It seemed to take hours before they got out of the tunnel, back onto the ledge in the slope of the giant caldera.
“Come on, grab the tether. We’re goin’ up.”
“Right.”
But Rodriguez’s boot slipped and he fell to his knees with a painful thump.
“Damn,” he muttered. “It’s slick.”
“The ice.”
The astronaut rocked back onto his haunches, both knees throbbing painfully.
“It’s too slippery to climb?” Fuchida’s voice was edging toward panic.
“Yeah. We’re gonna have to haul ourselves up with the winch.” He got down onto his belly and motioned the biologist to do the same.
“Isn’t this dangerous? What if we tear our suits?”
Rodriguez rapped on the shoulder of Fuchida’s suit. “Tough as steel, amigo. They won’t rip.”
“You’re certain?”
“You wanna spend the night down here?”
Fuchida grabbed the tether with both his hands.
Grinning to himself, Rodriguez also grasped the tether and told Fuchida to activate the winch.
But within seconds he felt the tether slacken.
“Stop!”
“What’s wrong?” Fuchida asked.
Rodriguez gave the tether a few light tugs. It felt loose, its original tension gone.
“Holy shit,” he muttered.
“What is it?”
“The weight of both of us on the line is too much for the rig to hold. We’re pulling it out of the ground up there.”
“You mean we’re stuck here?”
“I see that none of us are going to get any sleep.”
Stacy Dezhurova was smiling as she spoke, but her bright blue eyes were dead serious. Trudy Hall was still on duty at the comm console. Stacy sat beside her while Jamie paced slowly back and forth behind her. Vijay Shektar, the expedition doctor, had pulled in another chair and sat by the doorway, watching them all.
The comm centre cubicle felt stuffy and hot with all four of them crowded in there. Jamie did not answer Dezhurova’s remark; he just kept on pacing, five strides from one partition to the other, then back again.
“Rodriguez must have found him by now,” Hall said, swivelling her chair slightly towards Stacy.
“Then why doesn’t he call in?” she demanded, almost angrily.
“They must still be down inside the caldera,” Jamie said.
“It’s night,” Stacy pointed out.
Jamie nodded and kept pacing.
“It’s the waiting that’s the worst,” Vijay offered. “Not knowing what –”
“This is Rodriguez,” the radio speaker crackled. “We got a little problem here.”
Jamie was at the comm console like a shot, leaning between the two women.
“What’s happening, Tòmas?”
“Fuchida’s alive. But his backpack’s banged up and his battery’s not functioning. Heater, air fans, nothing in his suit’s working.” Rodriguez’s voice sounded tense but in control, like a pilot whose jet engine had just flamed out: trouble, but nothing that can’t be handled. Until you hit the ground.
Then he added, “We’re stuck on a ledge about thirty metres down and can’t get back up ’cause the rock’s coated with dry ice and it’s too slippery to climb.”
As the astronaut went on to describe how the tether winch almost pulled out of its supports when the two of them tried to haul themselves up the slope, Jamie tapped Hall on the shoulder and told her to pull up the specs on the hard suit’s air circulation system.
“OK,” he said when Rodriguez stopped talking. “Are either of you hurt?”
“I’m bruised a little. Mitsuo’s got a bad ankle. He can’t stand on it.”
One of the screens on the console now showed a diagram of the suit’s air circulation system. Hall was scrolling through a long list on the screen next to it.
“Mitsuo, how do you feel?” Jamie asked, stalling for time, time to think, time to get the information he needed.
“His radio’s down,” Rodriguez said. A hesitation, then, “But he says he’s hot. Sweating.”
Vijay nodded and murmured, “Hyperthermia.”
Strangely, Rodriguez chuckled. “Mitsuo also says he discovered siderophiles, inside the caldera! He wants Trudy to know that.”
“I heard it,” Hall said, still scrolling down the suit specs. “Did he get samples?”
Again a wait, then Rodriguez replied, “Yep. There’s water in the rock. Liquid water. Mitsuo says you’ve gotta publish . . . get it out on the Net.”
“Liquid?” Hall stopped the scrolling. Her eyes went wide. “Are you certain about –”
“Never mind that now,” Jamie said, studying the numbers on Hall’s screen. “According to the suit specs you can get enough breathable air for two hours, at least, even with the fans off.”
“We can’t wait down here until daylight, then,” Rodriguez said.
Jamie said, “Tòmas, is Mitsuo’s harness still connected to the winch?”
“Far as I can see, yeah. But if we try to use the winch to haul us up it’s gonna yank the rig right out of the ground.”
“Then Mitsuo’s got to go up by himself.”
“By himself?”
“Right,” Jamie said. “Let the winch pull Mitsuo up to the top. Then he takes off the harness and sends it back to you so you can get up. Understand?”
In the pale light of the helmet lamps, Fuchida could not see Rodriguez’s face behind his tinted visor. But he knew what the astronaut must be feeling.
Pressing his helmet against Rodriguez’s, he said, “I can’t leave you down here alone, without even the tether.” Rodriguez’s helmet mike must have picked up his voice, because Waterman replied, iron hard, “No arguments, Mitsuo. You drag your butt up there and send the harness back down. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to get you both up to the top.”
Fuchida started to object, but Rodriguez cut him off. “OK, Jamie. Sounds good. We’ll call you from the top when we get there.”
Fuchida heard the connection click off.
“I can’t leave you here,” he said, feeling almost desperate.
“That’s what you’ve got to do, man. Otherwise neither one of us will make it.”
“Then you go first and send the harness back down to me.”
