by Eric Flint
"Please be intact, please be intact, please be intact," A.J. muttered like a mantra as he dropped into the dark cargo bay. His helmet light activated and showed him the tilted bulk of the pressurized rover, still sitting in the middle of the bay.
"Well, first piece of good news. It seems to have stayed locked down. That gives us fair odds on it being intact."
"Take a look and check out the systems."
"I'm getting a response . . . Yeah, the processors are all running. Doing a diagnostic on Thoat now."
"Thoat?"
"What else would you call a steed we have to unload from a ship named the John Carter?"
"Well," Joe interjected, "Personally I'd rather ride Dejah Thoris."
A.J. choked. "Joe, I can't believe you said that."
"I'm trying to pretend he didn't," muttered Madeline. "Come on, Helen, let's get down there. Maybe in the rover we'll be out of junior-high-school-boy joke range."
She and Helen lowered themselves into the bay, with Bruce following. A.J. already had lights starting to glow from the newly-named Thoat.
"And since everyone's having to go down to get to it," Joe continued cheerily, "I think you meant Deep Thoat."
Rich gave a startled snort. "I think that's quite enough out of you, Joe. Being charitable, I'll ascribe it to the painkillers you took."
"You mean Joe thinks he's funnier when he's on drugs? That makes sense," A.J. said. The telltales came up. "All green! Well, except for fuel, as we weren't shipping her fueled up."
"Better check the fuelling hookups, then."
"Should be at the rear of the cargo bay."
"On my way." Madeline moved off in that direction, along with Helen and Bruce, as A.J. went up into the rover's cabin to see if anything inside had been shaken loose.
After a few moments clearing debris from the rear of the bay, A.J. heard a satisfied little sound from Madeline. "Got it! Scratches on the nozzle hookups, but they don't look to be badly damaged or out of shape."
"Then I'm opening up the fuel ports on the sides. Take the starboard one first."
"Understood. Helen, you and Bruce bring up the oxygen line. I have the methane."
The separate hoses were locked into place. "We are hooked up. Go, A.J."
"Starting . . . We have fuel flow! Ladies and gentlemen, we are in business!"
"Good. You finish prepping Thoat and the rest of us will figure out the best way to get it out of the bay. Joe? Can you tear yourself away from junior high locker room long enough to play engineer?"
"Sure, Madeline. I think you'll need to use Thoat's winch. That's after we blow the side of the bay out."
"How will we do that?"
"Are you asking me about demolitions, Ms. Superspy?"
A.J. heard a chuckle from Madeline. "Yes, all right, I know something about it. Martian demolitions may require additional thought, however. The last thing I want to do is blow the entire lander up, with Thoat in it."
"Let me strongly approve of additional thought," A.J. interjected, "as I happen to be inside Thoat right now."
A light flickered. "Uh-oh."
"Mr. Baker, I do not like the sound of 'uh-oh.'"
"You shouldn't. Fuel flow decreasing . . . and . . . gone. We can't see underneath well enough, but I'd have to guess that when we crashed, the tanks got mostly shredded. Fortunately, we didn't end up with an earth-shattering kaboom. Mars-shattering kaboom, I should say. But only some of the gas in the last couple of cells stuck around."
"Have we got enough to get to Target 37?"
"Not a chance."
A.J. examined the telltales and had his systems run calculations. "Figuring that I have to make sure Thoat is fully charged up and then use some of the fuel to get out of the bay, I figure . . . Maybe thirty kilometers range; thirty-five, max. We got no more than a tenth full."
"How long will that keep us if we stay right here?"
"Generating power, keeping the heat going, refreshing the air . . . A couple of weeks, I guess. Hard to say, exactly."
"And when can we expect some kind of rescue attempt?"
"I really don't know. Joe? That's more up your alley."
"Not for several months, at the earliest. They might be able to get us some supplies with one or two orbital drops—if they can figure out how to cobble something together. But let's ask Nike. Gupta and Jackie are the ones who'd really know."
"Well, that's just bloody perfect," Bruce grumbled. He called Hathaway and explained the situation.
Jackie broke in. "We might be able to put together a lander using one of Nike's engines."
"A NERVA rocket lander? I suppose it might work. But you aren't getting that done any too quickly."
"Alas, no, Major Irwin," came Gupta's voice. "Even though we are well equipped for an expedition such as ours, creating a new vessel of that sort will take considerable effort. It was not planned for some time yet, and we shall be forced to improvise. A month, perhaps."
"No way we're lasting a month," A.J. said bluntly.
