No Way

by S. J. Morden

  Seriously, Frank. Stop inventing problems. They’re here. They’re finally here.

  The shape of the descent vehicle resolved across the plain. He skirted a couple of old, eroded craters, and pulled up outside, looking up at the pale, slanting walls and reading the name “Hawthorn” on the outside. The MAV was called Dogwood. Someone in charge liked their plants, apparently.

  The MAV had a box tied to one of its legs, that lowered a ladder to the surface. This one did too. Perhaps that was what they were waiting for. No, they could do that for themselves, from the inside.

  Did they even know he was outside? Had he actually said anything, the whole time? Had he forgotten how to speak? He’d talked to the other XO astronaut a few weeks ago. He clearly remembered how, but he suddenly felt mute.

  He coughed. He drank some water. He cleared his throat.

  “Hello? Anyone listening?”

  “Good morning, Lance. We were all wondering where you’d got to. This is Pilot Commander Lucy Davison, and the rest of the team are just as eager to meet you as I am. I appreciate that this could be a little overwhelming for you, so we’ll do the personal introductions in stages. I’ll come down with Jim, and we’ll take it from there.”

  Another human voice. In his ear. In real time. Someone who didn’t actively want him dead.

  “Sure. OK.” Everything that he wanted to say, that he imagined himself saying, even just playing it cool, had gone. Goddammit, even Dee would have been more articulate. He was still strapped into his seat like an idiot. He punched the buckle, got it at the second attempt, and shrugged his way out of the harness.

  The ladder was dropping out of the ship, and the rungs clicking into place. The outer door was opening. There was someone standing there, in the airlock. Two people, one standing behind the other.

  Frank climbed unsteadily out of his seat, concentrating hard on his hand- and footholds, but almost slipping nevertheless, having to grip tight as he slewed across the lattice frame of the buggy and banging his back against a strut.

  Whereas they were climbing down, hand over hand, effortlessly, practiced, efficient.

  He lowered himself to the ground, and turned. The first astronaut paused before they took that last step backwards off the end of the ladder.

  Give them this moment. They won’t get another like it. They don’t need me shooting my mouth off.

  “Mom. Dad. This is for you.” She placed her foot down firmly, pressing her boot into the red dust of another planet. She held on to the ladder for a little while longer, then put her other foot down and slowly shuffled to her left.

  He remembered his first encounter with Martian gravity. It had screwed with him, coming straight from sleep, with his body remembering only its Earth-weight. He couldn’t walk without feeling like he was going to jump into space. And he’d never trained for it either. XO had deemed that, along with a whole stack of other things, unnecessary.

  The second astronaut didn’t hesitate. He let go and let himself fall, bending his knees for the minimal impact. “Boom,” he said. Then he bounced up, throwing his arms to turn himself around as if he were a gymnast or a figure skater—diver, that was it—and on the half-turn, planted down again.

  “Jim, cut it out.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The man extended his arm again, gesturing towards Frank. “Let’s go meet our host.”

  Pilot Commander Lucy Davison—“Davison” on her left breast, U.S. flag underneath—was pocket-sized and compact next to Jim—“Zamudio” on his—who was long-limbed and lupine.

  Was Frank expected to salute? Go through some sort of formal ceremony? Hand the base over using a set form of words? He didn’t know. He scarcely remembered his own name, let alone the fact that he was supposed to be using someone else’s.

  The distance between ship and buggy was barely anything, yet time seemed elastic, stretching out so that the closer they got to Frank, the further they had to go.

  Then it all snapped back, including everything that Luisa had told him about this part. It was OK. He knew what to do.

  The pilot held out her hand, brisk, business-like. “Lance. Thank you for coming to get us, and letting us share your home.”

  Frank looked down at his own gauntlet, empty and open. He moved it forward, and she grasped it. Not a dap. A firm, positive handshake. She wasn’t a con. She’d never known the inside of a jail cell. It felt… wrong.

