I’m beginning to lose my mind ... not a good thing to do on Mars. I haven’t left Base in over three months. With the storms rampaging across the world, it’s been too dangerous to risk it. So I’ve sat around, drinking stale coffee, studying meteorological data, and hoping for a break in the weather—all the while dissolving in apathy. I’ve done it. I’ve become bored with space travel. A member of the very first human expedition to Mars and I’m sick of it. Wonder what that says about us as a species? I want to run through the airlock, out into that undiscovered country, but I can’t. There’s a storm coming.

I wander through the Base to the gym, thinking to sweat the feelings out of me. Mars Base One, as The Company so imaginatively named it, our home-away-from-home, consists of five circular pods connected by plastic tunnels. Each pod has caterpillar tracks underneath it; they shot ’em up here, one by one, and remotely piloted them together, so all we had to do when we got up here was connect them. Given the complexity of that little operation, you’d’ve thought they’d have sent up some decent exercise equipment. But no, there’re only a few dumbbells and a yoga mat. Bloody cheapskates. Nevertheless, I get a good rhythm going before No. 5 interrupts me.

Now, No. 5’s an oddity among the crew. No. 2, No. 4, and myself are military men—close-cropped hair, shaved faces, thousand-yard glares. No. 5’s quiet. Thin. Wears glasses. None of us are quite sure why The Company sent him up.

“No. 3,” he says.

“What’s up?” It’s hard to hide my annoyance at being interrupted.

“One of the solar panels at our secondary base just failed.”

“Shit.”

Mars Base Two (imagination!) is our last resort. If this place is damaged, it’s meant to keep us safe until they send up help. But the broken device is an opportunity. The beginnings of an idea form in my mind. I say:

“Let’s get over there and fix it.”

“Are you insane?” asks No. 5. “Have you not noticed the storms?”

“Oh, it’ll be fine,”—I’m excited now—“We’ll zip over in the buggy, fix the panel, and be home in time for tea. We’ve gotta window before the next big one.”

“So you want to get yourself killed?”

“Do you want the back-up Base destroyed?”

He thinks for a moment, rubbing his chin. “I guess not.”

“Come on, man, it’d be fun. We’ll clear it with the others and head over there.”

“I’m sorry, we?”

*     *     *
I clear the plan with our number one, No. 2. He has reservations about it, about the storm, but my insistence on the back-up Base’s necessity wins him over. That, and he can see how restless I’m feeling. “Be careful, ” he says as No. 5 and I suit up. “They can send up more bases, but they can’t send up more you. ” To which No. 4, the group’s joker, replies: “Sure they can. Human replacements are cheap. ” No one laughs.

Then me and No. 5 are in the airlock waiting for our Atmosphere Suits to calibrate. Now these suits are the one thing The Company got right in its rush to throw us up here; unlike the bulky canisters of yesteryear, our suits function by sucking in the matter around us and converting it into breathable air. Projecting a personal atmosphere around you. No need for helmets, oxygen tanks, or stress. And they let you choose what strength you experience gravity at.

“Ready?” I ask No. 5 as the airlock’s aperture opens.

“I guess.”

“That’s the spirit!”

The aperture slides all the way open and I see the dunes stretch out in front of us. Rolling waves of red sand, punctuated by jutting boulders and small mountains. A grey sky. The undiscovered country from where no travellers return ... fiddling with the gravity dial on my suit, I leap into the air. Covering the distance to the buggy in great big steps, red dirt exploding around my legs with every impact. Man, it feels good to be alive.

I strap myself into the buggy (tin foil frame, rubber wheels, lawn-mower engine) as a queasy looking No. 5 hops up and clambers in next to me. We run through the normal engine checks, and when everything’s set, I punch the accelerator. And we’re off, gliding over the dunes like a pebble skimmed across a pond, the Base receding into the horizon behind us.

“Look there,” says No. 5, pointing ahead.

At first, I think he’s gesturing at a mountain. But then I see it move, writhing like coiled snakes, an avalanche of bloody dust. A tsunami storm. A world-killer.

“It’s fine,” I fake sounding positive.

“OK, Ahab.”

“What’s that?”

“Forget it.”

