sway of helmet.
“No walking on the talus. Only crawling. Take care of your suit. This free end with a hook – clasp it to her belt if you can reach her. Normal signal is unlikely down there. Signal to me in jerks. Did you have the hollow practice? Remember the signals? Go!”
Toivo sat down and dug his heels into the ground, watching the silvery spacesuited figure get down clumsily to its fours. It’s me who ought to go, he thought. But who’s to pull us up then? No, not this one. Through the interference and crackles, he barely could make out Loktev’s monotonous calls.
The dust from the chasm already rose to the sky with the vapor, flashing and sparkling brightly. Toivo estimated that this shiny column would be visible from the base in several hours when the cable started jerking. He strained, pulling up the heavy thing on the other end.
“Alive!” Loktev informed, panting. “Can’t move. It pressed her down. The edges are crumbling all the time. All that dust – can’t see a damn. I only got her signal by chance. She’s crying down there.”
“Deep?”
Loktev gave a hopeless wave of hand. Toivo waited for him to recover breath, then helped him up. All was clear, and this clarity came upon him with such anguish he wanted to howl at the moon, which this planet did not have. “How fresh are your regeneration capsules?”
“We opened them before coming out.” Loktev alerted. “Why asking?”
With our load, Toivo estimated, we’ll have enough breathing mix till midnight. Twenty miles to the base. On foot, on broken ground, and no reference points… He squatted to examine the tow joining the platforms. We can’t unclasp the stretched tow. I’ll burn it with a couple of shots, but what then? It’ll collapse down, right on…
“Ever drove a platform?”
“Yes,” Loktev replied warily.
If I figure out how to keep the platform from falling, I can send him for help. He’ll get there in a couple of hours. No, in three, Toivo corrected himself composedly. If he can make it without navigation. As much time to come back. Six hours! And two more to reach the base where we can remove our spacesuits. Eight in total! And we only have breathing gas for five.
“No!” Loktev got it at last. “No. No. Do you mean it?”
“That’s all we have.” Toivo pointed at the thin safety cable. “Any ideas?”
“That’s impossible! Absolutely inconceivable!” Loktev shouted. He clasped his hands indignantly. “Can we leave her like that? No. I got it. That’s because of her words? Of what she told you? So mean. You hear – that’s mean! If not for that thing on your back…”
In a subtle move, Toivo shifted the freezer under his arm, switching the radiator on. The muzzle shimmered with faint violet light. The rainbow circle of ionization flashed around the tube, wavered, filled with light and shot a dazzling tor. For an outsider, it must have looked very spectacular. Just what one needs to extinguish a starting hysterics.
“We have simple rules here. Cruel, one may say.” He pointed the freezer at Loktev who backed, lifting his hands. “Go!” Toivo waved the gun towards the chasm.
“Why?” Loktev was genuinely scared.
“Jump down. Drag her aside. Find a shelter down there. I’ll shoot off the tow and drive for help. No chance otherwise.”
Loktev shuddered all over. “Maybe not? Maybe… Let’s make a deal. We are both humans, after all.” Reviving, he took a step ahead. “Hey, why not make a deal. We’re on one side. Two lives instead of one – that’s damn unreasonable! Uneconomic!” He almost shouted. “I can’t. You hear, I can’t. My family on Earth… I can’t leave them…” He gushed and finished in a very low voice, “…without money.”
Toivo froze. “Try to be understanding.” The hot whisper filled the space within his helmet. “Of course you can take her share and ration.”
Loathsome, a thought came synchronously with the lightning from his gun. The impulse sent the land surveyor down on his back, the chest of his spacesuit blackened. Toivo cursed and switched the freezer power. Stood over the stirring body. “Stop whining. Your suit is safe. Just some functions blown. Where’s the marker?”
“I don’t know,” Loktev howled. “We dropped it from the crest and drove aside to see if anyone comes. Then came back and saw you warring.”
“Well,” Toivo said after a pause. “Get up. Your thermal regulation has blown. You’ll be cold if not moving.”
Loktev gasped in fright.
“Oh! You don’t know this trick?” Toivo fisted on his helmet, mocking angrily. “But know how to steal markers. How they let you out of quarantine? Reinforcement.” He spat this word out with disgust and waved his gun again. “Go up, you passenger.”
