Missing!

by Brad Strickland

  CHAPTER 9

  The afternoon was rapidly losing itself in a murk the color of brick dust. Mickey had turned on the cat’s headlights, but they were little help. The airborne dust turned the beams into a blurry glow that hardly made a difference in visibility. “We should be able to get through to them,” Sean said for the seventh or eighth time.

  “It’s this bloody dust,” Roger returned. “It’s diffusing the signal the same way it’s diffusing the head-lamps. We have to be close, though. Five clicks or less, I’d say.”

  “It’ll be night soon,” Mickey muttered. “Then what?”

  “We have to keep going,” Sean said. “We’ll be okay in the cat.”

  “Yeah, until I topple us off a scarp or crash into a boulder,” Mickey replied. “Sean, it’s too dangerous. Nobody goes rolling across Mars at night, even in good weather.”

  “Shut up, shut up,” Roger said frantically. He had clapped headphones over his ears, and he leaned forward, eyes squeezed closed, concentrating. “I can make out some words. I hear a man, Alex, and—yes, it’s her, it’s Jenny! I’m going to try to get through again. Obviously they haven’t heard us yet. Stop the cat, Mickey. I’m going to see if I can send them a directional beam. Maybe that’ll get through this soup.”

  It was frustrating work. A narrowcast radio beam was more powerful than a broadcast one, but it had to be aimed just right in order to get through. They had rounded the northeastern side of the crater, and they assumed that the people they were looking for were almost due south of them. “Almost” wasn’t precise enough, though. Roger spoke into the radio: “Prep Team, this is a rescue team. If you hear me, respond.”

  No answer, after three repetitions. Roger adjusted the directional antenna fractionally—a matter of a few centimeters here meant that five clicks away the beam could be half a kilometer to the right or left. He repeated his call. Then another adjustment, another repetition. Sean felt his stomach fluttering as if he’d swallowed a flock of butterflies. They were so close. Why couldn’t they make contact? He itched to take the radio controls from Roger, but he knew that the younger boy had expertise he lacked.

  “Come on, come on,” Sean said under his breath, urging Roger to keep trying and Jenny to answer him.

  The sixth try. The seventh. And then, just as Roger was about to move the antenna again, a man’s voice, just on the edge of hearing: “Say again? Rescue team? This is Prep Team. Where are you?”

  Mickey exhaled loudly, and Sean realized he had been holding his breath too. Roger handed the receiver to Sean. “You’re the boss. Tell him.”

  “Prep Team, this is a rescue team from Marsport,” Sean said. “We can’t get a good GPS fix because of the after-effects of the storm. We believe we’re a few kilometers north of you.”

  “Who is this?”

  Sean looked at the others. “Sean Doe,” he said. “I’m, uh, the rescue team leader.”

  “Henried here. Who’s the senior member of the rescue team?”

  “Mick—uh, Michael Goldberg,” Sean replied. “But I’m the one responsible.”

  Sean heard two yelps of surprise, and Jenny said, “Sean! What are you—”

  But Henried shushed her and said, “Are there no adults on the team?”

  “Give me that,” Mickey said. He took the receiver and said, “Dr. Henried, the important thing is that we’ve got transportation if you need it, along with medical supplies, food, and oxygen. Give us your situation.”

  A long pause, and then Henried said, “We’re in a bad way. Our cat’s broken down, and though we’re all right for food and water, we’ve only a few hours supply of oxygen. No casualties, but we’re all pretty much exhausted. Under the circumstances, I won’t ask too many questions. It’s good to hear a voice, no matter who it is. What can we do to help?”

  Roger took the receiver back again. “I need a better fix on your position,” he said. “Do you have a directional transmitter?”

  They didn’t. But Henried had a good idea of the team’s location with respect to the crater—he said they were just off the two o’clock position, maybe a hundred meters east of the crater rim.

  “Got it,” Sean said. “We’re coming as fast as we can, but visibility is bad. It’ll be full night before we can get there. We could drive right past you in the dark.”

  “I think we may be able to help with that,” Dr. Henried said.

