Chapter 9 - The Old Man and the Tower

Author’s Note - This chapter is actually the first one I wrote of this book. I had this image in my head of a massive decayed tower set upon an alien world and a pair of travelers walking through glittering dust before it. I imagined that the tower, though falling in, was still populated by a solitary and quite insane hermit.

I started writing down what I was picturing and before long, I realized that this world was one I was interested in developing. A world that people had rushed to, or perhaps had been pushed to, develop. Those people had failed and disappeared from memory and time had gone on and new people came along to attempt to decipher what had happened there.

From that point sprang the rest of this book, and only once I’d finished did I realize that this chapter no longer precisely fit with the rest of the story. So, we have a slight tonal shift, and the plot doesn’t progress much, if at all, with the events below. I think of it as world-building, and I kept it in because I feel like the person who really “gets” this chapter will really “get” the rest of the story I’m telling.

Which isn’t to say that you must like this chapter if you like the rest of the story. Or that if you hate this chapter, you’re doing anything wrong. It’s mostly just to say that I had trouble “killing my darling” here, so to say, mostly because I hold out hope that others might like my darling as much as I do.

Nestor and Jack stood on the crater slope and stared down into the center at the tower that loomed there. It was a massive monolith, substantially taller than the largest building either had ever seen, vaguely conical, and topped with a dulled point beset by the askew spikes of antennae and instruments long since failed. The steeply sloped sides were covered in broken solar panels, and the remaining glass shards left in the panels on the side facing the sun cast rainbows of light crazily across the valley floor. The exposed surface behind the fallen panels was a burnished orange, impregnated with the ceaseless dust. One slope had buckled near the bottom, which caused the tower to lean slightly in that direction, giving the distinct impression of a giant bending over to peer at its shoes. The surrounding ground was littered with fallen solar panel shards, which had eroded into a kind of glistening spume that drifted across the valley floor. There was the suggestion of a road approaching the buckled-in side through this shining sand, which faded from existence as it crawled up and out of the crater to the east.

The ruined hull of the shuttle sat below them where it had stopped on its roll down the slope, and their footprints in the dust on this lee side of the crater waved and wandered up towards them from where they’d escaped that rapidly depressurizing craft. The shuttle rested upside down and its power systems were completely wrecked, and so there had been few options for egress. They had ended up kicking out the front windows, which was itself no simple task, as the one thing that spacecraft windows do best is resist pressure from the inside. They’d managed it all the same, assisted in their efforts by the myriad cracks through the two centimeter thick glass.

Jack was in a sour mood, not only because of the failure of their mission and the crash of their ship and their marooning here in this crater, but also because he hadn’t been able to find his gun. What he needed a gun for Nestor could not say, and in truth, Nestor felt little concern about improving his partner’s mood for their predicament seemed dire indeed. They’d spent the time since they’d exited the shuttle arguing about what to do next and could not come to an agreement.

Nestor asserted that the tower they were staring at contained within it civilization or some sort of help or if not that perhaps at the very least it may have some breathable air. Their suits were functioning, and they had extra batteries, but Nestor knew well how little assurance either of those facts should provide. He was adamant that they should walk to that building, for he was certain it was their only hope of survival.

Jack cautioned him that the tower they were looking at had to be abandoned, and in any instance if it were not abandoned, they wanted nothing to do with what people may populate that place, if those persons could even speak a language either of the travelers might understand. He instead preferred to stay with the shuttle, which had within it an emergency beacon that was at that second transmitting their location to search and rescue teams, who would be along shortly to whisk them away.

They’d been tiptoeing around the nuclear-powered elephant in their situation, and Nestor tired of that and asked bluntly in Tharsian, “What you think they gonna do once they see we got a nuclear bomb?”

“That’s why I need to find my gun.”

“You gonna shoot ‘em.”

Jack shrugged and stared off at the tower, “You even know what that thing is?”

“Tower of some sort. Does it matter? They’s people there.”

