The ride became easier as the surface changed from the younger to the older flow material. The ground here was still hard rock, but more heavily pocked with small craters.
Surra hung on and prayed that Taylor wouldn’t hit one of them.
They had caught up to the rearmost bikes when they neared to their departure point. “Start heading south and take the turn nice and easy,” she told him as he did so. “That way they won’t notice that we’ve left the main route… Shit!”
“Yeah, I see him too,” Taylor replied. Ahead of them an orange bike had turned parallel to their heading.
“Why did I think that we could get away with this?” she said bitterly. “I didn’t figure anybody else would have the guts to follow, even if they did see us.”
“Well, it looks we’re in a real race, now,” Taylor replied. “How close are we to your mine?”
“Another five klicks. There’s going to be a cairn close by; pile of rocks about one meter high.”
“Claim marker?” Taylor asked.
“Grave,” Surra said, biting off her words. “Stupid jerk who thought he could beat the mountain.”
“Friend of yours?” Taylor asked, and then added, with surprising compassion. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. We were only partners for a few years. No great loss.” Taylor didn’t respond, which was a blessing. She’d hate to have to explain why she’d said that.
“There it is,” Taylor said unnecessarily as the cairn came into view. “Right turn?”
“Right turn indeed, Mr. Blacker,” she replied in as bantering a tone as she could muster. She’d only visited the grave once since Gaspar had died, and that was only to get his ID so she could claim the oxygen debt they owed him, the bastards.
“Look carefully. You should see the ramp we made somewhere along here.” She watched the landscape carefully.
“That’s the spot,” she said when it came into view. “Damn!” She spotted the orange bike swinging toward them, right on their tail.
Taylor headed straight for the ramp without any further guidance from her and slowed as they approached the edge.
“Looks like an easy slope,” Taylor remarked. They flew down the broken rock to the bottom and, as soon as they were clear of the shattered gray talus, Taylor turned the bike to follow the fissure’s floor as it jigged back and forth.
“Keep your eyes open for that setback,” Surra prodded with one eye on the glowing map display.
“Are you sure about this?” Taylor asked.
“Absolutely,” Surra said positively. “Gaspar and I were the last ones to prospect this area. Nobody else was fool enough.” The dot in the display touched her small red tic mark. “Wait; we’re real close now. Right on top of it, according to your gadget! See anything on your side?”
The brakes slammed down so suddenly that she slid forward and hit her shoulder against the rim of the cradle. Before she could shift herself back into position, Taylor was already backing and turning to squeeze the bike into the narrow passage that ran back to the north at an acute angle to their original course.
They cautiously steered the bike down the narrowing chasm, alternating steering control to whoever had the best vantage for that leg.
“Are you sure we won’t get stuck?” Taylor sounded worried as they passed through a particularly narrow passage.
“Trust me,” she replied through clenched teeth as the edge of her cradle scraped the nearest wall.
Finally, just as the passage looked as if it might end there was the steep talus; a ramp of loose rock that had been dislodged from the shattered wall of the fissure. She could just glimpse the sinking Sun, a tiny disk against the star-studded black sky, above the edge. That meant that they had another six hours of “daylight” left. Taylor had no problem driving the bike up the slope and onto the flat plain above.
Surra looked around. The landscape was flat enough that she could see at least five kilometers away in every direction, except left, where the bulk of the bike cut off her view. There were no other bikes in sight. Had the other bike found the set back so they could also make use of the hidden exit or was it now trapped in the fissure?
“Straight southeast for the next sixty klicks,” she instructed after Taylor had put them back on the right heading. “Keep an eye out for that bike that followed us,” she suggested.
“Might be something way up north.” he replied. “I see something shining. Could that be them?”
“I doubt it,” she said. How could the orange bike have gotten north of them? That didn’t make sense. “But keep your eyes open, just the same.” She resumed her own watch.
A few kilometers beyond the fissure the surface suddenly changed back to the rough, hummock dotted, younger lava shield. Taylor pushed the speed up. “Don’t get overconfident,” she warned. “This is only easier for a little ways.”
Since there was no major geology to worry them for the next thirty klicks, she lay her head down to get some rest. “Tell me when you’re ready for a break,” she reminded him. “And keep your eye on the map display. Don’t want us getting lost up here,” she added humorously.
Their plan was that she should rest first and then take her turn steering. Taylor would rest until they hit the next fissure so he could take them through it.
And so to sleep, perchance to dream.
Taylor sang a few bars of Danny Boy. His nice tenor voice came across badly on the intercom. Surra snapped awake as he sang “…The pipes, the pipes are call-all-ing…”
“I told you to hook up the relief tube before we started,” she joked as she took a sip of water from the nipple in her helmet to clean out her mouth. The light was becoming a little better. There was just enough atmosphere around them to scatter the weak rays of the late evening Sun and soften the edges of the shadows on the rubble-strewn plain. At this part of their chosen route the bike was back on the older shield material, stuff that had been bombarded by space junk for millennia. Craters and shattered shards were all over the place.
Taylor laughed. “Time to take over the reins, ma’am. Be good to her.” Surra could hear the tiredness in his voice.
She wrapped her gloves around the wishbone steering yoke. What with the restrictions of the suit and straps, there was barely enough freedom of movement to twist it half a turn right or left. “Got it!” she said as she felt the bike’s vibration on her hands through the yoke. “You can get some shut-eye now.”
“Zzzzzzz,” Taylor replied. Despite herself, she laughed. “Night, night.”
Taylor must have been running on adrenaline as well, for his snores came over the intercom moments later. When her husband had done that she’d poke him to roll over. Couldn’t do that here, with two suits, and the bulky body of the bike between them. Besides, with all the straps on Taylor, he couldn’t roll over anyhow. She keyed the intercom’s volume down and paid careful attention to the rough ground ahead.
The Sun angle was low enough to highlight the larger meteor dings in the scarp. Their bike just rolled over the smaller ones, bouncing a little as it did so, a gentle rolling motion. When the Sun dropped below the horizon she’d have to slow down so she wouldn’t overrun their lights.
She glanced at the map display. They were ahead of their planned time. Taylor must have really pushed them while she rested, probably faster than he should have. Must be that Earth background; most prospectors would be more cautious, more careful—there were too many cairns to those who weren’t.
Like the one they’d passed.
Why had she shut Taylor off when he asked about Gaspar’s cairn? The kid was just trying to be friendly; like when he asked her about the Jinx nickname. Shit, why hadn’t someone warned him back in Jovus? The other prospectors would have told him about the risks of teaming with her; told him how her men had a nasty habit of “contracting vacuum disease,” and then laugh self-consciously afterwards. Personally, she didn’t see the humor in it.