“Looks as if we’ve come out in a deep hollow,” Chris informed the control room.
“Chris, we need your help,” Marlene repeated.
“OK. What’s the problem?”
“We’ve deposited our sensor package and set up the telescope facing your planet. But we can’t find the transporter.”
Ernie took a few steps to the side to look at the landscape behind the transporter. On every side, steep cliffs rose up into the sky. From somewhere up there they ought to be able to see the twin planet on which Marlene and Travis were, but Ernie could only see walls of rock. “No wonder. The transporter is in a really deep hollow, and the cliffs project far above the horizon. We can’t even see your planet.”
To set up the sensor package here made no sense at all.
“Shit!” Chris swore. “If we want to set up the telescope we have to climb up there. And it’s very steep. Even with this low gravity it’ll be tough.”
“Start right away! Otherwise the mission will fail. You must have Target A in view.” Morrow’s voice was loud and urgent.
“Damn, that’s cutting it fine,” Ernie said.
“Yup, we’ve only got about an hour. By then we have to have climbed up that cliff, installed the sensor package, and be back in the transporter.”
“Then get going!” came Morrow’s angry voice in reply.
Chris began to clamber up the cliff. “It’s not too bad. There are enough protrusions to get a foothold, but I need to be really careful not to slash open my suit on the sharp edges.”
Ernie clambered after Chris. He started to sweat. Instinctively he tried to wipe his hand over his brow, but he just hit the golden visor. “Shit!”
“What’s the matter?” Chris asked.
“All fine,” Ernie murmured, and adjusted the air-conditioning using the switch on his chest. Immediately a pleasant flow of air blew over his face. “We should have left earlier!” he said.
“We couldn’t have. The equipment was only ready this morning.”
Groaning, Ernie kept on climbing. He looked back and saw the transporter about one-hundred-and-fifty feet below him in the cavity between the cliffs. Why had the aliens dropped the thing in this hole, of all places? But then Ernie remembered what Russell had told him: that the transporters were created in the different solar systems by nanomachines and had landed on random planets by chance. The transporter hadn’t ended up in the hollow intentionally.
“I’m nearly at the top,” Chris groaned. “I can see Target A.”
Ernie looked up. He saw Chris ahead of him before he disappeared behind a rocky outcrop. Swearing loudly, Ernie scaled the final few feet and heaved himself onto a small plateau.
“Jesus, I’m beat. Imagine doing that with higher gravity.” Breathing heavily, he looked up at his comrade, but Chris was already busy with the sensor package and pulling the telescope out of its case. Then Ernie caught sight of Target A.
“Oh wow!” The twin planet loomed up over the horizon. It resembled the Earth’s moon, but was much closer. The white-gray sphere took up almost a quarter of the visible firmament. “Awesome! Really awesome!” Ernie whispered.
“Come on, help me with the telescope. We don’t have any time.”
He was right. Ernie reluctantly tore his eyes away from the twin planet and put his own sensor package down next to Chris’. He pulled a flat cable out of a hollow in his device and connected the two with a plug. Then he flipped the switched. “Power supply activated.”
“Marlene, come in. We’ve activated our package. You should be able to locate it now,” Chris said.
“We’re receiving your signal, Chris,” came Marlene’s reply. “Control room?”
“Mitchell here. Ms. Wolfe, we’re receiving two good video feeds from you. We can’t see the transporter on Target B, but have identified the hollow in which it’s situated. That should be enough. The other feed is coming from the viewfinder, which is giving us an overview of the planet. That data looks good too. Team A, you can return.”
“Roger that.”
“How far have you got?” Ernie asked Chris.
The astronaut adjusted two setscrews on the telescope and checked the image with the help of a small monitor attached to the sensor package. “I’m receiving the signal from the telescope on Target A, but I’m still looking for it on the monitor. I don’t understand why ...” Chris let out a sigh of relief. “It’s OK. I’ve got it.”
Ernie slid over to his comrade on all fours and looked over his shoulder at the screen. A black orb lay motionless in the middle of a green, dust-covered landscape. They saw two tiny figures disappearing inside it.
“I’ll zoom back a bit, so that you can see a larger area,” Chris said, and slowly adjusted the telescope.
“Team B, how far have you got? Another twenty minutes until contact is expected to break off.”
“I’m activating the transmission, Mitchell.” Chris flipped a switch. “Are you receiving?”
“Yes, the image and the data are all clear. You can leave.”
“Roger!”
Ernie stood up slowly. He let Chris go first, and carefully they began to make their way down. Ernie looked over the edge of the cliff. It’s a long way down!
“Come on!” Chris urged him on. “Another eighteen minutes. We’re cutting it close.”
Ernie nodded and stepped over the edge. Chris was already six feet below him. Maybe it’s better if I don’t climb down directly above him. If I fall, I’ll drag him down with me.
Ernie took one step to the side. As if in slow motion, the rock below him started to crumble. A few stones loosened and rolled down the cliff edge. His feet slipped.
Shit!
He leaned forward to keep a grip on the plateau with his upper body, but his feet were already sliding down. He felt a sharp stab of pain in his lower leg and screamed.
