Then Kinna hallooed, "Yonder!" He looked from a three-dimensional map display in the control console to the ledge ahead and saw that they matched. She, piloting, joined her skill to the aircraft's program and systems. Jumbled blacknesses swelled in sight, terrifying fast. This was the only spot anywhere near the goal that met their needs—unobservable by the station or by some instrument in Threedom territory, big enough and level enough to land on. For a wild moment he wondered about its size. Could the left wing really clear the bluff on that side? The engine rumbled. A shock hit him, a lesser, a lesser. And they were down. The engine noise whined away into silence.
Exultant, Kinna grinned at him. "Could you've done that?" she challenged.
"N-no," he admitted shakily. Space made its own demands, but none quite like this. "The place I had in mind is a good bit wider."
"And a good bit farther to walk from. Aren't you glad you brought a lazy woman along?" She patted his hand. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't tease you. This is your idea, your mission.”
"Hadn't we, uh, better get going?"
"Blaze, yes. Ridiculously much work ahead of us."
They unharnessed and got out of their seats. Already in skinsuits, they closed down their helmets—after Kinna had ordered, "Kiss the pilot"—and activated their bib-stats. While the economy pump evacuated the interior, they began unsecuring their cargo. Thereafter they took things outside.
The day stood at noon when they finished. Muscles welcomed the toil. They had set off before sunrise after overnighting in the vehicle at an unfrequented site she knew above Valles Marineris. The previous day they had left Crommelin, as inconspicuously as possible. The three days and part of the nights before that had gone to collecting the material and information they required, likewise as inconspicuously as possible, and developing their plan of campaign. Not much time or energy was left for embraces, let alone exercise.
Once he had even wondered aloud if they must boost so hard. Couldn't they take a week or two off and just be together? "Let's get it over with," she replied rather grimly. "When we're through, we'll be free."
Now he had to confess she was probably right about that, as she had been about everything else. Certainly the route she laid out and the equipment she specified would make a big difference. Except for scrambling around in her company on previous visits, he had never mountaineered on Mars. It had little to do with climbing on Luna or Earth. His studies had not well prepared him for the reality.
Among other things, she had insisted on a top-grade pack robot. It dug a considerable hole in the fund allotted him for his investigation, but she pointed out that it would have resale value. About two meters long and one high, a gray cylinder with six claw-footed legs and a sensor turret at the front end, it bore ample energy for the expedition in its accumulators, as well as for a built-in transmitter to summon help if need be. The humans' backpacks could be fairly light when most stuff was loaded on it, truly adequate amounts of air, water, fuel cells, medicine, tools, instruments, changes of clothing and other comforts—above all, a sealtent. Fenn had meant to sleep in a powerbag.
The flight distance from here to the Star Net Station was merely sixty-seven kilometers. The distance afoot was significantly more, the going hard, slow, dangerous in some places. Kinna figured they could arrive the day after tomorrow. Then Fenn would take charge. Meanwhile, she was trail captain.
He code-locked the aircraft. The same key, which he tucked away in his pack, warded the controls. It was not a precaution one would ordinarily take in an empty wilderness, but she had said that Inrai might still skulk about now and then. Had she not gone on to swear that the likelihood of encountering any was negligible, he would have scrapped the whole venture rather than let her maneuver him into taking her. As it was, this gesture eased him a little. Whatever happened, they wouldn't come back and find that somebody had made off with their wings.
"Shall we?" she said. It was scarcely a question. He nodded. They started off, she first, he after her, the robot behind. Its program was capable of obeying simple orders and, more difficult, taking it over rugged terrain.
