Pillars of Creation

Ares

That night Amanda Grayson dreamed.

She dreamt that she was on the Martian surface, running through the splendid desolation. Each step propelled her into the cold, thin air; leaving behind puffs of red dust that drifted lazily in the feeble grip of the world's gravity. In the distance, she saw the glowing form of the goddess - arms outstretched in welcome.

Amanda stopped. "Have I done well?" Her voice sounded hollow in the confines of her helmet.

The goddess pointed back the way she had come. Amanda's footprints were filled with the green sprouts of new life. "You have, my child," the goddess said. Somehow her voice penetrated the suit's protective barriers. "Be proud. But there is still more to do."

"What? Tell me," Amanda demanded. "I have done everything you've asked; I've given everything I have."

The goddess shook her head. "No, my child. Not everything." She bent close to Amanda and lifted the helmet of her suit from its seals. Amanda squirmed and tried to protest, to push the goddess away, but she was not strong enough. She felt the air in her lungs sucked away by the thin Martian atmosphere. She felt her blood begin to boil and - !

Amanda Grayson jerked upright, suddenly awake and gasping for breath. The air of Mars Base - redolent with the tang of metal and the musk of a hundred human beings - tasted good. Amanda laid back, her head resting against the side of her sleep rack, just underneath the air conditioning nozzle, enjoying the sensation of the breeze against her skin.

"Doctor?" A pale hand gripped the edge of the privacy curtain, and an oval face peered in. "are you alright? I thought I head you - ?"

Doctor Grayson forced a weary smile. "I'm fine, Jenks," she said. "Just a dream. That's all."

Natalya Jenkins - 'Jenks' as the inhabitants of Mars Base had called her - nodded. "I know what you mean. I get them too. Coffin dreams. Where everything closes in in you." Her face vanished from the gap in the curtain, only to reappear a moment later. "The doc gave me these, to help me sleep." She held out a foil bubble pack.

Amanda shook her head. "No. Thank you. What time is it?"

Jenks glanced back over her shoulder. "Almost zero-six airy."

Grayson unclipped the covers from her bunk and slid her legs around, before dropping to the floor. "No. I'm on shift in an hour." She ran her hands through her hair, searching for the o-ring she used as a hairband. "But I might take you up on your offer tonight."

Her morning ablutions did not take long. Water was rationed on Mars Base: drinking water and water for the greenhouse were priorities; bathing (beyond the essentials of hygiene) was not. This, combined with the ban on deodorants and chemicals, led to everyone on Mars Base developing a personal odour. The effect on newcomers to the base was overwhelming. But, after a few days - rarely more than a week - nobody noticed anything beyond the most foul of smells. Then, after breakfasting in the communal mess hall, Doctor Grayson made her way to her workstation in the greenhouse.

The greenhouse was a geodesic dome about a hundred metres in diameter, but only a tenth as high at its apex. It was the largest open space in Mars Base. Most of the greenhouse was taken up with rows of plants which provided food and helped renew and refresh the base's atmosphere. A ring of rooms at the periphery of the dome had been set aside as a laboratory. It was here that Doctor Grayson and her assistant, Bibin Mistry, worked on developing plants that could be used to seed the Martian surface.

Bibin greeted Amanda as she came in. "Doctor. We have mould in rack twenty-two again."

Doctor Grayson shrugged her way into a pair of sterile, white overalls. "How bad is it?"