Glory on Mars (25 page)

"Did you get bad news?" she asked. "You look
upset."

"Oh, nothing. It's just... I got a message from
Malcolm."

"I saw he was back on the MEX roster," Liz said,
squeezing inside and closing the flap behind her.

"You were checking on Malcolm?" Emma looked up
sharply.

"I keep in touch with MEX operations. I have friends
there. Why are you so jumpy?"

"It's nothing - just - he's on again about how we
should go back to Earth." Emma didn't mention he only talked about
her going back.

"Maybe you should forward his messages to Filip
Krast."

"No..." Emma gritted her teeth. "Malcolm was really
upset when Ingra died - that's why he washed out from the S-4 crew.
And he broke down when the jumper crashed - had to take a medical
leave. He's just getting back to work now. Besides, what harm can
he do from Earth? Screw up a satellite map?"

Liz zipped the flap when she left and Emma flopped on
the bunk, tears threatening to overflow. The privacy flap was
utterly inadequate. She opened her mouth to breath, exhaling
slowly. It's just my eyes are tired, she thought. My eyes are sore
and I'm so tired.

Chapter Thirty-One:
Run

A few more weeks crawled by and Emma woke up not
wanting to get out of her bunk. If she didn't leave on a walkabout
soon, she'd be too discouraged to move. Expeditions were supposed
to be endorsed by a settler vote, so Emma tried to convince the
others to let her go walkabout.

"S-4 lands right before the storm season. That's ten
weeks from now, and there's no time to do anything on the surface
afterwards, once the storms close in. Besides, there are no utility
components left to install, and you don't need me here right
now."

"She's right about that," Daan said. "We've got
nothing to do but sleep half the sols away. Well, all except Yin
and Yang."

"I thought the extra sleep would do everyone good,"
Liz said. "I've talked to Noah - the S-4 psychologist - about our
drop in productivity. He recommended more sleep and light
exercise."

"Great - I'm ready to exercise," Emma said. "I want
to take a walkabout out overnight with a mule. Alone, on my own."
She sounded crabby, even to herself, but looked around
defiantly.

"Emma should go. And I'd like to drop the drill out
on the surface again while there's time," Claude said.

"That, too," Emma said, happy to support him in turn.
"Drilling is part of our exploration mission. Claude and Daan can
take Rover Two and the other walkabout."

"You want to go alone?" Melina asked.

"Yes, that's the whole point of the walkabouts."
Melina was going to object and Emma felt a flutter of panic. She
just had to get away from everyone, get some real privacy.

"Whatever. It'll be quieter with fewer people around
for a few sols. So I vote 'yes.'"

"I wouldn't mind catching up on sleep myself before
Settler Four arrives," Ruby said.

MEX endorsed the trips, not that Ruby thought they
should get a vote. Activity outside the nederzetting was popular
with the public, so they planned a new infotainment based on the
feeds.

Emma rode out to Maintenance with Yin and Yang the
next sol. They dropped her at the bay and took the rover to join
their construction squad. Emma stretched her shoulders, hoping to
shake off the gloom she felt. Now that she was here, the trip
seemed pointless. She should be excited, she knew, to take her
first solo walkabout.

Be happy, she told herself, gritting her teeth. This
is what you've waited for.

"Governor, send a private message to my father. Dad,
I'm about to go outside for a solo camping trip. I hope you'll like
what I've got planned. End. Okay, activate the live feed to
MEX."

Emma plugged in her personal pad to check the video
feed. The bay imager was focused on the two mules that squatted
along the wall.

Each mule was a portable airlock barely big enough to
sleep in, equipped with life support, a power receiver to recharge
the walkabout, and multiple legs to follow the suit almost
anywhere. The engineers called it a coffin early in the design, but
her father banned the term and eventually someone started calling
the units mules. They were even odder looking than a walkabout.

Each had an oblong cone at one end that reminded Emma
of the tail of a turkey gobbler she'd seen once at a farm museum.
The cone necked down to a short boxy body that would be coffin-like
but for a window on either side. Instead of a turkey neck, a
walkabout hung from the front docking port. The mules were enameled
bright blue like the rovers, to stand out against the rust-colored
sand in case a rescue by jumpship was needed. But they should never
get lost since the suits communicated with Governor and orbiting
GPS satellites.

