The Season of Passage

by Unknown

  was anxious to go under for psychological reasons as well; to wake millions of miles away with the soothing blue and white of Earth hanging in space instead of the hateful red of Mars.

  Mark refused to get into his hibernaculum until Gary was well on his way to sleepyland. Together Lauren and Mark sat and chatted with him as his heartbeat slowly decreased. Gary was still set on the idea of surfing in Tahiti when they got home. His last words were of green waves and cocoa butter and surfboard wax. Sure, Gary, Lauren said. Whatever you want. He would never be able to paddle without his left arm.

  'Are you going to go to sleep now?' Lauren asked Mark as she closed Gary's hibernaculum. 'Or am I going to have to call your Mommy and have her read you a bedtime story?'

  'We can't call Earth,' Mark said abruptly. 'The antenna's destroyed. We can't get any news from them, not now.'

  'I know,' she said, taken aback by his seriousness. Mark began to fidget. He looked out the porthole at Mars, always at Mars. 'What is it, Mark?'

  He spoke to the floor. 'When I was alone here, the radio did work. I used to pass the time reading the papers at home. You know how it's nice to read when you're alone.' His tone was apologetic. 'They would beam them to me as they came off the press.'

  'That's fine,' Lauren said, full of foreboding. 'I would have done the same. Has anything exciting happened lately?'

  His voice cracked. 'Nothing exciting.'

  Lauren leaned over and put her hand on his shoulder. 'Tell me. It can't be that bad.'

  His voice was full of pain. 'Once, one day, there was a picture of your sister on the front page of one of the

  newspapers. I can't remember what paper it was. But I knew it was her before I read the caption. It was that pretty picture you showed me once.'

  Lauren said nothing.

  'There was an accident,' Mark whispered.

  'What kind of accident?'

  'There was a fire. Someplace - a cabin in Wyoming. Your sister died in that fire, Lauren.'

  Lauren sat back in her seat. She took a breath. She held it. Then she let it go and it came out of her body just like it always did. Only this time a part of her went out with the breath, into the air, and didn't come back. It was just gone.

  'I see,' she said. 'Do you know when this happened?'

  'The day after I lost contact with you guys. It was probably the day Jim died.' Mark broke down and cried. 'I wanted to tell you at first, but I couldn't. I just couldn't.'

  'It was fine to wait,' Lauren said, her voice even, as even as a flat frozen lake. The universe was perverted; it spared her nothing. It threw her down in cold waters and held her head underneath. It never let her up. That was all right, though, even if it wasn't fair. It was just fine. The water would freeze and she would stay underneath where there was nothing. She wanted to feel nothing, to be nothing. 'Was anyone else hurt in the fire?' she asked. 'Was Terry hurt?'

  'No.'

  Terry had always been amazed at how Jennifer could wave her hands slowly through fire, and never get burned. 'I'm glad,' she said.

  Tears ran down Mark's face, poor sensitive Mark, who blushed at Gary's dirty jokes and who had almost gone insane just looking at Mars. It was a good thing he hadn't landed on the planet. It would have done bad things to him.

  'She was a beautiful child,' he said. 'I remember her from

  when your boyfriend took our picture. I remember her smile.'

  'She had a nice smile,' Lauren agreed.

  Mark looked up. 'Are you all right?'

  Lauren closed her eyes. It was dark. That was fine, too. The cold and the dark went together. Mars had taught her that. 'I think I'll be all right,' she said softly. 'I think I'll miss her, though. I really think I will.'

  Mark had been in his hibernaculum for two hours. Lauren was alone, as she had been on Mars when she had thought she was going to lose Gary. But even then she'd had her daydreams, of all the wonderful things she was going to do with Jennifer when she got home, the places they would go, the talks they would have.

  The Nova was quiet now, and peaceful. Most of the lights were off. Lauren sat by a porthole with the stars. Astronomy had never been a big interest of hers, not as it was with many astronauts. She knew little of the constellations. But Jennifer had known all the Greek and Roman myths, all the stories about the heavenly gods. She even used to wish on falling stars. But what wishes she made, Lauren never knew, for Jennifer said they had to be kept secret to become magical. Lauren hoped some of Jennifer's wishes had come true before she died.