  Alex stood outside the survival tent. He wondered how cold it was. Fifty below, at least, and the temperature was plummeting. Like deserts on Earth, Mars gained heat during the sunlight hours but lost it rapidly at night. Alex had been outside the tent for half an hour, and he wouldn’t be able to stand much more. He held a work light at his chest, a brilliant halogen lamp that in ordinary circumstances could provide illumination for a huge area. He pointed it north, but for all its brightness he couldn’t see anything much. The dust scattered the light, giving him the impression that he was at the bottom of a murky, blood-colored sea.

  His feet were beginning to feel like icicles. He’d have to give up and go inside the tent in a few minutes, and then it would be someone else’s turn. “You’re still coming, aren’t you?” he asked over his helmet radio.

  Sean’s voice came back at him, as clearly as though they were standing next to each other: “We’re coming, Alex. It’s slow going. We’re making about a kilometer an hour. Just can’t see anything more than three meters ahead.”

  “I”’m holding up the brightest light on the planet.”

  “We’re looking for it, buddy. Hang tight. We can’t be too far away.”

  Alex stamped his feet. Maybe he could take it for a few more minutes, he thought. He’d count to five thousand. Slowly.

  He was past three thousand when he saw a shape. Alex held his breath. Had he been fooled by a boulder? No, he saw a light now, a pair of lights—the cat’s headlights ! He let out a whoop.

  “What was that?” It was Dr. Henried, his voice sounding strained to the breaking point.

  “I see them!” Alex waved his lamp frantically. “Guys, I see you! I’m off to your left. Turn ten degrees to your left, and you’ll be coming dead at us!”

  “Got you!” It was Sean. “I can see your light now. Hang on. We’ll be there in a minute or two!”

  Behind Alex, the tent flap opened, and they all came creeping out, from Dr. Henried to Jenny. They stood behind him in a loose group, all of them staring at the approaching lights. “I thought we’d had it, to tell you the truth,” Dr. Henried said in a conversational tone.

  “I should have known Sean would think of something,” Jenny replied. “He’s like that.”

  “I heard you,” Scan’s voice said over Alex’s helmet radio. “Mickey says to tell you we expect you all to testify at our trial.”

  Alex grinned, but then he reflected that Sean wasn’t that far off the mark. Something was very suspect about the rescue mission. There might not be a trial, exactly, but there would be a world of trouble.

  The cat came to a vibrating halt a few yards away. After fifteen seconds or so, the cab airlock cycled and a pressure-suited figure dropped out and onto the surface of Mars. Whoever it was came stumbling forward in a run. “It’s so good to see you!” the figure yelled, and the voice was Sean’s.

  Jenny jumped forward to meet him, hugged him clumsily, and said, “Whatever happens, I’ll testify for you.”

  “Thanks,” Sean said. “We may need it.”

  The next morning they piled into the cat, a tight fit, and went bumping along back toward the shuttle. The day was much clearer, with only a misty hint of the dust haze that had been such a problem. Now that he could see, Mickey got more speed out of the vehicle. Sean didn’t know whether Mickey was relieved to see the shuttle still resting sound and whole, but he was.

  Dr. Henried led the way into the shuttle. The bay, built for cargo, was spacious enough for them all to gather without crowding. “Very well,” he said. “I propose this: Salma is certified as a shuttle pilot, so
she’ll take command of the Series One and fly you three, plus Alex and Jenny, back to Marsport. Dales, Weston, and I will take the cat, a microwave set, food, water, and oxygen and return to Advance Base. We’ll call for help if there’s anything we can’t handle.”

  “All right,” Sean said.

  Dr. Henried stared at him. “Young man, I wasn’t asking for your agreement. I was simply giving you orders.”

  Sean felt something inside him wither. Amanda’s stare, he thought, was going to be just as cold as that, and her voice just as formal. It was almost enough to make him wish that he didn’t have to return.

  Salma checked out the shuttle systems, found them all in working order, and started to plot a course back to Marsport. Roger coughed and said, “I’ve already done it. You can check my work if you wish, of course.”

  Salma did, and then looked up with a faint smile. “Good work, Smith. Perfect, in fact.”

