Don awoke to a repeated dull hammering, and a voice. At length he realised it was Annika banging on his door and calling him with an urgency he hadn't heard her use before. He got up and groped across his pitch-black little room to open the door. He tasted humidity in the frigid air.
"Don, he's gone! Marco! He took the excavator!"
The four of them gathered around the wardroom table and surveyed what they knew. They all wore warmer jackets now, and their breath plumed across the table as if they were heavy smokers. Asya was calm, like an iceberg, hiding most of her mood below the water line. "Airlock record says he left here soon after dark," she stated. "Just after we all went to sleep. So he is gone for eight hours and half."
Don stirred himself to wakefulness as the import of her words cut home. "So his oxygen, I mean he's running out by now?" He glanced out the window, hoping to see movement. The stress redoubled as he imagined what Marco could be facing.
Asya shook her head. "Two tanks are missing. So double his oxygen. Not his time, but his oxygen." She nailed them all with a long stare. "Did any of you see him leave? Hear anything?"
Abdul Qawi, cross-legged on his chair, raised a hand. "Yes, I tell him to be safe. I give him extra tank. He will be OK." He looked so innocent.
Annika sucked in her breath. "You saw him go? You knew? Then why didn't you stop him?"
A.Q. shrugged and returned her furious look with a calm one. "He go to save us. He has a plan. A good plan. We can wait, he come back."
Asya hissed some Russian at him and brought her fist down on the table top. She spoke in a sibilant whisper. "This is not how we do things here! Is not everyone doing what they want! We are team! I am commander!"
"I tried to reach him on the radio," added Annika, "but he must be out of range. If he's over at Smaug, I don't think he'll hear us beyond those hills."
They sat there for a while. The fact of their own depleted oxygen and battery power hung in the air like a curse. The battery levels had dropped to around seven percent overnight – that was frighteningly low. The single solar field was not able to power the minimal heating and ECLSS as well as recharge the batteries. Don couldn't see a way forward. They had no means of transport and they apparently couldn't communicate with Marco. They would have to wait, just as A.Q. had told them. Walking out to look for him was about as much use as wishing he would come back. He stood up slowly. "He's a smart guy. He surely does have a good plan. All we can do is wait for him."
As he turned away, a speck of movement caught his eye from outside. He looked, and the others caught on and joined him at the window.
There, raising a faint cloud of dust in the morning light which streamed over from behind, came the roborover. Of Marco there was no sign.
"I will suit up," said Asya, after their exclamations had died down. She left the room before the others could react.
"Don, where is he?" Annika's anguished question cut into Don, and he stood, helpless to answer, looking from her face to the roborover, which came to a tidy halt not far from the Hab. He could see a couple of spare oxygen cylinders in the scoop. The sight of the tanks turned his spine to ice. Perhaps they were the empties.
"Come on," he told her, leading her away. "Let's help Asya get suited up. I expect he's just fine."
- + - + - + -
This time, they woke her an hour before dawn, when she'd been asleep for a couple of hours at the most. These days Nowal had a small room set up near her office. There was too much going on with the second mission prep to drive back into the city every evening. "Ya sayyida, ya sayyida," called the nightwatchman in a hoarse whisper as he knocked timidly on the door. She pulled a neck-to-ankle black balto over her head, threw a headscarf over her hair and checked that the can of pepper spray was at hand. You never knew.
As soon as she opened the door a crack, old Ismail the nightwatchman thrust a cell phone through the opening, and retreated as she showered her thanks upon him. It was Hazi at Operations. "It's Mr. Da Silva," came his voice, as level-toned as ever. "He's gone."
A couple of minutes later she walked into the Operations Room and caught up on the situation. They played her the latest summary message from Komarova and laid out the facts. Hazi Aymaan, his silver and iron-grey fuzz of hair bobbing up and down the aisles of controllers, had everything running smoothly, which was amazing given that SSI could be facing its first operational fatality.
She got herself a coffee and sat in her usual chair along the back wall where she could access her tablet and keep an eye on the big screens. Eventually Hazi came over and sat in the chair next to her. He had a habit of dressing in dark grey formal trousers and a collared shirt with pleats. Today the shirt was purple grape. He grimaced and held out his palms, as if he himself had misplaced Marco. His English was precise: a melange of Oxbridge and Benares , where he had lived for a decade before SSI had recruited him. Nowal had stopped wondering long ago why he preferred English to Arabic. "As usual, there is very little we can do. Following this technical failure on the solar field, it seems that Mr. Da Silva took matters into his own hands. And by now he will have exhausted his entire oxygen supply. Distressingly, the base itself is not able to recharge its batteries sufficiently during the daylight to provide full life support in the night. Time is in short supply for all of them."
