Red Kingdom by Winston Malone
A mechanical finger brushes the thin membrane that coats the base of a birch tree. The touch dislodges tiny spores, which spiral in all directions, catching the light of the afternoon sun. The titanium hand swivels the finger toward the face of a caretaker bot, its bulbous lenses peering down like a curious insect. The organic residue is smudged on the fingertip. It shines like blood.
“What is it, Merlin?” Gale asks into his earpiece.
“It’s definitely fast-growing and adapting at an alarming rate. But I can’t say exactly.”
“You’re a botanist; how do you not know?”
“Mycologist,” Merlin says with a sigh. “And it’s because I’ve never seen anything quite like it. It resembles moss but doesn’t exhibit the characteristics of a Bryophyte plant. It might be a type of Armillaria mellea, also known as ‘white rot,’ but in this case, not white.”
“So… it’s a fungus? How can you tell?”
“Well, the mycelial cords are insanely complex for starters. Actually, they’re rhizomorphic, densely packed. The morphology of these hyphae is… just gorgeous to look at.”
“I appreciate the science lesson. But if I’m understanding this properly, you’re saying an undiscovered fungus with a knack for harsh environments hitched a ride from Earth to take over Mars?”
Merlin brings the finger closer. The high-fidelity cameras of the bot’s optics are so clear he nearly forgets he’s operating the machine with his mind from millions of kilometers away. However, the lack of almost every other sensory input remains a constant reminder that he’s not inside his own body. The tissue doesn’t resemble anything on Earth, which worries him the most. The implications are too—
“Merl?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m here.”
“I can see that, but you didn’t answer my question.”
“Sorry. I mean, over ninety percent of all fungi on Earth are still undiscovered. It’s possible this particular species came on an earlier supply vessel. But I don’t have enough information to make an educated assessment. I’ll have to return a sample to the lab for closer examination. Then we can narrow down what we’re dealing with.”
He looks down at the bot’s chassis and pushes a finger into a section that depresses slightly before popping outward. Inside the compartment is a clear, round case. Merlin removes the case and holds it up to the hyphal mat, using his other hand to scrape a portion inside. A stringy piece flops on the edge, and he curses, delicately maneuvering the bot’s finger to ensure the specimen is entirely inside the case. He closes the lid and returns it to the storage compartment.
“Alright, that should be good,” he says, standing.
A bee lands on the fungus.
“See you soon, IRL,” Gale says.
“Yep,” he says in response. But the bee distracts him as it circles the indent where he’d scraped away the sample. He wonders if it’s a coincidence. He swears the bee is inspecting the spot as if surveying the damage. Then, it departs as quickly as it came, disappearing into the dense foliage of the forest.
Merlin squints up at the tinted dome of the Mars habitat. Muted sunlight pierces the canopy in conical shafts, glistening across freshly misted leaves. Even from this distance, he can hear the low hum of the centrifugal outer ring.
“EON, direct me to the nearest ramp.” The ecological operating network is a meta-intelligence that keeps the habitat running smoothly behind the scenes. It is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, an omnipresent entity the astronauts consult with to understand the otherwise incomprehensible minutiae of the habitat.
“Sure thing, Merlin,” the monotonal voice says in the speakers embedded in his operator headset. A heads-up display presents a two-dimensional map of the habitat, showing Merlin’s distance from the outer ring. The circular map minimizes to the side of his field of vision as he begins to run.
Merlin moves through the trees in the habitat toward a ramp—a lift that remains stationary while the ring turns at roughly eight meters per second. Maglev technology powers the ring, generating perpetual energy via regenerative braking sequences. It’s noisy, but not relying on fuel shipments saves valuable time, money, and resources.
“Thanks, EON. Can you update me on the Kingdom’s network?”