“Ernie?” he heard Chris’ voice. His upper body hit the rocks so hard that the air was knocked out of his body despite the space suit. He fumbled around with his hands trying to get a grip, but it was no longer necessary. He had stopped slipping. A searing pain was coursing through his right leg. Without looking, Ernie knew it was broken. He tried to lift it, but couldn’t. With both hands he held on tight to two ledges and looked down, even though it made the pain worse. His foot was stuck. It was a miracle he hadn’t damaged his space suit.
“Ernie, what’s going on?”
“I’ve got a problem. I’m stuck.”
“You’re what?”
From the corner of his eye, he could see Chris clambering back up. “And I’ve broken my leg,” he groaned.
“Tell me you’re kidding!”
“Mr. Lawrence, you must get down. Immediately! Time is running out,” he could hear Morrow’s cool voice in his helmet earpiece.
“Oh shit, that doesn’t look good.” Chris had reached him and was leaning over him. “Even through the space suit I can see that your leg is broken. The bone is pressing against the material.”
Ernie yelped as Chris touched the spot.
“Another fifteen minutes. You have to get away!” Mitchell, who usually never lost his cool, was yelling.
“Ernie, your foot is stuck between two rocks. I have to pull it out. Grit your teeth, this is going to hurt a lot.”
He felt Chris grab his ankle with both hands, then a flash of pain surged through his body and he almost lost consciousness. He could only see white spots dancing in front of his eyes.
“Please, Chris!” he screamed. “Stop it! I mean it, stop it!” Ernie had never been particularly squeamish, but this pain was more than he could bear.
But his comrade didn’t stop and kept tugging at his foot. Ernie closed his eyes and gritted his teeth so hard he thought they would crack. His hands clenched the rock. He groaned as the pain finally subsided.
“I can’t do it,” Chris whispered. “The boot is stuck too fast. I just can’t do it.”
“Twelve more minutes,” Mitchell shouted.
<
br /> Ernie tried to breathe regularly. He opened his eyes again and saw only a fog. Instinctively, he brushed a hand over the visor but it was no use. Of course the plexiglass had misted up inside. He was just happy he wasn’t in as much pain.
“Go,” he said.
“Ernie!”
It was over. His foot was stuck and there was no more time. “Go! You can’t do anything for me. Save yourself!”
“Mr. Holbrook, I order you to return to the transporter immediately. You have less than twelve minutes,” Morrow’s voice was calm again, but still urgent.
“Ernie, I——” Chris stammered.
“Please go!” Ernie shouted into the microphone. He didn’t want his friend to die because of his carelessness. The space suit had conducted the moisture away from his helmet enough for him to hazily make out Chris moving away from him. He tried one last time to twist his foot free, but it was no use. He would die here on this godforsaken planet somewhere on the edge of the Milky Way. Light years away from every other human that meant anything to him.
“I’m sorry,” he heard Chris’ quiet voice in his helmet.
“S’alright. It’s my fault, I don’t blame you.”
“Nine more minutes,” Mitchell said huskily.
Carefully, Ernie leaned to the right and looked down. Chris still had quite a way to go to reach the transporter.
“Chris, get a move on!”
“I can’t go faster. I have to watch every step to make sure I can get a firm grip.”
Damn it!
They should have taken ropes with them, then they could have simply rappelled down. It would have taken them only a few minutes to get down and he wouldn’t be in this mess. The fog in Ernie’s helmet had now dispersed. His was still clinging to the edge of the plateau with his hands, while his foot was stuck just a few feet below. In front of him was the sensor package. The lens barrel of the telescope protruded over the top and was pointed at Target A. Which transporter would be destroyed first? If it was the one on Target A, Ernie would be able to see the explosion from here——if it really was blown up in a nuclear explosion. If it was the one on their planet, he probably wouldn’t notice anything. Whatever happened, his daughter would be an orphan. The thought of never seeing her again drove him almost to distraction.
If I could only hold Carrie in my arms once last time!
“Three more minutes,” Mitchell said.
“I won’t make it. I’m still at least sixty feet above the ground,” Chris panted.
Ernie looked down. He couldn’t see his friend. He must be somewhere in the shadow of the escarpment. And the suits didn’t have navigation lights.
“Jump!” Dr. Hope said.
“What?”
“The gravity is low enough for you to survive a jump from sixty feet. Jump!”
Through his earpiece, Ernie heard Chris breathing loudly.
Just do it!
“OK, I’m going to push myself off the cliff face.”
Ernie heard a loud scream. “Chris?”
“I’m falling,” the astronaut yelled. “I’m too high, I’ll break my legs or damage the space suit!”
“Stay relaxed. Don’t tense your muscles,” Ernie shouted. Decades ago, back on Earth, he had learned how to parachute in the army.
A crackling noise in his earpiece and another scream.
“I’m down. I’m OK. It worked!”
“Go to the transporter. You have two more minutes until contact will be broken off,” Mitchell said.
Now Ernie saw his friend step out of the shadows. Chris bounded in the low gravity to the transporter and created an opening. Before stepping inside, he turned around one last time and looked up. “I’m sorry, buddy.”
