I am a thief.

It was clear, staying here for long was a bad idea. Even if the walls of the base gave much more certainty than the empty sands of Mars, there had to be plenty of other people inhabiting this planet. At least thousands, as there were a hundred thousand half a century ago. If I stayed, and even if the Crimson Vanguard didn’t track me down to here, I was certain – loneliness was no small problem to ignore.

Judging by my appearance, I was born and raised on mars. So I didn’t know true Earth’s gravity, nor did I get institutional education. And yet even if I didn’t know from where, I had all this knowledge in my head. Computers were the obvious answer, but maybe I just had good, intelligent parents. Nevertheless, I was scared of venturing out into the outdoors. I had no knowledge of landmarks necessary for using the “dead reckoning” navigation. And even walking in a straight line, would be difficult for large distances, without a compass, and compasses would be useless on Mars anyway… God! Why did I know so much, but still had to go around with a revolver, and even kill at least three people.

On the next two days, I did my best to find out as much as possible about the current state of the world, but also prepare for a journey – a trip to the nearest settlement marked on the old map. I probably would need to trade, and the currency, most likely, was scrap metal. Because there was a lot of it in the bags of the warriors that I shot here, also there were a dozen of metal javelins for each of them. Thankfully I didn’t throw them away with the corpses, because besides that, there were other things that were critical for a successful traveller on Mars. A small, elongated water bottle that is to be mounted inside the suit, with a long metal straw. After all, if I was traveling for many hours, dehydration would be a problem, and taking the sack-helmet off to drink would be deadly. As for eating and defecation, there didn’t seem to be any solution but patience and fortitude. And urination need was likely solved with tactically placed bottles as well… Or at least that was my idea of it. I didn’t have it in me to go and check how the two fighters did it. Although I did have to loot their corpses after I left them outdoors, because I forgot to take off their air tanks from their backs. Sadly, one of those exploded long before. Seeing a bullet hole on the body, right where the tank would be, I guessed what had transpired. And as I collected the tanks from their rotting bodies, which wasn’t fun, I confirmed something that I faintly remembered. Sunlight on Mars was nothing to think of lightly. Mostly because there was little heat loss, as the atmosphere was so thin, it was effectively a vacuum. Or in other words, pretty much the best insulator possible.

As I was rummaging through the files on the computer I found a folder with many educational presentations and documents. Mostly from some old, Earth’s universities, and sometimes from a certain space agency, or so I concluded. Most of those files were reasonable: a detailed guide about how to grow specific crops in hydroponic farms on Mars, a guide for repairs, and a list of dangers that Mars posed, including the toxicity of the dust and the hazard of radiation. But then there were two files, one of which was a bit grandiose, the other – terrifying. “Atomic energy, and how to harness it” and “Atomic bombs, how they work, in detail”. I instantly deleted the second file, and made sure that the action was not undoable. As for the other one, I wavered between hiding it, and leaving it be, where it was. I went with the second option. I felt slightly bad for destroying what easily could have been the only surviving copy of a piece of past knowledge of humanity. But this manual could be used to make nuclear weaponry, at least in theory. Although I had no idea of how the bombs actually worked, so I didn’t know whether it was conceivable to make a nuclear warhead on Mars. Now that I thought of it, it probably wasn’t. Because I did dimly remember the nuclear weaponry to be, kind of, an elevated marvel of science, far beyond the reach of even the smaller countries of Earth, which had far bigger populations than that of humanity in total now. But oh well, the deed is done. I did double check that I couldn’t bring back the file. I tried to stop thinking of that. Thankfully, I also found an instruction of what to do if the Martian facility was to be left empty for a while. A hibernation mode of sorts.

Having prepared both mentally and physically(by going to the toilet right before setting out), I put on some more clothes, then the suit, took one of the warrior’s bags and weapons, and then depressurized the exit chamber. The thought did cross my mind that I essentially stole dead men’s belongings, but in this scarcity, that was hardly an offence. But my mind did like to call me a thief now, besides a murderer, of course.

