Alan Scarlett and the Scarlett Virus

Book #1 in the Alan Scarlett Saga

by Duleigh

©Copyright 2024 by Duleigh

Preface

I have always been a fan of "hard science, science-fiction." Not the modern Science-Fantasy where you say, "make it so" and it magically happens whether it's crossing the universe in a few hours or travel easily through time or find a race of space dragons that speak English. That stuff isn't science fiction to me. It's fun to read, but to me it's fantasy.

I love the old school science-fiction where the science is first and foremost. My characters will probably never get past Saturn. They'll never break the speed of light, they'll run out of fuel, and they'll squabble amongst themselves over the best food substitute at the chow hall. My ships don't have artificial gravity, they don't fly faster than light, my ships travel in straight lines and turning is a pain in the ass. There's no swooping and curving trajectories. The only exception is the asteroid belt, that's my playground. Anything can happen there.

I'm trying to bring the heady days of great science fiction back, the days of Asimov, Bradbury, Clark, Dick, Heinlein. I try to avoid words they wouldn't have used in 1950, words like nuclear, computer, astronaut, cosmonaut, laptop. I name many of my characters after real astronauts that have flown in the past 50 years. Many ships and space stations are named after astronauts of note: Armstrong, Glenn, Shepherd. My bad guys are named after actual bad guys, and their history (your future) got pretty ugly in 2080.

Join me in a universe of brave men and women who man the ships of the Western Alliance Navy, and keep back the ships of the Eastern Bloc. A universe of space colonies on Mars, Luna, and Venus, vast stations hanging in space where their rotation provides gravity, where pirates prowl the solar system looking for a fat cruiser to pillage, and the spacemen who fly the small fighters and the bombers to keep the pirates at bay.

Each entry in the Captain Scarlett series is a standalone story. They can be read in any order. There's no set length for these books. When the story ends, I stop writing and start the next story. I hope you enjoy and as always, your feedback is appreciated.

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Introduction

The colony building frenzy on Venus, Luna, and Mars of the 2060s ended with the wars of 2080. In 2083, the wars ended with a series of atomic blasts in both Russia and North America. Central Ohio was turned into a desert, a bomb set off underwater in Lake Erie destroyed Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Toledo and half of Detroit with a tsunami that nearly emptied the lake. It was over a year before water returned to Niagara Falls. Wide swaths of Russia and China were ripped off the earth, yet it wasn't the west who attacked the east and vice versa. It was colonial separatists.

At the start of the wars, thousands of men were dragged from their home colonies on Mars, Luna, and Venus and slaughtered on the killing fields of an Earth gone crazy. The population of Venus didn't survive, the remaining colonists of Venus left for orbital stations. Luna and Mars were left with a population of up to 90 percent women. They abandoned colonies they couldn't support and merged their population in the larger colony cities, and each fought for survival. The colonies on Luna and Mars concentrated on rebuilding their population and both settled on different solutions.

The Western Alliance Navy, the largest fighting force in the Western Alliance, made political friends with Luna and assisted in their recovery. At the same time, the only thing that the squabbling remaining colonies of Mars could agree on was that the Military wasn't welcome on Mars and that if Earth wanted some of Mars' high grade iron ore, they were going to pay for it in water.

Colonialism replaced racism in society. Martian women were considered eggheads, nerds and cold. They had a reputation for being ugly (not true) and they were often called "too arrogant to fuck." Lunar women were all considered whores, sluts, and they all probably carried an STD, regardless of how long they lived on Luna. Martian men were all considered impotent and weak, while Lunar men were considered cuckolds and weak.

In 2031 at Bradbury Canal, the first and most famous colony on Mars, events were lining up that would change those perceptions forever.

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Chapter 1 - Quadrant Meeting Day

Bradbury Canal, October 7, 2131

Quadrant Meeting Day

It was another Quadrant Meeting Day on Bradbury Canal, the oldest and most boring colony on Mars. Boring for a ten-year-old boy. Alan B. Scarlett was a third generation Martian and like all native born Martians, he was tall and slim. He took after his dad with dark hair and penetrating dark eyes. Unlike his dad, Alan was far from quiet and introspective. Alan never whispered when a shout sufficed. His older sister Christa took after their mom with light blond hair, sparkling eyes and a slim figure that was starting to draw admiring stares from the men of Bradbury Canal.

Their parents, Harrison Scarlett and Laurel Clark-Scarlett were scientists, xenobiologists studying fossilized viruses. That's what they said, at least. Alan heard them quietly say the terms "Project X" and "Project X point One" when they thought he wasn't listening. Alan loved to pretend that they were secret agents trying to eliminate the threat from the Eastern Bloc with their research, but when the day was over and they sat at the table for dinner, they were still Harrison and Laurel Scarlett.

Alan's parents Harrison and Laurel were both born there at Bradbury Canal. How much more boring could you get? So were all four of his grandparents. Grandma and Grandpa Scarlett were among the first humans born on Mars, Stuart Scarlett and Judith Resnik-Scarlett; they were born on Bradbury Canal while it was under construction.

