Glory on Mars (32 page)

Then vibrations spread through the floor as the
jumpship blasted off.

"What's she doing?" Emma said. "She can't fly in a
sand storm."

"If she keeps the engines firing at full, the nozzles
will stay clear until she's out of the atmosphere," Yang said. "She
can fly - she just can't land."

"But what good..."

The module went dark. Emma gasped at the blackness
and a sudden sensation of falling. Even the perpetual hum of the
ventilation system was gone. Someone fumbled in the darkness and a
puddle of light appeared.

"What the hell?"

"I know what she did," Yang said, waving the hand
light. "As soon as she was clear of the dust, Ruby shut down the
power satellite."

"Well that's just great."

"We have to trust her to figure something out with
MEX. It'll take half an hour or more for them to respond. We should
sit tight."

"Emma - the cryochamber!" William said.

"Claude, help me back into the walkabout." She
grabbed a hand light.

"Governor, what's the airlock pressure?
Governor?"

Silence.

"Shit."

***

The medical bay was unimaginably black. Her helmet
light barely illuminated the floor at her feet. Emma sucked in a
startled breath - something was moving - pale dust sifting gently
down the wall and overflowing the bench. Emma slid each foot slowly
until she touched something. Aiming her light and bending low, she
spotted the cryochamber, hooked a claw on its rim, and pulled it
upright.

A gash ran through the chamber, its edges folded and
torn.

"Can you see anything?" Claude's voice startled
her.

"Hey. Is the power back?"

"No. I've got a surface suit - it has batteries.
Lucky your channel is open."

"There's a crack in the wall, halfway up from the
bench top. I'm bringing the chamber out, but it doesn't look
good."

"Can you get a sample of the dust that drifted
in?"

Emma swept her helmet light across the bench top and
spotted some glassware.

"I think so. Why?"

"Don't know exactly. Samples are always a good
idea."

Emma scooped up sand in a beaker and carried the
cryochamber to the airlock.

At the airlock, an eddy of dust followed her inside
as she moved the chamber and beaker. She backed the suit into the
airlock on its knees, braced against the hatch frame, and pulled
the door as tightly as she could.

"Claude. You're on the pressure side of the airlock.
Open the manual vent."

In a few minutes, Claude was helping her out of the
walkabout. They left it braced against the bay door. Claude wiped
the inner hatch rim with wet towels and the door seal held. They
were safe for the time being.

They hauled the chamber to the habitat where William,
still shaking, knelt to examine it. Frost on the surface had
already sublimated away.

"One segment's breached," he said. "But the rest
looks intact, if we can get power to it quickly."

Yin and Yang grabbed the handles. "It ran off the
habitat's life support system before. We'll hook it back in."

"Why didn't you rescue the cryochamber instead of
me?" William said to Emma as Yang muscled the chamber away.

"All the embryos could have been lost. Maybe they
are. Two hundred against one man."

"One man against could-bees." Emma stared at him
through the shadows thrown by their hand lights.

"What?"

"They
could
become people, but they're only
globs of cells. You're already a person, a sentient human
being."

William shook his head.

"You don't understand." William shook his head.

Emma pulled Liz into the shadows.

"Did I do the right thing?"

"You did what you could." Liz hugged her. "Without
you, William and the embryos would all be dead. Now he's alive and
three of the segments may survive."

"What about Kamp Kans? Can William do viability
studies now? Have I ruined our chance to be a permanent
colony?"

Will we die alone on a barren planet?

Liz laughed softly and hugged her. "Someone will
bring life to Mars, no matter what happens to us. When I say all
life is precious, I'm usually talking in the abstract. You saved an
actual life. That's enough."

Emma felt cold inside.

"I guess it has to be."

Chapter Thirty-Nine:
Data

Emma lay in her bunk, staring into perfect
blackness.

The damaged cryochamber was in an airlock, against
the outer door. That was the coldest spot in the nederzetting and
William had it plugged in, waiting for power. A Martian night could
freeze carbon dioxide into snow, but the chamber needed to be even
colder. If the power was off for long, William feared he'd lose all
the embryos.

