One landing leg was caught, and ripped clean off. Our engine bell hit too, was dented maybe. The drive started to sputter and flare, and we were tipping.
Arkady got us down in one piece. He kind of lodged the stump of that broken landing leg on a rock heap, so we didn’t topple, at least. It was a brilliant piece of piloting, but once we were down he dismissed that. The gravity was so low it was very gradual, easy, he said – well, maybe. I say brilliant, even so.
So you had landed. What then?
Well, we followed our checklists. We checked the integrity of our cabin, our life support, other systems. Everything was fine, save we had lost that lander leg, and were tipped out of true. We couldn’t take off like that – and besides, Arkady wanted to check out that engine bell first.
Did you regain communications with Lamb?
No. And not with Earth, either. We were on our own, it seemed. We didn’t know what the hell was going on.
You see, even with just the lander’s systems we could detect messages from Earth – well, for the lander to have an independent comms capability had been part of the design strategy, one of our backup options. But we couldn’t make out anything of the signals we were getting from Earth, strong as they were.
So we started sending out wideband signals. Cries for help, basically, to anyone who would listen. And, yes, eventually I called for Malenfant. Why not? I always had this hunch . . .
Your hunch was a good one. The Mini-Sat lander relayed your messages to Earth. Malenfant had to be woken up. But he came for you, didn’t he?
He came for me. At last.
While you waited.
While we waited, and survived. Look, I won’t give you an hour by hour breakdown. Or even day by day. As that radio silence went on. You can imagine.
The two of us secured our life support. We had supplies, dried stuff, to last us months, if stretched. That’s the Russians for you; always prepare for the worst. We had a solar cell blanket we stretched out over the rocks, to keep our batteries topped up.
I believe we saw that.
We even did some science. Grabbed surface samples from inside the lander through a glove-box arrangement.
But we were still out of contact with Earth, and Tom.
Days went by.
Weeks.
So, in the end, we decided we ought to at least try to get off Phobos. We wouldn’t get too far without the main ship, any more than Armstrong and Aldrin could have flown home from the Moon in their lunar lander. But we thought . . . hell, I don’t know what we thought. Maybe we would get better comms, away from whatever oddities were inside Phobos. Maybe we would even become visible from Earth, telescopically. We just wanted to do something.
I understand.
We had to retrieve the damn landing leg from the shaft. If we could do that, maybe we could hoist the lander body – you know there’s no significant weight here – and fix the leg, somehow. Maybe with duct tape. I’m serious! It sounds hokey but it could have worked. And then we would have access to the engine bell . . .
But it went wrong.
Arkady went out alone, to fetch that pesky landing leg. I waited in the open cabin. I saw him walk to the lip of the shaft. He was tethered, with a rope back to the lander. He made his way to the place we had hit. I saw him bend, stiffly. Take another step. Descended into the pit, on his tether. He was gone a while, and I’m not sure how deep he went. We were out of line of sight, of course, but he dragged down a wire that gave us some scratchy comms. I think he said he was coming close to some kind of structure down there, a blue hoop, maybe more than one this time. Like we saw before.
Then – blue flash. Shining on the rim of the pit. And on some loose dust, just grains, floating in that low gravity where Arkady had disturbed the ground.
I never saw him again.
Umm. And it was like the blue flash you saw on landing.
Yeah. As we had dipped into the shaft in the lander. I wonder now if some chunk of debris broke away, fell into the hole, touched a hoop. A blue flash, at the moment we lost contact with Tom. And now, the same again.
You think touching the hoops, or allowing any of our stuff to touch them – changes things.
That’s a leap for me. Changes what? At the time I didn’t know what this was. Some kind of weapon, a trap? That took out our lander, and then Arkady? But, maybe, yeah. Blue flash – Tom and the orbiter were gone. Blue flash – Arkady gone, and, later, you show up. Like moving between different – categories. I don’t know. I guess it’s possible. I can only tell you what I observed.
I know. Go on. So – you lost Arkady . . . you were alone.
Emma? Are you OK?