Bradbury Canal, the first permanent human settlement on Mars, looks like a revolving space station. That's because when it was being built, they had everything needed to build a revolving space station, so they just built a revolving station on the ground, then later they filled in the gaps. It was named Bradbury Canal in honor of Ray Bradbury, who wrote The Martian Chronicles, a famous early science fiction collection of stories about Mars. Of course, every prediction that Bradbury made was wrong… except the one about the atomic war on Earth. He got that right. But they're still a fun read.

Naming the station canal was almost a joke. At the end of the Martian Chronicles, an Earth family had just settled on Mars and the children wanted to see the Martians. All the native Martians were dead, so the father of the family took his family to a Martian canal which was full of Martian water and said, "look in the canal and you'll see the Martians." So, the family looked and saw their reflections on the surface of the Martian water, telling them they were the Martians. Therefore, if you want to see the Martians, just look in the Canal, and that's how it got its name.

Even ten-year-old Alan got that message, but what he didn't get was, "what's a reflection on the surface of the water?" In the Bradbury Canal, water came in pipes. Everyone had a graduated water bottle that you would connect to a dispenser coupling and an exact amount of water would be transferred to the bottle, and that was part of your daily ration. An open body of water in the three dozen colonies was rare. There wasn't one on Bradbury Canal but Alan's mom's brother, Ray Clark, said that at Perseverance station there was an ornamental canal. On Mars, the word canal had become synonymous with any open body of water. If an ocean mysteriously appeared on Mars, it would be called a canal.

The residents of Bradbury Canal were mostly scientists with a sprinkling of poets mixed in. Nobody knew why hard science breeds bad poetry, but it's there. The residents of Bradbury Canal were to a person vegetarian and proud of their diet and their colony. Alan was nine years old when he discovered that the "Martian Steak" his mom had been feeding him was tofu.

How do you tell if a Martian is from the Bradbury Canal? Don't worry about it, they'll tell you.

Another thing is that they're political. Many were Marxist, and some were actually aware that Marxism has ended in abject failure and misery every time it has been tried. Their reasoning for being Marxist was that it's never been tried on Mars! That's the difference. Meeting after meeting was held to iron out the possible content of their new socialist constitution. Meetings were held by quadrants, and the Scarlett's home quadrant, Quadrant C, was lagging far behind in their input on the upcoming constitution. The head of the PMP (People's Martian Party) Dr. Herbert Burgman was getting angry with Quadrant C lagging behind, and kids at school said he blamed Alan's parents.

"Burgman is going to space you and your folks," they taunted. Alan was sure that the kids were teasing him, because he was the smallest, youngest high school senior on Mars. It's tough being a child prodigy in a closed society like a Martian colony.

"Do I have to go?" whined Alan. "I want to program my robot." Alan had received a two-foot-tall programmable robot named Noxie for his eleventh birthday, which will happen in five more days, on October 2, 2131. It was from Uncle Ray and Uncle Ray said it was ok to open early. Alan had a magazine article that described how to program his robot and it should be able to fly.

His sixteen-year-old sister Christa rolled her eyes with the practiced pain filled disdain of a teenage girl. "Stop being a baby!"

"Alan, you've done nothing but play with that toy since your Uncle Ray gave it to you," said his mom Laurel. The way his mom acted, you would think that Laurel was sure that her brother Ray could do nothing right, but Uncle Ray was cool. Even his science was cool. He was an astronomical engineer, and he specialized in propulsion research. Alan was sure that Ray was going to break the "light barrier" and go faster than the speed of light.

They got to the Auditorium, and the place was crowded already. "Come on," urged his father Harrison. "Doctor Burgman is going to be angry if we're late." Harrison hated politics and wanted to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Alan looked at his water bottle. It was almost empty. "I want to fill my water bottle," he cried. He didn't want to sit in an auditorium, listen to a boring speech with a dry throat.

"Young fellow," said a bearded stranger, "There is a dispenser right over there." He pointed to a water dispenser across the corridor.

"Be right back!" and Alan dashed over to the dispenser and connected his bottle.

"Go with your brother," Laurel told her daughter, Christa. "Hurry up, we'll wait for you," said their mom from just inside the auditorium.

"We have to show a united front as a family," said his father.

"I can't help it if this dispenser is slow!" argued Alan.

Nobody heard him because alarms started going off throughout the colony. Everyone looked around but there were no warning messages on the info boards that hung from the ceiling. Alan looked at the Auditorium doors as the auditorium pressure doors slammed closed with his parents on the other side. "MOM!" he shrieked.

The terrified look on his mother's face was etched into his memory as the pressure doors slammed shut between her and her children. Then suddenly, an enormous thump was felt. It was like somebody hit Bradbury Canal with a giant hammer. Alan and Christa pounded their fists on the auditorium door, shrieking and wailing in agony as pressure doors slammed closed throughout the entire colony and the info boards proclaimed a hull blowout in Quadrant C.

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Chapter 2 - Convair Intergalactic Testing Labs

Perseverance Colony, October 7, 2131

Convair Intergalactic Testing Labs

Ray Clark was double checking the math from his terminal with a slide rule. Yeah, computers are infallible, but programmers weren't. As he angrily wrote down another error, Steffan Bridges stepped into his office and helped himself to a half cup of coffee. "Hey Ray," said Steffan. "Don't you have family on Bradbury Canal?"

"Yeah my sister and her kids, why?"

"They had a hull breech."

