“You can’t have a rainbow, honey, until you have the rain.” – Jim Croce

It was a time we don’t talk about much anymore. A little more than a year ago, Pa had left on his, ‘exploration’ as he called it, leaving Ma here to fend for herself with the ranch and us three kids. That day he packed up and headed into the hills in search of treasure. He took our only truck so he would have a place to sleep off the ground. It wasn’t fair to any of us, and Ma cried for days afterwards. I am Susan Richards, and I’m fourteen. Being the oldest, I tried my best to keep everything and everyone running and safe until he got back.

Lili, the next one in line after me, was twelve, and I assigned her the kitchen duties until Ma could pull herself together and take charge. Lili was skinny, but she knew her way around the kitchen, so that made sense to me. Jake, our little brother, was only ten, so I made him help me with the outside chores. He complained but did as I told him after a few choice words about making him sleep outside if he didn’t cooperate. I guess he could see it in my eyes and hear it in my voice that I was serious, and he didn’t want to challenge me.

I suppose to most of you, the thought of a young boy sleeping outside doesn’t sound like much of a threat, but in this you’d be wrong. Here on Mars, ‘outside’ is pretty rough. No air to speak of, and nighttime temps can get seriously cold, even in the summertime. Here inside our Homedome things are a little better. There’s always air and it rarely gets below freezing at night.

The main dome is a thick, heavy, transparent bubble of some kind of polymer film, and it encloses twelve acres and several smaller domes made of the same stuff. The controls keep the air pressures within each of the secondary domes a few psi above the main dome, which is itself held a few psi above the outside atmosphere. I learned that this system not only allows us a nearly normal atmosphere, but it keeps the stresses in each dome well below critical values. There are airlocks between each layer of domes, including to the outside, where a heated pressure suit is required if you plan to spend more than twenty seconds there. Inside the main dome, a breathing mask and long-johns are all the extra equipment we need.

Actual living spaces within each of the sub-domes are underground, to help insulate us from the hard radiation. The cattle pens are buried under ten feet of Martian soil, even though the cattle are bred from high altitude Earth stock – something called a Yak – and can tolerate the thin air and intense solar input of the open surface better than we can. Pa said that since the dehorned Yaks were our primary source of food and income, there wasn’t any point in taking chances with their mutation, and we only let them out to graze the pasture once a day. We humans keep our solar exposure to three hours a day under the main dome.

Our pasture acres are planted with a hardy strain of grass developed on Earth to thrive on Mars and we manage to keep enough hay bailed to feed our ten head of cattle between harvests. We have an acre of garden under the main dome where Pa has planted vegetables which are grown most of the year. Water is the most difficult resource for us. Our two wells were drilled more than two-thousand feet into the frost table, and they provide water for our family and the animals. We melt and pump more than six-hundred kilograms of water a day into our holding tanks. Our wet-sewage water is reclaimed and used to water the garden and the animal pens. The recovered solids are pulverized and fed into the garden soil. It sounds nasty, but there it is. By now, after several years, the dirt is pretty good.

Pa did most of the outside work – with my help, of course – and now, while he’s gone galivanting, that responsibility falls on me and Jake. We can do it, but I don’t know how long we can keep it up.  Without Pa, I’m afraid some of the bigger things just won’t get done. As Pa would famously say, “Entropy rules!” I guess that really means it’s only a matter of time before something big breaks.

Speaking of Pa’s saying, he wasn’t always a rancher. When we moved up here on one of the colony ships, Pa taught science at Olympus Mons University. He’d been on Mars, teaching at OMU, for three years before we joined him at Port City. We were assigned and lived in a two-flat apartment in the heart of the city for two years while Pa scrimped and saved to buy the ranch of his dreams. He had his heart set on a place in the foothills of the great volcano mountain where he could keep us fed while he searched for Martian life signs amid the boulders, caves, and lava tubes.

