Beyond Asimios: Book One

by Martin Fossum

  —I can’t see out of my left eye, he said.

  —It is unresponsive, Miranda said.

  —Dr. Berdinka just put a new VI implant in that eye, Graf said with a chuckle. But I can’t see a damned thing with it now.

  —Perhaps your visual interface has been damaged? Miranda said.

  —Perhaps, Graf said.

  —Your vision may also be permanently impaired, Miranda said.

  —That may be true, Graf said.

  —Or it may only be temporarily impaired, Miranda said.

  —Yes, it may only be temporarily impaired…

  Graf closed his eye and Miranda sat still and the sentry bot began to drift and find its path of figure eights and Graf could hear the purring of the bot’s hover-drive as it approached and receded…approached and receded. The soft noise was hypnotizing and it synchronized with the throbbing of the doctor’s head. To sleep might be the easiest thing to do, he thought. To sleep no more. To fade out…let the crawler’s battery power drain away and let that be the end of the story.

  —If you want to travel to Camp Heyerdahl, why not use the other crawler, the sentry bot’s reedy voice intoned.

  This got Graf’s attention.

  —What crawler? Graf said as he propped himself up on his elbow and aimed his gaze at the bot’s sensor eye. Weren’t they all melted down with the station?

  —That is not correct, the bot intoned. When I was conducting my area scans I found an abandoned crawler, identification number M72-895AS, on the southeast side of Cascade Ridge.

  —No shit?

  —Excuse me? the bot intoned.

  —Okay, Graf said as he rubbed his good eye with his thumb. If I remember correctly, I did order a team to leave a crawler behind. That was a few days before evacuation. Night project—faulty headlights, or something like that—and it didn’t seem to make sense to bring it in. I’ll be damned. That’s got to be about eight to ten clicks from here. Let me think…that’d be about a one-and-a-half hour hike.

  —Will you walk there? the bot intoned.

  —Why not? Graf shrugged.

  —You are taking a risk by walking, Miranda inserted.

  —Oh, you think so? Graf said, looking over at her with a loll of his head.

  —If you recall, Miranda continued, I had to cut the arm off your pressure skin to assess your injury. There are no reserve skins on this vehicle and there is a high possibility that if you attempt to reach the crawler on foot, you would suffer hypothermia and frostbite.

  Graf’s one eye was wide.

  —So, you would rather that I stay here, then? he barked. You think I should stick around here and wait for the power to go instead of making a run for that crawler? Is that what you’re saying?

  —I am stating that it would be dangerous for you to try to reach the crawler by foot, Miranda said.

  —So what? Graf shouted. I’m going to die anyway. I might as well die doing something.

  —You do not have to walk there, Dr. Graf, the ESCOM bot intoned as it moved in.

  —Explain, please, Graf said as he staved off the approaching bot with a wave of his good arm. This is getting very frustrating. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if having you two around is helping the situation.

  —I can retrieve the crawler, Miranda said.

  Graf looked at her. You can retrieve the crawler? he said.

  Miranda nodded. I can move very quickly over the terrain, she said. I can power it up and return here in approximately forty-three minutes, if that is what you wish.

  —Well, now, that’s what I like to hear, Graf shouted as he did his best to jump up from his cot. What are you waiting for? Go get that crawler and I’ll stop complaining.

  Graf swatted at the android with his hand and Miranda unlocked the hatch and left the ESCOM bot and the former station director alone.

  When the hatch was secured, Graf went over to the window that faced Cascade Ridge and he tried to get a look at Miranda, but the angle of the view was poor. He saw something—a ghost-like figure disappearing quickly toward the ridge—but that was it. Outside, a small gibbous moon cast a silver tint over the station grounds and the roads that crisscrossed Asimios’s rough surface, and Graf looked up at the stars that were winking in the titanium sky.

  When he was back on his cot Graf felt the throbbing in his head return and he felt an acute discomfort in his injured arm. He was hungry, but he didn’t dare touch another S-ration. He looked up at the sentry bot and the bot turned its opalescent disc-eye on him. I hope that little bastard doesn’t start asking me stupid questions, he thought to himself. Graf turned away and stared at the wall and the bot retreated and slipped back into tracing its figure eights.

