Catherine could see what she meant. It seemed to be growing taller here in the dark, which given what little Catherine knew about plant life, didn’t seem possible. Lichen didn’t grow that way, did it? Something else caught her eye as well.
“Hang on. It looks like it’s glinting. Do we have samples of that? Pull over and let me grab some.”
“It’s a crystalline structure!” Claire said, now sounding even more excited. “Of course. It looks like… I don’t know, like it’s merging with the rock.” The rover started going faster as they moved down a small slope.
At first, Catherine laughed. “Wrong pedal, kiddo; I said stop.”
“I’m trying! Shit. Shit! Cath, the brakes are out!”
“Try the emergency brake.” Catherine tried to keep her voice calm, glancing up to see a large cluster of rocks in the rover’s headlights, straight ahead. And the rover was picking up speed. She pinged the comms for the Habitat. “Wells to Twilight Base. Having a rover malfunction, do you read?”
“The emergency brake’s out, too!” Claire cried.
“Bail out,” Catherine ordered, watching the rocks get larger. “Get out, now!” She fumbled with her own door to do the same herself.
“The belt’s stuck, hang on—”
Before Catherine could turn back to help her, there was a loud crunch and the rover lurched. Catherine, unsecured in preparation for bailing, was thrown against the windshield with a rattling crack of her head, leaving her stunned.
“We read you.” Tom’s voice came over the comms. “Sensors went dead on the rover; are you there?”
He sounded worried. Catherine tried to answer, but she couldn’t at first. Her head was spinning, and she was faintly aware of the sound of Claire groaning.
“Colonel Wells.” Ava’s voice, her stern commander voice. “Mission Specialist Tomason. Status report.”
“We… crashed. Into a rock,” Catherine managed to get out. Something warm was running down the side of her head, but at the same time she felt something a little cooler, a breeze against her skin. After a second or two, she realized why. There was a rip in her hood where she’d hit her head. “Suit breached. And I’m bleeding.”
Panic tried to take over, but Catherine pushed it down savagely. If TRAPPIST-1f’s atmosphere weren’t similar to Earth’s, she’d be dead already. That didn’t mean she was safe. They still didn’t know what types of bacteria populated the air.
“I’ve got an open cut exposed to the air,” she repeated, trying to keep her voice calm. She tried to hold her suit together at the tear, but it might have already been too late.
“Hang on,” Ava said. “Richie and Dr. Izzy are on their way. We’ve got your last known about two klicks from the south ridge. Is that right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.” The worst of the confusion was fading. She pulled herself back to a sitting position, ignoring the way her head tried to spin. “Claire. Claire, are you okay?”
“I’m okay.” Claire was slumped in the driver’s seat, and sat up with a wince. Her eyes widened. “Cath, your head.”
“I know. We’re gonna find out how friendly the microbes are here.” She’d have to go into quarantine for ten days while Dr. Izzy tried to figure out what she’d been exposed to, if anything.
She should have been terrified. Something that could kill her might be invading her bloodstream right now through the cut on her head. She might never see Aimee and David again. The thought hurt, but it was a distant pain. More than fear or pain, she felt weirdly fatalistic. Not making it home had always been a possibility, and all she could do was wait and see.
It didn’t take long before they heard the sound of the other rover approaching, and Richie hailed them over the comms. “You two okay?”
“Some bruises,” Claire said, “but Cath’s suit is breached.”
“All right,” Izzy’s voice came next. “We know the routine here. Sorry, Catherine. It’s gonna suck to be you for a little bit.”
“Are you kidding?” Catherine forced a laugh, smiling so Claire could see her. “I was supposed to be on KP this week. Couldn’t have happened at a better time.”
When the other rover stopped next to them, Izzy jumped out. Catherine waved him over to Claire first, but he ignored her. “Okay, it’s not deep,” he said of the cut. “We’ll have to see about the rest. The sooner we can get you on prophylactic antibiotics the better I’ll feel.”
“Working on it,” Richie said, hooking up the crashed rover to the working one so they could drag it back.
Izzy repaired her suit breach then moved on to Claire, giving her a quick exam. Within ten minutes, they were headed back to the base, with Richie pushing their speed the whole way.
Claire went to the infirmary for a more thorough exam while Catherine wound up in the base’s quarantine unit. It was stark; an empty bunk stood in one corner, and various monitors and bits of medical equipment sat in the other. The only real form of entertainment was a tablet. This was going to be a long ten days. Through the observation glass, she could see Ava and Richie, and after a short time Claire and Izzy. Where was Tom?
She didn’t have time to ask before Izzy came through the decontamination air lock, still in his sealed suit. Catherine had taken hers off and was waiting on the bunk. He patched up the cut on her forehead and took some X-rays and an MRI before giving her a shot. “I’m gonna have you wired six ways to Sunday,” he said apologetically. “I’m going to keep track of all your vitals, and if I see so much as a hint of any sort of infection, we’ve got another collection of antibiotics to try.”
“It had to happen to one of us, right?” Catherine wore the same smile she wore for Claire, determined to keep presenting a cheerful face. Her feelings were still a numb sort of mystery, and until they sorted themselves out, she would keep her best “okay” face on. “Besides, I know you were dying to see if the atmosphere was safe for us or not.”
“Yeah, I just hope you’re not dying to get the answer.” Izzy was smiling, too, with a grim sort of humor. He attached one electrode after another, to her scalp, her chest, her back.
“I’m not worried. As far as I’m concerned, I just got a ten-day vacation.” She looked up at the module’s observation glass and saw the others standing out there looking stricken. Especially Ava. Catherine gave them a wave. The room was miked, so she said, “Will you guys stop looking like you’re at a funeral? I’m fine.”
“She is,” Izzy agreed. “I’m going to run some more tests to be sure, but I don’t think she even has a concussion.”
“Claire told us what happened.” Ava still looked grave. “We’re going to check out the rover and see if we can figure out why it failed.”
“Well, I can’t do much from in here, but I’ll help however I can.”
Izzy gave Catherine a clean bill of health except for the cut and some bruises—and, of course, whatever organisms might have invaded through that cut. Eventually the others drifted away and Catherine settled in with the tablet. Her comment about being on vacation wasn’t accurate. There was still some work she could do in here, and the first job was to write up a report about the rover crash.
She was halfway through the report when Ava’s voice interrupted her. “Catherine?” She looked up to see both Ava and Richie standing in the observation window. Richie’s eyes were dark with rage, and Ava didn’t exactly look happy either.
“What happened?” Catherine put the tablet down and sat up.
“The rover didn’t have a mishap. Richie says the controls were tampered with. The brakes in particular.”