George Martin - Old Mars

They had little left to discuss. First, they tested the GE potential. This took the power of anything threatening them and, using the threat’s own energy, converted it into a force field theoretically capable of equalizing any outside pressure. The idea behind the technology was brilliant, but there had been more than one infamous GE accident. You didn’t get any second chances. They contacted Miguel Krane. He assured Stone that the helmet had been tested for all environments, particularly for the power of the falls. He was surprised to learn that Yily Chen was involved, but he saw no problem in both of them using the suit. “One or a dozen, it can theoretically protect against a considerably stronger power. Of course, we haven’t allowed for human error. Just remember, it only takes one break in the circuitry and you’ll both be swept over those falls in a blink.” He suggested that they have her suit run on low power as a backup. “You’ll have to decide between you if that would work.” Krane sounded a little uncertain.

Soon they were ready. They roped up, using Mac’s spiderwire. It was unwise to rely on their helmets’ intercom. They would rely as much as they could on visual signals. Even with everything turned to minimum input they could still hear the heavy beating of the water against the rocks, the yelping gush of the canal as it spilled over into that bottomless gorge. Together, they inched out over the slippery causeway, hands, feet, elbows, and knees on full suction, allowing them to gain traction with every limb. The vast weight of water, even though not the full mass, smashed against their force converter, allowing them to move forward. They were tiny specks caught above those gigantic liquid walls. Able to see less than a meter ahead, they clung together, taking careful steps, often crawling on hands and knees, blinded by the screaming spray surrounding them. More than once, Stone lost his balance. She remained sure-footed and caught his cord before he followed his momentum down into the hungry core of the planet. He calculated that she’d saved his life at least seven times in as many minutes.

Above them, the wild spray boomed and shrieked. Their heads rang under the hammerblows of the surging current. Once, she was almost swept over the rim. He held on with hands and feet as he extended the field, hauling her back, kicking an impossible surge of power out of his equipment and falling backward as something caught his shoulder. Recovering, he saw that debris was also being carried down the falls, effectively doubling their danger. They watched for larger objects as much as possible, another eye on their chronometers, which were telling them roughly how much time still remained before the bomb was due to blow. Forty minutes. They reached a place where the water was suddenly quiet and even the sound seemed muted. For a moment or two they rested, gratefully recovering their strength in calm water forming little pools beneath the huge canopy of granite. They made up some of their lost time.

Once or twice, Stone looked back toward the bank, now invisible to him. Was all their effort worthless? Wouldn’t it be better to accept the impossibility of their mission? He began to think Krane was mad. If there was a threat, then inevitably they would die. Death was the future of all people, all planets, all universes. Their struggle was symbolic of the futility of living creatures who fought against their own inevitable extinction. What were a few more years of existence compared to the longevity of a cosmos? In those terms, the whole history of their species lasted for less than a fraction of a second. And then, sheltering beside him under the protection of the energy equalizer, she looked up for a second, and, obscurely, he understood that the effort always would be worth it. Always had been worth it.

They emerged eventually from the overhang. They saw the gaudy lime-green box glittering on the far side of a rocky cleft. Stone could see no obvious way down to it. For a moment, it seemed that they had come this far only to fail. Then Yily nodded and signaled that if he held on to the spidercord, she might be able to swing down and snag the box. But it would mean switching over to her own untested equalizers. Whether her suit had enough capacity was uncertain. She shrugged and began tying herself on.

The falls coughed and grumbled, always treacherous.

Stone grew concerned that there wouldn’t be enough spiderwire. He had trouble gauging the distance properly. He braced himself. He would have to switch off as soon as he could after she switched on, conserving power and maintaining stability for split seconds. He raised his hand and gave the signal. They knew a sickening few moments while the switch took place, then she was dropping out of sight before coming back into view, a far smaller figure than he had expected.

The blue and red of her suit was just visible, flashing on and off as she fell through a sickening weight of water. Her relative gravity, thanks to the converter, gave her extra resistance, and she stretched out her arms and clasped the n-bomb to her, swinging free over the rosy abyss. She cried out her triumph in a wild yell, her body curving back into the trajectory. He thumped the control and brought her up to where he perched, hanging on with everything but his nails and teeth. He was laughing like a fool as she swung to stand beside him, counting out with elated blows on his arm the measure to activate his helmet’s converter so both were again protected. He could feel her elation as he hugged her tight.

They had the star bomb!

Now, somehow, they had to follow the steps back to the sheltering rock. Inch by inch, they crossed the exposed falls, feet feeling for holds as the minutes slipped by, and they dared not waste a moment trying to see how much time they had before the bomb did what it had been designed to do. The climb back to the walkway seemed to take longer than the whole rest of the mission. Increasingly, the strain on the equalizer became greater. Little bubbles of energy flinched and disappeared into the wavering field.

Stone was almost convinced that they had run out of time and strength. He gasped his surprise when, suddenly, his boots stood on the smooth granite and the bomb was on the ground before them. Manhandling it to the relative quiet of the stone arches, they were at last able to turn off the equalizers. The suit crackled and zipped, revealing flaws that moments later would have meant sudden death.

Stone triumphantly announced their success to Krane over the radio. The Earthman seemed less than overjoyed.

“You have twenty-seven minutes left,” he said. “Do you think you can do it, Stone?”

Yily grinned and began to whistle.

“What’s that?” Krane asked.

“It’s not doing anything,” she said. “ ‘Yankee Doodle,’ right?”

But, even when the tune had been relayed back to them by Krane, only four of the eleven locks protecting the n-bomb snapped open. They needed seven in sequence. “The Yellow Rose of Texas” snapped open two more. “Moonlight on the Wabash” made two snap back. She tried different keys and speeds, new sequences. Two more. One more. But after that it was no good. She was embarrassed. “My grandma came to Mars in the Revival Follies. We used to sing them all before the dope took her.”

“This is getting dangerous,” Krane told them. “Something has jammed. Stop!” Oblivious of his growing concern, they kept trying and kept failing as the minutes and the seconds died. “You’ve got to stop!” Krane told them. “Unless every lock is undone in order, the bomb can’t be neutralized. It took us years to work out those codes. We encrypted everything in easily remembered traditional tunes. We—we haven’t time to work out the codes again! If anything, we’ve complicated the situation. We have eight minutes left.”