"What?" Suddenly everything went dim. Something told him that Laurel and Harrison were gone. He knew deep down that the PMP saw them as a roadblock to taking over Mars. He didn't want to believe what his friend, Dr. Steffan Bridges, just said, but his gut told him it was true. He grabbed the telephone and dialed Harrison Scarlett's personal telephone, but there was no answer. He tried his sister's personal telephone, but again, there was no answer. Then he tried to call her office telephone and somebody answered.

"Marconi-Edison Bio-Electronics, how can I help you?" The woman who answered sounded flustered.

"I need to speak with Doctor Scarlett."

"Uh… there's a bit of… there's…" and he heard the telephone drop and the woman began crying. Then a man picked up. "Hello, can I help you?"

"I need to speak with my sister, Doctor Scarlett, or her husband, Harrison Scarlett."

"We don't know where they are, the colony is in a bit of an uproar."

"Why? What's going on?"

"Nobody knows for sure, all the pressure doors closed about fifteen minutes ago, they're opening up one by one now."

"Thank you. If you see them, tell them that Laurel's brother Ray called." Doors opening one by one means the system is testing to see how widespread a hull breech is. His next call was to his wife, Tammy. "Honey, something happened at Bradbury Canal, I've got to go see what is happening and check on Harrison and Laurel."

"I take it you won't be back for dinner tonight?"

Ray rolled his eyes. She knows that he'll be on the train going there by dinnertime. "No, I don't know how long I'll be. I'm worried about Laurel and the kids."

"Maybe you can sleep with her while you're there," said Tammy as she hung up, slamming the telephone down in her drunken rage.

Ray shook his head and logged off his terminal, he didn't have time to deal with Tammy. He got up and stepped over to his boss's office. "Doctor Sax, I have to go to Bradbury Canal. I hope it's nothing, but…"

Dr. Monika Sax looked up from her terminal. "Travel is restricted to there."

"My sister and her husband live there; I have to find out…"

"I'm sure they're fine," said Dr. Sax. "But go on ahead. Don't forget your pressure suit, the train isn't going to couple to Bradbury Station."

"Yes ma'am."

"Ask your brother-in-law for me how his project is going."

"Yes ma'am." Fighting against the knot in his gut, Ray Clark signed out a pressure suit, helmet, and air pack, then headed over to the train station. It's been ages since he's been to Bradbury Canal. It's where he grew up, and he hated the place, and the moment he was able to get a job in Perseverance City, Mars' unofficial capital, he jumped and never looked back, except where his niece and nephew, Christa and Alan were concerned. They were his "spare kids" and he was their "emergency back-up dad." Since Tammy wasn't interested in having children with him (her daughter from her first marriage would have nothing to do with Ray) he poured his energy into Christa and Alan.

The ticket counter at the train station was crazy. Travel to Bradbury Station was for citizens of Bradbury Canal only. Luckily, Ray was able to produce evidence he was a citizen of Bradbury Canal. "Bradbury Canal please," he told the ticket agent.

"Travel to Bradbury Canal is restricted to residents of Bradbury Canal that are traveling in a pressure suit," said the agent in a bored sing-song voice.

"Does it look like I'm wearing Armani?" said Ray, tugging at the metal collar of his pressure suit.

The ticket agent handed him a ticket that was marked "UNPRESSURIZED" meaning that he was ticketed for an unpressurized car and he was going to have to wear the helmet all the way to Bradbury Canal. "Better hurry," said the agent.

Ray moved as quickly as he could while putting his helmet on. He got to the gate for the train to Bradbury Canal and when his ticket was scanned, the gate shunted him to an airlock out to the open platform where he found his car at the tail end of the train. He got aboard just as the doors closed and he found a seat where he could plug into the train's oxygen and electrical.

The car was full of men and women in pressure suits. It's unusual seeing people in pressure suits coming out of Perseverance this time of day. Normally, people wearing suits are outdoor workers and they leave the city at sunrise and return eight hours later.

Ray dimmed the faceplate of his helmet and tried to get some sleep, but he continued to call Harrison and Laurel's private telephones with no answer. After what seemed like an entire day, the train pulled up to Bradbury Canal and, as advertised, it didn't pull into the station. Over his headphone he heard, "All off for Bradbury Canal." The doors slid open, and they weren't even at a platform. He had to jump down to the ground, then he helped other travelers off the train. Straight ahead was a service airlock with a big number 6 above the door, letting anyone approaching the airlock know what clock position on the circular colony station the airlock was facing.

Ray checked his air level and decided that he had enough air to spend some time outside. He walked around the exterior of the station from the #6 air lock to the #9 airlock. As he walked around the parameter he saw it. Dozens of people in pressure suits were trying to clean up the mess and the bodies. A section of the station hull was blown outward like a flower that blossomed. The metal around the gap was torn and scorched. Some bodies were near the hole and they were blown to pieces. Using his helmet cam, he captured all of this. He searched around the dial on his suit radio but he couldn't find the frequency the cleanup crew was using, but he got what sounded like maybe a couple of cops.

"Blowout? Blowout my ass," said a voice that sounded pretty damn angry. "A pressure blowout is always a tear along a seam, this was an explosion that ripped open a hole. And a pressure blowout doesn't mangle bodies like that."

