One Way

by S. J. Morden

  “Swing low, sweet chariot.”

  Frank looked to see who it was. It sounded odd over the speakers. Higher pitched. But everybody was bent over their work, faces down. He couldn’t tell.

  “I’m sometimes up, and I’m sometimes down, comin’ for to carry me home.”

  “Keep this channel clear. No unnecessary traffic.”

  It stopped. It hurt when it stopped. Frank spoke into the quiet. “It’s OK. We just need to keep going. Stay alert and we can get the job done.”

  Alice broke in. “Everyone check their suits, make sure you’re all the right temperature and breathing the right mix.”

  They did that, and reported they were all well within the green bands.

  Except Demetrius, who said: “I’m losing pressure.”

  Frank put his tools down, then picked them up again and hung them from the clip at his waist. He located Demetrius, who was staring at his chest-screen, tapping at it as if he could make the numbers change.

  “That’s what this says, right?” He tilted the screen so that Frank could see it. “That I’m losing air.”

  Frank, reading it upside down, watched as the digits fluctuated up and down. The green indicator was turning amber, then back to green again, as the suit detected the lower pressure and dispensed more air to make up. “Why didn’t your alarm go off?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know why. F-Frank? What do I do?”

  “You don’t panic. You keep breathing easily. It’s a slow leak. We just have to find it and plug it.”

  “I’ve got a leak? Do I bail? Do I get canned if I do? Frank, I don’t want to go in the Hole.”

  “No one’s going in the Hole, Demetrius. I need to check your suit.”

  Marcy was there. “It’s going to be fine, Dee. Just stand with your arms out.”

  Frank took one side, Marcy the other. Everyone else was watching. Frank checked the seams, the seals, the outer fabric layer.

  “Do you feel cold anywhere?” asked Marcy.

  “I don’t know: my arm, maybe.”

  “Left or right?”

  “Right. I just thought …”

  Marcy was on the right, and she rechecked. “I’ve got it. There’s a tear just above the elbow.”

  Demetrius immediately tried to turn his arm so he could see, but couldn’t because it was his elbow. “What do I do? What do I do? What if I run out of air?”

  Frank grabbed Demetrius’s arm and held it tight. “Stop moving around. Let me see.” Quite why this was his job was anyone’s guess, but there he was. He held the cloth taut, and yes, there was a rent, an inch long, just behind the elbow joint, on the upper arm. “How the hell did you do this?”

  “I just got caught on a latch. I pulled, and … it came free. I didn’t know.”

  “You got to be more careful.”

  “What do we do? We’ve got something to fix this with, right?”

  They hadn’t been given anything. Help was the other side of a six-foot-thick concrete wall.

  “You’re going to use one of the lifeboats.”

  “He’ll can me. Brack’ll can me.”

  “He might can everyone,” said Alice. “I wouldn’t put it past him. We know there are others in training, and we’ve already had one replacement.” She looked pointedly at Declan. “I’m not going to risk that. So we improvise.”

  She pushed Marcy out of the way and inspected the tear in the cloth. She dug her fingers into the hole and pulled it apart. There was no tearing sound. She pinched and pulled at the inner suit, and stepped back. “God only knows what you thought you were doing. You caught the seam at the elbow pad, yanked it hard enough that you’ve torn a flap in the pressure garment. Mostly seals when you bend your arm, but when you straighten it, the inner suit relaxes and it opens up more.”

  “Have we got something to fix it with?” asked Marcy.

  “We could use a ratchet strap as a tourniquet,” said Frank. “What’s the long-term effect of vacuum on just an arm?”

  “Swelling, bruising. Possible embolism. If we tourniquet it too long, he’ll end up losing his arm. I wouldn’t recommend it.” Alice looked at the hole again. “Get me the strap anyway: I’ll need it. Find me something with a blade, or that can be sharpened to a edge. I can seal a hole that size.”

  “Shouldn’t I just put my hand on it, or something?” Demetrius tried to put his free hand over the tear, and Alice batted him away.

