1
Dawn was coming over the edges of the plain. It was so early that we could hardly see each other. We were half asleep, all except Da, who was always up early and worked the land every day. That day we joined him at earliest light. We had about a day’s work ahead of us, he said. The dust storm would hit that very night. And in just a few hours all the crops would be gone. They’d be laid waste, he said.
So we were all out there. Ma, my little sister, my brother Al, Da and me. We took the beasts from their pen and rode out to the furthest edge of our land.
Grandma was up early too. But she wouldn’t come with us. She stood on the veranda of our Homestead and yelled at us, hollering fit to burst, her nightgown all stained and greasy. It was hard to pick out what she was yammering about. Ma always said that Grandma was just an old lady, and we didn’t have to pay her any heed…
Ma and Da explained to me when I was old enough to understand the truth. Grandma was not in her right mind. The trauma of her long life on Mars had sent her mind spinning in the wrong direction. She had been one of the first settlers on this world of ours. Grandma was an historical personage, is what Da used to say. No matter that she was baying like a hound on that porch. No matter that her cries would come chasing us across the desolate plains.
Ma said it was a shame Grandma couldn’t be given a knife like the rest of us, but Da just shook his head. He didn’t want to be giving the old lady a knife. I could understand that. I understood more than they knew, of course. I was almost fifteen by Earth years, which was the calendar we were still using on Mars. I understood more than they wanted me to.
The sun scraped higher up the sky and soon the long, cool shadows were the best places to walk. The scorching trails of heat were already too tiring to move in and we had to conserve our strength for the picking of the corn. Da had drilled us all in the technique, though I knew it already, having snuck out to help him before.
The alien corn stood about three feet taller than me. It was green, with all these furling tongues and shoots. You had to seize and unwind them and pluck the corns out of the grooves in the narrow leaves. They were like springs that wanted to snap back and protect their precious growth. But we needed that corn. It was the reason we lived out here on the hot plains. Da had coaxed all of this green stuff out of the dry earth with such patience and care. It had taken him years to get it this rich.
But all of this would be ruined by nightfall. According to the signs, storms were going hit us and strip the land completely bare. Ma made us rest after the first hour of picking rows of corn. We gathered round her and each took a plaggy bottle of milk she had kept cooling in her picnic bag. The milk was bluish in the morning light and I watched my younger sister drinking greedily. My heart twinged a bit when I saw Hannah drinking. She was only three, but she was out here with the rest of us. Her hands were streaked by the dark-green sap, same as ours.
The burden beasts were panting nearby, and Ma slopped some precious water into their bowls. They bowed in deference, and sipped thirstily. On their backs were strapped the great wicker baskets containing our haul so far. It didn’t look like much. If that was all we had harvested in the first hour, I wondered how much we’d end up with by the time the storms came blowing through.
I wondered if it would be enough.
Da was being hearty and confident. He jollied everyone along, exclaiming over what a great start we had made that morning. He was so proud of his girls, he told us. And of his son too, he said, clapping Al on the back as he drank up his milk. He almost spluttered it out. Al was younger than I was by a year, and more delicate, even if he was a boy.
My back was breaking, and my fingers were splitting and bleeding from teasing open the corn fronds. I shielded my eyes and looked back along the groves towards the Homestead. And I saw Toaster ambling his way up the green avenue towards where we worked.
The old machine was bringing us water. A great big vat of it, hoisted over his shoulder. He was just in time, too, because we were running out, as the sun hit its height. I watched him labour up the dusty track on those shaky, hydraulic legs. Toaster was so old even then and he was just about in pieces. Da had to keep patching him and looking for spare parts whenever he went into town. Sometimes I’d heard Da mutter to Ma that, really, the best thing to do would be to deactivate the old thing. Toaster was just a sunbed. What did we need an old sunbed for on the roasting surface of Mars?
Toaster came in the very first ship, with Grandma’s people. It had been a luxury ship, stocked with all kinds of devices, the likes of which we’d never seen, and were unlikely to see again, Da said. Many were destroyed early in the settling period, but Toaster had lasted as long as Grandma. She wouldn’t hear of his being deactivated, of course. Toaster reminded her of the days on Earth when ladies were pale and lived indoors, away from the sun’s harmful rays. When they lay within the glass innards of machines like Toaster and burned themselves slowly orange.
In more recent years Toaster was determined to prove he was still useful. He stood on his hind legs and fetched and carried. He was slow though, and sometimes Da would get kind of exasperated waiting for him when he got the jitters. I sort of liked him though.
‘Well, now, look at this!’ Toaster gasped, as he struggled up to us, bowed down by the heavy water. ‘Look at all this you’ve been doing!’ He peered into the baskets at the corn we’d gathered. He was right, too. We’d put on a burst of speed as the morning advanced, and we’d done well.
Da opened up the vat and Toaster helped him fill up our bottles. ‘Thanks,’ Dad told the Servo, and Toaster looked gratified by this, his metal face wincing as Da clapped his shoulder.
While we were all drinking our chilled water, and Al coaxed my sister out from under the cornstalks where she’d been dozing in the shade, Ma took Toaster aside. ‘Has the old lady settled down?’
Toaster lowered his voice tactfully. ‘She was shouting for quite a long time, madam, I am afraid to say. She is convinced that you will be caught out in the dust storm. She fully believes that you will all die today out here, and that she will be left to starve, alone in the Homestead.’
Ma nodded. She was fretting, I could see. Ma hated anyone to be upset, even Grandma. ‘I wonder if I should go back,’ Ma said to Da. ‘And check that she’s OK.’
Da shook his head. ‘I need all of you here. You too, Toaster. I reckon that we’ve got about four hours’ work left.’ Da stared into the boiling soup of the red skies. ‘See that?’ He nodded to the far horizons, where a peppery darkness was building up like a swarm on its way. ‘That’s what’s heading here.’ He sighed, gazing at the swaying green of the cornstalks. I looked round and saw how little we had actually tackled. Only a tiny portion of the precious crop would be saved and I could feel the terrible weight of Da’s sadness. All that work of his would be ruined within minutes of the dust storm touching down.
And so we worked with renewed concentration and vigour. I was amazed at Toaster’s speed. He tore into the cornrows, both hydraulic arms lashing out with mechanical precision. Dry chaff and waste flew in all directions as he worked.
It wasn’t too much later when Da stopped us all. ‘I was too generous in my estimation,’ he said. ‘I think we’d better go home now.’
It was barely three hours into the afternoon and a dry, nasty wind was rippling through the corn. It lashed at us like hot tongues saying bad things at our backs. Ma and Da and Al and Toaster worked busily packing up all the equipment, and covering up the panniers of fresh-cut corn.