"The poor bastards," said the second voice. "They never saw it coming. Somebody must have really hated socialism."

"Or loved it," said the first voice. "The Bolsheviks have a history of sacrificing a group of their own, you never heard of the Red Terror? You were either fully on the bandwagon or you were dead."

Ray checked his radio and made sure he was recording this. He walked through the crowd of workers who were desperately trying to clean the mess off the Martian desert while a team of metal workers began constructing a patch to seal off the hole. Nobody noticed him because they were wearing common pressure suits and nobody questioned the camera system on his helmet. He soon made it to the Nine o'clock airlock and entered the Charlie Quadrant. When Ray took off his helmet, he found it was cold inside Bradbury Canal. Charlie Quadrant was frigid and Ray was thankful for the pressure suits over eager heating system. Thermal control must have been knocked off by the blast. He walked to Harrison and Laurel's apartment by memory and tapped on the door. He never rang the doorbell because Laurel gave him so much grief for waking up the babies in the past.

The door slid open and there was little Christa, all grown up, her eyes were red from crying. "Uncle Ray!" she cried and threw herself around him. She looked so much like her mother that Ray almost wept with her. Young Alan staggered out of his bedroom like a zombie and didn't recognize Ray at first. But he soon dashed to Ray, and they ended up on the couch, not talking about what happened. It was clear the kids knew.

After a very long session of tears, Alan looked up at Ray and said, "What do we do now?"

"I'm going to take you guys back to Perseverance City with me as soon as I can get us on a train. Do you have a pressure suit?" Both Christa and Alan shook their heads no. "Ok, we're going to have to wait for the train station to open again. Until then we're going to clean up this house and get ready to sell it."

"Sell it?"

"This is a condominium. A three bedroom is pretty rare here on the old Bradbury Canal, we can get you guys some college money."

An hour later, the kids cried themselves asleep on their parents' bed and Ray was staring glumly at a picture of his sister and tearfully forming a 25 word maximum emergency radio gram to his parents.

DEAR MOM DAD, I AM SO SORRY TO HAVE TO SAY THIS, WE LOST LAUREL & HARRISON IN A BLOWOUT. I HAVE THE KIDS. RAY.

He made sure that the address was correct and stumbled through a station he moved out of over two decades ago. He found the MARS station (Martian Affiliate Radio Service) and luckily, there was a clerk at the window. He stared at the form and vowed that he was going to get whoever forced him to write this to his parents in their retirement community on Earth. They were going to pay.

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Chapter 3 - Marconi-Edison Bio-Electronics

Bradbury Canal, October 8, 2131

Marconi-Edison Bio-Electronics

Harrison and Laurel Scarlett's Lab

"You are not going to bring those kids into my house!" shrieked Tammy.

"They are my responsibility and it's my house," snapped Ray into the telephone. "We will be there as soon as we can get on a train. When we get there I expect you to be warm and caring until they head off to college. If you cannot do that, get the fuck out."

"No! Not in my house!" Tammy shrieked.

"It's not your house," Ray repeated. "That house belongs to Convair Intergalactic Technology and is leased to me. If you don't like it, go back to earth, there's a passenger shuttle shoving off twice a week."

"How dare you!" she snarled.

"I'm giving you a choice, be nice or be gone. Pick one." He hung up. Ray knew that there was no way Tammy could be nice to anyone that wasn't going to buy her a drink, and her daughter Sheila was just as bad. He honestly didn't care where she's going to as long as she takes her whining ass and her slut daughter away. Letting that woman move in was the biggest mistake he's ever made in his life and he's going to be sure to never repeat it. The moment she moved in, she got what she wanted, a luxury apartment, and the sex became rare and cold. Luckily, Mars still had a severe shortage of men, so an occasional "arrangement" was easy to find. Ray was sure she would be packing because being nice wasn't something she's ever been good at.

He headed over to Marconi-Edison Bio-Electronics, where Laurel and Harrison worked as xenobiologists, studying fossilized viruses. The campus was heavily guarded, and it had a look of anger about it. He stepped up to the Marconi-Edison Bio-Electronics reception kiosk. They didn't even have a person there. He typed his name in and under occupation he entered "President of Mars." For the address he put "The Red House." For reason for visit, he put "State Funeral" and sure enough, that brought a human being out to see him.

Ray had to use the word "Human Being" to describe the security guard because he's never actually seen a gorilla. He knew they existed, and he knew they were big, but so was that hulking mountain of flesh that was glaring down at him.

"Mister Clark," groaned the security guard. "President of Mars?"

"Prove me wrong," said Ray.

"You are not the President of Mars."

"Give it time big fella," said Ray, just praying that this guy would take a swing at him. "No need to salute."

The security guard scanned his ID badge and looked at his scanning device. "It says you're a propulsion engineer at Convair Intergalactic."

"Rockets are my hobby."

"It says you've been arrested for assault several times."

"Pugilistic expression is my art form of choice."

"Maybe you'd like to go to the gym and go a few rounds Mister Clark." The guard said Mister like it was a filthy word, like only people with a Ph.D. were worthy of his time.

"Would that make you happy?" said Ray, as he began to unbutton his shirt.

"Why are you here, Mister Clark?"

"I need to speak to Human Resources," said Ray.

