Martians Abroad

by Carrie Vaughn

  How did people on this planet, thousands of years ago, ever figure out those bright lights were planets and not stars? Because they really did look different. Different colors. And if we watched them every night, they would move differently across the sky. The stars held their places for tens of thousands of years. The planets moved week by week.

  I started talking out loud, not even realizing I was, like my mind was moving so fast it just wanted to go. “They’re like spots on a map. They’re places, and I want to go. See them up close, for real, not just as spots of light in the sky. I can’t stand being grounded like this.”

  “I want to go home,” Ladhi said, sighing. We wouldn’t be able to see Moore Station without a telescope. Too small, not reflective enough. But she was looking in a certain section of sky, like she knew it was there, tens of millions of kilometers away.

  I looked across our little stove to Charles, whose face was mostly shadow, a faint outline of light marking his chin and cheek. Just then he looked up at me, caught my gaze. Nodded, just a little.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he murmured. Was that for me or for him?

  * * *

  I must have slept, because I woke up. Several times, in fact, drifting off and starting awake, feeling disoriented every time. My feet were sore, my legs stiff when I moved them. I dreamed about having sore feet and never really seemed to fully regain consciousness. The air felt colder every time I opened my eyes. And wetter, like I could stick out my tongue and take a sip of the dampness. I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders and curled up against the chill.

  Finally, when I started awake again and looked past the edge of the shelter, the sky was light. Well, lighter. A foggy gray instead of dark, and the stars had vanished. I heard noises—chirping, peeping. There didn’t seem much point in trying to go back to sleep. I hauled myself up to sitting. Ethan was already awake and next to the stove, which he’d turned up to heat what looked like water.

  “Morning,” he said, glancing at me, smiling. “There’s coffee mix with the food supplies. Want some?”

  I muttered sure, or thought I did, and scratched my hair, which felt grubby and tangled. I’d never felt so sweaty, dirty, and gross in my whole life. And we had to do the whole hike over again today.

  Birds were chirping and flitting all over the place. There must have been hundreds of them, which was disconcerting, because I couldn’t see them; they were hidden in the foliage. Like everything else on this planet, waiting to turn around and bite me.

  The coffee wasn’t bad. Tasted pretty good, actually, and convinced me that I really was awake. By the time the smell of it spread through the shelter, the others were awake, scrubbing hands over faces. There was a latrine nearby—a wooden shed with a chemical composting toilet, which sort of ruined the effect of being in wilderness. Breakfast was energy bars and dried fruit, and even those tasted good after the cold night.

  “What do you know,” Tenzig said during the short meal. “We survived the night.”

  “There really weren’t too many horrible things that could happen to us in just one night,” Charles said. “Not this close to civilization.”

  “You call this civilization?” Ladhi said, scratching her head, picking out tangles in her hair, which was longer than mine. I could brush mine with my fingers. She might have to chop hers off after this. “I think there’s something living in my hair.”

  My head starting itching even more after that. I didn’t want to think about it.

  Somehow, we’d survived our night in the wilderness with nothing worse to show for it than a few blisters, bug bites, sunburns, and muscle strain, which seemed like more than enough damage for one trip. I didn’t know if I had any more confidence than when I’d started, but I did have the satisfaction of knowing I could play Stanton’s stupid little games.

  Packing to go back was a pain. Nothing seemed to fold down as small as it had been when we started, none of it fit back in the packs as neatly as it had yesterday. We kept stuffing the packs, restuffing, and still gear poked out at awkward angles. We had to let the stove cool off, which meant we finally got everything put in some kind of reasonable order, and there it was, sitting all by itself in the middle of the clearing. So we had to start over again.

  But we managed, got our packs on and were ready to go. Tenzig consulted the map and GPS—more to feel like he was doing something official than because we really needed directions when the trail was right in front of us. Really, how hard could it be? And didn’t we all feel better about ourselves now? Doing this on Mars, that would have been a challenge.

  Mom could have started a fancy school on Mars instead of making us come here.