Yeah. Just – remembering.
So.
I kept calling.
After a time I hauled back the tether. It looked as if it had been burned through. I did figure, yeah, he might have brushed one of those blue hoops. Or even touched it deliberately. Innocent enough thing to try, I guess.
Of course I went out to look for him. Went to the edge of the shaft lying on my belly. I could see his footsteps, what looked like a scuff, a slip. That’s all. I guess he just fell down that damn shaft. I have no idea where he is now.
Oh, and no sign of the landing strut.
Or any blue hoops down there, come to that.
So, after that, I got back to the cabin, and sealed it up, and started another cycle of attempts at comms, and began to plan how to manage my supplies. We had enough to sustain a couple of cosmonauts on the surface for weeks. Now, alone, I could stretch it out further. I did my best. But I was alone. I didn’t know how long I would be down there. And I was in silence – you understand? Arkady and Tom gone, Earth incomprehensible. I . . . sorry.
Take your time. Delicate question. Did you consider your options if—
Suicide is a sin for a Catholic. I regard myself as lapsed, but why take a chance? Anyhow I had faith that somebody would come. Even Tom Lamb, maybe, from around the horizon of Phobos.
Or Malenfant.
Oh, come on. How corny would that have been?
I think we’re done. Look, take a break. We have sleep cubicles. You won’t be disturbed. And then, when you’re ready—
I’m wide awake. Let me talk to Malenfant.
44
To talk, they went over to the Timor lander.
It was Gershon who gave them the excuse. ‘If that broken baby bird was my ship I would want to go close it out properly. Take out any personal effects. Secure it in case some future generation comes to retrieve it. That kind of thing. I mean, it is the nearest thing to a monument your buddy Arkady is going to have on this moon, isn’t it?’
‘And also, perhaps,’ Bartholomew said gently, ‘an artefact that is unique in this – universe.’
Emma said in a small voice, ‘Arkady did have some stuff in there. Family pictures. Thanks, Stavros, I should have thought of that myself.’
Deirdra smiled. ‘And if you make sure the comms system is switched off you’ll get some privacy.’
Bartholomew was more circumspect. ‘OK. But you will set up a voice-activated override command. And you will allow your medical monitors to keep functioning. You too, Emma.’
Emma frowned at that. ‘What do you mean – cuffs and bracelets, electrodes stuck to my chest?’
He smiled. ‘Nothing so crude. A smart bangle, yes. And a pill to swallow.’
Emma shrugged. ‘Given what I’ve already gone through, being bugged by an android doc hardly makes the weirdness needle flicker on the dial. Come on, Malenfant, let’s get out of here . . .’
Malenfant quickly discovered that Emma’s Phobos lander was as similar to the old Apollo Lunar Module inside as it had looked from the outside. A tight, cramped little cabin, with a big low-down hatch you crawled through for access to the surface. The same layout of pilot and co-pilot positions, left and right, where you would stand before downward-facing windows: no need to clutter up the space with seats, as you would never be subject to any sign
ificant gravity pull, or indeed any gruelling accelerations, as the tiny, fragile craft made its way down to the destination surface, and back up again to space.
The air was a little cold, and smelled a little stale, but it was warming fast. It was almost cosy in here – and an environment, cluttered with instruments and gadgets and life-support equipment, that both of them, twenty-first-century astronauts, were used to, comfortable with. Emma, who it turned out had had a hand in the final design details of her craft, delighted in showing Malenfant around the more homely features. Here were the hooks where you could suspend two hammocks, one above the other. There was even a tiny galley area where you could warm up pre-prepared food and drink. Emma showed Malenfant how to make coffee, with freeze-dried granules and hot water from a spigot.
Malenfant was overwhelmed at how she had survived in here, alone on a Martian moon, out of touch with humanity. For months. He felt a deep, savage relief that she had called for him, and he had been able to respond.