"Follow me." And the man-mountain led Ray into the Interior of the Marconi-Edison Bio-Electronics campus. All the while he led Ray, Ray kept checking to see if the security guard used his knuckles to help him walk. They finally reached the HR office, which was manned by a middle-aged woman who had the sour look of a person who hadn't taken a good dump since high school.

"How can I help you?" the gray-haired woman said in a voice that used the nose more than the mouth.

"Fire this ape," said Ray as he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the man-mountain that hulked over him from behind.

"Why should I do that?" said the pinch faced woman through her nose.

"I come here to collect my dead sister's effects and he threatened to beat me up even before he asked me why I was here." He took a recording device out of his pocket and set it on her desk and hit play.

She could hear Ray say, "Expression is my art form of choice." And she saw the guard glaring down at the camera on the small screen.

"Maybe you'd like to go to the gym and go a few rounds Mister Clark?"

"Would that make you happy?"

"Why are you here Mister Clark?

Ray hit pause and said, "Is that how Marconi-Edison Bio-Electronics treats the grieving survivors of the worst blowout in Martian history?" Ray nearly shouted. "We send some demented ape out to beat them to a pulp? I demand to see the president of this company!"

"Now Mister Clark…" Her tone of voice clearly let him know she understood. She realized that he's not a Ph.D. so being stupid, he's not able to control his emotions.

"I stand for the families of the dead! We will not be forgotten! We will not be ignored!" now he was shouting. The normal sounds of a busy office fell silent as the entire workforce within shouting distance turned and listened. "IF NOT FOR ME, FOR THE CHILDREN!"

Three minutes later, he was in the Office of the President of Company Relations. "I just wanted to collect Laurel and Harrison's effects," said Ray in a shaking voice. "Maybe sit at her desk where she spent some of the most productive and fulfilling moments of her life."

Dr. Goldthwait was a soft-spoken man who Ray realized was not a soft man, but he did a good job of pretending to be one. "I understand Mister Clark, this is tough on a lot of people. We lost quite a few good men and women and we're still trying to get our feet on the ground. Let me lead you to their office. But I'll ask you to leave your recorder here. Security, you know."

"I understand, it's mostly videos of her kids… in happier times. I need to send those videos to grandma and grandpa on Fiji 2." Fiji 2 was a huge man-made island complex in Polynesia that has become the #1 retirement community for Martians, Venusians, and Lunas.

"I'm so sorry, be sure to swing by and pick it up when you're done."

Security watched via video camera as Dr. Goldthwait led Mister Clark to the tiny office where Laurel and Harrison worked. Mister Clark sat down at his sister's desk and looked around, lost. He took off his watch and placed it on the desk near her terminal. Getting to work, he looked through her desk drawers and put a few items in a box, along with the family portrait he had picked up from her desk. "Oh God honey… talk to me… please." But the portrait in his hands remained silent.

He studied it before putting it in the box and moving on. He did the same thing on Harrison's desk, collecting a few personal items, a trophy from Alan's science club competition, a ribbon from Christa's dance recital.

Meanwhile, security went through Mister Clark's recording device and all they found were videos of two cute children. Long-legged, slim and tall, just like any other native Martian. The device was put back on Dr. Goldthwait's desk about the same time Ray sadly rubbed his wrist and put his watch on, then allowed the security guard to escort him back to Dr. Goldthwait's office with his box of memorabilia. There was nothing in there that would look like a piece of paper or file, just bric-à-brac. Mementos of better days. Paperweights with the different colonies of Mars emblazoned on them. On a low gravity planet like Mars, paperweights are quite necessary in an office. Ray could only wonder how many paperweights the average Luna would have in their office.

"Before you go Mister Clark, could we take a look at your watch?" asked Dr. Goldthwait sweetly.

"My watch?"

"I apologize but security," Dr. Goldthwait shrugged a well-practiced shrug that clearly said, 'don't we all just hate security?' With a sad smile he said, "security saw you take off your watch and place it on dear Laurel's desk, I'm sure it is nothing."

"Oh sure, I understand. At Convair Intergalactic we're the same way." He took off his watch, a watch that Laurel and Harrison gave him, and handed it to a security guard who whisked it away. Ray and Dr. Goldthwait looked at each other uncomfortably for a long five minutes.

"Have any plans?" asked Dr. Goldthwait.

"I did… now I have a niece and nephew to raise."

"Oh. Sorry."

Finally, a security guard returned Ray's watch, saying, "It's a really nice watch, but it's just a watch Dr. Goldthwait."

"I'm sorry Mister Clark," said Dr. Goldthwait. "We worry about industrial espionage so much we lose sight of what's really important." He put Ray's recording device in the box with Laurel and Harrison's belongings. "Let me escort you out," and Dr. Goldthwait escorted Ray to the door with Marconi-Edison Bio-Electronic's profound apologies.

"Thank you for your time," said Mister Clark, and he turned and headed down the corridor carrying a box of mementos of the dead. He glanced at his watch and thought, 'sometimes a watch is just a watch, and sometimes it's a red herring.'

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Chapter 4 - Moving Day

Bradbury Canal, October 11, 2131

Moving Day

The next two days were spent with Alan and Christa, weeping and packing. They would spend the night cuddled together for comfort, and in the corner sat the box full of the items from Laurel and Harrison's office. After sitting next to the recording device for the required 24 hours, the paperweights began dumping the data they collected over the years to Ray's recording device.

