The Invasion of Mars

 by Al Simmons

At daybreak, on the red planet, a terrifying object ripped a hole in the fabric of the sky like a dagger cutting flesh.  Sion Po and his young son, Pezo, were having breakfast outdoors in their backyard, adjacent to their stone field, in the cool, dim mauve colored morning light. They looked up like they heard something —a faint, distant scream, perhaps.  Well, young Pezo did.  His father was too busy mixing red rocks and gravel for breakfast to pay attention.  

Young Pezo gobbled down his stony meal in two quick gulps, as Sion Po looked on quietly, taking his time and savoring his meal.  Sion Po chewed introspectively, threw a thought balloon into the sky, and watched the white cloud fill out with ideas while floating in the thin glow of morning.  He read over his thoughts once they became full statements and awaited replies.  He had yet to take full notice of the speedy object in the distance heading his way.  

Sion Po was a thought dancer doing his morning two-step wake-up call routine by throwing words into the air.  The very act, simple and yet complex, generated a pleasant, quiet sound in the cool, calming breeze.  Were it not for Sion Po, only the wind would send questions for the day.  

Exactly what chores to tackle first after breakfast was the question.  The lighter the thought, the higher they flew, as Sion Po, senior village thought dancer, knew perfectly well.  Light thoughts and heavy thoughts, each worked equally well in thought balloons.  

Sion Po was also a farmer.  He grew all varieties of stones in his fertile fields of God’s red Mars.  And each day, father and son scanned their ancient fields for ripe, tasty, heavy stones to harvest.  

Density and weight were everything when it came to stones.  Certain minerals had seasons, but most stones grew in density all year long, which meant harvesting was a daily chore.  And why we have kids, according to Sion Po.  

Sion scribbled a list of Pezo’s morning chores in his moving thought balloons, sending them flying up into the blossoming pink sky.  

Oh, to be alive in the age of wonder.  

Sion Po was a morning Martian, and this was his favorite time of day.  The lush red fields surrounding their village stretched beyond view and sparkled in the dawn’s dry dusty haze.  His small, modest home made out of glass was round and shaped like a wind-worn nub, like his neighbors and all the other dwellings in their village, bordered the fields that fed them and appeared for an instant like a spotted gray shadow rising from the sand, only to disappear beneath a veil of frozen Martian suspense.  

Sion Po was admiring the sky when he first took notice of the alien missile that had cracked the dawn and was now heading his way.  The aircraft created a noticeable crease in Martian time as it cut across the awakening sky.  

Sion Po watched it fly, whatever it was.  He double-marked the moment with measured alarm, his eyes glued to the dazzling fiery object rupturing the dawn by rushing towards them from the heavens above.  Directly towards them.  

Sion poked his son, who was snorting rock candy crushed from the multi-mineral prawn husks his father served him.  He was too busy stuffing the pieces into various pockets to stop what he was doing to look up to see what his father was witnessing.  

“Pezo, stop playing with your food and look up.  Check this out.  What do you think that thing is up there coming our way?” he questioned his son rhetorically, because how could Pezo know what the object was when he didn’t have a clue himself?  But Sion Po liked asking his young son questions.  He thought engaging his son in problem-solving exercises helped him build self-confidence, thoughtfulness, and focus on something other than his belly.   

Sion Po sensed something extraordinary in the object in the sky.  He thought it might be a meteor, at first, another gift from the Gods to chew on.  Hopefully, it contained a heavenly mix of exotic minerals never conceived or experienced before, to enhance the village food stocks, a scrumptious, mouthwatering carbonaceous feast from a distant galaxy to satisfy every Martian’s nagging question… what to have for lunch?  

Or, maybe it was someone coming to visit, like look who just dropped by to say hello?  A friendly visitor would certainly have been the most interesting outcome.  But then, Sion Po didn’t know anyone who could fly, so it was probably a meteor.  A big, tasty, iron-rich gift from the heavens, incrusted with diamonds and ice for the village made of glass, like holiday meals for the weeks and months to come.  

The bigger the meteor, the more likely the village elders would call for an action committee to oversee and create a festival in honor of its arrival, and devour the offering.  But what should they call the new festival, should it come to that?  Streaker?  Falling Rock?  He liked the latter.  “Then let it be so,” he decided.  The Falling Rock Festival it shall be, should the burning rock coming their way turn out to be worthy.  But first, the rock would have to deliver the goods.  “Bring it to me, baby.  Show me your worth,” Sion Po crooned into a sidebar attached to his morning voice balloon. 

