Season of Passage, The (47 page)

name carved in the stone: terry hayes, 1970-2006.

Weeping, Jean Floyd deposited her first flower, then moved to the next tombstone. It read: Jennifer wagner, 1992-2005. Here she also set down a

flower. But Jean gave the third grave only a hasty glance, before making the sign of the cross and backing away.

Stephen stepped forward next. He carried a Bible. At Terry's and Jennifer's graves he paused and recited a prayer. Lauren could not hear him

directly, but she could see what he was saying. Yet he also avoided the third tombstone.

Next came Daniel. He laid aside his torch and went immediately to the third grave. There he pul ed a silver ring from his pocket with one hand and

began to dig in the soil with the other hand. Al of a sudden, though, Mr Russo grabbed him from behind and stopped him. His face was fil ed with

fury. He shoved Daniel aside, and holding forth

Ais torci, shouted curses at the third grave. Lauren couldn't understand exactly what he was saying. Daniel pleaded for him to stop, but Mr Russo

turned and slapped the boy in the face. From beneath his coat Mr Russo removed a sealed wine bottle, which he raised in the air and then brought

down on the cursed tombstone. The glass cracked. No wine spurted forth, however. It was blood. It dripped slowly over the front of the tombstone,

almost covering the letters and numbers carved there, the name and dates Lauren had so far been unable to decipher.

Daniel continued to protest: Mr Russo went to strike him again. Lauren stepped forward to ward off the blow.

Then things got strange.

The torches died; it went pitch black. A huge hand blotted out the moon. Jean Floyd screamed, and with her Mr Russo, for something had reached

from beneath the third grave, and was now dragging him into the deep. The others fought to free him, but the thing beneath the soil was too strong,

its grip too tight. Soon Mr Russo vanished beneath the ground. Then a shril laugh rent the darkness, and the letters and numbers on the third

tombstone began to glow with a wicked red light.

LA UREN WA GNER, 1973-2006.

Lauren woke to a roar of sounds, her pulse pounding in her head, and the Hawk shaking from a series of miniature quakes. She groped to her

knees and looked out of a porthole. It was night again; she had slept away the day. The edge of the plateau was on fire. Now lava poured from the

mouth of the cave itself. Geysers of steam rocketed into the air. Far above, the caldera of Olympus Mons spewed forth a shower of fireworks.

Incandescent globs of mud riddled the sky. If just one of those massive sparks hit the Hawk, she thought, the ship could explode. She climbed to

her feet and staggered down to the basement. She vaguely recal ed having had a terrible nightmare.

Gary was unconscious. It was now or never, she decided. Turning to her medicine cabinet, she prepared a shot of methedrine and stuck it in his

vein. His eyes, covered with a dark film, opened a minute later.

'Gary,' she said. 'Wake up. This place is on fire.'

He nodded faintly and closed his eyes. Lauren slapped him across the face. 'Gary!'

His eyes reopened and focused on her. 'Lori, I had a beautiful dream fil ed with flowers.'

'Olympus Mons is erupting. We have to get out of here.'

'Erupting,' he whispered, not understanding.

Lauren unwrapped his bandage. There were stil no signs of infection. Gary looked where his arm was supposed to be. He just looked.

'I'm sorry,' she said again. 'If there had been some other way.'

He touched her trembling chin with his remaining hand. 'You did the right thing Doc. The cold is gone, and the nightmares. The beautiful dream

started when the cold left. I wish I could remember it better so that I could tel you about it.'

'You don't hate me for what I did?' she asked.

Gary smiled peaceful y, and went back to sleep. He was going to die, she knew, within the next couple of hours, unless she got him water. In

despair she slumped beside the basement porthole and stared at the approaching river of fire. It would reach Jim's grave before it got to them. But

perhaps the next expedition would know to bury Gary and herself beside Jim. Then they could have three tombstones on Mars, al in a row.

Tombstones.

Then Lauren remembered.

I can't reprimand him. I stil have my bottle of 'eighty-nine French wine.

