The Sunspacers Trilogy (23 page)
“There are hatches to the surface,” he said finally, “and we could probably find a few suits, but—”
“You and I’ll go for help. They may not know—”
“—but the Sun is up,” he said, shaking his head in despair. “Even with a suit, that’s no protection at all.”
“Then why have suits at all!” I shouted angrily.
“It’s pretty safe at night.”
His face darkened and faded away as the screen died, leaving us in total darkness. “Save the flashlights,” Jake said.
“Isn’t anything good enough?” I asked.
“Sure—the shielded vehicles,” Bob replied, “but if there’s a solar flare, forget it. Nothing will do. Instant crisp human.”
Jake snorted.
“Are there any vehicles nearby?” I asked. Questioning him was like pulling teeth. He seemed dazed.
“Don’t know.”
“Well, let’s go find out!”
“You’d still have to cross some surface to get one.”
“What if one were close by?”
“We could make a dash for it, but the radiation dose might still be bad.…”
“Tell them the truth,” Jake said.
We waited. “I’ll be very honest—it’s never been this long. Too much seems to have gone wrong this time. Pockets like this may be all that’s left.”
“So you don’t think we’re going to make it,” Linda said.
“I’ve lived here all my life. You get a feeling…”
I stood up in the darkness. “Feelings, my ass! Where’s the hatch, the suits?”
“Could use a suntan myself,” Jake said. “Always wondered what it would be like to look that big Sun in the face.” I couldn’t tell if he was joking.
“Maybe we should just wait,” Helen Wodka said.
“If there are hatches, they were meant to be used,” I insisted. “Where are the suits?”
“I think we can reach one of the utility rooms,” Bob said cautiously. “There’s a door to your right.”
I turned on my flashlight and found it.
“I’ll go with you,” Bob said.
I walked over and tried the crank. It turned easily.
“Crank it shut after us,” Bob instructed.
“What if you don’t come back?” Linda asked.
“Then you’ll just have to wait for help,” Bob replied as I cranked open the door.
Ro came up to me. “Joe—are you sure you want to try this?”
“There’s no choice,” I whispered. “The air in here or in the hall won’t last forever.” Bob took my flashlight and shone it into a long, dark corridor. I put my arms around Ro and held her close. “Do you want me to wait here and watch you suffocate?”
We kissed. “I just wanted to know that you feel sure about going,” she said.
I turned away quickly and followed Bob. We heard the door cranking shut behind us.
“Here it is,” he said as we came to another door.
I turned the crank. The door opened, and we stepped inside. Half a dozen suits hung on the racks.
“These are useless against the Sun,” he said wearily, “and it’s more than two kilometers to the Center. We can’t dash that.” He had lived here all his life. What could I possibly know?
“Wait a minute,” he said suddenly.
“I’m thinking the same thing—we’ll have to go up and see.”
“I don’t know. There may be no way to check except by opening the airlock.” He still didn’t sound too hopeful.
“If we could get to the Center,” I said, “we could come back in a shielded track bus, dock with the airlock, and take everyone out. We could do that, couldn’t we?”
“It would be funny if we died out there and help arrived anyway.”
“We could be just as dead thinking like that,” I said. “How long can they last back in the hall?”
“Let’s suit up,” he said.
We held the light for each other, and checked each suit as we put it on. Our helmet lights went on when we closed our face plates.
“These are ancient,” Bob said over the suitcom. “Not much use for them.” He pointed upward. “Let’s go.”
My helmet beam shot up into a rock chimney. A ladder rose for at least thirty meters and disappeared into the dark.
We climbed, listening to each other’s breathing. The suits seemed to be working well, despite their age.
“Stop,” Bob said after a long while. “Here’s the inner lock crank.” I heard him struggling above me. “Okay, it’s open.” His feet disappeared into the opening. Lights came on.
I climbed up after him. “The lights work in here,” I said.
“Independent source. Solar.”
“What now?”
“You stay here.” He started to crank the door to the outer chamber. Suddenly the door slid open. “Must have triggered an automatic.”
I followed him inside, ignoring his instructions. The inner door closed behind us.
He pointed. “Look—we’ll be able to see!”
