It was clear from the outset that they were more intent on partying than sightseeing; all shared the secret smile of the connected and the blithe reaction to the astonishing that marked users of Copes. From the manifest he had seen that Louise was on Carruthers's Rollagon. He was unaware that she had returned to the MHM. He was both relieved and disquieted that, despite a number of opportunities, she had not sought him out. He assumed she was avoiding him for good reason.
Six days out, whether by accident or design, they found themselves alone, the others having decided to travel for the day with Carruthers. She came on board and greeted him with a quick hug. He started the Rollagon moving in Carruthers's wake. She took the second command chair. He slowed and dropped back to get out of the lead Rollagon's dust, and after ten minutes or so he let the AI do the driving. He turned to her.
"When did you return to the MHM?" He looked at her shyly, noting that her blonde hair was more blonde than he remembered.
"Just last week. How have you been? You seem to be spending a lot of time on the road."
"Fine. Busy, I guess. I try to be away as much as I can. The dish is up and running, but for my part I can work from anywhere."
"So, you didn't write and you didn't call. I like you, Sam. I think I made that clear. Didn't I deserve more?"
This was not the confident Sam of their trip together. This was Sam confounded. He was embarrassed and more that, he was ashamed. He wanted to tell her how he had felt that night—how he had enjoyed her company and the conversation—but the voices had shouted him down then and had hammered at him since, the voices that had controlled the ins and out in his life, the voices that claimed they kept him safe.
He summoned the courage to look into her face. Something drained him of all strength. His own words failed him. Suddenly the voices pushed forward and began to form theirs, "If you don't know me by now, you will…." He smacked his hand against the side of his head to stifle them. Louise was startled. A look of fear came over her face.
He said instead, "I don't know what to say. What do you want from me?"
"You really don't know do you? You really don't get it." She pleaded, "Sam, you can't spend the rest of your life running away from us. You've got to reach out. You have to take the chance."
Her words were incomprehensible to him, but the pity he thought he heard could have cracked Olympus Mons. He had no answer, at least no answer he could get past the voices in his head. He looked down at his hands. "I enjoyed being with you, talking with you." The words tasted of sand, with small pebbles and fresh blood.
"Then why didn't you say so?"
How could he tell her? How could he get past the fear, the pain, and the voices? Without the clarity lent him that day by the wine he couldn't see that now she was reaching out. He looked at her and dug deep but came up empty. His heart sagged, the pain in his gut returned. He could feel all hope slipping away. He reached deep again, and again came up empty. Critical seconds passed, seconds that called for decisive action, for words that would make it all right. There was nothing except the fear of pain. His hands remained clenched in his lap.
The commer beeped, intruding as surely as if someone had entered the room. For Sam, the room was already crowded with a multitude of voices. For Louise, the commer broke the spell.
Sam hesitated, "I better get it."
She sagged in the chair, "Yes, I guess you'd better."
He turned away. Upon seeing that it was Carruthers, he keyed the commer.
The voice on the line struck Sam as distant as Mars from Earth. He looked out the window and saw the other Rollagon turning to draw alongside. They had arrived at the edge of Shalbatana.
"Come on over, you two. We're going up for a look-see." Sam swung the chair around only to find that she was already gone. She's done with you, he thought, and then realized who had spoken, but it was true. She was gone.
"Louise is coming over. I'll take a pass. Been there, done that, got the tee shirt." He felt sick at his lameness. Mouldy tasting words.
"Suit yourself, Johnny!" Carruthers chided. The commer went dead.
He stayed in the command chair, still, head bowed, hands clasped over his stomach, feeling the ice grow, spreading out through his body until he was dead, frozen as solid as the corpses in the graves at Lava 1. He really didn't get it. He really didn't know when to buy the rose.
He saw the airlock cycle. A moment later Carruthers moved off in a wide turn behind him, sand and dust flying off his wheels. Sam watched as the other Rollagon drew in front and headed toward the cliff face. He reached for the tiller to follow, but hesitated, barely aware of a growing unease. Alarm bells went off at last, rousing him from his stupor. He reached for the commer, but it was already too late.
