The Dark Side (18 page)

J
EAN-PIERRE PLAISANCE ARRIVES AT
the chain-link fence and has to make a crucial decision. He's spent the last two hours well off the beaten track, following the northward path of the Zenith 18. Now he's come to the place where the droid broke through into the danger zone. His first impulse is to follow, but there are two reasons to hesitate.

First, he knows virtually nothing about this site. He's heard about it but never actually seen it. He doesn't know how large it is and he's pretty sure there won't be any emergency supply caches within. Which is a problem, because Plaisance's oxygen supply is now down to its last three hours. He's already exhausted his PLSS auxiliary supply and he's on to his second emergency canister. Plus he has only six amp-hours left in its batteries and just a few sips of water in his suit reservoir. So if he runs into trouble there's a good chance that he won't have sufficient air, energy, or water
to make it out of the test site and get to a cache. He's not sure where the caches are this far north. He can't even be sure the ones on this side of the equator are as vigilantly checked as the caches in his own domain.

Second, there's the radiation factor. Plaisance is already carrying in his body over three hundred individual cancers: in his lungs, his thyroid, his stomach, his kidneys, his mouth, his skin, his blood, his bones; melanomas, osteosarcomas, angiosarcomas, lymphomas, liposarcomas, and papillomas. He is, he likes to think, a living museum of cancer. And for most people in such a state, the prospect of absorbing a new dose of non-medicinal radiation—even if levels within the site have decreased significantly over time—would be like twisting a knife in an old wound.

But with just a few months to live—at best—Plaisance finds these complications strangely attractive. He has nothing to lose. And even if the site somehow accelerates his decay, and even if he can't find his way out when he needs to, he judges it will be worth it. In fact, the dangers just add luster to his act of redemption.

So in the end the decision isn't difficult at all. He passes through the same hole cut by the droid. He drives tentatively at first, following the tracks of the Zenith 18. And for the first ten minutes everything goes smoothly. He doesn't encounter any hazards. He doesn't feel any physical effects. He gains confidence. He picks up speed.

But then, just like the droid before him, he strikes the outer rim of pyroclastic beads. The LRV's wheels struggle for traction. The vehicle starts mis-steering. The hand controller vibrates in his hand. And Plaisance experiences something he has not felt as a driver in many, many years—uncertainty.

The beads become more numerous and the whole vehicle jolts
and shudders. Plaisance shoots into the milky blue wonderland of ice sculptures and frozen waves. He narrowly misses projections. He passes within centimeters of yawning holes. He slaloms across the moving carpet of beads. Worse, his faceplate is misting. The sunlight is making the condensation luminous. He has to tilt his head so he can see. And he can no longer make out the droid's tracks—not at all.

He tries desperately to steer onto a safe course but the LRV is caught up in its own momentum. It skids. It slides. It starts to spin. In quick succession there are three or four counterclockwise rotations. Plaisance sees all the horizons in a flash. He sees glass beads scattering in all directions. He sees a vaguely triangular projection, like the prow of a sinking ship, looming up in his path. And the LRV, spinning like a Frisbee, is heading directly for it.

Plaisance wrenches on the hand controller but the rover doesn't respond. He grits his teeth and braces for impact. And then the vehicle hits the projection laterally—with great force.

Plaisance feels the LRV crumpling around again. And flinging him out of his seat, and tipping over on top of him. And dragging him down a slope.

On Earth he would certainly be crushed by now. And even as it is the LRV's chassis is painfully heavy. But Plaisance doesn't panic. Pinned underneath the vehicle, he slides down the slope, with beads skidding around him, and eventually grinds to a halt. Still alive. And, as far as he can tell, undamaged. He gives praise to God.

He pushes against the LRV just enough to pull himself loose. Scrabbling on the beads, he forces himself to his feet. He gingerly rolls the vehicle upright—it bounces on its tires. Fearing the worst, he bends in for a closer inspection, but notwithstanding some buckling to the central chassis and a crumpled front fender, the
vehicle doesn't look to have sustained any serious damage. Plaisance gathers up his tools, puts them back in their bolted-down box, then wriggles back into the driver's seat. He releases the brake, pulls tentatively on the hand controller, and reverses. He pushes the stick the other way, and it moves forward. The vehicle is not as smooth as it was, but it was never very smooth in the first place. It's operating, though. Like him, it's a survivor. Plaisance feels more affection for it than ever.