  “You’re losing air, you little punk. You’ll continue to lose air until that hole is sealed. I am not, repeat not, getting canned because you did something monumentally stupid. Do you hear me?”

  Demetrius nodded inside his helmet.

  “Now I need a blade.”

  “We don’t have a knife,” said Frank, “or anything like that.”

  “He made that hole with something, didn’t he? We’re cons. If we can’t make a shiv, what the hell are we doing here?”

  “I can get one of the latches,” said Zeus. “Five minutes rubbing it down on the floor will give it a rough edge.”

  “It’ll do.” She held Demetrius’s arm bent. “Don’t move.”

  Zeus broke off the latch with part of the unfinished ring, and started stropping it on the floor. They were all just standing around watching him, and there wasn’t really any need for that.

  “OK, this is Alice’s thing,” Frank told them. “We can get some work done: the sooner we’re out of here, the better.”

  They left Demetrius with Alice, and went back to work. Declan took up spotting for them again, and with Zeus making the blade, it was just Frank, Marcy and Zero.

  “We got to work fast, man,” said Zero.

  “No we don’t. Just steady. That’s all. We can’t afford any more mistakes.”

  “But Dee’s air?”

  “Which is why we need to carry on. We’re getting there. Ring’s almost done. We just need the outriggers fixed on, and the module set out. Then we can inflate it, and we’re finished.”

  “This wouldn’t happen on Mars, right? We’d get him inside straight away and that’d be that. We wouldn’t have to do any of this. So why didn’t they give us anything to fix the suits with?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps we should ask for stuff. Sticky patches and the like.”

  “You going to ask, Frank?”

  “OK. I’ll ask.”

  Zeus finished sharpening up the flat piece of metal, and he carried it over to Alice. Frank let the other two carry on working, and went to see what she was going to do. Zeus was Alice’s second, but there wasn’t any medical stuff going on here. This was suit repair.

  “It’s sharp,” warned Zeus. “Don’t get that anywhere near your suit.”

  “Loop the strap around his arm, around the biceps.” She used the blade to saw away some of the loose outer layer, and wadded it up, folding it in half, and half again. She gave that to Frank. “Don’t just stand there: make yourself useful. Zeus, straighten his arm, hold him tight.”

  “What’re you going to do?” Demetrius’s voice was tight and high. “What?”

  “Shut up,” said Alice, and stabbed his elbow through the tear.

  “Fuck,” said Frank.

  “Pad,” she said. Then she just snatched it from Frank and pressed it hard against the sudden bloom of frothing blood. “Strap.”

  Zeus pushed the fabric strap down one-handed and tightened it in place. He held Demetrius fast with the other.

  “Not too tight. We’re trying to hold the pad in place, not stop his circulation.”

  “You cut me,” Demetrius protested. “She cut me.”

  “The blood will soak into the cloth, and when it coagulates it’ll form an airtight seal. Any more questions from anyone?”

  “You could have told us,” said Frank. “You could have told him.”

  “Because that would’ve kept his breathing rate down, wouldn’t it? He can still spot for us, and now he’s not leaking out.”

  It was true. Demetrius’s suit’s interna
l pressure had stabilized.

  “Go sit down,” Frank told him. “You’ll be fine.”

  The boy’s face was ashen, but he nodded. He went over to the steps, and Declan rejoined them down at the ring.

  He grinned. “I don’t think much of her bedside manner, but she gets the job done.”

  Yes, she’d got the job done. But she was dangerous. Frank wondered what XO made of that little show. “Go and get the ropes,” he said. “Let’s get this upright.”

  8

  [Press release from Xenosystems Operations to coincide with the second anniversary of the Mars Base contract, embargoed until 2/5/2037]

  We dream of space. We dream of new worlds. We dream of possibilities and futures. We dream of open skies and wide horizons, of sights that no human eye has ever seen. We dream, and then we build. Xenosystems Operations has, since its birth, always been reaching for the unobtainable, the impossible, the unimaginable, and making it real.