Finally, it was time to go. The train station was re-opened and the kids sadly gathered their suitcases and Ray put on his pressure suit and they headed toward the station. Their walk would take them past the auditorium where their parents died, but that route was closed and they ended up walking through a seedier section of Bradbury's Canal than they would normally take.

"You! Clark!" came a booming voice from behind them. Ray recognized the voice. It was the Man Mountain from Marconi-Edison Bio-Electronics. "You owe me a job!" then a half drunken snarl he said, "I'm going to take it out of your hide."

"Here, hold this," he said, and he handed his helmet to Alan. "Don't watch," he warned with a wink.

In a move that was too fast to understand, the hulking beast ended up face down on the floor, his arm trapped between his shoulder blades in a thumb lock and Ray's knee pinning his head to the floor. "You know where to find me," snarled Ray. "Now get out of here." He got up and let the gigantic man go.

"Who was that Uncle Ray?" asked Christa.

"A sparring partner," said Ray.

They finally got on the train, and the two young teens, despite their horrible loss, were fascinated with the terrain sliding past the windows. Mars isn't red, it's brown. Endless brown. The kids have never been out of Bradbury Canal and it was all amazing, at least to Christa. "How long is our trip, Uncle Ray?" asked Christa.

"About four hours."

"At this speed? Wow!"

Alan was oddly quiet. He didn't speak the entire trip and when Ray got close to him; he turned toward the window. "See that ridge over there? That's the lip of the Jezero Crater. What do you say we go fishing over there?"

"Fishing? That's silly Uncle Ray," said Christa. "There's no fish on Mars."

"Then, let's terraform Mars so we can grow fish here."

"There's not enough gravity to hold a proper atmosphere," said Alan and he turned his back on Ray.

"What's with Alan?"

"I don't know, he's been weird for the past two days."

Ray frowned. Of course he's acting weird, he's suddenly an orphan. He thought of something Alan might like to see… "We'll be getting to Perseverance about the same time the daily freighter lifts off from Zhang field," said Ray, trying to work up some enthusiasm in Alan.

"Zhang, that's a funny name," said Christa.

"It was named for the first man to land on Mars, Zhang Li Wei," said Ray.

"He was the first man to die on Mars," muttered Alan.

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Chapter 5 - Zhang Field

Perseverance City, October 11, 2141

Zhang Field

The heavy lift freighter RS Lake Baikal sat ready on the launch platform on Zhang Field. The last two passengers to board the huge, ugly ship were Tammy and Shiela Burnette. Tammy registered and bought the tickets using Ray's credit card. The big freighter had just delivered 3100 Earth Tons of water to Mars, and is returning to earth with 3100 Earth Tons of high grade iron ore, the life blood of the Martian economy. With iron ore and taconite becoming rare on earth, and water becoming rare on Mars, these Ore/Oar runs were becoming very profitable for both sides of the trade.

A side trade for the freighters was passenger hauling. The larger freighters will have an entire deck of cabins, the older, smaller freighters will have a few cabins (originally, they were storage compartments) and coach seating. The RS Lake Baikal is an old veteran on the Ore/Oar runs and due for retirement. It usually carried 24 coach passengers and six to twelve in the six cabins.

"Coach seats?" demanded Shiela, as they found their way to the small passenger section of the ship. "They don't have something cheaper? Like steerage?"

"Neither of us has the money for a cabin, and there's only six passenger cabins on this ship.

"This is ridiculous," muttered Sheila as she packed her carry-on into the overhead bin. "Will these seats fold back to beds?" she whined.

With a long-suffering sigh Tammy said, "We'll be weightless, it won't matter."

"How many Gs are these seats rated for?" asked Sheila. The guy she was fucking in Perseverance City told her about high-G versus low-G seats. She tried hard to get him to let her move in with him, but his wife didn't like her at all. (While a ménage à trois is common on male short Luna, on the more cerebral male short society of Mars they're frowned upon. Woman seeking a man on Mars will often settle for an "arrangement.")

"Ask the cabin steward," said her mother.

"Oh garçon! What G level are these seats rated for?"

The cabin steward looked at her and smiled. Garçon means "boy" and mispronounced as badly as Sheila mangled that word. It means "I'm stupid. Fuck with my brain." The cabin steward bowed and said, "U tebya krasivyye sis'ki." (You have nice tits.)

"The seats, what G level?" she said, almost shouting.

The cabin steward nodded and smiled. "U tebya bol'shaya zadnitsa." (You have a big ass.)

"SEATS! Gs!" she shouted. Every Martian knows that the louder you shout something, the easier it is for foreigners to understand.

The cabin steward looked like he suddenly understood her. "Ahh! Otsosi u menya!" (Blow me) and he held up five fingers with a smile, then left.

"Gawd! You have to ask three times to get a straight answer here," said Sheila as she flounced down in her seat.

Another crew member came through the cabin calmly saying "Pyat' minut. Pyat' minut." (Five minutes) When he was out of sight of the passengers, he sprinted to his cabin to strap in.

His cabin mate leaned over and asked, "Vy skazali im po-angliyski?" (Did you tell them in English?) English and Chinese were the two official languages of Mars, and the one Chinese settlement has been silent for two years.

