S Morden - No Way

And still the incontrovertible evidence of his eyes was that the tracks he was following led south. They originated in the south, and were using their outward-bound journey to guide their way back.

Back to where?

Frank looked at his map, zoomed into the highest detail allowed. It didn’t show individual tracks, because the resolution at that scale was too low. Disappointingly, it didn’t even show Sunset Boulevard, which had to be the best-delineated and most-used road on Mars. He checked for other features it might show. Not the MAV, which was a recent addition and perhaps the satellite photography hadn’t caught up with it. But there was the ship, and the MBO was a clear artifact in pale pink and white.

He searched back south, scooting the map up and down, left and right with his fingers. If there was something there, the map didn’t show it.

Those tracks, though. He wasn’t imagining them. Something—someone—had been at the cylinder. Someone in XO gear. Someone that came from, and disappeared back into, the wasteland that was south of the volcano. It couldn’t be Brack. He was certain it wasn’t him.

He stood up on his seat and hung off the roll bars, just looking across the plain until he couldn’t see any more. He blinked, hard, and held up the map in front of him, trying to match it to the landscape.

Even standing there, breathing, was pushing his luck. His judgment, his sanity, was flawed. He should turn around and never come this far out again. Stick by the base. Wait for the NASA mission. Stay safe. Survive. Go home.

He hung his tablet back on his belt and strapped himself in again.

Just a little further. Follow the tracks. He rounded a headland, and in the next bay, in the distance, he saw what looked like a buggy, parked up at the end of a channel.

He rolled to a stop. A buggy. A buggy just like his. It was the last thing he’d expected to see. Literally, the last thing.

How was this possible?

[Internal memo: Mars Base One Mission Control to Bruno Tiller 12/8/2048 (transcribed from paper-only copy)]

We have a problem.

[transcript ends]

He couldn’t tell how long he’d sat there, just staring. Only that when he finally shook himself, he’d dropped a couple of points of stored O 2.

It was still there. It hadn’t vanished like all his other imaginings. A buggy. Parked? Or abandoned? There was no way of telling if it had been there for two minutes or two weeks. A moving buggy created dust, and the frames, wheels, controls, were always covered in a film of the stuff. Six weeks. Six months. Longer than that?

Frank eased forward a hundred feet or so. There was no sign of anyone. No reason for there to be. Because he was the only person on Mars, right?

He rolled closer. If this had happened a few months ago, Alice would be in his ears, asking him what the hell was wrong with him and threatening to alter his breathing mix to calm him down.

But she wasn’t. She was absent. She was dead. Marcy was dead, Zeus and Dee and Declan and Zero were all dead. Brack was dead. He was the last one alive. So what the hell was this buggy doing all the way out here?

He drove up to it, stopped twenty, thirty feet away. He climbed down, and walked slowly and deliberately around it.

It had accumulated dust. It hadn’t drifted, though. If the wheels had been in the same position for any time, the dust would have collected against one side or the other. This… had been driven here. Recently.

Frank reached out. He hesitated, then dabbed his fingers on the frame. He felt solid metal, and jerked his hand away as if burned.

This was ridiculous. But he was terrified. This shouldn’t be here. He sipped some water to slake his dry mouth, and clambered up the chassis so he could see the seat. The plastic chair bolted to the frame was identical to his own, except this one was cracked and then fixed with a line of sticky hab-repair patches. It was clear of dust. As if swept. And there: someone had put their hand on the read-outs and wiped them clean. He could see the marks made by four gloved fingers.

He lowered himself down again, and checked the ground. There were faint scuff marks leading up the nearest channel.

Someone was looking back at him from a rock step up on the promontory.

They wore an XO suit. Hard body, integral helmet, back bulge of life support and entry hatch. Light-emitting areas front and top. It was difficult to interpret body language. The bulk of the insulation layer hid a lot of tells. But the way Frank felt he was being stared at made it feel like he wasn’t exactly expected, either.

It probably only lasted a few seconds, but it felt like forever.

Then they turned and walked out of sight. Were they climbing back down into the channel and coming to meet him? If they were as real as the buggy was real, possibly.

What was he going to do? He had moments to decide. He could simply drive off into the distance. He’d leave tracks for the other person to follow, just as he’d followed theirs. He could… disable their buggy—he knew how these things worked, and a few solid blows to the instrument panel would strand the driver out on the plain and condemn them to certain death. He could attack the other astronaut and kill them, then take their buggy—he had an empty trailer, after all.

He took another sip of water and stayed rooted to the spot. He still couldn’t quite believe what was happening. His hand had fallen automatically to the nut runner on his belt. It was weighted wrong as a cosh, but it was partly metal and he could get a decent swing behind it. He might actually be better off with an actual rock, given he could lift three times the weight he could on Earth. But being greeted by someone with a huge boulder held over his head wasn’t going to start friendly relations any time soon.

Geez, Frank. You can’t gut a fish and yet you’re still thinking about bashing another guy’s brains in. You don’t have to kill everyone just because you’re scared. You don’t know who this is. You don’t know why they’re here. You don’t know anything about them. You can just talk to them instead.

Then the time for equivocation was over. The spacesuited figure emerged from the wind of the canyon and walked towards him. Slowly. With their hands obviously empty. They reached up and tapped the side of their helmet, twice. No comms. Frank had been taught the same hand signal.

The face behind the glass became apparent. A man. Beard, long and patchy. Lean like Frank. Leaner even. Gaunt, almost. Eyes recessed but wide and pale. He didn’t seem… well? Frank hadn’t looked in a mirror for months. There might be more similarities between them than he was allowing for.

This was the first time the other man had the opportunity to see him properly, too. He took his time studying Frank, his gaze skittering between face and suit and buggy and trailer and back. He seemed to be going through the same mental gymnastics as Frank.

Frank could still turn and run: gun his motors and drive away, try and obscure his route home by finding some rock to break up his tracks. He didn’t do that, even though he thought about doing it right up until the moment they met, halfway between the bluff and the buggy.

Frank looked at the contents of the man’s utility belt, and he had almost no equipment hanging off the carabiners. Not a nut runner, not a tablet, just a cloth pouch that probably held some patches, and some looped cargo straps. There was something off here. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but Frank instinctively took a step back.

The man used his index finger to indicate “you-me-touch-helmets”. It was Frank’s last chance to bolt.

He could also get his strike in first, especially if the man had no comms—but what if it was a trick, to get Frank within blade range? That was prison-him talking, but prison-him had kept him alive this far. Maybe he should listen to that guy a little bit more, and judge him a little less.