“No way,” Rodriguez said. “You’re the scientist, you’re more important. I’m the astronaut, I’m trained to deal with dangerous situations.”
Fuchida said, “But it’s my fault –”
“Bullshit,” Rodriguez snapped. Then he added, “Besides, I’m bigger and meaner than you. Now get going and stop wasting time!”
“How will you find the harness in the dark? It could be dangling two metres from your nose and your helmet lamp won’t pick it up.”
Rodriguez made a huffing sound, almost a snort. “Tie one of the beacons to it and turn on the beacon light.”
Fuchida felt mortified. I should have thought of that. It’s so simple. I must be truly rattled, my mind is not functioning as it should.
“Now go on,” Rodriguez said. “Get down on your belly again and start up the winch.”
“Wait,” Fuchida said. “There is something –”
“What?” Rodriguez demanded impatiently.
Fuchida hesitated, then spoke all in a rush. “If . . . if I don’t make it . . . if I die . . . would you contact someone for me when you get back to Earth?”
“You’re not gonna die.”
“Her name is Elizabeth Vernon,” Fuchida went on, afraid that if he stopped he would not be able to resume. “She’s a lab assistant in the biology department of the University of Tokyo. Tell her . . . that I love her.”
Rodriguez understood the importance of his companion’s words. “Your girlfriend’s not Japanese?”
“My wife,” Fuchida answered.
Rodriguez whistled softly. Then, “OK, Mitsuo. Sure. I’ll tell her. But you can tell her yourself. You’re not gonna
die.”
“Of course. But if . . .”
“Yeah. I know. Now get going!”
Reluctantly, Fuchida did as he was told. He felt terribly afraid of a thousand possibilities, from tearing his suit to leaving his partner in the dark to freeze to death. But he felt more afraid of remaining there and doing nothing.
Worse, he felt hot. Stifling inside the suit. Gritting his teeth, he held on to the tether with all the pressure the servo-motors on his gloves could apply. Then he realized that he needed one hand free to work the winch control on his climbing harness.
He fumbled for the control stud, desperately trying to remember which one started the winch. He found it and pressed. For an instant nothing happened.
Then suddenly he was yanked off the ledge and dragged up the hard rock face of the caldera’s slope, his suit grinding, grating, screeching against the rough rock.
I’ll never make it. Fuchida realized. Even if the suit doesn’t break apart, I’ll suffocate in here before I reach the top.
Rodriguez watched Fuchida slither up and away from him, a dim pool of light that receded slowly but steadily. Through the insulation of his helmet he could not hear the noise of the biologist’s hard suit grating against the ice-rimed rock; he heard nothing but his own breathing, faster than it should have been. Calm down, he ordered himself. Keep calm and everything’ll turn out OK.
Sure, a sardonic voice in his head answered. Nothing to it. Piece of cake.
Then he realized that he was totally, utterly alone in the darkness.
It’s OK, he told himself. Mitsuo’ll send the harness down and then I can winch myself up.
The light cast by his helmet lamp was only a feeble glow against the dark rough rock face. When Rodriguez turned, the light was swallowed by the emptiness of the caldera’s abyss, deep and wide and endless.
The darkness surrounded him. It was as if there was no one else in the whole universe, no universe at all, only the all-engulfing darkness of this cold, black pit.
Unbidden, a line from some play he had read years earlier in school came to his mind:
Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Don’t be a goon! he snapped at himself. You’ll be OK. Your suit’s working fine and Mitsuo’s up there by now, taking off the harness and getting ready to send it down to you.
Yeah, sure. He could be unconscious, he could be snagged on a rock or maybe the damned harness broke while the winch was dragging him up the slope.
Rodriguez put a gloved hand against the solid rock to steady himself. You’ll be out of this soon, he repeated silently. Then he wondered if his lamp’s light was weakening. Are the batteries starting to run down?
Fuchida’s head was banging against the inside of his helmet so hard he tasted blood in his mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut and saw his father’s stern, uncompromising glare. How disappointed he will be when he learns that I died on Mars, like cousin Konoye.
And Elizabeth. Perhaps it’s better this way. She can go back to Ireland and find a man of her own culture to marry. My death will spare her a lifetime of troubles.
The winch stopped suddenly and Fuchida felt a pang of terror. It’s stuck! He realized at that moment that he was not prepared for death. He did not want to die. Not here on Mars. Not at all.
A baleful red eye was staring at him. Fuchida thought for a moment he might be slipping into unconsciousness, then slowly realized that it was the light atop one of the geo/met beacons they had planted at the lip of the caldera.
Straining his eyes in the starlit darkness, he thought he could make out the form of the winch looming above his prostrate body. He reached out and touched it.
Yes! He had reached the top. But he felt faint, giddy. His body was soaked with perspiration. Heat prostration, he thought. How funny to die of heat prostration when the temperature outside my suit is nearly two hundred degrees below zero.
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 OK?”
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.
“Get up there, Mitsuo,” 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. 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’s 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 Tòmas never knew, never even suspected. There was nothing he could do. By the time he saw Luis’s rig sprawled along the shoulder of the highway 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, muchacho. Never show fear. Not even to yourself.”
Rodriguez felt no fear. Just a deep eternal sadness that he did not help Luis when 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 saviour.
He leaned against the rock face 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 friggin’ 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, a
nd 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 – maybe.
“OK,” 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 upwards.
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 OK?”
It was an inane question and he knew it. Fuchida made no response, but Rodriguez thought that he 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.
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.
The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 13 Page 57