I made the first step of a daunting journey and went on. I chose the time when I saw the temperature rising above -50 C. Thanks to the thin atmosphere, it didn’t feel nearly as cold as it would with the Earth’s atmosphere, that much I knew, but it wasn’t ideal either. It was chilly but my clothes, and the suit helped. The alternative option was to go out during the day. And that would be far worse, as the intense solar radiation would be palpable even with my suit being pretty reflective. But since I chose to go at night, the day was even more dangerous, as I had more clothes underneath. I did calculate that I should be able to make it well before noon, with its dangers of overheating. However, that was a haunting thing to remember, so I tried to hurry. Although, of course, if the temperature rose above zero, I would only make it worse by “hurrying”. But there was another problem. It was very dark, even if it was past midnight. My eyes took a while to adapt. Normally, travelling in such darkness would be very difficult, especially since my outdoor suit had no lighting, but for some reason, I was confident – I would be fine. And the longer I went on, the more light there would be.

The dunes felt familiar. I tried to make mostly light steps, in case there were sharp rocks in the ground, that I wasn’t able to see because of the darkness. I frequently checked, as best I could, from the position of the stars mostly, to make sure that I was walking in a straight line. I thought of a dust storm swallowing me. I wondered how it would feel, would it kill me. Essentially, the suffocating solitude started getting to me already. And to think, that it has been only a few days. Well, assuming that before I got hit on the head with a poleaxe, that I had some social exposure. Although I wasn’t sure whether that would even matter, as I couldn’t recall anything. This was time for my patience and endurance to shine.

***

I waltzed for a few hours, occasionally spicing it up with jumps. But only when I was sure the ground felt soft and without pebbles. I did sporadically sip from the mounted bottle straw. Looking down from a small hill, I finally saw what looked to be the settlement. It was still dark outside, so it was hard for me to pick up on any detail, so I descended to get closer. A part of me was deathly afraid of getting shot on sight, if not with guns, then with arrows of some kind.

The settlement didn’t look any different from the one I had left, except that this one was considerably bigger. Big, semi-spherical domes were as boring as usual. But when I came truly up close, my heart sank.

Both doors of the exit chamber were wide open, and the exterior one had fallen off, and got partly buried in the ground. This settlement was dead. This meant I had little time to rush back to mine, or I would seriously risk overheating to death. I tried to make haste now, while it wouldn’t be counterproductive, but I also panicked a bit, and that did not help. Especially because I had no clock, and, in fact, had plenty of time. Temperature fluctuation would be a much greater problem if not for the thin atmosphere, but then again, it was there because of the thin atmosphere. I tried not to think of the radiation that I was exposed to, and made my way back. As time went on, I did the right thing of calming down and moving much more lightly and graciously, and so, producing less heat. The root still took me hours of course, although, at the very least, I had recognized many of the landmarks. I thought to myself that I was surprisingly good at this.

I was back. It took a while for the base to power up properly. That had to be done before I pressurized the exit chamber, or the negative temperature would really get through to me. First thing I did after the base heated up, was going to the toilet, and then the shower. Thankfully, the water had been heated up by that point. My mind was going off about how I was screwed, but I tried to listen to the voice of reason, which stated that there were other settlements on the map, and although with those the timings would be much more problematic were the bases empty, it was far from hopeless, yet. But the thought terrified me. What if the only nearby base, where the warriors came from for example, was not on the map, and all the others were abandoned. That would truly mean my doom. I would have to wait until I was tracked down, or until I would stumble upon someone or something by sheer chance. This was the second time I actually contemplated using the revolver on myself. I ate, and then took a look at the maps again.

The distances that I would need to travel on foot to the other settlements were much more problematic. I would need to set out at midnight, as my clothes would probably save me from hypothermia even with prolonged exposure to -90 C, because of the thin atmosphere. But in that case, I would have to either stay there, or try my best to come back well before noon. Or, worst case scenario, I would have to find shade and pray that my air supply doesn’t run dry in 20 hours. But I was much more confident in my endurance and navigation, now that I had actually made a large trip. And especially in my sense of direction at night. Distressed, but hopeful, I started planning out the route.

After resting for a few hours, I had to set out, at night, again. The only thing that still troubled me was the air supply. After all, I had used the same one for a while now. Anxious, I took a spare air tank with me. With the gravity of Mars that wasn’t a heavy burden.

I stepped lightly for many hours. And with each minute my anxiety of air supply cutting out at any moment rose. As I realized when I overviewed the metal air tanks before this trip, there was another valve in the tube connecting the second tank to the tube of the first. So, if I understood correctly, just mechanically, the moment the first one were to be depleted, the second one would come into use. Or maybe they depleted equally? I wouldn’t know before I used one up. What was also terrifying was that I had no means of refuelling them, and I only had 8. It seemed that all three of us travelled with two equipped and one spare. But because one of the warrior’s exploded from my shot before I woke up to my amnesia, there were only 8.

