Allan Jones

Life At The Speed Of Light

“Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Not so here on Mars, of course. Here, the thin atmosphere means sound can travel - less far, more slowly and in a lower register than on Earth; it can be heard but you’d better be close by. I only mention it because the last memory I have of my brother, Pete, doesn’t make any sense – I can still hear, loud and clear, the scream made by the thing that killed him. I was about a hundred feet away, too far for any normal shout to be heard on Mars, but I heard that scream with deafening clarity. I could also see, but not hear in his case, that Pete was yelling in excruciating pain. How was I totally deaf to Pete but able to hear his killer as clear as a bell? ‘Because the alien scream was louder than Pete!’ you’ll say. No, not so, for reasons I’ll explain in a minute.