“Hard to say. With so many craters around here, it’ll be pretty hard to assign blame.”
She chuckled, “Yeah,” then sat back and sighed softly. “Hey…”
Jeff continued to study the rock. “Hmmm?”
“Could I ask a favor of you?”
“Sure.” She didn’t say anything and after a moment Jeff glanced at her. “What?”
“Uh…”
He smiled and squinted at her. “Abby, what?”
She wrinkled her nose and grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, um… would you make love with me tonight?”
Startled, Jeff coughed and dropped the rock on the table. “Uh, wow, that’s pretty direct.”
“Yeah, well, it’s been over two months, and it’s kind of hard to get laid up here, so I thought I’d just get right to the point.”
He nodded, sat back, folded his arms across his chest and stared at her. “Uh, yeah. Hmmm.”
Abby raised her eyebrows questioningly. “You’re not married.”
“No, not yet.”
Her smile faded. “Have you asked her?”
Jeff nodded. “Yes.”
“What’d she say?”
“Yes.”
“When did you ask her?”
“A month ago.”
“Why haven’t you told Sue and I?”
“Because Gabe didn’t want to.”
“Why?”
Jeff stared at the rock on the table and bit his lip.
Abby frowned. “Jeff, why didn’t she want us to know?”
He sighed. “Because we still have a long way to go and she thought there might be moments like this.” He looked into her eyes. “And she doesn’t want to be selfish.”
She gasped softly. “I’ll be damned. Huh. Didn’t see that coming.” She shook her head. “Never figured her for that kind of enlightenment.”
“Surprised me too. Gabe’s not the same person she was a couple years ago.”
“That’s a fact. She’s grown up.”
“Yeah.”
“Does she know you’ve slept with Sue and I, other than our attempt at conceiving a Martian?”
“Yes.”
“What did she have to say about it?”
“She said, ‘Good’.”
“Huh. And she actually thinks it would be okay if we slept together… now?”
“Yeah. At least, that’s what she said.” He paused for a moment. “She said we’re not like other people; the rules for us are different, if there are any rules for us.”
Abby nodded. “And what do you think?”
Jeff shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Jeff, what if it had been me?”
He frowned. “What do you mean? Would I have asked you to marry me?”
“Yeah.”
He sighed and dropped his eyes. That was a question he had hoped she’d never ask.
“Hmmm, I didn’t think so.”
“Abby, I love you, I really do. But…”
“But you love Gabe more.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I do.”
“Well, then everything worked out for the best, I guess.”
“I’m sorry.”
She stared at her hands for a moment then looked at Jeff and rubbed her nose. “Well, the question still stands.”
Jeff stared at the table, rubbed his forehead, and whispered, “Yeah.”
Abby sat, sullen, staring at him.
He glanced away, still unable to meet her eyes.
Tears welling, Abby slammed her fist on the table and screamed, “God damn it, Jeff! I need you too!”
Jeff’s head drooped; he closed his eyes and sighed. Abby was now sobbing. He slowly looked up at her, shook his head and said softly, “Abby, I love Gabe with all my heart. She’s going to have my child and going to be my wife. I… I… What you’re asking of me is hard.”
She wiped her eyes. “I know. I’m sorry. But I have needs too.”
Jeff nodded, stood, and held out his hand to her.
Abby looked up through the tears. “What?”
He smiled softly and whispered, “Come here.” She stood and Jeff wiped the tears off her cheeks, then wrapped his arms around her. “You’re a mess.”
She buried her face in his shoulder and chuckled. “Yeah.”
Jeff gently lifted her chin to gaze into her eyes. “Can we start this conversation over?”
She whimpered, “Uh huh.”
“Good.” He kissed her cheek. “Abigail…”
“Huh?”
“I think it’s going to be cold tonight. Would you care to snuggle with me, and keep warm?”
She wiped her eye and smiled. “Uh huh. I’d like that very much.”
He smiled softly. “Yeah, I would too.”
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
MSD 50850.384 (Sol 101)
Jeff waved his arm at the horizon. “Look at the west rim. The meteor must have come in low from the east. There’s got to be a couple hundred meters of ejecta piled over there.”
