A Step Beyond (25 page)

Carter nodded that he understood, then closed his eyes and fell back unconscious.

“Do you have any suggestions on how to get him down to the rover?” Nelson asked.

“The leg should be kept immobile. Ideally, you would bring the rover to him. That, of course, is impossible. He’s not in any condition to walk. Nor can you carry him. His space suit is too bulky. . . .”

“How about a stretcher? I could drag it behind me.”

“That might work,” Endicott replied slowly. “You could scavenge the necessary materials from the tent.”

“I can be down and back in thirty minutes.”

Nelson decided he should somehow inform Carter that he was going to the rover. He tapped on the glass of his helmet. There was no response. He tapped again. Still none. He grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him; first softly, then harder. Finally, Carter’s eyes opened. They were glazed over, almost lifeless. Nelson pointed at himself, then down the volcano wall in the direction of the rover and back again. He pointed at his wrist at an imaginary watch and flashed his fingers to indicate he would be gone for half an hour. Throughout his pantomime, he watched Carter to see if he understood the message. He couldn’t be certain. The eyes did not seem to follow his motions. But when he finished, Carter nodded slightly and forced a broken smile, behind which two rows of bloodied teeth emerged. He brought his fist between their two helmets and shook it, his thumb extended, pointing toward the sky. He closed his eyes and moments later his head fell forward, the smile vanishing from his lips. Blood seeped out from the corner of his mouth and down his chin. Nelson could not look any longer. He patted Carter on the shoulder and turned away.

He attempted to run down the ridge, but the grade was too steep for him to go much faster than a brisk walk. He was driven by the fear that Carter might die before he got him back to the lander. His breathing was hard, and he could feel his long legs cramping. He fell down once. He did not bother to check his suit when he stood back up. He kept thinking of the blood dripping from Carter’s mouth. The frightful image gave him strength, and he was able to descend the entire distance without stopping to rest. His fear was that Carter had ruptured a vital organ.

Leaning against the rover to catch his breath, he checked the time. Seven minutes had passed since he had left Carter. Still heaving, he walked to the back of the rover and pulled out the tent. He made a stretcher by wrapping the tent fabric around several of the tent poles and tying the poles together at one end. It took nearly fifteen minutes to complete, and he was frustrated that it had taken so long.

He gathered the stretcher under his arm and jogged back up the ridge. It was actually easier to ascend. He did not have to keep slowing down to keep from falling. His lungs began to ache. He took in deeper breaths and continued upward without breaking his pace. Upon reaching Carter he collapsed on the ground next to him. They were both propped against the wall of the cliff. He was afraid to look inside the helmet, which had fallen limply against Carter’s chest. After a while, he reached over and turned the faceplate toward him. If it had not been for the slight movement of his head caused by his breathing, Nelson would have taken him for dead.

“He’s alive, but unconscious,” Nelson said.

“That is just as well. The pain would probably be too much to bear.”

Nelson spread the stretcher on the ground before him and gently laid Carter upon it. He then grabbed the poles from behind and held them waist high. The far end of the stretcher was supported by the ground. He attempted to look back to make certain Carter was safely inside the stretcher, but he could not see him. His helmet blocked his view. The grade looked steeper now that he had something pressing against his back. He would have to proceed at a slow pace. The entire descent took nearly an hour, and he was dripping with sweat when the rover finally came into view. His arms were numb.

He propped the stretcher against the rover—to his surprise he discovered that Carter’s eyes were not shut, but open. He actually looked better than Nelson remembered, his eyes somewhat more aware, and there was color in his cheeks. He was attempting to grin. Nelson wondered how many bones were broken in his body. Perhaps he was in a state of shock. That he was alive was a miracle in itself. Nelson pointed at the rover, which of course Carter could not see, and made steering motions with his hands to indicate that it was the rover he was pointing at and that they would soon be on their way. At first he did not think that Carter had comprehended his motions. His expression had not changed. He was still grinning, and for a moment Nelson thought he was delirious, in a state of complete shock. But then life came into Carter’s eyes, and he gestured upward with his thumb. Nelson forced a smile and patted him on the shoulder. At thirty-two kilometers per hour, it would take nearly three hours to reach the lander. Every second counted. He gently picked up Carter and placed him upon the rack above the oxygen tanks.

