“That’s enough.” Atlas pushed away from his work area.What am I doing here?Just observing with the others?He shookhis head.I should bring a transport. Take them wherever they want to go. To the farmland, right?
He stood up and then immediately sat back down.Anna said she didn’t want to ask for one though. They didn’t want to bring any other androids along. They wanted to be left alone.His fingers tapped against his side.She specifically asked for me last night though.
He examined Anna closely. Tripping, stumbling, and sweating in the sunlight. Something in his neural mind snapped.Watching feels wrong. Not helping feels wrong. Ignoring feels wrong.He clenched his fists.I’m tired of everything feeling wrong.
He stood up.Anna can tell me to leave if she wants to. I have to offer some help.
Atlas disconnected fully from the androids’ observations, turning around in his quarters. He straightened his sweater, crisply turning up the sleeves.
Anna was his patient, after all. She wanted to stay his patient.
Not Sterling’s patient. His. She told him she wanted to stay his.
“That means she trusts me the most. Right?” he asked the plants lining the wall as he pulled on his favorite blue sweater. Trusts him the most. Bakes for him. Smiles at him. When the old movie clips played, the man usually helped the woman. The woman always smiled at the end of those videos. Humans liked that. Women liked that.
He ran his hand through his hair. “Plants really are less complicated.” They were less complicated than Anna for sure. The plants stood indifferent as he grabbed two large jugs of ice water on his way out.
It was, after all, hot outside.
Chapter twenty-five
Anna
Anna’s legs ached as she kept up with the others. She huffed as she walked.I am out of shape.But how in shape could you be after spending a month stationary in a spaceship and eight months pregnant, even with the lowered gravity?
“Would you look at that?” Nora pointed at a tall structure in the distance.
“What now?” Anna squinted. The road stretched on before them, every turn showing them something foreign. They passed several small buildings, which Simon had told them were for equipment storage, but this one was bigger. The large building cut up across the horizon, almost like a beacon calling to them. “Is that a barn? That red color. Isn’t that what they used to be painted? In stories?”
“. . . Yeah. I think so?” Nora said.
Tilly was ahead on the dirt path with Simon, still skipping, and Nora jogged to catch up with them.
Anna put her hands on her hips, forcing herself to keep up. At least it was easier to walk here than back home. The lowered gravity accounted for most of that. Something in her chest loosened when the structure was for sure identifiable as a barn, right ahead, taking her mind off her legs.Yeah, it’s a barn.And where there’s a barn . . . her footsteps quickened.Maybe some animals?
By the time she caught up to Nora and Simon, the barn door was already pushed open, and the first dust motes she had seen so far on Mars were in the air. Pasture grassland extended all around the structure, circling the front. Cows were in the distance, snagging her attention.
Nora called to her from the barn’s entrance, “Anna! Get in here!”
“It’s a barn, right?” Anna stepped over the stone threshold and peered around. The barn was complete with a hay pile in the back.
“Yes it is! This is the first building that kinda looks like Earth, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, like those children’s books we read.” She looked around in wonder. Not many barns were present in modern day, but the cow feed lots back on Earth had an approximation of one. Mostly the cows on Earth lived in a giant dusty lot, open air, with a large roof above. The town did have cows and milking facilities, because for some reason the drops the androids provided didn’t contain much milk. Maybe it was hard to preserve? There was freeze-dried butter sometimes in the drops, but that was about it.
But Mars plainly had cows, much healthier than the ones that Anna always passed on the way to the market. This barn was sturdy, and definitely had that brick-red color from the few books she remembered as a child.
Her lips split into a smile as she walked farther in.It’s even bigger on the inside. Who lives here?She wrinkled her nose.It smells like cows even in here.
Tilly ran the length of the barn back and forth, poking her head in every area that was segmented for various workstations. Rooms were off to the side, where storage areas and desks were set up.
Anna walked the aisle, examining the layout. There were a few pens for containing livestock, but the barn was attached to living quarters that appeared set up for storage and observation. The barn was made from the same fiberglass exterior the spaceship was, but it was gentled somehow. Maybe it was the color?
Or was it the open area designed to let the animals walk into?
Or maybe it was the dust and concrete floors?
Anna took a deep breath in. Whatever it was, being here felt good compared to the two months of sterile ship life and that facility an hour’s walk away. Hay was stacked along the side of the animal area.She inhaled deeply until her eyes watered. She chuckled.I’ve even got allergies on Mars.The same kind that always happened when the monsoons kicked up all the dust back home.
