"That's amazing, is it from Earth?" I asked. "We don't think so," she replied. "So did we find it then, life on Mars?" I asked Gift of The Red Planet - 2 by Alys

I was in a dark place, the only thing impinging on my sight was a diffuse redness.

There were no sounds except a soft hum, no sensations but the feeling of a very slight vibration.

I opened my eyes.

The diffuse light that had previously penetrated my eyelids was replaced by a startling brightness, pouring in through a window on the right.

I turned my head toward the source of the illumination and then looked around to gain some clues about my surroundings.

It was a personal cubicle, too small to be considered a room, with a bed on one length of the rectangular space and a sliding door on the opposite side. Cupboards and shelves were cleverly located and the final part was a tiny wardrobe space with a few coveralls stored there.

I read the label on one of the work outfits,

Alex Dupre
Mars Corps

I wondered why I was in Alex's cabin.

A sudden thought struck me 'I had been on Mars'

Some memories flashed into my consciousness. The excitement of the departure from Mars Corps Space Station 2, the tedium and restrictions of the six month journey and then the euphoria of finally landing on the planet.

But I wasn't on Mars now. The brightness and colour of the light entering the room from outside was testament to that.

I raised myself, pushing the sheet away, my large, firm breasts swaying with the sudden movement, somehow an unexpected sensation. I sat on the bed while I tried to recall the memory of arriving at wherever I was now.

I had a feeling that somehow there was a discontinuity in my life, some recent development that was a rupture in the proper sequence of events. I reached my right hand under my thin, cotton, vest to absent-mindedly caress my left nipple with my forefinger. I gently squeezed the surrounding tissue as I tried to reach back into my mind for the lost information.

More memories returned. The wonder of the stay on Mars, the once in a lifetime experience that had become monotony after a few weeks of staring at the same, red dust coated, rocks, day after day. The disappointment of finding no signs of life in the Valles Marineris canyon, the relief at the final departure.

I felt my nipple harden as the touch began to arouse me. There was something that was strange about the pleasant feelings I was giving myself, but I didn't know what was wrong about it.

Something else that was strange was the illness that overcame John and George a few days after we had finally landed at Nellis air force base and had then been transported, without opening the hatches, to the Mars Corps site in the Mojave desert, where our crew module had been attached to a much larger living quarters while maintaining the air seal.

So now I knew, I was on Earth, but I didn't remember how the other crew members were. I stood up and reached for one of Alex's coveralls, I wondered why I had no memory of him while I clearly recalled Yuki, Bella and the two other men.

The clothes fitted poorly, being, not surprisingly, tight at the hips and chest but too long in the legs. I rolled up the trouser part of the coverall until I could move comfortably. I decided that any answers to my other questions would be best found in the rest of the complex.

I slid the door back and was surprised to see Yuki and Bella rushing down the corridor towards me,

"Alex, are you alright?" asked Bella, "we saw your increased heart rate on the remote monitor and wondered if you had woken"

"I'm fine," I responded and then realising how she had addressed me added, "but why did you call me Alex?"

"Don't be silly Alex, it's your name......well it was before..," responded Yuki before suddenly being at a loss for words.

"It's my name?" I asked, "..before..before what? I don't understand"

Bella put her hand to her mouth and said, "before you changed, Alex, into a woman"

The final lost memories flooded back, washing over my fragile identity. I had been a man, but now I evidently wasn't. Suddenly that was too much of a concept for my mind to process and a wave of blackness overcame me and I felt myself falling but being caught before I could hit anything hard.

Awareness returned, I opened my eyes to see the concerned faces of Yuki and Bella.

"Welcome back, ," said Bella.

"How long was I out?" I asked.

"Just now, only a few minutes, but before for a week," replied Yuki.

"What happened before," I asked.

"Your heart rate slowed to less than ten beats a minutes and your pulse to about twenty and you slowly changed," replied Bella.

"How much did I change, I can see and feel some obvious differences," I said.

There was a pause, then Bella smiled and replied, "Alex you're now a woman, completely and in every way."

"How?" I asked

"We really have no idea," replied Yuki.

"We did do some experiments with the mice though," commented Bella.

"What happened?" I asked, scientific curiosity temporarily taking over from a further consideration of my own life altering changes.

"The results were very variable," she responded, " we injected your blood into a group of male mice, of varying ages. But only some of them responded, those that did either changed quickly or they died."

"Which ones died?" I asked, curious about the effects of the infectious agent, whatever it was.

"The pattern of the response of the affected males was consistent. All the mature male ones died, there was no immediate effect on the immature ones while mice on the cusp of maturity changed into complete females, in fact two of them have been successfully impregnated already by the unaffected males," detailed Yuki.

"Mars Command to Mars Crew Complex, Mars Command to Mars Crew complex, requesting status report on crewman Alex Dupre," came the command over the tannoy.

"I'd better go and report in," said Bella, "I'll be back in a few minutes"

Bella left Yuki and me in the cabin while she returned to the comms desk.

"Listen, Alex," she said, with an anxious look on her face," I need to tell you something"

"What's wrong, Yuki?" I asked, sitting back up on my bed, wondering what could be worse than waking up to find that your gender had been altered.

"They don't know yet," she answered mysteriously.

"Don't know what, yet?" I asked.

"About you turning into a woman," she stated, bluntly.

"Why and how?" I asked, wondering what I had missed from the earlier conversation, why would Bella and Yuki not have informed Mars Corps about my medical developments.

"We found the infectious agent," she answered cryptically.

"That's amazing, is it from Earth?" I asked.

"We don't think so," she replied.

"So did we find it then, life on Mars?" I asked, getting excited at the prospect of being one of the discoverers of the first extra-terrestrial life form, without thinking about the implications of my gender change.

"Alex, by the way you need to think of a female name, it feels strange to still be using your male one," said Yuki, smiling, before resuming her serious countenance and continuing, " it's everywhere, the infectious agent"

"What do you mean everywhere?" I asked, " and I'm not sure that worrying about a new name is one of my priorities at the moment"

"In you, in your blood in high concentrations, in the bodies of the other two and also in Bella and myself, although at much lower levels, I guess we are just carriers," Yuki explained, before flicking her Chrono Personal Assistant open and showing me slides of the blood samples.

"What about Alexa?" she suggested after I had finished staring with amazement at the foldaway screen on Yuki's CPA showing the tiny red virus like organisms that appeared responsible for deaths of my crew mates and also for my incredible physical transformation.

"Is that a new name?" asked Bella, walking into the cabin and looking at me.

"It's as good as any, I guess," I responded, "what did you tell Control and what did they say?"

"I told them that you were almost conscious and appeared to be recovering slowly from the illness," she replied.

"Guys, I really don't get all this secrecy?" I asked, still trying to understand the reasons behind Yuki and Bella's subterfuge.

Yuki looked knowingly at Bella and then responded, "I guess this is a lot for you to comprehend at once, while we have had a week to look at all the possibilities"

"After we saw the results in the mice," added Bella," it seemed clear to us what the response of Mars Corps would be if they realised exactly what had happened to you, especially when they found out that there is an infectious agent, which I'm not sure if Yuki has explained is all pervasive in the complex"

"Surely they would carry on isolating us?" I said, inquiringly.

"Show her, Yuki," responded Bella.

Yuki unfolded the screen on her CPA and with a few flicks of her fingers on it brought up a document, "I found this in a secret, concealed data-store, look what it says"

I stared at the black letters on the light red background and swallowed nervously as I read the threatening title.

Post Mars Mission Extra-terrestrial Infections - Euthanasia and Sterilisation Protocols.