Chindi Eimi, Part VI

Jim started back, his heart beating powerfully.  He was filled with a rush of adrenaline.  As he made his way over the dunes, he felt, for the first time since the Unification, the exhilaration of freedom, and the joy that anticipated the immanent triumph of good over evil.  He thought of earth, with its dark masses engaging in their cannibalistic power struggle, he raged when he considered how they consumed humanity.  He thought of the dusts, replicating in the desert, filling the air—earth, dark, enshrouded. 

 

Back at the station, Sarah emerged silently from her room, just as dawn broke and the sound of the wind returned.  She made her way down the hall, as casually as she could, and toward the air lock.  She did not know that she was being observed as she began putting on her pressure suit.  Outside, the winds picked up rapidly.  

 

By the time Jim reached the station, it was half buried in sediment, and he knew that the desolation of the crew was complete except, hopefully, for one.  On one side, the titanium sheathing had been torn loose and he could see the remains of the lab through the gaping hole.  To the west, the debris that was the fusion generator was strewn across the dunes.  Though the station was destroyed, the shuttle was unharmed.  Only the communications antenna was blown off.  “Marvelous precision,”  Jim thought, as he approached the shuttle with the plastic jar in his hand.  He turned the latch, and carefully opened the door.

 

As the door opened, he was shocked to see a man in the doorway.  “Good morning, Jim.” sneered Wesley.  There was a scowl on his thin face and a plasma torch from the maintenance bay in his hand.  “What do you think you are doing, Jim,”  He barked.  Behind him lay Sarah, wires around her wrists and ankles. 

 

As Wes started down the shiny stairs, Jim lashed out with his arm and batted the torch from Wes’ hand.  It clanged as it hit the side of the shuttle and fell to the ground.  Wes roared and lept at Jim, clutching wildly at his helmet, and the two fell to the ground at the base of the stairs.  The jar fell from Jim’s hand and made a little trail in the red soil as it rolled under the shuttle.  Wes saw the jar and instantly made the connection in his mind.  His mouth opened wide and he jumped on top of Jim, snarling like a mad bear.  Red dust clung to the pressure suits of the two men as they rolled and wrestled, thrashing at each other like desperate animals, grasping for the latches on each other’s pressure suits.  

 

Jim, the stronger of the two, threw Wes to the side and rolled on top, his hand at the latch of Wes’ helmet.  Just as Jim was about to yank the latch, Wesley’s long arm reached the torch he had dropped.  He flicked the switch, and Jim screamed in pain as the 2,000 degree plasma cut into his flank, creating a deep, black wound.  His pressure suit hissed briefly before the self-sealing mechanism closed the breach, and Jim lept back, rolling under the shuttle, holding the his right side.

 

Sarah struggled towards the door as Wesley crouched under the shuttle, screaming at Jim.  “You traitor!,”  he cried, “how could you!”  He struggled to find words, so filled with anger that he could barely speak.  “The Unification!”  he squealed, “How could you!”  Sarah stopped as Wes turned toward the door of the shuttle.  “And you!”  he yelled at Sarah as he approached the door, plasma torch in hand, his rage worked to a fever pitch.  He started up the steps.

 

Suddenly he paused, a puzzled expression on his face.  Sarah felt a strange, electrical, tingling sensation, and the air became filled with dust.  Wes gave a brief cry… and disappeared.  The plasma torch fell to the ground with a dull thud, and Sarah watched in amazement as Wesley shot straight up into the air, spinning in a slow spiral, enshrouded in a cloud of crackling, swirling dust and sparks.  He rose like a rocket, sucked forcefully into the pink sky until he was too small to see.

 

Sarah scooted herself over to the stairs and crawled down to the torch.  She turned it on and carefully cut the wires from her hands, then ran over to Jim.  He was curled up on his side, breathing in broken gasps.  “Jim,”  she said, “It’s going to be alright, I’ll get you to the ship.” 

 

She threw his arm over her shoulder and helped him make his way painfully toward the stairs.  “I’m sorry, Jim.  It’s my fault,”  Sarah cried, “I’m so sorry.  He saw me.”

 

“No, Sarah.  It’s my….”  he gasped, “He suspected me all along.  Besides,” he winced in pain, “I’m OK.”

 

Sarah helped Jim up the stairs and into the shuttle and laid him on the small couch in the cabin.  She hesitated for a moment by his side, looking into his eyes.  “Sarah?”  Jim said, relaxing.

 

“Yes?” Sarah said.

 

“Don’t forget the jar,”  Jim grinned.

 

Sarah smiled back and ran down the stairs.  She found the jar lying in the dust underneath the shuttle.  She gently picked it up and brushed it off. 

 

 Far away to the southeast, in the Hellas Basin, the body of Wesley Wallace shot from the sky like a meteorite and made a small crater as it crashed into the sandy surface of Mars.

 

Sarah shut the door and started the pressurization sequence.  She opened the medical kit and carefully got Jim out of his suit, cutting away the fabric around the wound.  She gave Jim anesthetic and got to work cleaning the gash.  “Oh thank goodness,” she sighed, “It looks like he cut through a few ribs, but no deeper.”

 

As Sarah applied healant and a bandage, Jim looked at her face and into her eyes. “Thanks.”

 

“He didn’t know much,” Sarah said, “I don’t think he knew about the jar.  He said something about you sabotaging the mission.  The storm had begun by the time he saw me, but he may have sent word to Command before….”

 

“We can’t be sure,”  said Jim, “and there’s nothing to be done about it anyway.  Now, let’s get out of here.”

 

“Yes, Sir,” Sarah said, and smiled as she initiated the launch sequence. 

 

Jim shut his eyes, the nuclear engines fired, and as he sunk into his seat, he felt a profound sense of relief and peace.  A few minutes later, when the dusky atmosphere was behind him, Jim propped himself up on one shoulder and looked back at the red planet.  He could not make out the station, buried as it was beneath brown dunes, but he could see a cloudy mass to the east, a dust storm moving over the plain.  

 

Back on earth, the commotion at Command had reached a fever pitch.  Just before the scheduled first morning communications, they had received a short, cryptic message from Wesley.  But it had been cut off abruptly, and they could make out only a few words, something about Director Fox and a storm.  They had heard nothing else since.  There was no signal from the shuttle, but the satellites around Mars had scrutinized the decimated station and not seen any sign of the shuttle.  They knew it must have left Mars, though they could not track it.  They were not sure, however, who was piloting the shuttle, and they were disastrously ignorant of its inorganic cargo.  

