"Not my field," Juanita answers. "But let's take a sample."
She is closest, and deftly dips a sample capsule into the liquid. Nothing emerges to bite her hand off-so much for that fantasy. I might not have had the nerve. Then I have a moment of insight; to do this requires the right balance of imagination and nerve.
"I do not think," Eloni offers, "that there would be enough energy for life. If there were, the liquid would boil away. Hydrocarbons at these temperatures would be frozen solid, so what could one use to build life molecules? How could anything that would work at these temperatures get here without being destroyed by the Sun first? Still, it is an interesting thought, Wojciech."
"If the crack could go down a hundred kilometers or so," Juanita remarks, "it would be warm enough to evaporate everything, possibly warm enough to walk around with the right atmosphere. But Mercury would close a crack that deep; its crust is surprisingly thin, even now. This is not Mars."
She sounds like my fifth-year teacher back in Krakow. I suddenly feel far, far over my head. These people understand where they are and what they are doing: it holds no terror for them, no fear of sticking a hand where it might not come back. But for me, my overripe literary imagination haunts my mind like the tale of the bogeyman that kept me out of grandfather's basement until I was seven. I am not comfortable here-but, I tell myself, I will enjoy having been here more when, and if-always if-we get back.
"It's time to go back," Juanita says, her vials filled. "Climbing."
"Climbing," we all say.
"Belay on," Dr. Lotati says, from far above us.
The climb back up to the bridge is slow. Once we hit the layered material, we stop to take half-meter cores, drilled slantwise, at those layers which Juanita estimates to have been laid down during the great events of the inner Solar System: layers that may contain glass beads from the Imbrium impact on Luna, Caloris here, Hellas on Mars, and, just possibly, a few grains with the right isotope ratios to be from the K-T impact on Earth. If we find these, we can bring the geological history of the planets together. If, the paradigm goes, we understand better why the Solar System is the way it is, we will understand better why we are the way we are-the forces that have shaped our evolution and those of other sentient races. But we won't know if the samples contain what we suspect for many months, by which time we will have scattered to the nether ends of the Solar System.
We are tired and bruises remind us of yesterday's avalanche with each bump, but there is a sense of elation about us. We are the first people to see a pool of liquid on an alien planet in its natural state. And no machine saw it first.
When we arrive back at the ice bridge, Juanita sees me staring nervously at the slide.
"I've calculated the slope and the coefficient of friction, Wojciech-I think it's fully relaxed. It may stay that way for a billion years."
"Now you tell me!" But would the trip have been as thrilling if she had?
"What caused it to go in the first place?"
"Our weight, I think, plus an accumulation of stresses. I'm beginning to think the crevasse is fairly young-otherwise a meteor impact would have caused the slump before we did."
"There could be more than physical tension," Eloni says. "Near the surface, over many years, radiation will cause chemical changes and produce unstable molecules in crystalline ice. A physical shock, such as an ax, might release these energies."
"Possibly," Juanita says.
I look down at the ice bridge under me. If the crevasse is fairly recent, this would be even more recent-and not, I hope, have had time to accumulate radiation "energies."
We are physically tired but the midday nap and the feeling of accomplishment leave us too hyper to sleep immediately. After rations, I suggest the idea that had led me to join their expedition in the first place.
"Randi?" I ask. "Dr. Lotati?"
They turn their heads to me.
"Are you aware of the theories of a Dr. Nikhil Ray?"
Dr. Lotati purses his lips as if he had something to say, then thought better of it.
Juanita answers. "He tries to explain the low density of Miranda and some other outer satellites, by making them a sponge of caverns. It is an innovative idea, but, I'm afraid, not well accepted."
Dr. Lotati grunts. "I've met the man. His theories are unorthodox and be has this infuriatingly superior manner about him ... Well, we'll know soon enough anyway. The IPA is finally getting around to dropping sonography stations on the major Uranian satellites."
As "free" robot-produced resources grew exponentially, so did the Interplanetary Association's influence on who goes where and does what. The IPA, whose main members are the United Nations of Earth, the Mars Council, and the Cislunar Republic, responds, in large measure, to politicians. They in turn respond to the media and the public-I am counting on this.