The way that took them minutes on the platform turned into a long, protracted ascent. Toivo was silent but Loktev couldn’t stop talking as though he’d crossed some threshold. “In quarantine, we don’t outright have enough food!” He rolled the word ‘outright’, growling with agitation.
Of course, Toivo recalled. You do not eat on the flight. Now they’re shifting from cellulose to standard rations. He knew that feeling of immense, incessant hunger. He still remembered it.
Climbing the crest separating the craters, he looked back. Glittering there behind were the joined platforms; they looked like toys from this height. Right below him was the steep slope descending into the cryotrope’s pasture overgrown with brittle stems. “We’ll make a pyramid of stones. On the straight line between the debris over there and the chasm…” He stopped short, ended briefly: “To see it from below.”
They made quite a large mound. The stones had to be looked for or dug out; the regenerator on Toivo’s back worked at full capacity, working its resource out unpleasantly fast. When they finished and started to descend (slantwise, at an angle to the slope), Loktev spoke again, spitting the words. “She’s a fool. An utter fool! She was ready to give up her portion for some doll. Can you imagine that? That’s her suppressed motherhood.” He gave a nasty giggle.
Toivo stopped immediately. “Shut up!” he said with a threat.
Loktev twitched in fright, lost his balance and almost fell from the slope. Cursing, Toivo caught him. They continued the descent in silence. In accordance with the contract, everyone was sterilized before the flight. Few of them were willing to discuss it.
“Here.” Toivo pointed at the half-filled cavern.
Loktev, who seemed to regain his senses, looked around in a businesslike way and asked with slight bewilderment, “Do we have to go underground?”
“That’s our only chance.” Toivo looked at the pyramid, barely visible on the crest. “There’s a cave system down there. They’re all joined. We’ll look for a pass.”
Loktev nodded quickly. Toivo decided to keep an eye on him. “Hold this.” Groping for the regenerator shield on his back, he tore it off, then did the same with the one on Loktev’s spacesuit. “That’s how we used to dig stuck platforms out.” He prodded Loktev encouragingly on the shoulder. “Let’s begin!”
Sweat was running into their eyes when they cleared the entrance. “Go.” Toivo gave way to Loktev and lit his helmet light.
The bluish ray brushed against the edge of the dark passage. With a final glance at the pyramid, Toivo squeezed into the cavern, following Loktev’s kicking boots. The passage went down steeply. They squeezed deeper and deeper in without much effort, just the many-sized stones unpleasantly rolled their sharp edges beneath the spacesuit cloth. At some moment it became suddenly spacious around. Lokted gasped ahead. Toivo sank in after him before he could realize anything.
“Wow!” Lokted said in admiration, lighting all around.
Of course Toivo heard all that miners’ talk of the planetoid’s being hollow inside and its unusual rock occurrences. The rock. It held them all hostage. Earth’s need of the mineral dictated the terms on which people came there perpetually and without return. But he never before saw the planet’s reverse side like that, with his own eyes. Its caves were no caves at all; the underground labyrinth was
pinned through with lots of passages. Some were large enough for a human to walk, others too small to put a hand in. They were everywhere, even under their feet; making a clumsy move, Toivo got his foot into a crumbling hollow. “It seems to be there.” He lit the way ahead with the lamp.
The passage soon became really spacious. Getting through a couple of bottlenecks, they reached a low hall sparkling with mineral grains overhead. It was then that Toivo bumped into Loktev’s back. “Hush!” Loktev hissed.
Toivo looked out. His hand jerked to the freezer. Ahead was the silvery bulk of a cryotopus.
“Don’t shoot,” Loktev whispered as he spotted the move.
Toivo froze, recalling frantically what power level he’d set the radiator at. The cryotopus behaved in a strange way. It seemed to be embarrassed when flowing from one position to another; then it stopped in hesitation. Toivo smoothly moved to the side.
“Don’t shoot,” Loktev repeated almost tenderly.
Slowly, he lifted his hands and stretched them ahead invitingly. The cryotropus squatted, a wave ran over his skin. Silvery hairs stood on end for a moment and fell again.
I’ll be darned. Toivo suspiciously moved his fingers near the trigger, not daring to switch the freezer on. At the meantime, Loktev bent forward and hunched; his stretched hands made a barely perceptible move. The cryotropus made a sudden wave of head and withdrew into the dark passage behind and