NOVEL NEXT Chapter 79 : Gifts
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Marie: I don't know why everybody thinks the food on Mars has to be bad. People have made good food in limited ecologies for all of human history.
Gordon: It's the cricket flour.
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Sol 498 FY 26, 05:15 Mars Time, Bonestell Crater Colony
The walk back to the hab was awkward. Vera had explained quietly that his father and Administration were very likely going to be having a row as of five minutes from now—her words—and he might want to get clear of the blast radius while he still could. The Martians had apparently moved heavy loads before, and cranes had been revealed from wherever they had hidden to survive the blast, and cargo motored through on little motorized delivery robots like carts with smart wheels and sensors. He hadn't had time to explain the chocolates yet when the first box passed them.
"Does that say Ferrero Rocher?" asked Vera incredulously.
Marie had no reason to know Earth chocolate by sight—she never had any—but Vera, having once lived on Earth, confidently pounced on the box and distributed its contents to herself and Marie, offering an awkwardly grinning Gordon one, which he declined. His stomach was roiling too much for the sweet to have any attraction to him.
They followed the green line through long corridors, over walkways branched above, towers laced with catwalks and suspended rails. Planters spilled over with basil and squash. Perfumed air stirred faintly from overhead vents.
"Where are we now?"
"Power staging," she said. "Almost home." The massive cylinders could have contained anything, and hummed with a faint vibration.
Small embossed markers dotted the doorframes—etched in fine black lettering. 9.32.004.A ...9.32.004.B ...9.32.004.C
Along the way they'd been passed by cart after cart. Gordon surmised that they were unloading from the top down and removing the lightest stuff first. It would all beat them to the hab by the time they got there, having passed through multiple airlocks and been greeted by an assortment of faces that he knew he would not remember. The chocolate boxes had been stacked like bricks along the length of Marie's hab's hallway.
The hab, as Marie had explained to him at one point, had been designed with the idea of family in mind—one hallway door going out to the main thoroughfares, and from that hallway, multiple smaller multipurpose units. At the end of it, a courtyard designed to simulate the outdoors, with overhead lighting and potted plants for children to play, coming from their radially individual suites for family units. He had always thought that was a very generous design and hoped that the parents of those children on Mars were better than his, because he wanted to move out as soon as possible. Moving next door seemed like it would be a very small step.
"This one's us," Marie said. She opened a pressure door into another, smaller hallway, this one in warm earth tones.
The hallway turned, then bloomed into a courtyard—arched high above, drenched in programmable daylight. A chalkboard stood at one side. Children's voices echoed from hidden corners. The central fountain burbled in a familiar cadence.
"That sounds homey," he said. No birdsong, but what could you expect.
Adya opened the suite door. Pneumatics sighed. Two bedrooms off a central common space, kitchenette, dining, simple furniture. Boxes were stacked on every available surface—fabric bundles, jersey cotton, hand-picked by Gordon and Claire in their mad rush. They scattered and had collapsed on top of them. A light-skinned-looking man darted forward and clasped Gordon's hand in a firm but slightly sweaty handshake.
"You brought me chocolates," he told Gordon. "I think you might be all right."
"I'm sorry about the trouble," Gordon said. "I can help—"
"Nonsense," Vincent said. "Guests don't move boxes."
Adya was looking at the cloth. It was the only time he'd seen her face less than stern, less masked. He was glad she approved. He hoped that she approved.
Gordon looked around. Emergency Rations. Fine Chocolates. Fragile.
"This is a lot," said Marie.
Gordon looked over. She held up the bathrobe to him—twin to one of Gordon's back on Earth. He knew that his thing for bathrobes was a little bit weird—most people liked blankets. Gordon had always liked the freedom afforded by a bathrobe. Just get up and walk off if you wanted to. Although he was used to sleeping alone, he would have to make allowances. Still, it had been an impulse gift to get her a matching bathrobe and slipper set to his—but he hoped she would like it.
A short man in a jumpsuit identical to Vincent's but much more rumpled bustled into the room. Behind him came more porters carrying more chocolate.
"Gordon!" he said. "The man of the hour. Very generous of you. Fifteen tons, Marie—fourteen point five metric, plus fabric. Look, nobody's mad at you, but we're having to move emergency food into residential habs now because all of our dry storage is full."
Gordon nodded. "I thought being a whole colony you might have use for a lot of chocolate. I asked Claire, and she—"
"Claire," said Flowers, "did an excellent job. You're an excellent gifter, Mr. Gordon Stone. Everybody loves chocolate. If Mars had unlimited, unallocated storage space, we might stack a few of these crates to build your monument …of chocolate."
Gordon felt a small twinge of anger. If you don't want it, he thought, leave it out in the open, on the regolith. But he didn't say it.
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"You should know—we've designated your hab's hallway as a decentralized node for perishable overflow. Congratulations. You live in a pantry."
Marie's face was tight-lipped.
"Administrator," said Vincent. "I believe the source of your woes is outside my hab: you should probably give him that piece of your mind, don't you think?"
Flowers glared at Vincent, but nodded tightly to Gordon and Marie and left as abruptly as he'd come.
There was silence for a time.
"You know," said Marie, "you've been using every spare cent you had to get here. You monetized the stream. How did you—?"
He scratched the back of his neck. "My father gave me a cargo budget. But a one-time thing. Discretionary funds. He was flexing. Honestly, I just tried to make the best of it."
