World Travelers Ch. 01

I had no idea what Melody was talking about until I followed her gaze and realized my abbreviated airlock tryst with Cathy had left me with a noticeable tent in my boxers.

"Sorry. Guess I forgot my station in life. I'll go back to my side of the module and wait patiently while you fix dinner."

"I'd rather try to swim back to Earth than make a meal for you."

"Sounds good to me. But before you go, how about bringing me a beer."

That made it a trifecta. Melody was against alcohol, sex, and traditional gender roles. The latter being her Achilles' heel. I could always get a rise out of her by quoting the definition of the perfect woman: "barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen." The two of us had been pushing each other's buttons ever since we got selected for the Mars habitat mission. And yet, after all those years, I still enjoyed the duel.

Melody Sundown

I had never slept with another person before, at least in the literal sense. I wasn't a virgin. I had experimented with sex - with both men and women - but never let my temporary partner spend the night. I was an only child. Mom and I lived two blocks from the University where I earned my degrees. Once on my own, my salary was sufficient to not require roommates. Even in the habitat, due to my seniority, I rated my own bedroom. While on Mars, those who went on overnight trips to explore the far reaches of the planet shared a bed when venturing away from home, but there was no need for a botanist to ever leave the greenhouses of the habitat. Until that night.

Despite our previous conversation about bedmates, reason prevailed; When it was time to turn off the lights, Cathy went with David and Melissa stayed with me.

"That's what you're wearing to bed?" Melissa asked when she saw my flannel pajamas.

"I could ask you the same thing," I said to the girl wearing nothing but a T-shirt.

"Fair's fair, but it's going to get hot with the two of us in this small bed."

She was right. There was no way for two people to occupy a twin bed without touching each other. An hour later, I was wide awake, drenched in a pool of sweat, while Melissa snored next to me. The smart girl would have gotten out of bed and traded the pajamas for something flimsier. Which I would have done, except I got into bed first and was crammed up against a wall. There was no way I could leave without waking Melissa. And even if I didn't mind disturbing my temporary bunk mate, I could hear David and Cathy on the other side of the module.

It was just a giggle at first. And then a soft moan.

"You like?" Cathy whispered.

"You know I do," David answered. "I could hold these all night long."

"Feel free, but don't ignore my ginny. She deserves some attention too."

"Don't worry, I'll give your pussy the love it deserves. Just remember, no screaming. We don't want to wake your boss."

"Why? Are you afraid she'd want to join us?"

"Not much chance of that."

"But you'd like it if she did, wouldn't you? If Melody walked over here, stripped off her flannels and finally let you see what's underneath her long johns... you'd kick me out of bed like I was a rattle snake and pull her in."

"You know what I love about you Cathy?"

"My tits?"

"Obviously, but also your generosity. Because I know that, if by some freak of the cosmos, Melody did try to climb in bed with us, you'd let her."

"You bet your sweet ass I would. And when you got done with her, I'd gladly suck your cum out of whichever one of her holes you put it in."

I don't know what was worse. The conversation I'd just heard or the disturbing sounds of sex I endured for the next hour. It was the first time I'd slept in the same room with other people and never had I felt so alone.

When I woke the next morning, David was already up and making breakfast. Melissa was dozing in David's bed, her T-shirt and panties lying on the floor beside her, and Cathy was sound asleep next to me. I had a general idea about what happened after I finally went to sleep the previous night but felt no need to confirm my suspicions. The nocturnal activities of my miscreant workmates were at the absolute bottom of my list of priorities.

This was the most important day of my life. If my theory was correct, if we found fertile soil buried hundreds of feet below the surface, we would be a giant step closer to colonizing Mars.

It took me an hour to get my team out of bed, fed, and into their suits. After another agonizing hour of preparation, I was finally hooked up to a harness and ready to descend into the fissure.

Three separate cables, supported by the A-frame structures on either side, stretched across the fissure. Each cable held a double pulley which we could position anywhere between the supporting A-frames. An additional cable was strung through each pulley with one end attached to winches on the surface and the other to either personnel harnesses or a sample container. I stepped into one of the harnesses and, to my chagrin, David was in the other. The sample container hung between us.

