The Season of Passage Read online

  Love me, Lori. I am not evil.

  EIGHTEEN

  Mission Control was an orchestra of tension. Red lights were flashing, angry people were shouting, and the stink of perspiration was as thick as in a shower room after a Super Bowl. Just outside the main room, Terry paced nervously. Lauren was supposed to land on Mars for the second time in two minutes. But there was a problem. On account of the thick clouds wrapping Olympus Mons, Gary had overshot their destination, which just happened to be the only plateau around for two hundred miles. At present they were backtracking, consuming valuable fuel. Commander Brent was screaming at Gary to set down. But Gary couldn't find the right place.

  'I don't see the Russians,' Gary said. 'Where are those Russians? Where is that damn place?'

  [Horizontal vector - 80 miles per hour.]

  'Friend, how long to the Russian landers?' Commander Brent asked.

  [Sixty-one seconds, Bill. Fifty-nine seconds.]

  'We can't do it,' Commander Brent said. 'Come in on the far side of that wall, Major.'

  'No good,' Gary said. 'Too rough. We could topple. A minute more.'

  [Horizontal vector - 81 miles per hour.]

  'We must take the chance, Gary,' Commander Brent said. 'Go down!'

  Terry closed his eyes and tried to pray, but only ended up swearing at God to help them. Only four days ago a sandstorm of unexpected fury had arisen in the Utopia Planitia region and almost buried the expedition. Then the docking with the orbiting Gorbachev had followed, which had been even more nerve-wracking, what with the cloak of secrecy NASA had thrown over it. Despite promises to the contrary, the rendezvous had not been broadcast live. Terry knew from experience that the delayed transmission the public received had been doctored. The docking had gone just fine, according to the brave astronauts. Yet their voices and that included Gary and Jim, as well as Commander Brent - sounded awfully shaken after visiting the Gorbachev. Plus they couldn't hide the fact that Carl Bensk was dead. The word was that his ship had suffered an internal explosion and lost all its air. Sure, Terry thought. He had received a private taped message from Lauren after the rendezvous and she had been white as a ghost. She hadn't said a word about Carl or the Gorbachev, only asked about Jennifer. I wish I could hear her voice, Terry. Where is she?

  Jennifer did not answer the phone at his cabin. She was not at Daniel's. They said she was 'out.'

  'We are caught!' Gary cried from two hundred million miles away. 'The ground's caving in! Curse this bastard planet!'

  A black hand of despair squeezed down on Terry's heart, its folds tipped with sharp silver nails. He fell into a chair. The message was twenty minutes old. Lauren could be dead already.

  'Full power!' Commander Brent called. 'Blast us out of here!'

  'Wait!' Gary said. 'I've got to...' The radio went dead.

  'What happened?' Dean Ramsey, head of NASA, shouted. 'We've lost communications,' someone said.

  Like a pebble on a lake they skimmed on the Martian atmosphere, racing at three thousand miles an hour. In front loomed Olympus Mons, three times as high as Everest, its massive caldera barreling above the clouds, waiting to swallow them. It was evening. They had chosen that time because the clouds that wreathed Olympus Mons formed in the morning. But even this late in the day the clouds remained, blocking their vision. Mark had said they could sit in orbit a month and still face the clouds. They were taking a chance. They wanted to be done with their program and get the hell away from Mars. Carl had shot their morale. Even stoic Bill had seemed shocked after visiting the Gorbachev. Why had Carl committed suicide? After studying the log tapes, all Jim would say was that when a person gouged out his eyes, he was usually trying to go blind. Yes, Jim, but why?

  Outside the porthole on Lauren's right, it looked as if they were going to ram the tip of Olympus Mons. However, only moments later, their aerodynamic lift decreased as their speed was reduced by building friction. They began to fall again, into whirling clouds. The mountain vanished and the Hawk shook as trillions of ice crystals splintered against her hull. Gary opened their parachute and ejected their reinstalled heat shield. They fell and fell. Finally, the ground appeared.

  'Oh, no,' Gary moaned.

  'Altitude, Friend?' Bill asked. He looked at Gary.

  [6,052 feet, Bill.]

  'What's the matter?' Lauren asked. They could have been flying over the Himalayas, only the scale was grander, the color different. Mars was usually more orange than red. Yet, to her eyes, it was looking more red all the time. She'd washed Carl's blood off her pressure suit all by herself.