He drives cautiously back to the point where he lost control, trying to pick up a hint of the droid's trail. But something suddenly doesn't feel quite right. He's colder than normal. Lightheaded. And he can hear his own breathing in his ears. It's becoming louder and louder—thunderous. And the condensation has faded from his faceplate.

Then he understands. There's been a breach in his spacesuit. The outer layers must have torn open. So he stops. He searches frantically around his body for a tear. And there it is—at his left elbow, a rip about three centimeters long. It's sucking the oxygen out of the suit. It's making him depressurize. If unchecked, he'll suffer swift vascular and neural damage. Already his ears have popped. And he feels like he's inhaling ice water.

Again, Plaisance forces himself not to panic. He waits until the LRV slides to a complete halt and then springs off, holding his breath. He unlocks the first-aid kit. He rips a neopolymer safety patch from its packet and fits it carefully over the tear, molding it into shape. With an adhesive spray he blasts a protective resin over that. And it's enough—it plugs the leak.

Plaisance waits a few seconds before testing the air. He fills his failing lungs. He exhales. It feels normal. But there's another problem now. When he checks his wrist gauges he finds that his oxygen supply has dropped from three hours to thirty-two minutes.
He has to get to a supply cache immediately. Even though he's not even sure where
he
is, let alone the caches.

Still he doesn't panic. He sits calmly back in place on the LRV. He turns the vehicle and takes off. And once again, after a few worrisome judders, he picks up speed. Once again the LRV jolts and jumps and threatens to spin out of control. But soon he's leaving behind the glass sea. He's flashing across an outer rim of glass beads. Then the beads are thinning. Then there are no beads at all. And finally, on the curving horizon, he sees a chain-link fence. He has sixteen minutes of oxygen left. Perhaps twenty minutes before he blacks out.

He cuts a hole in the wire but in passing through almost scores another gash in his suit. And now he has a new decision to make. Left or right? The cache to the east will be closer, he suspects, but that will also lead him closer to—and possibly across—the day-night terminator.

He flicks a toggle to check the vehicle's headlamps. One set is busted. The other is shining dimly. It will have to do.

He takes off, running parallel to the fence, skimming across the regolith. The sun, directly behind him, makes a shadowless blur of the terrain ahead. But he's convinced he can make it. Soon there will be no sunlight anyway. He's heading into the true dark side.

Then he sees it. The harbinger of the day-night terminator—a grey and golden cloud shimmering above the horizon. It's particles of surface dust, charged by the temperature plunge, levitating high in the air above the frontier of the lunar night. It doesn't happen everywhere on the Moon, and it doesn't happen at every sunset—the conditions have to be just right—but when it does, to those unfamiliar with it, it's a phenomenon as surreal as a terrestrial aurora.

Plaisance, however, is in no mood to be admiring. With two minutes of oxygen remaining in his suit he finds a crack in the crater wall. He hurtles down the other side with the dust glowing above. And finally he sees the terminator: not exactly a regular line, but a visible demarcation between the worlds of light and darkness, like a flood of black ink oozing across the lunar surface. And Plaisance, with thirty seconds of oxygen left, is plunging straight into it. He starts muttering a prayer.

“
Je vous salue, Marie, pleine de grâce; le Seigneur est avec vous . . .”

He's trying not to breathe. The last feeble rays of the sun slip behind the horizon and the Milky Way lights up like someone has thumped a switch. And the cold hits him like an explosion.

“
Vous êtes bénie entre toutes les femmes, et Jésus, le fruit de vos entrailles, est béni . . .”

