I am naked, alone, lying on a black slab floating above rust-colored rocks in a small dusty gully on a mountain on Mars. The gully feeds into a wide valley leading up the mountain. The valley is the Copper River Valley, so-called by its owners, the Copper River Valley Mining Consortium of Alaska, USA, Earth.
"Wake up."
This is the second time I hear Harmony's voice. The first time I opened my eyes to look along the length of my nakedness to where this gully feeds into the valley. I looked then to my side, downhill to the crumbling Medusae Fossae and the small sun lighting a weak yellow morning over it. I'd gasped in shock and choked, spasming; my flailing arms smacked into the invisible shell keeping my breathing air in. Long, trembling seconds passed before I realized that I was not dying.
So I sit here now, sucking absently on a bruised finger, wondering what I'm doing in this place, feeling slight and exposed without my machine around me. The slab, warm to my touch but cold like black ice to the eye, rocks slightly, though there is not even the Martian ghost of a breeze to stir the dust in this dead valley.
"I'm awake," I say finally. I sit up, cross-legged. I marvel at the sight of my legs, puny and pruny, thin wrinkled things. "I'm awake, Harmony."
"A demonstration," Harmony says.
A glowing red square appears in front of my face, then slides over and down until it is sitting flush against the edge of the slab, where the black material ends and the shell begins.
Shrugging, I stretch a weak leg and poke my toe out, slowly, like any passenger. The slab is hovering just off the ground and my toe dips into the dirt as the slab rocks. Then I suddenly feel the cold and pull my foot back inside the shell. I touch it. It is icy and aches and is beginning to swell. A crust of red dirt is smudged along my big toe. The red square fades. The slab then moves forward and floats out of the gully into the valley and begins to turn, slowly, rocking gently like a moored boat. It stops when I am facing up the valley, the mountain bulging ahead.
"Why am I here?"
The slab rises a bit and slips downhill. I am floating backwards and down and grope around for a handhold but there is nothing but the smooth black surface and I slide into the shell. It is hard and inert against my back and the valley walls, strewn rocks, crumbling red soil, and ragged ridges slide up and away under the yellow horizon. The slab stops, swaying gently. "A penalty," says Harmony. "You know well why you are here."
I shake my head and the slab slips backwards and downhill again. "Ryan," I say hurriedly. "Because I hit that little man Ryan."
The slab stops.
"Good," says Harmony. "You acknowledge what has brought you here. The less you fight, the easier will be the progress of your process back."
The slab begins moving again, uphill, back up the lower slopes of the mountain, back in the direction of the company town. Without bouncing the slab slides over rocks, moving at a running pace.
"Am I allowed to speak to someone else besides the computer?" I ask. "No disrespect."
"After the particulars. Your acts of increasingly aggressive assault on Patrick Ryan are recorded and are unbiased evidence against you, now that he has acknowledged them to the company courts. He has asked that sanctions apply. The punishable crime has been independently verified as attempted murder."
"Shouldn't the appropriate punishment be for him to attempt to murder me?"
"He has chosen the community sanction. Temporary banishment with scheduled progressive repentance necessary for return is on the matrix of community sanctions. In light of your previous transgressions, though no charges were brought, this seemed appropriate."
"Huh? What'd I do?"
"Prior to the assault there are six documented incidents of sabotage and damage to Ryan's personal property and to company equipment. The most serious incident involved your tinkering with his Bio-Integrated Excavator; your decoupling of the cushioning manifold and subsequent severe damage to the gasket drained all impact fluid from around Ryan's lower body. This could have led to severe bodily harm if it had not been detected before field use. Your wages were garnished to pay for the damage to the company's property. Ryan never requested recompense for his own belongings which were damaged by the leaking."
"Hee-hee."
"Prior to that were incidents of assault and intimidation against the woman Tia Frend, resulting in documented injury. The most severe instance led to her being unable to work for three shifts. You were docked three shifts' pay to recompense the company for the loss of her availability for work. Although she never complained to company authorities your actions were recorded and combined with your persecution of Ryan were deemed sufficient precedence of asocial aggression to merit so harsh a sanction as temporary exile."
"So I see." The slab crosses a ridge and floats swaying down a short slope. To my side I can see the immense hills of tailings poured into the other valleys and gullies creasing the Fossae. Then the slab rocks in the wash of a factory ship, faintly roaring, flung overhead into orbit from the propulsion rings set into the mountain. I follow the blurring sight into the purple air, then I see something to the side.
Shimmering in the air beside the slab is a large salmon, hook jaw gaping nastily open and closed, open and closed, spine twisting idly, tail slowly thrashing in time with the pace of the slab as it floats uphill. The silver scales glitter in the thin light of the Martian day, the rosy belly reflects the dirt below. This must be what the community sees as my gauge. I shrug. No bother; they can see me as they will. But I do note approvingly that the fish looks healthy--the collective opinion of those community members interested in monitoring my exile will determine the gauge's appearance. I do not worry; my true peers understand my motivations.
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