"Net. Kak vy dumayete, mne stoilo eto sdelat'?" (No, do you think I should have?)

Just then, alarms started going off, and the ship was being raised to the vertical position. Loud, piercing klaxons were blaring. Through their television camera mounted in the passenger bay, they could see panic set in and passengers fought their way into their seats. As the ship neared vertical, a passenger would lose his or her grip and fall to the aft bulkhead.

The two crew members watched the pandemonium, laughing so hard that their faces hurt. A passenger was climbing up to his seat when the engines fired, throwing him back to the aft bulkhead again. Through his tears of laughter, the steward said, "Imenno prostyye veshchi delayut etu rabotu stoyashchey." (It's the simple things that make this job worthwhile.)

The ship flashed up into the Martian sky, the passengers and crew pulling eleven Gs. At eleven times the force of gravity, it's not the seat you need to worry about, it's your heart.

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Chapter 6 - Home Sweet Home

Perseverance City, October 11, 2131

Home Sweet Home

Ray, Alan, and Christa watched the big, rugby ball shaped rocket take off surprisingly fast. Ray shook his head. That guy was wasting a lot of fuel trying to reach orbit that fast. Ray usually didn't care about freighters, even the ones that were able to land on Mars. It was the passenger and military ships that he worried about. The fat rocket was still visible when the train pulled into Perseverance City.

Alan and Christa were suddenly transported to a magical world they didn't realize could exist. Moving sidewalks, statues, large clear panels hung from the ceiling and words appeared on the panels: sports scores, traffic issues, entertainment news. All over the place were green things. The two kids were so impressed that Alan temporarily forgot his anger. "What are the green things?" asked Christa.

"Which green things?"

"You know, with the feathers."

"Feathers?" Then Ray saw what she was pointing at. "Those are houseplants and we call those feathers leaves. They take carbon dioxide from the air and release oxygen."

"Like reverse breathing!" said Alan. Photosynthesis isn't taught in Martian schools until the senior grades because plants on Mars are few and far between.

"What's traffic?" asked Christa, as she read the board above them.

"When you get a lot of people moving at the same time in the same area, it's called traffic," said Ray. "Stay behind me and step where I step," and he stepped onto a moving sidewalk while hauling a bright orange suitcase with dinosaur stickers all over it. The kids followed, hauling a suitcase each and when they caught up to him he said, "Ok, we're going to move to the left belt. It moves faster than the right belt so be careful." And he stepped over to the left belt. He decided to stay on this belt and wait until the kids were ready to move to the innermost belt, because it moves pretty quickly. He gave a travelogue on Perseverance city and suddenly they entered an area with high ceilings and enormous windows.

"Look! A canal!" cried Alan. In the center of the large open area was a body of water with water jets that sprayed water into the air.

"That's the George Abigale Washington fountain, he was the first US president to die in an atomic blast," said Ray. "He was the father of large space colonies and he approved the original design for Bradbury Canal before he was vaporized. The fountain symbolizes Lake Erie, where he was fishing on a yacht when the bomb went off half a mile away from him."

"Everyone knows that" said Alan, but he was mesmerized by the sight of water being squirted into the air.

Ray led them to a more residential part of the station. "There's a playground right there, not far from where we live."

"What's that?"

"It's a place where you can play," said Ray. "It's fun." Alan and Christa gave him an odd look, having never seen a playground before. "Trust me, you'll enjoy it."

They got to his apartment and found it a messy disaster. "I'm sorry, but Tammy was a pig," said Ray. Filthy dishes were stacked in the sink and garbage was everywhere. He led them to the bedrooms. The room that Sheila was using smelled like sex, but wasn't too bad. The other small bedroom was in good shape. Ray went into the main bedroom where all of his clothes were thrown on the ground and somebody took a dump on his bed. "That fucking pig. I hope she gets what coming to her."

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The next morning, the apartment was nearly spotless. Ray had been up all night cleaning and doing laundry. He made the kids breakfast, and Christa said, "Sorry about your wife."

"We weren't really married; it was a marriage of convenience. She needed a place to live and I needed somebody to hang off my arm at official functions at work."

"Can I go look around?" she asked.

"Be sure you have your personal telephone on you," said Ray.

"I just want to look at the playground."

"Ok. I'll be right here. Alan, can we talk?" said Ray as Alan started to follow his sister out the door. Alan stopped and glared at Ray. "Did I say or do something wrong?" Ray asked.

"You spied on my parents at work."

"Pardon?" asked Ray.

"You gave them paperweights with TK-1237 circuits embedded to collect data with instructions to download to your recorder after a specific period of time."

"And where did you get this idea from?"

"Noxie," said Alan.

"Pardon?"

"Noxie the Robot, you gave me Noxie for my birthday. I programed it to show me RF signals and it showed me the signal between the paperweight and your recorder."

"How?" asked Ray. "How does it show you? Show me." Ray brought out the paperweights and placed them around the recorder.

Alan held his robot over the devices and pushed a button on the back of the robot. The robot's eyes glowed blue and in the blue circle of light Noxie projected, Ray saw it, waves of different shades of blue from one of the paperweights and the recorder flashed softly… was that a signal that it was recording the radio waves from the paperweight? A number appeared above the paperweight, TK-1237, the circuit that powered the transmission. Above the recorder could be seen the number RK-802, the receiving circuit. Under normal scrutiny, RK-802 would appear as an innocuous circuit on the recorder. Maybe a noise filter.