When the meteor slowed, its red tail of flames, like a comet, shut down during its controlled descent.  And then, the supposed meteor swelled to three times in volume as the lander released three parachutes, capturing wind and tipping the spacecraft upright to begin its slow cascading ride down feet first, to the planet’s surface below.  

As far as Sion Po knew, meteors didn’t come with parachutes or have feet.  They splashed down into the ancient dry sea beds of the planet, leaving saucer-sized helpings tabled up like feasts if you were lucky enough to find one.  Meteors were fickle beasts, and two seldom fell in the same spot.  

Sion Po’s cousin, Jesu the Meteor Hunter, made his living hunting meteors.  “Hit or miss, feast or famine, meteor hunting is a tricky business,” according to Cousin Jesu.  

Sion Po had his doubts about this one, though.  It didn’t look like any meteor he had seen before.    

Whatever it was, the bright fiery object in the sky first split into two pieces; the big four wheelers with parachutes attached, missed Sion’s farm, but landed nearby, and the smaller piece that sprouted wings, took pictures of the successful Mars probe landing and radioed the images back into space before crash-landing several thousand yards away in the eastern rock fields owned by Old Hazor, Sion Po’s neighbor, who distilled some of the finest ruby wine on the Planitia.  

“I don’t know what it is, but it looks like it crashed in Hazor’s field,” said Pezo, an observation Sion Po had already made.  

“Old Hazor won’t like that,” his father said, reflecting his own mixed feelings about the unannounced intruder dropping from the sky.  Whatever it was, it wasn’t inspiring festival thoughts in Sion Po’s mind.  At least not for the moment.  He kept his eyes open for more of them, but so far, the one seemed to be alone. 

Sion Po sent his thoughts up to float the matter, but the words broke apart as quickly from the air turbulence caused by the odd moving alien object streaking like spilled red paint.  

Word-heavy thought balloons required a steady surface pressure to fly.  

Sunlight passed through Sion Po and young Pezo without leaving a shadow.  That’s how light they were.  If you were lucky enough to catch their outline, you’d probably mistake them for angels, white as snow and draped in torn, worn tapestries of tired, spent clothing easily mistaken for lace.  They were traditional rock farmers, glass home dwellers for how many generations on the Planitia, the vast plain that stretched in all horizons in the fertile, mineral-rich basin of their ancient world.  The rock farmers of the Planitia had a lineage older than anyone’s memory or imagination.  They were a spirit-guided people with a taste for family and minerals and not much more.  

Sion Po put up the question, “How long has it been since a visitor last came to our world?”  But no one knew the answer.

“A couple hundred years, at least,” Tico Ho guessed after a while, the only soul brave enough to offer an answer.  Opinions on topics posted in Sion Po’s thought balloons often wavered back and forth, communing on the wind.  

“More like three hundred years,” Tessa G answered after considerable contemplation.  

“None of us were alive back then, so how could you possibly know to make such a statement?” Sion Po asked, questioning Tessa G.  

“What about Remarkable Hill?” Old Hazor suggested, inserting himself into the lively debate.  

“That’s right!  Good point,” Sion Po replied.  

The fiery intruder, triple parachuter, landed and smoked for a while.  And when the dust settled, and the smoking stopped, and the thing appeared to cool off, the villagers watched with grave intent the strange object reawaken and begin to move.  

Sion Po was glad the flying object didn’t land on his property.  He had enough to do and didn’t need uninvited guests.  Besides, he had a funny feeling about this stranger.  He didn’t trust it.  Sion Po and Pezo kept their eyes on it.  Hopefully it won’t turn violent, Sion thought.  

“I think it must be dying, or near dead, it moves so slowly,” said Pezo.  

“Could be,” said his father.  

Over the days and weeks that followed, the strange visitor seemed to slowly heal, mend, and become more active.  Every day, the visitor moved a little more, and always in the direction of Sion Po’s farm.  The thing, for lack of what to call it, came to the clearing that divided Sion’s land from his neighbor and crossed over without first asking permission, or even attempting to communicate.  

“I don’t think it sees us,” Sion Po published in the reader comments section, thought balloon, special afternoon edition.  “It seems either mortally wounded, slow to repair, and laboring under its health, or lack of, or it’s a deaf, dumb, and blind painfully slow space creature oblivious of us.”