  The air was getting warm again, and the sun had climbed. Though it seemed to be burning my skin, the heat didn’t get any deeper. My bones were still cold and my muscles still hurt.

  “We’d better step it up, people,” Tenzig said over his shoulder. “They’re expecting us back in an hour.”

  We were walking single file down the trail, and we all glared at him.

  “They’ll wait,” I said.

  “They’ll think we can’t hack it,” he shot back.

  I grumbled, “The way I look at it, they stick a bunch of offworlders in the middle of a jungle—”

  “Forest,” Charles said.

  “Whatever—told them to go all survivalist with equipment they’ve never used before and minimal instructions. I figure if we show up at all without calling for help, we proved we can hack it.”

  “He wants to get back before the other groups do,” Charles said. “This is a race for him.”

  Ladhi looked back and forth between them. “Is it? Is it supposed to be a race?”

  “No,” I said. “We’ll get back when we get back and it doesn’t matter.”

  We walked for another half hour, feet dragging, scuffing in the dirt. The sun wasn’t quite as hot when we were under the trees, but during an open stretch, it beat down. No one had thought to put hats in our collection of gear.

  Somebody’s laughter rang through the trees.

  I looked around, couldn’t see anything. It might have been birdsong. Then it came again, along with the sound of voices, an easygoing chatter.

  “What’s that?” Ladhi stopped and stared, fearful, as if wild animals would announce themselves with loud voices.

  The noises came closer, until Charles said, “It’s the competition.”

  We stopped and waited. Sure enough, a group of students came around the curve in the trail behind us. George, Elzabeth, Angelyn, Bently, and Tamra. All Earth kids. Not anyone I particularly wanted to see at the moment.

  “Wow, look at this,” George said to the rest of his group. “Where’d you people come from?”

  “We’ve been here the whole time,” I said. “Where’d you come from?”

  “This is our trail,” Elzabeth said.

  “If I may,” Charles said, moving forward, and I wanted to stomp on his foot or something because I was sure he was about to say something insufferable. “Your trail followed a loop, didn’t it? You started at a different trail that circles around, passes through our camp, and ends up back at base. While we went straight out and straight back.” He looked around at the rest of us. “I imagine their route was about twice as long as ours.”

  George laughed. “So you guys got the wimpy kiddy route? That’s super rich.”

  My face burned, and I didn’t know if it was because I was embarrassed, angry that they were laughing, or angry at the instructors for going easy on us. I could have hiked the long trail, I knew I could have.

  “It’s not like they gave us a choice,” I said.

  “Oh, I know. They’re just taking good care of you.”

  “Yeah, you just laugh it up,” Tenzig said, as if he were the one doing the teasing.

  “If you’ll excuse us,” George said, making a show of shouldering past us, leading the others down the trail. They really were walking faster than us, as if the hike to
ok no effort at all. Angelyn threw us a smile.

  “How do you like that?” Ethan said.

  “Come on,” Tenzig said, marching faster.

  I just stared. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “We can keep up with them,” he said, his voice echoing from ahead.

  “No, we can’t!” Ladhi said.

  “It’s not worth the trouble,” I added.

  “You losers stay behind if you want,” he said, continuing on, huffing for breath.

  “We’re not going to lose points for being late,” Ethan said. “But we’ll lose points for not sticking together.”

  “I’m not walking that fast,” Ladhi said.

  I sighed. “Let’s just go. We’ll catch up eventually.”

  We hiked on at the same pace we’d been going. As long as we could still hear voices ahead, we couldn’t be doing too badly. If Tenzig was smart, he’d hang back right at the end so we all showed up at base together. Then he could have it both ways.

  The trail was familiar this time, at least. We’d passed these trees, rocks, curves before. We didn’t have to check the GPS. Just keep slogging. No matter how tired we were, we’d get to rest at the end of it. It would all be over.

  Someone ahead screamed.

  A chaos of noise followed. Voices shouting, another scream, a clatter of rocks.

