I lay in my bed 225 million kilometers from home.
At the moment, I'm alone at the space station. There is little light and many dark shadows loom. I eat some food; many of my colleagues say it doesn't taste as good as the food of Earth, but I've been here so long I forgot the food of the old home. I look outside the window and see an infinite stretch of desert, but the temperature is -63 degrees today.
I'm part of a terraforming group here on Mars. The project has been going on for decades. What use does terraforming Mars have? I do not know, but the leaders of Earth are adamant. We've built several factories here and do what we did to Earth: pump gas out. But this won't be enough to terraform Mars.
As of now, we can't build more than a handful of factories so we opted for another solution which humanity is very good at - throwing nuclear bombs stronger than that of Hiroshima on the surface. The goal is to warm up Mars.
There are, of course, methods that aren't as destructive that are being used, such as introducing cyanobacteria. They can build the ozone layer which Mars desperately needs in order to harbor life. Some say that we have introduced more cyanobacteria here than there is on Earth. Even so, it will take millions of years for life to evolve. Even then, it will just be microorganisms.
A loud sound strikes, it's a call. I answer it. It's barely audible. "Hey... Robert... come... fantastic... east... side." I barely managed to make out what was spoken to. A storm approached the base. Communications are poor now. The storm will last an hour or two.
Betty called; apparently, she wants me to see something exciting. Betty Walker spends more time walking on Mars than on the base; she is obsessed with this planet. Studying the Martian scars which once harbored rivers and studying the extinct volcanoes, the largest of which is three times the size of Mount Everest.
We are permanent residents of Mars. We are jokingly referred to as Martians by the superiors of Earth. Everyone is a couple except me. I'm seen as the weirdo by them, but I don't mind. I only came here so I can leave behind the Earth.
Everyone there is stressed, everyone looks to trick you. Go to a store, go to a football game, walk the street, everyone is always pissed off. Say something to them, be as sincere as you can, they just get pissed some more. But I admit... it gets lonely seeing only the orange-reddish rocks. At least on Earth, the birds made good company.
Once the storm passed by, I put on my space suit and ventured outside. The low gravity can, at times can be exciting to walk on. I weigh 90 kilos on Earth but here I weigh 30.
I enter my vehicle and drive to my destination. A day on Mars is 24 hours and 37 minutes. In two hours, it will be dark. I hope that whatever this is doesn't last long. I dislike the dark sky, it disturbs me.
After 22 minutes, I reached my destination. I climbed up and saw Betty in the cave, there were others as well. People from other colonies.
We shook hands.
"Come look at this, Robert," said Betty. I analyzed her face; she was sweating and shook as she walked. I expected she found leopard spots; those are fossils of microorganisms. We've encountered several of those rocks, but so far testing remained inconclusive.
As I followed Betty and the rest, they shone a light on a piece of rock. I bent down, not believing what I saw. A trick of the mind? Was I dreaming? There were 15 of us there; it is possible we could have all imagined it.
On the rock was a fossil, a creature 60 cm long. It looked leaf-like but at its end had an appendage or tentacle that stretched most of its length. The tentacle appeared to have several small spikes at the sides.
"How old do you believe the fossil is?" one of the colonists asked Betty. "Well, it's hard to determine right away, but on a first glance to me, it looks like... over 3 billion years old."
Dear me, 3 billion years? Both Mars and Earth are 4.6 billion years old. Microorganisms developed on Earth 4.5 billion years ago; this fossil shows a life form complexity for that of the Ediacaran period, our earliest known fossil record before the Cambrian. If true, this will mean that complex life started billions of years before on Earth.
It was decided that we'll come back and explore the cave intensively later, the fossil will remain as well. A strong storm is heading our way, we'll need to move quickly. As we sat on our vehicles, I saw the sunset. It was blue.