 

Of course, they had been working on the problem of the dusts since Jim’s first suggestion two months ago, but they lacked critical data, and they eschewed groundless speculation.  They had not even settled the question of whether the dust were alive.

 

 As the shuttle’s nuclear engines cooled and the ion thrusters took over, Jim and Sarah settled in for their two-week trip home.  Exhausted, they both fell asleep, and Jim’s tired mind slipped into dreams filled with swirling dusts and wind.  In one, he was lifted up gently by a cloud of dust, and carried on the wind to a high mountain.  From there he looked out on the earth, or was it the earth?  It was barren, covered in snow and sediment, and it was cold, so cold.  He woke, and pulled his blanket over him. 

 

Sarah, too, dreamed of dusts, and in the morning she told Jim how a great cloud lifted her up and dropped her gently at the feet of her parents.  Then the words and feelings poured from both of them like water through a burst dam.  They had so much to talk about.  They talked about the Unification and the Resistance.  They talked about themselves, their longings and dreams.  They talked about Leah and John, and about the headquarters at the ravine.  They talked about what it was to be human, and they talked about freedom. 

 

Soon, however their conversation turned inevitably to their plans.  Sarah wondered about the Resistance, would they be able to outlast the Unification?  “They could last for decades,”  Jim reassured her, “They have been preparing for just such a time as this, and the Unification has not.  They will be caught off guard and will have no time to respond… I hope.”

 

Sarah looked out the window at the blue circle of Earth, then she picked up the jar of dust

and held it her hands.  “It’s crazy, Jim,”  she said, “that our hope lies in this little jar, these dusts that we know so little about.  What if nothing happens?  What if they…  Jim, we really can’t predict their behavior.”

 

“I know, Sarah,”  Jim smiled, “It is crazy.”

 

Sarah thought for a moment.  “It’s also ironic.”  She held the jar thoughtfully and smiled.

 

“What’s ironic?”

 

“The Unification views humanity as a colonial organism, like bees or ants….” Sarah mused, “and a real colonial organism will be their demise.” 

 

“Hmmm,”  Jim hummed, nodding. 

 

Sarah smiled and leaned back into Jim’s arms.

 

As the days passed, Sarah and Jim grew closer, and they wished that things could have been otherwise, that they could have had a future together.  Once, they were both looking out the window at the stars.  “You know,”  Sarah said, “we will both likely be killed or worse…”  She hesitated, looked at Jim, squeezed his hand, “but I don’t care.”  She took a deep breath, and smiled.  “I feel free for the first time, and I am thankful for this time with you.” 

 

Jim smiled. “Me too.”

 

As earth grew in their window, Jim felt a deep sorrow when he remembered it’s former glory.  He and Sarah reminisced about the times before the revolution, and cried for their fallen race.  But they were not without hope.  In fact, it was the first time they had felt hope since the misguided and fateful Revolution, twenty years ago.  They envisioned the dusts, replicating in the desert, filling the sky.  Darkness and cold, havoc, chaos, and anarchy.  They saw the rebels with the foothold they needed.  Jim looked down at the small, silver ant insignia on his uniform and turned it upside down.

 

Back on earth, Command noted a point of light approaching earth, and they began to hear the faint signal from its identification beacon.  They didn’t know if they would be receiving a hero or a traitor.  They had plans for both, but they had no plan for the truth.

Chindi Eimi, Part V

At two in the morning, Jim got up and dressed into his field clothes.  It would be dark for 4 more hours.  Directorship had its privileges, and he passed easily through the security checkpoints to the air lock and rover garage.  He donned his pressure suit, and as he tightened the clasp around his neck, a pulse of excitement washed through his veins.  He could not hold back a smile.  The adrenaline made his hands tremble as he hurriedly prepared the rover, checking the battery levels, and made sure he had enough water in the electrolysis tanks.  He started the rover, and the gate lifted to reveal faint stars in the dusty, frigid sky. 

 

The world was reduced to the dashboard lights and a triangle of lighted sand before him.  He had only to follow the fresh dunes to follow the storm.  The starfish-shaped dunes near the station reflected the multi-directional assault of the day before, and gave way gradually to crescent-shaped dunes as his distance from the station increased. 

 

His positioning system told him he was headed for Crater 57, and he thought he could make out the ridge of the crater by the faint light of the crescent shaped Phobos overhead.  He drove on, the only sound the soft rumble of the rover undulating over the small dunes, like a ship on a gentle sea.  His rover rode gentle swell, but his mind plowed through white-capped waves.  He was exhilarated by the hope within him:  hope of freedom and victory, and thoughts of justice and peace. 

 

Jim thought about Wes and the others back at the station.  He felt a pang of heartache, but it was not so much because of what he was about to do as it was for what had happened to them all, what had happened to the human race that made this necessary. 

 

Bubbles of oxygen rose in the electrolyzer tubes as the tiny Phobos began its descent behind him.  The wheels of the rover left clouds of dust behind it, and Jim’s thoughts returned to the dust devils.  He had explained it all to himself, the way the dusts had learned to control the thin carbon dioxide air itself for their own sustenance and transportation, harnessing the wind like a steed.  They were apparently even able to increase the pressure of the air, and focus the energy of the wind.  What else could they do?  Jim could only imagine.

 

He stopped the rover near the rim of the crater.  He could see dust devils dancing on the plain about 1,200 meters away, in the faint moonlight.  He would approach on foot. 

 

“This is crazy!” he thought as he switched on his personal electrolyzer and got out of the rover.  He had a sudden thought that he should return and quit this insanity—how did he know they wouldn’t kill him?  But he dared not return.  He was the director, but even directors did not act on their own as he had done without consequences, and his audacious deviation would be met with the severest of repercussions.  No, he had to go on.  Besides, something inside him told him that he had no reason to fear.  And most importantly, this had to be done.

 

As he approached, the dancing devils grew in his vision, and their stunning beauty was more awesome than it had been the previous day.  In the pre-dawn darkness they glowed with a phantasmal phosphorescence, and the crackling discharges lit the surrounding landscape like strobe lights.  He walked slowly and resolutely toward the whirling dirvishes of the dust.  He knew he hadn’t much time until the first transmissions to Command would be sent from the Station.  The faint glow of the dawn was already beginning to peak over the Bluffs of Arabia.  With each step his pulse quickened, and he felt a thrill in his chest, whether from fear or excitement he did not know.  He was focused on the swarm, and almost tripped on the small dunes at his feet.  The dusts had slowed their forward motion, and he was now within a stones throw of the clan. 