Carter was staring straight up, his eyes wide-open. They looked like miniature cue balls. His face was streaked where the tears from the pain had washed through the blood. Nelson smiled and placed his hand on Carter’s arm to comfort him. “You’ll be all right,” he whispered slowly, exaggerating the movement of his lips.

Carter nodded to indicate he understood. He was wondering how much blood he had lost. He could feel the rope tighten across his body. Nelson looked curiously into his eyes, then disappeared out of sight. He was able to move his head slightly, and to one side he could see part of the rover with the volcano wall behind it and to the other side the Martian horizon. The straps around his body tightened as the rover accelerated. His leg erupted with pain. He screamed. The rover was swerving from left to right, and with each turn the agony brought him closer to unconsciousness. He struggled to remain alert, afraid that he might never open his eyes again. He cursed Nelson for driving so recklessly. It then occurred to him that there could only be one reason for Nelson’s haste. He had to get him back to the lander as quickly as possible—his condition was critical. This did not surprise him. He felt as if he were holding on by the slimmest of threads.

“Slow down,” he yelled, but to no avail. The sky became fuzzy and blurred and swirled as if he had drunk too much. Moments later he lost consciousness.

When he awoke he could not feel his leg. He attempted to sit up but his space suit would not move; he realized he was still tied to the rover. The sky had turned blood red. He attempted to look down his space suit at his leg, but all he could see was the tip of his boot. It was crusted with red dust. The boot itself appeared undamaged, and that comforted him somewhat. He wondered what life would be like if he lost the leg and had to be fitted with an artificial limb. He recalled there had been some recent advances in the field. The limb was attached to the bone at the joints and special plastics were fused to the ligaments and skin. Embedded in the plastic were microsensors that responded to signals from the brain. He would be able to move his leg and toes as if they were real.

After a while he began to wonder if he would live. At least he was still alive, which gave him something of a chance. How far had he fallen? Two hundred meters? That could not be— even at two-fifths gravity, he would never have survived such a fall. He had a vague recollection of being pulled upward by a rope. That could only mean he had not fallen the entire distance—something short of two hundred meters. He could taste blood.

As he ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth in search of the source, half-hoping to find a missing tooth, he noticed the rover had come to a stop. His teeth seemed to be intact. A dark mass blotted out the stars in the sky above, and for a brief moment the only thing he could see was the neon pattern at the bottom of his helmet. And then a bright, blinding light paralyzed his eyes. He shut his eyes and attempted to raise his hands to block the intruding glare, but the rope held them tightly in position. He shook his head back and forth to protest his discomfort. The light blinked off, and a white, reddish spot appeared in its place. It floated to wherever he looked and blocked from view everything but his peripheral vision. He attempted to make out the form moving beyond the spot. The ropes loosened around him and two arms grabbed him from underneath. As he was being lifted into the air, the lander swung briefly into view.

At first it felt like someone was tapping gently on his leg. With each step the tapping became more pronounced, and the nerves in his leg began to tingle with sensation. Once again, he could feel the pain. His muscles contracted tightly. He could feel the world slipping away. His final recollection was of a metallic gray ladder ascending toward the sky. He was being carried upward.

C
arter was sprawled semiconscious on the floor of the crew quarters. He had not lost that much blood. The bone had barely broken through the skin, and the liquid cooling garment had contained the bleeding. Still, the sight under the thermal blanket covering his naked body was grotesque. His leg was multiple shades of purple and blue and was nearly twice its normal size. A weak, painful moan passed through his lips.

The sound stopped Nelson midstride. He bent down and examined Carter’s eyelids and watched for disturbances in his breathing. When he had removed Carter’s helmet, Carter asked if he would lose his leg. The question caught Nelson by surprise, and his somewhat startled reaction undermined the confidence he had attempted to convey as he told Carter not to worry. Carter grinned painfully before slipping back into unconsciousness.

Nelson stuck the ampule containing morphine sulfate in the injection gun and pulled the blanket away from Carter’s body. His eyes were drawn to the bloodstained wrapping that held Carter’s leg together. The leg felt unusually hot.

“I think he has a fever,” Nelson said.

“That is to be expected,” Dr. Endicott replied. He was looking down at the two from the screen on the wall.

The muscles in Carter’s body visibly relaxed as the morphine entered his bloodstream.

“You’ll need to set the leg now,” Endicott said.

