Cracking the Sky

by Brenda Cooper

  *

  Suriyah fought them, convinced both men were crazy. “You will die out there! Find another way. That vine is alive—I tell you it’s alive. It suffers us to study it, but it will not let you climb it.” She stood over the little altar she kept in a corner of the galley and recited a prayer to Kali and burned sandalwood incense. Afterwards, she refused to talk to them for hours.

  Lark was silent when Kyle said he was coming to get her. “I’m bringing Henry,” he added.

  “See you in a few days.” She turned off the video abruptly, freezing her picture with a blank expression on her face. He couldn’t tell if she was happy he was coming for her, or what she thought about Henry coming along.

  Kyle turned off the frozen picture.

  Preparing took two long days, and many conversations back and forth between Little Siberia and Christy Base. Kyle was tired and frustrated. Lark was quiet for hours at a time. Since the video was almost never on, he couldn’t really tell how she was doing.

  “There’s more damn gadgets in this suit than any sane engineer would’ve designed,” Henry complained.

  Kyle stepped back to check the way the suit fit on Henry. It was an Adventurer-class suit, left behind after the initial run of programs broadcast from Pluto had lost ratings in favor of faster and more deadly endeavors. Originally made for someone with wider shoulders than Henry’s, it fit well otherwise. The ankles were baggy. Considering the work they did, the suits were a miracle. But they were still two inches thick everywhere, full of sensors and smart chips and wires and air tubes. Henry looked bulky and awkward.

  “It’ll do. You might be grateful for the help.”

  “I will not.” Henry hated using the adventure suits. “Damn parasites. People who won’t go into the world on their own want to ride our dangers. Let ’em make their own dangers.”

  It had been Paul’s idea.

  Kyle had been fetching something for Henry when he passed Paul in a hallway. The boy had looked up and said, “You’re using the Tourist-class suits, right? Let’s broadcast it! It’ll be like Real Space Dangers when they saved the crew of the Orpheus. You’ll be heroes!”

  Kyle remembered the river rafting show where Han Davidson had been sucked into a sinkhole. Endless views of dark, swirling water while Davidson drowned. Kyle mumbled something noncommittal and kept right on going to find the saw blade he was looking for.

  Paul interpreted that as assent, and arranged for network coverage before Kyle had a chance to talk to Henry. They would have taken the tourist equipment anyway. The suits had pockets and belts and straps to let the men take their fill of tools, and they had been designed for a thin atmosphere. They were flexible, versatile. The equipment was outdated compared to current adventure suits, and of course there were too many readouts and controls, but far better for this venture than the standard surface suits.

  Audience thirst for real adventure shows was high; live rescue of a lost maiden would be popular. Now that the networks knew about the rescue, and the suits, they threatened to refuse access to the communications gear if they didn’t get to broadcast. Henry wanted to take the suits anyway, and let the networks sue them. Kyle pointed out that he needed to publish to survive, and he needed the networks for that. Besides, money from the networks beat a lawsuit. Jason had the common sense to improve Paul’s original wide-open offer and bargain real money for Henry, Lark, and Kyle, as well as support pay for the other people living in Little Siberia.

  “When we get back, Paul gets assigned kitchen duty for three years,” Henry said.

  “He won’t be here for three years. His family is leaving on the next ship with us. So give up and focus.”

  After a final suit-check, Kyle and Henry stepped into the lock, towing nets of gear behind them. They sweated inside the slick suits. The outside temperature was -235c. It took twenty minutes for the base computers to decide the suits had adjusted enough to open the door. They were still sweating when they stepped out onto the sea of ice surrounding Little Siberia. To their right, solid and clear methane crystals the size of houses were half-covered with blown ices and snows. Paths to the left led to Creeper Fields.

  Henry followed Kyle a half-klick to where the Styx met Pluto.

  Vines overflowed from the sky to add layers of dying material to the methane and nitrogen ices that covered Pluto. Creepers dug in, and ran along the ground like frozen spaghetti. They piled up onto each other, dying together. Methane snow crystals danced in the air around the wide white leaves. Wherever the leaves or flowers made contact with the surface they turned brittle and broke as the men stepped on them. Here and there a vine twisted near the surface, not yet trapped and frozen, as if the Styx harbored snakes.

