S Morden - No Way

One hundred and fifty feet, minus the fifteen for the length of the chassis. He’d gone thirty when he shuffled round, and he could just about see the pale circles of the headlights. He walked on until the cable went taut behind him.

“Isla? Dead slow. Follow the wire.”

“Copy that.”

The cable went slack, and Frank advanced ahead of it. His suit lights were almost useless. They illuminated the dust, not what was beyond it. He was going by feel. In a spacesuit. What the hell was he doing? It had gone from guesswork to blind chance. The valley was somewhere. And the only way he was going to find it was if he blundered into it.

“Isla? Hold up.”

“Roger.”

He took up the slack again, then swung right on the end of it. Nothing but the usual variation in the ground. He swung left, and in a couple of steps found himself stumbling and trying to keep his feet. With no horizon, he slipped, and fell on his knees. He must have made a sound, because Isla was immediately in his ears.

“Lance? Report. Lance?”

“I’m OK. Give me a second.”

He pushed himself upright. Was this it? It was impossible to tell. It could just be a deeper crater, but there weren’t really any near the top of the valley. Unless he was completely off course. He crabbed on the end of the cable. Definitely downhill in that direction.

“Isla? I want you to go forward again, and give it twenty degrees to the left. Go ten yards, then stop.”

“Copy.”

His waist belt relaxed, and he pulled in the excess wire, looping it over his arm. He walked forward, and the dust-load seemed to lessen. It was more blowing over him, not around him. There was a rise ahead and behind him, but not to his left, and, crucially, not to his right either, and that seemed to be lower. He paid out more cable, and suddenly, yes: there were fading, multiple tire tracks right under his feet. He’d found the Santa Clara. Goddammit, if anything deserved cracking open a cold one, it was this, and the base was dry. He’d have to make do with a cup of lukewarm coffee instead.

“OK. We’re good. Forward one twenty, and watch for the lip.”

He unclipped the hitch, but kept hold of it in his hands, then retreated to the far side of the valley. It wouldn’t be irony to get run over by the buggy, but sheer stupidity—on his part. After what seemed an age, the moons of the buggy lights waxed over the edge of the river bank.

“Isla? Hold it.”

She braked abruptly.

“Reel in the winch, and when you’ve done that, turn your wheels maybe thirty degrees to the right. The drop is right in front of you.”

“I can’t see you.”

“It doesn’t matter. Dead slow. Fan, put some weight on the back axle.”

There was a pause, and the buggy nudged forward in a series of stutters, until the front wheels started to crumble the brittle edge of the slope.

“Forward. You’ve hit it straight on. Just let it go.”

She did. She took the brakes off and the buggy rolled into the valley bottom. She steered to the right, presumably having spotted Frank’s suit lights in the clearer air.

The second buggy appeared, and he guided it down. Lucy was a pilot. She was good at this, better than probably even Frank, and she even had the wisdom to know when she wasn’t at the top of her game. Which was more than Marcy had ever done.

They were all there. All six of them, when it should have been seven. He climbed back onto the first buggy, and threaded his legs through the lattice behind the driver’s seat, and next to Fan.

“Don’t you want to drive?”

Truth be told, that would have been fine. He could have swapped places with Isla, and driven them all home. But walking through that red-black haze had scrambled something inside. He could see it when he closed his eyes as if it had got into his head, moving, always moving. The valley protected them from the worst that was happening bare feet above their heads, so that it was merely as bad as a smoke-choked room, rather than a living, breathing swarm of dust.

She’d be safe. It would give him a moment. A pause. He was going to rely on her, rather than think there was no one else to do it.

“Lance?”

“If you’re up to it, then I’d appreciate the lift home.”

“Roger that,” she said.

In the clearer air, where the headlights actually had an impact, they could go more quickly. Even as the valley broadened, the walls got higher, and it seemed to make some difference to be heading north, moving out of the storm. By the time they broached the throat of the valley and spilled out onto the Heights, the worst—the very worst—was behind and above them.

It didn’t mean that there wasn’t a ton of crap falling on the base. The sky-turned satellite dish was an immediate worry, and Yun hurried inside to turn it and face it away from the main direction of the wind. Sand and dust had drifted everywhere, forming ripples and dunes that squeaked underfoot like new snow.

Frank went to inspect the solar panels. Since they’d not been able to detect the sun, they hadn’t turned, but at least they weren’t horizontal, so hadn’t accumulated a vast load. He spent ten minutes pushing the worst of the dust off the black glass surfaces with the square of parachute canopy that was usually kept tied to the frame, but he didn’t think they’d be picking up much sun tomorrow. Or maybe even the day after.

“Lance?”

He kept wiping. “Lucy?”

“I’m right behind you.”

He stopped and turned.

“Come on in. We’re done for the day.”

“I’ve still got a checklist I need to work through.”

“Lance. I’m not losing someone else. I want you to come in.”

“You didn’t lose Jim, and no one blames you for that.” And Jim may still be alive. But Frank didn’t say that because he didn’t know one way or the other. He didn’t even know if it was possible.

“All the same, he’s gone.” The haze, the rain of dust and sand, thickened between them, then faded away again. “I know I can’t make you. But I need to know that everyone is safe inside, and that they’re not going out again until morning. Sunset was an hour ago, and it’s still above freezing out here. We’re going to be fine tonight.”

“We’re going to have to start turning shit off, and sooner rather than later. You know that, right?”

“Yun and Fan have already started. You’re not on your own any more, Lance. You can just come on in.”

She was right. It had been a hell of a day. He was beat. And the dust. The goddamn dust.

“Sure. Why not? We can check everything in the morning, right?”

“Of course we can.”

He tied the parachute nylon back onto the frame and trooped after her, past the familiar shadows of the end of the med lab, and Command/Control, to the cross-hab airlock. They climbed the steps, and suddenly she was hitting him, slapping him all over.

“Hey. Hey! What you doing?”

“Getting the worst of the dust off before we go inside.” She looked at him quizzically, at his raised arms and his defensive stance. “Did you think I was—You did. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She put her hands up and backed away from him, as far as she could go on the narrow platform. He looked at his own hands, his gauntlets curled into fists, his shoulder pulling back and getting ready to punch through.

He had no idea of what to do or say. There was nothing that could convince her that she hadn’t seen what she so clearly had.

“Just. Just unexpected. You surprised me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I ought to have said something first. Asked permission.”

He hadn’t actually struck her. That was some measure of how tired, how utterly confused he was. At any other time, he would have instinctively pushed her away, hard, and then followed through with whatever came to hand.