Finding traces of the Martians had become his overriding passion and the ranch was just a way for him to keep us with him while he did his research. I guess you’d say we were just tagging along for the ride – or the work we could do to help him. The ranch’s location allowed him an easier round trip into the desolate, undeveloped outback of Mars.

– – –

The second night on the side of the volcano I rested in the truck, although sleep evaded me entirely. I was too excited to sleep, it seems. I suppose the excitement should be considered natural. I’m sure I found something important in that lava tube. I’ve read everything written about Martian artifacts, and nothing lines up with the things I discovered last night. I had to force myself to come back to the truck, and I carried three pieces of ‘bone’ back with me in a sealed plastic container. I could see the headlines in the Port City Tribune now: Professor Daniel Richards greets the Martians.

I shoveled some tasteless stew into my mouth with one hand while typing the report of my findings with the other. By the time I’d finished the meal and drank my evening’s allotment of water, I had reached the point in the report where I was detailing the descriptions of the ‘bones’ for the official record. I had included the exact location of the find, and taken photographs of the site, as well as those three pieces in my possession. The evidence was irrefutable. These ‘bones’ were definitely not Terrestrial, and they showed no signs of being manufactured. They had to be native, and I had found them first.

Bones are strange and wonderful things. Almost everything has bones holding the rest of the organism together, giving it shape and strength. We’re all familiar with human bones, chicken, or other bird bones – although I haven’t seen any of those for years – beef, pork, lamb, or other animal bones, fish bones – which are more like cartilage then actual bone – and even insect or crustation bones, which are their exoskeleton on the outside. Many of us are aware of the inside nature of bones, and how their structure varies between classes of animals.

But the bones I found in that lava tube didn’t fit into any of the ‘usual’ types, and that is what set them apart from anything found on Earth. These bones appeared to be made of polished stone; not fossilized like some old bones found from the Paleozoic era, but actually made from stone. They appeared to lack marrow and were completely hollow, like thin tubes with knobs, like they were built for ball and socket joints. I knew my first task was to analyze the material and run some additional chemical and physical tests.

Since I couldn’t sleep, I thought I’d start after cleaning up the dish from supper. Then I realized I should call home and let my wife and kids know how I was doing, and also let them know about my find. I had no idea that my call would be monitored, causing such a fuss.

– – –

I sat at Pa’s desk, planning tomorrow’s ranch chores on our computer while Ma tried to sleep. I knew she acted tired all the time; overtired was what the digital doctor spit out when I typed in her symptoms. So, when the comm began to ring on the corner of the desk, not wanting to wake her – assuming she had managed to sleep – I reached across to get it before the third chime.

“Richards’ Homedome. Susan speaking.”

“Sue, baby. It’s Pa.” There was a soft clicking in my ear, but I just thought it was because of Sunspots or something.

“Pa! Are you OK? We’ve all been so worried. Ma’s been standing on her head …”

“Sue. Listen. I don’t know how much time I’ll have on the comm’s battery.” Sounding a little sheepish, he continued, “I forgot the charger.”

The clicking continued in the background like a slow metronome.

“Pa, just tell me where you are and if you’re OK. Tell me what’s going on.”

“I’m fine. I’m camped about half-way up the western slope of O.M. Baby, I found a lave tube with Martian remains!”

“What! Are you sure? What’d you find?”

“A pile of bones. But listen, I’ll send you a copy of my draft report. It has the pictures and my preliminary data, along with the exact location of the tube. Watch for it on the computer and keep it safe until I get home.”

“Of course. When is that, anyway?”

“Three days, tops. I’ll be out of food by then. I have to run some tests and maybe collect a few more bones before I head your way.”

“OK, Pa. Send me your report and I’ll let Ma know you’re coming home soon. Please be careful. I love you. We all love you. By the way, I think your phone can plug into one of the truck’s power ports.”

“Really? I’ll check on that. I love you all too.”

Daniel broke the connection and just before Susan took the receiver from her ear, the clicking stopped too.

Susan decided to let her mother sleep. She could tell her about Pa in the morning.

