(Page 1 of 2) One Year, Five Hundred and Twenty Three Days by Steve Jones -B5SUMMARY: Entry in the "mars" flash fiction contest. "One year, five hundred and twenty three days remain," Thubia said as she walked in through the marble columns of the grand home on the redstone plateau. "Are you packed yet?"
Thubia was the eldest princess of the royal family, tall and red, she was easily the loveliest woman on Bartoom, the word in their language for the world.
"Kao, Thubia," Tarx said in greeting. "I've started." Then he shifted his weight. Tarx was almost twice her height, and green.
"I don't suppose we can keep shooting down their little space vehicles?"
"You know we can't," she said. "They already wonder why they've lost two of their probes. It's getting too dangerous. The Earth people might find out we're here and it must not happen."
"Why not?" Tarx asked. "They aren't that different from us. Why does the royal family insist that they're so dangerous."
Thubia looked around to make sure there was no one nearby to overhear.
"Ask me later," she said in secret. "For I cannot tell you now."
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He walked into her veranda, it was one of the more lavish corners of the palace. The buildings around it had been dismantled and crushed then buried. Only a few homes remained to the city. Work had started on the forests, dried out since the canals had been filled in.
Thubia was lounging in her chair, only one servant stood nearby to watch over her needs. More than half the population had been transported off, away to another place.
"Kao, Thubia," Tarx said. "Two hundred and thirty three days left."
Thubia gave a worried glance to the sky.
"They've sent another one," she said. "Remaking everything we used our distance manipulation to break. And this one will be sending pictures back to their world."
"I suppose standing on the tallest mountain and waving is out of the question?"
The thought of Earth people puzzling over a picture of Tarx on the mountain, smiling his rough smile and waving, made her smile.
"Of course it is," Thubia said. "If they find out we were ever here, they'll look for us, and never stop looking. Earth people are like that."
"Remember that question I was supposed to ask you?" he asked.
"I cannot tell you yet," she whispered, frightened. "But soon."
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Eight days. Mars was desolate, nothing was left living save a few of the lingering population. The last of them would be leaving in eight days. Nothing remained of their civilization, the buildings were gone, the canals were gone, even most of the water had been taken away. The next sandstorm, due in twenty days, would erase their last footprints.
"Kao, Tarx," Thubia said from the entrance to her tent. A handful of tents up near the mountains was the last of Bartoom, at least on this world. "Come this way."
Tarx entered her tent and found that she was quite alone. In the corner there was a small box with a window on the front.
"This is one of their transmissions," she said, making the window light up. "It's a story, like we'd show to our young ones. They call this story, ‘Leave it to Beaver'."
The window came alive with dark, dusty images.
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