  I ran, not stopping when Charles yelled my name.

  Around the next curve was a place on the trail where a rocky slope led down to a meadow. Now I could see the geology of it: constant slides cleared the trees here as rocks broke off from the cliffs above and tumbled down the precipice. Rocks I understood, and they behaved on Earth just the way they did on Mars.

  The group of Earthers had been caught in one of these rockslides. Even now, pebbles and fist-size stones were tumbling after the couple of boulders that had broken off and crashed on top of them in a bit of terrible timing. The air was hazy with dust.

  Most of them had fallen to crouches on the trail and were starting to get back on their feet, brushing off dust, looking around. I ran into Tenzig, who had stopped at the edge of the clearing.

  The scream sounded again—from below. I looked.

  Angelyn had fallen from the trail and now held on about four meters down, lying flat against the slope, clinging to a rock. If she let go, she’d keep going, scraping against the rocks another thirty meters down with nothing to stop her fall. Dirt and pebbles dislodged around her, knocking into her, loosening her grip. She kicked her legs, digging her feet into the dirt to try to get a better hold, but the movement only made her anchor more unstable. She even still had her pack on; it was dragging her down.

  I dropped my pack off my shoulders and looked for rope. Ladhi—she had one of the ropes on her packs. Charles had the other. Where were they? Just as I turned to call to them, they came running up on the trail behind us. They stopped to take in the situation like I had, eyes wide.

  Ladhi’s rope was strapped to the outside of her pack. I yanked it out from the strap, then went to Charles—he’d already taken the other rope out of his back. Uncoiling the first rope, I held one end and gave the other end to Charles.

  “Hold this,” I said, and grabbed the second rope out of his hand.

  “Polly—” he began, but I was already over the edge of the trail, on my butt and skidding toward Angelyn.

  14

  This probably wasn’t the smartest thing I could have done. The smartest thing would have been to send an emergency signal from our GPS unit. Maybe someone else was doing that. All I could think about was getting to Angelyn, because even if someone was calling, help might not get here in time.

  I didn’t slide down the rock right above her—I was sending down a rain of pebbles and didn’t want to hit her. I held tight to the rope—I could tell Charles was keeping it anchored on the other end, maintaining tension.

  “Hang on!” I called. Angelyn was lying still now, aware that every movement threatened her grip. She looked up at me, lips pursed, gaze pleading.

  I was almost at her level and the dirt under me was slipping—I didn’t know if I was going to be able to stop. I dug in my heels, and the rope jerked in my hands. I held on and came to rest—Charles was holding on to me. With the few extra meters of rope I’d left dangling, I knotted a loop around myself, under my shoulders. As long as the knot held, and Charles didn’t drop the other end, I’d be fine, I wouldn’t fall.

  “You okay?” I asked Angelyn.

  “Scratched up,” she said. She was covered in dust, and several cuts on her arm were bleeding. But she was aware and talking, and that was good.

  “Can you get this around you?” I slipped the second rope off my shoulders and lowered it to her. Slowly, moving a centimeter at a time, she raised an arm and reached—and slipped. The dirt under her shifted, sliding in a piece and carrying her with it on a conveyor belt of pebbles and debris. She let out a scream and lay flat, attempting to stop herself.

  I lunged, skidding as I dived for her. Rocks dug into my arms, but that didn’t matter. Stretching, I hoped for a few more centimeters. The rope pinched around my chest. Her hand seemed to keep falling away from me.

  And then I had it. My hand closed around her wrist, and her opposite hand swung over to grip mine, a reflexive grab for safety. We clung to each other.

  “I’ve got you, it’s okay,” I gasped. She whimpered.

  The rope around me pulled tight and squeezed the breath from me. I hung there, gasping against the pressure. Angelyn’s weight pulled at my arms; they felt like they were stretching, tearing out of my shoulder sockets.

  But the rope held. We didn’t slide any farther.

  “Can you get your pack off?” I said.

  “But I’ll lose it—”

  “Who cares? It’s dragging you down.”

