The wings!
I swing around, ignoring the probe and arch my back, bending my knees, desperately trying to look directly above me, but my damn helmet.
“Abort! Abort!”
“What?” Hedy hesitates.
I yell, “You’re going to hit!”
The wing of the boomer turns, catching the edge of the downed boomerang. Propeller blades strike the carbon fiber, chewing into the material. Stones begin falling.
“Pull up!”
Too late. The damage is done. The broken wing of the crashed boomer tilts, threatening to topple onto us. The ledge above us gives way. An avalanche crashes down the side of the cliff. Hedy says something over the radio, but in the confusion, I miss her words. I try to drag Scott to one side, away from the falling rocks, but I lose my footing.
Scott slides toward the edge. I reach for him, grabbing at the thin sheet of aluminum, but there are no handholds. He tips forward, carried along on a wave of rocks and plunges over the edge. I grab at the loose stones around me, waiting for the inevitable tug. Suddenly, I’m jerked off my feet. Boulders rain down around me as I slide over the edge of the cliff. Someone’s yelling, but in the panic of the moment I barely realize that someone’s me. Stones slam into my helmet, bouncing off my suit. The broken wing plunges into the ledge, thundering into the slope inches away from me as I’m dragged backwards by Scott’s weight.
I fall over the edge.
Somehow, my gloved fingers grab onto the solid ridge lining the lower part of the cliff. I grab at the rocks. Loose shale and gravel continue to cascade over me, but my boots find a footing. Scott dangles below me, swinging around and crashing into the cliff, but I’ve managed to avoid the fall. I’m roughly six feet below the second ledge, with a drop of several hundred feet opening out below me.
Dust darkens the sky. The rocks falling around me slow to a run of pebbles and sand. Both Hedy and Jen are yelling my name over the radio. Susan’s sobbing.
I say the only thing I can to cut through the chaos on the channel.
“Enterprise. Picard. Two to beam up!”
That shuts everyone up.
I laugh at my gallows humor—it’s my way of dealing with the stress and letting everyone know we’re okay. We’re still alive.
Jen gets it. “It’s good to hear your voice, Jean-Luc.”
“I’ve fallen but I’m stable. I’ve still got him.”
I twist around, checking the tether linking me to Scott. Rocks disappear below me, plunging hundreds of meters to the next ledge, but I’ve got my boots firmly planted on solid black basalt. Billions of years ago, lava ran across the Martian plains, seething and glowing as a crust formed in the frigid atmosphere. Today, it saved my life.
“We’re good. We’re okay. I have three points of contact, and have settled on a narrow ledge just below the drop off. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m ready to come home.”
Hedy responds with, “Ah, the transporter is offline,” as a way of saying they’ve run out of options.
“Forget the rovers. Forget the cable. Just get that damn probe down here. We’ll ride the boomer out of the canyon.”
“Copy that.”
Boomers aren’t rated for crewed-flight, but right about now, no one cares. As I’m facing the cliff, with my helmet brushing against the rocks, I have no idea where the boomer is in relation to me. For now, I’m stable. I’m happy to hold still. I have my left gloved hand fixed firmly around an outcrop just above head height and my feet set on a ledge wider than the soles of my boots. Scott hangs to my right, pulling on my hips, but he’s pulling me sideways, not backwards. With the weight on my legs, I’m confident I can hold him there for a while. Not forever, but long enough.
“Cory, we’re ready for you. Moving into position.”
“Okay. How is this going to work? I’m blind down here. Facing the rock. Can’t turn.”
“The probe is on a tether hanging roughly forty meters below the boomer. It’s currently five meters above and behind you. Bringing it in slowly.”
“Can’t…” I reach back with my right hand, grabbing at the thin Martian air. “I won’t be able to turn around until you’re right on top of me.”
Lisa’s voice replaces Hedy’s.
“Five meters… Four… Three… Two… One.”
I reach back again and my glove glances off the probe.
“Closer.”
“Moving closer.”