The computer ‘binged’ and I saw Pa’s report had arrived. Following our routine, I copied it onto two memory sticks and printed out a copy for Pa’s records. I put one of the sticks in a box on his desk, and the other in a vase on his bookshelf. I filed the report in the top drawer of Pa’s file cabinet.

– – –

Lili made us a hardy breakfast.  She served flapjacks and a side of browned Yak sausage, with reconstituted orange drink and something she called coffee, but wasn’t since I knew we had run out of the powder last week.  It wasn’t Interplanetary House of Pancakes quality, but tasty, none the less. After Ma came out of her bedroom to join us – looking like she had lost ten kilos in my opinion – I told the family about Pa’s call, the news about his finding, and his plan to come home in three days. Everyone talked excitedly about his homecoming.

Leaving a rejuvenated Ma to help clean the kitchen, Jake and I suited up and went out to tend to the cattle. Using the sloping ramp of the large air lock, we entered the ‘cow dome’ and led the critters up to the pasture plot, where they began grazing. Jake mucked the pens while I checked on the feed and water for later in the day.

I had just closed the valve that fed the reclaimed water to the trough when I felt a vibration through my boots. I looked up to check on Jake and saw he had felt something too. Setting our equipment aside, we went out to the main dome and saw through the accumulated dust on the outside surface that one of the Planetary Patrol ships, with its lights flashing, had landed outside Homedome’s main lock. A uniformed Patrol Officer swaggered toward us, heading toward the main dome’s primary airlock, and I felt my stomach drop down to my toes. Something was wrong.

“Jake, go tell Ma a cop’s coming. I’ll slow him down as much as I can.”

I watched Jake hurry off toward our residence’s airlock, and then turned back to face the approaching trooper as he cycled through into the main dome.

“Good morning, officer. What can I do for you?” Pa always said that politeness goes a long way when dealing with the authorities. I had the feeling I might need all the goodwill I could get.

The Patrolman opened the visor of his pressure suit, expelling a puff of cloudy moisture into our air, and then after glancing over at our grazing Yak herd, took a notebook from one of his suit’s pockets. Activating it, he gave me an odd look before asking, “Mrs. Richards?”

I grinned back in what I hoped was a friendly way and answered, “No, sir, that would be my mother. My name is Susan Richards. I’m the oldest Richards child.”

“I see,” he said. “And, what’s her name?”

I answered honestly, “Ma, sir.”

He rolled his eyes and dragged his gloved finger across the face of the notebook before looking back up at me. “Is your mother home? I need to speak with her.”

“Why, yes, sir. She’s just inside.” I turned and over my shoulder said, “Just follow me, sir.”

While we cycled through the airlock, I asked, “Can you tell me what your visit’s all about?”

He had closed his faceplate and taken his helmet off, clipping it onto a latch on his utility belt. I noticed that his belt also held a holstered weapon of some sort on the other side. He gave his head a little shake, making the airlock’s overhead lights swim around on his bald head.

“Not here. I’ll let you know what’s going on once I meet with your mother.”

Ma met us at the bottom of the steps that led from the inner airlock door. Jake and Lili were standing close by looking nervous.

Gruffly he said, “Mrs. Richards, I assume.”

Ma answered, “Of course, officer. What’s going on?”

He referred to his notebook. “I have here a report about and a search warrant for any and all documents your husband, Professor Daniel Richards illegally obtained yesterday. Show me to his office.”

“There must be some mistake, officer,” Ma said, almost in a whisper.

His hand moved around and rested on the butt of his weapon, making the threat clear, and he leaned closer to Ma’s face. “There is no mistake, Mrs. Richards. Take me to his office now, or step aside while I search for it myself.”

I started wondering how he knew about Pa’s findings and the report. I suddenly remembered the clicking noise on the comm line and just knew that our system had been tapped, and they probably knew everything. For some reason they didn’t want proof to leak out about Martian life, dead or alive.