"We'll see if we can get at least some fuel down to you," Hathaway said. "I'm not sure, but there must be a way."
"Perhaps," Gupta mused. "Perhaps if we were to remove one of the auxiliary drives from the habitat ring, and—"
Something was nagging at Joe. Something he'd forgotten, something . . .
Could it be?
He tied into the system, bringing up the precise position of the crash. There. Closer than he'd thought, and just to the south.
"Yes! Pirate!"
A.J. felt his jaw drop as he realized what Joe was suggesting.
"You're kidding." He called up information he hadn't looked at in well over two years. "I will be completely damned. You're right, Joe! We practically ran Pirate over."
Hathaway's voice was incredulous. "Are you telling me that the same lander unit that originally dropped off the Faeries is in your vicinity, and might have fuel on board?"
"About thirty klicks from where we're sitting, Captain. We landed Pirate in Melas Chasma, after it dropped off the Faeries. Talk about a lucky coincidence!"
"I doubt if it was a coincidence," Joe said, his voice sounding distracted. A.J. knew the engineer was already starting to work through the practical aspects of their situation. "The Bemmies probably put their base there for the same reason we chose the site. Valles Marineris is the most spectacular area on Mars, except for maybe Olympus Mons and the Tharsis Plateau. Tricky to set down in, though—and Melas Chasma provides some of the few good landing areas in it."
That made sense. "And then all the stuff blew up after we found Bemmie on Phobos," A.J. mused, "and Ares got diverted into the Nike project. We just left Pirate waiting for takeoff. So she has never flown! If things held together, most of her fuel should still be there— and there was enough to take Pirate all the way back to Earth."
"There won't be that much left by now, A.J.," Joe cautioned, but he looked almost smug as he said it. A.J. could tell, from the expression, that his friend was finishing up his calculations and was pleased by the results. "Ares had to cut a lot of corners, with our budget—and one of the corners we cut was the fuel tanks. They were adequate for the purpose, but since we weren't planning to leave Pirate on the surface for very long, we didn't bother taking expensive measures to make sure they'd handle long-term storage under Martian conditions. By now, I'm pretty sure a lot of that fuel will be gone. Still—"
He looked up finally. "There's got to be enough left for what we need. If we take the hookup ends from here, I think . . . Yeah, we can adapt the connectors. All we've got to is get there, and we can fill up Thoat no problem. More than full, probably a couple of loads."
"I'll see if I can wake Pirate up," A.J. said.
"No. That's my job. You guys figure out how to get Thoat out of the lander. With my leg the way it is, I can't help with that anyway."
While the others started on that task, Joe called up the comm protocols, hooked to one of the satellites.
"Please s
till be working. I know we forgot about you, Pirate, but we need you now, more than the Project ever imagined."
SHOW STATUS. ALL SYSTEMS.
Suddenly a response showed. Pirate wasn't dead, at least.
Power Generation: 54%
Sensor Systems: Panoramic Imaging Unit: Green. Infrared Imaging Unit: Green
SOKAS Detector: No Signal
CANCEL. RETURN MODULE FUELING STATUS?
Refueling procedure completed.
Crossing his fingers and giving a little prayer, Joe sent the critical query.
DISPLAY REMAINING FUEL IN RETURN MODULE.
Fuel Remaining: 22476.3 combined total.
"YES!"
"I take it from your attempt to break our eardrums that this is good news?" Madeline asked.
"There's over twenty tons of fuel waiting for us. Pirate's still mostly running and ready."
"That was supposed to be an Earth Return Vehicle, Joe," Hathaway said. "Could you people possibly just take her back up here?"
"I'm afraid not. You have to remember that Pirate was unmanned. More a demo than anything else. Sure, she was meant to carry some payload back, but not with less than half her fuel remaining. And as long as she's been sitting here, I'm pretty sure she couldn't even make orbit any more. We didn't just cut corners on the fuel tanks, I'm afraid. A lot of her systems weren't designed for a long period of inactivity, especially not on a planetary surface."
He shook his head vigorously. "It doesn't matter anyway, Ken. Even if she was working perfectly, we couldn't do it. There's not enough empty space inside Pirate to fit one of us, even if we rip out nonessentials, much less all of us. And I'd hate to try riding her up perched on the outside."
Hathaway's sigh was audible. "No, that'd be insane. All right. It was just a thought. But can you survive on the surface for long enough?"
