Marooned!

by Brad Strickland

  Another stop, then another, and the first rover turned to make its way back to the first windmill to wait for that team. More stops, until the six people in Sean’s transport began to climb out two at a time.

  And at last only he and Alex were left. The transport rumbled to a halt. The windmill towered up and up, its vanes twisted and bent. They had drawn one of the really bad ones.

  “Okay,” Alex said, getting up. “All we have to do is take off the vanes, lower them down, and then climb down ourselves. Piece of cake, right?”

  “Sure,” Sean said, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

  But as he looked at the ladder that led up into the Martian sky for more than the length of a football field, he felt a pang of doubt.

  What if Jenny was right?

  CHAPTER 5

  5.1

  You climbed until your arms ached, and then you hung there in the open, resting, unable to wipe away the sweat that stung your eyes. Ahead of you, a long way off, were the fantastic cliffs at the foot of Olympus Mons, so high that you couldn’t see over them to the vast bulk of the mountain. On either side of you the foothills rolled away to an abrupt horizon. The blue sky was etched with high, thin clouds, like frost on a windowpane back on Earth. But you weren’t here to admire the landscape, so you forced your aching arms and legs to drag you higher, step by step, up the endless ladder.

  Sean clenched his teeth, trying not to think about how far he’d come, how much of a drop lay beneath him already. He didn’t look down, but up.

  And yet the windmill nacelle didn’t seem to come any closer. Sean told himself that the climb wasn’t as hard as it looked. After all, he didn’t weigh half as much on Mars as he had on Earth. Still, his senses told him that he was already unreasonably high on a rickety structure, and he had the panicky feeling that one wrong step would plunge him to his death.

  Of course, there was the safety line, a tether that snicked into a track in the ladder handrail. A sudden downward pull would make it act like a brake, slowing and stopping any fall. But the line seemed absurdly thin to hold him.

  Sean forced himself to stop thinking and start climbing again—he had paused momentarily—and he looked up. “You keeping up okay?” he asked his partner, his voice strained.

  “Fine,” said Alex with a grunt. Alex was below him on the ladder, doggedly making his way up with a long line coiled at his belt.

  Up and up, and finally the top of the structure did begin to grow near as the tower became narrower. The last ten feet were the hardest, because by that time the tower seemed so thin and insubstantial. It did nothing to hide the view, or the fact that Sean was now hundreds of feet above the surface. At the top Sean stepped out onto a narrow circular catwalk, held the rail tight with one hand, and used the other hand to unclip his safety line from the rail. He reclipped it into a track just below the nacelle.

  Alex joined him, looked around. “What a view!”

  Sean could feel his heart beating hard. “Let’s get this done.”

  But he could see the view too: The dull morning sun gleamed off Marsport, a spread-out network of metal and glass domes and connecting corridors. The roadway beneath them showed the ruts left by the transports. Swirling across the plain and through Marsport were other tracks: the skittery paths of dust devils, some only a few feet across, a few monstrous ones a kilometer or more.

  Alex was on the other side of the nacelle now.

  “Clipped in?” Sean asked. “Double check.”

  Alex tugged his safety line, and Sean retested his. “Okay, let’s hook up.”

  Alex fastened a small pulley to the support rail just below the nacelle. He threaded line through it, letting the coil fall and leaving a few meters free. The nose cone of the windmill blades unscrewed in a clockwise direction, opposite to most fasteners. The rotor axle had been frozen in place by dust, so Sean had no trouble removing the cone. He dropped it, as Sandy had instructed them to do, but did not watch its fall to the surface.

  “Okay,” Sean said. “Clip the line to the hoist ring.”

  The hoist ring was normally hidden by the nose cone. Alex clipped the line to it and said, “Secure.”

  “Check the brake.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Sean reached to his belt and took out a wrench. He used it to loosen and remove six bolts that held the blades onto the axle. When he had put the bolts into his belt pouch, he and Alex jiggled and pushed until the blades came free. The line and pulley held them.

