S Morden - No Way

Or maybe that wouldn’t matter. Lucy’s role was to make sure her team was safe. She’d know, because Frank would tell her, that she had a killer on the base. Loose. Living among them.

Perhaps this wouldn’t be so straightforward after all.

But at least he could use his own name again, and not that of the man who tried to kill him. He wouldn’t have to pretend any more to be something he wasn’t. Not an intrepid resourceful pioneer on the cutting edge of human endeavor, but a convicted murderer, a liar, a survivor.

When he’d handed himself in to the police, he’d known what to expect. Arrest. Questioning. Arraignment. Trial. Sentence. Jail. Divorce. Death. That path had been mapped out for him the moment he’d pulled the trigger and put that bullet in Mike’s dealer. Someone who had only a few years on Mike.

Goddammit, Frank. You really fucked up there.

He was going to leave it to Lucy. He was just sitting there, using air. He needed to get back, whatever the outcome. He turned the buggy up the volcano, and headed for the top. The climb ate hard into the fuel cell, even at a reduced speed, and by the time he’d finally reached the summit, he was nursing the watts. He reckoned he had just enough to get down the other side, without having to get off and push. Probably. There was a mode where he could disengage the hub motors and let the wheels run free, specifically designed to make it possible to retrieve a dead buggy with a live one using a tow unit: he could use that to coast downhill. But if he had to get off and walk, he would. The other buggy would be charged up. Recovery would be easy.

He was going to swap out his life support again, though. The one he’d left at the outpost had around six hours left in it; the one he was wearing had less than two.

“Lance. Lance Brack. Come in. Over.”

He was in range of the repeater at the outpost. The signal was choppy, squashed to hell and back, but he could just about make out the words. Deep breath then.

“I’m here. Voice isn’t great. Over.”

“—hell have you been? Over.”

“OK. If I’m going to say anything, I’m going to call it ‘commercially sensitive’ and leave it at that. I’ve been doing XO business. Over.”

“—told us. You should have told—”

“Who is this? Over.”

“—cy.”

“OK. Lucy. I’m hearing half of what you say. I had XO business.” He was conscious that anything he broadcast now would go into the databank and XO could just lift the information right out of it. He was going to tell them in person, or not at all. Certainly not like this. “I’m going to be back at MBO in an hour and a half. I’ll see you when I get in.”

“—just wander——where you’re going. Over.”

Frank had had a hard day already, and it was barely past noon. The signal was crappy, because of storm damage to the repeater, or low battery power, or something like that, and he just didn’t have the energy to argue about this shit.

“If you don’t like the arrangement, you know who to complain to. Over and out.”

He considered turning off his suit’s transmitter, but the airwaves remained silent. He looked down to his right, and could see into the caldera: almost at the outpost, then.

He followed the edge at a respectful distance, and crossed the open ground before angling north-west towards the lone hab. It looked entirely different again to what it had seemed in the dark, and what it resembled in the middle of a storm. Just a hab, wind-blown, abraded, pinker than usual due to the dust that had filled the microscopic indentations in the plastic covering. The solar panels—just a kilowatt array, aimed upwards—had either been blown or knocked over, and lay face-down in the dirt.

He parked up next to the array, and on dismounting picked it up and shook it clean, setting it back on its legs again. He made sure the cable was still attached, as he did for the telescopic antenna that served the repeater station. He’d have to come up again, give the hab a full check, over-pressure it and make sure nothing was going to give suddenly. That could be as early as tomorrow, if he was ever allowed to leave the base again. He’d have to have that argument too.

Before heading into the airlock—and he was supposing that it would be a manual vent—he turned round and looked at his buggy. The life support pack strapped behind the driver’s seat told him he’d failed. He’d gone out to find Jim, and bring him back to his friends. Even dead.

But he hadn’t even managed that. All that way, all that danger, and all he had to show for it was a torn mission patch.

From:Mark Bernaberg

To:Jay Fredericks

Date:Mon, Mar 8 2049 05:12:15 -0700

Subject:re: interference

Jay,

Maybe I can help you with your rogue transmission? Research student in Chile spotted this, south-eastern edge of Ceraunius Tholus. You know we weren’t allowed by XO to cover Rahe during MBO construction due to “issues pertaining to commercial confidentiality”, but if you want to compare that picture with the press shots of the DV, then—that’s pretty much the cat out of the bag.

That’s an XO ship, or I owe you dinner.

Mark

Frank rolled most of the way down the Santa Clara. He had just enough watts to drive the last half-mile across the Heights to MBO, but the fuel cell warning had been on for five minutes by that point. He parked up outside the workshop, and immediately plugged the buggy into the power system.

Then he inspected the damage. The front was scraped and dented where he’d used it as a battering ram. There were bright ridges along the right side where the tire plates had made their mark. His own buggy’s plates were more dinged than before. He’d got off remarkably lightly himself, all things considered. A touch of frostbite on his hands and feet. A few more gray hairs.

He entered through the cross-hab, carrying a life support pack in each hand, and as he expected, Lucy was there, waiting for him. She said nothing while he went through the routine of climbing out, racking his equipment, and re-dressing in his too-small overalls.

He tugged on his ship slippers and straightened up in front of her.

“You owe me an explanation,” she said. “All of us. Come through to the kitchen.”

“I’m guessing ‘commercially sensitive’ doesn’t cut it any longer.”

“Not any more, Lance. Come and sit down. We need to talk.”

“It doesn’t sound any better coming from you than it did from my wife.”

She instinctively glanced down at his third finger, left hand. “Wife?”

“Ex-wife. At least let me make myself a coffee.”

“Someone will make you coffee, Lance.” She took a deep breath. “Just… come.”

He snaffled Jim’s mission badge from his pouch under cover of unclipping his tablet, and followed her through the connecting corridor. They were all there. Isla and Fan opposite—Lucy took the spare seat between them, leaving him to sit between Yun and Leland. Lucy gave the barest of nods to Leland, who got up to pour hot water on some coffee granules. He put the mug down in front of Frank, and resumed his place.

Frank looked at the tabletop and screwed his face up.

There was a silence after they’d all settled. No one spoke until Lucy leaned across and into his eyeline. “Lance?”

“Lucy.”

“We reported your absence to Mission Control. Wasn’t much else we could do. XO sent through a whole slew of records. About your psychotic episodes. Your hallucinations. Your rambling late-night messages to someone called ‘Luisa’. How you think you’re really someone called Franklin Kittridge? That you’re a convicted murderer sent to Mars as a punishment? Is… is that right?”