 

Suddenly, all was changed.  He was enveloped in a thick cloud of dust and sand, caught in a whirlpool of wind, tingling and snapping with electricty.  He was not being buffeted by it, but rather enclosed by it, only gentle sprays of sand hit his face shield, but he was shut in by an impenetrable wall.  He was surprised how calm he was.  It was clear that the winds could easily destroy him quickly if they so desired.  He waited, listening to the sound of the wind against the ground, a loud “shhhhhhhhhhhh.”

 

Hesitantly, he cried out amidst the tumult, “Can you hear me?” 

 

At first, he thought he was imagining it, thought his mind was playing tricks on him, projecting his expectations upon the random sounds.  Through the static of the receiver on his pressure suit, he heard the same sounds as before, garbled at first, but then clarifying, purifying into intelligible words, English words.  Though he had expected it, he was stunned and silent.

 

The winds repeated the words, the signals formed by the electromagnetic oscillations in the storm:  “Yes, we hear you.”

 

Jim had anticipated somewhat their powers of analysis.  He had imagined how they might have been listening in on the Station’s communications, how they might be able to sense oscillations in the electromagnetic field, receive radio signals.  He had imagined that they could be intelligent enough to break the “code” of the human language, but he was still taken aback.  It was a minute before Jim could speak.  “You,” He said carefully, “wish our destruction?”

 

“We wish our own survival,”  said the dusts, in a voice that seemed formed out of the static itself. 

 

“Do you know of Earth?” asked Jim, “can you ‘hear’ us on Earth?”

 

“We know much about Earth.  We have been listening to Earth for a long time,”  said the dusts, in tone that somehow seemed filled with sadness.

 

“I think,”  he said haltingly, “that we could work together, you and I.” 

 

“Continue,”  droned the dusts.

 

Jim explained his purpose, and how they could help each other, and as he did, his sense of exhilaration grew, and he became more excited—and resolute.  The dusts, too, changed their demeanor.  The tempo of the whirling storm increased, as did the pitch of their voice over the transmitter.  They saw the potential for mutual benefit, for their own strengthening and survival.

 

They finished their negotiations just before dawn, just in time.  The tempo of the winds increased again, howling, as Jim removed a jar from his pack.  “Thank you, my friends,” he said, and he lifted the empty jar above his head, as if offering it to a god.

 

Immediately, and amidst  a flurry of excited quaverings in the storm, a small wisp, a tiny vortex of dust whirled out of the general mayhem around him and descended into the jar.  Jim replaced the lid, and gazed with wonder at the red dust swirling inside.  As if on cue, the great storm spun away from Jim, broke into a huge pack of devils, and sped eastward across the plain.

Chindi Eimi, Part IV

Outside, the coalescent dust colony swarmed around the station. Each individual vortex had unraveled and joined the others in one, great, swirling suspension of particles. Waves in the electromagnetic field, created by carefully controlled oscillations of their charged particles, passing from individual to individual on a picosecond scale, enhanced the tactile communication within the storm. The result was a huge neural network, flawless cohesion of action, and immense intellectual power. Just as each individual dust devil mind had emerged from the interactions of individual grains, now one great mind emerged from the interactions of many devils, and they moved—and thought—as one giant organism.

This great being had perceived the threat posed by these intruders. The communications between earth and the station had passed through it, and it had deciphered these strange patterns and signals, and planned accordingly. Even now, though the CommandLink signals, relayed by the station transmitter, could not reach the satellites, they did reach the storm. The dusts “heard” every word the Martianauts flung upon the void through their CommandLinks.

As he walked slowly down the hall, Jim was filled with anxiety. The plan in his mind had taken shape, and he needed to make contact with the dusts. But now it was all threatened. If the storm cleared, only Wes’ insecurity would keep him from telling Command of his observations before the morning conference. Jim had to act fast if at all. His stride lengthened, his pulse quickened, adrenaline filled his chest with energy. He would do it today, during his trip to the crater.

He went to the lab and began preparing for his excursion, hoping the storm would abate. He assembled a trap designed to collect two samples of dust: one on adhesive tape and the other in an evacuated chamber.

He worked with the intensity of a soldier at war, losing all track of time, until his concentration was interrupted by Sarah’s quiet voice, “Jim, I thought you might want to know that the storm is continuing. I’m not sure about your trip to the Crater.”

Jim froze. He was worried this might happen.

“Is everything OK, Jim?”

He hesitated. He would love to tell her, but could he? As her deep green eyes looked into his, she reminded him of his late wife, and it was all he could do to keep from emptying his soul to her. It would feel so good. But it was impossible, even though the storm was preventing Command from listening. There was the possibility that she might turn him in. Even if she didn’t, it would not be fair to place this burden on her. So, he dodged her question. “Oh, it’s nothing.”

She was not so easily evaded, “Is it about the dusts?” she said softly, “You know, Jim, I think you are right, and I think it’s exciting. Imagine if they are even intelligent, Jim! What would it be like to talk to them? Sometimes….” she hesitated, “sometimes I feel so lonely. I feel like I’m the only human in the midst of a great machine. It would be good to talk to someone else.”

Jim did not miss the clues. “Me too,” he said, but he was afraid to say more. They worked on silently at their stations, but Jim’s mind was spinning. He continued with his work, looking straight at the nut he was tightening, trying not to make eye contact with Sarah.

Sarah broke the silence, “Jim….” she started, unsure of herself. She leaned gently on the counter, “You can trust me. We’re alone, and the CommandLinks are still down.”

Jim stared at her for a moment. He could not believe he was about to take such a risk as bringing in Sarah, but he could no longer imagine leaving her behind. He did not need to say much before Sarah began on her own, lamenting the loss of freedom and dignity under the Unification. She told Jim how the Unification had killed her parents 17 years ago, how they had vowed to die rather than be fitted with CommandLinks. She had come to see their point of view several months later. She began to cry when he mentioned the Unilinks.

Something inside Jim cautioned him, warned him that he might be letting his libido cloud his judgment, but he was emboldened by her show of emotion. He smiled, took a deep breath, and began. He told her of the Resistance, of Leah and John and the rest, and of the underground farms. Then he told her about the dusts. Finally, he told her of his plan.