As much as I despised the man, I had to put the mission ahead of my emotional comfort. Despite all the advanced technology available to us, digging the soil samples out of the side of the fissure would require more brawn than brains. David, at six foot two inches, had a four inch and at least fifty-pound advantage over my female compatriots. He would be my personal ditch digger.

Finally, we were ready.

"Suit, activate my cable and pulley voice commands," I said.

"Your cable and pulley voice commands activated," my suit AI responded.

"Cable, up three feet."

The harness slowly tightened around my thighs and bottom, eventually lifting me off the ground into a semi-seated position.

"Pulley, out thirty feet."

The pulley traversed towards the middle of the fissure while the winch played out sufficient cable to keep my height constant.

My breath caught as I passed over the edge. My first downward glance revealed nothing but darkness. A bottomless pit that would soon swallow me up like a penny thrown into the Grand Canyon. It took me a moment or two to gather my courage, but not long. I had waited years for this moment and wasn't going to let a brief episode of acrophobia stop me.

"Cable, down fifty feet."

As I descended below the lip, I steeled myself for the job ahead.

"Pulley, in slow."

Back on earth, I had gone through hours of "cliff walking" training for just this exact moment. To keep myself from spinning as I descended, I would position the pulley so the cable forced me slightly into the nearly vertical wall of the fissure.

"Pulley, stop."

With my boots now in contact with the wall, I was in a stable position to work.

The soil and rock fifty feet below the surface didn't look much different than the core samples we had taken back at the habitat. But to be thorough, I would have David dig out a good-sized sample and send it up to the surface via our glorified dirt bag on a rope.

"David, come down to my level so I can show you where to dig."

"Look up," he said.

I did and was shocked to see his boots only a foot above and to the left my head.

"Uh... okay... that's good. Fill a bag with the darker soil directly in front of me and send it to the surface."

"Your wish. My command," he said.

I wish you'd quit screwing my teammates, is what I thought.

"I'm going to descend another fifty feet," is what I said.

And that's how it went for the next couple of hours. We descended further and further into the fissure. I stopped when I saw something that looked interesting and directed David to dig up whatever held any promise and send it to the surface. I wouldn't call it especially grueling work, at least not on my end. Digging a dozen or so holes into the side of the dirt and rock wall might have been a bit more taxing on David, but I knew his ego wouldn't let him complain.

"That's the fifteenth sample," I said to him at one point. "Do we need to take a short break?"

"No, I'm good until sunset. But if you need to take a quick beauty nap, I'll be glad to stand guard."

"The only thing I need protection from is you. I'm dropping down another hundred feet. Take a sample here and then follow me."

"To the ends of the earth, and beyond," he said.

That's when I saw it. Not the bottom of the fissure but, as I passed into a slightly wider portion of the crevasse, I spied an opening in the rock face.

"David, get down here."

"Give me a minute or two. I'm almost done with this sample."

"Send up whatever you got and get your ass down here."

"Are you alright? Is your suit malfunctioning?"

"No, but my eyes might be."

It didn't take him but a minute to join me, and when he did, he confirmed what I saw.

"What on God's green earth is that?"

He was wrong ... on all three accounts. It wasn't green. It wasn't on Earth. And I was fairly sure it wasn't made by God. It looked man-made. Or maybe Martian-made.

After lowering myself to its level, what I first thought was a cave, looked more like a tunnel ... with a flat stone floor and smooth vertical walls which rounded at the top into a symmetrically arched ceiling. The two of us hung in the abyss, staring at what could be the most important discovery since ... well forever.

There it was. My passport to success. My direct route to scientific celebrity was only ten feet in front of me and I had no idea how to get to it. The seven-hundred feet of cable which supported me was lodged against the overhanging rock, preventing me from entering the tunnel.

David Greene

Melody's little dirt gathering expedition was obviously over. The approved solution to what we had just discovered was to go back top side and tell the habitat commander about the tunnel. He, in turn, would radio that information back to earth and wait a couple of days until the idiots in Houston told us to go back down into the hole and investigate further. Except it wouldn't be Melody and me. It would be two of the designated "explorers". The guys who spent the last two years wandering around Mars and not finding anything more than pieces of old Russian and Chinese spacecraft.

