Martian Dawn

Part 4: Chapter 12: Mars Sticks in My Craw

February 3, 2056. MY54, Sol 403

The chickens were loose.

That was the first thing Dawn noticed, when she stepped into the gallinero.

They were everywhere. They were unrestrained, their beady little eyes flicking here and there.

She stood still, just in front of the airlock, unable to proceed--for more than one reason.

Emilio came to her.

He stopped a few steps away, uncertain whether she would want him to come any closer.

She held out her arms, and he collapsed gratefully into them.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"For what?" he asked, but didn't give her a chance to answer. "You have nothing to be sorry for. You couldn't have known--not for sure. I'm just relieved that my name has been cleared."

"I'm just glad to have my friend back," she said.

"I could have killed him, when I figured it out."

"They say you threatened to, over the short range."

He shook his head, ruefully. "Empty words. By then, he had me locked in the dormitory. The only way I could reach him at all was over the radio in his suit." Then he smiled, maliciously. "So I took it out on his personal things. He did not sleep on those sheets again."

Dawn scoffed. "Well, I appreciate the gesture." She turned pensive. "Do you think it's true, what he said?"

"That he won't be punished, when he gets home?" asked Emilio. "In my country, guilt or innocence is determined by how much money and power you have. I am surprised to hear that it is the same in the United States, though. I'd always heard things were better, there."

"So had I," she agreed. They sat in silence for a moment, watching the birds scratch in the bedding and letting the topic fade away.

"How are the birds?" Dawn asked.

Emilio sighed, long and expressively. "They all have the thyroid disease, fijase. Some of them died while I was gone."

"What happened?" Dawn asked, in concern.

"While I was gone, the one who took my place thought they needed more grit. He was not wrong, but what he did was, he brought in sand from up-canyon."

"Wait, what? What do you mean, grit?"

"Birds swallow rocks," Emilio explained. "And they store them in a pouch in their throat, and then, when they eat seeds, the rocks help them grind up their foods. We knew they needed more grit, but we weren't using anything from Mars, because of the perchlorates and heavy metals."

"The perchlorates are all leached out of the top layers inside the dome," Dawn said. "It should be safe."

"There is still potassium perchlorate in the soil," Emilio told her. "It is the insoluble form of perchlorate, so it doesn't leach out, but it's also very stable, so not a risk to humans. But humans don't eat it. The birds hold it in their craws until it is ground up very fine, and then they swallow it, and now, they all have The Hypothyroid."

"What are you doing for them?"

"We give them iodine supplements, just like Michael and Siwan and all the older colonists take. We don't have that much, though. It has to last until the Aguila returns. And there is another problem. We can't eat their eggs anymore--not until the toxins are gone from their bodies. And we don't know if they can have chicks."

"I am so sorry," Dawn said to him. "You must be so disappointed."

Emilio shrugged. "If these die, we'll just try again in three years. In the meantime, Dra. Herrera is studying them to learn about the disease, so some good comes out of the bad."

Dawn considered that information. "Did you just tell me something about Mars I did not know?"

Emilio chuckled. "¡Golllll!" He waved his hands above his head in mock excitement. She laughed at his antics.

"You know," she said, "you aren't the same boy you were when you got here."

"You aren't the same girl you were when I got here, either."

"So, I guess some good comes out of the bad?" She ventured.

"That is not what I meant!" Emilio said, sharply. "You would have grown without getting hurt."

"But I did get hurt," she replied. "And that which does not kill us, right?"

Emilio frowned. "I do not see it that way, but maybe it is good that you do."

"I think I have to."

She pulled out her tablet and opened it up. "While I was on the Aguila," she began. "I downloaded a bunch of videos of Honduras from their library. There were all sorts of things, there. I found several festivals, a funny series called "#ShitKatrachosSay," and a motocross event, and some other random stuff."

She passed the tablet to Emilio, who accepted it, and scrolled through the videos. "You did this while you were on the Aguila?" he repeated. "While the investigation was ongoing?"

"Yes," she said, without explanation.

He flipped through the videos. When he laughed at something on #ShitKatrachosSay, she told him, "I thought those looked pretty funny, but I couldn't actually understand much of it. They spoke too fast, and their accent is very different from Alonso's. I asked him to translate some of it, and he claimed it wasn't actually Spanish."

Emilio laughed at that. "I would be embarrassed to translate most of it for you," Emilio told her. "They are not my people, though. These are rich kids from the capital; they hardly know my part of the country exists. Let me find you something closer to my part of the country."

He flipped through until he came to a Christmas pageant in a town square. "This is from the municipality I live in. We go to this city to sell our harvest and buy supplies."

"Is there anything from your village?" Dawn asked.

"Not quite, but..." He selected a short video of less than one minute in length and passed it back to her. "I recorded this one."

"Did you?" she asked, in surprise. "Is that your home?"

He laughed out loud. "No, my house is not so fancy. My aunt married a man from town. One day, when I was at their house, he showed me his new phone. I was just playing around, but he posted it online, to show me how to do it. When they told us to download our home videos, I didn't have any, but I remembered this was on YouTube. So this is what I have. I can smell the rain when I watch this video. I wish I had thought to borrow his phone for a few days and take it home, so I would have video of my mamá and papá."

"Do you miss them?"

"Of course I do."

"Do you look forward to going back in August?"

"Well, even if I leave in August, I still won't be home until 2057."

"What do you mean, if you leave?"

"The birds need me," he said.

"Emilio, your family needs you more. Come August, you've done your duty. Go home!"

"I suppose," he agreed, reluctantly. "I just really want to see the job through. Now that they are sick, they are even more important than ever. If we can keep them alive until there is a cure, then maybe people could actually have families here."

"That is a big thing," she agreed. She sighed, heavily. "Well, I'll miss you, if you decide to stay."

"¿Diga?" he blurted.

Before she could explain, the airlock door cycled open, and a man she did not recognize frantically called her name.

"Dawn, thought you might want to know! There's a distress call coming in--and it's from Waystation Seven!"