Of course, the settlers would freeze to death before
he'd know for sure.

The air was close and clammy. Emma couldn't tell in
the dark if she was awake or dreaming.

A whoosh of ventilation startled her, deafening after
the long silence.

She stumbled over sleeping bodies, blinded as the
habitat lights came on.

Daan hopped to the Spine and returned with a
report.

"Judging by these readings, someone switched the
power station to a diffuse beam, so it won't cut into the bays. But
that cuts intensity and the cloud's still interfering. We have
about six percent of normal power available. Enough for the
greenhouse or the habitat, but not both."

"We should power the greenhouse," Liz said.
"Everything in the habitat can recover from cold, but if the plants
die, we die. We can camp in there and shut down this module."

"I've got an idea," Claude said. "Governor, are you
back?"

"I am running recovery diagnostics, Claude. Please
wait."

"Good enough. Emma brought me a sample of the dust
from this storm. Give me a couple hours to analyze it. Maybe we can
figure out how to tune the satellite."

Claude hopped to the airlock before anyone could ask
questions and Emma followed.

"You're thinking we can generate a signal to punch
through this cloud?"

He sagged against his table, staring at his pad.
"Damn. We didn't load the models into Governor. I can do the
analyses, but I can't calculate the frequency to use."

"MEX could?"

"Sure, if we could get the data to them - the cloud's
composition and particle size distribution."

"Run your analyses. I have an idea." Emma hopped down
to the south docking module to retrieve some surface suit
backpacks.

***

Hours later Claude helped Emma into the walkabout
that stood, rigid, bracing the door to the medical bay, while Yin
helped Yang into the other suit.

"I compared the sand from Medical to our usual dust
drifts," Claude said as he fastened a backpack over Emma's arm.

"The asteroid kicked up very different sand, rich in
iridium, and higher chromium. I wish I could do isotopic
differentiation." He handed Yin rolls of cable.

"There's a heavy load of shocked quartz crystals and
glass spherules. That changes the characteristics of the dust. If
we can get these data to MEX, they can tune the satellites to cut
through the cloud and give us communications and power back."

"What good will these packs do?" Daan asked as he
held the next backpack.

"I've modified the transceivers. They'll listen to
the full width of the spectrum. Once they pick up MEX, they'll
relay the frequency to the receiver and get it talking to the
satellites again." Emma raised her arm and gave the pack a little
shake.

"And this pack is programmed to trigger Jumper Two to
lift off and transmit Claude's data." Yang held up another backpack
tagged with strips of striped cloth. "Install it on the robotic
jumper and blast it up to Ruby."

"I don't like this," Yin said as he checked that the
cables would unspool easily. "Why can't I go with you?"

"Emma's the walkabout expert."

"Why can't I go with you in a surface suit?"

"The wind will drive dust into every crevice," Emma
said. "That could short out the life support systems."

"Walkabouts..." Yang rapped his suit's claw against
its side. "Are hard shelled."

Emma slid back into the walkabout braced against the
door.

It took Yang some time to maneuver the walkabout into
the airlock around Emma, but Claude got the door sealed behind
them. Yang hit the air pump and Emma pushed open the bay-side
door.

A drift of sand spread across the center of the bay,
glittering like a pile of diamonds in their helmet lights.

They ripped benches away from the wall and shoveled
sand away until Yang found the crack. He slipped the edge of a claw
in and began to wiggle the block.

"Give me a minute. I know how these interlock."

Once the first block pulled out, sand flooded in
around them and Yang quickly opened a hole big enough for the
walkabouts. With more digging, he opened a path to the surface.

"We're going out," Yang said over the suit channel.
"I don't know how long you'll receive me, once we move out into the
cloud."

