The breaker panels are arranged down the row on the left side of the room. Cardiff walks to the left, slowly, making her way down the rows toward the last row. After locating the array of breakers, she looks for the panel labeled “control center”. With the appropriate panel located, the door is opened to the panel, revealing the breakers that regulate the control center’s power. A single sharp piece of metal has been jammed into a small hole in the panel, this is the obvious problem. She reaches for her earpiece with her left hand and presses it.
Cardiff: Doctor Long. Can I see you in the utility control center?
Long: Be right there Captain.
Long appears at the doorway as Cardiff is looking at the breaker box. He looks to the right, over by the water filtration, and then to his left. He spots her several meters down the narrow walkway and begins to walk toward her. As he rounds the last aisle way, he notices what she is looking at. She notices him as he stands behind her. She moves to point at the metal shard. He simply nods his head at her.
Long: Looks like someone didn’t want the computer to be tracking their exit from the dome.
Cardiff: I wonder if the other two are on their way, on foot, to the ship.
Long: Well, if they left on foot, then we can track their footprints in the sand, right?
Cardiff: As long as the wind hasn’t blown them away. We’d better hurry.
Cardiff and Long rush back up the pathway to the airlock, putting their gear back on as they run. The rig sits outside, awaiting their quick return.
Chapter 25
Cardiff presses the console on the large rig, gaining access to the satellite imagery. The main screen above illuminates with a bird’s-eye view of the area around the dome. Long is getting ready to haul out some extra oxygen canisters.
Cardiff: We are still able to access the satellite overhead without needing the central computer, which happens to have been shutoff. Are you coming out with the oxygen?
Long: As long as you don’t try and do a specific search, there won’t be any durable record of the uplink, right?
Cardiff: Look at you. You might just be handy to have around after all.
Doctor Long grabs the last two full oxygen cylinders, which had been loaded into the atmospheric processing machine. Shouldering them, Long quickly hauls them through the airlock. He throws them on the back of the rig and climbs the ladder to ride alongside the captain. The humming of the rig once again drowns out the faint sound of wind blowing outside. Back into the sea of sand and rock, Long and Cardiff cruise, this time to recover what’s left of the rest of the team.
Long: I am starting to think that I bit off a little bit more than I could reasonably chew by accepting the challenge to come out. Before this trip, I had never ventured more than one thousand kilometers from home. I never did much traveling, and when I return I think that I might find a spot teaching somewhere and take a few less “exotic” trips.
Cardiff: You do have the exotic part right. This is about as exotic as they get. Maybe we will have to take some time to relax. Maybe we ought to go snorkeling in the soupy pond or something.
Long: Sounds good, as long as we can find something to do where we don’t have more than a 30% chance of dying. I have big plans for life and I am too young to die.
Cardiff: Doctor, take my word when I tell you that you are never too young to die. I have transported wounded and dead mercenaries; I have seen many young men die, too many. Most were younger than you.
Long: Well, we aren’t at war out here.
Cardiff: You don’t think so? We are at war with the elements out here. We may still have a problem with the computer too. Hey, isn’t that them over there?
Long: Yep, looks like them, unless you know of more people walking around the Martian plain aimlessly.
The rig rolls up alongside the walking pair; they soon become aware of the fact that they were being followed. Mendez and Ghent appear to be quite surprised; they jumped a little when they first became aware of the vehicle approaching them from behind. Apparently, they did not expect to see a rescue party.
Ghent holds his hand out for Mendez as he helps her to climb into the rig. He then climbs into the rig after she slides over into the adjacent seat. Long begins to turn the rig back around to head back to the dome, Mendez leans forward from her seat behind him and grabs his shoulder.
Mendez: No, we didn’t walk out here for nothing. Turn it back around; we are all heading to the Reconciliation.
Cardiff: We aren’t leaving yet. We do not have a large enough oxygen supply to make it back.
Mendez: Not to leave, to retrieve Lawrence.
Long: I hate to break it to you guys, but Lawrence is dead. Remember the flames and accompanying explosion that did him in. I don’t want to appear callused or heartless, but driving to the ship is not going to bring him back to us.
Ghent: Trust me; we need to get to that freighter. We shall see what we shall see when we get there.
Cardiff: Alright Doctor Long, get us to the freighter.
Long: Fine. I guess if everybody else has lost their mind, what is the good of one last sane man?
Cardiff: Don’t be so dramatic. That was Lawrence’s thing. So Mendez and Ghent, I figured you were running away; I saw what happened at the dome.