A bottle of wine! None of them had considered drinking from the Karamazov\ water supply for fear of contamination - especial y after Ivan had

turned out to be a fucking zombie. But Dmitri's wine - no one had known about the bottle except him. It was hidden, no doubt, but she could probably

find it if she looked for it.

Lauren had her pressure suit on in ten minutes. Passing through the airlock, she climbed into Hummingbird. The craft's fuel tanks were low, but the

Russian lander was not far. She slowly hovered out of the Hawk's garage and then shot across the plateau at sixty miles an hour, the steam whirling

about her. Twice she flew directly over huge lumps of flaming mud that burned on the snowy land like barbecues on the plains of Antarctica.

Soon she was standing on the high platform that led into the Russian ship. The controls responded to her touch, but the airlock door opened only

partial y. The quakes had tilted the Karamazov slightly off balance, stressing the hul and putting unusual pressures on the doors. Lauren was barely

able to squeeze inside. She cried out loud from the pain the squeeze caused the cracked ribs.

Lauren went to Ivan's and Dmitri's bedroom. She searched the desk but did not find the bottle. She crossed to the bunks, skirting the blood on the

floor, and tore through the mattresses. No wine. With the touch of a button she was inside the bedroom locker. On the floor, beneath clothes, she

found an old-fashioned chest. She dragged it into the center of the room. The sides were screwed shut. She hurried to the level below, to the

laboratory, where she retrieved a knife. She had the chest screws out in a couple of minutes.

The bottle lay at the bottom of the chest, wrapped in blue

felt; a deep red wine, '89 - a very fine year indeed. It was ful , and from the intact seal, it had obviously never been opened.

Lauren returned to the Hawk. Before she went inside, however, she visited Jim's grave. If she'd had the strength, and the time, she would have dug

through the stones and gravel and returned his body to the ship. What fools they had been to fear that he might rise to haunt them. His death had

been their only decisive warning. In the pit Jim must have been given the opportunity of decision - immortality or oblivion. He had chosen the latter,

to let them know for certain what they were up against. Lauren hoped his end had come easily. Perhaps his heart hadn't betrayed him after al , but

had spared him worse tortures.

Lauren draped the crucifix she had made over the cold rocks. Then she said the prayer she hadn't been able to say at his funeral. She believed

there was a chance God heard it.

Lauren stood by Gary's side, waiting for the stimulant she had just administered to take effect. Final y he opened his eyes. She bent over him and

uncorked the top of the bottle.

'How are you feeling?' she asked.

He smiled faintly, his eyes far away. 'I was walking in trees and flowers. I was in a garden. Do you see the flowers, Lori?'

'Yes. We're walking in the garden together.'

'The garden.' He closed his eyes and began to nod off again.

'No, Gary. Wake up. You have to drink.' She shook him. 'I've brought you something to drink.'

'Drink?' he whispered, interested. He opened his eyes and looked at the bottle in her hands. She helped him into a

sitting position so he wouldn't choke and held the top of the bottle to his lips. Al alcoholic beverages were dehydrating to an extent, but in his

present condition the water content of the wine would more than make up for the effect of the alcohol.

'Drink,' she said.

His expression brightened. Like a child speaking to his mother, he asked, 'It's good?' He opened his mouth to the wine.

Lauren smiled. 'Very good. Sip it slowly. There you go, that's good. Drink more, as much as you like. There's lots.'

He finished a quarter of the bottle in one gulp, and then, sighing with pleasure, drank more. When he was satisfied, Lauren took the bottle away and

made him lie down and rest, giving his system a chance to absorb the liquid. A shudder rol ed through his body, which scared her. But then his

breathing deepened and appeared to gain strength. A few minutes later she had him take another drink. The mists began to clear from his eyes.

'I don't know where you've been stowing your booze, Doc,' he said. 'But I wish you'd brought out the stuff earlier.'

Lauren laughed, and it was as if a great weight fel from her then. 'It's Dmitri's wine. He mentioned it in his diary. I just returned from the Karamazov.'

'Dmitri.' Gary smiled. 'Let that be a lesson to you, the next time you're thinking of pouring Scotch down the drain.'

Lauren laughed again, enjoying the sound of it. It had been so long since she had felt joy. Terry and Jennifer were alive in her mind once again. 'Are

you strong enough to stand?' she asked.

