Planet Mars, year 2450, Polar Graveyard Recycling Plant.

The glacier’s ice fields gleamed in purple light, as a dimming orange sun was setting behind the rocky ridge of volcanic rock that somewhat shielded the space station from brutal westerly sandstorms. This evening however, polar storms raged over the planet’s rugged surface with unprecedented and unforgiving anger. The winds hurled and pulled on the shiny dome’s roof. The glass-covered cupola of the funeral hall trembled, as swirling ice and sand grains rushed over its glass-roof surface and produced a sound not unlike ocean waves rolling onto a sandy shore. But this was Mars, a planet devoid of a blue sky and romantic beaches.

Once, a long time ago, Hall C’s glass roof had looked crispy and shiny as crystal, and one could watch the Martian moons Phobos and Daimos pass by in silent darkness at noon. But now, some twenty years later, the glass dome looked matted already. It produced a mild hazy light that shone above the foul and sweet-smelling graveyard forest. With every push of the storm’s vortices against the cupola, a gentle ripple wave shivered through the forest of carnivorous plants that stood closely aligned in the twilight. Jennifer’s digits gently touched the command board. With majestic power, the giant hydraulic arm of a crane gently gripped a shrouded corps from the funeral container and lifted it some twenty-five feet. Then the arm dropped it into the blue-dented hungry mouth of a Carnivorea Gigantea, one of the 250 flesh-eating trees that populated this artificial forest, planted to recycle human protein, fat and water in a way that was perceived as morally acceptable.

“Attention,” said Jennifer, in her soft, sonorous voice, and her sensual lips came close to the microphone. “Record file alpha; obituary number 125, 25 June 2450, female, age 55, cancer, safely deposited in plant nr. 249.” It was getting dark, and the forest of Hall C bathed in faint purple light. Plant 249 gently closed her voracious mouth, produced a suckling noise, and the two dented masher leaves met. A violent tornado vortex hit the wall of hall C, and made the entire building shiver.

At this moment, a yellow diode lit up on the Jennifer’s bracelet, with the number 825 appearing in flashing orange. Other numbers appeared, 820, 815, 810. “825 millibar only, and dropping fast,” whispered Jennifer with awe. “Something seems to be wrong, a gas leak.” At this moment, sirens hurled and red laser flashlight beamed through the hall.

“Attention, attention,” a huge loudspeaker blurted with a metallic voice. “Pressure drop in Hall C, I repeat pressure drop in Hall C. Switch-off all machinery and prepare for immediate evacuation. All staff evacuate area now.”

There was no time to loose. Jennifer’ s elongate and gentle face became pale. She switched off the main control button of the crane, stood up and jumped four feet to a soft bouncy ground formed by millions of decaying leaves and oval shaped mushrooms of reddish color. Her brown hair floated in the icy wind. In her shiny alumina overall she ran over the forest’s mushroom-and-leaf floor, as fast as she could.

“Attention, attention,” shouted the speaker. Pressure doors in Hall C will close in twenty-five seconds. Evacuate the area now.”

A massive implosion shook the building. Its glass cupola shattered and exploded in a kaleidoscope of eerie rainbow light. Icy Martian winds whirled through the hall, dry- freezing everything, sucking glass debris, carnivorous tree stems and leaves into the dark- purple sky. As Jennifer regained the glass-covered staircase leading to the underground pressure shelter, she rapidly looked back. In awe she saw five people and several corpses as they were thrown against pillars of the structure, then hurled into the dark-purple evening sky. Jennifer barely resisted the surging winds that blew into her face with brutal violence. She leaped toward the rumbling pressure door that was about to close and rolled beneath the closing metal plates, half-suffocated and gasping by a lack of oxygen, and the panic of the moment.

She relaxed as the pressure doorplates came to a grinding halt behind her back. Her heart was beating wildly in her chest. The door wobbled, but stood the blazing pressure differential. Faint cries were heard amidst the storm’s hissing noises from the other side of the steel vault. These were the ones who didn’t make it.

“Lucky you,” said the young egg-headed safety officer with icy blue eyes, who approached and pulled her up. “May I introduce myself? My name is Clone McJohnson 431. We lost a twenty lives, at least, over there,” he said and nodding somberly toward Hall C, which had become a death trap. “Not to count the loss of 250 Giganteas, and one hundred and fifty tons of parahumane recycled biomass ready to be pumped to the pork tank.”

© 2005 by Franz L Kessler, all rights reserved