“You’re wrong about that. There is also a Spaceliner spaceship full of supplies.”
Lance listened, fascinated. Yes, the corporation that had wanted to colonize Mars had sent an unmanned ship to Mars. Had Ewa somehow managed to find it?
“I can’t believe this. And you’re there now?” Mike asked.
“Not exactly. I was, but now I’m about a half day’s march from your base.”
“What did you just say?”
“You understood me. I’ll reach you tomorrow. And I’m bringing you a couple of presents.”
“Presents?” Mike asked.
Lance felt sorry for him. He would probably also ask stupid questions if he were in Mike’s position. It was incredible that they were talking with Ewa, and yet he recognized her voice.
“Surprises. And without any conditions. I have some things to make up for, but please do not interpret this as a bribe. If you want, I will disappear again afterward.”
“You’re going to disappear? Like the way you disappeared from the MfE base?”
“I was banished. Rightly so. But I won’t be going back there anymore. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The connection went dead.
“Sarah and Sharon, please come to the bridge,” Mike called over the ship-wide intercom.
Lance didn’t say anything. He fidgeted with his fingers, trying to process what he’d just heard. Ewa was back from the dead. He had thought all along that the punishment the MfE astronauts had imposed on her—to literally send her into the desert—had been inhumane. But she had voted for this option as well. Why was she coming back now? And why was she coming to them and not returning to her former friends? Because they are no longer her friends. The logic was self-explanatory.
Sharon and Sarah reached the bridge at almost the same time. Sarah had a brown smudge on her forehead. Lance pointed at it. Understanding his gesture, she wiped the spot with her sleeve. Sharon had brought along the tablet she had been working on.
“Here, folks, are your shift schedules for the next few weeks,” she said, setting the tablet down on Mike’s console.
“It would be a good idea to copy them over to your universal devices,” she added. “We’ll finally be able to get back to some kind of routine.”
“It’ll have to wait for a while,” Mike said.
“Why?” Sharon asked. “Does Lance really want to go out with me to find another old probe? Sarah was just telling me about that,” she said with a laugh.
“Not quite,” Mike replied. “We’re going to have a visitor.”
“That’s nice. From MfE? Where else?” Sharon asked. “They could’ve told us that yesterday, or did they just decide today? Since Ewa’s departure, their organization seems to have become a little more chaotic.”
“You’re getting warmer—” Mike said.
“Out with it!” Sarah cut in. “Lance, if Mike just wants to play with us, you’re going to have to tell us what’s going on. I have a lot to still do in the garden today.”
“Fine,” Mike said. “Ewa is coming.”
Sarah and Sharon both whipped around to face him. They were obviously waiting on a twist, on a punchline that didn’t come. Lance thought he could see on their faces how the meaning behind Mike’s words slowly dawned on them.
“But Ewa’s dead, right?” Sharon asked, her voice markedly quieter than before.
“The woman with whom I was just chatting was definitely alive,” Mike said. “Lance can vouch for me.”
Lance nodded energetically.
“And you’re sure that it was Ewa?” Sarah asked.
“It was clearly her voice,” Mike explained.
“But you didn’t see her?” Sarah asked. “Maybe someone was playing a trick on us with an old recording. Did you ask her something that only she could know?”
“I don’t know of anything that only she and I would know,” Mike replied defensively. “I’ve only seen her a few times, and there were always other people around. Besides, we didn’t chat all that long.”
“And what did she say? Where is she? When will she get here?” Sharon asked, perching on the edge of Mike’s console as Sarah paced up and down the bridge.
“She came across the Spaceliner program’s supply ship, got inside somehow, and made off with some of the supplies,” Mike explained. “I’d bet the ship’s comp is pretty angry with her now.”
“Ah, the ship that that rude Rick Summers is tied to?” Sarah asked. “Do you remember how he was brash enough to advertise for a spy among us? The company behind that mission has enough resources to sustain Ewa for a while.”
“She’s isn’t there anymore. She’s heading our way,” Mike said. “She’ll reach us tomorrow, and she said that she’s bringing gifts.”
Silence. The only audible sound was the life support system. Lance glanced at his colleagues and detected uncertainty.
“I don’t know if we should let her in, either,” he said. “Ewa is guilty of multiple murders, as she’s personally admitted. What if she wants to simply continue on her spree? And even if she brings us the most amazing presents, wouldn’t that be some kind of bribery?”
“You could also view it as recompense,” Mike interjected.
“But she doesn’t owe us that,” Lance said. “If it’s owed to anyone, then it’s to her old MfE friends.”
“But she’s coming to us, and somehow I can understand her decision,” Mike said. “She can’t live at the MfE settlement ever again.”
“Does she want asylum from us?” Sharon asked. “What did she say?”
“She wants to talk to us and drop off the gifts,” Mike replied. “She said if we wish, she’ll head back into the desert and never return again.”
“That means she’s forcing us to make a new decision between life and death. That’s moral blackmail,” Sharon said.
“But what else is she supposed to do? Her reasoning seems quite logical to me,” Lance said. “We don’t have to make any new decisions. Ewa was legally sentenced according to the laws of her community. If we send her into the desert, we’re just following through on that judgment.”