“No people in there. Ain’t been people in there for centuries.”

“Nothin’ stands like that for centuries. If it was centuries old, it’d be in pieces scattered everwheres. It’s a whole big damn tower, Jack. Someone has to be keepin’ it up.”

“It’s a terraformin’ tower. That is why it matters what it is.”

“Terraformin’ tower.”

“Ain’t even heard of such a thing, have you? See, if you had heard of a terraformin’ tower, you’d know they hasn’t been a one of those populated since way back at the beginning.”

“The beginning.”

“Yep. The central government here on Mars decreed them placed every two hundred square kilometers during the Great Migration. Each tower had a thousand settlers and a miniature factory, capable with the right resources of making any item you want. The idea was for each of these here towers to build a self-sustainin’ terraformin’ colony, all from scratch. Jes build the tower in a place near some mineable minerals, fill it with settlers, and watch the planet turn green.”

Nestor shook his head and squinted at Jack, trying to determine if he was being put on, “Central government. Like for the whole world. You want me to believe that? And besides, you got any idea how many folks you’d need on this planet to have a thousand settlers ever two hundred square kilometers?”

“Don’t care if you believe me or not. If you’d been to Oxia or Cydonia, you’d have seen more of ‘em. Jes as empty as that one there is.”

Nestor tried a new tack. “Might could be a new gun for you in there, if it is abandoned.”

“We might be all the way down there when the rescuers come. You think they’ll check the abandoned terraformin’ tower for us?”

“I would. Big damn tower like that. I’d assume any sane person’d walk straight there.”

“You ain’t search and you ain’t rescue.”

“Better chance of survivin’ in there. Better’n tryin’ to stay with a hull-ruptured, dead shuttle that cain’t make no air nor hold it.”

“You go. I’ll stay here. We’ll see who makes it.”

“Could be a rover in there. Maybe even somethin’ we could load the bomb into. Don’t need to wait for no rescuers then.”

“Go on, find it then. Find your rover. Bring it back,” Jack glared through his helmet faceplate at the boy.

Nestor stared at him and neither budged, and so he shrugged and turned with no comment and walked down to the shuttle and dropped to his belly and crawled through the marks he’d made in the dust minutes before, while escaping. He emerged again from the shuttle a short while later holding the emergency beacon, a small hexagonal box weighing perhaps a kilogram that fit nicely in his hand. He walked up the ridge to Jack and offered him the box and smiled, “Now they’ll know right where we are, wherever that might be.”

Jack looked at the box and then back up at Nestor and though his expression said that he would still very much prefer to argue, he said nothing at all. He also did not take the box. Nestor shrugged and shouldered off the backpack of supplies he was carrying and dropped the box in there and re-shouldered the bag and began walking down the slope towards the tower. After a few steps, he noticed Jack was not following and turned to beckon for him to catch up.

“Still need my gun,” Jack offered, while taking tentative steps to follow.

“Don’t need no damn gun. Now, c’mon.”

*****

The tower was deceptively far away, and once they descended the massive talus-ridden slope of the crater and found themselves upon its floor, Jack would not stop remarking on this apparent fact. Nestor had ignored his complaints during their descent, but was growing impatient with the grousing now that they were on the crater floor and were still not making much visible progress towards their actual goal.

Down here on the floor, the monolith looked more and more like it was solemnly watching their approach with interest, and Nestor could not shake the feeling that there was someone up there peering down upon them with a certain amount of animosity. By way of breaking up Jack’s kvetching, he mentioned this impression, and for at least a few moments, this seemed to stymy his compatriot into silence. Finally, Jack offered, “Maybe it’s an old man up there. Like in the story.”

Nestor paused and turned to look at Jack with an empty stare. Jack returned his look calmly and squinted at him, “You never heard the story about the Old Man and the Monolith?”

Nestor shook his head, for he’d not heard this one. Jack smiled and resumed walking, taking the lead. “It’s a Hellan story, I think. Heard it from a man who was from there, at least.”