  A tear fell from Lauren's cheek and landed on her shirt. Jennifer had killed herself. Mark hadn't told her that, But the papers she had called up from Friend's memory - why, to them it was big news. They had all kinds of theories, too, as to why.

  Why, God? Or is it, why not?

  The stars were beautiful, Lauren thought. She promised herself to pay more attention to them in the future. She also promised herself to read the story Jennifer had been

  working on. Terry had told her about it before their communications had been interrupted.

  The monster gave me two alternatives: die or be worse than dead.

  But was there a third? Was there a reason, for anything?

  Lauren took the silver ring and for the first time placed it on her finger. She needed love. She needed Terry. He would be blaming himself for what had happened. If she could get a word to him, one word, it would do so much for him, and her.

  Lauren stood and went to Jim's personal locker. Taking a pen and a piece of paper, she began a letter:

  Dear Terry,

  I need to talk to you, but you're far away and the radio's broken. I thought if I wrote this letter, though, you would know how I felt. My thoughts would cross space, and you would hear me in that silent place inside where you listen for inspiration for your stories. I want to inspire you. I want to tell you beautiful things. But it's hard right now.

  I know Jenny's dead. I know both of us feel like dying. But we can't do that. Mars taught me that much. You see, Terry, there are things on Mars...

  After Lauren had finished her letter, she took an envelope from Jim's locker - only Jim would have thought he could mail a letter from another planet - and carefully sealed her note inside. She wrote on the outside, simply: Terry.

  Then Lauren returned to the porthole and looked at the stars for a long time.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Lauren lay in her hibernaculum, waiting to fall asleep. Two tubes fastened to her artery shunt, circulating blood from her left arm through the filtration system and feeding the Antabolene into her system. Already she felt drowsy. Soon she would black out, and forget everything. At her order, Friend had turned off the lights, and now only the faint glow of the Nova's controls lit the dark spaceship. Above her, green lines traced across the physiological monitors, well within the proper parameters. Gary and Mark were both doing well. There was nothing left to worry about.

  'Goodnight, Friend,' she said.

  [Goodnight, Lori.]

  Yet Lauren was suddenly troubled.

  'Goodnight, Friend,' she repeated.

  [Goodnight, Lauren.]

  Strange, but Lauren could have sworn Friend had addressed her as Lori a moment ago. That was impossible, of course, unless the computer had undergone a change in program. She was just being paranoid.

  Goodnight, Lori.

  Then again, the Hawk's computer banks were now integrated with the Nova's, and wasn't it true that they were now one and the same unit? Lauren had been worried

  about the computer earlier, when they had redocked with the Nova. She'd had Mark examine the programming, and he had reported that he found no tampering. But if he was using a tampered computer itself to look for tampering, would he have found it? A fascinating question, to be sure.

  Lauren decided once more she was being silly. One computer could not possess another.

  Yet her disquiet remained. Bill had been an expert in computer design, and he had spent hours fooling with the Haw
k's computer. And Bill had been a fucking Martian.

  'Goodnight, Friend,' Lauren said.

  [Goodnight, Lauren.]

  'Friend, why did you call me Lori a moment ago?'

  [I did not, Lauren.]

  'I'm sure you did.'

  [I did not, Lauren.]

  'I must have heard wrong.'

  [Yes, Lauren.]

  All that time Bill had spent in the Hawk's control room bothered her...

  Despite all their hardships, she and Gary had escaped from the planet fairly easily. Why hadn't Bill put an overriding program on the Hawk's controls that only he could unlock? Since Mars had got to him, Bill had been very clever. A clever intelligence would have taken precautions. It was true Gary had explained that Bill hadn't sabotaged the controls because he needed them for his own evil purposes, but that didn't make sense. She had only believed Gary's explanation because she had wanted to believe it.

  An annoying voice whispered at Lauren's shoulder. A practical voice. A frightened voice. If Bill had put a lock on the Hawk's controls, how had Gary managed to blast off?