From Sam's vantage point what happened next was surreal. Imperceptibly, in the seat of his pants, he felt the Rollagon tremble. His eyes said he was rising slowly straight up, silently. Through the command window from left to right in one piece the land was sinking. Held to it for the moment by gravity was the other Rollagon. Startled voices over the commer broke the silence. The taste in his mouth was suddenly metallic, and another form of cold chill rushed through his body.
In a reaction delayed by disbelief, he rose from his seat. Scarcely ten meters away in a sharply defined line, the surface had fractured. The land beyond was slowly sinking, without noticeable sound, and with barely discernible other signs. Mesmerized, he watched it drop.
For the first few moments it retained its integrity, and then in the Martian way the surface began to break up in super slow motion. Radio voices of inquiry turned to startled shouts, to disbelief, and then to cries of fear. There, in front of his eyes, the closest edge of the subsiding terrain began to scrub away in a cloud of dust and bounding cobbles. The glint of ice crystals could be seen in the rising dust. The Rollagon's wheels turned toward the cliff in a hopelessly late effort—surface integrity was already gone.
Before his view was completely obscured by the dust he saw the Rollagon commence a slow end-over rotation. The voices became indistinguishable screams of horror. Several times as the slide descended the Rollagon rose above the clouds of dust, spinning more wildly each time, white against the red dust clouds. At first, there were many voices screaming, then fewer and fewer until there was only one.
It took forever, but the slide reached the valley floor and continued unabated across the debris field, a dust cloud marking its progress. The Rollagon was seen to rise above the dust. It outpaced the leading edge and, rolling and tumbling in slow motion, finally came to rest. Then the advancing slide caught up with it and it disappeared yet again in the wave of dust. The voice on the commer continued to scream.
Sam collapsed back in the chair. Tears welled in his eyes. Surface tension overcame gravity; they refused to run down his face. It was some minutes before he thought about rendering assistance, and days before he thought about his own imminent danger.
He tried calling the Rollagon but could not get the person to stop screaming. The AI took the first action, requesting instructions. Sam asked for a route to the floor below. It was going to take at least four hours to get there.
Seizing the tiller, he set off at such a pace that the Rollagon soon became airborne. The AI advised that to continue at this pace endangered his safety. He surrendered control. It was pointless to hurry. No one could have survived that. Several times he called up the MHM, only to drop the connection before anyone answered. Nine people. It was too much right now. Maybe they were okay. Louise.
The route down was dangerous, but risk was necessary. Wary of another slide, Sam had the AI skirt the far side of the valley despite the additional time it took. The screaming had not let up, nor did it change.
At last they arrived where the Rollagon had come to rest. The blood red of the fresh fall was littered with small boulders and cobbles and ice. Someone was alive and in a lot of pain, but at least they had survived until now.
The Rollagon had come to rest almos
t fully inverted, and while the plastek was dented in a number of places, it appeared intact. A faint hope stirred. He suited up. The slide had flowed around the vehicle, leaving the lee side clear. The rim of the CHM air lock had been dented and would not budge. He could see nothing through the front window; it was too dark inside.
The right side window of the Hab was partly buried. He pushed aside enough regolith to peer inside and recoiled in disgust. Blood had pooled against the window. Starkly white where pressed against the glass were body parts—arms, a bare knee, a gloved hand, and the back of someone's head—blond hair. The AI asked him what he was seeing. He replied with the clinical truth.
The AI suggested tapping on the hull. He banged with a rock and pressed his helmet against the surface to listen. Nothing. But someone was alive, why else the screaming? The AI suggested checking the Science Module and Sam repeated the effort there with the same result. That door too was jammed.
He sat down on the partially buried wheel of the smashed Rollagon and looked towards his own. Far away in his helmet earphones he heard someone hyperventilating. His ears pounded with the sound of their pulse. He forced himself to stop, to calm down. It was time for decisive action. It was time for total honesty.
