A Martian Porter’s Problem Chapter 1

A Martian Porter’s Problem Ch 1

  Tomkin awoke with the sun. He blinked his red-orange eyes and looked immediately to his left. Horace-12 was there, sitting up, staring at their surroundings. It was as if he had never seen such wonders before. Of course, Tomkin thought. Horace-12 was a probeta-born; an Earthling Test Tube Baby. A Laborer designed by the lazy to do the hard work for them. It was likely Horace hadn’t ever seen Mars in all it’s glory. Probably dropped off the rocket in full stasis for easy transport. Probably didn’t want any Martians to notice that Earthlings had taken to peddling genetically engineered flesh. 
  “Horace,” Tomkin mumbled sleepily, snapping the pale-skinned boy out of his trance. Big blue eyes turned to gaze at the dark, vaguely purple-skinned Martian. Horace hadn’t realized how much humans had mutated after centuries on Mars; how much everything had changed on Mars. He knew that the plants and animals came from Earth originally, with some minor genetic editing to help keep them alive on the foreign planet. But he didn’t recognize anything. Not one plant, not one creature, even the air felt completely different. 
  “Yes, sir?” Horace-12 asked softly, almost embarrassed at his own curiosity. 
  “You eat yet?”
  “No, sir.”
  “Alright. Uh, I think I have all the ration packs in my bag.” Tomkin forced himself upright, groaning at the stiffness in his joints. The ground there outside the Little Blue Mountains was damn uncomfortable. It was a shame they couldn’t find a porter-shack. Which was strange, Tomkin thought. There should have been one around here, it was an ideal spot for it. Maybe he was just a little short, maybe it’s just over that hill and he had gotten the location wrong. Wouldn’t surprise him too much; Tomkin wasn’t a young man anymore, things were getting harder to remember. 
  “Okay, here. Have a protein square. It’s, uh, strawberry flavored.” Tomkin handed Horace-12 a silver packet containing a compact foodstuff. Horace took it graciously, thanking his Master, though he had learned not to call Tomkin that out loud. For whatever reason, this Martian hated that title. Actually, come to think of it, all the Martians Horace had met didn’t like that particular honorific. Perhaps it was a cultural thing? Perhaps the word meant something else in the Martian language, though he had yet to hear such a tongue. 
  Tomkin shoved an entire protein square into his mouth, astonishing the young probeta-born. He chomped loudly, rubbing a hand over his copper-colored hair in a repetitive motion. Little streaks of white could be seen collecting at his temples and just behind his ears. Horace mimicked the motion, ruffling his own raven-black hair. This action didn’t escape Tom’s notice, though he found no fault with it. He yawned, retrieving a large water canteen that came with a built in water purifier. Very handy. He took a chug first before handing it to Horace. 
  Horace-12 followed Tomkin around as he went about his brief morning routine. It wasn’t so much the fear of being alone that drove his behavior, but more the uncertainty of how to live without constant direction from a taskmaster. Tom was exceedingly patient with the inexperienced, almost child-minded adult; teaching by example and instructing only when necessary. 
  The pair collected their few things and shouldered their heavy, cargo-laden packs, setting off down the thin trail, surrounded on all sides by vibrant, colorful flora and hidden fauna. The environment was predominantly purple and yellow, though all manner of unnamable and innumerable colors could be seen. It was hard for Horace to stay focused with all the ways his senses were being assaulted. 
  Tomkin guided Horace along, warning him about the more dangerous plants and occasionally pointing out things that were edible. Other than that, Tom didn’t talk much. He just wasn’t a very chatty fellow. 
  They walked along the little trail carved out by prior porters, stepping carefully to avoid the sharp-toothed fire-blooms that grew plentifully this time of year. They walked and walked and walked and walked, wiling away the hours of the day in this manner. Eventually the sun began to set and Tomkin checked his connection with the Marswire, looking for any nearby shelters in which they could spend the night. 
  “There’s one,” he informed Horace-12, pointing at the green display. A flat metal rectangle had unfolded along the length of his forearm, seemingly emerging from within the ID bracelet he wore. The metal glowed bright green and displayed a wealth of information on it’s many tiny panels, but Tomkin was only interested in one innocuous dot. He used his knowledge of the area to tell him how far he was, instead of the path-charter function that was installed on the Marswire interface. Technology could be helpful, but too much made a person soft. “It’s only two hills over. If we hurry, we can beat the rain.”
  “Rain?” Horace-12 asked, his eyes flickering up towards the sky. “It’s going to rain?”
  “Yeah. Can’t you smell it?” Tomkin asked rhetorically, assuming the probeta-born had dulled senses. He was correct in this assumption as he watched the boy inhale long and slow, searching for the smell of rain. “C’mon.”
  Horace-12 followed his master over two vibrantly colored hills to the porter-shack, just where his knowledgable teacher told him it would be. And just as Tomkin said, they could have beat the rain. Horace heard it before he smelled it or saw it; the sudden and violent downpour of lilac-scented water from the dense blue-gray sky. He marveled for a moment as this was a new sensation, wholly different from the artificial showers he had been accustomed to on Earth or in the Martian transportation facilities. It was so loud and it hit him with an almost vengeful force, cascading in angry torrents from above to smother him in freshly trickling streams that wove their way down his face and body, forcing his clothes to cling helplessly to his pale skin as the rain poured ever on. 