He sat up. 'I don't know. It doesn't matter. Just help me to the control room. Then I can sit down again.' He pointed

to the bottle. 'Have you had anything to drink?'

Lauren was tempted, infinitely tempted. But the doctor in her was strong, even if the rest of her was fal ing apart. Gary was weaker than she, and

also more vital to them regaining orbit. She knew his thirst would return shortly.

'I want you to finish the rest,' she said. 'It wil take time to check al the systems and you'l need your strength.' Lauren hugged him. 'God, Gary. We're

going home!' He kissed her cheek. 'I wish I could hug you back.' She pul ed slightly away. 'I can't say how sorry I am.' He shook his head. 'What are

you apologizing for? You saved my life. Hel , they'l probably give me a purple heart. Wounded in action in the war of the worlds.' He smiled once

more, although the corners of his mouth remained sad. Both their eyes strayed to the window. The river of lava was now only a few hours away.

Gary continued, 'While I prepare the Hawk for lift-off, I want you to get rid of everything Martian on this ship. I mean absolutely everything. The only

thing we're taking home from this place is a bunch of bad memories.' 'Amen,' she said.

Lauren did what Gary said, with one exception. She found the silver ring - forgotten in the urgency to attend to Gary's arm - in the living area beside

the couch. She debated asking Gary's permission to bring it back to Earth. She final y decided against raising the issue, afraid he might say no.

NASA would never know.

Lauren slipped the ring in her pocket. She stil planned to give it to Jennifer.

THIRTY-ONE

The interplanetary drama was hours old. On Terry's TV screen, the Hawk drifted through a dangerously low orbit, apparently out of fuel, with no

power to maneuver. The much larger and more cumbersome Nova, piloted by Mark Kawati, was dropping down to rendezvous. Mark had been

unsuccessful at raising the Hawk on his radio. He now had visual contact, however. He estimated they could dock in five minutes.

Terry was alone in his apartment. He sat on the floor with the lights off, his knees hugged to his chest. It was the middle of the night. The TV screen

was his only source of il umination, in many ways. When Tom Brenner had cal ed earlier and awakened him with the news of the Hawk's liftoff from

Mars, Terry had been tempted to race down to Mission Control. Sitting where he was, though, the view was just as good. Besides, he was running

a fever. He'd been il since he'd buried Jennifer, three days ago. Or had it been four?

'Good visual,' Mark Kawati said from two hundred mil ion miles away - and twenty minutes ago. 'Time to contact, Friend?'

[Four-minutes, five seconds, Mark.]

'They look good, Houston,' Mark said. 'Their rotation vector is almost nil.'

Lauren had to be alive in that far-off silver ship, Terry told himself. Yet if she was, what would she think of him after she received the news of her

sister? It was a selfish thought, Terry realized, but an honest one. Lauren would soon know about Jennifer. The suicide had been spread across the

front page of every major newspaper in the country. Another tragedy in the Wagner family, the reporters said. But, of course, they'd had to add that

Jennifer was seeing a psychiatrist. Terry understood Mark Kawati read the papers.

Even if Lauren didn't hold him to blame, Terry knew he was never going to forgive himself for having left Jennifer at the cabin, practical y alone,

wandering the nights with only the imaginary characters of her story for companionship. The Sastra, the children of the garden -how sad their tale

had been, and how gruesome had been the section that dealt with Janier's death, and Kratine's curse. Then there had been Jennifer's final

remarkable chapter, when Chaneen had cal ed upon the unspeakable power to destroy an entire world. Terry was not sure whether Jennifer had

thought of herself as Chaneen or as Janier, and now he could never be certain. Perhaps she had identified with neither character, but with King

Rankar instead, who had sacrificed his life for the sake of his children. Perhaps Jennifer had thought she had to do the same in order for Lauren to

return home.

Mark spoke to Houston. 'We wil eclipse in eighteen minutes, but should dock wel before then. No communications from the Hawk yet.'

Through the cameras mounted outside the Nova, the Hawk grew swiftly. Terry could almost see through the tiny rectangles of yel ow light that