  Lauren started to doze but fought it. There were so many

  coincidences; it was the same pattern all over again. They were out of communication with Earth. She had blamed herself for the destruction of the antenna, but Gary had told her to turn that dial - not another one - ninety degrees counter-clockwise. In fact, there hadn't been another dial anywhere near where he had pointed. Then they had rammed the antenna without even scratching the hull of the Nova, a minor miracle in itself. When the antenna had gone their link to Earth had gone. They were alone, and nobody knew better than she the terrible things that could happen when you were alone.

  Stop it!

  Lauren tried for a third time to convince herself she was being foolish. The Antabolene had taken her halfway to sleep and the semi-conscious mind was a fertile ground for paranoid thoughts. Friend wouldn't lie to her. Probably Bill had been overconfident, too proud to think his plans could fail. He must have left the Hawk's controls alone. It was the only explanation that made sense. Gary was so sweet, and his eyes were so warm. Why, as he was going under, he even snored.

  But what if?

  The question terrified her.

  When she had returned from the Karamazov the last time, Gary had been near death. Yet only a few gulps of the wine and he had risen to his feet. She had been too relieved to question his incredible revival. But there was another miracle.

  Two miracles in the same day.

  Logically, Ivan should have destroyed Dmitri's diary. The diary was a vivid warning of what the planet was capable of doing to people. If any of them had read it earlier, most of their problems might have been avoided. Why had Ivan left the diary out where others could find it?

  Was it possible, that even though Dmitri's record was revealing, it somehow served Ivan's purpose? But how could that be? The only thing in the diary that had influenced her had been Dmitri's casual comment about his bottle of wine...

  Mars made everybody thirsty. For something delicious. Something red and sweet.

  When she had found the bottle she assumed it hadn't been opened because the wine reached the top and the seal was still in the place. But what was the seal? It was a wound piece of lead foil. She hadn't looked at it that closely. There was every possibility the seal could have been broken, the bottle opened, and then resealed.

  The cold!

  Lauren felt sick. The Karamazov had been below freezing. Yet the wine had not been frozen. It had been in liquid form, just as Ivan's bloody bedside drink had been. Wine and blood: both red. If you mixed one with the other, no one would know the difference, until too late.

  Gary had drunk half the bottle. Then he had risen from the fringe of a coma to master the controls of a spaceship that had been rigged by a monster. He had done so easily. Then he had sabotaged their communications, and made her think it was her fault.

  Lauren pulled herself up and opened the lid of her hibernaculum. Tears stung her eyes. It wasn't Gary in the next room. It was Mars. She had left Gary dead on Mars. She had killed him. She had fed him the immortal elixir and cursed his soul forever.

  Lauren tried to stop her trembling. There was a terrible thing to be done, and she was the only one who could do it. But first Friend had to be taken out of the picture. Friend controlled the ship. He could stop her before she could begin.

  Lauren opened her hibernaculum and removed the tubes from her artery shunt. She swung her feet to the floor. Her head spun. The Antabolene was at work.

  [Are you awake, Lauren?]

  Lauren froze. 'Yes.'

  [I have a loss of pressure in your hibernaculum. Your blood is not circulating properly.]

  Lauren tried to remember where Friend's cameras were. The goddamn floating eyes - they followed you everywhere.

  'I'll attend to it myself,' she said.

  [Yes, Lauren.]

  The computer banks in the Hawk were the ones that Bill had manipulated. They were the infected section, and like Gary's infected arm, they had to be removed. But she had to move quickly, secretly. The computer could wake Gary up.

  There was a puzzle. Was Gary really asleep? When did vampires need to rest, except during the day? It was always nighttime in space. But one thing was sure. The other three had perished when their hosts' bodies had been destroyed. That meant they must be subjected to certain limitations imposed by the flesh they inhabited. With the Antabolene flooding his system, it was likely Gary was asleep.

  Lauren sure hoped so.