Nelson paused to gather his strength. The most difficult part was about to begin. He forced himself to look at the leg, and to think of it only in terms of what had to be done. The bone, one end of which he could see pressed against the wrapping, had to be positioned back in place. He recalled how detached Endicott had been during Brunnet’s operation. It was then he noticed that Carter’s eyes were partially open and that the black balls behind the lids were rolling back and forth as if the muscles that held them steady had been severed.

A sense of well-being came over Carter, and he no longer felt any pain. He was floating in a bed of feathers. His body tingled with pleasure. He could see Nelson in the distance and wondered why he looked so concerned. Oh yes, his leg, it was broken. A compound fracture Endicott had said. It would be better soon. No need to look so concerned, Tom. His mind drifted to more pleasing things, the girl Tatiana and her pointy breasts and how they poked against the thin fabric of her blouse. He descended to the warm wonderful wetness between her legs and lingered. He desired to be next to her, and wondered, half-amused, how she was taking the separation from her husband. A healthy, young woman like that should not be away from her husband for too long, he said to himself. Nature abhors a void, he giggled. His eyes floated over to Nelson, who was in desperate need of humor. He decided to share his insight.

“What?” Nelson asked, gliding forward.

His second attempt to speak met with even less success. He giggled at the sounds that bubbled from his mouth and his own inability to make sense of them.

“He’s trying to say something,” Nelson said, looking up at Endicott for guidance.

“The morphine has impaired his motor skills. It’s a perfectly normal reaction.”

Carter listened as the two men talked. He couldn’t understand why they didn’t talk directly to him. Music would be nice, he thought, and closed his eyes. He was pleasantly surprised by the explosion of colors that greeted him.

Candor Chasma

A
s Vladimir Mikelovich Pavlov emerged from the airlock, he looked down past his dangling feet and saw floating beneath them a golden red ball. The ball seemed unreal. His eyes focused at the point he knew his crew members to be, the western edge of the canyon Valles Marineris. He thought of Tatiana and wondered what she would think if he simply fell out of the sky and crashed into the ground. But he knew that would be impossible. Even if he could somehow break orbit and swan dive toward the surface, his body would be nothing but ashes by the time it reached the ground. Perhaps a few would blow in her direction. The pain it would bring was tempting. He detached his safety tether and released his hold from the spaceship, but nothing happened—he remained stationary relative to the spaceship. This could go on for some time, he thought with a wry grin as he gazed down at the red ball beneath his feet.

He reattached the tether and twisted around until he was facing the interior of the airlock. With both hands gripped tightly around the metal handholds, he looked up. Fifty meters away, darkened by the fires of aerocapture, the supply ship of the ill-fated
Volnost
hung above him. It looked cold and dead. Vladimir did not believe in ghosts or even in life after death; all the same, the ship loomed overhead as if it might be haunted by the spirits of the dead cosmonauts. He knew this to be irrational. The objective of the EVA was to board the supply ship and photographically record its condition and determine, if possible, why the power supply had died two years earlier.

Hand over hand, Vladimir pulled himself toward the manned maneuvering unit. He had been looking forward to this moment. It would be like entering an abandoned house or a wartime submarine that had been scuttled and forgotten. It rekindled memories of his childhood, when he and his best friend had explored the wreck of an old train. The interior had been a labyrinth of twisted metal and broken glass. He remembered the rusty springs that poked through the fabric of the cushions and how when touched they wobbled back and forth with a low, vibrating tone that sounded like the moans of a dying man. That was how his best friend described the sound. There were decomposed beams that would break apart when kicked, and they made a great show of their karate skills. It wasn’t until later in the day—the sun had already started to set and the air was growing cold—that they discovered the old crate with holes drilled into the sides. It did not appear to have ever been opened. They peered into the holes but could not see anything but a musty darkness. They imagined great treasures and told each other what they would purchase first and promised they would never let the other fall upon hard times. They took turns striking the box with a large metal rod, which required most of their strength just to lift. It was Vladimir who delivered the destructive blow. The box crumbled inward with a large roar and produced a mushroom cloud of dust that made them wonder if he had set off a hidden explosive. At first it appeared to be empty, so they kicked the rubble, and to their horror they discovered a skeleton. It was the remnants of a dog and strands of wiry hair still clung to the skull. They ran from the train screaming, but soon lost their breath and collapsed on the ground laughing. The discovery excited them tremendously. They felt they should notify the local authorities or a museum curator, but decided against either because they feared they might get into trouble. Vladimir, who had no religious inclinations but had been to several funerals, decided it would be proper to bury the bones.