* * *
Back on Mars... with me,
I felt a shove on my shoulder, spun around
to face the source, and found Nick standing there with his hand extended. I
took it and shook it.
“So you managed to find your way back then?”
Nick enquired.
“The city is still standing I see. I am
impressed, not to mention surprised,” I replied.
“Well, most of it is, anyway.” Nick turned
and hugged Mel, saying,
“Hello, Melissa. You’re looking refreshed
and tanned after your summer holiday.”
Mel and I both laughed as I grabbed Nick’s
arm and guided him over to Vladimir.
“Nick, this is Vladimir Lenin. Vladimir,
this is Nicholas Watson.”
“My God, it’s Grizzly Adams!” Nick
exclaimed.
All conversation in the room stopped as
everyone turned and looked apprehensively toward Nick and Vladimir; even Nick
started to look pale and nervous under Vladimir’s steely gaze. I started edging
around behind Vladimir so that I could jump on his back if he went for Nick. It
probably would have been about as effective and useful as a gnat landing on the
back of a rampaging bull, but I had to at least try to save Nick. I said in a
conversational tone as I moved to Vladimir’s left,
“You’ll have to excuse Nick. We suspect that
he may have developed the first documented (well it will be documented when I
bother to write it down) case of a condition we are calling Martian Madness. We
are not sure if it is terminal as of yet, so we have adopted an investigative
wait and see therapy.”
The room was suddenly filled with loud,
booming laughter from Vladimir, which covered the sound of the communal sigh of
relief from everyone else in the room. And so, from that day forward, Vladimir
was affectionately known and referred to as Grizzly by all of us. Vladimir then
started giving Nick the same greeting he had given me when I first met him, to
my delirious delight.
After he had finished and Nick had recovered
sufficiently, I introduced him to Boris and Natasha (he looked at me with
raised eyebrows as if to say “really?” and I nodded back as if to say “really!”).
Then I introduced him to Yogi and May-tee Yee, and then Yelena. We chatted for
a few hours after that, until Nick looked at his watch and suggested we get the
buggies and take the new crew on a tour of the city. This was met with great
enthusiasm by everyone, and then Mel suggested that the new arrivals grab
enough of their gear to last them a few days and they could pick out their
accommodations at the same time.
It was decided that Dick, Grizzly, and I
would walk over to fetch the other two buggies and drive them over to T-2 while the rest of the men got a lift
in Nick’s buggy to T-2. By the time
we got to T-2 with the other buggies,
they had filled the trunk of Nick’s buggy with luggage, so they helped us fill
our buggies with baggage and then we all drove over and picked up the women
from the terminal.
I decided to start at the top and work our
way down. The others followed me to the terrarium. Grizzly and Yelena were
amazed at the number of shrubs and trees and the sizes they had grown to in
such a short time. So were Mel and I, for that matter. It was astonishing how
much everything had grown in the thirty-two days we had been gone. We drove
through the terrarium in awe of the jungle that had been created, the animals
that wandered among the vegetation, and the birds that flitted and flew above
and through it. We then took them on a brief tour of level six. “Are these
houses that we’re looking at now?” Grizzly asked.
“Yes, they are, and they are all empty,” Mel
answered.
“Could we have a look at some of them?”
“Of course you can; let me just take you to
the outer circle, where we think you will find the best ones.”
When we arrived, they climbed out of the
buggy and went to look through a couple of them. Mel and I followed to show
them how to work the blue panels to gain access. “You should stay near the
doorways when operating the blue panels, because you don’t know what’s going to
pop out or up or from where,” I warned them.
The rest of their crew had joined us by then
and were learning as well. When Grizzly and Yelena asked to see another house,
Yogi asked if he and May-tee could have the one they were looking at. There
were no objections, so Nick and Sammy helped them unload their luggage from the
buggy while the rest of us looked next door. After looking through that one,
Grizzly expressed a desire to look at others, so Boris and Natasha claimed it.
Dick and Courtney helped them with their luggage while the remaining four of us
moved on to the next house. This one was more to Grizzly’s and Yelena’s tastes,
and after looking through the whole house they declared that they would like
that one.
Mel and I helped them bring in their
luggage, and then I looked out the huge, panoramic windows in the main bedroom.
Because level six was higher in the mountain than our houses, these houses had
unobstructed views over the surrounding hills across the Martian landscape to
the hills and mountains on the eastern horizon. It was very impressive and
breathtaking, and I made a mental note to ask Mel later if she would like to
move up in the world, or at least in the mountain.
“Drew, may I have a word with you, please?”
Vladimir asked.
“Yes, of course,” I said as we moved away
from the rest of the crew.
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