Nowal nodded. Her neck was stiff. She looked up at the screens, one of which showed the final frame from the crew's last video report the day before. She tried to think clearly. "I understand that he contacted Raj in Engineering just a few hours ago. Do we have the content of that conversation?"
"Oh yes, yes. And it is obvious that Mr. Pindwar had no idea, no idea that Da Silva was going behind the Commander's back, so to speak. Mr. Da Silva requested some information about the spare connector, and Mr. Pindwar merely talked to NewSpace in Hawthorne
"It's okay, Hazi, I'm not looking for scapegoats, just for information. I know, I know: if this blows up then SSI is in deep trouble in many ways at once, but most of all we must not lose Marco. Just tell me what you need. What can I do for your team?"
The Emirati flexed his full cheeks and shifted his frame glasses back up his nose. "Is there any way we can obtain satellite imagery or sensor data of the site? Can we ask for MRO to direct its cameras that way?"
"We have plenty of friends at NASA. It's worth a try. In fact they have given help in exchange for telemetry and other data, around the time of the pre-landers two years ago. MRO's polar orbit is two hours or less, and it passes within range of our site every three or four days, I think." So she got busy, talking to JPL.
Coming off the call, she looked up again. Annika's face was still on the screen, flashing the camera her warmest smile as she reached up to cut the video feed. "Ya Allah," she prayed in a whisper. The nearest controller, the signals specialist, was close enough to hear, and the woman half-turned her head. She was Finnish, Nowal recalled. What was her name? Kyla. Something like that. Her short-cropped blond hair needed a comb. Nowal stood and stepped closer. Kyla glanced up at her and gave a weak smile.
"It's going to be okay, Kyla," said Nowal. "We will find him. He is no fool. He knows what he is doing."
She added, under her breath, "We have to find him."
- + - + - + -
Finally I'm leaving Smaug behind. Here it feels like a midnight ghost town. It will be so good to get back to base.
How am I doing for oxygen? Right. I'm going to need the first spare, at least. I'm down to a third of one tank of the original two on my suit back. That's just over an hour. Whew! That hunt around the Hab burned up a lot of air.
Now back across the flat plain towards the hills I ride, following my own tracks. Fatigue catches up with me and jumps on my back like a backpack filled with lead. When I get back and the connector's installed I can sleep for a day or two. I try to sit back a little, bending my knees. I cradle the handset on my lap and watch the ground unfold in the headlights' beam. It's getting easier somehow, or perhaps I'm relaxing too much. Hard to concentrate on the same thought. That's when I realise that the dawn has begun piercing the night sky behind me. There's a rumour of substance beyond the headlights' illumination.
Then it's just that level of dawn where it's too bright for the headlights to show me much of the terrain, and too dim for me to see more than the smokiest shadows ahead. The quickly brightening sky has ruined my night vision. I slow down and realise that I've lost my outward-bound tracks. I've been following wind-carved sand or ancient fossilised rivulets for at least several minutes. There are shallow elbow ridges sticking up ahead, with no dirt or sand to show tracks. I don't remember coming this way in the dark. But it all looks different now! Everything looks different in the light of the sun.
I stop, get off my scoop and walk back a short distance, looking in the dry dirt for signs of the tracks I made earlier, or which we made in our other rover trip. There's nothing. Wait, there's a stretch of sand. There are tire tracks… but none that I recognise. I know our rover's tires, and I know this robo's. None of the above. Must be the NewMars rover. The thought brings the hair on the nape of my neck to tingling. It's like seeing a ghost. But these faint tracks are not going to lead me back to my base. It's tempting to follow where they lead… but no.
I climb on, turn the robo around and retrace my tracks. This is a waste of time. I turn a half-circle again and think.
Ahead, the hills are still some way off. I think I can make out the gap where I came through, but it's way off to the right. Over to the left there's a barren peak reflecting the morning sun, and beyond it the hill smooths down to the plateau level. I could drive straight over the ridge and be back two hours sooner. Or if the going gets too rough for the robo, I could simply walk. I have enough oxygen for that. From the top of the rise I will be able to see our Hab, I think.
There's unease down deep in the wordless depths of me; no, more than that: raw panic that wants to well up and find escape, but I've got it tamped down. I didn't go through all that training for nothing. Not going to crack up at the first serious test. I'm bigger than this.
So off I go again, southwards. I have convinced myself that it's not a huge risk, but still, I'm sweating.