  “Welcome to Mars,” he managed. He could already feel the blood draining from his head, and he knew he was going to faint for real this time. His stomach was cold and his face was hot. His vision tunneled until all he could see was the top of her faceplate, through which he could make out the junction of her beanie cap against her forehead. She was frowning.

  “Jim,” she said. “Catch him.”

  12

  From: Carolina Soledad

  To: Miguel Averado

  Date: Sun, Feb 7 2049 09:03:29 -0300

  Subject: Lava tube project

  Hello, Professor.

  I was making some measurements last night (couldn’t sleep—the rain was so loud!) when I came across this. I looked at previous images, and there’s definitely a change in albedo from one to the other at the point marked. I was wondering if you’d seen any evidence of active erosion in this area before that might indicate subsurface settling. Because this could easily be a recent partial collapse of the lava tube, and the brightness of the target due to the uneroded rock fall.

  Carolina

  [images appended HiRISE2 22 11 54 N 97 39 00 W 8/21/2048 and 22 40 05 N 97 41 25 W 12/16/2048, annotated]

  He couldn’t have been out for more than a few seconds, and once his head was lower than his heart recovery was almost instantaneous. Even so, he came to with four helmets looking down at him, not two.

  One of them, a man with the blackest skin he’d ever seen, was kneeling in the dust by his side. He applied gentle pressure to Frank’s breastplate and made sure he didn’t move.

  “Morning, Lance. How’re you feeling?”

  It took Frank a moment to realize the man was talking to him, that he was Lance Brack now, and not Franklin Kittridge. He could have told them then, he could have blurted it out and let the whole thing unwind from there, but he held his tongue and covered his actual confusion with an easily faked confusion.

  “Good. Good. Sorry. I didn’t mean to, you know.” The last time he’d fainted was when he discovered that his job on Mars was supposed to be done by robots. Before then? Even with all the ridiculous high-impact tests XO had inflicted on him, he’d never passed out. Thrown up, yes, but not passed out.

  “You just take your time, Lance. I’m the doctor, by the way. Fanuel. Everyone calls me Fan.”

  Frank glanced at the man’s label: Perea. The flag of… Cuba? That wasn’t right. Panama? Blue triangle, white star, three red stripes and two white. Puerto Rico.

  “I’m OK. You can let me up.”

  “I’m here to fuss over you. Maybe later we can meet up in the medical room, and I can check you over. A lot can happen in eight months, and that sleep process they used? Let’s just say I’m not a believer.”

  Frank’s body was a map—the very recent scars on his chest and on his arm—that anyone competent could read. And it was pretty obvious that NASA wouldn’t have sent someone less than brilliant to Mars.

  “I’d have to talk to XO about that first,” he said. Something that Luisa had told him to say. “My medical history is commercially sensitive.”

  “They’re never likely to find out, because of patient–doctor confidentiality, but OK. I’m not going to push.” Fan took his hand away and slipped it under the back of Frank’s helmet. “Let’s get you sitting up, and see how that goes. You been eating OK, sleeping? Noticed any changes in your health recently?”

  “I’d have—”

  “To talk to XO first. Sure. I get that. Reach up. Leland, take his left, Jim, the right please.”

  Frank f
ound his forearms gripped, whether he liked it or not, and was levered into an awkward semi-sitting position, where the lower edge of his hard carapace dug into the tops of his thighs. He blinked, and remembered these were people and they were holding him, touching him: even through layers of cloth, insulation and rubber, it felt strange, alien.

  “I’m good,” he said. “Let me up.”

  “You sure?” Fan must have spotted the flash of irritation cross Frank’s face, because he moved behind him and told Jim and Leland—Leland Fisher, United States—to lever him upright.

  Frank blinked the spots away and let the fans cool his skin. He wasn’t going to faint again, and he had no idea why he’d done so in the first place. Sudden relief, probably. He had been stupidly stressed over the last few weeks, and as he stood there, still held by the arms and propped up at the back, he discovered that his anxiety had pretty much gone. Instead of that knot of worry clawing at his guts, he felt calm. Cotton-wool calm.

