Mars Crossing

by Geoffrey A. Landis

  For the most part, they walked in silence, occasionally making a brief comment over the radio to warn of an obstacle that the rockhopper would do well to avoid. From time to time Radkowski stopped and climbed to the top of one of the larger boulders to make a minute inspection of the terrain with the binoculars. From the far side he had noticed a place on the far rim where it appeared that a runoff channel had been cut into the side of the wall, and he thought that by following the cut upward, they might be able to take the rockhopper to the top with little or even no use of the winch. The bottom of the channel looked rocky, possibly even rockier than the land they were traversing, but nothing he saw made him change his opinion.

  “Say, Commander, sir.” Trevor touched Radkowski’s arm, and then quickly looked away. Up to that point he had been unusually silent during the walk. Radkowski glanced at the radio indicator LEDs mounted on his suit helmet, and noted that Trevor was talking on the private channel.

  “Here,” Radkowski said.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Trevor said.

  After a minute or so, Radkowski prompted, “Thinking about what, Trevor?”

  “Is it really true, what Ryan Martin said? About the return space ship only being able to carry three of us? It’s true, isn’t it? Is it true?”

  Radkowski didn’t say anything. He was tired. It wasn’t something he wanted to deal with right now. They were approaching the far wall of the canyon. He pulled out the binoculars and began to inspect the path up the talus slope. From here the route he had chosen didn’t look so much like a river channel any more, but it still looked like it might be a good way up.

  “It is true,” Trevor stated.

  “Maybe,” Radkowski admitted. But maybe they could do something.

  They would have to look over the Brazilian ship, see what could be left behind, calculate fuel capacity and launch trajectories. At this point it was too early to tell.

  But Ryan Martin had seemed worried, and Ryan was one hell of a wizard at back-of-the-envelope calculations.

  “It is true,” Trevor said, more softly this time. “That’s like, a real problem, do you know it? Like, how are you going to decide? Have you thought about that yet?”

  “No,” Radkowski said. He had thought about it over and over, almost obsessively. He had been unable to sleep. “No, I haven’t thought about it.”

  “Oh,” Trevor said. “I though maybe you had.” He was silent for a while, then said, “But, when you do make the decisions, I’m with the ones going back to Earth, right? I mean, that’s not in question, is it? I mean, I’m like a passenger here, not one of the crew. I mean, I’m in the crew, but I’m not one of the professional astronauts.”

  Radkowski was silent. The footing was a little tricky here; the rock was dusted with dirt and pea-sized loose stone; it would be easy to slip.

  “Shit, Commander, you know? It’s like, I mean, you guys are old, no offense, right? And I’ve got my life ahead of me? So if there’s only room for three I should be one of them? You can see that, right? Right?”

  Radkowski was silent, studying the talus slope and the cliff above it. When the silence got to be oppressive, he said, “I haven’t made any decisions one way or the other, Trevor.”

  “Oh, come on,” Trevor said. His voice was rising in pitch, almost screeching. “You’ve got to. I mean, you know it’s right, don’t you? I’m the passenger here, for the love of God. You couldn’t leave me behind.”

  The rockhopper was coming up behind them. Radkowski stepped aside, waved them around a house-sized boulder that marked the beginning of the upward slope, and pointed up the defile. Ryan, in the cockpit, nodded and waved. It really was a marvel the way the six wheels of the rockhopper rolled up and over the uneven terrain and yet kept the body of the rover nearly level.

  “You wouldn’t leave me behind,” Trevor said. “I mean, it wouldn’t be right. You wouldn’t do that, would you? Would you?”

  “I haven’t made any decisions yet,” Radkowski said, and deliberately turned his back on Trevor to walk up behind the rockhopper. With luck, he wouldn’t have to. With luck, the problem would never come up.

  12

  ON THE TOP

  Ascending the cliff on the far side of the canyon turned out to be actually somewhat simpler than descending. The channel Radkowski had found led almost to the canyon rim, close enough that the remaining two hundred feet to the top were easily climbed, and bolts set into the rock to anchor cables to slowly winch the rockhopper up. Once out of the catena, they were able to unstow the dirt-rover.

  Dazed, slightly dizzy from the constant pain of her arm, Estrela thought to herself, I’ve been stupid, I’ve been stupid, I’ve been stupid. Every rock that the rockhopper crawled over hurt her.

  She wanted to snarl and bite when they treated her like a child. She held back, forced herself to appear calm, because she knew that she needed their help to survive, and more, she needed to get on the captain’s good side if she was to be chosen to return.

  The crew were beginning to get on each other’s nerves. She could see it in the curt language they used with each other, in their short tempers.

  Her attempt at seduction in the rockhopper, the night that Ryan had gone haywire, hadn’t worked. Even before the radio had broken in, the mood had gone bad. Radkowski hadn’t actually told her no, but when she had unzipped his jumpsuit and slid her warm hand inside, he had gently pushed her away. Perhaps if she had a little more time…

  She was in pretty bad shape for a seduction right now, with a broken arm. The captain wasn’t the one she’d really like to seduce, though, not by a long shot. And it sure wasn’t Trevor. She saw the way the kid looked at her sometimes, and sometimes she even went out of her way to show him a little skin, to give him a bit of a thrill, but that was just to be nice. She didn’t have any real interest in seducing children. He said he was twenty-one, but to her he sure didn’t look twenty-one. She doubted if he was a day over eighteen. Maybe seventeen. He was just a kid.

