By Whitney R. Holp

When NASA announced they were planning a manned mission to Mars within the next year, I applied immediately. There was no real reason to think I’d be accepted of course, but it was such a truly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I knew I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t at least try, so I did. And, after a series of tests, I was the one they selected to send.

For indeed, I possess many unique qualifications making me most especially suited to this undertaking, almost as if my entire life were a prolonged preparation for its eventual outcome: I had military training, a pilot’s license, advanced degrees in astronomy and geology. I am fit, smart, and a lifelong loner. My parents are dead and I have no children. My friends said they’d miss me, but they knew I’d be fulfilled by this hopefully.

Some people were calling it a suicide mission because this was to be a solo trip, one-way. Others were saying it was a waste of tax-payers dollars, an egotistical wank-job when there were problems to solve here on Earth. We had to issue a public statement defending the entire endeavour. I had already been subjected to rigorous physical and psychological examinations and found to be of a sound mind and a sound body.

Sending a whole crew requires a larger spacecraft, more supplies, and includes the risk of interpersonal liabilities. And it seemed likely there would simply not be enough reason to justify sending more than one person. If it turned out otherwise, they could send more people in two years when Mars and Earth returned to the same places in orbit.

It is true I felt disillusioned with my life and believed that this planet holds nothing else for me. Healthy humans are denied euthanasia; nonetheless, we are all going to die. This, however, was going to be an adventure. We were doing it in the name of Science. We had reached the exact moment in History when we could send a human being to Mars and reasonably expect complete success – all the nations on Earth were united in this effort and contributed however they could. There is simply much more that can be learned by a man on the ground than by a remote controlled gadget.

It was important to do it now, while we were still able, because this moment in history might not last: civilization as we know it could collapse at any moment and plunge us back into another dark age; humans might go extinct before we redevelop the capability of space flight. Mars was part of the great mystery of the universe, part of who we are – everyone wanted to know. The whole world knew about this, and waited to see how things would unfold.

By the time of launch there was a certain amount of celebrity in the whole thing, and I had to give a couple interviews and was even made the star of my own reality show about my adventures on the crimson orb. But there was little time for such frivolities during our preparations as the count-down approached (though they helped fund things).

Truly it was the engineers who designed and built the rocket that were real heroes. They were the ones who created this massive seven-tonne metal vessel that would launch itself 120 kilometres off the ground and up into outer space; and then from there go an additional 55 million kilometres to meet Mars at the scheduled orbital alignment with Earth; and then safely land upon the crimson orb – I was just a passenger within the machinery that would achieve these things.

What could be more humble and pathetic than a hairless ape sitting in that belly of that thing while it floated across the great void between planets. It was an eight-month journey, 200 days all told, a distance that is not even the merest sliver of possible distance to be crossed out there in the great beyond. Everything was calibrated to run on auto-pilot, so I slept most of the way, waking only to check that all systems were working properly.

Otherwise it was a safe journey. The station back on Earth checked in a couple times along the way. I didn’t expect to die; I had complete faith in these people; these are some of the finest minds of our time. And so the sleeping hairless monkey crossed that gap, a carefully planned trajectory to meet the red planet at the appointed place and the appointed time, snug and secure in my tin can, and did successfully land, settling safely down in a great wasteland of crimson dust and rocks.

I was awake by then. I watched it happen, sitting strapped into the pilot’s seat watching through the window, the great round red ball getting bigger and bigger, and finally swell into full sight, encompass all vision, deploy the landing balloons, the ground rushing up fast, growing details, craters, valleys, plains, mountains in the distance. And then impact.

When I emerged from the ship, taking my first steps into the red desert storm, it looked just like a movie, just like all the pictures and videos I’d seen over the course of my life. Every recorded scrap of media from Mars I ingested, I had scoured the internet thoroughly, sitting stoned at home on my computer staring in reverie. Every book I had read it, and there are dozens, and now I was here, finally; it was all so real I thought I was tripping.

And for a long time I just stood there soaking it in, seeing and being. I was here; it was like a dream come true, that cold fulfillment. Red was all I saw, though not a trace of fury threatened to obscure my mind, not now, nor ever again would I feel anger, I thought. The red sand covers every inch of the visible landscape, in which dark rocks of varying sizes and shapes are mired, and it is in the air around me as well, drawn up by the eternal winds that sweep across the otherwise barren terrain. Now it is the external world that is colored by this hue, and finally at last it is I who am calm and empty inside.

I climbed the nearest summit and surveyed my new home. In every direction the crimson desert was around me, its frigid breath tugging from all sides. At that moment, I was the first and (so far) the only living human on Mars, but one day there might be others, though it was possible I would be dead before anyone else arrives. However, while I am here, I am the only thing that exists.  All I see before me, it is mine. One could even say that I am now the King of Mars. But that is egocentric nonsense: I am a guest here in the desert, an item on the dinner plate.