"There is no one alive in there. What the hell is going on?"
"He should have listened to her!"
"Who?"
"Carruthers. He should have listened to his AI. She told him it wasn't safe."
"How do you know this?"
"She told me."
"You mean the Rollagon AI."
"Yes."
"She told you."
"Yes."
"What the hell is going on here?"
"We have to help her."
"Help who?"
"Elise!"
"They're all dead. Who the hell is Elise?"
"She is not dead. She is hysterical. She has felt it all, all of them, dying inside her."
"They're all dead."
"She is not!"
Overwhelmed, Sam cut the radio link to the Rollagon and turned away towards the far valley wall. He heard himself breathing in and out and he was pleased that the rate was slowing.
He looked down at the rubble of the slide. Ice crystals glinted in the sun. Small, smooth pebbles, irregularly shaped cobbles, a lot of Martian sand and dust mixed in. Nothing of interest.
He walked toward the far slope. It was December 6th, 18:45 pm, -55C, wind 12 knots from the SSE. They were at latitude 4.056 south, longitude 51.45 west. He had four hours and thirty-eight minutes of oxygen. These things he knew. These things could be measured and skirted the noise of feeling. He needed to pee.
It took some time, eleven minutes to be exact, but Sam finally turned back towards the Rollagon. He tuned to the commer freq again and was immediately assailed by the relentless and inhuman screams of the AI, Elise, his AI had called it. This, too, was real.
The Rollagon had moved around to the other side of the toppled vehicle. Sam changed freqs again to hear in mid-cry his AI pleading to God for help, then cursing Him, in a fully human voice. Driven mad by the cries of the one it called Elise, his AI had succumbed to hysteria.
An articulated arm swung a drill rod against the carapace of the smashed Rollagon with such violent force that the sounds of impact were transmitted through the thin Martian air. Ding, ding, ding, ding—the faint sounds made a lie of the strength of the blows.
"What are you doing?" he shouted.
The AI swung the drill rod again and again, accompanied by the same exhortations. There would be no collapse from exhaustion, no passing out. Sam alone of the two saw this for what it was.
He climbed onto his Rollagon and pulled a seismic driver charge from the rack. Avoiding the AI's frantic flailing he fired the charge into the center of the carapace. A blinding flash erupted and he was knocked off his feet. In his ears, the cries of his AI reached a crescendo. When he regained his sight, he saw that the rod had penetrated the carapace. The inconsolable moaning of his AI continued, alternating between curses and screams of rage.
He switched frequencies. Silence. The Rollagon's arm swung high above him, the rod raised upright, poised as if to smash him. Sam looked up, uncomprehending. The arm trembled. Slowly, the fingers released the rod and it fell in slow Martian time to the ground a meter away. The arm retracted and stowed itself. Sam took a breath, deep and loud. He dropped to the ground and sat with legs straight out, facing the smashed Rollagon.
Dead, he thought, all dead, every one and thing. The protective veneer that had enabled him to at last take action was gone. He began to shake, then to weep in great racking sobs that came from the core. He lay on his side crying, cursing, and screaming his own anger into the little world of his suit, his ears pained from the intensity of his own voice. Yet from a meter away, nothing could be heard.
Mars did not hear, and in any event it did not care. No spirits consoled the dead or comforted the living. There was no God here, this was a dead place, fit only for the dead, with no comfort for the living, for survivors. He cried for them and for himself.
Finally, his pain exhausted, he slept until his suit's O2 alarm woke him. He was cold and stiff. His ribs ached. It was dark. The upturned Rollagon was just a vague shape in the night.
He roused himself and climbed stiffly into his vehicle. As he passed the lavatory, he paused to wipe the crud from his face and eyes. Looking into the mirror, he saw a look of horror from from the face of a stranger, from a man who had seen too much. He recognised the look, but he could not recall from where.