  “Thank you.” Roger gave an embarrassed shrug.

  Dr. Henried and the other two men set out at about two in the afternoon, and shortly after that Salma lifted the shuttle off the plain. Mickey sat beside her in the copilot’s seat, and Roger was still at the nav station directly behind him. Alex, Sean, and Jenny were in passenger seats.

  The flight back seemed too short to Sean. One minute they had cleared the boulder-strewn plain, the next the nose of the shuttle was tilting sharply up, and then, only seconds later, they angled in for the approach and landing. He’d had hardly any time to talk to Jenny.

  Well, he’d had hours, if you counted them up. But somehow he couldn’t find words to say or the will to say them.

  The sun was low in the west when the shuttle taxied into its hangar and the clamshell doors closed behind them. They all suited up and left the shuttle, heading through a corridor into one of the arrival bays.

  Sean swallowed hard as he took off his helmet and stepped into the bay. They had a reception committee. Amanda was there, looking far from pleased.

  But worst of all was the expression on Dr. Ellman’s face.

  It was a satisfied, malevolent smile.

  CHAPTER 10

  “Do you have anything to say for yourself? Look at me, Sean.”

  Sean was staring at his toes. At least Amanda had taken him to her apartment for the chewing-out, he thought. She could have done it in her office, in front of Ellman and the others. “No,” he muttered.

  “Look at me,” she repeated.

  Sean’s eyes felt hot. He forced himself to lift his gaze to Amanda’s face. Her expression was stern and unforgiving. And sad, Sean thought. She looked as if he had hurt her beyond words. “Now. Have you anything to say?”

  He cleared his throat. “We found them,” he said. “I think everyone should remember that they were lost and in trouble and we found them.”

  “Of course you did,” Amanda said, her eyes not softening a bit. “But you left the station without permission, you risked your own lives, and you risked a shuttle that we have no way of replacing. You broke the rules.”

  “Sometimes …,” Sean began, and then trailed off.

  “Sit down, Sean,” Amanda said. Her apartment was no more spacious than his room, and he sat on the folded sofa-bed. She sat in the other chair, facing him. “You have put me into a very bad position, Sean. I’m the executive of the colony, and I have to have the loyalty and the confidence of everyone on the planet. Do you see what you’ve done?”

  Sean’s throat was almost too tight to let the words out. “I saved my friends’ lives. You’d do the same. I know you would. If it had been me out there—”

  “Sean. Listen to me. We’re on a planet that can kill us in a second. I am responsible for more than three thousand lives. I have to think in terms of keeping all of those people safe, or if I can’t do that, of keeping as many as possible safe. When you took the shuttle, you took the only way we had of reaching Advance Base in less than a day. It was the only shuttle fueled and ready to go. What if we’d received a distress call? What would we have done?”

  “I don’t know,” Sean admitted. He said, “Could I ask you something?”

  “What?”

  “Have you heard from Advance Base?”

  Finally, finally, Amanda’s expression became less forbidding. “Yes. They’re safe. They lost communications because of the lightning, but there was no serious damage. When Dr. Henried gets there, he’ll find everything is in order.”

  “Then we did the right thing,” Sean said.

  Amanda shook her head. “No. My point is that we had no way of knowing, Sean. Before you go to rescue six people, you must think of the eighteen others who may be in danger in another place. You have leadership skills, Sean, and I respect that. But a leader has a terrible burden to bear, and it’s called responsibility.” She sighed. “You think that if you had been lost instead of Jenny and Alex, I’d have done the same thing. I know that I would have been tempted, but I’d have had to make the call according to my best judgment. Sean, you have to know that if you were in danger and eighteen other people were in equal danger, I’d have to try to help them first. I’d have to. And if it were the other way around, if you could save me or save a half-dozen other colonists, you’d have to let me go and do what’s best for the whole colony. Those are the rules we have to live by on a new world.”

  Sean nodded. “All right. What’s my punishment?”