Bloody-death difficult! What with skinsuit, helmet, boots, biostat, energy system, auxiliary devices, fluid reserves, and backpack, Fenn's weight equaled his weight naked on Earth; and the extra mass meant that much more inertia to cope with. Snug, the suit had only rudimentary motor assistance at the joints, where residual pressure added flex resistance to the toughness of the fabric. That didn't matter on reasonable surfaces, but here was rock in grotesque bulks—thread your way around or between, climb across and clamber back down, clutching at handholds, desperately glad that tactile amplifiers gave normal sensation to fingers and feet. His cooling system was soon overloaded; sweat drenched his undergarment, stung his eyes, reeked in his nostrils. He sucked streams of water down his furnace-dry throat, breathed hard and harshly, heard how his .recyclers and pumps labored. Sometimes the route crossed an open slope, but it was always steep, precarious, straining knees and wits to keep from falling over and rolling down to where a cliff dropped or a crack gaped.
Kinna went lightly and surely. Through the pulse that pounded in Fenn's head floated a memory of a wild goat he had seen in Yukonia. She ought to be on those lovely heights, where snowpeaks gleamed afar and gentians clustered blue in the grass around a tarn, not in this wasteland. And yet it was hers. Strapped to her left arm she carried a pathfinder, and often checked the unrolling annotated map she had programmed into it against the landmarks she saw; but she rarely stopped for the purpose.
After a couple of hours, though, she did call a halt. "We need a rest," she said. Joining her, he discovered that her own face glistened wet and the brown hair curled damp. "Also," she added softly, "we need time for the view here. It's what I hoped. We won't come on another like it."
He looked. They had reached a narrow outthrust above a plunging decline. Right, left, and upward, the aa lava piled in titanic black blocks and clinkers. The weather-polished pahoehoe of the descent sheened almost obsidian. Immensely far down and distant,. Tharsis plateau rimmed the mountain's dark world with rose. Remoteness and atmospheric haze made it a blur, a dream. No dust blew this high today. The intricately shadowed upland stood knife-edge sharp under a sky more deeply blue than any ocean stream. A few ice-clouds floated in it, frail plumes, dazzlingly white. When Fenn's heart and lungs had quieted, awe came upon him.
He glanced again at Kinna. How raptly she stared.
Mars child, he thought. "You love this planet, don't you?" he asked low.
"Oh!" Startled, she turned to. him, then smiled. "Well, it's me," she answered after a moment. "Just about every atom in me is Martian." The smile brightened. She fluttered her lashes. "Not that I don't mean to kiss as many Earth atoms off you as I can. And—urn—'' She stopped quickly and looked down. He saw the blush, and was less amused than touched.
"I can't help wondering if it's right to change ... your home," he said. If we become able to.
"Don't worry about that," she replied, self-possessed again. "I won't live to see any enormous differences, will I?"
"I'd like you to live forever."
“If you do too. If a Life Mother resurrects both of us. But however that works out, making Mars over, making it truly alive, that's like a baby growing up, isn't it? You remember how she stumped around the house, how you'd play with her and hold-her and tuck her into bed, but you wouldn't want her to stay like that always. Everything changes. It's right and natural."
"If it's for the better."
"Well, nothing is forever—" Her voice trailed off. She gazed straight out into the sky. Had a thought struck her? She said hardly anything during the rest of their stay, and he decided not to interrupt her.
After they resumed, he found he was getting the hang of it. Travel became progressively less wearisome. Still, when she told him they would stop for the night, he was more than ready to.
The shoulder she had chosen beforehand from the map was fairly level and they soo
n cleared the loose rocks off, for it was barely wide enough to accommodate the sealtent, with a margin to spare for the robot and for them to work. A shot of energy expanded the molecules that catalvsis had folded and would refold tomorrow. The package became a thick, insulating pad below, dome artd airlock above, heating elements interwoven. However, next the occupants must set up power and recycling units and bring their personal things inside. Their previous trips had been shorter and easier; they had not shaken down into a proper mountaineering team, and the jobs took time. They had just finished when the sun set and night clapped instantly down. '"'
They lingered outside for a few minutes. Phobos and Deimos were both aloft, well-nigh lost among the stars. Those stood in their hordes, keen, unwinking, blues and yellows and reds mingled with the crystalline whiteness of most, the Milky Way a cold noiseless river; sister galaxies glowed vague and mysterious; by the light that poured thence, Fenn clearly saw Kinna's features limned against the universe.