Yang followed cables to the medical bay receiver and
hung a backpack on its control box. Emma turned left and moved
slowly along the bay, towing cables behind her. She couldn't see
anything but heard the sand scouring her helmet. Flashes of helmet
light on the swirls of dust were disorienting, so she turned the
light off and concentrated on her heads-up display. Pressure and
temperature were constant and life support chugged along.

Dad will be pleased to hear how well the suit's
doing, Emma thought as she activated the recorder. "There's no loss
of movement in the joints. Feedback from the claws is good..."

The drifts were so deep she reached down to keep one
hand on the bay's wall. When the feel of the wall changed, she knew
she'd reached the airlock module.

"Yang, do you hear me? I'm at the Plaza, turning
right."

"I hear you. The cable's paying out hunky-dory."

Emma worked her way along the nederzetting, calling
out progress. She crept along the Spine to the north habitat, felt
around the docked rover, circled the modules, and crossed the empty
pad where Jumpship One once parked.

"Okay. I'm at the north receiver." She closed her
eye, which seemed silly inside her dark helmet, but helped her
concentrate.

"I'm attaching the pack." She opened her eyes and
pushed her faceplate against the pack. "The transceiver's on. I can
see the light. Are you reading me?"

Damn.

It took forever to get back. Emma was relieved when
she finally heard Yang's voice crackling in her helmet. They rapped
claws before continuing around the end of Medical towards the south
receiver.

"Here comes the fun part," Yang said after she hung
the next pack. He gripped a loop on a short strap, locked the
suit's claw, and held the other end up to Emma's helmet. She
grabbed it.

"We'll lose comms in a few minutes," Yin said over
the helmet channel. "Be careful."

"I've got a cable tied off to the receiver. We'll
follow it back," Yang said. "No worries."

Emma closed her eyes again as she stepped away from
the nederzetting, into the storm, hanging on to her end of the
strap.

"Right foot, left foot. Right, Left." Yang called out
so Emma could keep in step. He aimed west of the maintenance bay as
well as he could walking blind. After a very long time, the strap
went slack. Emma felt a flash of fear before she realized he'd
stopped.

"That's the end of the cable," he said. "Side step
left." They moved towards Maintenance, she hoped.

"I ran into something. Brilliant. It's the side of
the bay."

Emma heaved out her breath. They felt their way to
the Maintenance airlock.

"I've tied the nederzetting cable to the airlock,"
Yang said. "Help me loose the second cable from my suit." He looped
that through the airlock handle, too, and with Emma trailing on the
strap, moved out into the storm.

They ran into the robotic jumpship quickly and dug
out the engines. Yang climbed up to install the last pack while
Emma gripped the cable that would lead them back to the maintenance
bay.

"I activated the transmission. We've got ten minutes
before the engines fire."

Right when they needed to hurry, the cable twisted in
the wind and nearly slid out of Emma's claw. With her heart
pounding in her ears, she slipped the loop to Yang over one arm and
reeled herself hand-over-hand towards Maintenance.

When would the engines fire? She hadn't started her
suit's timer. The loose cable tangled around her feet, slowing her
down.

The jumpship engines fired and Emma toppled forward.
She rolled and twisted inside the suit, looking back. Dust swept
past her and she saw a dark shape rising on pale blue engine
exhaust.

"Yang, do you still have the strap?" Fear shot
through her. She didn't feel any pull.

She scrambled backwards on all-fours, sweeping her
tail back and forth, and bumped into him.

"That gave me collywobbles." He laughed shakily. "Uh,
there's no reason to mention my little tumble to Yin."

Yang gripped her tail and Emma followed the cable to
Maintenance. There they each locked a claw around the nederzetting
cable and lumbered home.

The hole into Medical was drifted shut again. They
dug their way in and rummaged through supplies on the benches. The
hydrogen peroxide was frozen, but Yang found some microfiber
cleaning cloths and wiped the airlock seal.

"I don't think the seal's perfectly clean."

"Lay down in the airlock and we'll try."

Emma backed in, straddling him. She extended the
suit's hands, braced against the frame and pulled the door
closed.