The Far Shore

by Glenn Damato

  Who did I just thank? No matter, it needed to be said.

  But I’m wasting time. Where’s Independence? The glistening white cone is far off on my right. Only the top half shows, the bottom obscured by a rise in the terrain. The helmet display confirms it’s Independence, distance 334 meters.

  Ryder is still on the ramp gloating over his victory. I snap, “You gonna stand there all day?” He steps out and the flimsy ramp springs upward as his weight is removed.

  Shuko reports, “Jürgen’s out of the airlock. Blair is examining him. They don’t know if it was a suit problem or what.”

  “We’re going over there anyway,” I tell him.

  The ground is powdery sand strewn with rocks, some round and some jagged. A few have strange shapes—one rock looks like a squirrel. Clean, somehow artificial, and new—a weird illusion! Ryder springs ahead of me, his strides long and slow. We’re doing a strange Mars-shuffle, almost running without trying.

  “Walking is easy!” I announce to the world. “It’s like a wind is pushing from behind. Just have to watch out for the rocks.”

  Eric asks, “How do you feel? I’m watching your suit data, but it doesn’t tell me everything. Pay attention to the cold. It can freeze extremities in minutes.”

  “Good and toasty over here,” Ryder reports.

  “Yeah, actually too warm,” I add. “Makes no sense. Minus twenty-six degrees. These thermal coverings aren’t very thick, so why aren’t we freezing?”

  “The atmosphere is less than one percent as dense as Earth air at sea level, so it doesn’t conduct away heat very well. It’s almost all carbon dioxide, a good insulator. Plus, the sun bakes you with infrared. Look on your arm panel. It should let you increase the flow of cooling air.”

  Ryder jerks his left arm and stops. It takes me two strides to catch up. The weight of the suit, backpack, and helmet create extra inertia—stopping requires a firm stomp with one foot.

  “Problem?”

  “Pinching a lot between fingers.” He jiggles his hands. “Comes and goes. Under the arms, too. How’s yours?”

  “Getting me in the left armpit.”

  I wouldn’t have noticed the suit-nipping if he hadn’t mentioned it. There’s too much to see, too much to think about. New information appears on my helmet display along with the temperature and life support indications: 0.04 mSv/hr.

  “Eric, what’s this m-s-v about?”

  “That’s your radiation dose rate in millisieverts per hour.”

  “Is that normal? Why did it pop up just now?”

  “Took a few minutes to determine the rate. And yes, it’s typical, given the current solar cycle. We all picked up eighty-six millisieverts during the flight. The rate in space was a bit more than twice what we’re getting here. A couple of weeks ago it hit point eighteen because of a small sun flare.”

  The terrain slopes downward toward Independence. It takes barely two minutes to get there. Fewer rocks here, darker with more gray. No ice under the engine nozzles.

  We approach the hatch. They should be on com. “Tess, anyone, we’re here!”

  No response. Ryder yanks the lever to extend the ramp.

  “Tess? Can you depressurize your airlock?”

  “Cristina, this is Doctor Blair Rizzo. The medical emergency is over at this point. We no longer need your assistance.”

  “Great! We’d like to come in all the same.” I glance at Ryder. “Tired of looking at the same ugly faces.”

  Long silence. Ryder shrugs. What else to say?

  “The airlock might be defective,” comes the response, this time from Tess.

  “Then we need to test it,” Ryder shoots back. “Cristina and I are the most experienced.”

  No time for la mierda today. I climb up to the hatch, open a round cover and grasp a recessed yellow T-handle. “Independence! Venting your airlock!”

  Twist to the right . . . no, wrong way. To the left . . . the handle turns and a slug of air blows against my arm. Shivering cold! The hatch is on the shaded side of the spacecraft. Deep chill, in less than a minute.

  Eric says, “The airlock should be talking to your helmet.”

  The visor display indicates airlock pressure dropping. Eleven kp already.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” growls Blair Rizzo.

  “If your inner vent was open, the interlock would prevent the outside handle from turning. So yes, I know what I’m doing.” That earns me a shoulder pat from Ryder.