  'Friend,' she said. 'I'm going to recheck the Hawk. I think we may have overlooked a Martian soil sample. I want you to turn on the floodlights in the hub of the Nova, and then open all the doors that lead to the Hawk. I also want you to open all the doors inside the Hawk.'

  [Yes, Lauren.]

  Lauren eased to her feet and stood shaking in her white shorts and oversized Houston Oilers T-shirt. She lacked the expertise to repair Friend's program. She didn't even

  know where to break the connections between the Hawk and Nova, if that was even possible. Yet Lauren had a plan.

  She would dynamite the Hawk's control room.

  Then she would deal with the Martian.

  Lauren walked slowly toward the adjoining room, where Mark and Gary slept. The doorway was a shadow, and she was reminded of the entrance to the cave. The Antabolene in her blood seemed to gain momentum. She had to hug the walls for support. Time was against her. If she lost consciousness now, she would be under for a month, and that long a time outside her hibernaculum would kill her. Already the urge to close her eyes and sleep was overwhelming.

  She entered the room and glanced at Gary. He looked the same, she thought, but Lorraine looked like Kathy, and Lorraine was insane. Lauren sniffed the air. Just one sniff was all it took. How come she hadn't noticed it before? He must have hypnotized her. The reek of decay, the corpse rotting on the bug-infested ground - it was there, right there in front of her nose. She wasn't paranoid. She was doomed.

  'It's good?'

  'Very good.'

  Lauren began to cry again. She couldn't help it. Quickly her silent tears turned to racking sobs.

  [Why are you crying, Lauren?]

  'My sister,' she moaned. 'You remember my sister, Friend? She died. Jenny died. That's why I'm crying.'

  [Let me offer my deepest sympathy, Lauren. She was a fine girl. I enjoyed the conversation I had with her before the start of our mission.]

  The devil and his sweet tongue. They would pay, she would make them pay. 'I'm glad you did,' she whispered.

  Lauren climbed a ladder, away from the rotating hub,

  toward the weightless axis. Friend had obeyed her order and activated the lights. Moments later, free of the restrictions of artificial gravity, she floated through the padded tunnel that led to the Hawk's airlock. Here, she knew, there were no electric eyes. She stopped at a supply closet and collected a packet of plastique explosives. Tucking it out of sight insid
e her shorts, she continued on her way.

  A minute later Lauren found the entrance to the Martian lander wide open. She rested for a moment and then drifted into the laboratory, where she turned her back to one of Friend's cameras and pocketed a small lighter. Next she reached for the door that led to the Hawk's garage. This one was shut, and locked. The manual controls didn't respond to her touch.

  'Open the door to the garage, Friend,' Lauren said.

  [The Martian samples were stored in the laboratory, Lauren.]

  A reasonable reminder, in keeping with the original design.

  'No, Friend,' she said. 'I think I left one in the garage.'

  The fuses were in the garage.

  [Yes, Lauren.]

  The door rifled open. The room was well lit and empty. The tractor had been dismantled to make the boat, of course, and they had left Hummingbird on Mars to face the river of lava, not wanting the extra weight at lift-off. There was a twisted gash in the far side of the garage where Gary had torched out the warhead. Lauren crossed to a supply cabinet, turning her back once more to Friend's cameras, and grabbed a handful of caps and fuses. She stuffed them all in her shorts.

  'I found what I was looking for, Friend,' she said casually.

  [Yes, Lauren.]

  'Gary wanted all the soil samples jettisoned.'

  [Yes, Lauren.]

  'I'm going to check in the control room.' Lauren closed the cabinet and drifted toward the ladder that led to the upper levels. It was possible she imagined the delay, but it seemed that Friend paused before he acknowledged her remark.

  [Yes, Lauren.]

  But hovering in the midst of the Hawk's living area seconds later, she found the portal to the control room still shut. 'Open the third seal, Friend,' she said.

  [There are no Martian samples in the control room, Lauren.]

  'I'd like to double check. Open the seal, Friend.'

  [I have full visual span of the control room. There is no need for you to double check.]

  Arguing was definitely not in the original design. Her fears were once more confirmed. The computer was possessed.