I looked over at Melody and could tell she was thinking the same thing. Since we were no longer against the wall, I took hold of her arm so I could face her.

"You want to go exploring?" I asked.

"Do you?"

"Isn't that why we came to Mars?"

"That's why I'm here. I've never been sure about your motivations."

"How about we call a truce for the next thirty minutes and see where that tunnel leads."

"I'm willing, but how?"

I gave her the quick and dirty of my plan.

Physically unable to say "yes" to anything I said, she simply nodded her head in agreement.

The collection bag was already on its way to the surface with a load of dirt. I told the topside crew to send it back down with a hundred-foot length of rope and some pitons (the metal spikes used by rock climbers).

"Why?" Cathy asked over a private com channel. "Do you plan to tie Melody up and hang her from the crevasse wall?"

"Only in my dreams," I said. "I'll tell you about it later."

"Looking forward to it, but Melissa says she gets first dibs on you tonight."

Once the requested articles arrived, I stuffed the pitons into my tool bag, gave Melody one end of the rope and attached the other end to my suit. We had already repositioned up fifty feet, just above the place where the wall curved outwards, about thirty feet above the level of the tunnel. The first step in my plan was to get Melody out of the way in case things went south.

Using the texture of the fissure wall, I moved five feet away from Melody and then pushed off with sufficient force to pass behind her and end up a few feet on her opposite side. I crept a few more feet away from her and hammered the first piton into the rock. I pushed off the wall again and returned to her left side. Despite her lack of rock-climbing experience, Melody managed to traverse the five or six feet required to reach the piton and used it to stay in place.

With Melody out of the way, I took the leap of faith. Pushing off as hard as I could manage, I said ...

"Suit, sixty feet down cable, fast."

The push off took me a good fifteen feet away from the fissure wall before the pendulum effect brought me back. Thanks to the fast-acting cable winch, I was well below the precipice and heading directly toward the tunnel entrance. Unfortunately, I never completely mastered basic algebra or geometry. Because, if I did, the top of the tunnel wouldn't have slammed into my belly like a gut punch in a bar fight.

I didn't let out enough cable.

"You alright?" Melody asked when I rejoined her on the wall above.

"Yeah. That was just practice."

I pushed off again and said ...

"Suit, seventy-five feet down cable, fast."

This time, I hit my right thigh three feet below the tunnel opening.

"You know, I'm pretty good at math," Melody said as I prepared for my third try.

"I'm sure you are, but I've got this thing figured out."

Another push off.

"Suit, seventy feet down cable, fast."

Yep, seventy feet was the right number. I would have sailed right into the tunnel if my injured right leg hadn't made me push off slightly crooked. But just before I crashed into the wall, three feet to the left of the entrance, I got a good look at the tunnel floor and confirmed it was made of stone pavers.

The following effort was damn near perfect. I pushed off straight, managed not to spin, went directly into the tunnel, hit the ceiling, and bounced back out.

"As much as I'm enjoying watching you beat yourself up, is there a point where we actually get to explore the tunnel?" Melody asked.

"I'm almost there," I said. "One, maybe two more tries and we're in."

"Don't rush on my account. I've got three more hours of oxygen left and really didn't want to eat lunch anyway."

Her smug expression changed when I pulled a hammer out of my tool belt and strapped it to my wrist with the sharp pick end pointing forward. No, the stress of the situation didn't send me on a murderous rampage of rage ... even though I enjoyed seeing the eyes wide open shocked expression behind Melody's visor.

I pushed off yet again.

"Suit, seventy feet down cable, fast."

I was heading directly for the tunnel entrance, as I had before, but this time I said ...

"Suit, down cable, fast," ... just before I entered the tunnel.

Since I released the cable tension just as I entered the tunnel, instead of bouncing off the ceiling and being pulled back out, I fell to the tunnel floor, hard.

"Suit, stop down cable."

"Are you in?" Melody asked.

"You're the first girl that's ever had to ask."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Never mind. Yes, I'm in the tunnel."

"Okay, I'm coming down. Don't do anything until I get there."