"Governor, activate the beacons. Confirm comms with
the mules and suits."

"Beacon signals are strong and clear, Emma."

"Activate the mules."

Each mule telescoped out four legs and rose up. The
walkabouts' feet now dangled just above the floor. Governor
confirmed the life support systems were operational.

"Send Johnny mule to the north nederzetting airlock."
Governor would move the walkabout suit to Rover Two for Daan and
Claude.

"Dock Molly over here by me." Molly obediently walked
to the warehouse airlock, lifting each leg in a stiff prance. The
mule backed in and retracted its legs to mate with the door. Its
docking clamps connected.

"The seal is confirmed. Molly is ready for you to
enter," Governor said.

Emma opened the airlock door to reveal the mule's
access hatch, stenciled with a large yellow "M" for Molly.

Emma stripped out of her surface suit, tossed it
inside, and pulled on her striped shirt and cargo pants. Next she
heaved in her sack of supplies and crawled through. The mule was
her camp, a hard-sided bivouac, or maybe more like a life support
pod where she'd stretch out to sleep. She could sit up inside, but
like a camping tent, it was too squat to stand in.

Emma provided a short tour of the mule's insides for
her vid to Earth. Molly had sophisticated balance and travel
algorithms, but was stupid otherwise. The intelligence was in the
walkabout suit and through its connection to Governor.

Emma sealed the doors and slid feet-first into the
walkabout.

"Molly. Undock airlock. Undock suit." The mule didn't
have an extensive vocabulary.

She felt a gentle bump as the suit access swung shut
behind her, the seal released, and clamps set her down on her feet.
The suit's tail extended automatically.

Emma waited patiently for her life support pack to
slide into place and felt the whoosh of cool air as the breathing
system activated.

"Open suit comms. Does anyone read me?"

"Loud and clear. You ready to head out?" It was Yin,
or maybe Yang. "Have a good time."

"I'm in the rover with Claude." That was Daan's
voice. "We're ready to leave, too."

"Thanks everyone. Don't expect to hear from me until
tonight. Governor, close all transmission links and open the
warehouse door." Emma wanted privacy. MEX would just have to use
animations instead of feeds from her helmet imager.

Emma kangaroo-walked out through the roll-up door. It
felt natural in Martian gravity. As she turned towards Peacock Mons
the suit beeped an incoming message alert from her personal
account.

Emma swore. It was Malcolm.

She hesitated. This was supposed to be her walkabout
time, a chance to get away from everything. She didn't want to deal
with Malcolm.

She ignored the message and leaned forward.

"Rapid travel."

Emma kicked off and the suit began to kangaroo-hop
towards the mountain. The mule followed, kicking up a puff of dust
with each prancing footfall.

***

It was a
beautiful morning on the Tharsis Plain. Some lithologists, Claude
had told her, classified the entire Tharsis bulge as a single super
volcano, so Peacock Mons and its neighbors might be vents from the
same underground magma chamber, rock frozen eons ago. She believed
in the super volcano as she gazed over her shoulder. Thin clouds of
ice crystals streaked the orange sky, streaming off the peak of the
mountain. Peacock curved the horizon into a wide hump rising to a
flattened peak. "
Mountain
" seemed a funny name
for it.

Claude and Daan were traveling around the south flank
to investigate a line of ridges mapped by the satellites. The
ridges ran along the base of a small cliff which might have been
formed by ancient glaciers. Better rock-hounding there, perhaps.
The rover would trundle along under Governor's control twenty-four
hours and thirty-nine minutes a sol, endlessly powered through the
receiver on its roof. In two or three sols they'd deploy the drill
somewhere along Claude's ridge. They had one walkabout and their
surface suits - Claude claimed to get a better feel for his rock
hammer through a surface suit. Maybe Daan would prefer a surface
suit for climbing, too.

