‘Manu, you will show Bill where he is to sleep,’ said Michu, as soon as we had finished eating.
‘Yes, Michu, we shall be sleeping in the same chamber.’ Manu turned and looked up at me. ‘Are you tired, Bill?’
‘Now you come to mention it, yes. But believe it or not it is the first time I have even thought about it. Days on Mars are very different from Earth’s. It is hard to know when you are supposed to sleep.’
‘Mm. You will not find it difficult to adjust. Martian days are only very slightly longer than Earth days. Mars and Earth take about the same time to turn on their axis. On Earth you divide your day into twenty-four hours, a man-made division of time. We don’t have hours. Our day is divided into 18 somos, which would be about one and a third of your Earth hours. But we don’t use them much in practice. We don’t have clocks so we have grown up to know almost precisely how much of the day has elapsed, even though much of the time we are underground.’
‘You have your clocks built in,’ I suggested.
‘Correct, Bill. You noticed that the whole clan was present in the Grand Hall at the proper time. All the day’s activities run smoothly because everyone knows what to do, where to go and at what time.’
‘Simple, isn’t it?’ said Anamaru.
‘Well, I think it will take some getting used to,’ I replied.
‘So, Bill, time to get some rest,’ said Michu, putting her hand on my arm and squeezing it gently. ‘We all have a busy day tomorrow and there is so much for you to see. Manu, see that Bill is comfortable.’
‘You don’t have to remind me, Michu.’
Manu and I said goodnight to the girls and headed off in the direction of the sleeping accommodation, which was on the far side of the cavern. On the way we chatted and I was able to get some answers to questions that were puzzling me.
‘When we came inside Similaria,’ I began, ‘we dropped down a kind of shaft. It was like going down in a lift of a tall building, except that it was completely dark and it went down very fast.’
‘Faster than you think, Bill.’ Manu stopped for a moment and made a sharp downward movement with one arm. ‘In the time it takes for you to count up to one hundred you have descended more than five thousand metres from the surface.’
‘Five kilometres! So we must have moved very quickly indeed!’ I said incredulously.
Manu moved on up a sharp incline. When we reached the top, he stopped and turned to face me. I was panting noticeably. ‘For several reasons we live far below the surface of Mars. Firstly it is far too cold to live up there. There are many metres of permanent frost. Water cannot exist on the surface because the atmospheric pressure and gravity are too weak. Down here it is much warmer and there is plenty of water.’
I remembered the warm bathe I enjoyed earlier in the day. ‘And the water is so soft!
‘Yes! Compared to your water on Earth; at least the water I tried when I was there.
‘You have been to Earth!?’ I almost shouted the question, I was so surprised.
Manu laughed. ‘What is so strange about that? You came to Mars in a rickety old bundle of scrap iron. Surely you must know that in our bubbles we can pop back and forth as easily as you ride to town in a bus.’
I wasn’t too pleased at his description of Silver Streak that I had slaved weeks to build. But in the end it had not served the purpose and I knew it was a bubble that had saved me.
‘I suppose so,’ I said. ‘But even so, the idea of it… it’s quite funny really, you going to Earth I mean.’ I imagined Manu walking down our road in his grey tunic and with no shoes.
‘No, we wear the same clothes are you, uncomfortable as they are. Suits and ties are not made for maximum comfort.’
Manu moved on and I followed. After a while I said to him, ‘and what was it like for you?’
‘On Earth? Well, I had a good time and met some wonderful people.’
‘Earth people or Martians?’
‘Oh! Both of course. But I’ll tell you about my trip another time. We are nearly there.’
Indeed, we had reached a small, dimly lit enclosure, where there were several flat stone platforms arranged against the wall of the cavern, all of them identical. These, I figured out were the beds. One end of each platform was raised to form a pillow and the beds sloped gently upwards towards the bottom, so that the feet of the sleeper would be at the same level as the head.
‘They are designed that way,’ explained Manu, reading my thoughts. ‘Here, take this sleeping cover.’ He handed me a blanket made of the same material as the tunics that everyone was wearing.
Manu pointed to one of the beds. ‘That’s yours, Bill. I am right next to you. First, you will need to visit the toilet. It’s through there. You will find a container with some green coloured water; that’s to wash your mouth out.’
Returning to my bed, I noticed that Manu was already asleep. I lay down, covering myself with the blanket. The bed was very hard. I lay on my back and began to go through the events of the day. And what an exciting day it had been! It seemed hardly possible that I had got up at 4am that morning, travelled millions of kilometres through space, met many Martians, attended a clan meeting; all in one day! Then I thought of my parents and wondered how they had reacted to my message and sudden disappearance. Would they be worried? Would they have called the police and reported me missing? I decided to ask Manu in the morning if there was a way I could get a message to them. That was my last thought before I drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.