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running.
He watched the disaster unfold before his eyes, silent except for the rhythmic beat of the alarm bell in
his ears. The dome was dancing and straining, trying to fly. The floor heaved up in the center, throwing
the black woman to her knees. In another second the ulterior was a whirling snowstorm. He skidded on
the sand and fell forward, got up in time to see the fiberglass ropes on the side nearest him snap free from
the steel spikes anchoring the dome to the rock. The dome now looked like some fantastic Christmas
ornament, filled with snowflakes and the flashing red and blue lights of the emergency alarms. The top of
the dome heaved over away from him, and the floor raised itself high in the air, held down by the
unbroken anchors on the side farthest from him. There was a gush of snow and dust; then the floor
settled slowly back to the ground. There was no motion now but the leisurely folding of the depressurized
dome roof as it settled over the structures inside.
The crawler skidded to a stop, nearly rolling over, beside the deflated dome. Two pressure-suited
figures got out. They started for the dome, hesitantly, in fits and starts. One grabbed the other's arm and
pointed to the lander. The two of them changed course and scrambled up the rope ladder hanging over
the side.
Crawford was the only one to look up when the lock started cycling. The two people almost tumbled
over each other coming out of the lock. They wanted to do something, and quickly, but didn't know
what. In the end, they just stood there silently twisting their hands and looking at the floor. One of them
took off her helmet. She was a large woman, in her thirties, with red hair shorn off close to the scalp.
"Matt, we got here as ..." She stopped, realizing how obvious it was. "How's Lou?"
"Lou's not going to make it." He gestured to the bunk where a heavyset man lay breathing raggedly
into a clear plastic mask. He was on pure oxygen. There was blood seeping from his ears and nose.
"Brain damage?"
Crawford nodded. He looked around at the other occupants of the room. There was the Surface
Mission Commander, Mary Lang, the black woman he had seen inside the dome just before the blowout
She was sitting on the edge of Lou Prager's cot, her head cradled in her hands. In a way, she was a more
shocking sight than Lou. No one who knew her would have thought she could be brought to this limp
state of apathy. She had not moved for the last hour.
Sitting on the floor huddled in a blanket was Martin Ralston, the chemist His shirt was bloody, and
there was dried blood all over his face and hands from the nosebleed he'd only recently gotten under
control, bat his eyes were alert He shivered, looking from Lang, his titular leader, to Crawford, the only
one who seemed calm enough to deal with anything. He was a follower, reliable but unimaginative.
Crawford looked back to the newest arrivals. They were Lucy Stone McKillian, the red-headed
ecologjst, and Song Sue Lee, the exo-biologist They still stood numbly by the airlock, unable as yet to
come to grips with the fact of fifteen dead men and women beneath the dome outside.
"What do they say on the Burroughs?" McKillian asked, tossing her helmet on the floor and squatting
tiredly against the wall. The lander was not the most comfortable place to hold a meeting; all the couches
were mounted horizontally since their purpose was cushioning the acceleration of landing and takeoff.
With the ship sitting on its tail, this made ninety per cent of the space in the lander useless. They were all
gathered on the circular bulkhead at the rear of the lifesystem, just forward of the fuel tank.
"We're waiting for a reply," Crawford said. "But I can sum op what they're going to say: not good.
Unless one of you two has some experience in Mars-lander handling that you've been concealing from
us."
Neither of them bothered to answer that. The radio hi the nose sputtered, then clanged for their
attention. Crawford looked over at Lang, who made no move to go answer it He stood up and swarmed
up the ladder to sit in the copilot's chair. He switched on the receiver.
"Commander Lang?"
"No, this is Crawford again. Commander Lang is . . . indisposed. She's busy with Lou, trying to do
something."
"That's no use. The doctor says it's a miracle he's still breathing. If he wakes up at all, he won't be
anything like you knew him. The telemetry shows nothing like the normal brain wave. Now I've got to
talk to Commander Lang. Have her come up." The voice of Mission Commander Weinstein was
accustomed to command, and about as emotional as a weather report
"Sir, I'll ask her, but I don't think shell come. This is still her operation, you know." He didn't give
Weinstein time to reply to that Weinstein had been trapped by his own seniority into commanding the
Edgar Rice Burroughs, the orbital ship that got them to Mars and had been intended to get them back.
Command of the Podkayne, the disposable lander that would make the lion's share of the headlines, had
gone to Lang. There was little friendship between the two, especially when Weinstein fell to brooding
about the very real financial benefits Lang stood to reap by being the first woman on Mars, rather than
the lowly mission commander. He saw himself as another Michael Collins.
Crawford called down to Lang, who raised her head enough to mumble something.
"What'd she say?"
"She said take a message." McKillian had been crawling up the ladder as she said this. Now she
reached him and said in a lower voice, "Matt, she's pretty broken up. You'd better take over for now."
"Right, I know." He turned back to the radio, and McKillian listened over his shoulder as Weinstein
briefed them on the situation as he saw it. It pretty much jibed with Crawford's estimation, except at one
crucial point. He signed off and they joined the other survivors.
He looked around at the faces of the others and decided it wasn't the time to speak of rescue
possibilities. He didn't relish being a leader. He was hoping Lang would recover soon and take the
burden from him. In the meantime he had to get them started on something. He touched McKillian gently
on the shoulder and motioned her to the lock.
"Let's go get them buried," he said. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, forcing out tears, then nodded.
It wasn't a pretty job. Halfway through it, Song came down the ladder with the body of Lou Prager.
"Let's go over what we've learned. First, now that Lou's dead there's very little chance of ever lifting
off. That is, unless Mary thinks she can absorb everything she needs to know about piloting the
Podkayne from those printouts Weinstein sent down. How about it, Mary?"
Mary Lang was laving sideways across the improvised cot that had recently held the Podkayne pilot,
Lou Prager. Her head was nodding listlessly against the aluminum hull plate behind her, her chin was on
her chest. Her eyes were half-open.
Song had given her a sedative from the dead doctor's supplies on the advice of the medic aboard the
E.R.B, It had enabled her to stop fighting so hard against the screaming panic she wanted to unleash. It
hadn't improved her disposition. She had quit; she wasn't going to do anything for anybody. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]