“Can’t see it.” Try as I may, all I can see is the edge of my visor and the rocks running along the cliff. Blood sticks to the side of the lining within my helmet. My hair is sticky and matted down.
“It’s right there. Just inches away.”
A heavy, metal probe knocks into my hand. I wrap my free arm around the casing, feeling the structure, trying to picture it in my mind. Main cable. Sample collection housing. Junction box. My fingers settle on the anchor point. The probe sways, swinging slightly.
“You’re holding the main coupling. Clip your safety harness onto the link and we’ll reel you in.”
“Negative. Scott’s hanging from the harness. I can’t lift him to get to it. It’s all I can do to hold on.”
“Copy that.”
The silence that follows is deafening.
They’re out of ideas.
Jen’s voice trembles. “Hedy says you should be able to wrap your arms around the cable and get a foot hold on the collector.” To me, it’s interesting Hedy didn’t say that over the radio. She’s thinking out loud, scrambling for ideas, and probably didn’t intend that comment to become The Plan.
I pull on the cable, feeling the tension and flexing my fingers around the steel strands.
“Ready?”
“Ready.” Lisa sounds absurdly confident, far more than circumstances dictate. She may say that one solitary word, but no one’s ready. Not really. Time is the enemy. Fatigue is setting in. My strength is failing. Rather than being ready, we’re all tacitly resigned to whatever happens next. There are no other options. There will never be a better time than now. Ready is a lie and we all know it, but it’s all any of us have. Ready is a wish and a prayer.
I tense, coiling my muscles, knowing this is the only chance I’ll get. My natural inclination is to hesitate, to take one more moment to be sure, to recoil from the prospect of falling, to cling to the safety of the cliff face, but this ledge is an illusion, it offers nothing but fleeting safety. In a single, swift motion, I turn, getting my first good look at the probe as I lunge for it, wrapping my arms around the cable and holding tight. I scramble with my legs, desperately trying to find something to push against with my boots.
Scott swings below me, imparting torque and causing me to twist through the air. The boomer sinks a little under the sudden rush of weight. Lisa edges the craft away from the cliff. I understand what she’s trying to do. She wants to avoid me swinging back into the rocks and colliding with the cliff, losing my grip, but suddenly the safety of solid ground seems so far away. The wings of the boomer are parallel with the cliff so as the engines engage, they drive us out over the canyon.
Lisa asks, “All good?”
“All good.”
Another lie, but what else am I going to say?
The boomer gains altitude, circling away from the cliff as it turns. Jagged boulders and vast, empty rock faces open out beneath us. As we rise, I get a good look at the damaged boomer wing sticking into the ledge. The fallen balloon stretched over the plateau has prevented it from falling any further.
Lisa talks us through each change in direction. “Coming around.”
Lisa is a pro. Each motion the boomer undertakes is smooth. She lines up with the rim of the canyon, bringing us down by the two rovers.
“I’m good. We’re good to go all the way. I have a good hold. Please. Take us home.”
“Copy that.”
The boomer accelerates toward Shepard base. Not only can it cover the distance quicker than a rover, it doesn’t have to traverse the
rocky terrain. Given the potential for damage to Scott’s spine, this is the best option, even if it is a little risky. A thirty minute drive is reduced to a flight time of under ten.
As the boomer approaches the base, I see Jen and Hedy waiting outside with a stretcher.
Space Lesbians
The rush of the next few hours passes in a blur. For me, at least, there’s a sense of euphoria at cheating death, but it’s tempered by the reality we were damn lucky. Jen tends to Scott. Lisa and Hedy finish up the post-incident report. I stay busy, disappearing into the bio-mod, not wanting to dwell on what might have been. I could, at this very moment, be lying lifeless at the bottom of a ravine, my body slowly cooling to minus eighty degrees.
I exit the greenhouse airlock, stepping back into the main module.
“Where have you been?”
Jen’s suspicious. Living in the close confines of the Shepard, there are no secrets, especially not from my wife, although somehow I’m managed to keep a few things to myself. There’s something therapeutic about privacy. For me, it’s the sanctity of self, the ability to be alone, to be myself and not on show.
