Glory on Mars (22 page)

"Governor, what's the delay?"

"The rover's seal to your suit isn't holding, Emma."
Governor's voice was its usual soothing calm, but Emma felt her
heart pounding.

"Standard procedure calls for me to re-clean the
sealing surface and try again."

Emma felt the clamps nudge her forward, then pull
back. And... nothing.

"Claude. You having any luck?"

"Same problem." His voice was strained.

"Governor, dangle me from the crane and I'll try to
clean the seal manually." The walkabout used its tail to turn so
Emma faced the seal. She wiped at it with the suit's claw, which
didn't help.

"Governor, activate the electrostatic cleaning
system." Dust didn't leap off, just wiggled around on the seal,
lining up with the magnetic field lines.

"Oh, hell."

Chapter Twenty-Eight:
Flare

Emma reopened the channel to Kamp. Yin and Yang
offered to drive Rover One to them, but with the dust plume
blanketing the ground, Emma feared its seals would fare no better.
The transmission lag meant MEX would only now be realizing there
was a problem, but no one expected any help from them.

"Can you crawl back in fast and slam the inner door
shut so the leak doesn't deplete your air?" Yang asked. But
Governor estimated the pressure drop would knock them out before
they could get inside.

"Governor can bring the rover home," Emma said. "How
about if we remove the inflatable and ride home on the bed." Rover
Two's crane set them both down and they hopped around to the
inflatable sealed against the airlock.

"It's no good," Emma said, panting after several
tries. "The pressure inside has the seal swollen tight in the
channel. MEX, you can tell the designers of this thing they did a
good job."

"Maybe we can cut it off," Claude said.

"Look at the time," Emma said. "I don't think we
should fool around any more. These suits can travel faster than a
rover. Let's leave everything and hop home.

"Just lean forward and try to relax, Claude.
Governor, pilot these suits home. Rapid travel feature."

Emma kicked off and was beginning to relax when
Claude gasped and swore.

"Claude, where are you? Are you alright?" The dust
film was so thick on her helmet she couldn't see. Emma held her
breath.

"Fine, yeah, I'm fine. Damn. Hit a soft spot or
something and fell. I'm on my back, but all systems are nominal.
Governor, get me upright." He grunted as the suit rolled over and
pushed itself up.

"Okay. I'm taking off again."

Emma leaned forward and kicked off. Thump, thump,
thump. She balanced in the stirrups and rode the suit. Without
being able to see out her helmet, it was as boring as exercising in
a habitat module except for the time ticking by until the flare
hit.

"Hey, you lot, how's it going?" It was Yin, or maybe
Yang calling.

"Swell," Emma said.

"Governor says you'll be here in twelve minutes. We
need to talk about how to get you inside somewhere."

"Somewhere?" Claude asked. Emma didn't like the sound
of that, either.

"Your dust cloud's floated across Kamp, too. We have
the same airlock issue you had with Rover Two."

Claude took in deep breath, but Yin, or Yang, kept
talking.

"Go to the maintenance bay. When you get there, the
bots will haul you in through the roll-up door. The warehouse
should be clean enough for the inside airlock to seal. The control
room is shielded. You'll be fine."

"Will that work, Emma?" Claude sounded unhappy.

"It's a good plan. Yeah, it should work."

"Course it will. It's brilliant."

Emma watched twelve minutes count down. With thirty
seconds to go, the walkabout slowed its pace.

"Hey again," said Yin or Yang. "Go to the east corner
of the bay door."

Emma stepped forward and stretched out her arms.

A scraping sound reverberated through the suit.

"Display joint pressures." She scanned the data
tables on her heads-up. "Damn."

"What's wrong?" Claude's question was sharp.

"Nothing for now. Just walk." Particles of dust had
worked their way into the suit joints and probably scratched the
solid lubricant pads, but that wouldn't stop them. She took another
step and bumped into something. The bay's roll-up door was closed
and she felt a thrill of nerves run through her. Which way was
east? She felt for seams in the door, pictured how they ran, and
moved to her right till she bumped into Claude.