Mendez: What do you mean?
Ghent: Yes, please regale us.
Long: The power control was jacked with a shard of metal, shorting it out. It just looked like you were leaving in a hurry.
Mendez: Well, we didn’t do that. We left when we read the journal entries that Lawrence has been writing. I think that he has been in the Reconciliation.
Long: What makes you two believe that Lawrence is at the ship again?
Mendez: Well, we were reviewing journal entries, security feeds and reports to send them back to corporate. We found an entry from Lawrence that was time-stamped by the computer after we thought he had died.
After reading a few of the entries, we discovered that Lawrence has been spending his time at the shuttle because every time he is able to gain access to the dome he cannot find anyone.
Long: So, what you are saying right now is that he is wandering the Martian plain all by himself. If that weren’t enough he has been living in the ship. Did I get that right?
Mendez: Yes. Apparently, the night we came back without him, he wandered back to the dome and couldn’t get into the dome. He slept outside, and when morning came he took the solar rover and took it to the ship.
Long: The solar rover disappeared the first night, remember? I don’t know, this whole thing doesn’t add up. I don’t think he will be there. I think that maybe you have been deceived.
Mendez: Right. I think what we need to do is for everyone to just take a step back, right now. You are all acting a bit strange; yes, there is some weird stuff happening, but I don’t think that there is some master plan to keep us in line. Is the computer messed up? Maybe, like I said earlier, there is cosmic radiation in higher than normal levels around here.
Long: True enough. Hey, we should be able to see the freighter after we get over the top of this next hill. If the solar rig is there, then it doesn’t prove anything. It can be remotely controlled by the computer.
The rig rolls over the final hill before it will roll into the valley, which houses the Reconciliation. The sun gleams brightly off of the solar panels on the smaller rig; the missing solar rig sits adjacent to the larger ship.
Mendez: Doesn’t this thing go any faster? It seems like even the solar rover goes faster than this.
Cardiff: No. Remember the first day here it took hours to get to the dome. We have only been traveling for a fraction of that time. Besides, it is faster than walking. You also only consume a fraction of the oxygen this way.
The rig rolls slightly faster down the decline into the flat plain below. Several minutes of traversing the flat plain sees the rig approaching the freighter.
Cardiff: Pull up over there, right there next to the airlock.
Long: That is where I was heading; you are going to be driving on the way back, you know that.
The unsettled dust begins to rest again in the windless air as the rig stops several meters from the shuttle. Ghent and Mendez are the first two to jump out of the vehicle and run toward the ship. Cardiff walks over to them, she is quick to join the pair as they stand next to the airlock. Long steps out of the cabin of the rig slowly and stands on the top rung of the rig.
He watches the rest of the team eagerly access the airlock and disappear into the ship. Doctor Long then turns his attention to the solar rig outside the ship. Each step he takes brings him closer to the unresolved issue of what is really going on.
Now standing adjacent to the control seat, or the driver’s seat, he bends over to look at the shattered console. A single long sliver of metal has been pressed with great force into the glass panel, thousands of fractures run through the safety glass. A single frozen stream of blood runs down the sliver onto the broken glass panel.
Long retrieves his pliers from his folding knife tool, and a vial from his belt. A simple pull on the sliver sees it released from the glass and placed into the sample vial. Long looks up from his work on the console and looks back toward the freighter. No one is in sight; he quietly and quickly places the vial back in its place on his belt.
Cardiff appears from the airlock and beckons to Doctor Long to join them inside. Long reluctantly joins her in the airlock, and the outer door shuts behind him. A rush of air entering the airlock produces a vapor cloud inside it. A brief moment later, the inner door opens and Cardiff removes her helmet inside with a twist. The outside of Long’s helmet begins to fog up as the difference in temperature on each side of the glass is quite different in this pressurized and moist environment. Long follows suit and removes his helmet.
The frigid air inside the ship immediately captures his attention as his ears and nose begin to feel the pain of bitter cold upon them. Each exhaled breath from the team produces a rushing cloud of vapor. The rest of the team seems too preoccupied to notice the cold air.
Crates of supplies have been opened throughout the cargo area, and have been discarded randomly in different places within the hold of the ship. Wrappers and supplies lay everywhere, hoses and electrical lines lay about. The next thing that Doctor Long notices is that the door in the bulkhead, which leads to the cabin upfront, is sealed tightly shut.
With his helmet under his arm, pressed against his torso, Long ventures forward and reaches the sealed door. A simple press of his bare hand against the access control and it opens. Long cautiously enters the bright cabin, the vast windshield allows the sun’s light in; the light penetrates even the darkest corners of the cabin.