Reaching the hill about an hour later, I find it's easy to spy a route to the back of the rise. I won't have to ascend much, just around 150 metres. It's not steep at all. The robo bumps over the stony shelves and does well in getting me higher in good time.
Then, at the top, with the sunlight streaming past from behind me, I can see for miles. Not sure I can actually see our Hab yet. There are some distant hummocks and big boulders. Driving further, I come across some broken ground. There are rills and depressions, with boulders discarded at random. A gully over to the north that I will avoid. I make slow time threading my way, dipping one way then the other. The trouble is I can't see all the robo's six wheels at once.
Of course! This thing can reverse itself and drive just as fast. So I turn the machine around and perch the other way in the scoop, lifting it up so I can see the ground ahead. Now I can find the best way across this cracked hilltop. Don would love it – a geologist's playground.
Time is ticking on my oxygen tank. It's soon going to be time to change over.
Good. Now it's as smooth as a baby's bottom, all the way down to the plateau far below, and I'll be home in time for breakfast. The robo has a 'Go Home' function, based on its inertial sense of its progress so far and the Hab's radio beacon. It can trace out the most direct route and I can steer it around the boulders. It works well. And going downhill I'm better off at the back, looking over the vehicle: if somehow I fall off I don't want to be crushed under its body.
Now just here the slope's steeper – slow down – another hidden depression jumps out at me just ahead – big enough to swallow a bus - turn! Turn! I will almost clear it.
Whoa! With a jolt that threatens to crack my bones, the left-hand wheels of the robo dip violently down into the depression, leaving me behind in a long, helpless moment of weightlessness, then it jolts up again, smacking me hard in the seat as I descend, and I'm thrown sideways and off the back of the scoop! I fall in slow motion, in silence broken only by my grunting, unable to grab anything, unable to control myself. I thump down on my side and my head whacks the ground. The inside of the helmet impacts my jaw. My right leg encounters a boulder with a jagged thump. A moment's disoriented shock; then I stumble to my feet. The robo continues on, up the other side of the depression and down the hill at a gallop. The handset was torn from my hands when I fell.
Run! Chase it down! But as soon as I try, my right leg throws me a piercing pain, and I fall again. I can't run. I can limp. OK, so limp fast!
By the time I limp out of the depression that caused my fall, Robo is long gone down the hill. But I mustn't slow down. The consequence of losing the robo now, with a bad leg, are obvious.
With every second the vehicle recedes further down the hill and across the plateau. I'm moving hopelessly slowly. Also I can feel the air leaking away from my suit and the freezing cold morning air seeping in, down at leg level. The suit is sealed up at knee, waist and neck, so I won't asphyxiate just yet. But my right leg isn't doing so well. It begins to feel exceedingly cold down there. I have the suit patch kit on my belt, so I stop and go to work, finding the tiny rip, cleaning, preparing the patch, slapping it on, holding it down. Maybe I'm in time and I won't frostbite my leg. It's like a block of ice already. The suit heater helps.
So… what now? I don't see how I can possibly catch up with Robo. It will carry on until it reaches our Hab. Hah! The others will have a puzzle to solve. I just have to make it. Keep going down the hill. I'm descending into shadow. The line of hills cast huge, lumpy shadows across the wide, empty crater ring.
I have to follow Robo's tracks. It's the only navigational aid I have left. That's how I will get home. And here's some sand, a rich blue-tinted grey, with Robo's tracks churning up blacker sand from beneath. I stumble down the small dune, roll, recover, slide. My leg hurts like rage with every movement. I'm panting with the exertion of movement, gritting my teeth, crying out when the leg feels it's snapping. I'm panting harder and harder with the pain and exertion.
No, wait. I'm panting because I'm running low on oxygen.
My spare oxygen is still fastened to Robo's scoop. Louco! Babaca! I rap my faceplate with my gloved fist in frustration at my own stupidity. The emergency tent is there too, with its own limited supply.
I try to slow my breathing. Perhaps… perhaps if I conserve the little that I have left, I can make it. I'm not dead yet. With a lot of determination… if I believe in myself…
No. Face the facts. It's still at least fifteen kilometres to base. That would take me three hours, maybe two or less if I was bounding along in low arcs, risking another suit puncture and burning through the non-existent oxygen.
I stop, trying to catch my breath, and I suck some water from the spigot. My mouth is so dry. Chinning on my radio, I call base. "Marco to base, Marco to base. Hello? Anyone?" I keep talking, although there's no answer. Someone would have to be in the wardroom with the comms on. It's only a little after dawn, so probably not breakfast time yet.
