Marsbound (14 page)

He gestured for me to follow and we went toward a dark corner. He hesitated there and held out his hand to me. I took it, and we staggered slowly through dozens of layers of the stuff, toward a dim light.

It was obviously like a gradual airlock. We stopped at another flat area, which had one of the blue lights, and rested for a few minutes. Then he led me through another long series of layers, where it became completely dark—without him leading me, I might have gotten turned around—and then it lightened slightly, the light glowing pink this time.

When we came out, we were on the floor of a cave; the light was coming from a circle of Martian sky. When my eyes adjusted, I could see there was a smooth ramp leading uphill to the cave entrance.

I'd never seen the sky that color. We were looking up through a serious dust storm.

Red pulled a dust-covered sheet off his sawhorse-shaped vehicle. I helped him put the dog into one of the bowl-like sidecars, and I got in the other. There were two things like stubby handlebars in front, but no other controls that I could see.

He backed onto the thing, straddling it, and we rose off the ground a foot or so and smoothly started forward.

The glide up the ramp was smooth. I expected to be buffeted around by the dust storm, but as impressive as it looked, it didn't have much power. My umbilical tube did flap around in the wind, which made me nervous. If it snapped, a failsafe would close off the tube so I wouldn't immediately die. But I'd use up the air in the suit pretty fast.

I couldn't see more than ten or twenty feet in any direction, but Red, I hoped, could see farther. He was moving very fast. Of course, he was unlikely to hit another vehicle or a tree.

I settled down into the bowl—there wasn't anything to see—and was fairly comfortable. I amused myself by imagining the reaction of Dargo Solingen and Mother and Dad when I showed up with an actual Martian.

It felt like an hour or more before he slowed down and we hit the ground and skidded to a stop. He got off his perch laboriously and came around to the dog's side. I got out to help him lift it and was knocked off balance by a gust. Four legs were a definite advantage here.

He watched while I got the umbilical untangled and then pointed me in the direction we were headed. Then he made a shooing motion.

"You have to come with me,” I said, uselessly, and tried to translate it into arm motions. He pointed and shoo-ed again, and then backed on to the sawhorse and took off in a slow U-turn.

I started to panic. What if I went in the wrong direction? I could miss the base by twenty feet and just keep walking on into the desert.

And maybe I wasn't even near the base. Maybe Red had left me in the middle of nowhere, for some obscure Martian reason.

That wouldn't make sense. Human sense, anyhow.

I stood alone in the swirling dust and felt helplessness turning into terror.

* * * *

2. Homecoming

I took a few deep breaths. The dog was pointed in the right direction. I picked up its handle and looked straight ahead as far as I could see, through the swirling gloom. I saw a rock, directly ahead, and walked to it. Then another rock, maybe ten feet away. After the fourth rock, I looked up and saw I'd almost run into the airlock door. I leaned on the big red button and the door slid open immediately. It closed behind the dog and the red light on the ceiling started blinking. It turned green and the inside door opened on a wide-eyed Emily.

"Carmen! You found your way back!"

"Well, um ... not really..."

"Got to call the search party!” She bounded down the stairs yelling for Howard.

I wondered how long they'd been searching for me. I would be in shit up to my chin.

I put the dog back in its place—there was only one other parked there, so three were out looking for me. Or my body.

Card came running in when I was half out of my skinsuit. “Sis!” He grabbed me and hugged me, which was moderately embarrassing. “We thought you were—"

"Yeah, okay. Let me get dressed? Before the shit hits the fan?” He let me turn around and step out of the skinsuit and into my coverall.

"What, you went out for a walk and got lost in that dust storm?"

For a long moment, I thought of saying yes. Who was going to believe my story? I looked at the clock and saw that it was 1900. If it was the same day, seventeen hours had passed. I
could
have wandered around that long without running out of air, using up the dog reserves.

"How long have I been gone?"

"You can't remember? All foogly day, man. Were you derilious?"