“Do me a favor,” Ernie’s voice was flat. “Keep an eye on Carrie when you get back to New California.”
“I’ll look after her, I promise,” Chris answered and disappeared into the transporter. The entrance closed.
Ernie turned round again. The green light on the sensor package showed the transmission was working. At least they had fulfilled their mission and he wouldn’t die here in vain.
“Transport completed. Mr. Holbrook is back on Venus,” he heard Mitchell’s voice.
Alone! At least he still had radio contact. Russell and the others hadn’t had that twenty years ago on their first missions. But he would die nonetheless.
Ernie thought about Andrea. In a few minutes I’ll be with you!
“Time slot for break of contact has been reached. We expect both transporters to be destroyed in the next fifteen minutes,” Morrow informed him quietly.
Ernie nodded, although nobody could see him. “Let’s see which transporter is first up,” he remarked drily.
“Tell us everything you can see,” Morrow said.
“Even though we have the data transmission from the sensor packages, every bit of additional information is useful.”
One the one hand, Ernie didn’t feel like spending his final minutes as an involuntary reporter, but on the other he didn’t want to think about his impending death. Perhaps he could really contribute something important with his observations. “OK, I’ll report anything I notice. But if the transporter underneath me is the first——”
The light was so bright, Ernie instinctively closed his eyes. It only lasted a second, but it penetrated his closed eyelids. He squinted. On the surface of Target A he could see a bright, white point of light, which quickly disappeared.
“The transporter on Target A has exploded. Did you see it?” he asked. The explosion must have been huge if it was able to dazzle him all the way from another planet.
“Yes, contact with the transporter on Target A and the sensor package is broken off,” Mitchell confirmed. “The light of the explosion was so bright the telescope of your sensor package has fallen out. But we’re still receiving an image of the big picture from our other camera. The measuring device also picked up a short peak of hard gamma radiation.”
“So Hope was right,” Ernie said. “The thing was blown up in a gigantic atomic explosion.” He hesitated. “Shouldn’t I be able to see an atomic mushroom from here? The spot where the light was looks just the same as before.”
“That’s of no significance,” Morrow explained. “There is no atomic mushroom in a vacuum; no air is displaced.”
“So it’s over. The transporter has been destroyed. In a minute it’ll be my turn.”
Nobody answered. Ernie wanted to close his eyes and wait for the end, but then he noticed a movement on Target A. For a moment he thought he was mistaken, but then he noticed a black, jagged line forming on the surface. A crack in the planet’s crust.
“Can you see it too?” he asked.
“Yes, we can see it,” Mitchell whispered.
The cracks on the planet’s surface spread at lightning speed. The whole thing reminded Ernie of a car windscreen starting to crack after it was hit by a stone on the highway.
“What the hell is going on there?” he screamed. Stunned, he watched as whole mountains collapsed in on themselves on the other planet. From the fault lines, fountains of pulverized rock flew up into the sky.
The whole damn planet is breaking apart!
And then ... Target A shrunk in on itself.
“Jesus fucking Christ!”
The plates of the planet’s surface, ripped out by an incredible force, pushed over one another, while the whole planet collapsed in on itself. Then Target A was enveloped in a cloud of dust. To Ernie it looked like a movie in slow motion, but then the process sped up——as if a giant vacuum cleaner had been switched on at the core of the planet and was sucking everything up. Target A shrunk at lightning speed to half its original size, then its surface changed color to a dark, glowing red that even penetrated the clouds of dust. The glow became brighter and brighter, until the planet, which had shrunk down to a little ball, flared up in a dazzling yellow. There was a white streak of lightning and Ernie had to shut his eyes to block out the blinding
light.
When he opened them a few seconds later, Target A had disappeared and he could see only the sun high up in the sky. Ernie wasn’t sure how long this spectacle had lasted, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes.
The whole planet ... gone!
For several seconds Ernie couldn’t move. There was also no sound from his earpiece. He tried to make sense of what he had just seen, but couldn’t. Only then did it dawn on him that the death zone didn’t just destroy the transporter, it destroyed the entire planet on which it was situated. Target B and he himself awaited the same fate any moment now, but not only that ...
New California! Oh God!
He had time for one more thought.
Carrie!
Then for a split second he felt a bright light penetrating his whole body. And heat. Then nothing.
Chapter 16
“Ten days!” Dr. Hope said.
“Are you sure?” Russell asked.
“Yes. In ten days the death zone will reach New California. At around half past four local time.”
Russell looked down at the floor. He felt dizzy. Ten more days, and the same thing would happen to his home as he had just seen happen to Target A and Target B. And Ellen, Jim, Grace, and Greg would die like his friend Ernie Lawrence. Russell looked up and stared at the black sphere standing passively in front of him in the cave. Since the deadly missions twenty years ago, he had always had a vague feeling of uneasiness around the alien transporter. This thing had caused the death of too many people. Several times it had almost got him as well. But now Russell saw it with new eyes. The danger was almost tangible. The artificial intelligence had told him and shown him images of the destruction of its original creators. But now that Russell had seen with his own eyes the destruction of a whole planet within a few minutes, it dawned on him how real this danger was.
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