“And if we let her stay here, we are nullifying that judgment. Is that fair to the MfE people Ewa has on her conscience?” Sharon asked.
“Perhaps we should ask the MfE folks. It would just be a call,” Sarah suggested.
“That strikes me as the coward’s way out,” Lance declared. “We should be able to come to a decision on our own.”
“Agreed,” Mike said. “Then I say that we defer the decision. We will invite Ewa in tomorrow and talk with her. After that, we’ll vote on her fate.”
Good idea, Lance thought. He expected the two women to protest, but they seemed content with that plan.
“My plants are awaiting me,” Sarah said in farewell.
“I have the new data from the Mars Express 2 satellite that I need to integrate into our offline map material,” Sharon said.
Mike stroked his imaginary beard. “It wouldn’t be wise to call Ellen now, would it?” he asked Lance.
Lance shook his head. “She’d notice something was up.”
“Right. Well, then I’ll try to double-check Ewa’s story. It will supposedly take her forty sols to travel from the MfE base to the supply ship and then to us. I wonder if that’s even realistic.”
“Do you have the location for the supply ship?”
“That’s the weak point. The corporation never publicly revealed that information, but maybe I can at least find some clues in the databank. The Mars satellites must have observed the landing.”
“Good luck with that! I’m going to clean the filter for the life support system,” Lance explained as he slowly walked off the bridge.
The conversation he had wanted to have with Mike about an expedition to search for water deposits could be postponed.
Sol 102, NASA base
Sharon’s new shift schedule should have started today, but because of the anticipated visit, they were all on
the bridge by eight o’clock. Lance was the last one through the door.
“In case you’re also about to ask,” Mike said in greeting, “no, Ewa hasn’t radioed in yet.”
“The external cameras aren’t picking up anything yet?” Lance asked.
Mike shook his head. Lance sat down in a chair on the edge of the room and twiddled his thumbs. Sharon was sitting in the seat beside Mike, while Sarah paced.
Suddenly Sharon jumped to her feet. “You’re not serious, are you?” she asked.
“What are you talking about?” Mike fired back.
“We’re just going to sit around here and wait? There’s so much to do.”
“You’re doing it, too.”
Sharon gazed at Mike without saying a word, then left the bridge.
Lance also stood up, though he didn’t really want to tend to the KRUSTY, as was on the schedule for him today. The ‘Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling TechnologY’ was self-maintaining. All he could do was read off the various values and enter them into a databank. No, he would wait for Ewa up on the surface.
As he opened the bridge door, Mike called after him. “What are you going to do?”
Lance pointed upward.
“He’s on KRUSTY duty today,” Sarah explained for him.
Mike nodded, and Lance left the bridge. His spacesuit was in the workshop. He fetched it and began a quick training routine. He had recently started going off base occasionally without exercising beforehand. It was supposedly dangerous to do so because of blood nitrogen levels, but he hadn’t experienced any side effects.
Thirty minutes later, he was standing in the airlock, all suited up. If he was going to service the KRUSTY, he would have to go outside. At the same time, his colleagues would start wondering if he wasn’t back in fifteen minutes. The longest part of this job was the walk to and from the reactor.
But Lance planned to completely ignore the KRUSTY today. He already had the values he was supposed to write down memorized. They hadn’t changed significantly since the reactor had been activated. The technology was quite well-engineered. Years ago, people had gotten goosebumps at even the thought of a nuclear reactor. Fortunately, that time was past. They would be pretty much lost on Mars without the KRUSTY, which provided the majority of their energy. They would be finding out exactly how lost they would be in a relatively short time, since the reactor was designed to last for only a decade.
The red light stopped flashing and burned steadily. That meant that all the breathable air had been pumped out of the airlock. Lance pushed the button to open the door, and the hatch panel slid to the side. A little dust rained down onto his helmet. Lance used the ladder to climb out of the airlock.
The view still felt foreign to him. The spaceship Endeavour, which had brought them to Mars, had towered into the sky to the left until the MfE crew had stolen it. They were being allowed to keep it until their base was completed. Therefore its old spot was empty. Lance wished the Endeavour was back already. It was a pragmatic desire, since from its command deck, he could have had an outstanding view of the surrounding landscape.
He looked around. Anyone who didn’t know that humans lived here would hardly notice anything different. The primitive turbine, a few antennas, and the KRUSTY set farther back were the only things that rose noticeably above the surface level. The base was practically invisible within its regolith. He noticed someone pushing aside the garden module’s covering. That had to be Sarah. To conserve heating resources, the garden’s transparent roof was covered during the night.
Lance felt chilled. It was quite chilly out here. Of course, he wasn’t sensing the actual surface temperature right now, which was about minus twenty, but the colder it was, the longer it took the suit heater to reach a comfortable warmth. He increased the temperature on his suit via the universal device on his arm, before doing a few knee bends.
He caught sight of the pavilion to the east. What a crazy idea, he thought. A small glass box filled with breathable air, it could be reached via a subterranean tube that connected it to the station. This allowed them to indulge in the illusion of spending time on the Mars surface without their suits. Lance understood what fascinated Mike and the others about this addition to their space. It was the illusion of freedom. After all, they would never—not for as long as they lived—be able to move around the planet’s surface without technological support.