It was starting to get bright enough to see much better. And by utter coincidence, not long after, I saw a trail of footprints. Human of course. That thought made me try to remember whether I knew of any Martian animals, maybe brought from Earth. I did feel like there was more to it, but, of course, I wouldn’t just remember what I wanted. Still, I had to make a choice regarding the trail.

Meeting other people in this, desolate, bleak world that I inhabited, would be great, but at the same time deathly terrifying. On one hand I set out on this journey specifically with the purpose of finding someone. On the other, people travelling could be far more dangerous than those who have settled in. I couldn’t tell what my past experience was swaying towards. So my past knowledge was not fully available to me, it seemed. I swore under my breath. I chose to change objectives and follow the footprints, as that seemed a much more probable way of leading me to any people, rather than an empty, long abandoned shelter.

This change in route complicated a lot for my navigation. I could just follow the trail on the way back, but only if there were no storm or anything of the sort. Just in case, I tried to memorise the landmarks and the turns the trail made. Now that it was brighter, I wasn’t afraid of running a bit to catch up. I did make a mental note to myself to stop the moment I felt as if I was overheating, especially when the sunlight would touch me directly. Doing that could be completely pointless, as the trail could easily be many days old. But at the very least, probably not much older than that, judging from how it looked. Hours passed, I was getting uneasy.

I was starting to seriously doubt this idea, if I went much further and found nothing, I would risk dehydration and heatstroke at once, and later, malnutrition. Although for such a period of time it could be called fasting, but it didn’t look like I had much fat to burn. As I was contemplating and trying to work out when would be the optimal time to stop, I ascended a hill and saw something. Or rather, someone.

I immediately ducked. I had the high ground. It didn’t really matter as I didn’t intend to fight, but at least I was the one to spot the other first. Or so it seemed, as I couldn’t be sure. Because as I soon noticed, the two people walking through the barren land of Mars, right by the trail, were going towards me. This was when it hit me. There was no way in hell that I could communicate with spoken language through our suits and the near vacuum of the Martian atmosphere. I couldn’t remember how to converse through signs either. But in spite all of this, it was too late to run. With hope that hands high up in the air would be understood as “I mean no harm”, I stood up and started walking towards the two.

It took a while, but when one noticed me, they touched the other and pointed into my direction. Even from a considerable distance I saw that they stopped, looking to see whether I was picking a fight. Or just getting ready to kill me. It really could have been either. One of them did bear a polearm. That was when I stuck mine into the ground, and raised my hands up high. The strangers didn’t budge. I started slowly walking towards them. They waited for me to come to them. Probably because I would be leaving my weapon behind. Of course, I had a revolver, but I had hidden it under my bag, so if things went sour, I would still have a safety net. Or rather a better chance of killing them before they killed me. I still had fears that it was “hunt or be hunted” in this world.

As I came up close, a dozen metres or so, the person on the left started hastily making signs with their hands. The first move was a wave of a hand, so I assumed it was a greeting, but after a couple of signs I didn’t recognize, they used one hand to sort of chop another, for some reason I thought that this meant “stop”. It was another gut feeling, similar to those I had in the past when I had awakened some knowledge from my past. So I stopped. Then I had to do my best to show that I had only friendly intentions.

First I waved. Then I pointed from one hand to another, and shrugged it off. I had no idea whether they understood me, but I hoped for the best. The unarmed one said something in sign language to the other. And reacting to that, they took better grip of the polearm, which turned out to be a spear, at pointed it into my direction. As the bearer of the weapon started going to the side, the other person invited me closer with an intuitive wave of their hand. I contemplated it, but decided not to show my gun. If I was charged at, I would. But that also meant, that if they saw it up close, they could panic. My nerves were barely holding up. I came even closer, still with my hands up. They were inviting me closer without a halt. And when we where really close, they stepped forward and placed their hands on my forearms, and firmly gripped them. I was horrified. I hoped they wouldn’t notice, but my mind said they definitely did. A thought came dashing through my mind – if they intended to kill me, it wouldn’t take long, and I would be free of this suffering, not to mention, I wouldn’t have to do it myself.