  The base team had guided some of the vines to supply the base. Water and oxygen were needed, and plant broth made good fertilizer for more palatable crops. Years ago they had turned most of the vines back onto the trellis, so that the jungle was growing back into itself, back toward Charon, thicker every year.

  Vines and stems fanned out across the trellis as they neared Pluto, and stray vines still piled up on the ice. Kyle wondered if the plants were seeking trace elements. Any such would be buried deep; these surface snows had rained out of the sky, over and over during Pluto’s 247.7-year cycles, plating over anything that resembled soil. The plants would have to dig deep.

  They walked and tested and checked, looking up to see how the vines tangled amongst each other. They selected a medium-thickness vine, wide as their thighs, and well anchored in the ice. It had no leaves for at least the first few hundred meters.

  They tested their siphons. There was pressure in the vines. Kyle and Henry could get liquid oxygen, water and plant broth into the suits using modified siphons Henry had jury-rigged from insulated pipes. It was slow. The siphons used tiny valves and bladders to deal with pressure differences. Liquid slipped through chambers to reach reservoirs in the suits.

  The Styx fed on solar wind, on water from Charon, and on itself. Oxygen and carbon dioxide swirled through the leaves. Parasite bacteria covered the leaves, turning oxygen to carbon dioxide. The creepers ate the CO2 and replenished the oxygen. Sunlight became sugar for broth.

  The suits moved all the time. What was doing that? All those tiny cameras, IR and UV and radar, zoom and fisheye, pressure sensors and medical readouts and who knew what. The sensation was unsettling.

  Jason and Paul lumbered across the ice in a small drive-all, and watched Henry and Kyle load supplies into a closed basket that would carry the supplies up, buoyed by a circle of remote-controlled probes. The probes weren’t designed to carry any weight at all. Twelve harnessed together could manage thirty kilograms and still maneuver. Every kilo over that was a trade-off in risk vs. material. The basket contained an extra suit with attached color-coded siphons for Lark, a long knife, a single shared habitat to sleep in, extra rope, and a med-kit. There was just enough rope that the basket massed just under thirty kilograms. To save power, the basket would follow them at the end of each day’s hike.

  “Suriyah’s right,” Jason said. “You’re both crazy. I love you for it. Get that girl home so we can celebrate her being sixteen.” He touched them both—the suited version of a hug, and said, “Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” both men answered in unison. Paul waved and made a “camera rolling” gesture. The adventure suits were broadcasting.

  Kyle responded to Paul’s cue, saying, “Welcome, audience. Jason and Paul just wished us luck. Luck would make a nice change.” He thought he sounded stupid and campy.

  Calvin Paulie was taking the first turn monitoring and splicing the feed from Christy Base on Charon. Watchers were tuning in from the near parts of the outer system, and an edited version was scheduled for consumption by sunward planets and moons and bases. “Good luck to our adventurers, Kyle and Henry,” Calvin rumbled, “as they take off to climb the mysterious and dangerous creepers of Pluto and rescue Kyle’s daughter, Lark.”

  Unexpectedly, it seemed
like private pain was being made too public. Kyle winced and stepped back. He gestured to Henry. The slower man would set the pace.

  Henry reached for a stem with both hands and tugged on it. As Henry put his weight on the creeper, it demonstrated elasticity, pooling at his boots. “So far, so good,” Henry mumbled, and took another handful of the thick stem. He pulled hand over hand until the creeper took his weight. Now he was actually a half-meter above Pluto’s surface. Finally, the creeper seemed willing to let the men climb.

  “Henry,” said Kyle, “remember not to grab the trellis itself, ever. It’s too strong. It might cut your suit.”

  “It’s also pretty close to invisible,” Henry puffed.