Nestor said nothing in response and followed behind his friend. Jack seemed to wait for something from him, and eventually asked, “You do know about Hellas, don’t ya?”

“Big damn crater they tryin’ to make into an ocean?”

“Yeah, you got the gist of it. They got this dust fog there, lasts for weeks sometimes. Cain’t see ten meters in front of your face. Obscures the sun, so you live in this weird red twilight. Worst place on all this planet, you ask me.”

He turned as if he’d know Nestor’s thoughts on this opinion, but the boy merely shrugged at him. Jack turned back around and continued,

“Anyways, the story goes that way back in the times of Olympus and Young Nico and all that, there was this old man. He lived out where the Hellas crater is, right along the northeastern crater rim, ‘cept there wasn’t no crater when he lived there. Least, not yet. Now, lots of folks have stories about Olympus, and about what a problem he was in the early days of the planet, but in Hellas, Olympus ain’t even a main character. In Hellas, they got this range of wild mountains to the south of the crater, been a problem the whole time people been there. So in their stories, it’s those mountains that are the main villains, and they call ‘em the Hellespontus.”

“The Hellespontus were mean ol’ mountains, not cowardly bullies like Olympus, but cruel task masters who abused all the people in those plains. They asked for sacrifices from folk to not destroy their villages with mudslides and floods, they took up the best farmland for they homes, and jes generally ruled like horrible kings. The people hated those mountains, but they didn’t have no hero like Young Nico who could fight mountains, so they mostly jes took it.”

Nestor smiled and spoke up over his coms, “I was beginnin’ to think everone had themselves a version of Young Nedrick.”

Jack frowned back over his shoulder, “Nico. Young Nico.”

Nestor shook his head and smiled again.

“They didn’t have a hero, but they did have an old man. This old man jes positively worshipped Mars. He made her a shrine, and he prayed to her twice a day, and everthing he did was done in her honor. When he ate a meal, it was due to Mars’s plenty. If he had some good luck, it was due to Mars’s grace. If he had some bad luck, it was because Mars had better in store. All this prayin’ caused Mars to consider him the most treasured of her little people, and she heard all his prayers, especially the ones about those Hellespontus, but she was hesitant to get too involved because she didn’t quite know how to get rid of mountains neither.”

Nestor snorted at this, “Mars is always gettin’ involved in these stories. Hesitant to get too involved.”

Jack shook his head and did not take Nestor’s bait, “She consulted her old friend Jupiter. Jupiter tol’ her he could redirect one of his protoplanets to come crashin’ down on them mountains, which would wipe them clean off the face of the planet. Mars asked Jupiter if that would wipe out all the little folk who lived there too, and Jupiter told her yes it would, and Mars explained how she would prefer not to kill the old man and all his family and friends. Jupiter told her that was a simple enough problem to solve. What she should do, he said, was to tell ever creature she wanted to protect to build shelters underground, and gather there when the protoplanet fell through the sky. He told her that if she focused all her will on that underground place where those people were hidden, the impact would deflect away from that point, savin’ anyone who was beneath her surface there.”

“Jack, this is one dumb story,” Nestor put forth. The daylight had not lasted long at all, and as they walked, the sun had begun its downward course, and the crystalline dust from the shattered solar panels shone so brightly golden upon the ground they had to hold their hands in front of them at waist height to block the glare. “Focused her will? What the hell does that even mean?”

“I’ll tell you what it means, jes be patient. I swear you gotta be the worst person to tell a story to. Cain’t help yourself from interruptin’.”

Nestor shook his head at this, but said naught else. Jack continued:

“So Mars agrees to this plan and goes back and instructs the old man to do as Jupiter advised, and tells him to convince ever other little person to do the same, and to group all they underground shelters together, to make it easier for her to focus her will. The old man goes out and tries to convince all the other little people, but none of them will listen. They don’t want to build underground. They don’t want to have shelters so closely spaced. They don’t believe nothin’ will fall from the sky. They are afraid the Hellespontus will see them and assume they are conspirin’ and will punish them. Ever excuse you could think of.”

