Life on other planets -- Fiction; Mars (Planet) -- Fiction; Science fiction; Space colonies -- Fiction
"Have you forgotten we can't get out of this place?" he reminded. "We
can't get at either the marsuits or the groundcars."
It was Dark's turn to smile.
"I believe you said there aren't any guards on the airlocks to stop one
from walking out at night?" he said.
"That's true, but--"
"There's something you don't know," continued Dark. "You were wondering
at the basis of the regenerative power that permitted me to revive here
after being shot in the stomach with a heatgun. I don't know what it is,
but whatever it is, it's something that also permits me to live without
oxygen.
"Happy can testify that I was fully alive and conscious underwater. I
discovered, before I was shot, that I can operate just as well outside,
in the Martian atmosphere, without a helmet. And that's why Goat's
records may solve our problem.
"So tonight I'll leave this place and go to Ultra Vires. If there are
any marsuits and groundcars left there, I'll come back here with them,
and you and Happy and Shadow can escape with me. If not, you may have to
wait a while longer.
"But I'll be back!"
13
Brute Hennessey plodded westward through the Xanthe Desert, naked,
wearing no marsuit, his head bare to the thin, oxygen-poor Martian air.
The two small moons shone in the star-spangled sky above the lone
figure, casting fantastic shadows on the sands.
But this was not the stupid, shambling Brute Hennessey of a few months
past. He walked surely and proudly, and the light of intelligence shone
in his eyes.
He called himself, now, Dark Kensington.
Dark's muscular body had not regained, quite, the firmness and tone it
had had before he was shot down at Solis Lacus, but he had recovered
greatly from the bloated flabbiness of a few days ago. Most of that had
been water in his tissues, and resumption of normal physical activity
had wrung it out in short order.
As he plodded through the Martian night toward Ultra Vires, Dark was
remembering, with something of awe, that emotional explosion within him
that had occurred on his first sight of Goat Hennessey at the Canfell
Hydroponic Farm. It was this sudden, overwhelming recognition that had
wrung from his lips the cry: "_Father!_"
In that moment, memory had returned with terrible impact and he had been
overwhelmed by the re-experience of those moments when he had stood
before the man he admired and loved as his father and had seen the
bitter realization of rejection by that man written with the point of a
knife.
Now he remembered it all. He remembered his childhood at Ultra Vires, he
remembered Adam and their experiences together, he remembered their
treks through the desert at Goat Hennessey's command, he remembered his
slaying of Adam and his acceptance of death at Goat's hands. He
remembered that he, Dark Kensington, was Brute Hennessey, somehow
brought to life once before in the Icaria Desert even as he had himself
regained life a second time in the vats of the Canfell Hydroponic Farm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account