Isis’s day averaged three hours longer than Earth’s, and its axial tilt was less acute, the seasons milder. The sun hovered above the Copper Mountains as Hayes, encased in an impossibly bulky mass of bio armor, left Yambuku. The surrounding forest was already dense with shadow; the long Isian nightfall was about an hour away.
A vast swath of vegetation had been cleared around the ground station, the soil burned and salted with long-lasting herbicides. Yambuku, its core and its four coaxial rings, sat embedded in this blackened wasteland like a lost pearl. The burn zone prevented native plants from overgrowing the station’s pressed-aggregate walls, fouling the exits and weakening the seals. But it reminded Hayes of something else: the empty space between a fortress and a bailey; a field of fire.
It did nothing to deter airborne microorganisms—probable cause of the continuing seal failures—and already the weeds were beginning to make advances, green creepers twining out of the forest canopy like tentative fingers.
Hayes, sweating inside his isolation suit, felt the familiar sensation of being in the landscape but not of it. Every sensation—the crackle of scorched soil under his feet, the whisper of wind-tossed leaves—was relayed by suit sensors. His touch was blunted by the armor’s fat gloves, sensitive and versatile though they were; his field of vision was blinkered, his sense of smell nonexistent. This river valley was as lush and wild as a summer garden, but he could never enter it except as proxy, robot, half-man.
It would, of course, kill him at the first opportunity.
He passed the curved wall of the station, rising like a limestone cliff in the slanting sunlight, and reached the area outside the tractible port where Macabie Feya was trapped in his malfunctioning armor.
The problem was instantly obvious. Mac’s right leg had burned out below the hip, leaving a flaring, blackened gap in the outer shield. Primary and secondary hydraulics were hopelessly damaged below the waist. He was locked in place, frozen in an awkward crouch.
The accident had happened almost eight hours ago. The suit itself had tourniqueted the leg and would even, if necessary, provide CPR and cardiostimulants; it was a good machine, even with its torso systems terminally cooked. But eight hours was a long time to be injured and alone. And the suit’s modest reservoir of analgesics and narcotics was close to exhaustion.
Hayes approached his injured friend cautiously. The suit’s legs might be locked down, but the powerful arms remained mobile. If Mac panicked, he could inflict serious damage.
Two land-duty tractibles rolled out of the way as Hayes came closer, cams glancing between Hayes and Macabie. Their eyes, of course, were Yambuku’s eyes. Elam’s eyes, in fact: Elam Mather was working the remotes. And how calm it all seemed in the late afternoon quiet, aviants chattering high in the trees, a black noon-bug ambling across the ash-dark clearance like some tiny Victorian banker. Hayes cleared his throat. “Mac? Can you hear me?”
His voice was relayed by radio to Mac’s headset. We hear the insects more clearly than we hear each other, Hayes thought. Two solitudes, semaphores across a microbiotic ocean.
There was no answer beyond the low hum of the carrier. Mac must have slipped back into unconsciousness.
Hayes was close enough now to examine the suit breach. The suit was multilayered, its hydraulics and motors normally operating in isolation from both their moist human cargo and the abrasive Isian biosphere. The overheat had peeled back the outer layer of flexarmor like foil, exposing a tangle of burned insulation and leaking blue fluids—a robot’s wound. The soft nugget of Mac Feya lay deeper inside, hidden but horribly endangered.
Hayes needed Mac’s cooperation—or else he needed Mac safely unconscious. He queried Elam about the telemetry.
“Far as I can tell, Tam, his vitals are as stable as we can expect. You want me to tell the suit to lighten his narcs?”
“Take his drip down just a notch, please, Elam.”
“Sure you don’t want to splint him first?”
“I’m already on it.”
He unhooked a body brace from the nearest tractible and began linking it to Mac’s upper-body armor. The tractibles could have done this themselves if they had been larger or more flexible. But this was Isis, and some Terrestrial kacho had written weight and size limitations into the robot inventory without thinking much about the practical consequences. Hayes worked from behind Mac, socketing the brace into chordal ports, the brace exchanging protocols with the suit’s surviving electronics.
The link was almost complete when Mac woke up.
His scream rang through Hayes’ helmet, a sound he did not immediately identify with his friend Macabie Feya. It was an inhuman roar, overwhelming the audio transducers. Elam shouted over it: “His vitals are spiking! He’s not stable—you have to override his armor now!”
Grimly, Hayes forced the last brace connector into its socket on Mac’s thrashing armor.
He was still trying to latch the device when Mac’s elbow butted into him.
Hayes staggered backward, hurt and breathless. His armor was bulky but in its own way fragile, designed to protect him from the biosphere, not from physical attack. His ribs hurt, the breath was knocked out of him, and he heard the suit alarm clamoring for his attention.
“Tam, you have an outer-layer breach! Get back in the airlock, stat!”
“Mac,” Hayes said.
The engineer’s wordless keening dropped to a lower note. “Mac, you can hear me, can’t you?” Elam : “Don’t do this, Tam!”
“Mac, listen. You’re doing fine. I know you’re worried, and I know you’ve been out here too long, and I know you’re in pain. We’re about ready to haul you inside. But you have to relax, keep still a little longer.”
There was a response this time, something about being “fucking trapped.”
“Listen to me,” Hayes said. He took a cautious step forward, keeping himself within Mac’s visual range, gloves forward and open. “There’s a brace on you, but it’s not socketed up. I have to make the connection before we can take you inside.”
Elam, still hammering him: “I cannot guarantee your suit integrity unless you get back here now!”
He took another step closer.
“I think you broke one of my ribs, Mac. Take it easy, all right? I know it hurts. But we’re almost home, buddy.”
Mac croaked something repetitive, choking on the words. “You understand me, Mac?”
There was a silence he took for assent. Hayes grasped the brace jack in one glove, taking advantage of what he hoped was a moment of lucidity.
Mac reared back as the connection was made. Then the brace electronics overrode his voluntary functions, clamping his arms at his sides in full static lockdown. The motion must have been painful. Mac howled at his sudden new helplessness, an awful sound.
Two small tractibles approached, clasped the wings of the brace, and tilted it neatly backward. Now Mac was a wheeled vehicle, already rolling toward the tractible bay’s outer decon chamber. Hayes kept pace, ignoring Elam’s voice in his ear, staying where Mac could see him, keeping the injured man company until the bay doors rolled down on the deepening blue of the Isian dusk.
Hayes put his helmet against Mac’s as the harsh station lights came up.
Mac whispered. The words—as nearly as Hayes could make out—were, “Too late.”
He kept his helmet against Mac’s as the decon began, caustic antiseptics misting from the ceiling in a pale green rain. Mac stared back at him through moist glass.
Hayes gave him a thumbs-up, hoping the insincerity of it wasn’t ridiculously obvious.
Mac’s eyes were blank and bloodshot. His pores leaked blood in ruby teardrops. Tissue deliquescence and bleedout had already begun.