The Silence of Mars

It is the silence of Mars that makes it so alien. Not the stuffy recycled air, nor the reddish sky that tints everything in shades of dread, but the silence. The non-noise of a dead world. It picks at something primitive within my psyche, telling me something is wrong. Something. Everything. 

I ponder this as I replace the filter for vent 15-MM because the hum it emits is natural adjacent. My shoes shuffling over the floor, my keys jingling, the fans—the sounds of Mars Base Bacchus. There is an airflow by the unfiltered vent. It jostles my hair and reminds me of home. An approximation of wind, minus the life. I fit the new sponge filter hastily and cart my trolley to the  next vent. 

Red dust dirties the views from the corridor windows. Bacchus is shaped like a doughnut. To my left is barren nothingness, and to my right is a murky view of our sheltered sample extraction zone. Sometimes we jokingly call it the back garden. I linger for a moment at the glass, my breath frosting the window and obscuring it further. I try to remember what grass feels like under bare feet. 

I get to work on vent 16-MM, unlocking the grate and removing the dirty sponge filter. Mars Base Athena didn’t have locks on their vents, but someone tried crawling through one and almost suffocated the entire crew, so now all bases have locks. That person and I share a kinship because I often become stuck as I reach for the filters, and every time that happens I wonder if pulling a body from the air vents will become a Martian base tradition, like breaking a bottle against the hull of a ship. 

The breeze within the vents is addictive. I stay inside longer than I should; I pull out as a woman I must recognise but cannot put a name to shambles by. She looks plasticky in her white jumpsuit. There are bags under her eyes – mine, too. "Morning," I say. 

She recoils as if my voice were the rattle of a snake. "Morning?" she asks, supporting herself against the window. "It’s afternoon." 

I check my watch: 1307. "Oh." 

"You shouldn’t say things that aren’t true," she says, continuing on her way. "You’ll confuse people." 

"Sorry," I mutter, replacing the filter. I continue to 17-MM. 

Condensation rains over my face as I unlock the vent. I gasp and open my mouth like a child in a storm. It’s icy and tastes metallic. Something must be gloriously wrong with the humidity – but isn’t this right? Isn’t it supposed to rain? I blink, trying to remember what rain felt like, what it smelt like, what it sounded like. I shake my head, replace the soggy sponge and note the vent code. I don’t stop shaking my head on my way to the cafeteria – my lunch was supposed to start seven minutes ago. 

"I just don’t understand," the chef says as he plates up my broccoli and noodles. "It wasn’t supposed to be like this." 

I nod along. I cried with joy when I received my offer – I imagined myself a pioneer, an explorer. My life was spent behind a computer regardless – why not relocate for the sake of science? A corporation offered me Mars in exchange for my boyfriend, apartment, job, and planet, and I thought that was a good trade. 

"What was it supposed to be like?" I ask the chef. "I can’t remember if they lied to us." He freezes mid-scoop. The shade of Mars befalls his skin; haze covers the sun and darkens the cafeteria. I think he might cry, and his phantom tears chase me away. I sit by the window and dig in. 

No one talks as they eat. Over a hundred of us share this lunch slot, yet the gentle taps of our plastic cutlery are the only sounds we make. There is nothing left to say. 

Kicked-up dust scatters against the window. The wind calls. I only finish half of my portion.

Someone has their ear against vent 18-MM as I arrive. He looks like a castaway’s washed up corpse, bearded and bony. His jumpsuit is too large for him – he resembles a Halloween ghost in a bedsheet. A not-yet spectre. Schrödinger’s spaceman. "Hey," he says, "listen."

I feel antsy because I’m nearly at vent 20-MM, which is the final MM-coded one. Reaching a new code – in this case, vent 01-MO – feels like progress. The final vent is 20-RB, and if I reach 20-RB enough times, eventually, I’ll never have to reach it again. I know that’s strange logic, but finishing my shift is a checkpoint, a chance to step back and look at my history of vent-checking and say, yes, I am making progress. Yes, one day will be the last. 

"What are you listening to?" I ask sharply. 

"The wind," he says. "It’s lovely." 

My cheeks warm. That’s my wind, my secret joy. "You should speak to the therapist." "All booked up," he says, closing his eyes. "If you’re close enough, you can feel the air."

"That’s nothing," I say, brandishing my key. "You want to really feel it?" 

His eyes focus on the key as if it’s wrought of gold. Gold, iron – what’s the difference on Mars? "Please," he says. 

I unlock the vent. Condensation drips onto my shoes – another fault. 

His gasp is almost a sob. He shoves me from the threshold and crawls in. I think I should catch his ankle, but I hesitate. It feels wrong to deprive him of something I’ve imagined countless times. I’m oddly jealous, like when I watched the moon landing for the first time. The filter splashes onto the floor as the man’s shoes skid into darkness. Condensation drools by the vent. It stinks of blood. 

I replace the filter and note the code for a humidity check. Relocking the vent, I try to remember what grief feels like. Silence settles. 

I know only what it sounds like.

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Josephine G Cambridge is a biologist from the United Kingdom who abates the horrors of STEM with scary little stories. When she isn’t spacing out in a laboratory or recommending people read Shirley Jackson, she enjoys history and all things fantastical.