"You programmed that yourself?"

"Uh huh, with the little keyboard that came with Noxie."

"Where did you get the idea?" asked Ray.

"Robotics Monthly magazine. They always have a Noxie tips and tricks column. I was trying to make it fly but I found an article that talked about showing the radio frequency spectrum as visible light with a circuit query…" Alan handed the magazine to Ray, who paged through it.

"It doesn't say how, it just says it might be possible."

"I know!" said Alan brightly. "That's what gave me the idea!"

As Alan spoke, the huge security man that Ray had knocked to the floor in the Bradbury Canal walked into the apartment. Alan panicked and grabbed the magazine out of Ray's hand, grabbed Noxie and ran to the back of the apartment. "Clark!" said the enormous man.

"Damnit Lars, we were talking here," said Ray. "Timing! We were having a moment."

"Sorry Ray," said the huge man.

"Just wait, I need to find him." Ray found Alan sitting on his bed, clutching Noxie.

"He found us," gasped the boy, his eyes wide in terror.

"No, that's Lars, remember when I said he was my sparring partner? We learned Judo together."

"So, you were pretending to fight with him?"

"Oh, hell no," said Ray. "I was mad that he snuck up on us. He was supposed to be watching our backs so we could get out of Bradbury Canal without being sneaked up on. I kinda over did it a bit."

Now Alan looked more confused than ever. Just then, a beautiful woman walked into the apartment. Ray turned and saw who was behind him, then said to the woman, "Doctor Sax, this is my nephew Alan Scarlett."

"I'd know Alan anywhere," she said with a huge, sad smile. "Alan, you've grown so much," she crouched down and looked Alan in the eye. "He's got his mother's eyes."

"You know me?" gasped Alan.

"Alan, this is my boss Doctor Monika Sax, she was there when you were born. And this mountain behind her is my partner Doctor Lars Olsen."

"Who are you people and why were you spying on my parents?" demanded Alan. He was getting angry. His eyes were tearing up, and he grasped his robot, ready to run.

"Alan," said Monika. "I need you to listen to me. Your parents worked for us; your mom was my best friend."

"She never mentioned you," said Alan. "You put these paperweights on her desk so you could spy on her."

"Alan, I made those paperweights," said the mountain sized man. "Your mother asked me to make them. It was your mom and your dad's way of getting information out of that office."

Monika picked up a paperweight and said, "when a visitor came by, one of your parents might give them a paperweight as a souvenir. The paperweights captured conversations and data from their terminal. We'd bring the paperweights back to see what Marconi-Edison Bio-Electronics was doing."

"Alan, think for a moment," said Ray. "Why would anybody spy on somebody that was studying fossilized viruses?"

Alan's brow furrowed as he considered the possibilities. In the end, there was no reason to spy on a nerd with microscopic fossils. "Because they weren't studying fossilized viruses?" Alan asked slowly.

"No, most of the time they were," assured Monika.

Alan thought about this. He's watched hundreds of spy movies with his dad. It never occurred to Alan to think of his parents as spies. They weren't spies; they didn't have guns and fast cars. They were nerds. They could identify and replicate viruses in a matter of… His eyes grew round. "Marconi-Edison Bio-Electronics was trying to make new viruses from fossilized viruses?"

"Not just trying. They were successful," said Monika. "Hopefully this information will give us the information we need to develop a defense and maybe tell us who they were making the virus for."

"Are you ok, Alan? I know this is a lot to take in," said Ray. "Your mom and dad were heroes. They risked their lives to expose these people who use the facilities of Mars to make their weapons for their dirty little wars on Earth."

"What do you mean?"

"They use our technology, they hide in our colonies and build their illegal weapons because Earth authorities can't touch them here and there's no real central law enforcement on Mars," said Monica. "There's a few of us who expose them and maybe earth will take care of it, but they just transfer their work to another colony."

"Because of our heroes, your mom, my big sister, we can warn Earth what these monsters were working on."

"They're testing their virus somewhere, we just don't know where," said Lars.

"What do we do now?" asked Alan.

Ray sighed and said, "You, me, and Christa, we need to go to Earth. You need to meet your grandparents."

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Chapter 7 - Outbound From Mars

RSS Lake Baikal, October 12, 2131

Outbound From Mars

The heavy lift freighter RSS Lake Baikal shot out from Martian orbit at twice the speed that a grand old dame like her would dare venture. It was a high-G maneuver that even military spacecraft wouldn't attempt unless it was an emergency. But there were no complaints from the passengers, they were all unconscious. The crew of the Lake Baikal worked fast to complete their mission. They got everyone in the seats and strapped in properly, then using a metal plate they bolted the passenger cabins closed, sealing the passengers in. Then they went aft to handle the cargo. The iron ore was loaded on the Lake Baikal in removable cargo bay inserts. The inserts were being transferred to a cargo ship that normally hauls ore from the Asteroid Belt to Jordan Steel Foundry in orbit around Earth.

That was a preview of Alan Scarlett and the Scarlett Virus. To read the rest purchase the book.

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