Diamond Moon

by B K Gallagher

  She had seen all she needed. “This is very new,” she told Hanson. “Probably the result of the recent quake. We better head back. Luis will let us know if it is growing. Step lightly, I think we’re on dangerous ground,” she told him.

  “Ya… I think you’re right,” Hanson repeated. “We better get out of here,” he said, looking into the fissure.

  Mara climbed the slope back to the rover. “We’ll ask the orbiter to look into the imagery database and monitor this. They have seismic instruments in the Hab if it gets worse. We’ll let the Zephyr know if there is any sign of danger.”

  “What do you mean if there is any sign of danger?” Hanson asked as he walked ahead. “That fissure is massive. If Johan saw this, he’d have already ordered a launch. Are you expecting me to keep this a secret now too? You realize I’m already sticking my neck out for you. For what? What do I get?”

  A disappointed look flashed over Mara’s face. “I don’t know what you get?” she said to him. “I have a mission to finish,” she answered. “So why haven’t you told them… about what we saw down there… About the diamonds?” she asked. “Are you expecting something for it?”

  Hanson stared at Mara with an insulted expression. “I expect the truth about the danger we are in,” he said. He turned away from her and loaded himself into the rover, retracting the claws that had anchored it to the ice. He waited for Mara, who took extra time on the uneven ice, watching her footing carefully.

  She put one foot onto the rover, grabbed the roll bar with her good hand, then put her full weight on the ice to push herself up. Instantly the ice gave way, sending her sliding towards the fissure, and her grip slipped from the rover.

  In the low gravity, sliding on the ice was a slow process. It was like a terrible dream. Unable to stop or grip the hard, frozen surface with her gloves, Mara could only fumble upon the surface. She could discern her fate well before she was forced to experience it; she was on her way over the edge. The slide toward the fissure felt like an eternity compressed into mere seconds as she descended the slope.

  She grasped for anything on the ice she could. The slightest crack or crevice could provide her the tiniest advantage against the relentless force dragging her downward. But her momentum was gaining. She turned on her belly to grab at the ice, and she kicked her feet into the slope. Her fingers were like knobby claws within her gloves, searching the ice for any leverage at all, but nothing was working.

  Hanson leaped to his feet and followed her, barely able to keep up. He ran behind her but watched helplessly as she slid further away. He saw Mara finally get some traction. Her boot had dug into the ice and the frost. It was slowing her, but only slightly.

  Mara had managed to find a weak spot in the ice and had created just enough friction to ease her momentum. Slowly, she was winning against the force of gravity that was pulling against her.

  Hanson watched as she clawed the ice and looked back up at him, slowing to a stop. Just as her legs dangled off the edge, she found her hold and stayed there. Her arms were clinging tightly to the ice in front of her, her weight balanced on her elbows, holding herself above the expanse on just her forearms. Her feet dangled below her, kicking into the edge of the crevasse.

  “Help!” she called, desperately yelling. Hanson could hear her screams reverberating through his helmet. The silence in the vacuum enhanced the sense of panic in her voice.

  Mara continued screaming as Hanson assessed the situation, trying to think quickly. He had followed her down the embankment, trying to catch her, but he would need some tools. He turned and hurried back to the rover.

  “Come back!” Mara yelled. “Hanson! You asshole!” she screamed,

  certain that he was abandoning her.

  Mara watched as he rounded the rover and rooted inside the cab of the vehicle to find the tool kit. He grabbed a line of rope and hooked it to the wench at the front of the rover. He flipped the claws of the rover once more into the ice to keep it in place. Then he proceeded toward Mara, rope in hand.

  Hanson threw the rope down the hill and watched as it slid painfully slow in the low gravity, like a delirious snake. It drifted down the slope near her.

  The loose end of the rope had run past her and fallen off the ledge. It was dangling near enough to Mara that she was tempted to reach for it. Her instincts told her not to. She was barely holding onto the ice. Every force she could muster in her body was geared at maintaining the equilibrium that was holding her to the edge. To loosen her grip at all would send her plummeting into the depths. She knew she was unable to remove even a finger from the ledge without falling.

  Hanson had to be fast. He grabbed the rope and used it to steady himself. Like the experienced climber he was from his years of mining, he lowered his mass downward and made his way toward Mara, who was still screaming at him.

  “Hurry,” she said. “I’m slipping.”

  Over and over she yelled through the experience. Hanson managed to work despite her panicked distractions. Hand over hand, he descended the slope.

  “Stay still if you can, the ice might not be stable.” Hanson’s training had kicked in. He was working his way down as quickly as he could. He wasn’t sure it would be quick enough.

  “I can’t let go to grab the rope!” Mara shouted.

  “I know. Hold on. Dig the claws of your boots into the ice if you can.”

  Mara searched for the side of the cliff with her feet but had a hard time finding it. Even the motion of her legs shifted her weight enough to make her uncomfortable. She was close to losing her grip, and the unnecessary movement wasn’t helping.

  “I can’t find the edge. Hurry.”

