The Martians(127)

The Names of the Canals

Lestrygon, Antaeus, Cimmeria, Hyblaeus, Scamander, Pandoraea, Fretum, Hiddekel. Phison, Protonius, Python, Argaeus.

Mostly Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Some names refer to real features, visible from Earth through early telescopes: the big volcanoes, Hellas and Argyre, the great canyons, the dark land on Syrtis, the shifting polar caps.

Idalius, Heliconius, Oxus, Hydroates.

But the lines. Lines connecting everything. Even at the time illusory lines were known to occur between dark dots in a telescope, a matter of optics and vision. And the minimal width of any line that could be visible on Mars through those telescopes was known to be hundred kilometers. And yet the names. We want life. We want to live.

Cadmus, Erigone, Hebrus, Ilisus.

So silly. But I too I live in a world I love.

Pyriphlegeton, Memnonia, Eumenides, Ortygia.

I live in a big valley, on its flat floor, the mountains on both sides visible on most days, the smaller range closer to the west, the larger one farther away to the east. To north and south, as far as the eye can see, a valley. A valley about as wide as a Martian canal.





The Soundtrack

Before work every morning, espresso and Steve Howe's “Turbulence.” For Red Mars, Glass's Satyagraha. For Green, Ahknaten. For Blue, Mishima and The Screens. For Maya, Astor Piazzolla, especially “Tango: Zero Hour.” For Ann, Gorecki's Third Symphony, Paul Winter's “Sun Singer,” and the Japanese folk song “Sakura.” For Sax, Beethoven's late string quartets and piano sonatas. For Nadia, Louis Armstrong 194656, also Clifford Brown and Charles Mingus. For Michel, Keith Jarrett's “Köln Concert.” For Nirgal, Najma. And always Van Morrison, Pete Townshend, and Yes.

Van when I'm happy

Pete when I'm mad

Steve when I'm energetic

Astor when I'm sad





A Martian Romance

Eileen Monday hauls her backpack off the train's steps and watches the train glide down the piste and around the headland. Out the empty station and she's into the streets of Firewater, north Elysium. It's deserted and dark, a ghost town, everything shut down and boarded up, the residents moved out and moved on. The only signs of life come from the westernmost dock: a small globular cluster of yellow streetlights and lit windows, streaking the ice of the bay between her and it. She walks around the bay on the empty corniche, the sky all purple in the early dusk. Four days until the start of spring, but there will be no spring this year.


She steps into the steamy clangor of the hotel restaurant. Workers in the kitchen are passing full dishes through the broad open window to diners milling around the long tables in the dining room. They're mostly young, either iceboat sailors or the few people left in town. No doubt a few still coming out of the hills, out of habit. A wild-looking bunch. Eileen spots Hans and Arthur; they look like a pair of big puppets, discoursing to the crowd at the end of one table—elderly Pinocchios, eyes lost in wrinkles as they tell their lies and laugh at each other, and at the young behemoths passing around plates and devouring their pasta while still listening to the two. The old as entertainment. Not such a bad way to end up.

It isn't Roger's kind of thing, however, and indeed when Eileen looks around she sees him standing in the corner next to the jukebox, pretending to make selections but actually eating his meal right there. That's Roger for you. Eileen grins as she makes her way through the crowd to him.

“Hey,” he says as he sees her, and gives her a quick hug with one arm.

She leans over and kisses his cheek. “You were right, it's not very hard to find this place.”

“No.” He glances at her. “I'm glad you decided to come.”

“Oh, the work will always be there, I'm happy to get out. Bless you for thinking of it. Is everyone else already here?”

“Yeah, all but Frances and Stephan, who just called and said they'd be here soon. We can leave tomorrow.”

“Great. Come sit down with the others, I want some food, and I want to say hi to the others.”

Roger wrinkles his nose, gestures at the dense loud crowd. This solitary quality in him has been the cause of some long separations in their relationship, and so now Eileen shoves his arm and says, “Yeah yeah, all these people. Such a crowded place, Elysium.”

Roger grins crookedly. “That's why I like it.”

“Oh of course. Far from the madding crowd.”

“Still the English major I see.”

“And you're still the canyon hermit,” she says, laughing and pulling him toward the crowd; it is good to see him again, it has been three months. For many years now they have been a steady couple, Roger returning to their rooms in the co-op in Burroughs after every trip away; but his work is still in the backcountry, so they still spend quite a lot of time apart.