"Don't worry. I'll make sure you get the credit for finding this place. Consider yourself Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to climb Mt. Everest. I'll play the part of Tenzing Norgay, the sherpa who got him there."

"Again, I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm outside the tunnel. Quit babbling and pull me in."

To avoid repeating the swinging pendulum of death, I hammered three pitons into the floor a few feet from the tunnel entrance and then tied off my harness to one of the pitons using the first four feet of rope that connected me to Melody. Safely secured, I used the rest of the rope to pull Melody towards me as she slowly let out her support cable.

Once she was in, I stepped out of my harness and carefully secured it to a piton. Melody hesitated before following suit. Probably because anything I did without her direction was suspect.

"You ready to go exploring?" I asked.

"I'll lead. You follow me."

"The tunnel's wide enough for us to walk side by side. We could even hold hands as we go."

"Not going to happen. Not now, not ever."

Like a good servant, I walked three steps behind and one to the left of Melody. That way I didn't impose on her personal space but was still able to see what lay ahead.

As tunnels go, it wasn't very impressive. I'm not sure what I expected. Maybe some ancient writings, sketches of aliens building pyramids, a map of the Mars' metro system. Nope, nothing but gray walls around us and brown stone below.

Whoever made it wasn't real keen on straight lines. After going through the second or third S turn, I realized that, even though we were at least a hundred yards from the entrance, I could still see behind me.

"Hey Melody, turn off your lamp."

"Why?"

"I think the walls are glowing."

With both of our chest mounted lamps off, we could still clearly see.

"Luminescent rock?" I'm pretty sure it was more of a statement than a question. She wasn't in the habit of asking for my opinion, on any subject.

"Maybe. How much further do you want to go?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. How much oxygen do you have left?"

"Two hours," I said after asking my suit.

"I've got two and a half. Let's continue on for another half hour and, if we don't find anything interesting, we'll head back."

"You're the boss. Lead on."

We were fifteen minutes into our arbitrary half hour. The tunnel remained as boring as before until, after rounding one curve, the light took on a slight orangish tint. Two S turns later, the tunnel abruptly stopped. There was no pot of gold. No balcony overlooking a hidden city. Nothing but a blank wall with a bright orange light illuminating the final few yards of the path to nowhere.

"What the hell." Melody said it and, for once, we agreed. Who built a tunnel to nowhere?

"Well, we've come this far," I said. "Might as well go to the very end. Maybe there's a secret lever or something."

As Melody cautiously approached the end, the orange lit floor began to pulse. I instinctively rushed forward with the intent to grab Melody and pull her back. One step behind her, I reached out with both arms and grabbed ... nothing.

She was gone. Vanished. As was the tunnel.

Two rapid heartbeats later, I was in an entirely different place.

I stood in a small clearing on a grassy hill side. There was blue sky above, trees on either side, and tall mountains in the distance. A large jungle spread through the vast expanse of land between me and the mountains. Warm humid air with a slight earthy scent brought back memories of growing up on the farm.

I initially thought I was in heaven. Not because of my serene surroundings, even though they reinforced my opinion. The first thing I noticed, after being abruptly pulled away from Mars, was the back side of a divinely proportioned naked woman standing directly in front of me.

But, when the woman turned to face me and I recognized who I'd be sharing this paradise with, I knew I was in hell.

Melody Sundown

I didn't know where we were, how we got there, or what happened to our spacesuits. I'd have to contend with those relatively minor issues later. At that moment, my primary concern was who stood not six feet from me. His tongue hung drooling out of his mouth as he stared at my naked breasts. His already oversized penis slowly grew as it pointed at me like an unsheathed sword.

I had to take immediate control of the situation before he went all Neanderthal on me. Visions of being bonked on the head with a club and drug by the hair into the nearest cave haunted my psyche. I was pondering my next move when his eyes shifted focus from my chest to something moving in the tree line.

Following his gaze, I spied a woman walking towards us. Unlike David and me, she wore what looked like conservative business attire. Her slightly greying hair was done up in a bun and just the hint of laugh lines encroached on an otherwise attractive face. As she got closer, she reminded me of Mrs. Cornwall, one of my college professors.