  The cramped little box is exactly like Liberty’s, right down to the handwritten signatures and cryptic messages on the walls. But no sign of the Lord is my shepherd.

  “Independence, the outer hatch is shut and latched, ready to pressurize.”

  No answer. Ryder flicks the control panel. The actuators release and it feels good. That was what, fifteen minutes?

  We enter their equipment bay and pull off our helmets. What a smell! Urine, crap, body odor, definitely some vomit. New faces; they don’t want us here. Not now. Blair Rizzo accuses us of spreading ultra-fine particulate dust into their nice, clean spacecraft, especially perchlorates—which she fears are toxic. Yes, our legs and boots are covered in orange dust, but aren’t they over-reacting?

  “Why take the unnecessary risk?” Walt Sullivan growls.

  Is he just being stupid? I should tell him it’s an unnecessary risk to be on Mars. But no, I’m going to be polite. Amazingly, Ryder lets me do all the talking.

  Their control center is a mess of food stains and litter. Two girls—probably Laine and Kelis—lie back, eyes closed as if they could shut out the world.

  “Where’s Jürgen?”

  Walt blocks the third sleeper. Blair folds her arms. “Jürgen briefly lost consciousness due to temporary low blood pressure, an orthostatic hypotensive event, not life threatening, unlikely to recur, probably caused by a combination of stress and mild dehydration. He’s resting and taking fluid intravenously.”

  Ryder asks, “Did he drink the salty water?”

  “Are you a doctor?” Walt snorts. “Then it’s none of your concern.”

  I tell him, “If he’s awake, I need to speak to him.”

  Blair says, “I don’t see a pressing need to disturb him.”

  “If you want a pressing need, think about the six people on Endurance isolated from all assistance. Jürgen is captain. Does he have instructions? We need to talk this out.”

  Tess emerges from the sleeper. Her eyes dart between me and Ryder as if we’re ghosts. “Jürgen is resting. He’ll address us later today. There’s no reason for you to be here.”

  Ryder moves toward the sleeper. The quickness of it signals he won’t be stopped. Walt spreads his legs and thrusts his right arm to block the door.

  Ryder seizes Walt’s flight suit by the collar. The two of them lock eyes.

  I cry out, “Ryder!”

  Ryder shoves the arm aside. “Go!” Walt shouts. “See if I give two shits!”

  Jürgen lies in the bottom sleeper, under a blanket, bare arms exposed, eyes open. His face is smooth but gaunt. At first he doesn’t acknowledge us. How can this be the bold and inspirational speaker from the hospital?

  I bend down. “We need to figure something out with Endurance. There’s seven hours of daylight left. Jürgen, can you understand me? Have you given this any consideration?”

  His mouth twitches, his eyes search. “How am I supposed to know what to do?”

  What’s the matter with him? We’re here, alive and functional. Wasn’t that his driving passion? We have problems to be solved, and he retreats into some kind of mental shell?

  “You’re our elected leader,” I remind him. “But it’s obvious you don’t have an opinion one way or the other. That’s okay. You rest. I’ll deal with it.”

  ◆◆◆

  Eric links me to Endurance through the single-sideband radio, voice only.

  “Cristina! Where are you?” Unmistakably Senuri.

  “On Independence, me and Ryder both.
Is everybody all right, Senuri? I understand you hit the ground hard.”

  “Lucky to live through it. We spun. The motors went crazy. But everything’s running.”

  “Has anyone been outside?”

  “Not yet. No reason, right? Tomorrow maybe.”

  “Senuri, you’re eating dinner on Liberty tonight. My treat.”

  Tess snickers and whispers something to Walt.

  “You are joking? Do you know we’re seventeen kilometers away, on the other side of mountains? Maybe this is something to discuss tomorrow?”

  “You can walk it, Senuri. You can scoot along the ground like a breeze. Ryder and I will meet you halfway. I’m looking at the topo map. We got two hills separating us, both eight hundred meters high, but maybe we can go between them.”

  “We don’t like it out here with nothing but rocks, but is it safe to do what you suggest? Do you intend for us to use the truck? The truck will hold only two, correct?”