A.J. spoke up. "With that much fuel and resources? Yeah, sure. But if you guys can't figure out how to drop us food, it'll get pretty damn tight. Hopefully we can avoid 'Donner, party of five . . . Donner, party of four . . . Donner—"
"That is not funny, A.J.!" Helen snapped. Joe could tell she was genuinely pissed. Wisely, A.J. busied himself with his work, keeping his head down.
After a short, pained silence, Helen spoke again. "Ken, leaving aside the way he put it, I'm afraid A.J. does have a point. What are the chances of getting us food? That's the one thing I can think of that there's no way we could jury-rig down here."
"We'll figure out some way to drop you supplies in the next few weeks," Hathaway said. "I just checked on the schedule, and the next lander is supposed to arrive here in three months. If you can survive that long, I think you'll be okay—even if we can't get you off the surface for some time after that. Yes?"
"Well, it'll be awfully cramped. But with the rover working and everything else . . . Yes, we can make it."
"We might have to strangle A.J. and Joe," Madeline put in, "just so we don't die from a concentration of toxic humor. But, otherwise, we can make it. I wintered over in Antarctica, once; six months in a shelter that wasn't much bigger than the rover, and was considerably less well-equipped. It wasn't any fun, but it can be done."
"What were you doing—"
"Don't ask."
"Ah . . . right. Okay, then, that's the plan."
"Not all of it," Helen countered. "I hate twiddling my thumbs, Ken. As long as we're going to be down here that long, we might as well get a good look at Target 37."
Chapter 43
A.J. watched Madeline for the signal. The cable was now wound multiple times around a massive section of the nearby outcropping, with the other end connected to Thoat's powerful electric winch. It had taken Madeline most of a day to figure out exactly how she wanted to blow the side of the lander, using some of the explosives they'd brought in case they needed them for excavating the ruins at Target
37. Everyone had been more than a little nervous—even Madeline, he suspected—when the charge was blown, but when the smoke cleared a large chunk had been taken out of the side of John Carter but virtually everything inside was untouched. Now, with the help of the winch, A.J. thought they could get Thoat out.
Madeline waved. "All set, A.J."
A.J. was acting as a spotter, observer, and advisor for Bruce. The Australian pilot was their best choice for driving Thoat, having practiced with it both in simulation and back on Earth. But this was going to be tricky even for someone with his experience. Thoat would emerge from the bay with over three meters of free drop beneath, and a heavily inclined surface of rock that could easily tip the rover if things got sticky. They had tried to use wreckage to make a ramp, but even in the one-third gravity Joe was uncertain about how well it would hold. And then, even if it did, there would still be the steep run down the huge inclined ridge before Thoat reached reasonably level ground.
If they could have set the winch cable on something towards the top of the ridge, that would have been better, but nothing on top provided reasonable purchase. However, if Thoat could survive the first few dozen yards down, it would pass the outcropping to which the winch cable was attached. From then on, it would be able to use the winch to slow itself down the rest of the way. Bruce had walked the route several times, visualizing the moves he'd have to make.
"Okay, everyone, make sure you're well clear. If anything goes wrong you'll want to be far, far away."
"Understood." Madeline and the others moved to the far side of the main ridge.
"Everyone's clear, Bruce. The cable's fastened. Snug it up."
The winch turned slowly, until increasing tension made the rover quiver. "Stop! You got it. Now, I'm trying to program the thing to keep the tension constant."
"Don't get too fancy on me, A.J. I don't need your gadget to yank on me at the wrong time. Maybe I should do the controlling."
"Do you think you can do it well enough along with all the other stuff you'll have to do?"
There was a moment's pause. "Blowed if I know for sure, but I guess you might have a point. Just make sure that it won't be pulling me if it's sideways on, right?"
"Got you. Limit of angular deflection. All right, whenever you're ready."
The thin air didn't transmit much sound, but a faint whine and rumble could be heard from Thoat. With a lurch, the rover moved up and forward, eating cable as it progressed steadily up the slope. "Keep coming, keep coming . . . almost to the edge . . . another few . . ."
Bruce gunned the engine and manually overrode the steady pressure of the winch, giving it a momentary full-strength pull. Thoat popped up out of its former prison. The front two pairs of wheels smashed down onto the inclined stone, while the rear wheels dropped with a ponderous crunch onto the makeshift ramp.
Which promptly shattered and collapsed.
Thoat slewed sideways and skidded, nearly tipping, as Bruce fought for control. The independently suspended wheels spun, trying to keep a grip, as the rover staggered drunkenly down the rocks. A.J.'s program had cut out completely as there was no predicting the angle at which Thoat might be.