  For the first time Amanda smiled. “You are a problem. You really are. Yes, you saved the lives of six people, and everyone knows that. However, I can’t let you off with a reprimand or a warning. Everyone knows you’re my legal ward, and I can’ show favoritism, not as a leader. The council will hold a hearing. You can present your side of the story, and they’ll consider your testimony. But you will have to pay for your misjudgement in some way.”

  “Who’s going to be the judge?” Sean asked.

  “It isn’t a trial,” Amanda said. “But Dr. Ellman will preside.”

  Wonderful, Sean thought. Of all the people on Mars, the one whom Sean had ticked off the most was Dr. Harold Ellman. He remembered how Ellman had raged against the Asimov Project, how he had argued so strongly that children had no place on Mars. And he recalled all the sarcastic speeches Ellman had given him. Even when he had earned the man’s praise, it had been given grudgingly.

  If there ever was a hanging judge, Sean told himself, I’m about to face one. Wonderful. Just wonderful.

  “It was my idea all along,” Sean told the three council members who were considering his case. “I talked Mickey and Roger into going because I couldn’t do it without their help. They only came because I persuaded them.”

  Dr. Ellman sat at the front of the classroom flanked by Tim Mpondo and Graciela Platas. Ellman leaned forward and asked, “Did they consider that they were breaking regulations? Defying a direct order?”

  “Jenny and Alex are our friends,” Sean began. “They—”

  “Please answer the question, Doe,” Ellman snapped. “You are a very bright young man in class. I know that you can answer a question when you choose.”

  Sean bit back angry words. They were useless—they’d only get him into even more trouble. “We talked about it,” he said. “But we decided—”

  “You knew you were doing wrong,” Ellman said flatly.

  Tim Mpondo’s dark face was unreadable, but in a kind voice, he said, “Dr. Ellman, I believe Sean was offering an explanation. I would like to hear it.”

  “Go on,” Ellman said.

  Sean couldn’t look directly at him. He kept his eyes focused just over Ellman’s head. “Sir, we decided that we had to take the chance to save the lives of our friends. And of the others who were missing. That’s all.”

  “And you did save them,” Mpondo commented. “We’ve heard from Dr. Henried. Advance Base had no way of communicating with them and was dealing with severe problems of its own. They had sent no rescue team out and probably couldn’t have sent one for another forty-eight hours. By then it would have
been too late.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sean said.

  Dr. Platas had her hands on the table before her, fingers linked. “So,” she said slowly, “we have to balance the saving of six lives against your admitted disobedience. That’s what it comes down to in the end.”

  “Yes,” Sean said again.

  Dr. Ellman looked at the two council members. “Anything else?”

  Neither of them said anything. “Very well. Doe, do you have anything to add?”

  Sean thought for a moment. “We risked our three lives to save six lives,” he said slowly. “I know we all could have died. But we’re all alive, and I think that should count for something. I don’t think you should punish Mickey and Roger. I talked them into it. I’ll take whatever punishment you decide, but they’re not to blame.”

  Silence, and then Ellman said, “Is that all?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you are dismissed. You can wait in the computer room.”

  Sean turned. Behind him, Mickey and Roger sat at a table, their faces tense. They got up, and the three of them left the classroom.

  Alex and Jenny had both testified, and they were waiting outside. “What did they say?” Jenny asked.

  Sean shook his head. “Don’t know yet.”

  “Well,” Roger said thoughtfully, “at least we don’t have any guillotines on Mars. I think Ellman would just as soon chop our heads off as not.”

  “We’re sunk,” Mickey said. “They’re going to do something horrible to us. I can feel it.”

  “They can’t,” Alex protested. “Man, you three are heroes. There’d be a revolt if they tried something bad.”

  “I think we’re only heroes to a few people,” Sean admitted. “To everyone else, we’re rule-breakers and troublemakers.”

  “Anyway,” Roger put in, “we’ll have to wait and see.”

  Waiting was as hard as anything Sean had ever done in his life. An hour went by, and another, with no word from the council. “They should have made up their minds by now,” he said.

  Roger was playing chess against himself on the computer and losing both ways, as he often said. “Probably trying to decide how long we’ll survive on nothing but bread and water.”