  “Let me get around and we’ll lower away.”

  Alex moved back around the circular catwalk, and Sean ducked under the line. He released the brake on the pulley—not completely, but enough to let the windmill blades sink down. Alex, his leg braced around one of the tower struts, let the line out gradually. If the pulley failed, it would be up to Alex to let the assembly down slowly, preventing a damaging fall.

  The line was almost at an end when Sean, holding tight and looking almost straight down, said, “Okay, that’s good. Let the line fall and I’ll get the pulley.” He felt dizzy, with the strange sensation that the whole tower was tilting, and he looked away from the distant ground with a sense of relief. He tugged the remainder of the line through the pulley and let it fall. Then he unclipped the pulley. “One down.”

  “Here comes our ride.”

  Gripping the rail as if his life depended on it, Sean looked down again. He could see the dust of the approaching transport. “Let’s go.”

  And then the long climb down, almost as much of a strain as the climb up. When they reached the ground, they found the transport had passed them by. Alex took the line from the blade assembly and recoiled it. The line was deceptively thin, but more than three hundred meters long, and it made a heavy-looking coil. “Guess we were too slow.”

  “Sandy wants to get as many of these done today as she can,” Sean said. “They’ll be back for us.”

  He didn’t add that he, for one, was glad for the delay. His aching shoulders and knees needed the rest.

  5.2

  He and Alex managed three repairs that first day. Sean felt a sense of satisfaction after the second windmill, when they simply had to replace the dust-jammed bearings. As soon as they had reached the ground after that one, they had looked up. The huge vanes were sweeping around, responding to a breeze so gentle that Sean wasn’t even aware of it. But each turn of the blades meant that the colony had a little more electricity. At last, Sean thought, he was doing something.

  The first day’s work ended, and the transports hurried them back to Marsport. “Could’ve done more,” Leslie grumbled. “No dust devils today. Too cloudy.”

  That was true enough. The hazy clouds of the morning had given way to a high, dense, gray overcast. Without the sun’s heat to raise them, the dust devils wouldn’t be dancing. Still, Sean was grateful that the day’s work was done. He was too sore and stiff to even think about climbing another windmill.

  The others wanted to talk about their day, but Jenny didn’t want to hear any of it. Sean felt irritated with her. She had been the first person on Mars to show him any kind of friendship. What had gone wrong? Now she seemed to think he was being some kind of show-off for volunteering. He caught up with her in the common room that evening before lights out, but even then she didn’t want to talk.

  “Look,” Sean told her, “it isn’t hard. Anybody could do what Alex and I are doing. And it does help the colony. By the time we’re finished, we’ll have full power again.”

  “We could have full power if they’d finish the stupid thermal turbos,” Jenny snapped. “They’re buried in the ground beneath Olympus Mons. They wouldn’t fail every time there was a dust storm!”

  Sean had learned about the thermal generators. Even though Olympus Mons had not erupted in millions of years, it still had heat deep inside it. The thermal generators would eventually be planted deep in the heart of the old volcano, where subsurface heat would be used to generate electricity for the colony. One wa
s already in place and working, but drilling and putting them in place was a difficult, involved process. It would be years before enough turbo generators to supply all the colony’s needs were in place.

  “Somebody’s got to repair the windmills,” Sean said. “And I’m glad to do it. I want to be more than just a body who takes up space.”

  “Because Mickey Goldberg keeps teasing you!”

  “I’m not doing this because of Mickey!”

  Jenny gave him an exasperated look. “Marsport has too many specialists already! We need some … some generalists, too! Sean, you’ve been through so much on Earth that … well, I mean, you don’t have anything to prove.”

  “Mars isn’t Earth,” Sean said simply.

  She glared at him. “No, but boys are always boys, aren’t they? Okay, play your macho games if you want to, but if you break your neck out there, don’t expect me to be upset!” And again she jumped up and hurried out.