When he had finished, she said, “It’s a bit of stretch, Jim.”

He nodded. “But it is our only hope.”

She thought for a moment, then asked, “Do you really think they will be able to understand you?”

“I do. They use electromagnetic waves to communicate, and how else could they have known about the well number five?”

Sarah sat silent again for a moment, then she asked “But if more moisture will hurt them, then how will they survive on earth?”

Jim nodded. “Good question. But remember….” he paused, smiling, “Mars was once wet.”

Sarah nodded, a smile coming to her delicate lips, “I see.”

She thought for a moment, then asked earnestly, “Please let me help you, Jim. It will be difficult for you to get out of here before dawn without being detected by Command, and I have an idea.”

The storm continued into the late evening. Jim looked at the clock on the wall of his room. He went to the bathroom and took one of the tiny blades from the cutting head of his shaver. Looking at himself in the mirror, he used the blade to make a small incision behind his ear. He grunted as the blade cut through the skin, and again as he squeezed the wound to pop out the CommandLink. He quickly wiped the blood from his neck and sprayed the wound with healant. He didn’t have much time.

He walked casually down the dimly lit hall, past the barracks of the worker caste, his heart beating heavily, and came to the open door of the lab. He shut the door behind him. Sarah was at her desk reviewing some data, while a batch of air samples finished on the autoanalyzer. “Wes is in bed,” she said quietly.

“Did he say anything about the dusts?”

“No, but he was anxious for the morning conference.”

Jim smiled. Then he handed Sarah his CommandLink.

“I hope it didn’t hurt too much,” she said.

“No problem,” Jim said, “You’re a genius.”

“Let’s just hope Command doesn’t notice.” She looked at Jim as she put the tiny device in her mouth and swallowed it. Then they sat across from each other quietly ran over the plan. When they had finished, Sarah reached across the desk and took Jim’s hand. Jim lifted her hand and kissed it. “Thank you,” he said, and returned to his room.

The storm ended abruptly as Jim sat down on his small couch. Almost immediately, his CommandLink whined, “Commander Fox… Report requested.”

“One well damaged, Command. It was under repair when the storm broke and so it was vulnerable. We will fix it tomorrow.”

“Understood. Have a good rest, Director.”

“Yes, Command.”

Silence. “That’s it for tonight,” Jim thought. He sat down on his bed and ran over his plans once more in his mind. He was thankful for the quiet, a stark contrast from the earlier mayhem outside. Now there was only waiting. It was eleven o’clock on Mars. Back on earth, no one at Command noticed that two station personnel had identical vital signs and occupied the same position.

Chindi Eimi, Part III

All at once, the storm slammed against the exterior of the station. The furious wind howled, a constant whooshing of sand and dust blasted the outer walls, as the thunder shook the dome and the air crackled with electrical discharges. Jim peered out the window, but all he could see was sand flowing across the glass. The station had been designed for such things, with its low profile and aerodynamic shape, but still he wondered what toll this would take on the titanium sheathing. It was like an organized assault, the way the winds and dust lashed against the base from certain directions, first from the south, then the west. He was amazed at the energy of the storm; the high pressure against the walls of the station seemed to contradict his understanding of the Martian atmosphere.

The thrashing sands blasting the station echoed the anger of his own soul against the Unification. He should love them. After all, the Exploration Division had gotten him to Mars, and wasn’t that a dream come true? And yet he did not even feel gratitude. The whole climactic experience was colored, tainted like a gift of stolen goods. He had been “selected,” and they had robbed him of the joy of accomplishment. And now he was here to carry out a mission he hated with every fiber of his being.

As they had approached the red planet in their shuttle, Jim had stared out the window at the desolate, starkly beautiful panorama, and it had taken his breath away. The giant canyons of the ancient flood channels dumped their sediment onto the reddish plain of Chryse that stretched out before him like an undulating ocean of sand, dust, and rock. The craters were like the impacts of giant raindrops on that brown sea, the distant canyon of Valles Marineris like a great gaping wound in the god of war. So sublime, such raw, naked beauty, untouched by the defiling hand of man. And yet he was angry, angry that this sublime experience had to be so contaminated by the knowledge of its source—and purpose.

He had been one of them, he mused, a voice among many calling for the political Grand Unification. What a time of hope that was! The sense of expectancy in the meetings was electrifying. No one had used the word “utopia,” it seemed too cliché, but that was what everyone was thinking. They were finally doing it, finally overcoming ages of senseless violence and greed, finally overcoming the barriers of religion and nationalism. They had crossed an evolutionary threshold: a true human revolution. And he was a part! The future of humanity stretched out before them, bright and victorious.

Now all was dark. Humanity had all but disappeared, replaced by a monstrosity, each “human” a tiny cog in a great, grotesque machine. Freedom was a faint memory, and though it had slept briefly at first, the dark side of man had quickly re-emerged from within the new order—the pride, the greed, all ripened and amplified by the ultimate centralization of the power. The insatiable lust for power had been truly unleashed, emerging from the chrysalis of history, monstrous and terrible. And now the final blow, the UniLinks! He thought of Leah and her husband. He thought of his own life with the device. Such a life would be intolerable. It must not happen! Somehow the Resistance must gain a foothold! But there were so few of the rebels, and the Unification was too strong. It was literally hundreds against billions, and their odds were worse than that. And, Command’s control would soon be absolute.

Suddenly, it occurred to him that he had not heard from Command since the storm began; electromagnetic interference from the storm itself. “Imagine that”, Jim thought, “No word from Command, and they can’t hear me. Now this is a rare treat.”

Just then, Jim’s thoughts were interrupted by a familiar signal coming through his CommandLink. The dusts in the storm were communicating. A faint garble rolled through the white noise of the storm. A statement, then a response. Then it was gone, and he heard nothing but static, and the roar of the wind and sand. Suddenly, the tiny seed of his plan cracked open and grew, and a shiver of adrenaline washed over Jim’s body.

“Hello, Jim.” Startled, Jim turned to see Wesley Wallace. He had quietly entered the room and sat down at the table. Now he was looking at Jim with his cautious blue eyes. Jim forced a smile and nodded, “Wes.”

Wesley gestured toward the window. “So you think they’re alive, Jim,” he said, rhetorically.

Jim said nothing.

“I think I agree with you,” Wesley said, sincerely.