But Emma didn't care whether they used the walkabout,
and she didn't want to run into them either. She headed north to a
series of flat bottomed valleys between wide ridges of blocky
stone. She could kangaroo-hop at top speed on the valley floors
protected by the cliffs on either side.

Emma balanced on the stirrups in the suit's legs like
a jockey.

Run, run, run, she thought. Run away.

I don't belong here, Emma thought as the walkabout
picked up speed. No on needs me. Liz can handle the farming. Yin
and Yang don't want my help with the construction bots. Everyone
else is too tired to care. Even my father thinks my walkabout tests
are stupid.

Run, run, run. The thumping jarred through her skull
and drove other thoughts away as she tried to anticipate changes in
the sand's texture, avoid protruding rocks, and keep the rounded
mountain beyond her right shoulder. The Sun rose high in the dusty
sky, banishing shadows from the dunes. Her legs and back began to
ache and then throb. Emma gritted her teeth. Her stomach growled -
she ignored it. She ran circles to let the mule catch up. It didn't
matter, so long as she ran.

Finally she saw flat slabs of rock like giant, flaked
cobbles, and slowed to a walk, feeling the change in surface
texture through the suit's movements.

Emma walked slowly until a band of mottled darkness
came into view. She turned her head side to side before her brain
grasped the perspective. She was standing on a cliff looking across
a shallow valley, only a few hops wide. The opposite wall was in
shadows.

She sat back on her tail and scanned the dunes for
the mule. There it was, a shiny blue cuboid on slender legs, moving
doggedly towards her. It couldn't keep up when she used rapid
travel mode, but it would find her.

Emma pulled her arms out of the suit sleeves, rubbed
the tops of her thighs and hugged herself tightly in the narrow
space between her chest and the suit's shell.

What am I doing here? I'm stubborn, stupid, an
embarrassment. Dad pushed me to join Colony Mars to be rid of
me.

Emma had never failed before. When she persevered,
she always succeeded. Well, standing at the edge of a gray cliff
and looking up at an orange sky didn't feel like success. She
wished she had her mother's unreasoning optimism. Emma's throat
closed around a hard, hot knot of pain. She watched the shadows
creep towards her across the valley below until the mule caught
up.

Emma leaned forward and jumped. The suit's tail
stretched to touch down first. In less than a heart-beat, the suit
adjusted the shock joints in its legs and held out its empty
sleeves for balance. It wasn't a long drop, but with vertical rock
higher than her head on both sides, Emma felt alone for the first
time since she'd left Earth. No one could see her; there was no one
to impress. The mule followed her leap, bounced a few times on the
shock absorbers in its legs, and stood passively beside her.

"Molly, dock the suit," she said, not bothering to
hide her ragged breathing. The mule shifted, grabbed the suit with
its forward clamps, pushed the life support pack up with two
slender haptic-tipped limbs, and hauled the suit into position.
Emma willed herself to go limp and let the suit seal against the
mule. The access hatch behind her opened and she shivered as the
cool, dry air from the mule flowed around her. She leaned
backwards, grabbed for handholds and levered herself out of the
walkabout, lying on her back inside the mule, feet still inside the
suit. She began to cry. She sobbed until she could hardly breathe
and the shadow of the valley wall swept over the mule.

Chapter Thirty-Two:
Wild

Emma woke when the sunlight angled in through the
mule's window. She felt terrible in some ways. Her mouth tasted
awful, her back ached, and her eyes were full of grit. But she also
felt light; the pressure in her head was gone. She was hungry. And
she needed to pee.

The sanitary system was built into the walkabout's
legs and arching her stiff back made her groan as she slid inside
the suit. But even that felt normal. It hurt in a good way.

"I wonder how long I slept?" she said out loud.

The mule had a chronometer.

"Fifteen hours. Damn." But she smiled.

"No wonder I'm hungry." She dug into her supplies.
Cold roasted potatoes tasted wonderful.

Liz must have done something special with these, she
thought as she spooned out more wedges. Even the fish was tasty,
not muddy but fresh and sweet.

"Governor, open comms to Kamp." She'd missed last
night's check-in and knew they'd be worried. She paused as she
shook out her shirt.