by Ben Bova
He began to laugh, knowing he was slipping into hysteria and unable to stop himself. Until he began coughing uncontrollably.
Down on the ledge, Rodriguez tried to keep his own terrors at bay. “Mitsuo,” he called on the suit-to-suit frequency. “You okay?” No answer. Of course, dummy! His radio’s not working. The cold seemed to be leaching into his suit. Cold enough to freeze carbon dioxide. Cold enough to overpower the suit’s heater. Cold enough to kill.
It was imagination, he knew. You’re more likely to broil inside the suit, like Mitsuo, than freeze.
“Get up there, Mitsy,” he whispered. “Get up there in one piece and send the damned tether back down to me.”
He wouldn’t leave me here. Not if he made it to the top. He wouldn’t run for the plane and leave me here. He can’t run, anyway. Can’t even walk. But he could make it to the plane once he’s up there. Hobble, jump on one leg. Crawl, even. He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t leave me alone to die down here. Something must’ve happened to him. He must be hurt or unconscious.
The memory of his big brother’s death came flooding back to him. In a sudden rush he saw Luis’ bloody mangled body as the rescue workers lifted him out of the wrecked semi. A police chase on the freeway. All those years his brother had been running drugs up from Tijuana in his eighteen-wheeler and Tomas never knew, never even suspected. There was nothing he could do. By the time he saw Luis’ rig sprawled along the highway median it was already too late.
He saw himself standing, impotent, inert, as his brother was pronounced dead and then slid into the waiting ambulance and carried away. Just like that. Death can strike like a lightning bolt.
What could I have done to save him? Rodriguez wondered for the thousandth time. I should have done something. But I was too busy being a flyboy, training to be an astronaut. I didn’t have time for the family, for my own brother.
He took a deep, sighing breath of canned air. Well, now it’s going to even out. I got all the way to Mars, and now I’m gonna die here.
Then he heard his brother’s soft, musical voice. “No fear, mucha-cho. Never show fear. Not even to yourself.”
Rodriguez felt no fear. Just a deep sadness that he could not help Luis when his help was needed. And now it was all going to end. All the regrets, all the hopes, everything …
For an instant he thought he saw a flash of dim red light against the rock wall. He blinked. Nothing. He looked up, but the top of his helmet cut off his view. Grasping at straws, he told himself. You want to see something bad enough, you’ll see it, even if it isn’t really there.
But the dim red glow flashed again, and this time when he blinked it didn’t go away. Damned helmets! He raged. Can’t see anything unless it’s in front of your fuckin’ face.
He tried to tilt his whole upper body back a little, urgently aware that it wouldn’t take much to slip off this ledge and go toppling down into the bottomless caldera.
And there it was! The red glow of the beacon’s light swayed far above him, like the unwinking eye of an all-seeing savior.
Me leaned against the rock ledge again. His legs felt weak, rubbery. Shit, man, you were really scared.
He could make out the dangling form of the harness now, with the telescoped pole of the beacon attached to it by duct tape. Where the hell did Mitsuo get duct tape? He wondered. He must’ve been carrying it with him all along. The universal cure-all. We could do a commercial for the stuff when we get back to Earth. Save your life on Mars with frigging duct tape.
It seemed to take an hour for the tiny red light to get close enough to grab. With hands that trembled only slightly, Rodriguez reached up and grabbed the beacon, ripped it free and worked his arms into the climbing harness. Then he snapped its fasteners shut and gave the tether an experimental tug. It felt strong, good.
He started to reach for the control stud that would activate the winch. Then he caught himself. “Wait one,” he whispered in the clipped tone of the professional flier.
He bent down and picked up the beacon. Sliding it open to its full length, he worked its pointed end into a crack in the basalt rock face. It probably won’t stay in place for long, he thought, and it won’t work at all unless the sun shines on it for a few hours per day. But he felt satisfied that he had left a reminder that men from Earth had been here, had entered the pit and gleaned at least some of its secrets and survived.
“Okay,” he said to himself, grasping the tether with one hand. “Here we go.”