  After a few minutes the bot floated over to Graf, who was projecting thoughts far beyond the crawler’s walls.

  —Pleasant evening, is it not, Dr. Graf? the bot said in a reedy honk.

  —Oh, please, Graf said. What do you want?

  —What do I want? the bot honked.

  —Go away.

  —I am sorry, the bot said as it turned away and searched out a new starting point for its figure eights.

  —And why the hell do you have to do that?

  —Do what, sir? the bot asked as it swung it eye toward the doctor.

  —Fly in that incessant pattern? Can’t you just hover in one place? Or can’t you park yourself on a shelf and turn yourself off? That might be good, for a change.

  The bot moved to the far corner of the crawler and turned its sensor eye away from Graf. It hovered there…quietly.

  Graf leaned back in his cot and closed his eyes. In the stillness, he reflected on the events that had happened since he had escaped the demolition of the station and he found it hard to believe that he was still here and still alive. He thought of Dr. Berdinka and he thought of Paul and he thought of his old friend Austin Halpern, and he grew angry and sad that there was so much loss and so much given up and thinking about these things created a new pain that started to displace the physical. It’s a marvelous predicament to exist, he thought, but if you make a decision to give up the important things in your life—to abandon the people you care about—then how much were you living in the first place? He was as good as dead, he mused, and the only thing keeping him alive was a thin thread that could break at any moment. How strange it was that he had rushed toward this decision? How easy it would have been to go back to Earth and live out his existence in comfortable decline.

  —Dr. Graf, the ESCOM bot honked. It was hovering in front of the doctor, its sensor eye wide and searching.

  —What? Graf cried.

  —Miranda has reached the crawler. She is returning to our position.

  —Well, hallelujah! Graf called out. Camp Heyerdahl, here we come!

  Graf’s enthusiasm was overdramatic, of course. He never imagined that the crawler would get them to the camp, but it had been his experience that optimism was always a better substitute for pessimism.

  —Well, pack your bags, beach ball, we’re going on vacation!

  Miranda plunged the crawler into the darkness of Asimios, consuming the unlit road at a hungry pace. Graf was uneasy at first—a crawler moving at fifty plus kilometers per hour without any headlights seemed reckless—but he grew to trust Miranda’s skill behind the wheel and to appreciate the wide-spectrum vision Paul had equipped her with. As he settled into his seat, Graf imagined himself soaring over a lunar landscape, free from the intrusion of artificial light or augmented vision. The experience of a moonlit passage over the planet was a rare gift, he thought; an extraordinary experience supplied by fascinating circumstances.

  It would take them roughly four hours to reach the fork in the “Great Asimios Freeway.” To go east, at that point, would be to travel to the giant fluorocarbon generator plants, one hundred and twenty-two colossal “cloud-giants” that were, until recently, churning out the greenhouse gasses to soup up the Asimios atmosphere. To head west would take one to the albedo reduction fields in
Death Valley where crushed obsidian and black sand had been sown over thousands of square kilometers to absorb solar radiation, essential to planetary warming and key to spurring bacteria, fungus and lichen growth, experiments in which Graf’s wife, Julie, had overseen. To the south of the fork, fifteen minutes down what could barely be considered a road, lay Camp Heyerdahl.

  As they hurtled through the shadow world, Graf felt a sense of liberation as the burnt-out hulk of the station receded behind them. There were no depressurization emergencies for Graf to worry about. There were no fights in the casino lounge to police. There were no station epidemics to suppress nor were there anxieties about when the next supply freighter would arrive and whether or not ESCOM would deliver on this or that promise. At this moment Graf had no responsibilities. There were no planning committees to attend, no maintenance reports to review. No one was looking to him for direction. He was free.

  —Would you like me to waken you when we arrive at the crossroad? Miranda asked.

  —I’m not asleep, Graf grumbled.

