by John Olson
“Talk to me, guys,” came Lex’s controlled voice. “Is it a full breach? Think we can salvage the food supplies?”
“We’ll know in a second.” Bob peered up at the blackened hull. Wisps of sand blew around his feet.
“Guys, our weather station twenty klicks south of here is showing gusts up to a hundred kilometers per hour,” Lex said. “You need to hurry.”
“This won’t take long.” Valkerie’s voice sounded tight.
“I agree.” Bob tugged at the outer hatch of the airlock. It swung open. He stepped cautiously inside. The inner hatch was jammed. Leaning his back against one wall and bracing his left foot against the other, he strained at the wheel. Valkerie grabbed it and threw her weight into it.
Slowly, the wheel came unfrozen. Bob spun it around. They pushed the door open and stepped into the blackened interior. “Watch your step,” Valkerie said. “The floor panels could be unstable.”
“Right,” Bob said. “I just want to see if there’s any chance he could have survived.”
“Bob.”
Bob looked at the charred remains of the EVA‑suit room. Soot covered the lockers. Some kind of fluid had spilled onto the floor—from the bioreactor next door? The liquid would have evaporated soon after the hull lost integrity. That was hours ago. Now all that remained was a greenish‑grayish oozy stain.
Somewhere in this Hab was their food supply. Had it burned? And what about Kennedy? Bob peered at the stairway, the sagging ceiling, the charred floor. “Maybe you should wait here.”
“No way. I’m going with you.”
“Okay. But stay right behind me. Step where I’m stepping.” Bob prodded the floor with his pipe‑knife, probing for weak spots. “Let’s check on the food stores.” He eased his way across the floor of the EVA‑suit room, probing with his pipe, skittering the beam of his flashlight around the room. At the hallway, Bob shone his flashlight into the storeroom next door.
A charred and twisted mass of plastic and metal. The fuel cells in the next room must have ignited. That was the only explanation. Hydrogen burned really hot, explosively fast. But how had it happened? Fuel cells didn’t just light off by themselves.
Kennedy. It had to be Kennedy. A terrible way to commit suicide. He must have been in despair to take the final exit so dramatically. And I ignored his last cry for help.
Bob turned to look at Valkerie. Wide eyes peered back at him through her gold‑tinted visor. He checked his comm switch. “Lex, I’m looking at the storeroom and ... it’s all gone.” His voice cracked. “Burned. There isn’t enough food left for afternoon tea.”
Long silence.
“How about the pantry upstairs?” Lex’s voice trembled.
“The structure’s too unstable.” Valkerie clutched Bob’s arm. “Going upstairs would be too risky.”
“We’re down to one week of food.” Lex emphasized each word. “We don’t have a choice.”
“But—”
“Lex is right.” Bob stepped carefully to the bottom of the stairwell, pulling Valkerie along behind him. “Valkerie, I need you outside. If the floor collapses I don’t want you cushioning my fall.”
Valkerie clung to his arm tighter. “Let me go. I’m lighter.”
“Not this time.” Bob tried to pull his arm away.
“Val, clear out of there,” Lex said. “Bob can carry more. And if he doesn’t find any food ... he might have to carry Kennedy out.”
Carry Kennedy out? Bob shuddered as the implication of Lex’s words sank home.
“Okay.” Valkerie gave his arm a reluctant squeeze and picked her way toward the airlock. “Be careful.”
Right. Careful and Mars didn’t even belong in the same sentence. Bob placed a tentative foot on the bottom stair tread and gradually shifted his weight onto it. So far so good. He took the next step. The next. Halfway up the stairs a metallic groan vibrated up through his body. The whole stairwell sagged to his right.
He dropped to his hands and knees and clung to the tread above him, fighting to keep his balance.
“Bob, are you all right?” Valkerie’s voice filled his helmet.
“Sure. No problems.” Bob tried to keep his voice steady as he stretched forward in an awkward crouch. His arms shook as he reached for the next stair. Every instinct told him to turn back, but he couldn’t. Without food they were dead.