There was a small round viewport in the outer door. We could check the Sun’s position without having to open the lock.
Crossing
I stood behind Bob as he peered through the thick viewport.
“Can you see anything?”
He gave the port a wipe with his gloved hand. I heard crackling, then his voice in my ear. “We’re in the shadow of those cliffs to the left. I think we can walk to the Center.”
“You don’t sound too sure.”
From what I knew, Mercury was crisscrossed with scarps—huge, curving cliffs up to four kilometers high. They were formed when Mercury’s crust was cooling and shrinking and massive blocks were being thrust upward along fault lines. One particular cliff, Discovery Rupes, was 500 kilometers long.
“The Sun is low this time of day,” Bob continued, “but I can’t tell how close it may be to the top of the scarp. It isn’t noon yet. We’ll have to hurry, in case the Sun clears the top and zaps us.”
“Is that all?” A few kilometers in low gravity was not going to be difficult, but I was thinking only of myself.
“I don’t know if the surface lock to the Center is in shadow or not. I’ve never come this way.”
“So we may have to sprint a few yards.”
The crackling filled my ears. “We can’t do that, Joe. Get that through your head. Not in this suit or any other. By the way, have you ever walked around in a suit?”
“No.”
“Move carefully—don’t let it get damaged.”
“Do we have enough air?”
“They’re rebreathers,” he said. “Packs can recycle indefinitely.”
“Okay—let’s go.”
He tapped the door control with his fist. The door slid open, and we stepped out slowly onto the coppery surface.
I looked up, grateful to see the stars. Somewhere out there, away from the Sun, was Venus, orbiting only 50 million kilometers away; and Earth, 91 million kilometers distant. At my right, the wall of cliffs hid the fiery Sun, which was waiting, it seemed, to rise up and burn us as soon as we started across the shadowland, because it knew that we were out here, and that only chance had given us the protection we needed.
To my left was a sea of light. There the shadows came to a sharp end. Slowly, as the Sun Climbed, that sea would creep toward the cliffs, dissolving the shadowland; we would be forced against the base of the scarp if we stayed out long enough. At noon there would be almost no place to hide; the solar eye would cook us with its fusion gaze …
“I think the locks to the Control Center are there,” Bob said, pointing into the blackness. “If we keep close to the scarp at our right, we’ll be protected all the way.”
Noon was still weeks away, I told myself. There was no way the Sun could get us, but Bob sounded as if there were other things to fear.
“So what else can get us?” I asked.
“Micrometeorites. They pelt the surface. No atmosphere to burn them up. Go through you like a bullet, if you’re hit. Unlikely, but the idea always gives me the creeps.”
“We won’t be out long enough,” I said. “Let’s get going.”
“Just a moment—I want to try something. Control, please reply, this is Bob Svoboda …”
Of course, the suit radios.
Bob repeated his call a few times, but the only reply was the universe making popcorn.
“Why don’t they answer?” I asked.
“It could be a number of things. Quake might have damaged surface antennas. No one’s expecting a call from the surface, so there may be nobody listening, nothing more.” I knew that he thought it could be something more, but he was determined not to start supposing. “Come on.”
I followed, avoiding loose rocks, stepping only where the coppery way seemed firm. It was an easy stroll, despite the bulky suit; but my muscles were used to a higher gravity, so I didn’t notice the suit’s weight as much as Bob did. I began to stride, then took a small leap forward.
Bob stopped and fixed me with the mirrored eye of his faceplate. My ears crackled. “Don’t, Joe—you can still break a limb or tear your suit.”
“Sorry.”
I thought of Ro as we passed deeper into the shadow of the high cliffs. What would there be for us after we finished working here? More school—and then what? My heart seemed to hesitate between beats as I realized that I might never see Ro again. She was probably thinking the same thing. I faced the possibility that one of us might die.
I glanced up at the scarp. It was hard to feel how tall the cliffs were; they seemed unreal. All of Mercury had been molten once, cooling from the outside in, buckling the outer crust as it formed, forcing sections to pile up on each other while swarms of meteors, even asteroids, bombarded the planet. The scarps were what geologists call thrust faults, where one side of a crack has been raised and the other lowered. On Merk they cut through mountain ranges, craters, and valleys. The Sun’s energy had sculpted this world, and left it half finished. The interior was still molten with heavy metals—the ultimate prize, which humankind would claim as we reached deeper into the planet.
