He stuck his head through the opening, grabbed the arm of Jan’s suit, and pulled us so that we were all four touching helmets. We could talk to each other.
And for that first ten minutes that’s what we did: talk, in a language that defies all logical analysis. I would call it the language of love, but that phrase has been used too often for another (and less powerful) emotional experience.
Then we enlarged the hole so they could climb out. At that point I thought that we had won, that our troubles and difficulties were all over. In fact, they were just starting.
Their pod was in even worse shape than it looked. The battering from flying boulders that had ruined the hull should have left intact the internal electronics, computers, and communications links, components with no moving parts that ought to withstand any amount of shaking and violent motion. But they were all dead. The pod was nothing but a lifeless chunk of metal and plastics. Worse still, all the computer systems in Jan and Sven’s suits had failed, too. They had no radios, no external vision systems — not even temperature controls. Only the purely mechanical components, like air supply and suit pressure, were still working.
I couldn’t imagine anything that could destroy the equipment so completely and leave Jan and Sven alive, but those questions would have to come later. For the moment our first priority was the return to the other pod. If I had thought it dangerous work coming, going back would be much worse. Jan and Sven were almost blind, they couldn’t step across chasms or walk along a thin slab of rock. Without radios, I couldn’t even tell them to back up if I decided we had to retrace part of our path.
We all four linked hands, to make a chain with Mac on the left-hand end and me on the right, and began a strange crab-like movement back in the direction of the other pod. I daren’t hurry, and it took hours. Four times I had to stop completely, while the ground beneath us went through exceptionally violent paroxysms of shaking and shuddering. We stood motionless, tightly gripping each other’s gloved hands. If it was scary for me, it must have been hell for Jan and Sven. Mac and I were their lifeline, if we lost contact they wouldn’t make twenty meters safely across the broken surface. While the shaking went on, I was picking up faint sounds in my radio. McAndrew and Wicklund had their helmets together, and Wicklund seemed to be doing all the talking. For five minutes I heard only occasional grunts from Mac through his throat mike.
“Right,” he said at last. “Were you able to pick up any of that, Jeanie? We have to get a move on. Go faster.”
“Faster? In these conditions? You’re crazy. I know it’s slow going, but we all have plenty of air. Let’s do it right, and get there in one piece.”
“It’s not air I’m worried about.” He was crowding up behind us, so that we were all bumping into each other. “We have to be in the pod and off the surface in less than an hour. Sven’s been tracking the surges of seismic activity and dust speed, ever since they landed and everything went to hell. There’s a bad one coming an hour and a half from now — and I mean bad. Worse than anything we’ve felt so far. A lot of the minor cycles we’ve been feeling since we came out on the surface will all be in phase. They’ll all add together.”
Worse than anything we had felt so far. What would it be like? It wasn’t easy to imagine. Nor was the cause — but something had taken Vandell’s smooth and quiet surface and crumpled it to a wild ruin in the few hours since the other pod had landed.
Against my instincts I began to take more risks, to climb over more jagged rocks and to walk along shelves that might tilt and slide under our weight. I think that at this point it was worse for McAndrew and me than for Sven and Jan. They could walk blind and trust us to keep them safe; but we had to keep our eyes wide open, and study all the dangers around us. I wanted to ask Mac a hundred questions, but I didn’t dare to focus his attention or mine on anything except the immediate task.
At our faster pace we were within a hundred meters of the pod in twenty minutes, with what looked like a clear path the rest of the way. That was when I heard a grunt and curse over the suit radio, and turned to see McAndrew sliding away to one side down a long scree of loose gravel. Last across, he had pushed Sven Wicklund to safety as the surface began to break. He fell, scrabbled at the ground, but couldn’t get hold of anything firm. He rolled once, then within seconds was lost from view behind a black jumble of boulders.
“Mac!” I was glad that Jan couldn’t hear my voice crack with panic.
“I’m here, Jeanie. I’m all right.” He sounded as though he was out on a picnic. “My own fault, I could see it was breaking away when Sven was on it. I should have looked for another path instead of following him like a sheep.”
“Can you get back?”
There was a silence, probably thirty seconds. In my nerved-up state it seemed like an hour. I could hear Mac’s breath, faster and louder over the radio.
“I’m not sure,” he said at last. “It’s a mess down here, and the slope’s too steep to climb straight up. Damned gravel, I slide right back down with it. It may take me a little while. You three had better keep going and I’ll catch up later. Time’s too short for you to hang around waiting.”
“Forget it. Hold right there, I’m coming back after you.” I leaned to set my helmet next to Jan’s. “Jan, can you hear me?”
“Yes. But speak louder.” Her voice was faint, as though she was many meters away.
“I want you and Sven to stand right here and don’t move — not for anything. Mac’s stuck, and I have to help him. I’ll be just a few minutes.”
That was meant to be reassuring, but then I wondered what would happen if I was too optimistic about how long it would take me. “Give me twenty minutes, and if we’re not back then, you’ll have to get to the pod on your own. It’s straight in front as you’re facing now, about a hundred meters away. If you go in a straight line for fifty paces then clear your faceplates, you should be able to see it.”
I knew she must have questions, but there was no time to answer them. Mac’s tone suggested it would be completely fatal to be on Vandell’s surface, unprotected, when the next big wave of seismic activity hit us.
I knew exactly where Mac had gone, but I had a hard time seeing him. The rock slide had carried with it a mixture of small and large fragments, from gravel and pebbles to substantial boulders. His struggles to climb the slope had only managed to embed him deeper in loose materials. Now his suit was three-quarters hidden. His efforts also seemed to have carried him backwards, so with a thirty degree gradient facing him I didn’t think he’d ever be able to get out alone. And further down the slope lay a broad fissure in the surface, of indeterminate depth.
He was facing my way, and he had seen me too. “Jeanie, don’t come any closer. You’ll slither right down here, the same as I did. There’s nothing firm past the ledge you’re standing on.”
“Don’t worry. This is as far as I’m coming.” I backed up a step, nearer to a huge rock that must have weighed many tons, and turned my head so the chest of Mac’s suit sat on the crosshairs at the exact center of my display. “Don’t move a muscle now. I’m going to use the Walton, and we don’t have time for second tries.”
I lifted the crosshairs just a little to allow for the effects of gravity, then intoned the Walton release sequence. The ejection solenoid fired, and the thin filament with its terminal electromagnet shot out from the chest panel on my suit and flashed down towards McAndrew. The laser at the tip measured the distance of the target, and the magnet went on a fraction of a second before contact. Mac and I were joined by a hair-thin bond. I braced myself behind the big rock. “Ready? I’m going to haul you in.”