  A fifty foot insulated Kevlar rope separated the two climbers. Kyle waited. When Henry was near the end of the rope, Kyle grabbed a handful of stem and succeeded in pulling Henry halfway down. Calvin’s voiceover played in Kyle’s radio. “Looks like a rocky start,” he said, “Or a ropy one. We’re wishing you well.” Kyle ignored him, reaching for another boot hold. The vine only compressed a little under his hands; it was hard to grip. It—grew as he held it. The wrong direction. Down. The Styx grew almost a kilometer a day. Of course, Lark and Shooter would be moving the same direction. It was like trying to climb a cross between a down escalator and a living boa constrictor.

  Henry had modified the toes of their boots; they sprouted tiny steel barbs that helped keep their feet anchored to the stems. Liquids from inside the plant swelled out and froze to the surface whenever Kyle dug his toes in too hard.

  There was little gravity to fight, but balance and grip were challenges. It got easier, and in five minutes they’d actually gained thirty meters and found a rhythm.

  Lights from their helmets bobbed up and down in Pluto’s dusky midday.

  Half an hour passed. Calvin broke in twice with inane questions, and Kyle hissed at him, “Quit distracting us.”

  “I’ll need some good footage soon.”

  “Take all the footage you want. You can listen to us, and use our lights and cameras and take pictures of us. Just don’t talk to us yet. This is harder than it looks.”

  Kyle followed Henry’s boots. Pluto’s surface had just enough pull to establish a definite down, and not enough to make the climb hard. They could almost walk up the vines. Rather than a hand over hand pull, it was a scramble.

  They passed clumps of long leaves, each leaf longer than the men were tall, similar to plants found in the seas of Earth, but bigger. Much bigger. Climbing between them required care with the rope. Even though they were near the edge of the forest, leaves or loose stem-ends from neighboring branches periodically undulated past them. Everything moved and grew.

  From time to time Kyle missed a step and had to catch himself. That was when he knew how tired he was.

  Just past the third clump of leaves, Henry called back, “Okay, stop a bit.”

  Stopping meant sitting on the creeper stem with thighs clamped tight around it. They faced each other. Kyle’s view was towards Charon, and the Styx looked like a river from here—a great thin long silver line. It was almost a kilometer wide, but the perspective and length made it look much thinner—like thread going towards a thimble.

  Calvin said, “Nice view. How was the climb?”

  “A walk in the park.” Kyle didn’t want to say how hard it was. He watched Henry’s face in the clear helmet. He was frowning. “What’s wrong?”

  “We’re not moving fast enough. We’ve been going a half-hour, and we’re—what—a kilometer up?”

  Kyle looked around. The camera probe that had been following them bobbed in space to his left. Pluto was closer than he’d expected. He could see Jason and Paul standing at the foot of the beanstalk, looking up. They were small, but he could make out movement.

  “Actually, you’ve made about eight hundred meters,” Calvin replied before Kyle could respond at all. “With rests, that means you’ll take about an hour and a quarter to go a kilometer. Roughly eight days if you don’t sleep.”

  Henry snorted.

  “So we have to go twice as fast?” Kyle asked.

  “More. We lost two days getting ready. That means there’s eight left. If we calculated everything right. That’s not enough. We need time for surprises, for rest, and maybe some time when we get to the marble,” Henry said.

  “The forest is thicker down here, near Pluto. It thins out above the atmosphere.”

  “It won’t make that much difference.”

  “So how do we go faster?”

  “I’m thinking,” Henry said. “Meantime, let’s restock.” The stems were designed as conduits, with at least three veins running through each stem; one for water, one for air mix, and one for a form of liquid energy both humans and plants could consume, dubbed “plant broth.”

  Leaves always grew with one anchoring structure in the pure water vein, one in the plant food. The broth fed the stem itself, fueling super-fast growth. This was what they plunged their siphons into first. Kyle’s suit filled with a cloyingly sweet smell as the thin gel filled a pouch in his lower back. It took time; fifteen precious minutes. As he pulled out the siphon and stuck it back in, fishing for water, Kyle asked Henry how well he balanced.

  “As good as the next guy, I guess.”

  “It’s a way to get there faster.”

  “Huh?”

  “Walk. Lean back against a rope and walk vertical. We’ve both been using hands and feet. I bet there’s a walking pace that won’t need that for one of us—as long as there’s rope between. Let me lead. I’m stronger—I can go faster. I’ll hold on. You walk—use the toe stabs. Let go with your hands and walk.”