  That night Sean felt as if he were nothing more than a collection of aches and pains. He tossed and turned in his bunk, trying without success to find a position that would let him rest more easily. It took him ages to fall asleep, and when he did he fell into a repeated dream of climbing ladders. He could feel the pressure of the rungs under his feet, could feel the rails in his hands. But the dream ladder led up and up into oblivion, stretching so far into the deep sky of Mars that it vanished. And although he didn’t dare look down, Sean knew that beneath him, step by step, the ladder was dissolving, vanishing.

  If he wanted to live, he would have to climb forever.

  5.3

  Morning came before he was ready for it. Sean climbed out of bed feeling groggy, his muscles still stiff. His pressure suit had been cleaned, but he imagined that it still stank of sweat. This morning the repair crews didn’t engage in much banter. A fourth rover joined them, this one hauling a long, long trailer with windmill blades stacked in it. The lead transport’s crew would be replacing vanes this morning. The other two would work on bearings and on taking down other bent blades.

  Leslie groaned as the transport jounced and raided. “I’ve got aches that have aches of their own,” she complained.

  Patrick nudged her boot with his. “You’re just out of shape, Les. You’ve gotten too used to puttering around with algae tanks. Do you good to get outside and get a little fresh Martian air for a change!”

  “Ha!” she shot back. “Just for that, you can go up first today. Lets see how fast you climb. And I’m going to be right behind you, nagging you to go faster!”

  Barbara and Wendy, the two lead members of the repair crew, laughed. “Tell him, sister!” Barbara said.

  Patrick threw his hands up good-naturedly. “I surrender! All right, I’ll take the lead. But I want you to double-check your tool belt—I’m not going to climb back down because you forgot to bring your wrench!”

  They had farther to go this morning. When Sean and Alex hopped down from the transport, they were higher in the foothills than before. This time the sun shone from a clear sky, and although he knew it wasn’t doing much to warm him, Sean quickly felt as though the day were sweltering. Like Leslie, he had more aches and pains than he’d expected, and he had to take it slowly, stopping to rest more often than he had the day before. Alex, behind him, didn’t complain at all. Sean supposed he welcomed the rest breaks too.

  The first windmill needed only a bearing replacement. They removed the blade assembly, pulled the old bearings, replaced them with new ones, and then reattached the blades. It was a simple job. Then they climbed down again and sat on the Martian surface with their backs against the windmill struts, resting and feeling the steady vibration of the vanes turning far above them. “That’s four we’ve done,” Alex said. “And some of the crews did that many yesterday. At this rate, we’ll only have a couple to do tomorrow.”

  “I hope so,” Sean confessed. “Another whole day of this would just about finish me off.”

  “I was waiting for you to say that,” Alex announced.

  “Why?”

  “So I could say, ‘Me too!’”

  Sean laughed a little at that. “So what was it like for you back on Earth?” he asked. “You stay with your parents?”

  “What?”

  Sean repeated the question.

  Alex turned to look at him, his eyes puzzled behind the plastic helmet. “Are you kidding, or what?”

  “What do you mean?” Sean asked.

  Alex chuckled. “Man. All the kids in the Asimov Project are orphans, Sean. You didn’t know that?”

  “But I saw pictures of Roger’s mom and dad—”

  “They died years ago.” Dust was rising along the road. Alex stood up. “Here comes our ride.”

  Sean got to his feet. “Why are all the kids—”

  “Because that way your parents don’t have to grieve if Mars kills you,” Alex said. “Not that we’d ever let that happen, of course.”

  Sean felt strange. He had just assumed that he was the only orphan in the Asimov Project. He found himself wondering what had happened to Jenny’s mom and dad: How old had she been? Did she remember them? He wondered what it would be like to have parents, parents that you really knew, and then lose them.

  He had often tried to force his memory back to the time when he had a mother and father, but he never could. The earliest thing he could recall was a man holding him up, and another one taking him onto a helicopter. U.S. Army counter-terrorist specialists, taking the few survivors of the Aberlin massacre to safety.