  No, the one she’d really like to catch alone was Ryan Martin. His slender, lithe body; his long eyelashes and hazel eyes and the intensity of his gaze when he was talking…He was the only one of the crew that she would crawl for. There was something about him, some essential core of sadness…

  But it was the captain that she had to seduce, she knew. Ryan was candy. The captain was the key to life and death.

  The landscape outside the rockhopper’s viewports was hypnotic, almost magical. North of the Coprates Catena the land was flatter than it had been. She couldn’t name the rocks anymore, but they almost seemed to talk to her. The pain in her arm sang a little song to her, made her head dance. The landscape and the pain, the pain and the landscape; it was all mixed up together in her mind.

  13

  EDGE OF THE KNIFE

  John Radkowski’s throat hurt.

  The scenery was less varied now, flat, uninteresting. Or perhaps it was he who had lost interest in the scenery.

  There was another smaller canyon for them to cross, he knew, a branch of the Valles Marineris, before they even came to the main gorge of the canyon. He debated stopping for a day, trying to acquire Earth with the high-gain antenna and asking for advice, but he knew that their chances of success were best if they could make the dash north as quickly as possible, without stopping anyplace it wasn’t absolutely necessary. And, anyway, the advice they had gotten from Earth had been, so far, completely useless. The only useful information he’d received was the part he had gotten on the private channel, the one that the crew—and the population of Earth, following with vicarious attention the unfolding disaster in space—had not heard. The advice had been that they had better come up with a rescue plan to save themselves, because there was no chance of any help whatsoever from Earth.

  He didn’t need to waste another day for them to tell him that they couldn’t give him any help.

  His throat hurt. There was a metallic taste in his mouth, as if he had been sucking on a galvani
zed nail. It must be the Mars dust, he guessed; the dust, finer than talcum powder, got into everything. He took a deep sip of the electrolyte fluid, but it didn’t really help.

  It was going to be a long day.

  Toward midday they reached the next precipice. The canyon was wider here, the far wall barely visible, but he knew that they were south of the main canyon and this was just a spur. Instead of winching the rockhopper down, this time they turned east, following the top of the cliff.

  From the satellite photos, it had looked to him that if they navigated right, they could thread a path which crossed over the canyons on a spit of land, a narrow ridge that dropped rapidly on either side.

  After about five miles, the cliff edge curved around to the northeast. A few more miles, and they came to a point. To the left, to the right, there was nothing visible but canyon. Radkowski stopped the rockhopper.

  Ahead of them, a ridge cut across the canyon, dropping away on both sides. It disappeared into the distance, curving gently downward. It must have been a sharp edge once, carved away from either side by the enormous, unknown knife that had carved the great canyon. But now, millions, probably billions of years later, the sharpness of the ridge had been rounded, and there was, if not actually a level place at the center, at least a wider place, wide enough that perhaps the rockhopper would be able to cross the canyon without descending.

  They stowed the dirt-rover on its rack on the rockhopper. He directed Tana, Ryan, and Trevor to walk ahead on foot, roped together for safety. With Estrela in the cabin with him, he took the rockhopper along the narrow trail behind them.

  It was like driving on a tightrope. He gave the driving his entire attention; focusing on the tiny ribbon of ridgetop ahead of him as if he could keep the rockhopper balanced by sheer willpower. In a way it was simple; on the narrow cusp of the ridge, there were no obstacles, no boulders, no crevasses. As long as he kept to the ridgeline it was easy.

  And at first the ridge was wide enough to be almost a road, sloping slightly downward at a gentle angle. It was wide enough for the three crew members ahead of him to walk side by side, Trevor skipping and running ahead to peer down over the cliff edge on one side, then the other.

  “How are you doing there, Commander?” It was Ryan’s voice.

  He toggled the radio to reply. “Not bad so far.”

  “If you get tired and want me to take a turn driving, let me know.”

  “Okay. No problem so far.”

  But as they went further on, the ridgeline narrowed. Now it was narrow enough that he could no longer keep all six wheels on the ridgeline. He slewed the rover around crabwise, until it was turned completely sideways on the ridge. Each wheel of the rockhopper had independent steering, and he used this feature to turn all six wheels ninety degrees. Now the rock-hopper could roll sideways, and he could keep the two middle wheels on the peak of the ridge. The two fore wheels and the two rear wheels he extended downward to the full length of the cantilever struts, conforming to the shape of the ridge, pressing against the ridge on either side to give him balance. The belly of the rover was dangerously close to scraping the ridge, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  The pressurized cabin of the rover hung out over the edge of the cliff. Below him he saw nothing but an endless slope downward, downward to a bottom that was invisible in the distance below.