"Delirious.” I kneaded my brow and rubbed my face hard with both hands. “Let me wait and tell it all when Mother and Dad get here."

"That'll be hours! They're out looking for you."

"Oh, that's great. Who else?"

"I think it was Paul the pilot."

"Well,” said a voice behind me. “You decided to come back after all."

It was Dargo Solingen, of course. There was a quaver of emotion in her voice that I'd never heard. I think rage.

"I'm sorry,” I said. “I don't know what I was thinking."

"I don't think you were thinking at
all
. You were being a foolish
girl,
and you put more lives than your own into danger."

About a dozen people were behind her. “Dargo,” Dr. Jefferson said. “She's back, she's alive. Let's give her a little rest."

"Has she given
us
any rest?” she barked.

"I'm
sorry!
I'll do anything—"

"You will? Isn't that pretty. What do you propose to do?"

Dr. Estrada put a hand on her shoulder. “Please let me talk to her.” Oh, good, a shrink. I needed a xenologist. But she would listen better than Solingen.

"Oh ... do what you want. I'll deal with her later.” She turned and walked through the small crowd.

Some people gathered around me and I tried not to cry. I wouldn't want
her
to think she had made me cry. But there were plenty of shoulders and arms for me to hide my eyes in.

"Carmen.” Dr. Estrada touched my forearm. “We ought to talk before your parents get back."

"Okay.” A dress rehearsal. I followed her down to the middle of A.

She had a large room to herself, but it was her office as well as quarters. “Lie down here,” she indicated her single bunk, “and just try to relax. Begin at the beginning."

"The beginning isn't very interesting. Dargo Solingen embarrassed me in front of everybody. Not the first time, either. Sometimes I feel like I'm her little project. Let's drive Carmen crazy."

"So in going outside like that, you were getting back at her? Getting even in some way?"

"I didn't think of it that way. I just had to get out, and that was the only way."

"Maybe not, Carmen. We can work on ways to get away without physically leaving."

"Like Dad's zen thing, okay. But what I did, or why, isn't really important. It's what I
found!"

"So what did you find?"

"Life. Intelligent life. They saved me.” I could hear my voice and even I didn't believe it.

"Hmm,” she said. “Go on."

"I'd walked four kilometers or so and was about to turn around and go back. But I stepped on a place that wouldn't support my weight. Me and the dog. We fell through. At least ten meters, maybe twenty."

"And you weren't hurt?"

"I
was!
I heard my ankle break. I broke a rib, maybe more than one, here."

She pressed the area gently. “But you're walking."

"They fixed ... I'm getting ahead of myself."

"So you fell through and broke your ankle?"

"Then I spent a long time finding the dog. My suit light went out when I hit the ground. But finally I found it, found the dog, and got my umbilical plugged in."

"So you had plenty of oxygen."

"But I was freezing. The circuit to my gloves and boots wasn't working. I really thought that was it."

"But you survived."

"I was rescued. I was passing out and this, uh, this
Martian
came floating down. I saw him in the dog's light. Then everything went black and I woke up—"

"Carmen! You have to see that this was a dream. A hallucination."

"Then how did I get here?"

Her mouth set in a stubborn line. “You were very lucky. You wandered around in the storm and came back here."

"But there
was
no storm when I left! Just a little wind. The storm came up while I was ... well, I was underground. Where the Martians live."

"You've been through so much, Carmen..."

"This was
not
a dream!” I tried to stay calm. “Look. You can check the air left in the tanks. My suit and the dog. There will be
hours
unaccounted for. I was breathing the Martians’ air."

"Carmen ... be reasonable..."

"No,
you
be reasonable. I'm not saying anything more until—” There was one knock on the door and Mother burst in, followed by Dad.

"My baby,” she said. When did she ever call me that? She hugged me so hard I could barely breathe. “You found your way back."

"Mother ... I was just telling Dr. Estrada ... I didn't find my way back. I was brought."

"She had a dream about Martians. A hallucination."

"No!
Would you just listen?"