  “I’m fine. You can let go now.”

  Both the men waited for confirmation from the doctor to do so, then backed off to give Frank some space. He didn’t know whether he should be embarrassed. Instead, he was just grateful.

  “You OK now, Lance?”

  Lance. Got to remember. Lance from now on.

  “Thanks. Good. Sure. Didn’t mean to do that.” Frank’s arms hung limply by his side, and he thought he should do something with them. He lifted them up and pointed vaguely at the crater walls. “So, this is Rahe. It’s not much to look at, but it is on another planet. I guess you’ve got plenty of things planned, so if you want to grab your stuff—you’ve got stuff, right?—I’ll take you up to MBO.”

  Frank counted heads, came to four, and remembered there should be six. The last two astronauts were climbing down the ladder, one waiting for the other before coming across to join them. He could probably take two, maybe three at a time.

  “There’s no rush, Lance,” said Lucy. Pilot Commander Lucy. Was he supposed to just call her Lucy? She didn’t seem the type who’d want to be called by her first name. Let alone have it shortened to Luce. Ma’am? He didn’t know. Yet attracting people’s attention over the headsets without saying their name first was hard, unless they were the only other person around. “Let them have a walk around, stretch their legs. We had an,” she paused, “interesting landing.”

  “What she means is, we almost missed the crater completely, came down hard, and landed on fumes.”

  Frank tried to identify the speaker, but wasn’t familiar enough with their tone and cadence to make a call. Not Fan. Leland or Jim.

  “What she means,” said Lucy, more pointedly, “is that despite some unusual atmospheric conditions and anomalous telemetry, the pilot was still able to eyeball the target and touch down safely within a couple of hundred yards of the projected landing site. I will be filing a full report in due course.”

  “Wait,” said Frank. “You flew that? And nearly crashed it?”

  “No,” she said. “The automatics were going to crash it. I took over and manually landed the ship, which I did perfectly. It’s why I’m on this mission, Lance.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “No offense taken. Armstrong landed on the Moon with less reserves than I had, so I don’t even get bragging rights. I’d trained for worse scenarios than the one that presented itself, and what we had was fixable. We’re down and safe, and I’m going to leave what went wrong to the engineers for now.”

  There was a brittle edge to her voice, that indicated she’d come within a whisker of coming down hot and had just about managed to hold it together. She was both furious and relieved, and because she was in charge, she wasn’t going to show either. He liked her for it.

  “I’m… glad you made it down.”

  “We all are,” said Leland. “Makes doing our jobs a whole lot easier.” He pushed his fist into Frank’s upper arm, close to where the bullet wound was, and Frank clenched his teeth against the unexpected twinge. “Lucy has ice-water where the rest of us have blood, and we’re all very grateful for that.”

  Leland looked up and around, taking in the view. The other astronauts were walking about, testing their bodies and suits against the gravity and the terrain. Bursts of chatter flitted in and out of Frank’s ears like birds—everything seemed interesting, the rocks, the clouds, the dust in between, the shape of the land, the way the sun shone through the atmosphere and threw halos and bands of light and dark in the sky.

  Only the pilot seemed content to just be. She could, of course, be reliving the last few minutes of flight when triumph and disaster were separated only by her skill and her reactions. But her face was impassive behind the layer of optical-grade plastic.

  “So, Lance,” said Leland, “you got any advice for us new bugs?”

  Again, the mental gears had to mesh before getting up to speed. “Don’t fuck up?”

  Leland laughed. It was an easy, unpracticed sound, that just rolled out of him. “Well, that’s a philosophy I can get behind.”

  “Here, everything’s trying to kill you. Everything. And if you fuck up, it will.”

  “You’ve done OK, Lance.”

  Frank had just about survived. But he couldn’t say that. He couldn’t say anything about it at all. His mistake—his only mistake—was trusting XO. He wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

  “That’s because I didn’t fuck up.”

  “That’ll be music to Fan’s ears. Safety first, last and always.”

