Season of Passage, The (25 page)

'How far are we from the Russian landers?'

Bil 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, Bil , I'm sorry for screaming at you like that.'

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

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

'Each damage to the Hawk wil be repaired in the order we see fit after an inspection,' Bil said. 'But our communications wil natural y be at the top

of the list.'

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

'Yes,' Bil said. 'It wil be difficult, because Mark wil now have to drop down and meet us halfway. But even without contact, it can be done. Friend

wil know where the Nova is at al 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'l be al 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 Bil had been able to patch the

tear in the Hawk's hul . 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 al owed them to reuse their urine, had also been wiped out during the rough landing. They had

only three one-gal on bottles of water, plus the smal amount that was stil 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,' Bil 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 Bil .

'What is it?' Gary asked.

'Nothing, Major,' Bil said. 'Let's concentrate on the remaining Russian ship. According to Lauren, within two days our thirst wil become unbearable.

We wil use these two days wisely. We wil take the jeep to the Karamazov now.'

'Who's going?' Gary asked.

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

Gary looked disgusted. 'Yes, sir.'

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

[Yes, Bil .]

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

Given the rough terrain that surrounded them on al 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 Bil 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 tal 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 tel you the truth, I hate

this place.'

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

'Perhaps,' Jim said.

Soon the Karamazov fil ed their field of view. Bil 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 smal 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, Bil stopped them, saying, 'I wil go first. The metal may have

weakened in the cold. Once I am on the platform before the airlock, you wil fol ow, Professor. Then you, Lauren, after Jim has joined me.' Bil

turned his radio on. 'Major Wheeler?'

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

Bil 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 wil 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 stil haven't heard from us, you wil wait for the next favorable opposition with the Nova and then leave. You wil 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,' Bil said.

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

Bil 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?' Bil asked final y.

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 automatical y closed behind them. Lauren put a finger on the laser's

trigger. Fog crept up their legs as the chamber fil ed with air. They decreased the reception of their vocals to keep their whispers from sounding like

thunder. Presently, a second door slid open, al by itself, and they stepped into a dark circular hal way, lit faintly by colored dials. They turned their

helmet lamps on. Jim studied a computer board on the wal to their right, and decided it was a life-support terminal. It was stil 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.

A compact elevator lifted them to the next level, a living area. Sitting on a low table was a chess game, in remission. Lauren began to perspire in

her suit. Black was playing black. There was no doubt who was going to win.

The living area branched into three tiny bedrooms. One for each of them. Welcome Earthmen. Bil said they should check them out. He

disappeared into the one on the left. Jim took the one in front. Lauren wanted to chase after them, and plead with him that they shouldn't separate.

But she was afraid to look stupid. They would only be on the other side of the wal , for godsakes.

Yet her short meeting with Carl had taught her a thing or two about being alone. Even an instant was long enough for the hand holding the jagged

sliver of mirror to reach out and lay her open like a cow on a butcher's block. Yes, her meeting with Carl had been instructional in every sense of the

word. He had put things in her head she was never

going to get out. Whispered words of love. She was sure Carl would have tried to kiss her even when his blood was gushing out of his neck.

Lauren stepped quietly through the doorway that led to the right-hand bedroom. Almost immediately she let out a sigh of relief. The room was not

much different than the bedrooms aboard the Nova, except that the Russians had had bunk beds. Both bunks were unmade, with the blankets piled

indiscriminately on the lower bed. Best of al , the room was empty. She loved empty rooms that didn't have corpses in them.

Then Lauren noticed something odd. There seemed to be a lack of circulation in the lower sections of her suit. Cold was seeping from the floor into

her legs. Quickly she consulted her suit indicators, but everything was as it should be. Then she noticed a bad smel , which should have been

impossible inside her suit. The odor was both familiar and elusive at the same time. It was definitely a stink of decay, but whatever was rotting was

total y foreign to her.

Lauren convinced herself she was just imagining things. She crossed to the desk and picked up a family picture. The woman was tal , of slight build,

with long red hair and sad gray eyes. The children, a girl and a boy, were both dark-haired, and the man standing behind them was the commander

of the Gorbachev, the first human being ever to step on another planet. She was in Dmitri Maximov's quarters, and the realization saddened her.

Such a wonderful man, she thought. She sat in the chair by the desk and opened the top drawer. Inside she found a thick book. She leafed through

the pages. It was Dmitri's diary, recorded in Russian, in a firm graceful hand. She decided to take it back to the Hawk and have Friend translate it.

As Lauren closed the diary and prepared to stand and leave, she caught the slightest trace of movement at the

limit of her peripheral vision. It came from the lower cot, and it made her freeze so solid she could have turned to stone. It was just her imagination

running away with her, sure, she knew that. But was there just a one in a mil ion chance there was someone under the blankets?

Come look, come peek. You know you want to, Lori.

Lauren thought of cal ing Jim and Bil . They were just in the other rooms. She was having trouble speaking, though; it had something to do with her

dry throat. And even if she could talk, she had to wonder whether she wanted to make a fool of herself again, as she had with Carl. Of course it was

another Carl she was worried about. Good old Carl. He seemed to be with her now, giving her advice. There real y was no other way to explain why

she was standing up and walking toward the bed. There was no other way to explain the voices in her head. She was getting kind of used to them

by now, although she knew they weren't real y there. Stil , it annoyed her the way they kept cal ing her Lori when her real name was Lauren. So what

if Gary cal ed her Lori? He was her friend. Carl wasn't.

Nor were Carl's partners.

The only light was from her headlamp. It fil ed the room with shadows. Lauren knelt by the bed. There was definitely something beneath the blankets.

It could be another blanket. Or maybe a pile of clothes. Clothes were often put beneath blankets, she thought. She put them there herself

sometimes. Once she put a whole pile of laundry beneath her blankets on Hal oween in an effort to convince Terry that there was a body sleeping in

their bed.

A body, Lori.

Lauren touched the blankets and began to peel them back. She told herself it was her duty to do so, and a voice said inside her head that she

should enjoy her duty because it might just...

Get me kil ed.

Lauren dropped the sheets and sprang to her feet. She had to fight with every nerve in her body to stop trembling, and it was a fight she won for

about two seconds. Then she began to scold herself, as was her habit when she was afraid. So the wind was blowing like it hadn't blown in a mil ion