Earth Mars Love (The Marsikons)

Chapter 5

This woman is insane!

Now Marcus knew why she was living so far from her family. Probably her father had sent her as far away as possible from him. And those articles? He'd thought she was a victim, but maybe they were right to fire her from the force. If she was acting like that with all her suspects, it was a miracle, that she worked there for so long.

Thanks be to Mars that they were moving now and she hadn't thrown them out. Showing her the ship would mean more time on the road, but if she would trust them afterward, then the lost time would worth it.

Marcus exhaled and winced. She beat his sides, and they were hurting a bit, despite his protection suit. Thankfully, she didn't punch him in the face, or he would have ended with a concussion. That woman has a heavy hand, and he didn't envy her husband.

And what were his so-called best friends doing while she beat him? Just watched this theatre like it was some entertainment.

Marcus glanced at her, and she said without looking in his direction, "Maybe someone will tell me the long version? Anyway, what those two with you are doing here, Marcus? They don't talk, don't protect you. Why are they here?"

Was she reading his mind? He answered on the exhale, "Only Mars knows. The deadweight, I suppose."

"Hey, I'm here to entertain you, but I figured that you'd been entertained a lot lately, so I'll just drink beer and sleep," Darius said.

Kosmas only grunted, leaving him to deal with her on his own.

Regina glanced in a rear-view mirror. "Darius, maybe you'll tell me everything? Because Marcus here wants to be thrown out. And he will be if he won't start his speech."

Marcus looked at her in astonishment. Really. Really? It was all his fault that she hit him? Marvelous. But he didn't say anything, trying to be above this situation and not wanting to start a new fight with her.

His father was the perfect example of calmness and politeness. Aloofness even. Looking up at his father, he had grown up learning how to be the same. For years Marcus was always calm, collected, and considerate.

Until today. Something hot was boiling inside, but he gathered all his frustrations and shoved it in the depth of his marrow. He closed his eyes and silently counted to ten, reminding himself that without Regina they wouldn't reach the President.

In a serene voice, he said, "Ms. Morgan, I believe, that we have a long road ahead of us so it would be my pleasure to tell you the story of Mars."

"'Bout time," she chimed in, and he winced a little, but without any comment at her outburst, he began at the very beginning.

"The civilization on Mars had started hundreds of thousands of years ago. Marsikons went through a long way of development, starting with living in the caves and ending with building skyscrapers and artificial islands when there was no place to build on existing land anymore. We invented everything that you have on Earth these days; only it was thousands of years ago. The different nations and different cultures were living in a united and close community. The ruler of Mars, the King cared for everyone's well-being. There were no wars, no poverty, or hungry people. We had plenty of supplies: water, oil, all known chemical elements. Name anything; we had it. There were no cureless illnesses, and an average lifespan was one hundred Marsikon' years. No one struggled. It was a utopia." Marcus heavily sighed, pausing for a minute.

"But we forgot about one big problem," he continued. "We didn't think about the waste and what it was doing to our ecology. Imagine, billions of people were living on the planet, which is half the size of the Earth, and how much waste we were producing. It got into the oceans, the air, and the soil. It was killing our Mars slowly, without us even realizing it. The atmosphere became thinner, and radiation grew. Flora and fauna were fading, and no one cared or noticed." Marcus tried to keep his voice steady, but the lump in a throat threatened to choke him.

"Only when babies with mutations were born, people started to panic. They demanded the King to find a cure, to fix them. But at that point, it was too late. Some scientists were aware of the coming problem, but nobody listened to them. And when the King turned to them to find a solution, the only choice at that point was to go underground and try to find a new home for us, because underground cities wouldn't fit everyone. The King finally agreed and blamed himself for not listening before."

A feeling Marcus also shared.

He glanced at Regina, but she was staring intently on the road, her brow furrowed. He was surprised that she hadn't interrupted him anymore and just let him speak. When she didn't glance back, he continued.

"The Earth was the best place to move and start a new life. It was bigger, with a perfect atmosphere and plenty of elements. The Virgin Planet. They decided that it would be better, if they go there with minimum equipment, forgetting all innovations and live like simple people, without machines or gadgets. The first trip to the Earth took eight years. On the way there, they dropped satellites in space so they could have a faster connection. That's how we still have a connection with the Internet and mobile networks."

Regina was still silent, though she gave him a slight nod to go on.

"They barely made it in time, with building underground cities and sending people in bigger spaceships. When the atmosphere collapsed, not one living creature could stay aboveground for more than twenty seconds and stay alive. The temperature is extremely hot or cold, oceans melted to nothing, and only the rocky desert is strewn in places where long ago people were living in their houses."

Regina was looking straight ahead, slightly nodding her head, like she was thinking very hard about what he'd said, and finally she breached the silence.

"Something doesn't add up in here. You're telling that you came here six thousand years ago, but scientists keep finding remains of ancient people, like from hundreds of thousands of years ago or even millions of years ago."

"Yes, our scientists know about such discoveries, and they came to the conclusion that on Earth a very long time ago were human-like creatures, but after some kind of ecological catastrophe, they all died. Homo sapiens arrived from Mars. Now on Mars lives two kinds of species and the second one we started to call Homo mutatis fauna or mutated humans, the Martians. We don't get along with them..." When he said it, he heard Kos' disgusted snort. He almost forgot that he and Darius were sitting behind.

He inhaled through his nose and tried to explain. "We couldn't find a cure for mutation, and they blame us for everything that happened. They also want to subjugate us and overthrow the King. But we're fighting them."

"I see," Regina said, impenetrable.

He couldn't tell whether she believed him or not, so he continued. "First people came to Earth six thousand years ago, and the funny thing is, is that people on Earth are going by the same scenario as we did, only faster. You're killing your planet, just like we did. Even with wars and illnesses, you've made progress faster than us. Maybe on a subconscious level, people already know every advancement that we've already made, but they forget that nothing lasts forever. Again, they squeeze everything that the planet can give them, without bothering to give something back."

The sea of sadness washed over him when he ended, and he wanted to cry for his people.

But it was inappropriate. When he was in middle school, Martians ambushed Marsikon miners, who worked aboveground. Many of them died in the attack, some of them were fathers of his classmates. Marcus was crying, when he ran to his father. And when he saw Marcus, he said that Kings don't cry. Something strange passed in his father's eyes when he said that, but he told it with such conviction and calmness, that little Marcus stopped crying immediately.

Then his father had continued, saying that the ruler can't show his despair to his people, or those people will suffer even more from what happened. If they see that the King is crying, then there is no hope and their spirit will die. And people without hope and spirit...they would make decisions with irreversible consequences. They would go for a full-scale war and die.

Since then, Marcus never cried. And until today, he'd never doubted his resilience.

But Regina's attitude today awoke something inside of him, and he felt wetness in his eyes when he told her the story of their nation. He turned to the blackness outside of the side window and quickly blinked his eyes so not a drop would spill.

And saw the shore, where their ship had been left.