I continue driving in silence. The kilometres drag by. Hours pass. The storm gets bigger and bigger and bigger, swallowing more and more of the sky. But we’re closer, now, to the second Base than the first one, so I’ve no choice but to keep going.

“Know what I heard an engineer say before we left?” says No. 5.

“What?”

“That we were, and I quote, ‘acceptable human expenditure’ should the Bases fail.”

“And?”

“What do you mean ‘and’?”—he turns to look at me and I can see he’s angry—“I tell you your life’s worth nothing and all you say is ‘and’?”

I shrug. “I was in the military, man. The Air Force. Flew fighter jets, dropped bombs, killed enemies. Sure, I had some rank, but I always knew I was—what did you say?—‘acceptable human expenditure.’”

“I can’t believe you.”

“Don’t then.”

No. 5’s about to say something, but a great thump jolts through the buggy, vibrating across the chassis. I slam the brakes, but we’re skidding sideways, sand spraying into our faces, as a black wheel pops out of its housing and goes flying into the dunes. There’s a metallic screech from the tortured metal as we slide to a stop. Dust rains down on us.

Silence. The red mist clears. My vision returning, I see that I’m buried up to my waist in sand, the front end of the buggy buried in the ground. I turn to No. 5:

“You alive?”

He grunts, twisting about beneath the sand. “Yeah.”

We climb out of the buggy, sending sand spraying everywhere. I stare up at the horizon as No. 5 tries to dig at the buried engine. The storm covers almost a quarter of the sky. There’s no sign of Mars Base Two.

“Fuck,” says No. 5, as his hands scrabble at the dirt. “Oh, fuck. We’re gonna die. Ohmygod, fuck, we’re gonna die. You killed us. You fucking killed us. You moron. You fucking suicide. Ohmygod, ohmyfuckinggod. Oh—”

“Enough!” I yell. No. 5 looks up at the sky and stops blabbering. “We’re too far from Base and there’s no chance of fixing the buggy before that hits. We have to find shelter now.”

No. 5 glances up and sees the storm. Noticing a mountain in the distance, I grip his arm and without another word, we run. Adjusting our gravity as we move to that sweet spot where we barely touch the ground, but our momentum doesn’t push us high enough to slow us down. I think of my old Drill Sergeant back when I was doing basic training, screaming out: left right, left right, left right as we marched from one side of campus to the other. Left right, left right, left right ... as the storm devours more of the sky, the peak of the wave reaching higher and higher, threatening to crash down on us ... I see the opening of a cave ahead and we sprint for it as the first dusty tentacles of storm curl around our ankles ... thin specks of orange Martian dirt propelled violently upwards; whirling and spinning and battering at the sides of our suits, hissing like a thousand dying flies. No. 5 reaches the cave first and holds out his hand. I grab hold of it and we fall backwards, the sand forming a solid wall behind us.

Darkness.

“Please tell me you have a glowstick,” says No. 5, his voice taking on a panicked, pleading tone.

“We better hope so,” I grunt, as I untangle myself from him.

Patting my suit pockets, I find—with some relief—that I’ve got one. A quick twist and algae green light illuminates the cave; I see blood-red rock walls, gravelly floor, the haze of sand falling past the entrance, and No. 5’s scared face.

“Ohmygod,”—I barely hear his whisper above the storm—“Ohmygod, we’re safe ...”

*     *     *
The storm shows no sign of slowing. I sit as near to the cave’s mouth as I dare; the wind tugging at my suit, watching the dust move. It’s as if a giant has smashed an hourglass and its innards are falling past; blurry patterns of orangey red. The cave slopes away from the entrance, stretching away into nothingness, like the intestine of a great beast. No. 5 sits opposite me, slowly arranging rocks into a little pyramid.

“Mind if I ask you something?” I say.

“Shoot,” he says, leaning back against the cave wall.

“How’d you make the cut? All of us have been wondering about it. Are you really smart or something? Why’d they pick you?”

He can’t quite meet my eyes when he answers. “Nah, I’m a regular guy. I don’t like to talk about it, but back on Earth I was engaged to the daughter of The Company’s CEO. When he told me about the mission, about being the first men on Mars, I knew I had to go. Even though it’s a ten-year mission, I had to go. So I asked him to pull some strings. And I guess he didn’t like me hanging around his daughter that much because he pulled them.”