  “Mara, listen! If you fall, push yourself toward the rope before you go. You can grab onto it on the way down. Grab it, even if you are falling. I’ll pull you up. You’re going to be fine, just don’t panic.” Hanson felt he needed to be extra careful with her, and he worried she would start losing her composure as he had witnessed before.

  Mara’s fingers gouged into the ice inside her gloves. The pads of her fingers were turning sore, and pressure from the forces began to build pain in her joints. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could continue.

  Hanson finally neared her. “Ok, can you grab my hand?” he asked before he was quite close enough.

  “I can’t let go. If I do, I’m going to drop.”

  Hanson kept the rope tight to his body. He hadn’t had time to secure it to himself. If he slipped, or if he fell, he’d be grasping for the rope on the way down just as he had instructed Mara.

  He neared her and turned his body against the gravity. He faced up the slope where he had come and lowered himself to his knees. He worked his way the last bit to Mara this way, placing his knees right at the edge, especially aware of how dangerous it was.

  A small chunk of ice slipped from beneath his knees and demonstrated how long the fall would be. He stopped watching it after only a few meters.

  He steadied himself and grabbed Mara’s suit. The added force of his hand on her gave her just enough leverage to allow her to lift her hand and reach for his suit as well.

  Grasping each other, Hanson began to pull her onto the ledge. He put his weight onto one of his knees and pulled with all his strength to lift her out of the fissure.

  His mistake was immediately known. The weight of two full bodies on the edge forced it to give way underneath him. A large chunk of ice broke off underneath Hanson and tumbled end over end the impossible distance below. Hanson grasped the rope, dangling over the chunk of ice as it tumbled beneath them, and he chose not to watch as it disappeared into the blackness.

  “Jack!” Mara shouted as he fell to her side and came into position beside her. She had lost her grip and fallen, but Hanson still had his hand on her suit. He held her over the abyss with his one free hand. They were both dangling over the ledge of the chasm now.

/>   Hanson had maintained his grip on the rope with one arm, and he held Mara with the other, preventing them both from falling over the edge.

  “Hold on to me!” he told her. “Grab me around the waist,” he called to her.

  Mara bravely stopped reaching for the rope and grasped Hanson as hard as she could, right at the waist, holding herself over the fissure.

  Hanson collected himself, and with both hands on the rope he began to pull them both up. One hand over the next, his strength alone was enough to get them over the ledge in the low gravity. The rope stretched tightly on the crevice edge, and He was forced to work his hands underneath it as they attempted to make it over. He pulled himself half-way up and then had to consider the difficulty of how to get Mara over with him.

  Hanson rolled part of the way onto the ledge with Mara still clinging to him. The bulk of his weight was now on solid ground. He had plenty of strength to hold himself in place but getting Mara over was going to be difficult. He was going to have to let go of the rope to pull her up. He scratched that idea immediately from his mind.

  “Can you climb over me and onto the ledge?” he asked her. “I can’t let go of the rope,” he said. “You’ll have to do the climbing.”

  “I think I can,” Mara responded.

  “Don’t let go of the rope,” she told him.

  Mara began crawling up onto and over Hanson’s body, using his suit to grip on to as she climbed out of danger. She grabbed his suit in various places all over his body, digging her elbows and knees into places she would have rather not. She pulled herself over Hanson and then turned to him as she stood on the surface. She immediately bent over and helped him up.

  Hanson was on top of the edge with her, and they both fell to their backsides, facing the cliff, and they caught their breath. Without provocation they burst into laughter at the situation, relieved to be alive. They were alive, but not out of danger.

  “We need to get away from here,” Mara told him. “This ice is cracked all around here.”

  Mara got up and very carefully walked the distance back to the rover, and Hanson deliberately stayed downslope from her, following Mara to help catch her if she slipped.

  He untied the rope that had saved them, removing it from the rover, and he placed it back in the carrier. Then he pulled the claws from the rover back up out of the ice. He was still breathing heavily. His breath was the only sound he could hear, and it encompassed his helmet. He helped himself into the driver’s seat and started driving the rover toward the Hab with Mara beside him.

  Hanson started laughing, and Mara looked strangely at him as they had begun moving along the surface.

  “I don’t think anybody but Johan has used my first name since my Mom,” he told her.

  She suddenly began to laugh with him, and the stress and tension of the event was flowing from their bodies.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’ll just say it was the intensity of the moment,”

  she continued. “Sorry.”

  “That’s alright,” he said, amused at her. “You must have looked at my bio though, huh?” he asked, taking a glance at her.

  “We were told to know a little about each of you, that’s all,” Mara told him.

  Hanson wasn’t buying that explanation. He was flattered that she had looked at his file, and he chose not to make an issue out of it. He smiled and kept quiet.

  Then a message came over their headsets. “Mara and Hanson, come in, this is Dr. Aman. Come in Mara,” he said.

  “Mara here. Dr. Aman, what is it?” she asked.

  “Mara, I have got some more bad news. I am afraid it is urgent. How close to the Hab are you?”

  “We’re a couple hours out. We just left the fissure. It’s large, very dangerous.”

  “Listen, Mara,” Dr. Aman cut in, uninterested in the fissure. “Luis is reporting a massive radiation spike.”

