The canyon lay behind them, and Cooper followed Mann down to a vast plain of ice. He felt dwarfed by it, like a flea on a bed sheet. Wind had striated the ice, carved it into a low relief, almost as if someone had scratched it with their nails.
Lots of someones, actually.
His imagination suddenly summoned an army of thousands of ghostly, ice-colored creatures, defeated in some ancient battle, being dragged off by the victors, their claw-like nails digging futilely into the surface, leaving the marks that remained until the present day…
Back on Earth, he mused, a lot of people used to explain geographic features with such stories—like Paul Bunyan digging the Grand Canyon with his axe. Would it be the same here? Would the kids of plan B call this the “Ghost Scratch Plateau,” or something like that?
Probably. A human landscape was a named one. But would they really retreat to the supernatural, or would science stay with them? Would they wonder, as he did, if it ever rained? How the ice was replaced, once the wind blasted it away? Or was it replaced? Maybe all of this had been formed by some sort of massive upheaval, untold years ago, and was inexorably weathering away…
Brand had said that there would be no such geologic events here on Mann’s world, due to Gargantua, but maybe she was wrong about that. There might not be any asteroid impacts, yet surely there was—or had been—volcanism. Maybe more than usual, what with a dead star constantly tugging at the planet’s crust.
Most of all, he wondered why he was even thinking about it at all. It wasn’t as if he was planning to stay.
“The first window’s up ahead—” Mann said.
Thank God, Cooper thought. Let’s get this over with. Ahead, he saw what Mann was talking about—an opening in the ice. The scientist stepped over to the edge.
“When I left Earth, I felt fully prepared to die,” Mann told him. “But I just never faced the possibility that my planet wouldn’t be the one.” His tone turned regretful. “None of this turned out the way it was supposed to.”
“Professor Brand would disagree,” Cooper said. He peered warily into the depths of the crevasse.
Then he saw movement on the verge of his vision. At first he thought it was Mann going to pat him on the shoulder or something, another of many sympathetic gestures.
Before he could react, however, the scientist ripped Cooper’s long-range transmitter from his collar and tossed it away. He was just turning to ask Mann what the hell he thought he was playing at, this close to a freaking cliff, when Mann lifted his elbow…
…and blasted him with his thruster. The expanding jet of gas sent Cooper off-balance and he slid back. He just managed not to go over the edge.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, still somehow refusing to accept what was actually happening. It was a prank of some kind, surely… But then Mann kicked at him, and his sense of reality snapped back into place.
The scientist was trying to kill him.
Cooper fired his own thrusters to avoid the attack, which sent him plummeting back over the cliff.
Fortunately it wasn’t a sheer drop, but a series of descending shelves, so he landed on the next one down.
Murph watched in horror as Tom placed himself squarely in front of Getty. Her brother’s face was growing redder by the moment.
“They can’t stay here, Tom,” Murph said.
“Not one more day—” Getty began to add, until Tom’s fist punctuated his sentence.
Getty dropped like a sack.
“Tom!” Lois gasped.
Tom turned his angry gaze on Murph.
“Coop,” he said, “get your aunt’s things—she’s done here.”
“Tom,” she pleaded. “Dad didn’t raise you this dumb—”
Then Tom exploded.
“Dad didn’t raise us!” he bellowed. “Grandpa did, and he’s buried outside with Mom, in the ground. I’m not leaving them.”
“You have to, Tom,” she said.
“I’m a farmer, Murph,” he replied. “You don’t give up on the earth.”
“No,” she shouted back, “but she gave up on you! And she’s poisoning your family!”
By the time Cooper pushed himself up to his knees, Mann was almost on top of him.
“I’m sorry,” Mann said. “I can’t let you leave.”
“Why?” Cooper asked, desperately.
“We’re going to need your ship to continue the mission,” Mann said, “once the others realize what this place isn’t.”
And it clicked—all of his uneasiness about this place, Mann’s strange remarks, the too-perfect news about a surface no one had seen.
“You faked all that data?” Cooper asked, incredulous.
“I had a lot of time,” Mann said.
“Is there even a surface?” Cooper asked.
“I’m afraid not.”
Cooper saw the kick coming, but there was nothing he could do about it. It knocked him back and down, but he managed to cling to the edge of the ice shelf.
“I tried to do my duty, Cooper,” Mann said, “but the day I arrived I could see this place had nothing. I resisted the temptation for years—but I knew there was a way to get rescued.”
“You coward,” Cooper snarled. He jerked up his elbow and fired the thruster at Mann. Unprepared, the scientist went sprawling as Cooper scrambled back up onto the shelf. He managed to find his footing before Mann came back, tackling him, and they both went to the ice, clutching and grasping at each other, wrestling on the edge of the abyss.
“Please come with us,” Murph begged her brother as Getty slowly got to his feet, blood trickling from his nose. She had never seen Tom so angry, so irrational. Somehow, she had to calm him down, make him listen to reason.
“To live underground, praying Dad comes back to save us all?” Tom sneered.
“He’s not coming back,” Murph said. “He was never coming back. It’s up to us. To me.”
That was a mistake—she saw it right away.
She wondered, suddenly, if he’d resented her being taken off, educated, treated differently. Being part of their father’s world. Fragments of memory came to her. He’d made comments, now and then—his usual sarcastic remarks—but nothing that had added up to this.
“You’re gonna save the human race, Murph?” Tom rejoined. “Really? How? Our dad couldn’t—”
“He didn’t even try!” she shouted. Then, quieter. “He just abandoned us, Tom.” But she could see Tom’s intractability in the set of his mouth.
Coop handed her the box of her things. He looked so young and earnest, confused.
And sick.
“Tom,” she implored him. “If you won’t come, let them—”
Tom pointed at the box.
“Take your stuff and go,” he said.
She studied it for a moment, the container of things from another life. Then she handed it back to Coop.
“Keep it,” she said. Then she left. Getty came with her, silently nursing his jaw.
Mann lunged at him like a madman, but this time Cooper managed to sidestep and grapple him, throwing him to the ground and pinning him there.
“Stop this!” Cooper shouted, his face mere inches from the scientist’s. Mann’s response was to slam his faceplate into Cooper’s, hard, snapping his head back.
Then again.
And again.
“Someone’s—glass—will—give—way—first!” he grunted between strikes.
“Fifty-fifty you kill yourself,” Cooper howled. “Stop!”
And suddenly Mann did stop. He looked at Cooper with an unreadable expression. His faceplate was already riddled with tiny fractures.