“The east and west rims look pretty steep, but this doesn’t look too bad.”
“I dunno, it looks steeper further down, and it could be slippery. Take some pictures, I’ll go get a rope.” Jeff walked back to Amos, opened the utility locker and pulled out a 150-foot climbing rope.
“Man! This is fantastic. Did we bring a tripod? We need to take some multiple-image panoramas of this thing.”
“Not with us here, but there’s one in the hab. I don’t remember where, but it’s there somewhere.”
“Well, let’s not forget it next time we’re out. Huh.”
“What?”
“There’s something on the ground. Hang on a minute.”
Jeff started walking back to her, “What’d you find?”
“I dunno, it’s… oh shit… damn… HELP!”
Jeff’s blood curdled as he listened to Abby scream for several seconds before concluding with an “Ooof,” and then silence.
“Abby! Abby! Abby, god damn it, answer me!”
He ran as fast as he could in the pressurized suit toward where she had last stood. As he reached the slope, Jeff felt his feet go out from under him and he promptly sat back on his butt, digging his elbows in to keep from sliding further down the hill. There was a layer of fine sand and gravel covering a very smooth slab of rock and Jeff could see the marks made by Abby as she skidded down the slope and over the edge. He lay back on the ground, gasping for breath and screamed, “No!” It was over half a mile to the bottom of the crater. Jeff tightly squeezed his eyes closed and clenched his fists, panting furiously. “No! God, no!” he cried. After a moment he jerked upright. Her scream was short, she didn’t go all the way down. “Abby, I’m coming! If you can hear me, hang on, I’ll get you!”
Jeff scrambled backwards, pushing with his boots and pulling with his elbows until he was off the slope and back on solid ground. He rolled over and pushed himself to his feet then looked down the slope and back at Amos, “Too far.” He ran back to the rover, jumped in the seat, cranked the engine and stomped on the throttle. Amos lurched toward the precipice. At the last moment, Jeff slammed on the brakes, skidding to a halt just a few feet from the drop off. He left the engine running and grabbed the remote from the dash, simultaneously pressing the “Hold Position” button. He then dove back into the utility locker and grabbed a figure-8 descender. At the front of the rover he took the rope and threw three half-hitches over the tow hitch then threaded a loop through the descender, clipped it to the carabiner on his suit safety harness, and begin easing down the slope backwards, using the rope’s tension to steady himself. Reaching the edge he looked down and was both relieved and horrified to see Abby’s contorted body lying face down on a rock ledge some fifty or sixty feet below him. Even though Mars’ gravity was only 38% that of Earth’s, that fall was still more than enough to kill someone.
Jeff rappelled down the cliff as quickly as he dared. Abby was lying on the narrow ledge, her left leg wedged between two rocks
just above her, the only thing keeping her from going on over. He glanced down. It was probably a thousand feet to the next stop. “Abby! Abby! Can you hear me?” There was no reply.
He dropped once more, landing on the ledge beside her. Jeff tied a figure-eight loop in the line, reached under Abby, and snapped the loop into the carabiner on her harness. In the process he spotted a rough, dust-covered puncture hole, about an inch in diameter, in the lower left quadrant of her PLSS. He gently pulled her boot from between the rocks, noticing as he did that her leg twisted in a manner that it probably wasn’t meant to, then lowered her until she rolled over and was held by the line’s tension. Jeff grabbed her left arm and checked her vital signs on the bioinstrumentation display. The good news was that she was alive. The bad news was that her pulse and respiration rates were climbing rapidly and her suit pressure was down to three psi, and falling. “Ah Jesus! Come on, God, give her a break!”
As he was about to release her arm, Jeff noticed something clenched in her gloved hand. He pried her fingers open and found a shiny black rock. He was about to toss it into the crater but suddenly realized it was what this was probably all about, so stuck it in his suit leg pocket.
