“I’m ready to go,” he told Vikram, reaching for his helmet and his gloves. He was almost afraid to ask what Bangalore had in mind—
Then the rover rocked. “Jesus!” It was the second most terrifying moment of this day—and one of the top two in Lucas’s life. Had the thing that killed Downey come after him?
“Say again, Lucas.”
A light swept through the rover interior, and Lucas relaxed. He pressed his face up to the window embedded in the rear hatch . . . saw two astronauts, one in a Coalition suit, one in a NASA model. “Zack and Natalia are here!”
“Double check that,” Vikram said, the exasperation audible in his voice, even across the time lag . . . and distance of 440,000 kilometers.
The speakers inside rover Buzz crackled, and even as he heard Bangalore in his headset, he now heard Tea Nowinski’s voice in the cabin. “Lucas, it’s Tea and Taj. Are you in suit?”
Twenty minutes later, he was completely suited up and outside rover Buzz, listening to Taj. “Dennis has moved over to Venture to keep an eye on Yvonne.”
Taj had brought another sled from Brahma—empty. “You didn’t have time to put anything in it?” Lucas joked.
“Didn’t you get briefed?” Tea said, sounding irritated. “This is to let us haul bodies out of there.” She grabbed the tether and began hauling it toward the membrane, less than a hundred meters away.
Lucas had no answer for that, which seemed to further annoy Tea. “They’re an hour past the extreme limit of their consumables.”
“In normal circumstances, yes.” As Taj and Lucas hurried to keep up with Tea, Lucas told the others as much as he could about the wind and glowworms.
Taj seemed confused. “You’re saying there’s a breathable atmosphere through this curtain?”
“All I know is that it’s not vacuum.” Lucas turned to Tea, seeking an ally on the side of optimism, however brief and foolish. “Do we know how the suits will operate under pressure, with some oxygen in the environment?”
“Yes,” Tea said. “They will operate exactly the way they would in vacuum. Unless Zack and Natalia opened their suits and breathed, they are almost surely dead.”
“What if they sat down . . . rested . . . slowed the rate of consumption?”
“They’ve run those calculations, too,” Taj said.
“They can’t be very precise—”
“They aren’t,” Tea said, clearly wanting to end this line of discussion. “That’s why we’re still calling this a rescue and retrieval mission.”
They had reached the membrane. “We just walk through this?” Taj said, clearly doubtful.
“It’s about ten meters deep . . . maybe less,” Lucas said.
“Can’t you fucking remember?” Tea again.
Lucas was appalled, not just by her obvious anger. He was embarrassed to know that their words were being recorded, even if they wouldn’t be heard for hours yet. “The boundaries are compressible. It seemed thinner the second time I went through.”
Tea was examining the seam where the membrane attached to the rocky walls. “Are we being heard?” Lucas asked.
“Only in both mission controls,” Taj said. “Both sides agreed on a blackout.”
“A first for everything—”
Tea shut up as the membrane bulged.
Someone was emerging! Taj hauled Tea away from the seam. “Stand back, everyone!”
It was Natalia, stumbling forward.
Lucas caught her. She was clearly happy to see them, so happy she was almost incoherent, speaking half in Russian about vorvolaka.
“Calm down!” Taj said.
“I’m really glad they can’t hear this at home on television,” Tea said, grabbing Natalia by her shoulders and turning her face-on. “Natalia, where’s Zack?”
“I left him—”
“You what?”
“Wait, Tea.” It was Taj, who had been reading the oxygen levels on Natalia’s suit. “We’ve got to get her to the rover. She’s almost out of gas.”
“Fuck! Fine!” Tea joined Taj, each taking Natalia by the arm and halfescorting, half-hauling her back to the rover.
“Zack was okay when I left him,” Natalia said, quickly explaining that both astronauts had removed their helmets and breathed the atmosphere of Keanu.
On hearing this, Tea seemed to relax. “Okay. What else is going on in there? What is vorvolaka?”
“A word my grandmother would use. Is like ‘ghost’ or ‘undead.’”
Even though she had calmed down considerably since finding them, Natalia was almost hysterical, and her English was the first casualty. Lucas had a difficult time understanding her.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Tea said, clearly impatient with the cosmonaut’s Old World imagery. “You’re not making sense.”
They were at the rover now. “It is very hard to believe,” Natalia said. Then she patted her helmet camera. “But I will show you.”
Taj pulled a linking cord out of his chest pack. “You’ll not only show us, you’ll be showing Houston and Bangalore.”
My name is Rachel Stewart. I am eleven years old. I live on ChestnutDrive in Clear Lake City. My father is a NASA astronaut. My mother is driving me crazy with her camera.
UNPUBLISHED TEXT FROM RACHEL STEWART, SIXTH-GRADE ASSIGNMENT,
ST. BERNADETTE’S SCHOOL
“What about Rachel?” To Zack, it was as if “Megan” wouldn’t allow herself to say, Was Rachel killed with me? or Was she badly injured?
“She was shaken up. She went through a very traumatic period. Lost her mother, all of that. But from the accident? A bump on her head and some cuts.”
“Tell me about her!”
So for ten minutes, he did—suitably sanitized. This was not the time or place to complain about Rachel’s inability to be the perfect dutiful daughter.
“And she’s in mission control?”
“She was a few hours ago.”
“I want to see her.”
Zack hesitated. “As soon as we can figure out how to get us in touch—”
Then she stood and began rubbing off the second skin, revealing some other layer of shinier material underneath. Stranger and stranger.
“What about Harley?”
Zack had to tell her about Harley’s injuries. “It wasn’t his fault,” she said. “It was just . . . all messed up.”
“Well, he still feels guilty. But I’m going to guess that getting absolution from the person he killed might make him feel better.” She actually shot him a perfect Megan look—Ha-ha—as she stood and began to rub off the flaky outer husk, leaving the tougher layer beneath.
“Do you feel different?”
“Yes and no. Physically, mentally, I feel pretty much the way I did before I got killed—which, by the way, is a phrase I’m really never going to get used to.
“I’m breathing. I have a heartbeat. What’s different is my outfit.” She nodded at him. “I bet it’s more comfortable than that suit.” She was picking at her second skin.
“You’re going to be naked if you keep that up.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” She had done her legs and arms. “Help me with my back.”
The outer layer of the second skin was more fragile than Zack had thought. “Is this drying out and flaking off?”
“God, I hope so.”
Zack stood back then, looking away in some bizarre and unnecessary attempt at politeness. The moment allowed him to think again about larger issues. “So what do we call this event?” he said. “A resurrection?”
“I guess. I mean, not in the I-saw-Jesus sense. But I never was as religious as you.”
He had no immediate comment. Megan noted his silence. “You still don’t believe this, do you?”