to Elizabeth’s jet-black mane, looked at her in surprise. “Hey, Liz, Sean does work hard.”

  “Then why does he always pick on me?” Elizabeth demanded.

  Sean blinked. “I’m sorry. I was just joking. I—” He broke off for a moment, then said, “I didn’t think. Your friends were involved in the fight, weren’t they?”

  “You Euros always assume Asians are second class,” Elizabeth said bitterly. “Four of my friends are confined to quarters for a month just for defending themselves!”

  “But the ones they were fighting with are being punished too,” Jenny pointed out. “Liz, we don’t think you’re second class at all. That’s not true.”

  “Ax that,” Sean said with a smile. “You’re the best physics student. I’m a dummy compared to you. And I’ve always tried to be your friend.”

  Elizabeth looked down. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I know you don’t hate me. And I know there are no Levelers on Mars, but it’s hard. We work ourselves half to death, we hear these terrible reports from Earth—biological wars, seven nuclear wars, eruptions, superstorms. We can’t go back. Not ever. And how are we going to live on Mars?”

  “We’ve done all right so far,” Jenny said.

  Elizabeth grimaced. “So far. But no baby has ever been born on Mars. Until we have a stable colony, we can’t let people have children. And if people start having children, we’ll have to grow. How will we do that? We can barely support ourselves as it is! This isn’t a real colony. It’s death row. We have no future here.”

  “Maybe we do,” Sean said. “Hey, when I first came here, no one on Earth thought we could get by for more than six months without resupply from Earth. We’ve been on our own now for more than a whole Earth year, and we’re doing better than we expected. Give us time, and we’ll do better yet.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Elizabeth said, and she stood up. “I’m going to get an early start on my history lesson.” She went downstairs.

  Jenny stirred uncomfortably. “I’ve never seen her that upset.”

  “Amanda was right,” Sean told her. “We’ve worn ourselves out over the summer working to hold the colony together physically. That’s not the real danger
, though. We’ve got to hold together as a group, too.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “I don’t know,” Sean had to confess. “But if we don’t, we’re done for. You and I and the others will have to think of a way.”

  “At least we won’t have to work as hard during the fall,” Jenny said. “That’s something.”

  That much was true. Sean, for example, had put in long, long hours in the agricultural greenhouses, helping to raise and harvest food. The greenhouses would not close down over the winter. Artificial heat and light would enable the colonists to continue growing some crops, enough to supplement their diets. Still, the effort would not be as intense as during the long spring and summer growing seasons, when the domes had to produce a surplus to get the colony through the months of reduced sunlight and heat.

  But wasn’t that the problem? “We’ve built up a lot of tension and energy,” Sean said slowly. “As things slack off, that has to be released. That’s one reason for the quarrels.”

  “Maybe,” Jenny agreed. “But what do we do about it?”

  “Ask me an easy question,” Sean said.

  But Jenny had none to ask.

  On Wednesday morning when Sean woke up and opened his door, he found a package waiting outside. He hauled it in, dropped it onto his bed, and opened it. It was his blue pressure suit and helmet, and he had never in his life been so happy to see anything.

  He took it out of the box, noticing that it had been cleaned. He even sniffed it—everyone joked that the suits had such a strong aroma of sweat that they could stand up on their own. But his smelled pristine, as new as the day he had first received it. Sean wished he could don the suit and take a short excursion outside, but it was a school day. He carefully hung the suit in his closet and placed the helmet in its special rack, stepping back to admire it briefly before he closed the closet door and got ready for the day.

  He told his friends the news at breakfast. “Brilliant!” exclaimed Roger Smith, one of the colony’s two youngest inhabitants. “But shouldn’t there have been a ceremony? I mean, they had a court-martial to strip you of your right to wear it!”