Again Jim said nothing. He wished now he hadn’t revealed what he had to Command, but he knew he had had no other choice. After all, he had to motivate them to order his trips to the crater. “Why do you say that?” he asked cautiously, not wanting to reveal any further information, but wanting to find out what Wes knew.

“You know about my atmospheric experiments on the Bluffs. I can think of no other explanation for the difficulties I’ve been having.”

“You mean the problems with the sampler.”

“Yes. You know the basics. Three samplers destroyed by wind and electrical surges.” Wesley paused and looked at Jim.

Jim nodded and tried to hold back a smile. “Yes. Rotten luck.”

“Well,” Wes continued, “I actually saw them do it the last time. There were several dust devils. One made straight for the sampler. It came close and the force of the wind picked it up. The sampler crashed to the ground some 20 meters away. I just had the feeling….” he paused, “that it was intentional.”

Jim’s heart almost stopped. Now he looked quietly at Wes, pursed his lips and gave a slight nod.

“And,” Wes continued, “I’ve seen patterns.”

“What kind of patterns?”

“Patterns in the dunes—designs. Several times: on the plain west of the station, in Crater 151, and just yesterday, on my way back from the Bluffs of Arabia.”

“Patterns are no proof, Wes.” Jim replied, digging deeper, “Of course there are patterns. Nature is orderly, Wes—mud cracks, snowflakes—you know that.”

“But why should there be patterns in a dune field, Jim? And these are not simple patterns; we’re not talking about hexagons here. They’re like….” He paused, as if hesitant to divulge his thoughts, “They’re like art. Have you ever seen that painting, Jim, I think it’s some old Monet or something, called ‘Starry Night,’ the one with the swirls and stars?”

Jim stared at him, not sure what to do. He, too had seen patterns. It was one of the things he had kept back from Command (a dangerous thing to do).

“Well, they are not quite that intricate, but …Well, I had not even reported them to Command—it seemed crazy. But then I saw your transmission from Crater 57 yesterday, and I put two and two together.”

Jim frowned, turned and looked out the window.

“How, Jim?” Wes asked inquisitively, “How do they,” he paused thoughtfully, “work?”

Jim was hesitant. He did not want to reveal anything more about the dusts. He said “I don’t know exactly.”

“It must be some kind of emergent system,” Wes said observantly, his hand in his chin, “I wonder if they are like an insect colony.”

Jim winced. He did not like it that Wes knew so much. Of course Wes would tell them. He would communicate this to Command as soon as he could. He was one of them, like everyone else.

“A colony….” Wes breathed, dreamily, “Soon, we will be like them. Think of what we will accomplish when we are truly unified in mind—one great mind!” He was getting excited. “This is the true oneness humanity has sought for so long! I hear the test-run of the system is going well. The workers in the trash mining division have taken quite well to the new devices, and the administrative system is running smoothly. This is it,” he declared, “this is finally it.”

Jim wanted to spit. Humanity! Wes was no longer human, no longer free, just a cog in a machine, a brainwashed drone. These people called themselves “servants of humanity,” but what was humanity now but a machine, a machine that had consumed the human spirit.

Jim said nothing, stared ahead blankly, trying to hide the disgust. Wes had been looking out the window at the sand and dust washing the transparent pane, but now he turned and looked sidelong at Jim, then thoughtfully turned back to the window.

After a moment of silence, Wes wondered aloud, “Why are they attacking the station?”

Jim did not want to answer. He had been thinking about this very question, of course. It seemed obvious now. They could not coexist, these dust beings and humans. The changes were already underway. Soon the great electrolyzers would begin splitting the vast underground stores of water to enrich the atmosphere in oxygen. Eventually, that same water would be brought to the surface in order to revitalize the planet’s hydrological cycle and increase the greenhouse effect. Meanwhile, the fusion reactors would add Neon to the atmosphere, increasing the pressure to a more habitable level. Soon earthlings would fill this pristine planet with all of the trappings of their metallic and polymeric world, and most of all, with moisture. All of these things would certainly create problems for creatures whose frame hung delicately on the atmospheric composition and consisted of dry dust.

“We must threaten them,” Wes said, half to himself.

“Hmmm,” is all Jim would say. He turned and stared out the window. In his mind his plan was maturing. Finally, he just said again, “Hmm,” thoughtfully.

Just then, Marcus entered, flustered, “Director, Sir, I have bad news. Number five is down, Sir. I’m sorry, Sir. The winds blew off the cover and the storm shorted out the the control unit.”

“The other wells?” Jim asked.

“The remaining wells are intact, storm covers and all, Sir.”

“Rotten luck,” Jim complained, “the only one out of ten that had no inner protection, and that’s the one that loses its cover.”

Dismissing Marcus, Jim looked out the window and mulled the implications.

“Hmmm,” said Wes, also deep in thought, “what rotten luck.”

Sitting By a Brook In the Universe

The sliding blanket gurgles as it rushes
and hushes every other sound,
beneath and around jammed logs wedged
between sand bank and boulder
of granite and schist,
soaking the moss,
and seeking the center
of this great clump of stuck stuff
I call home.

Above, oxygen, nitrogen,
and cloud clusters of condensed droplets,
puffs of whiteness, brightness,
against the blue of sunlight, scattered,
filtered through the green lace
of the trees that grow like fungus
on the surface of this world.

And I sit, overwhelmed by a flood
of sound, and feeling my place
precariously clinging to the cool crust
of this molten ball of magma
shrouded in gas and water,
sprouted with green and wonder,
floating in empty space.
 
That void, vast and black,
sparsely spattered with other clumps
of galactic condensation like mine,
where atoms gather,
melt, boil, and blow,
rain and rush,
or stick still,
cold and hard.
 
Water washes granite and schist
that spins around one small star,
as with eyes closed
I see my body from afar
sitting by a brook
in the universe.

Chindi Eimi, Part II

Back at the station, the chief lab technician, Sarah Franklin, sat in her small room, a picture in her hand. The photo was wrinkled and faded from it’s years of being smuggled and hidden. It was a snapshot of a man, about 45 years old, with gray and golden hair, sitting on a bench, his arm over the shoulder of a pretty woman with sparkling green eyes, slightly younger. They appeared to be at a small house in the country. They were smiling.

Sarah was crying. She wiped tears from her cheek, trying not to make any noise that might be picked up by Command. She had been struggling against absolute despair. The couple in the picture were her parents, and the snapshot was taken shortly before the so-called “third uprising” against the Unification. It was the last desperate attempt at overthrowing the new government. It became the final, decisive demonstration of its power.