  'We have overshot ourselves,' Bill said.

  'The cloud decreased our vertical vector far more than we anticipated,' Gary said. 'We bounced too far.' He activated the Hawk's main engines and jettisoned the parachutes.

  [4,501 feet.]

  'What are you going to do?' Lauren asked.

  'Waste our fuel,' Bill said.

  Gary shrugged. 'We can't land here. We'll have to angle back to the Russian plateau.'

  'How far off are we?' Jim asked.

  'Eighty miles,' Gary growled, studying the terrain below.

  'Are we in danger, William?' Jessica asked.

  'Extreme,' her husband said flatly.

  Five minutes and many miles later, Gary said, 'I don't see the Russians. Where are those Russians? Where is that damn place?'

  [Horizontal vector - 80 miles per hour.]

  'Friend, how long to the Russian landers?' Bill asked.

  [Sixty-one seconds, Bill. Fifty-nine seconds.]

  'We can't do it,' Bill said. 'Come in on the far side of that wall, Major.'

  'No good,' Gary said. 'Too rough. We could topple. A minute more.'

  [Horizontal vector- 81 miles per hour.]

  'We must take the chance, Gary,' Bill insisted. 'Go down.'

  Their fuel gauges were sinking.

  'Where for Christ's sake?' Gary asked.

  'Aim for that ridge,' Bill said. 'If we do not land in twenty seconds we will be trapped here forever.'

  Gary shook his head. 'Too uneven.'

  [273 feet. 250 feet. 200 feet.]

  'What does that matter now?' Bill asked. 'Just do it, Gary!'

  [108 feet. 50 feet. 18 feet.]

  They settled toward the edge of a cliff. Down. Down.

  'To the right,' Bill barked.

  'You said the ridge!' Gary yelled.

  'To the right!' Bill said:

  'We are caught!' Gary screamed. 'The ground's caving in! Curse this bastard planet!'

  'Full power!' Bill shouted. 'Blast us out of here!'

  Wait!' Gary said. 'I've got to..:'

  Something exploded in the lower decks.

  'Go up!' Bill ordered.

  'I've got to straighten her!' Gary said.

  Love you, Jenny, Lauren thought. She closed her eyes. A second wrenching jolt kicked her through the seat. The Hawk was skidding on her landing pads, down an icy slope, her auxiliary thrusters barely keeping them from toppling. Apparently the moment they had contacted the surface, the ground had given way. Bill wanted to use their main engines to throw them back into space. But Gary was trying to straighten the Hawk first.

  Suddenly the crumbling ground slipped away, and they were falling like a huge boulder into a steep valley. Lauren's eyes popped open. Gary reacted instantly. He tilted the nose of the Hawk skyward and brought their main rockets to full power. Lauren was flattened back into her chair.

  [100 feet. 200 feet. 850 feet.]

  But rather than continuing their upward ascent, Gary eased up on the rockets, which allowed them to hover for a moment while he glanced out the window. For an instant, watching Gary's face, Lauren thought time could have been suspended. His expression contained so many emotions at one time: confusion, revulsion, desire. Then decision locked on his face, a certainty so sudden it could have been thrust upon him from the outside. Once again they started down. Snow whipped at their hot windows and vaporized into steam. A hard thud shook the floo
r of their craft, and then a soft sigh seemed to echo through the control room. They were down, and the ground was firm.

  [Touchdown.]

  'We are down, Mark,' Bill said.

  There was no response.

  'Mark? Mark?' Nothing. 'Damages, Friend?' Bill asked.

  [Generators A and C have failed, Bill. Communications are out. The basement is ruptured and open to the Martian environment. The laboratory is severely damaged. I am suffering minor power fluctuations.]

  'Is deck two still sealed?' Bill asked.

  [Yes, Bill.]

  'Is our loss of communications due to the failure of the two generators?'

  [Yes, Bill.]

  'Why don't you go to backup?'

  [I am unable to, Bill - possibly because of my own damage.]

  'They'll think we exploded,' Jim said.

  'I'm surprised we didn't,' Bill muttered.