  Nothing earlier than that. No home, no mom, no dad.

  The transport rattled to a stop, a fine drift of dust catching up with it and settling as they climbed aboard. The driver switched radio frequencies and his voice crackled into their helmets: “One more today. Meteorology’s saying there’s a high chance of dust storms. We’re heading back early.”

  “Suits me,” Alex said.

  They sat opposite each other. Sean wanted to ask Alex about his parents, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was hard to be the only person on Mars who had no real history. And besides, he didn’t want Alex upset, not when they had to climb to the top of yet another tower.

  They reached the windmill, and Alex clucked his tongue. “Man, this is another blade job. Mind if I go first this time?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Sean paused to look up. This one would be tough. The blades of the windmill were mangled; one of them had caught in the framework of the tower, one was snapped off short. He waited while Alex hooked his safety line on and started up, and then he followed, ten feet behind.

  Above him, Alex’s legs pumped steadily as he climbed the ladder. Sean tried to keep up, but he had to rest more often than Alex did. He felt embarrassment again. Had he been holding things up? Probably, he decided. Alex had been too polite to call him on it.

  “Wait up,” he said at last, when Alex was far above him.

  “Ice. I’m ready for a rest anyway.”

  Sean toiled up the ladder. When he reached Alex, he heard the other boy whistle. “Sean, we’re going to have to unhook to get past this. Be careful, okay?”

  Looking up, Sean could see that the badly bent lower blade of the windmill had thrust itself through the framework on the far side and stuck out a couple of feet on their side—right through the ladder. The wind had all but wrapped the tip of the blade around the rail, and it was so tightly jammed that the safety lines would have to be unhooked, then refastened once they were past the obstacle.

  “Take it easy, Alex,” Sean warned.

  “Got it. Here we go. If I fall, catch me.”

  It took Sean a second to realize that was just a humorless little joke. There would be no catching if the worst should happen.

  He saw Alex cautiously unclip his safety line, climb two more rungs, and then hook on again. “Watch the end of the blade. It’s sharp enough to cut your pressure suit.”

  Sean swallowed and followed Alex up. He reached the point where the
blade thrust through and saw that the dust, or something, had broken the tip off and had honed the metal sharp as a knife. He felt some misgiving. What would happen when they took the blade assembly off at the top? He didn’t know if they could work the blade out from where it was lodged. Maybe they should wait—

  No, this was their job. And he wanted to do it well. Sean unhooked his safety line, telling himself that he had never needed it so far. Climbing up five or six feet without it was no big deal.

  Sean forced himself not to look down; he couldn’t afford to be dizzy. He edged over, avoiding the sharp end of the blade. Thinking that he was already past the blade, he stepped back over—but his boot came to rest not on the rung, but on the point of the windmill blade. He felt himself slip, and he desperately clung to the ladder, hoisting himself by his arms.

  He got his foot onto the next rung and let out a deeply held breath. From above: “You okay, Sean?”

  “Fine. Let’s go.”

  They made the rest of the climb. Because of the bent and jammed blade, Alex had to edge around the catwalk to the right instead of the left. Sean got to the top, reached to his belt, and took out the pulley. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to lower this one,” he said.

  “You may be right,” Alex replied. “The shaft looks bent too, and I think the nacelle may be damaged. This is going to be a major overhaul. We’ll let them know, but let’s see if we can get the blades down. That’ll be a start.”

  The nose cone was pointing down at a fifteen-degree angle, a sure sign that the axle was bent. Alex leaned far out and tried to turn the cone. It was stuck. “A little help here, Sean.”

  Sean hooked his leg around a strut and leaned out. The nose cone wouldn’t give at all. “Let me get a lever through it,” he said. He reached to his belt and pulled out a steel rod. It slipped through two holes drilled near the tip of the nose cone, ordinarily closed by two hinged plastic flaps. In an emergency, though, the rod could be pressed through, serving as a handle.