Ben Bova - The Precipice

“We’re okay,” Pancho said. “I’ve been thinkin’ we oughtta organize a square dance.”

Dan suppressed a groan. That’s just we need, he thought, redneck humor. Then, surprisingly, he laughed. He hadn’t heard the term “redneck” since he’d been in Texas, long ages ago. There are no rednecks off-Earth, Dan realized. You don’t get sunburned out here. Cooked, maybe. Fried by radiation. But not tanned, not unless you sit under the sunlamps in the gym at Selene.

He wiggled his right hand through the loose rubble encasing him and felt for the keyboard on his left forearm. By touch he called up the ship’s sensor display. They had programmed the suits to show the displays on the inner surfaces of their bubble helmets. Nothing but streaks of colored hash. Either the pile of dirt atop them or the radiation storm was interfering with their link to the ship. Probably a combination of both, he thought.

“What’s the time?” Dan asked.

At least he could talk with Pancho. Even if the radio link broke down completely, they were close enough to scrunch through the dirt and touch helmets so that they could talk through sound conduction.

“More’n thirteen hours to go, boss.”

“You mean we’ve been down here for less than an hour?”

“Forty-nine minutes, to be exact.”

“Shit,” Dan said, with feeling.

“Take a nap. Best way to spend the time.”

Dan nodded inside his helmet. “Nothing else to do.”

He heard Pancho giggle softly.

“What’s funny?”

“Mandy and Lars. I bet they’re tryin’ to figger out how to get the two of them into one suit.”

Dan laughed, too. “Maybe you and I ought to try that.”

“Boss!” Pancho cried in mock shock. “That’s sexual harassment!”

“Nothing else to do,” he repeated. “I can’t even jerk off inside this double-damned suit.”

“I can,” Pancho teased.

“Now that’s sexual harassment,” Dan grumbled.

“Nope. Just better design.”

Dan licked his lips. He felt thirsty, chilled, yet he was sweating. His stomach was queasy.

“How do you feel, Pancho?”

“Bored. Tired. Too jumpy to sleep. How ’bout you?”

“The same, I guess. Every part of me aches.”

“How’s your blood pressure?”

“How in hell would I know?”

“You hear your pulse in your ears?”

“No.”

“Then you’re okay, I guess.”

“Thank you, Dr. Pancho.”

“Go to sleep, boss. That’s what I’m gonna try to do.”

“I thought you said you were too jumpy.”

“Yeah, but I’m gonna give it a try. Close my eyes and think pleasant thoughts.”

“Good luck.”

“You try it, too.”

“Sure.”

Dan closed his eyes, but his thoughts were far from pleasant. Opening them again, he fumbled with his wrist keyboard until he got the suit’s radiation sensor displayed on his helmet. The graph was distorted by the curve of his helmet, and blurry. He tried to focus his eyes on it. Looks okay, he said to himself. Curve’s going up, but the slope is low and it’s a far distance from the red zone. Try to sleep. He was certainly tired enough for it. Relax! Think about what you’re going to do when you get back to Selene. I’d like to personally punch out Humphries’s lights. Dan pictured Humphries’s surprise when he broke his nose with a good straight right.

Somewhere in his mind an old adage sounded: Revenge is a dish best taken cold. Punching in Humphries’s face would be fun, but what would really hurt the bastard? He’s tried to kill me. He may succeed yet; we’re not out of this. If I die he’ll move in and take over Astro. How can I prevent him from doing that? How can I stop him, even from the grave?

Dan chuckled bitterly to himself. I’m already in my grave, he realized. I’m already buried.

Charley Engles looked worried, upset. He nervously brushed his sandy hair back away from his forehead as he said, “Kris, I’m not supposed to let you in here.” It was well past midnight. Cardenas was surprised that anyone was still working in the lab complex. Selene’s security people hadn’t bothered to change the entry code on the main door; she had just tapped it out and the door had obligingly slid open. But Engles had been working his in cubicle, and as soon as he saw Cardenas striding determinedly past the empty work stations toward her own office, he popped out of his cubbyhole and stopped her.

“We got notified by security,” he said, looking shamefaced. “You’re not allowed in here until further notice.”

“I know, Charley,” she said. “I just want to clear out my desk.” Charles Engles was a young grad student from New York whose parents had sent him to Selene after he’d been crippled in a car crash. Even knowing that he could never return to them once he’d taken nanotherapy, his parents wanted their son’s legs repaired so he could walk again. “The cameras…” Engles pointed to the tiny unwinking red lights in the corners of the ceiling. “Security will send somebody here once they see you.”

“It’s all right,” she said, trying to mask her inner tension. “I’ll only be here a few minutes. You can go back to your work.”

Instead, he walked with her as she headed for her office. “What’s this all about, Kris? Why do they want to lock you out of your own lab?”

“It’s a long story and I’d rather not go into it right now, Charley. Please, I just need a few minutes in my office.”

He looked unhappy, almost wounded. “If there’s anything I can do to help…” Cardenas smiled and felt tears welling in her eyes. “That’s very kind of you, Charley. Thanks.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t be able to walk if it weren’t for you.” She nodded and added silently, And now that you can walk you’ll never be allowed to return to Earth.

“Well…” he shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “If there’s anything you need, anything at all, just let me know.”

“Thanks, Charley. I’ll do that.”

He stood there for another awkward moment while Cardenas wondered how long it would take Security to send someone to apprehend her. Finally he headed reluctantly back to his own cubicle. She walked slowly toward her office. Once Charley stepped into his cubicle, though, Cardenas swiftly turned down a side passageway toward the rear of the laboratory complex. She passed a sign that proclaimed in red letters AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT. This was the area where newly developed nanomachines were tested. The passageway here was lined with sealed, airtight chambers, rather than the cubicles out front. The door to each chamber was locked. The passageway itself was lined with ultraviolet lamps along its ceiling. Each nanomachine type was designed to stop functioning when exposed to high-intensity ultraviolet light: a safety precaution.

Cardenas passed three doors, stopped at the fourth. She tapped out its entry code and the steel door opened inward a crack. She slipped into the darkened chamber and leaned her weight against the heavy door, closing it. With a long, shuddering sigh, she reset the entry code from the panel on the wall, effectively locking the door to anyone who might try to get in. They’ll have to break the door down, she told herself, and that will take them some time.

By the time the get the door open I’ll be dead.

Dan dreamed of Earth: a confused, troubled dream. He was sailing a racing yacht, running before the wind neck-and-neck with many other boats. Warm tropical sunlight beat down on his shoulders and back as he gripped the tiller with one hand while the boat’s computer adjusted the sails for every change in the breeze. The boat knifed through the water, but suddenly it was a car that Dan was driving at breakneck speed through murderously heavy traffic. Dan didn’t know where he was; some city freeway, a dozen lanes clogged with cars and buses and enormous semi rigs chuffing smoke and fumes into the dirty gray, sullen sky. Something was wrong with the car’s air conditioning; it was getting uncomfortably hot in the driver’s seat. Dan started to open his window but realized that the windows had to stay shut. There’s no air to breath out there, he said to himself, knowing it was ridiculous because he wasn’t in space, he was on Earth and he was suffocating, choking, coughing.