Major Doyel Raut and Captain Bartram Colm couldn’t get their space suits off fast enough. Trying to release the clasp on her booth, Doyel stopped and took a breath to control her shaking. To calm down, she grounded herself in the present.
I’m Doyel Raut, I’m in the Samos Habitat on Mars breathing fresh recycled air. It still smells like cinnamon from this morning’s breakfast and pine from Bart’s damn deodorant. I’m one of the first people on Mars, I think, first woman on Mars and….I…I can’t believe what we saw!
“Major, we found a skeleton out there, didn’t we?” said Bart, as he pulled his helmet off.
“Yes,” said Doyel. She placed her samples on a nearby shelf. Bart began undoing the back of her suit.
“…and that skeleton had wings, right?” said Bart. Doyel herself couldn’t say anything, so she merely nodded. They both went quiet just thinking of what they found out in that cave while they were on a routine geological expedition. With the spacesuit off, Doyel made her way to the nearest computer, navigating the confines of their habitat until she parked herself at a desk.
“We have to contact mission control,” said Doyel, already typing away.
“And tell them what? We found human bones on Mars,” said Bart, slowing his breathing, “They’ll file us under Section 8 and send us back home!”
“I’m just going to ask for previous mission histories: manned and unmanned,” said Doyel, “It’ll take 20 minutes for them to get the message and another 20 for us to get theirs. It leaves us about 40 minutes to figure out what’s going on.” Bart took the samples they collected from the skeleton and brought them to the lab desk to begin analysis.
“Why don’t we hold off on contacting Mission at all,” said Bart. He puts a bone fragment into the portable element analyzer or Sweet PEA as they called it.
“We can’t just sit on this, Bart,” said Doyel as she pressed send, “They lose their shit when we don’t report geo samples post haste, can you imagine the shit we’d be in if we didn’t report a body?”
“I guess, you’re right,” responded Bart with a shrug of his shoulders.
“I’ll try to buy us some time, with some prelim questions at least, until we figure out who that might be in that cave out there,” said Doyel. She got up from her seat and made her way back to the space suits littered on the ground, “Where did you leave the camera?”
Bart turned around with a look of embarrassment painted on his face.
“After I took some photos, I put it down next to me to help you collect samples and well…” Bart shrugged again.
“It’s in the cave?” asked Doyel.
“It’s in the cave,” nodded Bart.
Doyel didn’t say anything more as she suited back up. After Bart helped her with the last clasps and straps and double-checked air and pressure, he went back to the lab desk. Before Doyel left, Sweet PEA dinged with results at the ready.
“Sweet PEA confirms that it’s human bone,” said Bart readying the other samples they collected from the supposed wings, “and they’re old.”
“No duh, Bart!” said Doyel before she ventured into the airlock.
Doyel made it to the cave quicker than this morning. The skeleton itself was only a dozen feet from the mouth of the cave all splayed out, like whoever that was had collapsed onto the ground.
It was still early morning on Mars and the sun was a notch or two above the horizon. Sunlight filled the cave, giving small but sharp shadows over the rocky surface surrounding her. The shadows on of the skeleton seemed to fill it out, giving the bones a dark dreary flesh. With this wraithlike dimension to him, Doyel could make out that the size of the skeleton belonged to a young man. His “wings” looked more delicate than human bone, as if they were made and fastened to his arms.
She spotted the camera near the skull. When Doyel reached down to get it, she saw something thin flapping under the skeleton’s shoulder. It looked like a piece of paper. It looked like ancient parchment.
“Major Raut, do you copy?” said Bart over the radio, always prone to sounding official over comms.
“I copy, Captain Colm,” said Doyel as she picked up the square of parchment.
“Analysis came back for the material on the wings and you won’t believe it,” said Bart sounding amazed.
“Out with it, Captain,” said Doyel as she turned over the parchment to see words scribbled on it in letters she didn’t recognize. She took a photo through her suit’s HUD and gave a command for the computer to analyze it.
“The three samples came back as bird feather, cow leather and beeswax,” said Bart, “All from Earth. Mission got back to us too and guess what?”
“We’re the first manned mission on Mars,” said Doyel, having already known the answer.
“Yup,” said Bart. The computer in Doyel’s suit completed its analysis of the parchment’s writing and projected its findings on her HUD. Over the comms, Bart let out a perplexed grunt, “Major, the image you sent, are we seeing the same thing?”
“Looks like it, Captain,” said Doyel as she reads the note that the computer says is written in Ancient Greek:
Father,
My time is short, the air is thin. Have no fear, I made it past the Helios and into the domain of Ares seeking his counsel against King Minos. There is nothing here…
“And it just scrawls off from there,” said Doyel, sounding sad after reading this last missive from son to father.
“Major,” asked Bart breaking Doyel’s fugue again, “is that who I think it is?”
“Yes,” said Doyel, almost smiling at the thought, “Icarus.”
“Major,” said Bart with some reservation, “Does this mean the Greeks were here first?”
THE END.
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