  Gary's face flushed inside his helmet. He exploded. 'You're the one who wanted me to set down on that foam-rubber ridge! And if I'd fired the main engines when you said, we'd have joined our Russian friends. Sir!'

  Bill unfastened his belts and stood slowly, towering over Gary. 'You're right, Major,' he said casually.

  'What?' Gary said.

  'Your instincts chose the proper course.'

  'Huh?' Gary said.

  'Your hearing has not been damaged, Major.' Bill addressed them all. 'Our instruments show we have enough fuel remaining to attain a shallow orbit. But we have come here for a purpose, and thanks to Gary, we can still hope to achieve it. We will assess our damage and begin repairs. We can use the living area for an airlock until we have repressurized the basement. We are in no immediate danger. Questions? Lauren?'

  'How far are we from the Russian landers?'

  Bill stepped to the porthole and peered out at the snow-covered desolation. 'I saw one of them when we were coming down, but I don't see it now. How far would you say, Gary?'

  'About a mile. Due north. Hey, Bill, I'm sorry for screaming at you like that.'

  'I stopped listening to you long ago, Gary,' Bill said.

  'Bill,' Lauren said. 'If they think we've exploded, shouldn't we repair our communications immediately?' Terry would be pulling his hair out.

  'Each damage to the Hawk will be repaired in the order we see fit after an inspection,' Bill said. 'But our communications will naturally be at the top of the list.'

  'Say we're unable to fix our communications,' Lauren said. 'We'll still be able to dock with the Nova, won't we?'

  'Yes,' Bill said. 'It will be difficult, because Mark will now have to drop down and meet us halfway. But even without contact, it can be done. Friend will know where the Nova is at all times. Any other questions?'

  There were none. They unfastened their belts and stood

  and stretched in the cramped quarters, while twilight deepened outside the windows. Jim patted Lauren on the back.

  'We'll be all right,' he said. 'Mark won't go off without us.'

  Carl's eye winked at her. The memory would die slowly, she realized, the same way Carl had. She rubbed her own eyes, trying to shove it away. 'I just hope he doesn't cut his throat,' she said.

  NINETEEN

  There was good news and there was bad news. Lauren tried to focus on the positive side. Number one, Gary and Bill had been able to patch the tear in the Hawk's hull. Number two, communications had been restored with the Nova, and consequently with Earth. Lauren had sent a message to Terry complaining of the poor working conditions. Terry had responded with a tape saying that her biography was already exciting enough, and that no new material was necessary. He had looked worse than when she had left Earth. She hoped he hadn't started drinking again.

  The bad news. The puncture to the basement had sucked out a good portion of the available air inside the ship and had caused their one and only water tank to explode. Their filtration system, which allowed them to reuse their urine, had also been wiped out during the rough landing. They had only three one-gallon bottles of water, plus the small amount that was still lying in their pipes. Without water they couldn't steam-clean their suits when they came in from the outside. Without water they would be thirsty.

  The morning after their second landing on Mars, Lauren searched in what was left of the laboratory for an aspirin. She didn't find one. The majority of her medical supplies lay strewn at the bottom of a mile-deep crevasse that lay but

  fifty feet south of the Hawk's landing pads. Gary had cut it pretty close. Lauren had a headache, another one. She had worked hard the previous day, and then had slept poorly. In dreams Carl told her how beautiful she was. He assured her that he had a good eye for women. She had awoken with a wretched taste in her mouth.

  Lauren left the basement and climbed into the living area.

  'So it's definite,' Jim said as she came in. 'There's only one lander?'

  'Yes,' Bill said.

  'In the scopes,' Gary said, 'I can see a big hole where the other ship is supposed to be.'

  'Interesting,' Jim said. He exchanged a glance with Bill.

  'What is it?' Gary asked.

  'Nothing, Major,' Bill said. 'Let's concentrate on the remaining Russian ship. According to Lauren, within two days our thirst will become unbearable. We will use these two days wisely. We will take the jeep to the Karamazov now.'

  'Who's going?' Gary asked.

  'Jim, Lauren, and myself,' Bill said. "There will be no discussion. Gary, you will remain with Jessie and continue with the repairs. Understood?'

  Gary looked disgusted. 'Yes, sir.'

  'Friend,' Bill said. 'Open the garage and start the jeep.'

  [Yes, Bill.]

