Red Rising

Little Io took to Himanthus into father's left work boot and ran back to her own father's side. My sister, Liana, murmured a lament beside me. I just watched and thought it a shame that he died dancing, but without his dancing shoes. On Mars, there is not much gravity, so you have to pull the feet to break the neck. They let the loved ones do it. I smell my own stink inside my fry suit. The suit is some kind of nanoplastic and as hot as its name suggests. It insulates me toe to head. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out, especially not the heat. Worst part is you can't wipe the sweat from your eyes. Bloody damn stings as it goes through the headband to puddle at the heels. Not to mention the stink when you piss, which you always do. Gotta take in a load of water through the drink tube. I guess you could be fit with a catheter. We choose the stink. The drillers of my clan chatter some gossip over the comm in my ear as I ride atop the claw drill. I'm alone in this deep tunnel, on a machine built like a titanic metal hand, one that grasps and gnaws at the ground. I control its rock-melting digits from the holster seat atop the drill, just where the elbow joint would be. There, my fingers fit into control gloves that manipulate the many tentacle-like drill some ninety meters below my perch. To be a hell diver, they say your fingers must flicker fast as tongues of fire. Mine flicker faster. Despite the voices in my ear, I am alone in the deep tunnel. My existence is vibration, the echo of my own breath, and heat so thick and noxious it feels like I'm swaddled in a heavy quilt of hot piss. A new river of sweat breaks through the scarlet sweatbands tied around my forehead and slips into my eyes, burning them till they're as red as my rusty hair. I used to reach and try to wipe the sweat away, only to scratch futilely at the faceplate of my fry suit. I still want to, even after three years, the tickle and sting of the sweat is a raw misery. The tunnel walls around my holster seat are bathed a sulfurous yellow by a corona of lights. The reach of the light fades as I look up the thin vertical shaft I've carved today. Above, precious helium-3 glimmers like liquid silver, but I'm looking at the shadows, looking for the pit vipers that curl through the darkness, seeking the warmth of my drill. They'll eat into your suit, too, bite through the shell and then try to burrow into the warmest place they find, usually your belly, so they can lay their eggs. I've been bitten before. Still dream of the beast, black like a thick tendril of oil. They can get as wide as a thigh and as long as three men, but it's the babies we fear. They don't know how to ration their poison, like me. Their ancestors came from Earth. Then Mars and the deep tunnels changed them. It is eerie in the deep tunnels. Lonely. Beyond the roar of the drill, I hear the voices of my friends, all older, but I cannot see them a half-click above me in the darkness. They drill high above, near the mouth of the tunnel that I've carved, descending with hooks and lines to dangle along the sides of the tunnel to get at the small veins of helium-3. They mine with meter-long drills, gobbling up the chaff. The work still requires mad dexterity of foot and hand, but I'm the earner in this crew. I am the Helldiver. It takes a certain kind, and I'm the youngest anyone can remember. I've been in the mines for three years. You start at thirteen. Old enough to screw, old enough to crew. At least that's what Uncle Nerol said. Except I didn't get married till six months back, so I don't know why he said it. EO dances through my thoughts as I peer into my control display and slip the claw drill's fingers around a fresh vein. EO.