  “I’m here to serve,” said Fan, “all and equally, according to their need. And to remind them, in the words of our friend here, not to fuck up.” He reached out and touched Frank’s suit, where the bullet had gone through. “So what happened here?”

  “I got a swipe with an unfinished ring section.” Frank felt he ought to embellish the story. “The robot’s sensor must have been on the fritz.” He felt he could pretty much blame anything on the robots, since they never existed and certainly weren’t around to examine now.

  “Must have been an interesting few moments. But you dealt with it?”

  Frank dipped into his waist pouch and held up a selection of patches. “You should be carrying these around with you, too. All the time.”

  “Just in case. We’ll see to that. Thanks, Lance.”

  He was getting the hang of it. Lance. Lance Brack. That was the name he answered to, even if it wasn’t painted on his suit.

  “OK, people,” said Lucy, “gather round. We’ve got a schedule, and Mission Control will be wondering what we’re doing. Introductions first. This is Lance Brack, XO’s representative at MBO. When we all get up to MBO, he can show us around and talk us through any changes to the routines and infrastructure we need to get up to speed on. Lance has been here, by himself, for eight straight months, and having all of us descend on him is going to be a difficult adjustment, so let the man be. If you’ve got questions that aren’t a priority, stow them for now. OK, Lance? We’ll keep out of your hair for as long as you need.”

  They were all now standing in a circle. Seven of them. It was almost like old times, back in training. And it was how it should have been, on Mars. All seven of them, standing and looking at the base they’d made, living and working side by side. Not Brack: he was never part of the team. But Frank’s colleagues were. Cons. Misfits. The awkward squad. His team.

  Goddammit, he wasn’t going to cry.

  “Fanuel’s already introduced himself. Jim is our rock hound. Isla will be doing all the plant experiments. Yun—Feng Yun—is an atmospheric scientist, and hopefully you’ve got all her kit. Leland is that thing that no one knows they need until they need it, the appropriately titled “human factors”, and I guess you know who I am. These people are my responsibility. Anything and everything that happens to them is my business, because when we go home, we’re all going home.

  “This afternoon will be orientation and safety drills. Tomorrow, and the next few sols, will be dedicated to unpacking our mi
ssion-specific equipment and testing. This has been a long road. For some of us, most of us, this is going to be the high point of our careers, of our whole lives. We’ve dedicated ourselves to get to this exact point, and we’ll never have these moments again, so every hour, every minute on Mars needs to count. Tonight, we get to party. Tomorrow, we start work. OK? Let’s get to it.”

  There was a chorus of assent—someone said “so say we all”, echoing back to a sci-fi show Frank faintly remembered from the reruns.

  “Leland, Isla,” said Lucy. “You’re first up. Lance, if you could escort them to MBO, then head back for the next batch.”

  “I’ve got two buggies. One of them could drive back with me, pick everyone up.”

  “We can do that. Leland, you good?”

  “I’m magnificent. Lance can show me the ropes.”

  “You need a trailer for hauling stuff? I’ve got two of those as well.”

  “We traveled light. Hand-luggage only.”

  “OK. You’ll have to hang on, and I’ll take it as slow as I can.”

  Frank led the two astronauts to the buggy, and already it seemed normal. He didn’t know how that could possibly be. There were six—count them, six—extra people here, and it was just normal. Maybe it’d sink in later, when they were all in his base, making noise, filling up the connecting ways, tramping dirt around and generally being there.

  And it wasn’t just for today. It was for the next year and beyond. He was going to have to make some big adjustments, and Lucy had been wise enough to start by telling her crew to back off when he needed the space. That was how someone earned his respect from the get-go.

  Frank climbed up the usual way, reaching for the lowest strut, pushing a foot against the wheel, and half walked, half clambered over the latticework until he could drop into his seat.

  “Hop on up,” he said, through the chatter. It was noisy, and he couldn’t mute it. Or rather, he could, but it wasn’t like he was trying to keep secrets, just the peace and quiet. Isla—Weber, American—just pulled herself up, hand over hand, without using her legs.