He pushed on the control stud and was hauled off his feet. Grinding, twisting, grating he felt himself pulled up the rock slope, his head banging inside his helmet, his legs and booted feet bouncing as he was dragged upward.
Worse than any simulator ride he’d ever been through in training. Worse than the high-g centrifuge they’d whirled him in. They’ll never put this ride into Disneyland, Rodriguez thought, teeth clacking as he bounced, jounced, jolted up to the lip of the caldera.
At last it was over. Rodriguez lay panting, breathless, aching. Fuchida’s hard-suited form lay on the ground next to him, unmoving.
Rodriguez rolled over on one side, as far as his backpack would allow. Beyond Fuchida’s dark silhouette the sky was filled with stars. Dazzling bright friendly stars gleaming down at him, like a thousand thousand jewels. Like heaven itself.
I made it, Rodriguez told himself. Then he corrected: Not yet. Can’t say that yet.
He touched his helmet to Fuchida’s. “Hey, Mitsuo! You okay?”
It was an inane question and he knew it. Fuchida made no response, but Rodriguez could hear the biologist’s breathing: panting, really, shallow and fast.
Gotta get him to the plane. Can’t do a thing for him out here.
As quickly as he could Rodriguez unbuckled the climbing harness, then tenderly lifted the unconscious Fuchida and struggled to his feet. Good thing we’re on Mars. I could never lift him in his suit in a full g. Now where the hell is the plane?
In the distance he saw the single red eye of another one of the geo/met beacons they had planted. He headed in that direction, tenderly carrying his companion in his arms.
I couldn’t do this for you, Luis, Rodriguez said silently. I wish I could have, but this is the most I can do.
MIDNIGHT: SOL 49/50
THE BASE DOME WAS DARK AND SILENT, ITS LIGHTING TURNED DOWN TO sleep shift level, its plastic skin opaqued to prevent heat from leaking out into the Martian night. Stacy Dezhurova was still sitting at the comm console, drowsing despite herself, when Rodriguez’s call came through.
“We’re back in the plane,” the astronaut announced without preamble. “Lemme talk to Vijay.”
“Vijay!” Stacy shouted in a voice that shattered the sleepy silence. “Jamie!” she added.
Running footsteps padded through the shadows, bare or stocking feet against the plastic flooring. Vijay slipped into the chair beside Dezhurova, her jet-black eyes wide open and alert. Jamie and Trudy Hall raced in, bleary-eyed, and stood behind the two women.
“This is Vijay,” she said. “What’s your condition?”
In the display screen they could see only the two men’s helmets and shoulders. Their faces were masked by the heavily tinted visors. But Rodriguez’s voice sounded steady, firm.
“I’m okay. Banged up a little, but that’s nothing. I purged Mitsuo’s suit and plugged him into the plane’s emergency air supply. But he’s still out of it.”
“How long ago did you do that?” Vijay asked, her dark face rigid with tension.
“Fifteen-sixteen minutes ago.”
“And you’re just calling in now?” Dezhurova demanded.
“I had to fix his battery pack,” Rodriguez answered, unruffled by her tone. “It got disconnected when he was knocked down—”
“Knocked down?” Jamie blurted.
“Yeah. Thai’s when he hurt his ankle.”
“How badly is he hurt?” Vijay asked.
“It’s sprained, at least. Maybe a break.”
&nb
sp; “He couldn’t break a bone inside the suit,” Jamie muttered. “Not with all that protection.”
“Anyway,” Rodriguez resumed, “his suit wasn’t getting any power. I figured that getting his suit powered up was the second most important thing to do. Pumping fresh air into him was the first.”
“And calling in, the third,” Dezhurova said, much more mildly.
“Right,” said Rodriguez.
“I’m getting his readouts,” Vijay said, studying the medical diagnostic screen.
“Yeah, his suit’s okay now that the battery’s reconnected.”
“Is his L.C.G. working?” Vijay asked.
“Should be,” Rodriguez said. “Wait one …”
They saw the astronaut lean over and touch his helmet to the unconscious Fuchida’s shoulder.