"Your sky," she whispered.
"Hm?"
"You know how seldom we see the stars this well from the settlements. Here it's as if I could reach up and touch them. Like in space. You're used to the sight."
"I wonder if I ever really will be."
"You belong with the stars."
"I belong with you."
She was silent awhile before she said, not quite steadily, "They're like—three dimensions, four—We stand here on a tiny ball whirling through endlessness. .If we got flung off, we'd fall forever through ... that." Skinsuit or no, he saw her shiver. "We'd better go in. Another long, stiff day ahead of us."
They crawled through the lock and closed it. Fenn touched a ale. Adi hissed n from the tanks. When the monitor light flashed green, he and Kinna took off their helmets, and kissed, then their suits, and kissed at greater length.
She ended it with a gulped laugh. "Aren't you hungry too?" she asked.
Yes, he thought. Mainly for you.
"We can wash later," she proposed. "I don't mind how you smell, on the contrary; and as for me, when my belly's stopped grumbling, I can properly appreciate hot water."
More skilled than he, she busied herself with the glower, utensils, and foodstuffs. When she shook something over a pan, he inquired what it was.
"A spice mixture I packed along," she explained. "We call it sneeze-with-joy at home. A few grams extra in the load, and those field rations won't taste entirely like reconstituted chewing gum."
"You would think of that," he chuckled. "Wait and see what I can do when we have a real kitchen." Wait!
The meal was soon ready, the tent warm and full of fragrances. Cross-legged on the floor, Fenn and Kinna attacked their plates. After a few bites, he said, "Wonderful. So are you."
Across from him, rumpled, grimy, unkempt, beautiful, she made a bow of sorts. "At your service. Any time." He didn't know if exhaustion, his aching body and dulling skull, bore the blame, or his nature; but somber-ness fell on him and he said, "Yes, you are, aren't you? I agree now; I probably couldn't have handled this trek without you. And nevertheless, I wish you weren't here," Her merriment went away. Maybe it also had been only a rainbow shimmer, "I don't."
"You're straining yourself, you're taking these risks, for my sake—" She shook her head. "No. Not totally. I'm glad you said that. I've been wanting to tell you, to make you understand, since I began to understand myself. We've been so busy, this is my first chance." Fenn waited. She's worth waiting for, he thought. Kinna gathered words. When she was ready, she said in full calm, "Yes, at first it was on your account. I couldn't let you go alone. I couldn't. But my threat to— betray you—I'm not sure I could have carried it through. Anyhow, it worked, it forced you to sign me on. But then afterward, thinking at odd moments and when I lay awake at night—Fenn, I came to .believe you're right. More nearly right than wrong, at least. The Inrai, all that death and horror, provoked by Proserpina—why? Not wantonly, I'm certain. Could the Proserpinans have a case, a good reason, a just cause? And the whole secrecy about the lens—why? What it's found matters tremendously, that's plain to see. Matters to us. Then what about our Covenant right as citizens to know? Our right to make our own fate?"
"Chuan thinks otherwise," he reminded her.
She nodded. "Yes, and I think highly of him, I hate going against him, but—He's deeply troubled about this himself, isn't he? Is he so sure the secrecy is justified?" She caught her breath before plunging on: "He is a synnoiont, though; he belongs to the cybercosm, he's loyal to it—the way my hand is loyal to me? I don't really know. I do know he'd never wish us any harm. But is the cybercosm always wise?"
The knowledge of her unity with him went into his blood like wine. "We'll decide that for ourselves," he said.
"Yes," she answered. "We. All of us."
They finished their meal and cleaned the utensils with but a few more words between them. She glanced at their sleeping pads.
"Yen," Fenn said. "Bedtime." He jerked a thumb at the wash unit in front of the curtained camp sanitor. “We could use a thorough scrubbing first."
"No argument," Kinna hesitated. "Would you mind if—we took turns-—and each looked away till the other was through and dressed for the night?''