‘Of course, Tom and I did all the food preparation,’ she said with a smile, as she handed Malenfant the coffee. ‘Russia is still a very patriarchal society – or was, back in 2004. The 2004 where I came from anyhow . . . Whatever. And even though this lander was basically an American design, no Russian male would have been piloted by a mere female. In this case, however, Arkady was the trained pilot, and I wasn’t. Though I had been trained to fly the ascent stage in an emergency.’
‘I guess, if not for the spookiness, you would have had to do that anyhow – you would have gone through what poor Buzz Aldrin did, during the Apollo 11 flight. If you had stayed in your own, umm, timeline.’
She frowned. ‘Buzz Aldrin?’
‘After Armstrong died on the Moon.’
‘Neil Armstrong?’
‘No, Louis Armstrong.’
She said firmly, ‘Bartholomew said something about this. Armstrong did not die on the Moon, Malenfant. He and Aldrin landed successfully, made their single EVA, picked up some rocks, saluted the flag, and came home.’
‘So what happened then?’
She thought it over. ‘I guess they were the most famous people in the world, for a while, Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins. They toured the planet. None of them flew in space again. Armstrong became an academic, I think. Somewhat reclusive. Always dignified.’
Malenfant held her gaze. ‘Look – that’s not how I remember it. Armstrong had a heart attack, in the last few seconds of the landing, the most tense moments. Aldrin managed to complete the landing. His first words on the ground became famous. “Houston, Tranquillity Base here. We have a medical emergency.”’
She just stared.
Malenfant rummaged in his memory. ‘I remember the public feed was immediately shut down. Later, when I got into NASA myself, I learned more of the details. Aldrin went through hell in the first minutes, trying to get Armstrong out of his pressure suit to administer CPR. It was too late, of course.
‘The programme of EVAs was cancelled. But Aldrin did walk out onto the lunar surface, taking his buddy with him. His first lines on the lunar surface were famous too. “I can only relay the words Neil had rehearsed for this moment. That’s one small step for a man . . .” Aldrin buried his buddy under a cairn of Moon rocks. And he set up the flag. Photographed the whole set-up. Took a couple of rock samples. Came home.
‘The President gave an effective speech. “Fate has ordained that a man who went to the Moon to explore in peace will stay on the Moon to rest in peace.” I think that was it. I’m finding I never paid as much attention to the history as I should have, even of the space programme. Always focused on the future, I guess. I know that Nixon was very moved by the death. Well, everybody was. He became a champion of the space programme, especially post-Apollo. And I think some people believe he became more – human, after that. So he pushed for reforms that seem to have borne fruit, centuries later. You’d be surprised. He would have been surprised. In this age, nobody works for a living, Emma.’
She smiled. ‘Come on.’
‘You’ll see, when we get you back to Earth. And talk to Deirdra. It seems to work . . . Anyhow, they seem to give Nixon the credit for all of that.’
She shook her head. ‘Armstrong didn’t die on the Moon. And Nixon was brought down by Watergate.’
That word was entirely unfamiliar to Malenfant. He shrugged. ‘Anyhow, Nixon backing the space programme is how come I got to fly a space shuttle booster stage, I guess.’
And how come she got to fly to Phobos. My Emma. Emma I. He didn’t add that.
Emma – Emma II - stared at him. ‘We remember different things. We lived different lives. And here we are talking about it. It’s incredible.’
‘Different since 1969 or so, yeah. Look, Emma, I’ve had more time to get used to this, since I first heard your message. We are from different alternate realities. Like a book you loaned me once.’ And which he had, he remembered, already discussed with an unreal avatar of Emma herself.
‘I remember. Dick. The Axis won the war.’ She nodded. ‘OK. And somehow it all gets tangled up here, on Phobos. But that’s not the only puzzle, is it?’ Hesitantly she touched his stubbly cheek, his scalp. ‘You got a real frosting there, buddy.’
‘I know. Because we don’t just come from different histories—’
‘We come from different – times. For me it’s 2006. Whereas you lived on to the age of sixty, nearly, and then got frozen for centuries, to now . . .’