“What about your fiancé?”

“I don’t have a fiancé,” he sighs. “She ditched me when she found out about the mission. Haven’t spoken to her since.”

I can’t think of anything to say. I know if I had had someone back on Earth I would’ve thought twice about coming up here ... but he’s looking at me and I have to say something, so I mumble: “Tough break. ”

He knocks over his rock pyramid. “How long till the storm dies?”

“Minutes, days, months ... without the proper equipment, there’s no way of knowing. And I only checked when the storm would hit back at Base, not how long it’d go for, anxious as I was to get out ...”

“Good one.”

I laugh. “Fuck you, man.”

“Yeah, up yours,”—he laughs as he stands—“Gimme the glow stick, I’m going exploring.”

“Fine,” I throw him the stick, still smiling. “The less I have to see of you, the better.”

He catches the stick and goes stomping into the darkness, his laugher echoing against the rock walls. I watch the green glow slowly dwindle into the distance until it’s lost from view entirely. Pale sunlight trickles through the sandstorm, just enough so I can make out my fingers if I hold them in front of my face. The storm’s probably made it to Mars Base One by now. I hope No. 2 and No. 4 are having an easier time of it than us.

“No 3, hey No. 3!” I hear No. 5’s yell echo through the cave. I see the glow stick re-appear. “Come here, man, I found something!”

“What is it?” I call back.

“Just come!”

Groaning, I get to my feet and stumble towards No. 5. I move slowly, trying not to trip over any rocks. But by now my eyes have adjusted to the darkness and I can just about make out the shadowy forms of the bigger boulders. It takes a millennium of walking to catch up with him. But when I reach No. 5, he’s bent over, intently examining a cave wall.

“What is it?” I ask.

Mutely, he grabs my shoulder and pulls me down to his level. And I see what has him so stupefied: a vine is growing out of the wall. Little diamondlike bulbs drip from a mud-green stem, spread out against the rocks like cobwebs. No. 5 tries to speak, but his voice comes out in a mumbled groan. He just stares at the alien flowers. Trembling a little.

I lean forward, examining the strange plant, willing myself to feel something; anything!, anything beyond the restless boredom that I’ve been submerged in for God knows how long. But I don’t. I can’t. A slight rocking of the boat, perhaps, but in the end: nothing. I feel an immense, silent ocean stretching out inside of me, the ripples of the discovery fading already.

“Life,” breathes No. 5.

And I wish I could see through his eyes.

*     *     *
The glow stick is fading. Darkness solidifies around us, as the circle of green light shrinks smaller and smaller and smaller ... No. 5 places the stick above the plant so we don’t lose sight of it ... not that it’ll do much good when the light fades for good. The cave continues sloping away, further into the distance, but we don’t have the energy to keep looking.

“Do you have any rations or anything?” I ask No. 5.

He doesn’t need to check. “No.”

I feel hunger gnawing at my sides. I don’t know how long we’ve been in the cave now, but it’s long enough that I’m starting to feel a little delirious, a little desperate. Licking my lips, I say: “What about the plant?”

“No.”

“But—”

“No. Too important. More than us. More than the ‘acceptable human expenditure.’ Besides, it might be poisonous.”

“As a last resort?”

“Maybe. But not now.”

Time passes. Hunger eats at me, and I can see in No. 5’s eyes that it eats at him too. All the while, the green light gets dimmer. Our world becomes smaller. More time passes. My vision greys at the edges. I feel faint. At any moment I could drift away from myself, like a child’s lost balloon.

“Ok,” says No. 5. “Only a little ...”

I get to my feet and lurch towards the plant. I break off two bulbs. I hand one to No. 5 and watch as he swallows it. Then I sit down again and push the bulb into my mouth; it tastes faintly of walnut, the leaves breaking apart and sticking to the sides of my teeth.

“Tasty,” I say.

“Uh-huh.”

But as more time passes, there comes over me the strangest sensation. A profound sort of apathy, tinged with melancholy, that fills my entire being. I feel very young again, like I’m sitting at my bedroom window, watching rain fall quietly against the pavement ... I see No. 5’s lips move, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. He seems to be a great distance away, retreating ever backwards into the gloom.