  Next to her, I could help her unlatch the straps and pull them over her shoulders and still keep hold of her. I shouldn’t have worried—she wasn’t going to let go.

  Finally, after some tugging, the straps released and the pack fell away, bouncing down the slope, falling over an edge, and dropping hard into the trees below. That could have been Angelyn. She stared after it, maybe thinking the same thing.

  “Don’t look down,” I said. I had to remember to follow my own advice on that one.

  I still had the second rope looped around my arm, and I worked one end loose and snaked it to Angelyn. We needed an anchor, so if we lost our grips she wouldn’t fall again. Together, we worked it around her middle and tied it tight, and I tied the other end around myself, looping it with the first rope. So we were both safe. Now, we just had to climb back to the trail.

  I looked up—we’d come an awful long way down. The row of faces leaning over to stare down at us seemed very small.

  “Can you climb?” I gasped, catching my breath, trying to ignore the tightness in my chest. We kept hold of each other, holding hands—the ropes were just for emergency. We could help each other up.

  “Don’t know,” she gasped back.

  I dug my feet in, trying to get a purchase, but the dirt slid out from under me. I scrambled up a few centimeters then slid back down again. My rope was still taut, at least. We were hanging on.

  “Polly!”

  I craned my neck back; Ethan was shouting. “We’re going to pull you up!”

  He and a couple of the others were already hanging onto the rope; they’d pulled it around the trunk of a tree to brace and give them more leverage. I didn’t see Charles. I didn’t have a hand to wave back with—one was holding on to Angelyn, the other the rope, and I found I didn’t want to let go.

  “Okay!” I shouted back and hoped he heard. Turning to Angelyn, I said, “Ready?”

  We tightened our grips on each other and kept hold of our ropes.

  The rope clenched around my rib cage. Somebody—several somebodies—were pulling. This time when I dug my feet into the ground under me, dirt slid out but I didn’t slip. We started inching up the slope. />
  Angelyn got her feet under her, so we were both able to help, staggering up the incline while the others pulled. It seemed to take forever. My hands were soaked with sweat and kept slipping. So were Angelyn’s. She finally had to let go of me and hang onto the rope, which she could get a better grip on.

  I had blisters on my hands, bruises on my chest, scratches along my arms. Angelyn wasn’t much better. But slowly, we climbed. As Ethan and George and the others hauled, we braced our feet on the disintegrating incline. And then hands were reaching for me, grabbing my shirt, the rope around my chest, Angelyn and her rope, and they pulled us to safety. My legs were boneless; I collapsed, lying flat, gasping for breath, wondering if I’d ever be able to breathe normally again. Angelyn sprawled next to me. Reaching out to touch my hand, she smiled. So did I.

  Through the tangle of legs and crouching bodies, I finally spotted Charles. He was sitting far back from the edge. The other end of the rope was wrapped around his chest several times. He was still holding the trailing part of it in hands that were scraped raw, like mine.

  An air car arrived shortly after that.

  * * *

  Tenzig had hit the emergency call on the GPS unit as soon as I went over the edge. When the rescuers found out that nobody was in danger of dying, they landed the car, settling in a clearing a ways back on the trail because there wasn’t room on the ledge above the slope. If we had been seriously hurt, they would have dropped the rescue team straight on top of us. As exciting as that might have been to watch, I was happy we didn’t see it. It would have meant I’d screwed up and needed rescuing myself. That would have been embarrassing. As it was, I was just tired.

  Angelyn’s Earth friends quickly surrounded her, murmuring over her, hugging her. One of them put a blanket over her shoulders. Somebody—Ethan—handed me a bottle of water. I smiled in thanks. I was breathing hard. It might have been panic.

  Two uniformed rangers, one of them carrying a medical kit, appeared on the trail and settled next to us. We were pretty obviously the victims here.

  “Don’t forget to look at Charles.” I pointed to my brother, who’d dropped the rope but still held his hands loose and limp. Clearly, they hurt.