“That there is the only part of this story sounds believable to me,” Nestor interrupted. Jack cast a smile back over his shoulder.

“The old man don’t let any of this discourage him, though. He is Mars’s most faithful child, after all. So he digs him an underground shelter, and he hides in that shelter on the day and all the people laugh and laugh at him. They call him names. His family disowns him as a crazy old coot. And, of course, then the protoplanet falls from the sky and obliterates everthin’. The Hellespontus try fleein’, but are caught and are frozen in place by the rush of super-heated Martian surface from the explosion. It covers ‘em completely for millennia thereafter. All the little people die, exceptin’ the old man, and all trace they ever lived is wiped from the face of the planet. The only place untouched by the explosion is the little parcel of land the old man built his underground shelter in. That place becomes this tall tower of rock that is left behind as the explosion scores out an immense crater, the Hellas Crater, all around it.”

“That spire of rock is four kilometers tall and has these steep rock sides that prevent the old man from comin’ down. Since he cain’t come down, he stays up there and is looked after by Mars, and over time he goes insane. Some say he couldn’t take the grief from everone he knew dyin’. Some say it was bitterness drove him crazy, because no one would listen to him. And some say it was jes the isolation did it. But whatever the cause of his craziness, folk in Hellas say he’s still up there, and he guards that monolith of stone against any climbers or copters, for it is his sacred gift from Mars and it is no one else’s.”

“You think there’s another old man like that in this one? This tower that was obviously built by people, not by some Mars magic?”

“Not really. Don’t believe there’s one on that spire in Hellas, neither. But I’ll tell you this, I felt the same whenever I was anywheres near that spire as I feel being near this one.”

“Thought you said they was all abandoned. These towers.”

“Abandoned, but for the ghosts. Them ghosts will always remain, Nestor. And they can be more dangerous than you’d think.”

*****

The sun was welded to the horizon by the time they reached the tower, and though Nestor would not admit so, it was overwhelmingly apparent that Jack had been right. There was no trace of recent human habitation anywhere near the tower. No tire tread nor boot track in the glittering dust. They came to stand at its feet and they peered up into a looming face that stared back down upon them huge and saturnine.

Nestor had persisted, arguing that even if it were abandoned, they should enter the tower to explore its interior, and at least wait in what shelter it may provide for their prospective, and as yet completely theoretical, rescuers to arrive. They circled the spire in search of ingress, and as they walked Jack muttered into his coms, and Nestor knew his compatriot must be hitting his coms button in order to transmit these misgivings and thus was doing so performatively, but the boy knew better than to give in or engage with them or even acknowledge that he’d heard anything. About a quarter of the way around, they discovered a massive roll-up door rusted through into a russet Swiss cheese, and they stepped through the man-sized holes in this door to a gargantuan factory floor. The ceiling had fallen all throughout the room, and on multiple floors above them as well, and through those holes trailed conduits and wires and pipes that sagged as metallic and plasticine vines and foliage spanning up into the yawning void above.

Material printers, all decayed nearly past the point of recognizability, crowded the factory floor in rough aisles. As they passed through those rows, they walked through a singular mote of light cast from the ebbing sun that shone in through the buckled-in wall above. That former wall now lay in huge chunks about the floor and the bent and decaying superstructure poked into the room as if it were massive metallic ribs broken in by the beam of sunlight or perhaps so averse to its presence they would not touch it and had bent in upon themselves to preserve their impurity. Huge drifts of sand encroached through the door they had entered and flowed deeply throughout that place.

They found little that was recognizable and nothing that could be put to any sort of use amongst all the dead machinery. Nestor stared at the floor to see what items might be of interest there, and that was when he saw the hand. A withered and solitary thing. He picked it up for a closer look, for it was barely distinguishable as a hand. He found himself less revulsed and more intrigued by it, as it was quite light and felt brittle enough to crumble at a touch, and he carried it over like a fragile crystal to show to Jack.