“Yep,” he announced, after a moment. “I can hear the pump chugging. Water oughtta be circulating through his longjohns just fine.”
“That should bring his temperature down,” Vijay muttered, half to herself. “The problem is, he might be in shock from overheating.”
“What do I do about that?” Rodriguez asked.
The physician shook her head. ‘ ‘Not much you can do, mate. Especially with the two of you sealed into your suits.”
For a long moment they were all silent. Vijay stared at the medical screen. Fuchida’s temperature was coming down. Heart rate slowing nicely. Breathing almost normal. He should be—
The biologist coughed and stirred. “What happened?” he asked weakly.
All four of the people at the comm center broke into grins. None of them could see Rodriguez’s face behind his visor, but they heard the relief in his voice:
“Naw, Mitsuo; you’re supposed to ask, ‘Where am I?’ “
The biologist sat up straighter. “Is Trudy there?”
“Don’t worry about—”
“I’m right here, Mitsuo,” said Trudy Hall, leaning in between Dezhurova and Vijay. “What is it?”
“Siderophiles!” Fuchida exclaimed. “Iron-eating bacteria live in the caldera.”
“Did you get samples?”
“Yes, of course.”
Jamie stepped back as the two biologists chattered together. Fuchida nearly gets himself killed, but what’s important to him is finding a new kind of organism. With an inward smile, Jamie admitted, maybe he’s right.
IALLDONS
BEFORE THE EXPLORERS LANDED ON THE SURFACE OF MARS, WHILE THEY were still in orbit, goggling at the rusty worn immensity of the red planet, they released the balloons.
Six winecase-sized capsules retrofired from their orbiting supply vessel and blazed into the thin Martian atmosphere, then released a dozen balloons each. The balloons were brilliantly simple, little more than long narrow tubes of exquisitely thin yet tough Mylar inflated with hydrogen gas automatically when they reached the proper altitude to float across the landscape like improbable giant white cigarettes.
Dangling below each long, thin balloon was a “snake,” a flexible slim metal pipe that contained sensing instruments, radio, batteries and a heater to protect the equipment against the frigid weather.
By day the balloons wafted high in the Martian atmosphere, sampling the temperature (low), pressure (lower), humidity (lower still) and chemical composition of the air. The altitude at which any individual balloon flew was governed by the amount of hydrogen filling its slender cigarette shape. The daytime winds carried them across the red landscape like dandelion puffs.
At night, when the temperatures became so frigid that even the hydrogen inside the balloons began to condense, they all sank toward the ground like a chorus of ballerinas tiredly drooping. Often, the “snakes” of instruments actually touched the ground and dutifully transmitted data on the surface conditions each night while the balloons bobbed in the dark winds, still buoyant enough to hover safely above the rock-strewn ground. Barely.
Similar balloons had been a major success during the First Mars Expedition, even though many of them eventually snagged on mountainsides or disappeared for reasons unknown. Most drifted gracefully across the face of Mars for weeks on end, descending slowly each night and rising again when the morning sunlight warmed their hydrogen-filled envelopes, carrying on silently, effortlessly, living with the Martian day/night cycle and faithfully reporting on the environment from pole to pole.
MORNING: SOL 50
JAMIE WAS NOT SURPRISED TO SEE HIS GRANDFATHER WAITING FOR HIM IN the cliff village.
He remembered climbing down from the rim of the Canyon, then slowly and deliberately taking off his hard suit once he had reached the niche in the cliff face. He felt warm and safe walking through the silent ruins in nothing more than his coveralls.
Grandfather Al was sitting on a wooden bench in the bright sunlight, leaning back against the adobe wall of one of the dwellings, his broad-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes.
“Are you sleeping, Grandfather?” Jamie asked softly. He was nine years old again, and he couldn’t tell if he were on Mars or back at the old pueblo where Al bargained for rugs and pottery to sell in his store in Santa Fe.
“Naw, I’m not sleeping, Jamie. I was waiting for you.”
“I’m here.”