I said, “Officer, I’ll take you there. Please, my mother has been ill.”

He squinted in my direction for a few seconds and then nodded, “Lead on.”

When we went to Pa’s office, the Patrolman brushed past me and grabbed the computer. He looked around and spotted the printer. “Did you make copies of your father’s report?”

Silently congratulating myself for making the digital copy that I would deny existed, I turned toward Pa’s file cabinet and pulled open the top drawer. I flipped through the folder tabs and found last night’s report.

Before I could pull it from the rest, he gave me a nudge, “I’ll take that.”

Opening the folder, he glanced at the report and the attached photographs. “Are there any other copies?”

“I made a digital copy.” I opened the little box on Pa’s desk and handed the memory device over.

“Is there anything else?” The patrolman sounded angry as he tucked the device into a pocket.

By now it wasn’t hard for me to work up some tears. I shook my head and lied. “No, sir. That’s it. That’s what Pa sent last night. You’ve got it all.”

“Did you read the report? Did your mother read it?”

With a little sob, I shook my head and said, “I don’t understand Pa’s science stuff. I did look at the pictures, but I don’t know what he thought was so important.” I shook my head again, “Ma didn’t have a chance before you got here.”

His eyes squinted at me as he tried to read my face, no doubt hoping to catch me lying. “You’d be better off forgetting anything you thought you saw.”

Stacking the folder on top of the computer, he tucked both under his arm and turned back toward the main rooms. Passing my family, he said, “I’ll head out to Mr. Richards’ campsite to talk to him and serve him with the warrant for his find. Good day.” With that, he turned toward the stairs that led to the airlock and hurried up them.

I watched the indicator lights as he cycled through the airlock, and then I went over to Ma and gave her a hug. “It’s OK, Ma. He’s gone now and Pa’ll be home soon.”

“That officer won’t arrest him and haul him off to jail, will he?”

I shook my head and tried to console her. “I don’t think so. I think he’s just collecting evidence for now. I’m sure Pa’s going to come home right away. Let’s go into the kitchen for some of Lili’s coffee.”

My words seemed to sooth her, and we went into the kitchen area to wait for Pa to call us with an update to his plans. We didn’t have too long to wait.

– – –

Pa arrived home about twelve hours later. I had managed to calm Ma enough to get her to take a nap while we waited. I must have dozed off too, and when the main airlock indicators woke me up, signaling that someone was cycling through, I donned my gear and hurried upside to meet him.

I hadn’t realized how much time had gone by, so when I reached the surface, I saw the sun bleeding through the dust on the far side of the main dome; it was early morning. I watched as Pa, driving our truck, came through the airlock door and stopped in front of me. He clambered out and hurried over to me.

“Sue, are you OK? Is your mother OK?”

“Pa, everyone’s fine. Did the patrolman catch up to you?”

He nodded, “Yeah, the jerk practically landed on top of me. He took everything, even the samples. Then he forced me to take him up to the lava tube and while I had to wait outside, he went in and set some charges. He came out and blew the whole thing up, burying everything under tons of rock.”

“He took our computer, the printed copy of your report, and one of the digital copies I made.”

Pa looked hopeful. “You managed to keep another copy?”

I grinned at him. “Of course! I’m your daughter. Right?”

“Good girl! Let’s go see how your mother is doing.” He gave me a hug.

As we cycled through the house’s airlock, I asked him, “Why didn’t you call us? Didn’t the truck’s charger work?”

It was his turn to grin. “When he showed up, I realized that they had been listening into our conversation. It was the only way that the timing made sense. I didn’t want to risk telling them anything else.”

– – –

It was touch and go for a while, but word of Pa’s finding eventually leaked out; the truth always does. When he sent a copy of his report to one of his colleagues at OMU, it spread like wildfire and there was nothing the Mars Authority could do to put the cat back into the bag. Within six months a university team, led by Pa, began excavating the clogged lava tube.

The official report had Pa’s name on top. He was famous.