We had been marching for about fifteen minutes, pulling our legs up and down like robots, when I felt a gentle trembling in my feet.
Turning to look back, I saw a crack following us, like a beast tracking prey; its speed was deceptive.
“Bob!” I jumped aside and turned around in time to see it shoot toward him like a crooked snake.
I took giant steps and tackled him. My weight threw him clear, but my feet went into the crack as it passed us. It would have been a sorry tackle on Earth, I thought as I reached out and caught the edge.
I hung there.
Bob was about five meters away, down but moving. I pulled myself up, grateful that I was from Earth. Growing up there had all been for this—so I could come here and tackle Bob. Funny what goes through your head in moments of danger.
I got up and walked over to him. He was sitting up, holding his left sleeve. “A small tear,” he said, “but I’ve got a good grip on it.”
“Are you hurt?” I asked, realizing that I was responsible—but there had been no choice.
“Fine—but I’ve got to keep this closed. One day we’ll have new equipment.”
I reached down and pulled him to his feet.
“Sneaky crack,” he said.
“Sure was.”
It was still running ahead of us, parallel to the scarp.
“Can you hold that?”
“Sure—let’s go.”
He tried to lead the way again, but I was at his side.
“It can’t be far now,” he said.
I peered into the inky shadows ahead. “What’s it look like?”
“Silver dome—three meters high.”
“Don’t see a thing yet.”
“It’s got to be there!”
I felt his confidence draining away.
“I could have sworn this was the right way, Joe.”
“Don’t worry—if it’s to our right, we can still step over the crack. Hope it doesn’t widen.”
His breathing seemed more labored over the suit com. “Follow the crack.”
“How do you feel?”
“I’m okay!” he insisted.
We marched in silence.
“Look at the pedometer in your helmet,” he said. “We’ve come half a kilometer.”
I noticed the ghostly row of dials. When I looked out again, Bob was four meters ahead. I caught up.
“Not much you could do if my suit went,” he said.
“Try calling again,” I said.
“We’ll make it, Joe.”
“Bob, play it safe—right now.”
“They’ve got enough to worry about.”
“Try.”
“We’ll get there. Don’t you see? Ripping a suit is … well, basically a dumb thing.”
“But I did it—not you.” I saw Kik falling. One gone, one saved. It couldn’t count for much with Linda. “We Earthies are pretty clumsy guys. One of your folks would have known better.”
“Thanks, Joe.” I knew Bob still had his pride; I could hear it in his voice. But he might still try to take the blame for ripping his suit, the kind of mistake only a kid would make. I had to make sure I spoke first and saved him the embarrassment.
I kept looking at his sleeve. His whole hand was closed on the rip. What was a human hand doing on Mercury? I asked myself as we marched. It had grown up in sun filled forests and on grassy plains, gathering skills for an awakening brain. Too many hands and minds from Earth had died on hostile Mercury. I would get Bob to safety, and I would help build a new world for him to live and work in.
The shadows shaped themselves into faceless figures, closing in to whisper strange thoughts into my head. I was sweating heavily in the suit.
Bob stopped. “We’ve gone past—can’t be this far. Must be on the other side of the crack, back some.”
The ground trembled, widening the crack.
“We’ve got to jump across!” Bob shouted as the other side drifted away from us.
“You can’t holding that sleeve.”
The trembling stopped.
“It’s two meters at least,” I said, knowing what I would have to do. “Come here.” I stepped toward him and lifted him in my arms, knowing that he had to hold his sleeve and couldn’t resist. “I won’t leave you out here.” He had to arrive with me, as much on his own as possible; it would humiliate him to be left out here while I went for help.
“I feel stupid, Joe.”
“Better than being dead,” I said, taking a few steps back. “Hold that rip tight.”
I went forward and jumped.
We sailed across the crack in a shallow arc, but the slowness made me afraid that we wouldn’t make it.
We landed with a meter to spare. I dared to breathe again. My body shook a little.