Most alarming to Long, is the fact that the cabin is in pristine order, it is immaculate and everything is exactly where it is supposed to be. Everything in its place, save one item: a single glass tablet lay on the control console on the copilot’s side.
As Long reaches for it, he notices an oddity that he also did not expect to see, the glass is broken, and the tablet is simply held together by the plastic coatings on the glass. The only legible item on the entire tablet was “Lawrence”, which is etched into the top left of the tablet. The crackling noise emitted by the tablet as it is picked up causes Long to set his helmet down, and hold the tablet with more vigilance, to hold it with both hands. Mendez walks up behind Long and places her hand on his shoulder as he looks down at the tablet in bewilderment.
Mendez: Lawrence’s?
Long: Um, it looks like it is. If he didn’t die, then where is he now?
Cardiff and Ghent join the others in the cabin and have heard the ensuing conversation.
Long: Captain.
Cardiff: Yes, what is it Long?
Long: The control panel on the solar rig was destroyed by a metal shard, similar to what we found disrupting the computer power back in the dome.
Cardiff: So… it couldn’t have been remotely moved. It would have had to be smashed after it arrived in that spot. So, who smashed it after driving it here, and who compromised the power to the computer back in the dome?
Mendez: I think that it is safe to assume that there is a possibility that Lawrence is alive. I don’t know why he would destroy the solar rig, or why he might take the computer system down, but he might just be alive.
Cardiff: I suppose it would be logical to return to the dome and use the satellite to monitor his movements for the past days. We need to get something to eat as well. The only problem with that is we will need to restore the computer to do it.
Ghent: I will second that. I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast this morning. It will be nice to get back to the dome anyway, this bitter cold is unpleasant, to say the very least.
Cardiff: Doctor Long, I need every empty canister of oxygen filled. I need them ready to go at a moment’s notice. I also need all of the relevant information and samples loaded into a crate to be hauled back in case we need to leave tomorrow.
Ghent: We can’t leave tomorrow. The solar eclipse and accompanying solar flare are both happening tomorrow. If we leave, then we will all die.
Cardiff: According to the solar calendar, there isn’t going to be an eclipse here anytime soon.
Ghent: There will be one tomorrow.
Long: I remember seeing another planet on the calendar at some point. I can’t put my finger on it, but I think it might be possible.
Ghent: You doubt me Captain?
Cardiff: Okay, what are we supposed to be doing tomorrow then?
Ghent: We are supposed to take the air we can haul and dive down into the depths of the pond. Within the pond we can be sheltered from the oncoming disaster. We can stay in the air-filled portion of the cavern I found.
Cardiff: Look. I am going to issue the order to stay away from the pond. We will certainly not be diving into the depths, for any reason. It is a trick.
Mendez: Okay, this is getting out of hand here. We are all reasonable. Let’s take a look and see if there is going to be a solar eclipse, if so then we should do as Doctor Ghent suggests. If not, then we won’t.
All in all, I would say that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get our stuff together. I almost can’t stand the fact that no one agrees with anyone else on what is actually happening here.
Long: Captain, is there a way to disable the computer uplink to the ship without ruining it?
Cardiff: We just need to disable the communications array, and we would be able to operate it without dome interference.
Mendez: Really? I just don’t think that you guys are being very rational here. I am willing to entertain theories on what is happening here, what I don’t like is the fact that we are taking drastic action without understanding what is really happening.
Long: Doctor Mendez, you are either with us, or you are against us. We are taking precautions, just in case. I think that we are being perfectly rational. I think that you are the one who isn’t behaving rationally… you ignore the obvious nature of the opponent that we are facing here.
Mendez: You know what? Okay, fine. Here is what I am willing to do. I will look at the facts with all and I will help to accomplish whatever we decide to do as a team, okay?
Cardiff: Long, accompany Ghent and Mendez to the rig and wait for me there. I am going to take precautionary measures.
With the tablet in hand, Long returns his helmet to its proper place on his shoulders and walks back to the airlock, along with the other two. Outside the moving winds begin to drive the sand and dust upward as it moves in waves.
Chapter 26
The darkness of the world outside the dome seems to swallow up the dim lighting given off by the exterior lights mounted on the buildings within the dome. After removing the metal shard from the power supply in the utility control center, the crew returns to the plaza.
The lights shining from within the hallway leading to the control room illuminate so brightly as to dull the scene outside the building.
Deeper Into the Void Page 22