The whole planet had already been mapped by satellite and all the different regions named. I landed in the Cydonia Mensae region, ostensibly to investigate the area where a number of structures are thought to be located.  To confirm whether or not they actually exist, or are merely photographic anomalies, would go a long way to determining whether this planet truly did once host life-forms above the bacterial, and whether or not it stands as a grim harbinger of Earth’s future.

Then I went back to the ship and got my base set up and everything up and running. I had a dune buggy and climbing gear, all kinds of testing equipment, foodstuff to last for years, water conversion technology, etc. The dune buggy ran on a solar battery so I wouldn’t have to return to base every night. One could spend years exploring this place; indeed, the rest of one’s life; there was a whole new world here to be discovered.

And for a while I was so happy I could hardly believe it, nothing to do but roam around and examine things, take notes, collect rocks and soil samples, conduct tests, and revel in the splendor of desolation. The entire planet is a great desert, even the oceans, only the poles are frozen over with great caps of brittle ice.

They did include a death-pill to keep on me at all times, and a few more in case I lost it, to take in case of emergencies, because one never knows what unfortunate circumstances might occur, and it’s a good to have an easy exit. They say humans cannot survive continuous isolation, we are an intrinsically social animal, but that is wrong. And anyway, I reported back to Earth on a daily basis via satellite, just like the androids did. I even had internet access.

Once I was ready, I ventured forth into the great desert of the red planet.  After the many long months cooped in a tin can, at last I could move freely. And for the next few days, passing into weeks, I explored – roaming the surface of the red planet, expanding the range of discovered territories with my escalating excursions, sometimes walking for so long that I couldn’t even feel my legs move anymore. My mind floated safe atop the machinery of my body, impervious to its functions, existing only to see everything from within the dome of my skull, itself within the dome of my helmet.

A Martian day is not much longer than an Earth day, but it is cold. Mars is almost always below freezing; the atmosphere is thinner than Earth’s; there’s no ozone layer; raw sunrays lashing down unhindered. I wore a kinetic thermal suit – friction of inner layers generates warmth – and some kind of protective layer against radiation.

All astronauts have a higher cancer risk due to increased solar exposure. And their appendix removed. At night the Martian moons glowing orbs blue and green. The stars were in wholly different arrangements – it’s the same stars one sees from Earth, but at different angles here; I had to relearn the constellations all over again.

I tried imagining this place as it once was or might have been. I sometimes dreamed about it and had visions, hints of strange fauna and flora. For there were oceans here once, from which life inevitably emerged; likewise it eventually went extinct in the event of global devastating catastrophe. It’s been a long time since there might have been something, for Mars is an old planet. As old as Earth is now is how old Mars was when Gaia was formed.

However, there might be things down in the deepest crevasses untouchable by surface events like what was found in the Mojave. So I explored the old sea-beds, digging in there and did indeed find what might have been the fragments of crustacean-type shells. Only three or four pieces, barest fragments left, but I gathered them up and brought back to base.

In my prior life I had written a lengthy paper titled “The Extraterrestrial Origin of Life of Earth,” condensing and reiterating existing theories. Basically what it stated was that humans were transplanted from Mars, who migrated to Earth to save themselves once it was discovered their planet was dying from a nuclear holocaust – thus making Mars not only a glimpse of Earth’s future, but also like I am an expat making pilgrimage back to his mother country. And so far I am the only one, but with horror realize that one day more may come.

And so the days and weeks passed into months, but for all the many miles I walked, I never actually saw any traces there had once been life on Mars, let alone intelligent life. Merely an endless wasteland of rocks and sand and howling wind. Just as the many years of erosion would bury their structures, so too it would uncover them again, but nothing I saw in my travels suggested they exist.

I am not sure when came upon me the Fear the sense of the unknown suddenly felt all the hairs on my body rise up, black nebulous apprehension, I was all alone out here and if anything happened… and then started to feel that in fact I was not alone anymore… they came to me in the blazing sunset camped in a cave emerged in a crimson amber haze and it was those two who emerged from that molten mire – they saved me during the storm. Still unsure whether that was real or not.

Every once in a while I happened upon one of the old rovers lying dead in the dust, which I hauled back to the base and fixed them. Otherwise it seemed there was nothing left but dust and rocks. Whatever ghosts and secrets this planet might harbor, it did not reveal them to me. In lieu of such findings, I decided to erect my own edifice, and over the course of several days went about gathering up rocks and piling them into a clumsy pyramid that was approximately four feet wide and four feet high. Upon completing it, I thought to myself that now at last there is proof of life on Mars.

Piling the rocks was futile, of course, perhaps ironic, because the drifting dunes will easily cover it. I knew then that the King of Mars must climb a mountain in order to truly claim his throne. I continued my search regardless. Each footprint left in my wake is a testament to my supremacy. Should they send anyone to investigate, they would be wise to bow, for all that is to be seen here belongs to me. Alone, with nothing to impede my will, I reign absolute.

I am the King of Mars.