  Bill turned to Jim and Lauren. 'We will take two laser rifles with us,' he said.

  Given the rough terrain that surrounded them on all sides, the plateau where they had landed was a freak of nature. Covered with pinkish-white snow, its shape was roughly oval; two miles long and half that in width. They had been

  fortunate Gary was able to bring the Hawk down on the plateau. The nearby cliffs and peaks would have made the bravest of mountain climbers shudder. North, south, and west was no man's land. East stood Olympus Mons, its forty-mile-wide caldera invisible behind shifting ice clouds.

  The bulbous wheels of the jeep spun briefly in the snowflakes and then caught, as Bill steered them slowly forward. Their vocals were open, and they could hear one another speak.

  'It's flat here, and then it's so mountainous,' Jim mused. 'It was thoughtful of the Martians to provide us with such a nice landing strip.'

  The Karamazov waited in the distance, standing twice as tall as the Hawk; a cold stake pointed at a desolate sky. It looked intact.

  'What do you think of this place, Jim?' Lauren asked.

  He was a long time in answering. 'It reminds me of when I hiked in the Himalayas. Yet, it's different, so alien.' He paused. 'To tell you the truth, I hate this place.'

  His remark startled Lauren. 'I think we're all on edge after the last couple of days,' she said.

  'Perhaps,' Jim said.

  Soon the Karamazov filled their field of view. Bill parked the jeep in the shadow of the lander, and they climbed down onto the snow, huddling like insects at the base of the ship's landing pads.

  'I assume you have the key to this castle?' she said to Jim. He held up a small metal box with three dangling wires.

  'Gandalf couldn't have been better prepared,' he said.

  A many-ranged ladder scaled halfway up the side of the Karamazov. At the steps, Bill stopped them, saying, 'I will go first. The metal may have weakened in the cold. Once I am on the platform before the airlock, you will follow, Professor. Then you, Lauren, after Jim has joined me.' Bill

  turned his radio on. 'Major Wheeler?'

  'Gary here, sir. How might I help you this fine day?'

  Bill glanced up the ladder and then to the west, where the missing lander had once stood. 'Listen to me, Gary, and listen good,' he said seriously. 'We're in now, and
we will be keeping in contact. But if for any reason you do not hear from us in the next hour, begin preparations to lift off. If after two hours, you still haven't heard from us, you will wait for the next favorable opposition with the Nova and then leave. You will not under any circumstances come looking for us. Is that understood?'

  Jessica wailed in the background. Gary said with a trace of humor, 'You can't be serious.'

  'I am very serious,' Bill said.

  There was a lengthy pause. 'As you say, Colonel,' Gary replied.

  Bill broke the connection and said, 'Release the safety on your laser, Lauren.' He stepped onto the ladder.

  Fifteen minutes later the three of them were gathered on the square corrugated platform before the Karamazov's airlock. They were pretty high up; Lauren was glad she wasn't afraid of heights. There were too many other things to be afraid of on Mars. Jim attached his fancy electronic gear and labored with the door for several minutes.

  'Is the seal frozen?' Bill asked finally.

  Jim tried to scratch his head and then remembered his helmet. 'Possibly,' he said. 'I tripped the lock but nothing's happened.'

  'Maybe we should knock,' Lauren said.

  To her surprise Jim did so. To her greater surprise, the door slid open. 'Must have loosened it,' he said.

  Lauren gulped. 'I hope you're right.'

  They stepped into the airlock. The door automatically closed behind them. Lauren put a finger on the laser's

  trigger. Fog crept up their legs as the chamber filled with air. They decreased the reception of their vocals to keep their whispers from sounding like thunder. Presently, a second door slid open, all by itself, and they stepped into a dark circular hallway, lit faintly by colored dials. They turned their helmet lamps on. Jim studied a computer board on the wall to their right, and decided it was a life-support terminal. It was still working. The atmosphere was intact, but slightly below freezing. The cold was a bad sign, and the dark; that is, if they were hoping to find survivors. Jim couldn't locate a light switch.

  They passed through an open door into the center of the Karamazov, and found themselves in an elaborate laboratory. Numerous frozen blood slides lay on a counter beside an electron microscope. Lauren picked one up. It looked as if the Russian doctor had been busy, and that his work had been interrupted.