Isn't there some other way? I must get oxygen. I don't want to choke to death. Let's leverage some science. The atmosphere is thin carbon dioxide, only one percent as thick as Earth's air. First, how can I compress it with the limited gear I have? I inventory my tools and supplies in suit pockets. There's a plastic bag. Maybe that will do. I grab some air in it and try to squeeze it down. That's not looking too hopeful. How can I improvise a Sabatier reactor anyway? No way. That needs heat, and catalysts and a reaction chamber. Splitting the oxygen off the carbon needs even more energy.
How about lithium or sodium hydroxide? There's the medical kit. Some of the pills. What's in them? Reading the ingredients on this tube of painkillers through the faceplate is making me dizzy. Acetaminophen… sodium stearate… Maybe… But hold on. The hydroxide with carbon dioxide will only give me water and a carbonate. Then I would have to hydrolyse the water. Not happening. Unless I took apart the suit battery and used that to… but I don't have an airtight container. And not nearly enough pills to get me home, even if they had the right ingredients, which they don't.
Think! Quickly! I can feel every breath getting harder. It's like I'm breathing through a thick cloth, or I'm holding my breath underwater. This is not good. I can't concentrate. A few more desperate ideas flit through my head, but there's no way I can put them into action. I don't have the raw materials.
I stagger on a few steps. So this is how it ends. What a waste of a good night's sleep. At least I found out where the NewSpace people went. Oh, wait, no I didn't. Not exactly. And the handwritten sign is in my pocket! Asya and the others will find it, when they find my frozen body. Then they'll hunt for the flash drive. We looked all around that Hab on our first trip. Asya went up there to the crew quarters. And… wait! She found something. The key. The locker key! That must be the flash drive!
And it's still right here, in my suit breast pocket. Genius. Now they'll never know, unless they really do find my body and search me.
Why do I have to die? The sun's rising. It's a new day. Can't I live on a bit longer? I can't help weeping. O God! Meu Deus! If you're really there… I'm not afraid of death, but I hate the waste. God gives life, and he takes away. I had a life to live! Now I can't even stand. I'll just sit here and face it. It's a nice enough view, except that now my faceplate is starting to fog up. Great.
God – you must be out there somewhere – if you're listening, I know I've messed up a lot, in fact when have I ever done anything for you, but help me now! Let me live!
But why should you? Why, when I've lived my own life my own pig-headed way, in betrayal of what I knew to be true? Engineering and space are good vocations, but it was always about myself. I had no thought for spending my life for people who needed help, like those back in the favelas.
People say their lives flash before them before death. I don't get that, but I do see so painfully how I let loose the anchor that I had, and began to drift. Now I'm on the rocks.
I can see how heart-broken my parents will be when they hear about this. They had big hopes for me, once, but I ran the other way. It wasn't like they ever dictated what the structure of my career was to be – I would be the architect of that, and the construction crew – and every choice I made took me further from what they saw as a worthwhile life. If they ever seemed smug, it was my take on their contentment with a simple life. If they ever offered tentative advice, I would shrug it off in my brandished independence. So here I am at the end of that whole road.
Now I know why, in those stories of people in just this kind of situation, the survivor offers the rest of his life to God. That's all I have left to give. Take it! I will serve you, gladly, all my days, if I live to see this sun set. I don't want to let the others down! How will they maintain all the plant at the base if I'm not there? And Annika… the desire to find out whether we could ever be a romantic item is sharp and bitter, never to be unwrapped and discovered.
It feels like I have a couple of breaths left here. That's it. It hurts, this desperation for air. Too late now. Fading. The world's fading fast. My head's spinning. I'm blacking out.
God didn't hear me. Maybe he doesn't check his voicemail. And this mess is my fault.
At least now it's all over. I can lay back and rest.
I can hear someone sighing, long breaths, pauses in between, a gentle rattling. Is it me? My dying exhalation? No, mine are ragged little breaths, last gasps. No, this is like the sound of sorrow. What great sorrow: an ancient grief as massive as the universe, lifting and falling. How long has it been sighing so?
And this grief, this sighing, it's looking at me. It sorrows for me.
It knows me. It understands. It sees what I could have been.
This, strangely, is the rest that I am seeking. I bask in this, and take no reckoning of time passing. I can float on this knowing sorrow.
It's the sound of waves on the seashore. The great ocean, which stretches on beyond sight, and as deep as the world's heart.
I'm back at the beach. I know this place! Maybe it's the Praia Do Flamengo, near Salvador Airport
Yes, I can smell the brine, and the rotten kelp. I can almost hear the gulls crying their sharp songs.
I'm home again.
- + - +
- + -
Read on ... Contented Desolation
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