He could do this and go home, and the nightmares of blood and decompression would quieten and he could live a normal life again.
He had to stop thinking that, too. That was far in the future, and was too much pressure. He’d been on his own too long, and then threatened with the wrong kind of company.
He needed to concentrate on the mundane, on unplugging the buggy from the power supply and coiling up the stiff, serpentine lead into its container, and kicking the wheels, shaking the frame to make sure nothing dropped off. Changing the wheels—that was a job for two, and now that he had spares, sent or stolen, he was eager to swap out the pitted, leaf-like tires for fresh-from-the-factory ones. Sure, he could have jury-rigged a jack, but so much easier with another pair of hands.
The fuel cell lit up the display, reliable as ever, and he buckled himself into the seat to wait. The time on his tablet showed 0803, and one new message. He tabbed the app open, and it was Luisa.
“Welcome to Phase four, Frank. This is your time, now. It really is all up to you. I know how much you want to come home, and honestly, I’m glad it’s you and not Brack. You’ve become much more than a name on the screen these last few months. I hope I have too. Make it happen, Frank. Come home. Luisa. (I’m going to delete this from the server once I know you’ve seen it, and resend an ‘official’ message. But this is how I feel L x)”
Luisa was starting to take risks on his behalf, and he didn’t know what to think about that. Did he have an ally at XO? And how far might she be prepared to go for him? Could she get messages out, as well as in? That was something to explore, another day. All he knew was that he’d come to rely on her.
Right now, though, he had one very big thing to worry about, and it was going to take his full attention.
0804. Soon. So very soon. He tilted himself back to catch as much of the sky as possible.
There were clouds, high up and thin, like a gathered veil that stretched in folds from east to west, visibly moving as the ephemeral winds chased them away. The far horizons were blocked by Rahe’s rampart walls and the bulk of the volcano, but straight up was where they’d come from.
0806. Had they already left the transit ship, fired their rockets and started sliding inexorably towards the ground? They’d had nine months in space just getting here. Had they argued? Had they fought? Were they still a team? He hoped so. His own crew, seven entirely mismatched cons, had got on well enough. They hadn’t turned on each other, except at the very end, and even then that was a matter of life and death. His own, mainly. NASA would have picked these people well. They weren’t XO. These were the good guys, right?
They were going to take him home with them.
0807. Come on. His gaze flicked to every aberration in his sight, every floater, every roil of cloud. Nothing. Nothing at all. Maybe he should just close his eyes and pray very hard, but he hadn’t done that since he was a kid and it didn’t seem right to do it now. Selfish. Wanting something, and not prepared to do anything for it in return. And in any event, if there was a God, then Frank had pretty much plowed his own furrow for his entire adult life, not looking for salvation from outside. He hadn’t been turned around or come to any great revelation. He was pretty certain this was it. Zeus would have said otherwise, but he wasn’t here and his body was on its way to the sun.
0809. Seriously, what were they doing up there? What could be keeping them? Maybe something had gone wrong. Something, a problem with any part of the descent vehicle, would mean they’d have to abort. If they could fix it, they could try again. Otherwise, they were stuck up there and he was stuck down here. With only M2 for company. But he still had the MAV. If they were willing to stick around for a few more months, perhaps he could climb on board and join the transit ship in orbit.
0810. That hadn’t occurred to him before. He knew how long the MAV needed to fuel up enough to take them all back up to orbit, but if it was just him? The payload would be one-seventh of what it had been designed for. He might be able to go now. Did it run fully automatic, or did he need a pilot? Would the astronauts having to abort their landing be the best solution for him? Now he was in a quandary. He didn’t know what he wanted any more.
0811. Of course, they’d spent all that time in transit awake, and everything was leading up to this moment. They would have checked and double-checked the ship as part of their routine maintenance. Any problems with it would have been discovered, and fixed, months ago. They were in orbit, and they were coming down. Anything else, and he would have been told. Nothing had been left to chance.
0812. So where were they? Seven minutes, from first contact with the Martian atmosphere to touchdown. That was all. He’d waited months for this moment, and now that it had finally arrived, he was like a child desperate for Christmas. He knew he wanted it. He hadn’t realized quite how much. His heart was banging in his chest like it wanted out.
0813. There? Was that it? Could he even see it at this distance? What if they’d over- or under-shot? Hundreds, maybe a thousand miles out, and no way of getting to them. He blinked and wished he could scrub at his eyes. No. Nothing. It was just the fans blowing in his face, drying him out.
0814. Wait. There was something. A light. A flickering, faint light like a match falling. Pulsing. Was that good? All the other deliveries did that too, so it wasn’t unusual, but he squinted at it, trying to ascertain whether this was a normal descent, or whether parts were burning up and breaking off. The light grew, both in size and in brilliance. Brighter than the sun. Bright enough to hurt. Or was that the tightness in his chest, and his inability to breathe?
0815. Smoke. There was a trail of smoke. Again, normal, but was this sootier? Was it actually on fire? The first rumble of thunder trembled across the amphitheater of the crater, making the sand dance. The smoke thickened, and the glow changed in quality. No longer blazing, but like a charcoal, a red eye.
0816. The parachutes strung out behind, one, two, three long candles. Then, boom. They opened, taking a great gulp of air each, shivering and clawing at Mars’s thin air. The ground, the walls, growled and complained, and the cinder of the heat shield fell away, a black disk tumbling and spinning, sliding and twisting away and downwards, heading towards the plain to the west of the volcano.
0817. It was falling so quickly. He remembered what the MAV looked like, coming down. He remembered the momentary fear that it was going to crash into the base, and it hadn’t, and everything had been fine, and he still felt sick. The parachutes were huge, great saucers of orange and white. Then, unexpectedly, they detached, deflated and wheeled away. The dark speck suspended underneath dropped like a stone.
0818. And lit up. Spears of bright fire pointed downwards, and suddenly the air was roaring, trembling. A shadow moved across the sky, eclipsing the sun and then out again, falling, falling, slowing, and it was there, a physical thing, white and smooth and efficient, slowing down, down, slipping out of sight over the edge of the Heights, on the way to the crater floor. Dust, smoke, and then silence.
Frank gasped, dragging in so much air, so quickly, the suit struggled to respond. He deliberately placed his hands on his chestplate and timed his breathing. Slowly out. Hold. Slowly back in. Hold. OK, he wasn’t going to faint, not this very moment. The fans cleared his faceplate, and he took a drink of water from his sippy tube.
They were here. He was trembling with relief. He’d done it. He’d survived. Despite everything, despite XO, despite Mars. Despite himself.
The dust cloud was slowly collapsing. The grit pattered down, while the finer material kept on going up and thinning as it went. He’d need to sweep the panels clean after one launch and one descent. How prosaic. He waited until he could trust himself to drive, then reached forward to grip the steering controls.