She searched his face. "I'm not used to spending that kind of money. You said Claire helped?" asked Marie.
"It wouldn't have been possible without her," Gordon confirmed.
"Talk about a shopping spree."
She wandered around, clearly a little at a loss, and her eyes lit upon a bundle of fabric. She picked it up, carried it over.
"This—you didn't buy this because you were trying to impress me. This is a touch of home. This is the exact shade of your bed."
"I got you bedsheets," he said. "You and like, two hundred other people, I guess. I'm sorry. I'm really not used to this whole interplanetary diplomacy thing."
She took his arm. "That's okay," she said. "Now you brought me a touch of your home—so listen. I'm going to show you mine."
She took his hand again. It was becoming a routine, that gesture—warm, familiar, and no less exciting for it.
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The hab suite door hissed shut. On the wall, small embossed markers were etched in fine black lettering: 9.32.002.B. Marie led him to her room.
"It's not much," she warned.
But Gordon saw the artifacts of a life: stacks of foil notebooks, utility flashlights lined along a shelf. On the walls, chalkboards and texture panels. Every surface subtly patterned. Even the flat ones caught light oddly. Programmable lights simulated sunrays filtered through trees. A rose bloomed in a wall-mounted cubby.
"You collect those?" he asked, pointing to the flashlights.
"Used to hand them out when the power went out. Doesn't anymore. But it used to, back when they still ran the mining lasers." She paused. "Those are for the girls. Jillian, Jaz, Aria, Madison, Addison—they're sort of twins—Cassie, Jade, and Petra. We were kind of a Peter Pan club. The Lost Boys, except we were all girls. I was ten. They were four. Now they're eighteen."
She shook her head. "That's weird."
"How can you be sort of a twin?"
"Addison's a clone, technically. It was before we had rules against that sort of thing."
Gordon had seen her room before, of course. Plenty of times. But standing in it now was different. The ceiling was lower than he expected—blame the low camera angle from her previous calls. The smell was...hers. Not floral or perfumed, but intimate, human, specific. Lived-in. It was different in person.
He noticed a tiny shower tucked into the corner. He couldn't picture fitting his whole body inside. Perks of being small, he supposed. Perhaps if he folded himself over a clothes hanger….
"WELL?" she demanded suddenly.
He turned toward her, suitcase swinging out wide in the unfamiliar Martian gravity, and nearly lost his balance.
She was grinning. "Strip, lover boy," she said cheerfully. "I was good. I didn't take off a single article of clothing from Gallant's manly body. Except his helmet. And gloves."
He grinned back and began to shimmy obligingly out of his outer layers, placing his suitcase on the bed as he did. It thrummed pleasantly against the surface.
"Sorry, they didn't fit," Marie said, eyeing the clothing. "I had my pick of too big—Lars is like three of you—or too small, and I didn't know your shoulders were so big…"
Gordon smirked.
"Don't look so pleased with yourself," she added, amusement sparking in her voice. "I'd like to see you guess my measurements more accurately."
She still held the bathrobe in her arms.
"I did," he said. "I think. Tell you what—you can decide for me when you try it on."
She nodded, then tilted her head at him. "Well? You changing, or what?"
"Trying to, yeah."
He stepped toward the suitcase. Marie didn't move. She leaned against the wall, watching him.
He raised an eyebrow. "You're just gonna stand there?"
"Would you let me?" she asked, playful.
He laughed—nervous, but not unwilling.
Starting with the outer tunic, he worked his way through the awkwardness. The synthetic fabric shredded slightly as he struggled with the tight fit. "Tight fit," he muttered.
Marie didn't reply. She just kept watching, her eyes intent.
He reached for the undershirt.
She looked away. Turned. Took two steps toward the door. One hand rose to rest on the frame.
"Okay. Okay," she said with a breathy laugh. "I think I might be a hair more traditional than I thought." Then, more quietly, without turning, "Turns out, I'm not that bold. Yet."
She didn't sound embarrassed. Just honest.
Gordon pulled the earthen turtleneck over his head in one practiced motion. "Stay. You're safe," he said. "I promise."
She turned back to him, expression soft. "...I like you."
"I'd hope so."
He sat down behind her cabinet, out of sight. She couldn't see what he was doing, but she could hear the sound of belts clinking and cloth rustling.
When he emerged, he was wearing a pair of intricate jeans.
Marie blinked. "Are those...button-up seams? A button-up fly?"
"My AI gets really fancy sometimes," he said, a little defensively.
"Fancy man," she replied with a grin.
Then she looked at him—really looked at him—and something in her expression shifted.
"I like that you didn't push," she said quietly. "I think...that probably says a lot about you."
With that, she turned toward the door. It hissed open softly.
She slipped out into the hallway, and the door sealed shut behind her.
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The door hissed shut behind her, sealing Gordon inside.
Marie stood there for a moment, heartbeat ticking faster than it needed to. Her cheeks were flushed. She pressed her palms against them briefly, then let out a breath—half laugh, half exhale.
Down the hall, Vera stood in easy conversation with Marie's mother. They both turned as she approached.
"He's not pushy," Marie reported, her voice pitched casual but unable to hide the thrill beneath. "I like him!"
Vera lit up. "I knew it!"
She clapped her hands once, grinning like someone who'd just won a bet, and Marie's mother—still skeptical but softer now—let out a short, almost-laugh.
Marie's spirits surged. Something inside her unclenched.She was beaming so hard it hurt when she went back in to see her man, finally, finally on Mars.