Life in space/part 1

Life in space/part 1

fiction
edward w pritchard

editor's note
Bold and adventurous attempts to see the future and tell how things might be deserve to be applauded. None more bold or often wrong than minor writer ed pritchard. Here look how Pritchard sees Mars from a vantage before anyone went there. [ harry bailey editor]

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life in space/[part 1]

When you first get to Mars it's not what you thought it would be like. Later after your illusions about yourself and life have dried into the red dusty rock of the Martian surface you blame the writers, the writers who you read as a child and who speculated from the security of earth on what Mars and space travel would be like. The writers who got things so wrong about Mars. It's really not about Mars at all, but it's about life trying desperately to thrive; even if for a while in the hostile environment of space and anywhere away from the sanctuary of Earth.

I came out to Mars on the rumble run, from the Moon to Mars nonstop. Me and my eighteen year old bride Daria. Just the two of us on a seven month extended honeymoon; us and an eleven man crew and 75 security cadets headed for a three year tour of Jupiter. All eighty six of them and me too couldn't keep our eyes or thoughts off Daria after the first two weeks away from earth.. A Woman in space is a rarity and a pretty woman is very unusual.

Mars first impression:

The first thing I saw on disembarking on Mars was the Mercator rats. On the tail, for defense and protection they have a large bulb of flesh. Through evolution or something the bulb is flashed at anything behind the rat and shows as a distinctly human face. The faces are supposed to look like celebrities from earth, or at least that's what general opinion is. It's unsettling and a good inhuman way to start to accommodate one to the unfamiliar Martian environment.

end part 1