  —You will soon be, I predict.

  —I’m just relaxing.

  —You may lie down in the back of the crawler if you wish.

  —I don’t think so. This is too much fun. I’ve never seen Asimios like this. It’s quite, you know…beautiful. Graf looked over at Miranda and grimaced. She searched his expression and then turned back to the road.

  —Can I tell you a story? Graf asked after a moment.

  Miranda canted her head.

  —Well, he went on, Camp Heyerdahl was neglected for a number of years because it had essentially outlived its purpose. It was a recharging depot, initially, and a hostel for equipment crews heading to either the greenhouse stacks or the heat farms. Once those installations were completed the camp was boarded up and abandoned. When Julie and I got married, though, which was quite a few years back, we had a few members of the terraforming team (Arronson, Lopez, and Tead, I think it was) go there and give the camp a good cleaning. I told them to stock it with a bunch of nice things, you know, non-perishables and so forth: books, candles, anything you could get your hands on that charmed up the place. We spent our honeymoon there, Julie and I, and ever since, a number of people have used it as a kind of a secret retreat. A romantic getaway, if you will.

  —I see, Miranda said. This is where you wish to go?

  —Yes.

  She nodded and kept her eyes on the road. And they drove through the night, Miranda piloting the crawler while Graf, chin tucked tight to his chest, slept.

  It was early morning and still dark when they arrived at the crossroads. The moon had long since gone to bed. Miranda brought the crawler to a halt and Graf stirred and shook off his sleep. If there had been power to the streetlamps you could have seen the road signs marking the intersection: Asimios Station – 204 km; FC Generator Base – 343 km; New York – 503,000,004 km. As for now, the place was cheerless and bleak. A series of low-roofed warehouses stood off to the right. Some sort of fueling station—large bulbous gas tanks, ten of them standing side-by-side—stood across the road ahead of them. A short distance to the east, on either side of the freeway, was what appeared to be abandoned housing units. There were no lights, of course. Everything was cold and quiet and lifeless.

  A ghost town.

  —Excuse me, sir, Miranda said, did you see that?

  Graf was still for a moment. He shook his head and rubbed his eye. No, he said.

  Miranda paused.

  —I’m not sure what it was, sir, but I picked up a reading in the infrared coming from about 310 meters to our left, near those buildings. Let me run through that again. Yes, Miranda confirmed, there it is, only a very slight bump on the infrared on playback. It is hard to say what it was. I don’t see it now.

  Graf’s pulse increased.

  —What would you like to do? Miranda asked.

  —I don’t know, Graf said. What would you like to do? Is it still there?

  —No, sir, it is not.

  —Well, could you have made a mistake?

  —Unlikely. It could be some information artifact, however. It might be artifact in my infrared data.

  —Well, it could be that something made it out of the bio-dome, maybe rats or mice or something, but I can’t imagine they’d survive this long.

  —Should we investigate, sir?

  Graf thought for a moment.

  —No, he said with a wide eye. No, I don’t want to investigate anything right now, Miranda. Do you suggest we investigate?

  —It is up to you, sir.

  —Do you see anything now? Graf asked.

  Miranda shook her head.

  —Well then, it’s settled. Take a right and go west for about 50 to 75 meters, then turn south when I tell you to. There should be an opening in the shoulder and then an old road that snakes down past the refueling depot. Miranda nodded as she spun up the motors and turned the crawler west. They soon came to the hidden road and turned onto it and began the short trip south to Camp Heyerdahl. After a bumpy ride Miranda pulled the crawler in front of the building and cut the motors. It was still dark and Graf could only make out the rough outlines of the old shelter.

  —Would you like me to try to gain access, sir? Miranda asked.

  —I suppose that would be a good idea. There’s an entry right there, Graf said as he pointed to an airlock obscured in the darkness. It has an external lock. Break it.

  —Yes, sir, Miranda said as she left the crawler.