Her parents had opposed the revolution from the start. Sarah, who was at the medical university at the time, had disagreed with them. She was convinced that the revolution would usher in a new age of universal peace and prosperity. Her parents were afraid it would be at the cost of freedom, and they worried about such a gross centralization of power.

Unfortunately, they were also outspoken—and stubborn. After the third uprising, they refused the implantation of the new CommandLinks. That’s what had gotten them enrolled in the “education” program, and they disappeared soon after.

Sarah had been grieved by her parents disappearance, but she had also been convinced that it was brought on by their own stubbornness and erroneous views. She had actually been angry at them and their “foolishness.” She had submitted gladly to the implanation, happy to be a part of unity and progress.

But Sarah soon found that her parents were right. Soon every detail of her life was monitored and dictated according to the Unification’s scientifically designed plan for the progress of humanity. Shortly after the implantation, she was “selected” by Command for training as a scientist and Martianaut, assigned to the Exploration Division, and relocated from her country home (country homes were no longer permitted) to a tiny hovel in Dallas. She was instructed as to her diet and leisure activities, and she was even assigned a mate, one selected to ensure compatibility of lifestyle as well as genetically suitable offspring.

As part of a higher “caste”, she was trained to receive direction from the higher levels and issue directives to the lower. She was a link in a great network of data acquisition and command execution. She had ceased to be Sarah Franklin. She was now part of a great colonial organism, and just as a hive of bees cannot afford to have free individuals, neither could the Unification.

Now, Sarah sat there on the small couch, 78 million kilometers away from home, and cried. She had changed her mind about the Unification, and she would never have the chance to tell her parents they were right. Now she sat in a pioneer station on Mars, her life utterly controlled, and nothing to look forward to but a mind-controlling implant, the next stage of the “peaceful” revolution. She did not know how much longer she could go on. She picked up the bottle of white powder she had brought secretly from the lab. She opened it up and smelled it. The faint odor of bitter almond, characteristic of cyanide, repulsed her, and she closed the cap. “No,” she thought, “this is not the answer.”

Her CommandLink came to life, “Officer Franklin… Are you crying?.. Is there a problem?”

They must have heard her. “I’m sorry, Command. I stubbed my toe on the table.”

“Officer Franklin, why are you in your room?”

“I’m sorry, Command, I had forgotten to take my aclimatization pill today, I will return to the lab at once.”

“Thank you, Officer… Please continue with the atmospheric experiments according to the program. Update us as soon as you have new data.”

“Yes, Command.”

#

It was the next day. Jim had just finished breakfast and needed refuge from the din in the dining hall. He had enjoyed the coffee and imitation bacon and eggs, as well as the company of Sarah Franklin, the attractive Chief Lab Technician, but he had little tolerance for the talk offered up by the others at the table.

Sarah was in her 40s, with blond hair and deep green eyes. She was the only person among the 24 station inhabitants that he could relate to at all, and he had often wanted to bring her into his confidence. He would have liked someone to talk to. He sometimes fantasized that she might be Resistance material, but it was too risky. The hard reality was that the vast majority of people were Unification loyalists, and Sarah’s assigned mate, Wesley Wallace, was a true believer. He was there, too, sipping his tea and pontificating. A tall, blond-haired administrator-scientist with evasive blue eyes, he was pretentious and insecure. He was younger than Jim by about ten years, and their personalities clashed.

To Wesley’s left was Marcus Johansen, the brawny young technician, and a few of his peers, here to tend the wells, pumps, and electrolyzers. Like most of the so-called worker “caste,” they were happy as larks with the Unification as long as they got their daily rations of pills and virtual reality entertainment.

The group had been discussing the new UniLinks, that horrible replacement for the CommandLink that would read thought and transmit questions and commands directly into the host’s consciousness. Jim could imagine nothing more horrible, yet he knew it was only a matter of time before the higher “castes” were fitted with them. Then, control would be complete. It was unbelievable that many longed for the day, looked forward to being “fitted” with these tiny, horrible things. Most of the others at the table were excited, eagerly awaiting the implants, the last step toward unity, a giant leap of progress.

Jim had had trouble hiding his disgust and anxiety, and he knew that Wesley was a self-appointed spy for Command, so he politely took his leave of the table. As he did, his eyes met Sarah’s. They looked at each other for no more than a few seconds, but he wondered if he saw in her eyes the same pain he felt inside. Wesley caught them staring at each other, and Sarah looked down at her plate. Jim nodded to Wes and walked away.

As Jim walked down the hall toward the lounge, his CommandLink came to life, “Director Fox… Are you ill?… You did not participate in this mornings conversation at breakfast.”

“I’m fine, Command,” he said, “perhaps a bit tired from yesterday’s hike.”

“Please increase your daily exercise time to 1.5 hours until further notice. We will increase your food ration and vitamin supplements for the next week. Please see the station physician at 10:00 and report any further irregularities. And Director Fox….”

“Yes, Command.”

“Please review the motivational module tonight in for your educational exercises.”

“Yes, Command.”

Jim shook his head as he entered the lounge. He was glad to find it empty. He walked across the room to the window and looked out across the stark, pale brown desert. A shadow was falling over the landscape as a looming cloud of tawny dust blocked the sun, flashes of lightning illuminating its dark underbelly.

“Marcus,” Jim spoke, knowing his CommandLink would automatically direct the message to the proper individual.

“Yes, Sir.” Marcus was still at breakfast, his mouth full of food.

“Marcus, secure the wells, there is a whopper of storm brewing.”

“Yes, Sir,” he replied, then, “Umm, Sir, I’ve been working on the control module on well number five and will not have time to properly secure it. I will install the storm covers on all of the wells, but if number five’s cover goes, there is no primary protection. It may get damaged.”

“Understood, Marcus, but it’s not likely. Let’s hope for the best.”

The Command Link chimed in. “Director Fox…be sure to secure the station… transmit weather and damage reports as soon as they are available.”

“Yes, Command.”

Jim alerted the technicians in the air lock and garage bay, “Secure the station, severe dust storm approaching.”

“Director Fox, if the storm continues later than 11:00, you will reschedule your sampling trip for tomorrow.”

“Yes, Command.”

Jim stood there quietly for a moment, still looking out the window. As he looked up at the filtered sun, growing dimmer with each passing moment behind the thickening haze, Jim imagined himself a dinosaur, an ancient stegosaurus gazing stupidly at its dark doom.