‘Yeah. When I’m with you like this I keep forgetting. For you it’s 2006. For me it’s still 2019, kind of. In my heart. But for Deirdra and the rest, it’s 2469.’
She nodded. ‘So it’s like time slips a gear inside Phobos too.’
‘Something like that.’
‘What does it all mean, Malenfant?’
‘Damned if I know. All we can do is talk it out.’ He hesitated. ‘Listen. There’s something I haven’t told you. Back where I came from. She went to Phobos too.’
‘She?’
‘The other Emma. The one in my timeline. You.’
‘But not me.’
‘Except she didn’t get launched on some crummy Russian rocket booster. And she wasn’t the first to Mars, by the way.’
‘Go on.’
He sighed. ‘Look – we first reached Mars in 1986. Project Ares. It was all based on Apollo-Saturn technology, or a stretch of it . . . Ask Gershon. Ancestor of his was on the first mission. After that we maintained a small base on Mars – and I mean small, just a handful of people. Mangala Station. By the time it was decided to run a Phobos mission, after the orbital anomalies were observed— you talked about this elaborate system of Russian boosters and sending out fuel tankers first—’
‘Go on.’
‘Here, Emma rode a stack tipped by a Saturn-N. A nuclear-fission powered upper stage for the Saturn V. Should have brought her home again afterwards. She actually flew out in the same launch window as you. She should have got there in June 2005.’
‘Should have?’
She was staring at his face. He had no idea what emotion he was showing now. What was he supposed to feel?
‘Tell me,’ she urged.
‘The damn nuke stage failed. Those things were always unreliable.’
‘I was . . . killed?’
He shrugged. ‘She didn’t reach Mars. Actually the deceleration phase mostly went through OK. She ended up in the correct encounter orbit. But—’
‘But it was a ship of corpses.’
He glanced out of the windows. ‘I don’t know what became of it, actually. It’s been five centuries. I can’t believe it was ever retrieved, brought back to Earth.’
‘Radioactive.’
‘Right. Probably pushed away into deep space. Bartholomew might know. The Answerers certainly will.’
‘The Answerers? . . . Never mind.’
She turned away from him, in the cramped cabin, as if she wanted to pace, but she floated up from the aluminium floor, the feeble gravity helples
s to hold her down. Not an environment where you could make extravagant gestures. Instead she grabbed a couple of rails, and began to pull herself up and down, the strength of her arms opposing that of her legs, evidently a training routine.
‘I believe you, by the way,’ Malenfant said.
‘What about?’
‘When you talk about your past, your mission to Phobos. Even if it’s not the mission I remember. Not the past I remember.’
‘Hmph. So you should. I mean, here’s the evidence – the lander . . . And a thirty-five-year-old version of me. More to the point, I believe you. On a lot less evidence, I have to say.’ She seemed to be struggling for the words. ‘We are both telling the truth as we remember it. It’s just, like you said, that we seem to come from two different . . . truths.’
‘So I come from a reality where Neil Armstrong died on the Moon. You come from a reality where he didn’t. And you lived through all the consequences that flowed from that.’
She frowned. ‘That’s politics for you. An astronaut is more honoured lying dead on the Moon than if he had survived.’ She stopped flexing, and faced him. ‘But there’s more to this than the politics of the space programme.’
‘You mean us.’
‘Damn right I mean us. I mean me. Me, and all the other Emmas out in . . .’
‘Out in the manifold.’
‘The what?’
‘It’s a maths term. I think. My dad used to refer to it, when he teased me about being a spooky kid. Like I was from a different universe. The set of all possible realities. Maybe we could call it that. We are all refugees across the manifold.’
‘Whatever. So, after Phobos, you lived on, until your own crash in—’
‘2019.’
‘Right. You nearly died, aged fifty-nine. But no, you were saved; you were preserved, in some experimental cryogenics tank.’
He had to smile. ‘For centuries I was a near-corpse on the Moon. I always admired Neil Armstrong, but I never wanted to end up as a tribute act.’
‘And eventually you were defrosted. After more than four hundred years.’
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