Jack simply gazed at the thing and then back pompously at Nestor in lieu of outright stating that he’d told him so. Nestor shrugged and carefully placed the hand back where he’d found it and looked all around for the rest of the person and found her mummified beneath a sand drift perhaps four meters away. He dug all around to uncover her and noted she was wearing the few remaining tatters of an envirosuit that did not look all that different from the one he was wearing. Her helmet had survived, but for the faceplate, and looking at the wreckage of her forehead and right eye, he guessed that the glass must have been broken out by whatever bullet had caused the other damage.

“She looks like she was shot, Jack.”

“Imagine things got pretty desperate in these towers around the time they was abandoned.”

Nestor heard a screech and raised up to look across at Jack pulling on a door set into the far wall. With another hard tug, Jack got it open enough to squeeze through and disappeared inside. Jack laughed triumphantly over the coms as he walked into the room.

“It’s an old equipment storage room,” he exclaimed, “you gotta come see these old suits.”

Nestor walked over and squeezed into a room perhaps five meters per side that was filled with suits of every imaginable size. They were of a curious design, where the glass helmet was permanently attached to the torso section of the suit. They came in torso-helmets and pants sections, and had massive packs upon the back, and all gleaming white and stained about the strange articulated joints with umber.

“They kinda look like Edenite suits,” Nestor said with minor wonder. “But that woman out in the factory was wearin’ a different kind of suit. Ain’t that weird?”

Jack was running his hand down the line of suits, “Most of ‘em look nicer’n the ones we’re wearin’.”

Nestor shrugged, his eyes flicking carefully over the details of each suit, “Ain’t no dust nor nothin’ in here. It’s like a clean room.”

Jack seemed to lose interest in the suits and walked over to the only other door in the room and pulled it open. It came free much easier, and they walked through together. It appeared to have been a locker room of sorts, but was now filled with sundries, and there were beds cobbled together from pieces of other broken cots scattered all about, and upon each was a mummified person curled in variegated postures of agony. There were long dead medical devices beside each cot. Nestor noticed an empty bag with writing on it on hanging from one of those devices, but upon further inspection discovered he could not make out the alphabet in which it was written.

In the exact center of the room was an aged monitor system composed of five cracked screens dragged from some other part of the building and piled precariously upon one another and a ratty chair in which sat a man in uniform tatters with an ancient gun in his lap whose skull lay behind his chair in pieces. Jack noticed the gun and picked it up and pointed it at the far wall and pulled the trigger and found it still in working condition by emptying half the magazine in a cloud of dust and gun smoke. He smiled at Nestor and dropped the gun into his bag. He looked all around for an additional magazine or bullets, but found none.

There was little else in the room except another door, and they walked through this door into a stairwell that extended rusted and broken above them as far as either cared to see. Jack argued they should ascend this staircase, but changed his mind after putting his foot through the first decayed metal step. They walked back through the presumptive medical ward and the equipment room, and had in unspoken terms agreed to exit the way they’d come, when Nestor noticed the other roll-up door. It was perpendicular from their original entrance and of similar size, but was in much better condition. The door had been cranked up just enough to crawl under, and so they both did.

The room on the other side was an airlock. Its outer set of doors stood open and sand had drifted into this room as well. They stepped out from this airlock into the crepuscular darkness, which held within it several decayed rovers arranged in a rough square just beyond the airlock entrance. Most of their tires had rotted away, and they all had dead batteries and none would start.

“Here’s your rover,” Jack grumbled over the coms. Nestor did not respond and had turned to crane his neck to look up at the tower again in disappointment, for they’d found nothing of interest to him and only an old gun for Jack in this place. He was trying to decide what he would like to do next when the blinking lights of the copters passed over the northern rim of the crater, headed straight for them.