He crept up the stairs, keeping his center of balance as low as possible. He crawled through the hatch and out onto the uneven floor of the upper deck.
A dusty orange‑tinted beam of light stabbed through the commons area, filtering in through a gaping hole in the roof of the Hab. Almost a quarter of the upper deck had been melted away. The section right above the hydrogen tanks.
Bob stared at the molten mass of metal and plastic. His senses reeled. The crew quarters. If Kennedy had been in his room ... Bob turned away from the grisly spectacle and blinked his eyes as the deck dissolved into an orange haze.
No. There wasn’t time for this. Bob shook his head. He had to focus on survival—food. If he didn’t bring back something to eat, they were all going to die.
He turned toward the galley and crept across the buckled floor. The structure popped and groaned beneath him, but by some miracle it held. He pried off the sagging pantry door and riffled through the charred boxes. Foil packets littered the cabinet, but they were all empty. All but four tubes of Jell‑O in the bottom of the last box.
“It’s all gone.” Bob forced the words through his constricting throat. “Only four Jell‑Os left. The pantry wasn’t burned, there just wasn’t anything else here.”
A long silence.
“All right. We’ll figure something out ....” Lex’s voice trailed off. Another long silence. “You better get out of there. Looks like the wind speed is picking up. Are you sure there isn’t more? Did you check the commons?”
“What about Kennedy’s room?” Valkerie’s voice was hollow. “You know how he likes to squirrel away food.”
“Kennedy’s room isn’t even here anymore. It was right above the hydrogen tanks.” Bob stashed the four packets in his stow bag and crawled back across the creaking floor.
“Careful, Bob.”
Like it matters now. Bob eased down the stairs. A Martian dust storm could last for months. Winds up to hundreds of miles per hour. Trying to take off in the MAV would be out of the question. A knot tightened around his throat. He felt sick. Trapped. He jumped down the last three stairs and ran for the airlock.
“Bob!” Valkerie stood just outside the entrance, pointing to the south.
He turned in the indicated direction. A wall of swirling orange dust rose above the horizon. Already the tracks they’d made on the way over had disappeared. The storm was beginning.
* * *
Saturday, March 28, 10:30 a.m., Mars Local Time
Valkerie
“Houston, this is CDR Alexis Ohta, calling from the Ares 7.” Lex closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I regret to inform you that Kennedy Hampton died last night in a tragic accident. He was working alone in the Ares 10 when the Hab caught on fire and burned. We do not know for certain the cause of the accident, but it may have been the result of the psychological problems that he has been manifesting for the last several months. We are forced to consider suicide as a strong possibility.” Lex looked to Valkerie with a grimace.
“Stored on board the Ares 10 were most of our nondurables—including most of our food and medical supplies. We currently have only enough food to last one week without rationing. Repeat ...”
Valkerie crossed the room and fell into one of the hanging chairs. Bob sat on the floor slumped against the wall, staring out into space with vacant eyes.
“Bob, it’s okay,” Valkerie said. “We’re going to make it. We’ll think of something. Everything’s going to be fine.”
“Fine?” Bob’s eyes blazed. “Kennedy’s dead. How’s that supposed to be fine?”
A guilty pang stabbed through Valkerie. “It isn
’t. I’m sorry. I was being selfish. It’s just that ...”
“I know.” Bob’s eyes softened. “I’ve been worried about the food situation too. As far as I can figure, we’re just going to have to wait for a lull in the storm. If we could get into orbit—the ERV has plenty of supplies.”
“Do you think we really could?” A fountain of hope welled up inside her. If only they could get off Mars. To go home early ... It was almost too wonderful to hope for.
“We don’t have a choice.” Bob pulled his knees up in front of him and rested his forehead on his forearms.
Valkerie nodded. Who could fault them for quitting? They were out of food. What else could they do?
“I know you had your heart set on doing more research in that thermal vent, but we’ve got to be reasonable. We can’t stretch a week of food to last nine more months.”
“Why not?” Lex set the mike on the table and turned to face them. “We’ve got a greenhouse outside and another one inside with plenty of lights. Why can’t we grow our own food?”