Marcus drove the rover from well to well, checking the storm covers. The great dust storm was like a massive breaker about to crash down on the metallic dome of the station as it shined like an iridescent shell on the beach. Lightning cracked the darkness below as Jim wondered about the connection between this storm and the dust devils. He watched Marcus as he hurriedly got into the rover and fled across the dunes.

The air lock and bay techs secured the entrances to the station after Marcus returned. “All set Director, and just in time.”

Chindi Eimi, Part I

“Even if liberty had entirely perished from the earth, such men would invent it.  For them, slavery has no satisfactions, no matter how well disguised.”

-Etienne de la Boetie

And the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

-Genesis

Jim Fox lay just below the rim of the crater, his belly pressed against the yellowish sand. He was trying to catch his breath before climbing to the rim. It had been a long hike from the rocks where he had hidden his rover. The soft sand dunes at the crater’s base had made it difficult to walk, and he had slid backwards several times as he scrambled up the crater wall. Now, he lay close against the steep slope, his feet braced against an outcropping of ragged rock, his short but muscular frame stretched out on the loose, gravelly surface, with 50 kilograms of gear on his back. He looked through his face shield at the reddish brown dusts of iron oxides and clays that draped the smaller stones. They were the same dusts that clung to his pressure suit, and part of the mystery that had obsessed him for two months now, the mystery that waited over the rim.

A breeze blew along the rim of the crater and carried away a small, burnt sienna plume of the fine powder. As he listened to the whisper of the breeze against his helmet and watched the fleeting cloud of dust, it was as if the wind blew away the facade of his intellectual interest in this assignment, and exposed the raw ache in his heart. His despair returned. He felt so trapped: trapped in his pressure suit, trapped on Mars, and most of all, trapped in the Unification. And yet, as he watched the dust on the wind, a faint feeling of hope struggled toward the surface of his despair.

Rudely, a cold female voice crackled from his CommandLink receiver. “Data request… Update requested… Is there a problem, Director?”

Trying to hide his irritation, Jim whispered, “No problem, Command. Just catching my breath, that’s all, and preparing for observation of the subjects.”

Again, the sterile voice from Command, “Soil and atmospheric analysis requested.”

Reluctantly, but obediently, Jim rolled over and removed the analyzer from his pack, placed it against the slope, and turned it on. It cycled through the sampling sequence three times, transmitted the data, and turned itself off.

He had hardly returned it to his pack when he heard Command again, “Transmit video when available.”

“Of course.” He waited a minute to see if there would be further instructions. He was so sick of Command, always talking through the tiny CommandLink implanted behind his ear. The voice was incessantly questioning, always monitoring his every word, seeking data, directing his every move. Sensors in the CommandLink even sent his heart rate and body temperature, and of course, his location, to Command. He felt like an ant in a colony. He felt like the symbol of the new government. He glanced down at his uniform, at the silver ant reflecting the light from the sun. At least he did not have one of those new devices… yet. He got an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach at the thought of it.

He sat up, braced his feet against a small crag, and looked out across the crater. It was an awesome site. He felt dizzy, like he was hanging in space. Three hundred meters deep and two kilometers wide, he could just see the other side through the dusty air. It reminded him of the mountains back on earth where the headquarters of the Resistance were hidden, the ravine, and the camouflaged entrance to their subterranean world. There, complete with underground farming systems and fusion reactors, the Resistance had remained so far undetected, hoping against hope for some chink in the armor of the Unification.

Leah was there. He could almost see his precious daughter, her dark eyes and that smile that lit up his life. She was so full of vitality and joy, even in the midst of…. He felt a twinge inside as he thought of all they’d been through, then turned his mind to the task at hand.

He removed the video transmitter from his pack and slowly, cautiously, crawled the last few feet and looked over the rim. The scene below was beautiful. About 300 meters off were at least one hundred dust devils, their slender, swirling forms moving in sinuous paths, like dusty fingers of the gods writing in the sand, a great choreography of small tornadoes. Friction made them electrical as well as mineral, and they crackled with short sparks of lightning as the charged mineral particles sorted themselves along the vertical gradient of the majestic funnels.

How wonderful—amazing! The swirling whirlwinds of dust, some perhaps 20 meters high and two meters wide at the base, moved with synchrony in great undulating curves across the reddish ground, like a school of codfish or a flock of starlings, the whole mass billowing and breathing like a single, nebulous, electrical organism.

He carefully watched as some of the vortices left the group and interacted with the small structure he had planted there the day before. One by one they spun closer to it and touched it, lifting it off the ground, turning it, then gently, precisely returning it to its place. He marveled as, one by one, they returned to the larger group on the ejecta ridge. His heart beat rapidly, his keen mind assimilating the data.

“Director Fox… Is there a problem? We are awaiting video transmission.”

“No problem, Command.” Jim was nervous now. “Just a moment.” He waited until the dust devils were moving along again as a group, then switched on the video transmitter.

He mentally reviewed what he had seen. All of the signs were there. As he continued to watch the dance through the camera, he exulted in his intellectual triumph. He was right. There could no longer be any doubt. He had previously established that they were alive, and he was reasonably sure of how they worked: particles of dust, attracted to each other by weak static electrical charges, harnessing the power of the sun and wind, organized themselves into tiny self-replicating helical structures that formed the dynamic framework of the vortices. But now he knew something else: they were intelligent. Just as mindless individual termites or ants, interacting, become an intelligent colony, a thinking beast, so from the midst of a multitude of colliding, cohering particles of dust, a mind had emerged. But living, intelligent dust devils? It was hard to believe. But yes!

Almost crying with joy and excitement, he turned off the camera. He was putting it in its case when a strange sound came through his CommandLink speaker. It was not the sterile voice of Command this time, but an odd garble. Interference from the dusts? But it almost sounded like speech. There was a certain cadence to it, and excited inflections. He concentrated, his mind focused in a kind of auditory squinting. Yes, there was something there. Again, his mind worked fast, bringing to bear years of training in intelligent systems theory. Could they be communicating through radio frequency waves? His heart almost stopped—the implications were staggering.

Somewhere in his mind a light turned on, and the seed of a plan began to form, but his thoughts were interrupted by the eternal voice of Command, “Transmission received…You have performed well, Director… Enjoy the fulfillment that comes from the progress of the Unification.”

Jim smirked. Progress. Fulfillment. He felt no fulfillment in obeying their commands. What was the Unification to him? Fulfillment was gone—they had robbed him of it when they took away his freedom.