  “What?” Mara asked. “You said radiation was moderate.”

  “That is what it was a few hours ago. We are reading very high at present. It must be an undetected solar flare. You need to get back here in ten minutes or find some way to protect yourself.”

  “Protect ourselves? Are you sure your readings are right?”

  “Luis is reading them from the Copernicus orbiter. They are far, far into the danger zone. You need to get indoors soon or find shelter.”

  “There is no shelter out here. We’re in the middle of nowhere, and we just nearly died too, by the way. Now you are telling us there is a radiation storm? I warned you about this!”

  “Mara, if you cannot get back to the Hab then get under Your vehicle, or under the ice. You need to minimize your exposure,” he said. “I will be here to help if I can. Find a way to get off the surface by any means.”

  “We just worked very hard to get back onto the surface,” Mara said.

  “What do you mean?” Dr. Aman asked.

  “Nothing,” Mara told him. “Copy that,” she said. She turned to Hanson.

  “Did you get that?”

  “Sounds bad. What do you think we should do?”

  “How fast can you drive this thing?”

  “You saw how long it took us to get here. I was going as fast as I could and it still took well over two hours,” Hanson said.

  “I thought you were going slow on purpose.”

  “It only felt that way,” Hanson said with a dull voice.

  “Ok, we need to get under the ice. We’re going to have to ride out this storm out here,” she told him.

  “Wonderful. How do we do that?”

  “We need to get something between us and the radiation. Maybe we can dig a tunnel? Create the same conditions at the drill chamber?”

  “The drill chamber is radiation-shielded. We don’t quite have that luxury out here,” Hanson said.

  “We do. If we can get enough material between us and the surface, we’ll be safe. Let’s see if we can dig through the ice,” Mara asked him.

  “Dig? You’re talking to the right guy,” Hanson said. He stopped the vehicle near a large outcropping. It was a large chunk of ice that appeared to have been tossed sideways in the recent quake. It lay resting upon the icy plain, and the exposed layers of ice and strata had been tilted onto their sides. It presented itself unwittingly as a potential shelter.

  Hanson left the vehicle and walked several meters to the outcropping. It was a jagged hunk of ice the size of a house. The ice showed tell-tale signs of freshness. There were clean fracture points and a lack of build-up around the base. It was from the recent quake. Hanson walked all the way around to study its size.

  “What do you say we use this as a shelter?” he asked.

  “You mean get inside of it?”

  “Yes. We can hollow it out.”

  “That would take a lot of time,” Mara said.

  “I said I know how to dig.” Hanson walked to the rover. He grabbed a common drill tool from the kit that the miners would use on the asteroids.

  “Watch this.” Hanson started the machine and began cutting into the face of the ice. Chunks flew away from the mass as the drill carved deep into the core. Hanson would kick away the ice as it fell at his feet. Soon there were piles and piles of it laying around him. Mara helped remove the ice as she watched him work.

  He was very skilled, a product of a life of hard physical work. In a matter of minutes Hanson was standing before a large cave he had carved into the ice boulder.

  “I hope that is safe,” he said to her. “I don’t think we have time to do an evaluation. We should get in.”

  “I think it’s okay. We only need a couple of feet between us and the outside. The radiation shouldn’t penetrate more than that,” Mara said.

  She took him up on his invitation and crawled into the opening he had made. There was not a lot of room, but it would have to do. She was cra
mped inside but figured it would only be for a few hours. She peered out of the opening to watch Hanson.

  He walked to the rover and placed the drill machine back into the tool kit. He grabbed another tool that looked like a rake or hoe, then several extra canisters of air. Mara was glad he had thought to do that. He carried all of them to the opening of their shelter while she waited, watching.

  They had used up two hours of air, but there was enough for an entire mission sol if they needed it in storage on the vehicle. When Hanson returned, he tossed the canisters into the opening for Mara, and then he backed into the space he had created.

  Once inside he used his tool to pull the leftover ice and snow up to the door, creating as much of a barrier between them and the exterior as possible. In a matter of minutes, Hanson had secured a shelter for them to ride out the radiation storm.

  “Let’s hope that does it,” he told her as he settled into the space, only inches to spare between them. “We’ll be more likely to freeze to death now than have trouble from radiation,” he told her, laughing lightly.

  “We shouldn’t have to be here long,” Mara told him. “I’m glad you thought of the extra oxygen containers.”

  Hanson raised his brow at her, surprised to have a compliment.

  “You still have radio contact with the Hab?” he asked.

  “I should. They’ll let us know when it is safe to go back out.”

  “Good. I guess we have some time to kill. Maybe we can drill a hole so you can do some ice-fishing, and I’ll look for my next big score,” he said jokingly.

  Mara rolled her eyes.

  “I’m kidding…” Hanson replied. “I’m asking about the radio because you didn’t say much about the fissure. We need to tell them what we saw. The miners deserve to know if they are in danger.”

  “I’m not sure I want to report that to them until we know more.”

  “What more is there to know? That fissure is growing, and it is headed right toward our rig… toward your Hab. Tell the Hab what we saw and make sure they tell Johan,” Hanson insisted.