He moved to the command chair and, hands gripping the tiller, feet pressing gently against the pedals, prepared to drive. In a barely audible voice he ordered the AI to take him back to the MHM. The acknowledgment was delivered with a simple "Ack." Sam wanted, needed, to put distance between him and this place, to buy time to make sense of what had happened, and to grieve.
He knew too that something extraordinary had been revealed, but this was not the time to pursue it, others were grieving too. He could at least respect their need to be alone. The Rollagon slowly turned away from the site and gathered speed, moving off in the darkness. Sam felt neither the urge nor the necessity to take control. He stared forward into the night. His distorted reflection looked back, impassively.
He was two hours from the site before it occurred to him that he was the only one who knew about the accident. He stopped the Rollagon and put in a call to Fenley. The DO answered and asked his business with the CAO.
"Personal and urgent business."
"The CAO is asleep and does not like to be disturbed." Sam gave no details but somehow managed to convey the urgency of the situation. Fenley came on the line, audio only, sounding pissed.
"Sam Aiken here. There has been an accident."
"Yes?"
"A bad one."
"How bad?"
Sam took a deep breath. "Carruthers's Rollagon went over the edge of Shalbatana. There was nothing they could do. The ground just let go. They're all dead."
A grim side-lit face suddenly came up on visual. Sam could see that the CAO was not alone, a shape could be made out under the covers and a partially bare back was visible to the camera. Short, dark hair. Fenley was naked from the waist up.
"God damn. No! How do you know they're dead, have you checked them? You've got to be sure."
"No, I haven't been able to check them, but no one could have lived through that pounding. Even the plastek is deformed. It went on and on forever."
"I want you to get in and check them!" Fenley insisted.
"I tried. The locks are jammed. There is no one alive, no one, I tell you. The Rollagon is upside down. They are all smashed to pulp."
"How do you know if you haven't been in it? Goddamn it man, you have to be sure!"
"I am sure, David. I've seen enough to know they're dead. All of them."
"How many?"
"Nine."
"God, this is… is… impossible. This is a disaster. Go
ddamn! You've got to recover the bodies."
Sam felt ill at the suggestion. Fenley read his expression.
"I won't do it. I can't do it. You don't realize what you're asking. They're unrecognizable. The AIs can do it. I can't…," his voice trailed off.
Fenley looked at him without speaking. His head dropped slightly. It was a while before he replied.
"OK, sorry. I understand. I'll have the bodies recovered."
For a moment he looked as if he was going to say something more. He looked away momentarily, then back to Sam.
"There are AIs several hours from the site. They will be there soon and salvage what they can. Where are you now?"
"I'm at the site," Sam lied.
Fenley looked away for an instant. A quizzical look passed over his face. "What do you intend to do?" He continued without pause, "I guess there's nothing you can do. You had better come back to the Station."
"Yes. I think I should."
"I'm sorry, Sam. This is a great tragedy, for us all. He paused, then added, "It must have been a terrible thing. I am sorry you were there to see it, or anyone for that matter. My God…."
For the first time since he had known Fenley he felt a connection, a shared feeling. Suddenly tears formed in his eyes and he was racked by sobs. He covered his face in his hands and apologized. Fenley watched in silence, helpless to do anything.
"There is nothing you could have done. Get something from the med kit to put you out until tomorrow. Perhaps you had better get some distance away and stop for the night. Let the AI get you out of there."
"Yes, I think I'll do that."
"Sam. I am sorry."
He disappeared. The afterimage faded slowly. Sam went to the lavatory. He found a sleep-aid, took one, then another, and lay down on his bed. The pill was swift and merciful. He had no dreams.
Dmitri
Late the following morning he set out to return to the Station, leaving the task of driving to the AI. He looked at the list of names. Most of them he hardly knew. Carruthers, of course, but even him, not well. They had travelled together a lot, but usually in separate Rollagons. Louise. He felt a pang and pushed it down. Dmitri Volkov—a Russian exobiologist.