Missing! (9 page)

“We can't make it by land. We have to fly,” Sean said. “That's the only way.”

Mickey stared at him, then took off his glasses and polished them. “Fly. Into an electrical storm. Right. And what do we do when the wings rip off the plane? Flap our arms and hope for the best?”

“We can't take a plane,” Sean said. “So we take a ballistic shuttle.”

“Oh, a rocket,” Roger said, nodding solemnly. “Sure, that would work like a charm. He's got you
there, Mickey. Now it all makes perfect sense.”

“It does,” Sean insisted. “In a shuttle we can arc in above the atmosphere, so the storm won't matter. We'll put the shuttle in VSTOL mode and pick a place to set down that's sheltered, or a place where the storm has already passed. If we take a Series One, we'll have the surface rover for transportation after we land.”

“A Series One shuttle?” Mickey asked, putting his glasses back on and looking suspiciously at Sean. “Pretty tall order for just the three of us, Sean. Those babies are designed to go into orbit and return. So who's supposed to fly this thing?”

“I can't, and Roger can't,” Sean said.

Roger laughed. “Well, that narrows it down a bit, I must say. Mickey, I know you've flown planes, or at least that you've sat in the copilot's seat while someone else was flying them. How much shuttle time do you have? Any at all, or is this going to be a case of on-the-job training?”

“I made two trips as copilot while the
Argosy
was offloading cargo,” Mickey said, shaking his head.
“And I've put in about twenty hours on a simulator. I've never made a takeoff or a landing solo. With the computer assist the Series One has, I probably could do it, but it's taking a big chance. Anyway, how are we supposed to get our hands on a Series One?”

“They're not guarded or anything,” Sean pointed out. “Hangar One is full of pipeline equipment, and the shuttle that was to ferry some of it down was already out on the revetment and partly fueled when the storm blew up. It's sitting there waiting for us, just wrapped in plastic. If we miss the chance, we'll have to wait until the next cargo ship from Earth arrives—lots of shuttles will be available then.”

“But there won't be one of those for a while,” Roger said. “And it would be too late for the surface party then too. Come on, Mickey. I've got enough electronics to know how to help. Once you get us off the ground, I can set the nav computer, and it's pretty much tending the baby after that. The thing practically flies itself.”

“There's the little matter of landing.”

Sean shrugged. “The Series One does a vertical
descent and set-down. In fact, Giles Tallant told me he set one down in a crater a few years back when he had to make an emergency landing.”

“Giles Tallant helped to
design
the Series Ones,” Mickey pointed out. “And he's probably the best shuttle pilot on the planet.”

“You can do it,” Roger insisted. “Look, even I've made VSTOL landings on the simulator. It's easier than a runway landing. Just takes fuel, that's all.”

“I don't know. Maybe. Tell me about this storm,” Mickey said.

Sean shooed Roger from his seat and used the computer to call up satellite images. “Here it is. Lots of lightning discharge, as you can see. It's a big one bearing southeast, but the northern edge has already swept past Arsai Mons,” he said, pointing out the spot. “The prep team is somewhere in this area, south-southeast of Arsai. By the time we get there, the storm should be clearing.”

“We can't get too close to the storm. Winds can really mess up a vertical landing. And we'll have to monitor the satellite feed to make sure the storm isn't changing
direction or firing back up,” Mickey grunted. He whistled. “Man, look at that. It stretches all the way south to Tierra Sirenum. That's a big blow.”

“And Jenny's out in it,” Sean said.

Mickey didn't reply right away. Roger said, “Come on, Mickey. You're the wizard at everything you try. Anyway, what's the worst they can do to us, assuming we even survive? Send us back to Earth? Not bloody likely!”

“I ought to have my head examined,” Mickey complained. “You know I'll catch most of the grief for this, because I'm the oldest. Okay, let's hear your plan.”