“You’re supposed to be resting. What are you doing working at this time of night?”
Jen means well and is being playful, dancing the fine line between being both my wife and my physician. I don’t mind. With a bag slung over one shoulder, I close the hatch, winding the handle until I feel the gears lock and see the safety lamp turn green.
The main module is divided into three sections. Living spaces blend with workbenches and a kitchenette. Chairs sit idle beside the main table, which doubles as the central computer workstation. The thick glass tabletop is one massive touchscreen.
Beyond the workspace there are laboratories set on either side of the half-pipe. The sloping sides of the module leave the outer edges suitable only for storage. Sealed compartments inside the labs, along with mini-airlocks, allow us to work with soil samples. The curved ceiling has been painted sky blue to replicate the view on Earth. It doesn’t, but I appreciate the sentiment.
Further back there are three sets of sleeping quarters. One on either side and a third raised up on an impromptu mezzanine level. Originally, it was assumed the commander would get the penthouse suite, but Scott assigned it to Hedy and Lisa. Given he just broke his leg, that turned out to be prescient. The oval shape of the roof dictates the internal design of each bedroom. Foam mattresses manufactured here on Mars are set on the floor, with the pillows lined up against the outer wall. There’s barely enough room to stand upright beside the narrow wardrobe at the foot of the bed. I can’t pull a t-shirt up over my head without leaning forward or my arms collide with the ceiling.
Jen walks over, curious about my bag. She rests her hand gently on my chest, feeling the bandages wrapped around my bruised ribs.
“What were you doing in there?”
I lift a finger to my lips, playfully saying, “Shush.”
I grab a pitcher and a bunch of glasses from the cupboard and place them on the table. Like most of the basic necessities within Shepard, they’ve been built on Mars using 3D printers. Anything made from glass is easy, so it tends to dominate designs.
Scott watches out of idle curiosity. The others ignore me, but Scott seems to pick up on what’s happening, perhaps not fully, but at some level he knows.
“Have you got a surprise in there for us?”
I smile but don’t reply. Sue is reviewing a document on a computer tablet and misses Scott’s comment.
Hedy and Lisa are dismantling a radio at a nearby workstation. They take turns peering through an oversized magnifying glass surrounded by a neon light, checking various parts, but as most of the components contain integrated circuits with wiring set at a few nanometers, it’s a futile task. At best, they’ll see a severed connection or a burnt out chip. Salvaging electronics is a rarity on Mars.
I grind some salt with a pestle in a mortar—a piece of granite I retrieved from the surface of Mars for use in the kitchen. The rock is heavy and not quite smooth, but given we’re millions of miles from the nearest Home Depo, it’s ideal. Once the salt is ground into a fine powder, I tip it into the pitcher, dusting the rock with my fingers to get every last grain.
Jen speaks softly. “Am I going to regret this?”
I just wink. Jen shakes her head, trying to suppress a laugh. She looks at Hedy and Lisa, but they’re too engrossed in their repair work to notice what I’m doing.
I slice up some lime and a lemon on a plastic board, crushing them in the pestle even though it’s sacrilege to get a mortar wet. The pulp, skin and juice all go in on top of the salt.
Scott has his foot up on a chair. His broken leg is encased in a cast made from calcium sulfate mined here on Mars. Back on Earth, we’d call it Plaster of Paris, but we’re a helluva long way from France. Lisa was going to get the 3D printers to make a custom fitted plastic mold, but Jen went old school. Quicker and just as effective.
Scott leans back, waving his hand over the pitcher as though it was a witches’ cauldron and his finger was a magic wand. “Is this what I think it is?”
“Hush.”
I dice a stick of celery, a couple of chili peppers and half a dozen cherry tomatoes, tipping them on top of the citrus fruits and forming an indistinct slurry in the pitcher. My mad concoction looks anything but appetizing. Scott plays along.
“That, my friend, is a crime scene.”
“Ah, now you’re getting warm.”