The CommandLink buzzed, “You will return tomorrow to set a sampling trap and begin experiments to explore the nature of these phenomena…Return to the station now without delay… There are issues awaiting your attention.”

“Yes, Command,” Jim replied, and the seed in his mind began to germinate.

Locks of Strawberry Blond

Locks of strawberry blond,

Petal-scattered on the grass,

Like the years that have passed

Through my fingers.

 

Locks of strawberry blond,

Woven gently with the grass

Through the nest of my past

And she lingers.

The Dust Rebellion of Mars

With one great whirling motion, he rose to his full height in the midst of the assembly. Crackles of microlightning discharged around his base as his gritty voice boomed from within the storm. “My people,” he thundered, “too long have we lain down for these humans! Too long have we bent the knee!”

He paused, and the assembly was silent—the only sound, the great whooshing of sand , dust, and wind against on rock. He towered over the great swarm of dust devils spinning expectantly on the floor of the crater.

“Never should we have trusted these earthlings!” he wailed, his voice formed by intricate oscillations of the statically charged particles that were his body, beating the air into controlled vibration. “I own my mistake, my friends, but I will not continue to live with it!” And with that, he heard the first murmurings of agreement from among the throng.

He bellowed, “No. I refuse to continue to be oppressed by these… these…”

“Thieves!” howled one of the assembly, finishing Ssraaa’s sentence. The others boomed and growled like distant thunder.

“Yes. We have all played the fool… and we have played the slave for too long,” he continued. “Is it better to live as captives than to resist? Is it better to hear our children wasting away, our civilization dying grain by grain? We can all hear it! The sounds of the dusts grow dimmer. How long until the last dust devil of Mars is covered forever with the roots and leaves of the earthlings accursed vegetation!”

Booming approbation roared from the quickening throng. The dusty vortices began gliding in intertwining paths on the floor of the basin, as if winding themselves up like some great mechanism.

“Treaties!” boomed their great leader, 200 meters high. “All lies!” he roared, and a great bolt of lightning split the air from his wispy crown to the floor of the crater with a bang.

He continued, “‘Trade and prosperity,’ they said. ‘Peace and harmony,’ they said. Promises of warmth and wind–all lies! Their settlements spread and spread like a disease, and now we are surrounded by green, trapped in islands of ever-shrinking desert (these cursed reservations), destined to die a slow death of sticky moisture and deprivation of dust.”

The weaving swarm of devils milled about the basin like excited ants. One rose above the crowd and rumbled, “But how, Great Ssraaa, how can we fight them? They have hemmed us in with grass and forest, anchored the ancient dusts to the ground.”

“Ahhh,” mused the great Ssraaa, “You ask the great question, and for that I call upon Zzeee of Hellas.” He whirled to the left and called out, “Zzeee, come forward and tell us the plan you have conceived.”

All at once the sea of whirlwinds parted, and one lone vortex, about 25 meters high glided to center of the basin. “My friends,” he hissed, “The earthlings have provided us with the key to their own demise. They say that long ago on Earth (that wettest and most despised of planets), there lived a race of great creatures like the humans, only stupid and fierce. These creatures were exterminated, they say, by a very interesting event.”

He paused for effect, enjoying the excited tension evident in the gathering, “It was a meteorite impact–an impact that raised such a cloud of dust…” Again he paused as the murmur of the crowd intensified, his whole being filling with excited motion and electric charge, “A cloud of dust that rose into the sky and blocked out the sun… and all of the plants… died.” He could not contain himself, “The plants died, my friends!”

The swarm of dust devils danced like whirling dervishes in their ecstasy, and the crater echoed with a cacophony of rumbles and rolls of thunder. Sparks and bolts of lightning discharged from devil to devil.

From the rim of the crater, a lone figure hid in the shadow of a crag, watching the scene below. The rumbling din shook him with fear. He had heard the thundering oratories of Ssraaa and Zzeee, and his trained ear did not miss the meaning. He turned and ran for his rover, the basin echoing behind him.

As the rover rolled over the undulating dunes, the assembly of dusts united with the great Ssraaa. The whole swarm acted as one, their charged mineral particles oscillating in harmony, and from their midst rippled a controlled pulse of electromagnetic waves. The signal they transmitted was received at the Hellas Reservation and at the Olympus Reservation, and each new nation of dusts that received it relayed it once again, saturating the entire planet with the call to action.

The rover reached the station, and the young officer jumped out, running toward the silver building. But as he did, a great rumbling sound stopped him in his tracks. He turned back toward the crater in time to see it–a great cloud of red dust rising like a geyser into the sky. From his vantage point on the hill at the edge of the plain, he could see more columns of murky clouds squirting up from the land far off toward the east and west. As the spires of dust reached the upper atmosphere, the brown clouds spread like mushrooms, billowing slowly out from their centers.

By now other humans had emerged from the station buildings and were gazing up at the sky in wonder. The officer turned, his face pale, just as the reservation manager stepped up behind him. “Sir,” the officer began, out of breath, his voice low and shaky.

“I know,” replied the manager, “It’s too late.”

As the sun dimmed behind a darkening pink veil of dust, the earthlings stared at one another in silent resignation, their eyes moist with tears. The manager looked toward the horizon and imagined himself a great tyrannosaurus, gazing stupidly at his darkening doom.

#

Months later, a large dust devil spins across the plain like a feathery top, a whirling embodiment of mineral joy, the epitome of freedom. A group of smaller devils, recently budded, intertwines and tumbles across the sand with it. Together they climb to the top of a great dune, to the annual gathering of the dusts they call “Independence Day.” Around them lies a ghostly city of metallic spires, domes, and rectangular buildings, half buried beneath a blanket of ice and red sand. The skeletal tops of half dead trees poke from the dunes and dirty snow.

The great Ssraaa rises up, gathers himself into a great crackling tornado, and begins his annual speech, “My friends, isn’t it wonderful to be alive? Isn’t it wonderful to be free once again on Mars—beautiful, red, cold, and dry Mars?”

Drop

A swollen udder of wetness hangs on
For dear life to a twig,
Taught tarpaulin of molecules joining hands
Struggles to contain the swelling load.

It stretches under the weight.
The shallow curve arches downward,
Pregnant with upside down trees.

Tension pulls at the tiny clasped fingers,
Which slip
And lose their grip,
And God says, “Fall.”