Dad sat down cross-legged, looking up at me. “Start at the beginning, honey."

I did. I took a deep breath and started with taking the suit and the dog and going out to be alone. Falling and breaking my ankle. Waking up in the little hospital room. Red and Green and the others. Seeing the base on their screen. Being healed and brought back.

There was an uncomfortable silence after I finished. “If it wasn't for the dust storm,” Dad said, “it would be easy to verify your ... your account. Nobody could see you from here, though, and the satellites won't show anything, either."

"Maybe that's why he was in a rush to bring me back. If they'd waited for the storm to clear, they'd be exposed."

"Why would they be afraid of that?” Dr. Estrada asked.

"Well, I don't know. But I guess it's obvious that they don't want anything to do with us—"

"Except to rescue a lost girl,” Mother said.

"Is that so hard to believe? I mean, I couldn't say three words to them, but they seemed to be friendly and good-hearted."

"It just sounds so fantastic,” Dad said. “How would you feel in our position? By far the easiest explanation is that you were under extreme stress and—"

"No!
Dad, do you really think I would do that? Come up with some elaborate lie?” I could see on his face that he did indeed. Maybe not a lie, but a fantasy. “There's objective proof. Look at the dog. It has a huge dent where it hit the ground in the cave."

"Maybe so; I haven't seen it,” he said. “But being devil's advocate, aren't there many other ways that could have happened?"

"What about the
air?
The air in the dog! I didn't use enough of it to have been out so long."

He nodded. “That would be compelling. Did you dock it?"

Oh hell. “Yes. I wasn't thinking I'd have to
prove
anything.” When you dock the dog it automatically starts to refill air and power. “There must be a record. How much oxygen a dog takes on when it recharges."

They all looked at each other. “Not that I know of,” Dad said. “But you don't need that. Let's just do an MRI of your ankle. That'll tell if it was recently broken."

"But they
fixed
it. The break might not show."

"It will show,” Dr. Estrada said. “Unless there was some kind of ... magic involved."

Mother's face was getting red. “Would you both leave? I need to talk to Carmen alone.” They both nodded and went out.

Mother watched the door close. “I know you aren't lying. You've never been good at that."

"Thanks,” I said. Thanks for nothing.

"But it was a stupid thing to do, going off like that, and you know it."

"I do, I
do!
And I'm sorry for all the trouble I—"

"But look. I'm a scientist, and so is your dad, after a fashion, and so is almost everybody else who's going to hear this story today. You see what I'm saying?"

"Yeah, I think so. They're going to be skeptical."

"Of course they are. They don't get paid for believing things. They get paid for questioning them."

"And you, Mother. Do you believe me?"

She stared at me with a fierce intensity I'd never seen before in my life. “Look. Whatever happened to you, I believe one hundred percent that you're telling the truth. You're telling the truth about what you remember, what you believe happened."

"But I might be nuts."

"Well, wouldn't you say so? If I came in with your story? You'd say ‘Mom's getting old.’ Wouldn't you?"

"Yeah, maybe I would."

"And to prove that I wasn't crazy, I would take you out and show you something that couldn't be explained any other way. You know what they say about extraordinary claims?"

"They require extraordinary evidence."

"That's right. Once the storm calms down, you and I are going out to where you say ... to where you fell through to the cave.” She put her hand on the back of my head and rubbed my hair. “I so much want to believe you. For my sake as well as yours. To find life here."

* * * *

3. The Dragon Lady

Paul was so sweet when he came in from his search. He hugged me so hard I cried out, from the rib, and then laughed. I'll always remember that. Me laughing and him crying, with his big grin.

For hours he had pictured me out there dead. Prepared himself for finding my body.

It was his for the asking. At least that hadn't changed.

Mother wanted to call a general assembly, so I could tell everybody the complete story, all at once, but Dargo Solingen wouldn't allow it. She said that children do stunts like this to draw attention to themselves, and she wasn't going to reward me with an audience. Of course she's an expert about children, never having had any herself. Good thing. They'd be monsters.