“Yes. The Kingdom’s biosphere is still producing higher-than-average nitrogen rates. However, utilizing the mycorrhizal fungi attached to my sensors, I’ve made minor adjustments to the nitrogen intake capacity of many plants, trees, and bacteria. The legumes have been especially effective in this process. Nitrogen levels are projected to return to normal in fifty-eight days. I’ll adjust my analysis as we progress. I’d like to point out that even at these increased levels, human life will not be affected as I’ll ensure that oxygen concentration remains above twenty percent.”
Odd emphasis on that last bit, Merlin thinks.
“Okay. But do we know what’s producing the extra nitrogen?”
EON doesn’t respond—likely making scans of the habitat. As Merlin jogs, he dodges pointed aloe vera leaves and tall bean stalks. On Earth, destroying a single plant would not noticeably alter the environment. However, every lifeform on Mars is meticulously cultivated to provide exact measurements, from the bee population, the bacteria in the tree bark, all the way down to the earthworms bio-engineered for the Martian-Earth soil composite. Every organism in the Kingdom is essential to the balance of the biosphere, except for the humans coming to study and live within it.
“I do not know what is producing the excess nitrogen,” EON finally says. “I’ve scanned the biogeochemical database from the time of detection and cannot determine the sudden increase in nitrogen concentration in the habitat’s atmosphere. Thankfully, I can compensate and maintain viable survivability for both human and non-human life. I’ll notify you directly if any changes come to my attention.”
EON should be able to detect the root cause. Merlin finds this questionable, but the MI has given him an answer with a somewhat conclusive tone. He feels awkward asking it to justify itself, even though it isn’t human and technically is under their command.
The sprinklers turn on again as Merlin’s bot arrives at the base of the ramp. He tries to avoid the fine mist, but it speckles his optics and the rest of his titanium alloy and carbon fiber body. The ramp is outfitted with a cage-like elevator that rides along a short rail to converge with the ring as it moves. The hum is much louder here, and the pulsing, iridescent green glow of the mag-belt beneath the floating ring reminds Merlin of a bioluminescent mushroom back home called Mycena chlorophos.
Oh, how I miss Earth, he thinks. But it is much more than Earth that comes to mind. His decision to accept the possible one-way journey had primarily been a form of escape. Now, he gathers that no amount of distance between him and his past is going to solve the regret consuming his decomposing soul.
Merlin steps into the ramp’s cage and waits for what is known as a hop-point on the ring, a small doorway where the cage can lock in and transfer the passengers onboard. He catches sight of the blinking signal approaching, and the elevator door closes behind him. Outside, a sprinkler is malfunctioning, the water bubbling in a clogged pool. Another caretaker bot emerges from the treeline and kneels next to the sprinkler head. It brushes something off the surface before manually lifting it into its proper position and stepping out of the liquid spray. The bot looks at Merlin, unmoving.
While humans aren’t manually operating the caretaker bots, EON assigns them duties around the habitat. Without them, the habitat could not function as well as it does. Merlin always found the creation of meta-intelligence eerie, but allowing them their own bodies took it a step too far. The meta-body ban on Earth a decade earlier only confirmed he hadn’t been the first one to think this.
The ramp kicks into motion. Merlin braces his bot’s frame as it accelerates at a slight incline. His mind fills in the blanks with the sensation of inertia, a side-effect of the chip—the technology to exist in a body that isn’t his own, to see worlds from afar, and to connect with a virtual entity like EON. When Merlin first dreamt of becoming an astronaut, he hadn’t considered the implications, requirements, and regulations—the sacrifices—necessary to leave Earth’s gravity.
The cage lines up with the hop-point and slides into place. Grabbing the handrail framing the entrance, Merlin looks out at the lush expanse rotating below, a living world on the surface of a dead one. Outside the dome, sanguine mountains flank the sunken Athabasca Valles region—a verdant utopia dominated by ancient nothingness. He thinks about the fungal sample in his chassis and worries that the Kingdom might not have long before it, too, is consumed by red extinction.
END OF SAMPLE
