Still, it wasn’t worth going out for, not now. She had enough power to get where they needed and then some. Once they stopped for the night, she’d check on it. She could guess it would be one of the sockets, which had a habit of working themselves loose on longer journeys.
And this was one long journey.
In fact, it was a rarity for anyone to go out alone like this, so far for so long.
Luckily for Wei, she had been less than one hundred kilometers away, so was able to get to him when ordered. She had been collecting salvage from a currently unmanned base that was still just a robot-driven construction site over at what was officially called Ni Zhuan Wu or Base Five Four.
Just after sunset, Wei eventually stirred. He looked outside and exclaimed, “I’ve slept through the whole day!”
“Yes, but you’ve been through a lot.”
“So have you! You must be exhausted.”
“We’re nearly there. Once we settle in, I’m going to have to sleep. I’ll share the rations I’ve got, but it’s not a big supply. You should eat and then just sleep again. We’ll be off at dawn.”
He was looking out the window, but dusk was already passing into night. There wasn’t a lot to see as she followed a winding path through a canyon. “Is it safe to drive at night?”
“I know the way, and it’s not as if we have to watch for other traffic.”
He smiled at that as he turned to look at her, but he still appeared tired.
Suddenly, the little light left outside died.
He turned back to the window. “What happened? Are we in a cave?”
She pondered her answer as she slowed the vehicle, putting on the headlights so she could better see. After a moment, she said, “Yes, let’s call it that.”
Outside the window, with the lights now on, Wei could see metal panels. But it wasn’t a simple construction; everything was at an odd angle or buckled. “What is this place?”
“It’s a crashed lander from years ago.”
“Haven’t the Americans seen it?”
“Beijing was lucky. The wreck is in a deep and narrow canyon, so Beijing doesn’t worry about it. The small sections that might have been glimpsed by passing orbiters which happened to be focused on the right spot at right time are now all hidden by a layer of dust. For all intents and purposes, it’s camouflaged.”
“And for you it’s salvage?”
“Absolutely. If we hadn’t found out about it when we did, we would have all starved years ago.”
“I still can’t believe you Renegades have lasted as long as you have. It’s impossible!”
She turned in her seat and focused on him. In spite of her suit’s stiffness, she looked all too at home in it. They both had helmets off, but had stayed suited. She clearly lived in it, as would be prudent to do.
He still couldn’t believe it; a woman on Mars!
Ghost gave him a sour look, one that dashed his rising excitement. “You Renegades?”
“Yes.”
“You too are a Renegade.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. He was no Renegade. He’d done nothing but his job and then been caught up in a terrible disaster. He was lucky to be alive, that was true, and perhaps even luckier to have been discovered by her, but that didn’t make him a Renegade.
Or did it?
“You Renegades,” she repeated dismissively, before turning back to the windshield. She hit a few switches that powered up some external floodlights before getting out of her seat and slipping past him to the back of the cab. She’d grabbed her helmet.
“Where are you going?”
“To check on the trailer coupling. The solar panels have stopped charging. We’ll be fine, but I need to do it now while I think of it.” She stepped into the airlock and turned back to him. “There’s some ration packs under the dash. Leave the beef noodles, they’re mine.” She didn’t wait for an answer, instead putting her helmet on and then hitting the button to start the cycle.
Chapter 22
Houxing MingLing Yi (Mars Command One), Mars
Tung awoke in bed, his wife sitting on the edge beside him. Liu Yang smiled.
“Hi,” he said as he reached out a hand for her.
Liu Yang was in uniform, her pregnancy showing. She still had three months to go. “We got him.”
He put his hand to her belly and let it rest there. “We?”
She pursed her lips, he could see it, as she considered what she should tell him—or not.
What was she hiding?
In truth, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. As far as Mars Command One and Beijing were concerned, Wei had perished, sacrificed for the good of the overall Mars project. A price they all knew they might have to pay. There was no official record of his pickup or even a data feed showing how the hub had found a trail from where Wei had fled the base rover, ran into someone else, and then got into another vehicle that had had its tracks largely erased, even though now the hub continued to follow the trail on autopilot.
He said, “I don’t know what I should ask or if I even want to know.”
She nodded, pleased he had opened the conversation in such a way. She offered, “He is safe and in a rover. He is being taken to a safe place.”
“That is good to hear. I am pleased for him.”
She nodded, putting her own hand on his where it rested on her belly.
He continued, “The only thing I am curious about is how you picked him up; was it a Mars Command Two asset? I guess I need to know the latter in case Beijing query it with me, should you have detailed your actions officially in your own log.” But even making the last remark felt strange, like he had joined some kind of dark conspiracy.”
She squeezed his hand and said, “There is no record. I called in a favor. The pick-up was done by rover just before sunrise. Had the cleaning operation not been delayed, we would have lost two good people.”
“We?”
She frowned that he would question her use of the word. He clearly didn’t want to know anything more, so why complicate the conversation by throwing out further enquiries? “What has been done is off record. I am not ashamed to have had a part in it, as it has saved the man’s life. Not only that, but he will become part of something else, another research program. You don’t need to know about it.”
He sat up. The sheet fell away from his bare chest as he took her hands in his own. “Liu Yang, I just want us to be safe, and that includes our coming child. You’ve seen the updates. Beijing is very close to publicly declaring we are here. Once that happens, we will not just be a lot busier with the arrival of a thousand colonists or more every month, but if there is any whiff of scandal around either of us, we will be removed.”
She squeezed his hands. “I know, and I also know they will not return us to Earth.” She paused and then added, “They may not even demote or jail us.”
He nodded, glad she was under no illusion as to how grave their punishment might be.
She leaned in and kissed him on the lips, before leaning back and asking, “Do you love me?”
He was disappointed the kiss hadn’t led to something more, but he would not leave her question unanswered. “Of course. I have loved you since I arrived, although I know it took time for you to move on from your first husband and accept me.”
With sorrow in her eyes, she looked down at the sheets between them, and then said, “Do you trust me?”
He paused. “I did, until all this happened. But now I know you are hiding something from me.”
“Do you trust me with the life of our coming babe? Do you trust me to do what is right to keep him safe?”
That was an easier question to answer, as he had no doubts there. “Liu Yang, of course. I can see how happy you are, and know you are excited to be carrying the first child to be born on Mars.”