When would Ewa get here? And what would give her away? He imagined her driving a rover. Maybe she had even hitched a second one to it to transport more provisions. The NASA base might be lying hidden underground, but there were enough clues around to indicate to Ewa that she had reached her destination. Even if she overshot her mark and accidentally drove on top of the base, that wouldn’t be a problem. The roof was stable enough to protect the crew underground from small meteorite strikes.
He walked over to the pavilion and back. The short walk did him good. Lance stopped and looked up. The sun looked pallid. It no longer seemed as strange to him as it had shortly after their landing.
Suddenly, a small hill appeared on the northern horizon. Lance noticed it immediately, because nothing in the Mars landscape ever moved. What was coming? What was that? Whatever was approaching the station wasn’t an ordinary rover.
“Mike, do you see that?” Lance asked the bridge over his helmet radio.
“Yes, there’s something there, on the horizon.”
“Can you make out details, Mike?”
“I have zoomed the surveillance camera in as much as possible, but there’s too much dust in the air. The image is very blurry, but it doesn’t look like a rover to me.”
“That was my impression as well. I’m going to move a little closer to the thing.”
“Are you crazy, Lance? What if it’s something totally different?”
“What could it possibly be? Ewa announced that she was coming today, so she’s got to be the one sitting at the wheel. I don’t believe in ghosts.”
Lance set off. It was a bright day, and he had enough air to last until sunset. The walk would do him good. Besides, this way he would be the first one to see Ewa’s present—or the first one Ewa would kill. Lance hoped he would be able to warn the others before that happened.
The hill on the horizon was slowly looming larger. The vehicle heading his way wasn’t moving especially fast. Lance looked over his shoulder. The base was about two kilometers behind him. He estimated that Ewa was approaching at about the speed of a bicycle. Thirty minutes later, he was able to make out a few details in the haze. There were two vehicles. One of them seemed to be driving behind the other, a little off to the side. Since Ewa was alone, she had to be driving one and operating the other by remote control. The vehicle at the back seemed to be somewhat flatter than the one at the front. That was as much as he could tell since the two of them were driving toward him.
“Bridge to Lance, you’re already fairly far away. You know that, right?” he heard Sharon ask.
Sharon and Mike have to be sitting together on the bridge by now, he thought. “No problem,” he replied. “I have enough air.”
“We’re still concerned. If something happens, nobody will be able to help you all that quickly.”
“What could go wrong, Sharon?”
“Listen, Ewa has five people on her conscience. What if this is a trick, and she wants to kill you, too?”
“That doesn’t make any sense to me. Why would she call in yesterday? And why would she bring a second vehicle with her?”
“What did you say? A second vehicle? Our camera can’t bring the image into focus,” Mike said.
“Yeah, she’s bringing it in tow. I’m fine out here,” Lance replied.
“Just be careful, all right?”
Lance was glad to hear that it was Sarah who was asking this of him. And, with that, he continued toward Ewa.
The vehicle rolling toward him was truly extraordinary. It seemed to be made up of four thick steel beams that were pointing toward him and were
connected to each other by cross braces. The construction looked as if someone had tipped over one of those large electrical pylons from Earth before loading it onto a truck with its feet facing forward. Located at the upper center was a cab covered by a transparent material, looking like it had been deposited into the metal structure like a clutch of insect eggs. Ewa was presumably steering the strange vehicle from there. What purpose did it serve? Logic told him that it must be valuable. Otherwise Ewa wouldn’t have brought it along with her.
Objects on Mars weren’t valuable because of their costly materials, but because they were useful and aided in survival. He would swap a gold necklace for a roll of duct tape, for instance, any day of the week. If he could see the vehicle from the side, it would probably be easy to guess its use. A few minutes ago, when Ewa had been forced to steer around a small crater, Lance had noticed that the vehicle was relatively long and had more than two axles.
The second vehicle, which closely followed the other’s route, was an easier puzzle. Attached to the front, he had made out something that looked like a shovel. This was presumably a loader. Very useful, he thought. If Ewa left just this one vehicle with them, they could significantly speed up the expansion of their base.
Lance began to daydream. It would be nice to have a little more living space, but there were things more important than that. They could increase their greenhouse area tenfold and more quickly decrease their dependence on the supplies they had brought from Earth. These they could keep for truly bad periods. Of course, they would have to plan things out carefully since crop cultivation required water and energy, neither of which they had in endless supply yet.
“Lance to bridge,” he said.
“We can hear you,” Mike replied.
“The vehicle in the back seems to be a loader. You should go ahead and start imagining what all you’d like to do with it.”
He probably hadn’t needed to express the last sentence. His colleagues’ imaginations would have already started spinning at the word loader. He recalled their discussion from yesterday. Maybe they shouldn’t even accept a gift like this. Or they could accept it and pass it along to MfE. On the other hand, what harm would it bring for them to use the machine for the next three weeks to excavate their future garden space?
Mars Nation: The Complete Trilogy Page 42