  Does she understand the trucks need methanol fuel—and we haven’t synthesized any methanol yet? “I don’t know about you, Senuri, but after six weeks sealed inside a box, I would love a nice walk and change of scenery. It’s magnificent out there. What you see from the window doesn’t do it justice.”

  “We should consider this carefully and not rush into a course of action. How would we find our way?”

  Good question. “Your helmet display shows the direction you’re facing. Like a compass—”

  “Not a magnetic compass,” Eric cuts in. “Mars doesn’t have a magnetic field. Your suit has a gyrocompass, and the heading is derived from solar azimuth. Accelerometers compute your location and can guide you to a waypoint. Developed for the moon, reprogrammed for Mars. Pretty reliable stuff. When your suits are powered up, I can upload the heading and waypoint.”

  “Senuri, consider the risk of staying isolated without assistance or backup if something goes wrong. There’s a reason we’re supposed to land in sight of each other. Redundancy!”

  No response. Are they talking it out?

  Tess asks, “Does this mean we have to cram two more people in here?”

  “Senuri,” calls Eric. “If you look southwest, to the right of the sun, you should see one round hill taller than the others. Really round, like a fútbol under a blanket. The topo shows the rest of us are about the same distance on the other side of that hill.”

  A pause. “I see it. We need to climb it?”

  “You can go around it,” I assure her. “Just a little climbing. Eric, can you tell us how fast Ryder and I walked over to Independence?”

  “Three hundred and thirty meters in one hundred seventeen seconds, counting the time you stopped. Just under three meters per second.”

  “That’s ten kilometers an hour. Senuri, your suits are good for six hours. You’ll be walking maybe an hour before you meet us at the half-way point.”

  Long silence. Are they stressed over making a dumb mistake with no way out? “Senuri, you’re scheduled for the first Discovery Team, correct? Think of this little walk as a warmup for your expedition with Jürgen.”

  That does the trick. “We decided in favor. But we’re going to bring extra oxygen canisters.”

  Eric announces, “Indra and Darien over here on Constitution are cycling out the airlock. They want to go along.”

  Walt mutters, “Mars free planet, shit.”

  A new kind of mockery? That’s fine. I smile at him.

  ◆◆◆

  Indra jogs laps around Constitution. “Walking here is fun! Eric, Fran, sure you don’t want to come?”

  “Next time,” Eric replies. “Don’t do anything too fun; get some experience first. Check the surface in front of you as you walk. The suits don’t care about broken bones. They just squeeze harder.”

  Ryder snickers. “You must like scaring people.”

  I’m thinking ahead. “Eric, the meeting point on the ridge is almost ten kilometers out. Does the com reach that far?”

  “That’s within VHF and data range, provided you’re in line-of-sight of our antenna, which is fourteen meters above ground. When you go over the crest you’ll probably lose the signal.”

  Eric pushes a heading of 040 and it pops up on my visor as a green triangle pointing in the direction to walk. “You’re gonna go straight for the first five kilometers,” he instructs us. “Then your indicator will turn fifteen degrees and take you to the meeting spot.”

  Darien points ahead. “See that round hill? From now on we call it Mount Fútbol.”

  “Eric, tell Shuko and Paige I want them to get experience on the surface and get samples of ice so we can analyze it.”

  From two kilometers out, the three spacecraft are like upside-down tea cups jutting out of the rugged landscape. The terrain rises gently and the resistance from the suit actuators draws extra energy. Breathing feels slightly harder. Is that shortening the six-hour oxygen supply?

  Minus nineteen degrees—and still too warm! My temp control is set to max cool. “Making good progress. Let’s rest for five minutes. I want to try something, an experiment.”

  The thermal garment sleeves are held in place over our gloves by an elastic insert. I tug it up to expose the silver-gray BioSuit around my left arm. “Refreshing! Wish I could do that to my whole body.”

  Ryder pulls both his sleeves up. Eric must be watching on the helmet cam because he warns, “Refrain from exposing your BioSuit. You can be frostbitten, and there’s no ozone barrier here. The solar ultraviolet will annihilate the material, including the actuators.”

  Ryder jerks the thermals back down. “Experiment over.”