Al looked at his grandson and smiled. “That’s good.”
Spreading his arms, Jamie asked, ‘ ‘Where is everybody? The village is empty.”
“They’ve all gone.”
“Gone where?”
“I don’t know. Nobody knows. That’s what you’ve got to find out, Grandson.”
“But where could they have gone?”
“To find their destiny,” said Al. “To find their own right path.”
Jamie sat on the bench beside his grandfather. The sun felt warm and strengthening.
“Tell me about them, Grandfather. Tell me about the people who lived here.”
Al laughed, a low, happy chuckle. “Naw. I can’t tell you, Jamie boy. You have to tell me.”
Jamie felt puzzled. “But I don’t know.”
“Then you’ll have to find out, son.”
Jamie’s eyes popped open. For once, his dream did not fade from him. It was as vivid as any real memory.
Me pushed back the thin sheet that covered him and got to his feet.
After the long night they had all put in, he should have felt tired, drained. Yet he was awake, alert, eager to start the day.
Quickly he stepped to his desk and booted up his laptop, then opened the communications channel to Rodriguez and Fuchida. With a glance at the desktop clock he saw that it was 6:33. He hesitated for only a moment, though, then put through a call to the two men at Olympus Mons.
As he suspected, they were both awake. Jamie’s laptop screen showed the two of them side-by-side in the plane’s cockpit.
“Good morning,” he said. “Did you sleep well?”
“Extremely well,” said Fuchida.
“This cockpit looked like the best hotel suite in the world when we got into it last night,” Rodriguez said.
Jamie nodded. “Yeah, I guess it did.”
Rodriguez gave a crisp, terse morning report. Fuchida happily praised the astronaut for purging his suit of the foul air and fixing the electrical connection that had banged loose in his backpack.
“My suit fans are buzzing faithfully,” he said. “But I’m afraid I won’t be able to do much useful work on my bad ankle.”
They had discussed the ankle injury the previous night, once Fuchida had regained consciousness. Vijay guessed that it was a sprain, but wanted to get the biologist back to the dome as quickly as possible for an X-ray.
Jamie had decided to let Rodriguez carry out as much of their planned work as he could, alone, before returning. Their schedule called for another half day on the mountaintop, then a takeoff in the early afternoon for the flight back to dome. They should land at the base well before sunset.
“I’ll be happy to take off this suit,” Fuchida confessed.
“We’re not gonna smell s
o good when we do,” Rodriguez added.
Jamie found himself peering hard at the small screen of his laptop, trying to see past their visors. Impossible, of course. But they both sounded cheerful enough. The fears and dangers of the previous night were gone; daylight and the relative safety of the plane brightened their outlook.
Rodriguez said, “We’ve decided that I’m going back down inside the caldera and properly implant the beacon we left on the ledge there.”
“So we can get good data from it,” Fuchida added, as if he were afraid Jamie would countermand their decision.
Jamie asked, “Do you really think you should try that?”
“Oughtta be simple enough,” Rodriguez said easily, “long as I don’t go near that damned lava tube again.”
“Is there enough sunlight where you want to plant the beacon?” Jamie asked.
Ho sensed the biologist nodding inside his helmet. “Oh yes, the ledge receives a few hours of sunlight each day.”
“So we’ll get data from inside the caldera,” Rodriguez prompted.
“Not very far inside,” Fuchida added, “but it will be better than no data at all.”
“You’re really set on doing this?”
“Yes,” they both said. Jamie could feel their determination. It was their little victory over Olympus Mons, their way of telling themselves that they were not afraid of the giant volcano.
“Okay, then,” Jamie said. “But be careful, now.”
“We’re always careful,” said Fuchida.
“Most of the time,” Rodriguez added, with a laugh.
“How’s the weather report?” Craig asked.
“About the same,” Dex Trumball replied, from up in the rover’s cockpit. He was driving while Craig cleaned up their breakfast crumbs and folded the table back down into the floor between the bunks.
Craig came up and sat in the right-hand seat. The sun was just clear of the increasingly rugged eastern horizon.