Valkerie turned to Lex. Surely she wasn’t serious. “We don’t have nearly enough. The vegetables were never intended to be anything but a supplement. And even if we had plenty, there’s no way they’d grow fast enough. We only have food for a week.”
“I don’t know.” Lex smoothed her hands down her hips. “I for one could stand a little dieting. How about you, Bob?”
Bob looked at her like she was crazy.
“Come on. We’ve got plenty of food.” Lex strode to the center of the room. “We could easily stretch it to last a month. Maybe even a month and a half. That’s plenty of time to get our crops going.”
Valkerie shook her head. “It’s not that simple. We don’t have enough potting soil from Earth, and we still haven’t figured out how to make plants grow in Martian soil. It’s just not going to happen.”
“You sound like you don’t want it to happen.” Lex fixed Valkerie with an accusing stare.
Valkerie felt herself flushing. “It’s not that. I just don’t think—”
“We’ve got to at least try. Maybe we can synthesize food. We’ve got plenty of carbon dioxide and hydrogen.”
Synthesize food? What had gotten into Lex? Valkerie turned to Bob.
Bob shrugged. “Lex is right. We should start planting seeds—just in case the storm doesn’t let up—but I don’t see how we could synthesize food. Besides, most of our reagents were in the other Hab.”
Valkerie looked from Bob to Lex. There was absolutely no way they could last nine months on the handful of seeds they had brought with them from Earth. They had gone through most of their greens in two weeks.
Bob stood up and lumbered toward the stairwell.
“Not yet, big guy,” Lex called him back. “Formal blues first, then our overalls. Houston’s going to want a memorial service right away, and I for one need to figure out what I’m going to say.”
Valkerie slipped out of the hanging chair and followed Lex from the commons. Feeling her way through the darkness of her room, she sought out the comfort of pillow and cot. Kennedy was dead. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around it. Had he really committed suicide? It didn’t add up. He’d told Bob he was under attack. Something was wrong. Bad wrong. A floor‑rattling whump sounded below.
“What was that?” Bob called out from his room.
“Val, was that you?” Lex’s footsteps sounded outside Valkerie’s door.
“No!” Icy fingers tightened around Valkerie’s heart. She lay in her bed and listened as Bob and Lex clomped down the stairs. Footsteps. Closing doors. A bump on the floor.
“Nothing down here. Must have been our ghost,” Bob called up the stairs. His laugh was tight, forced.
Valkerie started to get up, then collapsed back onto the bed. What did it matter? She lay in bed listening. Sand blasted against the wall with the relentless fury of a hostile planet. Hatred. Malice. She could feel it all around her. Like the planet was possessed by a dark spirit—Ares, god of war. They had intruded on his demesne, and he wouldn’t rest until he’d killed them all. She buried her face in her pillow, trying to blot out the dark images that infected her mind. Twisted metal. Charred plastic. A gutted trophy, a monument to the planet’s destructive force. We never should have come. What have we done?
The whole venture had been doomed from the start. One disaster after another. Storm after storm after storm. And now the beast had finally swallowed them. No food. No supplies. It was only a matter of time. Kennedy was dead and she couldn’t even find the tears to mourn him. She was dead too—at her very core.
Soft footsteps sounded behind her. “Valkerie?” Bob’s voice. “Are you okay?”
Valkerie didn’t look up. “I ... I can’t help thinking. Kennedy would still be alive if we hadn’t taken him to the Ares 10. It’s my fault.”
“No, it’s not.” The footsteps came closer, stopping by the side of her cot.
Valkerie rolled onto her side. “What if I had just let him kiss me? Would that have killed me? What if I had set him straight before he even tried? I should have seen the signs. He’d been crying out for help for months, but I was too caught up in my work to even listen. I should have—”
“Valkerie, listen to me.” Bob leaned in close. “It’s not your fault. You did the best you could with the information you had. We all did. Kennedy was dangerous. First he attacked you, then he threatened to blow up the Hab. According to Lex, he almost succeeded. Don’t you get it? If we hadn’t put Kennedy in the Ares 10, then we might all be dead right now. We couldn’t have watched him around‑the‑clock. Eventually he would have found a way to kill us all—just like in the end he managed to kill himself.”