  A delicate layer of mist twists between the hills, a river of vapor from a whimsical dream. The mountain range on the far horizon appears like a tabletop miniature only a few meters away. The sky is different from two hours ago, the butterscotch transformed to pinkish yellow with some indigo around the sun. Wispy blue clouds too—yes, blue clouds. So weird, a niños fantasy vid come alive.

  Another three kilometers and the terrain breaks up into gullies with steep edges several meters deep. “Walk along the top,” I advise everyone. Legs giving out, too. Pretty dumb to extrapolate a long hike from a two-minute trek—after being shut in with only spaceball for exercise. I call another rest stop.

  Darien scans the horizon. “Look at this place! We could be the only humans in the universe. Way out here, alone, hasn’t even been three hours since we got here.”

  Is he complaining, or is he happy about it?

  The spacecraft are white specks on a broad basin. Less than five kilometers, forty minutes! Not a great pace. I didn’t eat anything before leaving, another dumb mistake.

  Oxygen remaining: Four hours thirty-six minutes, maybe twenty minutes lower than it should be. The six hours must be a base figure, assuming moderate activity. So what’s the true duration? Is it extrapolating or going by pressure alone?

  Indra squats down. “I’m a little nauseous. Not too bad, just thought you should know.”

  We all have our share of misery. “I’m lightheaded myself, especially when I turn my head. Everyone sip water. Can you keep going, Indra? Would you rather wait here with Darien?”

  “I’m going with you.”

  Less than five hours before sunset. I can trust that figure, but what else do I know for certain? The suit is supposed to calculate heading, location, and direction of travel based on the sun’s position. Is it correct? Does it contain the same kind of errors that biased the GNP? If they can screw that up, what about the suit systems?

  Would have been smart to test everything.

  “Eric. Com check.”

  “Hear you, Cristina. Still have your vid and data feed.”

  Ask him about the oxygen figure and the navigation system? If we go behind a ridge and lose the signal, is it possible to return by backtracking? The terrain is similar in all directions. Would asking ignite anxieties in everyone else?

  Control fear and doubt, and they will do the same.

>   “Senuri’s group started thirty-five minutes ago,” Eric adds. “I can’t talk to them because the VHF links are line-of-sight.”

  I pull out the rosies and touch them against a gray rock as Ryder watches. “If my father could see this.”

  Ryder holds out his hand. “He’d understand why we came here, don’t you think?” The soft contact of entwined fingers, even though gloves, delivers a pulse of energy from nowhere. Whatever happens can be fixed—and would be fixed.

  “Something’s moving!”

  Darien’s arm is stretched out, his finger pointing toward the flat terrain behind us. “See it? What the hell is that?”

  Yes, a curvy tan string coming up from the ground, kilometers away, and moving, definitely moving to the left, dragging a cloud of dust at the bottom. It’s a really thin tornado.

  “Dust devil,” says Eric. “I see it on Cristina’s cam. It’s afternoon, so you might see more of them as the air warms up.”

  Indra asks, “What if it comes closer?”

  “Not a danger,” Eric responds. “I studied up. The atmosphere here is super thin. If it ran over you you’d hardly feel the breeze. It’ll be gone in a few minutes.”

  “Pretty to look at, though,” I tell them. Unnerving, really, but I don’t want them to worry or panic whenever this planet presents more freaky sights.

  The gullies end as we go higher and there are fewer rocks. Our pace slows to nine minutes per kilometer, a steady walk instead of a stride. As we approach the meeting point two voices fade in and out on the com. Suddenly Senuri’s words burst through clearly—minerals, and cool water. They’re talking about sipping water from their helmet tubes.

  I announce, “They’re within VHF range. Senuri! Andre!”

  Indra spots them, still a kilometer off. Are we over the ridge crest already? Behind us, the three spacecraft are no longer visible; only rocky horizon, looking up slope. We walked over the top without realizing it.

  “Eric, this is Cristina. We see them.”

  No response.

  “Cristina, we see you,” calls an unknown male voice. Who were the others on Endurance? Senuri is one of the few without a scientific, engineering, or medical background. Norberto is a physicist, Hannah a physician, a specialist in psychology. Andre? Drawing a blank.