Sean leaned forward and started to explain, occasionally turning to punch up a display on the computer. He called up a large-scale relief map of the area and indicated a series of red dots. “These are the stations the team had to prep,” he explained. “When the storm hit, we know they had already serviced the first one. We got no readings from the second station—either they never reached it, or the storm disrupted communications before the report came in. Anyway, we need to check out the second station to see if they
reached it. If not, then we have to backtrack. The trail is marked with directional beacons, so that shouldn't be a problem. They ought to be somewhere on a line between the second station and the first.”

“All right,” Mickey said. “It's crazy, it's zazzy, but we might be able to pull it off. When do we go?”

“As soon as we can. Now.”

” It's the middle of the night!”

“Then no one will see us, will they?” Roger asked, standing up.

Mickey seemed to have no answer for that. Of course, Sean knew, someone would see them. But if they had any sort of luck, they'd be seen as the shuttle lifted off, and by then it would be too late for anyone to stop them.

With any sort of luck,
Sean repeated to himself.

The wind had been bad,
but the lightning was worse. Jenny flinched every time they heard the sizzle of a bolt, and the strange thunder of Mars, tinny and
high-pitched in the thin atmosphere, vibrated in her skull. The small porthole windows in the tent turned a brilliant blue-white every time a lightning bolt struck, and she could almost taste the acrid ozone.

The constant sizzle of sand on the tent made conversation all but impossible. She and Salma sat hunched on the floor of the tent, close together, their helmets on their knees. The tent was holding, so far, and the anchors were keeping it in place. There was no telling what the lightning was doing to the electronics on which they depended. Even a near miss could fry the circuitry inside an oxygen generator—or, for that matter, inside the Marscat.

Jenny closed her eyes as another lightning bolt slammed into the surface somewhere not so far away. The rock beneath the tent vibrated from the discharge. “The hills,” Salma said, and the rest of her sentence was lost in the roar of the storm.

Scooting closer to her, Jenny yelled, “What?”

Salma shouted into her ear. “The hills will attract most of the lightning. It hits the highest point.”

Jenny nodded and hoped that was true. The crater
rim had been there a long time, and storms had hit it often enough before. Jenny had explored a similar crater rim once. She remembered how the rounded stone hills had strange scoops taken out of them, round or oval depressions meters across. Lightning scars, someone had told her. A bolt of electricity the size that you got in a Martian electrical storm could shatter stone, or melt it in a nanosecond. If one of those hit the tent, well, she and Salma would never know it. Jenny shivered. What would it be like? An explosion of white light, then nothing? Would she even have time to know what was happening?

Maybe not, if she was lucky.

She felt the radio transponder vibrating in her helmet and pulled it out, pressing it against her ear. “Tent Three here,” she yelled as loudly as she could.

Scratchy static poured out of the receiver, and under that, Alex's voice, broken up so that only a few words came through: “… suits. Losing … to get to … be ready.”

“What? What?” Jenny felt like shaking the radio. “Alex, I didn't get that. Say again. Say again!”

Static. Then, suddenly, “Coming in!”

Jenny guessed what was about to happen. “Get your helmet on!” she yelled to Salma, and she put hers on.

Salma followed suit, just in time. The inner seal of the airlock gave way, and with a gust that she felt rather than heard, the tent lost its air pressure. Alex scrambled in and turned to seal the inner flap. He said something that Jenny couldn't hear—she hadn't replaced her transponder. She held it up and shook her head.

Alex nodded. He checked the seal, then repressurized the tent. He took off his helmet, and so did Jenny and Salma. Alex shouted, “Our tent ripped! Lost pressure fast—lucky we had our helmets ready. Tent's wrecked, but we're okay, and I brought our oxygen tank. Dr. Henried's in Tent Two. I can't get the outer seal to fasten-dust in the seam. Keep your helmets ready. If the inside seal blows, you're going to need them.”

Jenny turned her gaze toward the flap, feeling sick at the thought of a blowout. Normally, the tent exit
was like that of an igloo—a tight fabric tunnel, with one airtight seal opening into the tent, one out to Mars. If the outer seal was open, then nothing stood between them and suffocation except the inner seal, bulging outward from the pressure of the air in the tent, pulled at by the near vacuum of the Martian surface. How much could it take?