Rays of golden light thread through my vision, weaving in and out of reality. Swarming, pulsating colours bleed from every surface, melting the cave walls, making them seem slick with rain ... the hard gravel feels soft, so soft, like teardrops on canvas ... and the universe fades as memories flicker inside my mind ...

The tide goes out, and I’m lost to the dreams ...

*     *     *
I fall through myself, watching random memories of my past float by me like soap-bubbles; I see my parents, see how happy they were when I was accepted into flight academy. I see them through a bus window as I ship out, waving as they disappear into the distance ... see myself learning how to be a pilot, what all the buttons do, how aerodynamics work. I remember my first solo flight, up there alone in all that blue, higher than the fucking world. I remember Afghanistan, remember dropping bombs on scarred villages, remember watching fires shine like gemstones as I breeze over top of them, remember the first stirrings of the great emptiness that eventually devoured my soul ...

... I remember a party The Company gave to announce our mission to Mars. I remember myself onstage, drinking in the applause of a thousand employees, the spotlights shining halcyon bright ... and I remember space training: the hard days and long nights. Remember it being drummed into us that we were numbers, not people, for a reason I can’t quite recall ... and I remember No. 1. Remember him suffering through training with me, remember him eating breathing living laughing ... remember him die ...

... the cockpit of my spaceship is about the width of a prison cell. Its walls are lined with tinned goods, machinery, and all the things I’ll need for a long spell of solitary confinement as I jet towards the Red Planet. There’s even a holoscreen through which I can look out into space. A control console in the middle for me to pilot my ship with; that flashes orange as the fuel lines break away from the fuselage.

“Ready, lads?” comes the flight controller’s voice through the console.

“No. 3 ready,” I reply.

“No. 2 good-to-go,” I hear.

“No. 4, A-OK.”

“No. 5 ... uh, yep, I’m good.”

My ship thunders against the launch pad. Powerful vibrations rattle my bones, and I tighten the straps of my flight chair. I can feel Earth preparing to reject me.

“No. 1,” calls the flight controller. “Are you ready?”

No. 1’s baritone comes through my radio: “I think so, sir.”

“Hang on,” says the flight controller. “The CEO wants to say a few words.”

I hear a feedback screech and the sounds of heavy breathing fill the room. “Are you there, men?”

“We’re here, sir,” says No. 1.

“You’re pioneers, men,”—he sounds like he’s reading off a script—“Colonists. You represent the first wave of an interplanetary species! And a 50% hike in our stock price for getting there first! You make me proud; you make The Company proud. You make the last 3 years of effort worth it!! So good luck, gentlemen, and Godspeed.”

“Launch,” says the flight controller.

I press down on the control panel and a great force hurls me up, up, up, pushing my body tight against the chair. The air screams with pressure as the ship’s velocity slices through it. There’s a great snap as I break the sound barrier; the screaming vanishing as I move too fast to even hear it.

“Help!” yells No. 1. “Help! Somebody, please!”

I switch on my holoscreen and see No. 1’s ship. It’s leaking fire, veering to the right, away from space and towards the Earth. And I watch, paralysed, as the tubular ship body is ripped open by an explosion. The accelerated air pushing the flames upwards so, from my angle, they look like orange rose petals falling, falling ... dissipating into grey smoke and ash. Until only the blue, blue sky remains.

The vibrations running through my ship stop as it eases out of the atmosphere, weightlessness setting in. The day gives way to infinite night. I hear the CEO’s voice crackle on the console, breaking into static as the distance between me and the Earth expands. This is the last thing I hear from my home planet, from where I was born, grew up, fought, lived:

“4 out of 5 ain’t bad!”

There’re the sounds of cheering and champagne bottles being uncorked ...

*     *     *
I wake up sad. I feel like I’ve lost something ... in the flood of memory, something drained away from me. Something that made me myself. Human. The emptiness, I realize; the emptiness is gone ... and I’m not entirely sure I mind. In its place is something new. Something ... peaceful. I can feel myself changing, somehow, evolving into something ... Something ... something I can’t quite properly describe.