"I was," I venture, "thinking that it might be time to visit Miranda-and that, with the coincidence in their names, Randi might be the one to do it. It would certainly be an interesting angle. Especially if Dr. Ray could be persuaded to come.
Dr. Lotati frowns. "That would be rather commercial, wouldn't it?" Ed contributes with a wink in my direction. He is not taking this too seriously.
"Finish school," Randi says, "do some low g work in the asteroids, Saturn, then maybe." She grins at me. "My world. Caves?"
"There are certainly caves there," Juanita says with a grin, "but if they are big ones, you might be sorry about taking Nikhil. He's already insufferable with the issue in doubt. God help us if he's right!"
Dr. Lotati and Ed laugh heartily. Randi shrugs, and a flicker of pain crosses her face at the gesture. The shoulder hurts more than she wants us to know, I suspect.
"You can make too much of that," Ed says. "He's not a monster, Juanita. He can be very much the gentleman, and his conversation is always interesting. I sometimes wonder if the personality conflicts don't have more to do with his peer review problems than the merits of his work."
Dr. Lotati turns and tugs on his beard. "Uranus is the frontier," he finally says. "There's only one small inhabited scientific station in the Uranus system, in its outer satellite, Mustardseed. Within the Uranian magnetosphere, radiation is a concern." He stares briefly at me, then Randi. "Also, I don't want to associate the Society with Ray's claims just yet. Let's see what happens with the seismic study. And let's see how well Wojciech's presentation of this expedition is received."
I glance at Randi. She stares back at me, intently, and the ghost of a smile crosses her face as she wrinkles her nose.
"I could use a shower," I say-humorously. There will be no showers for several days yet.
But Randi hands me a silver foil wrapper. Her nose has decided that it's bath time-understandable in view of our exertions. The foil contains a light towelette soaked in a cleaning solution that does not have to be rinsed. She offers them to the others, removes her coveralls, and then releases the seam of her vacuum suit. Her father turns his back to us and, facing the wall of the tent, does the same. Eloni also turns to the wall of the tent. Ed watches Randi, and they exchange a brief smile.
We are a cross section of the Solar System, and a cross section of attitudes about our bodies. I still feel a slight twinge, as if in nostalgia for an old cultural taboo, but the observer of people in me rejoices in the passing of taboos. Ed, surprisingly, seems the one uncomfortable with communal bathing.
Juanita, whose family left Earth a century ago, is already sponging, oblivious to anything else. She is a well-endowed woman in excellent condition, as is everyone on this kind of endeavor. Her hair, unbound, hangs to her shoulders. It is almost all white and makes her skin look darker than it is in contrast. Her only other concessions to her fifty standard years are a slight gut and a bit of looseness on her neck and under her arms.
Randi is still watching Ed watch her, as if she enjoys it. She is a rangy young woman of jet-black hair and well defined, though not exaggerated muscles. Her female features seem like the aft
erthoughts of a god who in making an athlete decided at the last minute to make a woman, too. There is an intriguing hardness about the rest of her, including an untouched scar on her side. But her face, her smile, and her manner are womanly.
Embarrassed at myself for staring, I turn around like Dr. Lotati and finish undressing-applying the cleaning cloth to my body. But I love women too much to resist another look. When I do, both Eloni and Juanita are looking at me. Our eyes meet, we smile and I relax. My feelings as they watch me bathe are hard to describe-would it make sense to say that I felt first forgiven? I feel something of a sense of camaraderie.
Then Eloni reaches with both hands and turns me to the side of the tent. Its drum-tight bulge instantly reminds me of the vacuum, just beyond that millimeter of tough, impervious fabric.
I feel a damp cloth on my back, up and down, hitting every needful spot. When she is done, I return the favor. She sighs just on the edge of audibility. Almost like a purr.
I feel suddenly very good, and useful-should poetry and nature writing fail me completely, I could do this for a living. Well, maybe.
Dr. Lotati turns to crawl into his sleeping bag, and I accidentally get a brief glimpse of injuries he has chosen not to show the rest of us. Gunshot wounds?