Signus Mire, big brother to Hodi Stump, taking part in the village meeting in the sky, remarked how unanimated the thing appeared, moving inch by inch, as it did, “I imagine anything that falls from the sky is lucky to be alive and probably feels every step may be its last.”

“That may be true, Signus Mire, but it keeps its nose to the ground and that suggests it might be looking for something,” replied Sion Po, with the four-wheeler beast clearly in his sites.  

A month went by, and then, one day, the alien rolled right up to Sion Po and Pezo and stopped.  And then, it moved an inch closer and stopped again.  

“I think it’s trying to tell us something,” said Pezo.

“Do you think it senses us?” his father asked.

“I can’t tell,” his son replied.  

“I think it does.  I think it likes you,” Sion Po remarked to Pezo.

“Oh no, not me,” cried Pezo, who grew embarrassed and confused.  He took a step back and hesitated at first, and then approached the thing, extended his hand in a friendly gesture, and drew it back just as quickly.  Poor Pezo didn’t know what to do: jump back, or pet the odd-looking creature.  

“Oh sure,” said his father, “it’s probably wondering why you haven’t been cracking rock candy under its drill bit lately.”  

Young Pezo had long lost his fear of the slow-moving intruder, and within days of its landing, he had been getting his kicks following the dumb alien beast around the fields, watching its obsessive behavior, drilling hole after hole in the ground.  Eventually, Pezo learned to take advantage of the lander by dropping rock candy pieces into the holes for the monster with its drill bit to crush and grind up for him. 

Before the visitor rolled right up to them, Sion Po had all but forgotten about the four-wheeler.  But this unexpected, aggressive, escalating, and surprising move by the alien sent an alarming chill down his spine.  He sent another thought balloon floating in the sky expressing his observations, honest analysis, and concerns.  

“This four-wheeled creature appears capable of moving if it wants to, though in my opinion, by any measure of speed, it performed much better as a flyer than a ground dweller, and considering the beast crashed, even that can be debated.  But seeing the beast perform up close reassures me that there is probably no need to fear anything this deliberately slow.  Though I’m still not taking any chances.  I’m back to sleeping with my eyes open during these troubled days of alien occupation.  But as long as the visitor stays in the fields and away from the village, I’m happy, or as happy as I’m gonna be with an alien interloper sniffing around in my rock fields.”

For months, the villagers watched the strange, enormous beast creep along inch by inch, exploring their fields and bordering ravines, pecking at stones and seldom looking up.  All agreed, it certainly appeared to be looking for something.  

Sion Po suggested it may be searching for the piece that dropped off while flying over.   Others pointed out, if the stranger was looking for its fluttering winged pal who crashed, it was searching in the wrong direction.  

Sion Po privately seethed in anger, watching the robot every day defile his land.  For weeks, it dwelled in a favored red honey bean rock patch, trampling on Sion Po’s precious produce as it slowly crept along, cutting jagged, cruel, and irregular tracks in the rock fields with its enormous wheels.  

It was one thing to have an alien prowler on your property, and another to watch it defile your land.  

Sion Po didn’t like the visitor, but considering the size of the thing and its refusal to even acknowledge him, there was not much he could do, and eventually, he got used to it being around.  The other village people also stopped obsessing over the rude wheeled stranger in their midst and took pleasure in watching it slowly move away from them, inch by inch, into the sunset.  

And then, one day, Sion Po’s cousin, Jesu the Meteor Hunter, said he ran into their uninvited guest, who had wandered quite a distance away to the west, and stopped moving entirely once it got there.  It even ceased pecking at the ground.  They all assumed the thing found what it was looking for, or died, at long last.  Probably starved to death.  Red rocks weren’t for everyone.  

The seasons changed, and the harsh winter winds came rushing down from the hills in the east, kicking up the rust colored dust, followed by the early springtime seasonal sandstorms that seeded the plains.  

In the west, the red sands pushed by winds first accumulated around the alien’s frozen wheels, formed a mound-like structure that served as a foundation around the object to build upon, and kept growing ever taller.  Eventually, as the seasons passed, the red sands of Mars covered the dead alien completely.  The mound kept growing and turned into a rising red mountain of sand reaching for the sky.   

They named the emerging landmark Mount Stranger and gave it official monument status, though not until many years later.  There was even talk of a Mount Stranger Festival in the works, though not all villagers agreed the monument was worthy.  Some still recalled the days before Mount Stranger appeared, when the land there, where the mountain now resides, was seen as a rich and productive rock field worthy of future development.