  We are the world leaders in spacefaring technology, trusted by governments and corporations to deliver on our promises, and admired by people everywhere for our far-sighted vision of the destiny of the human race. As we enter a new era of exploration, of colonization, of adaptation and exploitation, XO is simply in a class of its own.

  No wonder that, two years ago, the historic partnership between XO and NASA was announced, to create a permanent presence on the surface of Mars. Mars Base One will combine innovative engineering solutions with tried and tested techniques to provide a unique living space on the red planet. Brave men and women will follow in the footsteps of Gagarin, Glenn, Tereshkova and Ride, Armstrong and Lou, pioneers breaking new ground on a hostile planet, taming it and turning it into a place of refuge and peace.

  Two years in, and our research facilities are already producing amazing results. Technology that will enhance the lives of every man, woman and child on this, and other planets. Compact, automatic machines to aid us in our daily chores. Medical advances that will save countless numbers of our loved ones. Monitoring systems that can safeguard our communities, and protect us from our enemies. There has never been a better time to be alive, thanks to the advances XO is making every single day.

  Our dream is to provide an environment in which astronauts can live and work, and one day may even call ‘home’. Our task is to make that dream a reality. Xenosystems Operations. We are worlds apart.

  “We’re not ready,” said Frank.

  “You don’t have a say.” Brack slapped his hands on the table. “Time’s up, Kittridge.”

  It was just Frank and Brack, in a room, sitting opposite each other.

  “Give me some credit for knowing how ready we are. We know a few things well. We know other things less well. Some things we know jack about. We’re undertrained. You can send us like that: you’re right, we don’t have much choice. But we know how good we are, and your,” Frank circled his finger towards the ceiling, “controllers have to know that too.”

  “They don’t give a shit what you think. Your past six months has been so closely watched they know how much wind you’ve passed. If they think you bunch of fuck-ups are ready, then you salute the company flag and shout ‘yessir’ until your lungs bleed.”

  Frank ran his tongue over his teeth and grimaced. “Like I said, none of us can stop this. We were yours—Panopticon’s, XO’s—from the moment we knew where we were headed. Doesn’t stop us from having an opinion.”

  Brack leaned back so far in his seat that Frank thought he might fall out of it backwards. He was staring up at the ceiling, where the lights and the cameras and the microphones were. “You know, Kittridge. I don’t like any of you. You’re a mix of killers and perverts and the just-too-stupid-not-to-get-caught. No one is going to miss you here on Earth. That’s why you were chosen. You’re the things we forgot we had.”

  “I get that.”

  “Now, here’s the deal. You get to Mars. You know what you got to do, because you know if you don’t, you won’t survive longer than five minutes. But XO are getting edgy over whether you can keep it together up there: that the only reason you’re working together down here is because you want to avoid the Hole. You want to stay out the Hole, Kittridge?”

  “I’m not a fan,” said Frank.

  “Once you’re on Mars, there’s no Hole. No discipline. No one to keep you in line. You’ll fall apart, and with it, the project. You know how much Uncle Sam is ponying up for this?”

  “I read about it somewhere.”

  “Trillions. All that money’s been spent getting us to this point. And you, and your fine fellows, are now the only people standing between Mars Base One and an expensive failure. Which is why I’m going with you.”

  After a while, he looked across the curve of his chest.

  “You took that calmly enough.”

  “I was expecting it. I can, after all, count as far as eight. So I’m guessing this decision was made a while back, and you’re not telling me anything I don’t know.”

  “And perhaps, you’re just saying that.” Brack shifted his legs and swung back towards the table. “I’m going to level with you here, man to man. I’m going to be one lawgiver in a town of outlaws. That’s a tough beat to walk. Now, there’s you. Out of all of you, you’re the one I trust most. That’s not saying much, but there you are. And if this sheriff is going to keep order, he’s going to need a deputy.”

  Frank steepled his fingers. “You treat me like something you trod in for months, and suddenly I’m good enough to be your right-hand man? That’s such a quick turnabout, I’m getting whiplash.”