  Ahead of him, the three crew members were walking in a single file now, Tana in the lead, Ryan at the back. The trail, narrow for the rock-hopper, was much wider for those on foot, but they had also slowed their pace. It was dangerous for them as well. He knew that Ryan Martin had the worst position. If Trevor ahead of him were to slip and fall off the ridge, Ryan would have to instantly jump off of the ridge on the opposite side, or risk having Trevor’s fall pull them all over.

  He could feel every bump, every tiny slip of the wheels, and with minute precision, corrected the steering to hold him to the exact top of the ridge. He couldn’t tell how long he inched along the crest, eyes glued to the ridgeline under his wheels. Later, when he could spare his attention to look at the time, he was surprised to realize it had been less than half an hour. Below him, the ridge curved to a bottom, and then slowly began to rise. They were halfway across. And then, slowly, the ridgeline began to get wider, inch by inch, and then at last he could get all six wheels on the top.

  His throat still hurt. His eyes were dry, and it felt like the inside of his eyelids had been sandpapered with a rough grit.

  They had crossed the canyon.

  The next one would not be so easy.

  14

  THE CANOPY OF CREATION

  With part of her attention Tana Jackson watched her feet; ropes or not, to stumble here could be a fatal error. But the part of her attention that watched her feet was on autopilot; it was as if somebody else were taking care of the walking. The ridgeline curved ahead of her, and with the main part of her attention, Tana just looked out across the vast sweep of the canyon that stretched to either side of her.

  The canyon walls were striped, horizontal bands of deep orange and light yellow, separated by hair-thin lines of black; in the midday sunlight they sparkled as if bits of diamond were embedded in them. Even the sky was colorful, shading gracefully from an almost lemon shade at the horizon to a deeper adobe color higher up. There was no other description for it, Tana thought; it was simply stunningly beautiful.

  It was more beautiful, in its own desolate way, than anything else that she had ever seen. Impulsively, she turned on the mike, and said so.

  There was no answer. She looked over her shoulder at the two roped behind her. Ryan Martin, she could see, was silently enjoying the view. But Trevor was white-faced, his jaw clenched, his face covered with sweat. He’s afraid, she thought.

  The rockhopper followed along behind them, going sidewise along the ridge, a mechanical spider. It couldn’t be easy to keep it balanced exactly on the top of the ridge, but it was driven so smoothly, it looked as if it belonged nowhere else. A marvel of piloting, she thought. John Radkowski, whatever else he was, was a cool pilot.

  She felt a sudden stab of pity for Trevor. He seemed so young, younger than his twenty-one years. Her heart suddenly went out to him. They had lured him away from everything he knew and loved, and now he was going to die with them, die on Mars, his body, desiccating in the dry cold, mummified in the sand. For her, that was okay—she had always known the risks. But for Trevor, it suddenly seemed so unfair. He shouldn’t even be here, away from his music and his friends and his virtual realities, she thought. He’s not astronaut material, and if it hadn’t been for the lottery, that damn silly fund-raising publicity stunt, he would never even have considered becoming one. He’d be safe and having fun with his stomp music and his friends, just at the age when he would be learning to live, learning to love.

  No. That was defeatist thinking.

  And, despite it all, it was spectacularly beautiful. They were alone under the awesome canopy of God’s extravagant creation, this magnificent canyon, never beheld by human eyes since the day of its creation.

  Tana Jackson was at peace with the world.

  PART FOUR

  TANA JACKSON

  We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most where His works are on the grandest scale spread before us: and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence.

  —Charlotte Bronte,

  Jane Eyre

  It was a desert, peopled only with echoes; a place of death, for what little there is to die in it. A wilderness where, to use my companion’s phrase, “there is none but Allah.”

  —Richard Francis Burton,

  A Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, 1855

  1

  A PHILADELPHIA CHILDHOOD

  Tanisha Yvonne Jackson’s father had wanted her to be the perfect BAP, a black American princess, sweet and rich and virginal.

>   Tana wanted nothing to do with that. From the time she could walk, Tana was a tomboy, “carrying on and raising hell,” as her grandmother put it. She never wanted to wear the frilly, feminine dresses that her father bought for her, played hooky from the lessons in deportment and proper manners, scrubbed off the expensive makeovers and cut short her plaited hair.

  All through his life, although her father dutifully attended her graduations, from her valedictorian speech graduating from Drexel to her acceptance of M.D. and Ph.D. diplomas from Case medical school, she knew that deep down her father was disappointed in her. While he would brag to his cronies and the pretentious men in his country club about his daughter the doctor, she always knew that, in his heart, he would rather have had a sweet little girl, perfumed and feminine, a daughter charming and demure who sang in church and broke the boys’ hearts, without a single original thought in her head. The kind of girl that she could never be.

  She broke her arm falling out of a tree when she was seven; broke the other one playing football with the neighborhood boys when she was ten; collected scrapes and bruises and skinned knees and stubbed toes in the rough and tumble of growing up. She was halfway through high school before it occurred to her that she wasn’t pretty, and another two years later before she thought about it again, and decided she didn’t care. Men wanted boobs, not muscles, and until she was most of the way through college, all of her boyfriends were companions, not lovers. That was fine with her.