  Henry smiled at him. “Worth a try.”

  It worked better; not twice as fast. They kept going for an hour, Kyle leading, using his hands and feet, arms and legs, back and belly . . . he was feeling the strain everywhere. Henry walked behind. Once Henry came loose, falling outward and down, and Kyle had to clamp his legs around the thick stem, brace for the jolt, then reel him in. Henry just grunted and suggested Kyle get on with it. It was more bravado than Kyle expected from Henry. How much were the cameras affecting the older man?

  They stopped once, refilled their supplies, and kept going, Kyle on point again.

  They changed stems at a cross-point. The new one was thicker, easier to balance on. Even with periodic leaves to step over, the pull and step, pull and step, pull and step made a cadence in Kyle’s head. His lower back screamed misuse, and he needed distraction. He imagined words to the cadence— “Lark be safe . . . Lark be safe.” It was almost a mantra.

  A knot of leaves and tangled stems stopped them at the ten kilometer mark. Long streams of flowers spread out around the knot. If it weren’t an obstruction, it would have been beautiful. They’d have to climb over and somehow pick the right stem. Henry sat. “Hey kid, time for a break.”

  “We haven’t gone far enough,” Kyle said, easing onto a spot where leaf met stem, hooking a leg over a leaf. “Stopping is crazy.” At least Pluto finally looked further away. He stared down on the top of Little Siberia and picked out the observatory. “Let’s push until we make at least sixteen klicks. We need twenty-five klicks.”

  “Ever run a marathon? If you sprint the first five kilometers, you never make the end. Besides, it’s time for a word with our sponsors.”

  Henry wanted to talk to Calvin?

  “Calvin?”

  “Yes?”

  The camera probe had stopped too. “Calvin?” Henry repeated. “Can you pan the probe cam and give us directions? I want to end up somewhere near Lark.”

  Kyle eyed the knotted mess of growth. Styx looked like a close-knit weave of plant life, but there were gaps. The long strings of forest moved and twisted and intertwined, constantly knotting and shifting. Silver threads of carbon fiber trellis flickered in and out of view. Choices had looked simple from a distance. Here, tangles and obstacles were everywhere.

  Meanwhile, Calvin described a full incid
ent support team assembled—virtually—at the currently nearest Trans-Neptunian object, Kiley3, mere light-minutes away. He described doctors, climbing experts, psychologists, child psychologists, biologists . . .

  Henry interrupted. “So did you scrape everyone on Kiley3 into your support team?”

  “They’re getting paid. Thought you’d be grateful. They’re not all on Kiley3—”

  “I’m grateful,” Kyle said. They might be able to use the help.

  “Want to be introduced?” Calvin asked.

  Henry shook his head. “I’d rather have visuals of the best path out of here.”

  “Dr. Yi is working on it. In the meantime, Dr. Gerry thinks you should have at least a twenty minute rest. That’s time to meet everyone.”

  Kyle suddenly understood why Henry was being so irascible. A hot thread on anger mixed with his worry about Lark. He checked: they had enough water and broth to last a few hours. He withdrew his siphon from the stem, making sure Henry saw him. Henry winked, tucked his siphon carefully into a belt pouch.

  As a concession to their need for rest, Kyle let Henry lead.

  “But . . . but you haven’t met the team yet!”

  Henry spoke for them as he reached up into the knot, grabbing for a writhing stem. “It’s not your kid up there. Do not slow us down to entertain your viewers.”

  To his credit, Calvin shut up and produced Dr. Li, who guided them across the knotted region without a hitch. “So now you understand the relationship?” Henry asked.

  “We’ll help you any way we can. But you should meet the team.”

  A kilometer further on, they did stop for rest. Although he knew Lark was descending at the same rate, the sensation of slow movement as the vines below them grew and wriggled and twined toward Pluto was strange. Starting again, Kyle realized how much his shoulders and arms hurt. Hundreds of the same motions wore on muscles. They got to twenty klicks before exhaustion won. Half a kilometer higher, they found a good place to anchor their habitat. They stopped and called for it, waiting.