"Guys, we're at the warehouse door."

"Now, lay down on your stomachs with your feet
against the door."

After some grunting and maneuvering, they both said
okay. The door scraped against her suit's feet and Emma jerked
backwards. A moment later, she was inside, a beetle-bot holding her
legs. It dropped her and swiped something across her helmet. See
could see again.

"It worked. We're in the warehouse." Emma rolled the
walkabout over and looked at Claude. He smiled at her through a
clean patch on his own helmet.

"You go first, Claude."

The warehouse airlock was the same size as those at
the nederzetting. He crawled in and slithered out of his suit.

"Okay, I'm in the habitat section."

"Governor, pump down the airlock."

Using the empty suit as a bot, the AI crawled it out
to make room for Emma to creep in. Once the pressure equalized,
Claude yanked open the inner door and helped her push back the life
support pack and climb out.

Half collapsed, she held herself up with her hands on
her knees, and sneezed from the acrid dust hanging in the air.

"Mars has a big dust problem," Claude said
solemnly.

"We did it." With a surge of defiant energy, Emma
stood straight and hugged him.

"The walkabouts did it. Daan, you there? You've got
to try these things."

"That'll have to wait." Daan's sounded irritated.
"Someone's got to pay attention to keeping us alive in here."

Claude interrupted Emma's frown.

"How long do we have to stay in Maintenance?" He
turned, facing the closest imager.

"At least a few hours, mate." That was Yin.

"I'm hungry. Is there anything to eat?"

"Up top," Emma said, grinning again. "We can watch
the solar flare from there, too."

***

Rover shielding wasn't as effective as meters-thick
stone so, since no one was in danger, Liz insisted everyone stay
put until the flare subsided. When Yang arrived in Rover One, Emma
and Claude hopped in, leaving the walkabouts behind, and they
headed home.

A crowd waited at the nederzetting airlock when they
docked. Emma's upbeat mood collided with Melina's tears. Claude
returned Melina's hug with surprise.

"Melina, what's wrong?"

"You were almost killed."

"Not really," Emma said. "We got back in plenty of
time..."

"It's Mars. Mars doesn't want us here." Melina's
voice dropped to a whisper.

"That's silly. You're just upset." Claude patted her
back.

"I've seen it," Melina said, pushing away from Claude
and wiping her face. "I've seen something moving in the shadows."
She spoke through tears.

"I can never quite make it out, but it's a
tulpa."

Claude mumbled something in confusion.

"You don't believe me. Emma, you saw it - in the
Plaza. You said you saw something moving in the shadows, remember?
Sanni's seen it too."

"I've had bad dreams," Sanni said, shaking her head.
"Just bad dreams. Come on; let them shower."

Claude was sipping tea when Emma came down from the
habitat's upper deck, and Liz was standing at the galley.

"It's after supper. Did you eat at Maintenance? I
could..." But Emma waved away the offer.

"What was Melina talking about? What's a tulpa?" She
accepted a cup Liz held out insistently.

"Melina's had a few bouts of... I guess it's
confusion," Liz said, shaking her head. "Sanni and Daan told me,
but that's the first time I saw it for myself.

"I looked it up. A tulpa is a sort of imaginary
friend, conjured up in a person's mind. You picture some creature
as you meditate and eventually it becomes real." She shook her head
again.

"She's hallucinating?" Emma asked. "She wouldn't kill
herself like Ingra, would she?"

"I told Governor to watch her and call us if anything
odd happens. I put my medical code on that. She can't override it.
But Governor can only monitor - it doesn't control the nederzetting
doors."

"Can't you help her?"

"I asked her to talk to Governor's therapeutic psych
program. I don't think we should do group meditations anymore - it
might feed her delusion. If either of you meditate, don't mention
it to Melina."

They sat silently for a few minutes.

"Where'd everyone go?" Claude asked. He was still
energized. "I thought we'd all be here to figure out how to
retrieve Rover Two. And my drill rig."

"They wandered off. No one's very focused lately."
Liz sighed. "MEX has lots of hypotheses but no explanation for
what's happening to us. But, they are working on a way to clean the
seals. They said, give them three days."