  “I’m not saying you got to dress up and act like some trusty. You’ll still be a lifer, still be one of them. But I got to sleep sometime, Kittridge. I need someone to watch my back, tell me of any loose talk. I need you to help keep me alive. Just in case.”

  Brack stared at Frank, who stared coolly back. “You want me to be a snitch.”

  “We can make it worth your while.”

  “The last time someone made me an offer, I got sent to Mars. So this had better be good.”

  “You know what’s supposed to happen. You go, you build a base, you stay until you finish your sentence, which is sometime in the twenty-second century, right?” Brack smirked at him, and how Frank hated that. And now he knew he was going to see it every day, just when he could have been rid of it for ever.

  He wasn’t going to show how much he loathed the man. How much time he spent imagining ways in which he’d die. “You were talking about how you were going to make it worth my while.”

  “I’m going with you. But you’ve got to understand that I’m not staying, because I’m not like you. I got me a ticket home. Not straight away. But when we’re done. You understand?”

  Frank nodded slowly. “I get that.”

  “So XO have hired me to keep you all in line. They want to know their investment is secure. When we’ve hosted that first NASA mission, and it’s gone well, it’ll be safe for me to hand over to someone else. I’ll take up their seat on the ship back to Earth, because for me this isn’t a sentence, it’s a job. You could be coming back with me.”

  Frank scratched at his chin. Time seemed to be moving very slowly. He could hear the rasp of his fingertips on his stubble over the wash of the air con. “And what’s going to be waiting for me when I step out of the lander?”

  “An open door. There’ll be some restrictions on your movement. You’ll be tagged. But you’ll be free.” Brack smiled at him. “Look at you. You didn’t expect this, did you? I love this bit, watching your little brain turn somersaults, trying to process it all.”

  “And the only thing I have to do is make sure that you stay alive?”

  “Wouldn’t be much point in it otherwise. You scratch my back, XO will scratch yours. Leave the other deadbeats up there and come home. How does that sound, Kittridge? Hell, we’ve got all your psych scores: we know you’re going to say yes.”

  “The others aren’t going to be happy with the arra
ngement. They’re going to be pissed. Really pissed.”

  “They’re never going to know. And if they find out, the deal is off. Finito. Finished. Total secrecy is the only way this goes down.”

  “And,” asked Frank, “what happens when you and me get to skip off into the sunset together? They’ll probably realize something’s going down at that point.”

  “Leave them to me. I just need you to tell me I have your co-operation.” Brack leaned across the table. “You want to go home, right? Everybody does. Fuck that shit about being pioneers and colonists and stuff. That’s for the hardcore nerds. You and me, we want to do a job, finish it up and go home. Kick back in the La-Z-Boy. Have a beer or two. Watch the game. Without the air outside trying to kill us.”

  And to be free. Free to find his son again. It was a hell of a long way round to go. Prison. Mars. Back.

  So what about the others? What about their hopes and fears for the future? Leave them to me, Brack had said. Just how was he going to handle that? Did Frank care, if the prize at the end of it all was worth it? Oh, that was cold. But it wasn’t like he hadn’t had to make that kind of calculation before and live with the consequences.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Hell, boy. You can ask. Doesn’t mean I’ll give you an answer worth jack.”

  Frank leaned over the tabletop on his forearms. “What are they saying about us, outside?”

  “You think you’re all some kind of big damn heroes because you’re going to Mars? Let me disabuse you of that straight away. To the outside, you’re just Prisoners A through G.”

  “They don’t even know our names?”

  “XO didn’t want all your victims’ relatives kicking up a stink. It’s got public relations disaster written all over it.” Brack waved his hand at Frank. “Like you fuck-ups actually matter.”

  Nothing was going the way Frank had planned it. He’d assumed—he’d hoped—that his son would be proud of him just for going to Mars. That wasn’t going to happen now, until XO dropped the embargo on their names, or ever. What should he do now? What else could he do, but agree to this last chance of creating something good out of the void that was his existence?