  Graf felt a blast of cold as the droid shut the door and dropped to the ground. He watched her move to the building where she paused briefly before finding a way in. Once inside, the airlock closed behind her, and an external floodlight illuminated the landing. Then a red light on the roof antenna came on and the oval windows around the building began to glow. Graf applied his breather and clambered out of the crawler, careful not to hurt his arm, the ESCOM bot close behind. A moment later they reached the door and entered.

  There was still a considerable chill inside the camp once the airlock was closed and Graf took a moment to decide what to do. Miranda had booted up the generator cells, but it would take time for them to catalyze. It would also be a while before temperature and O2 levels were stable. To Graf’s delight, however, the camp was intact. Nobody had ransacked it, as he thought might be the case. The kitchen area was tidy and there were books on the bookshelves and the beds were bare and clean. Graf pulled a sleeping bag and a pair of pillows from a closet and heaved them onto one of the empty mattresses, he then went to the latrine and closed the door. When he came out he found a water tube in the kitchen and he took a long drink. He didn’t bother to remove his pressure skin. He didn’t attempt to wash his face of the blood and grime from the crawler accident nor did he care to sit and share words of camaraderie with his fellow outcasts.

  He shook out the bag and fluffed the pillows and went to bed.

  —Goodnight, he said from his puffed womb.

  Goodnight, his fellow outcasts replied. Miranda found a chair and sat down, the ESCOM bot found an open space to hover and everyone spent the night in comfortable deep-cycle.

  —I’m not a pleasant person before my morning coffee, Graf muttered as he stumbled around the kitchen in search of his fix. Even if it’s ESCOM instant, he went on, the worst coffee known to mankind. Then again, he said with a chuckle, maybe I’m not such a pleasant person after my morning cup of joe, either?

  He found a stash of the powdered black stuff, flash-heated a water tube, and mixed them together. The atmosphere indicator on the wall had turned green, which indicated that Graf no longer needed his breather. It was also warm inside, too, almost too warm, in fact, and Graf had stripped himself down to his skivvies while he explored the supplies and ruminated on his next course of action. He did toy around with an on-site com device mounted on one of the desks…he tried to pick up a signal, but found nothing.

  By mid-morning Graf had bathed and found something to eat. He made good use of the dri
ed goods—instabread, speggs, desiccated soy-tation strips—and this time he was successful at keeping the meal in his stomach. Later he had Miranda rewrap the bandage on his head, this time allowing for the exposure of his left eye (which remained swollen and useless). He found an intact pressure skin in one of the closets and then applied a local anesthetic to his arm before stepping into the suit. When his suit was on, he affixed a new field splint to his arm and prepared to go outside.

  —What do you wish to do now? Miranda asked.

  —Well, Miranda, I want to take a look at the rift. I want to see Julie.

  —Your wife?

  —Yes. Would you mind driving?

  —Not at all. I would be delighted.

  It was a bright mid-afternoon as Miranda steered the crawler through shallow arroyos and loose shale and past wraithlike pillars and ventifacts. When they approached the edge of the rift the view was sudden and spectacular: an enormous gash through the silver Asimios topography, the result of a catastrophic glacial melt thousands of years ago. The drop from the rim to the rift floor was five kilometers at places, while the other side of the gorge—the ridge on the opposite side of the rift—was so far away that it was hidden behind a curtain of refraction. As they came to the cairn, Miranda slowed the crawler and when they were stopped Graf climbed out to inspect the memorial, but as he approached he was struck by what he saw.

  The cairn had been dismantled. The rocks that had formed the monument lay scattered about and the contents at the center were missing. Julie was gone—her remains removed—and Graf dropped to his knees in disbelief. Who would do this? he yelled mutely into his breather. How could anybody do this? he cried as he pounded the ground with this gloved fists.

  After a short time he stood and walked to the edge of the rift where he stared down into the silent emptiness. He threw up his arms in anguish and then let them drop to his side. He could jump off the rim right now, he thought. He could jump and be done with it. The reason he had stayed behind—the reason he left the company of his friends and remained on this planet—was to be near Julie. Without Julie, the plan had collapsed and he stood there at the edge of the rift encumbered by despair.