The thermostat in his spacesuit kicks in. Coils within the innermost layers try to compensate, but Plaisance can hear the tensing of ceramic, the contraction of steel. There's an icy sensation in his bones that's positively painful—he wonders grimly if it might kill his tumors before it kills him. But now his main concern is finding a north-south maintenance path. The path's beacons, however, are not operating. The darkness is absolute. The LRV's headlamp beams are dim. And he literally has no oxygen left.

He plunges deeper into the ink. It seems endless. And just when he starts to despair—when he actually wonders if it might be best to just surrender—his headlights caress an embankment, a hard-packed trail. The maintenance road. It's a miracle.

Plaisance steers up onto the road and heads north, confident now that he'll soon reach a cache. But he can't be sure on which side the cache will be, and with only one busted headlamp he has to pray he doesn't miss it. But he is no longer praying aloud—he is muttering only in his head.

Sainte Marie, Mère de Dieu, priez pour nous, pauvres pécheurs . . .

Now he's starting to see stars. Not in the sky—though there are millions of them—but in his head. He's getting confused. And sleepy. The urge to surrender is almost overwhelming. He sucks involuntarily at foul, stuffy air. And darkness floods over his vision again.

He's driving with his eyes closed. Not even the jolts are wakening him. Life is fleeing from his limbs; the last flashes of electricity are fading from his synapses. His hand loosens on the hand controller. The LRV slows to a halt.

Maintenant et à l'heure de notre mort. Amen . . .

Á l'heure de notre mort. Amen . . .

Amen . . .

Amen . . .

AMEN.

Plaisance's eyes snap open. For a few seconds he sees nothing. But then his vision clears long enough for him to make out a mound of lunar brick. It's the size of a postbox and studded with reflectors. It's to the left of the road, roughly six meters away, with the LRV's headlamp shining directly at it. If it had been just a few feet to either side, it would have been completely invisible.

It's another miracle. Plaisance wrenches himself from his seat. He lurches for the cache. He finds a knob, twists it, and opens a door. He stands aside to let the headlamps illuminate the contents.

Water canisters. Dehydrated food. Energy bars. A recharging point. And emergency oxygen packs—plenty of them.

Plaisance grapples for one of these packs. It's round and has an actuator, a regulator, and a locking mechanism. It's normally a delicate procedure, attaching it to a life-support system, but Plaisance hasn't got time for delicacy. He tears it open with his gloved
hands, flips open the top of his PLSS, then slams the pack into place. He checks the gauges in his wrist screen. He opens the valve. And oxygen—
oxygène!—
floods into his helmet.

He gasps at it, feels it gushing into his crumbling lungs. His head pounds, the stars fizzle and fade, his faceplate fogs. But there's no time for relief. If he doesn't get back into the sunlight quickly the cold alone might kill him.

So he takes another two oxygen packs from the cache—leaving enough, even now, for someone else in an emergency—and gets back into the LRV. He swings back down the maintenance road and then follows his own tracks west. He bounces, judders, can barely see what's in front of him. The dust clouds curl and shimmer like microscopic insects.

And now he can see daylight ahead. He exults, he feels drunk on oxygen. He will soon be safe. He's done it. But there's a sobering question to be answered, and he answers it without hesitation. Yes, he will continue the hunt. With only four hours of emergency oxygen and three hours of battery supply. On a severely damaged LRV. He will find the droid's trail again, and he will follow it to the limits of his supply. Even if that means he has to make another life-or-death dash for an emergency cache when the time comes.

He passes through the crater rim and crosses into day, into a world where the sun is a luminous fingernail on the horizon. Where the smallest rocks have shadows three meters long, where boulders have shadows twenty meters long, and where men have shadows that seem endless. Shadows that swallow him. Shadows that block out the sun.

Plaisance wrenches back on the hand controller. He brakes the LRV. And stares, barely believing it.

A figure, lit up by the LRV's one working headlamp, is standing directly in his path. Black-suited, black-haired, black-tied, and
black-eyed. It's the demon—Plaisance knows it immediately—and it's smiling at him.

The two of them stare at each other for ten seconds, with glittering dust swirling above. Then Plaisance swings off the LRV and reaches for his weapon.

But the demon is already bounding toward him.