The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds Read Online Free Page A

you’d spent your life watching them.
    “Nice timing, though…”
    Sakina doesn’t say a word while we clean up, which is
hardly unusual. But I’m left idly wondering how literal Sakura’s
use of the word “cousin” was.
     
     

Chapter 2: Mortal Sins

    1 February, 2116:
     
    It finally comes the way things like this do, at
exactly the moment you’re not expecting it. I will specifically
remember this little detail every time the cliché question is put
to me: “Where were you when it happened?”
    I’d just dozed off in my rack.
    I had slept not at all the night before, and had been
lying awake until some moments before 01:05. I only realized I’d
finally fallen asleep because the priority signal on my Link woke
me, and because I was so slow and groggy in answering it. In fact,
I distinctly remember being in that cognitive disorientation
between dreaming and waking, because I was sure I knew what the
message would be before I answered it.
    “It’s Earth , Colonel!!” Anton manically greets
me, the light from the screen burning my unadjusted eyes. “I have
them! It’s Earth!”
    I think I told him to make them hold. I did. I
ordered him to put Earth on hold after fifty years. And the next
coherent thought I had was that Matthew would never let me forget
it.
    I remember feeling shaky, even nauseous. The lights
came up in my quarters automatically and it hurt. The room felt
very small. I remember Sakina was already sitting up at disciplined
attention, her black eyes looking into mine like she was afraid we
were under attack, like she was waiting for orders. I staggered
over her and got into the toilet niche. I saw enough of myself in
the mirror to know I was pale and drawn and looking very, very old.
I managed to get my LA jacket on but not clasped, and I got myself
out the hatch and up the stairs to Command Ops.
     
    I needn’t have rushed.
    Anton had warned me about this months ago: Even at
closest conjunction, it would take a radio signal at least four and
a half minutes to get across fifty thousand miles of space. I knew
the math already—it was rattled into me with so many more necessary
facts of operating on Mars before I left Earth—but I got used to
relaying messages and mission briefs through Ares Station or Phobos
Dock, not ever having to talk directly to Earth and wait out the
delay. (I suppose it says something that I had no one back home to
keep in touch with.) And apparently—fifty years later—the
scientists back home still have no shortcuts around the speed of
light.
    Nine minutes to send a signal and get a reply, plus
whatever time it takes for them to receive and reply. I sit and
wait forever until 01:22. I don’t even realize Tru has been holding
my hand the whole time. Matthew is actually sweating.
    “Melas Base, this is Planet Earth,” it begins with
the kind of measured enthusiasm I would expect, given the span of
time and the likely suspicion about the source of our signals. “We
have received your confirmation signal.” The tone is equal parts
elation and caution, hope and anxiety. The voice is that familiar
slightly-Southern US accent very common with soldiers and space
program specialists. I’m not sure if I find it reassuring or
creepy—part of me wonders if this is some kind of tactical trick or
cruel hoax perpetrated by one of our less-friendly on-planet
fellows. I notice the voice doesn’t identify itself by name, or
even by organization or command.
    Then it gets worse.
    “Sorry for the delay responding to you. We had a time
confirming your authenticity. Quite a shock after all these years,
you can understand. But we’re all very excited down here…”
    The voice sounds too much like someone you’ve
cornered who doesn’t want to talk to you but is too polite to tell
you to go away. Matthew’s eyebrows go halfway up his forehead.
    “I know those Earthside Ops Specialists practice at
being cool even when things are exploding,” he complains
incredulously, “but