“What if ...” Valkerie searched Bob’s face. Would he think she was crazy?
“What if?” Bob prompted.
Valkerie took a deep breath. “What if he didn’t kill himself? What if it was ... the ghost?”
Bob stared off into space. “I suppose we can’t rule that out.” He looked back at Valkerie. “But considering his mental state. Considering he’d already threatened to blow up the Ares 7—”
“Because he heard something outside.”
“Because he thought he heard something outside.”
“But what if he really did?”
Bob sighed and rose slowly to his feet. “Then I suppose it might have scared him enough to blow himself up.” He shuffled for the door.
“Bob?”
He stopped at the door and turned. “Yes?”
“What if we’re not supposed to be here? What if somebody doesn’t want us here?”
“I can’t answer that. We’re here. All we can do now is try to get back home.” He turned back to the door.
“Bob?” She listened as his footsteps paused at the door. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Now get some rest. I’ve got to get the CamBot ready for the service.”
The memorial service. The thought shivered through her. Why did it feel like she’d be giving her own eulogy?
Chapter Twenty-Five
Saturday, March 28, 7:30 p.m., CST
Josh
JOSH STARED UP AT THE giant screen in Teague Auditorium, tears streaming down his face. The filled‑to‑capacity hall was silent. Valkerie had just finished her speech, and Josh couldn’t shake the feeling that Valkerie had been saying good‑bye to the world as well as to Kennedy. Bob stood next to Valkerie, working the CamBot controls. The camera swung to Lex and zoomed in on her face. She looked surprisingly good. Much better than the others.
“I met Kennedy nearly ten years ago. We were ASCANs together. Co‑workers. Friends. He even hit on me once when he’d had a few too many brews.” She smiled into the camera. “Don’t worry, Ronnie. He wasn’t my type.”
A short pause.
“In the past few months—actually, the past few weeks—we saw a dramatic change in Kennedy,” Lex said. “We don’t know what caused it. Some say he suffered from a mental disease, one that he carefull
y concealed during training. Others think he was done in by the constant stress of living so long in an extremely hostile world. We don’t know the real reason, and we’ll probably never know for sure.”
Josh held his breath. Mars Madness. She doesn’t need to say it ... but everyone is thinking it.
“But the point is, he changed. Radically. He became a different person. He wasn’t the man I knew for so many years, the man I respected, admired, loved.” Lex took a breath. “Yes, I think we all loved that other Kennedy—the man who could drink any of us under the table, who could fly as well as any man alive—and even some women.”
A pause for the viewer to smile, to reflect. Lex had obviously rehearsed all this.
“When we think of Kennedy over the months and years to come, let us ... remember the man he was at his best, and forgive the errors he made at his worst, remembering that each one of us, but for the grace of God, could have been in his shoes. Kennedy, wherever you are, we will always remember you. Rest in peace.”
The screen went dark. Slowly, the lights came up. Josh sat in his chair in the front row. Cathe gave his hand a squeeze and released her grip, fumbling for a tissue. She blew her nose and wiped her eyes.
Steven Perez walked slowly to the podium. “My friends, NASA today has lost a brave and ... complex man. We may never understand the demons that drove Kennedy Hampton.”
Demons. Josh felt his hackles rising. He had been so angry with Kennedy. Had hated him. Kennedy was a weasel and there was no varnishing that fact.
And yet.
And yet the guy had problems. Josh had been reading up on delusional disorders. You could hide your symptoms from other people if you worked at it, and the Hampster had obviously worked really hard. It looked like he had the paranoid subtype. Kennedy against the world, with the world winning. That was how Kennedy saw it, and of course it had an element of truth. In this world, it was dog‑eat‑chihuahua, and the coyotes got the leavings. Delusional people always fixed on some truth and exaggerated it way beyond reality. Kennedy had fixated on his fears of those around him—and it had killed him.