Jeff gave Abby’s suit a quick inspection and could find only the hole in the PLSS. Whatever the problem was, he couldn’t fix it on that ledge, and without oxygen she’d be dead in a couple minutes. He grabbed the primary O2 inlet hose to her suit, gave the connector ring a half turn and yanked it out. Then did the same with the outlet hose. Without the connectors in place the suit cutoff valves closed and – in theory – isolated her suit from the leaking PLSS. He checked the pressure gauge again: two psi, but holding. Then Jeff pulled the actuator cable on the Remote Control Unit to activate emergency oxygen flow from the Oxygen Purge System. When her suit pressure was back up to eight psi, Jeff opened the diverter valve on the front of Abby’s suit to maintain the flow. He pressed the STOP, RESET, and START buttons on his Speedmaster. “Alright woman, we’ve got fifteen minutes. Stay with me and I’ll get you the hell out of here.”
Jeff grabbed Amos’ remote control, tethered to his suit, and ordered him to back up, dead slow. He instantly felt tension on the rope, and they began to rise. Jeff pushed off from the cliff face with his feet and walked them up, praying the rope would hold until they reached the top. A minute later they reached the slope atop the cliff and Jeff commanded the rover to stop. He got to his feet and pulled Abby up. He heard her moan through the radio. “Abby, can you hear me?”
She moaned again.
“Abby! Say something. One word. Anything.”
She whimpered. “Oh, it hurts. What happened?”
Jeff sighed with relief. “Oh thank God. You fell. You’re hurt pretty bad. Just hang on, I’ll get us back as fast as I can.”
“Okay. Oh! God it hurts!”
“I know. Just hang on.”
Using the rope for support, he walked up to level ground half carrying, half dragging Abby along with him, then knelt, gently laying her on the ground. He untied them both and ordered Amos back, collecting the rope as it came, and stopped him a few feet away. He untied the rope from the hitch and tossed it in back, then lifted Abby, dragged her around to the seat, and lifted her in.
She cried in pain. “Oh god! My leg!”
“I know, I’m sorry, but you’re on emergency O2, and we’ve got just twelve minutes to get you inside, and the trailer’s still a kilometer away.” He strapped her in, rushed around, climbed into the driver’s seat, engaged MANUAL CONTROL, backed up, turned around and headed down the ejecta slope for the Genesis trailer as fast as the terrain would allow, which wasn’t very fast. Jeff glanced at his watch. “Oh god, this is gonna be close.”
“Just plug me into Amos’ O2.”
“It won’t help. It won’t reduce the flow from the Purge System, and once activated there’s no way to shut it off. Just hang on.”
Abby groaned and cried with each bump.
After what seemed an eternity, Jeff finally skidded to a halt a few feet from the airlock steps. He checked his watch – one minute. “Crap!” He punched the quick release on Abby’s shoulder harness, climbed out, trotted around the rover as fast as could, climbed the stairs, opened the hatch and returned to Abby just in time to see the sweep second hand on his watch tick down to zero. He reached to the diverter valve on the front of her suit and closed it. “Alright, that’s all the air you’ve got. It won’t last long. Do the best you can.”
She cried. “Jeff, don’t let me die.”
“I won’t.” He lifted her out of Amos and, one step at a time, dragged her backwards up the steps and, finally, into the airlock. He could hear her wheezing.
“Jeff,” she gasped softly, “I… can’t… breathe.”
It took almost another minute to get her turned around in the cramped airlock and seated on the commode. She started pawing furiously at her helmet neck ring. Jeff slapped her hands away. “No! There’s no air in here!” While fighting her with one hand, Jeff, shoved the hatch closed with the other and spun the dogging wheel, then slapped the cabin REPRESS valve. Abby’s arms went limp and she slumped over. He stared, bordering on panic, at the cabin pressure gauge. As soon as it reached 4 psi Jeff rotated the neck ring on Abby’s helmet, yanked it off, and set it on the deck, then removed his own and checked her. She wasn’t breathing. He sat her upright, tilted her head back, opened her mouth, took a deep breath, pinched her nose, pressed his lips over hers, and blew. Nothing. He did it again. Abby gasped and immediately began breathing on her own. Jeff leaned back against the bulkhead. “Oh thank God!”
A moment later Abby was again conscious, and opened her eyes. “Am I alive?”
Jeff smiled and nodded. “Yeah, you’re alive.”