Salma was yelling something that the constant cascade of sound drowned out. Jenny leaned close to hear. “… your helmets. I may be able to get it to seal.”

“We'll lose oxygen!” Jenny said, realizing what Salma was about to try. “Too dangerous!”

“I'll be all right,” Salma insisted. “Alex, hold my legs. The oxygen rushing out may clear the dust from the seal, but I don't want it to blow me right out into the storm.”

Jenny put her radio back inside the helmet and cringed as another bolt of lightning came uncomfortably close, making the receiver squeal like a wounded animal. She got her helmet in place and watched as Salma unsealed the flap.

The pent-up air whooshed out of the tent again, and Salma wormed through the opening on her stomach. Alex held her ankles as she writhed and twisted, muttering to herself. Her worried voice crackled over the transponder, but Jenny couldn't make out what she was saying—probably a string of curses, she guessed. Then Salma spoke more distinctly: “I see where it's fouled. If I just had a silicone cloth, I could—let me try this. Okay, okay, it's sealing. Got it! Not perfect, but within tolerances. Watch out, Alex, I'm coming back.”

She pulled herself back into the tent, resealed the inner flap, and said, “Pressurize.”

Alex did, keeping a critical eye on the oxygen readout. “Not much left in your tank,” he said.

“We've got yours,” Salma told him. “If the generator holds, we should be good for a few days.”

“How long can this thing go on?” Alex asked.

“Not much longer,” Salma said, but Jenny thought she sounded as if she didn't believe her own words.

Marsport never slept. Someone was
always on duty, and even late at night it was hard to get through the entire installation without someone seeing them. Roger knew where the cameras were, though, and they worked out a tortuous route that would get them to the hangars before they'd be likely to be spotted. “No help for it once we're in the hangar,” Roger said. “If we're lucky, no one will be paying attention to the monitors. I hope there aren't any burglar alarms.”

“I never heard of any,” Mickey muttered. Sean thought the older boy looked as if he were regretting his decision. “Look, the only Series One that's fueled will be the one that was set to ferry pipeline materials to the advance party. It's equipped with a cat, but the storm blew up before it was fully fueled. It'll be taking a big chance.”

“Too bad they didn't get lost when the
Argosy
was here,” Roger observed. “All the shuttles were in use then.”

Sean nodded. When Marsport had lost touch with Earth, 176 colonists had decided to return to Earth orbit aboard the
Argosy,
one of two interplanetary ships that had kept the colony supplied. Now, months later, those colonists were still somewhere in space, spiraling in toward Earth and whatever awaited them there. The Asimov Project kids had narrowly escaped being aboard it—only through a defiance of the rules had they remained behind.

And now here he was breaking the rules again. Sean tried not to think about what Amanda would say. He only hoped he'd be alive to hear it, no matter how angry she would be.

“Okay,” he said. “We go through the Lake Ares dome, then through the greenhouses. I know them pretty well. No surveillance cameras there. Then we'll take the service corridor to the hauler garage, and then we go out on the surface to get to the hangars.”

It was the only way. The corridors leading from the colony to the aircraft hangars were locked, and they had no time to steal the codes to get through them. On the other hand, Sean reflected, it was the
unexpected way. No one walked around on the surface at night.

They got into the lake dome with no trouble. Sean felt his throat tighten. This was Jenny's favorite spot. He could see that the lake was down some. It was almost perfectly round, occupying a crater that the colonists had domed over. The lights in the dome were at minimum power, giving just a dim illumination. The surface of Lake Ares lay as smooth as ice, without a visible ripple. Sean sniffed. The air smelled, somehow, of water. It was homelike, reassuring.

The greenhouses were bathed in a dim red light, infrared, keeping the plants at a safe temperature. “Warm,” Mickey mumbled.

“Smells nice,” Roger said. “My mum and dad used to do a lot of gardening when they were home.”

Sean didn't say anything. Roger's mother and father had been doctors, and they had been killed by people they were trying to help in one of Earth's senseless little wars. Roger didn't often speak of them, but when he, did his voice always lost its light, joking edge and sounded older, regretful, strained.