"See if Governor's receiving signals from Rover Two,"
Emma said to Claude. "You should be able to access the drill's
telemetry, too."

"I left my pad in the rover," Claude said. "So if you
don't mind, I'll use the habitat screen."

"I'm going to check on the garden," Liz said, taking
her cup to the counter. She tilted her head to Emma, raised an
eyebrow.

"Me, too. I haven't seen the latest batch of baby
fish."

As they cycled the airlock to the fish module, Emma
took a deep breath. The air smelled good.

"The humidity's high enough to make my hair
curl."

"The module's still isolated from the Spine systems,
to keep the heat in. I've got a couple extra fans set up to
circulate air in the greenhouse and pumps for pond water. Close the
door."

A slapping sound greeted them. The cat was batting a
half-grown fish around the floor and it flopped vigorously.

"Hey, how did you get in here?" Liz said. The cat
froze wide-eyed for a moment, then grabbed the fish and streaked
off through the open door to the garden.

"The cat's been following me in here every morning.
He fell into the water once, so I try not to leave him alone. He'll
pounce on anything that moves." She pointed to some tattered
tomatoes fluttering by a fan.

"Yin and Yang are going to fabricate screens I can
lay over the ponds.

"Thanks for coming with me, Emma. It's been hard to
talk to the others. They're all sleepwalking."

Emma admired the thriving garden, then asked to
borrow Liz' pad and entered her personal code. There was a message
from her father and she opened it eagerly, but her smile faded. He
was critical of the first abrupt stop she'd tried in the walkabout.
He had other complaints about her test run of the suits and the
rover. She closed the message without reading it through.

"Thanks, Liz." Emma jerked out the pad's plug and
handed it back.

***

Rover Two remained stranded. Dragging the inflatable
would destroy it, and MEX was reluctant to cut it off, which was
the only way to get inside unless a walkabout could dock. Emma
received several messages about the suit joints from her father's
engineering staff. She was anxious to repair them.

"Not to worry, love," Yin said.

"We'll bring the walkabouts into the north docking
module, so you can work in comfort," Yang said.

The smell of Martian dust stung Emma's nose when she
opened the airlock door for the first walkabout. The vacuum system
wasn't set up for the bulky suit so she couldn't clean it very
well. She buried her nose in her elbow and directed Governor to
crawl the suit through to the module.

MEX announced an upgrade to the electrostatic sealing
system for the airlocks, but Emma couldn't modify what they had
with parts on hand. Until the next transport was sent, they
recommended cleaning the seals with microfiber clothes soaked in
hydrogen peroxide.

"Just what we use in Maintenance now," Yin said.
"Glad we have a research group to tell us these things."

"I'll have to rig a container of some sort that's
easy to carry on the outside of a suit and won't freeze," Yang
said.

Daan dragged a couple lighting strings into the dock
where Governor dropped the walkabouts. He claimed he had to adjust
the lights and stayed each morning to watch Emma repair the seals
as he rambled on about mountains he'd climbed. Claude poked his
head in once or twice, but didn't stay. Once when Emma realized
Daan had been quiet for a while, she'd looked up and found him
asleep in his chair. He was useless and never gave her a private
moment with Claude.

All week Emma methodically disassembled the walkabout
joints and polished out the scratches. Her pace was slow and, since
the module only had one heater, she felt colder every sol. Finally
she donned the thermal layer from a surface suit, but that meant
she had to wear the utility pack too, which left her shoulders sore
every evening. She had to use a couple replacement seals and her
father reminded her she wasn't supposed to dip into those spares
till long after Settler Four arrived. Close-up pictures she sent to
Earth of the scratched lubricant pads brought more irritating
messages from her father. Daan began asking if she was done with
the extra lights each sol.

At least Claude was receiving data from his drill
rig. As he'd hoped, the swarm-bots were into solid rock.

"It could be basalt. I need to retrieve my sample
cuttings to know if it's lava from Peacock Mons or metal from the
meteor," Claude said over supper one evening. "When can we go
back?"