![]() Only forty-five miles of mixed terrain to cross and she’d reach the lander. She called up a visor-map and checked her progress. She’d be damned if she was going to leave it behind.Īhead of her stretched the hard, cold sulfur plain. Then she took a curved section of what had been the moon rover’s hull and a coil of nylon rope, and with two pieces of scrap for makeshift hammer and punch, fashioned a sledge for Burton’s body. That gave her enough oxygen to last, let’s see, almost forty hours. It was a ghoulish thing to strip Burton’s suit of her airpack, but it had to be done. That left her own pack, which was one-third empty, two fully charged backup packs, and Burton’s, also one-third empty. Quickly, almost fearfully, picking through the rich litter of wreckage, Martha discovered that the mother tank they used to replenish their airpacks had ruptured. Still, she couldn’t rely on the blizzard staying quiescent. And as she did, just as quickly as the blizzard had begun-it stopped. If she went slowly, the helmet light and her sense of feel ought to be sufficient for a little judicious salvage. So that-this was how she’d gotten out in the first place-it was possible to crawl under the near-horizontal spray and back to the ruins of the moon rover. Most of what struck the boulder they’d crashed against would simply stick to it, and the rest would be bounced down to the ground at its feet. ![]() The sulfur dioxide gushed out straight from the sudden crack that had opened in the rock, falling to the surface miles away in strict obedience to the laws of ballistics. Because there was no atmosphere to have turbulence in. On the other hand, it hid that face.įor all the fury of the blizzard, there was no turbulence. Really, it was a nonsensical thing to do in a vacuum, the body wasn’t about to rot. Automatically, without thinking, Martha scooped up double-handfuls and packed them into the helmet. Where a fraction of the vent-blizzard-“lateral plumes” the planetary geologists called them-had been deflected by the boulder, a bank of sulfur dioxide snow had built up. Whatever knob or flange had punched the hole in Burton’s helmet had been equally ruthless with her head. It was only when Martha had finally crawled out from under its raging whiteness that she was able to look at the suited body she’d dragged free of the wreckage. The vent-blizzard of sulfur dioxide snow was blinding, though. Juliet Burton, tall and athletic, so sure of her own luck and agility that she hadn’t bothered, had been thrown into a strut. Martha Kivelsen, timid groundling that she was, was strapped into her seat so tightly that when the universe stopped tumbling, she’d had a hard time unlatching the restraints. ![]() The moon rover had flipped over at least five times before crashing sideways against a boulder the size of the Sydney Opera House. ![]() Most spectacular view in the universe, and she was in no mood to enjoy it.īefore the voice could speak again, Martha said, “I am not going crazy, you’re just the voice of my subconscious, I don’t have the time to waste trying to figure out what unresolved psychological conflicts gave rise to all this, and I am not going to listen to anything you have to say.” The plume caught the chill light from an unseen sun and her visor rendered it a pale and lovely blue. To her left, Daedalus was spewing sulfur and sulfur dioxide in a fan two hundred kilometers high. Jupiter loomed low on the western horizon, big and bright and beautiful and, after two weeks on Io, easy to ignore. I’m in kind of a tight spot here and I can’t afford it, okay? So be nice and just shut the fuck up.” “You’re dead, Burton, I’ve checked, there’s a hole in your faceplate big enough to stick a fist through, and I really don’t want to crack up. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Martha gave the rope an angry jerk, making the sledge carrying Burton’s body jump and bounce on the sulfur hardpan. Jupiter to one shoulder, Daedalus’s plume to the other. Martha kept her eyes forward, concentrated on walking.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |