Shit, I don’t care. I’m sitting on the edge of the ditch, thinking vaguely about women—but not yet thinking about good old Mom. According to hallowed combat tradition, the last thing a mortally wounded grunt asks for is Mom, but in the vac and on the Red, nobody can hear that final whimper.
Michelin sits beside me. We bump helms and he says, very hoarse, “They’re all down there yelling at DJ in Mandarin. I hate officers. He doesn’t know Mandarin. I do, and they are talking shit. Blaming him for killing us all.”
“How’s he taking it?”
“DJ may know machines, but he is the densest piece of wood in the forest. He’s mostly ignoring them.”
My head is really spinning. My eyes take snapshots at the end of a long, dark pipe.
But I’m not yet blind.
“See that?” I ask, pointing north.
“What?”
“That.” This could go on for a while, but Michelin manages to focus. He grabs my arm.
“That… is a vehicle!” he says.
“Not a Skell,” I observe.
“Definitely not one of ours.”
“Still, it’s pretty big. Antag?”
“No idea. Not a Millie.” Millies are millipede-like Antag transports, with dozens of segments mounted on big tires.
“We should let the others know,” Michelin says.
We don’t move. We’re fascinated by the progress of the approaching vehicle. It’s maybe ten meters long, a cylindrical carriage with big, curved, punch-blade tires. It’s not one of ours, but it certainly isn’t Antag.
We slowly remember that we’ve seen its like in old vids.
“It’s a Muskie bus… isn’t it?” Michelin says with boyish wonder.
A squad’s spooky antennae can spread news quick and without words. The rest of our Skyrines, except for DJ and Gamecock, suddenly appear in the trench, climb to the edge, and squat next to us.
“What’s so funny?” Kazak asks. Nobody’s laughing, but he’s hearing laughter, I guess.
“It’s a Muskie colony transport,” Michelin says. “A bus.”
Gamecock joins us last. We let him shove into the center of our lineup. “Fidge this,” he says. “DJ reports no possible joy with the fountain. I’m getting ready to hitch a ride with the Horseman.” By which he means Death. But then he leans forward, squints, and sits up straight, squaring his shoulders. “Do you see that?” he asks.
“We all see it,” I say.
“Then maybe it’s real. Have you ID’d it?”
“It’s a Muskie bus,” Michelin says.
“Everyone sure it’s not Ant faking a Muskie?” Gamecock asks. He sounds beyond tired. We’re all near the end. My angel has been telling me every five minutes or so that the skintight filters have maxed out. I’m thinking about shutting it down, just to let myself fade in peace.
But there is that bus. If Gamecock sees it, too, and Michelin says it’s a bus, it had better be a bus.
Meanwhile, as the shared hallucination is being scrupulously eyeballed by us ragged group of perch-crows, nobody seems willing to initiate and engage, not even Gamecock. Kazak and Tak do rock-paper-scissors. They come up evenly matched, rock against rock, three times. Spreading fingers is just too damned hard.
“Fate calls on us both,” Kazak says. “Sir, Tak and I would like to go beg a cup of sugar.”
Gamecock nods, but he’s not agreeing, exactly; his carbon dioxide has shot way up and he’s about to fall asleep, then die.
Tak punches his arm. “Sir!”
The lieutenant colonel pulls back. He looks around, behind, down into the ditch, across the broken fountain and the sagging command tent. “Am I in charge here?” he asks dreamily.
“Yes, sir,” Michelin says. “You’re all we got. The Russians are dead. The Indian is dying. Chinese and Koreans are huddled in the tent, and the tent is out of air.”
While we’re considering our lack of options, the cylinder out on the flats rolls forward again. Toward us, it seems. We’ve been surveilled and someone has decided to investigate. Bless them. Bless all Muskies. Survivors. Self-sufficient, quiet… mobile.
Gamecock finds a last grain of resolve and taps Kazak’s helm. “Stand down, both of you. Let them come to us,” he says. “DJ, go knock up the generals and tell them we have visitors and not to shoot.”
DJ hustles, as much as he can move at all, down the slope into the ditch, where he pauses, gets his bearings, despite the fact there’s really only one direction he can move—along the ditch—and then lurches forward again.
I turn my attention back to the flat. I don’t trust superb coincidence. What in hell would a Muskie be doing out here? The nearest settlement is at least six hundred klicks northwest. Somewhere near the center of the comet impacts.
The bus is now about fifty meters off.
Gamecock raises one arm. Waves it slowly. The vehicle slows and stops again. My vision is almost gone. Through the fuzzy end of a dark gray barrel, I make out a few more details. There are patches all over the fuselage. The curved blades on all six tires are scratched and dented and look to be from different batches, varying in color from titanium gray-orange to rusty steel. Bus has been around for a while. A prospector? I’ve not heard of such out here, but even Muskies must have hard-core purists who can’t stand to be around anybody. Pity if the bus is carrying just one gnarly old miner with a chaw-stained beard and the phys of King Tut.
DJ returns, it seems right away—but that could mean I’ve nodded off without knowing it. Tak is shaking me by my arm, and Kazak is trying to rouse Michelin, who’s not responding.
“What’s with the generals?” Gamecock asks DJ.
“Asleep or dead,” he says. “That fountain was our last hope. Sorry, fellows.”
“Not your fault,” I manage to say. I can hear them okay, but I’m not sure they hear me. Sound is funny on Mars. Everything is funny, or soon will be. I’m hypoxic. I don’t even notice that someone is approaching us on foot, not until a tall, slender figure in a lime-green skintight is almost upon us. Very tall. Maybe two meters.
Carrying slung tanks and a pressure hose.
The figure’s helm lases ours. A female voice inquires, “Give refill? Or you walk a me back my buggy?”
We all try to walk, but it’s a bust. We tumble over on the ridge and slide past her, if it is a her; I hope it’s a her. Mother or female angel, really an angel. I’m good with either. Michelin directs her to Gamecock. She attaches her hose and pumps oxygen for a few seconds, and when his eyes flutter, she disconnects and makes rounds, giving us each a few minutes. My concentration returns, but my head hurts like hell. The tunnel is wider but I’m seeing double and can’t stop blinking.
Then the female does her rotation again, charging our suits with at least an hour’s worth of gasps. When she’s finished with the second rotation, she steps up over the ridge and into the furrow. We all sit on the other side of the ridge and enjoy just breathing, waiting for our wits to reassemble. It’s going to be a long wait.