I add some finely sliced orange, again pulverizing it in the mortar. Lemons, limes and oranges all grow from the same tree within the greenhouse, having been grafted as seedlings. Rather than being planted in soil, the roots cling to a boulder specially cleaned and wrapped in black plastic to protect the roots from the UV lamps. Once a day, nutrient-laden water runs over the rock, rippling beneath the plastic and feeding the tree. Humans might be difficult to transport between planets but seeds are ideal—small and lightweight. If only humans could be grown in-situ. One day, they will.
Hedy looks up. At first, she’s confused, but she picks up on the vibe. What looks like a senseless waste of fruit and vegetables must have a purpose. She shifts to the main table and leans forward with her elbows on the glass, her chin resting on her hands. “Umm. I think I know where this is going, but the last ingredient—that’s got me stumped. There’s no way. Not on Mars.”
“Oh, there’s a way.” I grin, reaching into my bag and pulling out a small bottle.
Scott straightens in his chair. “You didn’t.”
“I did... Arborist? Botanist? Chemist? I like to think I specialize in the lower end of the scientific alphabet here on Mars. It’s all just molecules at the end of the day.”
“Moonshine? You ran a still in there?”
“Only a small one,” I say in my defense. “I was saving this for a special occasion. I figured we’d crack the seal the night before we left for Earth, but hey—we’re alive—that’s cause for celebration!”
Lisa still hasn’t looked up from her circuit board.
Hedy laughs. “Rocket fuel—you’ve been making rocket fuel in there? From what?”
Jen asks, “Wheat?”
I nod, pouring the clear liquid into the pitcher.
Scott finishes the water in his glass, and playfully slams it on the table, finally getting both Sue and Lisa’s attention. “We’re going to go blind.”
Jen laughs.
“By my reckoning, it’s twenty proof—so it’s little more than a strong beer.”
“So this is like a Bloody Mary?”
“I call it a Martian Bunny Hop. Well… it would be if we had hops.”
Jen shakes her head at my godawful pun.
Hedy is amused. She raises her eyebrows, looking to Lisa for some kind of reaction. Lisa puts down her soldering iron and joins us at the table.
Jen is conflicted. Her voice sounds stern.
“As your physician, I can’t approve this. You have a concussion!”
“So I won’t drive any heavy machinery.”
Jen cocks her head sideways, less than impressed with my attitude. She looks to Scott for support, saying, “And you. You were knocked unconscious. You shouldn’t be anywhere near alcohol.”
Scott grins. Hedy shrugs her shoulders. Sue pours herself the first glass.
“I’d prefer a white wine, but after today, this will work. It’ll do nicely.”
I pour the rest of the drinks evenly, saving the one with the pips and pulps for myself to spare the others from the gunk at the bottom of the pitcher.
It’s been six hours since we arrived back at Shepard and although there’s been a lot of talking, no one has spoken about what actually happened out there and how damn close we came to dying.
Scott’s suit control was damaged when he fell and he lost partial pressure, causing him to black out. His suit protected him from any crush injuries, but his body was badly bruised. His right fibula in the lower leg broke in two places, but since it’s the smaller of the two bones, he didn’t sustain any secondary injuries to his arteries or muscle tissue. He’ll be in a cast for a couple of months, but he avoided any debilitating injuries.
I got away lightly. I took a bad knock to the head, leaving a dent in my helmet and a tear in the skin by my temple. X-rays didn’t reveal any cracks in my ribs, but Jen suspects there may be a hairline fracture given the extensive bruising on my chest.
“We were lucky.”
“We were,” Scott replies, charging his glass. “Here’s to luck.”
Hedy isn’t impressed. “Luck is dumb.” She has no qualms speaking her mind. “Luck is a fool’s safety net.”
Scott pauses, stung by her rebuke. My pride should be offended, but it isn’t. She’s right in calling out our misplaced bravado. I raise my glass to salute her. “That it is.”
“Next time, we’re leaving your ass down there.”
Losing Mars Page 6