I can see a pale light in the distance, about the width of a coin. The cave’s entrance ... the storm’s finally passed. I shake No. 5 awake and we stumble towards the light, holding on to each other, afraid to get lost. We reach the cave’s mouth and stare out: the setting sun burns blue, submerging the dunes in an ocean of fire. Twilight on Mars. The plant’s aftereffect making the contrast between the red and the blue seem so sharp, so poignant ... the sand proceeds as far as the eye can see, no trace of the storm’s violence. The planet is sleeping.

“We must show the others,” says No. 5, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Yes,” I reply.

“The dreams were ... beautiful.”

“Yes.”

“But only one of us needs to go, though. The other should ... should stay behind. To guard the plant.”

I consider the dunes; consider the time it’ll take to cross them on foot. “I’ll go.”

“Thank you. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you ...”

*     *     *
I feel as though I’ve been walking for a lifetime. All around me is colour: the blue sun, the red sand ... I can feel Mars as a physical thing: in the texture of the air, the way the dust kicks up around my feet as I walk on and on and on and on ... stumbling up and down the dunes, towards the horizon. Occasionally climbing up boulders to see the world stretch into eternity, no sign of Mars Base One. But I keep going, alone. Perhaps as alone as it’s possible for a person to be. I scream. I yell until my throat hurts. Nothing happens. The echoes fade. And I keep walking on ...

What if I die out here? What if I just lie down beside a dune and simply let go? What then; would anybody care? Would anybody even know? I imagine it: my last breath, my skin rotting away, my bones licked clean by time, broken down into dust and absorbed into the dunes. That wouldn’t be so terrible, I don’t think, becoming part of Mars. And isn’t the Red Planet going to be eaten by the sun one day? In that case, I’d become a star. And a supernova, eventually. Maybe even a black hole; a devourer of galaxies. That’s an amusing prospect.

The dunes give way to rock and I find myself standing at the top of a small mountain, staring down at a great redness. From this height, the patterns the sand makes below look like rivers, blood-red rivers, flowing off over the edge of the world ... there it is! The Base! I want to cry out, there!, a few klicks away, are the grey pods, nestled together like eggs in a bird’s nest. I adjust my suit’s gravity and leap from the mountain top, floating down into the red rivers, towards the Base, towards No. 2 & No. 4, to people, to home ...

I touch down, light as a feather, and sprint forwards, my feet tiptoeing across the dunes, dancing across the world. And I see the Base close up, but something’s wrong, something’s so terribly and evilly wrong: the Base’s tracks are clogged with dust, bits of broken machinery litter the landscape, the grey pods care cracked open, scorch marks blackening the paintwork ... they tried to run, I realize as I draw closer, before the storm caught them all the same. Acceptable human expenditure. I get closer, kicking aside canned goods and metal scraps. That’s when I see the first body: No. 2, the leader, the man, lies slumped against the outside of the base, his features distorted by suffocation. Under the blue sunlight, and without his Atmosphere Suit, it looks almost as though he’s drowning.

“No, please ...” I hear myself mutter as I glide into the ruined Base like a ghost. At least let No. 4 be OK, please ...

But I find No. 4’s corpse in the gym, the same drowned look to him, the same fear in his face. That’s it then; that’s how the first manned mission to Mars ends——with death. That’s how these things always end. But there’ll be another mission, probably. And another and another after that. And maybe, one day, the people thrown up here will stick. But we were the first. The first men on Mars, the first to stare into the undiscovered country, and the first not to return ...

Before I leave, I try to soothe No. 4’s face a bit. To make it look a little less fearful. But his skin is as hard as stone and it doesn’t move, so I leave him and head outside. I exit the base and lie down against a dune, trying to submerge my mind in the gloriously inhuman sunset. I can see the golden threads of my dreams woven between the sky, bubbling beneath the surface of reality. I’ll return to No. 5 soon to pass the rest of my days in the sweetness of memory ... but right now I can only sit and watch and think.

And I finally understand the plant’s true purpose. It’s a kindness, a mercy. A gold retirement watch, a prisoner’s last meal. It’s peeled back the veil and allowed me now, at the end, to understand a very old truth: nothing ever dies, not truly. Merely changes into something else, perhaps something better. A slow dance of atoms through eternity: evolving, growing, living.

And the stars look very different now.

“I am immortal,” I whisper.