  “Horace!” the voice of his master snapped him out of his trance and he hurried to the shack, his sopping boots heavy and his eyes obscured with sheets of overlapping water. He practically fell into the porter-shack, panting hard, his cargo slipping off his shoulders to the floor with a gentle thump. “You okay, kid?” Horace-12 felt a hand on his back. He shivered.
  “It was so… so intense,” he breathed, staring hard at the orange grain of the faux wood floor. “I’ve never been in a rainstorm before.”
  “Yeah, I figured,” Tomkin mumbled. “Better get changed before you get sick. The clothing reprocessed is over there. I’ll take a gander at the pantry.” 
  Horace only nodded. He felt a bit ashamed at his innocence, his naiveté. Was he a burden on Tomkin? He had been assigned to the old man without consultation first, after all. Tomkin wasn’t overly thrilled about the idea of taking on an off-worlder apprentice. Horace pushed the thought from his mind as he went to the corner to undress. He didn’t have any other clothing, none more was provided him at the station. Apparently Tomkin was unaware of this and insisted Horace-12 don a towel while his clothes were reprocessed. 
  “When we get to Laika’s Memory,” Tomkin told him as he prepared an almost-decent meal for them. “I’ll take you shopping, get you some proper porter’s clothes. Good boots, better than those cloth ones you’re wearing now. And cargo pants so you can carry your own canteen. Maybe a waterproof hoodie. Monsoon season is only a few months off…” Tomkin continued to mumble quietly to himself, making a mental shopping list of all the things his apprentice was going to get at Laika’s Memory. Horace sat on the many-times-reupholstered sofa, staring out the old window at the rain, listened to it pound against the sturdy roof. 
  He and Tomkin ate well in that shack. Someone had gone through the trouble of restocking it recently, which was unusual anymore, what with the Ulqeks out raiding and pillaging. This was something that was always on Tomkin’s mind, but a thought he’d never vocalize in front of young Horace.
At the end of the meal, Tom leaned back and prepared himself to teach; Horace always had so many questions. As was customary, Tomkin explained to his apprentice, a porter that takes something from the shack must then leave something at the shack, although repairs count as compensation. 
  “But we don’t have anything to leave, do we?” Horace asked, patting his pockets. Being a probeta-born, he had no personal possessions; everything he had technically belonged to his Master, including his labor and time. 
  “No, we had to travel lighter than normal this trip,” Tomkin said, looking around. He picked up a broom. “But the place could use a bit of a clean.”
  “You want me to do the sweeping?” Horace-12 asked, presuming his master would leave the more physically demanding job to him.
  “Nah, I got it.”
  “Um, then what should I do?”
  “Clean up the trash from dinner,” Tomkin suggested. “You just put the empty cans and wrappers in that bin there, and then put the cutlery and plates in that cabinet for a few minutes.”
  “Is it all automatic?” Horace asked, following Tom’s instructions. Tomkin grunted in affirmation as the young man put the cans and wrappers in a green bin with a triangle on it. He watched as the bin’s glass lid slid closed and the trash was consumed by blue smoke. Horace-12 put the plates, cutlery, and glasses in a black cabinet labeled “Refresh-inator”. He then pressed the buttons that said “COMPLETE MEAL” and “2 PEOPLE”. 
  “Oh, refill the waterskins, too,” Tomkin added, tossing the collected filth out the door and into the rain. He noticed how the sound of rain through the open door drew Horace’s attention. It was strange; he seemed fixated on the perfectly ordinary event, as if he had never been out in a storm. That didn’t make much sense seeing as he was a Farm-Laborer; born and designed to work on farms and plantations to serve humanity. Surely he had been in a thunderstorm before. Tomkin’s curiosity only grew the more he thought about it. 
  As the two bedded down for the night, Tom asked Horace about it lest he be up all night wondering.
  “Ever been in a rainstorm before?”
  “…No, sir.” Horace sounded embarrassed. 
  “Really? I thought you were a farmer before coming here.”
  “Well, not really, no. I was meant to be a farmhand, but I never actually went out on a farm until a few months ago. That’s when I found out me and my kinsmen were defective.”
  “Right, you're allergic to Earth flora.” Tomkin remembered that from the rundown given him by the corporate goons. “Then what the hell were you doing before? How’d they teach you anything without exposing you to plants?”
  “I was programmed,” he replied. “We hatch fully-formed from incubation chambers with all the things we need to know to do our jobs already in our brains.”
  Tomkin paused.
  “So, you never had to learn anything?” he inquired eventually. 
  “Not until I came here, no, sir.”
  Tomkin paused again, thinking. 
  “How you like being a porter?” he asked.
  Horace exhaled slowly.
  “I… I’m not sure. I feel a little misplaced.”
  Tomkin nodded, staring up at the dark ceiling, listening to the rain hit the roof, dribbling off the edges, collecting in pools by the walls and flowing in small, temporary rivers over the ground. 
  “You don’t have to be a porter if you don’t like it, y’know. I can find you another job.”
  “No, I like being out here. It’s… so big.”
  “Yeah, Mars is a big place.”
  Horace didn’t respond. Their conversation ended abruptly, a sad and uncertain energy permeated the air like a bad smell, upsetting the minds of those in it’s wake.