Before he can seal the side, Juanita touches his shoulder and crawls in with him.
Eloni turns from the wall then and sees Randi and me, not yet in our sleeping bags. She looks down, then looks up again, then crawls into her sleeping bag. I can't read the expression on her face.
I get into my bag, pull my suit and helmet in with me, and seal the hood behind me. Its flaps will close and hold pressure if there is an accident while I sleep.
"Lights off," Randi says, and the tent complies. It is utterly, totally dark. There is movement. As my eyes adapt, I glance in her direction, but her sleeping bag is empty. She is probably not sleeping with Eloni, which leaves Ed. I feel a twinge of jealousy, though I know Ed has known the Lotatis for many years, and gone on several expeditions with them.
The exhaustion of this day does not permit sexual regrets, however. It seems like only a moment, and then I awake to light, discussions about the ascent, and the smell of freshly opened breakfast bars. The discussion is between Ed and Eloni, and it covers who is to go up the wall with Randi, to set the ropes for the rest of us.
"We need to make time," Dr. Lotati says.
"All the more reason for you to go with Randi. You're a team."
"Thank you, friend, but I am sixty-two years old and you are thirty-eight. You and Randi climb well together." There is a slight hint of humor in Emilio's voice to suggest to my perhaps oversensitive mind that be knows they do more than climb well together.
"It's only a kilometer, mate. You're as good as ever."
"I'll second that," Juanita says.
Dr. Lotati smiles and shakes his bead. "The group comes first."
Randi embraces her father, wordlessly, but I can see her eyes glisten. Then Dr. Lotati reaches over to Ed and they grasp hands.
Something has passed, I realize, and who am I to witness such a passing?
More than ever, I feel an ambitious interloper. I look over at Eloni. She is looking at me. Wistfully? I smile back.
We pack quickly and efficiently, filling the soft pressure packs first with the things that can stand vacuum, then the hard ones. When the tent is bare, the last pack is scaled and we take it down to a tenth of an atmosphere. We check each other's seals and fit. Randi frowns at mine, and has me depressurize to readjust my fit. If the pressure were much lower, I think, my blood would boil. We normally breathe a fifty-fifty oxygermitrogen mix at four-tenths atmosphere, so I still have a quarter of Earth normal oxygen partial pressure. I try not to get excited.
Randi treats this like an everyday event. She tugs, pulls, and smooths all my joint areas. She is utterly clinical about this, but happens to glance up with a wink when she adjusts my leg seams. "It's all in the family," her look seems to say.
I find myself slipping as if to an event horizon. Do I want to befriend this woman to pursue fame and fortune on her distant namesake moon, or has my idea for an expedition to the moon become an excuse to be near the woman? I suddenly realize that I am very, very taken by her.
She reseals my suit and I tell it to bring its pressure up again. She has indeed worked wonders, and I am much more comfortable than I was the day before. She apparently likes what she sees, grins, and squeezes my arm, then turns to the business at hand.
The tent finishes taking itself down to near vacuum. When the sides are noticeably softer, we open the main seal, and the tent ripples as the remaining millibar or so of air escapes. We turn our helmet lights on and emerge into the crevasse again.
The wall is suddenly lit with flood-lights-Mike and Katen have seen us emerge. It is one kilometer of gray-banded dirty clathrate, vertical, except for the parts that are more than vertical.
Randi leads; if she falls, she is less weight on the bolts and pitons that hold our ropes.
Ed says. "I can almost push a piton in by hand here and there.
"Use more," Randi says. "Angle down."
"OK." He is silent for a while. "There. I suggest we do this before I lose my nerve. Belay on."
"Climbing," Randi answers. They proceed upward carefully but steadily, taking turns.
I happen to be looking up when it happens. Randi is climbing when her foothold crumbles. She grabs for a line, says, "Damn!" then, "Falling." Her effort to grab has pushed her out from the wall, and when the rope goes taut, one of the pitons pops out of the wall with a shower of dust and ice. After a brief hesitation, the other two follow, and Ed yells, "Slack!"