She started to raise her left arm. “Oh! Oh, my shoulder hurts.”
“Okay, just sit still. Let me get out of this suit, then I’ll get you out of yours, and we’ll have a look at you.”
Forty minutes later, Jeff had Abby settled into bed, had checked her over and, using the remote, got Amos hitched to the Genesis and headed home following the path by which they had come.
As they bounced over a rock, Abby let out a little yelp. “Jeff, please, don’t we have anything in here for pain?”
“Yeah, but not until I talk with Sue, which I’m going to do right now.” He turned on the VHF radio and picked up his Bluetooth earpiece. “Sue? Gabe? Somebody pickup the phone.”
A moment later, Gabe’s voice crackled. “Hi. What’s up? How’s it going?”
“Gabe, Abby’s been injured, get Sue.”
“Is it serious?”
“Yeah, pretty bad, please get Sue on the radio… now!”
“Oh god. Just a minute.”
Jeff hung onto the truss with one hand to steady him and held Abby’s hand with the other.
Susan came on the radio. “Jeff, I’m here. What happened?”
“About an hour ago she slipped off the crater rim and fell about 50 or 60 feet. She’s got a broken leg for sure and I think maybe a broken collarbone. And she’s in a great deal of pain.”
“Okay. I’m going to ask some questions, you just answer them.”
“Alright.”
“Is there any external bleeding?”
“No.”
“Is she conscious?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Is she coherent?”
“Yes.”
“Did she lose consciousness?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. Um, maybe five or six minutes.”
“Does she exhibit any signs of amnesia?”
“Yeah, she doesn’t remember the fall.”
“Alright, check her pupils. Are they responsive to light, and equally dilated?”
“Hang on.” Jeff grabbed a Mini Maglite out of the utility drawer and checked Abby’s eyes. “Um, yeah. Yes and yes.”
“Okay, that’s a good sign. Where’s the leg fracture?”
“Left leg, just above the knee. It’s twisted at an odd angle.”
Susan groaned. “Ugh, distal femur. But it didn’t break the skin?”
“No.”
“Alright. What makes you think her collarbone may be broken?”
“There’s a lot of bruising and it doesn’t look right.”
“Okay. I want you to palpate her abdomen. Does it feel normal, or hard? And does it cause her pain?”
Jeff pressed around Abby’s abdomen. “Abby, does that hurt at all.”
She sniffed and shook her head. “No.”
“Good. Sue, it feels normal and she says it doesn’t hurt.”
“Alright, that’s good. Anything else?”
“Yeah. Her PLSS was damaged and by the time I got to her, her suit was down to three psi. I disconnected it and pulled the Purge emergency. That ran out as I was pulling her into the airlock. She passed out and by the time I got her helmet off, she wasn’t breathing. I gave her mouth-to-mouth and she came to immediately.”
“How long was she out?”
“I dunno, maybe two minutes.”
“That’s good. Anything else?”
“Yeah, she has a headache.”
“Okay, that’s not surprising. She probably has a mild concussion. Jeff, hook her up to a biosensor harness and send me her vitals. Are you on your way back?”
“Yeah, we’re on our way. It took us six hours to get here, probably take five or so to get back. I’ll hook her up and get the vitals to you. Take me a few minutes. Sue, she’s in an awful lot of pain. Can I give her something for it?”
“Yes, I understand, but I need to see her vital signs first.”
“Okay. Shall I put the vacuum splint on her leg?”
“No, leave it alone. Just keep her from moving it. I want to see it before we do anything.”
“Understood. I’ll get back to you in a few minutes.”
“Okay. Jeff, keep her calm and make sure she knows she is going to be okay. There’s nothing life-threatening… so far as I know.”
“Got it. Out.”
Jeff wired Abby to the biosensors and started transmitting the data to Susan.
Susan came on the radio. “Jeff, her vital signs are okay. BP, respiration, heart rate are all a little high, but that’s not surprising under the circumstances. Give her two 10-milligram Norco tablets. That should help. You can give her two more in four hours, if she needs them. And get back here as fast as you can.”
Margaritifer Basin (Margaritifer Trilogy Book 1) Page 85