Memory smote, casual remarks she had made early in their acquaintance. "You mentioned... you and Elverir."
She colored. "We did likewise, mostly. Besides, that was then and he was, he. This is now and you are you. Do you understand?"
He felt furiously jealous, but found no choice except to nod. "Yes. We can't afford distractions."
"It's more complicated than that," she said. "But we'll be married soon. Very soon. Won't we?"
He recalled his parents, and many others. "You'd be taking an awful chance."
"No," she murmured. "Not with you."
Could he live up to that?
He'd napping well better.
They woke, breakfasted hastily, broke camp, and pushed on. Midway through the morning: "Hold!" she called.
Alarm stabbed him. He peered around but saw nothing more than black, sometimes rusty-tinged roughness, boulders, and scoria under indigo heaven. "What?" He started to join her.
"There. Look." She waved him off. "No, stand back a minute, please." She moved downhill, behind the rock masses. He waited uneasily, envying the robot its mind-lessness.
Eventually Kinna reappeared and beckoned to him. He scrambled to join her. They descended to a hollow, like a shallow, flat-bottomed bowl, about as large as their ledge of the night before. The clinkers that must originally have littered it were stacked along the sides, and a thin, gritty layer of regolith on the floor was marked by prints such as nature would never have made.
"A campsite," she said. That was obvious, though he doubted he would have noticed as he passed by. Her next quiet sentence was something else. "It can only have
been Inrai."
He must not fly loose; he must examine the situation carefully. "Are you sure?" he asked. "Not somebody earlier? I've heard about trips for sport in these parts— adding up to a lot in the course of centuries—till a few years ago when tension with the Threedom got bad enough to stop them. I should think weathering hereabouts goes mighty slow."
She shook her head. The brown locks danced. "No, these traces are less than a year old, probably much less. Air pressure is still about half of mean datum value." Fenn gave himself a mental kick in the stern. Of course. Low gravity meant low gradients. "And dust does blow this high now and then." She pointed. "See how it lies drifted in the crevices and concavities. There'd be a sprinkling on the floor here if it hadn't been lately disturbed." She hunkered down, her finger sweeping out indications. "The main depression, that's where they had their sealtent. But look, those bootprints going around and around it. Somebody paced. Who but a sentry, on duty all night? Sportsfolk wouldn't post one. Warriors would."
Fenn ignored the chills along his spine and nodded. "You're right. Well, Scorian would've had men scouting out the territory befor
e his attack on the station."
Kinna rose. Again she shook her head. "The attack didn't come by this route, remember. True, scouts must have explored pretty widely, searching for the best approach. A violent operation wants more than satellite maps, no matter how detailed they are. He'd also have wanted caches set up in the area, to support the garrison that was going to hold the station after he captured it— if that was his intention. But it doesn't follow that we've simply come on a camp from that business. You recall what I said." She repeated it for emphasis. "If I know Lunarians, they won't have abandoned those supplies, written them off. They'll send parties back from time to time to ferry them down for the remaining guerrillas. Even without that motive, I'd expect visits once in a while, out of pride, unwilling to admit defeat to themselves. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if they keep a tiny semi-permanent camp somewhere lower down, tucked into a cave or something where it can't be spotted from above. Or maybe only a few small robotic observers, to watch if any thing's going on and let humans know when it's safe to come."
She hadn't mentioned that possibility before. "You think outlaws may be prowling around on the mountain right now?"
"At this exact instant? No, I told you how improbable that is." She brightened. "We needn't let it scare us off, anyhow. If we do meet a few, why should they be hostile to us? We're not officers of the Republic. I may well have met some in the past, in a friendly sort of way."
She's so optimistic, so trusting, Fenn thought. But she's not stupid, ignorant, or reckless. "Muy bien, if you judge it's safe—or no more unsafe than turning around— we can proceed." His hand slid over the sidearm at his waist; he pictured the rifle slung across his backpack. He'd trust in them.
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