Desperately, Randi tries to slow her fall by digging her hands and crampons into the wall beside her, throwing up a wake of dust. The smoothness of the wall helps; it is not completely vertical, and there are no bumps to throw her out.
The next set of pitons catches her rope, and for half a second it looks like it might hold. But before she comes to a complete halt, they pull out too and she starts to slide down again. Now, only Ed's own precarious hold on the wall stands between them and a five hundred-meter fall. He is furiously trying to hammer in more pitons, but there is little rope left between him and Randi.
They need another secure line. Why, with six other more experienced explorers present, I am the one to think of something is a mystery. Perhaps it has something to do with creativity, or with not having a mind full of the knowledge of things that wouldn't work.
"Mike, Wojciech. Can you fire a rocket line right into the wall above them?
It ought to penetrate that stuff and anchor itself."
He doesn't take time to answer me. There is a flash from overhead and an impact ten meters above Ed. The line it carries is much thinner than climbing rope, but drapes down beside them quickly in the vacuum. It continues to play out, draping all the way down to our little camp.
The line between Randi and Ed snaps tight, and his foot and arm come free in a shower of ice. He should hit the release, I think. Better one death than two, but he tries to hold on to the wall. He doesn't dare let go and reach for the new, untested line, hanging less than a meter away.
It almost works. Randi, caught short, manages to reach her ax and digs into the wall like a desperate fly. Working with her right hand, she sets one piton and then another, hammering them in with her fist.
Above her, the rest of the ice holding Ed begins to give way as he tries to regain his handhold. "Can't hold, falling!" He flails for the new line as he starts to slip, but it is out of reach.
They, would, I think, be dead on Earth-but Mercury gravity is more forgiving. Working as Ed slides, Randi reaches the new line and yanks hard on it. She yanks hard again-it must not have been firmly set. Another hard pull and she seems satisfied. Ed slides down beside her in a plume of dust and ice, barely in contact with the wall.
Quickly Randi connects the new line to the line that still connects them, slack now, and lo
ops it around the piton she has just set. "Protection in!"
Thirty meters below her, Ed bounces as the line pulls taut and pops the piton out of the wall in another shower of debris. Ed's weight pulls Randi free of her holds as well.
They both slide another ten meters, but now the slack in the line from the rocket has been taken up. They slide some more as it stretches, then, finally, stop. All told, Randi has fallen about a hundred meters and Ed perhaps fifty.
"Jupiter!" Karen, on the crevasse rim, exclaims. "Randi, Ed, set yourselves if you can. I can see the rocket: it's wedged itself vertically in the hole it made when it hit the wall, only about ten centimeters from the face. Try to hold tight while we think of something."
"OK," Ed says. "But don't take too long. I think I'm about at the end of my rope about this."
The laughter, fueled by relief, is perhaps a little too loud for the quality of the pun. Ed quickly starts hammering in additional protection. Randi, however, is simply hanging passively in her harness.
"Randi?" Mike calls.
"Injured. Both arms." Her voice attempts calm, but I can hear the pain in it.
"Can you climb?" Mike asks.
Randi tries to lift an arm up to her rope and gasps. "Not now."
"Descending," Ed says. "I'd like another belay if you can think of something."
What we think of is setting our remaining line rocket for maximum range and steering it about six meters under the far edge of the crevasse. It slams in hard, burying itself too far in for Karen to see. "Ice," Mike says, instantly, as a patch of icy regolith loosened by the rocket impact snows down left of the climbers. The upper layers, as we know, are softer. They pull the line from the far edge until it sets hard-ten kilonewtons tension, Mike estimates. Then they let the line drape down to us, and we walk it over to where Ed can reach it.
He connects the lines, and continues down.
Randi tries to descend. We hear the slightest hint of a cry of pain over the radio, then a loud "Damn! Dad, I can't lift my hands over my shoulders. Both shoulders shot."
"That's all right, Randi, I'm coming." Dr. Lotati turns and looks at me. "Come on, Wojciech. I want your head on that wall."
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifteenth Annual Collection Page 71
