S Morden - No Way

As he walked to the edge, he realized he was closer to the cave entrance than he thought. And it was a proper cave—an overhanging shelf of rock on top gave way to an almost sculpted arch underneath. Smooth sides and a gradual curve down to the floor of the trench, where it obviously continued. Not a circular tube, but oval, wider than it was tall, but even with solidified lava filling the lower part of the channel, it was easily a hundred feet high.

There’d been a rockfall in the past. Big chunks of the roof, some as large as an apartment building, lay where they’d fallen in the approaches to the tunnel, but they didn’t block the way. He couldn’t see the back of the cave. It could run for a short distance. It could run for miles. There was no way of telling from the outside.

But he could see the top of the descent ship, landed squarely in the middle of the trench, a couple of hundred feet away from the entrance, sitting in a field of broken rock and sand. It looked more or less intact. Slightly at an angle, perhaps, but it wasn’t on the flattest of terrain.

And over there, in clear ground, was a small solar farm—Frank guessed at maybe three to five kilowatts—dumb panels already pointing at the rising sun, which illuminated the trench east to west with ruddy light. MBO was supposed to have ten in the initial stages, and it now had fifteen.

It had fifteen because XO had allowed him to think M2’s panels were spares for MBO. Of course they had, since M2 didn’t officially exist.

How did they expect to keep this hidden again? It was literally right there, in plain sight. Certainly, the descent ship was. Maybe he could make out the pale curve of a hab inside the cave, and maybe he was imagining it. The abrasion on his faceplate made fine detail difficult.

The airwaves were dead. He tried every channel, including the common one they’d all shared during set-up. There was no traffic at all. Not even a hiss. No messages and no carrier. Random clicks and pops. Nothing meaningful. No comms, the man had said. No comms. If they’d taken Station seven, then the parts or the expertise hadn’t been enough.

It looked dead. Nothing was moving.

There was nothing else for it. He was going to have to drive down and take a closer look.

It was four miles east to the start of the trench, and five miles back west to the cave entrance. He checked his air and fuel again, and yes, he could probably spend an hour picking over the site before he had to leave to get back to the outpost.

The ramp down into the trench was wide and shallow, pocked with craters filled with sand. It gradually narrowed, and the walls rose to form cliffs: rocks that had fallen from them littered the floor, but they didn’t seem to have rolled all the way into the middle of the depression. By the time he drew level with the ship, the trench walls were towering over him, and the tunnel mouth was a black pit.

There. He could just make out a single hab, side on. Presumably there’d be other habs stretching back into the cave. If they had them. If they had the means of inflating them and heating them with such a paltry amount of power. He couldn’t imagine running a greenhouse on that few watts, and there was no sign yet they’d picked up their RTG.

They had to be dead. Surely, they had to be. He’d wasted his time, put his cover story at risk, and maybe blown it with XO and put the NASA mission in jeopardy. No one could survive with so little kit, and for how long? Almost four months now?

He almost turned back there and then. But he’d come all that way, and he was going to go and check, just to make sure. Put his mind, finally, at rest. And maybe then he could actually get some sleep.

And there. A single figure, slouching their way towards the panels. Frank sat stock still. They didn’t appear to have spotted him, or the buggy. They weren’t looking for him, and they were intent on something else.

That wasn’t an XO-issue spacesuit, like the one Frank wore. Nor was it like the one the M2 crew member wore who he’d previously met. It was—goddammit—a NASA suit. He was close enough to make out the color-splash of the mission patch.

Jim. Jim’s suit.

Frank urged the buggy forward, and got within about thirty feet before he finally entered the astronaut’s eyeline. They turned towards him, reflecting the morning sun across their faceplate. They stopped. They took a step back.

Shrugging off the harness, Frank jumped from the buggy seat and clambered down, running across the sand and shouting: “Jim! Goddammit, Jim, you lucky, lucky—”

But it wasn’t Jim. It was the man from the M2 buggy. Who, naturally, recognized him. But it was definitely Jim’s suit. Name tape. Little American flag. Mission patch on the arm. He wasn’t mistaken.

“Where’s Jim?” Frank said instinctively. But there were no comms. Nothing over the airwaves. He was going to have to communicate in a different way.

The astronaut peered at Frank through a faceplate that was as scuffed as his own. He looked like… he looked like shit. If he was gaunt before, now he looked old. A wizened old man, who reached up and tapped the side of his helmet with two fingers.

Frank knew what he needed to do, but he hesitated. This was M2, and at first glance, it wasn’t a viable base. This guy—these guys?—should be dead by now. If they were here to stake a claim on Mars, then they weren’t doing so great—and were hardly the threat he’d built them up in his mind to be.

But this man had Jim’s suit. Frank had to know why.

He gestured you-me-talk, and warily shuffled closer. The man wasn’t empty-handed. He had a manual wrench. Lightweight, sure, but all the weight was at one end. Frank had a nut runner, and that was it.

They were within arms’ reach. Then closer still. The other guy seemed just as nervous as Frank at this encounter. Surely, he knew what he was going to ask?

Their helmets touched. Frank tried to stand where he could see the wrench. “Jim Zamudio. Where is he?”

“He’s inside.”

Goddammit. He was alive after all.

“You’re wearing his suit.”

“Said I could borrow it. I had a problem with mine, right?”

“Sure. In there?” Frank pointed to the hab. “How did he even get here?”

“I was up on the volcano. Found him lost. Anyways, he’s in the hab. Go on in.”

The man broke contact, but Frank purposely resumed it with a click of perspex.

“You were up on the volcano. And you were, what, ten minutes away from safety, yet Jim let you come all the way back here. Nearly three hours away?”

“I don’t know what you’re saying. Ten minutes?”

“We’ve got a hab up on the top. It’s got air, and a radio. Jim would have been able to guide you back to it.”

“Well, he was in a bad way. He wasn’t making much sense.”

“You said you found him lost. He had plenty of air. As much as I did.” This wasn’t adding up.

“The suit was faulty, OK? Just get inside and see for yourself. I got to get on here, and you’re using up my airtime.”

The man broke contact again, more determinedly, and he gestured towards the hab. His lips were moving, but the sound couldn’t travel between them.

Frank dragged him back by the arm. “His suit was faulty, and you’re wearing it now. I thought it was your suit that wasn’t right.”

Then his prison senses kicked in. We want to discuss something, just step in here where the guards can’t see you and the cameras don’t cover. Frank reflexively stepped away, even though previously, yes, it had been him pulling the man closer.

His helmet rang like a gong, and suddenly, he was down. Tripped. Pushed. And the figure leaning over him was holding a wrench over their head, about to bring it down hard on Frank’s suit controls.