Read Online People of Mars by Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli - Free Book Online Page B

gloat.
    “Or …” Hassan
continued, placing a hand on Anna’s shoulder, who had to rely on
all her strength not to retract from that uninvited contact.
“Someone here has just found the building bricks of life on
Mars!”
    It sounded more like a
mockery than a serious assertion, but it made her feel strange to
hear someone else say it out loud, particularly a qualified person.
It seemed almost real, surely much more important than finding an
ice sac. It was for her and that was the only thing that
counted.
    But Michelle let a
laugh escape, which nobody followed.
    She didn’t want to
give in. Was it envy, a sense of competition, jealousy? Anna didn’t
know whether she should worry more about Michelle’s stubborn
aversion or about Hassan’s public support. He neither said nor did
anything without a well-defined ulterior motive.
    “Excuse my
interference,” Dennis’s voice said out of sight. A hand peeked out
from the right side of the screen and touched something. The
picture enlarged to include him.
    “I’m afraid this
discussion is becoming a bit sterile. As I understood, the
collected samples can’t be considered completely reliable …” Anna
was about to open her mouth, but Dennis raised his tone. “Whatever
the reason. Things like this happen. Anyway, to avoid further
doubts, you can do another sampling at the same site, maybe
collecting many more samples, after making sure you’ve sterilised
all the equipment. A diagnostics of the steriliser may help, just
to be sure. One way or the other, if it doesn’t work properly, it
might jeopardise all the work we are doing, whatever you may have
found or not found.”
    “I’m going to do that
right now,” she exclaimed, with renewed enthusiasm. She would check
it bit by bit, to dispel all doubts. And she would re-sterilise
everything at least twice.
    “If you are able to
finish it by today, you may do another sortie tomorrow.”
    As she heard those
words, Anna remembered what had happened earlier. “Talking of
Robert,” she started, but Dennis cut her off with a hand
gesture.
    “Have you fixed the
west turbine?” he asked Hassan.
    The latter shook his
head. “It wasn’t possible: it was too windy.”
    She looked at him,
incredulous. He had no intention of reporting the accident and
didn’t appear at all worried about it.
    “Let’s do it like
this,” Dennis continued. “I’ll take care of that with him tomorrow.
You can go with Anna.” It wasn’t a question.
    Anna’s mouth gaped.
“Pardon?”
    “Please, don’t start.”
Dennis rolled his eyes and snorted. He didn’t notice his wife was
staring at him in anything but a friendly way. “You need someone to
accompany you and help you do the sampling. Hassan is more than
suitable for this purpose.”
    “Tomorrow’s going to
be interesting,” Hassan commented with a sneer fixed on his
face.
    Michelle turned to the
camera. And she didn’t look at all pleased.
     
     
    She was sitting alone, staring at the half empty
glass on the table, just in front of her. The drumming of her
fingers was the only sound in the room. The implications of her
discovery, supposing that it was confirmed, were enormous. The
entire Isis mission was
born with the purpose of proving the existence of present or past
life on Mars, and perhaps she was about to achieve it. But that
wouldn’t be the end of it, if she did. Such a success would mean
new missions with more sophisticated equipment and more staff to
carry on the research.
    It was supposed to be
a thrilling thought, but then, why wasn’t Anna feeling
thrilled?
    There was of course
the dread that everything would burst just like a bubble, that what
she had discovered wasn’t anything but an unusual contamination,
but that wasn’t what unsettled her.
    Truth was that she
felt nothing. She had decided to go to Mars to make history and
she’d already succeeded. But she had also done it to start a new
life, a life on a new planet. What better opportunity to make